Karakoram Conversations III

Sost is the last town on the Pakistani side of the Karakoram Highway. There is little reason to linger in Sost other than to absorb the strange atmosphere inherent in an isolated settlement separated from its closest Chinese neighbor by the highest official border crossing in the world, the Khunjerab Pass.

Getting to Sost tried my patience. I had been waiting all morning in the previous town for the rumored Natco bus plying the KKH before word finally got around that a snowslide had stranded the bus earlier in its route. I waited with an old man and his chicken for numerous full vans and jeeps to zoom by before finding a tiny space in the back of a rickety van blasting local music through a tinny-sounding portable tape player. Except for some minor rock slides the passage was OK.

It was 3pm when we arrived, with the incessant drizzle and increasingly threatening storm clouds casting an ominous edge over an already shadowy community. No women wandered the primarily empty streets. Only the odd group of men hiding beneath their head scarves and shadowy beards. Up ahead, a typical KKH cricket match between rowdy boys with big grins and tattered shoes. The highway made for a challenging bowling surface with its potholes and pebbles; the best bowlers uncannily capitalizing on rather than being flummoxed by their presence. The vice-principal of Sost Government School and principal of the Aga Khan Girls School introduced themselves and invited me to join them for tea and coconut cookies. The Veep was reading a book on Neurolinguistic Programming and stared glassily at me for most of our time together.

“You find for me more book like this?” he asked hopefully.

“What is this?” I asked, curious to hear what he would say.

“I can control my students with this,” he winked.

“How?”

“Oh – this technique velly good.”

I considered volunteering to participate in an experiment but thought better of it. And so ended my final night in Pakistan. The night’s sleep punctuated by occasional jeeps screaming past my roadside room window up towards the pass and border, fog lights sweeping their way in and blinding me. Loud arguments outside and much banging on the wall. Not a restful place.

Karakoram Conversations II

“Let him read your palm.”

“What for?”

“He has good eye and he come from family of palm readers. Tlee generations!” the palmist’s publicist piped persuasively, thrusting three fingers triumphantly up in the air.

“OK – but I no pay money, understand?”

“No, No – no money, my friend. Only for fun. No money.” he assured.

“For fun OK,” I smiled and opened my right palm up for inspection.

The palmist spoke no English at all and his friend translated for us. “He say you very lucky - very VERY lucky,” the friend clucked as the palmist eyed my lines seriously, studying them from various angles in a manner more scientific than any fairgrounds quack I’d seen before.

“You will not have money problems in this life,” he winked, making me wonder if the earlier proclamations about all this being nothing but simple non-commercial fun were in fact extremely naïve of me to believe. No matter – I was in a public place in broad daylight.

“What about marriage?” I asked, “Will I marry and when?”

There was a long pause and much twisting and prodding of palm, “Mmmmm, difficult to say, my friend. Not clear answer.” This left me a little dejected.

The two of them then started a flurried exchange in Urdu and there was much hmmm-ing and not a little scowling even.

“What is it?” I asked, feeling more uncomfortable at this point.

No answer was forthcoming – only more frowning and a quick reference glance, it seemed, at my left palm. Finally, the friend said, “There is one warning you have to take with you always.”

I took a deep breath and prepared myself, “Y-y-yes?”

“Electricity.”

“What?”

“You know – electricity. Switch. Power.”

“What do you mean?”

“He say you must be careful of electricity. Maybe when you take bath, don’t touch switch or when you fix machinery, be careful the wire, that kind of thing.”

“Ahhhh…..I see” though I was no less comfortable at this point.

The palmist put my hand down and looked me in the eye expressionlessly as if trying to siphon out more insights known only to him. He turned away and mumbled to himself as his friend followed after him. “Very lucky. Very very lucky…..” I think he said in halting tones.

All I could think of was electricity.

Karakoram Conversations I

“You have come here seeking something, have you not?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, looking up from the book I was leafing through in his store.

“People like you always come here looking for something,” his knowing smile peeking through the thick beard. “I am Sufi mystic. I know.”

“If you know so much, maybe you can tell me what you think I’m hoping to find,” I teased good-naturedly while meeting his piercing stare.

“Mmmmm, I think maybe you have illness you want to cure.”

I didn’t think this was particularly perceptive as I had been suffering from immense travel fatigue and it was probably etched on my face. I was unceremoniously dumped in Nairobi and waylaid for 7 days because Jeddah airport, my original connecting nexus, had been overrun with pilgrims over Eid, a major religious holiday. By the time I stumbled into Hamid’s bookstore in Rawalpindi, I was due for an illness. My glazed eyes from the breakfast joint a teenage Afghan student had left me as a parting souvenir from our brief conversation the evening before only added to my overall torpor.

“I did not come seeking a cure but it is true that there are physical ailments I have which I would be happy to see go away,” I conceded.

“Speak and Hamid will make you well,” he bellowed, wagging his finger commandingly and never once averting eye contact.

“I have had asthma since I was a child and if you can make it go away, I shall remember you forever, Hamid.”

“Bring our guest here some cha!” he gestured to a curious cherubic boy who throughout this exchange had been sitting quietly, his big round eyes never once blinking. He was a cute boy but rather unnerving too. Like a Paki Chucky. Once the cha had arrived, Hamid ordered me to sit down about 20 feet away from him facing the far wall of the bookstore and drink the entire cup.

Highly skeptical, I nonetheless gulped it down. It tasted OK. “Now what?” I asked.

“Patience,” he said.

The one other patron in the store during this entire time had been going about her business without the slightest interest in this long-haired foreigner going through an ancient Sufi ritual to rid him of a lifetime of asthma. She paid for her items and left, and the whole store plunged into an unexpected silence.

I was still sitting in a well-behaved way facing the wall when Hamid let out a sudden, forceful and emphatic “Hohhhhth!” from deep within his abdomen.

Slightly startled, I let the moment pass and maintained my steady posture.

“Now stand up slowly and without turning around, walk backwards towards me,” Hamid instructed.

Thinking this could not get anymore absurd, I figured there was no point in breaking the Sufi spell at such an advanced stage and motioned gingerly backwards, taking care not to upset the precariously balanced piles of books on the floor. At least I was still conscious and not being carted away in a panel van after downing the mysterious cha.

After several paces, I felt Hamid’s hand on my back, halting my progress. A tingling warmth emanated from his hand while the other was placed behind my neck. We stayed thus for about 15 seconds with Hamid muttering incessantly in what I presumed was Urdu. Then he announced, “OK, it is done.”

I wanted to laugh but restrained myself. “So I am cured?” I asked.

“Yes. But if after a year your asthma returns, come and see me again.”

I wasn’t sure where else to go with this conversation and after exchanging some pleasant banter – relatively meaningless by comparison – I bade farewell to Hamid and his store.

Two months later, I went on a week-long trek to a holy Hindu lake in Nepal. It was some 15,000 feet high and for a long time – well before my encounter with Hamid – I had been concerned about my asthma acting up on the trek as I had done no preparatory training for it whatsoever. Not only did my respiratory faculty perform exceedingly well, Badri – my guide – commended me on my pace. Not bad, I thought, for someone bedeviled with asthma throughout his life. I found it difficult to accept that Hamid’s incantations and grunts had done what a lifetime of Western medicine hadn’t even claimed to attempt. Must be a placebo, I concluded.

A year later, I started wheezing again.

Everything Satisfying

has an inconvenience, a compromise, an ashen lining. The source of satisfaction. But is the unearned pleasure a lesser if not borne through sweat? Providence ought garner at the very least equal marvel & respect for its magnanimity. Karmic adherents no doubt ascribe a holistic perspective to fortuity - thus, nothing is ever universally unearned.

What then are we trying to earn everyday when we put in "the hours at work". Well, other than to put food on table, clothes on body and roof on head - to "survive" in so many words, in which the species could certainly have chosen any number of ways like its innumerable peers in the animal kingdom, but some indistinct energessence gave form to a lifeform capable of breathtaking poetry on the one hand and the ability to destroy the entire planet on the other.

What is the unquenched desire provoking this march. That an eternal march may be an assumed normal state when extrapolating dimensionally, it still begs the question miscrocosmically, what is the march of humanity all about? though ants may not "know" it, we omnisciently absorb all there is to perceive in the scope of an ant's interminable march along with millions of others to keep the queen happy.

The queen being responsible for producing ever more ants leads to the banal conclusion we've always felt, that we were put here to ensure we survived. With the spectre of overpopulation at the turn of the Millennium, it is noble that fundamentalist Christians & Muslims are stepping forth onto the altar of self-sacrifice. If they do it in a respectful fashion, those remaining can begin the rejuvenation process with pressure relief afforded by a billion or so fewer clamoring survivalists on the planet. That is really the only way to "ensure a better life for your children".

One could be alarmed at uninvolved parties' silence at rising tensions. Waiting to lay claim to spoils. To steal the pot. Unaware presently perhaps of their assumed responsibility to right the ship after the dust settles, to birth a solution to coexist & multiply without invoking Siva again.

For now then, self-destructive behavior and self-satisfaction entwine like DNA in the soup of dutiful contribution and consideration for others that follow, absent the nihilist vinegar.

I DO!

Deciding to buy this car was for me much like what I imagine committing to that "other" union must be for others. It had been on my mind for some time – well, say 25 years.

My brother and I had started obsessively playing Top Trumps “World Class Cars”, “Super Cars” and the like, resulting in an effortless and - for all intensive purposes – permanent imprint of meaningless Exotic Car statistics in our subconscious. We will for instance always know that the Ferrari 365GTB/4 Daytona’s V-12 engine has a displacement of 4390cc and that the Citroen SM is 1836mm wide.

The BMW 3.0CSL showed up in the “World Class Cars” pack of cards. It was puppy love. Granted, the CSL was a limited production lightweight aluminum body version of the highly successful Le Mans racer, the CS was actually an attainable classic in my teenage mind, at least when compared to say a Lamborghini Miura.

I remember the first one I ever saw on the road. It was on a family trip to Europe. I don’t recall exactly what city but it was parked on a quiet cobblestone street, simmering with a menacing calm that hooked me immediately. Being but an early teen however, it would be some years before I’d actually start dating.

I drove my first coupe but 3 years ago. After a peripatetic plod around the world and a wheel-less decade in NYC, I was finally in Southern California and the dating scene was hoppin’! Rust-free bodies, mmmm mmmm…My first was a little underwhelming, original engine 2800CS that (ahem) “needed TLC”. I started online dating and became acquainted with coupes formerly owned by ZZ Top, Sean Connery and star of my #2 all-time favorite film, Malcolm McDowell. The latter I made a pass at but was turned down in favor of another suitor. I slept around….a Right-Hand-Drive CSL (something fishy with her) and a modified, proudly cared-for CS (a beauty but our timing just wasn’t right) being the more memorable. Up till then, I could never really visualize “happily ever after”, though that last one gave me a glimpse before I trashed the idea of settling down once again.

I may have been launching a brand of condoms in Egypt but I was totally celibate as far as the dating scene went. Vicious Sahara sandstorms, madcap driving etiquette and an Air Quality Index that fondly earns Cairo the moniker “ashtray of the world” are not conducive to finicky, high maintenance 30-somethings. So by the time I returned to sunny San Diego, I was…mmm…fidgety.

First time I saw her picture and profile, she reminded me of my old flame from a year ago. Near-identical color with a ravishing but yet somewhat more understated body. A well-groomed & classic-looking 33, but modern & robust underneath the hood. Nervous with excitement, I had my brother chaperone me on our first date and I knew she was the one the moment I saw her.

She came from a good family – though there were rumors of fast “Friends” in her past. No matter. She had come through all that with flying colors and was available. I proposed and she accepted! WOW!

Then the inevitable started happening…..be careful what I wish for, I just might get it? As the wedding invitations were dropped in the mail and my garage was being cleaned out to make way for the new bride, jitters set in. Would my parents approve? Was I really ready for this commitment (TLC, in sickness and in health, frequent and costly maintenance etc etc)? This would be the largest sum of money I’d ever spent on any one item. Blah Blah Blah, the doubts were appearing from out of the woodwork.

I left the altar at the 11th hour. Her Dad was speechless but sympathetic.

There’s always a very specific instance in time, an infinitesimally singular moment of clarity in the lead-up to unprecedented life experience where you simply surrender to fate, where the mind with all its rational flexing no longer serves any purpose. The moment before crouching those knees and leaping into the void atop the world’s highest bungee jump; the instant before the electric clippers shave off four years of hair in advance of two-and-a-half years of military service. That instant before "I DO".

But old habits die hard. The day after "I DID", I upped and started a new job in another city. Here I was in another long-distance relationship. Only this time I know this one will last.

Epiphanies: A Visual Perspective (Part I)

(based on images from the Richard Kostelanetz film)

The first order of the day involved roping in a runaway cow and leading it to slaughter.

Along a straight path, he somehow managed to wander in circles.

Second childhood begins when sexual innuendo gives way to cartoon imagery.

Once in a while, you might try saving the rubbish and tossing the trash can.

Sloth is hardly the deadly sin it is purported to be.

After surveying the multitude of options, the here and the now was, while not the best, certainly the most convenient.

He thought he was meting out the punishment, but found himself on the receiving end.

Newton was fortunate it wasn't a boulder.

It took but a mere twitch of the thumb to cause the stallion to surge ahead.

The level of amusement attained by stupidity rests on the degree of timing.

After looking up at the World Trade Center from below, she decided she wasn't prepared to peer down from atop it.

The subliminal advertising must have been working as it somehow persuaded him to relish a heinous tonic he initially abhorred.

New art forms need not have any objective other than to furrow one's eyebrows.

A snack is all the more pleasurable when snuck.

Upon realizing the power had gone out, he immediately looked for his ATM card.

She hoped her life's defining moment would be the next.

After enduring yet another equestrian event, they wondered if it might be more fun to watch the Dog Olympics.

In the midst of a heated domestic squabble, she found respite in the massacre of an innocent melon.

To his amazement, the bag really worked!

He found himself in the awkward position of having to smile politely and absurdly at the Grand Poobah society's silver anniversary soiree.

She had to focus hard on the fleeting moments of ecstasy despite her lover's valiant efforts.

It annoyed her to no end that she enjoyed watching American Football games for the very same reason her boyfriend enjoyed watching the Miss America pageant.

Nursery rhyme characters seem to have a propensity for harmless fun.

The pace at the office is always distasteful.

Alone by the fence, I think of tearing it down.

Just as he was about to surely die from the impact of his ten-storey leap, he wondered whether to lead with his left or right leg.

"I've had it up to my ear wax with you!!"

Looking through the Yellow Pages with a prospective partner can be a pleasant finger-seduction escapade.

Hoping to find an oil well, he drilled through his hardwood floor only to gush sawdust.

Violent behavior in adults is often thought to originate from similar displays meted out on food products during infancy.

The pleasures of imagined strangulation exceed that of the real thing.

Caught in the act of raping, he decided to pretend he was thieving.

She often fantasized about cultivating her own money tree plantation, given the ease of harvesting bumper cash crops at the onset of autumn.

The sense of superiority he felt upon seeing his name on the credits list was outweighed by the fact that the film was abysmally received by the audience.

Opening the door to the bathroom, he somehow found himself looking into the closet.

The only reason for his belief in reincarnation was his overwhelming desire to be reborn a virgin.

Before you fill your stomach, you have to fill your cheeks.

Watching Harry pound on the treadmill, one got the sense he was a lab rat for a higher intelligence.

No matter where you are in the world, a leopard suit will steal the spotlight.

It's woeful if nobody cares for you - perhaps more so if you care for nobody.

She looked beneath the veneer and beheld the promise of the veil.

Although the band's heavy metal music remained unchanged, it lost its following when it renamed itself "The Playful Pandas".

An "action dog sequence" is the crowning glory for any budding home-movie maker.

Mirages in a snowstorm look different from those in a desert.

The three-point shot is an odd way of getting even.

While bored at home, he often amused himself by scanning his roommate's belongings in the hope of discovering something juicy and scandalous.

Agonizingly, he couldn't penetrate beyond the shield of repression.

Leaning over, he asked the little old lady to "hold my gun, please".

"You're such a big strapping hunk now, Bobby -- I....I can't help but look at you in a completely different way than simply as Mildred's boy."

Transcendental surfing is the art of riding the airwaves.

His otherwise vegetarian diet was strategically balanced by adequate junk food intake.

Amateur kidnappers should practise their craft lest they hurt themselves.

Were Joe Namath the leading man, we would have been watching Saturday Fright Fever.

He charged ahead, swinging his sledgehammer in support of the Revolution -- and inadvertently ruptured a water pipe.

A Pine Cone Parts Production Plant is an essential ingredient in Disney's new venture: Yosemite Sam National Park -- "where nature is the theme".

It is always entertaining to dramatically demonstrate the Law of Entropy.

An effective way of maintaining your personal space in a crowded party is to ignore the usual halitosis-reduction regime before leaving home.

The sight of a woman sensuously peeling a banana seldom reminds men of their childhood circumcision ordeal.

Standing on a pier welcoming the sailors back, he suddenly began to feel seasick.

Nothing brightens up a dull outdoor laundry-hanging session than the momentary appearance of a flock of geese.

Life on Mars may be identical to that on Earth with the exception that everything will be red.

There is no such thing as "a bit of a mess".

The Taller the Tumblers, the Taller the Tumbler Tower, the Taller the Tumble Too.

One's idea of a Rollickin' Good Time certainly matures with the passage of adolescence.

A whole new class of rudeness is exemplified by the person in joint possession of the TV remote control and poor taste.

"Life is like the chocolate on a dry cupcake -- you never know if you're gonna get nothing".

Dancing alone in the dark invites fewest critics.

Little can rival the adrenaline rush that comes from riding in an ambulance with one's liver visibly being carefully cupped in another person's hands.

"Are you lost, perhaps? -- or simply in need of further mime instruction."

Seurat would have been thrilled to live in the digital world.

"I'm afraid Express Delivery is the only mailing option for our 'Box of Live Men' product," the salesperson curtly replied.

Gazing intently at his Halloween mask, he felt the surge of an unexpected identity crisis.

Having a stream of cars whiz by you is far more exciting while standing on the painted lane dividers than on the kerb.

Lines that reveal your age don't do so in the night.

Kids play hopscotch, adults simply step on others.

If spotlights hypnotize bullfrogs, will a strobe make them yodel?

Ticker tape parades aren't very celebrated events for city clean-up workers.

If the Queen weren't so silly, she wouldn't need God to save her.

Danger always seems imminent in a dark alley.

The tentative flicker of weak candlelight merely reflects the tension between the courting couple bathed in its warmth.

Her desire for total heroism was dampened by her participation as but one member of a championship relay race team.

Chess would be that much more satisfying if "retirement" from the game was not an option in order to be spared actually watching one's King being physically captured by another piece.

High-impact skating is a sport only for the well-padded.

Since opposites attract - therefore, a magnetic attraction must occur when one's outgoing positive vibes are interpreted as incoming negative vibes by the recipient.

Unfamiliar images are frequently reminiscent of scenes from Sesame Street.

Getting off-track is wise if a train is coming along -- unless it is a train-of-thought, of course!

Constantly kissing a smoker won't help her quit.

An Unidentified Flying Movie Special Effect is usually what it is.

An erroneous picture does more damage than those often maligned 1,000 words.

Foreign language signs in black-&-white often do no more than intimidate.

Hungrily wolfing down her hot dog, she was clearly in blissful ignorance of its true contents and manufacturing deceptions.

Dancing may be somewhat two-dimensional if you are a stick figure.

We all can imagine what an Octopussy might look like even if it doesn't exist.

Inverted family portraits are more difficult to capture because keeping a rowdy group of people still is more difficult while they are upside down.

Utterly bored by her boyfriend's displays of marksmanship, she wandered off to another attraction at the carnival.

Captivity finally afforded him the luxury of contemplation.

There are certain events that can happen only in the mind of Stanley Kubrick.

They would have ignored mother's warnings had it not been for her wagging finger.

He fancied he could tolerate the heat in the depths of hell, as long as it wasn't boring!

The kids felt their hearts beat with excitement as they boldly entered the East German High Jump Training Area.

Her fear of fire was traced to the time she inched her eye just a little too close.

Little did they know that the continuing visible evidence of their lusty romp in the abandoned bus was being monitored by an audience awestruck by their prowess.

Starlight StarBright - explode in the night for my sheer delight!

Disappointment set in when he realized that no matter how much he loved his pet dog, he couldn't bear to give it a big wet kiss.

Being responsible for a Rolls Royce without the redeeming benefit of ownership is an onerous burden.

If your life is but a blur, you must be living in California.

She considered it fortunate that, unlike the horses, she was able to get off the Merry-Go-Round.

Alas, a "Gourmet" Sausage is never to be.

Though on a quest for total peace, he quietly settled for a piece.

In the warmth of the church, all were chilled by the organ's soulful wail.

Not able to tolerate its challenging licorice flavor, the little brat dunked his ice-cream cone head first into the trash bin with merciless purpose.

In preparation for his journey, Mr. Pak took a long time to pack.

To meticulously sweep his circular-shaped room, he purchased a broomerang.

While not understanding why, she happily capitalized on her naturally and eternally bemused facial expression to garner attention.

Tisn't the sound of one hand clapping, but the noise for one head banging.

He chose the cello over the violin because he could dance with it.

The power of a feather lifts birds to the sky and your lover to a new high.

The picture might look more appealing if we could only see its frame.

Easing into the morning with a light leisurely breakfast, their serenity was rudely jolted by the

appearance of his mother in curlers and a green facial mud paste.

She couldn't believe that such putrid, soggy mush was once a head of lettuce.

He wasn't about to question his sense of optimism when the light at the end of the tunnel revealed a half-full glass of wine.

One of the finer things in life is dust.

To a vast majority of people, it doesn't matter if it's Greek or Chinese to them.

The key measure of ecstasy is not quality but quantity.

While robustly chopping firewood all day with his trusty axe, he could not rid himself of a bloodthirsty yearning in his taste buds.

In a frenzied demonstration of self-worth; he strapped on a pair of high heels and ran amok, triumphantly disrupting and scattering flocks of resting pigeons all over the park.

Epiphanies: A Visual Perspective (Part II)

(based on images from the Richard Kostelanetz film)

In the mundane ebb and flow of Ted's career as a tax consultant, 1982's Championship Year came on the strength of 2,505 return completions.

While sitting on the bus, she suddenly decided to abandon all plans for the day and instead follow the whereabouts of the last passenger to alight.

After returning from his maiden trip to a foreign land, he never quite felt the same rush of pride whenever he gazed into his full-length bedroom mirror.

In a blatant statement against a generation raised on consumerism, her business thrived on the concept of holding back from customers exactly what they wanted.

The notion that Writer's Block is more painful than Tennis Elbow is all in the head.

It was a steamy, still night -- written and choreographed by Edward Hopper.

The start of their beautiful relationship for him began when he first noticed that odd, perpetual and barely discernible curling of her lips.

Every time he successfully landed the 747, he would yell "TOUCHDOWN!" and exuberantly slam his cap on the cockpit floor, much to the bewilderment of his international crew.

Their romp in the hay amazingly uncovered a lost needle.

In stark contrast to the hard edgy relief that is the roof of the palate is the soft undulating valley that splits the tongue.

It may take place on a desk, but it can hardly be called a job.

The performer thought her audience had put on a jolly good show.

Their desire to keep up with the Joneses and concurrent fear of being labeled by the neighborhood as "passionless" prompted them to inject a physical element into their hitherto tame domestic squabbles.

His fairly harmless fetishist display of caressing the scantily-clad mannequins was amusing but nonetheless disquieting to the female employees.

Dressing room doors frequently provide unexpected entrances into the Twilight Zone.

Key to an actresses' range of competencies is the ability to portray growing anxiety and terror without sending the audience into a raging fit of laughter.

Worse than choking on a fig is inducing an unintended Heimlich by falling on a stake.

For all their modern gadgetry and zippy action, James Bond films would not be half as entertaining were it not for the pervasive air of flirtatiousness.

There was severe unrest in the Bermuda Triangle when about ten square miles of ocean suddenly burst through previously watertight seals.

Though he couldn't decipher the inscription, its somber script left little room for light-hearted interpretations.

As she put the finishing touches at the end of the assembly line on yet another high-end PC, she sorely envied its path to presumably more comfortable surroundings than her own.

Focus is the key to completion of many difficult tasks -- including an eye test.

He enjoyed the act of lovemaking more with one item of clothing on.

To ease the pain of reliving the crucial fumble that cost them the game, they watched that portion of the film in reverse.

And then there were five, which meant there muat be no fewer than four false prophets.

His obsessive superstitiousness caused him to attempt to squeeze awkwardly -- and subsequently get stuck -- into the narrow space separating the two adjacent leaning ladders.

EVIAN -- two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, seven parts marketing integration.

Before the helicopter, the term "WHIRLYBIRD" referred to an obscure aristocratic pastime where caged pigeons are observed in their confinement after being subjected to a mild alcohol overdose.

NoNoNo -- we're weary of you, Yoko.

Hidden skeletons aren't likely to be in a closet.

It concerned him that whenever he witnessed a cheerleading routine, ballet dance or chorus line, his mind's eye saw a burlesque show.

Though he understood neither French nor German, he dreamt in them -- making him a tremendously challenging patient for his therapist.

As his girlfriend was burying him in the sand, a bully came & kicked sand in his face.
Since the stand-up microphone was a major prop in his stage act, the advent of clip-on wireless devices was hardly a welcome advancement.

I start to weep as I watch my mother on her exercise machine, trembling with excitement as she recites a prayer about orgasm.

As he menacingly stalked the scantily-clad vixen, he became aware of a band of thugs lurking behind him.

Debbie needed a live coach constantly by her side in order to maintain pleasant phone manners.

Though she didn't reduce its price, she thought it rather egalitarian displaying a 'FOR SALE' sign on the window of her Mercedes while driving around the township.

She was producing a beautiful condensation landscape on the rear window when the car lurched suddenly.

He was so excited at having sneaked under the barrier and slipping into the building that he didn't realize he had disembarked at the wrong bus top.

Momentary shadows were his photographic specialty and as such found it a demanding discipline.

His only purpose for renting the limousine that evening was to be seen arriving and leaving from all the city's hotspots with a hired escort.

The peaceful rural path had a steep downward gradient, a gorge at its end and an out-of-control skateboarder careening along it.

An express train to work can be a good or a bad thing.

As Daddy put on his goggles and gargled in front of baby, baby gurgled.

A Milanese Mafioso Movie will have many mean-sounding men.

The balcony of view of the featureless earthy smog in the background was partially obscured by the monstrous skyscraper rising offensively in the foreground.

His casual interest in the rally peaked considerably when the riot police arrived.

She awoke me from my deep sleep by rapping on the office glass partition and gesturing that the boss was coming.

His initial satisfaction at being caught behind the celebrity motorcade turned to bellicose annoyance when he realized it was only a traffic jam.

The mathematician stared incessantly at the passion-locked couple because they reminded him of a Moebius strip.

Not one for consensus, the CEO longed for a time when conflicts were resolved by a good old-fashioned joust.

Grandma exceeded all social protocol when she spat her dentures clear across the banquet table straight into grandpa's cognac.

She'd been told the water was unsafe to drink and so proceeded to wash her face with beer.

He answered the doorbell and was greeted by a pair of perky breasts.

In a bold move, the Police Commissioner ordered his force to wear red uniforms.

If not for her stunning good looks, Morgen would have found it more difficult to forgive her parents for the silly name they gave her.

Today's mood forecast calls for a wave of optimism followed by a downward spiral.

He finally invested in a zoom lens for his job of photographing aircraft landings.

While he enjoyed sporting a goatee, he couldn't deal with the associated expectations of greater wisdom.

The flower blossomed beautifully into shades of varying gray.

She viewed the 'exponential function' not as a mathematical entity but rather as another chapter in her tedious textbook.

Her mom said, "If you're dead set on going to an orgy, at least make sure it's a damn fine one!"

There's nothing like a game of Jenga with people cushion-pounding you as you're trying to tell an interesting story while removing blocks simultaneously.

It's rarely the case that butterfly catchers are in it for the chase only.

He had gone completely Overboard in his barrage of insults, so the ship's captain gave him his due punishment.

She retired from her career as a magician when her rabbit began getting claustrophobic.

When two hearts beat as one, their impact is less sobering than when two ships meet.

The headlights swiftly approaching his car weren't as much a concern as the train behind them.

It's a little known fact that people with blue eyes make better pilots because they have clearer sky vision.

People who dictate fashion simply have a fetish for passion.

"Achtung!" he uttered.

As an anesthetist turned body artist, she now carves a nice living creating personalized nipple sculptures.

To the residents' dismay, the arrival of the police served merely to elevate the tension and noise-level of the demonstration.

Kevin & Tim made quite a hit on public access TV with their weekly critique of Siskel & Ebert reviews.

As his coach's favorite guinea pig for developing hammer-throwing techniques, he suffered many heinous hernias.

Most passers-by who saw the glamorous couple sitting on a park bench in a pensive posture assumed they were posing.

Behind every evil king is a sinister spy.

He was really good at doing headstands from the waist down.

Nothing is quite as dizzying as gazing at a constantly moving Mondrian montage.

While the school board warmed up to the proposal for women's basketball and football teams, it was decidedly uncomfortable with an accompanying troop of screaming male cheerleaders.

There is no such thing as a minor shipwreck.

Disco undoubtedly has some roots in early Chaplin comedic dance routines.

He found it anatomically challenging to satisfy his foot fetish and phone sex fantasies simultaneously.

People who attempt suicide are as impatient as queue cutters.

People plunder peerage, penguins preen plummage.

A man approaching ecstacy focuses intently on the white light.

The mature splendour of the sweeping landscape was disrupted by the waste treatment facility.

She held enough power in her hands to actually light the bulb.

He wondered if his pet falcon would feel condescendingly towards the idea of a road trip.

The worst place to hide your treasure map is up your sleeve.

Boys who chug beers aren't as masochistic as girls who chug grape sodas.

He didn't mind walking to church, at worst he'd be late.

Watching the bird suddenly fall out of the sky and splatter itself mercilessly on the pavement seemed rather surreal for John.

The woman with the big orange hair abnd the man with the big orange jacket walked in together unnoticed.

Paying no attention to the stick-up, the man and his horse rode on.

He theorized that men really bonded with jukeboxes because they possessed many mechanical moving parts and gave control to the user.

Sewer is thicker than water.

All his colleagues developed nasty headaches from the malodorous mixture of his body stench and over-powering cologne.

Caught by the police spotlight in the alleyway, she instinctively broke into her stand-up comedy routine.

She couldn't take her eyes off the decor - till the cameras arrived.

She was dancing with such reckless abandon as to forget time and the precipitous fall beyond the low roof railing.

Many lives would change if the earth zipped across the heavens like a shooting star.

Abortion rights meant keeping the clotheshanger factory open.

As he stood by the window ready to leap, he first decided to take off his watch.

The trouble with elevators is there's seldom enough natural lighting inside.

He didn't help investagators much by describing the suspect as an indiscriminate shadowy mass.

She was so pre-occupied with looking for her misplaced clock that she was unable to find time for much else.

The woman in the leopard skin suit would do well to not work in the male nursing home.

They were caught red-handed in the black market.

The ashcan flame was too small to sufficiently warm their outstretched hands but too big to safely light their cigarettes.

After pacing incessantly around the phone booth and rehearsing his lines, he dropped his quarter into the payphone's out-of-order abyss.

Ray McCooney

Matisyahu Mattafix

Matisyahu - watch "King Without A Crown" (Live @ Stubb's) video for something different

Mattafix - Big City Life (Video)

Shanghai-ed

“We are solly, but your connecting flight to Kathmandu is cancel and you stay in Shanghai until next plane….”

“When will that be?”

“Sir, Royal Nepal Airways is come next week…..”

I found out later that RNA had missed a lease payment on one of their aircraft, effectively reducing its fleet size by 1/3. I had just arrived from Kashgar in Xinjiang province, expecting to spend one hour in Shanghai airport, not one week in the city. This was going to decimate my stringent budget but I figured even worse would be to augment this unforeseen circumstance with an unflinching attitude. While knowing nothing of Shanghai, I at least had language capability and hastened to a cheap guesthouse touted upon me.

Having spent the better part of the last month in Northern Pakistan’s Karakoram range, entering China via the Khunjerab pass - allegedly the highest internationally recognized border crossing in the world at around 14,000 feet - into Xinjiang, a rolling tundra replete with yurts and hot dry deserts, Kashgar was like an urban oasis. And yet, one unlike any I’d ever taken respite in. Populated by minority Uighurs - a vaguely Turkish-like peoples – traditional crafts like blacksmithing are still widely practiced. The weekend market attracts over a hundred thousand villagers from the region engaged in a lively frenzy of gossiping and camel trading.

There were no camels to be seen on the streets of Shanghai. There were however, tourist bookstores and I nipped into one to kill some time. The other thing that Shanghai has that is noticeably absent in Kashgar is eye-catching women. In large part because most women in Muslim Kashgar veil their faces in public and catching their eye is literally impossible. This Shanghai stranding was at least easy on the senses.

I first saw her flipping through an English book and noticed she was of a curious Eurasian mix. I picked out a long sought-after souvenir, a world map in Chinese with China at the center of the 2-D projection and lined up behind her at the cash register, hoping to take a mental stab at her background from any tell-tale utterances. No such luck as she slipped through her transaction without a peep. About to utter a pathetic ice-breaking line myself, I looked up towards her and saw no one there except the cashier glaring impatiently at me.

Leaving the bookshop defeated, I spied in the distance that icon held in highest disdain by road-weary travelers, so described because of the self-loathing that arises from the sheer joyous desperation that accompanies its sighting after a long withdrawal. I’m speaking of McDonald’s golden arches! Unable to resist the insidious pull, I was soon clutching a tray with my #1 meal looking for a place to sit. And there, alone at a table with a pack of fries was my winsome woman of curious ethnicity.

“Hi – I was wondering if you knew your way around Shanghai because I don’t....could you give me some ideas on what to do around town?”

“Well, I’m a visitor myself but I’ll share what I know.”

That was all the invite I needed. Lise was currently living in Kunming, primarily to study Chinese and was in town visiting her brother. Her Japanese Dad had married an American – putting my curiosity to rest. We spent the rest of the afternoon roaming the streets of an ever-increasingly pleasant Shanghai. That evening, I met her friendly but somewhat over-protective brother and we three dined at the 5-star hotel in which he was staying. Crowds bustled around the lobby trying to glimpse Cindy Crawford, in town to plug the new line of Omega timepieces.

After assuring big brother that she wouldn’t ‘stay out too late’, Lise and I adjourned to the on-premises botanical gardens and stargazed – celestially, that is. Soon we were star-crossed. Several long kisses later, she blithely stated, “You know - I leave for Kunming in the morning.”

The amnesia that had blissfully anesthetized the frustration of my flight delay was rapidly ebbing, unveiling the heavy clarity of 5 remaining days adrift in an impersonal concrete jungle of 10MM strangers.

“Why don’t you come with me to Kathmandu?” I implored, hardly believing what I was hearing – both from her and myself.

“You’re…….”

“I know – it’s silly….I’ve known you for 12 hours.”

We held each other tight out on the dewy meadow till the sun peeked above the horizon. After a silent goodbye, I stumbled out of the hotel grounds exhausted and vacant. I wandered into my guesthouse around 9am, flopped into bed and stared transfixed at the TV – MTV Asia bathing me in its light drivel. Seiko Matsuda’s new video “Missing You” set to a backdrop of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge was on heavy rotation.

I looked out the window of my 9th storey room and tried to focus my attention on just one of the numerous ant people pacing below. Low as I was feeling now, would I still trade places with that twentysomething outfitted in the smart Italian suit clutching his Nokia, spare hand gesticulating wildly, weaving in and out of his cohorts sharing the sidewalk? Across the street stood a serene looking woman waiting for the little green man to beckon her across. She had a smile on her face that no traffic smog or police siren or jackhammer drill or stagnant sewage could diminish. If I approached her and opened my mouth, would she too spend a magical day with me and skip town the next morning? My gaze wandered further up to the horizon and visualized the faithfully firm stone foundation of the Brooklyn Bridge, across from which in the bowels of Lower Manhattan lay the space I called home. I could scarcely recall my daily routine and yet at times of fatigue I longed for its comfort. The beauty and horror of routine is that one doesn’t have to think about it. Life then was a plod, sometimes pleasant, other times pallid. Despite the little plot twists and inspired characters that peppered the play, the stage essentially stayed constant from act to act. Jettisoning the daily routine was like hiring a stage manager on speed and steroids. I was now standing by the windowpane, leaning gingerly over the sill, closing my eyes and feeling the gentle breeze wafting warm breaths of polluted air against my face. The air was heavy and felt like it could support my body as I leaned precariously forward and downward. I was so tired……

A sudden noise from the street below made me lose my balance and the resulting vertigo startled me into grabbing my pillow and opening my eyes back into the reality of an interrupted doze. Seiko Matsuda was on again – or had she never left. The sound came again and I realized it was a rapping on the door. Not knowing the time, I staggered to and opened the door expecting to see a housekeeper of sorts. Lise stood there with a small backpack and a nervous smile.

There would be time for words later as our lips met and I returned to a familiar state of vertigo. She had postponed her flight to Kunming without telling big brother and remarkably remembered the name of my hotel. We spent the next few days holed up in said hotel room, curtains drawn so my time-of-day awareness was triggered only by the interval estimate between Seiko Matsuda videos. We did however hit the streets for our meals and one extended afternoon of sightseeing on our last day – a day memorable for the long silences we filled by simply entwining our hands together.

On that last morning before Lise left, I took photos of her against the open window of our refuge. An inevitable loss is ponderous and weighs you down while a sudden one is like a knife that cuts you up. Neither is pleasant. One results in severe emotional bloodletting in the short run but ultimately heals over, sometimes leaving nary a scar. The other may have no visible external impact but like a cancer, can continue to fester and rot if ignored.

One year later, Lise visited me in New York. Seiko Matsuda’s “Missing You” was not on MTV rotation there. Interaction between us was stilted and on the third day, I awoke to a note on my bedside table wishing me well.

10 day transit from Cairo to Beijing

Russia is one of the most challenging countries in which to travel on a budget. Oh sure, your ruble might still go a pinto’s puff further out on the street than your yen but you’ll have spent the equivalent of an entire emergency fund just for the privilege of stepping onto said street. Visa fees, invitation letters and courier charges for original documents can set you back over $200 for a collection of stamps and embossed paper. And then come requirements for proof of accommodation bookings & pre-purchased air or ground passage as part of the visa application and the stern warning to register the visa at any police station within 72 hours of arrival. It is almost enough to make me forsake my plan to take the Trans-Mongolian train in the Siberian winter and go lie on a Thai beach but then I hear about the transit visa.

“Certain Russian consulates (they don’t say which ones) have been known to issue transit visas of up to 10 days” reads the travel blog I’m researching. Calling the consulate in Cairo is no help. They’re open but 2 mornings a week and each time I call I get a different answer. The beauty of the transit visa is it requires neither invitation letter (an arduous & costly step, given suspect mail service in Cairo) nor post-arrival visa registration. I go to the consulate armed with a pile of papers demonstrating I'm not “visiting” but merely passing through Russia on my way from Cairo to Beijing. A tense afternoon later, I have the rare visa in hand.

As luck would have it, I have two full days in Moscow between the arrival of Aeroflot 342 & departure of Train 004 though this is only reflected as one calendar day on my application and passes unnoticed by the normally vigilant Russian bureaucracy. That SU342 is, at slightly over $200, only 1/3 the cost of the next cheapest airline and my Trans-Mongolian train ticket is purchased directly from a Moscow train station for less than $200 means I will spend 10 days transiting Russia and Mongolia for about $400 + meals. But first I have to close an eye to the Tupolev’s starchy blue vinyl seat backs not staying up, toilets looking and smelling like a 3rd-world bus station, black dishwater passing for coffee, lumpy soggy macaroni, tough stringy chicken and overhead lights staying on throughout the redeye. Everyone claps and cheers when SU342 lands.

Moscow is below freezing when I arrive on Christmas Day. Cyrillic is so close to being decipherable but alas. James, the hostel manager who bought my train ticket, is a Brit who’s lived in Singapore and Brazil each for years. Other hostelites include the Chus, a Brazilian family of Italian-Chinese descent and Dragan, a Serb employed at BMW Beijing, traveling with his buddy, Goran. Red Square and the Kremlin are maddeningly restricted in terms of traffic flow though we (Dragan, Goran & me) manage to sneak into the soon-to-be-closed iconic Russia Hotel, thanks to a conniving waiter who lets us bypass the security detail through an adjoining café side door. Hundreds of police line the driveway outside the hotel and we exit only to find ourselves surrounded by 3-star generals shaking hands vigorously with each other. After taking a few stealth photos, I definitely feel a trifle nervous standing where we’re clearly attracting Militsiya attention.

Evening is spent wandering watering holes, getting lost and hoofing miles in the bitter cold, relieving our bladders into Moscow river from atop a bridge and meandering through the social outcasts congregating at Kurskaya station. Dragan has his cigarette snatched away and furiously snubbed out by a robust, screaming Metro babushka. Goran almost picks a fight with an inebriated security guard while my highlight of the evening was flicking my hair back and forth on some Russian boobs in a bar. Just when we decide to cut our losses at 2:30am, we hear muffled basement trance and enter the warm sanctuary via an unmarked doorway, blocks away from the brilliantly-lit Basilica, magnificent in the empty square against the light snowfall and deep night. The basement party has groups of friends in different rooms and various states of undress. One comely lass teases Goran by revealing her “combat attire” and whispering sweet nothings. All in all, the warm revelry is the chilly evening’s savior.

Second day is spent sleeping in, ambling around and preparing for the week-long train journey. Relish my final shower of the week and head off to Yaroslavsky train station. Stock up on extra beer and cigarettes at the platform and at 2130 sharp, Train #004 leaves as scheduled.

My cabinmates are a Swedish couple and the friendly Chinese conductor quietly agrees to try his best not to fill the 4th bunk and allow us the extra breathing room. Most everyone in the coach is Chinese and a trader, this journey being essentially a tri-monthly commute where all the Chinese goods they’ve sold in Moscow are exchanged for Russian fur coats, hats and other desirables for sale in the markets of Beijing and elsewhere. Fast friendships are made onboard and passenger quotas are evened out so no one is liable for excess customs duties.

We spend the first days gazing out the windows and in the evenings, the Chinese play cards while the few of us travelers read & chat. I become better acquainted with two neighbors. One is a working class trader who peppers me with questions about earning power in Western economies. He is most generous with his food and cigarettes but I am reluctant to get drawn into much money talk. The other is a Chinese college student graduating from a Russian university, on the train with his girlfriend, an Uzbek-Korean Shotokan Karate champion. Between him and me, we translate between the Russian and English speakers on board, Chinese being the intermediate tongue. As a matter of familiarity, I’m initially startled at an Asian face speaking Russian (until I see them all over Russia), while they and the Chinese are more taken by an English-speaking one!

On the 3rd day, things get time-warpy for me. As we head perpetually eastward at approximately 1 time zone per day, the disparity between the train’s “official (Moscow) time" and “local time” grows wider. This incremental wear wreaks more havoc on the body than the sudden transcontinental flight. You cannot ignore “official time” as the entire onboard schedule of station arrivals and departures is based on it and should you need to alight or renew a rapidly dwindling supply of food, this time reference is key. What additionally confounds things is the dining car (the only Russian element on an otherwise completely Chinese train) runs on local time and has very limited operating hours, not to mention limited food, smiles and small change.

Say you draw the blinds and sleep in till 12noon. If this is the 4th day on the train, it’s effectively 3pm local time. As it’s winter in the far north, the sun’s zenith barely nudges above the horizon and by mid-afternoon, it’s sunset again. You awaken and before you’ve finished breakfast, it’s time for bed.

The predominant feature is the bitter cold. It drowns out the colorful villages and adds glazing to the monolithic oil and gas industrial plants around Omsk. Balabinsk is a brisk –25C when we pull in. I purchase some cole slaw and desert (beet salad topped with sliced apples & cream), peanut candy and beer. The food is stored in refrigerated units to prevent freezing and upon opening the lids, a whoosh of warmth emanates.

Our eastward progress finally gives way to the southern fork of the Trans-Mongolian and my most eagerly anticipated passage of the journey. Lake Baikal, by all accounts, is an anomaly. It is the world’s oldest (~30million years) and deepest (over a mile) lake and contains 20% of the world’s freshwater. It is also constantly growing deeper and some scientists believe it will split the Asian continent in about a million years.

The first sighting is breathtaking. Blanketed in heavy fog, the sky and water form an ominous soupy grey. Pancake ice bobs in sections where the bay offers shelter. Farther out, white caps belie the tumultuous bluster beneath. The train skirts the coastline for the next several hours. I take my coffee in the dining car with a Nantucket native on his way to Beijing to brush up on his Chinese, both of us gazing pensively at the passing lake as we sip at the hot mud in our mugs.

During my afternoon nap, I’m awoken by the Chinese college student reminding me to show up in the dining car for the New Year’s Eve revelry later. I shudder at the thought of whooping it up in the bland Russian dining car under the gaze of its stern staff but after clearing immigration at the Russian/Mongolian border stop of Suhe Bator - which obliged with a modest fireworks display at the stroke of midnight - I stumble dutifully through the succession of coaches to the dining car, eager to see what this year’s version of the annual ritual will bring.

Pushing through the last door, I’m unexpectedly greeted by an onslaught of red murals with gold trimming, a ceiling with exotic lanterns and beer being served by pretty girls. While I was sleeping, the dining car was changed to a Mongolian one. Russians, Mongolians, Chinese, Vodka, Herring, Calamari, Soup and Fruit all contribute equally to the festivities. Much goodwill is exchanged. I take it upon myself to arm-wrestle a Buryat miner, originally from Okhotsk but working in Pakistan and elsewhere. With my two arms to his one, he graciously concedes a tie. I sleep at 7 and awaken at 11 with a minimal hangover to a complete change of scenery. We are now in Mongolia.

The wide-open Mongolian tundra is devoid of snow. Instead, odd-looking animals dominate the landscape. Funny stubby horses, furry camels, reindeer llama hybrids, eagles and vultures catch our eye. I notice a barbed wire fence running parallel to the tracks and witness a lamb who had somehow made its way into the train’s corridor try to scamper back to the other side as the train rumbles by. As the lamb leaps through the fence, the jagged metal tears its white flesh, gushing red while its lungs scream out in pain and its panicky legs flail at nothing, body suspended in midair. Further along the fence are similarly trapped plastic bags of assorted colors flailing and waving at us as we pass.

That night, we pull into the Mongolian-Chinese border town of Erlyan to transit for several hours while the train is switched to narrower Chinese gauge. After leaving Erlyan, the train travels alongside the Great Wall for much of the day before the rural landscape slowly transforms to the urban sprawl of Beijing. While much of Beijing’s outskirts bring back visual memories of 12 years ago when I last passed this way, there is also much that is overwhelmingly surprising and new. 3-lane highways filled with cars streaming in both directions and in between neatly painted white lane markers, a skyline crowded with glass towers and cranes and the ubiquitous sparkle of the welder’s torch. Teens with the edgiest haircuts & yuppies with the latest mobile devices share the sidewalk with large groups of constructions workers dressed in their gray outfits and heading to their nightly urban camps.

We pull into Beijing station barely a few minutes behind schedule. After helping one of the Chinese traders with her baggage, I notice the motley crew of companions I’ve had for a week scattered about the plaza. I grab my pack and disappear into the crowd, eagerly anticipating a shower at my friend's pad.