Snap!

Ace photographer Eduardo Tavoli captures me trying to stay awake. Eduardo was negotiating to get a shot of Terry Gilliam, as he is collecting images of the great geniuses of our time And he’s already got The Village People. Terencino eventually obliged.

I am wearing, for your pleasure, my Masaki Sakai Monkey Magic T-shirt. The classic Chinese legend-novel Monkey’s Journey to the West given a Japanese roller-disco makeover in the late ’70s, then dubbed into English and broadcast at confused kids. Marked me for life.

Insomnia watch, day 5! Got up feeling slightly rough, then realised it was because I’d slept. Probably for about an hour, hence my disorientation. I won’t make that mistake again. Took a shower, and my room-mate Mehar, in the next cubicle, suggested that there was no hot water. I ascertained that hot water could be summoned by turning the dial to the right, and said, “You have to turn the dial to the LEFT.” He thanked me, but was probably freezing his nuts off. In my defence, I must say that binary choices lke Left and Right are much too tricky when you’re in a state of advanced sleep deprivation. Why did Mother Nature give us two sides?

Last time I was here, after a week of no sleep, I heard a kid on a bus and thought to myself, “Hey, what a clever kid. He can speak Italian.”

I probably have a headache but the part of my brain that would process it is no longer working.

Been catching bits of the brilliant TV show The Last Machine, exploring the Victorian roots of cinema, and presented by Terry Gilliam. The whole show seem to take place in a wondrous clockwork toy theatre, with the only glimpses of external reality being provided by the excerpts of Lumiere, Feulliade etc. Quite good to watch in a semi-conscious state… but even better if you’re alert.