Catiline at Pistoia

My ten thousand word historiography of Bismarck's role in the unification of Germany has been sent off to its final resting place (the inbox of a man named Novaky), and I wash my hands and my mind of the whole affair. With Dran-o. I've begun a "class" on Nordic history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and it is distinctly possible that I may have things to "do" in the next month or so. Christ, I hope so.
There really is nothing quite so conducive to self-destruction as boredom. Don't get me wrong: I love my spare time and I do not understand people who have none of it. But with weeks on end at my disposal, I tend to develop fairly unhealthy ideas and spend a lot of time dwelling on depressing things. Of course, it probably doesn't help that the sky now goes from "pitch black" to "dark grey" for about four hours a day, and that those four hours really only serve to illuminate the rain that's been falling continuously since I got back from my travels. I insist that I quite like the weather, and I do sort of dread the idea of twenty hour sunlight, but I'm willing to entertain the notion that it's playing hell with my subconscious.

Lately I have been plagued with a certain trifurcation of self-paradigm. I have been confronted recently by the idea of success, which is something I have never really considered before. I have a loving, entirely unhealthy fascination with failure and futility, and I tend to find success to be as much surprising as it is suspicious. Perhaps this is a result of the lunatic financial habits of my parents, perhaps a facet of my own fatalist outlook on life, and maybe a leftover from that ugly realization in high school that all those stories everyone told you growing up that you could be anything and do anything were a pack of goddamn filthy lies. I dunno. Compounded to this peculiar notion that I might enjoy some degree of prosperity and stability in my life, is my own penchant for unadvisable extremism. So, in order of the worst possible idea to the best, I present the three wild extremes of my vision of the rest of my life.

The first is sort of a complete surrender to the most comfortable guilty pleasures I can imagine. It would be a life spent in an apartment in a Blue State somewhere (probably Portland or Seattle, since there would be no way in hell of being able to afford to live in San Francisco), quite alone and probably working some menial job I detest but which provides me with the time and the disposable income to watch as many terrible movies as I can get my hands on. Think Tim from The Office. The British version, not the American one. Obviously. I think such a life would entail a complete surrender of any pretense of normality, and would presage an unstoppable slide into the dismal nerdy sewers of society. There I would pile the nerdy goo on my head, and revel in the sort of interests which I have always avoided, even at my most nerdy. Perhaps I would be a fixture at a local comic book store or something. Perhaps I would regularly meet with fat, hairy, smelly men with Cheeto residue caked on their fingers to play games involving "grues" and "wards of protection +1" or even "roll modifiers." Can you imagine this? A one-bedroom apartment with a dirty kitchen full of takeout containers and a fairly expensive, elaborate home theater system, probably with empty bottles of imported beer and Jolt soda cans littering the floor. I have no doubt the bedroom would be piled to the ceiling with cheap paperbacks from a used bookstore (where maybe I would work part time), many of them by Lin Carter or Michael Moorcock. It is also important to note that according to Wikipedia, Lin Carter's middle name was "Vrooman."
Anyway, I would probably spend most of this sad, solitary life attempting to own and/or operate a used bookstore/independent video store/independent movie theater, none of which would succeed, of course.
This life does have a very simple and inarguable aspect to recommend it: the complete immersion in one's own unapologetically unpopular interests. Really, who among us doesn't sometimes want to live a life completely devoted to plumbing the depths of their hobbies? Wouldn't require more than a Bachelor's degree, and it would be terribly easy.
I believe this is also the much healthier and saner representation of that mad little anarchist who lives in my head and who used to convince me to make really terrible decisions, like try to join the French Foreign Legion or move across the continent of North America for a depressive bulemic alcoholic who cut herself.

The second image is much more of Thoreau's idea of a life of quiet desperation. It is also perhaps the most plausible of the three. This is the one where I continue studying international relations/international political economy in Europe, get a Ph.D. in five or six years, and settle down to a life of teaching college somewhere. I would prefer that somewhere to be Europe, of course, but more than likely it would be at some forgettable state school somewhere in the Midwest, where I would spend several decades flogging my way through the department political structure, lurking in a little office somewhere on the third floor in the back past the copy room. I would spend a lot of time wishing I had graduate assistants to do the work so I wouldn't have to deal with students like me. Maybe sometimes I would feel like I was making a difference, but most likely I would hate every goddamn minute of it. This does, however, involve the possibility for publishing and for becoming a well-known (and probably well-reviled) political/economic theorist, and that's an idea I'm quite partial to. Professor Craig, if you're reading this, should I go this direction, I expect you to review at least one of my books.

Option three is fairly alarming. It starts the same as option two, but then branches into private sector work (like with an economic consultancy agency, or whatever the hell) and then into government service. Or vice-versa. Naturally, I would prefer to work for some foreign government somewhere, preferably one that isn't likely to lapse into fascism anytime soon, but I don't know fuckall about the employment prospects. Do foreign governments hire just anyone? I have no idea.

At any rate, at present I have pared life down to a bare minimum. Through the course of my travels (and my life, really, as those of you who have spent a substantial amount of time around me can attest), I have reached the point where I tend to regard the needs of biology with a sort of impatient contempt. I passed the point some time ago at which I no longer find the prospect of going two days without food or sleep to be alarming, though it's not a habit I engage in, but more of a fallback should necessity require. Like Simeon Stylites the Elder, I have
refined my existence to the point where it consists of this nearly empty room, (I really should take a picture--I have a stack of reciepts that I write notes to myself on, a stack of books, some papers taped to the wall, a bottle of bourbon and a small glass, and a plant in a saucepan which is growing towards the window so it looks like its trying to escape) a succession of books, and cheap frozen pizzas from ICA. At present, my life is sort of the uncarven block, ready for the imprint of whatever may come.

Virtually everyone I know is in Berlin for the next week or so. I have class tomorrow for four hours, and then not again for a week and a half. My giant paper is done. I've got no food, no job, no money, no liquor, no woman, no prospects.

Back to normal.

Waltzing Matilda VOLUME TWO

When last we saw our intrepid hero, he was on a train headed north from West Hampstead to Luton airport. Those worthy hosts, Rex and Kareem, were far behind, resuming their extremely British lives with the sort of style that only comes from drinking a lot of tea and knowing where "Putney" is.

I was a bit worried about making it to the airport on time, since I tend to habitually be about two hours early getting everywhere. I checked in, though, and made it to my departure gate, which was empty, like an American's mind on election day. There was no airplane outside. No pretty airline employee at the little podium. No portly passengers milling about. Nothing.
I waited while the clock ticked off the minutes until finally it was about a half hour past when my boarding pass told me I should be leaving. Convinced I had somehow ended up at the wrong gate, I finally found an airport employee and asked what the hell happened.
"Oh," she said. "The flight is delayed for about an hour while we find the aircraft."
"You lost the airplane?"
"We just aren't entirely sure where it is right now. It'll be cleared up in no time, don't worry."
"How can you lose an airplane? It's enormous! It's purple! You can't miss it."
Nevertheless, an hour or two went by while the found the goddamn airplane. While boarding it, I sort of wished they hadn't.



The only other remarkable thing about the flight was the six Italian women who were wearing headbands with pink, glittery, light-up penises on them. See?


Anyway. I got into Split (or, more accurately, Kastela, the town where the airport is...it's like thirty miles away from Split) well after dark. There was a rickety bus which ferried airport passengers to the city center, so I took it and spent a half hour watching a landscape of shattered cars, fires burning in metal garbage bins, piles of rubble, and tiny cantinas where swarthy men sat around jukeboxes. I loved it already.
Split is a great town. The old city is built on and around the ruins of Emperor Diocletian's palace, so everything is made of white limestone, including the streets. At night the whole city glows, and during the day it's blinding white, as though you were standing on the sun. Everywhere there are quiet squares with mysterious statues and cafes with overstuffed chairs that you have to pry yourself out of, and they are all linked by tiny, winding alleys where cheap pizza joints spring out of every shadow.





As soon as you step off a bus in Croatia, you are instantly mobbed by dozens of women offering you rooms. I like that in a country. I threaded my way through them and spent a solid hour wandering around the dark waterfront, trying hopelessly to find my hostel. All I had to go on was that it was in the "Narodni Trg." and that there were no signs because the whole area is a UNESCO heritage site, but if I followed a dark alley behind a cigarette stand, I'd find it.
And indeed I did. It had a little outdoor terrace thing where a dozen Australians sat around drinking Zlatorog, the local beer, and sometimes singing 80's power ballads. I went inside to check in and a massive Australian with dreadlocks demanded to know what sort of things a pothead might say.
"Burritos," I answered promptly. Which was clearly the password, since he not only did the paperwork, but walked me through the bewildering maze of streets to the best little pizza joint I've ever seen. His name was Paul and he'd turned up at the hostel about three months before and just never left. The two girls who owned it (Croatian born, but Australian raised) eventually employed him, and he knew absolutely everyone in the city.
By then it was about 10:30. I'd been travelling all day, and had had three nights worth of sleep in the past week. I was full of excellent pizza and returned to the hostel to find the Australians getting ready to go out. They asked if I wanted to go, and since I mostly just agree to stuff, I went.
Even in the off-season, the parties in Split are impressive. You can go to five different bars and still be at the same party. The people haemorrhage out into the narrow streets, some of them sitting on windowsills and in planter boxes, and they connect the bars in one massive, unbroken, smoking, drinking, reeling human chain. We went to three bars that I remember. I talked to two Brits who were on vacation (because I have never been let down by British conversation) and met an independently wealthy Irishman who bought me Heinekens and told stories about yachting. I remember being in a tiny blue bar packed with people where a line of women blockaded the bartender off into a tiny, pestilential corner. They were all dressed nearly identical, their bottoms twitching petulantly. It looked like an excellent opportunity to use my new pickup line:
"Move, I need a drink."
Some time later, we were walking along railroad tracks, headed for "Sandy beach" (which, incidentally, is just sandier than "Rocky beach" which looks like a building site) where we'd heard there were clubs. One of the Aussies laid down on a park bench and commenced vomitting directly up into the air. Everyone continued on regardless, tripping over railroad spikes, arguing about which way they were going, and peeing on things--except for one of the Aussie girls and another American and myself, who felt it was at least a little fucked up to leave this poor guy behind. So we flagged down a cab and piled inside.
The cab drove us exactly fifty yards, and the cabbie communicated to us that you aren't allowed to drive on the roads in the old city, so he'd have to drop us there. The Aussies, in what apparently is a sort of long-standing cultural tradition, bailed out of the car and left me throwing a ten krona note at the guy. The sick guy threw up on the back of the car and we got the hell out of there. The Aussie girl spent a lot of time protesting that she really didn't want to hook up with Vomit Guy (his response: "Yeah, I really recommend you don't." Vomit.) The other American, who was a strange chap but knew where a 24 hour bakery was, sat around on the terrace having the sorts of abstract sounding but generally meaningless conversations that I tend to have with strangers while on terraces looking at the stars in foreign cities. You'd be surprised how many of these conversations I've had.
The Aussies got home around 6 AM and crashed. One of them (a guy named Princey who looked like one of the Mighty Ducks and who is equally fluent in Hebrew, English, and French) snored so loudly that one of the Brits dragged his (his meaning Princey's) matress into the bathroom, shut the door, and stuffed blankets around the cracks. It didn't help much.
We all went out for breakfast at noon the next day to the Black Cat, which is a hell of a good place to have breakfast if you're ever in Split. The Aussies had their first beers of the day. I sat by a Brit named Alistair who recited to me every episode of the Ricky Gervais show Extras and used the phrase "taking the piss out of" eighty seven times. I tallied them on my napkin, and began to wonder if maybe due to the massive quantities of tea and beer the Brits consume, urine-theivery has somehow become a national pasttime.
I spent most of that day wandering the city, eating ice cream cones for fifty cents and giant slices of pizza for less than a dollar, and read a couple books down by the water. It was warm and sunny and full of tanned, attractive people. That night we went out drinking yet again, but I begged off early, feeling my age. Around two in the morning, a handful of the Aussies got home and decided it would be an excellent idea to attempt to shave their own heads. As soon as I hear from that other American, I'll get you guys the pictures, because it was goddamn hilarious.
Most of that crop of Aussies left on a ferry to Hvar the next day and were replaced by another shift. Everywhere I went I found Aussies (properly pronounced "Ozzie") , all of whom had been travelling for a year or so, and who angrily testified that no matter where they went in Europe, all they found were more goddamn Aussies. I assume Australia is entirely empty, maybe with one fat guy sitting around wondering where the hell everybody went.
With this new crop came this wanker from New Zealand who told the same goddamn story about a hobo trying to cuddle up next to him while he was sleeping on the floor in the Zagreb train station. He was thirty-six years old and sat around in the coffee shop irritating Australian girls who I was trying to chat up. Bastard.
I left the day after that, back to London. Found my way to the South Acton station without a problem, but turned out to be no pay phone there. I had vague memories of how to find my way back to Rex's place, but everything looked different in the dark, and all the houses looked the same. Eventually I asked the six skinhead guys who were throwing magazines at one another.
They said it would cost me, which I guess was sort of a polite version of a mugging.
"Okay," I said. "But all I have is Hungarian forint. It's about four hundred to the pound, so it's actually pretty much worthless. Here, you can have it if you want."
They pointed out a pay phone and told me to bugger off. I got ahold of Rex and we met up for Chinese food, which was excellent. Spent several hours sitting around his place, discussing various methods of destroying capitalism, and chortling about how horrified Lenny would be if he could hear us.
Went with Rex to his university the next day. He goes to Royal Holloway, University of London, although it appears to be located somewhere southeast of Essex, past a place called "The Monkey's Forehead." It looks like this:




I know.
Spent some time reading in the library there while Rex had a lecture on something spectacularly boring. Then it was time to bid the good man an adieu (or a blimey, or whatever they say in London) and head off to Hungary, where I took a long, harrowing shuttle bus journey to the hostel (as we bounced over the bumpiest goddamn roads in Europe, through the broken backstreets of Budapest, with nobody else in the bus, I thought quite reasonably, "Well this is it...death") where Olga was waiting for me. I'd constructed fairly elaborate schemes of how to hit on her, but I was too tired and grumpy when I arrived to enact any of them. Much like absolutely everything the UN does, it sounded good on paper, but never was actually implemented.
See, the problem was that I hadn't planned that second visit to Budapest very well. I got in at about midnight and my flight home left at around 10:00 the next morning. Thus, I have nothing interesting to report, other than the people outside who were filming an Italian TV commercial, complete with fake snow and singing children and reindeer and shit.
Then more airports, more busses, more trains, more waiting, blah blah blah. At about 7:oo Wednesday evening, I kicked open the corridor door, a bottle of duty-free Jim Beam in each hand, singing "Waltzing Matilda" to the surprised faces of my corridormates. Apparently I attained a sort of low-grade celebrity status in my absence, since I left only a liquor store recepit taped to the door ("I'm gone --T.) as notice. I'd sent them mysterious post cards reading things like "I wonder what I agreed to that got me here" and "Where the hell are my pants?" People came by looking for me, and were shown these cryptic clues, and everyone pretty much gave me up for dead. Now they just think I'm crazy, which I guess isn't far off.

Philosophical Interlude

This may be an opportune moment to discuss at a rather nerdy length the theory which occurred to me while I was laying drunk in a roundabout in the Baross utca in Budapest. Like the great man said, we are speaking of a mild inability to stand up.

If, as Morgenthau and Niebuhr proposed, states behave in a manner based in and parallel to basic human nature, then it stands to reason that the converse should be true: that individual human beings in a similar environment will behave in generally the same manner as sovereign states. Since diplomatic relations between states exist in an anarchic system and since individuals engaging in interpersonal relationships likewise exist in an anarchic system, we should be able to assume this commonality of behavior exists. And since the actions of, say, Austria from 1848-1866 are much more heavily documented, analyzed, and explained than the behavior of, say, that blonde I tried to pick up at Smålands nation the other night, perhaps there is something to be learned here.

For the purposes vocabulary and an analytical framework, the Ladder Theory, (however silly it may be) will serve. When combined with the predictive and explanatory powers of neorealist international relations theory, the two create a highly entertaining tool for explaining why people insist on doing stupid things in relationships.

For instance (and I'm not going to list every possible example--think of them yourselves, you lazy hobos), take relationships in which one stronger, more independent and mature individual supports a passive-aggressive significant other. According to the Ladder Theory, it's because the one is higher on their partner's ladder than the other, and a ladder disparity results in which one gives and the other takes. It's perfectly analgous to IR, in which it can be advantageous to be the weaker partner in an alliance, as one can then threaten to collapse without constant support and concessions. It's just like the Americans propping up the Saudi Royal family, man! It's brilliant.

Or take the Girls-Don't-Fucking-Answer phenomenon (hereafter GDFA). This is when you meet some nice girl who seems receptive and you obtain some way of contacting her (address, email, phone number, Myspace, Facebook, dead cat nailed to the door, whatever the hell you like). You wait the requisite amount of time (in the Bismarckian fashion, to extend the metaphor) and then attempt to contact this girl. You have incontrovertible proof that she has received the message, but she doesn't respond. Maybe she forgot? Maybe something terrible has happened and she's been kidnapped by Basque separatists? You wait a while and try again. Nothing. You go, "What the hell, man?" and give up. How can this be explained?

Well, easily. The girl giving you her number is like Bismarck publishing the Ems Dispatch, thereby provoking you (the Second Empire) into offensive action, thinking it justified. Your attempt to contact her is every offensive ever undertaken under false pretenses. It can end one of two ways: with a successful blitzkreig (thereby conquering Poland or attaining nookie) or with her avoidance of open contact, and resultant imperial overstretch and eventual collapse on your part. Sort of a Napoleon in Russia deal.

How is this to be avoided? Well, it can't. We exist in an anarchic system, and no one can ever be certain of anyone else's intentions. Until some all-powerful Dating Allocation Bureau is established, (slightly more likely than world federalism, I think) the pattern will repeat itself ad nauseum. Just like war!

What do you guys think, should I get out more?

Also

I forgot to mention one of the reasons I love the UK is because if you look at it on a map, it's shaped to look like a tall yet plump bearded man, wearing a hat and sitting down in shorts too big for him and possibly throwing a large baby into the air.

Waltzing Matilda: Down and Out in Budapest, London, and Split PART ONE.

Alternate and more accurate title: Taking the Piss Out of Uppsala, Stockholm, Nyköping, Warsaw, Budapest, Birmingham, London, Cheswick, Luton, Kastela, and Split.

It began, as every great venture does, with a toga party.

The occasion was Ashley's birthday or something, and the party was much like other parties, except people wore togas and some guy in a track suit showed up wanting to use someone's internet. Sarah, as previously mentioned, was all over everyone there, and I left annoyed around 4 AM. I don't remember what I had that night, but I was pretty much too drunk to sleep, a feat I do not intend to reproduce. I spent most of the next day hungover and bitter and listlessly reading Blood Meridian and making my last-minute travel arrangements. I watched Amadeus with Loufer and Aisling at about midnight, and got home to find Mohammed (the guy who lives in the corridor, not the prophet) watching old Disney cartoons on TV.
"It's Pluto," he said, sounding extremely excited. "Do you want to watch? It's Pluto." Mohammed must be in his thirties, and his a tiny, balding man who almost never speaks and has a curiously flat, rectangular face. His excitement over old Pluto cartoons may have been the most endearing thing I've ever seen, so I sat and watched them with him till he fell asleep around 3. Spent some time MSN'ing after that, killing time till 4:30, when I packed up my stuff and set off across the sleeping city. It was cold, since autumn seems to have arrived all at once at about 3:15 in the afternoon the Tuesday before. Nothing was moving save for the dozens of rabbits which sat around in the field between the Engelska Parken and the Carolina Rediviva, all of them facing right and chewing pragmatically. I was the only one in the train station when I got there at about 5:15 AM and caught the train to Stockholm.
Unfortunately, the Stockholm Skavsta airport is absolutely nowhere near Stockholm. It's in Nyköping, which is a good hundred-odd kilometers south. After spending some time blundering around the Stockholm train station, I finally figured out how to get across to the right platform (you can't get to 11 from 10, you see) and sat on the bench there, drinking cold Jolt soda and watching a stark bald woman smoking while the trains came chattering and retching in around her. I was the only one who got on the train I needed, which I took as a promising sign.
Then it was a bus to Skavsta airport, where they lack virtually all amenities save for a lonely fooseball table:

The flight was about what you might expect from a Hungarian company called WizzAir. After an hour or two, we touched down, and I stood up with all the other lurching, leg-cramped passengers and trundled out of the plane, only to be greeted with a rather surprising sight

If you can't read what it says on that bus, it's "Warsaw Airport Services, Ltd."



I will admit, this was a bit surprising to me. I made my way back up to the plane and asked the flight attendant why the hell I was in Poland.
"Oh," she said. "We're just stopping to let some passengers off here, then we'll continue on to Budapest. It's just like a bus."
"It's an airplane. It's not at all like a bus!"
"It's got wheels," she said. Which I really couldn't argue with.

I finally made it to Budapest though, coasting on about two hours sleep in the past seventy-two. In order to get from the Ferighey airport to the city, you have to take a bus to the last stop, which is the first station of the metro, and you take that for about twelve stops till you finally get to the Danube. We were making good progress down the bumpy highway, surrounded on all sides by tractors which seemed to be plowing large fields of dirt and dust so that more dirt could be planted there. Then we pulled up short: there had been some sort of spectacular traffic accident ahead, and the police had blocked off the highway, though they didn't seem to be doing anything other than standing around, saying to each other in Hungarian: "Man, that was a hell of a traffic accident. Would you look at that truck up there? God damn." Our redoubtable driver leaned on the horn, shook his fist out the window, and finally stormed out of the bus to go shout at the police:



Eventually he stomped back into the bus, gunned the engine, and took us up over the center divide, into oncoming traffic, past the accident (flipping off the cops on the way) and then back over the center divide again. Welcome to Hungary.
Budapest is a run-down city. The whole place seems to say, "Hey, I may not look like much now, but you shoulda seen me back when we threw out the Ottoman Empire. Good times." Downtown is pretty good, and I don't really have any complaints about the city, but as long as I haven't been to Paris or Berlin or Rome or Prague, I don't really see any reason to go back. The whole downtown is essentially one big outdoor cafe, occasionally interrupted by tiny shops where wrinkled women sell glittery fabrics and beads.
As far as I can tell, there's three major things you have to check out in Budapest. The first are the romkocsma, the "ruin pubs." They're pubs in abandoned buildings: basements, warehouses, stuff like that. I went to two, Szimpla Kert and the West Balkan, the latter of which was pretty good. Had a nice leafy outdoor jazz thing goin on. The second attraction is the baths, which is what drew the Romans to the place. There's quite a lot of them, but the big one seems to be in this giant pillaired, gargoyled building on the Buda side of the river, sort of by the citadel on the hill. I guess they can be pretty relaxing and all, but if you go, remember not to go on a Tuesday. Tuesday is Gay Day.
The third major attraction is the statue park, where all the old Soviet statues have been put. I didn't make it there, sadly. If I did, this blog post would be nothing but endless pictures of Soviet propaganda, so I guess that's probably for the best.
I stayed at the Museum Guest House on the Pest side of the river, so named because the bathroom fixtures are relics of the Magyar dynasty.



Trips to the grocery stores were pretty much the high point of Budapest for me. Bottles of hard liquor for three euros? Yes, please. I was eating whatever I could lay hands on for about five dollars a day, and it was fantastic. The first time I wandered into one, I stood there, mouth slack, staring at all the liquor and cheap food and going, "My God..."
They even have grocery stores in the metro stations, which are by far the best I've ever seen. They have the usual newspaper stands and little convenience store-type places, but they also have fruit markets and clothing shops and phone stores and guys selling goddamn violins and stuff. You could probably do all your shopping in the Baross utca train station if you wanted. Me, I spent a good amount of time at the crappy dive bar I found there:



Also found an English bookshop, where I stocked up for the rest of the trip, since I'd already eaten through one of the two books I brought along. Spent most of those first couple days sitting by the Danube, reading M. John Harrison's Course of the Heart and Signs of Life. That got a bit peculiar when the characters in the latter went to Budapest and spent time wandering around the same streets I was. A long succession of gay men tried to pick me up, all of them beginning by asking me if I had the time. After about the fourth one, I began to wonder if this was some sort of code, and the way you responded expressed some hidden sexual preference.
I tried mixing up my answer with the next couple of suitors, but to no avail. Apparently I was just the best piece of ass in Budapest.
On my way back to the hostel the first night, a pretty girl stopped me and asked for change for the poor. I said I didn't have any, and she replied, desperately, "Everybody has something." I gave in and handed over my change, which probably came to about 300 forint, or a dollar fifty.
"Now I have to give you a present," she said. She dug through her bag and handed over a tiny book called "The Perfection of Yoga," by "His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada." To my delight, it turned out to be an entire book of crazy Engrish, with inexplicable pictures of Hindu deities.
The girl who worked in the hostel was named Olga, and was exactly eleven times more attractive than you'd expect someone named "Olga" to be. I sat around with her for a while in the evening, drinking bad coffee and talking about jazz, before heading out to the bar I found nearby, which made good burgers:



My flight out had been changed by the airline from a stately 6 PM to after midnight. I left the hostel while everyone was asleep, rode the metro almost alone, on trains which produced sounds exactly like a chainsaw caught in a garbage disposal. Got to the airport much earlier than I'd expected, and sat for two hours in the empty arrival lounge. I actually rather liked the Budapest airport in the middle of the night, in the same way I tend to like most places at night when there's nobody around. Deserted airports make me think of The Machinist, a film I am still convinced is actually about me.
Anyway, eventually it came time to check in, and the girl at the reception desk expressed a rather curious opinion. Flying into London, it seems, has become a bit cliché. Let's face it. It's been done. Why not go to Birmingham?
"You had better not mean the one in Alabama," I said.
"No, no. It's in the UK. Just like London!"
"But it's nowhere goddamn near London."
"Yes, but that's where this plane is going."
"Will I be able to get to London from there?"
"I don't know."
So I flew to Birmingham in the middle of the night, sandwiched between an affable British man with a Terry Pratchett book and a graphpaper shirt and an inaudible Romanian who looked like The Fonz and who was exactly like Roberto Begnini in Down By Law, which is a great film you all should see. The customs guy grilled me, to the extent that he demanded I speak Swedish to him to prove my origin. They had a bus waiting when we landed, which was kind of them, and it took us to Victoria Station in the middle of London, which was about three hours away. We piled out of the bus, our breath misting in the air, into wet deserted London streets. It was about 5 AM. The Romanian and I set out into the train station to find something to eat, finally finding overpriced sandwiches at a place called "The Terminus," which reminded me of all the strange signs you see when you drive to Antioch that just say "Terminous". The Fonz caught a 6:15 train to somewhere, and I stayed, listening to the loud echoes of people's feet on the station floor.



The plan was to stay with Len's friend Rex, who lives somewhere in West London. I hadn't expected to be rolling into town at ass o'clock in the morning, though, and I didn't really want to wake up some guy I didn't know, so I sat around in the station till 9 or so, reading the free newspaper they have there, and being accosted by bums.
I drank a lot of black coffee from the shops that opened up at 6, but found you have to pay to use the toilets. Did the goddamn Sudoku, which was much more difficult than it had any right to be. Watched a guy walk his dog into the station, lay down some newspapers for it to sleep on, then stand around aimlessly while his dog slept. I saw an extremely old man with a beard (he looked quite like George Bernard Shaw, if you want the truth) in dusty formalwear, who walked by shuffling his feet back and forth about two inches at a time. At nine, I called Rex from a pay phone.
No answer. I didn't really expect one, since if some shmuck called me at nine in the morning, I sure as hell wouldn't answer. I spent an hour wandering around the surprisingly comprehensive book store in the station (their history section is more robust than any Borders I've ever been in) and called again at 10. Again no answer, so I said I'd head up to Notting Hill and bum around for a while and call at noon.
So I did. I like Notting Hill, and it was much more hospitable now than the last time I was there, which was Boxing Day, 2004. Chilly. Found a hell of a good bookstore up there with a basement full of trashy books for 10 pence each. Bought more than I could reasonably carry and drifted around the little shops and cafes they have up there. Called Rex at noon and got through.
He was much more apologetic than I would have been. Turns out, I just missed him with the first call, and he went all the way down to Victoria station to find me. Had me paged over the PA system, found the pay phone I'd been using, and got my second call while in the process. Which means we were both in Victoria station at some point, and I either didn't hear or didn't notice my name being called over the loudspeaker. He said he had a class, but we could meet at 3 at the South Acton station, which is right near where he lives. I said that sounded great, and I'd be there.
And indeed I was. Managed to get stung by some sort of hellish demon bee in the process, and my finger promptly swelled up to the size of beer bottle as its fiendish poison coursed through my veins. Sat under a tree and read Paul Auster's "New York Trilogy," which I liked, but wasn't what I was hoping it would be. Some time passed, some girls randomly waved at me from a bench, and suddenly a guy showed up in a silver BMW convertible, calling my name.
This turned out to be Kareem, Rex's new housemate, who had been sent to pick me up. Rex, you see, was in the process of moving into his new place literally that day. Kareem turned out to be a capital guy (though like all British men in a tradition set down after the Battle of Poitiers, he looked more like a "Nigel") who has been in a band, drinks a hell of a lot of tea, and knows something about neuro-linguistic programming, which I do not. I sat around in his extremely well decorated living room, drinking cup after cup of tea, while he told me about all the things he needed to do that day. Finally he got around to asking how I knew Rex.
"I, uh, don't, actually. I'm pretty much just a complete stranger sitting around in your house, drinking your tea."
He was fine with that. And this brings me to:
A Few Words on British Hospitality
In the States, things usually go a certain way. The host offers some sort of kindness. The guest goes "No, not necessary! Don't go out of your way on my account!" and the host goes, "Oh, well, okay then."
Maybe it's just me.
Whatever the case, I spent a lot of time with Rex and Kareem offering me things and me going, "Nah, nah, don't worry about it," and them going ahead and buying me Chinese food or toast or building a bed from scratch or something. I don't know if this is a nationwide British thing, or if these two guys happen to be the best goddamn hosts on the planet or what, but I have never been the recipient of such comprehensive hospitality in my life.
Rex drifted in around 8 or so with a German named Rajah (I think) in tow. We went out for gourmet burgers and I explained my Flogsta bar/strip club idea, which they were both pretty keen on. Then it was wine and apple tarts at home, talking about films and drunkenness and universities and the like. By then I'd been awake for a good forty-odd hours, so I went to bed (they honestly brought in a bed that we built for me to sleep on) around midnight and got up for the early morning train.
I sat there watching those closepacked brick houses with their messy little backyards and their satellite dishes scrolling by and I thought, Man, I love the UK. I love their ruthless tawdry papers, the way everything is just a little more compact than in the States, the dismal rain, and the excellent television reception. I don't even mind the peas they seem to serve with everything. It's a gloomy, rain-addled place and everyone who lives there is crazy, but I quite like it.


I'm going to leave off there for now, since this is almost the halfway point and I'm tired and bored. Time to eat an ICA pizza.

Prevalent Omnicide

Habit dictates a post. I have mentally written and rewritten several in the past weeks, some of them lyrical, some of them cold and stark, many of them trying desperately to sound like the way M. John Harrison writes. I considered a post about why I wasn't posting any of them, but can't dredge up the effort.
My memories have become an imperfect film dealing with the inexplicable actions of strangers. I am left with the clips that hit the editing room floor, and while they are evocative and potent, they are not altogether coherent or pleasant, and for the most part were cut for a reason. They are memories not worth holding onto.
I remember the parties, but a party is a party is a party, and it is never the parties themselves that are interesting.
I have strong memories of Caroline's birthday party. I was sitting at her table, drinking Vanlig (which means "Regular" in Swedish) vodka straight from the bottle (I had stolen it from a surly Frenchman named Bruno a few days previously) and talking to a visiting German named Felix who I was quite disappointed to like so much, because I really wanted to fuck his girlfriend. I remember the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the radio and everyone sitting around smoking Two Apple Blend out of an ornate black-and-silver waterpipe. Sarah was there and Caroline was angry with me over something she thought I remembered saying a week before. Someone insisted on playing David Hasselhoff to prove that the national German love for his "music" is a myth.
I remember going to Varmlands and dancing and hating it. I remember going for a long walk in the pounding rain late Tuesday night. Most of what I remember about Ashley's toga party last night is Sarah completely drunk and coming on to everyone there and not going home with me at the end. I haven't decided yet if it's worth being furious with her or not.
It has been a pallid, waterlogged couple of weeks, and it's my hope that the next two more than make up for it. Catch you guys on the flip side.