tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5498108764394585152024-03-13T11:14:33.032-07:00What Comes to MindMark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-48339708473347623122011-04-23T00:59:00.000-07:002011-04-23T01:00:32.151-07:00The House of My ChildhoodThe house of my childhood was very large. It had two stories as well as an attic and a basement. The basement was inhabited by a furnace and a cat, whose name I forget. I remember only that it was an enemy of my mother and participated rarely in the affairs of the household. He came and went, the black cat.<br /><br />The basement was not done up. At the centre sat the furnace, like the abdomen of a giant insect. Around it a circuit was formed, each stop marked by trays of dusty jars, racks of screws and pliers, christmas ornaments, and the long stacks of firewood. The walls were hidden by terrible shadows.<br /><br />Two events annually disturbed the evil serenity of the basement. My father raised bees and each year we would go down there to spin out the honeycomb in plastic barrels. The honey flew out to the sides (and all over our arms and faces) and dripped into the jars below. In the fall we stacked the wood that had been dumped in the driveway, for which we were served by an economy of logs to popsicles.<br /><br />The house of my childhood also had a yard which we mowed. Sometimes I too would drive the ride-on lawnmower. I dreamed of jamming my foot underneath and cutting off my toes, or of driving over a patch of baby rabbits and watching them spray out through the cut grass. We also raised tadpoles into frogs in the kiddy pool. Each day they changed.<br /><br />My brother invented a game in which we would dig a deep pit in the garden, fill it with dirt highways and dinky cars, and then cruelly turn the hose upon them. I thought he was a genius. My brother also once convinced me to eat a live goldfish. As a teenager this became a sort of parlor trick. In the garden we grew carrots and peas. <br /><br />My two older brothers shared a room. They hurt me and forced me to pee myself, but still I liked to go in there. Once my best friend and I found a bag of gumballs belonging to one of them. We chewed up every last one and then deposited each sticky piece back into the bag. I don't know what we were thinking.<br /><br />I don't remember much of my sister's room except that she had trophies. She also had a library of Uncle Remus stories and some dolls that I likely played with the most. My sister and I played real games together and made things up, but she also had friends in the neighborhood that were girls her age.<br /><br />My parents' room was where my mother ripped the tape out of my hair that my brother had wrapped around my head. I thought she would have a better solution. On the bureau they kept a picture of themselves in which my mother had long, straight hair. In the closet there was an escape ladder that I dreamed daily of using but never did.<br /><br />I had a room to myself, though I shared it for one year with my foster brother. I drew an invisible line through the middle of the room which he must never, ever cross. He never argued with me because he wanted me to like him. Once I lay awake at night, sobbing loudly. When my mother finally came I told her I wanted him to go.<br /><br />We had a living room with a CD and tape player. We listened to the Muppets and James Galloway playing The Flight of the Bumblebee on the flute. We also had family meetings in there, during which time we memorized the Bible and presumably sang songs. It was also where we put up the Christmas tree.<br /><br />It was in the living room that I played murderous, acrobatic games with my G.I. Joes. I had a rule. It was that I could only play if I was absolutely, perfectly alone. If someone came in or peaked through the door, I would scream one, long syllable: "Leave!" There was a big window but I never looked out of it.<br /><br />By the kitchen we had a room with a TV and a piano in it, as well as some ornamental plates. I played the same stupid song on the piano over and over again for years. On the wall there was a rotary phone. I always answered it in an annoying sing-song voice, as fast as possible: "Hello this is Mark, may I help you?"<br /><br />In the yard we had two cherry trees and a row of apple trees. There was a village idiot in our town, a dirty, frightening man who wandered around with a sack. Once he came to our yard to eat our apples. "Golden Delicious," he announced. Afterwards, my father often told this story with delight and admiration.<br /><br />My father is the gentlest man I have ever met. After the rain he would pick up the worms off the sidewalk and throw them into the grass. I liked to cut them into successive pieces with the edge of my shoe. I believed they would grow into new worms. My father also hated to waste time and was always doing things. Once we built an igloo.<br /><br />We also had a treehouse and a shed. In the fall the leaves fell and we raked them up. In the winter we threw the dog off the porch into the deep snow. In the summer we kicked the soccer ball endlessly against the neighbors garage. Our other neighbor had a giant fishing boat parked in the yard. It was a girl.<br /><br />Our house was at the top of a very steep hill. At the bottom was the main street of the town, where parades happened. The neighbors' son used to drive golf balls down the hill over the rooftops, and once he smashed a car window. When I was very young I dreamed of biking down that hill. When I was older I did it.<br /><br />Our house was a big white house. The front porch was the pantry, no one ever came in that way. You had to walk around to the back where we kept the inner tubes from the big trucks. Our best game was to all lie in the road at night and whenever a car came we would run to the back and dive onto the inner tube in a heap.<br /><br />The driveway was where my mother killed the skunks we caught in the trap my father built. She would put a tarp over them at the back of the car and leave it running for half an hour. I learned later that people sometimes kill themselves that way. Listening to the radio. My father also had a motorcycle but he got rid of it. <br /><br />When I was twelve we moved to West Virginia. The day we arrived it was so hot it felt like being underwater. Our house was on a golf course and all our neighbors lived in Washington, D.C. After supper the course was empty and I would bike from end to end. In the ponds lived poisonous snakes.Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-11616242483012756602011-02-04T12:26:00.000-08:002011-02-04T12:35:59.320-08:00The Green Room is a Bar I Went to Once that has Since Burned DownThere used to be a bar on St. Laurent Street in the Mile End district of Montreal called The Green Room. The only green wall in the place was covered with pictures of musicians performing at the Green Room. If you ever found yourself milling around the Green Room in an abstracted torpor, vaguely shirking a nebulous obligation to interact with strangers, you almost certainly learned to avoid standing in front of the green wall. There is just no reasonable excuse for pretending to closely inspect rock photography. The rest of The Green Room was painted red.<br /><br />I went to The Green Room a few years ago for a celebration of the Green Room. The first thing I encountered upon entering was a tall man on stage eagerly trying to sell a cooler of beer. A shorter man stood beside him and occasionally leaned in to reiterate his quips verbatim into the microphone. An uneasy feeling spread throughout the room as this went on for some minutes. Finally the cooler sold for $37.50. I learned later that the two men were performing improvisational comedy. I’m sure this would have been apparent if I’d arrived on time, but I only caught their last, difficult, time-consuming joke about being auctioneers.<br /><br />If you were an aspiring writer a few years ago, as I was, and miraculously found yourself On Assignment to cover a silly event at the Green Room, and if this task seemed to you insurmountably odious for no reason that you could readily articulate, you would have wanted to get drunk in a park first with your more socially-confident friend and then choose to walk instead of taking the bus. You would talk about many things, you and your friend, on your long walk to The Green Room. The good news is that when you finally arrived you would have missed most of the improvisational comedy. The bad news is that you would also have missed whatever else constituted your reason for going.<br /><br />The night held several more surprises that are not worth mentioning in passing let alone writing about, now or then. First, the wine was free. Secondly, there was a man with an open shirt who made some startling quips about his participation in somewhat deviant sexual practices. This man had a son who used to shout something I didn’t understand about group sex every time the man had his friends over. I came to understand that this man was involved in promoting the event, but he had absolutely nothing to say about the wherefores and the whithertos. I denounced him to his face and moved away. Of course that's not true.<br /><br />The only other thing that happened that evening at the Green Room was that I decided to stop writing and do something else with my life. Perhaps I was being a little dramatic, but at least something happened. Now that I revisit the memory and the few miserable paragraphs I wrote about it, that horrible evening stands out as an adequate symbol of how paltry my dreams had become in the exhaustingly depressive year after graduation. It was the moment when the hopelessness of my disoriented yearning to win the Montreal game became apparent. This is partly what propelled me to exile in a stained glass studio in London, Ontario. That's something I don't regret.Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-18040172652578306782010-12-11T23:59:00.000-08:002010-12-12T00:01:51.709-08:00Miracles<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:usefelayout/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapedefaults ext="edit" spidmax="1026"> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout ext="edit"> <o:idmap ext="edit" data="1"> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Helvetica;">Assuming that I'm the archetype, miracles occur roughly every three to four months in the life of the average person. I mean real miracles, not childbirth or finding your keys. If you haven't observed any real miracles in your life it may be that you've already made up your mind and now you have to think with it. But more likely it is because when miracles do happen they are so arbitrary and meaningless that you don't recognize them for what they are: the arbitrary and meaningless acts of an all-powerful being who wants to entertain and disturb you.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Helvetica;">The first miracle that I really examined occurred in the Old Port of Montreal, where my then-girlfriend and I were drinking a bottle of wine at a quiet place on the docks. When we finished, we decided to lob the bottle into the St. Lawrence. The cork was missing, however, so we stuffed the neck with bits of gravel wrapped in leaves. When we let fly, the bottle arced through the sombre, evening air, struck the brackish water with a splash and... sank. Neither did it bob nor float, not even once.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Helvetica;">Was it a miracle? Yes. A bottle full of air floats, no matter what. It doesn't sink ever. Because air is lighter than water, it's that simple. That being so, we nevertheless decided to pursue the matter with more scientific rigor, so we repeated the maneuver under identical circumstances a month later -- the neck securely stoppered with leaves and gravel -- and of course the bottle popped right back up and floated desolately down river. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Helvetica;">I asked Dr. Stephen Pollaine, a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, what he thought could have caused the first bottle to sink. He responded with mulish skepticism: "Yes, a leaky cork--or maybe the cork popped out." Unfortunately, he neglected to send me any hard evidence for the burr he keeps in his underwear. Otherwise I might have bothered to inform him that I've since thrown totally uncorked bottles into the Lachine Canal and they all floated for some distance before sinking. Honestly, who's ever heard of a leaky cork?<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Helvetica;">Dr. Brandt Kehoe, a physicist at California State University in Fresno, was less terrified by the prospect of having his shaky world-view crushed by the facts. He wrote,<span style="font-family: arial;"> "</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:ArialMT;font-size:100%;" >Without examining the bottles I can only guess. Wine bottles come in very different weights. If the bottle is heavy enough, it will sink even when corked full of air.</span><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: arial;">" </span>Here is a scent of open-mindedeness, but I have to wonder where one finds these uncommonly hefty wine bottles he's referring to. I can assure you, we weren't drinking out of a stone jug. It was good old depanneur wine and the bottle was of a modest weight.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Helvetica;">Since that time, I have experienced several other miracles. Once my toilet exploded without any provocation as I was brushing my teeth. Another time I was chasing a cat and it disappeared. These are true stories that must be accepted on faith, or if not faith, at least a small measure of good humor. Faith is the assurance that we don't already know everything. Humor is the victory of reality over banality. Together they form an antithesis to cynicism, which is itself a kind of miracle. But not a real one. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"> </span></p>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-59542610214130406722010-12-03T19:36:00.000-08:002010-12-03T20:02:10.367-08:00Soundtrack to the Stars - December Mix<span style="font-weight: bold;">Aries</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(March 21 - April 19)</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/airofficial?blend=1&ob=4">Air - Kelly Watch the Stars</a><br /><br />You're in no mood for details, Aries, but the question remains: what do you plan on doing with that army of skeletons? Not taking the bus, I presume. Roller skates? However you do it, this is for getting there.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Taurus</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(April 20 - May 20)</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee05p1I464s">Radiohead - Pyramid Song</a><br /><br />Taurus, you're broke like dry spaghetti. You've got snakes for hair. You've got hair for brains. That's why you're so scary and crazy. But you're not scared and you've got nothing to do. This is what animals sound like.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gemini</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(May 21 - June 20)</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h1oRP7FfBw">The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon</a><br /><br />You left the oven on, Gemini. You burned the damn kitchen down, you donkey. You're smoking, you're on fire, you're crispy, you're delicious. I want more. This is for okay not okay.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cancer</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(June 21 - July 22) </span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzrDeceEKc">Oasis - Wonderwall</a><br /><br />Kiss me, Cancer. Actually, never mind. It's pretty late. I should probably get to bed. I don't know though, maybe we shouldn't sleep anymore. We'd have so much more time. Anyway, I'm really glad we're friends.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Leo</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> (July 23 - August 22) </span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J50khpqR8tA">Brazilian Girls - Good Time</a><br /><br />Oh my god, Leo. You look good. Damn. You're like a sexy time machine. You put the fuss in coconuts, you turn bicycles into tricycles. Somebody get me a straw, I'm thirsty.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Virgo</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> (August 23 - September 22)</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw6Fjo6VXTg">The Sonics - Psycho a Go Go </a><br /><br />You can do better than that, Virgo. You've got options, you're the librarian of your dreams. But this isn't driver's ed, you've got to flap your wings. (And other things.) Your mantra is: up top!<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Libra</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(September 23 - October 22)</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT8Lf_Iis-I">Gladys Knight and the Pips - Midnight Train to Georgia</a><br /><br />Saddle up, Libra, they're taking out the cacti and the volcanoes. You just brought your bare ass to a cooking show and now you've got to go. This is for when you've spent your last silver dollar.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Scorpio</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(October 23 - November 21)</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjPLkPsLxc4&feature=fvst">Greg Street ft. Nappy Roots - Good Day</a><br /><br />Holy shit Scorpio, you finally ditched the metal exoskeleton! Here you are, raking the leaves in your moist, translucent skin. I'm sorry, I called the cops. I guess you'll be going away for a while. This is for when you come back.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sagittarius</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(November 22 - December 21)</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knU9gRUWCno&feature=artistob&playnext=1&list=TL97XAxo-HKPU">The Strokes - Someday</a><br /><br />Don't move a muscle, Sagittarius, the man in the back seat wants to tell you a secret. He says, "You talk too much." Okay, no, that was me. He says, "It's a long way down." This for when you're not there yet.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Capricorn</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(December 22 - January 19)</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-GN-BP_Qlk">Mississippi John Hurt - You got to walk that lonesome valley</a><br /><br />You keep trying to sit on strangers' laps, Capricorn. Your only friend is the neighbor's cat. The lights turn on when you arrive. You're drunk and this isn't even a bus stop. This is for when it's time to move on.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Aquarius</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(January 20 - February 18)</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__avWCO4nAg">Sleeping States - Rivers</a><br /><br />Cry me a river, Aquarius. Cry me a river of caramel. Make that Crystal Lite, I've got a weight problem. It's you. You're so heavy. You know what's nice? Dolphins. This is for when you're floating away.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pisces</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(February 19 - March 20)</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSsW9ALDcKI">Devendra Banhart - Foolin'</a><br /><br />I have news Pisces: you've got a twin, and you're the one with the wild eyes and the rubber boots. Now you're rubbing your face off. Anyway, let it go, drink your milk. This is for when you're rolling up a broken window.Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-85016095781792861452010-11-26T19:12:00.000-08:002010-11-26T19:15:25.547-08:00Old Man Lost in the Plant ConservatoryI often go to the Allen Gardens on Carlton to recline among the flora and perm my emotions. Today I chose to sit on the wrought-iron bench in the middle of the central courtyard where sometimes they display plant sculptures. Very small children tottered around the outskirts in loosely packed bunches with flat-faced handlers corralling them along at even intervals. Strange women paced from end to end in slow solitude. Others carried cameras close their chests, defensively.<br /><br />After a while an old man in a tilly hat approached me and politely asked me a question that I didn't understand. He asked me again and still I didn't understand, though the words were English and the tone was friendly and intelligent. I stared at him silently as I tried to decode what he was saying. Another old man approached smiling and invited his friend to look around some more. A few minutes later the first old man came back and again asked me something that I couldn't grasp. "Do you want a plant?" I responded, a little stupidly. "No!" he shouted, suddenly enervated.<br /><br />His friend arrived quickly to intervene. He explained to me that they were looking for a place to get coffee. I pointed in the direction of the nearest diner and explained how to get there. He thanked me but by that point the first man was pacing off in a different direction. After a while I heard them walking along the path behind me. The first man was moving quickly, hunting for something that wasn't there and speaking in a language no one knew. His friend walked calmly behind him. When I left they were still there.Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-10453660152145537142010-09-30T20:26:00.000-07:002010-10-01T15:59:54.299-07:00The Story of Jesus<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">At a certain moment in the evolution of the species the God of the whole universe decided to visit planet earth as a human, so as to solve the problem of evil. Being a plural entity, God commissioned one of his personalities to be born as a normal living person named Jesus. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Having chosen a small tribe of desert people called Israelites to be his special worshippers several millennia prior to this, it made sense for God to become a Jew, because they had a relationship. But Jesus wasn't a real religious guy. Instead, he began creating a lot of intensely awkward situations at public events, and this made him famous. Then he said something people really hated. He said that God had changed his mind. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Before God had been saying, "Humans can be a little soulless, but I'm going to really work on you guys in particular to make you more spiritual." Unfortunately it was a big disappointment. It turned out the Jews were the same as everybody else. So God wanted to try something new. Jesus said that God wasn't going to play favorites anymore. God doesn't like some people more than other people.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Jesus actually went so far as to say that God doesn't even prefer good people to bad people. In fact, the people who think they're good are the worst of all, because they are the most likely to treat other people as though they are bad. Jesus said, You have to treat every person you meet as if they are God. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Jesus said that if you want to stop secretly hating yourself, you have to stop secretly hating other people, especially the ones who hate you. Jesus said that you should give all your stuff away, everything, because owning things is a sad farce. Jesus said that society is not a pyramid, it's an organism. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Jesus was popular with poor people but unpopular with rich people. In the end he was executed for political reasons. In order for the normal world to keep going, people who think they are better than other people eventually have to get rid of the people who point out how wrong that is. Jesus said, Don't be afraid. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">When he died, Jesus demonstrated that judging people is the same as killing them. First because you make yourself part of the killing machine. And second because you pretend that God doesn't live inside of the people you judge. So judging people is like killing them, and killing people is like killing God. When you kill God you get rid of your love.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Everybody does this, we can't stop ourselves because we're basically wild and that means being really scared of each other most of the time. Fortunately, several days after his death God brought Jesus back to life so that no one would have to feel bad about killing God. And then forty days later Jesus floated into the sky. He went home. Jesus said, Don't be afraid to go home. </p>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-50076419831837423982010-09-29T20:35:00.000-07:002010-09-30T20:40:06.165-07:00Whom Does the Grail Serve?<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">For a few years I've been haunted by the tale of the Fisher King and the Holy Grail. I think the Fisher King reminds me of my dad, maybe that's why. The Fisher King was pierced through the hip by a spear and his wound could never heal. He sat every day on the banks of the river, fishing and waiting and dying, though death would never come. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">As the Fisher King went on endlessly dying his kingdom was wasting away too. The land itself was suffering, there was a sickness in the earth. It was like ET and the flower. Leaves rotted on the trees, the air was grey. People felt uncomfortable. This went on for a long time. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">But the Fisher King had a secret, for he was the keeper of the Holy Grail. He knew that when the right person came looking for the grail he would be healed. It was hard for him to feel too hopeful though, because he could only give the Grail to the person who asked the right question. Many came searching but all they ever asked was where to find it. He sent them away and continued fishing.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">"Whom does the grail serve?" That is the required question. Of course no one ever asked it. Does any searcher stop to wonder if they can have what they are looking for? What if the thing you want you can't have? Would you continue searching?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The knights believed that the Grail was magic and that it would reveal itself to the worthiest person. Their quest was really a quest for their own identity, to discover their class and valorize their entitlement. They searched in vain because this is not the service of the Grail. Who knows what the Grail does? And who's asking? </p>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-69869857478330591592010-09-29T12:55:00.000-07:002010-09-29T12:56:54.588-07:00An Old Saw is Good<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/TKOZ17-xZTI/AAAAAAAAAEc/5w-XDuo-KzQ/s1600/IMGP8663.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/TKOZ17-xZTI/AAAAAAAAAEc/5w-XDuo-KzQ/s320/IMGP8663.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522426719999452466" /></a>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-45752682303113630842010-09-26T20:05:00.000-07:002010-09-26T20:08:11.456-07:00Moment<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Throw a lit match into a clean metallic ashtray. There is a moment before it extinguishes when the flame withdraws into the head of the match and disappears. It is the precise definition of an instant, that spell before the match goes out when the fire is missing.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">But it is only an instant, brief and motionless, before the match raises its head slightly and exhales a thin, straight line of smoke that rises a clean inch into the air before it tangles and once again disappears. Below a pool of moisture forms, maybe a centimeter wide. </p>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-33394888757667674432010-09-25T22:26:00.000-07:002010-09-26T08:21:10.796-07:00Product<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/TJ7ZxDbHAVI/AAAAAAAAAEI/KC1d7KIV0nU/s1600/IMGP8642.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 208px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/TJ7ZxDbHAVI/AAAAAAAAAEI/KC1d7KIV0nU/s320/IMGP8642.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521089629958635858" /></a>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-48286063159826814112010-09-24T15:04:00.000-07:002010-09-24T15:07:40.605-07:00Nearly Naked Woman<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I had awoken one hour previously to the realization that I had ten minutes to dress myself, pack a bag and hail a cab if I had any hope of catching my train. I did it in fifteen. As I raced out the door Dalreen shouted at me, "You're in the newspaper!" "I know!" I shouted back. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I ran out to a bright hot morning sky and the street curiously shining. With fifteen minutes to departure I was standing at the end of the driveway, realizing that the cabbies had not in fact conspired to facilitate my dramatic dash to the station. I set my suitcase down on the unaccountably wet pavement and peered up Greenwood Ave. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I had forgotten my cellphone. I hurled myself inside to call a cab. "Somebody's in a rush!" Pat sang out. Back on the curb I tried to hail a cab from a different company just as my cab pulled up. What the hell did I think I was doing? We arrived at the train station with two minutes to spare. I did a hard sprint all the way to the gate, where I was told that I had just missed my train. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Half an hour later I was sitting in Tim Hortens a block away reading. I felt weary, bleary, smelly and hot. For all that, I had three hours and two cups of coffee between me and the next train and I wasn't unhappy. Then I looked up and discovered a woman wearing only a bra, very short shorts and sneakers standing right beside me.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I could see her very clearly, though with the reflective window pane between us I don't think she could see me. She was close, maybe three feet away, standing very still, typing into her phone. She didn't shift her weight, tilt her head or make any other small gesture. All that moved were her fingers and a few strands of hair around her face. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">To say that she was beautiful would be wrong, though I think she would be generally regarded as one of the beautiful people. Her nose reminded me of my father's, but I don't think this was the only reason the total affect of her face struck me as fairly masculine. Whatever her appearance, I was deeply unprepared for the sudden proximity of her approximate nudity. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">She stood against a concrete backdrop, standing in an alleyway in the financial district. In fact, she had no idea I was there, sitting so raggedly in such a stale atmosphere at a distance that could be measured in inches from her exquisite physical personage. Her skin was mahogany brown, a perfect, ungraded, unfluctuating tone. It looked expensive. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">This situation went on for three or four minutes. Never did she so much as twitch, though I myself sequenced through every conceivable posture and attitude of voyeurism: staring, glancing, peaking, studiously ignoring. Twice I picked up my book and put it down again. Finally I looked up and she was gone. I decided to buy a donut. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-71154413989351290352010-09-24T15:03:00.000-07:002010-09-24T15:04:12.157-07:00Snake Lady<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/TJ0gSpTkJdI/AAAAAAAAAEA/ZiO75ESGQzA/s1600/IMGP8534.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/TJ0gSpTkJdI/AAAAAAAAAEA/ZiO75ESGQzA/s320/IMGP8534.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5520604222923744722" /></a>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-82939588189657720472010-09-21T20:17:00.001-07:002010-09-21T20:25:47.060-07:00Scared of a Man<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Once when I was poor I lived in a sad house with a terrifying man who used to ask me, "What? You think you're going to live forever?" I don't know. One night we were in his room talking and he was trying to say the Lord's prayer to make a point, but he always added a word. He said, over and over, "Forgive us not our trespasses. Forgive us not our trespasses. Forgive us not our trespasses." He became angry and started to throw things around. He smashed his tv, turned over the coffee table, threw the stereo against the wall. I was sitting in a chair, not moving. When it was over he turned to me, he was breathing loudly but he asked me in a quiet voice, 'What's your name again?" "It's Mark." "Go home Mark." So I walked across the hall to my room where I listened to him howling for long time like a bear at the top of a telephone pole. It went on and on. I could hear him as clearly as if he were right beside me. He was screaming, "It's a nice night for a murder! A nice night for a fucking murder!" I was scared, so I went for a walk. </p>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-69788630132906535252010-09-19T19:57:00.000-07:002010-09-19T19:58:07.317-07:00Scared of the Toilet<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">When I was a child the noise of toilets frightened me. I did not want anyone to hear the sound of my urine striking the water, let alone the cacophony and uproar of actually flushing the toilet. This I could not bear and in fact I often did not do it, especially at friends' houses. (The truth is it wasn't toilets that frightened me but other people.)</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I soon learned to to pee sitting down so the urine would hit the bowl first and then pour noiselessly into the water. As I got older I eventually developed enough accuracy to do this standing, but for a long time I took whatever precautions necessary for total toileting silence. Unfortunately this didn't solve all my problems because once I was seated the space beneath my ass and genitals was buried in darkness. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">This frightened me even more. I worried that a snake was hiding in the plumbing with its tail dangling down the pipe -- perhaps all the way to the sewer! -- and its head just inside the opening, waiting to strike. I peered constantly between my legs for my assailant. When I was defecating I also used to imagine a race of shit-eating sewer witches in the sewer underground, waiting hungrily for me to flush. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I still think that the patience of predators is their most disturbing trait, that horrible capacity to simply wait. Spiders are a particularly terrifying example of this. I once worked in an underground parking lot where the halogen lights ran alongside exposed piping. A million spiders hung their nets there and feasted on moths all summer. It was awful. </p>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-2044071265192183182010-09-15T20:41:00.000-07:002010-09-19T19:58:59.697-07:00Horse Grid<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/TJGSS5R6V-I/AAAAAAAAAD4/Ep9hDhMBMNA/s1600/DSC_8226.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 211px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/TJGSS5R6V-I/AAAAAAAAAD4/Ep9hDhMBMNA/s320/DSC_8226.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517351871816816610" /></a>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-34697917038459528032010-09-02T13:34:00.000-07:002010-09-02T13:41:37.918-07:00Internet Contest<div>Imagine an intervention with this amazing object and be rewarded with its realization in the world. Torontonians invited to participate. Photo to accompany.</div><div><br /></div><div>The material is canvas with a metal frame. The dimensions are three feet by seven feet. The man is Arnold Palmer. </div><div><br /></div><div>(note: I myself am also eligible for the contest.) </div><div><br /></div><div><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/TIALaiS0gnI/AAAAAAAAADw/FeLEA2Ng35k/s320/CIMG0253.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512418494411735666" /></div>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-87747146767307817202010-08-25T10:39:00.001-07:002010-08-25T10:50:35.465-07:00Rainbow<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/THVVeUhM0rI/AAAAAAAAADg/XyyCNyVUQpA/s1600/IMGP8257.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/THVVeUhM0rI/AAAAAAAAADg/XyyCNyVUQpA/s320/IMGP8257.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509403698550067890" /></a>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-3505744868913673182010-08-25T10:33:00.000-07:002010-08-25T10:35:43.203-07:00Dave's JokeDave had a joke.<div>In the morning you would find a pile of rocks in front of your door. First thing when he sees it: "Do you know what day it is?"</div><div>"I don't know, Wednesday."</div><div>"It's August 17th. Do you know what August 17th is?"</div><div>"What?"</div><div>"It's Easter."</div><div>...</div><div>"Did the rock bunny come and visit you?"</div>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-76957709685595224602010-08-23T11:55:00.001-07:002010-08-23T11:55:54.402-07:00Shukuhachi<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><i>Akita Sugagaki</i></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Meant to evoke the wound of wind blowing through the reeds in Northern Japan.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><i>Tsuru no Sugomori</i></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Represents the life story of the crane: nest building; hatching the eggs; raising the young; the sadness of the young departing; and the mourning of the death of the parents. Listen to the many sounds used to mimic crane cries and flapping wings. Tsuru no Sugomori is one of many works of the same name.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><i>Shika no Tone</i></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Perhaps the best-known shukuhachi piece, Shika no Tone represents the call of the deer in the forest. Often played as a duet. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-81321437606336360812010-08-21T12:58:00.000-07:002010-08-21T13:06:04.998-07:00Empty Store<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/THAwIiByvvI/AAAAAAAAADY/Or7nr3io5ds/s1600/IMGP7321.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CDbqrAXN-34/THAwIiByvvI/AAAAAAAAADY/Or7nr3io5ds/s320/IMGP7321.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507955267405528818" /></a>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-2065663064850765462010-08-21T12:41:00.000-07:002010-08-21T12:53:22.550-07:00After Rimbaud<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">O Sleepyhead, I believe that everything we need is on a curb somewhere, and if we go out now, swinging our hands and feet, we will find it easily. We won't need to believe in anything because we'll see it clearly like the wind sees. But you will have to shut your face and be quiet so all this love can fit inside your head. Set loose; fill yourself with fields. Don't wait until this evening when you're free.</p>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-43162144563708516272010-06-05T18:48:00.000-07:002010-06-05T20:22:19.643-07:00Something Not Very GoodI got home at six from my trip to Scotland and had dinner with the house. I brought Margaret something called a Scottish Tablet which was described to me as both buttery and sugary, like fudge. I named these attributes when I gave it to her and she responded with exactly the most gratifying response a person could give when you've picked out something especially for them. Squeals of delight. <div><br /></div><div>After dinner I put on my dad's old jacket and biked to the gym, which was closed. My body was experiencing midnight but the world was having some late evening. The light was soft, the temperature really exquisite. I pedaled down the street to look at a bizarre house I remembered seeing last month. Then I went to a convenience store and bought two ice cream sandwiches and a can of ice tea and walked out into the park. </div><div><br /></div><div>There was an old man sitting on my bench. I contemplated sitting beside him but I had too much momentum. A fat woman heaved up the stairs wearing full exercise regalia and somehow I smiled at her encouragingly, which now seems like an impossible exchange. The park is really just a giant field with a few demarcations for different sports. I walked across the open grass and settled against a large lamppost to watch some soccer and eat my treats. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is how I felt: I had had my last cigarettes, three in quick succession, before getting on the plane in Glasgow and my body was noticing the absence of nicotine. The first hours and days of withdrawal always deliver a sensation of alertness that I don't resent. Physically, I was out of synch with the spinning of the globe. I had spent the entire day traveling and nearly every minute of that time reading, first a lengthy, popular thriller, and then a good portion of Susan Sontag's book on photography, both of which had disturbed and excited me. Before that, over the last two weeks, I had spent quite a bit of time contemplating certain griefs and failures. I was quite tired of my own thoughts, though also resigned to them, even a little benevolent. I bit into the first ice cream sandwich. I was content. </div><div><br /></div><div>On the soccer field the Blues were engaged in mighty contest with the Oranges. I gazed on dreamily. Suddenly the ref blew into his whistle. Off side. The Blues were enraged. The players gathered round the ref, shouting. The Blue goalie came running down the field, waving his arms and shouting. Certain plainclothes came striding out, also pointing and shouting. The beleaguered ref placed the ball at a specific spot, pointed at it, pointed back at the more belligerent of the men, and blew in his whistle with each movement for emphasis. </div><div><br /></div><div>Things got worse. Three or four of the Oranges circled a Blue aggressively. The Blue began to push back and somehow lost his shirt. Some of the other Blues intervened, corralling their friend off the field and then patting him on the back fiercely. People began to loudly insult the ref, who never ceased from furiously blowing his whistle and pointing. One man took possession of the scene for several seconds by laughing very loudly. People walked on and off the field. Somebody kicked the ball into the net and everybody turn to look. </div><div><br /></div><div>Nothing was resolved. Eventually those who had come to watch began to leave. The action moved steadily away from me. I watched the ref marching in the middle of a jumble of Blues and Oranges, nobody talking to him now. His outfit was Green. I imagine he had some things lying somewhere on the sidelines, and he had to get them before he went home. I suspect he would need to talk about what had happened, and perhaps eventually realize that he really hadn't done his job, that he hadn't saved the game. </div><div><br /></div><div>An older teenager was biking in lazy circles behind me, singing R&B songs with his iPod. I got up and walked back across the long grass. Four younger teens were playing makeshift volleyball, three girls and a guy. The guy was spazzing around and one of the girls said to him 'shut up' in such a loving way. Another kid was waiting tensely for nothing behind a bush. And what if the Ref is wrong and everybody knows it? What could anybody do? I don't know the answer. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-35235358641495707522010-06-03T12:01:00.000-07:002010-06-03T12:14:32.167-07:00The Last Man AliveThis is a dark tale. The streets were littered with trash cans. Somewhere there was karaoke. Here was an old woman, here was a fox. It was murder. It was the murder of the century. He corrected himself, "You've got to smile." The bus passed and he wanted to get on it. Same old story. The yellow is out and the fog is literally rolling in and everyone is taking pictures. "I could do this all day." It was a snarl, and then it was gone.Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-80558145663926567072010-05-31T07:00:00.000-07:002010-06-01T00:55:17.796-07:00More Days in Scotland - The Bits and the Bobs<strong>Walking</strong> - Pretty much. It's no elliptical machine. The only difference between walking 150 km through Scotland and walking to the cafe down the street is that it takes a lot longer and you've got your own dead bodyweight attached to your back with ergonomic little straps that squeeze the flesh on your hips into thick, red nubbins that run around your waist and eventually you start asking yourself questions like, "Is this the technical definition of 'agony'?" But it's all walking, except for the shuffling and the staggering.<br /><br /><br /><br /><p><strong>Thinking</strong> - When I was a teenager I had to walk half an hour from the bus stop to my house. Once in grade eight I invented a world of flying horseman who lived underground and I can still remember my surprise when my house suddenly reared up in front of me. That was my first experience of a walking trance. Since then my mind has become considerably less supple. Now I mostly just repeat single words over and over to myself, like the names of small towns. 'Crianlarich'. 'Kinlochleven'. I overheard an American woman pronounce 'Rowardennan' as though she were calling forth the sword of destiny, and it was over for about two hours. Apart from that I meticulously planned the rest of my life, plunged into various oceans of regret and longing, and defeated hordes of interlocuters with cunning arguments on subjects serious and inane. </p><br /><br /><strong>Fashion</strong> - I'm really not that into hiker style. I do like it when the red socks bunch up on top of the boots, and everybody loves flannel, but that's about it. I don't like this whole 'nature-immunity' angle. People don't look rugged anymore, they look like space explorers. So I have a confession, which is that I bought my footwear more for style than for practicality. Doc Martens, I figured the price tag would somehow translate into comfort. Turns out they weren't really hiking boots at all, they were more like prehistoric stone monuments to the hiking boot, or as one American guy joked, 'mall-cruising boots'. Yeah, fuck you. I learned that each extra pound you carry on your feet is the equivalent of five pounds on your back, which means that I carried somewhere between eighty and five thousand pounds from Glasgow to Fort William. I think that makes me awesome.<br /><br /><br /><p><strong>Scotland</strong> - Let's see. First, they drive on the wrong side of the road, which has nearly spelled d-o-o-m for me on several occasions. I'm already bad at crossing the street, it doesn't help to always look the wrong way. Also, they drink a lot of beer. This accords well with my own disposition. I was greatly cheered to find absolutely every single person drinking a pint on lunch breaks. They like to eat about three different things, all of them dead animals. Breakfast is a triumph. And yes, everyone wears kilts, all the time. </p><br /><strong>Braveheart</strong> - Starring Mel Gibson and Gandalf the Grey, this VHS cassette afforded me the happiest hours of my young-adulthood. Now that I find myself in the ancestral homelands of William Wallace, and when I think about how it was based on a true story, I feel that I have fallen in love with Gibson's sad face all over again. Truly, of all the peoples of the earth, the British are the most thoroughly evil.<br /><br /><p><strong>Chocolate bars</strong> - are delicious.<br /></p><br /><p><strong>The Highlands </strong>- The reason the highlands look so bare is because they cut down all the trees. If you can imagine, all these hills and mountains used to be covered with deciduous trees, but when they cut them down erosion made it impossible for them to grow back. The last three or four days of the walk were entirely in the big empty highlands, and what I noticed most strongly is the quietness. Nothing for the wind to push around. Except for the weird honking wail of the sheep, there is no sound. </p><br /><p><strong>Burns</strong> - This is what Scottish people call streams. It's like calling bonfires 'soaks'. </p><br /><p><strong>Socializing</strong> - When Scottish people talk to each other they make quips, which are like jokes. They razz each other. Unfortunately I don't know how to make quips, so I don't feel as popular as I'd hoped to be in Scotland. I really wanted to be loved and celebrated, but I fear the Scots are ambivalent toward me at best. For now I'm trying to get by with repeating what people say back to them.<br /></p>Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549810876439458515.post-56457033505132954662010-05-27T01:25:00.000-07:002010-05-28T07:54:50.848-07:00Second Day in Scotland - The Flora and the FaunaI spent most of day two taking unflattering pictures of Greg: scowling at a map, hoisting on his pack, trying to pass other hikers. I believe at the end I will have a complete album of 'Greg's Backpack at Thirty Feet'. As a photographer, I feel somewhat affronted by the exquisite natural beauty of this country. Where's the irony? The counterpoint? The lurking note of moral decay? These majestic vistas are far too consumating. Greg's ass it is.<br /><br />Of course, I'm writing this on the fifth day, but let's just go with the narrative. Day two in Scotland was, for me, the first day of walking the West Highland Way. I am making this incredible journey of self-discovery in the unlikely company of a rambunctious Beagle pup and a wise old rooster, who are more or less working together to catch a diamond thief, save the family farm, and cross a treachorous range of mountains to rescue their adolescent friend William, a mute, who was mistakenly adopted by a mean, alcoholic farmer. And of course my brother Greg. It's a real adventure.<br /><br />Already I'm learning lots about Scotland. There are three kinds of animals in Scotland: sheep, household pets, and the delightful cow. By far the most abundant are sheep, who litter every available space with their strange, puffy bodies. I have yet to become accustomed to their nightmarish wailing, like feral children left to wander around in the rain, endlessly calling to each other. You have to be careful of the water, because the sheep throw their corpses into the streams. Of course, some of them are babies, and they are very, very cute.<br /><br />One happens across cows less often, but they are nonetheless populous. At one point I formulated an intention to 'go fuck with' some cows that were lying about, but I quickly became too frightened when they stood up, much as you might feel if you disturbed the Ancient Mothers from their quiet rest on each others' bellies. Many of the cows have bowl cuts with long bangs that hang down in their eyes, reminding me of those big sad teenagers whose loneliness gets mistaken for thuggery. They also have horns, for goring.<br /><br />Since walking, I have recovered my childhood habit of eating grass. Nothing could be more jaunty. It requires a special tug, not so strong as the yank the grass from the dirt, just enough to unsheathe the juicy white bit from the tough, green cylinder. I constantly fantasize about living entirely off of grass, and having a cool scar on my face. Apart from grass there are thistles, an adequate symbol for things that are sort of nice but mostly prickly and unpleasant, like walking until your feet feel like they were put in a blender.Mark Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559728457047592450noreply@blogger.com0