Friday, July 29, 2005

Had drinks with CK at Cedar's but we were soon interrupted by an insufferable young banker with manic hands. He wanted to talk about Saudis, the Middle East, Republicans, Pataki, Rumsfeld, Clinton, Iraq, pornography, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and his girlfriend. And we wanted to be left alone but somehow it didn't happen and we rued it later and I wondered what might have been done. Maybe it's good to be rude and brusque and to hurt someone sometimes.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

We all went to the Café de la Musique, the restaurant with the terrace by the fountain in the Parc de la Villette, because Mom loves the place, though the food is not great. I got chocolate ice cream for dessert and though Mom does not order dessert she saw the ice cream on the table and thought it was for her and ate it with great, relish and of course I didn't stop her. She hesitated in fact, not knowing exactly if it was hers but her desire for it compelled her and she dipped the spoon in and ate some mouthfuls. I was reminded of the guy with Alzheimer's at Christy's house that one day, the sad and eerie sight of an adult lost to children's pleasures. The great silent unfortunate sight.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Sunlight spills over horizons to set the birds to song.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Felt sad and empty towards the end of dinner with Aimee and Rene, but there was no cause for it save self-preoccupation.

More money, more money, more money. Fuck.

On the platform at Canal Chinese men fanned themselves with magazines and papers as one would fan a fire while women stood still and stoic, staring straight ahead.

It's so hot that cold don't feel good.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

As I dumped the dregs of the soup into my bowl I pondered the very mealness of it, the heavy word meal, the what goes in my mouth. Meal, supper, dinner & repast.

Crossing Varick Street I spied a staircase through a glass door and it occurred to me how much I liked that, the sight of stairs through doors, especially if no one's on them.

B. ends each e-mail with a delirious, extravagant series of X's, obviously meant to indicate kisses but difficult to interpret as such. They rather give the impression of a madcap, broken border to her text; X's serrating the page where an ordinary salutation belongs. In fact she does not break her line before typing them; her message dissolves into ellipses then a line of crosses, and all they represent, like this......................xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Monday, July 18, 2005

I awoke and immediately considered the accelerated time of dreams, where events that seem like they took a substantial length of time, and indeed would if they occurred in reality, took mere minutes by the measure of the bedside clock. Then thought about that article in that awful Wired magazine about the young Australian physicist who has a new concept of time as inexistent except for sequences of events. It seems true to me.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Flight Risk

Ladies and gentlemen.

On behalf of the flight crew and the security personnel and the terminal ticketing and check-in personnel and our extended family of codesharing partners and the many ancillary service providers and individuals who made today’s flight possible, for example the fuel refillers and cabin vacuumers and wing deicers and Big Mike and his terrific team from meal services and the guy who kicks the tires and the guy who waves the day-glo sticks, wonderful, all of you, great, great, just great, welcome on board.

Please find your complimentary copy of our in-flight magazine, A Wing and a Prayer, in the seat pocket in front of you.

Our video presentation today features a romantic comedy starring Ashley Judd, Ethan Hawke, Keanu Reeves, Alicia Silverstone and Robert De Niro. You may use your own headset or purchase one for the price of $2 which you may use on future flights should you ever have the opportunity to fly again and should you decide to avail yourself of such an opportunity or opportunities.

Exercise caution while opening overhead bins as their contents may have shifted or be packed with Semtex or some other type of plastique explosive which, while likely to have been wired to detonate by remote control or according to a crude timing mechanism, may be highly unstable due to the haste and inattention with which the sweating and eager miscreant prepared it. Enjoy your flight with us today.

We apologize if your preferred beverage selection is not available.

Our estimated flight time, barring such unforeseen circumstances as the gradual appearance of a headwind due to the effect on the jet stream of subtle shifts in the earth's climatic condition which may or may not bear a relation to the ill-controlled emission of so-called greenhouse gases by the industries of rapidly developing economies such as China, Russia, Venezuela, Uganda and Vietnam; planewide hysterical nausea precipitated perhaps by one passenger’s lost struggle with airsickness and his inability to limit the visibility, sound and/or splattering of his vomit to a tolerably discreet degree; a cockpit breach involving one or more assailants armed with steak knives, box cutters, prison-type shivs or some other easily concealable and difficult-to-detect weapon or weapons resulting in the diversion of the flight or the crashing of the plane into a landmark fraught with symbolic meaning; catastrophic pilot error due to aneurysm, cardiac arrest, sudden dementia, the fatiguing effects of a night spent at the hotel bar flirting with the cabin crew and drinking Grey Goose, Johnny Walker Black, Maker’s Mark or some other premium-brand liquor or combination of such liquors far into the FAA-mandated twelve-hour sobriety buffer period for flight deck personnel or the ill-advised yet charmingly playful temporary passing of the commands to his son or some other adorable, towheaded young boy who promptly pitches the plane into an irretrievable, spiraling descent; interference of traffic through no fault of the pilots; accidental shooting by Navy jet pilots in training; congestion at destination requiring the adoption of a holding pattern; running out of gas though that never happens; is seven hours and 43 minutes.

All travelers must complete customs declaration cards and travelers from EEC countries must complete visa and immigration cards. If you are a citizen of a country with a visa dispensation agreement with the United States you must complete and sign a visa dispensation agreement card.

You are free to move about the cabin.

Seat cushions may be used as flotation devices. The white lights lead to red lights and the ramps turn into rafts. In case of sudden cabin depressurization oxygen masks will rain down like a plague of yellow jellyfish. Muzzle your child tightly in one. If you are sitting in an emergency row, remove your window with a glass cutter and suction cups and walk out upon the wing, inviting others in your cabin class to join you. Dance a fucking jig like in those old newsreels. Feel the wind rushing against your face, against your body. Spread your arms like a great big bird. Wheeee!! Did you know that the air at 30,000 feet contains considerably less oxygen than at sea level? We thank you for your cooperation.

Please fly with us again.

Friday, July 01, 2005

When the structural integrity of the cabin became irrevocably compromised and it depressurized in a shock and we all, limbs, blankets, cups & shoes, eyeglasses & magazines, exploded into the void and then commenced our minuteslong drift to the whitecapped waves below, I experienced what might be termed an orgasm of love; love for the tumbling souls beside me, love for my ex-girlfriend, love for my friends and love for every single one of my tormentors.

When that Concorde slammed into the airport hotel after a minute of wobbly flight, its left engine afire with strangely gentle flames, its doomed course momentarily documented by that trucker with a video camera. And then that terminal walkway collapsed. Was it the end of the dream of a modern, ultra-civilized and ultra-humanist France, whose very infrastructure mirrored the highest aspirations of the masses?