(Bangkok, 2006)
Babylon: a homosexual hell/heaven providing the affluent queer with all his needs. And the first necessity is the opportunity to reject each other, with maximum disdain, at every moment. A simple turn of the head—I will not acknowledge you—is sufficient, though the place is crowded enough that the men must sway their heads from side to side constantly to avoid each other’s glance.
There is more looking away than looking. The occasional accident is bizarre. Two men, determined to ignore each other, collide. Men walk into walls.
Potted palms, placed throughout the complex, receive great attention. Only the palms can safely be looked at. Beautiful men fix them with hard stares while eating their fruit-laden breakfasts and ignoring each other.
As you can imagine, those potted palms have become quite puffed up and arrogant from all the attention. They consider themselves enormous, those potted palms. Positively towering.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Nagusami / 27
(Bangkok, 2006)
Four hundred years ago in Edo the bakufu built walled cities within cities to house the pleasure quarters. Now, when the prosperous queers of Tokyo want space plus permission, they go to Bangkok, to the Babylon. Surrounded by stone in the diplomatic enclave as if it were the Babylonian Embassy. It might as well be—an outpost of queer permission and excess in Asia.
Begin in the middle: a long blue pool, the only place where the management requests you, please, wear clothes. Twin sphinxes crouch at one end and the perimeter is all palms and flowering trees but you never see a flower fallen into the pool. Facing the pool are two high glass walls which contain a gleaming mirrored gym and an elegant restaurant with the photos of black and white American movie stars on the seat backs. If you’re dining I recommend the duck and there’s a woman who sings soul in the evenings, the only woman permitted in the whole establishment, beside the two gorgeous post-op ladyboys who take your money at the door.
On the opposite side of that restaurant—both walls are glass—is an open courtyard with a bar and two towering Egyptians with tasteful Art Deco penises who preside over the men in towels and their evening cocktails. Everything is tasteful and elegant, from the stenciled menus to the monsoon clouds overhead. And a man may do exactly as he likes.
The trouble in this Heaven is the usual one: our paradise runs ahead of us and leaves us in our accustomed dust. We are not ready for it.
The management has made allowances for this and so, from every garden, every courtyard, tunnels extend with all the dim passages and dark corners to which we are habituated. This is what we’re here for: to chase each other in the near dark. Men are still visible, their age obscured, in the tiled wet area where the halls empty into steamrooms, darker still, and showers with curved walls. Down a metal spiral staircase there’s a basement for men who desire more darkness. Of course there is corridor after corridor of individual cubicles with doors that lock and each one comes with a dimming switch so that you may decide how much light you can endure. It’s part of the routine of sex between strangers. One man turns up the light, the other dims it down again.
We do as we like and try not to see too much of it.
To first-time visitors, the corridors seem infinite. Later, that feeling fades. Still, the maze is large enough so that, going through it once, you’re sure there's someone you’ve missed and you circle back through again.
Babylon, with its vast decorated shell and the damp curved walls of its spiraling interior is exactly like an gigantic mollusc and the dark animal, mysterious and vulnerable, that fills every corner within is called desire.
Four hundred years ago in Edo the bakufu built walled cities within cities to house the pleasure quarters. Now, when the prosperous queers of Tokyo want space plus permission, they go to Bangkok, to the Babylon. Surrounded by stone in the diplomatic enclave as if it were the Babylonian Embassy. It might as well be—an outpost of queer permission and excess in Asia.
Begin in the middle: a long blue pool, the only place where the management requests you, please, wear clothes. Twin sphinxes crouch at one end and the perimeter is all palms and flowering trees but you never see a flower fallen into the pool. Facing the pool are two high glass walls which contain a gleaming mirrored gym and an elegant restaurant with the photos of black and white American movie stars on the seat backs. If you’re dining I recommend the duck and there’s a woman who sings soul in the evenings, the only woman permitted in the whole establishment, beside the two gorgeous post-op ladyboys who take your money at the door.
On the opposite side of that restaurant—both walls are glass—is an open courtyard with a bar and two towering Egyptians with tasteful Art Deco penises who preside over the men in towels and their evening cocktails. Everything is tasteful and elegant, from the stenciled menus to the monsoon clouds overhead. And a man may do exactly as he likes.
The trouble in this Heaven is the usual one: our paradise runs ahead of us and leaves us in our accustomed dust. We are not ready for it.
The management has made allowances for this and so, from every garden, every courtyard, tunnels extend with all the dim passages and dark corners to which we are habituated. This is what we’re here for: to chase each other in the near dark. Men are still visible, their age obscured, in the tiled wet area where the halls empty into steamrooms, darker still, and showers with curved walls. Down a metal spiral staircase there’s a basement for men who desire more darkness. Of course there is corridor after corridor of individual cubicles with doors that lock and each one comes with a dimming switch so that you may decide how much light you can endure. It’s part of the routine of sex between strangers. One man turns up the light, the other dims it down again.
We do as we like and try not to see too much of it.
To first-time visitors, the corridors seem infinite. Later, that feeling fades. Still, the maze is large enough so that, going through it once, you’re sure there's someone you’ve missed and you circle back through again.
Babylon, with its vast decorated shell and the damp curved walls of its spiraling interior is exactly like an gigantic mollusc and the dark animal, mysterious and vulnerable, that fills every corner within is called desire.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Nagusami / 26
Happiness is elusive and when it shows up it’s peculiar – that quirky friend of yours you always want to get together with but (dammit!) she’s so hard to pin down. When she finally appears – you were just about to leave – it doesn’t matter if dinner’s slow, if your nose is runny – everything makes you want to laugh and say, isn’t that absurd?
Why am I happy? Because my muscle shirt matches exactly the purple upholstery of Singapore Airlines. My hair is chopped short and my muscles are bulging. It’s all a little obvious and overdone. I’m a soldier in the international sex army. (By now have I acquired rank?) Call us! We’ll solve your conflicts!
Why am I happy? Because my muscle shirt matches exactly the purple upholstery of Singapore Airlines. My hair is chopped short and my muscles are bulging. It’s all a little obvious and overdone. I’m a soldier in the international sex army. (By now have I acquired rank?) Call us! We’ll solve your conflicts!
Nagusami / 25
At Narita Airport I volunteered to be moved to a later flight in exchange for a free ticket. And it was as if I had become a ghost, wafting backward through immigration, past the guards, and out to an immense featureless airport hotel.
The hotel’s lobby, I was pleased to see, was actually quite impressive: a marble counter, a huge bouquet of lilies, smiling ladies in immaculate suits. I was waiting in line when a man called my name and waved me over to the far right side of the lobby which, I discovered, was dim and grubby, set up with rickety wooden tables, stubby pencils and forms, exactly like an unemployment office. Even the counter at this edge was smudged and coated with plastic.
From this edge, looking back at the flowers and the smiling ladies was like looking back into another world. I was not offended; it seemed to me they must have gone to great trouble to make the difference so stark. I kept my composure. I suspect the afterlife will be just like this. Ah, you’ve just arrived? Please step aside.
The hotel’s lobby, I was pleased to see, was actually quite impressive: a marble counter, a huge bouquet of lilies, smiling ladies in immaculate suits. I was waiting in line when a man called my name and waved me over to the far right side of the lobby which, I discovered, was dim and grubby, set up with rickety wooden tables, stubby pencils and forms, exactly like an unemployment office. Even the counter at this edge was smudged and coated with plastic.
From this edge, looking back at the flowers and the smiling ladies was like looking back into another world. I was not offended; it seemed to me they must have gone to great trouble to make the difference so stark. I kept my composure. I suspect the afterlife will be just like this. Ah, you’ve just arrived? Please step aside.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Nagusami / 24
Few books are willing to go anywhere. Some insist on cappuccinno and a snazzy café, some call out for beer, others rarely venture out of the classroom. What we’re looking for is a book that will accompany one without wincing or shrinking and provide good company anywhere, whether one is waiting one’s turn at a public sexually transmitted disease clinic or savoring a spare solitary moment in the cathedral at Chartres.
I am forever in search of inspirational reading that does not require, as a prerequisite, virtue.
Some suggestions: Stories by Kawabata Yasunari or Lucia Berlin. Tibetan Seven Point Mind Training. De Caussade’s Abandonment to Divine Providence. Richardson's biography of Thoreau, Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book. Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen.
Please send your additions.
I am forever in search of inspirational reading that does not require, as a prerequisite, virtue.
Some suggestions: Stories by Kawabata Yasunari or Lucia Berlin. Tibetan Seven Point Mind Training. De Caussade’s Abandonment to Divine Providence. Richardson's biography of Thoreau, Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book. Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen.
Please send your additions.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Nagusami / 23
Happiness is inversely proportional to luggage. There’s no skirting this rule, little wheels don’t count, it is exact. One blue backpack, smudged with countries and only half full. Packing is a joy if seen primarily as a process of exclusion. “I’m not taking that! I’m not taking that either! Oh no, all that’s staying here!”
What’s left are primarily magical talismans, the only necessities for a real journey. Notebook, prayer beads, devotional pictures, condoms and lube, exactly the right book to read.
What’s left are primarily magical talismans, the only necessities for a real journey. Notebook, prayer beads, devotional pictures, condoms and lube, exactly the right book to read.
Nagusami / 22
Triumph of the lightheart: departure day. As if I held a winning ticket, or found my cock had grown three bonus inches overnight. As if I'd been granted a room entirely my own with a broad sturdy table and silence and natural light.
None of these things, of course, are likely to happen, but I am not in the least dejected because I have a ticket to Bangkok and a reservation for a cheap room in a seedy hotel in the chaotic open heart of the night city.
None of these things, of course, are likely to happen, but I am not in the least dejected because I have a ticket to Bangkok and a reservation for a cheap room in a seedy hotel in the chaotic open heart of the night city.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Montreal
A few hours after arriving here I thought, what an outrage, they built my dream city and never told me about it.
People here, young and old, walk down the street like they’ve had sex very recently and expect soon to indulge in it again. Let’s have color, someone said, and painted the storefronts lavender, green and yellow. Gardens are lush, overgrown with tropical plants as if to disprove the existence of winter. Coffee comes in generous white bowls.
I bought, as my only souvenir, a nine dollar bar of orange cantaloupe soap. I have become this variety of fool. I never imagined soap could smell so delicious.
I walked out the door of the shop to find the street packed with people marching to protest the destruction of Lebanon. Half an hour later they were still marching past. Lebanon’s green tree between white stripes. The Israeli flag marked with blood and swastikas. Paper-mache prime ministers and the chant “George Bush a-sa-ssin”
These pleasure tours of mine – is this any way to spend time at the end of the world?
Ideally I would be an ascetic, single-mindedly devoted to the preservation of the world. I want to be perfectly disciplined and I want the world to go on being foolish. Window boxes and fancy coffees and fooling with hair. Frivolities remind me of the generosity of the world. The world I hope may yet find some use for its fool.
People here, young and old, walk down the street like they’ve had sex very recently and expect soon to indulge in it again. Let’s have color, someone said, and painted the storefronts lavender, green and yellow. Gardens are lush, overgrown with tropical plants as if to disprove the existence of winter. Coffee comes in generous white bowls.
I bought, as my only souvenir, a nine dollar bar of orange cantaloupe soap. I have become this variety of fool. I never imagined soap could smell so delicious.
I walked out the door of the shop to find the street packed with people marching to protest the destruction of Lebanon. Half an hour later they were still marching past. Lebanon’s green tree between white stripes. The Israeli flag marked with blood and swastikas. Paper-mache prime ministers and the chant “George Bush a-sa-ssin”
These pleasure tours of mine – is this any way to spend time at the end of the world?
Ideally I would be an ascetic, single-mindedly devoted to the preservation of the world. I want to be perfectly disciplined and I want the world to go on being foolish. Window boxes and fancy coffees and fooling with hair. Frivolities remind me of the generosity of the world. The world I hope may yet find some use for its fool.
Nagusami / 21
(Amsterdam, 1993)
One of my masters I met only once—at 7:30 on a rainy morning at the front desk of a youth hostel in Amsterdam. I was the only one waiting and she was very busy, rearranging papers and cleaning behind the desk. I hated to disturb her. I was 20 and it was my first time in town. I regretted taking up space and inconveniencing people. I stood at the desk and waited and finally I said “I’m sorry.”
She stopped what she was doing. “Why?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just want to check-in.”
She reprimanded me firmly. “You should not say you are sorry unless you have done something wrong. You have not done anything wrong. Do not be sorry.”
Like a dog bopped on the nose drops whatever’s in its mouth, I lost my apology. How happy that time was! I wasn’t sorry for days.
One of my masters I met only once—at 7:30 on a rainy morning at the front desk of a youth hostel in Amsterdam. I was the only one waiting and she was very busy, rearranging papers and cleaning behind the desk. I hated to disturb her. I was 20 and it was my first time in town. I regretted taking up space and inconveniencing people. I stood at the desk and waited and finally I said “I’m sorry.”
She stopped what she was doing. “Why?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just want to check-in.”
She reprimanded me firmly. “You should not say you are sorry unless you have done something wrong. You have not done anything wrong. Do not be sorry.”
Like a dog bopped on the nose drops whatever’s in its mouth, I lost my apology. How happy that time was! I wasn’t sorry for days.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Back to Work.
The simple dumb thing I finally understand is you shouldn’t expect a place to supply what it doesn’t have. For example, Tokyo has lousy Mexican food. Italian and French can be first-rate, to say nothing of tonkatsu or yakitori or the heavenly sushi from near the Fish Market.
Nonetheless, some people go on eating Mexican and even have the nerve to be disappointed, like it’s a big surprise when they’re eating mediocre Mexican for the 32nd time.
I’ve been this variety of moron for years.
It’s like the story where Nasruddin’s disciples find him crouched beneath a street light searching the road.
They ask him what’s wrong and he says, “I lost my key.”
“Where did you lose it?” they ask.
“I lost it at home,” he says.
“Then why are you looking here?”
“The light’s better here.”
There is no point being depressed because hardly anyone is chatty or flirtatious in Tokyo, because the streets do not strut with life or the temperature reaches dizzying heights without ever managing to be sultry.
For all this, there is Montreal.
Tokyo I revere for its unparalleled solitude, for the odd privacy of the most crowded place in the world, for the predictability that makes other explorations possible and not least for the damned money it supplies like a negligent father who doesn’t care what you do – but pays for it anyway.
I can be grateful for this and not make impossible demands. Make use of what is here and set to work.
When I get lazy – remind me.
Nonetheless, some people go on eating Mexican and even have the nerve to be disappointed, like it’s a big surprise when they’re eating mediocre Mexican for the 32nd time.
I’ve been this variety of moron for years.
It’s like the story where Nasruddin’s disciples find him crouched beneath a street light searching the road.
They ask him what’s wrong and he says, “I lost my key.”
“Where did you lose it?” they ask.
“I lost it at home,” he says.
“Then why are you looking here?”
“The light’s better here.”
There is no point being depressed because hardly anyone is chatty or flirtatious in Tokyo, because the streets do not strut with life or the temperature reaches dizzying heights without ever managing to be sultry.
For all this, there is Montreal.
Tokyo I revere for its unparalleled solitude, for the odd privacy of the most crowded place in the world, for the predictability that makes other explorations possible and not least for the damned money it supplies like a negligent father who doesn’t care what you do – but pays for it anyway.
I can be grateful for this and not make impossible demands. Make use of what is here and set to work.
When I get lazy – remind me.
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