Farce alert

A good friend, who writes under the name Amber Belldene, linked to a fellow writer's blog post about a recent release. The blog post is headed Where to Dump a Body in Austin. This immediately made me think, wow, there are a zillion places for that.

But my second thought was -- based on my visit to Austin in the fall -- that would get me in trouble right away. Because as my recent trip demonstrated, while I used to be intimately familiar with Austin, that town has changed a lot in 30 years, and if I tried to do anything there -- never mind dumping a body, how about getting a sandwich -- I'd quickly get in trouble.

So this scene suggested itself: Suppose someone like me who used to live in a place claims to be an expert on that place. And a friend comes to him asking to dump a body. No problem! But when they get to the first place, which in 1978 was a garbage-strewn ravine, it's now the grounds of a day care center outside a corporate complex. And when they get to the second place, which in 1979 was an abandoned rail line, it's now a nicely landscaped bike path. And so on. Finally they dump the body on the steps of the governor's mansion, which in Texas is always a place where you'll find garbage and plenty of skeletons in the closet.
 

Another search for authenticity ends in disappointment

A travel piece in the New York Times last week goes to a remote Indian town founded by Nobel Prize-winning poet Rabinidrath Tagore. After visiting the school founded by the sage, a museum devoted to his work (from which his Nobel Prize medal was stolen in 2004), and other local sites, the visitor encounters local color:

Toward the end of my stay, I encountered a baul singer alongside the road, strumming an ektara, a guitarlike instrument with a single string. He waved and I steered my bike toward him. With their unruly hair, matted beards and saffron kurtas, the singers (baul means "crazy") are difficult to miss. Neither Hindu nor Muslim, they are said to be insane with the love of God and wander the countryside, as they have for centuries, singing enigmatic songs about the blessings of madness and the life of a seeker. Tagore adored the bauls, and even declared himself one of them.

I sat on the ground and listened to the hypnotic music. Bauls have grown popular in recent years and, inevitably, poseurs have tried to cash in. So when another traveler, a well-off Kolkatan with an expensive camera, joined us, I asked, "Do you think he is a real baul singer?"

Clearly displeased with my question, he said after a long pause, "He's as real as you want him to be."