Kofi Boamah
front & back cover: 'an old skool car in Paris' Š 2018 all images courtesy of artist Kofi Boamah
'self portrait in Paris' (fight fascism), 2018
'a fruit stall in Rishikesh' 2018
mood board with words mango flavoured photographs... only saying the unclichéd thing after stomping on André Breton's tomato... wrestling with Allen Ginsberg in Calcutta-dreams that also smell like kiwi fruit...walking the negro streets at dawn and finding that angry fix!..stories unraveled by experimental thoughts as cold stares at African ornaments purchased by an Angolan figure skater living in Paris.... elements of themes established as if rushing though a book written by Karl Marx which produces an epiphany over all consciousness... Anarchism tasted by living through ideas of transcending death: grasping freedom's milieu....vivid scenes where Bolivian women hold a fascination for apricots drizzling onto their naked breasts....moody corridors with turquoise carpets, pink wallpapers & men wearing long leather mack jackets with pockets full of cigarettes, flask of brandy, marlboros... eating grapes whilst smoking hashish... Saul Leiter's 'colors' wrapped into a mind cascading like ice-cream dripping from a cone on a warm City day...watching the films of Shūji Terayama as if factual investigations into the poetry of the human condition: in particular 1974's Roller... emphasizing with outcasts at the edge of sanity... escaping heaven by pulling a knife on God...Indian Pani Puri made by the husband of a ballet dancer from Rishikesh... adding to the beautiful Anaïs Nin's quote: We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect—we photograph to exorcise our demons made manifest through tasting the beauty of the mundane...opening & closing a mango yellow door....taking a massage on a Friday evening in Paris with thoughts on chess moves... seeing the grandeur of an overcast day in London via a walk through a market....spending time observing the lives of ants... gold earrings worn by private investigators... Mexican con men now selling fruit in Delhi... the fuzz of an old t.v in a motel housed by the underbelly of society that also spend time reading Bukowski... — written in Bangkok, Thailand, 2017 pages six & seven: 'a hotel at Jemaa el-Fnaa' 2017 pages eight & nine: 'a stroll through Varanasi' 2018
Raj met me at the station, something about him seemed a little dishevelled, as if he just woke up. Maybe it was the way he spoke: barely any gesticulations. Or perhaps it was the way he was dressed: in green jogging bottoms and a grey t-shirt. The T-shirt had an Indian flag on it. I told Raj that the journey was long, but that I enjoyed it. Talking to the passengers next to me and taking photographs of the scenery, he seemed quite happy that this was the case. After we greeted each other, with a firm handshake, we made our way to his car. He drove a Toyota. He said his wife usually drives it, but that on the weekends he likes to drive. Indian traffic is really something, he said just as we pulled out of the train station. He drove in quite a manic fashion: crossing lanes, for example, but he noticeably didn’t beep his horn or gesture anything, even when a tuk tuk driver cut him up. I remember thinking that there was something stoic about him. On the radio there’s a song playing that I recognise as Ravi Shankar, this initiates a conversation about the singer. Though it soon goes quiet, as if Raj is thinking. I start to wonder what he is thinking about. Though the sound of the streets impede my thoughts: all honks, rapacious shouting, traffic. I make an order of things in my brain: things to do to be generally liked: politeness, a joke here and there, and perhaps a gift. Though on this particular trip I decided against the gift, mostly because I didn’t know what to get. I would have got a gift. We eventually reached his apartment, in Bhelupur, and his wife, Greta, greeted us at the door. She looked a little younger than Raj, perhaps thirty-two, or thirty one. She had a nice rack. She shook my hand and invited me into the apartment. The apartment was cozy; gold and red carpets, gold and brown wall papers, many book shelves, and an idiot box in the centre of the room. We then sat down in the living room and started chit chatting, mostly Greta and I spoke, Raj was quietly sitting, nodding occasionally. Lakshmi, was the main topic of conversation, though it then diverted into a conversation about Varanasi’s culture and significance. It was only to be a few days with Raj and Greta, and at first I was glad for this, as Raj’s silence bemused me. Though we had a delicious dinner, Vegetable Biyrani and Paretha and then I went to sleep. The next day they showed me around, to the Ghats, the Ganges and many other
festivities. It was that first Saturday that I realised something was seriously wrong with Raj. We were in the market and a cow was walking towards us as we stood outside a Kebab stall where Greta was buying some meat. I have a craving, she said. And Raj was stood outside the stall in the line of the cow. I moved but Raj, as if despondent, was staring into an abyss, whilst the cow ran into him. Greta helped him to his feet and we continued the day without speaking about this, though the thought prevailed in my mind: something is wrong. The next day Raj helped me find an apartment nearby to where they lived and I felt ready to start work, knowing that I didn’t have to tip toe around Raj and Greta any longer. At the lab it became apparent that Raj had often been quite despondent: Siraj, another Scientist (from Shimla) said that people from Kolkata were like that. I didn’t know what that meant when he said this, but I just put it down to being foreign to India. This meant that in retrospect I came to look at my introduction at Raj and Greta’s home quite pleasantly, as I was starting to feel out of place: a little alien. A week or two passed, and I was starting to adjust to the Indian way of life and especially the ethical way that the drug industry works, which opposes the American system. Drug prices are not allowed to be hiked up to ridiculous amounts, for example. Anyway, as you can imagine I was still keeping an eye on Raj, and it came to pass that many colleagues felt the same way I felt. Though things came to a heed when he went missing. Greta called the lab and I told her that I had no idea where he was. She tried to stay calm over the phone and mentioned that he was sick before hanging up the phone. I doubted he was sick, but I helped her save face and went along with this. Though when a week passed it was apparent that something was terribly wrong. Greta called the lab and told them that Raj had come down with a bout of flu and taken a train to Kolkata to be with his family. I imagined that she was fretting, so that Friday evening I went to see her. She tried to smile when she opened the door after I knocked, but I could tell it was mere pride. Indian people can be very proud. I told Greta that everything would turn out okay, as I didn’t know what else to say and she invited me in. She offered me some Lassi and I drank it remembering the first few
'a fruit stall in Delhi' 2018
days I arrived. And nothing happened for a few weeks, like an impasse: Raj didn’t turn up to work nor did Greta keep from telling us that he had gone to Kolkata with heavy flu complications. I assumed she was, in reality, looking everywhere for him. I wanted her to feel as if she wasn’t alone but relationships between men and women in India can sometimes be a little more convoluted than I was used to. So I stopped myself from going to see her. One night when I couldn’t sleep I went for a walk. I started to imagine how lonely Greta was becoming, however obliterated by confusion she was probably on a mission, I thought. That evening I called her, so tempted I was. She picked up the phone frantically after two rings. I said it was me and she was polite enough to rearrange her excitement for news by chit chatting for a short time. We started speaking about tuk tuk drivers and how they like to rip off foreigners. After this I came straight out and mentioned Raj, saying that I hoped to see him at the lab soon. To have to live in such an abstract world of a missing person seemed awfully selfish on Raj’s behalf. I wanted to tell her this, but I didn’t, instead I then realised the madness of calling someone so late. Though she never asked why I was calling, she just went on talking to me, I think she was glad to talk to someone, I thought. Not perhaps as glad as me however. After twenty minutes of talking, I mentioned that I was going to Delhi for a conference and that I would call her again when I arrived back. A few days later, after I came back from Delhi, I did as I said and called Greta. The phone just rang and rang. I wondered where she could be, so as it was quite early I plucked up the courage and went to their apartment. I took a taxi and the driver spoke about Goa. He was getting angry about the gentrification of Goa and I was thinking about Raj and now Greta going missing. When I reached their apartment I knocked and a man opened the door. I asked about Greta and he said that he was Greta’s cousin and that he was house sitting whilst she went to see her Guru in Udapuir. I left the apartment feeling quite confused. — written in Jaipur, India, 2018
'merchants & sellers in Marrakesh' 2017
mango flavoured memories orange paint sat on a canvas of mostly black…Kiwi fruit perched on top of naked breast… Coffee sipped slowly to the sounds of Jazz, Coltrane… — written in Marrakesh, Morocco 2017
the philosophical exploits of Morelli the unfortunate aspect of an onion, as I have mentioned, is the lack of artificiality: there is no diagnosis for artificiality; there is only some elements of solutions that enable a space to achieve a sense of labyrinth and a simple confusion. Like Charles Mingus the sound of a simple confusion is the very basis of beauty but none more important than thinking and achieving thoughts on the banana.
page seventeen top left: 'a birds eye view of the snack man in Delhi' 2018 page seventeen middle: 'a stall in India' 2018 page seventeen bottom: 'birds roaming skies in Delhi'
'gone fishing in Paris' 2018
'gone fishing in Paris #2' 2018
'Paris rub & tug (a European memoir of Thailand)' 2018
pages twenty & twenty one: 'portrait of man wearing fedora hat on bus in London' 2018
'cigarettes & coffee, Paris' 2018
1997
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We met in Varanasi — where a body was burning and a leg had just dropped, like an old piece of wood or a tired balustrade leading to an attic with endless arrays of sculpture — Perhaps this created a bond? One instilled by the occasion of death: for whatever reason Candela became a prominent feature in my mind's eye. Even in absence, as if a phantom feeling, there Candela was. But perhaps I was seeing without really seeing? After an introduction now stood at a Ghat after a walk through the creeping streets Candela spoke sensitively about Poetry: mostly free verse poets and in particular Allen Ginsberg. Mentioning a poem I remembered as Kraf Magal and Candela as Král Majáles. Candela was actually right but I only knew in retrospect and we mentioned this, or I did, when we met in Paris. We met outside The Louvre one Friday afternoon, intending to particularly take a walk around the Islamic arts sections, mostly because Candela had a thing for this type of art mostly due to an ex, apparently. Though arriving with ripped clothes: a white shirt ripped along with a brown jacket ripped at the collar, Candela explained that there had been an incident with a mugger who took both bag and wallet. We started walking along the streets and I was able to calm the situation down by allowing the franticness of the situation to expose itself translucent without judgement. After walking a few hours, perhaps getting lost in conversation Candela said that the poems written in India were ready to be published and a new publisher in Montmartre called 'Saison' was going to put the work out in coming month or so. In a way I didn't think much of this, at the time, though when Candela said that spending time in Serbia would help write the novel being written I became a little anxious about my own productivity. I read Candela's book of poetry, 'Teardrops As Icewater', and fell quite deeply for them—I started to capture images of times spent with Candela, and in particular by a poem called 'Sensuous Stares at Grapefruit' — I told Yulia, the girl that I was seeing, whether she thought the poems were good and she, a poet herself, said that they came across as conceited. I thought perhaps it was Candela's natural disposition that meant that I found it difficult to separate the art from the
artist. In a way I felt as if I had fallen for Candela, and so the next time we met, which was in London at a bar in Broadway Market, Off Broadway, I decided to confront the situation with a
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person I had realised I never fully looked at properly. Candela took in my words with a silence before asking why it was a problem for me to have fallen in love? I didn't know how to answer this without coming across in a wrong way so I remained quiet before Candela explained that people often made the assumption that she was a man but in actual fact she was born a woman. I found this an embarrassment now: her androgynous features now awakened under a rather lustful light: she even made mention of all the difference being just a slit! Which I found quite devastating in the hue of lust. I just never asked or thought about the concept of gender, I thought. Candela then said that that evening she was taking a flight back to Serbia but that she would be back in Paris in a few weeks. Within these weeks I started to obsess over her: playing back memories as if scratchy worn videotapes. The next time I saw Candela she was outside the metro station at Gare de l'Est eating an apricot, juice dripping down her chin. She quickly mentioned that she had finished writing her novel and that is was called 'Concrete as if Water', and that 'Saison' had contracted to publish it in the coming months. I barely heard what she was saying, mostly due to the feelings I was having. I asked if there was ever a chance of the two of us becoming a couple and Candela said that she preferred it when I thought she was a man, complaining in a diatribe that now I was aware of her pussy I was infatuated in a cheap way. I felt wholly taken by her words and as if I was ignorant and insensitive. But I was becoming more certain about my feelings, particularly in lieu of the perception of the failing relationship with Yulia. After Candela made mention of the need to go back to London we parted ways. I arrived back to my apartment thinking of what to do, as Yulia tried to rationalise our failed relationship. It was this night that I met Mahmoud: he was stood outside a bar about twenty minutes from where I was
'Francis Bacon's meat in MĂŠnilmontant' 2018
living, smoking a cigarette. Perhaps I was confused at the time, I don't know, but we just started talking: we spoke about poetry, he had read Candela's book of poetry and deemed them beautiful but a touch digressive. We also spoke about aspects of daily life that were charming in unspoken ways: a gentle wind blowing an empty packet of crisps along the street, a bicycle
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weaving in and out of traffic, a fruit stall mounted haphazardly outside a station... And it went on until the bar closed and we had walked around the block a few times. I question the thoughts in my mind and only come to the conclusion that Mahmoud was a digression in itself, although one I had never experienced before, one that was beside the point I thought as I woke in the middle of the night in an alien bed, next to the naked Mahmoud: strong beard sat on top of my shoulder. I gathered my stuff and soon made my way on to the street, thinking about Candela and the feelings that had summoned from this relationship. When I arrived back to the apartment Yulia was asleep but awakened as I took off my jeans. Where have you been? I was out drinking. I got back into the bed that I vacated in my mind and instantly felt a little tight (put out) and so I failed to get much sleep. Though it was the week of the publication of Yulia's novel 'Candlelit Sunshine' and the first time I fell in love with Yulia. In a way I felt duplicitous and as if the same routine or arrangement of feelings I was having in relation to Candela had sprung again up again for Yulia: of art and its closeness to life. Though certain passages of 'Candlelit Sunshine' were too gorgeous and had me approach Yulia in a new light. One that throbbed instead of soothed. I decided to write Candela a long letter explaining the whole situation, even mentioning Mahmoud. Though like an impasse and very much like life, nothing much happened for a few weeks, though I seemed to be screaming inside by what I felt as if an artificial realism. It was one Friday night that I saw Mahmoud outside the metro station at Jaurès. I didn't know what to do, as I was with Yulia but when Mahmoud noticed us walking he looked as if a child that had lost his kite, all despondent as if he was still wondering where I had got to that night we first
met: eyes searching the ground after staring right into mine. Like fatal wounds I wanted the ground to swallow me as Yulia grasped at my hand even more tightly like a rope. This all started with Candela, I thought angrily. But like a message it had to occur as it did didn't it? Because Candela was like a dream: intercession between waking and sleeping, confrontations in darkness, an ocean of tenderness. According to a newspaper article published the morning after I had bumped into Mahmoud, Candela, the writer, had been found dead in Serbia. I had no feelings: a docile feline or an inanimate object. Just notions of what perhaps happened and day dreams. A few weeks after this, perhaps to cash in on death, rather morbidly, Saison published her posthumous novel 'Bible of Fuck', a seemingly hallucinogenic piece of work enlivened by surrealistic prose where sentences ran on, ellipsis were constantly utilised, and endless amounts of questions were framed and reframed by an unreliable narrator. The book caused a sensation and it felt like an amulet in a way: to the extent that it was like holding onto an intangible feeling. I read the books last words like a decree: 'Altering the air through breaths taken in another body, and sucking the smell of kiwi dripping on his thighs...' I wondered why Candela's narrator had fallen for the man over the woman in the novel and felt immensely jealous by this. I remember looking at Yulia, who sat naked watching over the balcony and I thought about Mahmoud. And what had led me to him. I left the apartment and went straight to Mahmoud's place in tears. He opened the door as if a doorway to another world, I thought, and he held me whilst I shed tears... — written in Tangier, 2016
'dead gay fish on Dalston' 2018
'portrait of a Sadhu at Varanasi' 2018
guide The smell of unripened mangoes emanated from a stall, and the waft of cow dung spread just as its perpetrator caroused off down the road, an Indian child (speaking in Telugu) mentioned the delight of apricots, just as an old man had finished a Vegetable Tahli and was now finding his way onto the street. Lucia caresses her own hand, palm in palm, and starts to laugh... the sunlight castigated a certain cynicism: the sheer disdain for life to just continue at any rate. She crosses the street, whilst a man wheeling a sugar cane juice stall was moving. This was a strange day for Lucia, so lucid as it was, and written retrospectively, these days amounted to Pre-Lucidity. Most notably because it was the day she met Krishnamurti. She reached the end of the road and decided that her thirst had to be quenched. Walking towards a stall selling Chai, Lucia's life changed. At first Krishnamurti taught her yoga to a masters level. And then according to her he began to open up to her. And then she was taught the Manifesto of Krishnamurti. A particular day stood out for her, though it may seem innocuous: Krishnamurti took her to a bench. And there they sat for a period of four hours just contemplating everything they saw: couples walking and talking, gold glitter enhancing a ladies features, sunlight cascading onto a moving fruit stall, two men arguing over five rupees, a sadhu eating a watermelon... After this Lucia decided to devote her life to the teachings of Krishnamurti, which was a change from her aristocratic background. As in a way she excommunicated her family and became consumed, wholly. For the night she told Krishnamurti that she was a follower became prescient to him, as he told her that all things are taught through time. And so Lucia went to live in Krishnamurti's commune. Experiencing daily a fellowship with five others and a monkey called Balou. — written in Udapuir, 2018
'vices at metro station Louis Blanc, Paris' 2018
'two monkeys & man sitting nonchalantly, Rishikesh' 2018
'two monkeys & man sitting nonchalantly, Rishikesh' 2018 (zoomed in)
'portrait of shopkeeper at La Fayette, Paris' 2018
'portrait of shopkeeper, Varanasi' 2018
pages thirty eight & thirty nine: 'an attack on Kirchoff's law, Delhi (wired)' 2018 pages forty two & forty three: 'Tuk Tuk Mania, India' 2018
“One is punished most for one’s virtues.” — Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche Feeling alleviated by some sort of weird schema, K. moved towards the temple. He had in fact wanted to quickly forget what had just happened, as it amounted to the thought that getting caught in India breaking the law would be quite spectacular. Though throughout his journey through the temple he kept thinking about what he had done: feeling the gains in his left pocket. After he finished at the temple he walked towards his hotel. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
In the evening he decided to smoke what he had taken earlier that day. It was a little stronger than he imagined but sat on the balcony of the hotel overlooking the lake in Udapuir it all seemed so beautiful. He was glad that he didn’t have to interact with any dealers, he thought, whilst smoking. A distinct laughter consumed him at this point, to the point that he nearly choked. He then started to think about the fiend, the bare breasts careening onto the dusty floor, the yellowish teeth, the drooping saree. He felt it all quite absurd. A few days pass: K. had mostly spent them speaking to his girlfriend Lucia, mostly about the dominatrix sex they would enjoy. By that Friday Lucia had told him that she wanted to be in India as soon as she could get away from work. That evening he went for a walk. Something in him persuades him to walk towards the temple he had been in the day he stole from the fiend. Perhaps it was curiosity. On the way through the streets, as the night time glistened, and tuk tuk drivers careened through slender streets, K. thought about the concept of a mantra. Though he had always been quite the atheist, he had been quite taken by the traditionality of India’s ways. As he reached a side street, off the main street he was walking on, he distinguished a silhouette. Though this time she was walking. He had an impressive memory for random things: silhouettes, dogs faces, elevator music. He wondered what to do, so he stood on the corner of the street for a moment watching, observing. By this time, he felt his actions had already made his mind up, and by this time the silhouette was now standing in front of him. He said hello. She spoke slowly, for she was not educated but had, according to her learnt English from people here and there. She wore a red and orange saree, similar to the one he saw her wear a few days previous. Her knees were showing and dusty. She said her name was Farrah. Why had she been strung out that day to leave her drugs like that? What was her story? Where had she come from? He had so many questions, all of which amounted to him offering to buy Farrah something to eat. It took a while for him to explain this, but eventually she understood. They ate at a roof top restaurant. She had a Vegetable Curry and he had Vegetable Biriyani. The
conversation seeped with pauses, as it seemed to K. that Farrah was in an improbable situation. He looked at her right arm and saw a tattoo but didn’t want to ask about it. He instead asked her where she lived. She then gave a convoluted answer that amounted to the thought that she must have been homeless. There seems something strange about a good looking homeless woman. As if men are so inclined to animalistic tendencies, something as innocent as being homeless is rendered unfeasible. He started to picture her dusty breasts the first time he saw her, though didn’t try and understand the logic of it all. As he knew she was a fiend. On her feet were syringe holes. Eyes bloodshot red. Perhaps it’s the dynamics of the situation?
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K. asked Farrah if she wanted to go back to his hotel, after he paid the bill. She said: How much? He started to laugh as if belittling her. She became upset and tried to explain that she could easily just leave. K. plays along, and by the time they had left the restaurant they had agreed on two thousand Rupees. Along the way to his hotel K. tried to explain that he was interested in her: asking her whether she was married. She explained that her family in Jaipur had disowned her, for reasons she didn’t want to explain, or have the English vernacular to explain. He assumed rape. Her words were too coy: subtle hand movements over her chest. They share a silence. Eventually they reach his hotel room. He offers her something to drink. She says yes. He acknowledges that she probably wants to get back to her drugs and gang perhaps. So he asked her if she could take off her clothes. She finishes her drink in one gulp. He wondered whether to ask her to shower, but he thought it would sully any mood that he had manufactured. She obliges, taking off her saree, to show the breasts he had seen before. And then her in her complete nakedness. Her started to feel guilty, but he suppressed these emotions, for he had, self admittedly spent years addicted to sex. They then had sex: he found her quite sub servient and docile, which he didn’t actually mind. Particularly so when he started to spank her. After they were done, she took the money and mentioned that she needed to leave. He said he would give her another thousand if she came back that evening. She agreed. They saw each other quite often after this night. Until one night when he was on his way to look for her, Lucia turned up. Lucia told him that she missed him and that she got time off work in order to see him. K. could only think of Farrah however, he started to call her his Malaria. As if taken by a death wish, he could only think of her. One night whilst Lucia slept he went to look for Farrah. He stood on a few corners, walked towards the temple he initially met her at but could not find her. The end of the story is quite gruesome, as it seemed Farrah had been in a gang, according to a
dealer that knew Udapuir’s underworld and she had wronged someone. This led to her being murdered: gutted out as if a fish somewhere in Delhi. — written in Udapuir, 2018
'sacred happenings, India' 2018
pages forty six & forty seven: 'old communist looking man in fedora hat using smartphone, London' 2018
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fragments of sound, all distorted and echoey emanated. Whilst movements abstracted through rain. And elements of sunlight cascaded through partially see-through windows from wet streets furnishing near empty realms of happenings. Inside layers of dust had accumulated on; book shelves, ornaments, rotting old fruit purchased from a stall in the local market, where people shuffled through busy summer streets. A breeze simmered through a gap in the window as he forgot to close it the night previous, or thought that he had closed it all the way, but hadn’t. He was exhausted from exerting himself the week previous in his basement, where he had been building a sculpture that could “encapsulate existences entirety”. This sculpture had in fact been years in the making: twenty years to be specific, with plentiful amounts of iterations: one particular sculpture, which he discarded, took on the look of Shiva, perhaps though with stranger modulations: extended necks, wide open mouths. Perhaps this was due to excessive dreams he was having about India at the time? In a way this sculpture was to be his last chance to make an impression on the world; make an “eternal expression”. The possibility that anybody would see this sculpture whilst he was still alive was wholly taken by a myriad of chance opportunities. For he saw few people and rarely any at his house, which he had purchased in 1982 with money he garnered through acquiring properties in the property boom. Though he would often feel a certain guilt for the way in which this money was accumulated, due mostly to his political allegiance to Communism, he held that these monies allowed for him to live a life quite distinct and remote. Though always noting the strangeness of a rich communist and its “oxymoronic state”. Creaking stairs, lights switched on—he moved towards his bedroom, where he would often make sketches for his sculptures and meant that the bedroom was caked with sheets of white paper with all rather disparate attempts to capture his imagination into the tangible realm. He went to the window to look out at the wet street. The water made him think of time spent swimming and a lady he met at the local swimming pool called Lucia. He remembered how relaxing it would be to sit with Lucia in silence, which seemed at once meaningless and totally
kinetic at the same time. Although this “relationship” (if it can be called one) lasted only a few weeks, he harboured many thoughts on the capacity of human interaction through this experience. But he didn’t make very much effort to replicate this happening, allowing his life to enfold in a manner that could be deemed rather like the wind: no specific direction but very much in existence. In a way he had relinquished the value of human contact years before, though he never out rightly decided this, though according to his diary entries this must have been the case: with only assorted tales of nothingness interspersed with rich details of building his sculpture and creating sounds that he listened to on an old gramophone, via an old connection with a man only referred to as Lenny. Lenny would record arrangements made by him every few months, sending the records through the mail, along with a letter detailing the difficulties it took to continue to undertake such an arrangement. Which prompted him, one February, to donate over fifty thousand pounds to Lenny. The rotating fan, left on throughout the day, gave off a light breeze whilst he stood at the window and observed the wetness from the sky, and then the lady, he would refer to as Maria. Like clockwork Maria walked through the street, this time singing Françoise Hardy’s ‘Voila’ in a thick French accent, apparently wearing a light red dress and mango yellow earrings. Innocuous as it would seem, he then suffered from a heart attack that very evening, whilst writing in his diary what had happened that day. His last words written were: A row of pigeons sat near the bench outside house 86 and I admired their freedoms. — written in Brussels, 2017
'a small petrol station in Paris' 2018
'two men sitting on the Delhi metro' 2018
'a broken down cab in London' 2017
'schadenfreude on a Paris street' 2018
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“Maybe I had to lose everything I thought I couldn’t live without, in order to be able to be me.” — Monsterhuman, Kjersti Skomsvold It was Shavoi that mentioned that I should correspond with Salla. Poets are usually a little preoccupied I told Shavoi, but he insisted that Salla was someone that might like to affiliate with a new Writer. Salla had published two books of poetry by this time, Mazza and Mountains and The Fabric of Snow. I had published nothing, and was very much in the bowels of sorrow only predisposed for young writers. Though I had saved enough money to visit India, through working a God awful job in Barcelona as a waiter. The restaurant was rarely busy but the manager was this woman from Malaga that would never refrain from forcing us workers to do busy-work: tidy shelves, sweep already swept floors and so on. But that was September. October saw the hustle of India beckon. So due to Shavoi’s insistence I wrote to Salla: a long languid letter that perspired with poetic refrains detailing certain affinities for literature and long descriptions of the destitute hotels I was residing in in India. It took a few weeks for him to write back, though he did write, but that that was written was pretty short though admirably intriguing: he said that not many young writers were any good and that although he thought this, the letter that I wrote piqued his interest. Luckily, I received the letter on the last day I was staying in Delhi. However, the letter made no real mention of anything in particular: dates, meetings, advices. I made it to Udapuir and on the train journey there I composed another letter. In a similar refrain. Though this time I asked if I could visit him wherever he was situated. Shavoi had told me that he had apartments in Delhi, Mumbai and also Udapuir. It was his second correspondence a week after I arrived to Udapuir that mentioned that he would not mind if we met, though not for long, he wrote. We met at a bar in Udapuir. Along the way I was greeted by a Sadhu that asked if I wanted to take his photograph. I looked at him and wondered whether this was some clever way of asking for money, so I said this. No, I thought it would be interesting for you, replied the Sadhu. I looked
at him and then said that this was quite a nice response. I remember using the word nice. The
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Sadhu decided to follow me as I walked to the bar, mentioning that the soul cries through the spiritual eye, he said. I looked at him and thought of all the shit cosmopolitan life is saturated in: enormous amounts of advertising, corrupt politics, discomforting exchanges. The form or composition of the conversation started to wane now: as I started to wonder what he could want, this Sadhu. So I asked him, in no uncertain terms, where this interaction was going. The Sadhu said that my aura looked seeped in “spiritual warfare”. By this time we were stood outside of the bar, and through the window I could see Salla, he looked a little different from the photograph in
page fifty five: 'destitute walls of beauty in Varanasi' 2018 the books, a little smaller, but generally he looked the same. We shared a silence as I was rendered quite speechless. I then told the Saddhu after a few minutes that I was going to go in and meet someone. I walked into the bar, a woman wearing a red and orange saree greeted me to the bar, which had mahogany mannequins of voodoo dolls, elephants and Shiva. Salla, who was positioned at the end of the bar was playing with one of these mannequins. The bar was moderately busy: a few people were sat at tables and a couple were stood at the end of the bar. Apparently, the couple had recognised Salla and bought him a drink. So Salla was drinking a whiskey slowly as I walked to greet him. He held out his hand, which was cold, and we shook momentarily. It seemed strange for all those words to come to life, I thought as I sat down next to Salla. I kept thinking of his poem: Delhi Nights, the form of it and the rather abstract content. As within it there was a line that could have been interpreted in a few ways: one way could have been that he had had a sexual episode with another man, and another way could have been that he was asexual. It was rather abstract, but I remember thinking that a Poet that doesn’t give in to lust is a rather absurd creature. He spoke in a staccato manner, as if he wanted to get all the words out before an aloof nature took over. I told him that I appreciated the letter and he responded in a sanguine manner, briefly smiling before taking another sip of his whiskey. I ordered a whiskey: the lady at the bar seemed quite saccharine, and this made me feel a little out of place. We then had a conversation about Ravi Shankar, and then he said that he wanted to tell me something. I wondered what this something could be, but I refrained from saying this, instead I thought it was a good opportunity to ask him about inspirations and why he chose to write in English and not Hindi. He looked at me and mumbled something, where I only really heard the word “recognition”. I started to think of Shavoi and his first book of poems Reflex as Sex. I mentioned this to Salla, and he said that he didn’t think Shavoi’s poems were any good. I didn’t want to be dominated by what I saw as a rather flippant nature, so I said that Shavoi’s poems took time, and Salla seemed uninterested. I wondered why he came to meet me in the first place. Though his poems told me that the conversation could diverge at any time into disparate spaces. He downed the rest of the whisky and ordered another, before the couple at the end of the bar came over and started speaking Hindi. Salla seemed gracious, but a little put out by what they were saying. As if an ideology bound and constipated Salla seemed like a caged animal: as if he were biting his tongue.
I lit a cigarette, but I wanted to stretch my legs. So I walked outside, after telling Salla that I would be a minute. The Sadhu was now standing with another man that looked like a beggar: torn clothes, dusty knees. The Sadhu looked through the bar as if to insinuate that he was talking about Salla and then said: Wolves come masked as sheep. I then held the thought that he must have been throwing darts with no real purpose now, as his words seemed distant, as if on a radio announcement made on a scratchy signal. I finished only half the cigarette and walked back to Salla. The couple were back to where they were standing. Salla then said: Come with me. He stood up and walked out of the bar past the Sadhu and the beggar. We walked a few yards and stopped. I didn’t assume his apartment was so close to the bar, or that I would be invited. He led me up a few flights of stairs and we came to a blue door. We entered and I was anticipating a requiem for books. But instead the apartment was quite empty. I asked him about this and again he mumbled something unintelligible. Though I did hear the words “space to think”. We then walked to the balcony and we sat down. He then mentioned that what he wanted to tell me was that he was dying of bone Cancer. Chemotherapy had not been successful. This was the only time he seemed to go into detail: describing the process and how things had gone. As if I was reading some cliché book, I started to remember the words of the Sadhu. — written in Udapuir, 2018
'working class heroes, London' 2016 pages 58 & 59: 'Duchamp's toilet at Paris' 2018
'a challenge of Jesus' general store, Rishikesh' 2018
'near empty London streets (mundane tropisms)' 2018
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fried soup “Justice? -- You get justice in the next world. In this one you have the law.” — William Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own We met in 1974 in Chile whilst the military coup was going on. There was something strange about this chance happening, although it seems less so now, as if fate. We sat in a coffee shop near Calle Versalles and it came to occur that we were perhaps sharing a silence: she sat cattycorner sipping coffee and reading Julio Cortazar’s ‘The Winners’. We looked up at each other and then simultaneously at the rain hitting the window and then she said: It’s better than death, life is sometimes, don’t you think? And as she spoke, with a wry smile, I started to think about her words, as if they were written, like words on a page. It could have been the way that she spoke or the things I was thinking about at the time— memories distort. I don’t know. That night we went to a gathering for Poets in an apartment around the corner from that coffee shop. A few good Poets were there, mostly bad ones, that had had the privilege of being
published. I remember taking a seat and being extremely bored by many of the readings that in another realm or alternate universe I would have sabotaged — over sensitive poems, love poems. It was late that evening that I decided to go snoop around, in the guise of looking for another toilet. Whilst I did this, walking past ornaments, baroque paintings, I thought about the fragrance of melons, mostly due to the novel I was writing, Melons as Days. Abruptly I came to a door ajar, when I heard the sound of moaning, though the sound was quite awkward as if muffled through an old speaker. Perturbed, I walked closer to the door and then heard her voice: You’re as beautiful as the rain. And then more moaning. I found it all strange as I knew that I was the only other person in the party out of the room apart from her. I hadn’t noticed anyone else leave the room, I thought, whilst I walked back to the party to hear more Slyvia Plaith wannabes and political jargon. It was about twenty minutes later that I realised what had occurred: according to Alejandro Muniz, actually a very good poet, the apartment that we were in was owned by two journalists that had a disabled fifteen-year-old son that was apparently asleep. I didn’t think much of this until later.
And it was perhaps a few weeks later that I saw her again at the same coffee shop. She walked in as I was reading a few verses of Walt Whitman. She looked a little dishevelled: her hair was a frizzy mess and her white shirt was only half tucked into her jeans. I asked her what she had been doing that day, and she went into a strange diatribe about sex and politics. I think she even quoted Deleuze. It felt like a two-way mirror: sat there staring at her with all the thoughts I was having about the journalist’s son and her. I decided to just ask her about what I had heard that night. At first she went stone-wall quiet, like a muted doll and then she started another diatribe about the politics of sex. By now I was feeling a little put-out and as if things were becoming strange. She then got up and left before mentioning that all human beings deserve to have what they want. As if shadows forming in my mind, I started to feel an element of disturbance. Though I didn’t know whether to cheer or feel I was harbouring what can perhaps be seen as indecent. It was a feeling of personally being duped as opposed to one that wanted ethics: a very specific feeling. Though it was four months later that we met again on a dark alley in Mexico City, where cats crawled, and ladies of the night patrolled the area for money—immorality is perhaps veiled by justice only by subjectivity, I thought. She was stood at the edge of the alley across from Bar Rita. She saw me and we quickly started talking: she congratulated me about the publication of Melons as Days and I told her that she looked healthy and well, which she did. I asked her about her writing and she said she was writing a book of poems, that would later be, Articles of Violence. I didn’t want to know exactly what she was doing in Mexico City, just as much as I didn’t want her to ask me what I was doing that night, and it seemed mutual as the conversation stilted in the enrapture of the darkness. After a silence, we exchanged numbers and told each other that we would meet that week. It was two weeks later that I decided to ring the number she gave me. A man answered and after a few miscommunications, he told me what had happened, monotone, as if reporting the rain. I put the phone down and deciphered the words that came from out the phone and then I started to think about all the occasions that I had seen her. I wanted to know how exactly she had died, so I called around and pieced together a few stories over the next few weeks. There were a few rumours but the story that fit, rung true as soon as they were uttered by Isabel Renald (a good poet), was that she had heard of a woman that was having sex with disabled people, including children, and that this was her thing, and that a woman called Caterina Isnaid, a mother, had heard about what was going on with her son and a “foreign woman” and had shot and killed her with one shot. — written in London 2018
'fried soup at London (Wok)' 2018
'a card game in Paris' 2018
'mosque next to Taj Mahal's sign' 2018
halal porkchops drama of the understated sensuous looks at grapefruit mango juice dripping down sticky chin kiwi flavoured photos each drop of water contemplated as bodies laughter emanating out of old communists mouths — written in Manchester 2017
'more meat costing â‚Ź10.50 etc at Paris' 2018
'working class hero at Delhi' 2018
'Karl Marx (Barriers to Entry at London)' 2018
'the sacredness of lounging at Udapuir' 2018
'a dog playing at Paris' 2018
'a monkey temple at Jaipur' 2018
a walk through Indian streets with a temple guide called Ahmed a row of yellow coloured shirts hung on a clothing line on this random Indian street in Varanasi where kids ran around purporting to be their favourite national cricketer, whilst a wind blew a storied cream coloured polystyrene cup that was apparently (according to Ahmed) drunk out of by a man called Raj that held two jobs: one as a shopkeeper and another as a monkey guard in a monkey temple that, along with bananas fed the animals vegetable samosas, rice, mangoes of which were purchased from a stall managed by a lady called Pooja, who, according to local rumour often dreamed of eating strawberries and selling them too, but had actually never tasted the fruit or its various incarnations (strawberry milkshake, for instance) for fear of unveiling its mystery, but imagined it to taste “like sweeter grapes” she would often tell customers at her stall, who that day included a woman called Reema that was originally from the outskirts of Delhi but had relocated to Varanasi to be with a man she had said she loved mostly because he had webbed toes, which she would often fixate on and feel as if the world was “so enchanting” just by studying this man’s web toes, of which an elderly tarot reader living close to the market said would eventually lead to him being diagnosed with a form of gangrene one day to then lose a foot because of the unveiling of the Shakti card illustrating that his chakra or aura was awaiting a powerful change that he then saw as a warning, which meant that he would often walk around the streets wearing two pairs of socks, carefully avoiding any contact with stray cats, of which freely roamed one gold and brown one called Chancie, who was once owned by a local communist that often moonlit as a clown at children’s parties that were predominantly held by upper class Indians living near the Manikarnika Ghat who all serendipitously believed in the Holiness of the local Ganges River and often bathed naked there with sadhu’s like Patel Krishna who walked past the yellowed coloured shirts hanging on the clothing line before stopping at a Sugar Cane Juice stall that was in the middle of being moved by a man known as Siraj and also Mohammed, to some, because he had, years before, converted to Islam but would only arrive to the local Mosque once a month where an Iman was in the process of transitioning from Islam to Hinduism, due to the revelations of a local guru that had recently come into an inheritance of an industrial building that was purported to be worth “an astronomical amount of Rupees” owing to its location next to a factory making sneakers that was owned by an Indian property magnet that according to the local
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'"and death looming on every soul in the planet" — at London (after Isabelle Eberhardt)' 2018
newspaper, a month previous, appreciated: macaws, stray cows and European artworks by K. Beema that particularly were made in the American Art boom of the nineteen eighties because of their use of bizarre colour contrasts as chocolate brown and baby blue oils. — written in Varansi 2018
'creeping streets of Varanasi (a ritual)' 2018
'listening to Dean Blunt at Dalston, London' 2018
'advertising Ă la Asia at Varanasi' 2018
'advertising Ă la Europe at Paris' 2018
'self portrait (poem)' 2018 that funny feeling the understated drama mango yellow scents near empty trains at Louis Blanc dead leaves on pavements mango juice dripping down a chin a monkey called Balou stealing a banana on Luxman Jhula each drop of water contemplated as if a body serial numbers of stolen goods — written in London (after Édouard Levé)
'a portrait of a Frenchman in a small library with a wry smile at Paris' 2018
'answers to the moon — portrait of worker' 2018
'portrait of laundry man at Varanasi' 2018
'inventory, Paris' 2018
'big back t.v's & man on phone, Old Delhi' 2018
pages eighty eight & eighty nine: 'two Sadhu's at Varanasi' 2018
the spectacular eternity of Rosemund The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was always on Rosemund’s lips: the differing elements of the situation, the colours of the City and their prevailing dogmas. Tempestuous, it could be said that Rosemund enjoyed many aspects of the situation, for when she spoke there was always an incredibly excited look on her face. Elaborate gesticulations. Fascinating as it seemed, Rosemund was also hiding a secret she only disclosed late into her life. The cold glisten of winter had succumbed the City to a melancholic ache: people moving through the City without a glance here nor there. Rosemund spoke of this in a resolute fashion, harkening to days of the revolution when things seemed so much more alive compared to the coldness of the day. I listened that day having spent the morning struggling to write the second novel Oceans of Mangoes. I always thought that old age disregarded the thought of sensitivity or the notions of repute. And this was the actual case for Rosemund as, after she made me a coffee, she told me that after the Revolution she had seen a lady pushed off a bridge near the 8th District. As she spoke I could hear the regret in her voice by a slight tremble. Although she didn’t cry I could feel the emotions tied up in her words. I then asked her who this lady was and Rosemund then told me the whole story. According to her the lady was only eighteen at this time, but had married a Nazi. This lady apparently held similar beliefs and was apparently wanting to move to Germany to join a Nazi campaign near Düsseldorf. The man that pushed and killed the woman was a friend of Rosemund’s called Gustav, he had apparently known of the lady’s husband through another friend Misklav but had got into an argument this one night. Rosemund seemed to find it difficult to tell the story, pausing quite often, but she continued nonetheless until she mentioned that she had a stint in a mental hospital due to the whole episode and the guilt that she carried. She held that the thought of Gustav, that same night of the murder, stoically drinking a beer as if nothing happened still impinged on her psyche: the thought that regardless of happenings life continued at any rate. — written in London 2018
mango flavoured memories
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“The glory of existence is perhaps tragic too — the essence of the day is that it is at the same time mundane as it is great.” Impregnated with thoughts I stood up and walked towards the balcony, to notice: women walking fast with bread in their hands, mopeds careening through near empty streets, and a lady walking in a tight red dress. I started to wonder where this woman came from: observing her melancholic movements: left hand rubbing her forehead, mouth cyclically mouthing what I imagined as ruminations of the philosophical variety, perhaps even wonderments about mangoes? After she turned the corner, out of sight, thoughts wafted onto the plump lips saturated in the tyranny of habitual perceptions of love—I wanted nothing to do with it, instead I yearned for: Kiwis sitting on naked breasts, elephants stamping on Breton’s tomato, ants crawling out of vaginas, a slap on a Tunisian beach, the fragrance of Sugar Cane Juice dripping onto warm thighs—warm air wafted into the living room whilst I moved towards the opposite window. Through the window I could see Manuel, and hear him talking as if through an old muffled gramophone—the sound seeping through the slightly opened window. He was talking about his life in a tone that was nostalgic (languid) but joyful (upbeat) as his voice ranged from a loud whisper. As if his memory played an autonomous relationship with his body, his words arranged in a sort of chaotic manner: memories of the time spent starring in a short-lived soap opera in the 60’s, the warmth of his dead wife’s thighs, the dry heat of southeast coast Ghana, old cans blown in the wind, the fabric of wires. Dead lives from the nights rain were scattered on the floor as Manuel started to stare, perhaps enjoying the pleasure of concentrating on their form, composition and the world within a world that exists in them, I thought. Though he then started talking about his life between 1968 and 1972
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when he wrote a book of poems he had entitled: Manifestations of an Antechamber. He then started to recite a poem: infinite amounts of oranges lay naked on a bed of teeth loosely connected by skin wrapped around like sex And then Manuel stopped like an exodus of thoughts, he stumbled around for words until he said that he had forgotten the memory in full, and that these poems never were released because he became enraptured with the idea that life was ugly, particularly so by the Vietnam War. But he soon added that he often thought about the philosophy of oranges however, and that cold remnants of bloody deaths are best to be replaced by thoughts on giraffes or the understated drama of amulets or even fried alligator meat. As if a man after my own heart, after a pause he then said that he once met a blind communist clown from the Congo that had served in the second Congo War as a Spy. The anecdote seemed a universe in itself! It ended with Manuel saying that
'a tree holding a light wind at Paris' 2018
'a fruit stall at Paris' 2018
the clown had eventually moved to Mexico City and met a female bodybuilder from Caracas. After a lifetime, Manuel said that he considered many aspects and concluded the joys of: ironing out the creases of a yellow shirt or walking through a City whilst considering people’s lives or manufacturing a machine that can produce rainbows! After he said this he got up and walked into his ground floor apartment, closing the door behind him. I then moved into the kitchen where I sliced a mango and thought about an ox’s eye like a theatrical event doused in the drama of the mundane—I felt a warm surge, and one that superseded epiphany, I thought: the drama of the mundane! — oil spills in Nigeria… an alcoholic philologist from Burkina Faso… a transsexual in Saudi Arabia… isolated buildings in a remote village in Varanasi that houses two Aghori and one human heart of an obese man from Delhi… card games between Moroccan nomads just off Jemaa el-Fnaa… the painstaking detail of an embroidered mat in a kif den in Agadir… the oily remnants of sushi left on the bedside table of Libyan man who had never tried it before… sagging naked breasts confidently showcased… the enrapture of the darkness on a monkey temple in Northern India… a manifesto being written in Düsseldorf whilst a blue throated macaw chirped… — written in London 2018
'fresh sugar cane juice, Varanasi' 2018
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fragments I don’t remember much; fragments, bits and pieces I will elucidate. Lights, a partial accident perhaps, strange characters. I am in between London and Reading, seemingly on the way to Reading whilst manufacturing ideas. All I can think of is the movie Memento when Leonard Shelby wakes up. I have memories of the sort that illicit a deep understanding of cinema, but I can’t place things; feelings are tantamount to death; never quite grabbing hold of you till it’s too late. I must get to Reading, that is as much as I remember. Sunlight folds into shards of green only offset by the sound of the railway lines, the shuddering. There seems a deep voice following, but I can’t place that voice either. Pity a voice is very much a person and a person another clue, I say. In my pockets is £500, and a hotel key plus a card of Mercure George Hotel Reading. So I know that I will retrieve information there, perhaps everything. London seemed absurdly busy: women walking with urgency to their appointments, an assortment of men loitering and waiting for what? I couldn’t say, but I feel much better now that I am on this train and on the way to the hotel. Retrace my steps, furnish a sort of vestige. I feel awfully functionless without the old grey matter ticking over correctly. You look a little dishevelled, said a lady I came to know as Monica, I think. Just a little preoccupied, I replied. Sometimes moments arise when thoughts subside into actions and the next thing you know you are on a train. I remembered the movie Strangers on a Train and chuckled at the thought; the randomness of it all. How can I remember these movies but not a face, a name, a place? Perhaps it’s to do with feelings, I tell myself on the train, how things make a person feel ultimately relates to how a person remembers something. Scattered leaves on the pathway. A movie after a lacklustre round of tennis. Sex! I remember its form, its composition, but I don’t recall
its experience, first hand, perhaps I left this in Reading too? I think about the speckles of light, growth underneath, surfaces. No, wrong move, such that I then think about Leonard Shelby, the final reveal. The goose-bumps that were enlivened. I move in my seat, these alien thighs that Monica seems to be finding it difficult to not concentrate on. I then asked Monica how she felt about long journeys. I usually bring a book, something to read, but this time I have nothing and I’m feeling a little lost by it. The train went under a bridge, the darkness illuminating another memory of a name, Fred. I heard the name Fred somewhere swirling in my mind, like a phone call, ring ring, who’s there? It’s your nearest amnesiac. I stand to stretch. Whilst doing so, I consult my pockets again, the money, the key, the card. I seem in order otherwise, albeit the look of an apparently dishevelled being, though I can’t fully comprehend my own face, even. The features, the nose, the body, the thighs. Monica asked if I was Okay. I sit back down and mention my trip to the hotel. I’m going to Reading too, near there. O really, now I am not sure what to make of her, perhaps a person that is out to get me, nail me to a bed, examine my thighs as her own. Though I don’t move. Why don’t I move? Perhaps it’s the familiarity that has bred contempt? I try to think of more memories and ultimately arrive to another film, a rainy day watching a Buñuel film, That Obscure Object of Desire. — written in Reading 2017
'near empty carriages at Paris' 2018
'existential train journeys at Paris (after Last Exit to Brooklyn)'
'books at Delhi whilst listening to XXXtentacion's 'Floor 555'' 2018
'books close to Rue de la Bรปcherie, Paris' 2018
portrait of my impaired hand No doubt played on the radio, as Doctor Whitethe chiseled away at my right index finger. Half gone, half there, is the cup empty? Don’t speak I know what you’re thinking Under a local anesthetic, duly, as general always perplexed me (where exactly would I be under it?) the morning light evaporated around the blood seeping off my hand and amidst the feeling that life is really something. Burroughs’ pinky, Van Gogh’s ear and Picasso’s right hand came to mind. — written at Homerton Hospital, London 2016
'architectural thoughts at Paris' 2018
'tradition of architecture at temple in Udapuir' 2018
'drama of the understated man, Paris' 2018
'a barber shop in Delhi' 2018
'a Lebanese restaurant in MĂŠnilmontant' 2018
'leaning Pizza sign, Paris' 2018
'old lady pulling a bag down the Paris street' 2018'
previous double spread: 'magic realism, Delhi' 2018
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Hotel 4 U Sandra had been resolute about the plans: making it clear that with mere dedication the hotel in Rishikesh would be a success. Salvador had his qualms, mostly relating to the fabric of desire and the production of his own manifesto called: The Selection of Doughnuts which Amount to God. Within this manifesto, all written by hand, Salvador aimed to distinguish all realms of living through the metaphor of Doughnuts. Believing that Doughnuts; their roundness, their shape, and their tastes amounted to the conception of God. Some of the chapters were categorised as follows: Doughnut Holes leading to God, Jamming through the
perception of Heaven, Holiest Choice. All chapters were particularly serious: containing diagrams, quotations and even drawings. The page count as of the day they moved into the hotel was 769 pages. Though he had thought that he was only 25% through with the manifesto he had said to Sandra. Initially Salvador divided his time, between dealing with Hotel matters and continuing his manifesto. Though certain customers would distract his attention, generally speaking he was able to concentrate on his "life work". One day when he was writing a chapter entitled: An Essay Detailing The Considerable Spectacular Event of Meaning through Doughnuts, Salvador stumbled on the idea of starting a meditation event contemplating Doughnuts. To begin with nobody showed up, though Salvador remained persistent and after a few weeks two women showed up to the event, mentioning that they had seen it advertised at a Cafe at the Market next to Luxman Jhula. The room at which Salvador housed the event happened to be a room Sandra discarded, mostly as it was windowless. Salvador didn't think much of this, particularly as the event, in his mind, went well. The two women enthusiastically ate Doughnuts and professed their affinity for them. Though by chance the door latched tight and Sandra, from the outside, and Salvador from the inside, were unable to open the door. The two women and Salvador were locked in the room to what resulted in four days, as the door was made of concrete and the latch had broken in its place. So much so that they had to get builders to break the door down. After this event Salvador equates Doughnuts with a darkness: they only had the Doughnuts to eat whilst stuck in the room and so whenever he thinks of Doughnuts he starts to feel a sickness. This manifests into a dark melancholic mood. The manifesto paused at nearly a thousand pages. Sandra felt that this was a great omen, although she kept this feeling secret from Salvador. She tried to elicit a reroute of attention on to the Hotel and its environs: to the smells of bedrooms, the paintings on the walls, the lights on stairs, the emotional aspect of staying at the Hotel. After a month of despondency, Sandra decided that Salvador needed some sort of fresh impetus. She then mentioned that they should purchase a parrot for the reception area. Salvador doesn't disagree nor agree, but just goes with the idea. The blue and red throated Parrot arrived a week later from Shimla. And accounts for exotic forays into animalistic charms: as the bird spoke quite loudly at happenings in the reception area and Sandra also taught the bird words, phrases.
After a month Salvador became quite enraptured with the Parrot, named Candela,
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and he then started to spend time with the bird. Even though the bird would swear at him Salvador enjoyed Candela. Though Salvador, perhaps due to a missing feeling, started to become distant and remote. Often failing to observe his tasks around the Hotel. This leads to the Hotel crumbling, in
'photograph of Rishikesh Hotel' 2018
effect: doors hung off hinges jaggedly, there there was an infestation of rats and even a monkey would stalk their balcony, after an incident that resulted in two injured Hotel customers. Sandra in anger decided that she would divorce Salvador due to his incessant neglect. Salvador took Candela and left in the dead of night, one Thursday. After Salvador left Sandra continued on passionately: dealing enthusiastically with customers, helping to keep the Hotel clean and so on. But she soon started to miss Salvador and his charms. News from his brother Enrique arrived and revealed that Salvador had moved to the mountains and was now living in a cave with Candela. How he managed to survive bemused Sandra, but worried she drove up the mountains to find him. Taking a photograph, foods and drinks. After a week of searching she finally found Salvador. Catching a sentence shouted, and as she moved closer the sounds of Candela speaking. She moved towards the cave housed by Salvador and a man named Ali. The scene detailed a spectacle: Salvador wore dusty and ripped clothing and so did Ali. She started to remember the innocence of Doughnuts. Salvador looked at Sandra in a coy manner, she thought, neither angered or happy. Just a tempered sense of happening. After a few days Sandra is able to coax Salvador down from the mountain and back to the Hotel. — written in Rishikesh, 2018
'commuters at London in an overcast sky' 2018
following two pages: 'bathing souls in the Ganges river at Varanasi' 2018
'backstage footage of 'Purple.' the short film directed by me at London (Lucy Requier & Zee UpÄŤtus)' 2018
"Bye, Ciao, Au Revoir"