Monday, January 05, 2009

From Tübingen

I saw a mannequin yesterday, in one of the windows here, that looked exactly like Gibbons. Except it didn't have a head. But it was dressed like him. And it was standing like him. And had that same sort of lithe-fey look thing he had.

I said, Hey, that mannequin looks like my friend Jon, and the person with me asked me if my friend was OK, being headless.

Tübingeners, it should be said, celebrate in a very Beat way. The New Years Eve event reminded me a lot of Lee. It involved fireworks, fired off randomly and without any sort of timing, five minutes before midnight and 10 minutes after. The roof of a house build in the middle ages caught on fire.

If Lee had been there, there would have been more things shouted, but that was the sort of night it was. Also, there's a big tree in the middle of the square (marktplatz), and a small sick crew spent an hour, at least, shooting bottle rockets into the branches and setting off fire fountains beneath the boughs. I figure they don't know that liquor is flammable, or they never asked themselves what Bob would do, or maybe they never had anything like that ridiculous, burning stuff Harvey used to bring out of the mountains.

Anyway, you guys would have liked the madness here.