* I hat tool which you live by must receive a Blood Sacrifice Water buffalo go for aircraft, a sparrow would do for your typewriter. Slash a float s throat, tie a baby in a tree, poke a trident through your tongue, grow a TB in yr lung. See the kite fights in the air, pick the lice out o f your hair. Smoke the pipe o f a leper, serve him tea in his cup, sit downwind o f him—and you 'll throw up. Are you there? It's been ages since I've heard from anyone. Has the West Coast slipped into the sea? Up here the Kingdom is troubled, but I feel fine, except for this and that. My health needs attention, particularly the teeth. I went to an appointment with a Western dentist. [Took a month to see him at a mission hospital.] Well, he sayd I should have two bottom front teeth removed—eek! It's an exhilarating time o f year, just past monsoon. Last night the ranges appearedjust as the sun was setting. They turned orange-pink, Everest in the lot. Kites swarm the skies, swallows, egrets, pigeons, crows, giant bats, gliding hawks, tiny sparrows. The clouds are like Chinese drawings turning to dragons. The color the sky deep, deep blue. I constantly get o ff on the visuals here. Just got home from a quiet rickshaw ride through the night streets. The moon's not risen yet, the stars are brilliant. Only the dogs roam around after ten, the occasional drunk, the homeless. I enjoy my life here, it spoils me a lot. I'm writing about the street characters o f Kathmandu. I'm trying to get someone to photograph them i f they 'll hear o f it. There are many things going on here. This is a kingdom and full o f rumblings and mysteries. I think o f Henk Pander often, how he would love to draw here. [excerpts from recent letters] Street Characters I. Blanket Baba is an old man. an Indian. He suffers from some metabolic disorder, so constantly is bundled in wraps. Layer upon layer of shirts and tattered old blankets. The outer one. often his “dress” favorite, is a counterfeit skin, a silly leopard’s face stamped at the center back. His little sparrow ankles flounder in too- big, cast-off shoes. He is without stockings. It is mid-summer monsoon, a woolen cap is pulled over his bald head down to his eyebrows and huge roving cock-eyes. A walking stick and an umbrella handle hook a skinny wrist. His lousy beard stained yellow all round the mouth. He is one of a number of old-timers, well-known street characters of Kathmandu. Blanket Baba speaks queen’s english and smokes skag. I often find him sitting quietly under a blaring speaker, serenely sipping Lassi, in the local rock-and-roll juice bar. I am under the impression he is special. n. Ode To A Dirty Old Man Like a sheep before the shearer. . . but a swollen ball of batting —he bears a smelly shell. peeking from a tattered cuff— a silver Seiko shimmers Raggedy Maggot, Blanket Baba has a blow— his wild marble pop-eyes roll, a rotten old grin shatters natural dust motes into goldflakes. .. Masquerading as a fat man Stranger to hunger In the Radius of his Foulness— I would, not trade a field of Roses for this Rancid Mystic. III. One day in the Kingdom, while sitting in the square, first came the Spider Man, “gathering" in the morning sun. He “walks” on his hands. He swung himself up onto the wall beside me and went into a coughing fit. I offered him a sweet. He has grown a luxuriant handle-bar moustache, which he twirls the ends of, little half-villain. Then waving and limping comes “The Story-Telling Father,” or as he is sometimes called “ Liar Baba.” We hadn’t seen one another in three months. He is much thinner now, and his clothes are a shambles. He tells me of his pilgrimage to India. It was hot, and Calcutta was crawling with competition. being a Shiva Nepali holy man. (They often literally walk to India, and there, being Sadhus, can ride the trains for free.) Liar Baba always spends half of anything given for his chillun. Ganga smokers blow from twenty to one hunMod/Jazz —7:30-9 Tap —6 -7 :30 ........ Winter Workshops > INSTEP STUDIOS 221 S.E. 11th 235-2068 Dec. 17-22 Taught By ........Heidi Parisi ........Heidi Parisi Tamarah Pringle Afro-Cuban Haitian —7:30-9...................................... ..................Ruby Burns Modern —6-7:30................................................................................ Tina Mabry Ballet —6 -7 :30 ....................................................................................Heidi Parisi Gymnastics —4 -5 ................................ Geord Duckler 44
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