Boy, You’re Gonna Carry That Weight!
In an Asian city I was visiting for the first time, I was walking towards the town center with a backpack that had in it the Jack Kerouac novel Desolation Angels among a few other things. I had meant to find a nice, atmospheric cafe, order a cup of coffee, and continue reading that book, which I had already read around 30 pages of. And meandering around in this unfamiliar city, I walked into the market, and before I knew it, I had purchased three mangoes from an old lady who had cast a spell on me. The moment I walked away, with the three mangoes now in my backpack, the song entered my head, and continued playing for the next two hours: Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight . . . a long time. Which made me laugh. Because it was hugely appropriate, and there was no reason at all, in that non-English-speaking country, for me to remember that song at that time: except that it meant that I was going to carry the additional weight of those three mangoes in my back pack for the rest of the