I’m in downtown Lisbon, wandering with my camera, taking photos in Restauradores and Rossio, the beautiful light and the perfect cobblestones in contrasting colors. I’m starting to get hungry, and I spot some roasted chestnuts and slow down to get some. A wizened man with two missing front teeth falls into step with me and shows me cellophane-wrapped weed flourettes behind his hand. “Marijuana?” he asks “good price, good price.”
“No,” I say, waving it away, but I stop because I want the chestnuts.
“It’s legal, ten grams,” the man tells me eagerly.
“No, no,” I say, still shooing at him.
“You want cocaine?” he queries. I bust out laughing at this: I’ve literally never been offered cocaine before. “It’s legal in Portugal,” he tells me, encouraged. I pause: this is actually true; sort of, or at least you won’t get in trouble if you’re caught with a small amount of it. According to the locals, Portugal significantly cut down on its junkie population by decriminalizing drugs and treating junkies like they were sick.
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
“You have five euros for me?” he asks.
“No, no, I don’t want it,” I persist. But he corrects me: he’s not asking me to buy anything, he just wants me to give him money.
“No,” I tell him. I’m beginning to feel like a broken record. Then he says something that contains both Portuguese and English. I make a face and say I don’t understand.
He leans towards my ear. “Sssssssexxxxx?” he enunciates in question form. I stare at him, his gap-toothed grin, his dirty gray stubble, his upraised hand still flaunting the weed, trying to figure out if he’s offering his services for purchase or for free, and either way I shoo at him again, “no, no,” laughing a bit and rolling my eyes because I’m not sure what else to do. Then I have the great idea of pulling out my camera, and he disappears.
I think of better comebacks, comebacks designed to let him know how creepy he is. I remember that only yesterday, I was researching the philosophy of pick-up artist Julien Blanc, where Blanc claimed that when he said something outrageous to women he didn’t know, none of them were offended. He said on the contrary, many of them would bust out laughing at what he’d say. And I realized those women were probably actually highly offended and uncomfortable, and were just reacting in the safest way possible: by laughing it off, by making a joke out of it.
Pick-up artists of the world, take note. Even toothless drug dealer-beggars have the guts to ask strange women outrageous questions. And even in those circumstances, the women laugh. It’s not intended as encouragement, and it’s certainly not intended as a compliment.
It’s intended to let you know how absurd you are, camouflaged so you don’t get too mad and start breaking things.
So today I did. Evensong is every day, mostly at 5 p.m., but it’s at 3 p.m. on Sundays. You go up to the North Gate, which is guarded by some old guy in crimson to keep the tourists at bay, and he says “can I help you?” and you reply “I’m here for Evensong,” and he lets you in. If you’re half an hour early, and you go in as the bells are ringing, you’ll get a good seat. Not that it will do you much good if you’re in the mood to document it, because you’re not supposed to take photos, and it seems more cheeky than normal to break the rules during a church service. The Westminster Choir is well worth the wait, and the young boys and mostly-young-men sing as they have done for centuries. Only in English, because they’re Anglican. The Abbey claims that it has echoed with music every day for over a thousand years, and as I sat I couldn’t help but think of all the kings and queens that had been coronated there (and then buried there, some of them). You sit, you stand, you sing, you speak; it’s a fairly interactive bit of authentic historical artifact, particularly as far as tourist attractions go.
