Small Messenger Capybaras are named Ferdinand...

I've always been most fond of our little capybara friends. One sees them wearing vintage leather aviator helmets and goggles, carrying colourful little waterproof message cases and being most diligent and steadfast on their courier rounds. And it's always very much the done thing to give our Ferdinand friends a small treat after they deliver messages--- the traditional vanilla milkshake is always very much appreciated. It's always a Good Thing to be reading there on a park bench by a lake and look over and see a Small Messenger Capybara sitting there quietly next to one, bearing messages. And it's always a Good Thing to send out little Ferdinands to friends and lovers with letters written in fountain pen on good stationery.

This morning I enabled my Facebook to accept messages and status updates from my keitai. This is rather having one's own little iCapybara service.

The Other Melissa at kraftig_bewegt is taking a class--- philosophy? poli sci? ---at Columbia. Is she still at Juilliard as well? I need her to call and tell me about what she's up to... I do miss her voice late at night. Courtesan, talented musician, clever and affectionate BRDYTW girl--- she does have that Laura Palmer aspect I've always fancied.

I really must try to get to Whole Foods and see if they have Meshti Malone Persian ice cream. I haven't had ice cream of any kind in months, and I think I could deal with something flavoured with orange blossom or rosewater.

In those first months after 11. September 2001 the Travel Channel and Discovery and History Channel ran all sorts of documentaries about Central Asia. There was rather a good one with a British narrator (Nick Danziger?) in the Wakhan Corridor there where Afghanistan touches the Chinese borderlands. He met with emerald miners and isolated nomad clans--- brilliant, haunting landscapes, that sense of utter distance... Wrote about it later in his "Danziger's Travels"--- a book worth reading. Certainly one I want to recommend to Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo. I think she'd like "Danziger's Travels" and "Danziger's Adventures". (Miss Lissy at emigree once signed up for a travel lit course at her junior college in Baltimore. I wonder if she's still interested in the topic...)

Another program I recall from the autumn of the Year One--- another British writer, maybe forty, blond and lean, going to Iran to see the Assassin fortresses in the Elburz. I remember the footage of him at Alamut, demonstrating how nearly impossible it would've been for attackers to climb to Alamut, even with modern rock-climbing gear. I've been fascinated with the Assassins since ever I read Bernard Lewis and Marshall Hodgson on them, back at New Haven. And I absolutely want to see Alamut. One of the key reasons why I want to visit Iran. I want to see Isfahan, yes. And Persepolis. And ride horses along the Caspian. But I very much want to see Alamut. I think Miss Ginny at ginny_mccoo knows that she and I should visit Iran on our way to Tuva and Tokyo.

Listening to Neko Case tonight--- Neko Case is always music for liminal sunsets. There's a girl of whom I'm wary and gun-shy, but whom I still want to hear sing "Hold On, Hold On" and "Deep Red Bells" and "The Needle Has Landed"... Listening to Joy Division, too. After all, I'll watch "Control" this weekend. And listening to My Bloody Valentine. I must ask Miss Ginny what she thinks of the Serge and Charlotte Gainsbourg "Lemon Incest" collaboration...

Trish at kissingverlaine may be back at grad school now. I wonder if she ever read Marshall Hodgson's "The Order of Assassins" and "The Venture of Islam". Something I must ask her. And...does she know an Iranian novel called "The Blind Owl"? I take it for granted that she's read the Turkish "Mehmed, My Hawk" and the Albanian "The General of the Dead Army".

I always hope that lovely wicked clever girls will look at my book recommendations here and comment--- and that girls like Miss Ginny will do the same at my LastFM tracklists. I always hope that lovely friends-and-correspondents will leave their own recommendations, too, and talk about books and films that mean something to them... That's always been something I've liked about being here--- exchanging thoughts about books and ideas and films. I do hope that Miss Ginny is still looking at my LastFM site and noting what I listen to. I certainly take her own music notes seriously.

This weekend I will try to read much...and write letters to be sent out via Small Messenger Capybara to lovely friends-and-correspondents. The liminal season is here: six or eight weeks in the Deepest South where the seasons change and the weather is bearable and lovely girls in short shorts and zippered hoodies do catch the eye.