Somehow a  fair amount of "Ikea" brand silverware has shown up in my house. I didn't bring it here; I don't know how it got here.
    I don't know too much about "Ikea" other than that it's run by some Nordic billionaire, and that's enough for me to not give a toss. But people are always talking about it in hushed, reverent tones, making it out to be some fantastic brand. I eventually determined it to be a furniture warehouse, which is of limited interest to me since there is not much furniture that can fit in my miserable bedsit.
    One day my parents came to visit me and said 'What shall we do?'. I suggested a rowboat on the lake, or a walk in the park, something befitting the bright sunny day in question. But they would hear none of it- "We wanna go to Ikea!" they screamed. "We don't have that where we're from, but we heard it's great!".
     Well, I told them, you're out of luck, 'cause we don't have it here, either. But it turns out I was wrong- there is an Ikea warehouse in some anonymous flat suburb an hour away. So we had to go there. Once you there, it was more or less like an amusement park. There were lots of very heavy people strolling around. I was told many people "make a day" of it. Once you go inside this warehouse, painted in patriotic Nordic colours, it's some kind of maze reminiscent of Italian rest stops where you can only get out by going all the way through. Along the way the consumer classes ooh and aah over geometrically-shaped beds, chairs, dog toys, and silverware. There are also people selling meatballs. Oh, boy.
     I couldn't get out of there fast enough, and for the two hours spent in this hell, my parents didn't even buy anything. Meanwhile I find that someone has smuggled Ikea silverware into my house, and when I went to cut something today, the knife broke in half. Yes- in half! And what do you think I was cutting? A piece of cheese! I understand that a knife might break in half if you're slicing, say, a rock, but soft, unctuous cheese? (I hope unctuous is a word in English.)
    So read 'em and weep, Ikea fans.

  A sad day for me. It turns out my close friend and confidant Ryan B, mentioned with alarming regularity in these pages, has gone all-out John McCain on me. The Original Mister B, a heavily-tattooed, hard-drinking sort of fellow, apparently has a secret life on the internet, where he goes by the name "McCain Man 2008" and films promotional videos for Republican candidates. The video, found on You Tube this afternoon in a moment of idleness, unmistakably shows the belligerent Mister B indulging in bellicose rhetoric while prancing about and doing a series of jigs in support of the right-wing demagogue.
  A sad day for me, and a sad day for America.

     In the 1980s and early 1990s there appeared on the pop charts a number of words beginning with 's' that I never found out the meaning of. The first one was Philip Collins with "Sussudio". I never figured out what he was banging on about with that one. Then came Michael Jackson, who occasionally shouted out "sha'mon". That one too was a mystery.
     Now comes a new one.
     The Original Ryan B, a confidant of mine, recently visited my house and while doing so began hopping and flitting about, repeating the word "shaboogie" in a funky accent. Asked where he stumbled upon this strange quotable, the Original Mr B replied that he had heard it in a Prince song- "I have his greatest hits on my I-Pod," he explained.
     Never having been a Prince fan, I was intrigued. Ryan B explained the word in question was heard on Prince's 1991 number one hit "Cream". The lyrics, which Ryan then sang to me while performing in front of a mirror, went thusly:
     
      Cream. Get on top.

      Fair enough- we know that cream will ofter rise to the top of milk. The song continued:

      Cream. You will cop.

      Now already in the second line I didn't know what Prince was talking about. I don't know that sense of the verb 'cop'- I know 'cop to it' and 'cop a feel' but that's about it. However, I was willing to let this one go as a Midwest regionalism, a corn-fed Minnesota turn of phrase, if you will.
      But then, the next line:

      Cream. Shaboogie-bop.

     Well, I about lost all clue as to the proceedings at that point.
     Cream. Shaboogie-bop.

the other day i attended the 6th Annual International Slow Pipe-Smoking Competition. It was on the second floor of some palazzo and up there a bunch of old dudes with numbered bibs were sitting around smoking pipes. The rules were that they were allowed three grams of tobacco and three matches, and they were attempting to break the world record of two hours and twenty-five minutes. A crowd sat in rapt attention and periodically broke out in applause when one of the smokers took a particularly subtle puff. After about three minutes I left, but later on I saw one of the old dudes walking around with a big trophy- an honour indeed.
Man, what a weekend.

    Who knew that yours truly was such a celebrity in Palestine? You can imagine how excited the Palestinians were when they heard I was giving an impromptu 'oud concert in benefit of their poor, benighted nation. I was able to convince one particularly rabid fan to part with a few photos taken in the streets of Palestine showing me introducing the locals to my magical music. Take a look

    Egyptians, like Indians, are those sorts of people who believe one makes a good impression on tourists by shouting out nonsense in the language of the tourist. Usually this is gibberish like "Yes please!" or "Excuse me sir hello!" but a fellow the other day in Cairo had some good ones- on finding out I was American, he began doing a little jig with his arms swaying about and shouting: "Yankee Doodle Dandy! American Flavor! Bensylvania!" (sic).

     Then I got a haircut and they did something very strange- near the end, the fellow put some powder on my face and then took a spool of thread and wrapped it through his teeth and round his fingers and then rubbed it on me- moving it in some way that that string ripped small hairs off of me.He ripped out all the hair between my eyebrows, some on my cheeks, and then even on my ears, where I have never even seen any hair. (Yet.)  The whole thing was quite painful and I was just as happy that the hair was there to be honest.

    Also I was on the metro the other day and I saw money on the floor. It was a 25 piastre note (maybe five cents).I put it in my pocket. Then a few seconds later some old dude started yelling at me to come over, and he began asking me questions in Arabic. I just nodded my head and mumbled "aywa" and then I understood he wanted to see the money. So I gave it to him and he told me something and left with it, and I do honestly believe he was going to take it to some sort of lost and found. Egypt is kinda strange that way I have found.

I have had the good fortune to see some wonderful music in Cairo over the past few days. The other day there was an 'oud player named "Musician Mohamed Absel Wahab" and he was very good. Last night I saw a sixteen-piece band led by Dr Amr Abd el-Moneim. So loud my ears hurt. I had to leave at the intermission as I was dead tired and falling asleep but I want to assure anyone who saw me nodding off in the crowd that it was just sleepiness...

Yesterday I saw a little Egyptian kid hawking phony papyrus-scrolls to tourists and I saw he was wearing a fuzzy dot on his forehead. It was not quite a bindi, but more like one of those felt pads you put under furniture so they don't scrape up your nice hardwood floors. I asked the kid what his deal was and he said "I'm Indian person!" and pointed to a tour bus full of Indians that was pulling up. It must be very funny for Indians to go abroad and be attacked by touts and hasslers peddling junk for "best price madam!"...

    In my quest to visit places in Taipei County that I've neglected, I decided to visit Jiufen. The attraction there is that it's a shopping street where you see "the olden times" and I'm told they have a museum whose star attaction is a bar of gold. Getting there is a pain in the ass and hell of complicated, and you start out by taking a train to the small town of Ruifang, which didn't actually look half bad. Across the street they have a "Well Come" grocery store with NT$6 water!!! Then you wait for a bus that takes you up the hill and along twisty mountain roads to Jiufen and Jinguashi. Once I saw Jiufen from the bus I decided it didn't look like much fun- a bunch of tour buses, crowds of tourists, and very bored-looking shopowners watching TV while selling "regional products". So I stayed on the bus.
    I think Jinguashi was more interesting (I was also kinda interested to see a twon with a three-syllable name, which you rarely encounter). It was an old mining town and now you just sort of walk around. In fact, some high school kids shouted to me: "Hello! Where are you going?" and I said "Just walking around." (Then they went and hid). I climbed up a mountain to a Shinto shrine and got pretty cold in the mist and fog and came back down and got chased by a bunch of stray dogs. Then I went home in another convoluted bus and train trip.
    The most annoying thing about this little trip was that on the local train they announce all the stops in Mandarin and what I assume is Taiwanese and Hakka. Then they say in English, with a prerecorded North American male voice: "We are now arriving at:!" followed by another voice saying the station. The problem is that this particular North American who they got to record this thing pronounced "at" as "et" (quite clearly "εt") which just drove me up the wall every time it came on (about 25 times each way). Who on earth would want to say "εt" for at? Is it some Canadianism I don't know about?
    Wall, thet's all for now.

      One time I was in Taiwan in late January and was surprised to see Christmas decorations everywhere. I mean, I know this island is 90% Buddhist, but yet they love slaughtering animals and other things I would consider contrary to what I've read about Buddhism, so maybe their interpretation of Buddhism not only tosses out compassion as a precept but also embraces Christmas.
      Well, I was in for even more of a surprise because here we are in late April and the Christmas decorations are just as numerous. Just in the past few days I've seen innumerable fake christmas trees, five 'Merry Christmas' banners, a five foot long Christmas stocking marked 'Corona Beer', a giant inflatable Santa Claus and sleigh fixed atop a house, giant reindeer models on someone's roof, a Christmas wreath on the front door of a restaurant, a large Christmas tree with lights and numerous ornaments in the middle of a train station, and so on.
      I know Americans are often criticized for believing that Christmas begins in November, but surely the Taiwanese are equally guilty in extending Christmas to late April? (Or beyond- I see no sign that any of these decorations are coming down any time soon!)