April 8. Sex and the City.

There is now even a Sex and the City episode based on this character, I mean, there has to be one. Sex and the City is very popular.

Enter Rosy and Claire in a fancy New York café.
"Hi Claire, you look good today. You shine."
-"Thanks. I know what you're gonna ask me."
"What?"
-"If I've met someone."
"And, have you?"
-"Yes and no."
"Explain" Rosy giggles.
-"Well, I read this certain book."
"Oh no, not again."
-"And I totally fell in love with the author."
"Is he married?"
-"No, he's not. He... I don't know. He has this ability to stimulate my phantasy."
"Well, it sounds like the same old story. Claire falls in love. Claire feels like she's in heaven. Good for you. I only want to know that I'm gonna be there for you next month."
-"Next month?"
"After you've unloved again."
-"O you cynic." Claire sighs. "I could have known it."
"Waiter, can we pay?" Rosy snaps not so elegantly with her fingers. "Ouch, my nails" she cries.
-"Calm down. Why do you want to leave so early?"
"I'm meeting someone."
-"Tell me all about him."
"No."
Rosy gets up and leaves a crumbled twenty-dollar-bill on the table. Without looking at Claire she marches towards the door. A young long-haired man almost bumps into her and starts fawning excuses. Rosy doesn't look at him and leaves. The man starts looking around and Claire seems to recognize him. She blushes and then gets active like good modern woman do. She walks up to him and says
-"Hi. I admire your work. Can I have your autograph please?"
"Sure" he answers with a smooth and seductive voice.
Claire is very nervous and has to empty all her pockets before she finds a pen. He might have seen the tampons, she thinks, and she gets redder then she already is.
"You have a pretty face, what's your name?" the writer says in an intentionally played macho way in an attempt to be funny. Claire finds that funny. It is exactly her sort of humor.
-"Claire, thank you. Are you...?"
"I was going to have a coffee here. I have to take some notes."
-"What notes?" she asks and feels that her skin is becoming very thin.
"For the novel I am working on. Remember I'm a writer?"
-"Of course... yes... that's how I know you. Stupid me..." Here, Claire hits her forehead with the palm of her right hand.
"Ouch." the writer says on her behalf.
-"Oh, it doesn't hurt. I'm such a stupid girl."
"Stupid girls can make interesting characters" the writer says and his voice is still lower, with a deep vibration that attracts her like a candle can attract certain insects. He is playing with her. O, she has to give the right answers now. What to do first. Introducing herself, asking for his name? No, that would be to direct. She would say
"And by the way, I'm Claire." and he would go like
"Whatever. Nice to meet you, have a swell time bye."
She is thinking really hard and fails to see Rosy who just enters because she forgot something.
"Damn, I left my ticket here."
-"What ticket?" the writer asks because he likes to get involved.
"None of your business" Rosy sneers at the writer.
-"But Rosy..." Claire whines.
"What?"
-"This is..."
"Who?"
-"Him. The famous writer I told you about."
"O, him. Well, nice to meet you mister writer. I'm Rosy, by-the-way."
The writer pulls his right hand out of his pocket that has been there to give him some stability and grabs Rosy's wrist. He draws her hand close to his lips and kisses it.
"Nice to meet you, Rosy."
-"Wheehee" does Claire.
"What ticket was that?" the writer asks.
-"O, for some jazz concert tonight. Left it here, stupid huh?"
"Nobody is perfect. You were going alone then?"
-"No, I, well, someone suggested this to me and.."
"Who someone? A guy?"
-"Yes, but..."
Claire starts crying and walks to the bar to order some Whiskey.
"Is she your friend?" the writer asks Rosy.
-"Sort of. We were college roommates."
"Do you always have fights over men?"
-"Like you?"
"I was asking you a question."
-"Look, I don't know where you're going at."
"After. I'm going after you."
-"Whatever. Enjoy your time, bye."
"Hey, wait a minute. I am the famous writer. I am supposed to..."
Claire comes back with the Whiskey and catches some attention by her ostentatious way of drinking.
"Are you good?" the writer asks.
-"Good as hell." Claire cracks.
"I didn't ask you, whatever your name is. I asked Rosy."
-"Yes thanks. But mister writer, now you are getting mean."
"Am I? Sorry, I can't do anything about it."
-"Why not?"
"Cause my lines are written by this guy called Escher."
-"Edsher?"
"No, Escher. With the sch-sound, like the snake in paradise. It's a German name.
-"He was Dutch." says Claire.
"Who?"
-"M.C. Escher. The artist. He was Dutch. And he is dead, so there is no way he is writing your line."
"O come on young lady, who is writing your lines?" the writer says.
-"How do I know?"
"Do you never wonder?"
-"No. Why should I?"
"Because it's the only thing that matters. That's why."
-"Sorry guys I have to go." Rosy says and she takes the ticket for her concert.
"But don't you want to go with someone more attractive?" the writer shouts at her as she is walking rapidly towards the exit. Rosy does not answer him.
-"I am Claire" Claire whispers.
"What's that?"
-"Claire."
"Kamiel."
-"I already know that."
"Why?"
-"Because I read your books, remember?"
"Whatever. Tell me who writes your lines?"
-"Someone like you does."
"Look, I don't like that attitude. I'm just an ordinary writer."
-"Sorry."
"So don't try to correct me again when I am talking about Escher, okay?"
-"I promise I won't."
"Good. He is writing my lines and in return I am writing his. Every single day."
-"How does that work?"
"Nobody knows. It just... it's just the way it is."
-"But suppose he would enter now, what would happen?"
"What would happen? Well, I don't know. Silence, maybe."
-"Silence." Claire looks at the ground.
"Look, I really have to take some notes now. I'll be sitting in the corner over there." Kamiel points at a small table at the other end of the establishment. "Has been nice talking to you." He gets up and goes to the small table, gets out a notebook and starts writing in full concentration with the skin on his forehead pulled together and all.
-"Bye..." Claire says.
Another guy enters the café. When he sees Claire he walks straight at her, takes both her hands, kisses them softly and asks her what she wants to drink. Claire is astonished at first, then she decides to let the waves roll over her and she says
"Another whiskey please."
The stranger snaps his fingers and orders a whiskey and a glass of milk.
"So, Claire, right?"
-"How do you know my name?"
"I don't know. It's just... my line."
-"O. It's so confusing."
"Confusing?"
-"Do you think real love is possible?"
"Yes, I do."
-"No you don't. It's just your line. Poser."
Claire doesn't know why she is saying all this. She wanted to let it happen to her, go home with this gentleman, having him massage her feet, perhaps more, making her breakfast, and now she is just picking on him. Claire gets the feeling she is speaking the lines somebody else is writing for her, somebody who really doesn't like her to have fun.
"Hey, Claire, since I know your name, wouldn't it be fair that at least I tell you mine."
-"Whatever."
"Look, I'm really sorry for this, and I..."
-"Alright, tell me your name."
"I'm Escher."
-"So you are... but then..." Claire is very confused now and hides her face in a napkin. There are two men in the same room with her, writing each other's lines. Which one must she believe? She is about to endulge in philosophical speculations, when she gets an idea.
"Do you see that man over there?" she asks Escher.
-"Hum, yeah. Leave him be."
"No, let's join him. Come on."
Reluctantly, Escher follows Claire to the small table where Kamiel sits. Neither of the men talk. Claire looks at their faces and feels like she conquered truth.
"And from now on, gentlemen, I am the one who writes all the lines."
-"I love you with all my heart Claire" Kamiel says.
"I love you with all my heart Claire" Escher says.
Claire hugs both men and takes them home with her. For a couple of hours, she thinks she feels real love with the two men.
Meanwhile, Rosy waits in front of the jazz bar for her friend who doesn't show up. She gets sad and walks back home in the rain. She passes by Claire's apartment and uses her friend key to get in. She sits the remaining hours of the night in the kitchen, listening to her friend making love to both of the men. By the time they come out of the bedroom, she has already prepared a continental breakfast for the four of them. Claire looks a bit concerned.
"What's wrong Claire?"
-"I don't know. It's so... confusing, everything."
"But they love you."
-"How do I know? I am writing their lines."
"O, that. Remember I warned you?"
-"For unloving?"
"Yes. You already unloved."
-"You are going to say that I don't love myself enough."
"How do you know that?"
-"I know my line."
"You're crazy."
The men come out of the shower and start eating their eggs with big spoons.
"Hey guys, don't you feel like we're all in a Lynch-movie? Let's all dance!" Rosy yells.
The men nod their heads and take each other's hands. Then they start dancing in the kitchen. Rosy likes their underware. She pulls her friend into the other room.
"Claire" whispers Rosy. "I have a present for you."
-"A present?"
"It's your birthday, I didn't forget."
-"Is it? You're right. What is it?"
"It's a gun to kill one of them."
-"To... kill...? But why?"
"In order to love one of them, you have to kill the other."
-"Don't over-dramatize. We're not in a movie. I don't believe you. I refuse."
Claire was warm with self-confidence and it felt good. Rosy has unpacked the gun and puts it in front of her.
"In case you change your mind" she says.
-"Just leave, Rosy. And take the piece. We're not in the theatre here. This is life."
"But not love."
-"Behold! Mind your own business."
"I am only trying to help you, Claire."
-"Well, thanks, but no thanks. I know what I'm doing."
"Sure. Being with to men that silence out each other so they can never confuse you and stain your virgin lap of truth."
-"Shut up!"
Then, Claire takes the gun and shoots it twice at Rosy. She falls to the ground and after twenty seconds she is dead. Claire throws the gun away and puts her hand in front of her mouth. The men have stopped dancing when they heard the shot. Claire takes them back to her bedroom. She writes their lines as long as they are with her. And calling the police will not be in those line. So Claire starts living with those two men, carrying the burden of the past, writing their lines, letting them say sweet things to her, sweet things she had been dreaming of when she was a little girl, sleeping with them every night, and feeling lonelier than the stars.

This was my episode of Sex and the City. Thank you very much.

A lazy day. In the morning Sandro blew up a condom to the size of a balloon, tied it up and let it flow freely through the room. It was lifted gently by the air from the ceiling fan. We kicked it with our feet. I gazed at the condom and thought about the pope. Those experiences can be key experiences. Experiences that put you with your nose on the question "what do I want from life?" I stayed in bed late and didn't want to be here. I wanted to continue my travel to Bolivia to see the impressive salt lakes near Uyuni they told me about. Or I wanted to evaporate, be like the dense gas in the inflated preservative flying around the room like a huge blind insect that has lost its sense of direction. I went out only to go to the supermarket and the bank. Took cool showers, made Turkish coffee and wrote. In the shower, I tried to do some meditation and I found something in myself! Hence, I now have the luxury to say I've been untrue to that something in myself and I have the drive to make some gradual changes. More of this you will learn in the next episode. Stay tuned...

February 19. Jazz

A life for the art is a life apart. A life à part, a sacrifice of solitude. You have to keep moving on, or you will become mediocre, a painful aesthetic entrepreneur smiling unctuously to his customers. But how do you live art? Hear that question? It is no good thinking about that at all. You just live. Take me and Jack, we just do what we do. If someone comes along and asks us if we live for the art we say of course and what are you living for? For the dough? Who doesn't live for the art? Who doesn't consider himself an artist of life?
Today I went for a short walk in the Barrio Alto to find a café to write. I walked down too far first, then went up again. Behind me a street musician playing Beethoven's ninth, the anthem of Europe, and shaking his paper cup with ample coins in it to match the rhythm. Beethoven in my back, a straight blue sky above my head, reflections in the shop windows, wonderful clothes they are selling, walking up the street again to reach my café A Brazileira, the popular tourist place with the Paris entourage. I went inside and jack came along. I ordered a coffee, wrote, was said that sitting inside costs extra, felt too proud or stingy, went to another place and continued my work there. Some poetry, a fragment in French I will send to Aurélie to correct, and a short Dutch essay about the beauty of moving our appendages. It was a beautiful afternoon. I concluded the day with satisfaction and appetite to continue writing tomorrow.

Jack didn't say much and stands at the counter to order a strong espresso. Why didn't he go for crack right away, one asks. Well, I can explain that to you. It's because Jack lives by the second, not by the millisecond. He still has some sense of what's going on around him. There are still some moral values, there's still some social glue that slips into his perception of the world. Jack is always after his pleasure, if he sees something that he can associate with pleasure (and he has a rich fantasy) he tries to grab it. He tries once, twice, and when he's not successfull he moves on.
Jack is only a few days old now. I created him out of a rib of mine, if that metaphore pleases you. He already gave up on the world, the poor bastard. He would have been a cynic if he were like one of us. But he isn't. Jack has no consciousness. But as we will discover in the course of his development, Jack will become our consciousess.
The opposite of Jack, of course, lives aeon by aeon. It is the higher spirit Nietzsche dreamt about. The spirits that communicate with each other throughout the centuries, Napoleon, Bismarck, Goethe, Mozart, Dante, Shakespeare, Churchill. Their talk stands on a higher level. The Apollinic beauty of the products of their minds is tantalizing to the smaller spirits; the aere perennius of their words becomes the holy grail of the less gifted; their halkyonic aura does a great job consoling the misanthropical semi-geniusses among us. Jack has a brother, Marin, who is his opposite in this sense, but he wouldn't come with us. He is hibernating in Berlin.

Jack sees a man with a golden watch around his wrist and starts talking to him.
"You must be a wealthy man with that golden wristwatch?"
Jack lives by the second. He knows all he has to know about watches, namely their price.
The man felt uncomfortable but then found the question hilarious enough to answer it. He laughed
"Yes, you could say that. I don't complain."
Jack pops his lips. Then he asks his next question
"Is your daughter free?"
-"What do you mean, free?"
Jack frowns. He isn't used to being the one that has to explain everything.
"Free to have. Can I marry her?"
The man looks stupified. Jack says "marry" because it sounds good.
-"Look mister, I don't know who you are, but I don't like your tone."
"My tone? I'm only politely asking for your daughter's hand. So, is she free?"
-"I don't know."
"Can't you find out?"
The man turns his head and starts to talk to a beautiful young woman who sits next to him, as to shut down the conversation with Jack. Jack estimates the woman to be about 27 years old, and falls in love with her on the spot. It is not only her breathtakingly well-formed décolleté that makes Jack feel like a hummingbird exploring a peach tree, not only the warm teint on her smart-looking face, not only the shiny long hear that curls over her shoulders like manes in gentle gait, but her whole appearance. Her whole appearance fits into Jack's seconds. He moves over with his chair and looks the young woman straight in her eyes.
"So, you must be his daughter. I reckon you can answer my question. So, are you free?"
She laughs.
-"No mister, I am happily married."
Happiness sounds good. Jack doesn't want to meddle in that.
"So, who's the lucky guy?"
-"I am" the old man answers and he kisses the girl on her mouth. "She's my wife."
Jack understands pleasure is out of reach here. He gives the girl a card whispering in her ear "if he dies give me a call okay" and leaves.

That night we heard piano jazz and bossa nova from Mozambique in the CCB (Centro Cultural de Belém). It was a free concert, and it was really good. I recognized Schubert Impromptus in a terrific jazz version for solo piano. Sitting on the floor, I dwelt in dear memories of listening to piano music, memories that I have to take care of. Music is the only thing that counts! I can understand the musicians who are living for nothing but music, who marry, love, work, sleep, procreate, eat, drink, all for music, all with music in their ears. Alfred Brendel. Daniel Barenboim. That night, the piano touched me. As a writer, I take off my hat. This went way beyond words. Still, of course, my task is to find out beyond which words. I think during concerts. Always did. They can only stop the stream of thoughts in very short moments, then I feel the music, but normally thoughts pile up in my head, unfinished philosophies, ideas for writing, buzzing through my head and warming it up like a huge chestnut in a campfire. Music must catalyse it in some way. The thoughts, the words that are the furthest coasts of language, the Patagonia of speech, the heavenly words we imagine music goes beyond - is writing not a quest for these final words, that we must never understand as final but as the beginning of the organic movement of music?

We are on an Odyssee. I have to remind Jack all the time, because he never gets it. He doesn't get excited about what's more than a few seconds, alas, a few hours away from him. I feel sorry for him. But what can I do? There's nothing in my power that I can do to educate Jack. Not yet.