Famous Leisure Figures: OMAR KHAYYAM

This is an illustration and a quatrain from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a medieval Persian philosopher and poet. He was exceptionally prolific in terms of scientific and philosophic output, but it's his Rubaiyat he's best known for now. It's not hard to see why. You could draw a straight line from Diogenes to these leisure savvy chaps, 2000 years between them notwithstanding. In fact I can almost imagine this is Diogenes sulking when he wasn't invited to their "wine and Houri" picnic under the olive trees:

"But Diogenes, you sleep in a barrel, he lives in the sultan's palace..."

Being a stoic doesn't mean you don't have feelings.

Viscount Gort Hotel

In the Winnipeg winter of 06/07 I spent most of my leisure time in the swimming pool and sauna of a place called the Viscount Gort Hotel. The fact that I and several of my compadres were able to regularly break into the pool and also break all the rules of the pool for a period of about five months is evidence of a) the total lack of ambition on the part of the hotel staff and b) our blissful shamelessness.

The Viscount Gort was across the frigid Assiniboine River, from our house maybe a ten minute walk. The bridge we had to cross rose considerably- exposure to the wind was terrible, and the city didn't clear the sidewalk of snow. It was a bit of an ordeal getting to and from, despite the proximity. It probably never got warmer than -30 that winter. That sauna and pool was an oasis. Our house was badly insulated (ice formed on the interior of outside walls), our hot water supply limited, and we relied on our bikes to go everywhere all winter long. There were weeks when I went to the Viscount Gort five or six days out of seven to sit in the sauna. Towards the end of our happy time there we began to go in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays, as the south facing side of the pool complex was a floor to ceiling window and the sun lit up the entire place every morning. We would bring thermoses of coffee and my pal rode down the waterslide while pretending to read the newspaper. We threw the soggy Free Press at each other.

Underneath a bench in the sauna there was a little opening big enough to scoot an empty bottle into. After a few months you could drop a can in and hear it clatter off enough other discards to bring a smile to even the most severe anti-leisure types.

Encounters with the hotel security were recounted gleefully to those not present. I was there for a few of them. You might not know this, but a lot of drinking gets done in hotel pools- usually near the deckchairs, but of course this seems an arbitrary confinement after a few Lucky Lager's consumed in the shadow of a waterslide. The first time I encountered security I thought for sure the game was up. We were sitting on the side drinking some beers when they strolled in. Our innocent Shangrila, about to be taken from us by some red-faced pot-bellied minimum wage security stooges! They pointed to the bottles, and told us we couldn't drink them in here... because of the glass. Cans are okay, we were assured. And then they walked out.

Another time we stayed long after the lights were turned out. The only thing better than sneaking into a pool with some economy brews is riding the waterslide after the lights are outtrying to keep your economy brew balanced while you tumble into the water. Eventually someone came and asked us to leave. He went as far as to escort us to the elevator, probably because we were carrying armfuls of winter wear in addition to our normal clothes. We took it up a few floors, changed in the stairwell and left out a back emergency exit.

Famous Leisure Figures from History: DIOGENES

This is the start of a new series on famous leisure figures from history.

When asked by Alexander the Great (U++) what favor he would have from him, the incomparable Diogenes (L++) allegedly looked up, annoyed at the figure casting a shadow over his contemplation, and said "Yes, stand out of my sunlight!" Look at this picture. It's not a painting of the scene I just referred to but a painting of the barrel Diogenes apparently lived in. Notice the hunched shoulders, the pained squint, and the care he has taken to keep in the shade. That has to be the posture and expression of a man who has forgotten his mantra of moderation and indulged in a few too many Palm Breezies (L++) the night before. Notice the belle Athenians (L++) lining the stairs to call on him, and the parchment crumpled into his hands. A true paragon of leisure.

I'm creating a system for denoting the leisurely from the un-leisurely. It applies to nouns and verbs. For example, a capital "L" is the stamp of leisure- while a capital "U" represents the opposite. Plus signs can indicate degrees. Hot-tubbing is obvious: L++. Someone like Satan, that dastardly tempter of humans into action, is a clear U++.

Milton (L+) again: leisure virtue lies in resisting actiontemptation. I should explain why I think Milton, despite his seeming indefatigable industry, fully qualifies as a man of leisure. Sure he's famous for a few things, namely "Paradise Lost", but he can't hide his true nature behind a few thousand lines of poetry. Get this: after he graduated from Cambridge (L+) he spent 6 years of total unemployment reading (L++) at his father's house in London (U), and then embarked on a 2 year tour of the European continent (L++). He dashed of a few poems here and there during this time, I assume to appease his benefactors, but mainly lay about pondering the imponderables (L). I bet if he had had a hot tub (L++) he would never have written Paradise Lost. A sobering thought.

Idyllic Days of Leisure

Idyllic Days of Leisure:

They come unexpectedly and don't last. I suppose the Lord giveth and society taketh away. Eden represents the pinnacle of the leisure myth, and I think, the highest aspiration of human imagination. Little to no clothing, stable temperatures, soft bowers, God-given love-companion, many beasts to genuflect before your slovenly ways, freedom from the psyche-bruising necessities of labor. God, according to Milton: "For so I created them free and free they must remain."

Anyway I spent a day last week that surpasses in quality all my other leisure endeavors and makes the drudgery of low level-employment more bearable.

11:30-12:00 drowsily awoke of my own accord absent the hellish caw of an alarm clock (waking on your own accord is one of the few pleasures that habit can't diminish- I've been doing it for years.) Lay in bed for half an hour reading leisure mentor Patrick Leigh Fermor. Daydreamed about being Patrick Leigh Fermor.

12:00 Surprise! One of my friends stayed the night and is sleeping on the couch. I wake him up and we go out for breakfast.

12:30-2:30 Breakfast. Metro Crossword completed. We leave the diner swelled with an enormous sense of accomplishment and a dozen cups of coffee. The feeling is no less satisfying than how I imagine I would feel after successfully negotiating peace terms between outdoor cats and dogs accidently let off the leash (top that Picard)- plus having a coffee chugging competition with night shift truckers.

2:30-3:30 Fair's Fair book store then drive home.

3:45-3:50 Load BB's into Red Ryder Daisy Classic BB gun, find towel.

3:50-5:30 Take the air from the comfort of a steaming hot tub, with the added comfort of a loaded BB gun at hand. Read Julian Barnes and take pot shots at the unwitting squirrels gathering their winter stores. Crack wise with my friend who shoots wildly at flocks of migrating birds. Stay in the hot tub until trigger fingers are pruned out to the max.

5:30 A&W milkshakes

7:00 Work, which I won't bother describing.


I have bastardized a genuinely beautiful lament over leisure lost in order to immortalize the afternoon in verse.


They are not long, the shooting and the tubbing,
Books and coonskin caps:
I think they have no portion in the shlubbing
Of leisure hardy chaps.
They are not long, the days of guns and hot tubs:
Seen through the billowing steam,
Naive, a squirrel emerges from a shrub
To the BBs gleam.

continuation and fin

I tumbled out of the car onto the gravel like a freshly severed head rolling off a guillotine rack and threw up some more. And that's it- there's not much else to tell. The bike ride was at an obscene altitude and I became horribly sunburnt between the end of my sleeve and the beginning of my gloves. The highlands were beautiful. We rode through a few tiny villages and the kids came out to point and jeer "gringooo" at us. I became ashamed of my heritage. We went into one of their small dwellings to see the guinea pigs they kept for culinary purposes. I became reconciled to my heritage. I began to feel better. We left for Bolivia soon after.

One other thing about Cusco: we were walking on the sidewalk to the bus station to buy tickets for the overnight trip to La Paz. The street was sloped with a cement wall at the lowpoint- at the bottom of the hill we turned to walk along the wall. Uphill from us a semi truck somehow disengaged from the park brake, rolled backwards gathering speed for a few meters and hit the wall. Sound-wise it was pretty startling, and we were jut a few feet from being crushed. Neither of us were overly concerned, though this seems strange to me now. We swaggered away, Rambo-like after an explosion. Just the sort of sangfroid I've always coveted, but never been able to convincingly pull off.

When I was traveling in South America I got thoroughly, debilitatingly sick twice. The first time we had just arrived in Cusco, jumping-off point for Macchu Picchu and locus of altitude sickness for hapless tourists.


Altitude sickness. Pshaw. It culls from the herd, like a hunting wolf, the old and the sickly. Not so! I myself was struck down by the altitude sickness. My traveling companion Rob was not. I was very displeased to be alone in my suffering, and though assured by Lonely Planet that altitude sickness affects individuals differently -indiscriminate of health and physical condition- I grew resentful of my body, that it should prove so susceptible, so fallible.


We took an early flight from Lima- shortening, for an additional 50$ hit to our budget, a trip that by bus was something like 18 hours to a 2 hour flight. That meant going from sea level to whatever ungodly heights Cusco is sprawled upon in a very short time, too short for the body to easily adjust. We got out of a taxi near a hostel and were confronted by a steep set of stone stairs, and I think got an early taste of the deterioration of muscle and energy old age brings on. I don't think either of us have ever ascended stairs so slowly or with such grisly effort.


As I said I was laid down by the altitude. The most troubling aspect of it is that along with the fevery headaches, shortness of breath and nausea comes insomnia- so while you can't leave your bed you also can't start sleeping. This can be a huge problem in hostel dorms full of drunk Australians- I think if there's one place you really want to be without any sensory data coming in it's a hostel dorm room on a Friday night.


The next morning we left and got a a private room down the street. Rob was very accommodating but I knew that I was becoming a sickly nuisance, unable to go anywhere or do anything. So on the second night, energized by guilt and sick like a rotten foundation, we went to get dinner at a little hole in the wall nearby and after started drinking with some local middle aged droopy mustachioed types. I don't know what they thought of us. Probably, though I don't recall the particulars, we bought a lot of the rounds. I made a friend in much the same way soon after, while on my first bartending shift in Holland I, ignorant of volumes and languages and ounces, was pouring whoppingly heavy drinks for a Dutchman while he sat at the bar and extolled my skill and virtue to his friends, before the head bartender returned and my whole operation was frowningly shut down. The buds I made on those two nights I never saw again. This is why I almost never buy anyone drinks, lest they abandon me in a similar fashion.


I didn't drink more than one or two beers the whole night, and even those were choked down to keep from violating the very tangible social norms that bind young tourists to old locals during drinking sessions. Everyone was so drunk that during roaring, incoherent Spanish and Quechua toasts, the fact that my glass wasn't thrust forward for more went unnoticed. Even so I could tell they were suspicious of how withdrawn I was, struggling to keep from throwing up my arms and hiding my head in my sweater, so feverish was I feeling. And all the while I could see what a great time it could be to the sound of body.


In a fit of activity the day before we had signed up to go mountain biking in the hills around Cusco. We were to meet our guide at 6 AM outside the hostel doors. We might have gotten 2 hours of sleep that night. Dutifully, and only because Rob was, did I arise and get in the Taxi with the bikes strapped to the roof. Rob! Always astounding me with his resilience. The taxi left the town on windy, potholed roads such as are not seen in what is commonly called the Global North. And it got worse! Bile rose in my throat, accompanying the dread in my soul of the consequences following spewing my guts up in a foreign taxi. Talk about violating social norms! Not the first time I've sacrificed my good sense to avoid a sticky situation only for it to subsequently blossom into a higher dimension of eventual stickiness as a result.


I opened my mouth to try and say something about pulling over, a move that brought down the levy and unleashed my unholy torrent. I futilely, but I hoped assuagingly, positioned my raincoat as a catch all. But it was all vomit-dripping, yelling, and screeching tires.

to be continued.