Fantastic Outer World

I am unable to turn the advertisement screen off in the cab I am ridding into the city.  I’ve got just the wrong seat.  It’s right in front of me and it keeps flashing ads over and over about eighteen inches from my face.  There is a young, prepubescent boy, reminiscent of Pee Wee Herman, racing around with his thumbs up and his index finger pointed at you and me and at all the bargains.  Others are dancing with him. 

I spent the plane this way too.  The guy next to me was watching a cornball Chinese comedy that repeatedly had close ups of the four-eyed protagonist, shaking in comedic exaggeration.  Tough guys with tattoos would show and kick him and then we got another shaking close up.  It was painful.  Isn't that funny?  His girlfriend would kick him in the balls and we got the shaking close up again.  I was reading, leaned against the window seat, repeatedly pondering his stupid face, before I’d catch myself and look back at my book. 

Some of what I was reading was reading that had to be read.  But I also looked over a marvelous piece by the Persian poet Abolqasem Ferdowsi from his epic Shahnahme, “The Persian Epic of Kings.”  The section is called “Sekandar Visits the Emperor of China” where Sekandar is Alexander the Great.  Sitting where he sat, both places must have been ominous and exotic.  From as "west" as Ireland, Alexander looms as one of “ours” where Iran and then China ever more exotic.  From the Middle Kingdom mystery extends from a ‘Journey to the West.’ Everything beyond is a fantastic 'outer' world for the Chinese.  Based in Tus, in the north east of Iran, what was it like to look West to the ferocity of Macedonia and Rome and then pivot to consider the enormity of China, up over the Himalayas?

I’ve got the ad switch off.  It was all about tapping once, not twice.  Up in the ears is Blue Mitchell on a piece called “Easy Living” which sounds a lot lake Lake Isle Inisfree.  He  thoughtful and confident on this wet Shanghai, Sunday night.  Back again.