Recent Comments

Feeds
« wayang kulit
still life with rice cakes »

sorry

Posted on May 20, 2006 @ 9:36 am by massimo | Filed under: blog, people, travel, wordpress

gemmologist california dandy aynaku illustration adobe

I met J. during my very first stay in Bangkok. I had just got the Boston Inn after an exhausting flight from Rome and was looking for a room. The receptionist was carelessly keeping me informed of his fully booked hotel, when a rather tall and lean fellow came and politely asked if I would like to share his room. This was a common habit between travellers, so I simply answered “ yes, please” and went upstairs with him. In a few days we became friends and our friendship kept on. J. was a rather solitary, enormously shy young man in his thirties, who always behaved very politely toward others. He seemed to be always sorry, and such a peculiar attitude quickly made me to feel sorry for him! J. had widely travelled trough out Europe and Asia, had an absolute interest in precious stones and later on, attended a course in Santa Monica - CA, the place he came from. He practiced there for a while and after a couple of years was back in Bangkok, got a job as a gemmologist and lived in a comfortable flat. After a couple of years more J. had moved to Sri Lanka, got a new job and lived in a fine villa in Ratnapura, a town you have to settle if you deal with gems… I used to visited him from time to time; he always hosted me in his cosy retreat, which he invariably shared with a native caretaker of some sort, invariably behaving as you would expect from him, a well mannered yet sorry dandy! J. enjoyed talking about art, travels and good food but the final topic was, off course, his beloved gem collection, his ultimate therapy.
Then - as in a Joni Mitchell’s song - my shoes full of tropic sand drove me elsewhere and never I got back in Ratnapura nor I heard from J. anymore. So I wonder if he is still there running his business: that’s the reason why I am using a consonant instead of his real name.

Illustration Friday’s topic is sorry

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 and is filed under blog, people, travel, wordpress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

15 people have left comments

What a haunting and disturbingly sorry image. Your story puts this in perspective. J sounds interesting, and hopefully he will return to your life at some point in time. Beautifully rendered.

Gingerpixels wrote on May 20, 2006 - 12:31 pm CEST

Grande mi ricordo del tipo .che mi avevi raccontato. Grazie per il comment su adventure chef..hei news from Boracay …Dragon Boat race abbiamo beccato il gold sui 250 misti e il silver sui 5oo maschietti ! che botta black out race feeling stupendo poi ti racconto…altre news….NORA is on the island dopo le terrifiche esperienze in Ermita con il letale shabu ora vive in jungla con i negritos e ride sempre flippatella quando puo’ si spara una RED HORSE…..life is wonderfull…?Cheers si u sun.

adventure chef gino wrote on May 20, 2006 - 12:46 pm CEST

Fantastic marriage of image and story. I love it when I discover a gem amongst all the posters to IF these days. Must explore further…

andrea wrote on May 20, 2006 - 4:40 pm CEST

he almost looks sorry to the point of being depress. great story to go with another great pic.

michael dailey wrote on May 20, 2006 - 5:17 pm CEST

He does look sorry for himself and it sounds like you are sorry to have lost touch with him.

Caroline wrote on May 20, 2006 - 9:26 pm CEST

Love the story, almoust know this J. person after this. There are strange and nice people in this world, hope to one of those!

Nice sharing this strane “friend” with us!

zordis wrote on May 21, 2006 - 10:41 am CEST

What a beautiful portrait of J! Just simply beautiful! I love your style and writing. Very heartfelt interesting, sweet and touching!

valgalart wrote on May 21, 2006 - 7:01 pm CEST

WONDERFUL WONDERFUL IMAGE! YUP, I JUST HAD TO SAY IT 2X. MY FAVORITE OF YOURS.

SMOOCH,
THE TART

BTW, GREAT STORY TO MATCH.

cheap tart wrote on May 21, 2006 - 8:13 pm CEST

I love your descriptions of people lately. So insightful and interesting. Your illustration is perfect. First the lighting always blows my mind. His face and the lighting on his chin. His hair is incredible. You just have an amazing style. I really - really love it.

tiffini elektra x wrote on May 22, 2006 - 2:34 am CEST

The people you portray are always respectfully acknowledged in the way they are, I like that a lot.

cristosova wrote on May 22, 2006 - 1:14 pm CEST

wonderful story… such a creative way to illustrate and elaborate on your fine illustration… well done…

michaeloconnell wrote on May 22, 2006 - 5:50 pm CEST

What a beautiful post, and a beautiful portrait of J. I can almost sense his presence by looking at your illustration and reading your story. Perhaps you will, one day…get in touch with him again!

txartcgal wrote on May 22, 2006 - 10:44 pm CEST

Your illos are always very interesting. Nice technique and wonderful style. Hope you and J. run into each other again.
8^)

IdiotHead wrote on May 23, 2006 - 11:37 pm CEST

Beautiful combination of image and carefully-chosen words…they compliment each other perfectly.

Jeff H. wrote on May 23, 2006 - 11:42 pm CEST

I hope J. can see this his portrait in samwhere of the world e so smiling toghetar again!
vanna. hallo!!

vanna wrote on May 27, 2006 - 2:50 pm CEST

feel free to leave a comment

Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

All fields marked with " * " are required.


Comments links could be nofollow free.