On the way to the psychedelic psupermarket, in the strange Lisbon suburbs with total silence except for the dogs, there, on the wall, in glorious green graffiti, some rebel has scrawled Justin Bieber. I happened by a playground that gave no sound, the bouncing of the basketball, the kicking of the football, the child on the roller skates, nothing, total silence, except for the dogs in every house you pass, growling at you or barking at you from the other side of the gate, a cacophony close and in the distance but somewhere also close, Justin Bieber is playing.
A frightened cat in the front yard startled and then lay down under the caravan in the front driveway. A bumblebee lost, stumbles into the kitchen, ungraceful and ticking over like a small motorbike before finally finding its way back into the orchard. In the street, a small motorbike ticked over like a large bumblebee. I noticed his stand was still down as he took off in a cloud of petrol. I pointed at it, he came back, he didn’t speak English, I pointed at the stand that was now somehow tucked away, he finally got the message and rode away.
The darkness fell quickly, the sun seemed to sink like it had slipped off the table like a yellow goo, gone in a second. America catches up with going backwards tonight. What should be simple, now ceases to be confusing when you are trying to organise a session in the week the clocks change. In the early hours, the electricity went off and threw the house into total darkness. Jorge had shown us where the power box was should it happen. It was behind a picture and it would have been impossible to find without being shown where it was. The kettle and the heater together, and the electricity dies, taking with it the light and the internet.
The clock on the kitchen wall was stuck on summertime, so Jorge changed it to the right hour. I realised that it had coincidentally been exactly an hour wrong, days later it is stuck on the adjusted time, never working with dead batteries.
Last day of the orchard, a solitary orange sits in the middle of the driveway and I’m hesitant to move it or kick it away, there’s something Yoko Ono about it, so I just walk around it. It needs a description, a small card, like there might be at a gallery or a museum. (Yoko is 91 by the way.)
Music today has been the second Ramases album, Glass Top Coffin (1975), because there may never be another opportunity to feature it unless it is next to its predecessor. For more info on this, read yesterday’s blog and follow the links.