Website © 2003 by Tyler Carey
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Ken Ueno's European Travelogue '03


7 - Amsterdam

I walk along the Damrak and turn towards Warmoesstr and think of a White Widow but pickup a Gauloises and a newspaper with her face on it. An AK-47 round, then I repeat to myself that German is not a real language. I am sitting on the John at the Five-Spot. Different writings mine, not mine, all begin to blend together. Writings from the recent past, writings from the further past. Writings and readings are one. Lattimore, Hesiod. Everything that is read and digested gets flushed together, the old and the new. Everything is referential, a space opens where self-refertiality consumes external stimuli, what is remembered becomes part of the self. Rokin, St. Jansstr, Voorburgwal, Oudezijds Achterburgwal, Lange Niezel streets with names too hard to pronounce. The stream of possibilities all meld into one – the past, the present, the future, all collapse into a narrow alley lined with living portraits framed in Rave Purple Neon Glow. Systolic, asystolic. Ein und aus. Ein und ausgang. Neon glow animates the traffic of American frat boys, British Hooligans, and middle-aged locals all who come to flush images of their selves into exotic forms of local plumbing. Collected from all over the world, like Noah’s Ark, an infinite variety, but all conforming to the general concept of “womanliness.” What is it? What is so pent-up that must be released, by young men hoping to gain their manhood, by old men hoping to maintain it? Schnellrestaurant. Grams. Years from now, when lying with their wives, what memories might they have of their youthful rites along the Oudezijds Achterburgwal? An impermeable resonance of plastic tits and fake names. How do you like your blue-eyed boy now? I am no longer putting dates next to the episode titles. Who was it that was alive and well in NYC? There was a kid in high school, back in L.A., his mom wrote that book. He got to write an episode of Love American Style, when producers were trying to revamp it in the late eighties. Ivesian counterpoint: screaming not at, nor in response to, each other, merely that their screaming exists at the same time. Is Hotel Atlanta some sort of play on “Hot Atlanta?” If this is the case, I need to give the proprietors more credit for their verbal mastery. German is not a real language. I smell like you want me to. Even now. Every morning amidst the other daily rituals, I take a dab of your gift - two generations now of that bottle since - and She has no idea. I dropped it once, but it only chipped a portion of one of the lower edges. Love in the age of virus, heading like:

Date: 20 Feb 2001 17:55:32 -0000
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Such a heading and encryption might keep two lovers safe in virtual space.

Short sentences strung together into longer streams now beginning to fragment.

On a tram in Amsterdam, I overheard three American girls:

"...it rains on the day we decide to blow-dry our hair...

"...maybe because you have longer eyelashes. I like your sparkly brown stuff."

"...well, you guys blow-dried your hair so I felt like I should do mine."

Years from now, they catch a glimpse of their husbands with a strangely distant look. Thinking nothing of it, they look up and contemplate the patterns on the ceiling, while the man continues seeking his equilibrium.

Each one of us has, within us, an impermeable resonance.

A year ago in Brussels:

The black cat is in heat. Purrs and rubs up against my leg. Follows me into all quarters of the house. Desperately embraces furniture as if making violent sex. It stretches as if in convulsions like a junkie. That the promise for new life can be as painful as dying. Penelope. She is biting my leather shoelaces. Thrusting her hips against the heel. My toe on the floor, my heel up. She is curled up, embryonically under my foot. Sometimes violent. Sometimes tenderly. She is trying to distract me while I type on my laptop. If her mythological namesake were as tormented by nature, Ulysses would have wasted ten years trying to come home. She rubs up against anything in the house that has a vertical surface.

Years ago, as an adolescent, visiting my grandfather in Japan, I used to spend all day watching television with him. We were left alone in the house while aunts and uncles were at work and cousins at school. Our only other accomplice in our excercises of observing time was my grandfather's cat, Pepe. She was white with a few large calligraphic brushes, most notably on right side of her face, covering her eye and traversing the lip of her ear as it reached towards her back. She had green eyes almost human, and possessive. She sneezed from time to time and had a crust of yellow schmutz that would always form where her left eye met her nose. I would pass time playing with her. Petting her. Talking to her. She would follow me from room to room in the absence of others. One day as I was sitting in the Kotatsu, she purred a low groan as she approached me. She looked into my eyes with those possessive eyes and seemed to wink. I kept my focus on the television game show as she slid into the Kotatsu. She kept trying to get my attention by teasing my leg. In a fit of rage over her mocking my virgin heart, I kicked her out of the Kotatsu. For years, she never came near me again. We never made amends as other changes in the dynamic of familiarity within the household would eventually keep us from visiting the ancestral home in future years.

In the w.c., I could hear Penelope scratching on the door. When I came out, she followed me to the sofa. I petted her head and he writhed in exquisite pain. During a moment of trance-like twisting, her claws out, she scratched my right forearm. My impulses pushed her to the floor. For an hour she kept a distance from me. Remembering Pepe, I forcibly got hold of her and stroked her head to prove my benign intentions.

In a section of old Basel, there is a plaza. On one side there is the Tanguely sculpture fountain. Ten objects moving the water in counterpoint. Sisyphus. One clawing the water as if digging. On the other side of the plaza, there is a Richard Serra. Shaped like a double Visica Piscis or a vagina. There are stairs leading to the perineum. What is at once horrific and wonderful about this work is the graffiti and urine stains on it. Here, the hooligans who frequent the plaza to smoke-up, partake of the liberal mandates of the state in public. No respect for America's greatest living sculptor. But on the other hand, isn't it wonderful that there is an art that can interact with the most plebian sectors of humanity? All foreign attempts at marking identity onto its walls are futile. It is too massive a statement.

When I got back Cambridge and checked the mail, there was a package addressed to a fake name, George Stevens. A brochure and cassette tape to get me on my way to recovery from Anxiety, Stress, and Depression. Late night cable info-mercial fare.

I am no longer putting dates next to the episode titles. Tomorrow is laundry day.

Previous Journal Entries:

6 - Freiburg-Amsterdam
5 - Freiburg
4 - Basel-Freiburg
3 - Basel
2 - Paris-Basel – June 30, 2003
1 - In Paris - May 30 to June 30, 2003