Proof of a Protean Planet

1. White pants
There are certain things that certain types of people don’t do. One of the things that people like me – messy, grumpy, domestically deficient, clumsy, slouchy, would-be urbane and bohemian people – don’t do is wear white pants, let alone white linen pants, not even in the tropics. My injunction on pale clothing was only very recently and reluctantly released and, proof of the slippery slope theory if nothing else, I’m the Owner of a pair of WHITE PANTS.

Those are my legs, my feet, my balcony. Those are my white pants. Soon I take a walk along the beach. I might even dare to eat a peach.

To add that they’re actually cream shouldn’t destigmatise them or me. Yes, they’re airy and comfortable, no, they don’t offend the Muslim population on Zanzibar or the conservative Christians on the mainland, and hurrah, no one in their right mind will mistake me for a prostitute or loose woman wearing them. Whilst I’m still dubious, I’m also unconvinced that they will stay cream or white or whatever for too long.

2. John Malkovich no longer reigns
I’ve been captivated by John Malkovich for years and years. The sadistic, debonair, savvy charm that he brings to his roles, those long dismissive stares, that too-clipped enunciation and painfully slow physicality: long live the über-rational bald dandy! Valmont, Ripley, I’ve been utterly unable to resist John Malkovich’s screen personae. I watched Jane Campion’s Portrait of A Lady and the nasty schtick was exactly the same. His interpretation of Osborne adheres perfectly to the formula he established, being John Malkovich, if you will, and yet I found myself utterly horrified by the cruelty which inhabits this, and every one of his performances. That my shudders were shudders of repulsion might be a higher homage to the big M’s thesp prowess or, alternatively might testify to some worrying resistance to morally questionable characters. Funny though, I bought the white pants just before watching Portrait. Causal nexus?

‘Time passes.’ (V. Woolf.) Vide Thoreau (H.D.), things change. We do, semioticians, greenhorns and others alike, people a strange and fluxient universe, do we not? Am I going soft in the head? Is travel broadening my horizons? Is the heat poaching my good judgment? Are the anti-malarials that I’ve started to take again sending me bonkers? Do I have malaria?

Not all is awry. The beach, fortunately, is still quite appealing.