India, observations

Delhi-Belly on day two (paratha alley beat me)...

A killer dinner combo: brain masala + liver and kidney masala with potato paratha at Delhi's premier non-veg eatery, Karim’s...

Religious mosaics: visiting the holy places and talking with the disciples of the following faiths: Bahai, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Muslim, Sikh. My favorites were a flamboyant Jain temple in Kolkata and of course the Bahai Lotus in Delhi...

Greeting the New Year in the Nepali foothills of the Himalayas. The topography and flora changed constantly, local people swarmed about, and we stayed in “tea houses” – rudimentary hostels. It snowed a good three or four inches at the highest point – approximately 10,000 ft. And the mountains almost killed us...

Offering some roasted chestnuts to a random guy on the street, who reacts with rage and repulsion. Grossly assuming poverty and paternalism...

Getting stuck by a national strike in the middle-of-bumble Nepal due to political instability, thereby forming the bus trip from Pokara to the Kakarbhitta on the border with India: 8 hours from Pokara + 2 hours in Kathmandu bus park + 13 hours ride + 5 hours in limbo in a rinky-dink town through which no tourist had ever passed ever + 4 hours ride to Kakarbhitta , India + a carnivalesque evening crossing having to rouse border officials and avoid a parade of hasslers peddlers and touts + 1 hour bus ride to Siliguri, India ... pause... then, after a night’s rest, the 3 hours into the hills to Darjeeling. The destination merited the trip. I went to Kolkata by AC2-class train ticket, which I made by just a few minutes after sprinting slapdash out of the mountains (one of many very close-call transit transitions)...

Extremes of wealth distribution and omnipresent, relentless, and unassailable poverty...

Meeting a wild-talking, whiskey-drinking entrepreneur on the train. His Indian academic crew writes term papers and dissertations for students in Europe and the Americas...

Going to Kipling's Kim's school in Lucknow, or one enough like it. Roaming around the deserted complex...

Taking 12-15 hour overnight train's “sleeper” cars between Delhi and Varanasi and Varanasi and Lucknow. This ordering was an accident of scheduling; sleeper was the only available class and almost impossible to get nonetheless. Sleeper-class cars are not as romantic as Rudyard Kipling would have us believe. For all intents and purposes, they are open to the air. In winter in Uttar Pradesh at night the temp averages about 45 degrees F . In these trains, poorly-made and ill-fitted windows and shutters and doors don’t close or people don't close them. Christine and I only had one sleeping bag between us, which I allowed her to use. This left me shivering in the fetal position on my dirty bunk with the unmitigated commotion of the train and people pressing in from all sides, coughing up and spitting on the floor. This was our moving hotel, for we had elected to travel at night for our first three nights instead of book a room. I found my limits of energy and sanity, but felt my "suffering" mitigated by the people I shared the train car with: the tiny girl walking on bare feet, without pants, crying; the sick; people shitting in fields along the train track in the wan dawn. Later, I hired a bunk in an insulated, clean, middle-class car with bed linen the trip between Darjelling and Kokata. I met upper-middle class, sociable, generous people. I slept wonderfully, and didn’t have to chain my bag to my belt. Still, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Neptune is naked

The fragrance of chlorine pervades the hall, reaching the front desk where you acquire the key to your second-floor "cabin." You're handed a towel, robe, some inexplicable variety of place-mat. And then you enter the hall. From above, one's tempted upon first impression to be reminded of a Sultan's harem: blue ceramic tiles, imperious pillars, small cafe tables, and naked bodies frolicking about in a large pool on the ground-floor. But there's no odalisque here, just naked men in the lanes, swimming vigorously one-after-the-other around in circles, like ducklings, pale asses cresting.

I'm at Yrjönkadun uimahallii, Helsinki, Finland, apparently the oldest swimming hall in the Nordic region. Built in 1928 in the classicism style (whatever that means), it was renovated in 1997-9 to retain its original appearance. In late 2001, bathing trunks became optional.
Nonetheless, what the deuce? Well, first of all, the exquisite classicist architecture is something in which to revel. Second, visiting the hall is about getting in touch with (figuratively speaking, c'mon now!) one's natural nude male species being. Third, there are off-the-chain saunas: steam, electric, and, best of all, wood-heated. And all for 6€ (student price), it cannot be beat!

The first surprise was that the female assistant led me to my "cabin," on the second floor, past naked or toweled men, overlooking the pool. It turns out mostly ladies, but some men, meander about cleaning, organizing, and serving beer and food to the patrons. It makes sense: the pool switches between male and female days, evincing something of a femme or feminist bias in that there are four of the latter to three of the former. I wonder if the male workers are here on lady days?

The "cabin" itself was like a curtained off corner in a hospital room, a curtained cubicle along the wall. It was outfitted with bed, locking drawer, and clothes hooks and coat-hanger. The second surprise was that the front-facing curtain was gossamer. In fact, this surprise was not a surprise, because the hall is or has been known for its gay activity. By publicizing the private, the see-through curtain maneuver stamps down on covert sex. All for the best, all for the best.

Naturally, the first thing was to take advantage of the sauna - steam then wood - and only after that, to go for a swim, and finally to repeat the double sauna in the same order to finish off. This procedure is time-tested and mother-approved. The steam sauna was crowded in the cheek-to-cheek kind of way where buns are not exactly touching, but a quantized distance is achieved in which an undeniable magnetic or gravitational sensation is palpable. The steam soothes the throat and relaxes the body but is not quite hot enough to bring about the indispensable sauna cook. Wood-heated wins the cake as my favored sauna because it gets maximally hot without what can be the harshness, or singing touch, of the regular electric.

After the initial steam soak and burn, I hit the pool. Finding myself stranded directly behind an exceptionally slow fellow, and therefore his buttocks and free-floating private bits, I deduced that I was in the turtle-speed lane and decided to hitch myself to the hare line. I found that more agreeable but slightly too fast, like a race, the Goldilocks just-rightness eluding me. But alas, beggars can't be choosers, and I settled in for a hard swim in order to earn my final steam and roast in the saunas.

All in all, it was an experience in the same way eating lutefisk is an experience (somebody make sure I do this before I leave the Nordic north). I do not risk controversy in proposing that Americans are more naked-averse than Finns (or Europeans more generally). I believe this is slightly unfortunate. At the same time, the Yrjönkadun uimahalli experience is foreign and slightly out-there even for most Finns. Nonetheless, it is a traditional, relaxing, social, and idiosyncratic past-time with a lot going for it only limited by vague awkwardness and Puritan prejudice.

Acts of stupidity

Those who know me will agree that I am quite frequently full of tomfoolery. I'm late for engagements, I forget about commitments, I misplace precious belongings, and perpetrate an ever changing assortment of blunders. As much as I've actively and self-consciously pursued higher levels of focus and efficiency, acts of stupidity continue to be my M.O.

For your entertainment, here are some of my recent snafus and idiocies:

-Because I have deficient kitchen counter space, I do not own a microwave. Because I prefer to make my coffee in a French press, I regularly have cold half-pots of coffee sitting around that I'm too poor to allow to go to waste. Because I happen to have an aluminum camping mug from Ecuador, I heat up my coffee in the cup on the stove. It is a recurrent blunder of mine to leave the mug toasting on the stove until and after the coffee starts to boil violently. This truly stupid mistake was once compounded when I outright left my apartment, stove on, coffee cooking away to sludge. Luckily, before I had gone more than four blocks down the street, I ran into my buddy Don Everhart. During our courteous exchange of palaver, I recalled the mug, and ran back to extinguish the burner. By that point, I was appreciably late for class.

-Keys are like little parasites that have you by the balls (or ovaries, depending on the physiology) - you just cannot do without them. Unless, of course, you are willing to be robbed while never being able to access your mail. Despite how often I carry and use my keys, I am strangely little inclined to losing them. Instead, I leave them in the lock of my apartment, on the outside, for any random predator to purloin. This only happened once, but c'mon, for the love of god.

-The other day I ran to "the bean" - the "Cloud Gate" sculpture in Millennium Park, the Loop. Although it might have been 10 degrees out and snowing, that's neither here nor there. The asinine aspect of the trip was that I hadn't bothered to bring either transit card, credit card, or cash. I could have run back, but I wasn't planning on it, plus I was meeting with a friend for lunch (Harold's fried chicken, obviously). Luckily my running companions were more prepared than I was, and they paid for my one-way on the bus.

-In Santiago, Chile, I used to have a habit of getting on the wrong trains, going the wrong directions on the right trains, or missing stops. In Chicago, I've had limited reappearance of this phenomenon, but today I was heading uptown, and I needed to make a transfer. Two stops ahead of time, I galumph out of the train and then peer all about shortsightedly searching for the transfer tunnel. Of course, by the time I realize I'm on the wrong platform, the doors have shut forever, and I'm stuck, in the cold, waiting for 10 minutes. The kicker is that the reason, the sole reason, I was dumb enough to emerge so early was music. I was so getting jiggy with Yin Yang by Jarabe de Palo that I was exited out of over-excitement. Clearly, I'm a buffoon.

Alien insect invader

It is not often that one comes into contact with an alien creature. With a beast so repugnant and otherworldly, whose existence belies any earthly explanation. Tonight I came jaw to mandible with such a beast. Train your eye to the image above to see the creature in question. Suppress your repugnance as I relate the circumstances of my alien encounter.

Consider the bathroom. Although not the most pleasant and beautiful of places, I submit that there is a special serenity to the bathroom. Not just any bathroom, but one's own bathroom. It is something of a sanctuary, a place of ritual and ablution, a place of utmost peace and aloneness. In a word, the bathroom is a safe place. Or so I thought.

This very evening, I was in my bathroom. I was in a state of Zen, brushing placidly, at peace with my surroundings. All of a sudden, to my shock and dismay, I realized I was not alone - I perceived a beast menacing me from the shower knob. If I screamed, you can hardly blame me. Not only was the illusion of immaculate security shattered, the agent of destruction was an alien creature of unparalleled repugnance. Having seen the artist's rendering, you cannot but agree with me. Obviously, the monster is not of this world.

Naturally, my second reaction was to document the happening - it's not everyday that one encounters extra terrestrials. It is thanks to this enterprising impulse that you are able to view the beast in all its glory.

I cannot look at her but experience a shudder. The obsidian bug-eyes, the mandibles, the sinuous, probing antenna, formidable carapace, and hairy legs. Note the amputated posterior hindquarter - most likely a battle wound. What kind of demonic, alien freak?!

Although it took only moments, when I had returned from examining the photos on my computer, the beast had disappeared. I suspect that it recognized my superior fighting capabilities and slunk off back down its hidey hole -the drain pipe in my bathtub.

I accepted the creature's capitulation, craven though it may be. I decided not to eradicate the beast in a horrific wave of inescapable water. Who am I to kick a living thing when it's down? Empathy is the supreme anti-sin, of which even insects are deserving. If my challenger has retired to regenerate its blighted limb, so be it: I will accept her challenge anew when she returns!

UPDATE (Nov. 3, 2010): The narcoleptic freak returned last night only to find Brad in full martial mobilization. I stumbled upon the beast apparently harvesting or sowing some unspeakable evil from or into my washcloth. I approached with a glint in my eye and she moved. For a gimp, I was astonished nearly to the point of defecation by her alacrity. You know what they say: you can't fault a guy for sharting in moral peril. After doing a somersault or other aerial maneuver too fast for my eyes to follow, our bitch (a veritable Grendel's mother) clung to the bottom of the cloth, batlike. Taking my life in my hands, I used kitchen tongs to sweep the washcloth and passenger into a bucket. Once inside the rabid roach whizzed about like a pinball in circles. It must be that she was dazed, perhaps by the light, for to have climbed out and brought the attack to my eyes would have been the work of a millisecond. Using the tongs to grasp the side of the bucket, I swiftly clothed myself in bathrobe and rushed to exit the building. Take a second now to appreciate my superhuman concern for species rights. Even in open war, I avoid murder. If I was muttering imprecations in the stairs, what of it? Admittedly, it wasn't very gentlemanly or empathetic to start screaming, "Get out! Get the fuck out of my bucket! Fuck you," when I reached street-level. As if in conciliatory response to my hysterics, the beast transported herself beneath a leaf. I picked up my bucket, and the battle was concluded. VICTORY!

Are people fucking with me?

Seriously. Since posting on the paranoia, I have experienced some strange encounters, which have not allayed my fears. If anything, they have vindicated the age-old sensational craziness; my monomania is flourishing.

When seeking to pass from Redfield Pl. to Walnut Av. in Syracuse, a point-to-point itinerary I pursue regularly, and given the inability to soar through empyrean spaces, one must navigate through or around Thorden Park. Conventional wisdom is firmly of the opinion that perambulation through the Thorden is folly. There are many discreet historical reasons for avoiding the place, especially at night. Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones was raped there. She immortalized her rape and recovery and the eventual conviction and arrest of her rapist in the memoir, Lucky. The title comes from the ever-clever Syracuse police, whoe purportedly claimed that she was lucky, because she was alive; another woman had been brutally murdered in the same spot, years earlier. In addition, a well-loved graduate student, Alec Waggoner, was tragically killed on Thornden Park Ave. in October 2008, very late at night, after colliding with an SUV on his bike. Naturally, these occurrences should induce prohibitive fear into all but the blithe cretin. Nevertheless, there appears to be something wrong with my reckoning ability: I regularly pass through Thorden, at all hours of the day and night, on foot and bike. Yes, I do.

Two days ago, I was meandering meaningfully down Greenwood Pl., less than a block from the edge of the park, when some ragtag youths in a parked jalopy implored me to come to the window of their automobile. They waved and turned up the edges of their mouths, as if to smile, not jovially, but with an unctuous urgency. I was actually running, but that minute sort of walking, as I had been just moments before swinging my apelike arms in concentric circles, and perhaps doing high knees. My new iPod Touch was grasped in my ham hand, and noise-emanating ear-buds plugged my upper orifices. First, I turned around 180 degress to glance at five individuals playing some esoteric kind of handball. They appeared to be deeply focused, and clearly not sending or receiving gestured messages. I wasn't really in the mood for a chat, and wanted to get back to running, so I politely rejected the invitation with a firm double shake of the head. They gesticulated, I shook again, and kept walking. It could have ended there. In fact, it could have ended before it even began. I mean, this sequence of events - recorded herein with as much accuracy as my musty brain can muster - did occur. That which follows is of less tangible stuff. I admit to being slightly shaken by these happenings, and as I converted my walk into a trot and then into a brisk jog, I looked back a couple of times over my shoulder to survey the site of the skirmish. Two of the four gentleman stepped out of the car. Whether or not they looked at me is still an open question. But they might have looked - nay, stared - and there might have been lambent licks of malice and intended harm in their eyeballs. Who knows. I continued to jog, my placidity marginally perturbed, and my adrenaline pumping a little higher than it usually does when I exercise. If you know the geography, you know that Greenwood intersects with Thorden Park Dr., which swoops down and into Beech St. Following Beech, one comes to Madison St., which then goes towards and eventually hits Walnut, precisely at the block I wanted to be on. There is a byway, also Thorden Park Dr., through Thorden, which comes one way the opposite direction I was traveling, from the corner of Madison and Ostrum Av. I took Thorden Park Dr. the wrong way, towards Madison and Ostrum, but as I cruised, senses honed and neurons firing red alerts, I saw (or thought I saw) the jalopy (which was green, incidentally) heading down Beech towards Madison and my destination. At this point, I did something unexpected. To avoid a second confrontation with the thugs, I abandoned the roadway altogether and sprinted through an obscure path, overhung by coniferous giants, in Thorden. This sacred glade, of rectangular shape, sits between Beech, Madison, Thorden Park Dr., and Ostrum. Upon reaching the other side, I had apparently shaken the amateurish stalkers and obviated ambush. This was the first event which reinforced my paranoia, but because it is so shaky and built on unsubstantiated conjecture and borderline irrationality, I decided to tell no one.

The next day - today, January 19, 2009 - any misconception I had ever had about the illegitimacy of my paranoid mania dissipated. Again, I was making the same voyage, from Red to Wall. This time, however, perhaps subconsciously to protect myself from footed rabble, I was flying on tires. The purple Rockhopper--my bike--carries my swiftly and surely, with nothing short of heroic devotion. I was cruising passively and happily through Thorden, admiring the naked branches and sullied snow banks, after a day of silly rain. Of course, a vestige of the prior day's perturbation remained, and I was unusually vigilant. My paranoia hovered like a man-moth but it calibrated my sense-perception. I am rather glad it was there, really. You see, I was rolling along, listening to Carlinhos Brown ("O aroma da vida"), and I was again going the wrong way on Thorden Park Dr.--like Alec, but on a straight, highly visible part of the road, and during the day--and I was about 100 yards from the terminus of the road, where it connected with Madison and Ostrum. All of a sudden, a gray or beige station wagon of unknown make and model, entered my roadway, and started coming towards me, with surprising rapidity, in clear contravention of the posted speed limit. Instead of staying to his or her side of the road (their right side), the psychopath at the wheel evinced a strange predilection for the left side of the street. I swear, the maniac, gaining in velocity all the time, was actually rubbing the curb - my curb - where I was also residing, moving forward on my purple stallion, anxiety building. The game of chicken appeared to me to be unfair, so I capitulated. Braking, I leaped off the bicycle, luckily directly behind a metal light-post, and threw up my arms in offended consternation. What nerve! What homicidal douchebaggery! Heinous fuckery most foul.

People are clearly fucking with me.

I need to be on top of a mountain where I can see everything, 'cause this paranoia is getting old. - Shannon Hoon/Blind Melon (RIP), "Walk".

A phantom menace

I am sometimes paranoid.

The mania superimposes itself upon me in my house, at school, like a shawl of wariness. After having the abode burgled last November (while on Thanksgiving break), I no longer feel protected, my haven raped and ransacked. According to the dubious old wives tale, lightning desists from double-striking the same spot. However, thieves, unlike lighting, are skulduggerous sharks, who smell blood - once violated, a home is blemished as vulnerable. I know the housebreakers are out there with my roommates' X-box, iPod, camera, bag, pillowcase, and aikido gear (luck and having brought all my expensive stuff home saved me from pillaging). They are biding their time, observing, ready to strike again. Now I reside in a constant state of disquiet, serenity lost, and any minor commotion impels me to act impetuously: I stalk down the hallway, armed, ready to attack and defend the sanctuary. Nobody is there. Nobody is ever there.

Paranoia inhabits my car as well. It makes me chary of all of the other automobiles. Really, it is the motorist that I distrust - shifty-eyed, coldly calculating, potentially volatile, violent, or incompetent. Why should I have faith in their capacity to preclude collision? The texters, people exiting driveways and side-roads, buffoons on the telephone, left-lane laggards, the cretin who fails to signal, the ubiquitous white-tailed deer - Bambi with a death wish - they all worry and annoy me to no end.

It is the anonymous individual in the invisible car, nevertheless, who really drives me mad. The worst is on the back roads, of course. That is where the unseen autoist has such fun - tailgating; dallying, falling behind and then rushing up at a furious rate, to halt with frightful precision, mere inches from calamity; using the semaphores to send occult signals, many incomprehensible or openly false; blinding, and tormenting and taunting. From time to time, you get a glimpse of iridescent reflection from an external illumination. A shard of reality; of little use in elucidation. I curse these imperceptible pursuers with violence; the asperity of my vituperation poisons my composure. They rile me up, make me act erratic and devious, to utilize the same subtle chicanery, and beat them at their own game. I enact sudden pivots, circles, I run stop-signs and red-lights, I make wrong turns down forlorn byways. Sometimes I shake them, but they or their stygian compatriots always return. I find no peace.

The paranoia lingers.

Expedition

Once upon a time, some sad SOB's come up with the idea to go rock-climbing in December in Northern Pennsylvania. Destination: Mt. Hancock bouldering on lake Nockamixon.

Hardy mofos drive for a while, listen to mediocre music, get lost near climbing-grounds. Decision is made to ask for assistance at conveniently-close state-park office. Secretarial staff give climbers map and direction. But, wait, alas! Also informs climbers that climbable rocks are within legally-limited hunting grounds and that hunting season is extant.

Indomitable climbers are not cowed, but accept orange plastic vests with sincere thank-yous. Climbers push-on to parking lot, hike a score of minutes, find acceptable rocks. Actually, awesome rocks!

Climbers settle contently at foot of happy rocks, sip thermos-coffee, prepare for action. Father of climber calls, notifies ignorant climbers of impending weather - foul, hurty weather.

Immediate climatological response: snow bombs and hail. Snow concoctions fall light and fluffy, but so humongous that a single one, upon impact, explodes and showers on unsuspecting rock-climbers' eyes - temporary blinding occurs. Hail builds up on ledges and in cracks, making foot-holds suicidally slippery (20ft up, without rope) and hand-holds intolerably cold. Shoes must be worn without socks, hence feet rapidly deteriorate to the point of no-feeling. Hands crack and bleed and cry.

Stoic climbers climb on, as best they can. Wet leaves and rock become ice-covered, extraordinarily precarious. Climbers wander and explore, climb some, find sweet cave-likenesses and graffiti (Steve 1989!), suffer in silence like cold-tempered Scandinavians. Eventually the climbers decide that the fun is expired. They return home, satiated.