Confessions of a Catholic Carny

The porter who sold me a ticket on the train from Brussels to Ghent exhaled a not unpleasant odor of unidentifiable hooch as he spoke into my nose as if it were a microphone, advising me with all jollity and good will to pay the EU$7,80 fare rather than use one of my Eurail days for the half hour jaunt. I discovered later that the office of train porter is such that it requires alcoholism, or so I've divined after having been gassed by the stench of at least two others in the course of my travels. I have yet to test this theory on the train from Amsterdam to Paris, where I reflect on these matters as Holland rolls away to my right, but I'm sure s/he will be by shortly to stamp my ticket, and then we shall see if the dog has hair (... alas, the Dutch porters prefer more delicate scents...).

Despite what I said in my post about Brussels--in which I think I gave the impression that I was unthrilled with the city and perhaps with Belgium as a whole--Ghent immediately changed my tune. Small, old, hip, choked with bicycles and crisscrossed by canals that might as well be canals of beer bc there is an abundance of that here as well, Ghent taught me that I am old and impatient with the city (unless it be my little corner of Los Angeles) and am a man with medieval tastes. I gathered a little of this in the Cathedral of Sts. Michael and Gudula in Brussels, but only in Ghent did I realize that I want that feeling from the whole place, not from an isolated building here and there. It helped that my hostel was a converted monastery:



Perhaps it was the bathrobe and slippers that hung in the closet, which literally made me do a double take and wonder whether there were some mistake, whether I'd been put in the wrong room or would be charged for the use of their luxury upon checkout, but no. I don't know why it only cost EU$50.

With the dusk settling in, I headed into town and was met by wave upon wave of unearthly beauty, around every corner emerging some new old brick structure with crenelated towers and dizzying steeples and narrow, dark windows, juxtaposed one on top of the other in a seamless extension towards the horizon.



Along the canal above, dozens of young and old revelers gathered, seated either at cafe tables or on the stone abutment or riding jalopy 3 speeds, drinking and playing guitar and smoking whatever strange tobacco they had available, reminding me of Venice beach if Venice beach were 1000 years old. Much of my navigation has been arbitrary and directionless since I've been traveling alone, perhaps explaining why I've been lost so many times as to border on the absurd, but it has never failed to guide me in some more spiritually right direction, and in this case, it led me to a tiny pub patio where I eased into a chair and ordered a lager (I think a Jupiler, which appears to be Belgium's Bud, but good) and just observed. It seems everyone knows each other in Ghent, judging by the friendly greetings among passers by and those seated and the barkeep especially. No surprise there.

For the rest of the evening I simply wended my way through the ancient streets amid buildings so old as to make one spin, especially if one is from the comparably infantile west coast of the United States. I have no barometer to measure this kind of history. And I was duly dumbfounded. Only the next day did I begin to fathom the depth of my ignorance, my utter lack of anything like understanding of civilization's age and its inextricable and impenetrably deep historical connection to religion. By the time Catholicism came to America it had already been irreversibly contaminated by corruption and war and there was no question about its purity, if one can use such a term in this regard. But in Ghent--and this may be my ignorance speaking again--the holiness of the religion is the air one breaths. Outside of its obvious and well-documented contradictions and hypocrisies, Catholicism, in Ghent, retains some of its sense of awe and reverence, and it infects one.

All of this came to me in an inarticulate stream of crosscurrents as I stood on the top of Belfort in the central square, which faces the more famous Sint-Baafskatedraal. Since I cannot recreate the moment with the distance of days between now and then (I am currently writing this in Amsterdam--my battery died on the train--at the swanky new Bibliotheek on an inexcusably shitty keyboard), few though they are, I will transcribe the impressions I wrote in my pocket notebook at the time:

Beautiful watery imprecision of the Belfry, takes me aloft. I swim a thousand feet up on chimes.

Descending a thousand spiral stone steps feels a kind of penance for my modernness. A nautilus of centuries, a vertigo of wasted years. A cold stony fan unfurling in descent, plunging into the light and pixels of speech I fathom. The air is stiller as the bells fall silent and I break the film suspending me in alien climates. The diffused sunlight and soft breeze are afterthoughts to this cloud-passage. My legs stutter and shake, an involuntary dance of gratitude and humility.

Down here, in modernness, the renewed chimes sound carnivalesque and flippant.

The air up there and in there, and in Ghent generally, is different and evidently softens even the crustiest of cynics.



The next day I killed the morning on a bike riding up and down the canals; since Bruges is only a 30 minute train ride from Ghent, I waited until late in the afternoon to board (the trains for Bruges depart every 30 minutes or so), rolling into town around 19h00. (Now in Nice writing by the window of Le Petit Trianon Hotel with a view of orange tiled roofs and molded stucco buildings set at every imaginable angle in relation to one another, hearing birds chirp and the motherly French of the mistress of the hostel as she bathes her petit bebe two doors down--something about the cooing of infants is instantly mollifying. Shenee will be meeting me here in a few hours.)

My first hours in Bruges consisted of a now-routine amble, beginning from the city center, which here is very much like Rodeo Dr. cross-pollinated with the year 1100, and radiating out into the surrounding streets and alleys. My ostensible destination was a bar called The Crash (I think), whose allure is that "you will find no Hard Rock kitch here," just rock. On the way, however, I passed a pub in which the magnetic green of a televisual football pitch flashed through the window, pulling me into its orbit with irresistible gravity. I pulled up a seat at the bar and ordered a Bruges Tripel from the bartenderess who, although not unfriendly in any way, gave me the impression that I was an odd sight. The I looked around. All locals, mostly middle-aged or downright hoary. The three gents at the bar, already drunk and glued to the match, were obviously Norm Peterson, Cliff Claven, and Frasier Crane.



The rummy on the far left is blind and his arrival was something of a to-do. When the middle rummy saw him approaching through the window, tap-tapping his cane down the alley across the way and heading with preternatural certainty for the front door, he leaped from his chair as if he had suddenly become aware that it was made of hot coal and pulled open the door with such clumsy force that I thought for a minute that he was going to throttle the man outside, but of course was all hugs and how-d'ya-dos. Meanwhile, the bartrendress all but manfully forced the third rummy to scoot down so that Falstaff, as I came to call him, could have the prime end stool (although why on earth he would want to seat closest to the match that he couldn't even see is beyond me--perhaps to hear it better?). I had apparently stumbled into Bruges's Cheers.

The match ended in a draw, Lokeren 0 - Standard de Liege 0. Both teams are "first division, soon to be second," according to "Cliff."

Drunk and satisfied with myself for having managed to spend a night with bona fide locals--even tho I remained respectfully aloof in my corner--I stumbled back toward my hostel to the popping of fireworks and realized as I got closer and closer that a carnival was in progress around the corner (I had heard screams from my window earlier in the evening and surmised as much then), which of course I had to check out. Surrounded by adolescents and spellbound by the bright lights and the smell of fried food, I thoughtlessly got in line to ride the G Force, handing over my EU$3 with a smirk and locking myself into a seat in a row of teens with metal mouths and pocky faces and fancy cell phones, feeling not at all out of place for some reason. Then the swinging started. Back. And forth. Back. And forth. Then the spinning started. Then the speed kicked up and I was upsidedown, and so was all the beer in my stomach, and for a minute there I thought it wouldn't be anymore and some 14 year old Brugesian would be covered in it, but I managed to keep my guts about me and literally rode it out.



Even more self-satisfied after surviving the G Force intact, I took a circuit around the place, breathing in the sights and sounds and scents, and really just trying to get my legs back, and eventually made it back to my room where without further ado I passed the fuck out.

The next day, after a relatively quick tour of Sint-Salvatorskathedraal van Brugge and a hop over to see Michaelangelo's Madonna and Child (which the Brugesians are very proud of bc it is his only work to have left Italy in his lifetime, although I was more partial to the organ):



I rented a bike and stopped at the market for some picnic vittles, which, alas, I had to stuff down the front of my jacket bc I was sick to death of carrying around a bag, and which consisted of the standards--baguette, Camembert, apple, and a tall boy of Leffe blonde. Note the paunchy front, which in this case is merely prosthetic:



I suppose it's difficult to see. The bike was a three speed Oxford, similar to the six speed Batavus I sported in Ghent. Everyone rides jalopies in Europe, presumably bc of the brick and cobbled pavements, which would wreak havoc on a bike like my beloved Bottechia at home. There are many folding mini-bikes too, which the elderly are quite fond of:



I did, however, spot several racing bikes on my ride west out of Bruges (I even spotted an elusive Eddy Merkx or two) and some other beautful sights as well:



There's your windmill, which I'm sure many have been waiting for. The mama sheep was giving me the stink eye and I swear was about to leap over the puny barbed wire fence and go for the jugular if I didn't move along quickly. Her baby did look delicious, I must say.

My destination was the "beach," whatever that means in Belgium--that's what the hostel's map/guide called it anyway, so that's where I headed. To spare you the suspense, I never found any beach. Upon my return, I realized that what was meant to be a 50 minute ride would have actually taken a good 2 hours, and as it began to rain and the wind had kicked up something fierce, I decided to skip the final 7 kms or so and turn around. On the way back, I enjoyed my dejeuner on the bench pictured above, under a tree and beside the canal near a bridge where all the gunk from up-canal had collected and the ducks were walking around on it--yes on it. Disgusting yet curiously picturesque too. The ride had taken it out of me and I ate the entire wheel of Camembert to get my juices flowing again, although it was probably the 22 oz can of Leffe that revived me. After inhaling my very European picnic I rolled slowly back in the direction of Bruges, into the wind and rain, beer in hand and Godspeed You Black Emperor in my ears, a wonderfully appropriate, cinematic soundtrack to the drizzly ride. This hour-long excerpt of my three weeks away (thus far) will rank with my moments up in the Ghent Belfort as one of the most memorably and intensely happy as well as sadly brief episodes. I picked up another Leffe in Damme, a little town along the canal about 5 kms. outside Bruges, in order to prolong the rapture.

Utterly and completely depleted, physically and metaphysically, I returned the bike, sat in the Markt in the bright sunlight--that kind of too bright sunlight that often bursts through dissipating rain clouds--staring at the crowd, much of which was composed of various field trips (games of leap frog played by girls and boys with pink-painted faces), and eventually dragged my weary bones back to my room for a 3 hour nap. It was dusk when I awoke to the strong smell of garlic bread--the hostel had prepared a pasta dinner for guests who signed up, which I neglected to do bc it was advertised as Bolognese, and although I have thrown over the veganism while here, the vegetarian in me still holds fast, and of course when I wandered groggily downstairs, a little jealous of the carnivores, I saw they had written in "vegetarian available" while I slept ("Curses!" I whispered)--but it put me in the mood for spaghetti so I went on the hunt and felicitously found a place outside of the touristy area where I ordered a pesto and a bowl of minestrone (which was green (?) but delicious). I ate with gusto as I had earlier on my canal-side bench, drank a bottle of the Lambic I bought at the Cantillon brewery in Brussels, and, again, passed the fuck out.

I hear Amsterdam is known for its banals. I mean canals.

To compensate for the unforgiveable longwindedness of my previous few posts, this one will be brief, if only bc I have no wifi in my boatel room (boat-hotel, in Amsetdam, near the floating Chinese Restaurant), which also has no eletrical input to charge my things, which doens't really matter bc I am only here for 2 nights and then am off to Paris, to which I've decided to return rather than go to Lyon, where as far as I can divine there is nothing for me. I didn't get to see the Louvre the first time through (except to use the toilet), nor Notre Dame, and I kind of want to see the city by bicycle too since I've had such a good time seeing Ghent and Bruges this way (and perhaps Amsterdam--the bike-stealingest city on earth--tomorrow).

After 2 days in Paris, it's down to Nice to meet up with my NeeNee, then back to Marseille for a couple days, then back to LA, which I am really missing these days. Perhaps it's the traveling alone thing. Perhaps it's just that these canal cities are starting to meld together into one giant canal mass that I can't seem to escape. Beautful though they are. Is there a condition in the DSM IV called "canal fever"? If so, I think I am getting it.

I took a cheering 25 km bike ride through the countryside outside of Bruges yesterday afternoon, which was incredible and exhausting and a rich memory that I could feel forming as it happened--which is a strange sensation let me tell you. Riding a jalopy 3 speed with a tallboy of Leffe in hand and music in my ears and light rain pelting my face and a canal by my side the whole way (I didn't feel the fever yesterday) and baby lambs next to the road, bleeting and looking fragile--this is a series of images that will remain clear and uplifting I think for the rest of my days. (Sean, I wish you were there.)

I have so much more to tell about Ghent and Bruges and my tour of the Cantillon brewery in my last moments in Brussels, and so many pictures as well, but it will have to wait, perhaps another day, perhaps two, until I have access to free wifi. In the next installment, expect to see and hear about my spiritual revelations in the Ghent Belfort (perhaps a side effect of staying in a converted monstary, which was itself something worth telling of), about my evening with the Bruges locals getting pissed on local brew and wathcing Belgian football, then nearly throwing up after riding the G Force with a bunch of adolescents at the carnival around the corner from my hostel, and more about my amazing cycling adventures.

Now, to wander.

Pommes Frites vs. Burrito: Battle of World Cities

Brussels is Europe's L.A. Wait. No. That's saying too much, given my unnatural and disproportionate love for the city of angels, which I covet with a pathetic and sometimes bitter jealousy.

Brussels is Europe's excuse for L.A.? No, not that either. That gives the impression that I do not like Brussels. And I do, really, I do. Despite first, third, and fifth impressions. I assure you: my second, fourth, and sixth impressions brought waves of delight and even awe. This is, after all, the french fry capital of the world. And the battle in my sensorium for supremacy between love for french fries and love for Los Angeles is epic and ongoing.



But I mean, look at this thing: a bona fide french fry sandwich! I didn't even have to ask for it to be made special. I simply saw someone in line in front of me being handed his over the counter and resolved to ask for the same. Although I don't know how it is listed on the menu. I merely said to the portly fry-cook, "Les frites dans une baguette, s'il vous plait." He gave me a quizzical look and repeated "...dans...?" and then gathered what it was that I so sheepishly and inarticulately asked for. He then asked, "Avec de viande?" to which I quickly replied, although in a kind of stutter, "pas... pas de viande."



Also, the espresso is incredible. And ample.



Had I a sweet tooth, well! This would be my Mecca. Alas, the quality that most spiritually alienates me from my fellow man is that I do not; although the waffle I bought from a truck yesterday outside the Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts was revelatory. ("If only," I nevertheless thought to myself, "it were a roach coach.")

Let's just say Brussels reminds me of L.A. in at least 3 important respects. One, it is a city of 2 nearly unreconciled and irreconcilable languages (French and Flemish). This fact dissuaded me from seeing a movie last night when I realized that the two-letter codes after each title most likely stood for "French voice over with Flemish subtitles" or vice versa. I was too tired to ask so I walked back to my hostel and watched FC Barcelona narrowly beat FC Schalke, a popular if mediocre German Bundesliga team. Apparently Spaniards do not like this greatest of Spanish teams bc I was the only one in there rooting for Thierry Henry (Tee-eh-ree Ohn-ree, or as the British commentators love to call him, Terence Henry) and the gang. Go figure. This is truly a city of surrealities.

Two, the city itself is an architectural mish-mash. Steel-and-glass geometry smashed against decadent Art-Nouveau structures abutting neo-Classical refabs looming over narrow corridors of 4 or 5 story Dutch style brownstones or whatever the Belgians call them. Add to this the fact that the entire city--as much of it as I've been able to traverse--is under construction, scaffolding here and jack hammers there and chain link fences blocking this sidewalk and concrete barriers cordoning off that street. And all of it covered to varying degrees in graffiti--more attractive graffiti that the adolescent garbage you see sprayed all over Marseille, but graffiti nonetheless. There is something disheartening about seeing a building older than Los Angeles defaced by block lettering announcing some meth-head gutter-punk's moniker in day glo colors.

And that's another thing altogether, the ubiquitous meth-head gutter-punk. I saw one peeing in broad day light near the Mont D'Arts yesterday, bottle of Belgium's answer to malt liquor in his hand, behind one of the many temporary walls surrounding one of many old buildings under construction. We made meaningful eye contact. Mine said, "If not for the frites, this city would be Europe's answer to Tijuana." His said, "If I wasn't so damn high, I might feel a small sense of compunction about this trite exhibitionist display." I am certain that this is what his eyes were saying.

Three, in no other city in Europe have I seen a melange of ethnicities so broad as to rival L.A. Arab, African, European, and I swear to god the ladies cleaning the rooms at the hostel were Mexican or South American. More languages are spoken on any given corner here than at the U.N. Or so it seems to my English starved ears. Being in London only made my hunger for English more biting.

Brussels ultimately cannot decide what other city it is like bc it is unlike any other city. Just like Los Angeles. So that makes four.

I arrived on Monday after an easy flight from London, for which I was entirely unconscious. My first impressions of Brussels, therefore, were clouded by grogginess and general ennui, brought on by a combination of travel weariness, early symptoms of London nostalgia, and renewed linguistic disorientation. It did not help that the train from the airport to Gare Nord, a km. or so from my hostel, was lit like a horror flic and showed all the decorative pizazz of a homeless shelter.



All the metros here are like this. Bleak does not describe it. I then attempted to follow the hostel's directions from the station, but I obviously got lost. I did, however, find the erotica shops and XXX cinemas. Backtracking from there, I ignored my inner compass and went the way I was CERTAIN could not be correct, and lo and behold, my hostel. The 2GO4 youth hostel is brand spanking new and has all the amenities, which is nice. The rooms are clean and relatively large and I snagged the top bunk again, discovering my affinity for sleeping up high while in London (there is something nominally private, up against the ceiling), and since I was on the first floor (or in American terms, the second) I was able to use the wireless from bed. What a boon. I passed this first night trying to swallow the sense that I'd done horribly wrong to leave the friends and English of London for this shabby Mexican backwater, and succeeded enough in cheering myself to head over to the Ixelles district--by which I mean, brave the Eli Roth metro for a few stops, ingest a comforting pasta dinner, and choke down a Maes at the pub.

I slept something like 11 hours that first night and awoke to a totally different Brussels. If I remember anything about Brussels at all, I hope it is this first full day.

I already mentioned the french fry sandwich, which is basically how I began the morning, or I should say afternoon since I slept until 11 and only mustered courage enough to leave the hostel around 1. Following Lonely Planet's suggestion, I made my way to Grand Place, which, aside from that huge future-past metal structure that resembles a jack from the game of jacks that we all remember from grade school, and which was built for some World's Fair back in the futurephiliac 50's, is basically the Brussels of postcards. OK. That is not fair. There is also the Musee Bruxellois de la Gueuze (the Beer Museum), to which I will be making a pilgrimage before I hop on the train for a 20 minute ride to Gent this evening. But that little black pissing cherub statue is there, and all the great museums (aside from the Gueuze) and cathedrals are nearby:



I imagine that this guy's photo matches the stream of piss from the cherub dressed in a police officer's uniform behind him to the gaping mouth of his friend. Charming. I tried earlier to do something similar with this poor Asian man:



After the famed FFS (french fry sandwich), I ambled not so much through Grand Place, which I only stumbled upon later, as around it, discovering to my great pleasure the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, an ancient catholic behemoth of a church that has been modified and destroyed and rebuilt several times since something like the 10th century. It houses one of the most awesome organs I have ever laid eyes upon (Dad: look for a postcard in the mail bearing an image thereof, as soon I remember to get addresses and stamps for all the postcards I have written and been carrying with me for over a week in a perpetual state of brainfartoplexia). The stained glass windows, too, and oaken pulpits and half-dozen separate chapels each with their own examples of ornate sculptures and paintings of Jesus in various states of repose and suffering and blank-faced authority and youth and femininity and of Mary and Magdalene and the saints, weeping or gazing heavenward, bearing swords and branches and bodies of Christ, being plugged with arrows or crucified or stabbed with long spears or daggers, surrounded by swarming crowds or desolately alone in monochromatic fields. Why am I not Catholic? Why, at the very least, do I not go to Mass at an old church? If I lived in Brussels, in any case, I can guarantee that I would frequent this little oasis of breathtaking solemnity and beauty. That I don't believe a lick of the Bible scarcely matters.




In a state as close to reverence as I get, I wandered out through the anachronistic glass doors at the front and down the steps, blinded by the half-sunlight and a bit dazed spiritually as well, trying to get my bearings back in the swirling secular air. To be honest, I can't remember exactly what happened next, but I know that at some point I made it to Grand Place and stood in a kind of lesser awe before the Hotel de Ville, Brussels's city hall from the 17th century or earlier, which just might be the only building in the city which is in much the same shape as ever. You can see the steeple from almost anywhere in within a km. of the place.



My camera had run out of juice at the cathedral so I have no photos of Grand Place (just this one of the steeple from a few labyrinthine streets over), a fact that I found fascinating and odd at the time--sipping a Grimbergen blonde in the elongating shadow of the Hotel. I had my pocket notebook with me, which has proven very useful in many respects...



... in which I transcribed my sentiments as follows:

camera battery died while ambling in the stained glass wilderness of Cath. of St. Michael and now sitting in Grand Place, w/beer and tall glass of ease, I realize that there are a dozen photos here not to be snapped, and that hence I am in a special kind of void, an unduplicatable series of moments and reflections that I will have n/t but my recollections to recall. This is pure unadorned story. It is a realm of cloud-like imagination, flitting by and almost nonexistent in its ephemerality, its evanescence, its wispy immediacy. Luckily, none of this is exactly true since I am writing about it now, capturing the moments, mediating the immediate, scarcely attending to the sun disappearing behind the high steeple of the Hotel de Ville (I look up and it is actually ducking behind a cloud over the steeple). Nevertheless, this photoless square of time feels suspended and somehow more permanent in its exceptionality, its potential to be lost in the distortions of memory, inexact, but less cold somehow for its warped imagelessness.

There is an absurdity to this plaza, I am just noticing: in the SW corner, just south of the H.d.V., sits a building in mid-renovation, defaced, literally, and refaced w/a several story high tarp on which is pictured what the new facade will look like, TO SCALE, complete with equestrian statue on the roof. And yet the glimpses of the existing building that peer through the gaps b/w the discrete tarp-lengths reveals an overall geometry that scarcely seems to align with the prospectus. For one, the north roof is square and vaguely Dutch, a shingled trapezoid, whiles its photogenerated double is rounded and oblong, like the crown of a large bald man's pate (there are even gabled windows that resemble eyes in this bald man's face).

It gets darker, and colder. The defaced building is called La Maison des Brasseurs, or House of Brewers.

From there I wandered over to the Mont D'Arts, hoping that the Musee Royaux des Beaux -Arts would be open late (it was fast approaching 5), but as I walked up I noticed that while many folks were egressing through the rotating door, only I was entering. The foyer and shop were still open (of course) but no exhibits. I wandered to the right where I spied a wall of pamphlets and periodicals and immediately gravitated toward one called Ars Musica, in which I discovered that tonight, my first full night in Brussels, marked the opening night of the Brussels classical music season, which would be kicked off with a program of soul-crushing contemporary works by the Belgian composers Fausto Romanetti, Raphael Cendo, and Mauro Lanza, none of whom I've heard of but all of whose works as described in the precis sent shivers of elation and excitement through me. In my old age I have found a kinship to all things dissonant, atonal, and strategically frightening. Scarcely expecting there to be tickets left--this is Europe after all, home of classical music and of classical music aficionados--I nevertheless made enthusiastic plans with myself to hop the metro to the Ixelles district again, where the Flagey Theater would be hosting the event (as the friendly museum guard informed me after I showed him the address in the pamphlet), and at least try to get in. To my combined shock and glee, there were a glut of tickets. I chose a seat on the loge in the first row, center stage, and proceeded to wander restlessly among the Brussels-hip with their deep bellied Duvels in the concession area, impatiently awaiting the inauguration of the glorious, world-ending spectacle.




I'll spare you the gory details. Those of you who care enough about such matters will hear it from the horse's mouth. Suffice it to say that I had a great time and could not have planned a better evening. The day began with a french fry sandwich and ended with a proper cone of frites doused in aioli (aside from an apple, all I ate that day), which I proceeded to glop all over my water-but-not-grease resistant jacket as I watched the final 15 minutes of the Arsenal/Liverpool Champion's League quarterfinal match outside a Brit-thick pub a few steps up the street from the theater. The only downside of the evening--aside from the fact that I stank of garlic mayo until the next morning--was that Liverpool crushed the long-suffering Arsenal.

Yesterday I spilled beer all over myself in front of a very hip young patio-full of locals after having drunk a very strong Belgian from a can (a Gordon's) as I wandered about Grand Place at dusk. I copped quite a buzz off that one beer and barely took two sips from my much lighter blanche before clumsily and drunkenly pouring on my pantsleg and retreating in shame after wiping down the table under the sympathetic laughing eyes of my audience.



Last known photo of a dry Adam. The result of this exercise in vanity was that in bringing the camera back to me, I neglected to give sufficient latitude to this very full beer, thereby bringing the beer back to me as well. Splash! Shame. Seriously, I just wanted to mark the moment bc I was feeling very content, despite knitted brow, with the sun on me and Lee Morgan in my ears and a keen buzz and a nice seat in a narrow cobbled street and a cold light sweet beer waiting to be ingested. Oh it was such a moment! Instead of marking the moment I marked myself, the Cain of beer.

So although I did laundry once yesterday, I had to do another load (one pair of pants) today to get the stench of Belgium out. Yesterday I also dragged myself through a very mediocre 19th century exhibit after eating a spectacular waffle, and snapped this scene, which was more compelling than most of the art of the walls:



There were many children sitting on the floor in various rooms at the Beaux-Arts "copying" the paintings and sculptures. It made the ache in my back less irritating to witness it.

... and also saw some old musical instruments in the Old England building, an Art Nouveau structure that is a site in and of itself, even though I failed to photograph it.



Today I am off to Gent where I hope to lose myself in ancient Catholicism again. And drink rather than wear beers.


A tout a l'heur!

Baby's on fire

As if fainting at the ceremony were not dramatic enough for this newly minted Jewish man, Asher had to outdo himself at the reception the following day with a pyrotechnic feat unlike any, to my knowledge, attempted by a 13 year old before. I remember when I made my grand entrance to the ballroom of Temple Etz Chaim, awash in 50s rock nostalgia complete with centerpieces fashioned out of old 45s, back in 1988: charging in to the brassy, iconic tones of the Rocky theme (not very 50s I know), fists raised and thrusting into the air above my yarmulked head, yet clutching my new gold bracelet with my finger tips against my wrist so that it didn't slip under the cuff and--tragedy of tragedies--be hidden from plain sight. Asher has done me up, however. This young man managed to march confidently into the Formula 1-decked halls of the Kensington Roof Gardens ON FIRE.



It was quite a way to kick off the party.

This was later however. Preceding this spectacular entrance, we were encouraged to ease into the festivities with bites of this and sips of that. Prosecco flowed, colorful non-alcoholic drinks lined the bar, delicate yet hearty appetizers made the rounds (which after 2 weeks of backpacking I attacked with a gusto to match Shenee's lionine love for sweets), a Formula 1 video game shaped like an actual F1 race car stood against the wall...



... and I, in my Arsenal FC scarf (worn in solidarity with Asher, whose bedroom, I discovered on Friday, is literally canvased in Gunners memorabilia, and which I bought at the flea market in Rye after I missed my train), made instant friends with a dashing waiter from Marseille whose second favorite team is Arsenal (after Marseille of course): "while I am in the UK," he explained to his colleague who, overhearing us, insisted insultingly that he was a Chelsea fan, "I am for Arsenal. But my true love is Marseille!" I must go to a game when I return, he then insists. "Oh I will!" I lie. (I won't, alas, be there on a weekend). In retrospect, wearing the scarf was more of a hassle than it was worth, given that the first thing anyone asked me--including people I'd never seen nor talked to before--was, "so why the Arsenal scarf?" It got old.



By the time the mock wall was removed to reveal the ballroom, I was already quite satisfied with the evening and would have been content to lie down and reflect on the sumptuousness of the scene and the memories of my own like experience 20 years earlier that it brought to mind. But then came Asher's incendiary entrance.

And then the buffet was introduced. I'll never understand the squeamishness with which some folks approach a buffet. Whereas I pile it on, in love with the sight of a dozen foods indiscriminately arranged in a pyramid on my plate, others find it necessary to make minimalist art of theirs, leaving islands of negative space between discrete dishes carefully arranged in mandala quadrants--the caesar salad daintily placed in this corner, the single skewer of grilled sea bass in this corner, the stuffed mushroom cap in the center, and perhaps, if there is room, a veggie kabob topped with a flash fried wedge of strong cheese to round it out. At first I was embarrassed by the gluttony implied by my presentation, but then I realized that I was merely being efficient with my greed while other returned to the spread 2 or even 3 times to make a more discrete example of theirs. Perhaps I am simply inured to the hugeness of food in America and am tasteless or classless as a result. Or perhaps I just relish ampleness philosophically. You decide (Austin knows what I mean I think).



Not nearly drunk enough yet to dance, when the band kicked up I held the camera in hand both as protection from being coaxed (read: guilted) onto the floor and for documentary purposes:



Little girl throws her hands in the air, and hence, apparently, just don't care.



Asher and Francine, inaugurating the festivities with the traditional Gushing Mother/Embarrassed Son dance.



When finally drunk enough, I slipped comfortably into the robot.

All told it was a bar mitzvah to put all bar mitzvahs to shame. My only regret is that we left too soon to find out about the after party at Francine's house, which apparently went until 6 am.

Some more pics:



Ali, Racheline, et moi at the ceremony, post-swoon.



After the ceremony on Saturday, two good Jews walk home from shul (or rather, walk to the bar for cocktails). Ali, a bone fide Scottish catholic, really took to the yarmulke and insisted upon wearing it for the duration of our exodus through swanky London.



Ali and Adam, pals. And I, looking curiously evil.



Me and Grandpa Irv from Miami by way of south Jersey.



From left: Francine's current boyfriend Steve's son (whose name I think is also Steve), Francine, Grandma Ruth (stunningly gorgeous in all her 83 years--Irv is a lucky man), and me.



Asher's best friend, or one thereof, trying to get sympathy from the birds. If only this geezer knew that crutches aren't enough. Girls want scars and stories too. Really, I just like this photo.

***

In Brussels now after tormented inner debate regarding whether or not to stay a couple more days in London. My hosts took exceptional care of me and it was hard to leave the friendly air for the cold isolation of my next several days in Belgium and Amsterdam. But this is part of why I came. To have variousness and anxiety and awe and drinks and food and exhaustion and inner torment and glee and bar mitzvahs and stories to tell when I get back. Yes, there are adventures I am leaving out of this blog, if only bc I don't have the patience to get into to them. And you have better things to do than read about them.

First and only picture in Brussels so far:



Had a Maes at a smoky pub called Chez Jo's off Chaussees d'Ixelles after eating a quiet pasta dinner at La Canadiere around the corner, Don Delillo as my only companion. And a good one at that. Off to see Brussels by day!

Blizzards, bugs, the Bard, and a case of the bends

Yesterday it was mild and lovely, much like the days preceding; today, I awoke to a blizzard outside my window falling at a nearly horizontal angle and a line of white rooftops and slick roads sliding off into the distance.



I suppose this is what non-Angelinos call "weather." It's quite lovely. Although the face gets a bit numb and the tops of the ears raw and throbbing. Despite the Dickensian conditions I girded myself with tea and cereal and headed out, looking for something with more caffeine and then on the National History Museum and the Globe Theatre.

I didn't realize until I got to the former that today is Sunday and that that museum in particular caters to children. Dodging grommets and perms and various permutations of the species insipidus touristus I made my way swiftly through many of the rooms, admiring the birds and reptiles and bugs and bones, in no particular order, drifting with the current, as it were, but not particularly awed. I suppose when one has watched as many Discovery Channel specials on bugs and dinosaurs, et al., hearing the same spiel at a museum does little for one.



After a quick triangle-packed sandwich and an espresso in the tyke-flooded cafeteria, I asked for directions to the Globe and made my way out and back down into the South Kensington Tube, transfered at Westminster to the Jubilee line and got off at Southwark (pronounced "suthuk"), made the 20 minute walk down to the Thames past the Tate Modern (which I now regret not prioritizing as I am heading to Brussels tomorrow) in the freezing snow (ears beginning to burn) and lo! there it loomed in all its iconic glory. I was only mildly disappointed to discover that this Globe is a replica of the original, which was pulled down by the Puritans in 1644. But everything about the building is apparently identical, right down to the use of pegs instead of modern nails, etc. Not a single modern tool or material was used in the construction.



I am now back at the hostel, warming up and killing time until the bar mitzvah party tonight. Hopefully part 2 of this weekend extravaganza will be less dramatic than part 1. To wit: Asher, the bar mitzvah boy, fainted during the service yesterday morning, sending all the Jews in the place into fits of schvitz, sending up gasps and sighs of despair and confusion. Even I was taken away by the unexpectedness of the incident, which I witnessed in its entirety. As the cantor sang one of many traditional Sabbath morning prayers, which she would alternate with Asher and various friends and family who came to the podium periodically to do their part, I watched as Asher, leaning forward rakishly as he is wont to do (I recognize a bit of the 13 year Adam in there, which is only eerie bc his mother, Francine, is a bit of a doppelganger for my mom), stood silent when he should have been speaking, then slouched forward slowly, his forehead resting on the microphone, then slid down the length of the mic stand on the podium, then crumpled like a house of cards onto the floor behind him. The mom screamed, the grandmother began crying and wailing softly, I gasped "Oh my god" then instantly thought about saying to Hannah, Racheline's goyish friend who sat next to me and who has never been to a bar mitzvah before, that this was not traditional, inclined as I am to make light of even the most grave situation before it has even had a chance to settle in. Of course, several others bum-rushed the small stage and spirited the limp but now partially-conscious Asher out of the sanctuary and into the stairwell (though lord knows why they brought him to an even more claustrophobic space, pressed in the center of a ten-person-strong support group). My first thought thereafter was to the effect of, "I hope there's still a party tomorrow." I'm an ass, I know.

The rabbi very gracefully continued the service, assuring everyone with his gentle air that he was certain Asher would have his wits about him again presently and would read his Torah portion in good stead, which indeed the little battler did. Although he neglected to sing the portion, opting for obvious reasons to merely read it--something I think he will look regretfully upon later as he realizes that he spent the previous 6 months practicing and fretting over just that element of the ceremony, only to abandon it altogether at the last moment. He had little choice, I suppose.

Within minutes, everything regained its equilibrium and we all proceeded to eat and drink merrily--Racheline, Hannah, H's boyfriend Alistair, and I ducked out shortly after and went for a few drinks near Portobello market.

I must get ready now for part 2. Stay tuned...


Racheline (left) and Hannah "hamming" it up.


For the Withnail fans. Recognize this pub? It was called The Mother Black Cap in the film, now the The Tavistock.


Deirdre McNamara, friend from Thailand travels 6 years ago, in her borough Stepney Green, near Brick Lane. My first night in town.

Missed trains and pet cemetaries

My first night in London, April 2nd, found me reunited with long lost chum of Thailand travels, Deirdre McNamara, an Irish lassie with a great thirst for the creature. Back in Ban Phe, De, Sean, and I (what became a little triumvirate) would routinely drink a local slurry called 1000 Pipers (some chose to call it whiskey), Beer Leo, Beer Chang (which became notorious for its "chang-overs"), and whatever else our host Just surreptitiously placed before us until we were half-blind with drink. This continued for a month. Good times.

As expected, most of the night passed in a dream of laughing reminiscence, both of us pleasantly surprised to find that six years of estrangement had little effect on our rapport. It was as if we had never gotten up from our adjacent places in that farce of a classroom in central Thailand.

Oxford Circus is the main shopping district in London. I don't know why De brought me there. Neither did she. As we emerged from the Underground into the glitzy madness, we made a 36o with perplexed faces, spied a trendy bar, had a couple of pints of "Star" (apparently the new Stella--this unfortunate Belgian now has the dubious distinction of being referred to as "wife-beater") and made another 180 back underground and over to her borough, Steppeny Green, for some Thai food, then to smarmy, vibrant Brick Lane with its chicken shops and dark faces and early signs of gentrification--London's Silver Lake? Perhaps. Throw about 10000 Pakistanis and North Africans into the mix and there you have it. Dodging the scattershot street litter, De and I headed over to The Vibe bar and sat outside (incredible how mild it is here) with a couple more pints, then moved inside, then were summarily booted bc, it being Wednesday, no one was there and they wanted to go home. Apparently this is not unusual. After a frantic and ultimately futile search for another open bar, we were reduced to buying a couple of bottles from an off-license (read: liquor store), which we drank in the Tube as we waited for the 12:24, the last train--or so we were told by the weary attendant. Letting the 12:20 pass, we finished our beers (I had a Peroni this time) and said goodbye as the 12:24 sped in. Thankfully, De noticed it was the wrong line or I'd've ended up in Somewhere-ham, completely stranded. So I leaped out at the last second and De proceeded to gently scold the old crone who had misled us--the stooping cockney was evidently unfazed by our admittedly limp ire--and made our way out. At last, we hailed a cab--De was sporting enough to ride with me back to Victoria so as to split the ludicrous expense--and so ended our evening.

***

Studying the weathered gravestones of Henry James's pets (Tosca, Nick, and Peter, as well as E.F. Benson's dog Taffy) in a deep corner of the garden at Lamb House in Rye, Sussex, with the clearest of blue skies above and the scent of honeysuckle and cut grass wafting over me, I finally felt akin to the Master in a spiritual way. His fiction, strange to say (strange bc I have made it my livelihood to read, analyze, and write about it), has never touched me the way that other writers have, a recognition or reflection of some hidden angle of myself in the worlds they conjured. While squinting over a byzantine paragraph by the Master, on the other hand, I have been challenged and maddened and provoked to think harder, and more deeply, but never have I thought, "that is me." Reading is essentially a narcissistic operation--at least at first--in which we seek either models for ourselves, better-articulated, more imaginative explanations for our own beliefs and behaviors, or validation for preexisting habits, ideologies, etc. What I have recognized of myself in James is pure icy philosophy, a theoretical overlap of our metaphysical assumptions--that all is vanity, simply put, and hence value lies only in actions (a kind of understated existentialism)--but nothing in his characters or in his "plots" or in his excessive attention to the subtle movements of consciousness have I ever found terribly convincing or sympathetic. Only the theory of it has attracted me.

But his love for his pets--now that I can get on board with. Strolling slowly over the pebbled paths I felt for the first time that I am very much like James in very important if subtle ways. His garden is a paradise, his house ancient and warm, and I would give just about anything to retire in such picturesque fashion. The centuries-old church still stands within spitting distance of the front door, with a view of the many mossy and time-eaten gravestones from the stoop, the names and dates all but erased over the years and tilting as if weary of their post. The cobbled streets are too quaint. That James would choose to settle in such a town--this storybook hamlet--comes as no surprise.

I had a pint before the tour, which started at 2 (I rolled into the tiny station at 1 after a 2.5 hour train ride through the countryside), and another after (I missed my train because I misjudged how long it would take me to pop into Woolworths for a bottle of water and to pee: as I emerged from the bathroom I witnessed the rear end of my train saluting me with a glint of mockery as it shrank into the distance). All told, it's a good thing that I missed that train bc it enabled me to catch the tail end of the Rye flea market where I found an Arsenal FC scarf for 5 quid and overheard Cockney quibbles between spouses as they packed up their shabby goods for the day. Afterward, I wandered over to the Cinqe Port pub for a Shepherd Neame Master Brew from the pump (my first pumped pint) and read, beguiling the hour as I could. I observed as I sat there that the local dialect sounds weirdly like French. Something in the throat and the drawl.


More pics:


The Academy of Beers, Paris.


Maredsous at The Academy of Beers. Backround: Maes blonde.


View of Paris from Montmartre


I forget what this thing is called.



Thinking at the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris.


Jouvres at the Louvre.


Aram, "Kinetic Room," Centre Pompidou, Paris.


Centre Pompidou