So I’m sitting here on the mac at about 9:20 or so in the evening reading an interview with Fat Bobby from Oneida, in which he gives a little nod to the movie that my friend Malcolm and I just finished. Amy’s on the laptop looking at an excel spreadsheet of every movie that our dvd rental place has (which was graciously provided to us on cd). The call to prayer just ended. We live within hearing distance of about 3 mosques, to the call to prayer often sounds like this weird, Ligeti-like chorus. Amy just came over, kissed me on the head, and said, “You smell like Skoal.”
Today was a good day. I woke up to our landlord’s son at the door asking Amy what to do about the Syrians that are following him. We were going to go across the street to Ristretto for lunch, but being Sunday, it was closed. Just as well. We walked to the Corniche and ate at a kind of fancy place near Pigeon Rock. For a fair portion of the time we were there, a man who had climbed to the top of Pigeon Rock kind of wandered around up there, apparently agonizing over whether or not to jump. He didn’t.
After lunch we rode on the rickety and rusted ferris wheel at nearby Luna Park. The view was quite grand and we witnessed a car accident…hit and run…and pursuit. I impressed Amy with my ability to secure our tickets entirely in arabic, a conversation that consisted of “two” (ithnayn), “one thousand” (alf), and “thank-you” (shoukran). When we through being simultaneously filled with amusement and nausea, we walked towrards downtown to have icecream. On the way, a car that was flying both Hezbollah and Amal flags pulled up to the curb in front of us. The ironic thing is that the people who got out of the car were the goofiest, doughiest pair of frat guys you have ever seen. After icecream, I actually bumped into someone I know in Place de l’Etoile; Marcel, who has a design firm from which I almost subletted some office space. Before heading back to Hamra, I tried to buy an arabic keyboard for my mac at the Virgin Megastore, but they were $98.
On the way home, we stopped into a bar near our house called American Dream. We watched Spain beat Argentina in tennis. The bartender gave us one of his caustic creations…TGV, which stands for tequila, gin, and vodka. There were some young guys having a lively discussion at the end of the bar and one point one of them said, “Nazi? Nazi Party?” Gosh, I wish I knew what they were talking about.