Bike Odyssey 2014 – Day 31 (June 16) – Total stillness

Day of rest, in Kara’s ‘closet’, in Portland, Oregon. Perfection. Yesterday Joe mentioned Stephen King, and I raised the matter of how King claims to be unable to recall writing some of his novels, written under the influence of… he doesn’t say exactly what mind-altering substances. I speculated whether it mightn’t be easy enough to forget having written things, including those composed without benefit of drugs. Lying awake this morning I suddenly recalled (for no apparent reason) Pierre Viallet’s obscure, almost-forgotten novel set during Castro’s Havana coup, ‘Juliette, ou L’Insolation,’ which it occurred to me that I might have translated 40 years ago and subsequently completely forgotten. My agent at PLR gave it to me, I remember that much. Turns out that there was an English translation (‘Juliette: Or, Sunstroke’ – the very title and punctuation I’d’ve chosen) but nowhere can I find the translator’s name. Abebooks, last refuge of the bibliophile, has one copy. $5 + $4 postage. That’s too much, just to find out if you’ve done a Stephen King.

In the first photo, our good friends, Giant (standing, left), better known to the world as Victor, and Kara, third from left, with Esme and Travis, extreme right, two of Kara’s four (the other two, Kieran and Griffin, are at furthest left and furthest right in the second photo), plus two visitors, Sonia Ruscoe, second from left, and Joe (and also Ben, in the second photo, 2nd from left), on a day of NorthWest weather, alternating sun and rain. Sweet peas, and raspberries in profusion, grow in their back yard like weeds; this is the state that bequeaths the rest of the country its grass seed, the greenest state, along with Washington, in the union. There’s always food aplenty at Kara and Victor’s, and people and musical instruments and time to sit and talk – today, at length, about the cellphone culture and the perils technology brings. Travis, most radical of the clan (he owns no phone) nonetheless weighs in against alarmism. Esme, unperturbed by talk of the toxicity of a world of apps, sketches Hitler on her iPad. After brilliant sunshine, the rain begins to fall again. First a thunderstorm, then a hailstorm. This was a good day not to be out on 2 wheels.