vr
a novel
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
May 1997
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
From: Kathleen
Date: 1 May 1997
Subject: Re:YOur memory
thank you.
I will start as a HOstess on Mother's day.
See you then
kt
From: Nichelle
Date: 1 May 1997
Subject: reply to globe mail
I don't like outdoor patios of restaurants. I like dark corners. I think
hotels are sleazy, even if this particular one is 'very nice'. Most men lie
about liking to give oral sex. I believe in the G-spot like I believe in the
tooth fairy. 'throws of orgasm' should probably be throes of orgasm, unless
you are extremely strong and a little kinky. What do you teach in Connecticut?
Nichelle
From: SAGReiss
Date: 2 May 1997
Subject: Hersey's Kiss
The fat room service gay boy told this tale about the brain-dead busboy.
Apparently a supper celebration turned weird. The brain-dead gay boy, who
is about my age, but looks eighteen and acts eight, went to dinner with a
couple of other guys. They wanted to have sex with him, but he didn't want
to. Somehow he still got naked and instead they stuffed Hersey's Kisses up
his ass. News of this quickly swept through the hotel, with all the predictable
jokes about Hersey's chocolate syrup, which we've been out of for a few days,
chocolate chip cookies etc. The victim of all this abuse, much of it not nearly
so mean-spirited as it sounds, defended himself by saying that they were
white chocolate kisses. I guess this made it seem more respectable to his
crazed brain.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: Murder
Date: 2 May 1997
Subject: Harpsichord bitch from hell
I have to write in little bits because my connection keeps dropping. We've
had nothing but problems since this new aurora system went in. I was very
pleased with my senior recital last night. The dress rehearsal was a different
story, however. I'm just about to rehearse the final piece on my program,
the Nielsen Flute Concerto (the one with the bad-ass clarinet part that sounds
on my Galway/Royal Phil recording like "leave me the fuck alone..."). My accompanist
for this piece, a faculty member who shall remain nameless, marches in, plops
her fat ass down on the piano bench, and begins hacking away at the introduction
before I even have a chance to get my music up. "Fuck," thinks I, "She's
in a pissy mood again. So much for sensitive playing." I spent the entire
twenty minutes it takes to play this concerto following her instead of the
other way around. I was tired enough already from playing the Berio Sequenza
twice through, plus the Casella Sicilienne et Burlesque and the Bach Trio
Sonata (for two flutes and continuo) in G major, BWV 1039. Then this cunt,
whom I'd asked only as a last resort anyway, has to pull that shit because,
as I found out later, "she was pissed because she didn't have enough time
to tune the harpsichord before the concert following your dress rehearsal."
Murder
From: Murder
Date: 2 May 1997
Subject: In other news...
Erin and I are moving to New Jersey next year to attend Rutgers in New Brunswick.
We flew back there and auditioned on April 19, and spent a week sitting in
on lessons, meeting the faculty, and checking out the campus. My audition
did not go as well as I had hoped, but my extremely high scores on the music
history/theory entrance exams must have weighed heavily in my favor. I was
offered a partial assistantship for $5,000 (tuition is $8,000/year) and have
a chance at more money from the school itself. Erin was offered the top monetary
amount they award to undergrads for her successful auditions on both oboe
and bassoon.
Murder
From: Murder
Date: 2 May 1997
Subject: June
Nic, are you and Gabe stopping in Spokane when you come over in June? Let's
see, I've got commencement on the 14th, but will stay in Spokane until the
26th when I leave for Europe. We get to hear Madame Butterfly in Vienna. Then
teach at Ross Point, get my shit together, and head for Jersey in a U-haul.
Some time in there, could we get together?
Murder
From: Nichelle
Date: 3 May 1997
Subject: Joisy?
You're going to New Jersey?? As long as UW accepts me, and hopefully my
good buddy McColl is taking care of that, we'll be coming through about the
23rd or something like that. You can buy us lunch with those little lunch
cards you've been hoarding from Delizioso. Congrats on your new school. It's
nice that you found a place that's giving you both some money. They actually
play music in New Jersey? Damn...
I seem to have offended some woman at the sub shop. Oh yes, I'm now working
as a Sandwich Artist a for Subway. We tend to take off our gloves and put
the same ones back on. I know- it's unwholesome, unsanitary, and not good
practice for anything made out of latex. But as I put my glove back on, the
middle finger was fully extended while the others had popped into the glove.
The lady asked me to not make obscene gestures.
Columbine, you would like my new John Cage philosophy of work. I have nothing
to do, and I am doing it.
Time to wind down and attempt to sleep. Big kisses to everybody, and I'm
glad you're all my friends. Really...
Muchas smoochas,
Nichelle
Nichelle
From: Columbine
Date: 4 May 1997
Subject: Re: Joisy?
I don't eat at Subway. My take on Subway is, if I want to buy Oscar Meyer
and put it on baguettes, I can do so for a lot less money - and get better
bread to do it with. Several good bakeries here.
I have taken to drinking Campari. The significant other is disgusted by
this. I keep trying to explain that I like it. Of course, I take it in soda
water, which I suppose a true Campari drinker would say is wimpy. But what
the hell. I've also discovered that I don't dislike Martinis, I just don't
like dry ones. I don't mean I like a Martini with a high proportion of vermouth:
I mean I like a sweet Martini, that dusty relic made with sweet vermouth.
The sweet Noilly Prat is great, I could take a small glass of that by itself
as an aperitif. Dry Noilly Prat is disgusting. I've already been informed
of how wrong I am, don't bother telling me. Of course, now that the weather
is turning warm, the significant other will begin indulging the pastis fixation.
Pastis isn't bad but I don't want to drink it more than once or twice a year.
Of course, I only drink about twice a month anyway, so that's actually a pretty
impressive percentage.
Oh these deceits are strong almost as life.
Last night I dreamt I was in the labyrinth,
And woke far on. I did not know the place.
-- Edwin Muir (1887 -1959)
From: Nichelle
Date: 4 May 1997
Subject: Re: Joisy?
I work there. I know it's bad...
Nichelle
From: SAGReiss
Date: 4 May 1997
Subject: Aperitif
I have served many a Campari on the rocks with a slice of orange. Personally
I don't like the color and have never tasted it. I'm not much for cocktails,
but a dry martini is something I might order in a restaurant. I'm understandably
worried about the use of such terms as "pastis fixation". First of all, what
exactly is meant by pastis? The French use this term to refer to a number
of brands, 51, Casanis and others. No one calls Ricard pastis, even though
the bottle says: "Le vrai pastis de Marseille". Obviously Ricard is a very
serious matter, not to be taken lightly and certainly to be consumed (sans
moderation) at any time of the day or night, summer or winter, except after
a meal, although I did have a friend who drank it straight as a digestif.
Indeed once in a hotel bar I was served a pastis instead of a Ricard. The
bartender muttered something about "c'est la meme chose". I told him he could
serve me seventeen Ricards and if the eighteenth was a pastis, I'd send it
back too.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: Columbine
Date: 5 May 1997
Subject: Re: Aperitif
Hmm. Ricard is what we have in the vice cabinet, that's what the significant
other prefers. They all taste like anise to me. I was raised in/around New
Orleans, where the city economy practically ground to a halt when absinthe
was banned. They take anise very seriously there. I've had Ricard, Pernod,
and several absinthe-like beverages (Anisette, Herbsaint, and even sillier
names), and although I recognize that the recipe for each is slightly different,
to be honest I find that the licorice flavor so overwhelms the others that
I can't tell the difference.
On the other hand, I'm learning to taste the difference between different
recipes of vermouth. Ask me again when my palate is fully trained and maybe
I'll be able to tell.
Oh these deceits are strong almost as life.
Last night I dreamt I was in the labyrinth,
And woke far on. I did not know the place.
-- Edwin Muir (1887 -1959)
From: SAGReiss
Date: 5 May 1997
Subject: Acquired tastes
I will compromise on many things. Ricard is not one of them. I have fueled
my twisted lifestyle on Ricard, sinon rien, for fifteen years. Don't give
me this shit about Pernod. We all weep for the absence of absinthe, what drove
even a man so sane as Alfred Jarry to death. I've had it a few times in the
Midi. Nevertheless. Pernod and pastis have no licquorice. Ricard does. It's
the sublime mix of anis, licquorice, not too sweet, that makes it the national
drink of France, where drinking is the national pass-time. (He, he, he, absence
of absinthe, drunk as I am, I can still play.) There was some weird-stupid
hassel at Cosmo's, Lou's after-hours club. I've been hearing echoes of it
for a while. Today I got Lou's story. Apparently someone called the cops.
They met Anthony at the door. Anthony at the door is quite a sight, six foot
three, three hundred and fifty pounds of very mean, very sober nigger. The
cops did not come in. There were various citations and whatnot, but he was
in the right and the Man was wrong, as he usually is, especially when someone
has a Camcorder nearby. I have no idea if Anthony is armed. No one in his
right mind would want to tangle with him. Either shoot to kill or don't fuck
with him. The pigs don't like that kind of action. They like to have the
upper hand, as they did when they invaded my flat. Dealing with Anthony and
a bar full of white-hating blacks means riot control, which the police have
never been very good at.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 6 May 1997
Subject: 100 Welfare Queens
The other night at the bar I asked a drinker of Crown Royal, an expensive
whiskey, whether it was bourbon or Canadian. Since I drink neither as a rule
I would have no way of knowing, except that I am a trained food service professional
and a card-carrying member of I'm Smart responsible alcohol service training
and that I've served them to Dave Stam, a decent man who has the bad luck
of being Dean of the SU library. He answered: "It's in the same category as
Hennessy and Remy Martin," which told me that, one, he didn't know and, two,
all he knew was the price range. (Les Ameicains connaissent le prix de tout
et la valeur de rien.) I said: "Hennessy and Remy Martin are cognac. Crown
Royal is whiskey." "Then I'm drinking whiskey." I'm shocked by this level
of ignorance, not knowing whether what one drinks is made from grapes, corn
or rye, literally disassociated from the food one eats, like the ghetto kids
who think fish are rectangular like fish sticks. Of course this is a grown-up
ghetto kid. At work I see a different aspect of the problem, people, some
of whom read or have even been to school, mistrusting the written word as
a vehicle for learning and communication. I see girls being trained. People
point to tables and tell them the number. Then they say: "Station one is 15,
16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25." OK, now that I know that... When I
was trained, I interrupted: "Look, couldn't you just give me a floor map with
the table numbers and stations, and I'll learn them at home?" Everyone looked
at me funny. Of course they had floor maps like that. It had just never occurred
to anyone that I might find it useful to study it at home. Which brings me
to the Head Start program and the hundred black and white trash parents,
teachers, social workers and administrators who are staying at the hotel.
These are some cheap, ignorant bitches. They smoke menthol cigarettes, have
the names of several husbands and/or bfs tatooed on their forearms and all
want seperate checks. Six or ten of them will come in one by one, want to
sit together but pay seperately and they wonder why they get the worst conceivable
service and we add the tip on: "Well, you cunt, you give me ten times as
much work because you can't bear the thought that someone else's lunch may
have cost fifty cents more than yours." Speaking of stupidity, I have an
extra week holiday and didn't even know it. (I also have ten sick days, but
I don't really give a fuck about that. I don't want to push my luck.) Slammy
approved my request for 31 May through 13 June. I walked into her office
and requested another week for 14 through 20 June. She threw a fit. I don't
know if she'll approve it, but I don't really care. I think they'll pay me
anyway, even when I give notice sometime during my vacation. I stand to make
between three and four hundred dollars for doing nothing.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: Columbine
Date: 6 May 1997
Subject: Re: 100 Welfare Queens
For what it's worth: Crown Royal is a blended Canadian whiskey, the former
term meaning that it is mixed from several different batches of whiskey and
the latter merely meaning that it originates in Canada. Most whiskeys are
blended, the prominent exception being those very expensive "single malts"
from Scotland, and a few of the oh-so-trendy "small batch" bourbons, like
Booker's, that the big distilleries have taken up as a hobby. Bourbon is a
legal term in this country; bourbon must be from a certain region of the country
(mostly Kentucky) and aged for a certain time in casks whose interior wood
has been charred. I will permit myself bourbon every now and then, being a
good Southerner. I have never learned to drink Scotch or other whiskeys. Rye
whiskey is no longer a protected term in this country (it used to imply that
rye, a different grain, was the primary distillate). Irish whiskey to me
is suitable only for coffee.
You're right about Americans and booze, but unfortunately in this country
with brown spirits price usually IS an indicator of quality. The odds of finding
a good yet cheap bourbon are substantially lower than those of finding a
good yet cheap red wine.
Oh these deceits are strong almost as life.
Last night I dreamt I was in the labyrinth,
And woke far on. I did not know the place.
-- Edwin Muir (1887 -1959)
From: SAGReiss
Date: 7 May 1997
Subject: Hostess Waterboi
I feel like a dog. Time is divided for me into three parts, the morning,
when I work, the evening, when I don't, and the night, when I sleep. I had
it in my mind, Sweetheart, that you were working the evening shift, so I went
to the bar after work. I only came to my senses when I smelled fresh-baked
bread in the hallway. I knew it couldn't have come from Grungeboi's flat.
The oven was still warm. I checked your schedule: "Shit, she only worked at
five." I'm sorry. It was a bad day. Waterboi was on his own at the drawer.
It was an awful mess. Seeing the piles of money and checks, we said to eachother:
"At the end of the shift we'll take that money and split it." There was no
way to know which tips were whose. Slammy wandered in around eleven and began
yelling at people. I don't even talk to the cunt anymore, neither hello nor
good-bye. Fuck you. Pay me my vacation and eat shit. Columbine, I keep trying
to explain the concept of appellation controlee. Bourbon, in this country,
may be made only in Bourbon county, Kentucky. Place names are not covered
under international copyright law. There are three factors at work, but the
most important is always the land. The other two factors are the fruit of
the land and the method of manufacture. This is why one can buy Alsatian cremant
"methode champenoise". The people who control the land control the fruit
and the method. I have no idea why one can buy New York State Champagne, but
not scotch or cognac. Scotch whisky is made from barley, Irish whiskey from
oats, bourbon (whiskey) from corn and Canadian (whisky) from rye. Bourbon
tastes like silage, and I've never tasted rye. I don't drink Irish either.
I drink J&B blended scotch whisky. I drink Pinch when I feel like I can
afford it or at Lou's where they fill the bottom-shelf bottles with rotgut.
I don't like the pure malts and single malts, which come from one field of
grain. The term "blended" has no meaning outside of Scotland. All whisk(e)y
is blended outside of Scotland, except possibly your so-called small-batch
bourbons.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: Nichelle
Date: 8 May 1997
Subject: triple stamp day
One guy called to place a delivery order right before we closed. "Well sir,
the last delivery goes out at 12:15. It might be a little while." "Oh well
if I get it after midnight, I guess I get triple subway stamps." (Thursday
is triple stamp day.) I looked at my watch. "Well, sir... you're placing an
order at 11:47. I guess it's still Wednesday." It's probably no less petty
for me to argue about it than for him to ask, but I have been in a pissy mood
all day. I spent all morning cleaning house and I didn't even get halfway
finished. Yes, I missed you after work, love. As I was leaving the apartment,
I saw you walking up the street from Lou's. I decided not to wait for you
so that I could buy listerine. As for the bread smell and all that, you can
make it up to me tomorrow morning with some fresh hot pancakes. I don't understand
all of the discussion about w(h)ine and whisk(e)y. But it doesn't matter right
now. I just need to get my feet to stop hurting and get some sleep.
Nichelle
From: SAGReiss
Date: 8 May 1997
Subject: W(h)ining and dining
Highlights of my first trip to the supermarket in weeks: prosciutto di Parma,
arborio rice to make a risotto alla milanese, big eye tuna steaks, because
Nichelle has vowed never to eat tuna fish again after having to make it at
Subway in a big tub with a gallon of mayonnaise, which we'll have tonight
with asparagus and hollondaise, waedele (ham hocks), so that negatron can
say we're eating roadkill again, and saurkraut, a Levasseur Pont L'Eveque
(appelation controlee), strawberries and two bottles of Chateau de Chantegrive
1995 Bordeaux Graves (AOC) mis en bouteille au chateau by H&F Leveque,
proprietaires a Podensac, Gironde. I have found a web site where one can order
wine direct from France (http://www.avfr.com). Since you are all more 'net-sophisticated
than I, could someone please check it out to see if there's a catch or some
hidden costs. The link to the catalogue is fucked up, so one has to go to
each individual price list. It looks promising to me.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 8 May 1997
Subject: Undergraduate Scum II
Move out the way, motherfuckers. Big bad Nichelle has been accepted by the
University of Washington. All I needed to see was that big-ass envelope sticking
out of the mailbox. I haven't opened it, of course, and am trying to control
myself and not call her at work. I knew what the fuck it meant when they sent
me a thirty-two-cent letter. Play your fucking horn, darling, we're moving
to Seattle. I'm so fucking relieved. I had thought, shit, she's managed to
drop out three times in the year I've known her, perhaps my disease is contagious.
Be prepared, cocksuckers, 'cause this bitch can blow. I don't know whether
to go to sleep, back to the bar or wait. I'll try the MOO, but I'm so excited
I may need more strong drink. Who gives a fuck if I'm hangedover tomorrow.
I've got ten fucking sick days. Eat me. We don't need this chickenshit job.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: Nichelle
Date: 12 May 1997
Subject: white bread or wheat?
Subway is really a satisfying job, except for the plastic gloves. All day
long I have lustful thoughts about holding the bread and vegetables in my
bare hands... Maybe not the tuna though. It's made from 12 pounds of tuna
and one gallon of light mayonnaise. If you wanted tuna subway-style at home,
you would have to add about 1/2 of a cup (plus some) of generic light mayonnaise
to a regular 7-oz can of tuna. I did the math. (These things amuse me.) If
you think that's gross, try making a tuna sub for somebody who wants extra
mayo. (About one out of four people don't seem to think that a gallon is enough.
Maybe that's because it's light mayonnaise.)
I am really shocked by what people eat. Today I served a double meat foot
long chicken breast sub with double bacon, cheese, and mayo. But the real
topper today was the black couple who came in and ordered two tuna subs on
"pumpernigger" bread. "Sorry, all we have is white and wheat bread."
The other thing that disturbs me is that I never realized how rude most
people are. Two things (no, make that three things) really piss me off above
all else. Throwing the money down on the counter in a big wad, ordering by
saying "I'm gonna have-a..." or "Gimme a...", and listing off every single
ingredient in the sandwich except what kind of abread it is on, which I need
to know in order to begin.
This is sick. I just wrote an entire letter about subway. Time to get a
life.
Nichelle
From: Columbine
Date: 13 May 1997
Subject: Re: white bread or wheat?
Even worse than writing an entire post about Subway is replying to one :)
The problem with fast food is that you never quite know how to start the
dialogue. I mean, do you just dive in and list the things you want? Is
that rude? Is it OK to be rude when dealing with fast food? Would the
person behind the counter think it was weird if you said "hello" first?
Even if the person behind the counter starts the ball rolling, as it
were, with a "Can I help you?" or "What would you like today?" it's still
an odd situation. The person behind the counter at a fast food joint is
more than a cashier and less than a waiter. We hate things that don't
categorize easily.
Although I'm not as rude as the people you described by any means, we'd
still have a little problem with the bread. I understand that when building
a sandwich, you have to reach for the bread first, but like most people
in this overfed nation, I am less interested in the bread than what's
in it, and I always name the bread last. Sorry.
Oh these deceits are strong almost as life.
Last night I dreamt I was in the labyrinth,
And woke far on. I did not know the place.
-- Edwin Muir (1887 -1959)
From: Nichelle
Date: 13 May 1997
Subject: Re: white bread or wheat?
At the risk of sounding like my mother, I think you should never treat somebody
in a way you wouldn't want to be treated yourself. As for manners in a fast
food restaurant: people who have them don't eat fast food. It's OK to say
hello first. It's not OK to tell long stories or try to start long conversations
when there is a line of ten people behind you. I understand that people don't
always know to ask for the bread first. How would they? But it's still really
annoying. But enough talk about the subject. I've got to get dressed and go
do it...
Nichelle
From: SAGReiss
Date: 13 May 1997
Subject: Max
In the middle of the breakfast rush, a mad affaire with two hundred non-English
speakers migrating all over the dining room (I did OK with the Europeans,
but Joey was going crazy with the Orientals. I said: "Just give them fucking
coffee and orange juice and tell them to like it."), the Mad Greek Woman said
to me: "Mark friend is here. Mark freaking out." I had worked ten hours Saturday,
eleven hours without a break Sunday, a ten-hour split shift Monday and had
to be in at half past five this morning because of bug day. I looked at her
as if to say: "What the fuck do you want me to do about that?" Next thing
I remember I went up to the hostess station and there's this big homeless
dude, the kind one can't tell if he's drunk, on drugs or just crazy, arguing
with the Mad Greek Woman: "I NEED THE KEYS TO MARK'S APARTMENT. HE TOLD ME
TO COME IN FOR A CUP OF COFFEE." I handed her a check and whispered: "Not
in my station." I go about my business, but a few minutes later here he is
lumbering into the dining room. He walks towards a waitress who weighs about
ninety pounds: "WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME?" "Why are you all cracked out?"
I went to the desk and said: "It's time to call security." "I take care."
"Fine, you won't call them, I will." I picked up the phone, and she grabbed
it out of my hands, knocking my glasses off in the process. I walked over
to the front desk and said to the manager: "Jim, please call security. We
need them in the dining room." The head of security arrives. Tense negociations
ensue. Some of it is quite funny: "WHY ARE YOU BEING SO NEGATIVE?" It turns
out this is the same madman who called the Mad Greek Woman a white trash bitch
last year. I said to Mark: "You've got some weird friends." We still don't
know whether he gave him the keys. Eventually the cops weren't called, but
he was gone. Then came three hundred assholes for lunch. I don't care. I
made a hundred and twenty dollars today and have tomorrow off. I may have
to do room service on Friday, my other free day. That cunt has got to learn
that I am not made of wire and rope, but muscle and nerve. My ankles ache
and I need a drink. Here are my selections from the wine catalogue:
ALSACE:
Riesling Marc Kreydenweiss (A.O.C. Vin d'Alsace grand cru Riesling)
Prix: 69 FF
BEAUJOLAIS:
Domaine Rolland (AOC Brouilly)
Prix: 55 FF
Château d'Envaux (AOC Juliénas)
Prix: 49 FF
Domaine de l'Evêque (AOC Morgon)
Prix: 51 FF
BORDEAUX:
Beau-Sîte 1993 (A.O.C. Graves blanc )
Prix: 52 FF
Château Fleur Cardinale (A.O.C. Saint Emilion grand cru.. )
Prix: 99 FF
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 14 May 1997
Subject: kneeSWAZ
Random funny shit from this week-end. I thought I was going to get in trouble
when this one slipped out on Mother's Day. A lady asked me if the orange juice
was fresh squeezed: "The only thing that's fresh squeezed here is me." I
was looking around to see if anyone had heard as soon as the words were out
of my mouth, but the lady just laughed. Monday night we were talking and
someone in the kitchen referred to himself as white trash. I said: "We're
all white trash here." "Not me," I hear from behind me. I turn around and
there's a sister laughing. The conversation turned to extra virgin olive oil
and I said: "There are no extra virgins here." I said to the black girl: "I
don't hear you now." Calamity Kate was training with Snatch Hagatha, as the
fat room service gay boy calls her, and mispronounced nicoise. As her ex-future
French professor I corrected her: "kneeSWAZ, like Comecabra, from Nice."
I was thinking of her because Calamity told me she and Jeff had been to town.
They went out to dinner. I'm hurt. My friends come here and don't even try
to get in touch. Perhaps I've just soured on everything here. It's time to
move on. Maybe elsewhere I can find friends who aren't so weird. Of course
I've never had any friends, but Comecabra and Jeff have always been so distant
with me. I don't understand it, never have. I have to call Slammy. I worked
forty hours in four days and now I'm asked to cover all four room service
shifts on Thursday and Friday. I'm not doing back-to-back doubles. I'm willing
to do a double on Thursday and work Friday night, but she'll have to give
me Friday and Saturday morning off. Fuck this shit. I'm hobbling on my right
ankle as it is.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 16 May 1997
Subject: RL in Seattle
Steven,
My gf is transfering to the University of Washington. Once I'm done job
and apartment hunting I thought I'd stop by your office and introduce myself,
if you don't mind. I had been so bold as to apply to the graduate school in
comparative literature, but they quickly put my illusions to rest. I now know
that my glorious academic future is behind me. No matter. I still make good
money waiting tables, thanks to my winning smile and professional courtesy,
and there are some beautiful hotels in downtown Seattle. I'm planning on getting
an internet account from blarg.net. Aside from that most of my cyberprojects
have been wretched failures, though I'm pretty excited about the place I've
found where one can order Julienas for FF 49 a bottle. As Bill Gates said
at the recent CEO conference: "A modem in every home and affordable Beaujolais
for the working man."
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: Steven
Date: 16 May 1997
Subject: Re: RL in Seattle
Um, if you'd like to stop by, my office is at A303 Padleford, & my office
hours for the next several weeks are Mon & Wed 2:30 to 3:30. Otherwise
it might be possible to meet at a cafe.
S
************************************************************************
"No one up here pays attention to reviews. We don't care about reviews.
Frankly, reviews are mostly for people who still read."
--Bruce Willis, Cannes 1997
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From: Laurent
Date: 17 May 1997
Subject: Re: RL in Seattle
Go gaby go..
Steve is a friend of a friend and his doon patrol thing is WAY COOL..plus
i think he runs a moo just as you do..
oops that doom patrol..not doon patrol
From: SAGReiss
Date: 17 May 1997
Subject: Cybercafes and e-novels
Attached: vr.doc
Steven,
Either way is fine with me. I was just trying to be polite. As you know,
I'm in the hospitality business. I'll get in touch sometime in July when I
get situated, employed and online. I've noticed that Serpent's Tail has published
a novel of yours. I wrote to them a while back and asked them to consider
the excerpt enclosed as an attachment. If you think this shit is at all worth
reading, do you have any idea who might publish it? I had no luck with Mark
Amerika either.
From: Steven
Date: 17 May 1997
Subject: Re: Cybercafes and e-novels
Thanks for sending your work--I will read it once I get the chance
(probably not until school is out)--
I don't really have any good advice re Serpent's Tail, because I dealt
with the editor in their New York office, but after the book was accepted
the New York office was closed down, so nobody I dealt with personally is
even at the press any longer.
S
************************************************************************
"No one up here pays attention to reviews. We don't care about reviews.
Frankly, reviews are mostly for people who still read."
--Bruce Willis, Cannes 1997
************************************************************************
From: Kate
Date: 18 May 1997
Subject: so, how was your vacation?
thursday 15 may 97, LR
back in london for a day and a half now and trying to find the words for
the last 2 weeks of wonder. no journal kept...how could i stop to record,
analyse, pick apart when such times were passing? start, prosaically, from
the beginning? so, what did you do on your vacation? drank coffee, played
on the swings, listened to circus music, took pictures of graffiti and cuneiform
staples, visited the dinosaurs, stole paperclips from kinkos to make a necklace,
lived in a waking dream. and fell in love. fell deleriously in love.
back to the start. chronology may be screwy...time flips and surges and
confusion abounds.
if you have a low tolerance for sap, beware, becuase this may make you vomit.
my apologies, but, fuck it...i'm too damn happy to be bitter and angry and
trash stuff...
--kate
----------
monday 28th april
flights. flights are dull. the first one left late, because there had been
'mechanical failure'. a fire in the engine. i sat bt the wing and stared at
the scorch marks for most of the journey...eyes flickering between 'the woman
in white' and the disconcerting traces of impending doom, as the man next
to me kept tapping me on the shoulder to ask me questions, despite the earpones
and far-away expression i was wearing. cincinatti airport was a place of
long queues, baggage seaches, endless waiting and rushrushrush to have a
quick sneaky cigarette before jumping on the plane to portland. flying into
cincinatti, however, i had this bizarre sense of landing in sim city...the
carefully laid out zones of houses and ant-cars and neat little parks. disconcertingly
tidy and toy like till the moment the plane landed on mundane runway concrete.
the film, in a supremely ironic way, was 'one fine day'. i half watched, with
no sound, and giggled at its awfulness. (george! michelle! teehee...perhaps
only euryale will really understand this one...) jumpy, twitchy, wantching
the overslow progress to portland on the handy little skymap projected on
the the video screens. headwinds. altitude. ground speed. yeah, yeah...how
long till i am there? aprehension and rush as we land. take a deep deep breath,
sqaure my shoulders, avoiding all mirrors and sights of bleary over-flown
face, and leave the plane. scan the cround and sigh. no sign. ok, get bags,
find some arrivals area. stride through acres of airport to find that my banana
yellow case is the very first off the plane. unheard of! look around the
crowds of people. shit. still no sign. have i walked right past A? is this
possible? bollocks. i find a phone and get him paged, wondering whether to
do the ak and kbc names, or snarl and heyoka. compromise and do both, much
to the mystification of the paging guy, who hasn't got a clue as to what
i am saying. i sit, looking forlorn on my case, eyes scanning, scanning until
i get pissed off and drag my stuff outside so i can have a smoke.
stomp inside and make a call..speak to a hausmate, hear story of late leaving
and buses and failed search for a ride. stomp outside to smoke again, to wait
the 20-40 minutes or so. an old guy who is blowing a whistle at the buses
and flirting with a woman who is doing the same comes over to look at me.
he gawps for a moment, and then says he likes my scarf, but is disappointed...he
thought i had a pile of green hair, and that would have been 'way cool.' back
inside, and looking around, i see a man rush inside and up onto the escalator...black
beret, painted leather, not tall, and i yell his name. yell again, and he
turns and bounds down the stairs. "you useless fucking bastard" i yell, as
we wrap each other up in a huge hug. and grin at each other. shock of touch...sight.
cute cute boy here in reality. wow. grap the cases, find a bus, share a smoke
waiting for the real bus. half look out of the windows as we travel into
a new city in an early evening, but i smile madly, but tired, so long-flight-bleary
and not yet back in my head. find the chocolate in the bag that keeps falling
over, and offer it. a exclaims a few times about hazlenuts. and we talk,
chat, chat, chat...all stuff. about the journeys we have both made, about
birds he has seen, about lizards, about weather, about nothing very much
and i watch the muscles move in his leg and the loose strands of hair that
curl over his neck and the flickering of his eyes and 'it's so good to see
you, be here, meet you at last" we say a dozen times.
and, standing at the bus stop downtown, smoking and eating curiously strong
mints in the almost rain green light and laughing at the recorded bell chimes
playing from the top of a tall building, we kissed.
and the rest of that journey is green eveing light and this growing crackle
crazed buzz warmth of connection and the smoothness of hand holding hand and
lips against lips and flashing of eyes and face hurting smiles.
back to the apartment to drop of bags and pause. unloading of small presents.
he gives me a tiny wind up robot that makes me beam. and a small wooden cat
he made, so i would not miss my kits too much. and a monster-steggish-dino-puzzle
beast. and all i bring is books. bath, or coffee? coffee... leaving, we bump
into a's hausmates on the steps. quicken, tall and clutching a stack of boxes
of tiny cakes, exclaims, "ooh! it's andy, and andy's little friend. hello,
andy's little friend!" hello, hello, shake hands, hello, hello shannon, quicken.
and along the street of wild blossom laden smells and tree shrouded pavements
and the glowing stained glass and red doors of the church to drink coffee.
dancing fingers laced through fingers, touch touch queeze of skin against
skin. turning faces catch light of eyes and heart flipping rush of 'one enormous
yes'. how, how to say these things without cliche and sap, when every falling
in love is wrapped in the language and actions of every love affair. when
you know that your story is unique, but the words are inadequate.
so, that first evening we sat in the yellow glow outside Coffee Time. drinking
coffee and smoking constantly. sweet mixed smells of gitanes and kamel. a
tour inside of the wonderfully painted rooms, the names of books, the warmth
of the images and the light, and the oh so comfortable looking chairs. but,
outside to benches, to smoke and talk and talk and talk, sitting side by side.
i kept touching him, pushing palms against arm and chest and leg like a kneading
cat to check that he was real. transfixed, stunned by the reality of his
presence. i rub my fingers over beard covered jawline, touch lips, feel skin
warmth and blood as we talk and smoke curls out into the darker night.
a street guy repeatedly bums cigarettes from us as he sits and talks at
the next table, waving an empty coffee cup around as he does so. the owner
wanders out, apologetically explaining that this guy is known to have been
violent to people in the past.
talk more, hang out in the night then walk slowly home, pausing to kiss,
laughing and grinning on almost every street corner, amazed and amazed again.
i take a bath, crunched up in too hot water, hugging my knees and listening
to the echoes of water in the tiled room as i hide behind blue curtains, listening
to him pad about in the next room. shyness, uncertainity flickers through
me and i breathe till i am calm again. emerge, glowing pink and wrap myself
in a green towel and a tshirt. he takes a shower and i listen to the water
on his body as read a fairytale as i sprawl, towel-clad on the black, worn
down quilt that leaves a mesh of lines on my skin, smoking and taptapping
ash into the yellow ashtray, reading the words written on piles of boxes stacked
around the room. blenkats. writhings.
[as i write, i watch a woman with yellow shoes kiss a man with red hair
outside a green building, and music buzzes in my ears. love me, love me,
say that you love me breaking through the hiss of steaming milk and the chitterchat
of filmakers.]
and he came back in, showing me books, putting on clothes. and we talked
more, hesitantly moving from gentle kisses to more kisses and more, wrapping
around each other and exploring. pale hand on the still flushed skin of my
shin makes me shiver. and we map out newly discovered continents of skin by
candlelight. kissing. kissing. tongues flickering and finding. and i am astoundingly
turned on by this man. and we peel clothes from each other and stare wide-eyed
and breathless at each other and whisper our amazement to each other. and
i am rocking with helpless laughter, overwhelmed.
i fall asleep, blisscurled in his arms, his breathing, his warmth pulling
me into a rocking dream of him, broken only by the early morning bathroom
business of hausmates. i flicker half awake and see him, feel him sleeping
deep against me in solid reality not dream, and smile myself back to sleep.
the overwhelming small wonder of waking next to him.
friday 8.30 am. PV
tuesday 29the april
hell, what did we do on tuesday? popped online and sent a one word email
to euryale: michelle! heh. and found that she had been having hell with my
flat. the top lock was refusing to open. it has always been tricking, and
has lead to storming rows when i have been locked into the flat...but she
was locked out and the cats were yowling and mewling from inside and she was
stuck in the dark and slightly pungent hallway, struggling with a lock that
would not open. she was online, so we talked of locksmiths. found out the
next day that the rescue attempts and the fitting of a new lock cost a mighty
117.50. fucking hell. [not, however, as evil as the phone bill i came home
to.]
mooing while having your shoulders rubbed and your hair kissed is a very
pleasant experience indeed...and so wonderfully distracting i spent little
time online. shoulder hovering to read mail lists for a short time each day...but
tugging at his hand and pestering and pouting till he quit. bits called and
we made plans to meet the next day, after school...we went for coffee and
missed him calling by that afternoon. coffee talking, warm spring day with
edges of rain in the air. talk of books and toys and films and stories of
past...weaving histories to explain ourselves, entertain each other, fill
the space with patterns of sound and textures of past. these first few days
are an unfolding of our stories to each other. is this a day i cover skin
with inky patterns...no, the photos show a shaven man, so that was later,
later in the week. tuesday we drank coffee, filled ashtrays with endless white
filters of gitanes, touchtouchtouching as words pattern through. eyeglinting,
entranced by sound and the movement of a face in conversation...what did we
do? what...oh, food. herbs and eggs and grapefruit and bananas and stock cubes
and ice cream (mmmm...starbucks dark roast espresso swirl. dark coffee icecream
wrapped through with chocolate syrup...) and home to chop chop chop the herbs
while quicken creates careful terraces and waterfalls in simcity (not wanting
to cook when others are in the kitchen). the smell of parsley and coriander
and basil breaking out from shredded leaves. hand flickering pottering around
someone else's kitchen, spattering green all over the floor as i struggle
with a too short knife and too small hands. and we eat soup and watch bad
commercials and we talk of the reading lamp and a talks on the phone with
bits and we plan to meet him later for coffee...as soon as his parents can
give him a ride and i piss and moan because the egg is coagulating in the
soup and it is sitting uneaten. ok, so it's not the most inspiring strachiatella
that i have ever made, in fact it's rather insipid, but, damn it, it is the
first time i have cooked for him and each time i cook it is an almost sacrificial
offering to friends and conversation and some odd connection...to grab food
and run depresses me. when food become nothing but fuel and not the focus
of a moment, a binding between a group, even a group of one...
damn it, i have a flood of images and echoes of words and i have lost all
order of events into fragments and a general feeling. when i spoke with my
sister on the phone tonight, she asked me what the hell was going on becuase
she could hear me smiling...
and i have an images of a sitting on the floor lacing on his boots in an
almost dark room and me checking my pockets for pens and paper (not that i
wrote a word when there) and cigarettes and wooden cat and scraps of nothing
that i carry around and a walk through the evening to roxy's. crouching down
to peer through broken window spaces into half lit basements, and the machinery
glimpsed through brewery windows, and white clouds of fragrent, throat covering
beer steam lit bright against a dark sky, and rush of car noise crossing over
the bridge and scattered reflections from warehouse windows and shattered
bottle glass by dumpsters and flyers bulging on telegraph poles and the unfamiliar
style of sign writing and the shock of strangers smiling at you as you walk
through the streets and the catches of night-colour of blossoms on trees...oh
trees. i know what we did on tuesday. we went to the place that i had dreamed
of. the synagogue that i had passed over and over again in the dream i had
of a place i called cyprus, where the fields became drawings on the ground
and i found a theatre cafe performance space filled with old friends. and
there it was...the same building surrounded by the same huge flower covered
rhodedendren (sp?) bushes. although in my dream all the flowers were white,
not this wild rich jumble of reds and pinks and whites and creams. and the
same way that it was raised above street level with grassy banks, and no,
no, i didn't not get that cold shock of dreams breaking into my real life
but an odd acceptance of yes, here it is. of course it is. and of course it's
2 blocks from a's house, and of course it's a building that he also dreamed
before first seeing...so we clmbed up the steps and marvelled at the intricacy
of the doors and the patterning of the bricks. but the door was locked and
we stood, frowning but grinning for a moment until a man appeared, a caretaker,
who let us in and gave up the tour. the dome of the synagogue was far higher
than expected, and cast rich colour through the stained glass. the nouveau
styling cast a new twist on traditional use of symbols, and the heavy heavy
doors of the altar he slid back to show us the books and scrolls inside.
and up, up into the organ loft, hands sliding over the dark polished wood,
pattern curved and oiled, twice yearly, by his own hands. and he admired a's
jacket and talked of his past as a biker and how he always wears a leather
jacket but has quit the bike since a close call accident and how he is now
too old to hit the concrete.
and passing the sketched outlines for a new mural we reach roxy's where
bits is tucked in the corner of a booth and he smiles and waves his copy
of homage to catalonia at me and adjusts his hat three times before we have
sat down. then each of us has a black pot of coffee and a brown mug and a
dark red glass of water in this tucked away booth, but my back is to the
window and i am sitting on the outside and i am twitchy and distracted and
the conversation drifts and plays and sometimes i pick it up and others i
stare at the patterns of light in the surface of the dark coffee and listen
to the intonations and the music of words as bits and a talk of portland
places and people. and other times i am babbling nonsense, softvoice and
headshiftingly tired. i forget, now, all the things we talked of but it was
a cocoon of voices and warm pressure of hands and touching knees. and sitting
at the bar was a man who had been at coffeetime, his hair pinned through
with a chopstick, and i remember him because his cool but noisy car had been
parked in front of where we had sat in the sun shadowed afternoon, legs tangled
through legs as we talked. and the table flooded with coffee when bits forgot
to stop pouring and he covered his white shirt and soaked his tie...the first
of half a dozen dramatic spills of a fortnight. [later, eating icecream in
bed, i sat back and landed in the sticky lid. yick] but bits must get the
bus home before it's too late and he is in trouble so we walk, just that
step too fast for me, cattycornering quickqquick across twon to the bus mall,
and bits sits by the open window and i can't hear what he's saying because
the engine overshadows it but i grin and wave as he settles in and my hand
is clutched in a's and we start a more leisurely walk back home in spitspattering
sometimes rain, but too soft to notice.
so we visit portlandia. and she is huge, but her eyes, so blank and round,
scare me despite her open gesture and friendly bulk of bronze, as her hand
scoops down from her perch. if it had not been night, and she had had a pigeon
balanced on her, i think the disconcertion would have been broken...but i
found her intimidating and distant. like an ancient aunt who you are obliged
to kiss at christmas. then to the square where every brick has a name on it,
the names of those who paid a contribution. and it's cool to have a carpet
of names, and it's a good place to use, as a suggested, as part of a clue
for a treasure hunt. there are bacnks of flowers, a little too small in their
pots, in preparation for the rose festival at the end of may...so the open
space of the square is lost. but the amphitheatre space is the next point
we pause. standing on the central circle, your voice, when you speak, is amplified
so clearly to the space, but hissechoes in your own ears in a shifting manner.
two people, holding each other tight, can hear their own voices clear and
sweet with no feedbackfuzz of whisperlisp.
and walk to see the electronic poet...a crazy hanging metal shape, all spikes
and curves like a mutant surfboard crossed with a sharkmonsteralien that flickers
with poetry in red lights. words streaming across, too fast to pause in reading...quick
blurstream of text...all sorts. poetry of trains and blues and jazz as we
peered up, but the rushing text was blurring and skewing my sleeplacked brain
and making me dizzy as i leant back against a, amazed that a city spends
money on such wonderous public art. so we kept on walking (the happy owl...the
broken b making a fast food place a story not a noodleshop) in the softsoft
rain till back, on a different route. each walk down new roads, crisscrossing
down other paths. exploring and tracing each line of the map.
and back to eat icecream by candlight and tell and retell more stories of
each other. and was this the night of the talkers outside. so noisy...and
the drunken seranade by the window, or was that later? but as the birds started
to get noisy, we slept.
---
From: Nichelle
Date: 17 May 1997
Subject: Cab talk
If this isn't one of the fuckin-weirdenest nights I've had in Syracuse,
then I just don't understand the definition of weird. I spent most of the
night pissed off at the cab company for not reserving my taxi in advance,
as they usually do. So I stood around in the mall exit reading the introduction
to Tropic of Cancer until the guy finally pulled up. As I got into the cab,
I stashed the book in my backpack and asked him to take me to ten-oh-nine
Madison Street, please. "Usually they just take me straight down Genesee."
"Yep, that's where we're headed." Silence for a few moments. "So, whatcha
readin'?" I fudged a little. "Tale of Two Cities." (I finished it this afternoon
before I caught the bus to work, but would prefer to talk about Dickens with
the cabbie than Miller, if it turned out that he had read either one.) "Oh
yeah? So you got any partickuler intrest in reading?" "Yes, sir. I'm interested
in anything good." "Ever heard of Dante Alighieri?" "Sure I have." "Well I've
got a theory..." During the next ten minutes of my ride home, my cabbie, with
his New York City cabbie accent, explained to me his theory of Dante's mathematical
system which he believes is the framework of the Divine Commedia. The Dante
Society will be publishing his paper soon, he tells me. He's the first man
alive to discover this mathematical framework. I tried to understand what
he was telling me. I got only so far in ten minutes. Ask Gaby how difficult
it is to explain things to me. I had a vague idea while reading the Inferno
that numbers play an interesting and important role in the Commedia.
It's something like this... Inferno has 34 Cantos, Purgatorio 33, and Paradiso
33 as well. This adds up to 100. Next, counting the number of verses in each
Canto, and somehow adding the numbers, one always comes up with the numbers
one, four, and seven. (At random, I flip open to Canto VI of the Inferno,
and there are 115 verses. 1+1+5= 7) The numbers one and seven appear 33 times
and the number four appears 34 times. The rest was too much for me to grasp
in one ride. He gave me his card and promised a copy of his paper if I send
him a letter requesting it. What do you think?
Nichelle
From: SAGReiss
Date: 20 May 1997
Subject: House of No Respite
Work, beer, Ricard, whisky, six days at six, and fifteen fucking hours of
OT last week. I have applied for the job of personal Mr Bufu to bgates@corbis.com.
I told them I was not a geek, but do pretty well for myself, so long as I
can con(vince) other people to do the tech shit. I opened alone on Sunday
morning, madness. I had fifteen tables before I saw anyone else. People overslept,
missed busses, whatever. Fuck them. I sold seven hundred dollars and change,
twice anyone else's sales. They all have two straight days off this week.
Joey needs them or else he takes a mental health day. Beth and Melanie are
single mothers. So? I get drunk every day of the week. Does that entitle me
to a mental health day? Exhausted and overworked, I still managed two minor
culinary masterpieces this week. I made a risotto alla milanese from a 1962
receipe I found online. I just substituted shallots for the onion, used the
drippings from two fat cornish hens to make the stock, and added saffron
(only $204.00 a pound with your Wegman's shopping card). Last night I made
a meat pie, pate brisee, beef with carrots, onions, corn and mushrooms, pan
gravy. This was a bad pie. The crust was impervious to the sauce. When I
cut the fucker, nothing oozed. I keep thinking about the song "Walking the
dog". We've bought a leash for Matilda. We're teaching her about the outside
world, well, the hall and stairs. Someday I'll be sober and we can take her
out on the lawn. The problem is that I am afraid of dogs. Matilda has never
seen a dog. I don't know what she thinks.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 25 May 1997
Subject: The Jackmans
The Jackmans are these stupid-ass twins who shape balloons and do magic
tricks for our guests on Sundays. It's been dead and my back has been tight
for a week. I don't know if Nichelle saw me doing push-ups to get to my knees,
then crawling out of bed. I've been in a lot of pain, which is no excuse,
of course. I haven't written, and I'm sorry. This morning I pulled a standard
waiter con. When I do room service I always keep different denominations in
different pockets, the better to screw the guests. This dude in a suite ordered
up a big breakfast and a Sunday Times. I watched him write in a five-dollar
tip, in addition to the three-dollar service charge, and then said: "Oops,
I forgot the newspaper." He took out a one and a ten. I pulled a five out
of one of my pockets and apologized for not having change. (Fuck you, that's
two dollars more for Captain Ahab.) It amazes me that some of the other servers
don't know how to do this. We are professionals, right? Then one of the magicians'
white-trash gf came in for brunch with her little "rejetons", as the French
say, which is basically equivalent to calling children abortions. The bossman
was paying, so I rang up four adults and two kids. The bitch left ten dollars
under a coffee cup. The Mad Greek Woman asked me if she had left a tip. (I
could have added one to Lowell's bill.) I said she had. You see how the world
rewards my kind and benevolent self? After she'd left one of the Jackmans
thanked me and gave me ten bucks. Twenty dollars from a fifty-dollar tab made
my day. I know all of you think I'm a loser, another drunk trying to make
a buck on the 'net. Fuck you. Nichelle is betting on me, and negatron is
hedging his bets. There is nothing online like what we have done. I haven't
begun. As Buk's grandmother used to say: "I will bury all of you."
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: Kate
Date: 26 May 1997
Subject: lions, arguments and the gathering of the tribes
Sunday 25th May 1997
11.30am
Perched on a blue wooden chair, outside the only open cafe on Museum Street,
facing the British Museum (which does not open for another three hours). I'd
forgotten the sunday opening times. But, it's a beautiful day and this is
a fine shady spot in which to catch up on some journal writing. There is
some cool decorative bricwork on the corner across from me on Little Russell
Street--worn away, but a cramped face-pulling monster surrounded by curlicues
in red brick. The street is all cafes and rare book shops--some with prints
or old maps in the window. Rather tasty Eric Gill lithograph, worryingly without
a price tag.
I am feeling less vacant now, less miserable. When I woke up this morning,
at half past six, I felt like I had been twisted tight and put through the
mangle. Stretched, pale and bruised. Empty headed and disappointed. Last night
turned into such a nightmare. What a fucking awful time to get one of my
from-time-to-time migraines. When they kick in there is nothing i can do
but let it crash through my head until it wears itself out, leaving dents
and shadows of its passing.
Yesterday started well, once i stirred myself out of attempts to get back
to sleep after waking too early and going online. I'd had trouble falling
asleep on Friday night, so I'd spent time digging through boxes of old photographs.
Places, people, patterns--a patchy history with gaps of long years. Found
pictures of myself (aged 18, 19) and looked at them, perplexed, not remembering
myself ever looking like that. So slept, in a litter of images and cats and
the every present sense of something missing.
{...}
I was early to Kings Cross yesterday, and stood for a while, leaning on
the railings by the taxi rank, waiting for the others to show. Helen came
bounding into view, with a whoop of "kates! kates!" and spinning me round
as Andy shambled, bemused and smiling good naturedly after her. She waved
a leg in the air, tugging her pockets out, showing off her brand new blue
combats, applauding herself on ideal festi preparation--enumerating the advantages
of many big pockets (for essentials like loo paper) and great big belt loops
through which to thread her extra layers of clothing. Andy grinned as he watched
her, tugging at his three silver hoop earrings and rocking from foot to foot
before hopping up and perching on the rails like a mild mannered gargoyle.
Helen is a mass of energy. She's tall, but has that odd wound coil of energy
that is more common in little wiry sorts. So she danced and waved her arms
wide and shifted her position three or four times a minute, nodding "oh,
that's BRILLiant! ooh! CUTE boychick," as I recounted tales of love and portland.
Patting Andy on the face, she demanded, "why aren't YOU that romantic" to
his puzzled "I am! ...somtimes" when i talked about daft wonder. Dugald and
Louis appeared--svelte, trendy club boys in black with impeccable sunglasses--and
all of us, with out obligatory waist wrapped layers, wandered off to find
the train.
We got to Tribal Gathering at 6.30 or so, after a couple of hours drinkingbeer
while sitting on the green, outside a pub, in the shade of a tree. There was
too much traffic for it to be truly idyllic, but it was a nice place to sit.
There were drinking stories and L'd theory about why people should learn
to love the cities they inhabit, and a discussion about london buildings.
A slow wander through the town found no food but some really rank fish cakes
and chips, heavy with tepid grease. The bus to the site was packed, and the
sun was vicious bright as we passed through rabbit infested fields and past
curves of river with idle drifting swans. Getting there, H headed straight
to the eternal queue for the hell that is the Portaloo. The woman has the
bladder of a gnat. Hoards of people--thousands milling around, dancing outside,
wandering in bright tshirts. oh, they loved me at security, with my nine garbage
filled pockets, a dubious container of bubble liquid and an unsealed bag
of rolling tobacco. A glorious late spring evening--if you could ignore the
waves of litter already spreading wide across the grass.
Republica had vanished off the bill and been replaced by the Sneaker Pimps.
Not, as H insisted "like portishead, only crap". An enjoyable half hour set
even though the music was far better than the round-faced singer's slightly
weak voice. There was a gas dancer in front of me: the sort who will always
fill the very limits of available space and then try to escape, and glower
madly if you dare not to move out of his way. And then my head starts to hurt...just
a slight nagging, gradual buidl that I tried hard to ignore. Some wandering
around, some dry noodles, and Louis waiting for a cup of tea, which he spat
out in disgust. We tried to see Eddie Izzard, but the crowd was large--spilling
eight or nine deep beyond the edges of the tent, and there was not a glimpse
of stage available and the sound was muffled by the layers of music from
three different tents.
Sitting on the damp grass outide the House tent while the others danced,
I felt my energy seeping away from me, crashing fast. Behind me, a line of
men pissed against a poster covered fence, and people wander around selling
each other paracetamol tablets stolen from their parents' medicine cabinets,
passing them off as something more interesting to people who probably won't
notice. Not in the mood to just let my mind drop and dance and dance till
my skull disintegrates, because a slow headache was building, tugging at my
mind and I finally realised it was a migraine starting.
A giant praying mantis walks through the crowd, flanked by two men on stilts--crazy
metal machine stilts--and i beam broadly and point them out to the others,
only to be met with unimpressed stars. well, bollocks to you, you cool bastards.
There are dozens of stalls selling all kinds of useless shit--light sticks,
white gloves, garishly coloured silly hats, pseudo-ethnic clothing, "natural"
(i.e. legal) drugs. What amazes me is that there are queues of people lining
up to buy this. There are girls flitting around in teeny skirts, cropped tops
(to show off the obligatory navel piercing) and hells. They will freeze to
death during the night, if they do not break their ankles on the rough ground
rolling with beer bottles first. Even before dark, the temperature was dropping
fast.
If I had had the right energy, this would have been an incredible time.
Huge, happy crowds dancing dancing to good music. But, I was feeling like
shit, though somewhat cheered by watching the security staff wigging out,
dancing madly round the ropes of one of the marquees. Going to the Planet
Earth marquee to see Fluke, and to stay on there till Orbital played, i finally
crashed. The burning bone pain around my eyesocket that is the undeniable
start of one of my migraines. And my right eye flickering in and out of focus.
Angry and starting to hurt hurt hurt, I waved, and went. Stopping by the
medical tent I got fed a mighty dose of Ibuprofen, which took the edge of
the normal headache part. But by the time I had walked across the fields
and carparks (through arriving crowds) to the bus, with my hand clamped over
my right eye to cut down the light, my head was on fire and my vision was
fucked up. I had no depth perception left, and squirling lights and blurred
focus clouding my right eye. Some how, I got home by train and, I think,
cab--half sleeping, half whimpering. At least I was home before I started
throwing up. Then I crawled into bed, hiding in the dark, under the covers
in a feline nest and dragged down into a dreamless dead sleep away from the
pain.
Awake again at 6.30, exhausted but better--just washed out and blank and
fragile. I felt so helpless. Went online, looking for A. No sign so left a
message. Later, he'd logged on but there was no repsonse. Refrained from leaving
a pissy mail and called him up. longing to hear his voice. Longing more,
impossibly, just to crawl into his arms and mope. Pathetic self-pity, just
so washed out and down. he joined me online and soothed, calmed...putting
up with my whining and moping and childish complaining until he faded out
to sleep.
So i gathered clothes and headed out to PV for a slow breakfast and an amble
across to the museum, dropping into Gosh to pick up the new Paul Pope graphic
novel.
My pen just exploded ink all over my hand. No soap in the bathroom, but
after i complain, the guy in the kitchen trots out and squeezes washing up
liquid onto my hands. No towels, either. Great.
{...}
I have just had one of the most bizarre arguments of my life. I went down
to the bathroom in the cafe--wanting to have a piss, as is often the case
when someone has had three cups of coffee.
The man looks at me and demands, "what are you doing down here again?"
"Um, going to the loo," I mutter, stating the obvious.
"I can't spend all day mopping up after you! You dome down here all the
time! You're taking advantage! Taking advantage! How dare you? Get out!"
Astounded, I explain that all I want to do is go to the loo, and, crazily
I start trying to justify this by saying that I'd only washed my hands before.
But he is going beserk...talking, shouting all the time. Steaming angry,
ranting about me having "no common sense, no common sense at all", about abusing
him, about all sorts of crazy shit: "You come in here, with hands like a
mechanic! You're taking advantage!"
My jaw has dropped so far I have trouble pointing out that I am a customer,
and merely wanting to use the facilities for the customers and that he might
just have a slight problem here with customer relations. But he tells me that
he is the manager, the owner and can survive perfectly well without the likes
of me. He starts on about common sense again.
"Excuse me," I say, "I need to use the bathroom. This is not about common
sense, it's about my bladder. Do you have a problem with that?"
"yes!" he yells, and lays in on the abuse again.
"Well, i am terribly sorry for ruining your day," I mutter, as go to the
loo and he vanishes.
Fuck this, I'm going. I try to have a word with the waiter as I pay—trying
to find out what on earth this is all about, and what the guy's problem is,
when the creature from the deep appears and starts talking over me, "What
do you want to listen to her for? She has no common sense! She has been to
the toilet five times! Four, FIVE times! Why are you talking to him, what
are you trying to do? What's the point? I tell you you have no common sense!
Get out!"
Stunned, I want an explanation of this bizarre behaviour, and perhaps an
apology. I can't believe the volume and the viciousness of this attack, and
turn on my heel to gather my stuff and go before I yell "fuck you!" at the
same volume as the Cerberus of the Bathroom. Walking down the street, the
waiter runs after me. "Sorry," he says, "he's a bit tempermental." I refrain
from pointing out that the guy is a raging lunatic, and just nod. keep walking.
Bloomsbury Square is far calmer, and the pigeon chasing children are out
of earshot. A black bird is sitting on the bench with me, singing and singing
even though his mouth is full of food. Beady bright eyes. Then, away. Pigeons
coast low over the grass, hoping for picnic left overs and for peace and the
banishment of small noisy children in bright pink dresses. tourists point
video cameras at each other as they walk past nothing in particular, beaming
and holding armstretching loads of bags from some of the cheesier souvenir
shops.
[drawing of the lion. one of a pair of lions from the temple of ishtar,
sharrat-niphi. assyrian 665-860 BC, from Nimrud. WA 118895]
talk to one of the museum staff, and ask about known translations of the
text on the lion [drawing of some of the cuneiform from the lion's leg]. he
suggests i call in and see some of the western asiatic experts in room 66.
King Ashurnasirpal, flanked by eagle headed protective sprits. 865BC. Nimrud.
NW Palace, Room F, panels 3-4. WA 124584-5. The rest of the room is paneeled
entirely with eagle headed spirits and sacred trees.
"The so called Standard inscription of Ashurnasirpal was carved across the
centre of every panel in the NW Palace, forming a decorative band around each
roo,...the catalogue of royal titles, claims and achievements was reapeated
over and over again."
and it's strange, that the text has been carved like this across the relief
carving of king and spirits...
[...drawing, very lousy, of one of the eagle spirits, then copied out, the
translation of the inscription...]
"Palace of Ashurnasirpal, priest of Ashur, favourite of Enlil and Ninurta,
beloved of Anu and Dagan, the weapon of the great gods, the mighty king, king
of the world, king of Assyria, the son of Adad-nirari, the great king, the
mighty king, king of the world, king of Assyria; the valiant man who acts
with the support of Ashur, his lord, and has no equal among the princes of
the four quarters of the world; the wonderful shepherd who is not afraid of
battle; the great flood which no one can oppose; the king who makes those
who are not subject to him submissive; who subjugated all mankind; the mighty
warrior who treads on the neck of his enemies, tramples down all foes and
shatters the forces of the proud; the king who acts with the support of the
great gods, and whose hand has conquered all lands, who has subjugated all
the mountains and received their tribute, taking hostages and establishing
his power over all countries.
"When Ashur, the lord who called me by my name and has made my kingdom great
entrusted his merciless weapon to my lordly arms, I overthrew the widespread
troops of the land of Lullume in battle. With the assistance of Shamash and
Adad the destroyer over the troops of the Nairi lands, Habhi, Shubaru and
Nirib. I am the king who has brought into submission at his feet the lands
from beyond the Tigris to Mount Lebanon and the Great Sea [the med], the whole
land of Suhi as far as Rapiqu and whose hand has conquered from the source
of the river Subnat to the land of Uratu.
"The area from the mountain passes of Kirruri, to the land of Gilzanu, from
beyond the Lower Zab to the city of Til-Bari which is north of the land of
Zaban, from the city of Til-sha-abtani, to Til-sha-zabani, Hirimu and Haratu,
fortresses of the land of Karduniash [Babylonia], I have restored to the borders
of my land. From the mountain passes of Babite to the land of Hashmar I have
counted the inhabitants as peoples of my land. over the lands which I have
subjugated I have appointed my governors and they do obeisance.
"I am Ashurnasirpal, the celebrated prince, who reveres the great gods,
the fierce dragon, conqueror of cities and mountains to their furthest extent,
king of rulers, who has tamed the stiff necked peoples; who is crowned with
splendour, who is not afraid of battle, the merciless champion who shakes
resistance, the glorious king, the word of whose mouth destroys mountains
and seas, who by his lordly attack has forced fierce and merciless kings from
the rising to the setting sun to acknowledge one rule.
"The former city of Kalhu [nimrud], which Shalmaneser, king of Assyria,
a prince who had preceded me, had built, the city had fallen into ruins and
lay deserted. That city I built anew. I took the peoples whom my hand had
conquered from the lands which i had subjugated, from the land of Suhi, from
the whole of the land of Laqe, from the city of Sirqu on the other side of
the Euphrates, from the furthest extent of the land of Zamua, from Bit-Adini
and the land of Hatte, and from Lubarna, King of the land of Patina, and made
them settle there.
"I removed the ancient mound and dug down to the water level. I sank the
foundations 120 brick course deep. A palace with halls of cedar, cypress,
juniper, box-wood, meskannu-wood, terebinth, and tamarisk, i founded as my
royal residence for my lordly pleasure forever.
"Creatures of the mountains and seas I fashioned in white limestone and
alabaster, and set them up at its gates. I adorned it, and made it glorious,
and set ornamental knobs of bronzr all around it. I fixed doors of cedar,
cypress, juniper and meskannu-wood in the gates. I took in great quantities
and places there, silver, gold, tin, bronze, and iron, booty taken by my
hands from the lands which i had conquered."
[drawing of statue erected by shalmaneser III in 835BC. the text on the
statue indicates that it is of the god Kidudu, guardian spirit of the wall
of the city of ashur.]
the assyrian lion hunt is one of the most astounding works in the whole
museum--the peak of assyrian art, and the last glory years of the kingdom.
these hunting panels are beautiful--the narrative is alive and fluid, the
animals are carved with stunning realism. they are from the throne room of
the north palace of nineveh, under the king Ashurbanipal (668-627 BC)
lion were regarded as vermin, there were so many of them. they were rounded
up and weakened, but only the king could kill them. it was his duty--to protect
the people. his seal shows him face to face with a lion, running a sword through
it.
from a document from around the same time:
"the hills resound with their roaring, the wild animlas tremble. they pull
down the cattle, spill human blood as well. Corpses of men, cattle, sheep
lie in heaps as if the plague had killed them. shepherds and herdsmen lament
what the lions have donw. the villages are in mourning day and night."
[drawing of a lioness, stuck with arrows]
i wish i knew why i was so entranced by this work...all the assyrian stuff.
the repetition? the complexity of simple forms? the combination of form and
text? the frustration of an unknown language?
---
From: Nichelle
Date: 25 May 1997
Subject: 5:04
The only new excitement in my job is that there is now a four foot tall
gumball machine in front of the store that looks like a HUGE PINK PENIS.
With a see-through head and multi-colored sperm inside. Give it a crank,
little girl. Swallow or spit? I hear it takes seven years to digest gum...
Gum. That reminds me of playing in the orchestra pit for Damn Yankees. Freddie
and I used to giggle over one particular line, when one of the ball players
is doing his crossword. "What's a three letter word for "a sticky substance?"
Hee hee hee...
I'll be happy to finish working here with all the cards that say stupid
shit like: "If friends were flowers, I'd pick you." I sold two cards between
11 AM and 1 PM today, both to the same person. Read Bukowski while I waited.
With all of the pastel colored envelopes and helium-filled sentiment, I felt
like it was somehow sacrilegious. As if I had peed in the holy water or something.
It was a good book too, even if he couldn't decide how old he was. It starts
out: "I was 50 years old and hadn't been to bed with a woman for four years."
Another hundred pages, and he's already 55. A hundred pages after that he
has dorked about six girls. I don't buy it, but it's still a pretty funny
book.
Had another shitty morning. I was up all night. I didn't have dinner, and
for lunch I ate the fucking stinkiest cheese I've ever had. That shit smelled
like it had been fucked about nine times without showering inbetween. I felt
like a pervert trying to wash the smell off my hands before work. So anyway,
just enough time to check my e-mail and take a shower while the lecherous
pigeons upstairs ogled me through the cracks in the tile. From the sounds
they were making, I suspect they were whacking off up there. I don't care
what our next apartment looks like as long as it doesn't leak anywhere.
Shit, I must be confused. The stinky cheese was yesterday. I was up late
because I went to Friday's and had a couple of Molsons while waiting for a
cab. I'm looking forward to living in a civilized place where I can get a
bottle of Pyramid now and then, or at least a Henry's.
Nichelle
From: SAGReiss
Date: 27 May 1997
Subject: Vacation
I twisted my ankle and hurt my back, but I feel better now. I work days,
breakfast and lunch, sauf exception. You will see that working with Snatch
Hagatha means having your pocket picked. I'm working a banquet upstairs tomorrow
evening. Perhaps I'll see you. I have two weeks of vacation beginning Saturday.
From: Kathleen
Date: 27 May 1997
Subject: Re: kneeSWAZ
What's the matter with your ankle and why don't you ever work at night?
katy
From: SAGReiss
Date: 29 May 1997
Subject: Respuestas del condon
I asked Waterboi: "Can you ask if I need to come in tomorrow? I'm on the
schedule from ten to two, but I worked Saturday for Joey (who quit Friday).
If I have to come in for that stupidass fucking meeting, I might as well work
and make some money." He came back a few minutes later: "You don't have to
come in tomorrow, the meeting has been postponed, and you're cut." "Is today
my fucking birthday?" It might as well be. I got three hundred and fifty
dollars for the first paid vacation of my life, unless one counts state-funded
detox as paid vacation. I'll just wait for the last check to clear, except
for the third week of vacation they owe me, and send in my fucking letter
of resignation. That's the second one of those I've written. The first one
was bogus anyway. I had just lost my working papers in France, but continued
to work under the table. Yesterday we had the AIDS educators' conference.
I was working with the fat room service gayboy. He said: "It's a small world.
See that guy at table fifty? I picked him up in a bar last year and fucked
him on the parking lot."
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
April 1997
June 1997
vr: 1997
