She recognized him at once; he was the only Ninja in all of Belgium, and he sulked his way through the rain down the main boulevard, looking less like a ninja then a dejected schoolboy in November.
…The little dog started barking, its owner had left it tied up in the rain, and it was beginning to take on the look of a drowned rat—she was pulled from the haze of memory into the very real, and surreal moment of staring a goat straight in the face.
Wherefore art thou, goate? The diuell..dooth most properlie and commonlie transforme himselfe into a gote. –R. Scott. ‘Discov. Witchr.’ v.i.89. (1584) If you’re short of trouble, take a goat. –Finnish saying The goat and the sheep, two animals locked in perpetual binary harmony. Like some star system, they graze together, but in realms beyond their [...]
As the goats, That late have skipt and wanton’d rapidly Upon the craggy cliffs, ere they had ta’en Their supper on the herb, now silent lie And ruminate beneath the umbrage brown, Upon his staff, and leaning watches them: And as the swain, that lodges out all night In quiet by his flock, lest beast of prey Disperse them: even so all three abode, I as a goat, and as the shepherds they, Close pent on either side by shelving rock.[^comedy] [^comedy]:From The Divine Comedy, “ Purgatory.
…So thought I,—but among us trod A man in blue, with legal baton, And scoffed the vagrant demigod, And pushed him from the step I sat on. Doubting I mused upon the cry, “Great Pan is dead!”—and all the people Went on their ways:—and clear and high The quarter sounded from the steeple.[^he steeple] [^he steeple]:Edmund Clarence Stedman, “Pan in Wall Street.” From Yale Book of American Verse.
Like the goat, you’ll mourn for your beard.
…If you think that to grow a beard is to acquire wisdom, a goat is at once a complete Plato.
I see it all unfold from about, without. A meta-travel. We goto this land for many reasons that are all the same. We run from broken homes, repentant lovers, dead pets. Flip through the study-abroad brochures advertising semesters in Prague, Vienna, Amsterdam. Flip to the next page. Now you are in the Exotic section. Beijing, [...]
I don’t know what whore you give the tip on this Night of Joy, but our boys have been in there almost every night and they haven’t turned up anything.
…She padded her way purposefully down each link of the fire escape, pausing only once to watch a man groggily swat at his blaring alarm clock.
To some people, the five South American dialects she spoke and translated, sounded like birds clicking and squawking at each other–to her it sounded like rain on a summer’s eve…. _A pebble on the ground caught her attention–she didn’t know the word for “pebble” in this part of the Amazon.
Stand by and look uninvolved as she grilles the drivers for rates and times; you don’t want them to raise her rate because of you.
…She said she drinks, but just “doesn’t feel like it.” On your birthday?
The sun, an abstract circle shining light onto the 2nd most prolific — the moon — both gazing down onto our humble blue-green oblate spheroid (sort-of circles)…. 1-800-Spiralz Classical Music Through this confluence of sounds we gaze into worlds gone by a saccharine pop ballad for a lady with corset-fractured ribs, and impotent, hunting husband.
General Advice on Mongolia Travel
If they fail to recognize you for your achievements (i.e. survival), realize they don’t get it (yet) and have faith that their time will come .
…well the G is swallowed, and calls up from the bottom of your throat, leading to a slippery o that somehow terminates in a soft V. Realize you won’t be learning this language from a book.