Recommended

Lazy has begun adding the occasional new post, again.... realgem endures, yet...

But there is other work to be done... In the meantime, may I leave you with documentary-maker Adam Curtis's wonderful blog, The Medium and the Message, and its epic and unusual history of foreign involvement in the country of Afghanistan, Kabul: City Number One, rich with unknown history, supplemented by clips of rare footage from the depths of the BBC's archives.

(It occurs to me that Afghanistan, appropriately enough somehow for a country which in many ways occupies a different historical era from most of the readers of this blog, has its very own time zone at +4h30 GMT.)

job description

stationed behind a protective sangaar of empty beer bottles

or a lone whiskey glass standing sentry

in the bar over the valley, nestled between the two peaks. un sitio muy defendable, cuando llega el apocalipsis.

church bell begins as soon as i start to write. maybe sounds more like a gong, or someone banging a piece of scrap metal with a hammer.

-reasonable knowledge of matters afghanistan linguistic, political, historical, social and military


-plausible written expression in english


-no objection to ocasionally smuggling small quantities of illegal materials or incriminating documents through dubai airport or illegal amounts of currency through london or european airports


-willingness to risk life, limb or liberty for the chance of travel, possibly adventure and a near-nominal remuneration. generous expenses account, on the other hand.


-knowledge of farsi, pashtu, urdu desirable

dubai airport

the only reason i mention dubai so much, despite it being a despicable place, is because i have done so much writing while trapped in its airport. i met a zimbabwean with a revoked passport who had been stuck in there for a month, once.

i like the airport. i like airports and train and bus stations in general, the sensation of being an in-between place, people from across the human spectrum going to other places. dubai airport, in particular, apart from the free wifi and cheap duty free, has the added hidden buzz of spies, businessmen, 'consultants', 'contractors', mercenaries, strange people on inscrutable missions; snatches of overheard muttered conversations in the so-called irish pub rich with obscure references to things most people don't know or don't want to know about. elegantly suited corporate travellers , arabs in dazzling white gowns wearing backward baseball caps, balochis in sandals and shalwar qamiz and cloth bundles of luggage tied up with rope, young indian men in flares and shirts open at the neck, dazzlingly beautiful arab girls in tight jeans and jingling with gold and platinum jewellery.

a kuwaiti girl with the offhand manner of command of some sheikh's or emir's or prince's daughter ordering ice cream in the food court, sitting at the table across from me, leaning back to stretch her back and shoulders and show off her ohmigod beautiful tits for me, the wonderful kind of departure lounge flirtation that can never go anywhere.

huge black guy with the manner of a marine sgt in a dyncorp t-shirt, herding a crowd of filipino and bangla contract workers for a big fob somewhere off a bus onto an afghan-bound flight, lining them all up and scanning them all with a handheld barcode reader.

[redacted]

i am still in the room, listening to the voice droning on outside

"nutting is a very wonderful english thing.

king harold nutted prince william or whatever he was. that's the real story of what went on in hastings. and then they took out an arrow and shot him. but first he nutted him.

you couldn't nut anybody. but the mentalist could. he could nut someone."

The old people in the ancient village (which huddles from the winds in between the two tallest peaks) have tottered up the hill to howl at the moon. A drunk plays mournful blues harp in the street, like a film noir cliche. I can't sleep.

"I was here when the ameobas started, I spoke to them, I've been here millions of years.
I killed my brother and my sister. I cut out their hearts cause I knew that was the best way.
No I could never do that. i could never become a fly. I was buzzing around the kitchen earlier."

(Well, okay, but look out for hot light bulbs and candles, I say)

(I think we're having a fly moment here. we have no way of knowing that we haven't been sitting here miserably drunk forever. just like a fly circling endlessly and aimlessly, forgetting everything that happened a few seconds ago)

I don't really speak Farsi; however, I am fluent in a language of my own invention which, on occasion, is mutually comprehensible with farsi.

Democracy is another religion like the universal and catholic Church of the Middle Ages, when the black death raged across Europe and strange apocalyptic sects wandered the land, demented with fear and ergotism, lashing themselves with whips and appealing to heaven, praying to God to save them. Reminds me awful lot of certain futile protests, with people shouting themselves hoarse, as if only they shout the right slogan with enough fervor something will change. What difference????? Neither will change anything.

At least not until there are cars upside down burning, molotov cocktails impacting on police APCs.

"Political power grows from the barrel of a gun." (Mao Tse Tung)

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." (Sun Tzu)

the writing life

it is the same everywhere. the forests are under assault. the last remotenesses crumble.

and what is this constant feed of information doing to me? doing to you?

new types of conceptual filters... (that is why so much of history seems so insane; seen through their conceptual filters at the time, it made sense.... perhaps...) new types of conceptual filters for a new type of world. 

the ability to ignore has never been so important.

writing leads to discoveries, and 'words build bridges into unexplored regions'[quote a. hitler] (both for the reader and the writer, the speaker and the listener), apart from its ability to bring pleasure, wonder or emotion to whoever should read it.

and then why disvalue it so much? that with all this staring into glowing rectangles, not even an hour, a stingy half-an-hour given to the art? cause 'i practised by art til i'm blue in the face, man...' ('my heart's on the plate...') [roots manuva, chin high]

it's still a typewriter. with a few little extras. don't forget your origins.

Lost in La Mancha again

Enter The Dragon. Later, Enter Another

By Lavie Tidhar

 

Back again and then

[panic stalks even the bare hills here
it never quite leaves me]

Lazy never continued the story he began with 'The Return', below...

It was tapped out in the freezing cold glorious glittering sun and crystal sky Kabul dawn (preternaturally clear, for one morning the smog and smoke has blown away and the far high mountains are visible clad in snow) shivering in the office, twisted and drunk and two days and nights sleepless through three countries.

The dynamics of the situation are...

Well.

Stay tuned. Maintain radio contact. Keep a low profile. Practise all relevant anti-surveillance techniques. Stay calm, and never admit to anything. Don't worry, we will meet again.

"خانه دوست كجاست؟" در فلق بود كه پرسيد سوار.
آسمان مكثي كرد.
رهگذر شاخه نوري كه به لب داشت به تاريكي شن‌ها بخشيد
و به انگشت نشان داد سپيداري و گفت:


"نرسيده به درخت،
كوچه باغي است كه از خواب خدا سبزتر است
و در آن عشق به اندازه پرهاي صداقت آبي است
مي‌روي تا ته آن كوچه كه از پشت بلوغ، سر به در مي‌آرد،
پس به سمت گل تنهايي مي‌پيچي،
دو قدم مانده به گل،
پاي فواره جاويد اساطير زمين مي‌ماني
و تو را ترسي شفاف فرا مي‌گيرد.
در صميميت سيال فضا، خش‌خشي مي‌شنوي:
كودكي مي‌بيني
رفته از كاج بلندي بالا، جوجه بردارد از لانه نور
و از او مي‌پرسي
خانه دوست كجاست."

“Where is the friend’s house?” asked the horseman just at dawn.
The heavens paused.
A wayfarer took the bright branch from his lips,
conferred it on the darkness of the sands,
pointed with his finger to a poplar tree and said,
“Just before that tree
there is a garden path greener than God’s dreams.
In it there is love as wide as the blue wings of true friendship.
You go on to the end of the path that takes up again
just beyond maturity,
then turn toward the flower of loneliness.
Two steps before the flower,
stop at the eternal fountain of earthly myth.
There a transparent terror will seize you,
and in the sincerity of the streaming heavens
you will hear a rustling.
High up in a pine tree,
you will see a child
who will lift a chick out of a nest of light.
Ask him,
“Where is the friend’s house?”

"Well, wishing you godspeed..."

"Godspeed? What speed is that?"

"Oh, about 120 mph or so..."

(Approximately the terminal velocity of a human body in free-fall)

oh dear, blogger has screwed up my lovely template somehow while updating to this new interface. both interface and template served me perfectly well for years and years now, who knows what is going on...

in haste... but realgem is still here!

this reality thing still feels like a cutting knife, sometimes, with nothing to hide behind

The Return

for many of us, all roads have led to norway.


that is an oblique tangent on which to start the story.


tomorrow: remember to buy soap, a good knife, some alprazolam, and a surge-protected 4-way extension lead.


hahahahahhahaa!


let’s start with something more sickly, sickly familiar, then. waking up at 0600 after a horrible sleepless night in deep dark, still distinctly withdrawally, forcing myself out into the pre-dawn black chill of winter london with nothing, not even a valium to take the edge off...


no, wait a second, we’ve heard this one before. i think.


some of the parameters are different, though. i would like to think.


the extraction operation begins with 2 large cans of monster energy drink, a quarter of vodka, and finishing off the thai and the moroccan in between bursts of frantic packing, phoning, organising, tying up loose ends in a desperate rushed fumble.


fast forward 28 hours and four time zones or so in a blur. (i get the emergency exit seat on the emirates B777-300, giving me all the leg-room, and a pretty and chatty slovakian air hostess sitting opposite me for take-off, before she gets up to keep the passengers fed and me supplied with magical endless absolut miniature bottles.)


dubai. i am sitting in a bar half-way up a reproduction in pale yellowish stone of the great pyramid - complete with giant statues, hieroglyphs and glittering pharaonic gold - only better, because it has terraces with palm-shaded multi-level swimming pools with swim-up bars set into the side. fans of peacock feathers wave mechanically overhead to stir the cool air and eddies of cigarette smoke inside.


i am drinking what turns out to be one of several hideously over-priced vodka tonics. i haven’t slept, and my foot still taps convulsively occasionally. i am waiting for a visa. nervously. i wonder if they will take notice at the consulate that i have travelled many times before to afghanistan, but on a different nationality passport. whether they found it curious that i ticked the box saying i had never applied for an afghan visa before but addressed the clerk in dari.


...


[to be continued. we are another 28 hours along now, and despite my best efforts to bludgeon my consciousness into a blissful coma, still sleep has continued to elude me]

sorry i haven't been writing.

a lot of the parameters have changed.

i'm trying to find the big story

others are looking for it too

(if you are browsing idly for something interesting to read, the labels feature might be instructive as to what this has all been about)

oh, who knows about anything

this is a serious document

today, I met a librarian of jihad