Tinfoil on the Windows

When we met Neil spoke a little bit about the nightlife in Kabul. I understand a reasonable amount of material has already been written on the subject, like this article over at Time (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1981465,00.html). Damn if this Mos Eisley/Casablanca/'dancing at the edge of a volcano' thing doesn't feel like something I want to be there for.

Sarajevo developed an incredible music scene during the worst of its recent history, largely because the teens and twentysomethings needed to drown out the sound of falling bombs. I mean, just think of that. You're nineteen years old, and you and your friends formed a band just so you could jam while the bombs fell... just to keep yourselves sane. Just think of that: your deafening soundtrack drowning out theirs, written and performed with your friends, in the face of an oncoming potential for annihilation that you otherwise can't do a damned thing about. And you're a teenager. Fuck Scott Pilgrim, seriously.

Andrew Mueller's written a book - Rock and Hard Places - about travelling through war zones with rock bands, and it's really coalescing where I may want to take this.

There's also the whole Gaza deal. Still not certain, but whatever notion I have about this is definitely forming up.

EDIT: This article - http://www.warisboring.com/?p=4908 - is a critique of the Time article by someone who lives in Kabul, and as an account of life there fits more closely with what Neil was telling me: that attacks aren't that frequent, security 'contractors' aren't as common as they used to be, paycheques aren't that high, etc. etc.

Today's unfortunate name award goes to Montana Salmon.

Srsly, parents, wtf?

I just got back from having dinner with/interviewing Neil Grant, the Australian children's author who spent three-and-a-half weeks in Afghanistan on an Australia Council grant to research and finish a novel. Utterly fascinating. I'm never bored with travelers. He had the time of his life. There's no restrictions on travel to the country, though the Australian government advises against it. He observed a few self-imposed rules: he never ate at the same place twice at the same time, assessed the place week-by-week in the leadup to leaving, made ties with the Couchsurfing Ambassador for Kabul, grew a beard, pre-ordered taxis late at night to minimise the risk of a kidnapping, carried photocopies of his passport to give to officials (to protect the original), and avoided hiring armed guards to minimise his profile (which meant he could visit markets and whatnot fairly incognito). The need for armed guards is a myth, actually. Apparently the biggest risk late at night is falling into an open drain. That said, 30km outside Kabul just isn't safe. He wrote a will and letters before leaving, as well as reading up on what occurs during an attack, after an IED detonation, and kidnapping. Actually, so have I. And then there's the common sense stuff, like don't step off a path in rural Afghanistan (white rocks signify mines nearby, red rocks signify mine beneath.)

Oddly, in the early days, all his friends thought he was insane. He heads back in a few months I think.

Very cool guy, very easy to talk to. May possibly do a proper interview with him either for the 1000 Pencils project or on him specifically. Depends how it shakes out with regard to the release date of his book, etc.

Afghanistan obviously isn't a tourist mecca, but the perception of the current state of the country is a little off... which is to be expected.

That said I still don't have plans to visit Afghanistan necessarily. This is all info gathering toward some nebulous end in a general direction. If there's a story, or a need for research, I'll go.

Before I left for dinner I got an email from an editor at Epicure. They want to see the Tallinn article, with photos. So no sleep for me 'til I get it polished and sent. Which means I'll be useless tomorrow.

Which means if you're one of the people I'm meant to be seeing... sorry. You may get a mid-morning text from me in a pikey vein.

No idea if they'll like the article, but hey at least they're asking.

I'm so far behind on updating the travel blog it's ridiculous. I don't flatter myself that people are waiting wth 'bated breath for the next thing, but it's been a good rod or my back regarding attempted sales.

Speaking of which, what saw print today - I think - works fine as a blog entry but not so well as a column in a paper, converted to house style (in this case, minus all contractions.) Seems a bit lopsided. In hindsight I should have gone with the first anecdote, cut all the others and got straight to the whole Sun Studio thing a lot quicker. Live and learn.

I've got two hours to write left, after an attempt to cook for the house was aborted by lack of a can opener. Tomorrow, I guess. And then Monday it's back to the job. I need to kick this thing's arse, timewise. The book I mean.

Better get on with it.

This piece forwarded from Belegdel.

From Baghdad, where if you hear the bombs you know you’re safe [at Crikey]
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/30/letter-from-baghdad-where-if-you-hear-the-bombs-you-know-youre-safe/

“This is nothing,” he says. “Five years ago when I worked here last, we got death threats every day. Eventually my car got hit by a rocket through the engine.” Jesus, how did you cope? “Oh, a wee touch of the post-traumatic stress disorder.” Silence. “My wife left me.” Silence. “We’d been married 30 years.” “Still,” he brightens, “it’s all better here now. So what do you need?”


And yet Iraq is recovering better than anywhere else, apparently, because they can remember infrastructure. Afghanistan, however, from what I understand, is like building sandcastles at low tide.

Been going through all the old notepad entries on the phone. Found some Paris detail I'd forgotten about.

"Rue Custine. Gangs of guys selling smokes, stashing them in art decon lampposts "(used that one.)

"Not well. Dizzy. I'll need to get to a quiet spot." I remember I was so suddenly hungry I actually thought there was a risk I'd black out on the street. I remember walking and walking trying to find someplace that sold food. Couldn't believe I covered about six blocks and found zip. Finally hit upon a boulangerie, got something long and bready with mayo on it and a bottle of some fizzy orange stuff I never drink. Thought I'd bite my own tongue off I ate it so fast. Then the food hit and I realised how badly I wanted sleep. Instead I hiked to the Basilique du Sacre Couer and photographed it. Saw the best busker I've ever seen charm about three hundred people into an hour of open air singing.

"Burly black riot cop brushing teeth." Citywide music festival. Kevlar and MP5s all over the place. This one guy was brushing his teeth in the open door of a dark blue van, surrounded by his jackbooted buddies as they waited for something to do.

"Basketball court and Algerian dancers." See above. Just a weird contrast.

"Woman in summer dress cycling past, whistling beautifully." That put a smile on my face it was so sunny, and so freaking Parisian.


There's a 30-day meme that a friend's been part of. Figured I'd jump on it, take the question a day thing and see if I can get into the rhythm of posting something daily and flip it into something substantial. yuki_onna 's pretty good at that.

I wont do it every day, but it makes for a good fallback.

I unpacked an external HD. Plugged it in. Heard a snap. A wisp of smoke.

I think that was writing backups, 10 years of journal backups and about 12,000 photographs from my time with morgan303.

Someone tell me that's just the non-critical power supply or something, not the actual drive.

I need to invest in some major online storage and some kind of insane DL/UL broadband plan. This is getting beyond a joke.

Cleaned out the last of the debris from my pack (loose hairbands and paracetamol, a bag of fish-oil pills, bike repair kit, pocket knife, bag of rubber bands, defunct cash card...)

Currently drinking Russian Caravan from the clay flask Jenny and I picked up from that medieval faire in Leipzig. Looking at my wall, covered in prints from Berlin, and the meter of black foamcore I've got keepsakes tacked to (Robert Johnson photograph, tickets to Peter Murphy and Alan Cumming, businesscard of a New York art scene pornographer, shot of the hall of mirrors in Dresden's castle/Turkisch kammer, tattoo care pamphlet from East Side Ink, postcard for a fellow couchsurfer's pop band, 3000 Icelandic kroner, WGT ticket, B&W publicity shot of Marek and his partner, tube map, flyer for Gutted...)

Doing the math. If I work three months I can pay rent and bills, blow $100 a week on food, cover all my debts and save somewhere between $3-5000. Not including any articles I sell. I think I can suck that up.

Dinner at MSB tonight means dressing snazzy now, which means I get to test my reinforced immune system against both the cold and the residents of the Sydenham line. Beat a hell-cold in 36 hours though. Or less. New record.

RoyalAuto turned me down cold. Said they're happy with their stable of writers. Realised I neglected to mention I'm a published novelist in the cover letter. Ce la vie.

Sadhbh got me a cheap copy of the marketplace guide, so come Monday I can hopefully just parade my wares to all concerned and that'll do me fine.

Starting a job on Monday I really don't like. Learning to put this stuff in perspective, though.

So many people I know are in so much pain at the moment. I'm even seeing motion-picture level drama just on the streets. Actually saw something the other day I have trouble thinking about, let alone committing to pixels. I'll get to it eventually.

Since London fell through I guess this means I can start thinking about Melbourne-based things more seriously. Like seeing someone, replacing my desk station, eBaying tonnes of unwanted stuff, settling debts, making money, finishing books, planning the next New York trip, that sort of thing.

The night before visitng Memphis, we sat for twenty minutes in the parking lot of a Sonic in Oxford, Mississippi. Thick humidity. I had the window down. In the greenery and from the gloomed-out surrounds came the songs of crickets, cicadas and peepers. Not for the first time the place made me think of Cairns. On the clipped green lawns of plantation houses a few blocks away select pieces of wooden furniture stood arranged at carefully chosen points, ghostly dim in the distance. The next morning we'd wake and I'd ride shotgun, scribbling all this stuff down while April drove us toward Memphis listening to The Black Keys.

Sun Studio was our first stop. I'm still looking into whether or not I can repost that article here since it was bought by The Age, but I daresay it'll be back up before long.

We crossed the Tallahatchee River, rain spattering the windshield, crawling in horizontal streaks across the passenger-side window. Made me think of the kind of art projects preschoolers do with ink and a drinking straw. Made me think of Billy Connolly talking about his work on The Big Man with Liam Neeson, the cliche of a face behind a rain-hit window, drops like tears and all that.

Graceland was the single most touristy thing I did in the entire time I was traveling.

I grew up with Elvis. In our household he was the second-ranking musician behind Slim Dusty. To this day I can't listen to either of them without a faint sense of panic, before I remind myself that I'm 38, everything's okay and I did make it to the end credits of Escape from Fucking Queensland.

For as long as I can remember Elvis nostalgia was a thing steeped in melancholy and sadness; a sadness unrecognised by the people who practice that nostalgia. And I think that veneration of this dead man is a very different thing depending on whether you're a man or a woman. A longing for the unattainable. For men it's a desire for virility, admiration and above all, to be remembered. For women it's a desire for big-assed romance, cliched and turbocharged. The kind of romantic ideal that falls apart if you think about it too much. An impossible dream, pretty much, for all concerned.

I understand the point-of-view of people who were at just the right age when rock 'n' roll broke. Hell, I wish I was one of those people. Being a teenager in a world of Acker Bilk that suddenly got turned on to leather jackets, fast cars and overdriven electric guitars? Holy shit. That must have felt like a jailbreak. I understand how something that massive dropping onto your head is going to imprint. How you'll keep referring back to this perfect thrumming thing, like a lodestone, for the rest of your life.

But...

When I was a kid, even at age 8, Mum's likeing/love of Elvis raised questions I couldn't answer. "Don't you love Dad?" I could see the girl she used to be inside the woman before me, and wondered if this meant she wouldn't be here if she had a choice. The relationship women have with the Elvis memory is the same relationship, I believe, they probably have with romance novels.

And my mother read a lot of romance novels.

I've never encountered a wealthy, well-to-do woman who had the same affection for the Elvis memory that women from lower income brackets do. But I have met wealthy male Elvis fans. I think that's key. For women I think he embodies what they believe would mend their lack. For men I believe he's a role model. Something to aspire to. WWED? TCB.

Which brings me to Graceland Too and the man who built, lives in and curates it. That's the next article. But take a look at the shots from inside Graceland itself. It'll serve as a kind of comparison to what comes next.

( Pictures behind the cut. )


An entire family, buried by the pool (topmost). In my opinion, weird. Actually, this photo captures how I feel about the whole place: that being there is intrusive. It's not some spectacular monument, it's some dead guy's house and every day legions of strangers tramp through and gawk. While I was standing at the graveside a family came by: a woman in a tracksuit, husband in a wheelchair, and two kids.

Son: "Did people die under there?"
Mother: "Yes they did, honey."
Father: "Did you photograph all the graves?"
Mother: (sadly) "Yeah, honey, I got 'em all."

That mix of melancholy, nostalgia and that sense of intrusion... made me want to split pretty quickly. Which we did shortly after.


The full Graceland Flickr set is here.

rufus' far more comprehensive Flickr set of both Sun Studio and Graceland can be found here.