Feb 02, 2008 18:49
today i washed george whitman's pajamas. when i was folding the silk-lined cotton tweeds, more carefully than i do for my own washing, i found a wrapped iced chesnut (un marron glace) at the bottom of the dryer.
after work, once the shop had shut & all the tumbleweeds (the people who are staying in the bookshop for free in return for a few hours work) had pulled in the books from outside, a british biography writer called shiv, the two haligonians & i went to a small cafe called "le fourmis ailee" which was long mistaken for "the garlicky ant" - another case of mistranslation made clear by the small ant with wings hanging from the window: the winged ant. after that, we drank some more red wine in the writer's studio on the second floor of shakespeare & company. hilary played joni's "a case of you" & a californian called daniel joined us, contributing some blues riffs about kung fu. they asked me if i could sing; i said no, i could not sing for people. we started talking about jose gonzalez & before we knew it, i was hand-writing the lyrics to "heartbeats" so that the four of us, plus the swede tumbleweed who wandered in ensnared by the gee-tar, could sit around & sing along. we harmonized, practiced, experimented, & recorded. i sang the melody. we plan on going semi-professional & playing on the streets to fund our fiendish book habits.
i got back at 4 o'clock in the morning on a mild february night, brimming with contentedness.