IT'S NOT ABOUT TASTE, NOT EVEN CLOSE

When you are trying to escape Changi airport it's easy to get distracted by satai kambing. Then one of the members of the Sales Department sees you, and you never get out. You wonder whether you should have stayed and had another cocktail at the bar where that Australian surfer dude works. And you wake up sweaty and shivering. Credit the entire dream sequence to your high-blood pressure meds.

Which I was warned about, and which have been a semi-regular occurence.

[Sorry, the company insisted on your trip too fast to process the necessary travel paperwork. You still don't have all the proper documents and will have to stay at the airport for a few days. Hide out at near the food-court, there are showers somewhere near there. Yes, it is humid, isn't it? Can you live on pastries in the meantime? Good! There's sushi too!]

There was also a dream involving Nickolaus Copernicus and Johannes Keppler. Live and in person. At a very quiet collegiate café in Berkeley. From which we learn to not give barely post-mediaeval scientists or mathematicians stimulating beverages which they haven't had before. It makes them talk. And talk. And talk. Oh lord we're never going to get out of here! And we still have to go to the library! Coffee is a diuretic, it will make them pee, and the bathrooms on the third floor have been out of order since the exams, they'll panic!

On the whole, I enjoyed my years in Berkeley. It was an unusual environment.

One thing I do not miss is people talking about revolution, existentialism, and spirituality. Nowadays of course it's all about wheat products being evil and the root cause of all your problems unless the gluten is removed, and how it is possible with a hell of a lot of effort to make a non-allergenic totally inoffensive vegan pizza, possibly using quinoa.

It is, very fortunately, possible to live a completely comfortable life entirely without ever visiting Berkeley again. Which may surprise some people. You know, youngster, the bookstores there used to smell of pipe smoke, French fags, and Moe's cigars.


Sometime soon I'll have to search for the books on Naboloi Iggorot and other languages. They are somewhere in my room. Likely behind pipe-related stuff. Let us not dwell overmuch on mummification, a practise of theirs which takes several months. As a hobby it does not lead to fruitful conversation, and there are no fan conventions down at Moscone.

But it would be good if there were.



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