The alley is a pitch for about twenty women leaning in doorways, chain-smoking. In their shiny open raincoats, short skirts, cheap boots, and high-heeled shoes they watch the street with hooded eyes, like spies in a B movie. Some are young and pretty, and some are older, and some of them are very old, with facial expressions ranging from sullen to wry. Most of the commerce is centred on the slightly older women, as if the majority of the clients prefer experience and worldliness. The younger, prettier girls seem to do the least business, apparent innocence being only a minority preference, much as it is for the aging crones in the alley who seem as if they’ve been standing there for a thousand years.
In the dingy foyer of the hotel is an old poster from La Comédie Française, sadly peeling from the all behind the desk. Cyrano de Bergerac, it proclaims, a play by Edmond Rostand. I will stand for a few moments to take in its fading gaiety. It is a laughing portrait of a man with an enormous nose and a plumed hat. He is a tragic clown whose misfortune is his honour. He is a man entrusted with a secret; an eloquent and dazzling wit who, having successfully wooed a beautiful woman on behalf of a friend cannot reveal himself as the true author when his friend dies. He is a man who loves but is not loved, and the woman he loves but cannot reach is called Roxanne.
That night I will go to my room and write a song about a girl. I will call her Roxanne. I will conjure her unpaid from the street below the hotel and cloak her in the romance and the sadness of Rostand’s play, and her creation will change my life.
I see a city in the desert lies
The vanity of an ancient king
But the city lies in broken pieces
While the wind howls and the vultures sing
He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance
The hidden law of a probable outcome
The numbers lead a dance
I know that the spades
Are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds
Mean money for this art
But that's not the shape of my heart
For to sit in a room full of books, and remember the stories they told you, and to know precisely where each one is located and what was happening in your life at time or where you were when you first read it is the languid and distilled pleasure of the connoisseur.
StingEvery road I walked would take me down to the sea
With every broken promise in my sack
And every love would always send the ship of my heart
Over the rolling sea
If "Manners maketh man," as someone said
Then he's the hero of the day
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself, no matter what they say."
(Englishman in New York)
Stichwörter: strength self-esteem identity courage
Sweet desert rose
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this
There is no monopoly of common sense
On either side of the political fence
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too
[...]
There's no such thing as a winnable war
It's a lie we don't believe anymore ..."
(The Russians)
Stichwörter: peace war common-sense ideology cold-war communalities
I don't drink coffee I take tea my dear
I like my toast done on one side ..."
(Englishman in New York)
Stichwörter: food toast tea coffee preferences likings
If we seek solace in the prisons of the distant past
Security in human systems we're told will always always last
Emotions are the sail and blind faith is the mast
Without the breath of real freedom we're getting nowhere fast."
(History Will Teach Us Nothing)
Stichwörter: politics freedom history blind-faith critical-thinking captivity
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