One of Tangier’s late literary hooligans (either Mr Bowles or someone who knew Mr Bowles) described a local woman as walking ‘like a rope unwinding’. And this is how my mind feels today.
Mr MacGowan has not left his hotel room for two days. I insisted he let me in today, to check on his well-being. It’s difficult to tell. What’s healthy for him would be considered life-threatening for others. But he says he’s okay, really. And I feel relieved when Mr O’Boyle, the Boogaloo landlord and friend of Mr MacG for some years arrives to stay with us for these last few days. I go back to my biography about the Bowles’s scene by Michelle Green, “The Dream at the End of the World: Paul Bowles and the Literary Renegades in Tangier”. The page I’m on mentions Mr Kerouc not leaving HIS Tangier hotel room for days, trying to sleep with the noises of Mr Burroughs’s pederasty going in the next room. Later, I read this passage aloud to Mr MacG and he replies:
“I’ve heard worse things coming from a room next door, kkkksssssshhhhh….!”
I’ve come here with the Rough Guide To Morocco (bought, 2005 edition) plus the Lonely Planet guide for Morocco, Highgate Library’s copy. This latter turns out to be the 2001 edition and is therefore frequently out of date. I have now learned that you should always buy the latest edition of these things, even if they are a bit pricy.
But even the 2005 Rough Guide has errors. Of the two internet cafes it lists, one (Euronet) appears to now be a record shop, while the other (Cafe Adam) is tiny and dingy, the staff speak even less French than me, and I couldn’t get any of the machines to work. Instead, I heartily recommend the place I’m in now: Afrique Net, 4 Rue Imam Assili. Lovely well-lit LCD monitors, drinks and ashtrays and Mozilla Firefox ready to go.
Both guidebooks have different versions of street maps for parts of Tangier. Shops in Tangier do not sell street maps themselves, only road maps for travelling across Morocco. I got laughed in a Ville Nouvelle newsagent the other day for daring to suggest it might be an idea for a local firm to publish a proper multi-lingual detailed street guide to the city. If I were to move here, I’d definitely research and print up one myself: surely it would sell to tourists and travellers, even if the locals scoff at such an idea. To want to not get lost seems to be missing the point of Tangier. You come here to lose yourself.
Besides, there’s some debate as to what many streets are actually called – different versions in French and Arabic abound, and on top of that I’ve seen the names spelt entirely differently on official signs.
The Rough Guide is definitely the superior of the two guidebooks, at least for Morocco. Comparatively groovy, forward-thinking and non-judgmental, it even contains a Bowles short story at the back.
The Lonely Planet, on the other hand, can’t resist terse little judgements here and there, often bordering on the xenophobic. The writers come across like liberal backpackers fresh out of university who are secretly future Daily Mail editors. On the subject of Burroughs, Orton et al coming here to have sex with underrage boys in rooms off the Petit Socco, the Lonely Planet has this to say:
“There’s nothing quaint or romantic about paedophilia.”
Well, thanks for that searingly useful and enlightening tidbit, O Lonely Planet writers. Was that REALLY necessary to add? Here comes a moral bandwagon, you’d better jump aboard.
Mr MacGowan turns to the photos of the book’s researchers.
“No wonder. Just LOOK at these idiots. No wonder they’re lonely, kkkksssshhhh.”
