Good Marrakech paragraph, posted on 12.6.10: “Everyone you run into in Marrackech is polite and calm and gentle to a fault. There’s apparently no such thing as an impolite Marrakech resident.

“Okay, I did run into a couple of ruffians on a bike on Saturday night who tried to assault me and steal my wallet — I later named them Dick and Perry — but I pushed one of them in the chest and told them both to fuck off and then ran in the opposite direction and they were good enough not to follow, so even the thieves and the roughnecks are…well, not exactly polite but accommodating.

“And there’s no indoor smoking ban. And there are no helmet laws so you can scooter down the street with the wind blowing through your hair. And the food is wonderful. And the energy in the main old-town square (Jemaa el Fnaa) is so exciting and heavenly.

“And there are horse carts all over the city, and sometimes as you’re scootering down the street you can smell horseshit, and that is a very good thing. The older you get and the more plastic and corporate the world becomes, the better horseshit smells.”

“The sickest I’ve ever been happened in Marrakech in the summer of ’76. It came after eating a dish of Couscous at a rooftop medina restaurant. I awoke around 1 ayem, weak and whimpering. I spent the next twelve hours ‘making love to the toilet,’ as my girlfriend of the time put it.

“But there was nothing jolting or spasm-like going on within. Those twelve hours of agony were more about laying down and surrendering to the void. Around 3 or 4 am I said to myself, ‘Okay, this might be it…I might die. But at least when I depart this awful nausea will stop, and I can merge with the infinite in peace.’”