Taken while walking on a street in Poznan. The black frames hold mirrors reflecting skies and buildings. I suspect this is a work of public art, although I found no identifying plaque.
In most countries folks celebrate all the good bits in their history with parades. You get drunk, sing songs (everyone knows the words; it’s how you belong) and, with much good cheer, you remember.
In most countries, as you may have noticed, the very same people work just as hard at forgetting the bad bits in their history. Or at least they try to erase as much evidence as they can, so the younger folk will have a simpler, kinder view of an always complicated history.
Driving around Tucson, Arizona last January, I noticed a surprising number of billboards for clinics specializing in vasectomy reversal. Actually, it was just two billboards, but even one would have been surprising. I mean, how many clinics can rustle up enough customers for justthis?
I’ve never had a vasectomy myself — much less its reversal — but this got me thinking.
The vasectomy seemed like a good idea. What with the kids finally in school and the house nearly paid off and whatnot. But after a couple of years the wife starts getting on my case and the kids are taking her side. There’s a bunch of yelling and whatever. So I get my own place and move on with my life. Now, there’s Summer. She’s a good kid, Summer. Put the wind in my sails again. Said she wants to have my baby. Summer doesn’t know about the vasectomy, of course, but I’ve been seeing these signs around town…
Normally I don’t dwell on regret, but I understand the temptation. At a restaurant I’m always the one looking at everyone else’s plate and thinking, “Damn, I should have ordered that.”
* * *
We are currently far from Arizona, in Rockport, Massachusetts. But just a few weeks ago we were even further away, in the French Alps, at a small hotel that normally offers a spectacular view of Mont Blanc. I say normally because the promised mountain was just a ghostly shape when we arrived, barely registering behind a damp and dreary sky. We looked for it, somewhere up there, above the turquoise hotel pool, and saw only an approximation of mountain, maybe right about there. It put me in mind of faith; of waiting for someone in robes to manifest among the clouds.
At breakfast a fellow guest said that wildfires in Western Canada were responsible for the haze. Over the past several years, we’ve noticed an increasing number of Americans, eyes brimming with regret, giving us long, meaningful looks and sorrowful apologies. I’ve never seen a people so contrite. And here at last was our turn to apologize, even though no one blamed us, personally, for ruining the view.
In the second week the smoke gradually cleared and one fine morning there it was. It’s not always in sight, but you turn a corner, look up, and there it is again — Mont Blanc. A black and white immensity. Ancient, primeval, severe, towering above the green hills and tidy Alpine chalets. It’s all a bit unreal, and doesn’t seem to fully belong in our freshly-painted world.
During our trip we took a gondola and cable car up to the Mont Blanc massif. We were lightheaded by the altitude and intoxicated by the view. It is the face of God, I heard someone say.
Later on we spent a day at Megève, a small Alpine town that swells with the ultra-rich during ski season. Many of the high-calibre shops, restaurants and real estate offices were shuttered, but you wander around and quickly get the idea. Megève was founded in 1920 by Baroness Noémie de Rothschild, and there’s a respectful monument to that rich lady you might gaze at for some moments.
There’s also a monument to Jacques Revaux, who lived here for a time. Revaux co-wrote Come d’habitude, which in 1967 went #1 on the French hit parade for singer Claude Francois. Paul Anka heard the song while vacationing in the South of France and immediately thought it would be perfect for Frank Sinatra. Anka bought the rights, left the melody nearly intact, and wrote entirely different lyrics. (You know the song; you’ve heard it a thousand times; you may, like some people, hate it. But it’s still a master class in lyric writing.)
Sinatra recorded My Way in one take, in 1969, and it sold millions. It’s Sinatra’s biggest hit: a man’s sentimental hymn to bloated self-regard. It is the Mont Blanc of songs. (I’m surprised they don’t play it at political rallies.) Two other songs from about the same era also come to mind: Paul Anka’s You’reHaving my Baby (1974), for which he got into plenty of hot water. And It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World (1968), by James Brown. But My Way towers above the rest.
Regrets, I’ve had a few,
But then again, too few to mention…
As it turns out, there’s an earlier English version of Comme d’habitude, by David Bowie. It was never recorded. A couple of years after My Way’s release, though, Bowie reworked his translation (which actually sticks pretty close to the French) into Is There Life on Mars? from his Hunky Dory album. He always hated My Way.
A corner of Megève in the off-season.
* * *
Our trip to the French Alps began in Geneva, where we stayed for a couple of days to recover from jet lag. The city is graceful, orderly, eager to take your money. If Geneva has a face, it is the face of a Rolex watch. In fact, the parade of luxury watch brands begins right at the airport and follows you everywhere. Their logos dominate the Geneva skyline, where they perch atop every tall building like golden gargoyles, watching your every move.
On our second day in Geneva, as we were crossing one of the many bridges that span the Rhône River, we encountered a demon.
It was only a brief moment, mind you. We were walking in opposite directions, so I couldn’t say what the demon was wearing. But I can tell you that every square inch of skin was tattooed, and tattooed horribly — a pudding of muddy browns, greens and blues pierced only by the whites of his eyes. And something else, too. The face had been altered by props or skewers, maybe a botched surgery. Maybe a bone through the nose.
In our history books at school, I remember prints made from explorers’ descriptions of painted savages from the Americas and Africa. Today most of us think of these images as misapprehensions: ignorant, racist, fearful first impressions of the other. Nothing education and open minds can’t clear up — at least that’s what most of us think.
At dinner one night, in our snug hotel under the shadow of Mont Blanc, we described the demon to other guests at our table. The big question, of course, is why would anyone do this to himself? Tattoos on this scale are, unlike a vasectomy, irreversible. If he has regrets, too bad for the demon on the bridge.
As it happened, there was a psychiatrist at our table, and she had seen a patient who had been heavily tattooed and pierced
“It’s all about control,” said the psychiatrist. “If you don’t like how others see you, tattoos put you back in charge. You force others to see only the tattoos.”
She was right, I suppose. For all I know the demon was wearing a Speedo and ballet slippers. I saw only the tattoos.
But I saw something else, too. If I’m being honest, I saw a painted guy with a bone through his nose coming my way and I didn’t like the looks of him. He scared me, and I don’t know exactly why. I’m fully prepared to be wrong about him. About all those who remain demons among us — strangers, every one of them.
But it’s hard, especially when I look in a mirror. What do I see there? Regretfully, I see two faces from Geneva. One of them symmetrical, orderly, precise. And this.
Taken outside a shuttered boutique in Megève. Why else would you abuse your body? Because it’s a blank canvas, a stage, a means to express yourself. And because it is, after all, yours.
I’m reading an English translation of The Flaw, a Greek mystery thriller by Antonis Samarakis. That characterization, mystery thriller, isn’t quite right. In fact, the book does not fit into any single category. It’s just too strange and funny and destabilizing. It dwells on banal events, some of which later turn out to be not so banal. Flits between one character’s point of view and another’s. Never pretends to know what any character is thinking or feeling, which leaves you wondering that you’re thinking and feeling. About the book, I mean.
Good Friday service just before the Procession. Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Nicholas, in Chania.
I just finished reading The Shortest History of Greece, which is 242 pages in length. My favourite paragraph is about the hard-fought 1920 national election:
“To general amazement, the [monarchist] opposition won. Perhaps it was resentment at the continuing violation of Greek sovereignty by the Great Powers. Perhaps it was the sudden death of King Alexander from a monkey-bite and return of his popular father, Constantine.”
Excuse me, monkey bite? A little context, please? Such as, what was the monkey’s name? What exactly did King Alexander do to provoke the monkey? And, was the monkey wearing a fez?
As we entered To Mikro Karavi (The Little Boat), a bookstore on Daskalogianni Street, Maria Callas — I assumed it was Maria Callas — was deep into some aria. I could see her at stage front, shattered, bloodied, defiant. Callas was cranked up so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think.
On the thirty-five-minute flight from Athens to Chania, the young and pretty flight attendant pushes the refreshments trolley down the aisle. When she gets to my row, she leans over and holds out a bottle of water and a snack. We have been travelling for nearly twenty-four hours — exactly twenty-four by the time we check into our hotel about an hour later.
Anything special happen this week? Well, sir, as we leave our pink adobe cassita at the dude ranch one morning, I see a grey bunny, nose in the air, sniffing. I take this for a good sign.
Later, on my way to hike the Douglas Spring Trail, which begins less than a kilometre from the ranch, a road runner eyes me suspiciously from beneath a large mesquite. The mesquite is all elbows, and in its branches sits a scarlet tanager. More good signs. But alas, no Gila monsters anywhere to be seen. Still on the lookout for those.
From my high vantage, I have a bird’s-eye view of the town of Bar Harbor, Maine and of the ugly cruise ship parked half a mile out and waiting for its humans, who are now scattered up and down Main Street buying oven mitts and bacon jam.
After a few days in London (see photo above), we took the train from King’s Cross station to King’s Lynn in Norfolk. From there, a half-hour’s drive took us to the northern edge of Norfolk, and beyond that, a grey sea.
Beautiful country, this, even under an overcast sky. At low tide the beaches go on forever, with a scattering of angled boats at rest on the sand, and a distant horizon that is an approximation in the misty light. If you possess an excellent imagination and look really hard, you’ll see Holland straight across.
I go for a run on a windy day, along a narrow road flanked by fields of yellow stubble. From the windbreak beside me rises a hawk and, hanging from its cruel beak, a snake. A sudden gust sweeps the hawk from view and it soon disappears into the sky. I take this for a sign, even though I don’t believe in signs.
I don’t believe in signs because, as the years pass and the world sinks ever lower, I find myself losing faith in any kind of meaning. Time lurches on, events pile up, that’s it.
Sandringham, Sir
We’re not far from Sandringham House, in Norfolk, where Queen Elizabeth II spent every Christmas, and from where she delivered her annual Christmas message. She usually stayed until February. Sandringham (20,000 acres) was one of her two private residences, the other being Balmoral Castle in Scotland (53,000 acres). This is to distinguish these properties from Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, which belong to the state. Now all of this goes to Charles.
Sandringham is sporting: horses, dogs, shooting, cards. A life-size bronze statue of Estimate, the Queen’s favourite horse, stands out front. Inside, should you be invited, there’s a gun room and a billiards room. There was also a bowling alley which, alas, is now a library.
Soon after arriving in Norfolk, we spent a day at the Sandringham Game & Country Fair. Country fairs are like happy families: all alike and loads of fun. Chainsaw carving, a Ferris wheel, falconry, men striding about swinging swords. And dogs, plenty of dogs, along with ferrets, miniature steam engines and antique cars. And always, from somewhere else on the fairgrounds, a continuous pop-pop-pop. For there is shooting as well.
William and Kate have a house near Sandringham, and are sometimes spotted going about their business. With all this royalty and gentry and hangers-on close at hand, small wonder that at Sandringham Game & Country Fair, you notice a sprinkling of hearty folks in Harris tweed or Burberry or Prada, among the young families with missing teeth, tattoos and half-naked kids.
Wandering through various odds and ends at the fair, I came across a display of large petrol cans from the previous century. The cans were spotless, paint still bright and hopeful, and ranged on a specially built frame: five cans tall by nine wide, forming a kind of wall. Some logos were familiar, even if outdated: Esso, Mobil and Shell. But also the unfamiliar Glico, National Benzole and Wimpey.
A glum-looking older chap in a lawn chair sat beneath his wall of petrol cans. He didn’t react when I pointed at my camera and then at his display. But as I raised my camera, he ever so slightly squared his shoulders.
Cameras will do that.
Sir Elton
As I say, cameras will do that, and do many other things. At the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London, we saw “Fragile Beauty,” an exhibition of photographs from the collection of Sir Elton John and David Furnish. Elton and David have been collecting for years, and now own one of the foremost collections in the world (7,000 photos total, only 300 in the show). As expected, we saw plenty of fashion, celebrity and gay-themed images (often interesting, sometimes beautiful), but also street photography, reportage and conceptual photos (far more interesting). One image, of a man plunging to his death from the World Trade Center, haunts everyone who sees it.
At the Victoria & Albert, to see “Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection.”
I bought the exhibition catalogue to “Fragile Beauty,” which I’m now happy to lend. Later on during our trip, as a palate cleanser to all this plunging-to-his-death stuff, I also bought a handsome book of photographic portraits of Queen Elizabeth II. On every page, she looks like money.
Then, on our final evening in London we went to see Coriolanus at the Royal National Theatre, with the astounding David Oyelowo in the title role. I read the play at university, but of course remembered not a thing (and still don’t). For some reason we had managed to snag seats in the third row, and so this ingenious production was literally in our faces. Across the stage, marble busts reminded us of Rome and its politics. There was a sword fight, but also business suits and a camera crew, bringing the politics to the present.
Here was a tragedy of a great man who, despite his greatness, is trapped within his own limitations, unable to see or to change. I suppose that, minus the greatness, that could be any one of us.
At the Laurence Olivier Theatre, moments before the start of Coriolanus.
* * *
With the hawk gone, I stare into the now empty sky above a field of yellow stubble. Then, as I continue my run along the narrow country road, a doe and two fawns emerge from the blackberry bushes up ahead. I stop, but they’ve already seen me. The faintest sound of tapping, as the doe and fawns tiptoe nervously across the asphalt and vanish into the opposite bushes. More signs, perhaps.
As I write this at an iron table in the South of France, a donkey is bawling his eyes out behind a stone wall. Meanwhile to my right and left, streams of churning water tumble and rush south on their way to the Mediterranean.
because i said 