He is referring, of course, to English. His country, he shrills triumphantly, is the best - an island of civilization among barbarians, who thunder at the gates. He enumerates his neighbors and proceeds to describe in vivid detail what he would do to them all, given the opportunity. The moon bites into the otherwise scorching sun. The streets are emptied, the shops closed, the traffic halted.
Workers remain cooped up in steamy offices.
I ask my friend - a leading journalist, author, editor and media personality. He looks at me warily and proceeds to expound upon the health risks entailed in exposure to the eclipse. He offers me the opportunity to join him and is appalled to hear that I have every intention of watching the eclipse - from the street. The intellectuals of the Balkans - a curse, not in disguise, a nefarious presence, ominous, erratic and corrupt. Zeligs of umpteen disguises and ever-changing, shimmering loyalties.