Notes on a floating world, or about sifu, space and sushi

Rudi Gernreich dressed completely in white tiptoes upside down in a tenuous circular fashion. One after another, former pupils in pristinely bleached retrofitted outfits follow his footsteps onto the empty horizon, each individually vocalizing the same tune that grows louder synchronously. Indeed (and contrary to scientific evidence), their collective voices do project well in far space, a plaintive gravity into the otherwise austere weightlessness of nothing. And just as suddenly, the modernist drama reaches a funereal crescendo.

Eight years after the fact, the floating worlds above offer a floating bento box of liquidified sushi off the menu.

Notes on the River Kwai

An hour passes by and the tree somewhere in Brooklyn grows older.

Such coincidence can only be divine wind, a perfect storm that swirls gusty orange cones in flashing orange lights. Nothing moves, everything freezes, only brazen thoughts discourteously converge. In but not on edge, the violatile fuse so out of context just fails to light. The telltale hiss of trailing sparks never materialize as if drowned by the existing moisture of the surrounding choppy waters. Yet the instructions on the yellow box says to pull out the tab out to activate.

Where is William Holden and when will he save us?

Notes on white on rice

Over a billion served or twin humps, double arches and no flat feet that Ruth Asawa weaves endlessly. Besides, her milk cartons empty out pure unnutritious white rice.

So are tubers more starchy? she asks.

His bloated little stomach vomits out watermelon in reply.

Notes on the spring that skips by

The champagne backdrop shimmers a translucent grayness from which subtle washes build up imaginary mountains on either side. Huge accordioned screens separate the people from the stage before them as the lights, the thundering skies, flicker. A tin bird weaves the navigated course blindfolded. It is a one-dimensional trick but the audience claps anyway. Their village just elongated off the frame horizontally into a perpetual mist.

But where does the hermit sit? Beside, behind or in front of the metallic branches? Each a disfigured limb snakes throughout harmlessly in the foreground yet the old bearded man is oblivious, focused instead on his carton of thinly sliced chow fun. From a long distance, his tiny figure becomes one continuous noodle.

Pink blossoms bloom, its petals blown off from a gust of hot wind. On the ground, its pinkness fades immediately to a waxy white, swirling around like watery fibrous pulp until it becomes sheets of reborn paper.

Contained within an oddly flat bottle, nothing changes at all because time stands expectantly still.

"And away we go..."

"Blue skies... nothing but blue skies makes my brown eyes blue!"

So it goes somewhat uninterrupted, almost consecutive like Pete Rose chasing Joe DiMaggio. Except Dom and the other forgotten Marx brother thins the water weaker than hemoglobin. Abroad six weeks is after all more than the doctor ordered even if the boy fell sick enough to require Benadryl. Funny how an ear infection sedated the resultant nausea of turbulent air. But given the high winds off the Pacific maxing out at hurricane speeds, the slow descent lasting over an hour longer than was broadcast proved that luck be a lady tonight and every night.

So sticking with the fellows you came in with to the tropical peninsula some call a vacation paradise south of the border just before the yuletide cheer and what happens is pure pandemonium. Norman Rockwell no habla espanol where turkey and gimlets still remain the colonial tradition. Talk about Providence but divine intervention of the decidedly human kind interceded as an exchange rate twenty dollar cab ride to fetch provisions. Stockpiling for the next Armageddon because of unpreparedness does cost an arm and a steak bone or two. The desert can be very dry indeed because home away from home requires survivor ingenuity rather than know-how. But one glance at the vista with a temperate temperature warming your eyes first then skin next melted any residual thaw. Eighty degrees Fahrenheit tends to do exactly that. Archaeologically speaking though, the new eighth wonder of eating the local delicacy of what tasted like chicken pizza only salivated the glands for more all-you-can-eat buffet. Such sustenance was essential to combat the constant arm fatigue from the comedic musical chairs routine dislocating the ultra light weight stroller. If anything the experience functioned as a test run for the larger and longer travail because the smaller increments only whetted suspicions of whether distance or duration would claim ultimate victory.

Forgotten notes

A diagonal line circumnavigates the sphere and cuts through, ninja precise. No ordinary ginzu knife needed just clear plastic bags to contain the remnants.

A mission made impossible

Morning again, a double bargain as wheels touch land calmly. The beige odalisque so tightly bunned but redly aproned clasp their hands and bow in unison as pockets jangle loudly of pilfered cutlery dull to the touch. One of them cries accidently over spilt red wine that to her utter surprise fails to leave a blood stain. Magically it simply disappears as does the entire crew searching for the missing passengers.

Outside the atomic clock inside the peripatetic crocodile starts ticking uncharacteristically loudly and far too annoyingly. A stranger out of the blue fog intercedes to offer ground transportation as a means of improbable escape. Such timing is too fortuitous to dismiss despite its extravagance well beyond conventional exchange rates. But who is to complain? Not us, not yet anyway because that gasp for air will become necessary sooner than anticipated.

His vehicle like the drive in is somnambulant, its six cylinders preternaturally humming scary Broadway tunes. Finally time stands still long enough so that the Nehru jacket returns to vogue behind the marbled counter. Issey Miyake security speak into their sleeves opening Sesame Street to Ugly American tourism and Yellow journalism. Randolph Hearst conspires to outduel Charles Foster Kane but as usual Orson Wells is first to the table and last to leave.

Unbeknownst to anyone is the execution by firing squad that awaits in the form of a female Benedict Arnold.