Wild Sovereign Development Site

Tag: humour

  • her wild laugh, like birds

    My date took me to a bar that was open late. We sat round a splendid banquette like pashas. At the table one tier down, a girl sitting with her friends unfurled a really strange laugh.

    It was high and sort of squeaky-grunty, very loud: within moments she had drained the whole place of its attention. People began to smile at each other over her head. A drunk guy tottered up to her, plump like a teddy bear, his arms comically held out, a skewed fishermen. The one that got away was this big.

    “Can I have a hug?” he asked the laughing girl, somberly. She couldn’t speak for squeaking but held up one hand for a high five. “Hug,” he said, nodding, insisting, reasonable. Drunk. So she opened up her arms and hugged him over the table. All the while her maniacal laugh was rising over his shoulder like a series of photos of the moon. Her male friend said, “She’s allergic to you.” Her female friend giggled. The drunk guy straightened and slowly smiled and only even slower realised, a bit hurt, a bit taken aback, “Really?”

    “Nah,” said the girl’s friend. “That’s really her laugh.” The girl’s shoulder’s shook and her honking squeals kept coming. By now everyone was laughing: the cute girl wiping the bar counter, the drunk guy’s drunk friends, my companion and I holding our sides, leaking tears. The hugged, drunken guy turned a sloppy somersault on his way back to his mates: an unforeseeable magical item.

    There was quite a lot of moon left in the high sky on the walk home but now these cold clouds have dulled it over. The exhaustion that comes from laughing too much is not like any other form of tiredness that I know of.

  • we call it Berlin snout

    In a second hand shop I tried on the superlong pair of creamy trousers that had had to be hung twice over the pavement rack. They were pearl coloured Thai silk and so long in the calf you could ruche them up tight, and then the bloomer shaped waistband region ballooned like a flower in water.

    For a while I stood considering myself in the old gilt mirror. Old guilt is a standard fitting in most of Germany. I took them off and hung them up and carried them back outside to where the shop owner, studded with piercings, was lounging in the sunshine with his two hairy mates.

    “Leider nicht,” I said, sadly, no, and handed the pants back to him. Berliners pride themselves on their snouty grouchiness and he pretended that he didn’t know why I was handing them over. “Was soll ich mit den?” What am I supposed to do with these?

    Oh, I said, I can easily hang them back on the rack myself, if you prefer.

    He gave a gusty sigh. No, no, he would do it. “But what’s wrong with them?”

    I plucked at the fabric to show him. “They’re beautiful. They would make a great performance outfit, I was thinking.”

    His mate reached past us to take hold of the nearer silken leg and stroked the sheer fabric, thoughtfully.

    “Totally transparent of course,” I pointed out. “It’s just one of those garments you would have to spend the whole evening organising. I’m too lazy.”

    “It takes a special kind of person to wear these,” the owner said, and I laughed.

    “All of my specialness is used up in other areas,” I said, spreading my hands. A crooked smile crept into the hang of his long mouth. “Oh, well,” he said, consolingly, stroking the pants as he hung them back up and draped the extra length over the rail. “Next time, we’ll have something for you, for sure.”

    These old punks with their 1980s businesses. Berlin brims with rebels who pierced their noses in 1976 and have held fast to their philosophy of DIY and punk ever since. Some of them collect bottles for a living. Some run resourceful squats. Some of these host outdoor cinema and restaurant venues in the summer and some are barred to visitors and spend all their energy, so I hear from my few resident friends, holding endless rounds of meetings to adjust the way the household is run. I got on my bike and swooped across the deep tram lines where a bicycle wheel can very easily get lodged. I live alone and have no piercings, not even in my earlobes. I have left the man who adorably called these his ‘earlimbs’ and now I make my way into the world again alone, greeting you, Berlin, willing to be shown what’s up, willing to cycle across town and see what’s going down, willing to stay home for days on end concentrating hard and then suddenly spring outdoors into the unexpected sunshine, willing to be across it all and to put up with all your crossness and snooty snoutiness. I know the smile that lies behind the sneer. The pink within punk.

  • salami baby jesus

    I may or may not have been down to the markets today to visit the man who runs a wonderful salami stall; he offers salamii (that’s the plural) of goose, duck, venison, and pig. This man has taught me that the original salami were loaf-shaped, like baby cheeses, and the familiar linked sausage format is an innovation. What’s for certain is that I bought from him a plump, nipple-ended salami powdered in white rice flour which he says is called ‘the little baby Jesus.’

    He cradled it in both hands and rocked it a little, to show me. I had on my Dad’s pyjamas under my jeans and was only waiting to get home to get really, truly comfortable.

    After that I may or may not have suggested to him, Hey! You should make a nativity scene on your stall every year – and have The Little Baby Jesus as your Jesus.

    I would, the man said. He was rueful. I would love to. It’s just that – some people might get offended.

    I was crooning over my plump swaddled baby, sniffing its pungent head. “Offended?”