Yesterday -- Connubial bliss -- Portugal (10)

You must admit: we are normally not nerving our few fans with selfies, but there you have it: Chang (Jason), and his partner Michael on the Praia do Norte of Nazaré, Portugal, the beach with the larges surfable waves on the planet.

Michael's birthday

Well, Michael's birthday is always on January 1 (easiest when one has to complete forms), but he adjusted it recently from 1/1/1980 to 1/1/1990.

Before, his birthday was on May 8, which is a holiday in France (end of WW2 in Europe). In the year Michael was initially born, it was also a Sunday, and Mother's day, and only 3 days removed from Karl Marx's birthday (May 5). Nobody knows what happened to Karl Marx, but here you can see what happened to Michael yesterday (we went for dinner to St. Raphael).

St. Tropez on the horizon

Oysters, foie gras, Chateau Minuty

Lamb, marmite de poisson

Cheese, Tiramisu

Sparrow

Later

Michael

(Tjüüs)

Insider joke

(We're posting this for a friend of Chang)

"So, you say her name was Alice?"

Donald Trump, seriously

(Trump Jump, Twitler, immigrant, kakistocracy, Donald Lump, trumpcare, Trump Treatment, Tyrannosaurus rump, alternative facts, Hot Donald, Trumps Razor, small hands:  The Urban Dictionary, our favorite linguistic cyclopedia, has dropped its habitual preoccupation with matters autoerotic and gone full Trump Dump since the Machtsübernahme, and so our friend Glenn wants to know what we think about the new president. Glenn's particularly interested in answers regarding Trump's intelligence:)

Trump is intelligent, at least technically. He can think on his feet, he's wily, sly, cunning, and has been successful for more than forty years in a difficult business---not as successful as he claims, but he's survived four or six bankruptcies, several trophy wives, and a grueling election campaign---you can't do this without substantial raw intelligence. There are NYT reports regarding his deal making, which emphasize that his negotiation skills really shine when we get into the fine print (the annotations of complex real-estate contracts)---meaning that even his attention span is substantial when he's into a "deal." And then there is corroborating evidence about his work as developer---a developer obsessed with details, we read. So yes, he's clever.

Which doesn't mean he's Socrates. He's not an intellectual, let alone a thinker. He won't take time to think unless it's urgent business. He's a results man---or business man---in the worst conceivable sense. And he's extremely narcissistic---no need to elaborate, just one more anecdote (we quote the Washington Post):

Find a caption

Dressed for the occasion

Connubial bliss

Chang and our new car.

The loss of Isolde, our ML SUV (she passed away in a typical death-choked scramble) is a real bummer, we got quite some literary mileage out of her.

She was 14 years old.

Here's a pertaining fragment from the GREEN EYES (context is a bit complicated, bear with us): John (the cum-squirrel) and Alex showed up belatedly (and smelling of/stained with cum) for the appointment with assistant DA Trevor Howard. Dr. Alice Sandeman, otherwise Alex's confidante, who arranged the meeting, got extremely upset, and the sit-down didn't go well. Howard has now left, and the Dr.s phone rings---a gallery in NY NY needs more of deceased Eleanor's art work---Eleanor, former lover of Sandeman, and inlaw of the Richard Wagner family (the composer). OK, here's more or less the entire chapter, Isolde will show up at some point, enjoy:



With an inquisitive look at Maurice, Alice gets up as well. She’s about to explode, explode at us, who have blown it, “completely.” We’re little boys who can’t hold their cum when the situation requires grown-up behavior. We’ve besmirched the hospital, and the medical profession, and ourselves, literally. And since she’s a medical doctor, she is going into details, and wants to know how many spermatozoa we’ve killed needlessly with our---she’ll have to look this up in a thesaurus, it’s not that she’s shy, she’s just too upset to find the right word---with our irresponsible behavior. “You thought you were sexy, right,” she says, “you were just feckless, harebrained, immature, undependable, untrustworthy, inexcusably, both of you,” and she means Alex in particular since she has given up on the cum-squirrel anyhow.

(Yes, we possibly should say more about the movie---for the time being then---this picture was taken in Aix-en-Provence, by the way)

Shoot-the-messenger and other things North-Korean (reposted)

People are inquiring about this post, stirred by North Korea's supposedly thermo-nuclear test yesterday. The post was written in March 2013 while Michael was staying in South Korea. Here it is:


How about the situation? In Korea? Now? Aren't your scared? Don't you think they are going to throw their nukes? They know this would be the end of it, wouldn't they, a full-fledged war would trigger a violent American reaction that would certainly bring down a regime unable to feed its own people properly? They aren't crazy, or are they? Kim Jong Un, the new "leader," has studied in Switzerland, he has seen the world, he knows, right? They know, don't they, they know! At least he does!

Note the map of the US on the wall

Relax. Lean back. (Just back from the Korean dentist). Lean back.

My father was so lazy, he did not actually swim when dipping into the North Sea during our summer holidays. Instead, he did a "dead man," filling his lungs with extra air and staying afloat motionless in the water like a buoy. Along those lines, let's do an dead man and tell a story from 10 years ago when I last heard from Michel Kortczek. Michel had specialized in China, and then North Korea, and had published a beautiful essay on North Korea and its ideology on the internet. The page has disappeared in the meantime, but what I recall of his essay spoke of a regime quite unlike any other on earth, a regime completely in the thrall of  magic, superstition, and delusion.

Philippines (3) --- taxis are for the faint-hearted --- connubial bliss

We've arrived in Baguio yesterday, and this morning we decide on a stroll through the city. Let's go to Mine's View, which is a neighborhood in the northwestern part known for it residential vibes and views. "You know where it is?" Chang ask as we are leaving the hotel. Michael, flapping his internet maps, answers in the affirmative.

We stride past a terminal for Jeepeneys (a taxi-bus hybrid)...

and a construction site, where the construction crew reacts with
loud cheers to Chang's photographic efforts.

Otherwise, the first 15 minutes pass uneventfully, 
but then we get a repeat of yesterday.

Chang chokes on the traffic, the pollution, the noise (not shown). He covers his nose with the decollete of his T-shirt (as if this would help against the exhaust fumes). He then uncover's his nose and says: "Let's take a taxi."

A brief note on homosexuality

We haven't studied this, of course, not in a serious way, but when you are standing with one leg in the classical-antique period, as we did for a while, working on Plato's Symposium or studying Hadrian's life, you can't help but observe that the classical attitude vis à vis homosexuality was very different, very different from the attitudes my generation grew up with during the latter part of the last century. Not only attitudes, in fact, but facts, or perceived facts. The perceived facts were that there's a fairly sharp divide between gay and straight behavior, separating anything between 90-95% of the population from the rest---the overwhelming majority being straight, a small minority being gay or lesbian, with a few bisexuals in between.

Antiquity wasn't like this at all. There wasn't a single male deity in the Greek Pantheon that's wasn't bisexual, for example. Out of the first fifteen Roman emperors 14 "made" (to put it in Gibbon's words) "incorrect sexual choices," (at least according to the author of Decline and Fall...). Etc.

"What I believe," (1947) Paul Cadmus

We are not the first to observe this, and helpful theories in re have been proffered for quite some time, the dominant ones putting the onus on Christianity. How these theories will fare in the future remains to be seen, there's some historical research now showing that gay marriage was tolerated during Roman times and accommodated by the Christian Church (one of the funny things in the debate about gay marriage is that practically everybody making historical claims (i.e., the conservatives) is ignoring the fact that the institution didn't require sacral input then. Marriage was a matter of private contracts, and it took the Roman law quite some time to adapt to the Judaeo-Christian claims as to its sanctity (marriage still is, in Islam, a private affair). Anyhow, with the advent of Christianity, the screws on sexuality started to tighten, which wasn't particularly helpful for the gay cause.)

Off to Switzerland

Yesterday morning...

...today.

かなまら祭り

The Shinto Kanamara Matsuri (かなまら祭り, "Festival of the Steel Phallus") is held each spring at the Kanayama Shrine (金山神社 Kanayama-jinja) in Kawasaki, Japan. The phallus, as the central theme of the event, is reflected in illustrations, candy, carved vegetables, decorations, and a mikoshi parade.

The Kanamara Matsuri is centered around a local phallus-venerating shrine once popular among prostitutes who prayed for protection from sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, there are sundry protections regarding prosperity, easy delivery, and marriage harmony. There is also a legend of a sharp-toothed demon (vagina dentata) that hid inside the vagina of a young woman and castrated two young men on their wedding nights. The young woman sought help from a blacksmith, who fashioned an iron phallus to break the demon's teeth, which led to the enshrinement of the item.

The festival has become something of a tourist attraction and is used to raise money for HIV research.  

The Golden Century --- Connubial bliss

Prologue. The Golden Century is an all-you-can-eat oriental restaurant located right next to the landing strip of the Cannes-Mandelieu airfield. If there's any magic to proximity, and if there's any proximity to Hollywood, it’s here. From Brad Pitt to George Clooney to Benedict Cumberbatch, they’ve all been dozens of time inside a two hundred yard circle centered upon the main buffet of the Golden Century. This is the spot where private-jet celebrities touch down on their way to the Festival de Cannes.

The main buffet of the Golden Century

Act I. I had been there once, by sheer coincidence, a few minutes before the place opened for the first time at 7 PM on a nondescript weekday. The doors were already unlocked, I entered unsuspectingly. The place was empty, except for a few nervous waiters and an interior design so intense in its lacquered combination of Formica wood and red lanterns that I fainted.

The view today

This has been the view (and the outlook) for most of the last month, and still is.

Yesterday ---- Part II: Sex on the Eames chair (really)

Finally, folks, the second part of our true-true short story about the visit of our friends from Australia. A third (and last part) will follow. (For the first part go here)

Josh and Jason slept well. They brought good winter weather, a light mistral with dry clear air and steely blue sky. We’ll go visit Saint Tropez. It would be me, today, who would have to make the move, but it’s easier to talk about the corniche or the Forêt Domanial de l’Esterel, the natural park of marais and pine trees that surrounds Le Trayas and protects us from over-development, we’ve recently met a fox up there. I point to a villa on the cliff which supposedly belonged to Greta Garbo (everything is a rumor here, and they are always false). We’ve reached St. Maxime when I finally muster the chutzpah to say: “Chang tells me you’ve sucked his dick last night.”
“Yes,” they say.
“It’s unfair,” I say. They laugh.

We arrive in St. Tropez and walk along the quay where Brigitte Bardot lived in Dieu créa la femme (the next house accomodated La cage aux folles, Birdcage was the remake). We take turns taking pictures of us and the sea. I ask Jason to zoom in on the northern horizon with his Canon EOS 70D and point to the tip of Miramar, a stone throw away from our house in Le Trayas. “It’s unfair,” I say, “they can see us, but we can’t see them.” We laugh.

Jason takes this picture, Josh (or I) hold him in place

Godzilla! (reblogged)

Here's a timely post from Cathy's blog Hollywood hates me, reblogged with her permission:

I wanna see the new Godzilla movie (even though we pronounce it wrong), but my daughter doesn't.

"But it's got giant monsters destroying the earth, honey! How can a small child NOT want to see that happen?"

Sadly, pointing out that I've given up my social life for her isn't having the desired effect.

"Nuh uh. You're an antisocial nerd with a horrible personality, Mommy. You did this to yourself."

Sunday matinée

We rearranged the furniture at Karen's cabin a bit.

San Francisco (4) Telegraph Avenue

We're in San Francisco now, which means that the first thing in the morning would be a trip to Telegraph Road, Oakland, CA, where Morning Glory is located, the KP-Asian Supermarket, where they sell Korean food.

The Korean supermarket on Telegraph Avenue

Oakland---you will possibly agree with us---has---or at least had---a notoriously bad reputation---because bad reputations are always notorious---especially next to San Francisco, the reputation---and now we know why.

What we didn't know at that point---or, more precisely, didn't remember---Michael Chabon's latest novel is set on Telegraph Road there---or Avenue---something about a record store and race etc.

Michael Chabon

And then we had a little connubial bliss with Chang---in the afternoon---who abruptly changed directions during a walk through the Mission District after a very brief verbal exchange (the bliss), and departed in the other direction, yelling a departing "f@@k you,  f@@k you," at us, so we went to the Castro district to find a new lover, and went into a bookstore to buy a new York Times, and the Staff's Choice of Book was Michael Chabon's new novel, and since Chabon is one of the new American authors we in fact did read---quite extensively by our standards---we picked up his new book and re-discovered---we had read a review---that it was set on Telegraph Avenue, whence the title of the book---spoiler alert---Telegraph Avenue. We feel---spoiler alert---part of new literary history now. Not yet Chang though, because I didn't tell him yet; we have, however---spoiler alert---reconciled.

Previous SF-post here.

Very deep (Glenn)

History of the world --- Venice (3)

When yours truly arrived in Venice 25 years ago for a brief sojourn at the Business School, Massimo, his correspondent, picked him up at the airport and took him to a down-town café stuffed with pastries, liqueur bottles, and high tables inviting patrons to stand and drink sprits, small glasses of white wine with a schuss, a few drops of Cinzano, say. The spritz then was the stuff of true Venetians, tourists wouldn't know and drink Chianti or Campari instead---if they would drink in the morning, that is, because true Venetians had two spritzes at breakfast. Habits have changes in the meantime; the spritzes have tripled in size and been taken over by tourism, so true Venetians refrain from the stuff and drink lager instead.

"I'll spritz you."

I spent two weeks in Venice as a non-tourist and learned a lot, especially about tourism. Already then, Venice was almost completely touristicated---cool, folks, what an ugly word, "touristicated," but the spell checker doesn't recognize it so it's possibly a neologism¹---, and the locals behaved like a dying breed. They would avoid tourists like the plague, would only patronize their own restaurants (hidden away in secret alleys where the food was three times better), would not speak English, would not know about directions, would not make appointments because you only had to step into the street to meet friends, would sit on roof-top terraces and enjoy life, would spend week-end afternoons in secluded gardens (not having sex, by the way, just dozing off jointly for a few hours), would recognize the voices of the passing gondoliers at night (while still enjoying life on the roof-top terraces)...