BATS IN THE LIBRARY

Per an article on the Smithsonian webpage, there are bat colonies in at least two Portuguese libraries which softly twitter on rainy afternoons, and emerge at dusk to feast on bugs which otherwise might damage the manuscripts. Which, if you ask me, is utterly charming.
All libraries, in my estimation, should have bats.

When I worked part-time at a second hand bookstore years ago we may have had bats in the building, but we definitely did have bums in the stacks. Which were not nearly so useful.

Of course, that was in the day and age when there also ashtrays on the premises, because the expectation was that for every book you actually bought, obsessively, you would likely read most of around a dozen more. And why do I have a gardening manual in Chinese for literati in Suzhou originally published during the Manchu dynasty, reprinted during the early nineties after China re-opened up? I would have to evict peasants and look up what those plant names actually are in English for it to be useful. Unless I simply assume that everything is pine (松 'chung'), cypress (柏 'paak'), bamboo (竹 'juk'), and chrysanthemum (菊 'guk').

松、柏、竹、菊花。

This city would indeed be more beautiful if there were more of those, and fewer peasants, techno yuppies, or bums. We must also have more bat-inhabited mediaeval libraries!

And particularly bats like the common pipstrelle (pipistrellus pipistrellus, 伏翼蝙蝠 'fuk yik pin fuk') and ashtrays at the end of shelf rows and in bookstore basements, like City Lights used to have. Alas, pipistrelles are not native to these parts. So I'll settle for the Mexican free-tailed bat (tadarida brasiliensis, 墨西哥犬吻蝠 'mak sai go huen man fuk'). They're larger, but the most common bat in these parts, and should thrive in a nice quiet library.



This morning, at around eight thirty, when I was certain that my apartment mate had left for the day and would not return suddenly because she might have forgotten something, I shut her bedroom door, made myself another cup of coffee, and settled down with books and a pipe for a nice quiet smoke. It is silent in the room at the back of the building, no heavy machinery, or noisy peasants, techno yuppies, and bums.

A pleasant visit with Stemmen in Steen - de ontcijfering der oude schriften, by Ernst Doblhofer (translated by W. van Lakwijk). Ably assisted by aged Red Virginia.
Which functions like bats to keep the bugs away.



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COLD WEATHER NOODLES

You cannot add hot sauce to noodle soup unless you are a white guy eating phở, and this wasn't that. White guy. Check. Eating. Check. Phở. No check. At around teatime I stepped out for a bite to eat, and seeing as I have a nose cold, hot soup seemed like the best idea. Pickled mustard and pork shreds with narrow rice noodles in broth (榨菜肉絲米粉 'jaa choi yiuk si mai fan').

Yes, there was hot sauce on the premises, and I often claim that everything no exceptions tastes better with sambal, but never-the-less.


I did not get where I am today by being a white guy adding Sriracha to his phở.
That is to say, I have indeed done so, fairly often.
But it did not contribute.


Afterwards I went outside to smoke my pipe for half an hour or so, and also gave directions to a Cantonese woman who was wondering where Temple Street (Waverly Place) was (天后廟街係嗰邊 'tin haau miu kaai hai go pin'), wandered around a bit, before heading home to putz on the computer and doomscroll for an hour.

The pipe in question is exactly the same shape as the one which Clark Gable was sporting in a number of publicity photos, looking pensive and intellectual because he also had a book.
I do not think it made me Gable-esque, but that was probably because I looked between grumpy and snarky, and lacked a book. A squat bulldog shape by Comoy.

So naturally a likely woman did not approach me and say something to the effect of "I think you look amazingly dashing AND intellectual, and I would like to drink tea while listening to you waffle on about stuff, I think that would be quite heavenly!"


我覺得你好氣派同埋有智慧，而我想一邊飲茶一邊聽你講事，我諗噉樣會幾天堂！
['Ngo gok dak nei hou hei paai tung maai yau ji wai，yi ngo seung yat bin yam chaa yat bin teng nei gong si，ngo lam gam yeung wui gei tin tong!']


Besides, I was smoking the wrong tobacco for that. Clark Gable liked medium Balkan blends, just like William Faulkner, whereas what I was puffing was a rubbed out flake much like Tolkien and Bertrand Russell, neither of whom were particularly hot or glamorous.
Very very not sexy. Darn.


It remains a fond fantasy. A man can dream.
But about as likely as pigs flying.



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ABSTRACT CONCEPTS

A friend writes on Facebook "there was a shooting outside our house last night. There's been a shirtless crazy man walking around our block screaming for a few days. Every day, I pick up a vast amount of trash from the yard, including syringes, liquor bottles, and burned pieces of tinfoil. I love my house and I love the area, but I am really glad we're moving in a few months."

Sounds like you have imagined San Francisco, right?
He's nearly two thousand miles away.
In the Mid-West.

My neighborhood, and much of SF, is considerably safer than that, and less problem-prone. But there are swathes of the city where I will not go. For reasons. Society has become stranger than we thought it could. Dystopian to a far greater degree.
That's not including the red states where the bad juju reigns.
Ominous banjo music is obligatory there.
The bad lands.

Over the past few days at work I saw all of the problem cases. Regulars who have issues and "needs". They are reasonably safe here in the Bay Area, but the rest of the country would probably chew them up, spit them out, dance on their brutally tortured corpses.
And burn them while chanting "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus".

Because that's what Texas do.

[Texas here is a metaphor for all of the smaller insignificant red states.]


Out there in the red states, there are well-trained little kiddies singing hymns of obsequium for the president, blue-haired grandmas dressed from sternum to swollen feet in red, white, and blue, and pick-up truck driving yutzes roaring around drunk at night without lights looking for transgendered Mexicans to work over. Very likely while chanting "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus".

They're also cheering the president's tariff victory.
The trade war is won. He blinked.
Stupendous, huuuge!
He blinked.


Loud chants of "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus".


Addendum at 11:22 added for local colour: ten guys in Alabama cruising down a dirt road in their pickup trucks shooting deer from the side of the road. A Walmart in Kentucky. Do you A) Love and adore president Trump's hard work to make our country great, or B) Hate our country and its people and everything in it because you’re a crazy socialist?
Strange filaments, and Karoline Leavitt.



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OH MY LEGS!

When I arrived home my legs ached immensely, as did my upper back and shoulders. This being the effect of a full days work, poor circulation, the burst of activity at the end of the work day, and amlodipine besylate. That last has positive effect, though sometimes I am hard put to grasp that.

Not in so much discomfort, however, that I neglected to count those several things which must, neurotically, be counted. Three dogs (one of which is a handsome easy-going Irish wolfhound), one Waymo, one tyke, one complete loony, two familiar faces from a distance, and two Chinese young ladies, one of whom because of her height (or rather, less of that), and the modesty and elegance of her clothing, was extremely nice to observe going on up ahead with her suitor. Propertion, dimension, general neatness of appearance.

No idea what her legs looked or felt like. As I said, modesty and elegance.
My own legs, though possibly decent looking, felt quite like crap.
Almost as if someone I can't stand died in them.
Painfullly and screaming.

A HYPOTHETICAL SET OF LEGS

Yeah, um, no my legs do NOT look like the illustration. And I have too much sense to wear high heels, besides the fact that I am none of the genders that do that.
Nor do I actually know anyone who does wear stilettos.
They're very bad for the back.


Years ago my mother returned from an evening do at the company, took off her heels, and flung them with great force into a corner. She never wore such footwear again. She came from an era in which decent women had several pairs of such footgear, but she hated them thoroughly. A sentiment with which I agree. Did I mention that they're bad for the back?

The only practical use they possibly have is defensive. You can take one of them off and strike someone fiercely with it, inflicting damage. If needed. I suspect that that is why proper ladies had several pairs. You never know when you will need to clobber someone.

They're not good for running (which you should never do anyway, it's undignified and there will always be another bus) or using the escalators in BART stations.


If you're cosplaying a famous moviestar, then maybe.
Many of them suffered for their art.
And because of it.



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A RICH INNER LIFE

One of the sporadic show-ups at my work is a chap with a wide spectrum of life experiences and a plethora of skillsets. He's been an astronaut, nuclear physicist, jet fighter pilot, shaolin monk, podiatrist, brain surgeon, chemical engineer, race car driver, and kung fu fighter. Pilots his own helicopter, and has a mansion with a helipad in Tiburon. Also, he has a daughter who seven years ago was fourteen, and probably still is.

Naturally I stand in awe.

He showed up twice yesterday, and thus made up for the scarcity of the senile old right wing toads who normally infest the back room. Who also have rich inner lives, bless them, but are far more problematic presences. I like to think that I myself have one or two things I do well, and am a very tolerant patient man in the running for sainthood.

My apartment mate, a brutal realist at times, describes herself as "a rude-ass mofo, up yours boy". And says about her own kind that if they were chickens, they'd be the first to be thrown into the deepfryer. This pursuant a significant characteristic of Asian Americans which I shall not mention. I rely on her for frequent exposure to sober realism. It keeps me grounded.

Sadly, I do not have a rich inner life, unlike the first mentioned person, nor the archtypical Cantonese ultra-Hibernian eloquence of my apartment mate. We Dutch Americans are a dour lot, given to Calvinistic disapproval of a great many things even if we haven't been anywhere near a church in several generations. Nor would I describe us as particularly spiritual.

Regarding that dull and academic landscape painting above, please understand that in the far distance near the lake there are naked sprites engaged in a lively dance, both male and female as well as transgender, of several different appealing skin hues. They are extremely sexy. Unfortunately they are too far away to actually see them. That's very Dutch painterly of me. There is miniature naughtiness in my illustrations. Sorry you can't see it, because of perspective. But I want you to know that it is there.


Think of it as le sacre du printemps.



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SHAGGY MUTANTS AT THE OOZE FACTORY

Some of the people I deal with regularly believe that there are nanochips in vaccines and also I have recently been told that the new pope is either a crossdresser or a trangendered person (his skull shape is, apparently, a dead give-away). So sometimes just plain stupid would be a breath of fresh air.

If they field test the giant combat-lobsters in Marin County, I am ready for that. I will gladly help them herd the local population into the fryer-baskets. Here, this one is nice and fatty. Especially the head!

Fifteen tonne spider dump right over Mill Valley? Cool!


Of course, I am probably the perfect person for my job. Neurotic. In the morning while heading toward the bus stop there are five kinds of things I obsessively count: crazies - druggies - streetpeople, dogs, familiar faces, tykes, and robo-taxis. In the evening walking back from the bus I do the same thing. There were three crazies, three tykes, and three Waymos this evening. No more, no less. Not four, that would be too many. Three.
Two of the tykes are Randall and Brenda.
They are active and adorable.


The first category is a Venn diagram, naturally. Overlapping circles. Some crazies are street people or druggies and in either of the latter categories there are plenty of crazy folks.
Some people are a triple whammy.

Pursuant daily activities at the ooze factory, I noticed that when Jeff was talking about politics he was petulantly whining in a very MAGA fashion, and when he spoke of lady boys he sounded totally giddy. I did not ask him about his experiences in that field.
And I absolutely do not want to know.

Nor do I wish to hear about painful blisters, digestive bloating, or purulence.
These are no doubt fascinating subjects, but save them for the nurse.


I did get to smoke several bowls of Greg Pease's latest (Ellipsis) while at work, however. Quoting from Tobacco Reviews dot com: "The fourth entry in master blender Greg Pease's Zeitgeist Collection, Ellipsis Flake is a flake-cut, pressed mixture of Virginias, Orientals, and a bit of Perique, resulting in a blend that is medium-bodied, subtle in aroma, and complex in flavor. Naturally rich with sweetness, spice, and a bit of nuttiness, Ellipsis Flake, by being pressed, allows the mixture's flavors to be amplified and is fit to satisfy Virginia lovers and Oriental enthusiasts alike."

Yeah. It's good. Smooth medium, with a savoury quality reminiscent of a good Havana.
I shan't recommend it to the pipe club, because everytime I do that the bastards buy it all and I don't get to start a hoard. When stockpiling, shoot for the following perfect quantities (which represent lovely numbers. Three tins, for the unobtainables. Five, because it's luck, as is eight, and both six and nine let you also have an open tin. Ten, eleven, twelve, sixteen, eighteen, twenty, and twenty one. This is the correct way.


A good reason to give some people Valium is so they don't twitch on the table.
There are great differences between an anal probe and a brain probe.
But for the fellows in the backroom, ignore all that.
The results will be very much the same.




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THE UNSOCIAL FEAST

Yesterday's lunch was fried rice with chopped bacon, juicy sausage chunks, bitter melon, shrimp paste, and sambal added generously during cooking. Nigel Ng (aka Uncle Roger) might not have approved. Jamie Oliver wouldn't have know what to make of it. And my Parsee friend, had I served her that, would cuss, look aghast, and accuse me of offending everybody's ancestors including my own. Because she is very unfond of bitter melon. Traumatized during childhood, I expect.

Years ago I sent a question to a Dutchman about the very tasty meat-stuffed vegetables his wife cooked that he had described in detail on his food page. What, I wished to know, was 'sopropo' in English? He responded that he had no clue. He didn't know what many foods were called in English. I few days later, while eating bitter melon beef (苦瓜炒牛肉 'fu gwaa chaau ngau yiuk') for dinner I decided to consult my dictionary of Dutch as it is used in Suriname (Dutch Guiana). Um. Turns out that sopropo is bitter melon.

Not once in his description had he mentioned its most marked characteristic, one which would scare off most Anglos, many children, and some Parsees: it is bitter.

The top illustration shows it after cooking with salted black bean (豆豉 'dau si'), the lower picture is what it looks like whole and fresh.


The people I work with would probably find it utterly repulsive. My mother could have been ambivalent; on the one hand she'd have considered it virtually inedible, but on the other hand it is bitter and rather like the severe Protestant uncle of vegetables, so perhaps it is healthy. The parsee says it's nasty. The bookseller might be amused by the boldness and chutzpah.

I am fortunate that my apartment mate rather likes it. Imagine how horrid it would be if I lived with someone who had psychosomatic food allergies (self diagnosed "gluten intolerance", for instance) or the usual dietary neuroses so common among us white Americans.

Of course I'd very probably be dead by now.
Gustatory dullness would have done me in.

Sopropo is delicious.


I rarely eat with other people.
For ... reasons.



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SOMETHING CHEERILY DARK

Naturally I followed the news reports since the first puff of white smoke. While also doing stuff on other open tabs. Reading overseas reports, commenting, studying early mediaeval folklore after watching a Monty Python piece, and casually drawing. We've got a new vicar. Habemus papam. This was followed by a flaky egg tart from the snackies gifted by our landlady yesterday. Why is the new pope never a Cantonese American woman? They are notorious for providing food gifties. My apartment mate tends to do the same thing.

When shopping she buys me meat products or cheese.
Erroneously, she believes I'm too scrawny.
It's high time. Make it happen.

She shops at Trader Joe's, I shop in Chinatown.

So if you see fruits and vegetable here, that was me. I distrust white folks supermarkets, and know for a fact that none of the green things we both like are available at such places. Which is why there is an entire aisle at chaindrugstores devoted to American digestive ailments.

I suspect that if there were more than two Cantonese women living in this building I might be obese, which is the natural state of white people in America. Both of them are slender, btw.

Unlike most Caucasians in North America, I tend to eat with restraint. So while I do like things like pizza and potato chips, and am intellectually very fond of bacon cheese burgers, cheesie poofs, and fried sticks of butter on a stick (Midwestern fair food), I do not snack obsessively on those things while plonked in front of the teevee vicariously participating in sports.

Neither do the Cantonese women in this building. One would suspect that many Americans have Cantonese women in their families encouraging them to have another bite, but obviously that's quite impossible. Sad, really.

For one thing, most kwailo just aren't interesting enough to merrit that attention.
Dutchmen somewhere on the spectrum are unpredictable, however.
Poke him with a pastry, and see what he will do.
Oh look, he painted a herring!
Give him cookies!


Yeah, no, I have no idea why so many Americans are overweight. All I can do is voice mad theories about bacon making everything better and cheesie poofs being a mother substitute. As well as trying to guess which of the passers-by is most likely to die of a heart attack before they're in their thirties.


By the way: we Dutch Americans invented the donut. If we had known what the rest of you are like, we wouldn't have, and instead would have worked on diet pills back in New Amsterdam. Or something with broccoli. Bacon-wrapped ozempic.


A further by the way: what little I have seen of televised sports indicate that the products most advertised are beer, junk food feasts for the whole family, big bags of salty greasy snacks, diet pills, and insurance for your house, car, and mobility scooter.
Plus carbonated beverages, video games, and medications.
Mmm. Perhaps there is a message there.
Besides 'Go Warriors!'



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ITALIAN RENAISSANCE DEGENERATE

Someone asked me recently if there were painters who did lovely flesh. Which is precisely why I woke up with a glistening and pudgy spoiled man-brat in my mind's eyes this morning, painted by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Who was an Italian renaissance degenerate famous for shadow work, creamy light drenched flesh tones, as well as a violent quarrelsome dude likely to stab people in bar fights. Not someone you should emulate.
Also a fellow of very dubious sexuality.

Myself, I am not of dubious sexuality. Just thought I'd let you know. Not that it's anybody's business. At all. Let's not discuss it. Not being an Italian renaissance degenerate.

We twentieth century Dutch Americans are normal and straightlaced.
And I really don't understand why that isn't widely known.
Mmm, cover your supine form in chocolate!

Breasteses! Breasteses!

Um, never mind.

We Dutch Americans love tropical environments, the jungle is in our blood.


It's currently below fifty degrees in SF right now. Which is VERY un-Dutch.

In Caravaggio's natal city it is presently fifteen degrees Fahrenheit warmer than here, the sun is shining, and someone is singing an aria. How much more tropical and exotic can you get? There are huge swarms of pudgy degenerates everywhere.

No wonder they have so many Dutchmen.

Breasteses.



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TWO CUPS OF MILK TEA

All good things come in pairs. Milk tea. Pastries. Packs of Camel non-filter cigarettes bought in Chinatown. Fruits, fresh vegetables, and snackies. This afternoon I gave my neighbor the Indonesian Chinese lady who lives downstairs two bitter melons (and some yauchoi). This morning our landlady gave us some pastries and snacky things.

Two cups of Hong Kong Milk Tea (港式奶茶 'gong sik naai chaa'). One with lunch, then after shopping one at tea-time with a wedge of Japanese style cheesecake (日式芝士蛋糕 'yat sik ji si daan gou') before the two older local gentlemen arrived. With their hearing issues. One of them is planning a trip to Guangdong near the Fujian border to see his girlfriend soon. Flying on what I heard as "Café Pacific", which would be a good name for a chachanteng.

I have never been anywhere near the Guangdong-Fujian border. I should go sometime. Malaria country; tigers and gibbons to the south, oyster omelettes and pirates to the north. Exiled literati expected to die of tropical diseases either side. Sounds like a fun place.

And somewhere there in any direction there is the girl from Viet (越) with the lovely forehead washing her silk on the banks of a stream (誰憐越女顏如玉，貧賤江頭自浣紗 'seui lin yuet neui ngaan yü yiuk, pan jin gong tau ji wun saa'). At least, I imagine so.
That's probably as good a reason to go as any.

The two older gentlemen, by the way, are English speakers. Their hearing defects probably also extend to their mothertongue (Toisanwa 臺山話), but they are best at mishearing in English, which they've spoken since infancy. I do not speak Toisan.
So I mumble at them in English.

I have learned to never address Toisanese in Hong Kong Cantonese if they were born here, because the result is that they look at me funny and say something like "it sounds almost like you are trying to speak Chinese", or "I'm sorry, I'm not Japanese but Chinese".
Wich is hurtful. I thought I was saying it right.

[FYI: The line cited above is from a poem by Wang Wei (王維) written over a thousand years ago during the Tang Dynasty period about the young ladies in Luoyang (洛陽女兒行), a place where I have also never been.
Neither Dutch Americans nor pipe tobacco existed at the time, so life was hard.]

Smoked two bowlfuls in C'town. Cornell & Diehl red Virginia in first a Dunhill bent bulldog Shellbriar, then a Comoy Sunrise apple with a walnut stain. Good things come in pairs.



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EFFECTIVE COPING MECHANISMS

Over the years I have become less social, to the point where I shut down receptive parts of my personality to avoid dealing with people and situations. It's sort of a conscious tunnel-visioning. Your mom died and space aliens stole your children? Have you considered changing your diet? Said in a reasuring and non-confrontational manner, of course.
Because really, I do not wish to deal with the data you have decided to impart.

My people are stoic and taciturn. Your people are emotive and like to show their hairy traumatized intestines to the world. Mine grit their teeth.
You hit yourselves with a hammer.

The other day at the bus stop waiting for the Golden Gate Transit bus a Mexican gentleman was wailing and quite unhappy. So I gave him a cigarette from the pack of Camels that is in my pocket when I head to work, and advised him to have that achy tooth dealt with. If you don't, and an infection occurs, that's too near your brain for comfort. Given that my Spanish is fragmentary and his English almost non-existent, communication may not have been optimal. Or even achieved.

Really, I am of no help at times like that.

Naturally I am better at interacting with the stuffed animals in my life. Not only my apartment mates 'roomies', but also the eccentrics and psychopaths on my bed. Such as the large sloth (Beauregard), the vulture (Imhotep), and the three asperger teddy bears, as well as the control monkey (Arabello Oyster). Who has lost a couple of screws.

He used to be quite sane.
Then he fell in love.
Disappointed.


Mentally we're all on that peak in Marin County (Mount Tamalpais) watching the fog fade away in the morning. Some of us are calmly smoking our pipes, other folks are hepped-up swilling energy drinks, and contemplating navels, wondering if the sweat from the hike that got us here will provide enough wetness that the lint will start to rot and smell putrid.
I took a mental escalator, so I'm fine in that regard.
Some of you whiff a bit.


You should have that dealt with. If it gets infected, it's too near your brain for comfort.
Perhaps you need a cigarette? I always have some with me here.
And stop wailing. Keep it inside you.



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MY TEABAG IS MISSING!

It wasn't until we left the burger joint that I realized I had forgotten teabags. Imagine my inner voice, much like the lead character in one of Don Herzfeldt's insightful movies, intoning "my teabag is missing" in the style of "my spoon is too big". Precisely so. This Dutch American pipe smoker with a Canadian WW2 bomber pilot in the family lives on tea.
Which is very Anglo - Canuck - Continental of me.
En eigenlijk verdomd beschaafd.

Civilized life is impossible without caffeinated beverages. As a brief stroll around this city often makes abundantly clear.

Everywhere there are happy puffballs ecstatically cheering while one of them exclaims "for the love of gob and all that is holy, my anus is bleeding". After which comes the porchoppy segment done with his left hand. A spaceship falls from the sky.
As intended for The Family Learning Channel.

Bean Lard Mulch. Now with vitamin C.

[©2000 BITTER FILMS]

Educational programming at its finest. Don Herzfeldt is responsible for many fine informative films and nature documentaries, which comes to mind particularly because the bookseller has tooth work at the dentist scheduled tomorrow, so he should watch Wisdom Teeth (Visdüm Tooten) in order to be well-prepared for what awaits.

Fortunately both places where we went after the burger joint had tea. So I did have a hot stimulating beverage despite having left my teabags at home. There was doleful moaning at the karaoke bar, halfhearted and apathetic, misery made vocal, which suited us fine, and Miss Vivien's was almost totally empty when we walked in. Sadly, neither place allows smoking on the premises, so the pipe was enjoyed while exposed to the elements.

I miss smoking my pipe with a cup of tea in sundry low dives.
The world doesn't cater to civilized delinquents.


I do not know what the music was at the karaoke bar. A hip video with a young characterless twit being emotive, except that the lyrics were fatuous and jejune, and pleased the fluttery young people near the mike. We sat nearer a woman speaking Taiwanese-style Mandarin, who was quite vehement about something, and consequently somewhat more interesting.
I have no idea what she was on about.

Yes, I am judgemental.



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THE LARVAL STAGE

A casual remark by a friend over the weekend had me remembering downpours when I was in Cagayan De Oro. Sudden torential rain, maybe for ten or twenty minutes, utterly soaking everything in sight, and if you were caught in it all your clothes. Then about five minutes later you would be dry again because of the heat. Except nothing is ever really dry in that humid climate. Mildew, must, and mold. Itchy.

It's a very green place. As you would expect. Wet. Verdant.

Small black bugs during the rainy season.

Remarkably it does not really affect ones appetite. And the food can be very good. Fish, pork, and many noodle dishes. Avocado shakes. A squeeze of kalamansi lime juice on anything oily or fried, fish sauce with meats, some richly greasy dishes like kare kare or anything cooked with coconut milk. Vegetable dishes with shrimp paste or salt fish.

And, of course, banana ketchup.

A great time. I was younger, and better able to cope with the heat. And I probably gained a bit of weight while I was there, because one tends rather toward sedentary when moving about drenches one with sweat. Late at night, one would go to the kitchen for some weak hot tea from the thermos, then go back to the library to read a bit more.
Or perhaps head out to the courtyard for a smoke.

There are things in the shadows. And flittery insects under the light.


And sometimes shy though dangerous snakes.

Vipers and spitting cobras.

Plus crawly things.




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LANGUAGE BOMB COCKTAILS

It always amazes me when people understand my Mandarin, because there is nothing worse in this world than hearing Americans trying to speak the common tongue. Well, perhaps other than when they attempt to speak Dutch (the uncommon tongue). And, because the waitress initially did not understand me when I said 一位，呢度食 ('yat wai, ni dou sik'; "one person, here eating"), I switched languages, and ordered like a Northerner. Then I heard her speaking Cantonese a little bit later, and we continued from there.

水餃、河粉。

I ordered shrimp and pork water dumplings with rice flour noodles in broth. The dumplings also contained chopped black mushroom for extra umami. It was good, very good. It being a very warm day I needed something light for lunch, with extra liquid for hydration. Last week it was Wisconsin Winter Weather in the city, today felt like somewhere on the Costa Del Sol. With tourists. I've heard lots of German recently, and there was a Dutch couple where I ate. They switched to Cantonese (their mother tongue) when speaking to the waitress.
I wished I had sat closer to them, because I like listening in.

Afterwards, in a quiet spot down a shady alley, smoking my pipe (a GBD shape 2006 bulldog, Pedigree 1), I was joined by a Vietnamese Chinese gentleman, and we had a very pleasant conversation about crime, street people, crazy folks, garbage, and drug use near the BART stations. As well as Dannau Chump. Of whom he seemed to approve. You make trouble, you get sent back. I'm kind of used to Viet exiles of a certain age being fans of our dictator.
So I continued chatting with him in a friendly fashion.


Very many Christians and older Vietnamese believe that Dannau Chump is the anointed one, mistaking speaking in tongues and uttering nonsense for divine inspiration and possession by the holy ghost.

We also talked about street food, grilled pork in particular, and one measly bowl of rice per day in Vietnamese prisons. Plus hard labour.


It always amazes me when I'm a good conversationalist.
Because that really isn't one of my talents.



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HOPPING AND FLUTTERING

This morning at the crack of dawn I was woken up by the doorbell. So I went down to answer it, and saw a dark shrouded figure doing what I often describe as the smoker's crouch, where one shields oneself from the wind to light up. It shuffled around as if to find the best angle, and in doing so kept bumping against the doorbell. But there was no pipe or cigar evident. Nor a cigarette or marijuana joint. Sadly, just another haveless San Francisco street eccentric looking for discarded butts. I gently shooed it away after it very politely apologized for having got me down. Going back upstairs I realized that their addictions keep many people happy even in the darkest times.

Cigarettes. Meth. Fentanyl. Marijuana. Adderall and conspiracy theories.

Which last two bring up that our dearly beloved leader wishes to tariff the heck out of foreign movies and become the pope, sort of the immoral authority figure for our age, I guess. After he passes of natural causes, or is poisoned by a successor, we can drag his body through the streets of Rome, put it on trial for heresies, and cut off the benediction fingers.
Then cast it into the Tiber. A fitting nod to hallowed tradition.

Oh, I forgot. Cheating at golf and hamberders.
He's obviously a very happy man.
The first bozo of our land.

Ranting, ranting, ranting.
For Freedom!

Just below the surface of the mind is a layer with glowing orbs and growing things. Not quite the subconscious, but more a swampy zone of distractions. Abounding with life. Fecund.
A place of mental decomposure.

It's where the earworms germinate.

One morning recently I had the Italian National Anthem going through my head reatedly, the next morning the happily singing underpants gnomes from South Park. This morning, for no reason that I can figure out, it's a bawdy song from two centuries ago.

[No, I wasn't alive back then. The song has been a favourite of reasonably literate people for generations, probably sung in the finest salons after the women had withdrawn to the sitting room and the men had crouched over and lit up their pipes, cigars, cigarettes, or joints, then passed around the port and poured themselves cups of coffee.]

A fractured horizontal smear of cold greys with things shooting off that bisects the plane, with glimmers of light through what may be morning mist. Autumnal, as is evident from the rusty oranges and dull violets, some indigo. Colder and wetter than here.

The pool is visually less important than the trees.
It is fecund there, abounding with life.
As well as decomposure.



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EVERYTHING BLAZES

All bets are off tomorrow. Other than calling up the pharmacy for a latanoprost refill. Reason being that my apartment mate's car got totalled while parked, and she called me up in angry hysterics and had a meltdown. She's at a brother's house -- having called them from the city wreck lot after several hours of frustration, and her brother and sister-in-law came and picked her up. she'll stay there tonight. But tomorrow looks to be fraught.

The telephone rang at just the right time. So I didn't burn the food I had on the stove. And I'm glad she's physically okay. But she was very fond of that car, which she's had for three decades, and this has hit her hard. The car allowed her to escape Chinatown and a problematic family situation years ago.

She's an exceptional woman. Though she doesn't consider herself such.
She's also somewhere very far on the spectrum. So this has hit her in a way that most people probably cannot grasp, and I don't know if her brother and his wife have ever even experienced anything like it. Also, I'm not sure that I can deal with it in the right way either. And no, I do not want any of the normies to offer any help, because I'm damned sure that neurotypicals will not get it.

This coming week will be more educational than I would ever have wished for.

Effigies will probably need to be set fire to.

Daemons exercised.



More disturbing news tomorrow. Stay tuned.



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NOTHING LIKE EXCESS

One thing that fascinates me is the concept that patriotic citizens should think of buying their kiddiewinkies two dolls instead of thirty for Christmas this year. A mandated two simple dolls per munchkin, no more. And no less. What's clear is that with all the letting-go and tariffs, the holidays will be different. As will the food. No more imported plum puddings, English toffees, and marzipan, but corn-syrup drenched starch cake. No booze, unless you like Jim Beam. No coffee after dinner. And probably no dinner.

Coming from severe Calvinist stock ancestrally, I thrill to the idea that everyone should suffer. Nothing says 'holidays' as well as misery, penance, and abject punishing of the flesh. So those two dolls (no more, no less), should come with fully functional flails and enough batteries to keep them disciplinarily functional till after tax day. You sinners.

Seeing as I have no children, none of this applies to me.

But y'all with the squawling brood should suffer.

Maybe I'll buy thirty dolls, just because.

Now, I should point out that even though most briar pipes and much pipe tobacco comes from overseas, and will necessarily be tariffed out the wazoo, I have plenty of smoking equipment, and enough tobacco in my stockpile, that I can survive the next ice age.
So neener neener neener.

Pipe smoking, as everyone should know, is acknowledged as a Dutch cultural heritage. So of course I have taken precautions. The rest of you will freeze while I remain happily puffing.
I'll probably have some coffee with all the tariff money I'll save.

Mmmm, coffee! So deliciously luxurious!
Imported. And tariffed.



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THE SMELL OF GARDENIAS?

In a marked departure from habit, several of the poisonous old toads were not in the back room yowling today. Which was a welcome relief. Normally Saturday and Sunday are rife with insult, calumny, and slanderous statements to non-existent bogymen, or liberals not actually present but very much resented. One of the rightwing chuckleheads did show up briefly, caught sight of an engineer, whined and grumbled a bit in the front area, and left.

So Hecky and I actually had a peaceful day. I smoked a Comoy Tradition from the early fifties filled with a mixed Virginia of my own devizing, as well as a pudgy Dunhill bruyere billiard. Hecky limited himself to cigars.

Mark, a retired gentleman who likes 7x70s, came in, showed that he was still on top of his game with a few witty sarcastic statements that, if the senile rightwing blisters could have actually heard them would have hurt the poor old dears, and left happy as a clam. Like me he looks forward to the entire national shitcan sinking, which will happen in due course now that the comic opera villains are play-acting at government (rank amateurs and incompetents afflicted by paranoia, alcoholism, rich fantasy lives, and hubris, but no actual talents).

None of the folks with truly bizarre realities were aware of this.
They aren't very aware to begin with anyway.
Barely sentient.

But they're a fairly typical slice of Marin. Do not expect much intelligence there. It's the place where the age of aquarius came home to roost. It's filled with auras and chakras, as well as disembodied third eyes. The adults never left the room, because they were never in it to begin with. And perhaps there is no room. Don't obsess about rooms, grasshopper.

It's the only place in the world where bitter old fascists rely on crystals and burning sage.


Mill Valley is where the revival of human sacrifice is most likely.



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