One mark of a hedonist is an aversion to travel. Getting on a plane these days is not travelling. That's just sitting about. You get to the hotel - that's sitting about, too. Poolside, that's lying about. You want to see that quaint RC church with the transexual painting (really) in Ronda because you happen to be in Marbella? You get in a car and sit your way there before a long, long sit-down drunken mountain lunch adjacent to Orson Welles' lying-about remains.
To all intents and purposes you could have stayed at home and flicked through catalogues over an imported aguardiente. But it's nice to sit about and get pissed elsewhere.
I'm thinking these thoughts because I've just come across a fab publishing company called Hg2 designed for hedonists such as myself. Its founder is the extravagantly named Tremayne Carew Pole whose failure to find a decent bar in Budapest drove him to create the company that might locate that bar. In other words, his failure to find a bar to sit about in turned his mind to the basic problems of hedonism: the lack of authoritative guides to cool places to sit (or lie) about in.
Sitting or lying about is a wonderful thing. Do not be ashamed. People serve you, fuck you, guide you, feed you, hydrate you, as multiple pleasure-teats (some harder than others) temptingly play over your yielding and needy orifices - and all because you're not standing up. Hg2 has tapped into the great truths I am articulating now with an ethos that succours sit-downism elsewhere. It captures the glamour, the joy, the sheer purriness of loafing, elsewhere. Some of Hg2's elsewheres I am not familiar with: we are assured that Almaty and Astana in Kazakhstan have chic restaurants and spicy adult clubs. Did Borat know this? I shall be booking a return ticket online so I don't have to get up.
Hedonism to Madame Arcati is the 5* star hotel, with comfy chaises!, that has an "astrologer on call" service, as was the case when I sat about at the opulent Rambagh Palace in Jaipur several years ago. To have my destiny undressed as I fanned my damp, olive-pink cheeks (without dimples) was a thing too divine. "Whatever works for you," as the wise Tremayne Carew Pole says.
16 comments:
But Tremayne's city guides are so achingly chic you end up in a glossy prophylactic. Perhaps I should do an opposite series: How To Shag The Locals.
Best, Duncan Fallowell
Duncan, an idea I would set about doing before someone pinches it. But would you want to shag the locals of Brussels?
I didn't understand a word of this. I am not going to put each sentence into Babel Fish. Mwah
Locals are always sexy.
I would contend it possible to be a traveller hedonist - if you keep your eyes open while in transit. And I notice you don't define travelling. Is that for Part Two?
you need to get in more, dear
"Sitting or lying about is a wonderful thing. Do not be ashamed. People serve you, fuck you, guide you, feed you, hydrate you, as multiple pleasure-teats (some harder than others) temptingly play over your yielding and needy orifices."
Just how many orifices do you have Madame?
Madame has just the one.
Six to be strictly accurate. Think about it.
A normally constructed human has seven openings surely. Two nasal, two aural, one oral, one urinary (I'm treating the vagina as a single orifice, though it divides functionally within), one feacal.
There is nothing normal about Madame Arcati.
You say you fanned your olive pink cheeks but fail to specify which. As a writer you really should try to put yourself in your readers' shoes.
So what one are you missing, my angel?
Well, let's just say I've never understood the idiom: "It went through one ear and out the other".
In my book, our lovely "Madame" only has an old chimney filled with cobwebs. So that's just the one indeed. ;-)
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