Today is the 14th anniversary of the day I took Buddhist refuge vows with Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche in Dharamsala. I was twenty, living in the monastery, imagining I would be a monk. I knew I liked men by then, of course, I just wasn’t quite ready for just how much I liked them.
Rereading Shantideva today. I swore to be a bodhisattva—and it’s still hard for me to give up my seat on the train. I’m sitting comfortably and some old woman totters onto the train, she’s maybe 104, one leg amputated at the knee, and, bodhisattva me, I think, “She’s just going for the sympathy vote. She doesn’t look that bad off. And as for me, I’m tired.”
I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
On the Buckle
It really is one of the happiest sounds in the universe: the jangle of a man fumbling with his belt. For this reason belt buckles ought to be as large and ponderous as possible, so that a man feels proud, just hauling one around, and also cheered to unbuckle one and send it, clattering, to the ground.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Rich Sons
One afternoon in Phnom Penh, over many cups of coffee, he told us about one of the rich sons of Cambodia, who, in a moment of irritation, had opened fire on a crowd.
Rich sons, it is said, are never punished. Here was the test. A crime so heinous, committed before dozens of witnesses; the rich son slouched in the courtroom, looking bored and wearing sunglasses. Even the cynics thought he might not get away with it.
So it seemed until the morning the judge announced the verdict. There'd been a break in the case, he said. This boy was framed: now the real villain had been found.
As proof, the judge held up the perpetrator's passport. The passport was real, made late the night before for a man who did not exist.
(The testimony of witnesses counts for nothing. The witness of the poor is a bill of minute denomination and subject to constant devaluation.)
The man who did not exist was sentenced to life in prison. A terrible sentence, which no one likes to think about.
The lives of imaginary men are unspeakably long, their suffering almost unimaginable to those of us who die more easily.
The verdict: innocent people, gunned down in a market, leads to the imprisonment of an imaginary man, pulled into creation only to suffer, to serve on behalf of the rich son who walks, with his sunglasses, back out into the sun.
Rich sons, it is said, are never punished. Here was the test. A crime so heinous, committed before dozens of witnesses; the rich son slouched in the courtroom, looking bored and wearing sunglasses. Even the cynics thought he might not get away with it.
So it seemed until the morning the judge announced the verdict. There'd been a break in the case, he said. This boy was framed: now the real villain had been found.
As proof, the judge held up the perpetrator's passport. The passport was real, made late the night before for a man who did not exist.
(The testimony of witnesses counts for nothing. The witness of the poor is a bill of minute denomination and subject to constant devaluation.)
The man who did not exist was sentenced to life in prison. A terrible sentence, which no one likes to think about.
The lives of imaginary men are unspeakably long, their suffering almost unimaginable to those of us who die more easily.
The verdict: innocent people, gunned down in a market, leads to the imprisonment of an imaginary man, pulled into creation only to suffer, to serve on behalf of the rich son who walks, with his sunglasses, back out into the sun.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Fidelity
Do mosquitoes have a sense of family? Does the female mosquito long to return, at the end of the night, blood-engorged, to her mate?
Few things, then, are more melancholy than a mosquito trapped on an overnight bus. It all seemed so promising when she buzzed in the door—so many bodies pressed together, crumpled shirts exposing skin, and the travelers too tired to protest a small deduction from their veins.
Full of blood, she finds herself confined and, when she finally tumbles out, groggy with the rest of the passengers, she enters an atmosphere sultry and dense, unlike any she has known.
Heavy with blood she sinks in the air. Success counts for nothing.
She is unfamiliar with the predators of this place.
A gecko snares her.
(Vientiane, 02.05.07)
Few things, then, are more melancholy than a mosquito trapped on an overnight bus. It all seemed so promising when she buzzed in the door—so many bodies pressed together, crumpled shirts exposing skin, and the travelers too tired to protest a small deduction from their veins.
Full of blood, she finds herself confined and, when she finally tumbles out, groggy with the rest of the passengers, she enters an atmosphere sultry and dense, unlike any she has known.
Heavy with blood she sinks in the air. Success counts for nothing.
She is unfamiliar with the predators of this place.
A gecko snares her.
(Vientiane, 02.05.07)
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Sentence
Here I will briefly pay tribute to the most important sentence in literature.
The sentence is from Dostoyevsky, but it doesn’t really belong to him. You can use it too. Like a pair of good black pants, it’s suitable for all occasions. Like a tiny flashlight, it may suddenly become crucial. Theologically, the sentence is one of the incarnations of Vishnu, unless you’re talking to a Christian, who will pronounce it “grace”. Published by Dostoyevsky in 1844, the sentence is actually as old as the universe, which may rightfully be said to have begun with it.
Notes from the Underground, page 144. “But at this point something exceedingly strange happened.”
The sentence is from Dostoyevsky, but it doesn’t really belong to him. You can use it too. Like a pair of good black pants, it’s suitable for all occasions. Like a tiny flashlight, it may suddenly become crucial. Theologically, the sentence is one of the incarnations of Vishnu, unless you’re talking to a Christian, who will pronounce it “grace”. Published by Dostoyevsky in 1844, the sentence is actually as old as the universe, which may rightfully be said to have begun with it.
Notes from the Underground, page 144. “But at this point something exceedingly strange happened.”
Note
Please keep in the mind that this guttersnipe, devoted servant of guttersnipes, also welcomes the advice of venerable, venerable you.
In fact you have some responsibility, don't you, to keep us out of danger? Elsewise we may end up descending into obscenities and mis-matched plaids.
For example, in the previous post, there was an extremely tacky use of the word "circumsized". It has been corrected now, don't worry. But please do send notes from time to time or else we fear there may yet be more disasters, botched circumcisions, et cetera.
Respectfully,
Ever Yours,
G.S. Das
In fact you have some responsibility, don't you, to keep us out of danger? Elsewise we may end up descending into obscenities and mis-matched plaids.
For example, in the previous post, there was an extremely tacky use of the word "circumsized". It has been corrected now, don't worry. But please do send notes from time to time or else we fear there may yet be more disasters, botched circumcisions, et cetera.
Respectfully,
Ever Yours,
G.S. Das
Friday, May 11, 2007
Glory Holes
I’m hiding behind a sign on which FOREIGNER is written in stinking black permanent ink. Only a little bit of me sticks out: sometimes my pink face, sometimes the other part, also pink.
As for them, they’re behind signs that say JAPANESE—it isn’t written out in full—and when we get drunk together, well, we’re both drunk!
Amazing how much sex you can have, even with 97% cardboard. Hardly gets in the way at all. You just put your mouth down to the little hole. “Pardon me, honorable sir, is there some piece of you, you could send over here?”
Shoulder to shoulder in the gutted factory: what’s left of the machines is covered in rust and jammed with bones.
Doesn’t work? Doesn’t need to work! You’re getting 6,000 yen an hour, mister. Pretend it works.
The classroom is shared. The answer to number one?
We think it’s A.
No, Elana says it’s C. Next!
Number two? C?
No Elana says it’s B. Next. . . No Elana says it’s B.
No, Elana says. Elana says!
(No, I don’t know what’s up either, Takashi. And, sorry, no, there isn’t time for questions.)
As for them, they’re behind signs that say JAPANESE—it isn’t written out in full—and when we get drunk together, well, we’re both drunk!
Amazing how much sex you can have, even with 97% cardboard. Hardly gets in the way at all. You just put your mouth down to the little hole. “Pardon me, honorable sir, is there some piece of you, you could send over here?”
Shoulder to shoulder in the gutted factory: what’s left of the machines is covered in rust and jammed with bones.
Doesn’t work? Doesn’t need to work! You’re getting 6,000 yen an hour, mister. Pretend it works.
The classroom is shared. The answer to number one?
We think it’s A.
No, Elana says it’s C. Next!
Number two? C?
No Elana says it’s B. Next. . . No Elana says it’s B.
No, Elana says. Elana says!
(No, I don’t know what’s up either, Takashi. And, sorry, no, there isn’t time for questions.)
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Dream: The Ugly Daughter
I dreamt I was at an opera being held in a great field. I was with my husband but I walked away from him to where a family was seated in special boxed seats made of concrete and rabbit wire: a sallow mother, a pallid father and their only child, a daughter.
I walked right up to her. “So—You’re the bad daughter,” I said. And she was. A fat ugly poor white girl with bad skin and dull eyes.
The daughter nodded her approval of me. Her parents left us alone. The ugly daughter was smart and tough. We liked each other a lot but after my brash greeting I was very careful and formal. I understood that she was a being of vast and profound power.
I had to go then. The show was starting.
As a parting gift the ugly daughter gave me a box of delicate and slender arrows.
“I’ll put these in my check bag and not my carry-on,” I said. She laughed.
When I left her I thought, “I was a crazy, to go right up to her like that. She's unbelieveably powerful, the ugly daughter.”
Then I comforted myself. I do things other people won’t do and go places they won’t go. That’s why the gods can use me.
(from 04. 30. 06)
I walked right up to her. “So—You’re the bad daughter,” I said. And she was. A fat ugly poor white girl with bad skin and dull eyes.
The daughter nodded her approval of me. Her parents left us alone. The ugly daughter was smart and tough. We liked each other a lot but after my brash greeting I was very careful and formal. I understood that she was a being of vast and profound power.
I had to go then. The show was starting.
As a parting gift the ugly daughter gave me a box of delicate and slender arrows.
“I’ll put these in my check bag and not my carry-on,” I said. She laughed.
When I left her I thought, “I was a crazy, to go right up to her like that. She's unbelieveably powerful, the ugly daughter.”
Then I comforted myself. I do things other people won’t do and go places they won’t go. That’s why the gods can use me.
(from 04. 30. 06)
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Traveling Companion
By the end of breakfast on the first day it's already clear that the person I’ve chosen to travel with—who seemed so nice, admittedly in a quirky way—is actually a total nutcase.
The way he stares down strangers, his affected tone of voice, his obsessive need for a schedule, his compulsion to fill up space with senseless talk, his repellent mix of timidity and vanity— it's intolerable.
When sex enters the picture—an attractive stranger, say, at the next table--then we really get the dark side. The pious timid gentleman abruptly becomes as devious, as calculating and relentless, as a Kashmiri carpet salesman. It is frankly more than a little creepy. I must make my own safety—and sanity—a priority. Therefore, I am determined to be rid of him at the earliest opportunity.
There remains this overwhelming difficulty: I am traveling alone.
( Bangkok , 01. 25.07)
The way he stares down strangers, his affected tone of voice, his obsessive need for a schedule, his compulsion to fill up space with senseless talk, his repellent mix of timidity and vanity— it's intolerable.
When sex enters the picture—an attractive stranger, say, at the next table--then we really get the dark side. The pious timid gentleman abruptly becomes as devious, as calculating and relentless, as a Kashmiri carpet salesman. It is frankly more than a little creepy. I must make my own safety—and sanity—a priority. Therefore, I am determined to be rid of him at the earliest opportunity.
There remains this overwhelming difficulty: I am traveling alone.
( Bangkok , 01. 25.07)
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Calamity
A new thrill’s a calamity. A violent accident. You’ll have an ache now, where there wasn’t one before.
or it’s a newly introduced foreign species (I’ve forgotten the term) some iridescent fish that looks so delicate, a brilliant purple flower on a creeping vine. (It’s all right. It’ll never take root here. It’s too cold.) Before you know it, the vine swarms over the telephone poles and the native fish—dull-colored bottom feeders—have all but disappeared.
The wonder is how a new desire appears in your life fully formed, as if it had been there all along. A room in your house you’ve never been. The door was papered over, the doorknob hidden in the pattern, but the room was always there, with white walls and a straight-backed wooden chair and an elegant slender lady, very tall, sitting for years in a brocade dress, hands in her lap, face painted for the Easter service, waiting for the bell to ring, so that she can come out through the wall, and tip her head and show you her enormous prick.
or it’s a newly introduced foreign species (I’ve forgotten the term) some iridescent fish that looks so delicate, a brilliant purple flower on a creeping vine. (It’s all right. It’ll never take root here. It’s too cold.) Before you know it, the vine swarms over the telephone poles and the native fish—dull-colored bottom feeders—have all but disappeared.
The wonder is how a new desire appears in your life fully formed, as if it had been there all along. A room in your house you’ve never been. The door was papered over, the doorknob hidden in the pattern, but the room was always there, with white walls and a straight-backed wooden chair and an elegant slender lady, very tall, sitting for years in a brocade dress, hands in her lap, face painted for the Easter service, waiting for the bell to ring, so that she can come out through the wall, and tip her head and show you her enormous prick.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Please visit HITOTOKI, "a new literary site collecting stories of personal, singular experiences in Tokyo." They are creating a new map of Tokyo--a map of stories.
This seems to me a meaningful part of the painstaking work to re-enchant Tokyo. (Or was it enchanted all along and I've just been slow to notice?)
One of my stories "Ham Egg Pie" is there, along with half a dozen excellent and specific others.
This seems to me a meaningful part of the painstaking work to re-enchant Tokyo. (Or was it enchanted all along and I've just been slow to notice?)
One of my stories "Ham Egg Pie" is there, along with half a dozen excellent and specific others.
Bask
The anaconda, it's revealed, can shorten its period of gestation by as much as 100 days just by basking in the sun.
Nothing furthers the unborn snake as much as just lazing around.
I learned this from television. I may have to reconsider television. It may be that the medium has been redeemed. I've always loathed television as a pathetic waste of the human life. As for myself, I've been ceaselessly diligent. I make a schedule and keep it; I am strict with myself.
And I’ve accomplished nothing. Filled out index cards on 4000 unrelated subjects. Nothing completed. Nothing has turned out.
To think of how many years I've wasted being diligent!
Never once did I imagine that dreaming might be the best advance.
The clue may be in the verb—to bask. Not to fritter or to putts, no anxious finger-tapping: bask.
One hundred-forty-four baby snakes: curled around each other, growing silently within. The snake must do what the snake must do; the Sun must do what the Sun must do. Inside the snakes grow in warmth and stillness. Do not interfere.
( Bangkok , 01.26.07)
Nothing furthers the unborn snake as much as just lazing around.
I learned this from television. I may have to reconsider television. It may be that the medium has been redeemed. I've always loathed television as a pathetic waste of the human life. As for myself, I've been ceaselessly diligent. I make a schedule and keep it; I am strict with myself.
And I’ve accomplished nothing. Filled out index cards on 4000 unrelated subjects. Nothing completed. Nothing has turned out.
To think of how many years I've wasted being diligent!
Never once did I imagine that dreaming might be the best advance.
The clue may be in the verb—to bask. Not to fritter or to putts, no anxious finger-tapping: bask.
One hundred-forty-four baby snakes: curled around each other, growing silently within. The snake must do what the snake must do; the Sun must do what the Sun must do. Inside the snakes grow in warmth and stillness. Do not interfere.
( Bangkok , 01.26.07)
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