Ferekeeko Lives & Conquers!

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Them Memphis Notions

I believe that the minds of men. . . will change . . . that all the old pictures will fade out, and new ones will take their place. . . that what we have in our heads now is only one of millions of possible seeings ; I believe that the man animal got started on the wrong foot. —K. Patchen, Albion Moonlight , 298 For J-Y In Memphis I saw plainly that for all these years I’ve been travelling with an indifference that now leaves me feeling incredibly ashamed. I tell myself that I should know a place well before visiting it, and so I prepare by picking up bits from books here and there. But being interested in the idea of what other people have found a place to be like has blinded me from seeing what is actually in front of me. I get hung up on history and aesthetics and the like, which are arguably only of academic or cocktail-party use. Because of this I’ve been content to let someone else take care of the suffering I see. I had been wanting to visit Memphis for a lo

HE AIN’T HEAVY — THE GRAND FINALE

( Cont’d from parts I and II .) After a year in town the sounds of the street which I once thought sensuous became nothing more than endless streams of noise. Once again I couldn’t manage to fall asleep. Rhappy, V. E. and Co. were at it right outside my bedroom window. I considered getting up and roaring from the balcony, fist pumping like Il Duce, but finally could not bring myself to do it. It will only make things worse, I decided, because then they will start to take pleasure in annoying me in subsequent 3:30 am sessions, talking even louder to mock my fury. Better to let them remain oblivious to my suffering, to do it in silence. At length I became so tired that their voices seemed sufficiently muffled to act as a white-noise machine . When I got up later that morning I took a closer look at the pine tree whose branches shaded my window. It reminded me of a tree I had seen near a chapel at Kodjori, a town in the foothills above Tbilisi with a ruined fortress that

Beijing The Behemoth

Beijing the behemoth. At the airport I’m beat from being up some thirty-odd hours, but too sentient to think of sleep, the hotel be damned. Throw me instead into this sea of concrete, bemused smiles and unabashed stares. In the taxi with Chris, the school’s recruiter, Iphigenia and I watch the towers of concrete repeat themselves for miles. I command myself to take in every detail, no matter how small. But I’m fading fast and when the city center at last comes into view, she’s too late. The fatigue has unfortunately set in and I can’t make out much but the obvious: taxis, bicycles, rickshaws. . . . And so the hotel it is for us, because anyway I’m just too damn worked up. I don’t have a map, I don’t speak Mandarin, I haven’t changed any money yet. I promise myself a good random stroll the next morning, one which will enlighten me as to the way of the street, the dao of the hú tòng. But the morrow brings nothing so edifying. Only a short walk with killjoy Chris, who clams

Ferekeeko Strikes Again!

Coming home from my Georgian lesson, I got a second one for free, on individual responsibility. On Chavchavadze Avenue again, in the Vake neighborhood, I’m busy furtively checking myself out in the shop windows when all of a sudden I see a beast of a man shove his petite wife, a shove such as two men do just before they throw punches at each other. She stops, drops her head and waits for the man, presumably her significant other, to grab her by the throat with his left hand. He holds her thus, screaming at the top of his lungs into her ear. I have a big choice to make . . . and I decide, gutlessly, to keep walking and pretend that it doesn’t concern me. Taking a punch from some swarthy-souled cretin in the name of chivalry? — Ferekeeko, do not put the blame on me! But another man walking towards me makes the right choice. In his sixties, of a slight build compared with the cretin, he seems to be on his way home from the shop. As soon as his eyes hit the couple, he acts.

Character

I first met the Bear on an unseasonably warm November afternoon. We sat on his balcony and were supposed to be discussing a job. But I squinted against the warm sun, and the Bear puffed a thin cigarette as we drank coffee from exquisite tea cups. A lively little jazz number reached us from inside his den. The Bear’s paws drummed the tune in time. This large omnivorous epicure smoked only hand-rolled cigarettes, which smelled like rain-kissed earth. He sipped only the darkest Turkish coffee, laced with just a touch of sugar. Naturally, he also listened to only the smoothest jazz, the transitions of which, he said, were made as flawlessly as can be done on any instrument in this world. He got quiet, closed his eyes and lifted his paw as if to command me to wait in silence for the next one. . . . Later the conversation turned to a mix of language and politics. Growing up in Belgium with one parent from the UK and one from Austria left him speaking three languages, and he’s a

The Greenest Grass

The dangers of idealizing a place include the overesteeming of men and the exoticizing of their attributes. It was an exhilarating time to be in Tbilisi. Young researchers, mainly from the United States and Europe, older practitioners and inquiring minds from the world over had flocked to the city. Change of every kind abounded, with academic niches just waiting to be carved out and political glory there for the taking. Though I had had trouble finding my place, I was eager to learn from and praise the higher-ranking members of the growing expat community. Then came a singular stroke of luck. An enlightened friend, himself an entrenched expatriate, called to say that he was throwing a party that very night. He insisted on my coming and mentioned that all of Tbilisi’s renowned rays of light were due to attend. And even the Big Yin would be there. Now, my main interest in the country was originally the Georgian tongue. The Big Yin, said to be from Iowa or Indiana, speaks