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March

March 1st, 2004
    This day I discovered another strange warren of shops inside a city block. It was sort of like the warren for ironmongery that I found near the Tawfikiya souq, except it was for vegetables, meat, fish and household goods. The only entrances to it were through a few narrow passageways clogged with mouldering produce and fish scales. It is across from the cafeteria Horribile, by Midan Falaki.

March 2nd, 2004
    Other occasional Cairo noises include the crowing of roosters at dawn, and the caterwauling of cats at night. Sometimes also a sudden windstorm will arise, causing shutters to fly open and bang against walls. At these times, the corrugated plastic roofing of the rooftop hovels will flap and clatter tremendously. All the plastic garbage accumulating on the rooftops soars into the sky, and floats majestically down into the streets below. Have I mentioned that all the buildings here have at least one level of rooftop shacks? Some have up to three. These upper levels are often constructed of brick and corrugated plastic of iron sheets. I think these must be among the nicest places to live in the city. Often plants are grown in old samna containers. Looking out my window, I can see a vast aerial neighborhood of rooftop habitations. The female inhabitants seldom descend, instead using a basket attached to a long rope to ferry up groceries and other necessities, either over the edge, or through one of the scary central shafts.
    As a final installment on the subject of sounds, I must mention the ubiquitous human conversation. The fact is, that the only part of the Arabic language that I understand perfectly is the numbers. Whether or not this fact has something to do with it or not, I do not know, but it certainly seems like almost every conversation is about amount of money. I sometimes get the impression that the chatter going on around me consists only of words for numbers with a few connecting phrases thrown in.

March Fourth!
    The other day I had a few hours off work, so I took a walk across the wonderful Imbaba bridge around the time of sunset. Living in central cairo, its difficult to remember just how huge the Nile really is, because several islands divide its course here. Between the islands, by Garden city, or North of Zamelik, by Imbaba, the Nile is so wide it seems almost a gulf of the sea. As I walk back and fourth to work along its Eastern bank, I’ve had a chance to observe it quite closely. A steady breeze blows generally from the North, making small ripples that give the river the appearance of flowing in that direction. Standing on one of the many bridges, and peering into the river’s depths, it soon becomes obvious that any small objects in the water are borne rapidly away into the North. The Nile has an appearance of vigor and swift energy that is lacking in the slow, langorous rivers of Eastern North America, like the vast and ponderous Mississippi, with its innumerable meanderings, oxbows, islands and tributaries. The Nile has no tributaries, but rushes through Egypt with impetuous and solitary force. Giving the impression that it is continually born in some mighty aquatic eruption in the unimaginable distance. This feeling of energy must have been even stronger before the river was clogged with dams in Upper Egypt. I like to imagine the old days, when the Nile could extend a yearly flood across its whole valley and leave behind a heavy, black, voluptuous layer of Nilotic mud across the country, moist and ready for planting. Perhaps tomorrow an earthquake will destroy the Aswan dam, and an invincible tide will sweep through Egypt, carrying off all the shoddy hovels and plastic trash, and half burying the remains in mud that had been uselessly accumulating for fifty years below the Nubian lake. Midan Tahrir would become a palm forest, Mohandiseen a trellis for vines. The mounded produce in the markets would rot and sprout, growing into a paradise of pomegranates, kumquats and mandarins.
    Nevertheless, the Nile is still rich with mud. Along its less urban shores, and even in parts of downtown, small gardens line its banks. Looking down into its waters, weird blooms of mud can be seen rushing to the North like clouds. Often huge rafts of tangled vegetation and garbage detach from the banks and float downstream. One evening I was walking to work when I noticed that about fifteen boys had climbed over the rail, and were standing on the paved slope, or the cluttered shore. They were all staring fixedly, silently, and immobily, at the bloated grey carcass of a donkey that had lodged by the riverbank. Not one boy moved, or whispered to his companion, or even tossed a stone. The dead animal exuded a hypnotic fascination, like a football match. The sun set, and still these silent watchers remained. What is it about rivers that induces this almost morbid state of detached contemplation? In this vast city of a million glittering attractions, the youth chose to stare at swollen death as it lay by the side of a river. In my walkings, I have noticed other fellow river watchers too. The Imbaba bridge is a huge iron construction with two levels. Below, trains, carts, bicycles, and the occasional car pass. Above are two wide pedestrian walkways nearly a kilometer long, which are often almost deserted, and stretch away into a distant vanishing point. Last time I visited this bridge, I noticed an old man who would peer over the side for a time, clearly lost in deep thoughts, then shuffle a few meters forwards and peer over again. I passed him, and after a decent distance, engaged in the same flagrantly idle recreation. The river is especially wide and beautiful here. After some time, a train passed on the tracks below. I hurried over to watch it. I saw the crammed compartments, the swaggering mustachioed conductors, the clattering panes. When it had passed, I felt a distinct pang of shame and embarrassment at having hurried to watch such a mundane event with puerile enthusiasm. I looked up the bridge to my fellow river watcher, hoping he had not noticed what I had done. A strange feeling of pleasant humility came over me as I saw that he too, though an old man, actually ran across the walkway to watch the passing of the train. Cheers for the flagrantly idle! Hooray for the easily amused!
    I’ve noticed that there is an unusually large number of people with eye problems here in Cairo. Being walleyed or one-eyed is certainly de rigueur among the older set. The Koran contains a number of references to one-eyed men, and I can remember seeing in my Arabic dictionary a special word for such a man, and a special verb meaning to fake blindness. Perhaps this has to do with the popular childhood pastime of throwing stones at each other. Lately I’ve been thinking that all the eye problems must result from all the dust and grit constantly blowing around here.
    I’ve also been reading some amazing newspaper stories about Upper Egypt. It sounds a lot like the old Wild West, except with AK 47s and bhanga instead of Winchesters and whiskey. Villages are divided by vicious feuds lasting generations. Large areas are under the control of hereditary bandit kingdoms that keep the police in pay. I read about this one clan leader who controlled an island in the Nile containing 70,000 inhabitants. He regularly took hundreds of villagers hostage whenever the police threatened him, and lived in a fortified compound defended by amboobits butagazz strapped to palm trees. The government authorities in Cairo were only motivated to depose him when a bullet from one of his henchmen involved in a clan battle struck a Cairo-Luxor train. This potential risk to the crucial tourism industry provoked a government raid ending his families 50 year island reign.

March 5th, 2004
    Lately I’ve been pursuing my degree in warrenology. This involves heading out in a certain direction, looking for unfamiliar territory. Once you reach the edge of downtown, you must resolve to take the most obscure and narrow alleys, following them far into the places where police never go, where foreigners are never seen. Continue until well lost, and starting to get slightly worried. Then try to find the way back. Yesterday on a warrenological expedition, I reached a very remote section, which on the map was labeled Abdeen South of the Palace. The alleys became unpaved and sunken ruts. The shops became smaller and smaller, until they became mere closets and cupboards filled with dark and looming forms of unidentifiable detritus. Even the mopeds disappeared. Suddenly, I came out into a wide open space walled in by leaning buildings. In the center was a huge pile of rubble and plastic garbage several stories tall. A few ragged children were climbing around on it, trying to fly an old plastic bag as a kite. I began to feel slightly weird, but I continued down another dark alley between the tall leaning buildings, and in a few hundred yards came out onto Port Said street, somewhat familiar ground. From there it was easy to make my way home.
    Today, a cold foggy day, I set out towards Bulaq. It seemed that at least part of this neighborhood was set out with some kind of urban planning, for the streets, though narrow, made a grid of tiny blocks. I passed thousands of auto part stores. After an hour of wandering, I became almost totally lost, and could only find my way back by taking sightings of the isolated skyscrapers downtown. At one point I came across a wide sidewalk area of grease-coated boys hammering at random machine parts. Donkey carts were unloading scrap. So, this is where the yikeeyat items are destined! I saw loads of interesting metal things, including detached bulldozer treads and a gigantic camshaft. At last I emerged from Bulaq near where I had entered, carrying a few interesting groundscores-an abraded fragment of a pink Spiderman ruler, and a steel spiral. Along Sharia Ramsis, I observed the panicked disappearance of a large crowd of sidewalk vendors. A boy ran ahead crying “Askari, Askari!” (Police!) while the vendors, whose displays were designed for instantaneous disappearance, whisked them away. A cop followed. I saw one vendor of Koranic cassettes vanish in well under one second. In a single sweeping movement, he gathered the four corners of the cloth on which his wares were displayed, leapt up from the ground, grabbed onto the tail end of a passing bus, and vanished.

March 6th, 2004
    Today I took a long walk down to Port Said Street, past the Ibn Tulun Mosque, and to the huge mosque of Sultan Hassan. I’d seen it before, but never gone in. From the outside it looked somewhat like a European cathedral. It was built in the 1360’s. The exterior Southern wall has several craters resulting from Napoleon firing cannonballs at it during a revolt. The cannonballs did surprisingly little damageI noticed that at the exact point of impact, the rock had been compressed into a concave spheriodal declivity, while the surrounding rock had been blasted away. This Sultan Hassan mosque is only a few meters away from another equally enormous mosque constructed in the 19th century, but in a retro-Mamluk style. Standing in the alley between these two structures, was weirdly calming. The noise of traffic was muffled, and only a strip of sky above, and a tiny slot of urban Cairo ahead were visible. I took off my shoes and entered. At first, the passage lead through a series of dark, twisting corridors. I was almost disappointed when suddenly the low corridor opened out into an enormous cubical space, open to the sky above. Four tremendous arches vaulted up on each side, forming vaulted sections perhaps 111 feet high. Ornate lamps depended on long chains, and swung slowly on a faint breeze. The huge blank walls were ornamented with isolated geometric designs. I was really stunned by this place, and sat down and absorbed it for a long time. It was quite different from any architectural space I had ever seen or dreamed. I felt like this whole awesome structure was constructed as a vertical frame for a square of sky. I stared for a while at the bright clouds coiling overhead. A few men sat in one of the far recesses. The bright sky, the huge cuboidal space, and the lamps swaying from their long chains, made me feel purified and abstracted in a new way. Eventually, I walked towards the Southern recess or Iwan, and passed through a small doorway into another stupendous space, this one enclosed by an immense dome, painted in faded medieval red and gold. In the center lay the small sarcophagus of the Sultan himself. A few birds wheeled around in the high aerial space, and exited through windows. At the far side was the mihrab, or niche facing Mecca. On a white stone the name of Allah was written, and from it fractal lightning bolts, patterned like the backs of electrical snakes emanated. As I left, I felt that this was a holy space like no other I had visited.
    Next I walked Southwards into the Southern cemetery. This place was quite spooky in its own way- a real city of the dead. Very long dusty streets with no curves or intersections. All along each side of the road were corroding concrete walls. Behind these were dusty courtyards containing the sarcophagi, and perhaps the blasted twig of a dead tree. There were no people living here, but crammed busses and microbuses would often roar by in a black toxic cloud. Very much a dead place. Suddenly around a corner I saw a totally blackened, dreadlocked figure, a homeless man, or funeral ground ascetic. I was glad to get back into the inhabited part of the city, although the long walk home was really draining.

March 7th, 2004
    MUBARAK CALLS FOR INCREASED PANT HIKAGE
Cairo- The President Hosni Mubarak yesterday issued a defiant call for the nation to increase its already high level of pant hikage. “The Egyptian people are prepared to lead the Arab world in maintaining and increasing rate and altitude of pant hikage” The President said in a fiery speech yesterday. The controversy was sparked off by Washington’s new Ambassador to Cairo James Jackson, who was quoted as saying “I got off the plane here and what do I see, but this country got these mothers they got their pants hiked all the way to here, man! I’m all, we been giving these mothers over 1 Billion in aid a year, and they wearing they pants like this? Man, shit!” Jackson is believed to have been sent to Cairo as part of Washington’s Greater Middle East Belt Level Initiative. Regional leaders had earlier echoed Mubarak’s call for a gradual lowering of hikage, to come in compliance with WTO regulations, but Jackson’s latest remarks are thought to have touched on a sensitive point. “What we must avoid at all costs is the social instability caused by a free floating or undefined level of pant hikage” Mubarak said. “Outside meddling in our traditional ways of hikage will only destabilize the region. I call on all Egyptian men to firmly hike their pants well above the navel level,” said The President, looping his thumbs into his belt, and giving a series of stiff, spasmodic tugs. “Pants must be hiked to high but reasonable levels” said Mubarak in what is believed to have been a veiled reference to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood’s calls for pants to be hiked above the head and fastened with a drawstring running inside. Several Brotherhood members were arrested in this costume yesterday, and numerous others were struck by vehicles.

March 13th, 2004
    Today is my six-month anniversary in Egypt. Reading through this journal, I realize that it took me several months before I could really begin to reflect on the national characteristics of Egypt. The first few months were spent in observing things, and figuring out how to live here. Lately I’ve been realizing what a very weird country the USA is. Everything there is so sterile and inhuman, but the people are honest and friendly. I think the experience of shopping in Egypt and the USA must be about as different as you can get. My entire being heaves in involuntary revolt at the recollection of the American super-market. You enter and are blinded by the billions of fluorescent tubes covering the ceiling. These serve to glorify and render yet more irresistible the carefully engineered, high cost packaging, which has been designed by the nation’s top graphic designers, and tested in innumerable focus groups. Over 500,000 varieties of toothpaste are on display, carefully stacked in an exact hierarchy, dictated by the manufacturers marketing budget, and arranged by the slavish supermarket technicians. At every turn, these employees assault the customer with ghastly fake smiles. Failure to maintain this rictus grin is grounds for termination. Appalling pseudo-music echoes off of the glistening products and tiled floors, into which advertisements have been embedded. Occasional announcements attempt to whip up the customers to greater frenzies of unbridled consumption. All to often, the shoppers prove unable to resist, and begin spasmodically devouring products, packaging and all, until their vast carcasses detonate, and are swiftly swept away. In the produce section, symmetrical mounds of polished fruits stand varnished into rigid molecular arrays. Few bother to purchase these glittering talismans of the insecticidal arts, preferring to bloat their distended gullets with processed meat pastes.
    No such mechanized horrors confront the Egyptian shopper. Imagine a narrow street, lined with tall rickety buildings. Rusting iron balconies, and friezes crumbling under layers of black grime. Along one side are 30-50 stalls, each heaped with many varieties of fruits and vegetables. The street is crammed with people. Cats and turkeys wander searching for food, or surveying the scene with regal detachment. Bicycles and mopeds wriggle through the crush. Suddenly, the Koran is heard through loudspeakers. Every foot of space is occupied. A woman passes with a smoking incense censor. The produce available ranges from week-old lettuce to the most succulent kumquats and fresh strawberries. Some people kneel in prayer, Others smoke from burbling waterpipes, or roll dice. You approach a stall. Perhaps you are wholly ignored. Who is the vendor? Who is the customer? A large man in a galabiyya surveys you from behind a tobacco haze. How much can I charge this foreigner? The whole process, although not masked by the mercenary smile of customer service, is essentially human. The dissimulation always inherent in trade here lies in determining the value of the goods, not in adapting a fake veneer of friendliness. The transaction is between two independent people, not between a falsely exalted customer and a corporate wage slave.

March 15th, 2004
    As you can tell, I’ve found a source of old magazines recently. This is a weird parking lot like area lined with little cabins crammed with old books and magazines. Its found near the Ezbeyeya gardens, which no one is allowed to enter. There are maybe 100 of these cabins, and each has a slightly different mix of reading material. A lot of marijuana smokage seems to go on there. I’ve found some cool old magazines from the 50’s and 60’s there. Looking through these, I realize how much more conservative Egypt has gotten since then. Only the Lebanese magazines are still slightly racy. I like to cut up magazines and paste the pictures together. Yesterday I made several collages, which have greatly improved my apartment.
    Have I mentioned the Egyptian fondness for pens? It’s related to the love of writing and paperwork of all sorts. Pen vendors clog the streets with elaborate pen arrays. Stopping by such a vendor outside the book market, I observed a humorous event. A pen customer apparently suffered a red pen explosion. His hands were smeared with ink. There was something at once funny and sad about the sullen recriminations he directed towards the pen vendor, who seemed to take the attitude that those who fondle pens ought to be prepared for accidents. I did not stay to observe the termination of this microdrama, but moved along and tried to enter the Ezbekeya Gardens. Although the gate was open, a man lounged nearby, driving off attempted entrants. This garden is the only green space for miles, and I think the government is afraid of what people might do if they were allowed in. A similar case holds for the West bank corniche. An extensive and expensive renovation rendered the area so popular that the government closed it down.

March 18th, 2004
    Several lexical anomalies- a large and beautifully hand-painted plywood sign in the shape of a heart reading: HAPPY MATHER’S DAY. What would Crowley have thought? A shambling obese grandmother wearing a knitted sweater with the word PUSSY in giant letters across her chest. A carefully restored car with the manufacturer’s name glued on upside down. OVLOV

March 20th, 2004
    The entrance to the mall where I work features a revolving door, a mode of ingress and egress particularly unsuited to Egyptian social conditions. First, there is the problem of gender separation in the door’s compartments. Then there is the fact that the entire apparatus must be moved by those trapped inside it. Often when the momentum imparted by the earlier occupants has been exhausted, those currently inside are dismayed to find that they are expected to exert their own energy in order to continue their progression into the mall. They groan and sigh, uttering complaints and oaths before resigning themselves to adding their contribution to the door’s rotational needs. The security checkpoint posted immediately after the revolving door causes frequent delays and clogging, trapping helpless customers inside. Then there is the issue of the maximum occupancy of the compartments. The Egyptian concept of personal space being based on ideals of very friendly compression, large numbers of persons attempt to cram into each quadrant. There seems to be a certain disconnect between my own Western conception of appropriate revolving door operation, and that of the locals. Often I enter a quadrant, and several others will crowd in behind me. I then begin to push the door with a firm, brisk, American style vigor, heedless of the fact that yet more aspirant mall customers are attempting to cram in behind me. These unfortunates are maimed and guillotined in vast numbers, as I urge the door on its now gruesome course.
    This day I took the tram out to Heliopolis to explore the ruins of Baron Empain’s ruined palace. The Baron for some reason saw fit to build his family residence in the style of Angkor Wat. The man himself is pictured in this diary four pages back. Wandering around Heliopolis for a while made me quite glad that I did not end up living there. The traffic and pollution are worse than in Cairo, while it lacks the mad urban energy that makes Cairo exciting. After wandering through the treeless streets for a while I found the palace set a ways back from the main road, on a hill in its own large but utterly barren grounds. From the street I could see the Bawehb sitting on the steps. I walked up a side street, climbed through a hole in the rusted barbed wire, and walked through the acres of devastated grounds. The blasted stumps of dead palm trees stood amongst crumbling concrete pavilions. Surrounding this large rectangular island of desolation was a sea of grey apartment buildings, bristling with satellite dishes and drying laundry. I walked up some steps, paid the groundskeeper five pounds, and proceeded to inspect the place. The entire exterior was covered with phantstical ornamentation: trumpeting elephants, grotesque beasts, endless coils of flaring serpents, meditating Buddhas, and impossibly buxom divine maidens strumming exotic instruments. I peered through a few barred windows, and inspected the ruinous interior. Elaborately carved picture frames and mouldering furniture mingled with indiscriminate piles of fallen plasterwork. There was something very sad about this place. I caressed the smashed stump of a decapitated concrete cobra. Who were the people who lived here, and what had happened to them? I sheltered in the shade of a crumbling pavilion and stared up at the ranks of cavorting figures. The bawehb was following me around, staring at me like a cat. He spoke in Arabic and tapped his watch. O how I hate people! I walked back down the steps, and giving a final pat to the padded flank of a marble nude, bade this scene of desolation goodbye.
    The tram ride from Ramsis to Heliopolis was almost as interesting as the ruined palace. Ramsis square, which I last described in its flooded condition, had undergone some changes. Apparently in some sort of effort to curtail the chaos, large steel fences had been set up along the sidewalks, preventing pedestrians from crossing the street. The squalid vendors were gone. The tram compartment was totally crammed, and I was trapped between typically steatopygean Egyptian male buttocks and distended bellies.  Through the window, hooded banat were visible in the other compartment. The garrulous ticket collector wormed his way through the crush, clutching a grubby wad of cash. The fare? 25 piastres. The doors would not close, and boys rode hanging outside. Vendors of pens and toothbrushes boarded and hawked their sorry wares. I thought of the Portland MAX train. All in all, this was a wonderfully third-world trip.

March 22nd, 2004
    This day Israel assassinated Hamas leader Ahmad Yassin. The Israelis used a missle to blow up the 67 year old paraplegic as he exited a mosque after his morning prayer. I can’t think of anything the Israelis could have done more certain to ensure massive violence against their own citizens. Even the assassination of Arafat would have been greeted with some degree of relief. Its so clear how both sides feed off of the violence and hatred they produce. Taking a wider view, I think that this conflict is a contemporary manifestation of the same evil power that led to Nazism. In a weird way, Hitler created the Jewish state, because Israel would most likely have remained an obscure dream had not WW2 occurred. A frequent antizionist graffiti is a swastika inside a star of David- a very weird and shocking symbol that pops up a fair deal.
    I’m also starting to realize that the late 1940’s were one of most crucial periods in the previous century. Those years ’46, ’47, ’48, ’49 had always seemed like a weird dead time to me, when the world lay exhausted from war. Lately I’ve realized that those years saw the secret origins of most subsequent trends. The First Arab-Israeli war, the communist revolution in China, decolonialization of India and much of Asia, American occupation and formation of Japan. Also, UFOs started to appear at that time (1947). Socially, the discontent experienced by returning vets in the US sowed the seeds of the revolutionary period of the 1960’s. Those early biker gangs were a sort of dim precursor to the whole countercultural movement.

March 25th, 2004
    This day an elegant crescent moon and Venus were in an elegant proximity near the Western horizon.

March 26th, 2004
    This day I discovered and extirpated an appalling gelatinous fungal mass near my sink. While engaged in this task, I reflected on the different ideals of cleanliness promoted by Egyptians and Americans. Overall, there’s no doubt that Egyptians are more concerned with cleanliness. These are not the sort of people who go about in dirty clothes if they can possibly help it. Definitely the sort of folks who get their shoes shined regularly. Lots of Egyptians have an intensely clean personal odor, and some Egyptian men use perfume (or “cologne”). One of the most common odors here comes from weird barbershop fluids. This is a smell I remember from the dismal barbershop days of my youth, and hadn’t smelled in years. Shopkeepers are also very meticulous about dusting their wares and polishing their floors. A morning walk through Cairo streets entails navigating floods of black sudsy waters. There are also armies of street sweepers, kept busy by the fact that throwing away any sort of trash in the gutters is considered OK. Nevertheless, enormous mounds of plastic trash accumulate everywhere outside of downtown. On the home front, any object not regularly cleaned soon acquires a thick layer of black sticky soot. If I sponge off the countertops or furniture, the water that comes off is solid black with this noxious condensed grime. I think that it comes from the leaded or diesel exhaust that composes the atmosphere. Basically, anything you touch gets your hand black with grime. I’ve also noticed a weird custom of spitting on your hand before offering it to shake. This seems to be practiced by boys covered in motor oil who hang around by Champollion street by my apartment.

March 30th, 2004
    I usually walk to work in the evenings along the corniche, or the wide sidewalk along the Nile. I can observe the stars and planets, watch the moon, and observe the changing states of the Nile. Vendors of tea, and of fool, the favorite diarrheal  slurry of beans, are posted every few hundred meters. Romancing couples are stationed with the same regularity as the concrete pillars supporting the railing. Lately, I’ve been taking a microbus home. The “meecrobus” is a small sliding door van, adorned with various lights, and fitting approximately 439 passengers. A boy hangs out the door, yelling the destination “TaHreeer, TaHreeer!” or “Gizagizagiza Haram!” The meecrobus often crashes, and the passengers simply pile out and jump on the next one. The fare is Roba Guinnea, or 25 piastres, about 4 US cents. My ride home today was enlivened by a detailed discussion of the merits and condition of the Roba Guinnea affixed below. I used it to pay my fare, and the passenger sitting next to me received it in his change. Accusations began to fly. Apparently the bill’s semi-composted condition was unacceptable. Admittedly, it was worn down to a nearly transparent state, and in the course of its fiduciary duties had acquired a certain patina or chiaroscuro, but overall I considered that it was in a condition to carry out its appointed role. My fellow passenger could not have more profoundly disagreed. He filed numerous and repeated protests with the TaHreer! boy, but was rebuffed. He appealed to me, but I feigned ignorance and innocence. As his tumults continued, I reflected that the sum in question was so close to zero as to be absurd. At last I relented, and traded him for a somewhat less degraded Roba, although in truth I have seen far more degraded bills in circulation. Sometimes one encounters one pound notes which are almost black with grime, and which have attained a not unpleasing degree of suppleness or thinness. The larger notes, such as Tens or Twenties, are often held together with layers of Scotch tape, or even electrical tape. These can be quite difficult to unload, but I’ve found that most vendors will tke them in the end, rather than lose the sale entirely.

April Journal


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