David Goldstein
Amsterdam Journal
What I’ve noticed is that all the canals wear the same jacket: red gortex with blue trim, snaps as well as zipper. I know it’s terrible, though not as bad as the Seine’s taste in hats. I read that it dates from the Dutch presence in Indonesia, as it was the outgrowth of their reaction to Java’s frequent squalls. Then they built dykes to hold in the tolerance.Dutch is a funny language, like wicker. I’d love to learn it sometime, considering the availability of mass. They winch language in through their windows because of the narrow staircases. The bird out my window sings only the first eight notes of “Fever.” A whole country frozen in the penultimate stage of capitalism: what these old houses must have.
Having flung open my bowels to the beer, I can safely say that I know no new parables of violent death. All that stands between Amstel and alcohol is water. I woke up today and admired my life from afar, a man in the park gave me a hundred Iranian dates. Perhaps after a lifetime of weak beer and those geese transoming the pond, I’ll be complete.
Luckily there is porn on TV, dating back I’ve read to the Dutch presence in Indonesia. The Red Light District was a sea of red, a land of red, a lethargic grand pleurisy. I and my friends from the hostel were buoyed up by it in the anthropological, black-bra sense. There are still songs to sing. Have plumbed the depths here etc. and used up my phonecard.
