Presumed 'IFO' Out Over the Water

Lying in my hotel bed this morning, staring out at the sea and over to Lama Island something dark and black flew by quickly.  There are, of course, enormous kites, the raptor-like, Accipitridae,
  not the child’s toy with the string, that look like shaggy eagles, which regularly fly about on Hong Kong Island.  An enormous one used to nest outside my office window on the 44^th floor of the Lee Gardens building in Causeway Bay.  They’re big.  This fellow was nearly a yard tall.  But what was flying by this morning was going much faster than a bird.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite_(bird)

This was a v-shaped plane, though it didn’t appear to be any bigger than my friend the kite and it was way too low above the water for any plane I could imagine.  Recalling my fuzzy thought process; I also quickly surmised that it was way too fast for a model plane.  It looked like the U.S. Air Force stealth bomber but the size of a hotel room television.  It circled about and then sped off out of view.  I can only surmise that is some sort of new, commercial drone.  And this saddened me a bit, as there was a reasonably logical answer for what this thing must have been.   A few decades back I would have been swearing I’d seen a UFO. 

My UFO accompaniment music turned out to be a rather ‘out-there’ album from Wayne Shorter’s trumpet playing older brother, Alan.  “Orgasm” the 1968 album sounds like a Woody Allen punch line, and indeed the a-rhythmical title song seems like its having a bit of trouble securing a linear climax.  Gato Barbieri is the tenor player and he is honking, aggressively shedding, and I’m particularly captivated by the drumming which appears to be Rashid Ali.  Looking at the picture of Alan, he is clearly Wayne’s brother.  I’ll have to go back and listen to his Brother’s date, “The All Seeing Eye” which I have and which appears to be the only date where Alan plays with Wayne. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shorter

Hong Kong is hot, but not brutal.  I just walked from the Shun Tak building, where the Macao Ferry’s leave from over essentially one MTR station to the IFC in order to buy some contact lenses from the place that has my prescription.  On a brutal Hong Kong summer day this walk would mean wet-washcloth armpits within the first hundred steps.  Another hundred steps further and the upper body would be completely drenched and you could be assured to smell strong and wretched until the offending clothes were removed.  No such issues today.  In fact, having traveled recently to Portugal and New York and been back up in Beijing it is striking that nowhere has been profiling insufferably hot, humid weather.  A global cooling, for August?

Later today I’ll make the journey up to Shenzhen from HK.  I’d prefer to nap, as I’m still jet lagged.  I might be able to nod off on the ride, though I’ll be with a colleague who will want to chat.  All I can say is I hope the damn crossing is smooth.  Usually it is, but it’s hit or miss and I’m not really in the mood to deal with a cattle holding pen environment.  For now, it’s up to Pacific Place One for a meeting,then, like my mystery drone I must 高飞远走[1].

Settling in for dinner now, later, at CoCo Park in Shenzhen.  Border crossing wasn’t so bad.  I avoided all the noisy joints out on the street for a noisy joint inside in the courtyard.  Now at a pizza place that I remembered as being reasonable, named “Warehouse.”  I asked for dressing on the side of the salad and got a cup full to add to the already drenched greens.  I usually try to avoid lots of carbs but for some reason when I see “calzone” on a menu it’s hard to pass up.   This one isn’t done right, but it looks nice and somehow I appreciate the effort. 

The best ‘zones’ I remember were the ones at a pizzeria in Thornwood, New York near where I lived.  The summer before I went to college I worked at Paragon, a pool supply factory with a remarkable set of characters.  One of the guys would take orders at lunch, head over and come back with these little bombs of flavor that are lodged up there in my mind as perfection. I had a calzone in the basement of Grand Central Station last week, that was better than this one, but not by much. 

Outside they are playing what must be the ‘Fantastic Four’ or something on an enormous screen.  The pyrotechnics of the canned adventure are rattling throughout the restaurant on the speakers they have here.  I’ve asked them to turn it down three times now.  It’s late and I’m done. 

---

[1] gāofēiyuǎnzǒu: to fly high and run far (idiom); to leave in a hurry for a distance place