Mango Pudding Blues 3.0

AT THE ASIAN SUPERMARKET

At the asian supermarket I found love among the dazzling riot of hammered fish heads and the balls of red bean paste and the endless aisles of noodles and glutinous and strong smells and I wept because it broke my heart. Not just the China Best Brand Shredded Dry Fungus, not just the hand-written produce prices, not just the ruined oily jars of ancient pickled duck parts, not just the english translation poetry, not just the terrific old woman who hit me on the hip with the back of her hand to shoo me away from the Lo Bok that I was blocking her from, not just the Pocky, but everything; all of it. All of it.

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Thursday, July 31, 2003

INCORRUPTIBLE PURITY

I quote, here, from a recent horoscope, which I am following faithfully. To the letter:

Commit yourself with passionate integrity to incorruptible purity.

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Tuesday, July 29, 2003

ITCHY PALMS

We are suffering, today, from a light touch of stigmata. Yes. Our palms have spots of skin that are simply flaking off right now.

Or we are in for big money. They have been wildly itchy over the past couple of weeks. Big money!

Or it is from DEET, which we slathered liberally all over ourselves in preparation last weekend for the lovely gamelan picnic we went to. Here in Ontario, the mosquitoes are now believed to carry West Nile virus, and mosquitoes love us even more than you do, dear readers. So we prepared with DEET. Not with just any bug repellent made with DEET, but industrial-grade pure uncut DEET jelly. And we had vaguely heard some rumblings about about DEET being harmful, but we waved that away with the Frenchmanlike insouciant shrug that we save for namby pambies who fear every toxin. “Toxins Schmoxins,” we like to say, here at Mango Pudding Blues.

And now our hands are beginning to disappear. Ooops.

Well, it was worth it. The picnic was held at the splendid country home of one of the members, and we played under gently swaying trees to the hens who wandered the yard. And there was this clash of the ancient and modern; our flute player, unable to perfectly remember some melody that had been handed down to man from the gods at the dawn of time, whipped out his i-pod to double check the MP3.

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