This is Rumblestrip Vermont. I'm Erica Heilman. Today, strange days, a story by Larry Masett about the life and work of Paul Bowles.

It is a fact, says Herodotus, the Greek historian,

an odd fact, yet often noted, that the farther you go from home the stranger things get.

Horatous was wrong, wasn't he?

Strangeness isn't a fact, it's a feeling.

But may feel strange when you travel,

becomes normal the minute you get used to it.

And for the people who live in those far-off places,

nothing is strange at all except maybe you.

So why make a big deal out of it?

People do though.

Strangely enough, some people spend their lives trying to make every day a strange day.

Now, well, everyone takes a different tack.

Let's begin with a weird bit of music.

The favorite song of the writer Paul Bowles when he was a child.

It's called Down Among the sheltering pounds, Oh, honey wait for me, honey wait for me, honey wait for me. Don't be forgetting we've got a day.

out where the sun goes down a body.

How my love is burning burning burning

burning how my heart keeps yearning year, yearning to be down.

Among the sheltering palms, oh honey wait for me.

Well, of course it's not meant to be weird. What's weird is the reason Bowles loved it.

Here's what he says in his autobiography, read by Paul Kerner.

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