18 November - Movies & George

have no time to edit this so from an email sent to mates.

so have not seen the dalai lama yet and doubt i will since i move on tomorrow, you have to do a certain amount of admin to go to a talk of his as some are for tibetans only and the other ones you have to sign up for it 3 days before, bringing passport etc, and then you have to bring an FM radio to tune into the translation and you know, i went to the tibetan meditation centre and library and fingered about 50 of his books with discourses and thought 'nah, me no need right now for all of this' and strangely enough there were so many youth around and in the photos of people attending meditations there etc and i thought, maybe when you 're younger you search more, right now i have no questions to ask and need no answers, it's sort of perfectly clear to me and if the meaning of life is to prepare for a good death, well, am ok there , won't mind, if far ahead in the future blah blah.

they also had a breakdown by nations and gender and ages of the participants over past few years and overwhelming majority is USA, UK and.... israel - that's a surprise since much smaller number of people there and by % all israelis have done buddhism courses so why they still want to kill the palestinians me don't know. And more women than men seeking enlightenment and so on. er, women usually more keen to find mediating solutions to anything so it figures. Practically no muslim nation seeking it. oh dear...

Was fun to see pictures of richard gere there, bless, they love him for bringing the cause to attention in the west and he's here, well not here but in bodhgaya near Varanasi in 2 weeks to celebrate the 2600th anniversary of the buddha finding eligthenment under the bodhi tree at er.. bodhgaya. of course last week posh beck, aguilera, bono , ricky martin where in udaipur to help celebrate the 80'th b'day of some millionaire indian. so sooner or later i will no doubt run into some celeb instead of strange ozzies who talk about science all the time or a lovely iranian woman who has been studying law in india for 5 years. i like that you find out lots of stuff from different people. of course could sit in a cafe' in piccadilly and button hole strangers from many countries but in london we'd both think the other super weird for that , whereas travelling you don't mind.

but enough about that. the town is awash with gap year peeps here to do some voluntary work with kids, english or clearing up rubbish, which the indians have always had a different view of. it all goes into the street to be eaten as much as possible by dogs and stray dogs, and the rest swept up at night . of course it means that in the hours it doesn't get swept up,it flies everywhere into the woods, streams etc so the gap yearers are walking around collecting tons . bless, a very worthwhile pursuit i think, whilst i just sit and read.

last night after a day that included a long chat with a delightful tibetan girl at the internet cafe' who was completing a USA visa application to go join her tibetan boyf who already lives there , and during which she told me that it took 24 days of walking to get from tibet to india and most of the tibet/nepal side of it included mountains of course (the girl is half my size) ... anyway, today she came to find me in the shop and wants to cook some vegetables for me to thank me for the visa stuff/form. so sweet. she was born in '88, sigh.

so, last night, since i found the cinema and it was showing' Drive 'i thought, must go at 8.30. The cinema is a room with a screen a decent size, 30 odd chairs and dvds of course. I was the only person there and chatted to the owner who told me he likes monsoon weather (here from mid june to september ) because his cinema is full but now obviously is not. eventually a large american bloke with a beard and indian garb turns up and we chat about the film , i said i saw ryan gosling in the Ides of March with George Clooney and he was super good. bloke says he was once an actor in LA and was in a forgotten dvd movie called Combat Academy with a young george pre-ER. must check this out. He now teaches yoga in hollywood of course - golden bridge? so i said 'i did yoga in larchmont last year ' which established i am 'cool' (he knew the place) and is about to go to italy to spend time in Assisi learning meditation with a mexican called guru dave who well, teaches in italy. go figure. bloke told me his name, but was naturally an indian name so forgot it promptly. i told him to dress warmly as it's freezing in assisi in winter. Ah he also said he had been an architect and gone to Milan for trade fairs. (have actually checked imdb now and yes, he must be the actor called Kevin who is no longer an actor). story tallies!

so it was like we had a private screening room situation and felt it was ok to talk through some of the movie, mainly to call out reference points (the debt to david lynch, the one to michael mann the one to scorsese and so on) . He was also scared of violence so had to ask me what happened after any violent scene (and there are a few). and i'm squeamish too. and i made the mistake of telling him a few seconds before ryan on screen realises he's been played by the baddies that he had. he didn't like that.... He had been eating popcorn whilst sat behind me. towards the end of the movie i heard a rustling to my right and thought 'uhm, does he still have popcorn', then i heard it again and thought no, he's behind me, and rustling to the right , must be a .... RAT?
almost at same time i hear bloke say 'did you hear that rustling? I answered yes, must be a rat or a monkey, the words were not out of my mouth that he had catervaulted (new word?) to the front chairs saying i'm scared of rats!. i said am not, and to just lift your feet to another chair. i guess all those years ago occasionally seeing rats the size of cats near my grandma's house have come to some sort of fruition. The rat is not remotely interested in you, as he goes off scavenging as he does.

movie ended and we voted EXCELLENT, so if anyone hasn't seen yet.. go see. unfortunately dvd copy had no end credits so need to check who sang the 80's inspired songs which am betting are all new songs and not of the period. thank god was not a horror movie or would have spooked myself plenty in a room with a stranger, never mind he'd met george. darn, forgot to ask about the gay/straight opinion of george.

ok this story is not so great, i guess you had to be here/there as if felt surreal to watch LA night landscape in an underground room near where the dalai lama sleeps.

apologies for typos but it's always the damned sticky keyboards, not me! honest!