The Drink

Continuing in the NYRB Archive for the chief reading matter this year brought up William H. Gass on a Malcolm Lowery biography from late 1973. Nixon yet to resign, Chinese and Russian prisons, Sakharov all left unread. The portrait of Stravinsky's last years and his dying argued strongly for his largely unheard music; more recently Auden has died. The latter's early recognition of Brodsky has been one of the recent highlights: it prompted a brief return to the poetry — translation as always quickly interposing its dark shadow. Alternating between new issues and old a surprising strong spurt has come from Frederick Seidel when so much of the poetry was tame and languid. Especially surprising too was a late resurgence like Seidel's that completely recast the earlier restrained, conventional measures of his work. Mailer could only be half-read and Elizabeth Hardwick still less. With Gass one had to take the idiosyncrasy and waywardness in order to seize his insights into Gertrude Stein in earlier pieces and then the Lowery. (For the drunkard’s avoidances and subterfuge Terry Eagleton in his “Evil” perhaps delves more deeply.)
        Lowery served to bring home the neglected matter of these Geylang Serai tables of teh and kopi and nothing else almost thirty months now. (The four or five month wider travel in the region has been likewise confined to Islamic Malaysia and Indonesia, the beer-drinking Chinese and the tourist quarters almost entirely avoided everywhere.) What an enormous difference it makes. What a space the prohibition of alcohol creates for children and the elderly. It is not only the worst excess that is eliminated, but also all the loose chatter and airiness, the light bubble that produces precisely the opposite of its promised ease and communion. Remarks that will not go down well with many readers.
         Last night a long table of mainly Indian–Malays displaced from Haig Road because of the annual five day clean up there. Six men from their late sixties and up at the newly minted Sri Geylang Café. It is time to announce that Labu Labi here beside Mr. T. T. is no more. The new Indian–Malay operator assumed control a week ago, the bright new red sign raised on the weekend. (The MOM raid that netted the foreign workers turned out to be the last straw for the former owner — $7,000 fine per worker, the whisper has it.)
         Mr. Hussein the kway sweet-seller on one corner. A familiar old sailor centre opposite with his grey pony-tail falling loosely over his shoulders—old hippies and rockers maintain a place among the teetotalers like many various others. The remainder merged into the general Malay sea down there at the Haig, difficult to differentiate. (In the midst of an unfamiliar racial group particularizing distinct features always proves extremely difficult.) The chaps eagerly watched their tray of drinks delivered to the table-top, landing initially at the  outer pavement edge and slid a short way, before the glasses were passed over slowly this side, that side, zig-zag, until everyone was right, Mr. Hussein holding his dark kopi and the rest the popular aerated tehs. (Teh tarik — tea stretched: poured from a height to produce a nice head rather reminiscent in fact of a decent beer.) Ah! All the lads were set now. The hippy sailor seemed to positively beam and actually lick his lips once he had come into proper possession. The waiter standing off calculating. A dollar. One ten…. Under the new regime installed here at the head of Changi Road the smokers have been corralled to the outer tables where one loses their company, but the benefit is considerable. How much more in the case of the prohibition of alcohol. Over such a lengthy term one has taken the matter rather for granted, the even, settled sobriety, the calm and ease, the fine measure from early evening until far into the night. Handshakes all round arrival and departure; the latter last night with some of the additional touches to the heart. The same faces day after day and night after night. These men are not part of the common jet-set that take weekend relief trips to cities of the region for a change of scene and people. (With all the competition at Changi airport one or two hour flights carry earners to a couple of dozen regional capitals and resorts for the price of not much more than a bus fare.) Not for these men, keeping up the greetings with that same warmth and deliberation day after day and night after night. The good fortune of tables of extended families with patient quiet children and honoured elderly is shared by all. Perhaps a sufficient number of the young will be shepherded through like this for the next generation in their turn.