I’ve not been yet in the U.S. These days however, a good reason to drive me there would be to visit Key West: I have just been re-reading Hemingways’s  “To have and Have not” and now I fancy a quick trip to this very tiny island, about 6 km long and 3 km wide. Key West City  international airport provides services and, as a matter of fact, there many available Florida Flights nowdays…On board his boat Hemingway’s hero Harry Morgan the smuggler, navigates between Key West and Cuba: a boat full of illegal spirits and Chinese clandestines. Hard and tough, Harry Morgan is the symbol of  every outcast “condemned” to make use of whatever risky trick in order  to survive a society split between who has and who has not. Generally speaking I don’t especially appreciate Hemingway’s narrative; yet  this short novel published in 1937 at the end of the Great Depression, inspired by that era, still conveys strong suggestions. In the present economic world trend, Morgan’s character  sounds so contemporary as his misadventure.

While reading an old guide book printed  by the former Yugoslavia Tourist Bureau in the mid ’70, I can’t avoid some personal memories.  My hometown Ancona lies on the Italian side of the Adriatic sea and, as a matter of fact, the Croatian coast has always been for us the very place heading for a short  holiday: a ship passage takes just a few hours. Everything was cheap in Yugoslavia, perhaps the most welcoming country among the ex-communist block. In 1984, as a moneyless youngster I went for the first time to Croatia, to Ugljan Island exactly. A very few money in the pockets means no comfortable hotels and restaurants. Cheap room renting was ok for me and some fasting too. Yet after a few days I really needed jam, sweet  and fresh blackberry jam. There was just a food shop. I went in and bought a jam jar. The label was peculiar, simply I couldn’t understand a single word but the expiring date and that stuff was expired since the previous year! So I asked politely the good-looking girl to have my jar changed; the good-looking girl looked at me smiling and politely said “yes sir, off course  consider that all the jars we have here are already expired ! “. I survived indeed the very expired Yugoslavian jam and I was able to happily go back many times more for new Croatia holidays.

Sitting on the terrace of the house in front of mine there is a blonde middle-aged woman who reads. Every night, before leaving my book on the big bench made of gray wooden planks and slowly going  to bed downstairs, I rest a moment to look at her… In the clear air of the African night, swept by the breeze, this still figure intrigues me. I find out difficult to give myself a reading as deep as that of the woman, and I wonder about her book content, something which keeps her on that windy tiny terrace night after night: adventure? Philosophy? A romance of the crime? A travel book on Flights to Florida? Soon she too will lay her book on the floor and turn her face around for a while – I fancy, before I go down the steep stairs to my room. Actually she never did it…

Illustration Fridays topic is: swept

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seamen scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

The train from Jakarta to Surabaya had slowly left in the late afternoon; sitting in my second class berth, I was contemplating the nearby thriving tropical landscape from one of the wagon’s window, when a fellow swiftly entered my compartment. He was an elderly tall man with an old fashioned suit on. This unexpected travelling companion fascinated me immediately. Actually he looked like one of Conrad’s literary heroes, with a deep mystery of his own. I fancied about him, a man travelling on a shoestring at a time in his life when most of people have settled down for ever…I started to gaze at him apprehensively, somehow trying to send him a silent and gentle enquiry: “just talk to me”. On the contrary the old man looked at me fiercely for some everlasting seconds, then got up and- as quickly as he had entered-he got out and vanished…
I wonder if he had put me at the top of his danger list just for being so much like he was.

Illustration Friday’s topic is: fierce

Venetian Hugo Pratt is my favourite comic book creator. Due to his rather mixed family ancestry and his nomadic life, Pratt had learned snippets of things like kabbalism and lots of history. Many of his stories are placed in real historical eras and deal with real events.
As a student I had the chance to meet Hugo Pratt in early 80’ in Venice, but never met his best known character (adventuring during the early 20th century), the laconic sea captain  Corto Maltese who realised he had no fate line on his palm and therefore carved his own with a razor, determining that his fate was his to choose!

Illustration Friday’s topic is: homage

In 1920 a South Sea Chief’s comments on Western Society, The Papalagi, which means, the White Men, were translated into German by Erich Scheurmann.
These speeches by Tuiavii of Tiavea were not delivered as yet, but the essence had been written down in the native language, out of which the first German translation was made. Tuiavii never intended to have his speeches published for the Western public, nor to have them printed anywhere at all. They were strictly meant for his Polynesian people.
Yet Scheurmann, without Tuiavii’s consent and definitely in disregard of his wishes, took the liberty to bring these speeches to the attention of the Western readers, convinced, that for white people with their Western civilization it could be very worthwhile to find out how a man who was still closely bound to nature saw them and their culture…
These days I am reading one more time The Papalagi and find out the booklet still 100% actual. To know more about Tuiiavi’s point of view, here is a link to his almost complete writing.

Illustration Friday’stopic is: 100%

Disturbing visitors sometimes come with our dreams. We wake up then, asking ourselves their meaning . In Malaysia, Senoi have a theory of dreams, and dreams are important for those becoming “adepts” (healers). Ancient Senoi dream practices (dream sharing in morning groups and using techniques of dream control), are known as “Senoi dream theory.”
Mornings were used by families to indulge in the custom of dream-telling, where, for instance, a child’s fearful dream of falling was praised as a gift to learn to fly the next night.
Among the rules that the Senoi had was the following: “If there is danger in your dream, you should confront and conquer it.”
Anthropologist Kilton Stewart first visited Senoi in 1935 and in 1982 John Hassell, a trumpet player and composer relased the beautiful album “Dream Theory in Malaya” after reading a paper by Stewart.

Illustration Friday’s topic is: visitors

“both deluded beings
and buddahs gaze at
the same moon”
This is by Kaizan  (1769 -1846)   a Zen monk, a master of calligraphy and ink painting…

Illustration Friday‘s topic is: moon

Here are three good links on last week topic: Three ravens press ; Wolfgang Kolar ; Franci .

]]> http://www.aynaku.net/2007/07/28/sister-moon/feed/ 11 http://www.aynaku.net/2007/07/21/the-palm-leaf-alphabet/ http://www.aynaku.net/2007/07/21/the-palm-leaf-alphabet/#comments Sat, 21 Jul 2007 15:11:13 +0000 massimo http://www.aynaku.net/2007/07/21/the-palm-leaf-alphabet/

According to Hugo Ball, inventor of Dadaist phonetic poetry and co-founder of the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, 1916, the ultimate meaning of a poem however resides in its meaninglessness, by allegedly choosing the word at random and because of their sound…
In Bali I was waiting for the night bus to Lombok, I had bought my ticket already and had nothing to do in the shady and large waiting room. There were just a few chairs and a table, and not even a human being to talk to. Upon the table was a sort of guest book. I kept on turning over the pages vaguely, until I came across a strange set of signs tagged as the old Indonesian ka-ga-nga alphabet, traditionally written on bamboo or palm leaves.
The unexpected discovery struck me greatly and I spent more than a couple of hours copying the mysterious signs in my notepad and arranging readings of purely phonetic tropical nonsense.
Nga ba ma nya ja sa ha ra,
la wa sa da na ca nya…
Finally the big red bus came…

Illustration Friday‘s topic is: poem