Flickagrams #9
Reading In Touch: The Letters of Paul Bowles has got me reminiscing about Morocco, where I went for the first time in the mid-1990s. The book is a great read, and Bowles is an inspiration: all the times I’ve been to a place and said I’d like to live there (Stockholm, Bali, Marrakesh, Jakarta, Rangoon, Los Angeles...), but never did, well, Bowles arrived in Tangier one day in 1947 and never left – he died there some fifty years later. Writing letters in those days was a part-time occupation, especially for a traveller like Bowles: all his letters were typed, so he’d lug a typewriter around on his travels, and have his letters forwarded from New York to Tangier to Ceylon (when he lived for a year); letters would go astray; he’d arrive back in Tangier with a mountain of letters, and respond to all of them. Then there was the problem of finding paper and envelopes in Tangier – everything from jewellery to ceramics was easy to find, but anything practical near impossible. Not to mention beautifully written, descriptive and witty letters; obviously in this day of social media and texts, it’s a thing of the past. Bowles was one of the last of what one would call a man of letters (though Bowles would disagree, as did Gore Vidal when he asked someone if they'd received a letter from Bowles, then quipped that it probably consisted solely of Bowles saying what he had for breakfast).
What is happening in this photo? Well, the girls had asked for some suntan lotion, and we gave them some. I think this was near Merzouga, a Moroccan village in the Sahara. There was nothing happening in the village, so the girls took us to a nearby lake, which was completely dried out. It was still muddy, though, and there were thousands of tiny frogs in the mud, so many that we couldn't help treading on them, and playing catch with them. There was, of course, amazing architecture in Merzouga and the Erg Chebbi, a huge sand dune in the desert, but I didn't take any photos of those. Plus I only had black and white film, which was stupid.
Previously on Barnflakes
Paul Bowles: Exile on Maghreb Street
Notes on Black Sparrow Press