"What you see is horns in the front and then the backbone and then the legs on both sides and the tail going out beyond the legs,' she said."
The new Chinatown atrium. Available cuisines: Japanese, Thai, Korean, Hawaiian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Filipino, Singapore, Lulu International, US.…
Night in the crowded streets: smoke from food stands, running young men and women from a martial-arts club, a dragon, University of Hawaii jazz ensemble, all-Asian saxophone section.
The beautiful capes made of feathers were worn in battle. Nearby, a high school band finishes its recital with the Looney Tunes theme, immediately followed by "The Star-Spangled Banner."
In a desert the tank is hit and sends up a plume of black smoke.
Heavy flowers around our necks.
"Each day at sunrise the light was radiant in my hut. The gold of Tehamana's face illuminates everything around it, and the two of us go to refresh ourselves in a nearby stream, naturally, simply, as in Paradise."
The Hilton Hawaiian Village (2,200 rooms): black football players (Pro Bowl weekend) loom in elevators over white art-museum directors (A.A.M.D. annual meeting). Leisure attire, exposed skin, beaches…
In a desert the tank is hit, explodes inside, sears the men's faces, and sends up a plume of black smoke.
"The goat is more earthy, the ram more scholarly."
Football players signing autographs. Museum directors debating multiculturalism. While in the art collector's beautiful home, one wall is covered with flickering video screens.
"A woman soldier is reported missing in action." Maps. "This will not be another Vietname." Talking general (apparently African American). Bombsight footage.
Man (apparently Anglo) in California: "We should go all the way this time, do it right, just get rid of those people."
In slow motion a building implodes.
The museum's dark garden overlooks a million city lights, as if seen form an incoming plane or missile. The performance artist in his mariachi suit and Indian war bonnet says, "It is very strange being here, in the beginning of the third world war."
"Ram or ewe? 'That's anybody's guess,' she said."
In a desert the tank is hit, explodes inside, sears the men's faces, tears sharp pieces of metal into their bodies, and sends up a plume of black smoke.
This garden, this city: "Montezuma entertaining Cortez." Smell of flowers and blood. Writhing dragon. Meat cooking. The different bodies mingle.
"This will not be another Vietnam."
A Hawaiian man plays with three children on the beach. He seems to be their father. In bathing suits, each one appears distinct, as if form a separate painting. The man is young and muscular. The four build something in the sand. When the smallest begins to cry, the man quickly takes him on his lap.
"First we will cut it off, then we will kill it."
And just beneath a white, floating platform, the battleship Arizona holds onto her 1,100 drowned men.
"There is no confirmation that woman and children were killed in the raid."
Art museum directors discuss the problem of aesthetic universals. The football crowd whoops it up in the bar.
Heavy flowers around our necks.
"The China Daily, the only English-language newspaper published in Beijing, is calling it the Year of the Sheep. But the China Institute of America in Manhattan, which bills itself as the country's oldest bicultural institution concentrating on China, decided that this was the Year of the Ram by taking a vote among its staff."
Tonight, as the year 4688 gets underway, I rub ointment on my sleeping son's chapped lips.
In a desert, the tank is hit, explodes inside, sears the men's faces, tears pieces of sharp metal into their bodies, suffocatees them, ignites their uniforms, and sends up a plume of black smoke.
This will not be Vietnam.
This will not be America.
Where do we come from?
In a desert,
What are we?
The tank is hit,
Where are we going?
Explodes inside…
Quotations: New York Times, article on the Chinese Year of the Ram (or Sheep); Paul Gauguin, Noa Noa; Gulf War Media Coverage; Guillermo Gómez-Peña; President George Bush; General Colin Powell; Gauguin, D'où venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous? (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
Clifford, James. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.