Travel Advice for Young Chauvinists (redux)

(First, you’ll find intercalated pustules of censer smoke ringed by ferrules of frankincense in your heart. They were placed there by us. Do not panic.)

Travel.

And when lost abroad …

You’ll find mussels in Malmo in an impossibly dry place.

Dresden is everything it’s cracked up to be, you’ll find Friday morning virgins there on Sunday afternoon.

Milan is … well … Milanese—and that is inauspicious—the rain incessant and the shops shuttered.

Don’t waste your time in Barcelona. You’ll find the last remaining speaker of Njerep there, displaced, and waiting for the placement of the final trencadistile at the pinnacle of the Sagrada Familia.

Avoid the French.

In Lisbon the fog is impossibly thick and it smells of something long forgotten.

Decamp for home from the marshes of London.

Practice the cathecism of free markets, derivatives and tranches.

Breathe deep the smells of amok-capitalism in the morning (essence of napalm available for an additional fee).

AND sing the anthem—early and often.

Oh, the places you’ll go!

What I’m Reading:

Where do you find the parts to make yourself into some other kind of person? Can it be something you read in a book, a gesture you see on the street? Half-smile of a teacher, the walk of a girl on the beach.

— Amy Hempel / “Tumble Home”