Commuting Home

Debriefing a meeting.  Wandering around the lobby of a new office building by the Olympic Village that was already being made over, a year or so after opening.  Out the north door and and over and around to the south door for the coffee shops.  The Starbucks was jammed.  The shanzhai SPG had space so I we headed up to their third floor perch where we found a seat and each discussed what we thought just happened.  Is this a real opportunity or not?  It had been a three o’clock meeting and it ended on time, but this debrief was becoming elliptical.  Four-thirty was becoming four-forty-five. 

"Gents, I suggest we get them the proposal ASAP.  Let’s get a move on before rush hour."  Outside it was suddenly pouring summer rain.  I accepted a colleagues’ suggestion for a ride to a subway station.  We went west before we could go east and then south, and then left in order to later go right and we somehow overshot one and then another stop.  Finally we surmised that the ShaoYaoJu station where you can get either Line Ten or Line Thirteen was close.  I nearly shouted when my friend seemed about to drive further south on to the Jing Cheng Highway.  “I’ll get out here!  This will be fine.  Thanks.  See, it’s right over there.”

The rain had stopped but by now rush hour was full on.  I came up to the overpass from my side of the street over to the station and there was a tremendous line, just to begin mounting the stairs. I took the far right which has the bicycle ramp along it and plodded up, one foot on a step, one foot on the ramp like Frankenstein, bobbing up and down.  Somewhere in the middle of the way up, our broad ascending column narrowed down to just two and the oncoming wave of descending citizens fanned out.  A steel rail down the middle might do wonders for these steps.

For two RMB (US$0.33), I can ride anywhere I like on this, the world’s second largest subway system.   And so can everyone else.  I descended to the track and confirmed it was the right line and then, quickly, as the train was approaching that it was the right direction as well.  Notably, there was queue, which all seemed quite civilized and with a bit of effort I squeezed myself on and made my way up one stop to Wang Jing West where I changed for Line Fifteen. 

I went off to the side, away from the pressing throng, determined to secure some music for the long walk up and over, down and through that lay before me, navigating the way to Line Fifteen.  Regular readers will not only recall that this is a rather arduous trek, but that they will certainly know that I am generally a big fan of Rdio which has allowed me to rationally explore a considerable amount of music this year.  But for the second day in a row, I wanted to grab someone at Rdio by their suspenders and make them deal with my faulty app.  The app hangs, it seems, going back and forth between when I use it on my home computer and when I use it on my phone. 

At home it had been the pianist Hampton Hawes, who I came to know about through his playing with Mingus.  The disc, was a lovely 1958 release “For Real!” with that Dusty Brine favorite, Harold Land on tenor.  Born in 1928, Hawes was self taught on the piano, served in the army and like so many luminaries got sidelined with a heroin habit that got him arrested and slapped with a ten year sentence, shortly after this album’s release.  The Wiki article on the man suggests that he became convinced that JFK would pardon him, upon hearing Jack’s inauguration speech and miraculously, Kennedy did, in fact pardon Hawes, in his final year in office.  Born in LA, remembered, like Harold Land, as part of the West Coast jazz scene, he died there in LA as well, in 1977 at the age of 48. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Hawes

But I didn’t want to listen to Hampton Hawes just now.  Rather, I knew exactly what music I did want to hear, driving through this mass of people: A majestic version of Hendrix “Stone Free” from the Band of Gypsys disc, “Live at the Fillmore East,” where he is using the Octavia and UniVibe pedals to brilliant effect.  I could almost hear the music and almost see myself cutting, gracefully through everyone as I made my way through.  

Find "Jimi" in the "Collection" tree and click on it.  Spinning wheel of nonsense.  OK.  Kill the app, and launch it again.  The same.  OK.  Kill the app, and launch it again.  The same.  OK.  Turn off the phone.  Restart the phone.  Click through a bunch of obligatory nonsense.  Launch the app.  Hung.  Kill the app, and launch it again.  The same.  OK.  Kill the app, and . . . pause and wonder just how much time I’ve burned here on this gerbil wheel. http://home.comcast.net/~loudfast/writeweb/mgun.htm

Walking then, silently, I still heard the faint traces of the song, but it only made me bitter.  Walking down the stairs rather than waiting for the escalator, young people bounded down past me.  And this made me bitter.  Waiting finally in another long queue, the train pulled in and a young fashionably dressed woman suddenly cut in front of me and a few other people as the door opened and pushed her way as if we were all animals, of no concern.  She roughly shoved a man aside and, this being the first stop for the train, forced her way to a seat.  Bitter indeed.  Just who is this young lady, who is so determined, and so forceful and so rude? 

Standing up above her I looked at her face for the first time.  It was the kind of a face that should have been attractive.  But her pupils extended out of her head almost like triangles, and her large round eyes, seemed as though they’d been sharpened.  She glanced around swiftly, expecting and prepared for a fight.  And this was all at odds with her tidy attire and carry on hand luggage.  I couldn’t help but look at her again and I could almost feel all the screaming that had been part of her life to have made her face look like that, to make her eyes dart about like that.  And of course, I don’t know her, at all.

I probably gave the Rdio app another try, to no avail and pulled out a book, if I recall.  But thinking about her, somehow made me not so bitter.  I like riding the subway here sometimes, despite the challenges.  Cities, properly lived, density, forcefully sampled compels a certain empathy for all the other dreams around you.   All of us a bit numb.  Feeling, comparing, ignoring; 爱莫能助[1]

爱莫能助

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[1] Àimònéngzhù: unable to help however much one would like to (idiom); Although we sympathize, there is no way to help you. / My hands are tied.