Myth and Memory in Postcards

In Chronological Order:

3 August - 20 August, 2009



I found a bi-lingual edition of The Odyssey in German and attic Greek used outside Humbolt. Sally said I should buy it. I did not.


I met a man at YAAM who called himself Jamaica Boy. His birth name was something like Raymond or Darryl. He was missing one of his teeth on top.


"Rose water? What, are you Audrey Hepburn or something?"
"I like it."
"This isn't the 20s."
"Uh, Audrey Hepburn was acting in the 60s."
"OK, Okay. Let's not dwell on the past, guys. Alright?"


Robert gave me a roast beef / mozzarella sandwich because it was not what he ordered. For free. He also carried it around in his bag until I was ready to eat it.


I bought my first doner and ate it for dinner.


Found a photobooth and took a photostrip.


Found a bicycle in the road and rode it to the Turkish flea market in Kreuzberg to buy wrenches. I worked on it all afternoon and could only get two of the 10 speeds to work. The brakes never did.


I tripped while walking on the sidewalk. My ankle caught my other calf and I almost fell into an old lady. No one saw.


Went to the Temporare Kunsthalle and cowered in the center as the tap dancer moved above me. I wrote my first poem in almost weeks there. Then I saw Public Enemies at the Sony Center.


Smoking is bad for group cohesion. Especially at airports and without telling anyone. Later Went to a hookah bar and was grossly overcharged. Karma.


At a mosque, the man handing out head scarves gave Lauren a brown one and Amy a blue one, looked at them and the scarves, took them away, and switched them. Both scarves then matched their eyes perfectly. I took a photograph.


Fifteen Americans "hit the flo'" at once when commanded to by the lyrics of the "boots with the fur" song: "She hit the flo' / Next thing you know / She was goin low low low low..." I took frequent cigarette breaks.


I bought sut outside the Blue Mosque with Lauren. When we paid separately, all the vendor said to me was: "The man always pays. You are not a gentleman."


A man approached me with a clipboard and started speaking to me in German. When I told him I didn't speak German, he said in perfect English: "Oh, sorry. My mistake. This is not for you."


I bought a doner with everything on it and ate it all. For the first time. That is, without taking any of the vegetables out, rather than not finishing it.


A funny think happened on the way to... Art show. I drew a circular star pattern on a graphite wall with an eraser. After, we walked back from Prenzlauerberg because the U-Bahn had stopped running. On the way, we got pommes frites at Heinrich Heine. It was the first time I had been there. It was not the last.