NOTEBOOK: AROUND THE WORLD
Clouds stretched below the plane; cloud mountains cast shadows on cloud plains, giving the impression that the land below, cloudily shadowed, would be doubly dark.
Tokyo motorbikes buzz outside the hotel as my stomach, tuned to another clock, wonderingly gurgles at the darkness.
Sign in Asakusa: "Notice. Please watch your step. There is a crevice between car and platform near here."
Nikko: On a flowered slope, a house is hidden in the trees. I step to snap a shot and a woman, nude from the waist up, strolls out to remove a kimono from a line, shakes it a few times, wraps it around her, and strolls back into her house. I almost drop my light meter.
Miyanoshita: the aura of leisured wealth hung like brocade over the tailored lawns and pebbled baths.
Graffito at Sounzon: "I want to holy your hand."
One must be careful in Japanese: "bento" is box lunch; "benjo" is toilet.
Bangkok bugs: flying ant-spiders infesting marble temples, trail of red ants up the Golden Buddha's walls, huge cockroach in the Rama Hotel foyer, two newts on the Erewan Hotel fifth-floor ceiling.
Last sign in Thailand: "Rose for sale; Skin and Breasts renovated."
Benares smells like a campfire extinguished by a sudden shower.
In the morning everyone compared the sizes of the bugs they'd seen during the previous night.
Agra: corn flakes spooned into the bowl from a silver tureen with a silver spoon.
Delhi shop signs: "Watches, Fountain Pens, and Goggles."
"Prithir Raj: Financers, Bankers, Booksellers, Cigarette Dealers."
Outside the window came the distant sound of steel measuring tape, extended too far, twanging back and forth: bats.
Cairo: no running water in the toilet in the rest-house, so a little boy pours bottled water to soap up my hands, then rinses them from the bottle, and offers the edge of his long white cloak for drying.
The flies are so heavy in Egypt that you can FEEL them landing.
Luxor colors are all sun and sand and baked bread and broasted chicken.
Burial in Byblos: first dig a hole, then fill it with sand, then put the sarcophagus on top, take out the sand, and cover the sarcophagus.
Neolithic burial: cut clay pot in half, double body into fetus position and lay it into bottom half, join top half to it, bury it.
Syrians drive their cars like they govern themselves: impetuously, poorly, loudly---in all, like petulant children.
Sign in Rachel's tomb: "For beneficial of Poorer's."
Third Station of the Cross is almost obliterated by movie posters.
The temple at Sounion retained its roof until 1882, when gold was discovered at the temple of Mycenea, and the local inhabitants literally tore the Sounion temple apart looking for gold there.
Athens: the "Je" neon is out of the sign "Fly TWA Jets."
Older Greek statues have second toe longest, later ones have the big toe longest.
Mycenaen burial: lay the shroud, cover it with pebbles and cloth, then put the body down, cover it with gold, then cloth, then wood beams, then waterproof clay, then soil, then rocks, and there you are.
At a certain spring in Kanathos, Hera bathed once a week and regained her virginity.
Thespis was the first actor, using masks so that he could play all the parts. In 531BC he performed in Athens, and named the theatrum (where the spectators sit), the sceni (the tent were the actor changes), and the orchestrum (between the theatrum and the sceni, where the dancers dance).
Quote before flying west: "Just think, tomorrow at 7PM, it'll be midnight."