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October 2003

October 1st, 2003
    This day I visited the library here and read up on Ptolemy and the history of Alexandria. I also idiotically moved into an appalling hotel with no water and huge cockroaches. Furthermore, I also came down with a case of horrific diarrhea. All and all, one of the shittiest days ever.

October 2nd. 2003
    Levels of shittiness decreased marginally on this day. I dropped off an application at the Amideast center here in Alex. Apparently now they tell me that the director isn’t getting back until Sunday, or until the 7th, by other reports. I don’t know what to do. I mostly slept today, venturing out only to get food and water. On the positive side, this hotel does have a beautiful view out over the whole harbor, and huge double French doors opening out onto a large balcony. These windows are printed with a strange abstract pattern, a most fertile source for free association. I spent hours staring at them today. There is also a high ceiling with elaborate moldings. It’s on the 5th floor and the morbidly obese proprietor is one of those blue-eyed Egyptians. I get the sense that he has not descended the dark spiral staircase outside for a long time. There are kittens in the entryway, and strange female activities occurring in rooms to the side.

October 3rd, 2003
    This day I awoke from a strange dream about paranormal activities occurring in Ed and Flora Harvey’s house. I then walked up to Anfushi, the old part of Alexandria, and bought a strange crystallized log of fillimentiferous breakfast pastry. This I ate while sitting on the Corniche reading a green Saudi English newspaper. I then walked to the library, which was of course closed, this being Friday. I then had a long nap. Awakening, I dined at The Elite restaurant, then watched some soccer in an awha, before returning to my palatial suites here at the New Happy Welcome House, or whatever the fuck it is called. This day was pretty much dedicated to deciding whether or not to stay here in Alex until the director person gets back. I’m inclined to do so, because the Amideast center seems to be a good place to work. If I don’t get the job, I can always return to Cairo just the same. My only reservation is that the center seems to be very much associated with the US government and corporate interests. Its part of the US consulate here, although claiming to be a private non-profit organization. It’s also surrounded by numerous pigs of various heavily armored varieties.

October 4th, 2003
    Very ill this day.

October 5th, 2003
    Yesterday, I was very ill. Reading a newspaper article about the healing power of the Koran, I recited the specified suras and prayed. I continued ill during the night, but arose feeling much better, Hamdulillah. I then went to the library again, where I read an interesting book on eccentrics. There were many stories of weird hoarding recluses smothered under piles of their own accumulated crap. Another theme seemed to be the rich miser who lives in total poverty. I also read about a man who escaped from communist Czechoslovakia in the early 50’s with his whole family by building a tank and smashing through the barrier into Germany. The guy had been a resistence fighter during the war, and then fought in the army. His homemade tank was impervious to landmines, and was disguised as a truck. This is one of the most inspirational stories I’ve ever read. I also attempted to research pre-Islamic religions of Arabia, but found no information on that subject, which interest me greatly. I got the feeling that this is not a subject widely studied or even discussed by muslims. All the details I’ve picked up are fascinating though- that Allah had two daughters, resided in a meteorite, etc… The library did have a vast collection of books in Arabic about interpretations of Sharia and Islamic law. After spending hours in the library, I came back to my hotel, the Hyde Park, or Heyd Park, as is its variant spelling. I then took the trolley up to Anfushi. I was standing up in the trolley, and as soon as a seat opened up, people started tugging on my arm and gesturing for me to sit down. This reminds me of how people here always want me to take the elevator, not the stairs. Anyways, I went to a fish restaurant and ate two fried sole fish. The cook just tossed the whole fish in the fryer, head bones and all. It came out not bad. Overall, though, I must say that Egyptian food is horrifically disgusting. Tomorrow is 6th October, armed forces day.

October 6th, 2003
    This day I mostly lounged around and read newspapers on my cool enclosed balcony overlooking a mosque and the sea. I read about how a Palestinian girl killed 19 Israelis by blowing herself up in revenge for her brother’s death. The Israelis then launched missiles at Syria, echoing US rhetoric about terrorist training camps I also drew an archaic goddess figure in the greasy soot on the windows. Anything outside here turns black with a coating of condensed auto exhaust. I had a little pizza for lunch, and a horrific koshari for dinner. It’s a hard call to determine which of Egypt’s two national dishes is more appallingly abhorrent. There’s fool, a diahrhea like paste of slimy overcooked smushed beans. Then there’s koshari, a mix of watery types of pasta, topped by what appears to be the accumulated scrapings of burned pans.
    They launched fireworks tonight to celebrate October 6th, 1973. Tomorrow I will try to get an interview with the director of the Amideast center. I also remembered my ambition to edit a collection of the writings of schizophrenics, and make a graph of language types.

October 7th, 2003
    This day I arose and dined on the remainder of a packet of wafers, the dressed up, shaved and exited my hotel to call the Amideast people. The woman there said she would show her boss my resume today. I’ve decided to give up on this job. I’ve waited here seven days for the director, and they keep giving me the run-around. Tomorrow I’ll return to Cairo. After this telephone cal I acquired a packet of orange flavored biscuits and a copy of the Egyptian Gazette. I also discovered that my LE15 phonecard had gotten demagnetized and was worthless. I read the paper and glued some things into my book today, such as this picture of a man eating worms. Maybe someday I’ll be able to tell what its about. About an hour before sunset I set out and walked up to fort Quaitby to watch the sunset. For some reason everyone seemed to be staring at me really intensely, and that put me in a bad mood. Its amazing how sometimes when I walk around I seem to sustain psychic damage from everyone I pass, and other times I am completely immune to this. It depends entirely on my own mood at the time. Perhaps next time I’m in a bad mood and everyone’s staring at me I can try some experiments to reverse the situation. At any rate, this time something else put me in a good mood. I was sitting on a concrete embankment, watching men catch little fish, when two flirtaticious schoolgirls came up and started trying to talk to me. We couldn’t communicate very well, but they managed to communicate the idea that I should shave off or trim my luxuriant mustache. All I could really say in Arabic was my name, where I’m from, and that I didn’t understand-“Ana mish fahem,”  but it was fun trying to talk with them anyway. Once the sun set, I set off for Anfushi, looking for this one fish restaurant, but I couldn’t find it. I then walked to the Cap d’Or and had a Stella then checked my email. Then I went to another really cool old bar. This place had to have been one of the best bars I’ve been to. They had an actual icebox instead of a fridge. The bartender made drinks by chipping bits off of the huge blocks of ice. He was really surprised that I was American. As I left, I heard him say to the other patrons something that was obviously “wow, that guy was American!” Some people find it hard to believe- they say “Are you Really American?” They think I’m German or Swiss or something. Very few Americans come here. After leaving this bar, I wnt next door to the quail restaurant, where I ate two quails. They were very tiny, but yummy and fun to eat. Then I came back to my hotel to drink beer and write this diary.

October 8th, 2003
    This day I arose in Alexandria, packed, walked to the train station, breakfasted on wafers, and rolled on out. This train was unique in that it was infested with cockroaches. I had never imagined that such a thing might be. A young man sat next to me during the trip and slept. I experienced a strange urge to take his finger in my mouth and bite it as hard as I could. This inexplicable and disturbing desire tantalized me throughout the trip. I vaguely recalled that I had felt similar desires on the train out to Alex with the sleeping Koran reader. Weird. When the stain stopped at stations in the Delta, vendors boarded, hawking crustulous pastries, encased in crinkling plastic. Many were purchased. On arrival at Ramsis train station in Cairo I detrained, navigated the vast chaotic melee, and arrived back at the Dahab, where I’m now staying in room number 714, a pleasant monastic chamber, painted a soothing green and looking South. After resting briefly, I arose and started walking the streets. My walking daemon got possession over me once again, and I wandered far past the Mogamma, into Garden city, a pleasant area, but entirely filled with cops. Next I returned, ate some taamiya and rested. I dined on fiteer pizza, wrote some emails, and bought a binary set of Stellas. With these nectarous refreshments in my embroidered manpurse I ascended to my chamber and commenced these inscriptions.

October 9th, 2003
    This day I arose and sought a job at the ILLI, but it was closed. I’m slowly figuring out that the week-end here is Thursday and Friday, not Saturday and Sunday. I mostly spent the day walking around and lounging about. I started off by walking over to Zamelik to get two English newspapers. Then I ate some taamiyya in a wonderful, low-class divey restaurant in Bulaq. This place was just marvelously blackened and grungy. A man swabbed a vast puddle of black water in the middle of the floor. Then I had some tea at a courtyard ahwa and read the Egyptian Gazette. Then I photocopied part of my passport and went to the Mogamma to extend by visa for one year. This took a lot less time than I thought. Now I am officially a tourist here for one year. I just want to go to the Egyptian museum 365 times in a row. I put my religion down as Barbelognostic on the visa form. This just goes to show that saint Epiphanius’ efforts to drive the sect from Egypt were all in vain. In fact, I would never have heard of the Barbelognostics were it not for him. Next I went to the Caffeteriya Horribilefor a 7-up and reading time. I came back to the Dahab and ate a Roman and rested. Next I went with my elevator friend Muhammad to see a flat for rent. This place was right around the corner from the hotel. The owner, his wife, Muhammad, and the bawab all showed up to show me around, so I felt kind of bad when I decided not to live there. But basically, the flat sucked. It was on the ground floor and was painted mauve. It was really too big and glitzy, with chandeliers and gleaming fixtures. The owner correctly stressed that the place was really CLEAN, which is exactly why I didn’t want to live there. I just don’t feel comfortable in high-class surroundings. I feel stupid and out of place there. Fuck, why do you think I moved to Egypt? I didn’t even try to explain my grunge aesthetic to the owners. However, I felt somewhat proud to have resisted the mass effort to get me to live there. Anyway, accommodation is not really my priority at the moment. This episode really made me reflect on how much I prefer dirt and weirdness to cleanliness. Readers of my collected works will already be aware of the extensive associations between cleanliness and evil which I have documented at length. Later, I ate more taamiyya at Midan Orabi, sitting next to three fat women who laughed continually like they were on constant nitrous. I then went to a nearby bar and drank two Stellas and watched a funny Egyptian melodrama that featured silly stereotypes of Jews. I don’t think your average Jewish guy adorns his house with multiple menorahs and huge Stars of David. People were actually getting drunk at this bar, which I hadn’t seen in Egypt before. In all civilizations I can perceive a strong societal pressure towards mediocrity and conformity, but these pressures seem particularly strong here. Just busting out with your own mad energy or kicking out the jams in any way is very much unheard of. Of course, this is the case in any group of people, but the old mind-forged manacles seem particularly rusted shut here. This makes me realize how privileged Portlanders are to have so much room for the expression of their personal phantasies. The only reason this is the case in the west is the succession of Revolutionaries who cracked the fossilized goggles of the ancestors.

October 10th, 2003
    This day I awoke and breakfasted on two pomegranates. I was feeling a bit under the whether from the four Stellas last night, but I felt better after a shower and headed off to check out the Egyptian museum. There was a lot I didn’t see last time. After being in there about five minutes, I was stricken with an incredible fatigue, and I literally couldn’t stand up. After resting, I staggered outside to try and buy a pop, but they cost a criminal, wholly unethical 8 pounds. I went back in, but was soon again overcome with this incredible weird fatigue. I wonder if it was connected to an advert I scoffed at earlier in the day that said: “Are you always tired? Then buy X” Resting by the predynastic scrapers, I noticed that my head was burning and my pulse racing. I went home and lay in bed in this weird feverish underwater state. I lay there all day and venture out slowly at night, walking the streets in this super slow catatonic shuffle. I had the idea that I needed to eat meat, so I ate a steak. Then I bought pastries for breakfast and wrote emails sluggishly. I’m thinking I need to pray to god for good health everyday.

October 11th, 2003
    All last night my mind was trapped in repetitive and defective thought patterns of fever, weird waking semi-nightmares like I used to have as a kid. I hardly slept. Once I woke up, I bought some Egyptian aspirin, and that made me feel much better. Today the air was unusually clear, much more so than I’d ever seen here. I went up the 600 foot tall Cairo tower. The view from up there was awesome. The city stretched in all directions to the horizon. The pyramids could be seen far to the West. There were lots of snuggling Egyptian couples up there. What do people see in each other? I had a gross drink and cloying cake at the funny restaurant up there. It was a revolving restaurant, but instead of going around smoothly, it advanced in disturbing, irregular jolts. This was kind of funny. Totally typical of Egypt, but unexpected.

October 12th, 2003
    Racked all this day in excruciating agony.

October 13th, 2003
    All pain medications I try are wholly ineffective. I have a ticket to visit Luxor tomorrow, but I seriously doubt I’ll make it. With every heartbeat, I feel a hammer pound my skull, and demonic hands squeeze my eyeballs. I’ve never experienced such intense, enduring pain before. While lying in bed I managed to kill three flies, however.

October 15th, 2003
    Yesterday I wisely decided to go to the doctor, not Luxor. Apparently, I’m infected, but I’ve been lying in bed for several days, and the meds are helping. One of them kills a wonderful list of minute beings. Reading there names, I imagine an invitation to a pleasant country estate, attended by the learned doctor E. Coli and his daughters Shigella and Salmonella, the brave Citrobacter and Enterobacter, with their consorts Klebsiella and Serratia, Proteus and Providencia, Morganella and the fair Yersina. Pasturella, with her sons Vibrio, Aeromonas and Plesiomonas, Heamophilus too, and Pseudomonas’ dark-eyed sisters Neisseria and Branhamella, Moraxella, deep in cunning, and bright Legionella, wily Straphylococcus with Brucella and Listeria, Corynebacterium and princess Chlamidya.
    I’ve also managed to demap seven flies, one of them large. Also, at about 3:57 AM I actually managed to come up with a joke: Yo mama so fat the BBC has a special correspondent for yer mom. I kill flies with a rolled up newspaper. Seemingly to appease the flies, the part of the paper that actually crushes them has this quotation from Beethoven: “Il n’ya rien de plus beau que de s’approcher de la divinite.”  

October 16th, 2003
    This day I walked around with Ayman, a Libyan guy I met. We went to the Khan and saw a French-American movie. Three times the audience got up, thinking the movie was over, but it wasn’t.

October 17th, 2003
    I think I’m almost getting over my disease, happily. I’m starting to realize on some sort of deeper level that I’m going to be here for a very long time. My Arabic class starts on Sunday at 10AM. I’m definitely past the point of being a total idiot here. Now I know my way all around town, and where to buy and do things I need. I’m starting to figure out the rhythms of life here.

October 18th, 2003
    Walked from Bab Zuweila to the Citadel

October 19th, 2003
    I’ve finally found my own apartment here, and its pretty cool. Its on the 9th floor, and the lift is broken, which is fine by me. This increases the feeling of remoteness and security already derived from living up here. This place is fairly large. It has a bedroom with North and East windows, a main room with couch and table, a nice little kitchen with gas range and a leaky but functional bathroom. It costs LE700 per month, about $111. Not bad. The view over the city is wonderful. Beyond a sea of satellite dishes, the Muqattam hills are visible. It even has a working telephone, for all that’s worth. I cannot wait to actually cook a meal for the first time in more than a month. Lets see what I need to obtain for this place: 1. Wall hangings and posters 2. Incense 3. Oil 4. A knife 5. Matches 6. Cutting board. Lots more. In other notes, the apartment has six chairs, a big bed and a huge wardrobe that looks about to collapse. Also a desk, some tables, a clothesline, a water “warmer,” and a weird fossilized cylinder that might be some sort of attempt towards a washing machine. I wonder if they have washboards here. The walls are a peachy color, sort of gross, but a hell of a lot better than mauve. Also today I walked out to Sahafayeen to register for an Egyptian Arabic class. The first day is tomorrow and the class runs for a month. Its from 9-11, Sunday to Wednesday, I think. Tomorrow also a “television” is promised to arrive. Hmmkay. I must try to be here at 3PM.

October 20th, 2003
    This day I had my first day of Egyptian Arabic class, which was fun. I also cooked cauliflower and potatoes, acquired salt, pepper, incense, and a weird spice that tastes like rye bread. Also emailed Rusty. I think the next thing on my list is a little tape player/radio for muziq.

October 22nd, 2003
    This day I attended my third day of Arabic class. Already I am learning useful things to say and hear. For some reason I was very tired today. I did manage, however, to cook some pasta and sauce, which was damn good. A few days ago I bought a copy of The Tempest at my school’s bookstore, and I’ve read it about three times already. The televizyon also arrived-mostly crap is on though. I enjoy having few possessions, but useful ones. My stock of spices is growing and needs to grow more.

October 24th, 2003
    I now drink what is perhaps my final beer for 28 days or so. Ramadan, the holy month, starts on the 26th of October, and no liquor is sold then. This day my main endeavor was purchasing two large pictures of the Kabba to decorate my apartment. One of these is laminated. I read Al Ahram in the cafeteria Horribile for a while this morning. I would estimate that, excluding football, 90% of all news here concerns Israel. I also ate an entire loaf of some sort of cake bread, which made me feel very ill. Recently what is know as the black cloud has descended over Cairo. This is a dense layer of smog, even thicker than usual, which arrives about this time every year. Nobody knows why it happens, and the government minister for environment has usefully said that it will keep happening through 2007, although he couldn’t explain it either. Initially they said it was caused by farmers burning chaff, although now they’re not sure. I think it is pretty clear that it is caused by auto exhaust. Anything left lying about, even inside, soon acquires a layer of greasy black slimy soot-obviously of petrochemical origin. Actually, anything you touch gets your finger black unless the object has been purposely cleaned. Cairo really needs emissions controls for its vehicles, at fucking least. I frequently see vehicles emitting dense black choking clouds of exhaust and burning oil, as if the cars are fueled by burning tar. I also drew the above picture of the view from my living room. It was hard to portray the layer of brown smog, which is generally visible as a crisply defined layer several degrees above the horizon.
    All the buildings here have these scary shafts running through them from roof to ground. When I walk downstairs in my building, I can look across such a shaft to a single window, in which I can see a woman lying in bed, perpetually watching TV. I think she might be sick. She is there literally all the time.
    I really love my Arabic class. It’s given me confidence to actually start trying to talk to people here in Arabic. I just wish I could take it longer, but I think I’ll try to start teaching after the first month is over. All in all, I must say that numerous difficulties have attended my move to Cairo, but despite these, it has been a success, and a vindication of my ability to control my own life.

October 26th, 2003 First day of Ramadan
    Yesterday, after continually dreaming about guitars and guitarists, I broke down and decided to buy a guitar. I visited several shops and played many guitars. They all cost about LE 300. I ended up getting a used one for 260. I chose it because it really stays in tune and sounds nice. I also played a new green one, but didn’t like it as much. Anyways, I am happy now. Last night while listening to the BBC on my walkman, the announcer reading the news spoke the phrase “as usual in these situations, the devil’s in the details.” Then a weird glitch happened and the words “devil in the details” were repeated. I thought this very interesting, as in many hours of listening to the BBC, I’d never heard any kind of technical problem. It sounds like they read the news live anyway. This event reminded me of my childhood nightmare in which I encountered total evil expressed as a sort of technical detail in a white field, and also of Smerdyakov in the Brothers K, whose evil nature seems to come out in the small details of his behavior. This chain of thought led to long trains of meditation about religion, paradox, synchronicity, and the afterlife. Come to think of it, the “technical details “ interrupting the vast whiteness in my childhood fever nightmare seemed most to resemble parts of some sort of petrochemical refinery, or else those long folding tubes mounted on trucks used to pour concrete into foundations, or up high. The few times when I’ve seen petrochemical refineries, or those certain trucks I have been transfixed in a sort of horrified awe. The refineries, with their intricate exterior complexity, exposed networks of metal tubes and technological projections, and the Sauronic flame burning high overhead, seem to be the very citadel of cancerous evil. The black knot of wrath, the coiled emblem of hatred inside the diseased. I recall the distinct sensation of horror at seeing the refinery at Sinclair Wyoming, a confused extrusion of technology erupting from dark realms below up into the vast bare expanse of high prarie. All this only makes it all the more clear that technology in general, and petrochemicals in particular, are not neutral things which we can choose to use for good or ill, but rather are an alien, demonic, viral intrusion into our world, a dark parasitizing force which we take up, thinking to control, but cannot put down, for it has come to control us.

October 29th, 2003
    I have lately been focused on studying Egyptian Arabic. My class is really cool, and each day I learn useful new things. However, I notice in my interactions with people in the street, I really need to slow down and talk with them, and not just hurry by, as is my usual habit. I need to make an effort to really talk to all the people I meet. Meanwhile, Ramadan is going on-a rather grim holiday, I think, but I only see it from the outside. People actually seem to take the all day fast pretty seriously. Yesterday I observed the scene on Champollion street nearby my apartment. All the men were sitting around together, not talking, sort of silently enduring in solidarity. I imagine the non-smoking part of the fast must be excruciating in this nation of chain smokers. Normally on this street everyone would be working on cars and chatting in ahwas.

October 30th, 2003
    Lying in my bed at night, listening to my walkman, I remember how I first discovered what music was. Of course I’d heard music before, and even owned a few 80’s metal tapes, ones that my friends liked too. I was 13 at the time. My father had a few old blues records he’d sometimes listen to-Muddy waters, Bessie Smith, Hound Dog Taylor. Now for some reason I hated these records, and would leave the room with loud protestations whenever he played them. On one occasion I was home alone, looking for trouble, as was normal at that age, when for some reason by a perverse whim I decided to listen to one of these records, which I hated. This was done in the same spirit as other depraved feats of the early teen years performed when home alone- making coffee and drinking as much as possible, sampling the liquor cabinet, smoking many cigarettes at once, making pornographic drawings, and so on. Anyways, I put on the Hound Dog Taylor record and listened to it for a few minutes. A slow change crept over my mind. Waves of inchoate bliss began to well up from inside me. Dim visions of ecstasy struggled on the verge of expression, then became total demonic rapture. Powers within me I never knew existed sprang to life and started a rampage of joy. I danced. This was a moment when something opened in my soul.

October 31st, 2003
    This day I cut out pictures from newspapers and stuck them around my apartment. There were some particularly interesting ones in this true crime tabloid that I found on top of my wardrobe. I also bought rice and dates and studied Arabic. I imagine tonight must be a really good Halloween in the states, it being Friday and all. It’s gotten a little cooler here lately. Actually, the whether is quite pleasant, except for the smog. It reminds me that back home it smells like fall in the forests. A brief pang of nostalgia struck with this thought. Everyone goes out late at night here, after the evening meal. Apparently the pollution was so bad that the religious authorities could not see the new moon to judge the beginning of Ramadan. They had to send envoys out to Marsa Matrouh, near Libya, to get a clear sighting. I’ve been cooking my own food lately, and my one foray into an Egyptian restaurant quickly reminded me of the septic, insipid qualities of the cuisine here.
    I’ve been thinking a lot about poverty recently, and what its real effects are. Most middle class Americans probably think that poverty consists of going without certain things, or even of going hungry. The flagrant obesity of the American poor testifies against this. Here in Cairo, most people are poor by US standards. It seems to be a respectable sort of poverty, mixed with pride, dignity, and a sense of cleanliness. Nevertheless, real poverty I think lies in the lack of opportunity, learning, culture and perspective.



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