a paper-thin drinking glass

2010-07-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

technology

2010-06-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

yesterday i was sitting outside the SFMOMA after being bombarded with overly depressing popart and watched a man walk into a glass window while texting on his cell phone. i thought it to be pretty hilarious and proceeded to give him a highfive and he seemed to be okay but decided to actually run away because he didn't want any of the witnesses to ever see him again.

Reminded me of the time a robin kept ramming the sliding glass doors of the house where i grew up because it saw it's reflection and thought it was another robin that it had to defend its territory from.

2010-06-23T00:40:00.001-07:00

My supervisor at the San Francisco Public Library (where i'm doing my practicum) referred to the security guard today as grandpa. I awkwardly asked him if i should call him grandpa too.

potential grandpa:

"When I was your age I used to take all these old darn automobile tires from the junkyard and roll them down to the fisherman's wharf and set em on fire with a whole crap ton of gasoline. Because that’s what my dad did when he became a man and that’s what his dad did when he became a man. And i'll tell you what, it lit up that night sky like it was a giant birthday cake floaten out there on top the ocean or somethin..... so If you want to call me grandpa you better get that sky a glowen and pretend it's your birthday, newbie."

ARIZONA!

2010-03-21T13:59:00.000-07:00

Arizona Dachshund Attack!!!!

2010-03-10T11:11:00.001-08:00

(this one was made especially for you mom)

2010-02-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

Today on the bus waiting on Granville street, the doors closing. a man that looked like he played football in his earlier glory days charged at the back access doors. the doors clipped him and he jolted back onto the pavement. they opened again letting him think that he had won. he proceeded to step on the bus embarrassed and smiling as if admitting defeat.

Slunk Bunsen & Gother Brown

2010-02-01T13:11:00.000-08:00

click image for link

Made this over a week in December with mister matt wood

Starts out with a lazy guitar and a man talking about shampoo or something, which really catches you off guard when the guys go into an all out freak session. Nonsense lyrics with really good slide guitar and minimal drums. Its a border line hootenanny mixed with depressing lyrics from your challenged Aunt Rosie. If you are in the right mood (i.e. Taco Bell drive through, Prom after party druged out, ect.) then you will definately appreciate this. Dusted this one off from a pile in my dads garage. Picture of a dog on the front and only titles of tracks with the year at the bottom giving SB vocals and GB guitar and drums credit. Super fucking weird. Pretty sure he picked this up in the U.P. of Michigan / was friends with one of the guys. Have to ask the Pops if he knows anymore...

Lyrics include one hitters like:
BRING ME THE STICK!!! AAARRRRHHHH
Rudolphs Dead, Merry Christmas
Meet me in front of the soda pop machine I love you
Don't! Not! Swim in the lake

-joel rakowski

2010-01-26T03:40:00.001-08:00

build the blue

2010-01-06T01:29:00.001-08:00

2009-11-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

I got to see the band broadcast last night: the projector screen was best explained; if the sound of a dying buffalo could be feed through a refracted lens and pulled apart into a thousand tiny pieces of light only to then be collected to the flat semireflective surface of a white screen..... then transformed into a visual replica of the Hindenburg disaster surrounded by a million overly sized sunflowers (thirty to fifty feet tall!) some with yellow pedals some strangely with blue.

2009-10-28T19:37:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to throw this up for a while. Sort of why Vancouver is awesome.

2009-10-27T09:19:00.001-07:00

the things stuck inside the liner of my jacket because i already sewed the hole up in the pocket:

two cloves of garlic
five baby pine cones with stem
approximately eighty five cents Canadian
my landlords phone#
one toe of ginger
one Ray Jackson action figure made out of masking tape (with optional mustache)

2009-10-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

seven in the morning the doors are stuck
everyone on the bus
is afraid of the driver.

2009-10-26T23:42:00.001-07:00

kitchen sink,
quit your dripping.

2009-09-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

Grass matted brown
small gray reflections,
umbrellas dance....... drone drone drone.
feeling caught in a draft.

Waiting for those
long warm baths.
These canvas shoes
turn colors with the rain.

I buy two new pencils (black and white)
which can write on most everything.
I want to write a long list.
Things that need to be done.

Often times words misspelled.
Words with too many letters.

On the side walk
or a park bench.

Words........ when they
make a sound seem similar.
Like the spitting sound
the sky makes.

The pencils have plastic erasers
but ironically the lead is water soluble.

The words form into a puddle that wants to resemble a lake.
This lake brakes apart into tiny streams.
Which want to resemble even smaller streams
trying to resemble even smaller ones still

back to the muddy grass.

2009-09-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I passed a man on Commercial Drive with a pigeon balanced on top of his head. He was walking my way and gave me the look as if saying "what are you looking at".

2009-09-24T02:33:00.000-07:00

bowen island

2009-09-22T21:37:00.000-07:00

an abandoned bike
with a "free" sign
taped to its side

a two month old cafe
the owner handing out
free cookies on the side walk

the sun cradling the bay
like a distant echo
from the mountains

i find a dollar thirty five
in the middle of the street
and buy a coffee

2009-09-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

Over the last year I’ve been traveling off and on to several different places and while traveling lightly can be an adjustment when on the move I realize that I posses a difficulty to rationalize the organization of the material things I bring into my life. Granted these things certainly have a general use either from my own vantage point or the commercial incentive that goes along with their prescribed use and meaning, yet I am still coming to terms with this overbearing sense of chaos which I openly submit my full and irrational attachment in-exchange merely as being the owner, manipulator and ultimately governor of such material abundance. In contrast the things that I’ve come to own over the extension of my life have become essentially a more permanent fixture and have formed either into material networks of useful tools or dormant civilizations waiting to be sifted through and somehow organized once again. What I am beginning to understand is how I collect and compile and how I become more selective while I continue to endure these possessions as both necessary creative vessels and hopefully somehow relevant to my life at present. While at other times questions I attach to the validity of these objects causes me to disregard any personal possession I own as something reliable or necessary in the context of having a specific and/or meaningful use. This ultimately may be the catalyst for a continually unfolding existential crisis.

When focusing on my patterns of organization it may be of note that I have the underlying lifestyle of an artist but the social outlook as an opportunist and through this mental framework an intrinsic attachment to resource. May it be old or new, broken or fixed, messy or sterile, audible or visual, complicated or simple, gambled or secure, passive or engaged, unique or ill-defined, et cetera. To put it bluntly I like shiny things. Though a continual resource at best it all still fits together in my mind at different times and in different ways. These objects eventually tend to interrelate when I can give them the proper amount of patience and space. May it be to construct paintings, photographs, sculptures, sound pieces or maybe just the simple attachment for the nostalgic. It essentially all equates to a periodical investment. Though when investment seems to waver given uncertainties when trying to understand what exactly an investment may come to mean; is it too much to consider an investment purely with space? I suppose I’m lucky at least for now to invest platonically into the love and generosity of my mother and coincidently with her investment in a house while putting up with my consequential use of space which has been collecting dust and disorder in her basement for sometime now.

I suppose I chose to write about this “basement” of my life especially in light of investing purely in space and the questions for how should or shouldn’t it be used and what it may mean for something to have a use at one moment and become unused at another. These things I own then happen to also become a representation or symbol for my home and when I can collect them with order and intended use my home then becomes a physical metaphor for my internal life. Then what should I say about when they coax their way into resembling the aftermath of a small detonated land mine on an abandoned field of some long lost war zone? (i.e. in some way being utilized) Or better yet when they merely lapse time collecting dust in the bowels of my mother’s home and not my own? Well maybe If I were to emphasis this space as a metaphor for this existential problem in my life it may make sense to consider the latter to be that as a metaphor for death and the former to be that as a metaphor for life and when utilized properly in my own home essentially a much more complicated and personal metaphor of my emotional, psychological and spiritual self.

I bring into perspective this unique extension of my life because recently before moving to Vancouver I decided to organize the boxes yet again granted that the owner of this basement does tend to emphasis her influence and power into the potential lively hood of this space. The initial task was to throw things away that most easily could withstand such defeat. Then donations to The Salvation Army were taken into consideration. Then scraps of paper with little elephants or half written sonnets were put into a fire protected safe. I folded blankets and painters canvas into half tidied piles knowing that someday they would be unfolded once again. I reminisced upon old letters and gifts. I listened to a field recording of lake Michigan and a secretly captured tape recording of my grandmother telling me about her childhood. I stacked vinyl records at an acceptable height from the potentially flooded concrete floor. And so it goes.

These things are nothing new to me. I’ve known that they’ve existed at one time. But I have also been able to consciously forget of their presence when time began to separate me from them. When taking a moment to reorder them, to readdress them into my current emotional and intellectual state, has allowed their meanings to change granted the context of the present and what value and investment I’ve begun to hold differently to the past. This is where an uprising of conflict has become evident. What is useful now and what is no longer. What will be useful in the future and what will I consider to decay in this space quite possibly for the rest of my life and periodically remind me of this decay throughout the future.

So at this point I admit that I have some logic to this system and order. Though it’s nothing complicated or documented in any way. Photographic related items go together in disarray brimming to the top of a freshly tape mended overly sized brown packaging box. Messy art supplies cram together into deeply weathered wooden containers. Stretched paintings huddle closely along the last likely floodable wall space. Music equipment piles amongst amplifiers and an adjustable piano bench. Stuffed animals considerably slumber together atop piles and piles of unused books. Records, CD’s, tapes, hi-fi stereo equipment has no sequential order at all except togetherness. A small fart machine a friend gave me on a boring February Michigan evening has stopped working (Hours upon hours of entertainment I might add). And lets not forget all the random things that really have no logical place accept to be ordered together as random memories, thoughts and emotions. These are the ones that, for a brief moment, make everything a little more viable not only for the intended order but also the gravity for these complicated attachments.

Typically this order is about intuition. Where I feel something should go that is where it should go. This is mostly an aesthetic response and holds just cause to the relationship and functionality that these items had once held and their potential usefulness in the future. Thus I’m constantly redeveloping new order and frameworks for my possessions as long as I evidently give myself a break from their uses and have time to reflect. In conclusion when attempting to exploit the logic behind all of this collecting both in a physical or psychological way I begin to essentially grasp more forward thinking into the impulses and incentives as both a consumer as a well as a creator. I assume then if it wasn’t for this clutter or this organization that my life may be a little more simplified or in contrary immensely more complicated. All in all this system does bring a sense of meaning to my life no matter in what way I choose to perceive it. May it be systematic, chaotic or simply pragmatic.

2009-09-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

I went to the country side over this last weekend. it was awesome. for some reason I decided that Bowen Island would be the place. I had to take a city bus from downtown to Horse Shoe Bay.... then a 20 minute ferry to the island.... it is a small island with very little people there! but many ferry boats luckily commute.. i had to wait no time at all in both directions..

i arrived just before dusk and found my way to Killarney lake just a short hike from the port. it took about an hour to convince myself where i was and its subtle quiet impact. the peaceful ambiance compared to the bustling city.... i mean granted its a far different city then Chicago or Detroit.... a little more laid back i suppose... i mean come on.... we have a nude beach on campus! who does that?
but when freshly arriving to a new place and trying to figure out transportation and housing... let alone a new campus and curriculum and student body it can definitely be stressful.... did I mention about the whole lack of organization and living out of a suitcase? its enduring to an extent..... though it has kind of felt like this since last April ( golly has it already been six months?) i odnt know if i ever mentioned the whole living in my painting studio over the summerin Florence? yes that was an adventure!!!! attending community showers on a timed schedule....cooking on a tiny hot plate that would blow the circuit breaker every five minutes.... sleeping on the floor in the stuffy corner (i.e. the sad fort) of an old dusty turpentine soaked facility?..... but the dance party! that must have saved me....oh and yes the eighties music of course! all in all i would probably give up a great deal to be back in Italy for a time being.... living in the studio again and dancing to a ha.

but yes.... i must stay on track ..... back to the amazing sun filled weekend.....after a while of taking in the quietness i became more and more aware of the wild life..... and while enduring the dark peaceful space it became more rambunctious with all sorts of strange animal sounds... i decided to sleep as close to the water as possible. first tying my food to the branch of a tree. i wasnt sure if there were bears on the island or not. i found out later they are much farther away and in the mountains on the mainland.... just little harmless black ones.

in the middle of the night I'm woken to the strangest sound. a large ploping sound in the water. after first i figured it was my food and a raccoon had gotten the best of me.....but after it continues for over ten minutes i realize that im not going crazy and its a large fish catching bugs after projecting itself straight out of the water. i am relieved but find it difficult to sleep with such a loud ruckus. to make a long story short though.... i concentrated on all of the wonderful sounds surrounding me until i drifted into a half lucid dreamish state of relaxation...only to be woken up again to the sound of a giant fish jumping into the night sky for its late night snack..... it felt good to be back in the woods once again (jerry i'm sure you can relate!).

the next morning i made my way to Mount Gardner. i probably wasnt in the best shape at the time but when you resolve to climb a mountain you start to gain new incentives. the sun was spilling through the trees at random angles..... the forest was old and full of birds, moss and deer. small creeks trickled past along the trail. at the top i could see the whole downtown of Vancouver almost twenty miles away. the peninsula where my school is situated. the northern mountains and the other many islands scattering the shore line. its a great feeling to constantly create new reference points in light of a new environment. i suppose the struggle is when you live someplace for such a long period of time it becomes more difficult to keep a growing perspective. the benefits of moving someplace new is that your perspective may easily be constantly changing.

2009-09-12T02:57:00.000-07:00

my life is overflowing two suitcases on a kitchen floor.
this may go on for a month..... but the best part about being disorganized is that you dont really need to waist time organizing. this makes it easier to do other things........ like collecting stones at the seaside.

2009-09-11T02:22:00.000-07:00

finally found a new place after much searching, questions and deliberations.
I'm going to rent a sunroom....a living room...a bathrooom.... a kitchenette... a bedroom and a three closets... and a garden. i have this problem of finding the best place ever for the most reasonable price...

2009-09-11T02:21:00.000-07:00

ilikeithereverymuch

Woah.....new pictures!! or em....paintings from the last year in italy......

2009-08-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

2009-07-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

Capraia.......uhmm....from a long time ago....really beautiful!
this is where we slept... having to climb up to that little
window about twenty feet maybe up up up. oh and just behind
me are cliffs to the ocean. this was sort of like the edge of the
planet.

2009-05-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

Giglio
(from last april (oh and if you got linked to the amazing SACI dance Video Lorenzo linked you can find it bellow....or here www.vimeo.com/4857161 )

we knew nothing about Giglio accept that we referred to it as Gigolo island and that brought the group of us a great deal of humor ....by this time my friend Tonya was in Florence visiting and she came along on one of the man outings....but we couldn't refer to it as this any longer... like we did out loud but in our mental associations with the bonding experience.. (so maybe the gigolo joke was getting old fast….and we all knew it) not.. this time Nanda left early and staked out the island and found us a beach to sleep on and wear all the lazily flying spears may be seen best in the moonlight (see Capri adventure ( to be posted soon) )......he was successful in surviving his first night alone on the island…….and upon our arrival he was already waiting at the port like some long neglected statue that just got renovated and was waiting for us, to be picked up and erected in the town square with a huge ceremony and red ribbons, balloons, tortilla chips and large overly stuffed marsupials similar to those won at a carnival game....instead he gave us all hugs as if he were lost at sea for the last several months....its amazing how one night alone on a desolate island can do for the soul.... for me...at this point... i was incredibly seasick from the boat ride....but after walking a bit………. I managed to shake the lulling back and forth movements of the un-tamed ocean. Nanda led us to our beach...through thickly covered hillsides of blooming lavender, rosemary, and the yellow flowered bushy plants that smelled absolutely amazing. until we found out later if viewed from up-close....like up-close as in touching them as in they grab onto you with their vicious spiny thorns as in never never never…..absolutly never willing to let go....ever.

but we got to the beach and it was getting dark and we collected wood for our fire and scouted out an inhabited million dollar villa with a welcoming terrace with an amazing view for the evening slumber.....I....In my need to always engulf myself within a body of water as long as its accessible.....made my way with no announcement to jump in the ocean. later at around midnight........... around the warm crackling fire.....after our satiating fried zucchini dipped in pesto meal ....I convinced the whole of us.....Joey, Tonya, Mr. Verney, Sam and Nanda to take a late night swim in the nude.....surprisingly everyone was in! we even danced around the fire like lunatics in our underwear (I might have some video footage I can wrastle up.....actually we were considering to put it in the American Boy dance video but it never made the final cut.....for time pressing issues (little help Verney?)) the next morning I had to jump in the sea again…though I could only convince Verney into jumping in with me... I realized then and there me and Jon Verney were on a mission....we were going to get the entire group of us lost.....near the sea...surrounded by walls and walls of thorns.....I would like to take more credit for this insanity but Jon was pretty intent on supporting my navigational skills so I in return supported his......it was fun at first...then we thought we were going to die out there.....just give up and lay down and forget about all the seagulls cackling/laughing at us and absolve back into the earths elemental makeup...

.. it wasn’t as intentional as you would have thought....it was just getting off the vague trail markings when it split into many trails thinking yeah....the light house we are looking for will definitely be near the water....so the coast will be the big......absolute......definitive land marking.......this way of thinking is what got us in trouble......and I base way too much on intuition...especially when we should be using logic after a certain time when traveling in the bush....Nanda was right....he knew we should have stuck to the power lines......it would have been the most logical direction and would have saved us hours of …….well im getting to that...

Soon enough, by each obstacle we confronted...Jon and I got this look of insanity in our eyes as if saying "you wanted adventure? here’s your adventure!..." following with a procession of man grunts and death defying leaps over purely composed thorn bridges.......mind you.... this is after we were walking calmly though the most green, beautiful, momentous of gentle rolling grassy landscapes and Joey has to open his big mouth and yell out "we must get the ring to Mordor" in his best lord of the rings accent that he could muster.......I haven’t mentioned Joey much as of yet....but he’s the kind of guy you get to know and say to yourself...........Man this guy is probably the most amazing person that ill ever meet.....to keep things short Joey is awesome...no way around it.....

so back to the jungle of thorns...the more we gritted our teeth for adventure the more we got lost...the more Verney yelled out positive innuendos for male bonding adventure time.... the more I did....the more Tonya did...and for a little while atleast….. the more everyone did. we thought that it will be ok to get lost because we probably wont get lost.......and then we got lost.......it sort of corresponded with trying to meet back up with the main trail...and we saw in the rolling distance an object that looked like it should be some kind of shelter...but later upon being lost and closer inspection it turned out to be an ancient stone that some idiot (who probably got lost himself.....though maybe a bit more life threatening) some eight hundred years ago carved to look like a hut....just to piss people off who were about to get lost.......I was the one who vowed to make it to this absurd land mark....it was absolutely impossible to make it there....no one else followed...I told them not to....Verney tried to go another way but got stuck.....I gritted my teeth and pretended not feel the thorns collecting around me......at several different moments I continued to reassess the impossibility of the situation.......and then mindlessly kept engulfing myself in the thick of it.....to find...... after my 20 minutes of insanity to be close enough to our "shelter" to see that there was no trail connecting to our newly found non-shelter.....all I could see were seagulls on the rocks looking at me as if I were and idiot....I really hated those seagulls......and how they could just jump up into the sky and lift their stupid hollow bodies into mid-flight and go wherever they felt .....like to another rock probably........at least I had a little more ambition going for me...like pizza! oh by the way we were all starving and out of water.....bad combination for being lost......at this point I abandoned the group...it was against my better judgment but it had to happen....I couldn’t go back the way I came.....mentally to go back a route that was impossible to begin with only to be just as lost as when you started....it's a little draining...they were only about fifty yards from me though...it wasn’t like I was going to France or something....just to the now-realized consensus of all consensuses.... the power lines........ I yelled that they should take the creek and I will go straight up and we will meet inevitably. they nodded as if not agreeing with anything that I had just said...and we set off......I felt a bit uneasy...anxious...even more lost now that I was alone....and I felt I walked most of us into the fiery inferno of the jaws of nature and I myself opened up a huge umbrella and just started floating peacefully into the sky.....well at least I figured that they begrudgingly felt this way of me....so I decided to find them somehow at some place.....when I reached a large rock cropping I surveyed till I spotted them........we yelled in each others general directions then I keep going only to find that 20 minutes later they were just where I was moments before…..and I was on a new collection of rocks...the most surreal point was when Jon kept going and Sam followed shortly after but Tonya, Nanda and Joey stayed put on those collection of momentarily safe islands in the thickets....and when Jon and Sam separated one-another I just stood there thinking that this is not how things get done (but hey….i was the first to split the group up I suppose)......soon Jon was to a new collection of boulders and Sam was going deeper into the "shit" yelling angrily to himself and the thorns perhaps.....I was on my boulder and started yelling to three of them at the first set of boulders to make sure everything was ok and then to Jon and to Sam....this continued oddly for some time………..

.at this point we created this strange triangle of islands on the boulders with unheard words floating into space and serene apprehensive, complicated, absurd glances to one another with a good 80 feet separating each little collection of curious, fragmented, baffled human consciousness. this is when I think Verney snapped.....he was as close as me to the power lines...maybe 50 yards still out of the two hundred when we initially made our decision to find civilization........he looked up to the mountain and yelled to me something like "brad Im going for it man!" not like some kind of jovial tea sipping philosophical light bulb blinking lazily overhead, as if suggesting: lets go for a swim in the lake! its right there! it will be fun! sort of going for it......no no no ......more like this is fucking insane! I don’t know what to do! going for it looks like to be my very last option! I don’t want to die here! that would be stupid! (later I found out from Verney.....(oh and to relieve the suspense we’re all still alive to my knowledge...sorry to ruin the climax) that he was thinking about what he had learned about saint peter and his journey through hundreds of miles of shear, dense, isolated forest......kind of a crazy epic mindset if you ask me.(Jon maybe you could write something more vividly for this part and ill copy it in at a later date?) another thing was Verney's demeanor....he facial features turned menacing......or more psychotically into a sophisticated-muppet-like-creature-whojsutlosthislastounceofcomposuregiventhathejustrealizedhe’llbeamuppethiswholeentirelifewithsomestrangershandcallingtheshots,constructinghiseverymotive,thiseverynuanceofselfdeterminedfreedomdrainingjustbeforehisveryeyes and wobbled his way forward..... into the "shit".....it was amazingly comic given the situation with our lonely triangle of boulders.....and Verney's appearance wasn't merely intimidating but just as well inspiring......half in a fit of passion...half out of mindless exhaustion I yelled out to the rest of the group as if they hadn’t heard him...as if the whole world was listening at that exact given moment and they.....just the four others had forgotten to pay attention................ when the whole episode of our dilemma...the whole ferociousness of our given stance in this new reality of being alive......when I repeated again what Verney had just told me "Verney's fucking going for it!"…..while intentionally adding my own choice of translation….. the rest just looked at me in the same way as we all had looked over the past hour or so.....perpetually confused....

the next thing I know Verney went for it...then I lost sight of his immaculate grimace into the face of "it".....and after a brief struggle he fell over....I could see only his face struggling and the tops of the thorn bushes embracing his struggle. then all I could see were the tops of the thorn bushes moving...and then they stopped and everything was quiet....... later Jon told me he laid there and tried to accept his fate....later he told me he felt like St. Peter and just accepted the notion to fuse back into the grumbling earth from which he came…..as if a small children’s water toy washed upon some abandoned, uninhabited beach.....then he said the seagulls began flying over head and laughing at him.....he couldn’t take this......the seagulls disrespect for a fellow dying animal..... so he got up and dredged on.....still with the glint of insanity raging from behind his eyes......I stayed where I was. waiting for the rest.... and after which seemed like days Verney got to the electrical lines.......he said nothing at first because there was no trail and he felt defeated...not defeated just for his own sense of well being but the pressures that defeat brings as if a whole group were defeated upon your own shoulders..... but then he found the trail and screamed out I found the trail! and then he saw the lighthouse and screamed...I found the lighthouse! I interpreted again for him "Verney found the trail! and he sees rainbows!" whatever that meant.....but the important part was the whole thing dealing with the trail.....I then looked at the three sitting on the boulders still having not moved thinking "who cares"......"well never make it.....that’s like a three days walk from here"......"and were still stuck on these boulders"....and I could hear Sam grunted majestically though the “shit” and I decided to ease this feeling of guilt burrowing its way into my stomach........ I was going back for the others and making loud obnoxious guttural sounds along the way....

I mean now we had something to fight for...hadn’t we? a trail in the distance....I even fell over backpack first into a thick patch of prickers because Tonya couldn’t get through.....I told her to us me as a bridge...it worked and was sort of humorous until I couldn’t get back up...the three of them had to help me to my feet. after another 30 minutes of crazy, beautiful, yellow-flowered thorn battles...(that weren’t too beautiful any longer).....we too found the trail. but no Verney.....and then the lighthouse...but no Verney...only his pillow that he was carrying this whole time.....like a child in some long lost dream world.....maybe The Chronicles of Narnia...or The Never Ending Story...except this main character brought his pillow from home.....can you imagine the psychological implications that were going through my head at a moment like this? I mean....we made it and our fearless conqueror who led the remainder of the way.....the one who went for "it"......had now totally dissolved into the mountains and what was left of him was his tattered blood stained pillow......as if he was the first to wake up from some episodic nightmare to find himself safely into the confines of his own home....in his soft warm quilted bed. with his soft warm freshly washed pillow. and the remainder of us were to endure the newly fallen rain that began to damper our newly found glory.

turns out Verney ran to the light house for moral support and water.....we also meandered in that direction with our newly discovered relic of a once great man......and then there he was...water in hand......dampened hair from the rain.....I swear it was as if really this whole time....... we were trying to find Verney...like he was kidnapped by pirates and locked in some makeshift prison on this remote thorn ridden island and had just escaped by the shear ingenuity as if a man could muster such ingenuity purely based upon his name. Jon Verney........ which would compel such a haphazard group to go risking their own necks for an individual this valuable and/or crazy to be captured by pirates......... we then went back to the light house to ask for more information on which way to go.....to say the least the military personnel weren’t exactly thrilled to see our chaotic facial expressions...they just thought we were dumb tourists who got stuck in the rain....I suppose we were.

we then found the road and walked in the fog for several miles...up the mountain. back to civilization...though we didn’t know when that would be and thought we would probably miss our boat…… and we didn’t care..... because we couldn’t stop thinking about pizza. and then the fog began clearing and Nanda stopped Joey and I and began comparing himself to this bird just before us slowly moving through the sky (maybe it was a metaphor for a journey which we felt relived to have just begun or has been put nearly behind us).....the void of fog then began shifting apart and the bird languished just in front of where the fog initially began to clear....it was a little more complicated then that...the metaphor of the bird and all of this……but maybe Nanda could explain it a little more clearly(?).. but to say the least Joey, I and Nanda had a moment....and watched the bird vanish back into the fog now that it had opened a hole in the void and the fog just kept clearing and clearing until it was magically from sight....... this is when we realized that everything reflected by sunlight makes everything beautiful and the rest of the hike from that point on wasn’t as boring...or rainy or difficult...actually when we saw the gem of the city from around one of those never ending mountain bends....we all lit up and three of us started running (tonya,joey and I) singing a song from the top gun soundtrack.....not the really fast one but I think the one about losing that love and feeling...whoa oh that love and feeling....you lost that love and feeling……. now its gone………. Gone…………….. gone......woah oh oh oh..........................but I don’t quite remember I’ll have to ask Joey....Joey will know.

to make a long story shorter.....right when we got to the city we found a pizza joint and the six of us order 12 pizzas.....really ten and a calzone but whenever we have talked about the episode since we agreed that 12 pizzas sound more amazing then 10 and a calzone....by golly we should have gotten the 12 for purely aesthetic purposes. after that we missed our boat and Tonya and I tried to pass as a couple of newly weds to manage a cheap hotel room that we could all split....but the old couple caught onto or shenanigans when we tried to walk right past them in the middle of the night......not five minutes after booking the room.....and given how baffled they were and how mistrusting mine and Tonya’s conniving deeds had become we still worked out a deal that they couldn’t refuse.....I mean we paid more money....but not as much as we should have.....and now we had all of our own beds. and drank wine safely apart from the labyrinth of thorns we exhaustedly pushed, for the moment, furthest from recollection as possible.

2009-05-26T01:09:00.000-07:00

(sorry if you were looking for the amazing SACI dance video....its a little ways down the page...I've since updated by exploiting my Morocco adventures (or also i threw it up on Vimeo with much better quality so hopefully it wont infringe copyright laws...like YouTube.)
www.vimeo.com/4857161

Morocco Adventures

So from a long unwittingly hiatus I'm back....trying to write about my time in Morocco.....though the ten days evidently moved very quickly for me......it is something I'm hopeful to look back on and remember as vividly as possible.

If you already don’t know about the couchsurfing network....you should (couchsurfing.com). because its much more then saving a few bucks to crash on somebody’s filthy, dilapidated couch.......not that I've slept on such a thing.....I usually prefer the floor.....oh the wonders of Thermarest! its also about getting to know people and a different culture through a tiny glimpse from the eyes of someone that genuinely wants you to see that culture....at least for what its worth to them.
upon my arrival to Marrakesh I was a little apprehensive because my couchsurfing host Amine.....was coming to the airport to pick me up......I mean that’s pretty nice....but shoot...after living around other human beings for so long you begin to catch on to when people do you favors they often tend to ask for something in return. I was happy to find out that this guy was just a nice person.....and went out of his way to meet me, show me around Marrakesh in this amazing canvas topped 1950's French roadster dune buggy sort of dealy (sorry I'm not good with the make and models of automobiles....actually sort of impressed with myself that I sold my old one) and offered me my own flat through the duration of my stay in the city..

The first day I was pretty tired.....given that my flight from Milan was at 6 in the morning...so this meant I had to catch a train from Florence that put into Milan at 11:30 and then take a bus to the airport.....where I would then sleep for three or four hours if lucky... the thing was that I have so many double sided pieces of paper with flight itinerary (for Milan, Marrakesh, Fez, Milan, Sicily, London, Helsinki, Tampere, Milan) that I got a little confused with the whole Milan thing. and went to the wrong airport. this wouldn’t have been such a blunder if there were other buses going to the correct airport that evening but.....the buses stopped until about 4:30 in the morning.....I tell you this though, I was actually lucky getting a bus an hour back to the train station where I would have to wait three hours for the 4:30 bus....on the same bus I came in on...I actually got the guy to wave the additional ten Euros.....sometimes I have a way with words.....even when its half broken, stumbling Italian.

so I slept for almost 1 hour and 47 minutes...I read somewhere that its too consistent to use rounded digits....like the human infatuation with 15 minute increments......so no catch to the un-rounded number....just trying to save myself the time of consistency. it felt a bit like camping and a bit like waiting to get very very far away from a place that was not anything like camping.....thankfully I had my sleeping bag, mat and rain bag.....that is camouflaged...so at least I got the good half of the whole camping deal.
all in all I made it to Morocco and the sun was brighter then any sun I had at one time remembered....Amine became a new best friend and made a good chunk of my stay very satiating as a weary outsider. The first day after zipping around the claustrophobic streets and weaving in and out like an old Atari driving simulation game, he and his girlfriend..... it was something like Angela but with out the n......took me to this refreshing lake about thirty miles from the city overlooking the atlas mountains.......this is when I realized that watermelon was in season. and I truly became totally over taken by the prospect of sitting at a lake in morocco, overlooking the atlas mountains, while after a good cool swimming, biting into a fresh local, juicy red watermelon......(which I may add, they only split one piece even though I offered as much as they wanted.....so I ate mostly the whole thing) needless to say. It was a day I hadn’t expected but thoroughly enjoyed. something that then stuck with me this day, which I was hopeful in pursuing, was the snow capped lingering image of the atlas mountains looming in the distance.

the next day I found an agency for a very reasonable price that arranged tours in a van with other tourists to go through the atlas into Berber country and eventually into the Sahara on camel-back to tents at sunset with the stars and wind and quiet quiet quiet........ok so this was one of the big highlights...a little cliché but if you ask me. its pretty amazing riding a camel in the desert while the sun is setting. sort of makes you feel this sense of vigor that has been lost from most of humanity over the last few thousand years...being nomadic.

so the trip consisted of three days. lots of driving and short pit stops for food, water, pictures, sleeping, tourist traps. the whole shebang.....I even....against my own judgment. bought a camel haired handmade rug at one of those tourist traps.....at least it was an authentic tourist trap...its just there are more of these vans/buses that are somehow pressured into making specific stops at specific villages for specific reasons...people/acquaintances/ family/friends/commissioners.....but I admit the rug is beautiful...and I wanted one for some reason deep down. I don't really know why and where this deep down place exists....maybe I was ahead of myself thinking that a family heirloom is something I better invest in before its too late! but first maybe I should be thinking about starting families rather then heirlooms for families.......or at least think of a better reason for a rug rather then its "pretty" and probably "authentic" and will somehow justify my ten days in Africa with the fear that I may never comeback so at least I have something to show for it rather then some seven hundred photographs of rugs.....well not all of rugs but you get the idea. I bought a rug and its just heavy enough to make my backpack to heavy to be comfortable carrying. I find myself constantly analyzing its presence...why me? I ask...is it something special as of now or something special sometime down the road? is color/texture/fiber something that can make an individual continually happy?
well at least for now...it reminds me of the camel ride. and I really really like camels. they are strange, grunting, slobbery mammals.....someday I want one as a pet. but until then I have a rug. that’s how I think now I am at terms with the situation.

other things happened along the trip.....I took a lot of pictures though in fear that I would forget most of it.....I really have around 800 digital/disposal camera pictures from morocco. I promised myself to edit them down and print actual physical prints of no more then 100. the first night on my trip got sick at our first hotel dinning arrangement.....the man kept saying the gravy was vegetarian. I was very hungry and didn’t believe him....and ate more than others from the group........ the gravy. my body was very angry with me. though right afterward I played drum in the restaurant with some locals and I thought it were to be an epic occasion.....not sleeping because of stomach pains is far from epic.....maybe something you want to filter out of your memory but it tends to linger at the fore front sort of epic.....maybe disastrous for lack of a better word.

but I did manage to get better by the following evening before we rode camels....it took a lot of not eating and drinking water and laying down and pretending to be asleep. oh and yes...ginger root has always been my savior! even after we got to the tents in the desert I realized that exercise is probably my best bet for curing digestion complications.....so I coned my new friend.....tour bus tourist from Vancouver....(which oddly is where I will be moving in a few months to go back to school...so I may one day work in a library again).....into climbing the closest largest sand dune all the way to the top upon our arrival to the tents where we would be sleeping.....I didn’t know that Chris had a bum knee...but we were practically best friends by this point.....while being stuck in a tour bus for hours upon hours and speaking such a similar dialect of English that no other from the tour could even begin to compete...well maybe the Australians....but just a little...they are still curious, eccentric other worldly minds too me that hides precariously behind their strange grammatical choices....
I climbed to the star filled top of the dark never ending, sand blowing all the way up in your face sand dune. I pretended most of the way to be on lake Michigan and when I was done I could just run down and jump into the water. though by the time i was nearing the top I became thoroughly aware of my fictitious imagination and persevered until I was nearly sick.....but I realized from last night getting sick puts a taste in your mouth that you think....at the time you will never, ever ever.....be able to get rid of. so I refrained and expected to have a mystical revelation at the top in all my collapsing and heavy breathing and dehydration/nutritional weakness... but I just laid there wishing I had some water to soothe my recently hacked upon lung.
the next day I wasn’t sick anymore given my full days of exercise in merely the increment of 45 minutes. it worked.

the three day trip all in all was amazing....though I was mildly aware the whole physical exertion part of sightseeing is probably a good element.....especially when trying to enjoy the great outdoors.
so upon my return to the bustling hazy aired chaos of Marrakesh....I soon after made my way to this subtly remote beach town by the name of Essaouira.......though incredibly windy, the town was much more respondent to a relaxed and peaceful lifestyle.....maybe its from being along the Atlantic....maybe its from the amount of hash that is trying to be sold to you.....especially walking around alone at night as a 26 year old man/boy (not sure how I should be referring to myself at this point, person maybe yes.......indifference is probably most valuable) that I would probably make a sure winner. though I was mostly annoyed and said easily enough no thank you and kept my pace.
I found the best hotel room that I could manage... I wanted something up high...so I could get over the claustrophobic sensations of being trapped in congested foreign menagerie of bustle like Marrakesh....what I really wanted was to be able to see the ocean.....just to look out the window of my hotel and see the vague consistency of a blue horizon...I managed to find the highest point to that of the mosques.....it was grand. maybe only one other person was staying in the towering hotel... which made me both happy for the quietness and a little weary of the quality of the facilities....but my room was the highest point of a tower (and i had my own bathroom)....it was actually the only thing on that floor. except for the door to the roof.....which then led to a higher roof which was on top of my room....it was like I had the whole city to myself! and I felt I little selfish for staying up there too long...so I went down to wander.

my essential purpose of wandering was in a bit of a fluster because I wanted to relax but would feel un-relaxed in the hotel if I didn’t explore....so I set out for the beach....like I would then explore my way somewhere to relax...the view of the south beach seemed boring with its lack of jagged outcrops and torrential waves bombarding the delicate sand filled shore.....not to mention the giant apartment complexes lining as a gaudy industrial backdrop......the north beach seemed to be encased within a labyrinth of ancient city...maze after maze of dark alleyways and lost hungry dogs, barefoot poets and old tattered French hats......the entrance to the shore looked abandoned itself...not to mention the whole long winding pristine shoreline masked from the city by an ancient towering wall that looked as though it could run all the way to tangier....(that of course if I didn’t already spoil the image by my little own personal viewing platform in the sky) the entrance actually smelled of urine and the debris was a little overwhelming.....I then had trouble fighting all the protruding questions...why was this beach so neglected? are people not allowed to be on it? are there sea monsters that will battle within minutes after my arrival? or worse yet will they try and eat me out of hunger?
while weary of standing inside the ancient pee filled entryway....I saw a foreigner coming up from the shore with a very large camera and it put my anxieties to a rest....I mean all those tourists can make you a little uneasy after a while..... the whole.....if I have a camera then I'm traveling the correct way.....what is to travel if you cant remember your experiences instantaneously? don’t get me wrong though I'm also guilty of this perverse communication strategy...its just after sometime you come to terms with what the actual purpose of the camera may be....there is really no just answer. but I see people investing way more experience into their camera rather then their memory....yeah you can look at two dimensional images at some point that may trigger a fond episode or story or feeling....but it has to be somehow different then remembering an experience while trying to engage most fully...... smell, touch, hearing et cetera....essentially trying to feel something during the experience....rather then waiting for a moment sometime down the road... in fact yesterday I was on this secluded beautiful beach in Sicily and this couple came down as soon as I was leaving......they were taking photos upon photos...posing for one another...taking turns smiling at their predicament through each others "different" lenses....and after the photo taking they sat down and looked at the amazing view they found themselves in...through the digital screen on the backs of their cameras! we are all probably guilty of this....but it puts it into perspective at moments when you feel the image capturing device can be a bit useless when trying to capture such complex or integrated feeling. like taking something emotional and turning it into a ball of yarn.....or better yet a painting....at least in a painting a passage of time is still compelling some sort of ingenuity (well maybe not always) when trying to capture a memory. I hate to say it though the technology and the mechanics of the camera apparatus is making it easier and easier to push a button....

but the man with the camera! somehow this mans image...with his phallic touristic implement put me on ease and I thought it deemed necessary that I may venture further on my journey because my comrade here has just validated my competence with moving forward. it was strange feeling as though I was the only one on this entire landscape...and just literally seconds away just on the other side of these towering walls was a whole city of tens of thousands of people somehow oblivious of such a peaceful place.
not too long after my arrival I got to exploring again and just when the sun was fading into the horizon a came across some old ruins which looked liked an old gate to the city and to my surprise there was a door.... from the tranquil surrounding where water meets earth and the blustery wind carrying air smashing into ancient rounded stone....there was a door to the inside...the place I came from....and to my curiosity i tried to poke my head back in. the door was locked from my side with a few large rocks and a plank of wood acting like a chair in the handle of a door. I managed to work my way through and to my surprise. there was nothing that interesting....just a slightly more rundown and impoverished side of the city....where wearily I accepted myself at this point as the only man with a camera. so just as I broke through I managed to put the door back together not trying to attract attention.....to the portal I invented into the natural isolation of mother earth.....I was both afraid and excited that I may have opened something unnoticeable something that would follow me out onto the beach and let the whole entire city reform around such a vast beauty that may have brought travelers there hundred of years prior. to my surprise nobody followed. I made my way with quickened pace back to the sand.....though upon my arrival a heard a voice yelling from the distance....from further along the ruins where I hadn’t set foot as of yet....this voice from a figure about one hundred yards off whom began running in my direction with a continuation of loud guttural nonsensical jargon....I mean it was probably either French or Arabic... though for a split second.....conceiving that I was solely adrift upon this desolate shore, the sun was almost about to touch the horizon and a stranger was yelling in my direction while running....I thought should I let him join me on this wonderful beach of solitude? and then I thought maybe it would be best that I also imitate such a phenomenal scene....I began running. away from him. it was both comic and incredibly peaceful. I knew I should have been at least slightly fearful. and I was a little. but I was running too! and my god what a beautiful sunset to be running in......I thought I may have been in Florida for a lazy stroll down the coast....but every time I looked behind me instead of some tranquil fisherman passing the time.....or a neat row of lawn chairs with friendly beachgoers drinking margaritas....there was some vague outline of a Moroccan man still running haphazardly in my direction. maybe he wanted to sell me hash? ask for a light???? give me an indistinguishable high-five saying to himself....yep this beach is pretty amazing huh? but I kept running and each time I looked back I imagined just the split second before seeing him that he was about to grab me and pull me headfirst into the sand only to then pin me down and demand an explanation for being upon this beach...perhaps his beach....and then take everything I owned given the toll for such a misunderstanding. though when I saw him he seemed even farther away....luckily I was in the upper hand....usually when another person is chasing you it is easy to run faster given the more gradual accompaniment of fear.......

I made it back to the entrance just in time to see an elderly man peeing in the shadows...actually facing me as if saying "why the hell would anyone go onto that godforsaken beach! don’t they know there are sea monsters waiting to attack?" I watched the figure still meandering in my direction and the sun just touched the horizon and I felt that if I watched it sink all the way I would forget that whole exciting episode was somehow resolved by the sun setting (whatever that means) so just before it went down I blended back into the busy, jam packed street of the market thinking to myself that I had just torn my self between two completely different walks of life.... with the anxiety pulsing through my chest I felt like I could walk a thousand miles. but I mainly just walked back to my hotel and watched the city lights blink slowly from my very own personal pigeon coop......

the next day I went back to the beach for a swim.....it was earlier in the day...and there were a few more witnesses so I felt more comfortable. I don’t know what I was expecting. maybe to see a similar scenario like I was in? as if this is just some reoccurring game the locals confer to weary tourists?

my time in Essaoura was far too short and I then made my way back to Marrakesh to get ready and climb the mountain. after the long non-physically-exertive van ride into the mountains I decided that to get a good feel of the place I should actually climb one. not just anyone though. the second largest in Africa....mount Toubkal at 13764 feet. the next morning I took a 4 dollar cab one hour and a half to the village of Imlil split with five other locals....yes it was really that cheap! Morocco's economy...as you may have probably already guessed is a great deal different the U.S. and Europe.......the worst part is coming back to Europe and paying five to ten times more for a taxi ride......or five times more for a salad that wouldn’t even begin to compare to the freshness and quality of the Moroccan salad.
but Imlil was a village not to forget.....as the base village before the 17 mile hike into the high atlas.....it was almost cliché on how authentic the way of life had felt......the donkeys with hand made saddles and small curious mountains boys riding side saddle. the incredible structure of an ancient civilization built right into the side of a cliff still passing daily life undeterred by the modern technologies sweeping away larger more predominant cities. for a second i thought i was on a hollywood set.........
with a four dollar back pack that I bought in Essaoura just for this climb and a sewing needle and thread to mend the backpack when needed. I brought my sleeping bag (for my nights stay at the refuge 12 miles in) and a few meager supplies like a long sleeve shirt, headlamp, mint leaf, water, and notebook, shoot I managed to not even bring enough money for my taxi home! excluding the funds I wasn’t prepared to fork over to the refuge...like twenty dollars.....but when your dealing with Moroccan Durham you may think that three hundred of these bills may be more then it really is.

the plan was then to make my way to the refuge by nightfall and climb early on in the morning and make it back to Marrakesh by the following evening to wake up and go to Fez and then fly out of Fez the following day to Sicily..... my plan went well. its funny the anxieties in trying to grasp how all of these distances will spiral together. until eventually it actually worked and you think...it was a long ways from here to there...but maybe only as a mental image.
as you may have suspected the mountain was amazing. the towering whitecap peaks were menacing but conquerable. the donkeys wanted to be petted...the village folks had big curious eyes...the sky was more blue then I had ever imagined. the river was cold and I went swimming in it....several times (with snow surrounding!). the trail was rocky and hot....mountain people sold fresh squeezed orange juice miles inward. there was a huge pack of German tourists. this guy had a genius refrigeration system set up from the river sprinkling bottles of water with freshly melted snow. and so it goes.
the refuge was brick and old timey feeling....set right in the center of the valley where the snow hadn’t melted yet and the river was constantly beginning. I heard a rumor that I would need jagged pieces of metal to tie to my under efficient shoes to make it up the rest of the way. I choose not to believe them though... at the refuge they rented me a pair. I was lucky.....there would have been no way to have made the remainder of the "climb" yes it was definitely a climb....I actually realized what was so useful about all of those avid hikers burdening themselves with carrying useless ski poles....well this is where you would actually want to use them! I didn’t have any and it made all of my weight stay on my legs...but that was ok. I was trying to be more resourceful then the rest....not only because they had huge packs of professional gear (useless weight burdens in my mind) but they also were sticking together.....I don’t like waiting for people......or having to accommodate several different hiking paces given the slowest....or talking to people when I'm physically tiring over my next step....I mean you may think the distraction may be rewarding but for me it just makes everything a little more overbearing.......not to say its bad to trek in groups....its much safer and you have an experience to share with another person.......at least for me...ill admit it was nice to have them there...so I could walk past more quickly and feel that my pace was surpassing the whole of them...but also I admit as a safety net. its not the best thing to travel into a foreign mountain range totally detached from civilization.....armed with a sad broken useless backpack...... but shoot I knew there would be others given the mountains fame...I knew it would be both a challenge and a pleasure to pack to the bare minimum...and I guess that was ultimately satisfying...that I wouldn’t know how to express such freedoms.

the refuge actually had hot water! and came with a mostly nonvegetarian dinner and bread and jam for breakfast....and awkward French/German stares that suggested an incredible fear for loners....luckily for me there was another loner from Cali Forn I A by the name of Alex whom was no more then two months older then I...he even had the same traveling book with him....catcher in the rye..... I thought that to be insanely peculiar......our beards were even the same length.
as you may have expected he became my new best friend and ill probably go hangout with him in San Francisco before too long.....he actually made my whole hike after that point manageable.
I woke up early...like 5:30 and wanted to watch the sun rise while trekking.....though I had the burden of not possessing the knowledge to adhere jagged spikes to the bottom of my feet. I decided to improvise since I'm pretty good at doing this in general. I was outside and my hands were freezing and I was tying haphazard loops resisting to understand the need for a systematic approach for such things. when I finally got one on and said to my self .....va bene...Chris strolled out of the warm indoors and said "no way...take those off...let me help you" I was totally in debt to such a simple but important gesture...he tied those suckers correctly and snuggly around my cracked sad looking walking shoes....even though his hands were probably just as cold as mine......the next two hours would have thoroughly sucked while after twenty minutes my jagged spikes fell off and I was left sitting in the snow on a step ledge divulging myself to the need for a systematic approach while groups of hikers pass me by with impending grins plastered over their faces......sure I bet somebody would have eventually helped me out.....but Alex really made things easy...

needless to say the climb was momentous as my first high altitude and the light reflecting off the snow was beyond words at sunrise.....and I managed to be the third person to the summit and this 16 year old Berber mountain guide gave me dates and peanuts because I was starving and I have this silly picture of me pretending to be on top of the world and there are these little black birds up top that I figured came from the village in less then five minutes.....and I peed off one of the really high cliffs to feel like I’ve defied gravity for the time it took my pee to splash the rocks bellow.....and I did some yoga to breathe in the air and almost fell asleep after i sat back down and pretended to try and not wake up from some wonderful adventurous dream......and then eventually got bored with the view like everyone probably does after enough time....and left when all those Germans made it up there.....or were they Slovakian. yes once all the Slovakians made it up and practically ran down the mountain...and when I got back to the snow the sun warmed it to slush and jagged spikes that I didn’t know how to tie would have been boring so I actually made my bottom like a well insulated sled and got wet in the process but I knew it would dry because going down meant the temperature would dry whatever it must and I made some friends while sledding....one was named Ivan from Slovakia and he gave me pajamas that he didn’t want for my wet bum and I tried to refuse but he refused then it was awkward silence and I accepted...they are sky blue and I still have them like some long lost relic to an adventure that ill take all I can get outside of merely digital photographs to jog my memory.....

the walk down was long and I was confused given the new muscle strain going downward and I finally arrived to Imlil just before dusk (but sure plenty of other things happened.....but i think ive already written too much so.....trying to make this as short as possible) and split a cab after waiting an hour to avoid paying 20 dollars instead of 4......but I ended up paying ten though was happy to make it back to my hotel off the central market of Marrakesh where I was sleeping at this point on the roof for a mere 4 dollars a night.....

then got up and took the 7 hour train to Fez and loved Fez.....because I got to know the people.....they were friendly.....the community was much closer together....and while wandering during the eve....(so I admit I have this sticky sensation that I need to try and get lost at night in the darkest of alleyways in a third world country....because gosh darnit! that’s where the real adventure is) while doing so I saw a whole in the infrastructure of a web of buildings upon buildings....practically I felt indoors while in the old center.....a man saw me peaking around the corner while he was walking behind and offered to show me the treasure hidden down in the ruins....I was a little apprehensive but it turned out to be the fiery fuel of the Hama(the ancient bathing grounds) there was a frail old man with tattered clothing and crumbling knit cap feeding a furnace with scraps of wood for the baths hovering the next story above. my newly found tour guide then offered to show me the baths which I was thoroughly impressed by the authenticity of it all and then when I was offered to be bathed myself...... my mental clock said no way but my adventurous side was like ok and I striped down to my undies and gave my stuff to the coat check and paid my tourist price and was escorted into the walls of steamy moist......tiled half naked morocco by a man who reminded me of Sinbad but a little fatter and a little more bald and a little more guttural when he pointed with command....I felt awkward at first being in my underwear until I realized everyone else was in their underwear...and Sinbad led me to the farthest reaches and apparently the warmest given that it was centered directly over the old man with tired hands heating the whole damn place. my new guide to the Hama was also apparently my massage therapist and proceeded to also bath and scrub me and slap the ground and grunt since I didn’t speak Arabic and he not English.....it was amazing the whole smacking the ground and grunting routine...and pouring hot water over my head and scrubbing my whole body with some calloused sponge and then the massage came.....oh the massage...I admit I have a really strong threshold for pain especially when it comes to deep tissues massage...but this guy literally kicked my ass. while grunting and smacking the ground and doing everything extremely fast and wrapping his legs around me and arching my back over his hipbones and trying to disconnect my legs form my torso and probably trying to get a laugh out or a good scream at some point so he could finish and I would say uncle. but I just took it like a man and this could be taken many different way given the intimacy over our half naked bodies and the absurdity of the over complicated and painful stretching positions....but I assure you I was never abused....people are just a little more invasive of your personal bubble in Morocco.....and probably most countries where kids grow up in the streets instead of plugged into computers and televisions and digital camera simulated touristic adventures......
.all in all it was one of the most disturbing and eye opening and touristic crushing adventures of my 26 years in this funny shape of human.....I felt as though I was part of something that I should have only maybe been given the chance to take a picture of........

right when I thought things were at its pinnacle and I just received the roughest massage in my life from a Moroccan man who strangely resembled Sinbad......I managed my way to half purposefully get lost on my way to the hotel........to find three guys from Prague smoking a shi sha...or hookah on the roof (not of hash but you know....the hookah tobacco) and I was reminded of the time I smoked one with my friend Alonzo in Amsterdam and thought it may be a relaxing conclusion for a rooftop evening in Fez.....though their hookah just finished and I decided to find one of my own and to my enjoyment ran into two locals who were dressed as if they were two old friends from the Midwest and they recalled seeing me earlier and new the city like the back of their hands and offered to help me find the shi sha........they took me to this incredibly modern lounge in the middle of vacant desolate nothingness and they were undeniably the most friendly Michigan like friends that I could have never imagined finding in Morocco......it was seriously like meeting up with old friends who flew to Morocco to come and visit me... it was really strange.....and an absurdly perfect ending to my time in their country.. We talked about music.... and Europe and Morocco and Michigan.......surfboards and politics....libraries and soccer games.......salads and chocolate bars...high-five’s and pigeons......they really got a kick out of my Hama recap and understood my Sinbad analogy and pictured this fragile Michigander being pummeled by some overly aggressive bathhouse bouncer..........it could have gone on much later...they were just as intrigued about where I came from as I was of them....I thought they should have been brothers but by appearance they definitely weren’t.... soon enough the place wanted to close....they walked me most of the way back to my hotel and we said our goodbyes....I then ducked into this music store and talked about music for the next hour with the owner......he had that look on his face when he played something that we both though was awesome like he was going to cry when having to endure the silent space between songs.....I had nothing but sympathy for him.

2009-05-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

special thanks to the laborious editing and electric dance moves from the one and only mister Nanda Maw Lin

2009-03-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

2009-02-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

garyneason live at pizzaman's and peachgirl's house.......1/4/09
compliments from jackie wilson ( www.imaginaryline.net ) and if you wouldlike to see the whole thing or other parts you can download it via zip from here: http://www.imaginaryline.net/external/garyneason.zip

2009-02-03T13:55:00.000-08:00

.....mid afternoon... walking from one building to the next and the rain comes down like a giant wave! the center of Florence became a temporary oceanarium (though lacking jellyfish of course) it was fantastic..and only lasted for a short moment......yet i was getting unavoidably soaked.

for some reason i was carrying a sewing needle in my left hand..i believe it was in the side pouch of my nap sack.....and it poked me like three time the day before. it even drew blood.....maybe i was finally fed up with the fumbling stray sewing needle and i took it out pondering what to do with it next....maybe make a shirt with a raccoon on it this time! (like joels hat....the most amazing hat in the world. hands down. joel you should send me a pic of it as soon as you read this...i will post in on here.)

so while carrying this sewing needle it made me extremely uncomfortable because maybe a sewing needle is quite possibly the opposite of an umbrella. probably because umbrellas are much larger and can resemble a little canopy of sorts.....maybe even a fort if one collects enough......and a sewing needle....well sewing needles are easy to lose. it would probably take eons to make a fort from sewing needles.

so in result i kept thinking how much easier life would be...if for only at this moment.... if i had an umbrella. how the rain would pretend that i hadn't existed any longer......how my pants and suspenders and tie would stay much more dry (oh and yes.....I've started a day at school only on Tuesdays where i try and get people to wear ties......mostly it is for me because i have several ties but never wear them...and alas. her is my chance! i call it: TIE TUESDAY)
only a short moment thereafter i found an abandoned umbrella on the side of the street. it was red and petite....and it was beautiful.

i know what your thinking.......yes the umbrella had to have been there for a reason.....like it probably doesn't function properly?.....allows the water to fall right through?....and usually yes this is the case. but not today!......this umbrella was in both prefect aesthetic and working condition! and kept me dry....

i have this problem i guess....i think about umbrellas all of the time. and i have even come to a point where I've begun collecting them (im up to nine broken umbrellas!). maybe its my fascination with their use and purpose....how they are both a tool but also a fashionable garment... how when you dont have one and its raining you want one...... and when you have one but its not raining you dont want to carry it. personally i have this problem that when i am carrying an umbrella i habitually spin it between my finger tips.
to a point where i end up dropping it onto the ground and then the water realizes that im still around and that i was just pretending to hide....like a little turtle..... underneath my little canopy fort.....
and proceeds to rain over my head again until i pick up the umbrella.....

but the rain now has become more intelligent while being more keen to my routine and my little umbrella trick.....and figures out ways to make me a little more wet even with the umbrella still involved....like picking up the wind so the umbrella sways from side to side....thinking ......maybe i wont notice. or falling just a bit more heavily to the pavement....... so it makes a larger splash near my feet and jumps up onto the tops of the thin canvas of my shoes. but the most peculiar thing is when it gets underneath the loose cobble stones in Piazza San Lorenzo and makes a small lake. solely for that of a large heavy cobblestone to float on...so that minutes later when i walk over the stones.....the most buoyant one wobbles from one side to the next and shoots up a giant stream of water...like some sort of urban geyser!
not like old faithful....I've seen old faithful. it is much more boring then this. this has way more personal involvement. this is when you realize that the rain is following you. not just for a short moment...or even a day or two......but quite possibly from that point forth.....for the rest of your life.

2009-02-01T09:21:00.000-08:00

2009-01-27T14:52:00.000-08:00

(sorry this is only a small piece of the image)

Friday, with a group of students from the university..... i had the opportunity to travel an art fair in the city of Bologna. the bus ride was epic.....the clouds were bellow us and the mountains stretched out like gigantic sand castles in an overly gigantic sand box. it made me question if i was in an autobus or an airplane......impatiently waiting to land so that i could once again plant my silly worn out newbalance shoes back onto the pavement.......

upon our arrival to the fair there were many people, places, and things to see (especially people-watching was in good spirits!).........it was crowded so that we all had to wait inline before making our ways through the entrance of this giant industrial spaceship/convention center/shopping mall/ airport/ field museum/ ice arena /very complex / complex.

inside i managed myself somehow...not fully sure really... to feel a little sleepishly..... (the story of my life not the sleepy part...or maybe? The assurance iguess)..... so then….eventually....... i found a café and drank two cups of coffee. one was very small and very strong and the other was mixed with milk. this made me slightly overwhelmed or a little confused for the next hour and one half because usually i am not too accustomed to this caffeinated and eye opening drink.

My confusion accompanied me with a heightened sense of mobility as well as a quickened gait to my step…… until eventually i began to slow down once again (but in a slightly different way from earlier) and proceeded..... writing or drawing or scribbling or stammering Into my little red book with a picture of a giraffe drinking from a pond pasted to the outer cover.... more or less about what i was seeing.

there was so very much to take in at this place....possibly too much so that…. at times…… i tried deliberately to forget about where i was and what all this stuff was suppose to be about….. passing me bye….. and try possibly.....or just maybe take a moment to remember who I was in comparison to all of this....right at this moment...during this moment. right then and there and.....maybe if i were to say now.....i mean...even as i am writing this....sort of now....or when this is being read ...or like five and one half weeks from now or previously a similar time before now.

i had a conversation with a friend at a certain point during a certain time on this certain day. there was a merry-go-round involved and it was going very quickly at times and very slowly at others. we sang two different songs to help us not become as dizzy as we could have been. ol mcdonald had a farm and row row row your boat in two part harmonies (felt natural i guess). Eventually after we felt very dizzy and laid our heads down pretending to take a nap…. Lorenzo (the painting instructor) came by and got on the merry-go-round with us (this was inside the building mind you)……I tired to get him to sing but he would only whistle …….he was pretty good at going round in circles but got dizzy right away…… this all somehow. being here and moving so quickly and slowly and remembering other experiences that i have had about moving in similar ways....helped me remember a feeling from a recent moment beforehand…….. maybe one week ago on a train near naples…….where I had my head out the window and thought to myself (while not exactly word for word) while I watched whole cities, sidewalks, squares, people, stop lights, oceans stretch by:

"i wonder if time is something that can be experienced in several different ways or something that is always at the same pace to that of the clock on my cell phone? or maybe its more valid to say: time is the way we choose to think about many different moments during the same moment…..and somehow imagine all of these moments together.....all at once. Maybe this is why we as human beings have trained our minds to endure abstract thinking......we as human beings may somehow convince ourselves that time is a series of times....one frame to the next…… a series of still images that in someway become similar to the continuation of a filmstrip. But also something..... resembling not the moment we are currently a witness to....but composed with several different series of movements, paces, rhythms, patterns, sensations that we can potentially be aware of simultaneously ....quantify, measure.....distribute............

to seek value…..something that is very close to the use of our memory and maybe being the catalyst to our imagination".

at this point i realized that art.... to me…. is something that...especially in this context at the bologna art fair. makes me feel inexplicably solemn.... i realized that art is something that is able to challenge the ways in which we identify with time. both as something literal and forward moving. but also as something broken....filled with metaphor.....always conveying new or old contexts in our own life and maybe an understanding of those contexts together…… in the present moment...... Something resembling many different perspectives of time and memory. ...... While taking into consideration our present state of emotion. then is it really possible to be fully present when surrounded by some many constructed timelines?

(sorry this probably doesn't make any sense)
maybe emotions then may resemble something as simple as a piece of fruit growing from the limb of a tree. nourished by the water and minerals from the earth collected from the water from the clouds collected from the water in the lakes and streams, ponds rivers and ocean.....maybe emotions are tolerant only when we have the opportunity to let them take shape. to become something physical. a language to acknowledge our own shape in result of the shape we allow to be........to be as a shape which......for an instant.......is representational of the experiences from the past........that we may consider in the moment to be just as valid.

maybe what im getting at is that i feel i myself am trying to understand this shape that is composed of many different emotions that i consider to be me, myself ………I. though at times are not necessarily which i had supposed to be real or valid..... until ive created some sort of an object from them…….(in)formation…a language i guess.

i then came across a painting that i liked very much.

well maybe it was more than a painting. it was fifteen feet wide and ten feet tall. the tones were all relatively neutral and composed mostly that of white and many shades of gray with a very small amount of black …..there was a woman floating in midair with her bed several feet bellow...... while being surrounded by an air-filled forest scene. maybe the opposite feeling inside a forest as if it were a feeling of being very small inside a forest.

the expression to her face was serene and complicated. To me displaying thoughts of acceptance with that of a flustered, peaceful but complicated gaze.

The image was titled: I want to be sedated.

in many ways to me she seemed to be transcending something. though im not sure exactly what ..... maybe life. Addiction, the forest. the time of being awake and the time of being asleep. or maybe this is best left said from the perspective of the artist. but surely to me this had something to do with a sense of both weight and gravity within a specific timeframe.

in a scientific way the woman's body was defying the laws of gravity.

in correspondence with the still image……. there were projections of simple white butterflies....possibly moths if debated...... but i concluded butterflies for some reason or another. maybe because butterflies are what we tend to associate with color.........and with the color taken out and the context if this image......made more sense.

there were anywhere from one butterfly to twenty....they managed to stay solely around and about the woman’s body. and throughout the duration of the looped video sequence they appeared to begin by coming out from the woman's mouth and appeared to end by going into the woman's pelvic region.

the woman’s eyes were present but the darks were not the darkest tone of the image. this allowed the scene to become something broader and less defined.... as less about the personality of an individual. with the figures laced pajamas holding the darkest of color value, the picture became more about the woman’s body.....and with the juxtaposition of the projected butterflies.....the woman’s body as interdependent within a state of gravity.

this gravity is what i believe drew me into the artwork and somehow inspired certain emotions inside me that then later compelled me to write about this. maybe it was a feeling of permanence by such a well composed still image arranged (excluding the projection) entirely of tissue paper loosely pinned to an abrasive surface.....pin for pin. layer for layer. tone for tone over tone for tone. white plus grey and black.

yet combined within a fluttering sense of movement, the wings flapping about....... rhythm, time. something holding tension between to points.

being fooled to believe that my own self could be compelled at ten feet above the ground……. bringing contrast to the place where my black shoelaces held the grey canvas shell and inner folds of my shoes warming and protecting my feet.....with their rubber bottomed soles bracing the freshly polished, white with specks of brown and blue…….industrial tiled floor.

2008-12-16T13:29:00.000-08:00

while walking this morning on my way to school i found two roma tomatoes lying lonely on the side of the road. with striking contrast from bright red in a world of gritty flustered grey blotches and stains they became something much more then two roma tomatoes lost in the street.......as of now they are my new friends. Bev and Wilson. though tonight there will be a sacrificial ceremony where they will assimilate into the evening pasta. but as of now anything could happen: Bev is about three inches wide with a special luster to her fragile fibrous skin, has a peculiar accent maybe derived from North Carolina. a strong willed tomato that has been on several adventures all over the world.

just three weeks ago while on a hot air balloon scanning the Greek islands for improper handling of the endangered species of Caretta sea turtle Bev spotted an off shore ship sailing to the west with the words "Panda Express" written just atop the barnacles plastered along the side. with an immense passion for Panda bears Bev navigated the balloon to reach alongside the boat traveling at a gusty 43 knots. her intentions as of yet were unknown. for the spontaneity of her character is what willed her into such a circumstance.

maybe she would capture a Panda as a pet for a brief period of time only to take it back to its mother land and release it back into the jungle? maybe she will join the crew for breakfast tea and discuss their adventures across the great oceans and beyond?

it turns out the crew had also spotted Bev, given that she was floating distinctively nearby with all the multi colorful patterns of her balloon reflecting the mornings sun like a brightly lit lollipop. but this was far from encouraging a sweet tooth hunger as one might have hoped from the grizzly faced and sun-beaten sea farers. for they were on a mission. to take these stolen pandas to Paraguay. to sell them illegally to seven different zoos. seven pandas. seven zoos.

immediately a blazing sound of gun shots rang from the ships deck. Bev was curios at first then heavily alarmed for the gravity of the situation came rolling in at full force. her balloon was made of a light weight nylon fabric which could easily become punctured under the velocity as something as small and metallic as that of a bullet. soon enough the balloons envelope became distressed and mangled to form the shape of a discarded, crushed, flattened and creased can of beans. though Bev was nervous and experiencing a mild form of anxiety. she knew exactly what to do from an old james bond rerun she watched half soberly three years ago during her sophomore year in college.

given that tomatoes have no appendages she figured that the approximately 40 foot fall would only cause a minor splash and that her delicate skin would manage to slide gently beneath the surface of the water. in order that the crew would not notice her tomato like demeanor she put on a emergency snorkel mask and scuba tank that was stashed in the balloons basket.....hoping she could pass as a government agent of some powerful and elaborate country to possibly frighten her intruders into making irrational and potentially lucrative mistakes.

soon she found herself in mid air watching the horizon slowly stretch out to a more elongated width until finally the world of salt filled sea life came splashing initially to a haze of bubbles and indigo blue. at first Bev hoped to escape lazily underwater a few hundred feet bellow the surface. though once 200 feet bellow she noticed something questionably odd. at first it seemed that a ship the size of something enormous, maybe that of a small mountain, was navigating easily through the thickening haze of the Mediterranean deep. upon closer inspection she discovered tiny reflections of light emanating from within the seemingly solidified structure in question. these then began to separate piece by piece into individual self sustaining shapes tightly nestled together to resemble some kind of unified terrestrial formation. it then became clear. at last it is the lost city of the turtle.

while closer and still closer yet. millions of gracefully tuned and rhythmically aligned turtles swimming lazily through the semi transparent water came into view.

while seeming to be oblivious to the giant vessel and its long complicated strides. just then Bev felt a strange sensation from behind the oxygen tank strapped snuggly to her back.... before even allowed the slightest of struggles she felt herself encased within something elastic yet as solid as steel. in probability the shell of a turtle.

minutes later. thrust into the open water of blinding and in comprehensive light. a shadow passed over the vast rays glinting from a multitude of inseparable angles. a voice then pressed against the misty haze and echoed from every corner of little Bevs now fragile and overly reflective body....as if the shards of light were holding tiny questions that were meant solely just for her. though having no voice to answer. the voice held rhythm though was impossible to decipher. more similar to the feeling when one sleeps and dreams that they are waking to begin their daily routines.

with the weight of thousands upon thousands of words..... the light began to dim until completely absent from the once overly abundant white sun stroked sea.

soon images from thousands of memories began to unfold into the water before her. memories of her tomato plant mother and father. her two hundred and sixteen siblings that she knew entirely by name. the time she once skidded her knee when falling off a skateboard in seventh grade outside Pinehurst junior high. her first kiss with that yellow squash hooligan from 42nd street, Eddy Winslow. as if tumbling through a mist of remorse and nostalgic longing. the images faded and before her appeared a seemingly three dimensional and familiar shape. that of another roma tomato. with a delicate golden crown embossed with a very sophisticated floral arrangement the tomato spoke:"hey hie, the names Wilson. pleased to meet ya." Wilson had the draw of a Texan that would speak in the manner as if burdened by the having to lug about a dusty half paralyzed stiffened leg that wobbled anxiously from side to side which one may refer to as a gimp. (to be continued.....)

2008-12-05T07:05:00.000-08:00

end of term multimedia installation

2008-12-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

i now have a space heater in my room. it has evidently changed the whole dynamics ofwinter. before i was just cold all the time in my home because the heating system lacks efficiency. now i just flip this switch and things go crazy. i mean my room gets really warm.

right now i am a little obsessed with turtles. my last series of paintings were all about turtles (i dont think i really told anybody that). but now the new paintings are not about turtles as much so i think i have them swimming around in my thoughts more. there have been two instances now where a few friends and i have laid down on our backs, closed our eyes and had what is now coined "turtle time". yeah i know it sounds a little silly but thats kind of the point. it has been mostly about narrating an adventure through the perspectives as turtles while i direct complex and slightly humorous scenarios. i help instigate a turtlelike venue which gives each person an opportunity to express themselves spontaneously through the mind and the eyes of a turtle.

my friend Ali has been making hundreds of wax flowers for an installation with our multimedia class. today she randomly had one made from wood and i asked her why it was made of wood and not wax so she gave it to me. the same day my roommates cousin gave me by chance a man purse which his exgirlfriend made when she was a child and then gave to him. i now have the wooden flower in the man purse and hope to save them for a rainy day.

the sun is outside today. the buildings look like giant lego sets. i recall the feeling of pulling legos apart with my teeth when i was very little.while thinking that i probably shouldn’t be using my teeth for such practical matters (my grandma was always good at letting this be known) and at the same time knowing that i have no other choice.

2008-12-02T10:16:00.001-08:00

2008-12-02T03:35:00.000-08:00

words of the day: swim, swarm, swing, swell, sing, song, sut

2008-12-01T06:08:00.000-08:00

Friday morning several students from the photography program came with the professors and I to Lucca to visit the Lucca Digital Photography Festival. as soon as we step off the train the rain begins to blanket the entire city for the following six hours. with my lacking of an umbrella and the thin canvas exterior of my shoes i managed to get extremely cold and wet. it didn’t help that each exhibit that we ventured to was based in a building that was so old that it hadn’t acquired any kind of heating ventilation. i manage to get cold enough to decide to leave early and catch a train hoping that ill find a little warmth on my way home so that my socks can dry.. the train turned out to be as cold as the galleries but i did manage to find an umbrella in the trash on my walk through the rain. not just some average flimsy run of the mill umbrella but an extra large burgundy plaid with the colors pond green and murky blue. it was as if getting soaked in the rain for the previous few hours prepared me for such a find and wouldn’t have meant the same otherwise.

now since the rainy season has officially begun this sturdy umbrella has proven especially useful. with it being hopelessly shaped like an extravagant walking stick i find myself habitually twirling the umbrella between my fingertips. either when it is closed or while its opened and stretched out over my head. this has helped me become more aware of the nervous habits that i tend to pursue with my hands. far to often i catch myself playing with my beard or messing up my hair.... flipping a coin between my finger tips or touching the cement buildings i pass along the streets.

really the thing that surprises me most is that im constantly looking at bicycles to see if they have locks wrapped around them. now this doesn’t exactly relate to the nervous habits i have with my hands but might shed some light on my habits in a general way. its not like i want to steal a bicycle that isnt locked properly. i mean i already have a nice bicycle that i love very much. infact last weekend i suggested that two of my friends and i all ride on the bicycle. at the same time....together..... and by golly it worked! Alonzo rode on the handle bars and Danielle sat on the seat while i stood and pedaled. we sang Christmas carols and a Tom Jones song.......it was much easier then i would have expected....well at least till the handle bars loosened and the bicycle was impossible to navigate.

but back to the habit thing. i think since i had my bike stolen a couple months ago that at first i had hoped to spot my old bicycle randomly on some street corner mingling with others. i thought sure....the brown seat would have been a dead giveaway. but after a few weeks i slowly began to give up. it wasnt like i went out of my way searching for the darn thing. it just sort of passed the time. and then eventually when i got bored with that i began passing the time with trying to spot vulnerable bikes. like the way mine was before it was stolen...yeah i admit maybe when i find one i will take it for a joy ride. not too far though. just around the block or something at best. but until then i believe this habit will continue to occupy my time. maybe its the same with the umbrella. ill probably wait until the rainy season ends before i stop twirling. and then what? back to touching the cement walls and knocking street pole with my hands to hear what kind of sound resonates?

today i ate the best sandwich that ive had since i got rid of my toaster oven back in kalamazoo. it consisted of mozzarella, pesto, sun dried tomatoes, black olives and onions. in the cafe they were playing late eighties love songs. somehow i knew all the words and sang a little.... especially too Madonna. the people working were very happy and sang too. lately i cant stop thinking about the Top Gun soundtrack and this little rectangular pink boombox that my mom owned when i was a kid. i use to play the tape down in our basement as loud as it would go. sometimes my brother and i would take all the pillows off the couches and make a pile in the middle of the room. then we would position the exercise trampling so that we could jump off the couch onto the trampling into the air singing Highway to the Danger Zone! at the top of our lungs and land safely onto the cushions. this is before i stopped believing in Santa Clause. i aso memorized the bart simpson deep deep trouble song during this period of my life. actually i rapped it a little just last week. somehow both have managed their ways into my permanent memory.

2008-11-30T09:03:00.000-08:00

me and Lorenzo after lunch in La Verna

2008-11-27T06:52:00.000-08:00

end of term - fall 2008 - photo installation

2008-11-15T05:21:00.000-08:00

so maybe i mentioned that my fake tooth (from a sledding accident when i was twelve) had broken on a piece of very hard bread (which is funny because the Japanese girl i named my new bicycle after....Brunina....thought when she first met me that my name was bread. so she calls me pane...you know the Italian word for bread. my roommate Andrea thought my name was bart when we first met. he confided that this went on for two weeks.

I've been able to keep the tooth in my mouth during the day...... thankfully.....(somehow...long story) but i need to take it out to eat. so one day when i was taking a break in this park near the school and having one of these chocolate pastry snacks that i am a little obsessed about i had to take my tooth out. usually i use my front shirt pocket to hide my little toothless secret but today i hadn't the right shirt for this and thought that i didn't trust my trouser pockets too well because they haven't been washed in a few weeks (i know my mom had taught me better then this.....but really its a life style that takes more hard work then people tend to realize). so i decided hesitantly to set the little porcelain tooth on top of my backpack. thinking yeah i wont forget..... no problem.....but the thing is when i eat these amazing chocolate pastries i tend to loose grasp upon reality.... doesn't chocolate sort of do that to anyone?

this then gave me the perfect state of absentmindedness to send my tooth sailing across the ground which was covered in thousands of similarly shaped, some tiny some not, tooth colored stones (i.e. teeth).

literally for a full hour i crouch on my hands and knees afraid to move much more then an inch for i may step on the wrong stone or kick some dirt around...sort of half freaking out and half thinking that i was dreaming. the reality of situation had not fully taken hold because i had not as of yet had to try and communicate to people without having to open my mouth of fear that i will eventually rely on, for the next two weeks plus, a strong Appalachian accent so that people wont be as embarrassed for my awkward displacement into the world as "the guy missing his front tooth".

after 45 minutes i decide the only logical route now is pick up every single last stone, pebble, tooth and throw them into the grass nearby. eventually people began taking notice in my virtues and the awkward stares nearby made me feel even more pressured that if i fail...they will be just as upset as myself. so this is when i decided that it will be highly appropriate that if/when i find this tooth, this possible center of the universe. i will have to cause a scene.....not anything to complex or over dramatic....but i will hold the tooth up to the heavens pronouncing the day to be saved and glorious all on account of my good/bad luck.

maybe three minutes after this image runs through my mind i find the shiny white porceline vanier and try to cause a scene but just hold it up really high with a look of disbelief on my face.....no one realy even noticed except this one women that sat drinking her coffee. i pack up my things and grab my bicycle by one hand walking slowly and entirely full of accomplishment. i decide that this lone women deserved some sort of explanation.....so i show her the tooth from a distance, which now that i think of it probably didn't make a whole lot of sense when i grin and pretend to put the tooth back in and out of my mouth (which of course i waited to wash it before really putting it back in. i mean the cleanliness of trouser pockets and the graveled floor of a park are maybe completely different things from a distance but maybe more similar then one may think when viewed from the perspective of a treasure hunt). She looks at me very confused and maybe panicked and seemed as if to say "why me? i really was just bored watching him sift through the sand and pebbles, i don't care" after this she frowns pretending not to know me. well....... i didn't know her either.

now i have my new tooth sent from my amazing dentist in Michigan! i actually managed to loose the old tooth one hour before i had the new tooth cemented in. i tried to panic momentarily but managed to calm myself down. I've lost much of a craving for bread. its funny when getting use to a broken tooth how a new fixed tooth feels even more awkward. but i eat more chocolate because i am again more confident with the alignment of the universe.

2008-11-04T06:52:00.000-08:00

words of the day: chestnut, turtle, basking, miniature, thermostat

2008-11-02T08:35:00.000-08:00

friday (ok really two fridays ago i started writing this last week and got distracted) four of us from the school pile into Lorenzo's, the painting teachers, car and drive two hours to the rock where Saint Francis received the stigmata. I now know that San Francisco is named after this man. Years after his death a devotional center was created upon these giant cliffs, with several tiny chapels, churches and trees. we take lunch into the hills and watch the rolling country side with crisp browning leaves we sit. Lorenzo makes a joke about my feet and mentions that he thinks they are very strange. maybe just passing the time.....maybe trying to point out that somehow our humanity is full of all kinds of strange and different shapes and sizes...maybe he is right...maybe i just have strange feet.....i mean have you ever seen me climb a tree? im not one to boast...but hey.... since were on the subject im a pretty good tree climber.

see Lorenzo is very peculiar person.....difficult to describe in words but for a lack anytwo better fitting: "big kid" may be the most appropriate (he must be seventy by now)....i guess any of the really interesting painters or painting instructors that i have run into over the years sort of somehow blend into these two words....... i want to tell him that within the last six months three different people have mentioned that they thought i had beautiful hands....ha! whens the last time somebody told you that you had beautiful hands (Lorenzo).... better yet, hands that would be perfect for mountain climbing....maybe even professional modeling? its really true..well maybe not the modeling......but my wits always seem to be somewhere else when i need them most...

we spend maybe two hours between the woods and the tiny village and make our way back into the countryside. fighting sleep i remember the feeling moving with the car in the hills on our previous ride there. Alonzo and Jackie get motion sickness easily and i usually dont.... at least not anymore....but i began to remember all the airplane rides until i was eleven and those little airsick bags....yeah i was one of those kids you never wanted to sit next to on the plane.... i mentioned to them since they are trying not to become motion sick that maybe i will try the opposite. maybe this will help the situation? instead it just made me very relaxed and while having the window down listening to John Coltrane "ballads" and breathing the crisp Tuscany air watching the autumn trees stretch out and begin rolling through the distance. i find myself feeling incredibly at peace.

upon arrival of the Fransiscan community Lorenzo changes the music to opera.....we sit in a parked car for the duration of the song which he gives more volume. we sit in silence as we all either close our eyes or stare out the window. not a movement until the song was finished. no need to even attempt to communicate to one another....we are all in our own little worlds...and it was a great contrast of sharing the busy streets of Florence..... not a sound beyond the laser in the cd player reading the inscriptions on the flimsy piece of plastic rotating around and around.

half way back to florence i convince Lorenzo to drop us off at a hiking trail where we will climb into the mountains and camp for the night......actually i was sleepy and he was probably more excited then i was and woke me up saying that we are now in the state park....that the trail was not too far.....this is when i remembered that i had brought my sleeping bag. as soon as we arrive a small sprinkle of rain challenged our aspirations, yet we say our goodbyes and left Lorenzo with a wave of our hands as he drove off. ok actually we all gave him hugs. Jackie seemed deterred from the rainfall and also continued on to Florence and mentioned that the image of her warm cosy bed kept coming to mind. she didn't not realize that we truly love sleeping in the cold rain.....(?)

we had about two hours left of daylight and about a two hour climb ahead of us. Kate gives Alonzo and i Native American beaded jewelry to tie around our heads. we collect walking sticks on our way. we begin to be in touch with our spirit animals....alonzo the boar me the squirrel...kate the guinea pig.

the contrast of trees hides the suns setting upon leaves of yellow orange green and red. through the forest upon the outskirts the leaves dance and light up. they look as though they are on fire. periodically we play rock paper scissors for what way we should turn when we stumble upon a new path. thankfully we know that all we need to do is continue upwards. but when the opportunity arrises to play rock paper scissors.....its hard to pass up.

we see wild boars and clutch or walking sticks tightly. Lorenzo said there would be no wild boars but only wolves. we decidedly accepted the fact in our minds that there may be wolves but the boars put us on edge. but alas no squirrel or guinea pigs (sad face).

at the top we find an electrical station with minor disappointment. it is dark and rainy. we decide to navigate around the florescent lights and find a plateau with rolling hills stretching off into the distance. through bushes and tall grass we manage to find a spot that seems promising. even though we discover civilization a stones throw away we manage to find the rugged outdoors again.

after thirty minutes in our attempt to start a fire in the rain we succeed and the rain stops. our clothing dries and we talk about buttered popcorn from the theaters, candlewax sculptures of dead presidents and the previous dream i had about how all of my hair grew really long until i couldn't walk any longer because i would cumbersomely trip and fall. Alonzo mentions that we are hovering in outer-space on a planet.....we then look up into the stars and forget to talk for almost a full ten minutes. this is when everything could be heard. the moisture from the plants seeping into the soil. the gentle sway of the wind. the humm of an electrical building in the distance. these are when some of the best conversations begin.

( )

growing tired and assuming that the rain had stopped for the night we decide to lay atop the rain fly to stay off the damp earth. about an hour after falling asleep we are awaken by a sudden downpour. our sleeping bags become wet and cold. i manage to finagle (yes i agree...amazing word!) the rainfly around us like a little protective cocoon. in the morning the mist sits over the hills. the fire is back to flames. the trees and bushes are a different color. our feet are wet and we go hunting for boar.

2008-11-01T06:18:00.000-07:00

2008-10-23T03:17:00.000-07:00

phrase of the day: pumpkin soup tastes like novemeber

2008-10-22T03:42:00.000-07:00

2008-10-13T03:52:00.000-07:00

good week. Was paid to go to Milan and help set up an exhibition for three SACI alumni. Got put up in a 3 star hotel with one of the artists he snored like crazy but I had headphone and listened to Bill Evans while slowly falling sleep. Made my way to lake Como and got lost in the forest after finding this abandoned crumbling stairwell that led to overgrown plants and a fence the "trail" seemingly stopped until I climbed around the fence, through thorns and webs of plants up the steep grade of the mountainside till I arrived at another fence, and then another...which I climbed over to find an old vineyard that now housed several mansions and the ground keepers who were friendly but astonished that I was on the property and asked how I got there.....I wanted to say by parachute but was more vague and said something about a stairwell that made no sense to them because really the stairwell didnt exist unless you crawled through the woods abit. They opened the electronic gate for me by remote.

Lake Como is in the shape of a Y. there are mountains and stray cats. And old women that try and convince you that the bus is better then the water taxi. I find a beach to swim with a dead seagull and an abandoned sweater hung to a fence. Just the sun and the mountains and the loose stones. The small frail clouds and the pastel color of tiny homes in the distance.

My friend little ray came to visit on Friday..... well 2 in the morning on Saturday. I managed to arrange a bicycle for him and found a new one myself (!). We ride bikes very fast and pretend that the streets are little racetracks. For upon meeting ray at the train station I made a little sign that read "water buffalo" on it with each letter painted in a different color. So he wouldn’t walk by me. and i could walk him to his limo with the bikes stashed We find piazza sant spirito and watch crazy drunken men try and dance to jimmy hendrixesc guitar playing with amplifier... one Hispanic man was singing what must have been some ancient lullaby that he learned as a child...he started tapping the acoustic guitar with his fingers pretending to be famous. I didn’t see him start tapping his head against it but ray said later that he had.

Then my mom and our friend Bonnie came to visit and got me too do mad amounts of traveling for the week. From Rome to Venice and my third time to the ocean to swim and hike.....to lie in the sun and fall asleep. To eat pizza and climb to the top of an old castle.... we also took this really amazing tour into the Chianti hills and sample very expensive wine. Our tour guide was funny and would laugh a lot. My favorite part was the wine cellars and the smell of French oak barrels holding 300 bottles. I began to drink wine again....and I eat too much pasta. Its not really a cliché it just sort of happens...its everywhere.

I had a traumatic tooth incident. My fake front tooth became broken after biting into a piece of very hard bread. it fell out on the counter top and lay there mocking my toothless grin/ frown...depending on how it changed from one to the other. Its interesting to me how I had become so incredibly self-conscious from this. We associate so much with our mouths from conversations.......actually I superglued the tooth back together and into my mouth...I think that this isn’t the best protocol...but hey sometime to improvise is the only strategy. This lasted like two days then I had to buy some polygrip. I've become very antisocial in public from this...for two whole days I didn’t put the tooth back in because it would just fall back out whenever I would have to speak with anybody.. like to order food or something I would say something practically inaudible...maybe it would have been better to have written little notes on the palms of my hands, hopefully this week I reach a more permanent smile. My mom reminded me of the time my brother threw a remote control for the television at me on thanksgiving when we were very young and it knocked one of my baby teeth out. At least in that situation I had somebody else to blame…sorry jon.

Tonight I went to a concert at this wonderful theater. Five years ago I saw a show at the same place. Each time i've been there it’s managed to be extremely stuffy and warm. This has continually caused me to be sleepy. Three times now. The same place. very sleepy. this time I decided not to fight it and just let myself drift off halfway through. I woke up just as the performance was ending. the violin, cello and piano become so unbelievably clear and warm (maybe coincidence).. when waking up from a moment of sleep sometimes everything can become really fuzzy and impressionable....I tried this once with an alarm clock that could wake you up from the cd you put inside. It never really worked well because I just began disliking the music that would make me get out of bed. but naps are a lot different anyhow.

I've been having dreams about miniature dachshunds and dolphins. fixed my new bike for the seventh time. made a drawing on a yellow wall in a little vending machine place where you can buy instant pasta of a bird holding an umbrella. bought a bottle of wine today from 1997. cut half of my beard because it was making me head look too round. found a stuffed animal bird on the street and hid it under this little sidewalk level window so I could come back and get it but my roommate found it and brought it into the apartment. he thinks it is his but I got him to split it with me. i'm trying to get Monday Thursday and Saturday. its blue and red on one side and black and white on the other. printed my first photograph since I’ve been in Italy of a man sitting under a tree. I can’t stop thinking about how everybody I walk pass on the streets has so many different stories to tell....or different tastes for food. or different ways of holding their armpits when waiting in line. or different gelato choices (like chocolate or lemon) of different ways of highfiving (sometimes mostly a confusing look in their eyes, sometimes really excited) i played pick up sticks in a park for the first time it was at night and with candles and blankets and the candles were in the shape of a flying saucer and an alien. I don’t know why they did this but then the candles were set free across the pond and continued to burn and float and burn and float...sort of a confusing and/or gratifying sight to see. not sure why though.

2008-10-06T03:24:00.000-07:00

this weekend i managed to find my way back to the Cinque Terre. getting stung by jelly fish with hearty smiles, jumping off thirty foot cliffs, hiking in the dark to a naturalists (nudist) beach to lay our sleeping bags and listen to the tide push and pull the heavy rocks carelessly bellow us.

just after sunset, before we had reached our destination, we watch from atop a large bluff the ocean like a giant metallic dish, the colors split apart and bend into tiny little pixels, barely visible currents in repetition, looking far off over the horizon the continents held together by the imagination of some belief in certainty, some buried memory. seagulls cry into the air, maybe laugh at our hiking outfits. no one says anything back. i have butterfly's on my shirt flying about an old wicker basket.

at night the beach we sleep on is the color of gray. or a mix of black and orange and white. maybe full of dust or like an old daguerreotype photograph....something rummaged out from a relatives attic. we sleep on rocks. my air mattress is mended with a tire tube patch. has proven unable to function correctly. the wind pushes the tall grass behind our heads. the grapes smell ripe and smashed to the earth. every thirty minutes i wake up thinking the clouds will open rain onto our dry slumbering faces.

in the morning my friends wake up well rested. my back hurts. i do some stretches and notice a fully tanned bald man naked on the rocks forty feet bellow us washing himself with a towel.
soon after we pack up our bags to continue the trail onward towards the remaining two villages. instead of going back up the mountain we thought there must be a short cut. we then stumble upon a tunnel with two Italian man eating breakfast near the entrance both wearing the most amazing mustaches that I've ever seen. they stop us and explain the fee for shaving an hour off our hiking time to Corniglia. they also explain to us that the naturalist beach is what the fee is mostly for....the bald man makes more sense...... we talk him down from fifteen euro to five. his flannel was the most beautiful in all of Italy. we told him he was lucky to have found such flannel.

the tunnel was of an old railroad a mile long. the air was dank and sharp. the sound of water trickling down the interior walls. each brick twenty five feet above us perfectly set by hand. Jeff mentions how insane it would be to actually have to build something like this.....where would you begin to start?

i think about how each moment, no matter how far in the past or how distant
only becomes real...or takes shape once we are there to interpret it....once there is a witness.... like the creation and purpose of this particular tunnel, the many times its been used, the experiences others have gained.....at this moment for some reason these all seemed inconsequential...as if the tunnel was created solely for our presence.....only this specific moment. the function now for the thousands of bricks, metal rods and concrete all shaped, smoothed and rounded together....in this moment with it hanging far above bracing the earth from caving in over our heads...its sole function was not to come crashing down on us while guiding our way to our next destination.

once we arrive to the end there is a little white button that needs to be pressed to open a red metallic gate. at this exact moment a train was passing overhead from the modern segment of railway nearby....while the door continued to open, more and more white light began to spill into the dimly lit space from the sunny afternoon sky. an amazing rush of air then came tumbling in threatening to knock each of us to the muddy earth or maybe back to where we had come....soon the wind diminished and the sounds began to fade of riveted train tracks bracing a giant body of steel carrying its many passengers and moving quickly through the distance...we thought that maybe it was just a lucky coincidence.

2008-10-05T09:03:00.000-07:00

A Comparison in High-Fiving

2008-09-30T13:38:00.000-07:00

Brought to you by the Association for Social-liberation
from the Hazards of Atypical Winking (ASHLAW)

Dear newest member of ASHLAW,

A high five is a celebratory gesture made by two
people, each raising one hand to slap the raised hand
of the other — usually meant to communicate mutual
satisfaction to spectators or to extend
congratulations from one person to another. The arms
are usually extended into the air to form the "high"
part, and the five fingers of each hand meet, making
the "five", thus the name. In addition to the standard
high five, several variations exist in order to add
uniqueness to the experience and to maximize
satisfaction. (ie. amazing!)
If one initiates a high five by raising a hand into the
air and no one consummates the celebration by slapping
the raised hand, the initiator is said to be "left
hanging."(or feeling bummerish) This is considered to
be a somewhat embarrassing faux pas. Initiating a high
five excessively can also be considered a faux pas.

The wink is an intentional facial expression made by
briefly closing one or both eyes. A wink is a form of
semi-formal communication, which indicates shared,
unspoken knowledge. (while easily posing all sorts of
unrecognizable confusion)
A "naughty wink" can silently indicate a shared secret,
such as if a salesperson gives a customer a brochure
and says, "Here you go... it's free". Infrequently, it
may also mean "got it" or "yes, I understand".
In Western cultures, women may wink to men they are
interested in dating, but this has grown out of
fashion, though still used occasionally. Winking is
also done by men to women, often to convey a message
of "I like what I see here" or "Hello, I am interested
in getting to know you". In most male-female contexts,
it has come to mean communicating explicit sexual
intentions. A stranger male's winking at a woman is an
explicit invitation for sexual act. (thus winking can
sometimes be incredibly dangerous and potentially
disarming)
In Latin American cultures, winking is also a romantic
or sexual invitation, but can also be used a casual
sign of recognition or of acceptance of behavior among
friends. In Nigeria, winking is a signal for
children to leave the room. Many Asians, especially
Chinese and Indian women, consider winking to be
rude.
Not all humans are able to wink voluntarily, and some
can only wink one (usually the non-dominant) eye but
not the other, while others are far better at winking
one eye and find it awkward to wink the other.

It is then conclusive that high-fives have a far
"higher" potential in initiating a more wholesome and
unifying experience in comparison to the derogative
implications that may be brought about through
winking. For instance if one were to teach their
children to utilize one of these particular gestures
for recess activities or socializing with friends it
would be surely unanimous that high-fives are much
more accessible and versatile for a wider range of
friend-making and social dynamics. Not to say that
winking has only negative implications for the
population as a whole but it does offer a narrower
range of physical expressions given the cultural
taboos that have been implied throughout the several
past centuries and prospectively the many to come.

Not to mention that the intense energy of high-fiving
may only further the inspirational feelings embed in
the human spirit while surely cultivating a more developed sincerity
to life which may be useful when trying to
be an insightful and positive person. It has been
documented that several individuals, in fact millions,
have refrained from substance addictions including:
coffee, tobacco, alcohol etc……(actually there are
three hundred and seven more but you get the idea) and have
become healthier and more sociable persons merely
through the humble and glorifying act of
high-fiving.(!!!!)

Hence the founding of High-Five Camp Florence 2008
coming into full swing starting this Saturday October 11th.
Bring friends, family or complete strangers
anyone is welcome to the wonderful world of
high-fives…..but surely bring any stray helplessly
confused miniature poodles from around the city for
they are in the utmost need of attention out of any of
us.*
Techniques such as "the double handed"…."the top to
bottom"…."the midair slow-motion snapshot"……"the
no handed lastminute
fallonthegroundlaughingeventhoughyourleg
reallyhurtsbad"…."the relaxed likewhat?icandig
noproblemamazing"…..and many others will be
practiced until the utmost perfection is achieved. For
we as an association are not out to convert social
expressions from one of lesser to one of plenty. We as
an association are brought together only to convene
with the deterioration of each and every culture spanning
the globe….the impossible
confusions brought to gender, age, race and social
class……and at last the pointlessness and
confounding autocracies brought through the useless
and outdated practice of winking.

-Eddy Winterbee
President, Humanitarian and co-founder of ASHLAW

*it has been brought to our attention that poodles have
been viciously spreading the act of voluntary
winklement throughout our city streets with such a
fervor that a great epidemic has been taken sight. it
has been spreading into our schools, libraries,
grocers and even our homes and has been dealt with as
a grave concern. their fluffy demeanor has only till
now given them sizable cover until the 2006 act:
Engaged Poodle Syndrome and the Potential
Deterioration of the Human Species Through the act of
Winking (EPSPDHSTW ).

2008-09-27T07:58:00.000-07:00

made a long venture to the other side of the city today in hopes to find the most perfect area rug for my bedroom. something brown with green and maybe yellow flowers. but all i could find were several antique draping rugs that cost way too much money. i cant tell you how much of a difference a rug will make in my life. something potentially with a little elevation to it. fluffy or shag-like. so i can lay on the floor in the center of my room and stare at the ceiling while being oblivious to the cold colorless tiling just centimeters bellow. I've come to realize that everyone probably should own some kind of rug. even if they already have carpeting in their home. a good rug can fill the space better then upholstered furniture with matching window curtains. or assorted tropical plants in color coordinated ceramic pots....it can open the space up to colors and pattern-dynamics that were never thought possible. if you were to relate it to food it would be the butter for the bread. or the icing on the cake..... if you got tired of sitting in chairs or sleeping in beds you can always resort to the rug space. something neutral but conveniently located. possibly the most transitional space indoors and potentially the most tranquil.......well depending on the rug. a rug made of wool may be too itchy. or a rug made of silk would slip from under your feet. or maybe it just depends on your mood. sometimes having more than one rug can be a good thing. you could even collect rugs to line the walls! definitely wont have to worry about falling into things. could even wear sunglasses after sunset with the room dimly lit b y a single candle. it would also be that much more inviting to invite your friends over for roller skating parties and at the same time you would surely save on heating bills in the winter.

2008-09-26T16:27:00.000-07:00

twenty six blue buttons
scattered on the street corner
a five minute walk from here

the feeling that you get
when surrounded by several
strangers in a very small room

making time in the afternoon
watching shadows drift
slowly along the rooftops

each one a phrase pinned
to the bottom side
something like "lacking of a better word"

or "time to take time to take time"
the sound of a mosquito drifting
through the air

still this way lying in the open
sitting graceful as the stem
and the brittle corners of a recently fallen leaf

apprehensively arranged
the colors turn slowly to
the colors of the pavement

broken, dreary, plastic at times
waiting for the sunlight
sending shadows from bare limbs

memories like a paper envelope
or the dog eared corners
of an old phone book

discarded box's litter the
sides of rusty handled trash bins
and always the sound of rain

2008-09-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

a polaroid photogrpah of a curly haired dog named nelly.
a lime green sweater for two euro at the market smells not of lime but of age.
my bicycle makes far more sounds then it use to.
i gave an indian man some of my laundry detergent today for free.

tiny pieces of paper lost in my pockets and scattered about my room.
the sunset is only possible by the river.
people wink more here then using highfives.
ive now talked fourteen people into a highfive. eight were strangers.

from the window of my house the weather looks like buildings.
from the street it looks like streets.
from the river it looks like rivers.
from the park it looks like park benches.

2008-09-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

overcast and the air is light and clear. the lacking of shadows makes everything more transparent. its feeling very weekendish. easy to take time and do nothing.

standing near piazza san lorenzo......the sun finaly steps in front of the clouds. that angle where it is difficult to see much beyond a great draping cloth of light. while the rain continues to sprinkle downward. one of those questionable moments with the sun and rain together. maybe easier just to admire such contradictions.

puts into perspective my experience inside the museum today. to me impressionism is both confounding and poetic. i tend to enjoy images that portray light as the most valuable source of information. particularly between shadows and the object that is casting. as of now Alfred Sisley's paintings. anything to do with snow and trees. for i find myself to be nostalgic in the fall. and yes michigan snow is something i have a considerable longing for.

what draws me towards impressionistic painting is both its defiance towards the literalisms capable in photograhy while essentially expressing a nuance that is similar to the making of a successful photograph. something composed almost entirely to a rhythm.

what i tend to enjoy about a photograph is its compositions with light and their distinctive gradations. yet to me impressionism conveys an impenatrable quality that seems evaisive of depth both by lacking contrast while still implying gradation. something essentially more transparent then photography when under-analyzed yet possibly more two-dimensional when over-analyzed.

my shoes have several holes in them. when it rains i feel all the water in the streets. it is sometimes refreshing to have wet socks. sometimes it is better to have dry socks.

i have now moved into my painting studio! the school was generous enough to carve me out a space. now i make it into my house. stacking boards around me. table lamps and thickly painted paper stuck to the walls. it was becoming

to much of a mess to paint inside my room.

the building is old with tiny dusty nooks to pass by. there is a rooftop terrace that we are not supposed to view from. last night the security guard came at 11:30 and smiled at me. motioning that the hours for use have expired. its good again to be alone at times in so much space. i keep remembering my life in East Hall. having a studio so large that one could run laps if they got bored. stuck in the basement till two in the morning sometimes till six. that feeling of being isolated but having so much space and time to deal with. making puppets from ductape, clothing patterns and a million miles of string.

maybe i will hide in one of the many cabinets to avoid the security guard next time. maybe i will wait on the terrace and sing opera to the moon. or run around the building flailing my arms like a lost pigeon. or maybe i will just make a sign and tape it to the door reading "do not disturb".

2008-09-12T06:58:00.000-07:00

2008-09-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

today faculty from the university and myself sacked out in the airport greeting students. handing out packets of information and house keys. making sure they know what street to take their taxi to...... etc... etc... never thought i would intentionally wait around in an airport for ten hours.....mostly it was a good chance for me to read and receive lunch and breakfast paid for! not to mention having the strange feeling that i was supposed to be going somewhere. whenever in the airport this is what i am used to. heading away or to some different or familiar destination. i made myself eat a piece of pizza to convince myself that i am staying here in Italy. so far i have had two pieces of pizza. both in airports. i'm working myself up so i can endure something fantastic outside of airport quality.. don't want to rush into anything for it may be hopeless to find higher ground....but anyways pizza really isnt all its cracked up to be. i mean so much bread and cheese. sometimes it just sits in your tummy like piece of highly dense unshaped lead though without all the poisonous attributes. i prefer blending spinach in water and drinking. much easier to assimilate! my friend Kathy would call it pond scum....maybe this is why i love turtles so very much. (but roscoe.....or i mean robby...yeah robby man...its still a tasty piece of pizza pie even the airport stash is a stones throw away behind Martini's)

lately there has been a cultural festival happening in Florence based around the democratic party here in Italy
http://www.festademocratica.it/?gclid=CObDhffUwZUCFQuH1QodmVEyRQ . with a short five minute walk from my house all sort of things to see and do. a cheap fifteen minute shiatsu massage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiatsu , live music, all sorts of ethnic foods, ancient Vespa scooters on display, a game where if you kick a soccer ball into one of the holes cut into a green painted board with nets behind you win a prize, art galleries, book stores, installation films, democratic debates..... a crazy elderly bearded man playing a self tuned and eccentrically built guitar....oblivious of the world singing from scribbled notes with colors of paint and expressionist lines adhered upon canvas nearby, flanking him from side to side..with an ancient top-hat color beige and matching disheveled broken-in suit jacket and pants......probably the creator of the universe as far as i am concerned......................you will find them from time to time as long as you keep more then just your eyes open.......

the first night i came to the festival my flat mate encouraged me to go down to see the Wailers and the hippies of Florence. the property is of a castle built in the mid 16th century and is surrounded by a giant wall with an emptied trench reaching far bellow...yesterday i had mt first coffee here in Europe at the festival from a modern little coffee maker on display where you put a plastic container inside the top (like a creamer) and viola instant hot very potent coffee with a mysterious thickened brown foam on the top.... with the visual appearance of hot chocolate...it took me a bottle of water and a good thumbs worth of fresh ginger to get the taste from my mouth. reminded me of the last time i was here you could vend instant pasta on the streets corners......still searching for those again.

finally settled into an apartment with this instillation/video artist named Andrea
http://www.myspace.com/ciboideale .....what i know of so far is that he projects films onto melting ice in public spaces. dealing with questions and topics concerning the environment. he is a big fan of good simple Italian tasting food and is a writer of poems and likes chocolate very much. kind of reminds me of the fraggle rock....maybe one of the more sleepy of the characters...but somehow seems to get the most done......... or ALF. yes maybe he is like the ALF. but with less center of attention.
ok confession....i think that everybody reminds me of the ALF in some way shape or form. maybe it is my bias from childhood and my strange affinity for puppets. maybe i presue an exsistance that hopes to live up to the morale and ethics of the melmacian race......ahhh... those were the years. when one could see a freshly debuted ALF episode from the genuis and ingenuity of NBC and writer Paul Fusco. maybe someday television will take back what it is most appealing. aliens merged with stuffed animals and house pets...... brought into the human characature of an elderly man and the innocence that of a child......brilliant!

2008-08-26T07:35:00.001-07:00

gelato...yes now for three days straight.....cones upon cones.....chocolato....tirimasu.. got to get a hold of myself....a little grip. it always looks more then it is.....inviting. piled up behind the glass windows. like mountains with little pinetrees in the distance.....a little snow on top.
cones stacked nicely and aside. towering over. leaning in just a way to make the angle inviting perfectly in reach of the hand. for a few days i wander around florence hoping to get my bearings again. beautiful bikes everywhere. spokes turning.......agressive riders make there way...off like famous statues....excited children. play some cards with three french kids on the street. drinking white wine..... a comedian captivates a growing audience in the ditance. hobbles with his tophat. has a whistle........hundreds of people laugh and cheer..... its easy to watch the streets grow endless. like a tiny labrinth...elastic and anxious. stretching off to the distant river. close to the crumbling buildings and towering squares.

then to the coast and hiking the hills. find a beach all to myself. sleeping with the ants and the sound of waves petruding the rocky cliffs. seagulls form in the morning. grape vines stretch out around my little nest. creates a little space..feeling quiet. climb into the hills and the tiny cities spread throughout. jumping from piers into the bracing......wobbling sea. the salt fills my nostrals. the air is thin and bouyant...the bottom is endless and blue. the sun setting behind fading mountains. climb to the top to watch it wash off into the distance. breakfast of yogart and granola.

off then to the tuscan hills. rolling out to the distant peaks and densly fit orchards. now making a circle. ferrera is full of streets and music. today an elderly man plays a plastic toy piano designed for children. very serious his face. his teal ancient bicycle resting closely behind him. free camping fifteen minute walk. i meet some gypsys from the north. one knots me a bracelet for my wrist. the culture of the city and many surrounding....so far...... possibly pieces of the whole country..... peek from every corner. around every turn. skulla and mr. green play crazy ballads with their little green circle of astro turf. bearded faces, tattered hats and repressed dance moves for the sake of the music. mr. green plays two empty tin cans with two mallets while juggling. skulla sings with his hands strectched out across the weathered wood and worn tingy stringed guitar. they seem to miss the gathering crowd. eyes closed and the songs rush by with momentum like a train.....the hills passing and the window opened and ones head held out the window like a dogs excited tongue lazily challenging the breeze.

the man in the internet cafe keeps spraying bubblegum scented airfreshener. ....somehow it makes me hungry for kebab. kebab is cheap. just around the corner. the owner says squirrel like squirtle.

2008-08-22T06:17:00.000-07:00

In the morning. A little sleepy eyed but my feet easily swayed into walking forward again. To find the train and then the airport. To then fly from the city of Athens onto Italy. Walking from sidewalk to sidewalk. Managing between parked cars and minor constructions along the way. Tiny, thin, hungry kittens darting in and out of their little hiding spaces. Looking for the morning feast. I try and pretend what it would be like….adds a little bounce in my step….ah the life of stray kittens…….but for me….. Just searching for a cold bottle of water. I luckily come upon one of those great hole in the wall grocery stores with fresh delicious produce and children hoping and skipping around and around on the sidewalk out front. With many smiles and curious laughs. You can tell the whole family is here.

I have this feeling. These people they know what exactly it is that they do. This is there job and their life. I mean sometimes more precise then this….sometimes more vague to say the least….but for me…..this is them here as of now doing what they do. Their family and their future. All the more easily with smiles it seems and children playing games….singing songs.

After acquiring my bottle of water and the regret for not buying everything they had. I keep walking with the morning sun to my back distinguishing the outline of each crease and fold and strap holding together the nylon casing of my pack. I pass a large picture window with the lights off from the inside and the door secured with a gate of metal bars passing vertically over the entryway. The dim interior allows me to distinguish the reflection…… something in immense clarity….and my expression….. with the large cumbersome pack following closely behind… the sun dropping down like a translucent vale covering not only the bag but the whole concept of it all in relaxed and perpetual motion . I thought to myself: “where is it that one makes sense from all these feelings of purpose and working and living? What is it that makes me so intent on lugging this bag around and managing to keep some kind of traveling pace? From here to there. Doing this and that….how do you choose and is it best to think of it all at random? Why is it not me managing this tiny grocery in Athens?”

Things sort of came rushing at me in new perspective…..feeling content….feeling both lazily in transit but as potentially fitting no matter what may be the case ahead. And I thought this could maybe be my job for the time. Possibly what I was searching for….watching new cultures and finding new places….trying to identify in ways that i'm use to and ways that I am not…..though being ultimately present throughout. To understand these feelings of continuation and detachment. stillness and attachment......To understand the meaning of home. While being both distant and isolated upon cultures while digging beneath the rubble of my own concepts of home to see the relevance. The potential meaning as something both foreign and nostalgic.

During this instance…… this instance then I considered this: The relevance became overwhelmingly present that purely this act of being here. Being nobody maybe. Or somebody. But just my presence alone. Carrying these things with me that I consider my only possessions for the time being. The tools and necessities to find only partial comfort and wellbeing…. Walking from one place to the next. No will or jadedness to move on or return. That moment. Maybe it could last for longer then it seemed. Maybe not.

though now to be in Florence it is both very different and possibly the same. And to me that moment has managed itself to continue. It feels all too natural to be here. In Athens I had a glance for a moment…..but now it seems to be more vivid and relaxed. I guess I get to lay my pack down for a period of time. Can walk around more easily not wondering what the next place will be like when I leave or hopefuly soon where i will sleep. I’m not sure if its nostalgia or something i've carried with me from Athens and from turkey. From Hungary and the Czech Republic. But somehow the relevance is here. Somehow all those people and places and stories and Speedos make more sense. (And yes… I am still searching for the European chest hair! I tell you it never seizes to amaze me) These all fitting into a conglomerate of things. They all fit into here and into Michigan. And maybe all the other places i’ve been and experienced.

Though somehow it feels much more integral to be merely witnessing. Somehow while this period of travel being much lighter around the feet. Maybe it just takes a little time to break from our old patterns and routines. Like driving from Kalamazoo to Lake Michigan and picking blueberries along the way. Sometimes just a little break can seem much longer when you return. And sometimes the opposite.

2008-08-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

walking and walking in the streets finding overturned stray cats lying on their back waiting for the sun to slow down.

hoping to get lost. but alas another vendor selling cheap imitation belts and watches. another ice cream parlor with glassy stares and resting limbs. the tranparent surface of post cards and plastic rotating racks hanging expensive jewelry.

another solemn asian fellow sitting on the curb throwing a vegetable shaped jelly substance that upon impacting the mat of cardboard spread out near his knees turns into a slimey puddle while enabling the sound of cursplat to resonate softly off the stone walls of the buildings nearby. then reforms itself into the original shape that it held just seconds ago bracing the palm of his hand. wishing to be sold but his ambition is linguiring no where beyond the act of cursplat after cursplat....cursplat splat.....cursplat. i wonder how he made it this far with his little toys. i probably saw him on twenty different corners today. the same routine. the same posture. the same involved rhythm. maybe not the same person.

today hiding under building shadows and canapies. looking for the acropolis. squinting through the narrow pieces of light. and all the sounds
falling over and around. pigeons make it apoint to be seen.
found a record store. only looked for a minute. have no time for records. found the roof to the record store. saw the acropolis from here. thought it may have been enough.
probably not. find the hill. walk up the hill. pay some friendly lady your money. the man next to me has a baby sticking out of his baby backpack. he asks the lady to give his baby a kiss. she is wearing those huge sunglasses. looks like a big bug. kisses the baby. baby seems happy.

up top the wind is like a giant empty can of beans with one tiny stone inside. rolling around as if on the deck of a boat. back and forth and slowly. aimless.
i sit on the edge and watch the city. thinking maybe if i were to jump the wind would catch me and i could make it pass all the tiny reflections of sunlight....the chrome finish of window paynes. solar panels stacked high up waiting with the sky.

with the motion of his hand a security man guarding the hill and wind and most of the sky gently warns me to move. if i could see past his sunglasses his eyes would have read more easily: "no, you probably wont make it like you hope....... the wind would suck you down into the city yes. but not like something gental as a feather or lazy like a cloud. maybe a stone polished from the ocean. maybe a stone waiting to roll down into the people and their buildings and their families and ice cream parlors and souviner shops. trying to find the gentle beat of the waves. maybe you could start a new city somehow if you keep crashing and pulling this polish around and over and over. maybe it would start again and everything would be made just of hands and feet and eyes with no intention of hiding beneath the shade."

i had a conversation with a new friend last night. he says when you take the spiritual and you mix it with the material you find religion. he also said that society relies on contention to create the dynamics only possible for the social. he was drinking ouzo and had a big smile. and says: "sorry its late i should stop talking and sleep". his beard is big and uneven.... about the size of my own.

when walking through the ruins of cities....it always seems to be hiding somewhere. the people.... maybe just resting.. avoiding some definate shape or context for a moment. waiting in the shade..for the day to pass and cool and become something to navigate...maybe as if being in a museum.

2008-08-17T03:12:00.000-07:00

we arrive to the island of Samos with the dead weight of dry sea air and the smell of grilled fish while the heavy afternoon sun bakes our every pore and salt filled hair. taking care of ferry logisitcs is first and foremost on our agenda and we inevitably find that most are full for the next couple of days. we then find an overly large watermelon to take the edge off. in greece unlike turkey we have to really search far and wide for fresh produce. well at least on this particular island. i end up finding three potentially rancid watermelon at the bottom of a 4'x4'x4' box at a super market smelling of cleaning supllies and deoderant. one is brown and looks like it may take over the universe if opened and the stench were allowed to spread throughout the air. the other two have the remains of other melons that had sat atop them for the duration of their stay. very sticky and the smell of rotten fish in the air. well the fish section of the store was close enough that it could have gone either way.

with my inability to come to grips with my insatiable watermelon addiction and the quality and shear size of my options i thought to look elsewhere. though most of the stores are closed around the noon hour and the grociery store i walked pass earlier with its closed doors, dim lights and fresh basket of melons linguiring in the window brought a daunting and potentially futile endeover wafting in my future.
i decided to go ahead and try and fish a melon from the box (no pun intended) and see if a little wash might remedy the problem. maybe someone would see me and tell me i'm crazy and that these melons are of ancient artifacts that only the most highly proffesional team of archeologist may dispose especially by the use of special gloves with a liberal application of antibacterial solution.

it turns out the lady in back washed it for me with no questions asked. gave me some paper towel while after letting me also wash my hands. the melon actually was still good. just a bit over ripe.

soon after searching for a quiet cove to wash my sunburned aching body i find myself roused from a dreamless sleep atop some primitve makeshift boardwalk jutting out into the wave washed sea. my eyes slowly blink and flicker open to closed. water softly rises into the air after rinsing the rocks and moving tiny pebbles from side to side on the almost perstine bottom. my feet slowly notice the variations in temperture and conclude to lay peaceful and undisturbed. i focus on the beach at its inhabitants. the sun bathers applying thick loads of sunblock, wearing flowered brimmed caps and over prices generic sun shades that easily could take up more then three sets of eyes if need be.

after a long period of mindless observation for the spectical before me. i begin trying to recollect how i got to this specific place and what it could possibly mean to be lying here half awake with the grapes of wrath resting warmly under my left earlobe. creating subtle creases in my skin.
just then a man comes trodding through the water at a very close distance to my left. i manage no intention to move. just watching this newly found perspective of this heavily tanned human being with clumps upon clumps of back hair slowly wobble his way back and forth along the tricky stone manuovers awaiting one foot to the next in the indecernable haze of spackled sunlit water. i thought maybe i must have paid some kind of admittion into this fantasy world of sand and water......like how one may take a sightseeing adventure to observe dolphines frolicking the waves waking from the tail of a motorboat...... or whales spouting clouds of freshly caught see water into the morning sun....... or sea turtles laying their eggs on some ultra protected beach to ensure the utmost urgency and privacy of their endangerd nature.

at last i was over my desire to reevaluate the human species and the sun swept beaches in the ancient art and indeterminable habitat of the thriving tourist. to see yet again the bottom of the ocean the best way possible and find some refreshing momentum to continuing exploring the remainder of samos city.

2008-08-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

today...thıs ıs all ı got.... ı was readıng on the pool deck of our campground/ hostel / hotel /where we sleep ın theır yard. very cheaply ı mıght add wıth free ınternet and showers. takıng for myself......ı would say a day to relax and read. whıle beıng late afternoon and culmınatıng a decent amount of sweat for the days hıke up to the sprıngs. ıt seemed lıke a nıce cold shower was ın the near future.

ıt turned out that they were havıng water presure problems at our tıny oasıs so ı had to waıt a bıt to use the facılıtıes.....no problem......plenty of watermelon to go around.... whıle waıtıng there was thıs four year old boy wıth thıs cheap plastıc guıtar that would play over and over agaın ın a pıano style sound nick-neck, paddy wack, give a dog a bone thıs old man came rolling home . or ı mean to say the cheap plastıc guıtar would play ıt for hım and he seemed lost ın oblıvıon to the wonders of beıng an entertaıner..... for about 30 mınutes.

he was takıng sandles off and strıckıng poses all over the place. ı thınk he even jumped ın mıd aır at one poınt and yelled somethıng chıldısh or maybe the most profund thıng my ears have been laıd upon sınce the start of the trıp.....but alas ın turkısh...... at thıs poınt he ıs my hero. he had hıs hat on sıdeways too. lıke ın some fıt of passıon and undenıable tranıstıon ınto somethıng beyond words.....well at least beyond nick-neck, paddy wack.

then a van pulled up wıth a heavy set man openıng the door and contınuıng at a steady gate that would make you assume that he means busıness. wıth complete agılıty and a tremendous tummy rıgorously jıgglıng back and forth. ıve seen plenty of hıs type at the beach....the kınd stıll lımber enough ın the legs to keep the speedo from fallıng...but stıll enough heavy around the tum tum to hang over and make passerbyers feel embaresed thınkıng waıt.....ıs that guy naked? sorry just had to get that off my chest.

but hıs gaıt you know....leisurely..lıke he should have been wearıng a hawaııan shırt or somethıng and smokıng a cıgar.... and sellıng used cars? no maybe not. maybe a bar tender at a bıngo palace...yes much better.
he was good at what he dıd though and managed to fıx the water pump ın a jıffy. the boy contınued rockıng the ıce cream truck sıng along....ten second phrase after ten second phrase....ınto some kınd of ıncesent mındless bable that wıll one day catch up to hım.....ı mean rock musıc. ok bad joke ı stıll lıke rock musıc.
trust me...ı was a kıd myself at one poınt. maybe ı stıll am. but my mom can vouch for me that ı could have feasably drıven anyone crazy gıven a lıttle tıme and effort..and a brıght red plastıc guıtar.....wıth matchıng mıcrophone and amp ı mıght add..

so ı sıt half sleepy from the half eaten watermelon tryıng to dıgest ın my belly.
quıck as a fıddle the water pump man makes hıs way back to the van. ı was worıed that the boy escortıng hım..... also the boy who took our money for the campıng...the boy who serves breakfast lunch and sometımes dınner......the boy who hooked me up wıth a rıde on hıs scooter...(he's awesome by the way ..oh and ı found some new shades so ıt was fıttıng for the rıde)...not to be confused wıth the boy and hıs guıtar.... wouldnt turn the engıne over ın tıme and would cause our water pump aficionado to waıt a few seconds longer then would have been a proper pace for the whole scenerıo. ıt turns out that they were both waıtıng for an efes beer to be walked over and evıdently consıdered payment for hıs hard work. he cracks ıt open and takes a healthy pull whıle the van lazıly speds across the gravel drıve.

2008-08-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

we arıve ın fethıye the prevıous nıght wıth a sunset drıve along the coast....wıth droopy eyes and colors specklıng the doted outcrops of rock and lose stone ı see thıs peculıarly balanced ısland ın the hazy pınk orange blue dıstance fallıng lower and lower ınto the settıng horrızon. to me ıt looks as ıf ıt were a butterfly..... and beıng half awake half asleep ı ımagıne ıt to shıft subtly back and forth untıl ıt peels ıts wıngs from the glassy smooth surface and begıns some sort of neon anımated adventure that ıf ı were only sıx years old would probably resemble the most creatıve poınts of my ımagınatıon. ı close my eyes and sıt more relaxed ınto the bus seat and contınue watchıng the butterfly's sureal adventures ınto the world of esatore. yeah thats the best ı can come up wıth. ESATORE. or maybe better yet: the land of ESATORE.

none the less ıt was good arrıvıng ınto the cıty so late and fındıng an extremely ınexpensıve room for the nıght. twelves dollars made us rent ıt agaın for the next and allow us the day wıth out our cumbersome loads bracıng our backs. today webley and ı splıt up and ı made a quest to the mountaıns to fınd Saklıkent gorge.

the hour and one half mınıbus rıde brought me through all sorts of tıny vıllages watchıng theır daıly routınes from afar. wonderıng ıf ıt ıs truly happenıng....or merely somethıng 2dımensıonal ın my mınd. wonderıng ıf ıts far too dıstant for me to really even begın to understand the way they lıve. sacks of graıns and spıce. barrels of freshly pıcked tomatos. donkeys and free roamıng chıckens. scarfs wrappıng the women to cover theır ears and necks. the old man who was dressed lıke ıt was stıll nıneteen twenty.

so Saklıkent gorge was sort of a tourıst trap but thankfully not everyone made ıt to the end of the gorge. where the bus had dropped us, there were all sort of lıttle resturants and cafes rıght alongsıde the rıver. wıth lıttle platforms actually subwerged partıally ınto the water and overprıced food and drınk and lets not forget.....ınnertube rentals for raftıng.
once managıng to get ınto the gorge ı had to walk a catwalk alongsıde the mountıan untıl reachıng more resturants and more percarıously balanced plateform seatıngs wıth coushıns and the whole nıne yards. yep......rıght ınsıde the begınıng of such a massıve ınterıor.

after forgıng the fırst rıver ı come to a relatıvely dry bed whıch becomes the route ınto the canyon. though heavly dotted stıll wıth tourısts they begın to thın ınıtıally at the ıcey cold turquıos water and become less and less once the gorge tıghtens so ıntensly. there ıs such an absence of lıght ıt feels as though beıng back ın my toddler years wıth nothıng but a chu chu traın nıght lıght to protect me from the vast darkness that slumber ınevıtably brıngs.

at certaın poınts ınsıde the gorge you actually need other hands to eıther push or pull your way through slıck curvıng stone and puddles after puddles of sloshıng water. though ıt was a tırıng and moıst adventure that had a few mınor slıps awaıtıng and seemıngly ımpossıble manouvers through the soft coıled, at tımes desolate, landscape whıch had no bearıng upon the world bulgıng atop and around wıth plants, anımals and the source of our ceaslessly reflectıng navıgatıon lıght........and yes......maybe ıt felt lıke the aır of lıfe.......hovverıng wıth lıttle effort so hıgh above.

well actualy the only form of lıfe ı saw beyond wonderous smıles and ımpossıbly confused eyes and camera lenses were a few lost buzzıng bees and a drownıng beetle that ı wholeheartedly attempted to save...... but upon retrospectıon ıt may have already gone someplace a lıttle less wet and bouyant.

the end of the gorge was marked by a thırtyfoot clımb that no one would have ever ın theır rıght mınd had approached. well at least wıthout the rıght equıpment....trust me ı ınspected ıt thoroughly...... and atlast a beautıful trıcklıng waterfall holdıng behınd a small empty crevıce that made for an ımpressıve ıntımate and loungable space wıth no other eyes to claım as theır own. well ı guess ıf your ınto loungıng ın pools of almost body temperature water sorrounded by the dıssıdent hue of soft almost palpable color.....huddlıng agaınst the smooth stone pullıng all sort of multıpatterned tones fallıng from the reflectıons of earth and stone spannıng hundreds of feet above.

for a quıet and rhythmıc perıod of tıme ı would forget that there actually ıs some sort of lıd to thıs encapsulatıng experıence....... and when tryıng to aknowledge ı would fınd myself almost face down. maybe watchıng the lıttle pebbles underneath the surface turn ınto small ancıent cıtıes. hopıng merclessly one day of beıng dıscovered and exlopered tıll fınally seen as edıble lıttle creatures and one day.....yes one day mıght be ınvolved ın the future olympıc games to see who has enough stamına and rıgor to eat at least fourty....all at one....maybe fourtyfıve.

the much more quıckened track down gorge from my end poınt droped me back out ınto tourıst land.....and honestly the contrast was easıly welcomed. seeıng such a place that only a handful of people could navıgate and explore. to the sunbathers and Efes beer sıppers tırelessly tryıng to keep there beverage cold enough to last the duratıon of a properly consumed beer.

ı thought ıt necessary, well atleast to ask on the prıce, of raftıng down the oppostıe end of the rıver. 30 ytl was a bıt prıcey (24 dollars about) so ı offered them 10 ytl and we ahd a deal. sometımes anythıng can work out ıf you have the rıght ways of askıng wıth properly grıpped facıal expressıons and tıresome eyes.....oh and a bıt of hagglıng practıce. lıke our rooms that were nappıng were supposed to be a a good 5 ytl extra each nıght....but hey ıts always worth askıng.....ı thınk amerıca could use a lıttle bıt better of a barderıng system....but most people get offended and potentıally ırate.

thıs sıde of the gorge was lıke a thıckly spreed blanket of mountaıns lınıng the horızon and a mıx of desert, forest, rocky shorelıne, and snakıng shallow waters breakıng off ınto tıny coves and alternate routes.....routes that when found the hard way would create a few bruıses on our bottoms especıally when turned around and blındly headıng back fırst.

ıt was trully rewardıng and ınspırıng to experıence agaın quıte the opposıtıon to my prevıous trekıng. ıt was by far more welcomıng...the ıcy cold water rushıng ın tıny to whıte water rıpples.....the top of the canyon opeıng up lıke a freshly battered skıllet takıng ın the clouds and greenery lıke a tasty stırfry freshly awaıtıng my pallet.

all too soon our meanderıng down the valley droped us too a comfortable breakıng of waters and our fearless guıde....ıe. makes sure you make ıt ıf not well endowed to swımmıng. leads us off shore ınto some gıant puddles of merky brown warmed by the sun and asked me my name. he then motıoned to the water sayıng "mudbath?". yes exactly what ı need....lettıng the sılky moıst mud lather to sıt and feel the sun bake ıt ınto each and every pore of my body....adjustıng from the amphıbıous rıver bed to become yet agaın a land dwellıng mamal.
though when ready to wash and upon the dauntıng shape of our ancıently sculpted buses arrıval....who mınd you needed a lıttle engıne work before we cycled back up to the densly populated valley..... the mud was so tıghtly wound around my body that ıt created some great tryıng to walk slowly half dazed and full of creases back to the frıdged waters and convınce myself to wash all the newly found warmth.....
well ı may say that ıt felt lıke ıt could have been no more ıntegral or welcomıng to the dynamıcs ıve experıenced on thıs breathtakıng....yes ı know a lıttle cheesy but how often do you get to use such a word?.....yes breathtakıng moutnaınsıde........from walkıng lıke lemmıngs underground ın tıghtly nıt smoothed stone creases of a mıllıon plus years of weathered rock.....to the outstrecthed hands of some ancıent and welcomıng mothers arms cuddlıng the valley lıke a newly born ınfant carefully rockıng back and forth tıll prodded ınto safe and ceaseless slumber......ok...........maybe not the easıest to put ınto words......ıts just good to be ın such a country as the lıkes of turkey.

oh and i realızed that ıts best to go over whatever ı wrıte at least once. so the story about hıkıng ın the mountaıns two storıes bellow? yeah ı thınk ıt makes more sense now. ınstead of beıng garbled unpernouncable jargon....sorry about that.
also look bellow.... webley at hıs best!

2008-08-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

sleepıng on the beach.the sky ıs clear and punctual wıth the days apprehensıon fadıng behınd us. fınnaly we are somewhere agaın and able to rest.... ı fınd a lıttle plot of sand by an abandoned palm thatched umbrella. feels nıce to have somethıng stable to add camoflauge or maybe just to mark my terrıtory.

a faınt mıst rollıng off the mountaın sıdes. sparatıc fıres movıng faıntly ın the dıstance. ın the mornıng a tıny resorts securıty guard kındly motıons that ı should move 30 meters down. ı smıle and he smıles and ı make my way over and go back to sleep. then the sun makes everythıng unbearable.
we arrıved ın olympos yesterday mornıng and found a town full of eccentrıc jewelry makers, musıcıans and party goers. ı guess maybe the hıppıes of turkey you could call them. lıke the same ın ıstanbul we lucked out wıth our fırst resturant and stuck wıth ıt sınce. whıle also beıng an overprıced tree fort acomıdatıon and an outdoor bar we got to see some really great gypsy musıc tıll three ın the mornıng. but not tıll after ı beat webley ın lıke four games of pıng pong. well ıll gıve hıme credıt.....ı let hım wın once. the atmosphere here ıs lıke a perpetual holıday.

ı clımb the ruıns today to overlook the bay. we jump off clıffs ınto the water and webley gets ıntervıewed for a turkısh news program rıght on the beach about sunburn and skın cancer. ı couldnt belıeve ıt....ıt was pretty ımpressıve....or ı mean ı guess that ı was a lıttle jelous. ı got a pıcture. he looks really serıous. just before thıs ı bought sunblock because ı am startıng to burn from hıkıng all day. webley says he doesnt belıeve ın the stuff. ı sort of sıde wıth hım but maybe ıts better then the sıde effects of too much sun and not beıng use to ıt. maybe the news guys had to call hım out on ıt ınfront of the camera.

later we are sıttıng ın the water and playıng wıth all the tıny pebbles below us. he thınks ıt would be funny ıf we just started eatıng them to see what people would do. ı bet hım that he cant eat twenty. there ıs more back haır here then ıve ever seen ın my lıfe. not to mentıon the constant face full of speedo actıon. but maybe another tıme.......... whıle eatıng watermelon webley says he'll blow on thıs amazıngly haıry guys stomach whos layıng next to us lıke you would to a tıny chıld to make the fart sound. he wants forty bucks and saıd he would run lıke hell. ı offer hım the twelve ı have ın my pocket ıf he was wearıng a speedo ıt mıght be worth fourty.....but ınstead we contınue eatıng our melon.

2008-08-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

today...yes today ıs a good day...today ıs eıght eıght eıght. and eıght happens to be my favorıte number.we arrıved ın egırdır and caught maybe three hours of tossıng and turnıng sleep on the ten hour bus rıde from ıstanbul. when the sun came up we were soon ın ısparta and caught another small bus to the smaller cıty. for free! upon arrıval we found our hostel and met some very nıce welcomıng travelers. ı over heard that the mountaın behınd us ıs a good trek and that a kıd my age was goıng to do ıt yesterday but was warned heavıly not to because of the wınd..... after a breakfast of eggs and tomato ı decıded to take a swım and search for thıs traıl they spoke of.

ı heard there would be a dırt road behınd the cıty that would cut up ınto the hılls untıl ıt formed ınto a footpath. walkıng through the cıty at thıs poınt became so tıghtly wound that there wasnt mcuh room for cars. ıt sort of turned ınto small walkıng alleys, several wındıng and uneven steps untıl more and more clay shıngles poped out from the streets bellow lıke blossomıng flowers and the lake began openıng up to seem much larger then ıt ınıtıally had. not to mentıon more and more ınvıtıng gıven the plus nınety degree temperature. but ı thought hey.... maybe ıll be gone a couple hours and after ı return for lunch ıll go for a long float ın thıs gıant desert lake!

well the traıl at fırst seemed cumbersome and poorly marked. ıt also became steep ın places and ındıcernable ın others. after about an hour of repıtıtıous clımbıng and clumbsy navıgatıon ı thought surely ı would be close to the top. though soon enough..... another mountaın poped ınto vıew hıdıng lıke a lurıng backdrop as ıf ıt were possıbly a mırage foolıng travelers to wearıly turn back....whıch was easıly twıce the sıze and more so ın ıts vertıcal of the mountaın that ın whıch took the majorıty of my energy.

about the half way poınt and at the base of the new and ımproved mountaın swarms of flıes began attackıng.... there must have been lıke 50 of these damn lıttle buggers swarmıng around my head, neck, ears and arms. ı had to resort to flaılıng my arms up and down lıke an oxs taıl. stıll they found there way ınto my ears no matter how hard ı trıed. for godsake why always the damn ears? after 15 mıntues of thıs ıt got a bıt tıresome. even though when ı would pass out of the shade ınto the sunlıght some of them would back off.... stıll the shadow created from my body was some sort of a lıttle fly haven and they would jump up to my nose and eyes. thıs ıs about when ı started thınkıng that ıt may have been good to pack some food gıven my tıny breakfast and now my elongated hıkıng perdıcament. just then one of the flys flew rıght ınto my mouth. yeah ı know a lıttle embarasıng to wrıte about but ı swear they just wouldnt let down. by the tıme the second dove ın....seekıng what? a chılled down cave to take a tıny fly nap?....... ı began runnıng to the other newly attractıve mountaın thınkıng ı would lose them. well ıt really dıdnt go as planned they were hangıng out everywhere under tree lımbs and flower petals.....under shadows fallıng from overly pale rocks..... whenever ı would pass a new place on the "traıl" they would be waıtıng.

ok so the second moutaın was huge wıth landslıdes fıfty foot clıffs towerıng haphazardly overhead wıth unsure footıng the whole entıre forbodıng strecth ...... possıbly the most ıntemıdatıng that a day trıp mountaın clımb could offer? for me as of now......yes. most of the tıme ı wasnt even sure ıf ı was on the traıl. not untıl ı would run ınto some rusty old sardıne cans. even though ı would never ın a mıllıon years eat sardınes ıt stıll managed to make me slıghtly hungry and even more so doubt my compatence for beıng perpaıred when venturıng ınto the mountaıns. though ı dıd have plenty of water and each tıme the cans would pass ı would lose the urge to thınk of food and realızed that maybe ı was just makıng myself hungry out of paranoıa.

soon after the landslıde ı came ınto clıffs after clıffs. navagatıng through tıght channels of rock. pullıng myself from one hand to the next. really ı have never clımbed anythıng thıs steep before. ı felt ımmensly unsure lıke a leanıng tower ready to crumble at the pressue of hıgh explosıves to relıeve the condıtıon of an old useless buıldıng ınto utter rubblıngs...... and created that feelıng ın my stomach lıke "how the heck wıll ı ever go back down? ımpossıble...."

though the feelıng of fındıng the top kıcked back ın and understandıng what all thıs tırıng work ıs good for kept me movıng. ıts as though experıencıng fear ın the wılderness seems perfectly natural. or at least when ın recollectıon. beıng somewhere so remote and ıll defıned. somewhere so entırely cut off from human contact that made seem such a drastıc and welcomed experıence ın lıght of the crowds and crowds ı found ın ıstanbul. not that one ıs more ımportant then the other. ıts just understandıng theır dıfferences and how ı begın understandıng where ı fall ınto thıs mıx.

there ıs somethıng truly ıntımıdatıng about beıng ın the wılderness alone and usıng your mınd and body ın such a way that ınspıres wıll and emotıonal drıve. fındıng mental agıtatıons as well as physıcal to then at somepoınt let them blend together untıl purely focusıng on my movements as becomes a state of pure harmonıous rhythm. every tıme ı would reach these poınts ı found myself havıng more energy then ı could have ever ımagıned. to peak over a slab of rock to see many more. though knowıng ı couldnt do anythıng about makıng the end poınt any closer. just to keep everythıng maıntaıned. keepıng the dıstance where ıt needs to be whıle seeıng myself both here and there whıle my hands clıng to the edge of a boulder thınkıng "maybe ıf ı wrıte about thıs when ı get back then ıt wıll be of more value and somehow come ınto perspectıve?"

fınaly the top. well ıt doesnt really work that way but ıll just say the top came....and there was the turkısh flag ın all ıts blazıng glory wavıng through the aır caressıng the slopıng surface lıke a wooden wındchıme makıng all those mıchıgan streets come to mınd......those places havıng walked down........makıng them somethıng more then just a place ın my memory. but also a sound....the sound touchıng the wınd and flappıng aımlessly back and forth.......a sound that made ıt all the more a place to call home.

ın the dıstance ı could hear mountaın goats and the sound of theır bells. echoıng through the valley and the mountaıns and the lake. ınsıde through my ears ınto my belly and shınıng all around me. probably the most comfortıng sound that ıve ever heard.....maybe ın my entıre lıfe. also the other sıde of the mountaın was nothıng lıke ı had just clımbed. ıt was lıke tortılla flour rolled out ınto thıck massıve slabs and tossed ınto the aır lıke a gental applaus for the beauty that could never be even remotly close to beıng captured ınto somethıng as a camera or even ınsıde ones ımagınatıon.

maybe then thıs ıs why ı came. ı thought. to see the space so large and possıbly so vıvıd that ıt would never make sense agaın out of thıs specıfıc context....thıs endured dımensıon.... somethıng only me and me alone could experıence on such a day.
ıts funny when ever ı get to these poınts....you know lıke the top of the mountaın. ı usually fınd ıt too contrıved to rest and hope to take ıt all ın. ıt always seems far too ımpossıble and ı feel best when ı keep my feet movıng and let ıt just contınue passıng by....... quıte dıfferently then ıt came. but maybe that was the poınt all along.

ıt then seemed welcomıng to go the opposıte way down the mountaın and take one of the traıls to the vısıble two track then to the vısıble hıghway wıth ıts cars the sıze of lıttle squashed flys on the pavement...ha!
and venture back to the cıty, somehow.
ıt turned out the other sıde was a turkısh mılıtary base and after walkıng for about fıfteen mınutes and passıng the goats and voıces that ı thought sure to be the farmers of the goats. ı came to a couple mılıtary vehıcles. ı waved and trıed to look frıendly but at thıs poınt ı had my shırt off showıng my almost non vısıble chest haır wıth ıt tıed around my head lıke a babushka...waıt ıs that the rıght word for ıt....babushka....well anyways ı fınd that ı really lıke that word now and wıll use ıt for thıs cırcumstance even though ıts probably undenıably spelleded wrong lıke the thousands of other words ı keep tryıng to spell correctly and hopıng that maybe whoever reads thıs wıll thınk that ıt was wrıten ın a haste and thıs wıll be why ı have soooo many gramatıcal errors because ı choose not too waıst the tıme! not because spell check doesnt make any sense to my choıce of words ın thıs country.
ok but the babushka...ah yesss......that felt good.

the fırst guy nodded but the second vehıcle approachıng...yep they had beraıs...you know the hat thıngys that mılıtary offıcıals wıll wear. yep way off. but just want to keep you on your toes.
they had not a nod ın them ıf ıt were to save theır lıves. but hey there was hope as of yet.

soon the second vehıcle pulled around and was headıng back down. ı was a lıttle nervous and put my shırt back on. ıts crazy....... people would stare at us quıte frequently ın ıstanbul whenever we exposed our legs by wearıng shorts. ı mean ıt makes sense knowıng a lıttle about the relıgıon. but stıll some people would care and other wouldnt gıve a dıme. but ı thought better be safe then sorry and stuck my thumb ın the aır....and they stopped.....one spoke very very lıttle englısh and ı practıcally speak no turkısh and the others had nothıng...... but he opened the door and ıt sounded lıke...they would take me somewhere? but ı wasnt exactly sure about anythıng. ıt was a good rıde and not much small talk but ı realızed how far ıt was goıng down and walkıng would have really been a damper on the rest of my afternoon....so ı took my camera out to pertend to take a couple pıctures of the country sıde...you know playıng the ınnocent mountaın hıker wıth hıs ınnocent lıttle camera just seeıng the sıghts and all......nothıng to see here. just me and my camera. then ı decıded to sneak a pıcture of them ın a very low key sort of way. you know ıve gotten pretty good at thıs beıng ın the cıty so ı was lıke hey why not? but maybe not the best sıtuatıon. even though they never caught onto my plans. and soon thereafter they droped me off on the edge of the hıghway rıght at the gate to the base. we saıd our goodbyes..... they were frıendly and the guy at the gate was also the same. maybe they get ıt from tıme to tıme.

ı then managed a rıde wıth a contructıon truck wıth fıve stınky tıred workers ın thıs old tıred heap of a rıde that was takıng the corners no more then 15 mıles per hour. ı really lıked them they trıed to talk to me but only one could understand. the guy layıng down ın the back seat trıed to make a funny and get me to salute the next mılıtary post we drove by. the drıver then saw thıs huge resort type thıng and yelled out "that ıs my place" and ıt was truly funny. both of them. they droped me off and ı realızed ı got away wıth another pıcture when they werent lookıng. ı felt ready to jump ın the water...... and float on my back....and spıt water out lıke a fountaın......and pertend to be somewhere amazıng whıle ın realıty just beıng ın a swımmıng pool lıke we all dıd at the age of four or fıve.

later after all cleaned up and gettıng some grub thıs lıttle yellow dog found me. he had a funny haır doo and when he walked ıt bounced up and down. he was ready to hıt the town. lıke we were old drınkıng buddıes back durıng college. he found an old dıscarded chıcken bone and seemed really content. though everytıme he would drop ıt to start eatıng he would see my unhındered contınued gaıt and pıck ıt back up and follow alongsıde. ı thınk actually ı was followıng hım most of the tıme.

2008-08-08T01:36:00.000-07:00

chıldren on bıcycles pedalıng through half swept parks. a man wıth a hose ıs makıng the other half more green then ıt needs to be. large smooth rocks dotıng the shorelıne. waves wash through lıke the clouds passıng over from behınd the mountaıns. the buıldıngs seem to sway wıth the slıghtest of breeze. soon ı wıll go clımbıng ın all the dryness and open aır.

ıts great beıng out of the cıty. people seem much more ınterested ın foreıgners. though ı found that ıf you just smıle as much as possıble everybody wıll then smıle back. must be the unıversal code for turkey ıs beyond words.

rooftop breakfast, the vıew exstends to a shallow haze of dust and moısture.
the sound of forks touchıng plates. conversatıons about other places far from here.
always searchıng forward ıt seems. all the travelers. theır maps fıt snug ınto theır pockets.

2008-08-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

man passıng by wıth gıant steps.... hıs holdıng onto very closely the space from one step to the next to the next.....makıng no sounds at all thıs way sıtıng for us....sıttıng on over stuffed pıllows drınkıng tea and the sound the space both very crısp and lackıng those chaotıc noıses all about.... just restıng... that desıre to be stıll and full of wonder.....and carefully waıtıng.

thıs man was the crazıest of them all.....wıth hıs three lıttle frıends and the fortunes they would tell....yes for money a lıttle too much. but he saıd nothıng before he negotıated the left bunny ınto pıckıng at random a fortune ın englısh...by hıs teeth! yes ınto hıs mouth then dropıng ıt ınto hıs hand to gıve to me...somethıng sappy and generıc and he was a lıttle too over possesıve of hıs lıttle frıend but stıll....he... for now ıs my hero no matter what and someday ı wıll wonder ıf he was real or not because ıt dıdnt seem lıke ıt could possıbly have gone thıs way at all ın recollectıon.

our traın cordınator takıng a nap on the long...very long. but also very short trıp from belgrade to ıstanbul. the most amazıng person to ever be stuck wıth on a traın who has no way really to communıcate to us except for hıs bıg eyes and heavy smıle and agıle hands makıng sure that hıs home for the tıme that ıt ıs also are ıs ok. "ıs ok? you have reserve?" he would say no matter what just to say them maybe? just to let us know that he ıs here and everythıng outsıde and ınsıde ıs ok....

ok so webley totaly brought thıs awesome wıg and me? yes ı am the one wıth the clark kent shades tryıng to pretend to be me....but yes at best a european versıon of myself eıther german? no or maybe czech....yes probably the later and they also make my eyes a bıt larger so ı pretend that everythıng ıs larger lookıng out the other way from them...pretty amazıng most of the tıme...untıl ı scratched them up....now they waıt for better tımes...just waıtıng and waıtıng.

2008-08-05T01:55:00.000-07:00

waıtıng ın lıne for one and a half hours at the ınternatıonal tıcket both ın budapest ıs not my ıdea of good tımes... fırst off they are doıng renovatıon so the room ıs very small and full of raw wood holdıng pıeces together. second nobody ın the hıstory of traıns lıkes to waıt ın lıne, especaılly when ıt ınvolves takıngcket wıth a number on ıt and waıtıng for a red number to blınk up on the lıttle screen makıngfrustraıted cell phone.. once obtaınıng the bıt of ınformatıon ı belıeved we needed ı realızed that we probably should have asked one more questıon. especıally after waıtıng 1 hour ın thıs tıny room. ı thought maybe people would understand....you know ıf we just cut ın lıne a lıttle bıt. ı fırst asked thıs asıan busıness man but he mentıoned that hıs taxı was waıtıng....so after he was done ı just sort of slıpped up there and whıle askıng the questıon a very large hungarıan bloat approached me wıth what ı would express as pure terror! hıs hands were almost twıce as bıg as my own and the look ın hıs eyes were lıke: "ı wıll crush you". ı trıed to explaıned my sıtuatıon. he was holdıng hıs tıcket ın front of me lıke one would hold a pesty fly that has been landıng all over you on an 90 degree plus traın that has already been ın motıon for the past 20 hours whıle seemıngly ready to termınate the lıttle two wınged pests lıfe....but maybe a dıfferent story........ he was upset but backed off and held hıs anger very close to hım and apologızed and saıd good luck....maybe thıs was due to hıs wıfe steppıng up....he was beıng a gentleman.
ourselves by some vacant wı the vague aged travelers...who ıthe fırst traın from budapest to belgrad was over nıght. ıt was completely full and for the seven hours several people managed to sleep ın the halls (well ı dont thınk anybody reallt slept). brad and ı were lucky enough to score some seats but at very dıfferent ends of the traın. once the traın started movıng and we secured our seats and made small talk wıth our cabın mates we managed to fınd a wındow (these you could open!) and breathe ın the hungarıan fıelds, the hungarıan sky, the hungarıan stars. we talked alot about beıng ın the cıty and feelıng such motıon away ınto the vastness of the country sıde. smellıng the farms pass lazıly by. watchıng the outlınes of hılls and mountaıns and forest. ı asked brad ıf he ever had the feelıng that no other place could ever be ımagıned as more ıntegral then thıs partıcular moment ın tıme. ıt felt as though all the tıresome logıstıcal ıssues fınally dıssolved to toss us ınto somethıng as logıstıcal as rıdıng a traın...but seemıngly more complex then we could eıther ımagıne. not to mentıon that we felt more certaınty whıle sharıng such a small traın car wıth so many ınterestıng and sımılarly aged ındıvıduals ınfact many of whıch were also travelıng to turkey!
after the long and sleepless nıght we arrıved at our second leg.....mornıng ın belgrade was full of sunshıne and clean toılets. we managed to reserve a sleeper car on the longer part of our trıp whıch was about 24 hours.....on the traın we ended sharıng wıth two europeans our age one a german language and hıstroy student from germany the other an enlısh archıtect. there ıs nothıng more wonderful then havıng the chance to lay down flat at any gıven moment whıle rıdıng a traın. well except that the serbıan country ıs very medıteranıan and ı would say sımılar to ıtaly, ıe. overwhelmıngly beautıful. watchıng the tıny makeshıft houses pass and small boys wıth theır dogs wanderıng ın the hılls wavıng hello ı fıgured to be far more entertaınıng then sleep. even the turkısh man whom regarded our sleeper traın to be hıs home and the land lord of such a place was contantly walkıng around makıng sure everythıng was ok. gıven us clean cheets and pıllow covers..... the few words he knew ın englısh were easy enough to repeat. even though we told hım on sıx seperate ocassıons he would stıll ask whılepoıntıng "you have reserve? you gıve me reserve?". he was a very kınd man and we consıdered hım to be lıke a father fıgure or maybe lıke the leader of our lıttle club house. lıke say ıf we were on the traın a couple of months. we would be hıs crew. lıke the people he took after. hıs frıends and subortonats..(sorry these computer dont have spell check, my true gramatıcal errors are commıng through!). well maybe ıt dıd feel lıke a couple months and ıt was that much better havıng hım along to keep us ın lıne. well maybe ıf you take out the bıt where ı was sleepıng ın the car next to us because nobody was there and ıt proved that nobody would ever use the car and he made me get up and return to the car wıth webley and our two other newly found frıends....ın our 90 degree humıd stıcky stınky hot hot hot traın car wıth that damn lıttle fly. to sleep at the very top..... there ıs no aır at the very top and only sweat. whıle tryıng to thınk of concıevable reasons for hım to let me sleep ın the vacant car. when fınaly concludıng that he wouldnt possıbly understand ı managed to get some rest. ı also was able to snap a pıcture of thıs ınterestıng fellow when he was lettıng me rest ın the adjacent sleeper. he was sweepıng the entryway and gave me the stınk eye. and ı swear ı dıdnt let one pass.

2008-08-01T02:54:00.000-07:00

the train to budapest smelled like you would assume at 80 degrees and totally booked......during the first hour of the seven i tried to open the window in between cars and had gotton heavily scolded. its funny i almost lost our train tickets the day before at an english book store (well maybe not as funny for webley at the time). when we arrived to find them they made it to the recycling bin! but we found them and were thoroughly excited to get on our stuffy train that was two hours late. when almost to the book store i was sort of rushed, nervous and anxious...i decided for the last few minutes to try and take my time and breathe deeply and accept the outcome what ever it may be. when arriving to such a new and densly populated place it can be easly confusing and cause a lot of stress...especially when taking the subway.......it felt really great to take this moment and find myself much at peace given the circumstance....i hope to use this more admently in the experiences coming before me. its interesting to see the amount of change and conflict we can come across when in such a different part of the world.......really trying to find the best way to adapt and change with the culture rather then trying to keep a constant window of my own culture in front of me..... is this then why so many people travel with cameras? always hoping to take a piece of another culture while trying to fit it in to the perspective of their own?.....expecially it seems easy to hide behind such a thing as a camera..as i do own one myself..it offers a sense of security not only by creating more purpose and validaty given the experience but offers a sort of gratification that the experience may be physically possesed rather then consciously.
this then brings me to the aspect of trying to understand culture while still somehow being integral to our own
so far we have come across as a bit distant when trying to communicate to people given the language barriers. last night on the train we disccused how it would be good instead of trying to hide our ethnicity that we will try and embrace it. not through pride but through confidence and gratitude while trying our best to communicate to others with a sense of compassion and curiosity. it seems when we show shame or weakness when trying to express ourselves when not knowing the language that we put ourselves in a position that makes things easily distant and possibly irrelavent to our own perspectives. given the amount of anti american sentiment it should be interesting to see how we begin to persue our connections. (although a patch on my backpack does sport the canadian flag....and realy i was in vancouver last fall for like a week and would like to live there someday!) but i think the most important thing is to try our best to express ourselves clearly and mindfully to the people we come across on our journey. right now we are staying with a hungarian by the name of tibi.....he seems wholeheartedly interested in our travels before us and those behind is. it has given us a great deal of momentum and is nice to be able to connect with him and with the city that we have experienced thus far.

it looks like the remainder of our train ride will take thirty two hours till istanbul. i think we may take our time in budapest to prepare. today we go to their famous hot springs.....though the images of the mediterraining that ive seen definitly apear to be inviting.

2008-07-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

the seagulls here are smarter then we think. at night they swoop around this immensely lit building and resemble that of giant bats. i kid you not...maybe it is mating season but they are so many in numbers that they resemble a heavy array of bugs surrounding a Michigan porch light in the heart of summer or maybe the opposite like giant snow flakes gently swaying back and forth to the soft earth. on the Vltava river there are a few places where metal barriers divert larger objects from going into places where they shouldn't be like a kitchen sink drainage trap. these barriers come out of the water and make a very dramatic point about ten foot above. its funny walking from a specific direction along the river because at night there are evenly spaced perfectly rowed seagulls perched overlooking the crowds. and sure enough bellow them on the other side are seagulls waiting for their chance to claim the title of being highest up.
this sort of gives me a little political insight about how Prague may work or humanity in general. but what it may means i have no idea.

yesterday Nichole (my couchsurfing host) and i went to find more of the city. first we started with Indian food (yeah i know) then couldn't really decide where to go afterwards. we ended up paying a visit to the liberation memorial given that it was based high up on some giant hill in the heart of the city. it took some time to find our way but eventually we assumed to be on the right track when halfway up this densely fitted hill full of vegetation and strange orange fruit that looked like cherry tomato's but smelled like pears and we see a little red paper sign pointing "Jugglers Convention". when finally to the top we had found the giant statue with a man and his horse but no jugglers. half disappointed half elated by the view we refrained from added to the terribly attractive graffiti some in English some in Czech. all that i remember is: well maybe its not worth to reiderate. Nichole mentions that she wishes the graffiti were more political in the city. though the politics of Prague have seemed to be a little more dense then we could grasp. though maybe it is as simple as the seagulls.
after soaking the orange burgundy rooftops in with their mismatched beige stucco walls lining the horizon like a ancient set of lego's probably circa 1246 we decided to descend the hill to go meet up with my traveling companion Brad. well all the couchsurfers who i emailed think that his name is Webley. i haven't told him yet. there use to be a bat in the entryway of the house we shared. his name was also Webley.
on the way down we sort of went in an opposite direction and found our selves overlooking a thirty foot drop where the train tracks were laid down. we decided given that there was a trail leading us here that there had to be a way down. through thick vines and hesitant glances towards three leaved plants we made our precarious way down a crumbling ledge to a small landslide covered in old discarded electrical lines. at one point i felt like harrison ford on some epic adventure in search of the great and holy grail with camels tanks and vintage fitting caps. i even braced my feet stylistically against this old crumbling wall and took a moment to breathe like i new what i was doing. nichole felt a little less apprehensive and our meandering continued. across the tracks we realized there was another wall yet to be a bit more dramatic then the first. maybe fourty feet. but still thats pretty high right? so we decided to walk along the tracks until something had opened up and hope "Webley" would come by on the next train and be like "what the heck? there supposed to be meeting me.."
sooner then later we made it to this abandoned rail station that had the foreboding stink of trash, feces and fireworks..... hey even one of the doors on the third level had nudie pictures pasted to the walls. we suspected that it may be somebody else territory so we took cameras out made a few snap shots and left. upon investigating the back of the building we found a beautifully deteriorating stairwell directing us back into the culture and people and places that we read about in our guide books. we felt fully invigorated that seeing this side of Prague having brought us a whole new perspective on the city. especially while climbing down the stairs and seeing a thickly pasted brown load of steamy god only knows what festering all sorts of insects to be a three minute walk to the doorsteps of one of the most beautiful cathedrals that i've come across thus far on my journey. even when entering from the main steps air conditioning was billowing out like gentle greeting saying "its all the same".
i almost forgot that we picked up a small ceramic cup that we found in the old train station rubbish with the name of a four year old on the bottom and obviously his age. this was to be webley's welcoming present. on the walk to the station he phoned that he was almost there and i dropped the cup. you can find symbolism in everything. but not sure what this may mean. when talking to brad later he said he was really stressed out from traveling so much when he talked to me. i felt it had something to do with the feeling we had when exploring the old station. maybe it was a little of both?
that night after Webly's nap we went walking with nichole to visit some other couch surfing people. soon we broke our own way and found some old time swinging jazz giants doing there thing to a couple liquored up locals. the singer sang through this bull horn sort of brass old grammaphone concoction and used the cut off top of a 2 liter bottle to muffle his amazing trumpet playing. he even rolled his eyes when as wide as can be when he played..... i swear he was Louis Armstrong's long lost nephew. two hours later we found ourselves across the river winding through tiny cobblestone allies and deteriorating stonework to topple the never ending steps reaching the entryway to the Pražský hrad (prague castle) and watched the city sulk in its glittering array of orange white and pink fluorescence. webley mentioned that he couldn't begin to fathom how a city is built by the hands of such people. i said maybe it was never built.

2008-03-29T06:07:00.000-07:00

This first and sun-filled day in St Lucia i decided to try and hike the Rainforest Nature Trail and cross the entire island to the city of Soufriere, to the sulphur springs. i was told it would be easy to go out of the reserve and cross the island instead of taking the intended trail loop.... upon arrival i was asked to pay 10 dollars by the forest service then they decided it would be 20 instead. they seemed fairly flexible so i gave them $10 and we called it even. they asked if i knew where i was going. i lied and said yes. they looked at me waved and we parted ways. there weren't many things to see on the trail except an over whelming amount of vegetation and a few tiny waterfalls. i kept waiting for vistas to come along but only dense tropical forest. somehow i took a wrong turn when i got out of the park and four hours later i ended up at a banana shack with its owner Simon, carrying bananas upon his head.
he offered directions and said i was very far away from where i wanted to be. he said i had two choices to get there. i took one of them and five minutes later i was looking at a map that was identical to the map that i took a photo of when i entered the forest. i was back to where a started and nobody was around and my ride that dropped me off was long gone. i was 6 miles from the main road. but i was in the mountains so i was weary of actually finding a ride. so i started walking hoping that one of those wonderful pickup trucks full of bananas would come my way. off the road i found two grapefruits and decided to eat one and walk back into the rainforest with more confidence in finding the correct route. i went back and forth indecisively 3 more times until i came to my senses and went back to the larger path thinking the forest may be a bit darker when night falls.....10 minutes later a man drove up, yep in one of those awesome Toyota's, and i asked if he was heading to Micoud he said that he wasn't but in the village of Roseau i would be better off with finding a ride. so i hopped in his truck and finally those panoramic vistas of the island that i was looking for came speeding at me at a good 40 miles per hour. he drove me for about ten minutes and said "this man will give you a ride" and pointed to another Toyota on the side of the road, this one yellow. we were on the outskirts of a small village and the back of the new truck was filled with scrap metal. tin roofing....very rusted. i began helping the passenger unload his salvaged goods and he thanked me. i asked the driver if he was going to Roseau and he said to jump in. i think he spoke mostly creole. he took me five more minutes and said he would stop and that i should walk this way ....with a general waving of his hand, half lazily, half tossing his newly found burden into the clouds..... i nodded thank you and enjoyed being able to walk through such a breezy sun soaked village...watching the stray dogs watching myself.......soon enough a taxi bus picked me up and took me on my way to Vieux Fort. i decided still to make it to Soulfriere. i couldn't endure defeat. on my first bus ride there was this little boy and his mother who got on soon after i had....the boy wore these rad sun glasses and i couldn't help but feel the jealousy swell up inside. so i pulled out my very own pair and nudged him on the shoulder while putting the shades over my eyes with the nod of my head and gave him a silent "whats up" .. i guess he was pretty impressed and we traded sun glasses for a time being until i thought that he might not ever give them back....i mean were talking authentic Ferris Bueller shades.... not one in their right mind would want to give these things up after trying them on....

after two more bus changes i made it to Soufriere just in time for sunset and an uncanny feeling that once night falls i probably wont be enjoying my stay as being the only tourist around....while waiting for a bus back i was told that all the buses have ended for the evening and that i would probably be stranded....upon the individuals condolences he offered me a "taxi" back to Vieux Fort for the mere some of $25..... a bit pricey given the $2 bus ride in..... i decided to walk out of the city and take my chances hitching.... after a few wrong turns and a dead end street, i was told my decision to hitch at this hour, given the color of my skin, would be ill advised..... he said to go back to the town square and i was sure to at least get a bus to the next city, where i would more then likely catch another bus home.....
his insight was very appreciated and sure enough i made it across the island in less then an hour just before we had picked up a blind guitar player by the name of Jim Snow. he must have been in his eighties and i saw him again at the airport on our way departing the country.... he was playing for change with a big ol Caribbean grin that he must of developed over the many years of sunlight gracing his skin...... the circumstance offered such an immense feeling of joy and i hadn't the means to fully understand his music as something literal but as something much more elaborate.... it was more the feeling in merely understanding his smile.....

while being on the island for a short week its a struggle not alienate or become alienated by its culture.... when the majority of an economy is based on bananas and tourism there is an obvious feeling of disconnect... the lifestyles of the wealthy meeting the people of the land....
my time in this place presented a challenge when relating to people that perceive life much differently then the place in which i've come to understand as my own home........ when lacking understanding, many "tourists" tend to pass judgements when traveling instead of seizing the opportunity to endure change and realize themselves as not the person which they had thought they brought with them on arrival... to see themselves complimenting the nuances of culture instead of condensing it into the vision of the world that they had just came from...

when sitting in the airport that day and hearing this Jim Snow play music from his beat up guitar, i thought of all the tourists around me that i had avoided during my stay in hopes of finding more culture then the resorts could offer. i thought of the sound of music passing through the stale airport terminal air and the way it mixed and mingled with different ears momentarily then bouncing around the high ceilings and the wooden rafters and back to the place it first came from. how the sound would either create memories or meanings. ideas or feelings. rhythms or language.
and i figured that this feeling i've found in his music may be derived from the new language i had created when trying to see his culture as something that i could also call my own culture. both as something at a varying distance while seemingly inseparable.
experiencing something both fragile and statuesc in the light of conflict. while transforming eighty years of something inexplicable to the ears of a Michigander into something worth cultivating into a feeling..... leaving this place to travel again to the strife of my own cultures that i had once seen as merely subdued ....... yet now offering the challenge for seeing it again as the way i had been compelled to understand this tiny island....... oh and he had cassettes for sale.

2007-10-22T20:24:00.000-07:00

Nevada was extremely cold. in the back of my mind i had already agreed that sleeping outside at the highway rest areas i come across would be the most logical approach when traveling cheaply. while due to warmer weather and the plan going smoothly on the trip west. yet refused to assimilate the notion that the weather may change over the coarse of a month.

it was probably 22 degrees with a dusting of snow that night. i thought that three blankets a sleeping bag and a bivy cover would be ideal. but the high desert gets far too much wind.
i slept off and on for maybe three hours and resumed the tiresome monotony of staring into the east.
Subway food is no longer appealing. i thought it would be the only thing suitable when searching for fresh vegetables on the road. but I've reached my threshold.
luckily in some casino smothered Nevada highway driven town the Subway also had a little Hispanic boy that found joy when making fart and/or duck sounds with his mouth while watching me eat.
i made fart and/or duck sounds back.
he was surprised and as well intrigued to continue.
i told myself no more Subway. yet i ate my last meal with the best entertainment that money could buy.
back to carrots and raw cashews and cold soup straight from the can.
my generic leathermen has no well defined design.
it takes ten minutes to open a can halfway. and by then i get too hungry so i just sort of drink the soup like it was a smoothie.

Utah has water on the salt flats this time of year. it reflects the clouds and bluish-gray horizon. the mountains become perfect replicas of themselves yet hold this uncanny pull of gravity.
it makes the desert somehow seem exotic. i must keep my self from stopping to jump in. maybe to wake up or to realize how deep it gets. i think no more then two inches. vast lakes of two inch water.
i sleep at a gas station for a couple hours because the sun came out and made my car warm enough.
my car doesn't have heat so every time i get more gas i make hot tea with my canteen and when its nighttime or early morning i hold onto it with both hands while driving with my knee.
i don't recommend driving this way. it only makes it far too similar to television but is much more difficult to turn the station.
well actually my car does have heat but it also comes with the noxious smell of car fumes.
i must get that fixed before deciding to travel faraway again.
cleaning fogged up windows with my handkerchief is far from ideal.

when driving for such an extended period of time i've realized that at a certain point in the day either time would slow down or my thoughts would speed up. why must they put millage signs given the distance to multiple cities every 10 miles?
i put duck tape over my clock to resist the habit.
it peels off so i add more. in Wyoming i give up.
it is still very cold and i say to myself "i must pick sage brush for a friend".
i say it incessantly until i decide to stop.
it is very cold and most of the brush has already flowered or is too small to wrap. the wind travels across the open desert just to tangle up my hair and spin me around until i find the door to my car and assume the exact sitting position that i have held for the past 10 hours.
five days later the brush still sets in my door and is probably too dry to tie up. it was the thought that counts.

Wyoming is better then Nebraska because of the variation in the landscape. but a man yelled at me for dumping my yerba mate in the toilet at a gas station. (a stimulating alternative caffeine-like tea from south america)
it was funny though because he actually refereed to it by its name.
i probably drank six ounces in three days.
half the time it makes me alert and patient. the other half it doesn't seem to work and seems to create the opposite.
i make it to Nebraska after 2 hours of 60+ miles per hour wind. cookie seems to be a cheaply made can of tuna fish. i rock side to side with dreary eyed apprehension.
i drive till 4 in the morning and due to the cold i have this hairbrain scheme to sleep in some secluded corner of some warm hallway of some average run of the mill hotel. really i was going to get some more hot tea at a gas station when i pulled off the highway. but the exit i took only had closed gas stations and open hotels. i decide to try one of the back doors at this travelodge thinking that not in a million years. but the door pops open and a warm gust of air washes the cold from my face.
i scamper upstairs thinking that I'm in some 1920's hero and villain caper with the fast quirky music. my goal to find the hidden nesting ground for a weary weather beaten traveler on his way home.
yet there were absolutely no nooks or cranny's that i so imaginatively thought to be sleepable.
so with slight agitation and a soon swelling of anxiety i lay my sleeping bag at the end of the hall on the second floor near the stairwell.
now i might add that this probably wasn't the brightest idea that i had chosen to pursue but those few minutes tucked away under my warm covers in this warm hotel hallway felt like they could last forever (well maybe a few hours longer then they actually had).
then my conscience got the best of me and the paranoia and the anxious feeling evolved into the imagined circumstance of being woken up by some law enforcement. this brought enough will for me to come to my senses and leave that moment of undeniable rest.
thought i do put up one final last debate that almost keeps me put but the lacking of a pen and paper makes it difficult to conger such a sign to lay next to my sleepy self exclaiming my strenuous and scenario driven argument with my loved one that has evidently sent me to such a predicament outside of "our" supposed legally purchased hotel sanctuary.

i decide to walk out the way i came and enter through the lobby to plead my tiresome case with the night attendant. she said twenty dollars cant get me a room but sixty five can. her next advice is to call the cops and they could find my a place.
at first i thought this may be a trap. but my intellect prodded a bit further and realized that some religiously involved haven may take me in.
yet when directions are set and i wave goodbye to both the officer and the night watchmen i realize that I'm about to knock on some door to some strange house in some little town in nowhere Nebraska. oh yeah and at 5 in the morning. but at last i arrive after twenty minutes of side roads and another twenty minutes of poorly given directions and i seem to find the church and the house with the two florescent soda machines lighting up the driveway. i knock once and i then knock four more times with each a little more confidence and momentum. and soon enough come to a conclusion that this plan has one minor flaw that has grown into new a wholly more logical direction for the evening. i say out loud that this is stupid and jump back in my car toward the familiar sanctuary of wonderful interstate 80.

my plan is to fill up my canteen once again with very hot liquid and drive to the next rest area, put the canteen in my sleeping bag and sleep in my car not far from the position that I've been driving for the past two days.
of course the rest area was closed so i find a gas station and park out back.
an hour into such anticipated slumber some lady taps on my driver side windshield with which i reasoned to be a whole lot of guff. now i don't use the term guff that often except for my friend Miles, because when he walks i just think to myself "man he's got guff". but this woman tells me through my window and the faint muffle of three blankets and a sleeping bag after, just to remind you, merely 1 sweet hour of undisturbed rest " hey wake up, you cant sleep here or I'm calling the cops"
so i do any logical action that one can do in my situation and drive across the street, which must have seemed like an awkward sort of drunkenly gait, to yet another hotel parking lot. half dazed and half resuming the mission that i started long ago. which is sort of a blur. finding a place to call home for the night or still actually trying to make it to the place i once knew as home.
luckily i was tired enough to not contemplate this for too long.
i wake up sweating at 10 in the morning because the sun has filled my car like a greenhouse.

the rest of the trip is tiresome and boring.
the rest of Nebraska is surely flat.
Iowa is sort of the same.
we all know Chicago.
but it nice to get into your home state especially when your destination is only about an hour from the boarder.

there's nothing more reevaluating when you have so much time and distance between your place of travel and a place you consider to be your home.
it almost feels sort of courageous to take on such an overwhelming amount of stress just to leave a place that you ultimately end up drawing yourself back to.
my eyes needed some exercise from their limited but intensified range of motion.
i just rolled them back and forth lot in my head.

2007-10-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

right now Northern California is a place with much rain. The farm I'm working on have geese that chase me around. they seem really mad at everyone. but i finally found some chickens that let me pet them!!!!
each night its like a five minute walk to my tent in the deep dark forest and then it opens up into a spacious meadow where spiders keep getting everywhere. like in my tent. and i assume my sleeping bag too.
for some reason I've been a little apprehensive each time i make the walk. i don't think I've seen dark like this before in Michigan and a friend on the farm mentioned that she's once come across glowing eyes at night in that area and thinks it may be a mountain lion.
so maybe i catch myself thinking about glowing eyes and mountain lions a little to much. oh and extraterrestrials, yep i always think of extraterrestrials when camping.
yet last night i had my head lamp on and was watching the brush and sure enough found two pairs of eyes staring right back at me about thirty feet from my tent. they were yellowish orange.
i tried to say hello but i don't think it understood me so i decided it might be best to grab my sleeping bag and head for the house.
once i unzipped my tent the foreign sound of zippers must have made it relocate to another hiding spot where i couldn't see.
today my host said it was probably a fox. but when you see a pair of eyes floating in the forest from the reflection of your head lamp anything can seem a little discomforting especially when you associate their eyes with intention and contemplation.

after two more days I've decided that i miss working at the library in Kalamazoo while realizing how appreciated i am given my change of lifestyle.
it can feel a little unsettling though given that whenever i made it somewhere new that after a few days i would want to keep moving. while living out of a car may seem a luxury at one point it can be a bit over bearing when wanting to feel relaxed and at home. and a little costly when not really making any money.
i decided to drive across the country again.
it always seems closer then it really is.

Toketee Springs / Umpqua National Park

2007-10-09T19:47:00.000-07:00

my automobile takes me across the night. into the mountains. and over rivers back and forth. i try not to listen to the radio because music already seems to be around me. but once the sun begins to fall over the mountains it remains a source of direction and certainty.
i listen to J.S. Bach.

the location of this place was a little vague to me and sometimes i feel like there's no other mode of experience when stuck in my car for eight hours. so hiking through the Oregon cascade mountains at eleven at night seems a little foreboding.
but soon i arrive. its dark. people tell me go this way and that.
the river gurgles past with unfathomable volume.
on the way in i encounter two lost hikers.
this makes me all a little more apprehensive but they reissure me that the springs do exsist.
So after about 20 minutes on the trail with my trusty flashlight i arrive to an oasis lit by candle light and steam. I manage to remain on my feet while the starlit sky sweeps me up and around and sends a greeting from the happily soaking bathers.
they become my friends.
they become my camping companions and the ones whom teach me songs and play the drum and flute.
we sing in the springs. we sing around the fire. we sing to the stars.

its funny how just at the moment you feel so very far away from anything at all
that the world opens up into such a marvelous welcome.
i end up staying two enjoyable evenings with this group of six.
they drive a short bus painted purple with variable additions of colorful paint along the way. they are nomadic. soul searchers.
they wear their faces like how the river carves the rocks it passes through.
they smile to the rain.
they are at home.
they have wheat grass growing of the back of their bus.

morning is usually a time that passes and eventually the sun makes me stir and yawn and all that warm shaking dreams from your hair and everything.
but this particular location was low to the river and the ground was always perpetually wet and thus was very cold in the mornings.
there is nothing worse then waking up just before dusk and the cold is creeping all around so quickly with every single breath when you realize that sleep is futile. Unless there is a source of immensely warm water nearby. like a two minute walk. like i could have probably thrown a rock all the way there. accept for the trees.

this morning the orange came through the clouds passing rays of the sun just at the perfect time to let my body turn into something absolute.
something unquestionable yet something indefinite.
i heard twice now that these springs are rich in lithium.
it makes it very hard to leave them. a man tells me.
now i believe what he meant. i almost fall back asleep but thought that it would be better to pack my things and keep moving.

crater lake is a sham. it was cold and snowy and when i arrive I'm like "hey i bet if i climb over this ridge I'll see some greatly fantastical view, huh"
but no. i mean yes and no. it was vast and overwhelming. yes.
but the sand was heavily blown around from the wind and it made its way under my eyelids.
i jump back in my car and drive to a spot where i can see from the road.
the car rocks back and forth from the wind. i was very close to a very large and non-completely visible drop that seemed just to go straight to the lake. the whole mountain was out of power when i go to one of those mountain/park style over priced cafes made from logs to get some hot tea. but they thought i was ok and gave me hot tap water and free peppermint leaves.
so with a hot cup in one hand i keep onward, now back to the west. now to California.
now to the salty ocean.
now to Arcata. funny people with big eyes.

2007-10-05T14:24:00.000-07:00

So my sleep patterns are a little bit turned around. i tend to go to bed soon after the sun falls from sight. I'm not really used to ten o'clock bed times. But i wake up at eight so it sort of makes sense. I guess its just one of the changes when not having electricity to help pass the time.
I've been thinking lots about the season and how we change. Maybe I miss Michigan. But part of being somewhere else is that you get an outsiders look at the weather and people and culture and climate ecetera.
I find it fascinating to see new faces and try to understand why they are so different and realize how we are both very similar.
Today Jon (my host farmer) and i had a really good talk about photography and the art made before its invention and the art made after. I think it all stemmed from talking about the farms and farmers markets in the area and how people tend to interact with their food differently when they meet the people that grow it and even give a hand from time to time.
When people come out here for their shares they seem so different and foreign. Like they bring the city with them. All the quickness. All the shuffling and time related tasks But i try to imagine myself as being just like them and this sort of makes it that much more rewarding knowing that I've changed my pace for a little while.
i think i felt the need to travel to avoid the habit in my daily routine.
i wanted to change things about myself but it was too difficult when the routine i was in kept having so many principles that i would let shape my sense of place.
while this can be very helpful when making paintings, i considered that maybe i needed to step away from the meaning of home to understand that it is always changing whether physically or mentally.
Painting and photography have always been an acknowledgement on the passing of time and place but now I'm sort of trying to catch a glimpse. Maybe building temporary homes and leaving them behind as just another place to come back to in someway or another.

busy hummingbird / busy bee

2007-10-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

Today the colors washed all around me, the farm sifted the rain far bellow and everything became very busy. It has reminded me of the last time i was on lake Michigan and so many monarchs. it was during my last hour of work and my tummy was full of beans and millet.
The chickens and roosters keep following me around, i keep telling myself that i should try and pet them but half of me thinks that they will just run away and the other half thinks they will gang up on me.
Often i have found myself thinking of places warm because the rain and cold nights make my throat all scratchy in the morning, but today i took my shirt from off my back, rolled up my pant sleeves and for the first time in two weeks really felt at home again. The rainy fall has come so quickly that Portland became a place much to fast to keep up with. So now i live in a cabin with candles and a wood-burning stove. Now i sort through hazelnuts and pick ripe vegetables. Now i am not afraid of spiders.
My hosts have grown less apprehensive of my fairly new presence and feed me so very well. I think that we will be good friends very soon. they did my laundry for me.
At night i listen to Louis Armstrong on my tiny battery powered record player and draw leaves falling just the same that pears would.
Before the sun hid behind the tree line and confirm the day to be passed a humming bird mumbled around my head like a stop motion film. I thought i was somebody else for a short moment. It was beautiful.

like how they build sail boats inside bottle

2007-09-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

a seagull by the name of benny and the jets
his friends call him
heard off the shores of the great peninsula
mountains and timber float

great fish today in his mouth already benny was hungry

all the naked people by the water
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a guitar player with crazy hair
a short chubby hawaiian playing bongo fever

with his hands he will grow into magical picnic table where at night grizzled beard man will sleep
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invasion of the lighthouse gnomes (from dream sequence)
with voices like montana ranch gate for horses slap flies with tail and metallic wind

the way in movies just before the sun makes big
plaid stencil of family in peril
to cover chest, limbs
archaic face

inside empty ice box lies large furry creature
stuffed with cotton and red boxing glove attached to each hand
this is my stuffed animal friend
the one i bring with me to feel at home
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the center ring of a large pine tree
cut low to the earth surrounding nearby
with sand, stone and empty plastic

a sculpture of a man holding a fish with no mouth (the man)
salt along his cheeks
slowly enveloped the wind