Mr. Zogs

I was walking with Volker between the buildings of the Kunsthochschule in Kiel, and I see something sitting on the sidewalk, something round, about an inch high and three inches in diameter. I can’t believe it, it is too strange. it is a cake of Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax! surfing days resurrected in my brain, body, right there in Kiel, fifteen years stripped from experience, just thinkin’ of that swallowtail triple-fin board again, bellying up over the small waves out, diving under the big ones, leash tugging on the ankle, keeping the board close enough but not to close to thrash the dayLights outta yer head when you surface after the thrumming pass of water mountain overhead. sand grains get into the wax and leave the un-wet-suited belly a bit raw after a long afternoon of trying to ride six-foot curlers… I write to George, who I haven’t heard from in a coon’s age, he’s too busy trying to beat the definitive NOVEL out before inertia takes over, and teach at the same time. Somehow, he is one of the few people who I feel comfortable writing absolutely ANYTHING to … He knows what language can do, and I guess he cringes sometimes at my linguistic ineptness, but at least I think he enjoys a twist or two…

sotto voce: People stare at you when you walk around, and they keep staring at you right up to the point that in some cultures they will smile and say hello, how-ya-doin? in other cultures they will shoot you at that point, no questions asked, in others yet they will not look at all, or their kids will steal from yer pockets, here they stare right up to that point, then look quickly away at the ground. You are not an enemy, but you are dangerous, they can see your feet this way, NO FUNNY STUFF, MUTHA (they mouth deep in their heads in another language, in a totally different paradigm of expression, I can only imagine that I could translate it so). so it goes.

After putting a book down (I am reading a book!) in the pile of to-dos (I have to mail it to Terhi later in the week), finished, I put on little Sony earphones that are plugged into the laptop A POWERBOOK which, in turn, is plugged into a 10Mb line out into the wide buff gray ether out there, where I have tuned in internet radio gogaga from Boulder … good ole Joe and Joel keep it comin’! and check email to keep myself from concentrating on anything more close at hand, like dealing with a class plan for 13 Finnish students that threaten to blow my head away after it has been wrapped around a cocktail of students from too many cultures, too many mentalities, too many personalities, like I would enjoy flat middle-class middle-Amurikan dolts instead, for a change, the kids here are too fucking whatever, in a good way! Here I am. Let’s talk about creativity! Dig into it, and then do it! I know they’ll rise to the occasion!