At first the blackouts in Kathmandu are limited to six hours a week, so in my area we do without lights on Saturday and Sunday evenings. It’s not difficult—candles at dinner, quite charming at first—but then we jump to fifteen hours a week without power, then to thirty-six hours, all within ten days. The government calls it “load shedding.” This in a country with the potential to be number two in the world for hydroelectric production.
Allen Ginsberg is speaking into a tape recorder hanging from the rear-view mirror of my mother’s Volvo, composing a poem with the attitude of one accustomed to the gratitude of posterity.
