Polymathic Quotation

“ A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, con a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly: specialization is for insects.”

Robert Heinlein

cairo nights 2

I drive at night reluctantly in Cairo, partly because I have poor night vision and partly because only one light works on my car and that single cyclopean light is wrongly adjusted so that it shines in everyone’s faces and mirrors and makes them flash angrily both red lights from behind or white lights from the front, or sometimes the plucking fruit gesture they make with extended arm sticking out of the car, this Cairene gesture deserves more than this but succinctly it means ‘cut me some slack will you?’ So usually I AM DRIVING ON SIDELIGHTS ONLY like some cave fish groping along half-blindly navigating the dim streets looking for the road where I dropped my daughter off only hours before in scorching daylight. Now the place is quite different, utterly different, a group of three men watch a TV propped on the curb- the only light source around, black wind rustles black leaves, side roads appear at random, or so it seems. Yesterday a man told me he couldn’t get used to not seeing the stars in Cairo, he was from new Zealand, a remote part I would say as not seeing the stars is what happens in any city you live in the world over. At least you can see the moon I said determined as I usually am to stick up for my adopted home. The moon is very yellow in Cairo , decadent, not like the icy silver moon you see in the frozen north. How can the moon vary so? It does. It also seems bigger on occasion, so big that it might break something, the night horizon, or be pregnant.

Of course I could fix my car but you see here in Cairo there is actually a law that says you should turn off your headlights when driving under streetlights. Police cars obey it as do many taxis. Me too. A strange pedestrian-friendly law. A strange law for a strange place.

When I park my car I look up at the sky and strain my eyes looking. There is one star, far off faint. All you need.

note on baksheesh

William Golding notes in his excellent Egyptian Journal that over twenty years of visiting Egypt the immemorial begging for baksheesh diminished hugely. People got richer, tourists got more numerous, officialdom grew more aware and more effective at halting begging. I hardly notice it when I am around especially after I adopted the dead pan refusal to be annoyed in the street. Mostly.

But it remains one aspect that makes some people suffer. There is obvious corruption, both low and high level. People think they are the same but they aren’t. One is a small payment to speed things on their way, the other a sizeable Al Fayad style chunk of money designed to pervert the public good. Some think they are connected- I don’t. The baksheesh is a hangover of a feudal non-money centred society. The big bribe simply their version of lobbying, or big business doing what it does the world over. Sometimes, qute often, you are surprised to meet people who are utterly unbribable, perversely almost when I offered 10 sterling to a waiter (a weeks wages) to go and buy me some coffee from another shop (he was out of the stuff)- he wouldn’t. His job wasn’t at risk, he just wouldn’t do it. I’ve also seen people who refuse huge sums of money to have their photos taken living next door to people who let you photograph them for free or 10p for the kiddies. I suggest the dysfunctional state of the economy here is a result of people refusing to sell themselves quite as cheaply as we do in the West.

parking fable

When I moved into my building four years ago few people had cars and there were enough spots for all to park. I had my own slot in fact. Then people got richer, credit got looser and everyone got cars, or more than one in some cases. Then the parking got a little like a rubics cube solution- there was a way to park but it needed full cooperation and everyone had to leave off their parking brakes so you could shift cars to get out. But it worked. Then with the addition of just a few cars more and one person who sometimes left on their handbrake the cars started getting parked in a way that trapped in the inner cars. So you had to wait, get the doorman to call on the people who blocked you in and wait. Never longer than fifteen minutes - but still. So in order to avoid being blocked in people started parking way back- leaving a huge gap in front of them so they could leave. Thing is: the whole front area of the building- the original parking area in fact was now unused. So now only the same number can park as they did before except their cars hang way out into the street so that no one can park behind them. So there is less space all round but less parking too and more wasted space. And more cars everywhere else. The funny thing is- people pretty much get on in this building too. Some tension but no real feuds. And you want to solve the middle-east problem? 

don't be suckered by narratives of success

The media love to parade success stories, writers, artists, businessmen, performers- people they have ‘discovered’ and anointed as ‘successes’. After a few years many of them disappear-why- because what makes a ‘success story’ is not the reality of a success- the story is not the success- merely a nice sugar coating, something that reads well. When a singer or writer dies young their work often achieves a considerable posthumous success- simply because their life now has a better narrative value- ie. nothing to do with intrinsic quality of their actual work.

I can't help wondering if the recent mega success of Stig Larson and Roberto Bolano hasn't something to do with this James Dean effect- the sudden transformation of a boring author into a compelling story.

 Unfortunately, reading these success naratives one can get suckered into losing hope because your life is so dull compared to that of the ‘success’ or losing faith because what you are doing is not interesting to the media; or copying the externals of the success story without realising the inner story, what is hidden from the media, probably contains the real insights.

Instead, refocus on your own efforts. Set your own definition of what counts as a success for you and achieve it. Being in the papers brings attention. Achieving self-set goals brings much more lasting satisfaction. 

poem by Ramsay Wood

My friend and fellow poet Ramsay Wood included the following in an email to me today so i thought I would share it with a few more people.

The dice in my head are rolling, 

the shootist has shot his bolt. 

When the petard hoists me aloft 

will I behold the target I missed?

the time paradox

“What kind of rule is this? The more time saving machinery there is the more pressed a person is for time.”

Sebastian de Grazia