The Tangier Diaries (The I.B.Tauris Literary Guides for Travelers) by John Hopkins

Author:John Hopkins
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Tangier / Beats / travel literature / diaries / bohemian
Publisher: I.B.Tauris
Published: 2015-09-20T20:00:00+00:00

1English antique dealer and frequent visitor to Morocco. He built a house in the Ourika valley near Marrakesh.

1971

FEBRUARY 4 - AMSTERDAM

Living above a sex shop on Kloverniersburgval revising the ms. of Tangier Buzzless Flies for Richard Kluger at Atheneum. Madeleine’s mother, the Baroness van Nagel, came for tea. She doesn’t approve of where we’re living; she definitely doesn’t approve of me.

MARCH 27 - TANGIER

The Schoolmaster’s Goat Dance.

Brion Gysin and the painter Hamri threw a party at Jajouka to celebrate the musicians’ new clubhouse. Despite torrential rains a crowd from Tangier went—Sanche and Nancy de Gramont, Louise de Meuron, Ahmed Maimouni, and other enthusiasts of mountain music. The invitation was for seven but, as it was Joe’s birthday, we sat around Mme. Porte’s salon du thé drinking dry martinis until nine when we picked up George Staples1 and headed off into the storm.

George presented Joe with a bottle of Courvoisier which we passed back and forth as the VW’s headlights bore a tunnel through the windy night. Branches were down and the road was flooded. By the time we reached Larache the brandy was gone, so we stopped at the Cuatro Caminos truck stop for a bottle of Fundador. At El Ksar el Kebir we turned onto a farm road that led to the hills. The puddles were so deep the water came into the car. At the bottom of Jajouka mountain the other cars were parked: Jeeps, Land Rovers, Toyotas. Deep ruts spoke of these four-wheel-drive vehicles’ failure to make it up the hill in the rain.

I was about to park when Joe commanded, “Don’t stop here! Gun it!”

I hit the gas and up the goat track we went, sliding in the mud, weaving in and out of boulders. George and Joe got out and pushed and miraculously the old VW, like Herbie the Disney car, kept going up and up. We crested the hill and skated through the mud to the clubhouse. A cheer went up from the Moroccans. How did the battered VW defeat the Jeeps, whose drivers had to trudge uphill in the pouring rain?

After supper the music began. The musicians in their knee-length djellabas and military turbans sat on a stone wall. The rain had stopped but the mud was deep. The voice of the rhaita, not unlike the shrill wail of bagpipes, and rattle of drums called the villagers from their huts. Bou Jelloud, a Pan-like figure dressed in hairy goatskins, rushed onto the scene. Steam rose from the hot stinking skins that had just been stripped from a sacrificial animal. This powerful dancer brandished an olive switch. In the midst of his energetic gyrations he made runs at the women, swatting them with the branch. The sexual effect was electric; they screamed and scattered. The symbol was obvious: the goatman had descended from the hills to impregnate the village girls.

After many drinks the schoolmaster tottered from the clubhouse. Recognizing a kindred spirit when he saw one, the goatman beckoned him to join the dance.

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