in Berlin

In Berlin, we couldn't resist singing the song "In Berlin," a work-in-progress from an upcoming song cycle (The Theosaur Slayer), which was inspired by my memories of Berlin, Nevada, (a ghost town that has dinosaur fossils) & the one of the reasons we went out to stay there. The melody is adapted from the folk hymn "Florence" (which mentions deserts & dragons), and the lyrics tell the story of a nameless boy who lives in the desert & discovers a monster in the abandoned mines.


Lyrics & chords:

In Berlin
D Bmin Emin7 Asus4    Bmin A D 

In Berlin, a ghost town in Central Nevada, lived a boy without any name. 

D Bmin Emin7 Asus4    Bmin A D 

He had built a shack out of broken bottles, a recycled gold rush claim. 

D D/C# Bmin Asus4 D Bmin A 

And in the nights when the desert’s frigid, his grandmother’s ghost would visit, 

D Bmin Emin7   Asus4 Bmin A  

And they’d sup on scorpion tail cocktails, & silently hide from the spirits.

And there was a hill to the East of the ruins that his ghosty Granny had warned, 

Don’t you ever go there, the pinyon pins round the mines is mysteriously burned, 

But being a boy with an tween’s free will & the imaginings of a devil, 

He was bored one Wednesday while out exploring, and he found himself on the hill. 

Down into the mine-shaft climbed the child, no one was there to watch him, 

And he lit a match in the ancient darkness, & wandered round with caution. 

A humongous monster was deeply sleeping, as if for millions of years. 

With the arms of a rat, & the wings of an eagle, & brobdingnagian ears. 

But they weren’t alone, & poltergeist who haunted far & wide 

Knocked some rocks on the supports, and a noisy collapse sealed off only the way outside. 

The monster woke & it gasped for breath, a ten thousand pound canary, 

And it grabbed the boy, burst through the earth, & they flew off in the fiery sky. 

©2011 The Manna Tease 

Please "like" The Manna Tease on facebooks here.
Here are some more photos from our trip to Berlin:

An tEach Uisce and Irish Pictures

An tEach Uisce and Irish Pictures

Correspondences: Craziest Couchsurfing Request Ever

That there's some more classic Whales Standing Up art from Mr Olaf Mary, circa 2004.
I've had nothing but good experiences with couchsurfing.com. I've stayed with lovely hosts in Europe, & hosted lovely travelers from Europe, North & South America. Sometimes tho, I get a request from a crazy person, & I think this one wins the award for craziest request. It was from a 20-year-old girl from Nova Scotia:

Okay. I am leaving _____ and coming to Berkeley to

set up camp. I am a crazy girl but I do have a lot of

guts. I am going to run my own cafe/resto/bar and it's

going to be government funded. Why the hell not? I have

a small debt to pay but what I would like to do is pay

for a massage course which I have also done in _____.

I need to be able to practise legally with a good

reputation in order to support myself while...Anyway I

am looking for a room in an artist commmunity/house.

Hippy, environmentalist. Forward mided people only no

scumbag student know it alls. No beurocratic bullshit.

I like clutter but not dirt. Not smelly. I want to be

able to pay $300 a month and be around

twenty-thirty-eight year olds. Only. If possible. Not

interested in having sex, already got somebody. But

really what I will be doing is starting a herd of wild

horses. I will be owning my own property soon and

living happily ever after. The end. Still need my

driver's liscence. Want have dogs off leashes and

outdoor cats. Goats are better lawnmowers than

lawnmowers. Etc. My mother. did this in Ohio where I

was born she did it well and I suppose she's happy

enough. I like it there. Good enough. anyway=I am

looking for a place to stay until I find my

room/roommate cafe job artist/activist housing

situation but no ugly minded people no bullies. I like

travellors but I don't want to live in a punk house.

Punk's dead happened in the 80s. We're starting new

now. Time to stop bitching and get on with it. So

anyway. If you are at all available for a chat on the

phone I am thinking of leaving on the twenty-ninth.

Could we please chat? I think I will be staying only

for three days at a time until I find what I am looking

for. I will be flying to SAn Fran and then taking the

bus to Berkeley. Will not have much stuff but will come

prepared. I'll need to buy a phone right away so if you

know of a cheap pay as you go phone right on. Let me

know if you can help me out at all. thanks a lot man.

bunches. -S_____

Portrait of the Photagrapher photographing the Photographer photographing

from "grainne proinseas" ______@gmail.com to "S. Sandrigon" _@itwaslost.org date Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 9:43 PM subject photo mailed-by gmail.com signed-by gmail.com

James Henry-

one of your photos from Lom is of me taking a picture of you taking a picture of me. The attached photo is the picture I was taking of you while you were taking a picture of me taking a picture of you.

grace

--
Tá Tír na nÓg ar chúl an tí,
Tír álainn trína chéile

I photoshopp'd it a tiny bit. Lom is a city at the end of the rail-line, up by the Danube in Bulgaria. And here's the photo of her she was referring to:

The Parents at the Great-Grandparents' Graves

My folks are on a camping trip Eastward along the Lincoln Highway, which we've been constantly reminded to follow on the facebooks. Good pictures have been resulting: These photos of them visiting their respective grandparents' grave sites in the Middle West. I'll have to do this trip myself someday.

Breaking News: Our old travel correspondent, Jenny Ruth, on a new assignment

The Navigator's Islands.
She will be reporting for duty in October.
More fun facts about this fascinating island chain coming soon.

Department of Beards: John Steinbeck's Peacock Beard

On the famous mug of American author John Steinbeck we usually picture a thin private-eye mustache. But I've been reading his later non-fiction Travels with Charley, & in a section where he is describing his camping costume ("utilitarian if a bit bizarre"), he has a fine paragraph in praise of beard:

My face has not ignored the passage of time, but recorded it with scars, lines, furrows, & erosions. I wear a beard & mustache but shave my cheeks; said beard, having a dark skunk stripe up the middle & white edges, commemorates certain relatives. I cultivate this beard not for the usual given reasons of skin trouble or pain of shaving, nor for the secret purpose of covering a weak chin, but as pure unblushing decoration, much as a peacock finds pleasure in his tail. And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.

It's a little hard to find photos of Steinbeck's beard. For such a public figure, why is it so hard to find pictures of his bearded phase - is the anti-beard establishment deliberately repressing them? Here's one of Steinbeck lurking behind his son, John Steinbeck IV, a journalist in Vietnam, meeting President Johnson:


Charley is also a fine hairy man. We think of manly Steinbeck, roughing it around the continental United States with his camper & his dog, an American archetype. But Charley is not only a poodle, but a large black French Poodle born & raised in France. (His nationality especially shows in his skill with romance.) With his peacock beard & his French poodle, there's a nice redefinition of American masculinity.

The Legend of Stray Dog No. 242

On the Black Sea beaches in Varna, Bulgarity, last month, a cute medium-sized white dog befriended us, with an eartag numbered "242". We cast aside aspersions of touching strays & gave him a lot of love. We learned a bit about the things this dog did & did not like:

Things Two-For-Two did not like:
-Bicycles.
-Small children.

Things Two-For-Two did like:
-Being scratched on the rump.
-Our party of travelers.

Miss Proinseas was very taken with this dog, & vaguely schemed to sneak him out of the country. He followed us for a long time, but eventually went his way. Here are some photographs from her scribd book "Beautiful to Forget", stills grabbed from her camcorder:

A day or so later, at an outdoor pub that served Guinness along one of the main boulevards in Varna, in a different neighborhood than the beaches where we earlier saw the cur, we were admiring some other non-stray dogs. I believe we even toasted to #242. A few moments later, our couchsurfing host Mr Yavor said "you know there's a dog underneath your bench." And there he was, asleep underneath my bench! He acted very nonchalant about our re-acquaintance, but we couldn't believe it. I told Miss Proinseas, things happen in threes, & since we saw him twice, we were sure to run into him again. She said, it could not be, because our time in Varna was over & she was journeying North across the Danube & by plane back to another continent.

But I was right! One of our traveling party, Martichka, went back to Varna a few weeks later & saw Two-For-Two, & sent this photograph as corroboration:

If to Varna you are going, please send word from Stray Dog No. 242.

Travel Notebook Art: Marshall Mullett is Born

While we were traveling last month, we each had our own notebooks, with many pretty drawings. We'll scan more, I reckon. Here's a character which could or could not be further developed: Marshall Mullett. By a Joseph Heller-esque coincidence, his mother named him Marshall & then he grew up to become a marshal of the law; & similarly, his paternal surname is Mullet, & he proudly wears the hairstyle his great-grandfather brought to this country in 1831. He has no problem sporting the full "MM" on his solid gold diamond belt buckle because of his broad pelvic structure.

"DAYS OF ANTON ABADZHIEV IN VENEZIA"

Friend-of-the-blog, Anton Abadzhiev, & the man who's been translating Mr Quill's & my writings into Bulgarian, has posted some travel correspondence at antonabadzhiev.writs, with a few classy photos:

Yes, guys, I did it. Far from the madding crowd I worked on and on on my own Itallian balcony in Venice. I found the first copy of "Christine" in Italian and visited all the Middle East Divan exhebitions of art - all placed in Catholic cathedrals. I missed Leonard Cohen's concert, because I was eating Pana di tutti ravini in a Kosher restaurant in Gheto Nuovo. I could afford myself that.

I think I have to write only a sentence, spontaniously but I will not. It's still a great euphoria.

In related news, Mr Quill & Mr Southworth People have met up in Bucharest & are traveling to Odessa & then Kiev for an ultimate frisbee hat tournament, "played on a mysterious beach on a mysterious island". Keep a keen eye towards allforgotteneast for updates.

Repost: Lost & Forgotten Company

I don't suppose Mr Quill will mind if I fully quote his nice ending monologue about our visit & wanderings, & lovely photographs. (I've made them bigger).

Three weeks of joyful madness passed with dizzying speed. While the immediate effect was exhaustion, I am hopeful that it is leading to revitalization. The Big Little is certainly my home of the moment, but it never felt quite so much like it.

For the first time, I could approach activities with confidence that something would happen. It's amazing how much support one's friends can offer without even exerting effort in that direction. I knew that we could step outside with baseball gloves and bats and that something would happen. Cameras and resolve to make movies will lead to movies. I rarely feel that way on my own here.

All of this is horribly vague. It always is so when I try to catch up and explain the past. Soon there will be a movie available for all of you for watching purposes.

Grace has chronicled our misadventures more beautifully than I could ever hope to.

Itwaslost team's visit to beautiful Bulgaria will resound throughout this coming year. For now, it's too close to be seen. But it was good.

-Originally posted here at All Forgotten East.

Confirmable Knowing: They Did Not Ride This

The metro train in Sofia.

It's blue, chrome, compact, and retro. Hipper than Carla Bruni rejecting the "Wives' Tour" at the G-8 in L'Aquila. Dressed better than Daniel Radcliffe at a movie premier. It's the Niko Case or Christiano Ronaldo or Judith Butler of the subway world. If I stood on its platform, it would ignore me.

In Re: We Didn't Ride These Things

Hello for a final time from the Balkans. It's getting too hot to move here, & so we're coming home.

In response to Mr Brains' inquiries to our use of bulgarous public transit, we traveled most everywhere by bus or foot. It's funny, yesterday, right when you were posting that question about the Ruse train, we were in Ruse attempting to get on a train to Romania, told "there is problem", & so had to go back overto the bus station. (Easier said than done, because the scam-artist taxi drivers are like a nagging combination of vulture & mosquito.) The bus was just a van with only us in it & a hungover chainsmoking driver who looked like Chigurgh from "No Country for Old Men" & kept chewing us out for strange reasons (putting the seat down, bread crumbs, &c.)

The electric buses in Bucharest, pictured in Brains' other posts, are easy to jump on & there seems to be no way to pay for your tickets (in comparison to Bulgaria, where little old ladies on the bus come & collect money.) We had a beer last night in a caffe over one of the temporarily dug-up streets in old town, where creaky boardwalks transport pedestrians over the nasty pits all thru this part of town, a popular neighborhood for stray dog fornication. It's lovely, actually, because there's no cars, just good-looking Bucureşteans promenading & carousing on the boardwalks; every city should be so fortunate to have it's old town all dug up.

Our last week was spent more-or-less around Varna, an old resort on the Black Sea, & various Eastern sites where Mr Quill's friends live. We met the famous Anton. I guess more impressions from our travels will trickle down, & some of the films will appear here. I recommend spending some time with Grainne's travelogue, "Beautiful to Forget, More Beautiful Still to Be Forgotten." (I like if you put those Scribd books into fullscreen & put on the book-flipping option.)

Did They Ride This?

We have yet to hear back from any of our intrepid travelers whether they rode this. For posterity!

Did you ride this?



It's a view of platform two at Rousse Central station. Perhaps you rode this on your way to Sofia? We must know.

Did They Ride This?

Did you ride this in Rousse?

It's the zero-emissions trolleybus in Русе (Rousse), Bulgaricita's fifth largest city. I once had a coworker who was from this city!

Did They Ride This?

Recently the It Was Lost community convened in Bulgaria. Our charter prevents us from gathering all our sexiness in one place. It would put precious resources at risk and overwhelm the locals we encounter. We left our sexiest contributors at home in a show of due diligence.

Yet everyone plays a vital role! In this series, I, the Secretary of the Department of Nonviolent Nondriving, Soccer, & Roshambo, inquire whether the It Was Lost community rode this. The findings will contribute greatly to our Archive of Confirmable Knowings.

Did you ride this?



It's the very functional looking Metroul Bucureşti, which has four lines and added four brand new stations just last Novemeber 2008.





And did you ride this?



It's the RATB in Bucharest, a huge above-ground system that consists of three rapid transit options. Trams, light rail, and zero-emissions buses for you wonks.

Careful what you say in your responses: S. Sandrigon is wanted in the American state of Oregon for fare dodging!

Rain in Boston

After what felt like forty days wandering in the wilderness - - - actually only a week -- en route from San Francisco to New York to Bucharest to Rousse to Sofia to Vratsa to Lom -- sleeping on a different couch or floor every night -- we finally arrived at Mr Quill's digs at the BIG LITTLE, a village of 1,497 Turks & 3 Bulgarians in Northeast Bulgarity. I felt deeply beat up from the heavy traveling, and the first day was spent leisurely recovering, a little weed-picking in Quill's Boston -- a watermelon field, & also the American city of his origin, a pun which no small affair has been made of in his year here, you may recall it featured prominently in the newspaper TRUD (Labor). To get mint for mint juleps, we visited a baba & chatted for an hour, she was about 4'10" & wearing those awesome dumpy pants. We ended up leaving with more delicious fresh produce than we could carry. Mint juleps, gross bulgar beer, Olaf's genius vegetable creations, turkish nargileh, & game of durock (Quill's Russian card game of choice & college nostalgia) that lasted late into the night, & we are recovered & ready for the week's work - - - making a movie with his schoolgirls. It's storming like burnt toast today, rain, Allah, rain, grow Boston, grow. (Above is an old photo with his clever sign, before the good people of Boston began to prosper. Below is my favorite classiest photo of Mr Quill with his friend Martishka, taken last June, with whom we've been traveling around for the past few days. I'll leave the photography to the giants of the earth, there's many pictures if the Big Little & the Boston at allforgotteneast.blogspot.com)

Report from the Danube

The second half-length river report/eastern European edition.

I've stopped eating, I stick with the velcro mobs,

On a yacht in the beautiful polluted wearing a floral May dress,

I embarrassed myself by ordering ten blowjobs from the waitress,

And she blushed hard as if I had just ordered ten blowjobs.

Some have said our love is growing inward,

Like a festering blister on St David's Day,

She didn't look thirteen, she was immortally pretty,

She was a member of a grumpy butt-chinned cricket horde.

Work it. Drops dript,

Now leaving the small city for exponation only,

My long intestine has never felt this lonely,

A child is boring, the wings of a swallow clipt.

Alexander Phonoff

In Sofia last night, we finally met up with a man we had been referring to as "Alexander Phonoff", because he had said "sure! come stay" but then proved impossible to track down. He found us by the stadium, we bought some beers & went into a park which was formally a zoo, where a bunch of his friends began to congregate with backpacks full of climbing gear. Apparently the plan was to go to these two large trees in the middle of the big park & string a zip line between them. The precision & patience of the setup reminded me of the stealthy rigging for Philippe Petite's Twin Towers tightroping (in "Man on Wire"). The rides on this lasted many hours & many beers, long long after dark, after Olaf & Grainne had wandered back to their hostels, & after I had fallen asleep in the park. I woke up & they were doing progressively crazier things, & suddenly a guy & girl zipping together caming crashing down from the high tree. Everyone was okay, but he went to the hospital to have his purple finger xrayed, & I imagine she'll be a bit bruised today. It took another hour to pack up the rigging & then it was a long ride home.

We took a taxi way out to the old communistic bloc he's lived in for 11 years, since he moved here with his parents & now as an adult with his cousins. It's a crazy world out there, today in the extreme heat it felt more Indian than European. Okay, then, we're going to find Mr Quill in Vratsa today, keep in touch. Wish you were here. Live long & prosper.

Little Bloc by the River

Yes! Welcome to Sofia, city of the imagination. We didn't have as smooth of luck couchsurfing here as in Bucharest, but found a charming small hostel right away. Our hosts in Bucharest were strikingly good-looking, long-haired Moldovans with boundless hospitality. They had a painting on their door pictating the following rules: No ice cream; no boots; no heroin; no big boobs; doobie okay. We asked, why no big boobs, & Alex said he no longer appreciated them. We asked, what if someone with big boobs showed up with a doobie, & he thought for a long time & said "she could hang out." Bucharest is a city with humongous gray buildings imposing along every grand boulevard, culminating in this bafflingly huge palace, the second-largest building in the world (after the Pentagon) which all Bucharest residents begrudgingly ignore (it was built by their old wacky dictator.) Grainne Proinseas spent all day getting some footage for some mini-documentaries, which we're narrating in an exaggerated Werner Herzog impersonation. I wish I could divulge more about this project, but I am bound like a furious chasm.

Mr Quill & a friend met us in Ruse on the border, where we were met with rakia, traditional bulgarian feast, pub-crawling, & a drink on a yacht in the dirty Danube. It was the night before the election, & the sure-to-win center-right Gerb (flag) Party was sponsoring some national dance in the town square, this dancing was so tight. It ended with fireworks on July 4th, which worked out fine for us. We have several more places to hit around Bulgaria before we go with Mr Quill up to the Big Little, & we plan to work on some of the Herzog narration around Sofia today & elsewhere this week. He's been discussing the mannequins, which are terrifying & ubiquitous in this town. Pictures to come. Mr Olaf Mary & I have been learning new songs on our two ukuleles, so we will hit the streets today & hope to make enough leva for domen & the nasty beer in this land.