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Song 8 | Aug 10 2003

My friend Eva is visiting on her way back from Bali, where she spent a month with her boyfriend, a 51-year-old Balinese shadow puppeteer. She phones him, in Bali, three or four times a day. After each conversation, she reports how affectionate he was on a scale from sparingly to exceedingly. Rarely does he rate higher than sufficiently, although in fairness to the man, I sense that Eva’s a hard grader.

The one thing that bothers me about this guy (I base this entirely on what Eva tells me) is his cellphone addiction. Once when they were having sex (totally great sex, says Eva), his cellphone rang. Incredibly he stopped what he was doing and got up to answer it. That’s an addiction.

The eighth song is by PJ Harvey. It’s called The Garden. This morning Eva and I listened to it together, except that she spent the entire time downloading pictures of her boyfriend.