Quote for today

From Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner:

"Because who...has been in love and not discovered the vain evanescence of the fleshly encounter; who has not had to realize that when the brief all is done you must retreat from both love and pleasure, gather up your own rubbish and refuse - the hats and pants and shows which you drag through the world - and retreat since the gods condone and practice these and the dreamy immeasurable coupling which floats oblivious above the trammeling and harried instant, the: was-not: is: was: is a perquisite only of balloony and weightless elephants and whales: but maybe if there were sin too maybe you would not be permitted to escape, uncouple, return."

Words

While I was in Taiwan these last two months I was reading, when I was reading which wasn't that often actually, Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom!; a hell of an interesting book by a truly great writer. I'd tried to read Faulkner before (The Sound and the Fury), but it was too much for me at the time; I was too young and inexperienced a reader. He's a writer who you have to work at to read; fight with almost at least at first until you begin to grasp the poetics of his language that once suitably immersed come to possess you with its intensity of expression. I'm still not finished, but I decided that I could use a break from it and that for this short trip to Thailand I should bring something else along so that I wouldn't run out while I was here. Spadework by Timothy Findley was the book thus chosen to accompany me; one I'd been curious about having read others by him (The Wars and Not Wanted On the Voyage) and having it sit in front of me on the coffee table where I've been living these last two months. My roommate Caitlin had got it from an ex-Canadian boyfriend but had yet to read it so I thought I'd give it a try.

Interesting it was. Set entirely in Stratford, Ontario of all places. Not exactly a difficult read anyways; I finished it in all of two days. An All's Well That Ends Well kind of book taking place as it does among the theatre gliterrati of Stratford's annual Shakespeare Festival. Happy family with underlying conflicts, crisis brought on by same conflicts, eventual resolution - hardly original plot structuring. But of course, what novels these days are in anyway original. Not too many. Instead, the characters are what's important and in this book, as in the others I've read by him, Findley does a pretty good job of telling us their story and thereby convincing us of their reality. Certainly not a great book, but rather a pretty good one.

One thing that bothered me about this book in which nearly every character smoked cigarettes at least a little, if not a lot, was his consistent usage of "lighted" as in "She lighted a cigarette as...". I know it's grammatically correct, but it sounds so stilted and awkward compared to the equally sensical and much more flowing "lit"; "she lit a cigarette..." sounds so much better don't you think?

And while on the topic of word usage, when did the indefinite article "an" become usable in front of words that don't start with vowels? Having finished Spadework I went out last night to find something new to read and at one of the many used bookstores scattered around Khao Sarn Rd. found The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History by Phillip Bobbitt. A very good read so far, but he consistently writes (not a quote since I don't have the book with me, but a similar example): "It happened in terms of an historical event not previously seen..." Huh? Since when has this been deemed grammatically correct? As I've been trying to teach my students in Taiwan, one of the vagaries of the English language is the different usages of the indefinite articles: "a" in front of words that begin with a consonant, and "an" in front of any word that begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u). Yet a Professor of Constitutionl Studies at a major American university with a PhD from Oxford apparently thinks differently and somehow managed to get his editors and publisher to go along with him. Can anyone explain this one?

Get me out!

It's been a long time since I've been punched in the face, but, as if I could find any less reason to want to be in Bangkok, I had such a thing happen to be a short while ago. As I was walking down a street shared by pedestrians and motor vehicles, a taxi pulled up in front of me and just as I walked by the back door of the side I was on opened just as I happened to be walking by it nearly smashing my knee if I hadn't jumped out of the way. Not sure the exact words that came out of my mouth, but an expletive of some sort it was as I kept walking. Perhaps ten seconds later I hear a voice behind me and am pushed in the back. Turning around I find myself confronted with an enraged Thai guy screaming at me, throwing punches (most of which I block, but one of them lands on my left cheek) and kicking. I, of course, try to reason with the guy (I guess I somehow insulted him though he was the one who nearly hit my leg with the taxi door), but whether he just couldn't understand English, just wanted to fight, was flipped out on speed (leading to not very calm personalities; a very common problem here depsite the government's anti-drug crackdown of recent years) or a combination of all three all I could do was block his repeated attacks and try to talk some sense into him. Thankfully his friend came and pulled him away though he continued to scream at me for my apparent indiscretion. Thank god I have only one more night in this city...

Bangkok blues

Sartre's dictum that (translated from the French of course) hell is other people has never been an opinion I've wished to grant my aquiesance to, but after another day spent in the environs of Khao Sarn Rd. in Bangkok I'm prone to agree. I'm only in Thailand to renew my visa that was going to run out in a few more days and so this whole trip, far from being a desirable escape/vacation from Taiwan is rather an expensive annoyance I wished I could have avoided. So I find myself yet again in this traveller ghetto of ghettos. Sick of these masses of middle/upper class western humanity strutting their usually drunken selves down these streets of casual cavortment; all attempting to impress with their so hip, yet completely conventional relative to everyone else fashion sense. Yes, this is sadly the future right now...

My apologies...

For not having written anything of late; a couple weeks even. Lazyness undoubtedly has something to do with it, but I also have been feeling pretty lousy the last week and a half due to a cold/flu leaving me not very inspired to put words to thoughts. Has been relatively eventful though. About a month ago now I went and checked out a live music club called Grooveyard that's been open since May or so of this year and who should I find behind the soundboard when I walked in, but a guy named Patrick from Edmonton who used to play in a band called Wide Awake and Dreaming with two friends of mine Ross and Jacob. I never really knew him back home, but I recognized him though I hadn't seen him in probably 5 or 6 years. He runs the place with an Aussie guy named Roger, plays (tenor and soprano sax) around Taiwan and does booking and managing for some bands on the side. To make a long story short I soon started playing with him and Roger in their jazz group and given that the Taichung Jazz Festival's going on, we played this last Sunday to a fair sized crowd. I bought an acoustic guitar here, but for playing with a band a guy I met that I'm in the process of starting a country band with lent me his surprisingly good Aria Pro II electric, a Les Paulish thing that actually plays and sounds quite good. He also lent me his delay and volume pedal for the gig; definite treats for one who loves effects like me. The people seemed to like it anyways, even being asked to have my picture taken with a woman. The $3000 NT (about a $110 Canadian) was certainly nice as well...

Unfortunately, my visa runs out next Monday so I have to leave the country to renew it. Hong Kong's the cheapest place to go, but they also therefore happen to be the stingiest when it comes to visa renewals. So back to Bangkok I must go being the next cheapest place. Though I finally have a job, I haven't been working long enough to make very much so I can ill afford it, but it's not like I have much choice in the matter; visa overstays get you into a mess of problems I have no desire to deal with. At least I'll have a time-out from Taiwan, though since I actually quite like it after only being here two months it's rather a waste, but hopefully I'll enjoy Bangkok more than my last time spent there when I spent far too many frustrating days waiting to get my first visa to Taiwan.