No Time Like the Gift

I stayed a few weeks in Auteuil, a place where it is very easy to buy shoes. One evening I saw a small crowd in front of the  Les Cyclades bookstore, a sign announced the launch of "Fables" by Gabriel Nemes-Plisk. I joined and sat on a chair in the back: Gabriel, tall slim with long black hair walked in and started to read.

The first poem was about a large male bovine managing a convenience store in downtown Beijing. It was called "The Bull in the Chinese Shop" and it was quite amusing. The next piece called "The Escape Goat", dealt with family in suburban Tegucigalpa frantically searching for their la cabra was equally cute. A piece about a slim, fast and strong feline predator always getting off at the same bus-station was called, predictably, "The Leopard Cannot Change its Stops" and was less funny but more philosophical. The applause made him "reluctantly" read another, a botanical story about an inept arborist who compares Maples and Orange trees. Then, people lined up to have their book signed, Gabriel chatting pleasantly. I stood aside and snagged a glass of very decent Gamay off the tray of a passing waiter. Later, when the crowd thinned out I congratulated the poet on the successful launch and praised his craft, the clever use of jeu de mot, giving new unexpected meanings by changing just one or two letters. Gabriel looked puzzled: "I'm sure I don't know what you mean". I asked how he got into writing. It turned out he never knew his father and was raised by his mother and her friend, a professor of literature name of Appfelbaum who instilled in him the passion for writing, he was his literary father. I said "So you didn't fall far from that tree, did you?", he gave me the same puzzled look and asked if I cared for another glass of wine. I excused myself mumbling that I had to sort some shoes and hurried out the door. 

Erika and the Post-observation Awkwardness of the Split Orange

The events described here happened in the future. This is Erika, likely not her name as we not yet have met, nevertheless, I think of them as Erika. I saw her in the Fresh'n'Cheap at Makelweiss and Rouge while buying ingredients for my Thursday Mulligatawny, ... she was hard not to notice, so I noticed: very tall, very slim, with sunken cheeks and a straight thin nose that would've served her well in the silent-movie era. She wore a hoody under jeans-jacket and thick grey wool leggings with black sneakers (here is a sketch from memory): 

As I gather up my Celery and Apples, Erika is in front of me at the check-out putting three sweet potatoes and three oranges on the belt. When the belt moved, the oranges rolled a little and I saw that one had a gash running meridionally showing the pale-yellow flesh inside. "Excuse me," said I ... no reaction ... "Excuse me" a little louder. Erika turned but looked somehow above and through me. I pointed: "One Orange is cracked". "That's alright" she turned to the cashier and said "Debit", grabbed her stuff, and was gone. I froze into a statue of utter embarrassment and asked the cashier "Did you see that?" she said: "She's a weirdo". As this hasn't yet happened but it certainly may, I made a policy decision not to point out flaws in other people's citric (or any other) fruit in the future (or ever). 

Reenah Pap and the Sad and Slow Progresion of Sweet Regression

Reenah Pap is a consulting analytical statistician with degrees from MIT and LSE who worked with Schmerzfeld in Basel and with Van Himst in Antwerp. We met for coffee and she told me her story. Corporations and political organizations hire her to produce statistics that prove the views and opinions they currently promote/advocate/support. In her downtime, she designs and produces dazzling head ornaments (below is "Glitter and Gold", her best seller). She is a ruthless mercenary who will deliver quotable stats shamelessly skewed toward the needs and views of her employer. Reenah uses her website https://reenahpapstats.blogspot.com/ to publish her own objective, impartial, well-researched, and stunning stats. She had years of great professional and financial success as her skills in "developing statistics" were in great demand, but Reenah now yearns to retire. She thinks of a hilltop at Altopascio (about halfway between Pistoia and Lucca) where 74.16% of people are kind and will bring her bread and wine, another 28.22% will also bring olives and 17.55% will also bring cheese.

Reenah currently lives in St.Catherines, Ontario with a white dog called Lester and a black cat called Chester (28.95% of cats are black, 6.14% of dogs are white).

Doug Boljahn and the Sweet and Dreamy Loss of Gain

This is Doug Boljahn. In high-school, he told me, he was a shy, not good with sports and was bullied. He wanted badly to hang out with the cool kids. In tenth grade he started reading Proust (because he thought that it will impress girls). He carried the book around showing it off (it worked and some girls were indeed dazzled). In his search of being original and different he started taking dance classes. Doug's business cards read "Dancer" and on the back there were two of his favorite questions/answers from Proust's Questionnaire (1890 version).

Q: Your favorite qualities in a man? A: Feminine charm

Q: Your favorite qualities in a woman? A: Manly virtues, and the union of friendship

At university he studied European Literature and wrote his thesis on Proust. He landed a teaching position at a private boys-only school in Toronto where he also organized dance classes. Doug has lung cancer from smoking a pack a day since he was thirteen and doesn't think he'll last till Bank Holiday. He said he loved his life as he found two things to be passionate about when most people just drift meekly toward nothingness and death. He acknowledged that it started of vanity and desperation but he was very pleased at how well it turned out. (Resigned of dying of a lung disease like Proust he calls it "Dancing with Marcel").

The Standard Solution

This is Frederick van Wagen (undated Daguerreotype), president-elect of the American Kennel Club. On a dreary February day in 1897, he walked into the boardroom on the fourth floor at 306 East 72nd Street with a confident smile on his face (inside he was torn up with doubt and premonition).

The director's meeting had a lengthy agenda but the only item that really mattered was "The Poodle Issue". Breeders were out of control and the Poodle, the most popular dog in the country, came now in sizes from less than ten inches and less than 20 pounds to more than fifteen inches and over 60 pounds and they all competed in the same category: preposterous! Proposal to establish two breeds: "Gross Poodle" and "Klein Poodle". A simple majority (five out of eight members) would carry. All in favor? Four hands went up, motion not agreed. They took a sip of coffee and Frederick made a passionate plea before they voted again. Again motion didn't carry tied at four. They took a break and Frederick worked the room promising favors, making concessions, and threatening retribution, then they voted again (and again and again) they were tied again (and again and again). In hopeless desperation they decided to adjourn when Karl-Maria Kaant stopped them and said: "How about Standard Poodle and Toy Poodle?" They looked at each other and voted: the room erupted in joy for eight "Aye". They congratulated Kaant asking "How on earth did you come up with this one?". "Lucky, I guess". Across the street, a big banner read "ACME Standard Toy Corp. of New York". They adjourned to the Crown and Anchor, the rest of the agenda: funds allocation, general improvements, and support for members, etc wasting under "Future New Business".

La Famme Sam

This is Samira Khogani (she now goes by Sam). In her native Pashto her name means Early Morning Fragrance or Is Good with Words or Entertaining Companion. We met downtown for tea (Sam doesn't drink coffee) she got Misty Mint, I got Early Gray and she told me her story: Sam comes from a very conservative family from the very conservative Panjwayi district and  many of her uncles and cousins (of which she has plenty) are close to Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai. At a family function, a while back, Samira was alone on the terrace with her cousin Taahir who asked her to lift her hijab a little so he could see her hair. Samira giggled and showed off a lock of raven-black. At another family reunion Taahir (by now with an important job with the group) told her a that he thinks of her while he masturbates. 

The next day Taahir received a message with an audio attachment where he could be heard saying that he thinks of Samira while masturbating and you could hear Samira giggle. 

The next day Samira was stopped on her way to the market by men in a black Suzuki Tactical who confiscated her mobile phone. 

The next day Taahir received another message with an audio attachment where he could be heard saying that he thinks of Samira while  masturbating and you could hear Samira giggle. 

The next day Taahir called and asked Samira what she wanted. She said she wanted a passport with a visa for Canada, an airplane ticket to Toronto and some money. 

The next day men in a black Suzuki Tactical came to Samira's house with a large envelope and took her to the Kabul Airport.

Sam now runs a successful downtown Kosher Dry Cleaner and is enrolled at the U of T in Sociology and Women and Gender Studies. She told me to use her real name, this the real Sam, yeah?!

Line Ninety-Four

Bus Line Ninety-Four goes from Ossington (twenty-seventh most used of seventy-five Toronto Transit Authority subway stops) to Castle Frank (twelfth least used) with an alternate ending at Wellesley (thirty-ninth most used). It spans 3.11 miles (exactly five kilometers). In a rational world Line Ninety-Four wouldn't exist, as connecting two down-town subway stations by a bus line is plainly ridiculous. The only reason for a Line Ninety-Four is that Mr. K. T. Fields (the illegitimate son of the Archbishop of Gaast) wants it. Fields is the omnipotent, mysterious master of the Secret Sudden Start and Stop Society (S-S-S-S-S); they start or stops things just because they can. They used to put things on top of other things but they stopped as they run out (of things) and they also thought it to be, frankly, a bit silly. Now, daily, about thirty nine thousand seven hundred people kiss their butt by buying tickets and listen to bizarre public service announcements.