2003-09-25 15:29
J'ai ta lague, moi.
The talk was a bit anticlimactic, really. Most of what I said I'd said before, and most of the people listening had heard me saying it, and the dynamics of Big Conferences are different - cameraderie doesn't develop and jokes fall flatter.
On the other hand they gave all the speakers cool laser pointers (there's a lot of commercial stuff here, and it's very sponsored) and I did get carded ("asked for proof of age") at the liquor store ("off licence").
Tonight I'm going to finish up the liter ("litre") of Paul Massoon ($5 from said liquore store), write some postcards, read some 'Eidegger and catch up on some sleep. Tomorrow, I'm planning to go to the zoo, hoorah, and if I pass a Ninternet Cafe I'll see if I can get up to speed on th' Knudellabrollopsaga. (Sigh. It would have to be this week...)
2003-09-24 09:18
San Diego
Much of yesterday was taken up
in a quest for a replacement power cable/convertor for my computer. (Of course I packed one - the baggage handling monster ate it.) Luckily my American colleagues have a car, and are indefatigable in their use.
The rest of yesterday was spent eating
Mexican food (in restaurants targetting touristes, hence not as good as LA if you ask me) until exploding point.
Today I really do have to write my talk, so I don't have time for versifying (helas or otherwise, to taste).
Net access here is an issue, but I'll try to find somewhere else tomorrow post-talkage...
2003-09-22 13:03 (UTC+8)
i.
I never take a camera
to distant lands, exotic climes;
What price, instead of snapshots' glamour, a
Travelogue in clumsy rhymes?
Perhaps, though, unschooled amateurs
whose verse-craft has been known to lack
grace should avoid tetrameters,
which don't leave that much room for slack.
For Byron, Auden, Vikram Seth,
the short line wasn't an obstruc-
tion; endless golden streams of death-
less verse poured out. I've no such luck.
By all means skip the rest - I'll warn ya,
It's all free verse on California.
ii.
Yami McMoots, mistress of mud,
came to pick me up from LAX.
She was holding a sign at the passenger exit
since there's a sense in which we'd never met.
But as she drove me back in her little red car
(small enough to pass for European)
to the bungalow in Pasadena
she shares with her boyfriend Peter
it soon became clear just how like herself she was.
(I'm like me, too, I'll have you know,
and I have witness statements to that effect.)
iii.
LA is a city turned inside out -
the roads aren't so much for getting to places,
as the places are there so the roads have somewhere to go.
(The upside is you're always forty-five minutes
from anywhere you want to go.
And that's the downside, too, mused Ms McMoots.)
iv.
At midnight it was still 4 o'clock
and the sun was shining brightly
(Shall I sing of the sun? No.
Or at least, not yet.)
So we headed on out to Santa Monica
To see its celebrated pier.
No loud French teens in louder trousers
And the beach is clean and sandy
But otherwise it's as much like Brighton
As the English channel is like the Pacific Ocean
The sticky-out bit of the pier itself
was closed for a private post-Fl�gtag party,
But the beach-front houses had outside spiral staircases
And you can't ask for much more than that.
v.
While I'm here I suppose I should sing of the sun:
'Pollo Frisbee, ball of gas
Ceaseless scourge of desert day
Meet factor 30 and bite my ass
As the Americans like to say.
vi.
At the LA county fair
(Just 45 minutes away!)
There's an exhibition of living rooms
United in exhibitionist
unlivability, and the stairs
from the Brady Bunch, whatever that is
They have racing pigs and a petting zoo
(I'm still a bit wary of llamas though)
There's women with arses the size of Belgium
and show-spas built to accommodate them.
And the food! Imagine the best of breed:
Macaroni and cheese, battered, deep and mixed
with chunks of Polish sausage on a stick.
There's one place to get it (don't you wish you'd been there?)
At the 81st Los Angeles County Fair.
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