dream

An elaborate hotel so vast that a circus has been able to pitch its big top in the lobby. On the run again from narcotics agents and various shadowy manifestations of parental authority I slip under the corner of the tent. As I am friends with the circus performers they aid my escape, and soon I am lost in the labyrinth of ladders, small wooden platforms, curtains, and rickety old pianos which make up the backstage area within the tent.

Curiously, everyone seems to carry iPOD like devices, all of which are equipped with the ability to produce tiny rubber stoppers. A necessity given that tiny holes (approx. a mm in diameter) appear in almost all pieces of glass. These devices are regularly used to stop these tiny holes, though frequently, say if the piece of glass in question is a wine bottle, not after they have been used for other purposes . . . .

the seventh seal

The spectre of death looms the more ominously the more his scythe fells with each stroke. The crusades have proved their futility ~ bankrupt of "honor" or divine support they are exposed a mere exercise in the erosion of conscience through the casual spilling of blood. Having found the Holy Land devoid of holiness, an errant knight staves off Death in the desperate hope that God will show his face. The plague ravages the land inspiring armies of flagellants to embark on vain pilgrimage. Blanket accusations, sincere contrition, and laborsome petitions to an indifferent God are ever on their lips. The sins of futile war are revisited even upon the homeland, and the knight's hubris drags the innocent with him into the pit, where the soft voice of God is never heard and the lamentations of the void echo upon deaf ears.

preface to "the gathering storm"

"I have adhered to my rule of never criticising any measure of war or policy after the event unless I had before expressed publicly or formally my opinion or warning about it."

~ Winston Churchill

lufthansa

2 languages; 4 employees (in person); 3 employees (via telephone); 1 trip to another airline's desk; 8 boarding passes; 7 baggage transport stickers; 5 increasingly nervous smiles; 45 minutes: 1 check-in.

istiklal street

A circle of police harassing a cripple. One slaps him and roughly shoves his wheelchair, sending the man's wares skittering across the pavement. Then, grabbing him by the neck, shaking him with both hands as the other cops look on . . . But, we move on. We conjecture he had spoken out against the military.

the blue mosque

The profound regenerative power of tranquility at the price of cancerous memes and institutionalized ignorance ~ is there another way?

tourism

A disease: parasites trick the host into consuming itself. One becomes one's own enemy; one destroys one's habitat; one consciously makes of oneself a parody. Willing slow suicide. Tourism is the slowly warming water which bathes the frog in comfort, dulling his will to escape.