human retriever envies canine reliever

Retrievers are supposed to be good swimmers. My golden retriever Sara runs away from the sea when we go to the beach. We tell ourselves she's afraid of the sound of the waves.

One time dog and owners were applauded by Japanese tourists standing up to their waists in the water. noisynotes had carried Sara into the sea until they were about 30 metres from land. Once he set her down into the water, she paddled straight for the shore and tore around the beach in a mad run to celebrate her escape.

Retrievers, as the name suggests, are supposed to be good at retrieving objects. If you look up the history of the breed, I think you'll find a narrative about their first fathers and mothers being adept at retrieving quarry.

Look at this face.


This is Sara - she who should have been named a golden reliever because she excels at relieving herself of her load. One of her owners, the one who is female like her and belongs to the retriever family, has the daily responsibility of going into the back yard to retrieve floor mats or chew bones or dog futons that have been dragged outside and duly relieved.

I like the spirit of relieving. But I can't embody it well enough. I relieved myself of a piano I owned for nearly 20 years last Thursday. That fed a delusion that lasted all of 3 days. On Friday I talked to ampulet Y about giving away books and CDs. On Saturday I daydreamed about holding a garage sale or peddling my books at a flea market. Today I opened two boxes of books to see what I could say good bye to.

Nothing.

Woof!

"sweet escape" was not among her songs

Today on the MRT, on the way home from work, there were sights and sounds that could just about fit into the palm: miniature narratives for the making. Here's one:

A wisp of a girl, maybe 8 years old, in a plain cotton white dress with spaghetti straps, enters the carriage with a woman in a blouse with forgettable prints and black wide trousers. The woman wears a placid expression on her lined face; she looks as imperturble as her grey hair in its short perm.

The girl sings one American pop song after another as she stands next to the woman, sometimes swaying to the imaginary accompaniment. The songs are about love, longing, heartache. Her voice is thin, like the material of her dress. Gwen Stefani is not in her repertoire. She wears round glasses. Her eyes peer through them, unblinking. She points her fancy white leather shoes inwards and then outwards. They are her favourite part of the outfit.

The old woman looks ahead steadily. She does not hold on to the girl. When a seat became available, she walked hurriedly across to that side of the carriage and planted herself firmly down. The child remained standing in their former position. As I alighted, I caught one last glimpse. She is not holding on to anything and she does not seem to care that her singing is drawing the attention of tired commuters.

n y c's passion for grids

Manifestation of the passion#1:

Manhatten island, New York city: grid city. "It's impossible to get lost in this city," said noisynotes, not known for his navigational skills. I disagree. I have a good visual memory of places, and I can usually find my way around after having gone through somewhere once. But I'm no good in a grid city. The right-angle edges of streets confuse me. What was to the right before becomes something on the left - right and left, up or down, it's all meaningless when you're constantly trying to work your way around squares and rectangles and lines.

It doesn't help that everything is supersized. The avenues are the width of 6 lanes each. It takes a long time to walk from one to the next, so if you've been walking in the wrong direction, ah yes, I know this well... After 1st Ave comes 2nd Ave. After 2nd Ave comes 3rd Ave. But after 3rd Ave... Why did they introduce names for some avenues and numbers for the rest? It all adds to the confusion.

The most interesting thing about New York for me, personally, is that I can't find my way back to my favourite bookshops and museums without looking up a directory and studying a map - as if I was going to them for the very first time. I have been to New York about 5 times since my first visit in 1997, and unlike all the other cities I've been to for about the same number of times or less, the locations of places seem to leave no mnemonic imprint.

So I stumbled around Union Square before I saw Barnes and Nobles and went in there to look up the address of The Strand. I remembered that it was somewhere off the square but where exactly simply escaped me. It's a bookshop I have been to every single time since my first visit to New York. (More on the shop below).

Being lost and finding one's way time and again can be frustrating. But it also lends something to the unexpected re-discovery of favourite places. Turn a corner and suddenly, there it is. The St. Marks Place bookshop. The MOMA. It's like bumping into old friends.

Manifestation of the passion#2:

A block before 14th St. and Broadway, I had two slices of chocolate chip banana bread and a mug of hot chocolate. I was sugaring up for the next stop on a free afternoon in New York: The Strand - a bookshop of used, remaindered and mint condition books all at reduced prices. It is highly recommended that one sugars up before going into a shop that prides itself on having 18 miles of books.

I suspect that new capital has been injected into The Strand. They have come up with a whole slew of their own merchandise (totes, tee-shirts, mugs). And the whole place just seemed cleaner, less dusty, less disorganized. You could still get books for less than a dollar, but these were mostly outside the shop, on tables and trolleys on the sidewalk.

I don't miss the dust and the book selection is still great. I even bought totes for friends and a tee-shirt. But the makeover does seem to have cleaned away some part of the shop's appearance that made browsing and shopping there an unforgettable and unique experience in the past. They didn't use to arrange the tables and shelves in the shop with any care for walking space. You had to wade through stacks of books. You could get lost between History and Fiction. All that's gone. Now it's grid city in The Strand.