dagli amici, washing clothes, having walked the dog. Cute how he lets me know he's had enough and wants to go back: We're a good team and we have a good time on our walks. So much having your own computer teaches you about how to use some one else's computer decently and circumspectly. 'Anatole' is my decent social self, the Man who wears the Mask. Or should I say, a man who wears a mask. You might have met me at the Ridottensaal. Or someone just like me.

I've read the 'G(a)linda Goes to College' episode of 'Wicked' three or four times now. It is evidently written under the spell of the movie Glinda. I am completely captivated by the feudal gradations of class and privilege in old Shiz, town and gown, including an underclass, Amas, who actually run things. The Ozness of it. I especially like the way Gillikinese ladies "eschew" subdued dress; those that can afford it even wearing jewelery when travelling. Exactly the daffy, opulent tone of the book and the movie. Like the Gilded-Age Newport, Rhode Island of Auchincloss's 'The Money', sort of.

Well, no, he's not, he's a gay man, and a very clever one. I finished 'Wicked,' lingering over the last chapters, this morning, having visited Wikipedia in the interim. I can see that it parodies both the book and the film, and is weirdly, perfectly faithful to them both. All the arcane stuff in it is perfectly correct and plausible (what a "grimmerie" is, the affected architectural enthusiasm of the pretentious young Galinda). I was not, in fact, let down by the conclusion, and of but few, favourite books can that be said

Staying now with Ham And Gloria, saving capital for a first-of-December Hegira to the Ville de Lumie`re. Depending of course on the outcome of the Congressional elections, and the (unthinkable, really) repeal of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. I have to say this in order to satisfy the scruples of those (Kristen and Marianne notably) who view my flight as alarmist cowardice. Talking to Phil yesterday (who is still planning on visiting the States next summer--not really, I think, getting it)), he at least says, "Paris is overflowing with refugees from all over the world, who don't speak French and have no knowledge or appreciation of French history or culture: Surely there's a place for you with your degree in French and your deep knowledge of French art, history, literature, and culture." Surely. 'Tany rate I'm nearly almost entirely moved out of the Palace, entirely settled in at Ham's and Gloria's. I walk their sweet little cockapoo pup, cuddle their cats--and lie around reading all day long. As he went out the door this morning, Ham handed me a copy of 'Wicked,' and as night falls I'm nearly halfway through it. Wonderful read. Too much sex in it perhaps, but then the author is (or was) a young man.

Back and forth I waver. Soonest is best, but, as I reflect on it, Hawaii is too much like the coastal islands of Chile which Pinochet found so conveniently close, yet not close....I'll call Phil, this or tomorrow morning. Looking up "wreck" in my online French/English dictionary, I found "naufrage," which of course I knew; but what I'd never heard of was "e'pave, personne de'sempare'e qui ne trouve plus sa place dans la socie'te': C'est une triste e'pave, presque un clochard."

Et si je m'en allais aux Indes? Some thirty-nine years ago I read 'Darkness at Noon,' and understood it. The world may, I think, be divided between those understand 'Darkness at Noon,' text and sub-text, and those who don't. It depends, perhaps, on whether one's values are, or are not, essentially humanist, or, in a positive sense, anti-fascist. Tiresome topic. Anyway, I did understand the whole hideous message of 'Darkness at Noon,' and I stood warned.

Sicker, hacking and phlegming. Must call Gloria and cancel today's promised dinner (chicken and dumplings!), which distresses me almost as bad as my disease: Gloria might be said almost to be as good a cook as Kristen; better even, when it comes to things as purely delicious as chicken and dumplings. I groan inwardly.

Funny conversations (about me mostly) with both Marcus and Patty, severally, yesterday. After a lot of yelling, Marcus came up with the fact that he's been jealous/envious of me for forty years, for my aristocratic ethos and lifestyle: "Such arrogance! 'Honor' indeed! You sound like a Klingon." Then we listened to the 'Trout' Quintet on radio, and smoked pot, while that sunk in. Afterwards I went round to Patty's, and while afternoon faded into evening, we talked about her sister's stroke, and the effects thereof. Then turning to the subject of moi, she said that she and Donald had been discussing me, and that Donald said of me that, of all the people in this group of friends, I am the only one capable of true greatness. To which Patty had responded, "But no, he will never stop playing long enough to be great." Oh well, that's what other people are saying about me. I remember once, long ago, Patty's father Pete (my guru/zen master)saying to me, "Your special talent, Anatole, is enjoyment."

While my internet connection lasts....Sick this morning of the flu that's been plaguing all the other denizens of the Palace, and of fear. I resign myself to it, as I do to the weather (pleasant, cold o' nights), and to the fog of horror that's spreading over the country. The Tuileries is certainly not as comfy as Little Trianon, but it's bigger. Everywhere you go (War abroad, Terror at home), there's a crispy little note of Fascism (Authority-fear/worship) in the air. The winter looks to be very bleak. Tell Axel not to bother with the coach-and-eight. A half dozen buggies will do.

Saw Gerald for an hour or so yesterday. Lorsque j'y pense se'rieusement, J'ai tout ce qu'il me faut pour me re'fugier aupre`s des francophones de n'importe quelle genre. Si je ne suis pas francophone, que suis-je donc? We did as before, and it was, as before,
soothing and restorative. Towards the end of our session, one of the two young women (lately) who serve Gerald (for love) came in, on her way, of course, to the kitchen, Meg by name, and said, as she passed, "Hi, Anatole," and I mindful that at our last encounter I had called her "Mary" (the Other Woman), was barely able to stammer back, "Hi, M,M,M...." God, what traps life lays for us.

Okay, realizing that, with the Bush detainee/torture bill, the worst has happened; it's just a matter now of cinching it down. The vulgar reality of it would gag a maggot, but maybe watchfulness will serve me as security for a while. Meantime, next month, perhaps, we'll save more than 271.00 dollars by not indulging in the vanity of our own PC and high speed internet cable, and all the online credit card enticements thereof. Now that sounds like sense and reason. Whatever happens, though the choice be random, I will probably not be among the first destined by those notorious lists to torture and murder; and I will hear of its coming via the internet in plenty of time to flee. Magari. I think now, indeed, what if, being sincere in my apprehensions, I were to stay two months, saving up, say, 600.00 dollars. Such that I might set out on the southerly hegira with 1,200 dollars on the first of January....

Up betimes this morning, having had almost a change of heart overnight, thinking things just couldn't be as bad as all that; thinking that I would just manfully pay my rent for this month, and see what happens next month. Then I read my morning email from Buzzflash, telling how the same people who gave us Operation Condor (of ill fame) in South Amnerica are now running the U.S. torture/prison system, which changed my heart back again. Nothing, not even loyalty to one's landlord is worth that risk. So, to assuage my conscience, and to avoid skulking every time I go through the lobby, I think I'll tell M*** C****** what's up, and that he will, or will not, have the rent in ten days....

What makes it all so terribly plausible (exodus) is that I have not paid my rent here at the Palace; I have the 271.00 dollars on hand, and have not spent it, waiting for further signs and portents. I have also, rather unexpectedly (due to Friday's defection), adequate luggage (his--mine by default) to carry my few belongings. I don't know what you call the thing, but you see it in airports--I call it an Airport Baggage Tote (deftly introducing my favourite neologism); it being a 15-gallon canvas-with-zipperpockets container on hinder-wheels, with a retractable handle for pulling; in which 'twill be no problem to stow my Great Italian Dictionary, or even my beloved coffee machine, the parting from which I had mourned. And so, whichever way I go, north or south, I go entire.

Meanwhile, Gerald, with his barely chemically controlled schizophrenia, has been my island of sanity and serenity. Yesterday afternoon when I stopped by, he had just finished a spectacular big acrylic painting, and was feeling pretty up, so we smoked pot, drank tea, and listened to readings from the major Upanishads, while we cracked jokes and exchanged gossip. Then Gerald put on some Zen flute music, and I lay back on the divan, and he put on his tall, pointed hat with the moon and stars on it and smoothed and harmonized my aura for me. Very soothing. Then we went into the next room and admired his painting together, turning it around and seeing new things in it from different perspectives. The two titles I suggested for two different perspectives were "Princess Brenda dispensing Manna" and "Aunt Sophie's Ragtime." He liked both of them.

Saw Friday at the New Hope Urban Ranch this afternoon, told him that it was fine he had eighty dollars of mine, that I am taking his wheeled luggage, and clapping him on the shoulder, I said, "Good-bye, old friend. I'm going to miss you." Then I walked away quickly lest he see the tears in my eyes.

Having showered, waiting for the coffee to espress. Thinking further; if I could just get so far, India might be fun to visit. But no, if it isn't Paris, it's Mexico. So, now, I must find a reliable travel agent. I'll proceed as if Plan A were feasible, right up to the point where I find myself shut down or turned away--or not. Within the next week. Horrifying it is, how in the Great World the Bush torture/detainee bill has slid down the collective gullet without a murmur, without so much as discussion of it. Nobody, yet, seems quite to understand what's happened to us.

Talked for a long while with Phil this morning. He doesn't see the urgency, thinks I'm unnecessarily panicking, is thinking that I'd be more practically welcome in Amsterdam than in Paris or Brussels, and has got the whole thing wrong, I think, about my needing to have a job: What I want, with my magna cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa qualifications, is a position, not a job. He's planning on bringing his family here with him next summer. In a word, does not get it. What this essentially means is, I can't hope for any help from his quarter, in the form of money directly deposited to my bank account, or a plane ticket sent me, for at least a couple of months (when the ferocity with which the Bush police state will have been implemented will be evident even in Engelskirchen): so we're back to Plan B again, which, all along, I have found easier to visualize; though the end is less clear.

Have just read Pitts on why he thinks he might be "disappeared," and I think he's right. Ominously, I went back to my yahoo mailbox, and found Pitts' last editorial missing. Just gone. Who cares that much? Found it again. Perhaps I am a tad paranoid. 'Tanyrate, this is the 4th of October; tomorrow will be the 215th anniversary of my own particular favourite panic point: hauling the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's kid back to Paris. The important, horrifying thing was the ruthless, efficient massacre of the Swiss guard--and the fact that nobody much noticed it. So, Varennes it is, and soon.

I gave a sample packet of Gerald's drawings to Lucille who runs the little art gallery downstairs a couple of days ago; when I stopped in a few minutes ago to see what she thought of them, she was raving about them. She's going to mount a selection of them and exhibit them in the front window of her shop, starting Friday. She told me to tell Gerald to come to look at them, but not to introduce himself. She wants him to be her "anonymous genius." She thinks even that his stuff will sell. Like me, she thinks he's Picasso, or better than Picasso.

And now, or soon, to bed. Plan A, very simple, is to have Phil send me a planeticket that I'll pick up in Canada. If I encounter any hitches, glitches or threats, I'll revert to Plan B, which likely would be more fun anyway, and ride with the chickens and goats in the other direction. Whichever way: Out.

Did the above as I said I would, then, come back to the Palace, played rummy (drank green tea, smoked pot) with my crazy, nice neighbour across the hall and the nice young boy from upstairs, "Skooter" of late, with whom, extemporaneously, I engaged in a whistling-of-the-first-movemen-of-Eine-Kleine-Nachtmusik contest, much to the said neighbour's amusement. The kid also won the hand of jailhouse rummy. Good to know they're still makin' 'em. And, for a wonder, the 18-year-old man-child was paying me back for having smoked him out last night. Touching. Gives one hope.

Friday's dead. Maybe not really, but as good as. The awful burden of trying to provide for him against the winter has been lifted; I am free to go, having no impediment but books and degrees: A wandering scholar I. Maybe I'm getting a little old for it, but I've done it all my life and I'm good at it. I neither beg nor solicit, yet I find my way, and people help me. So mote it be.

Meanwhile, I am enjoying the hell out of being Gerald's shill or agent. He's incredibly prolific--like Picasso, sort of. Never a false note, or a hesitation; and his best stuff (figures and faces, in my opinion) have such depth of character
that you can fall into them, and sit and stare at them as you might at a living person. In fact, it being too soon to have another practise with Kristen (having had an okay one only yesterday), and having nothing whatever else to do, I think I'll put on my purple whore-shirt and my flannel over-shirt and go out drumming up exposure, maybe revenue by, first, visiting some galleries, seeing what it would take to get his stuff up on their walls, and start getting him the fame and fortune about which he, Van Gogh-like, cares not a rat's patootie.

Actually yesterday will have been the last (high of 79F) perfect day of the year, with a dry, clear little wind which bespoke the end of summer and whispered warning, to those of us with ears to hear, that it's time to go. So I wandered the whole day among my usual avocations and inclinations (or proclivities), nibbling late-season grapes from Patty's 100-year-old vines, going to Gerald's first, then to Diana's, then back to Gerald's, and on to Kristen's--all the while inwardly visualizing my exodus. Kristen thought to twit me, during the chat with which we filled the interstices of our playing, with my never having so much as mentioned the fact that Selma had suffered a stroke a couple of weeks ago. The implication of which Sin of Omission being: (1) that I'm a failure as a gossip/news source, and (2) that I don't really care. So I told her, in compensation, what I've had occasion to observe anent Selma's dire affliction and hospitalization; how her friends and family at first denied that it was a stroke (They [Patty and Annie] spoke insistently of a "transient" and "temporary" pre-stroke condition, even as it appeared that Selma was suffering loss of memory and cognitive skills, as well as partial paralysis of the left side of her body); then, curiously, they [Annie, at least] grew angry with her for all the dumb things (smoking cigarettes, over-eating) she had done to get herself into this condition, and pretty much vowed to abandon her if, when she gets back from the hospital, she resumes smoking. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it seems we are talking about Grief here. Tum placata Kristine, we did fair, clear and accurate, justice to the Surprise Symphony.