Banned Substances Pt.1

The car stopped just short of the main drag in the old Cuban district of Tampa, Florida. I wanted to visit and walk along in search of José Martí, the Cuban poet and revolutionary who lived in a number of foreign locations in the final years of Spanish colonial rule in his homeland in the late 19th-century. Tampa was one of the most fervently revolutionary sites on Martí’s itinerary, and it was here that he participated in organizing the Cuban Revolutionary Party. The movement was financed in Tampa by cigar revenues, and, however briefly, by proceeds from baseball game ticket sales in Cuba. Appropriately, when the decision was made in Florida in 1895 to launch the revolution, the orders were smuggled into Cuba inside a cigar.

The USA was backing these liberation efforts with significant enthusiasm, and the Cuban Liberation struggle evolved into the Spanish-American War. Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders set sail from Tampa before thundering ashore in Cuba and helping to win the war against Spain, so a main street in this Tampa neighbourhood today bears their name.

My elderly Florida cousin was happier showing me the new Malls, and who could blame him in the heat. He stayed in the car while I strolled down this road of historic importance. I seemed to be the only person on foot. In fact there were hardly any other people at all, and many of the storefronts were boarded up. A Cuban sandwich shop attracted some business, and there was one other brightly lit up establishment: the Santería store.

Several wooden steps led up to the screen door entrance. I entered, all smiles, and asked the woman behind the counter if they sold any José Martí souvenirs. She found one article: a paper cocktail napkin. While I studied the merchandise, a car pulled up outside and jerked to a halt as the hand brake was applied. The driver was a young man who bounded up the stairs and then closed the door carefully and quietly as he came in, evidently completely familiar with local etiquette.

Greetings were exchanged, and he proceeded to ask the woman what he could buy to definitely score on his date that evening. The girl was really worth it, he explained, and he didn’t want her to get away. The shop-keeper listened and nodded, recommending various jars and containers which were in stock. He paid for one of the love potions, ran out to his throbbing car and laid some tracks as he drove off. When the sound of the music blasting out of his car faded entirely, there was not a sound in the Santería store.

Inspired by his absolute faith in the shop-keepers advice, I walked back and forth examining everything on the shelves, and finally came up with two items which were light, unbreakable and easy to pack: Get-Rich-Quick household cleaning solution, and Powerful-Indian-Household Blessing Domination Powder, with a bilingual label, good illustrations and a handy prayer for happiness and victory-over-enemies on the back.

Things being how they are between the United States and Cuba, I was not surprised to see that the powder was from Chicago, but still a tad disappointed. Tampa and Cuba share a great heritage when it comes to contraband. After liberation from Spain, Cuba became one of the main transit points for illegal immigrants from Europe and China. Business was controlled by figures referred to as “Kings.” Small craft delivered people and goods to many Florida inlets, but Tampa was at the hub. The smuggling of whisky and narcotics was a profitable activity in the 1920’s, and Spirits Submerged There is the stuff of newspaper stories about deliveries hidden temporarily in the waters between Cuba and the USA.

Marx got a laugh: Your daughter is with us Pt. 4

Pt 1 - May 31, 2007

Pt 2 - June 25, 2007
Pt 3 - September 14, 2007

Things have been developing favorably for Hua and her family in Paris since their brush with the law some time ago. It was almost a blessing in disguise: when daughter Hua was picked up on the streets and turned over to the police, concerned French neighbors rushed to the aid of these illegal immigrants from China, and suddenly the parents had a new and native source of moral and legal support, outside of the extensive Chinese network. Up to that time, Hua’s parents had been at the mercy of middle-men, such as the ‘Uncle’ figure in their story. The French Solidarity networks say that while authorities will not deport children on their own, they will on occasion wait outside of schools and detain parents who come to meet their children, probably another explanation of why the newly-arrived Hua had to walk home from school alone, as she did on the day when she was spotted by authorities.

Since then, the father has received treatment for a serious illness and appears to have recovered, Hua has a baby brother and, having been forced by the shady landlord (please see LifeBeforeNews September 14, 2007) to leave the premises, they have all moved, presumably with the aid of the local French support group, to a larger home with ‘more light.’ As far as I know, they have occasionally dropped by to greet my friends, who now have access to that almost windowless space that was once home to this Chinese family of three (and then four). The young mother seems optimistic, no longer leaning backwards in a defensive pose when spoken to in French, as she had on the evening of Hua’s detention.

The parents and the uncle were very grateful to everyone for Hua’s return home that night. The next day, the mother brought me a thank-you gift: a pair of shoes. Many people had helped the mother since her arrival from China four years earlier, and numerous shoe-boxes and bottles of whiskey had been distributed around the building. The ‘Uncle’ (eventually confirmed by the French Solidarity workers as the middle-man) made sure she was well-stocked.

The solidarity worker wanted to talk to the mother alone, without the ‘Uncle’ around, even though he, rather than the parents, was the one to comfort Hua in her fear and confusion after an evening in lock-up. This image stays with me: the rough-skinned tough guy, marked as the corrupt boss with power over illegal workers, cradling a scared child in his arms while the couple identified as the child's parents sat in frozen indifference across the room. The remarkable scene raised many questions for the onlookers, including me, the Police social worker and the French woman who had rushed to their aid.

It was this same solidarity worker who was involved when the living space was to be vacated a year later. She was as gruff and suspicious of those outside her network as Hua’s mother was buoyant, always smiling and ready to take the next hurdle.

When the moving trouble started brewing I was in the audience at the PICNIC ‘information event’ in Amsterdam, where a speaker from Beijing was presenting a project on the creative merging of cultures. He laughed along with the audience members when a statement about freedom passed across the screen. No questions were asked there either.

New Words in Dutch used in English

A credit card company offered me thirty free minutes on (in?) a golf simulator (I looked it up: a golf simulator [the Dutch word is formed by joining the two English words, and the Dutch word was used in spite of the fact that the advertisement was distributed in English], not surprisingly, creates a sort of virtual golf), thus engaging my brain in one of a myriad of wasted moments of alarm and desolation triggered by marketing campaigns.

Even though I have acknowledged feelings of being harassed by golf and its marketing campaigns since the final decade of the 20th-century, the point at which I created computer and paper files to accommodate my habit of holding on to all golf-related information which came my way, and in spite of the fact that the feelings of harassment have been toned down by my having recently embarked on a quest to find peace with golf, the truth is that it’s one of the few sports that really bothers me. I have chosen not to speak up until now, largely because a good number of individuals I like and even love are or have been committed to golf to some extent. For the time being I find it unnecessary to embellish upon the specific issues which might bring sadness to others.

It may seem that I have done everything possible to avoid talking about golf with that vulnerable group of devotees, but this is not the case. I have in fact actively pursued the subject of golf, in a manner that would allow me to learn more about the science of the sport, and explanations of certain golf-specific subjects, such as the handicap system, have invariably been complex and truly interesting. I have even gone out to play on a real golf course, dressed in golf clothes. It rained that afternoon, so the game was cancelled.

Some of the subjects in my golf files (which exist under the general heading of ‘The Rise and Fall of the Global anti-Golf Movement’ ) include: golf simulators, golf and globalization, fair pay for caddies, regional land disputes, farmland sold to golf course developers, farmers forced off their land to make way for golf courses, farmers who take up golf in their spare time, burial grounds excavated to create golf courses, environmentally-friendly golf courses, climate change and the future of golf, golf colors/fashions and accessories, the golf course as sanctuary, my Father’s private golf course in our back yard, growth and loss sectors in the golf industry, the history of golf, golf in China, golf etiquette, gender and race on the golf course, etc. Contributions to the archive are always appreciated. Thank you in advance.

All Lands are Homelands: a Headscarf Debate

I once knew a woman who longed to return to her country of birth, Canada, even after receiving this scarf as a present. It was intended as a joke, but, overwhelmed as she was by sentiment; she found it whimsical, much to her family’s chagrin. A friend of a friend of a friend of hers had once retrieved it from musty heaps of second-hand items, and so began its long trajectory through the closets and drawers of acquaintances and strangers, until it eventually found its way into her most secluded stash of usable items which lay safe and untouched.

To my knowledge, she never did wear the scarf, being far too fashion-conscious to do so. I on the other hand was willing to tie it around my brow and neck, in pursuit of an elegant Moslem headscarf style avant la lettre, and pose as an eager listener while she recited the poem that had become her favorite rallying cry for return to one's homeland: this excerpt from Scotland’s Sir Walter Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel:

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!

I had learned at an early age to try and make her laugh, but not even my absurd posturing in an irreverent headdress could mask the grim shift in tone of this recitation, challenging to any listener within the first sixteen lines:

If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung.

I understood that profound ties were being put to the test with these words, uttered in the original version not by the last Mohican but by ‘the last Minstrel.’ Sure enough, a celebratory tone enters this early ode to patria:

Not scorn'd like me! to Branksome Hall
The Minstrels came at festive call;
Trooping they came, from near and far
The jovial priests of mirth and war;
Alike for feast and fight prepar'd,
Battle and banquet both they shar'd.
Of late, before each martial clan,
They blew their death-note in the van,
But now, for every merry mate,
Rose the portcullis' iron grate;
They sound the pipe, they strike the string,
They dance, they revel, and they sing,
Till the rude turrets shake and ring.

More colourful details are supplied on the intimate mingling of the revelers, and, while she would have read those in private and blushed in public, anyone fishing for the core idea of home could skip over the rest. She thought she longed for Canada, when in fact her poignancy led her back to the people who had raised her on the nectar of homesickness, the people who harked back to their own native land, Scotland.

The woman began reciting these verses like a sermon. On gentler days, the verses were chanted like a prayer. Everyone knew that she expected you to eventually agree with the idea. No one could foresee that she would pick up and go home, and, having arrived, perhaps more upset by the first verse than anyone ever knew, would take her own life. Everyone carried on; we all learned the poem and longed for the homelands of all mothers; we swapped stories about the woman's other peeves: bullying in politics and society; the drab and claustrophobic landscapes in local villages, all built with money by the new post-war bully who bothered her the most. This could explain why she was not amused by the scarf.

I don't anticipate being able to uncover details on the origins of the scarf – the tags with shredded corners lost almost all faded print long ago. If you take a closer look at the scarf, you will see (deliberate) Anglo-misspellings of the French word ‘oui,’ dating this probable souvenir item to a time in Canada’s history when the French language was still struggling for recognition.

Let me count the ways

When I first caught sight of it, the sign was tacked to a wall in a shady corridor of the Municipal Judicial Authorities building in Kandy, கண்டி, a Sri Lankan mountain town. The three alphabets were graceful together; the colors enhanced by age. The message seemed either absolutely effective (the setting couldn’t have been quieter) or perfectly located, like a stage direction conveying a desired atmosphere which had been attained long ago.

A third possibility was to read it as a confirmation or announcement: This is silence, or as close to it as you’ll get for the time being. We walked into the building before office hours began, just passing by the Judge’s office for reasons which had remained unexplained, slowing down after a pre-dawn rush to the Buddhist Temple in Kandy where the faithful protect a tooth relic from the Buddha himself.

The Judge, the kindest person you could ever hope to meet, had picked me up at the guesthouse and run alongside of me in his loose sandals to the temple. He did this as a favor to his sister, a close family friend of a friend of mine in Colombo, but still, I had anticipated an element of formality in the temple expedition: a dignified stroll at the end of the night, slipping into the temple by a narrow entryway where religious supervisors would screen visitors with practiced looks.

Instead, the Judge rushed up to the guesthouse and bumped into the edge of the wooden porch several times as he greeted me, his crisp, white shirt contrasting with dark curly hair which even careful grooming with coconut oil, evident in the gleaming parallel locks, could not prevent from tumbling onto his forehead and cheek. In the dim light he looked like a schoolboy, ready for anything.

We said Must run! simultaneously and bounded across the garden lawn, arriving nevertheless too late at the temple, where the staff presumably recognized the Judge and allowed us to rush along the corridor as quietly as possible, only to reach the inner chamber housing the tooth relic just as the golden casket was again being sealed, leaving us to share this moment of disappointment with the smiling priests still bent over the treasure.

Which brings me to the fourth possible interpretation of the sign – which I fell in love with at first sight – hanging on the wall when we entered the Municipal building. Option #4 was conveyed by the figure of the apologetic man, a respected figure in this town who probably seldom failed in the execution of his duties. He shrugged just once and showed me inside without saying a word, the look of boyish anticipation gone from his face. As early as it was, we were warm from our exertions, ready for the cool interior, but the fine air seemed to cover the scene with a tinge of sadness rather than relief. The Judge padded around his office, with less urgency now, opening and shutting drawers and cupboards. I understood that this was a time for no conversation. I didn’t know how his relationship with his sister, his stature as a Judge, his religious convictions and relationship with the caretakers of this most sacred of sites were intertwined and how they all weighed in the balance.

I busied myself with a long, close stare at the sign. (This must have been when without a sound he slipped a small object into his pocket, producing it much later in the morning when he finally smiled widely again and opened his hand and peeled back tissue paper, which no longer crackled in the considerable heat, to reveal a small carved elephant, the beast central to the magnificent annual Perahera procession which appears to go on in spite of all extenuating circumstances) The Judge emerged, closed his office door and noted my focus on the wall, whereupon he offered to give me the sign without the slightest hesitation. They wouldn’t miss it in this quiet place, he assured me.

Fortunately I usually carried then as I do now a protective folder for flat, loose sheets of paper or objects, and I was able to slip the flaky cardboard rectangle into a cool, dry case for transport in my cotton shoulder bag. This was not the first time that I was able to make off with a sign.

An Extremely Brief Technical Reference

From left to right:

Who wants to answer a call when the number is withheld?

For the duration of a 23-minute skype call with a far-off friend, Skype tried to lure me to their online store by saying that the audio wasn't working.

Another Martha Hawley on IMDb has stolen my only film role and I want it back, but so far no luck.

(for a 'Very Brief Technical Reference,' see August 4, 2007)

Not Barefoot in the Park / No Naked Flames on Pentecostal Weekend Ferry

Drought warnings are in effect in parts of the Dutch countryside. But in Amsterdam, a city of canals, the sunny weather has been highly appreciated over the past week, since before Liberation Day 2008 - that's May 5th. Liberation Day marks the release in 1945 from Nazi occupation during World War II. Things have gone pretty well in Holland since then. Holidays are considered a basic right for all inhabitants of the Netherlands, and more than 20% of the Dutch population has reportedly been on vacation in the first half of May. This is good. It helps relieve the congestion in Amsterdam. Most city parks, and some waterways (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OfMOHdlpP8), sponsor holiday activities, with vendor markets, games for children and live music.

In one park in eastern Amsterdam, the activities reflect the local population: the merchants selling clothing, music and handicrafts are Dutch, Indian, African, Surinamese, Antillean and so on. Potential buyers reflect the same lines of descent. Many take their small children to the park’s wading pool, a large, clean circle of water surrounded by grass. One of the signs around the area warns of broken glass and other dangerous objects on the ground. The visual warning hangs too high for children to notice. I was interested in the policy at the city office responsible for this park so I called and asked whether language (multiple, in this neighbourhood) considerations played a role in deciding to feature the pained foot above glass, with no verbal reinforcement, on the sign.

A receptionist thought that it was a message discouraging people from leaving glass in the area. The person in charge of all park signs was out of the office, possibly all week, on vacation, as I said, and perhaps into next week as well, as the third major holiday in May (the first was Remembrance Day, on May 4th, honouring all War Dead, including WWII and all other conflicts) is today, with Whit Sunday or Pentecost, a Christian holiday which is an official holiday for all inhabitants of the Netherlands. The event is recalled differently in separate churches, but it all ties in with the idea of the Holy Spirit returning to man – according to certain groups: as tongues of fire settling on top of the Apostles’ heads! Extraordinary! This allowed them to speak in tongues, to all who would listen. The subject remains highly controversial in our times. It's an issue with, for example, the “Glossolalia Movement.”

No Naked Flames suddenly appeared as an apt warning on the ferry which carried me over a river yesterday, at the start of this holiday weekend.