Anodyne
Saturday, December 23, 2006
 
Leave No Trace of Grace Just Your Honor

Christmas madness on Main Street, Ms. Marshall introspective above the frantic and frequently amusing crowds. Cold turbulent air overhead, pink sunset light on the big-bellied grey clouds sailing in from the islands. Frantic, too, in the Kingsgate Mall BCLDB outlet, buying brandy for S.'s parents, an Xmas tradition unaffected by 2006's changes. Red-faced street alcoholics and Philippino construction workers, hipster kids and self-conscious Kits yuppie transplants, all queued together in uneasy company. Pynchon's "pickup group, these exiles and horny kids, sullen civilians called up in their middle age, men fattening despite their hunger, flatulent because of it, pre-ulcerous, hoarse, runny-nosed, red-eyed, sore-throated, piss-swollen men suffering from acute lower backs and all-day hangovers...men you have seen on foot and smileless in the cities but forgot, men who don't remember you either, knowing they ought to be grabbing a little sleep, not out here performing...this evensong, climaxing now and then with its rising fragment of some ancient scale, voices overlapping...."

"Where are your books on collecting straight razors?" (Thursday's first customer)

"'[L]'amour est un oiseau rebel; il ne jamais jamais connu le loi', as the famous aria from Carmen says." (Gmail email)

"I'm looking for this book. It's green..."
- posted by cjb @ 6:09 PM


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