Halloween seems like only Yesterday

A Love Poem for Celebrating Halloween in China

We could just as well have been there,
celebrating Halloween in China.
It is large-scale. Entire highways of witches united in the tonal ‘boo’.
All the single-child families dress the babe
for the encounter with the spirits.
They are horribly proud of their offspring.
Toothless elders screech with delight.

Clusters in masquerade let people do
that clever Chinese thing of fulfilling yourself

without standing alone,
of not having to be
separate in the way we non-Chinese
are stuck with ourselves, because
we’re in our own disguise that we made,
which makes a double you.
There’s too much to recall in costume.

We always honour death itself, with ceremonies
and shrines, great tombs or the ash-paved path.
Why not equal awe for the great beyond?
No more posters on walls, fat photo albums
passed from lap to lap,
but images in motion on the streets,
cult characters set free
in the vague network of timeless feasts.

Dragon boat races set the tone: ancestral vessels
flushed downstream by brawn.
Then somebody’s beauty interrupts, stronger
and bigger than the race.
It could make you wander around the edge of the crowd
pretending to buy a mooncake or two
to get a better view.
The boat flashes by. You’re certain the eyes caught yours.
Take the coloured banners as a good sign.
Waving on the horizon, they greet you.

But here we go again, meeting on clouds.
They can be anywhere, hiding half a moon above,
hanging low, above altars, taking on incense and
ghost money fumes, absorbing flakes
rising from Phoenix-brand cigarettes.
The charcoal fires would look great inside
hollowed-out pumpkins. That’s how we lure people to our doors,

by the way, on Halloween.

Candles behind smiles, that inner glow.

The mysterious exterior
that Oriental evenness of feature.
It’s like a mask already -
I’m sure it would work:
An entire continent afoot with paper bags
held open for treats.
After unleashing tricks:
Hungry ghosts no longer in hiding,
chocolate-crunching hordes,
a potential 100-million impostors
in one province alone.

Maybe we should just search,
together, plainclothed,
for the unspoken thrill,
for the tiny gifts,
or the big reward, love when the truth is out,
without martial posturing,
without that ritual fear of nights
with the unknown.

I'd like to bring this up now because tomorrow is Halloween

I do appreciate good use of the Subject Line in e-mails, but this one caught me off guard.
I was taken aback, even though I had indeed been corresponding with the General Manager of the cemetery where a number of family members are buried. Most significantly: my parents are there. When these four words popped into view on my computer screen, awareness of previous communications failed to sustain me.
The cemetery had generated anxiety in the past. My father was buried there over thirty-five years ago; my mother's ashes interred in the mid-1990's. My mother's ashes, I should say, were partially buried there, as other family members had, to my dismay, requested small portions of ash for transfer (at their discretion) to other sites. Anyway, the anxiety to which I refer had been triggered by difficulties in acquiring a new headstone for the plot which had originally been occupied by Dad alone. When Mom died, and it was decided to have her join Dad underground, it seemed appropriate to order a new headstone which they would also share, rather than add a second marker for her which could either match or clash with the marker already there for him. A design with text was eventually agreed upon and the order placed. No one involved in ordering the new marker lived nearby, so the cemetery Management promised to send a photo when the marker was ready.
A picture was indeed eventually sent by the mason, depicting the new marker in place on the plot, surrounded by the older stones of Grandparents and Great-Aunts and -Uncles who had departed this earth long before our times. The problem was: the stone set in place bore other names entirely, not ours at all, so that our parents were identified as "Mr. and Mrs. Byrd" or some such thing.
I welcomed the hilarity, imagining laughter from them both in the great beyond. The mason, however, was an elderly Italian man who took great pride in his work, and he was hugely ashamed of his error in placement. We reassured him and asked him to please not worry about the mistake. In no time, the correct marker was in place. From time to time, I pass by to share a few moments on that hill. At some point I left my e-mail address with the Manager's office, in case 'anything came up.' I had once inquired about the term 'perpetual care' which applies to family plots like this, confirming my suspicion that this implied little more than lawn-mowing and general up-keep of the grounds. I wondered about stone cleaning and maintenance, and was told that most people preferred the ‘old look’ and that virtually no marker scrubbing was carried out. After that, a long silence ensued.
So when a 'Question from the Cemetery' appeared, my eyebrows remained on high for several long moments. The question was not at all what I expected: in anticipation of my next visit to the cemetery, the General Manager was hoping I might be willing to bring special stockings for a ‘lady friend.’ To be honest, I really did not want to build up this type of relationship with his office. I imagined an infinite number of Subject Lines in the future, injecting, without warning, the shock of a 'Question from The Cemetery' on my screen.
I sent a reply: "Your request ... is indeed unique. If this is an item which is easily identified (size, color, material, quality, strength, price limit) then I am willing to look if I find myself in appropriate stores before travelling..., but without details to simplify the search, I'm afraid it cannot be done. I am not a 'shopper' and do not spend time comparing goods."

The Manager eventually replied, thanking me for my response and informing me that he anticipated visiting Amsterdam (with his ‘lady friend’) and would take care of the matter himself. I shuddered, alarmed at the prospect of seeing 'Visit from The Cemetery' in e-mails to come, but so far no such bulletins have materialized.

Eventually I visited the family plot again, intending to pass by the Manager's office to clarify the issue of perpetual care, but as I started down the green burial slopes on that afternoon in May, I saw his car moving slowly down the flat driveway to the exit gate. The gleam of afternoon sunlight on the car’s black surface was extraordinary.

This Presents So Many Possibilities

The Rugby World Cup 2007 is over now, and South Africa won. I was reminded that it was on when I walked by a French fast food establishment and saw that one of France's star rugby players had agreed to the placement of his signature on top of their seasonal cheeseburger variants. The man who signed the cheeseburgers is France's fly half Frederic Michalak.

I bought the cheeseburger so that I could create photographs for this series on ambient text. After taking the picture I took a bite of the burger only, being careful to avoid the rest. The beef product was not really any better or worse than other fast food combinations on the market, but the apparent poor quality of the bread and cheese was a disappointment.

The most heartening aspect of this innovative take-out idea is that it could trigger countless printed matter campaigns in the sector. There's no need to repeat the platitudes passed around in fortune cookies (although - shortly after learning about the Michalak burger - when I received an encouraging text about imminent uplifting encounters, I wondered whether I was being too harsh in my judgement), and texts resembling cookie copies would not be fun to eat.

I suggest: sports trivia, haiku, short fiction, library addresses. "No reading at the table" might become a rule relegated to the past.

Ramadan Began with Angels

I wanted to stay close to the Bakery window, where otherworldly cascades, ornamental sugary creations seemed to grow towards the glass. The sweet twists were white, golden, copper and orange in color. For a moment it was like being inside the miniature magical world of a sugar eggs with peep holes, a present I had received on Easter Sundays as a small child. I felt so close to that inedible, sweet display. Through the window I could see that mountains more filled the glass case and topped the long, narrow counter, glittering from the street towards the back of the store.
The man behind the counter was curious about my interest, as was a lone male customer inside. I turned away from the window to avoid their gaze and saw their sidewalk advertisement: a sawhorse stand provided by a well-known multinational. The sponsor background featured a young white woman with clear skin and rippling hair, angel wings in view behind her naked shoulders, two pre-packaged ice cream cones held in white- and black-colored gloves crossed carefully in front of her chest. The cones had also been produced to contrast: the cone appearing to be vanilla-flavored bore a light-colored wrapper; dark paper surrounded the presumably chocolate version held, of course, by a darkened hand. One wing was white, the other covered by a sinister shadow, as was half of her enchantingly pretty face. Still visible behind a large yellow sheet inserted by the shop-owners - a question printed on the poster by the multinational: Angel or Devil?
A thick plastic covering on both sides of the stand allowed the retailers to add their own hand-written news, which, in this case, in red marker, informed me that the Bakery was actually a take-out restaurant: Special Menu for Ramadan. By now the shop employee was frowning through the window at me while I studied the heaven and hell cone-eater image. Everyone was rushing along this busy Parisian shopping street. Observant Muslims from all continents might be walking past the sign, I thought, but nobody actually needed to stop in order to read it. The man inside wanted to know why I had. I stepped up and in off the street. The shop employee and I had to peer around the sugary towers on the counter to see each other and converse, while a tall, skinny local boy listened intently. He looked like a hip-hopper, with his baggy pants and cap.
I told the man that the sign was interesting, and asked if I could take a picture of it. He was suspicious and twisted on the balls of his feet, as if he wanted to consult, but could find no consultants within range. The boy asked me where I was from. The mention of Amsterdam brought a contented (conspiratorial?) smile to his face and he called out to the troubled shop employee: “Laisse la faire!” “Let her do it!”

Line 7, should be my lucky number

As I entered the Metro I bumped limbs with a young woman who held 1 arm bent at the elbow and raised like a spear to apply lipstick - just as I was pulling down a seat next to her in the central section of the car, where 8 people in total can sit down in combinations of 2, at the crossroads of the long main aisle and the short alley running between doors on both sides of the car. This open space offers standing room and several chrome poles to hold onto when it's crowded. At mid-morning there are empty seats. About 6 in the central block were occupied.
The young woman smiled at me to indicate that it was alright, she took no offenc(s)e at being jarred, and she was confident that I was not only not offended by having met her elbow while sitting down but that I understood that her efforts to finish applying make-up in this setting had a particular significance which would not be revealed. I returned her look with a reassuring but controlled grin and saw that she was probably in her 20’s, scruffily dressed in various layers of black. In the moment after the collision when she looked away from her compact mirror and at me, I couldn’t help noticing that her eyes glistened too much for this time of the day. She returned her gaze to the mirror and continued with the lipstick operation.
I secured a position of balance and comfort on my seat and looked straight ahead at the man across from us. He wore a suit which I will not easily forget: the fabric of both jacket and pants was green & yellow hound’s tooth. He was already looking across the aisle at the 2 of us in a kindly way. There was something about the random pair we formed, suddenly together, that caught his attention, as though he found meaning in our shared seating arrangements and contrasting height, hair, eye and skin color, style of dress. His stare was persistent but without malice.
Then the bottom of a large square-toed leather shoe came into view as the man sitting nearest to him across the main aisle swung his left foot up onto his right knee and commenced with a rapid shaking movement. The socks extending up the ankle from the shoe were lemon-colored, short with 1 dark rim at the ankle periphery. His suit was light-colored, his white skin tanned, his hair cut to military precision.
The hound's tooth suit smoothly rose and exited at the next station, gently vacating his fold-up seat by slowing the upwards motion with 1 hand as he stood up, all of which prompted lemon socks to spring from his seat to the newly vacated spot in 1 noisy sideways jump, after which he flung his right foot over his left knee and found a resting point for that foot on the chrome pole which had no other takers at this relatively quiet hour of the day.
The young woman and I got off at the same stop. She walked ahead of me to the exit, the spike heels of her pointy-toe boots clattering on the platform. Her eyes, shining a bit less, perhaps more glazed over than before, met mine again for a second before we boarded an escalator for the ascent to the street. I settled in 1 tread below her, staring directly into the red numbers on her back: 55. At street level she was received and embraced by a tall young man. The cobblestones interfered with a boot heel as they drifted off together, and she stumbled. I think she regained her balance with assistance from her companion, but it was hard to tell.

Your Daughter is with Us Pt.3

In parts 1 & 2 (see May and June archive) Hua was introduced as the 9-year old illegal Chinese immigrant, picked up by police on the streets of Paris, taken into custody, and released into the custody of her parents that same evening thanks to the intervention of alert neighbors and experienced social activists in the ‘quartier.’ An estimated 50,000 illegal children are in France, where solidarity with their plight is strong in this country still saddled with the memory of Jewish children lost through collaboration with the Nazi’s. Hua and her family - now four in total, following the birth of a baby boy - still live behind the last door on the ground floor of an old apartment complex at the end of a stone lane which extends from the street and runs past several stairwells providing access to separate buildings.
Hua lives with her brother and parents in a space owned by an absentee but not unknown landlord, who lives well renting properties - at least 80 others, he says - such as this box-with-a-skylight and other more conspicuous and more profitable premises in the red-light district. They won’t, however, be there much longer: the landlord is selling the property, claiming that electrical and other features are sub-standard. Selling allows him to avoid either a fine or the costs of renovation. Acknowledging the defects allows him to evict, and illegal tenants have no recourse.

Before Hua and her family lived there the space was a 24-hour work space for seamstresses. So now, for the neighbors, the idea of a noisy sweatshop with new streams of human traffic replacing the family is unappealing. Hua’s mother told me that she hopes to be able to stay in the neighborhood so that her daughter doesn’t have to change schools. I told her I understood her predicament, having faced deportation and eviction notices in the Netherlands when I was a new immigrant there.

Typed Like He Talked

He was the most professional newsreader on the night shift at the radio. His colleagues preparing to read the news (to other listeners, in other languages) routinely entered the soundproof booth way in advance to shuffle papers, sift through the news items to locate pronunciation hurdles and to fumble with the soundboard knobs in the minutes leading up to a broadcast. Throats were cleared, tissues and water set near the mute button by the microphone, the double doors firmly secured to increase the intensity of the concentration. But he always strolled in at the very last minute, never late, slipped into the chair and found the bulletin on the table. A swift flip through the sheets of paper as if separating a deck of cards, and he read the stories on air, sight unseen, without hesitation.

A veteran sports announcer back at home in the Southern Cone, he survived for a time as a dissident and eventually fled to Europe where he was granted political asylum in Holland. Presiding over broadcasts to his continent of origin provided steady work, but it was too easy and what he really wanted to do was to return to live football commentary. When the opportunity to apply for this work arose in Spain, he was nervous for the first time in years. To prepare for the interview and announcing test, he sat in front of his TV during a live football game, turned off the sound, and recorded his own roared commentary on the players, their moves, the scores, prospects for the season and club histories, all of which he understood profoundly. There was no hesitation here either, and the only word which received extra time and, astoundingly, even more volume, was ‘GOOOOOOOOAL!’ The neighbors in his Dutch apartment building were concerned, and they called the police, who were relieved to discover that the man who had been shouting non-stop was unaccompanied. They silenced him that day, so there really was only one practice session, but he got the job in Spain, and sent a few letters, which rang true.