June 24th
101 days here
(Scary as I remember what that Orwellian Room 101 was - the basement torture chamber in the Ministry of Love.)
I am awake at 7am
THE BLUE LOTUS magazine is now officially on hiatus (paused).
It was a decision not taken lightly, but due to various factors like access to computer and extreme noise levels coming from the building next door, it has been impossible to get quality time to create this issue. Ironically, as I write, the building next door is silent. Hopefully, when the world and I have settled, it will not be too long before THE BLUE LOTUS magazine returns.
As to the future, it remains quite uncertain. One hundred days (yesterday) languishing in Siem Reap, Cambodia, I have to admit was a turning point for me. There is the sense of a weight being lifted, but at the same time a sadness.
I am free now to reprise an autobiofiction short that I had been working on since Malaysia. It's a tricky piece which needs considerable work done, but now that The Blue Lotus is on hold I am a little freer to do this, well, technically anyway.
Okay, enough. I am off to Common Grounds…
Sitting across from where I normally sit in Common Grounds (literally) gives me a fresh perspective on life. I order, and get, a 'Breakfast Bagel' and a large 'Flat White' coffee. The be-masked smiley girls smile, and I am so sad that I am such a poor, old, Londoner so far from a home which no longer exists. If I were seated in my rectangular faux jungle painted prison, it would be at this juncture that I would start to weep for all that I have lost over time, and all that I shall lose in the coming months. Common Grounds' jazz (so soft that it could have been played by Salvador Dali), is perhaps the perfect accompaniment to my current mood.
We move on…
Enter the Illustrated Couple
Tatoos get old so quickly. I remember an older gentlemen (somewhere in his 80s), living in the home for the aged where I worked in the early 1970s. He had tattoos.
This resident was a larger, floppy fleshed gentleman whom, as a Male Attendant, it was my displeasure to bathe weekly.
The first time that I encountered his nakedness he proudly revealed his textual tattoo. The legend which ran across his pelvic area boasted …
"A PRESENT FOR A GOOD GIRL"
This was accompanied by a tattooed arrow which ran downwards towards his thinning, grey pubic hair and a long since shrivelled member. Both the text and the arrow had faded to a dirty gray, with the tattoos, overall, seeming incongruous with the man bearing them.
Two fresh American customers (I know that they are American by their accents) enter Common Grounds. Between them they have a plethora of tattoos from feet to faces. They seem as if they have just stepped out of the pages of some Nuevo punk graphic novel based on Ray Bradbury's 'Illustrated Man'.
We seem to be in an age where to be tattooed is 'cool'. It's not a view that I personally hold, but each to their own.
The illustrated couple, wearing 'shades' (man), step back outside (to the terrazzo bench area) for a smoke, and are temporarily shaded from the harsh Cambodian Summer sun. I am momentarily transported back to the late 60s, early 70s, but it's not a place I want really want to be in. Within minutes they are inside and, after a brief sojourn, are back outside again resuming their autotoxemia.
101 days here
(Scary as I remember what that Orwellian Room 101 was - the basement torture chamber in the Ministry of Love.)
I am awake at 7am
THE BLUE LOTUS magazine is now officially on hiatus (paused).
It was a decision not taken lightly, but due to various factors like access to computer and extreme noise levels coming from the building next door, it has been impossible to get quality time to create this issue. Ironically, as I write, the building next door is silent. Hopefully, when the world and I have settled, it will not be too long before THE BLUE LOTUS magazine returns.
As to the future, it remains quite uncertain. One hundred days (yesterday) languishing in Siem Reap, Cambodia, I have to admit was a turning point for me. There is the sense of a weight being lifted, but at the same time a sadness.
I am free now to reprise an autobiofiction short that I had been working on since Malaysia. It's a tricky piece which needs considerable work done, but now that The Blue Lotus is on hold I am a little freer to do this, well, technically anyway.
Okay, enough. I am off to Common Grounds…
Sitting across from where I normally sit in Common Grounds (literally) gives me a fresh perspective on life. I order, and get, a 'Breakfast Bagel' and a large 'Flat White' coffee. The be-masked smiley girls smile, and I am so sad that I am such a poor, old, Londoner so far from a home which no longer exists. If I were seated in my rectangular faux jungle painted prison, it would be at this juncture that I would start to weep for all that I have lost over time, and all that I shall lose in the coming months. Common Grounds' jazz (so soft that it could have been played by Salvador Dali), is perhaps the perfect accompaniment to my current mood.
We move on…
Enter the Illustrated Couple
Tatoos get old so quickly. I remember an older gentlemen (somewhere in his 80s), living in the home for the aged where I worked in the early 1970s. He had tattoos.
This resident was a larger, floppy fleshed gentleman whom, as a Male Attendant, it was my displeasure to bathe weekly.
The first time that I encountered his nakedness he proudly revealed his textual tattoo. The legend which ran across his pelvic area boasted …
"A PRESENT FOR A GOOD GIRL"
This was accompanied by a tattooed arrow which ran downwards towards his thinning, grey pubic hair and a long since shrivelled member. Both the text and the arrow had faded to a dirty gray, with the tattoos, overall, seeming incongruous with the man bearing them.
Two fresh American customers (I know that they are American by their accents) enter Common Grounds. Between them they have a plethora of tattoos from feet to faces. They seem as if they have just stepped out of the pages of some Nuevo punk graphic novel based on Ray Bradbury's 'Illustrated Man'.
We seem to be in an age where to be tattooed is 'cool'. It's not a view that I personally hold, but each to their own.
The illustrated couple, wearing 'shades' (man), step back outside (to the terrazzo bench area) for a smoke, and are temporarily shaded from the harsh Cambodian Summer sun. I am momentarily transported back to the late 60s, early 70s, but it's not a place I want really want to be in. Within minutes they are inside and, after a brief sojourn, are back outside again resuming their autotoxemia.
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