travel in the himalaya is always, always interesting.
a gave me smythe's kamet.

'The next morning, before leaving camp, Greene was called upon to do some more work. One of his patients was a small boy who complained, apparently, among other things, of a sore throat. Greene examined him, but could find nothing in particular wrong. He decided, however, that, as the boy's tonsils were none too healthy, it would be a good thing if they were to come out on the spot. He was preparing to perform this operation when the terrified boy explained that it was not he who was ill, but his father in the village below, and that he had come on his behalf, and had merely tried to enact his ailments.'
F. S. Smythe, Kamet Conquered (London: Camelot Press Ltd, 1932).

now, only if smythe got his names right...

adventures in quadruplicate. and the triplicate certainly knows.
u see, it is not only that things get done, but that they really do get done, and i have very lovely people around me. leaves me feeling rather good.

pleased as punch again.
and again.
you get the drift.

lessons learnt this weekend:
-abandoned hedonism agrees with me.

-momos agree with me.

-chocolate agrees with me.
-ice-cream agrees with me.
and
-i agree with plato quite some.

pleased as punch.
there are more things in heaven and earth etc etc...

Jazz at nuntii latini
and this is the album.

-Why did you take 10 years to complete your painting course at the J.J. School of Art?
-I was doing other things.

-What?
...

i tell you it is extremely galling to read someone, like them, and discover that they are dead. when they might well not have been, i mean.

really must meet ruskin bond.

butch cassidy:
who'll go?

sundance kid:
i'll go.

butch cassidy:
this is no time to be brave.
i'll let you.

butch cassidy and the sundance kid (1969).

-quid facis hodie?
-optime.

went out yesterday again. all of us save r, and that because we couldn't reach her. ruddy charger gone bust, and we all felt the ruddyness of the ruddy charger rather keenly yesterday.
what is important, however, is that the campus is very pretty on a pretty day, and even s behaves like a normal human being in it, and keeps her threats of going home to a minimum. it is also remarkable that very little persuasion indeed is needed to get a out and bouncing to a very old tune. i am an easy case, of course. i spend a nice day anyway, and then have food given me when i am hungry.
things will get very busy very soon, but it would be such a shame not to roll this luxurious hedonism around the tongue while it lasts.

during epic journey across city today by 221, passed little footpath eatery that was making commendable efforts towards cleanliness in the city. they had a little bin of their own, and a pieceboard sign perched on top of it, which said: 'please throw plates and others in dustbin'.

unavailing efforts towards creating a love (okay, toleration) for french in 11-year olds. one of them finally said: 'so the french write something, and then they say something, and then they say that what they have written is what they have said, right?'

only two of many things that make me think.

taste. that really is the thing with bruce chatwin.
any work of art, indeed, any work of artistic endeavour, must answer to certain generic and cultural pressures and expectations. that which makes of the work of art an achievement in aesthetic terms is a function of the cultural complex in/from which that work is born. all recognition, all appreciation, to come right down to the oft-repeated, therefore, is culturally influenced. one would not/could not judge by the same parameters, a renaissance painting and a north american totem pole, say.
so how does chatwin do it? he cannot be consciously culturally aware about all the art he encounters/has ever encountered. so how does he do it? how does he know? and if it is something of an instinct with him (and what other explanation have we), well... what an instinct! what a gift! he somehow knows, somehow gets it.
that is what i here call taste.
chatwin had an impeccable eye.

for the technically correct. all of the above should have been written in the past tense. an enormous pity, really.

but then, he did say that he had contracted a rare virus, 'so rare it was known only to have attacked a few Chinamen and a beached whale, all of whom died.' (kerry ross boren might have to be taken cum grano salis, but it is an interesting read nevertheless.)
quite a piece of work, chatwin.

chatwin's notebooks and photographs are strongly recommended. and it is encouraging that penguin classics has in patagonia and that google beta has this penguin classic.

was fiddling around with the grayscale function, that's all.

pourquoi, pourquoi, et pourquoi?
about zidane, i mean.

like a says, and like her good friend antoine says, les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c'est fatiguant, pour les enfants de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications...

with the crushing weight of two free hours on my hands, all determined to blog.

now.

only, now that i am actually doing this, i realize i would much rather
#finish my present perusal of chatwin's what am i doing here,
#watch the birds,
#watch those episodes of yes prime minister i haven't watched yet,
#be wherever my good friend r is at the present moment dosing rahul bose with talk of caritas, humanitas, etc etc etc (the civilised call such encounters interviews),
#be watching the fun where my good friend a is trying to sell the telegraph at asansol,
#be dancing on the plaster cast foot of my good friend a (not the good friend mentioned immediately above),
and so on and so forth.

anyhow, will just have to come back after wallowing in more self pity. alors, c'est fatiguant d'avoir toujours donner des explications.

as for why the greek, i'm sure i don't quite know. but it is the beginning, there's that.

because i have never blogged before, and had not the faintest idea about how it all worked. which is why there is a whole fortnight between the time i 'created' the blog and now, when i think i am ready to start feeding it. anyway, here goes.

arcche is the greek for beginning