d a s s e l o g u e

2007-03-29T20:13:00.000-08:00

silverdale, washington

this afternoon, dad and i went to the firing range in silverdale. i shot a shotgun. the ammo: slugs, not shot - one solid piece of metal. a handheld cannon, like nothing i've ever fired. you brace the butt up against your shoulder, firmly so that when the gun is discharged, the butt of the gun doesn't kick into your flesh with such force. the recoil pops the barrel upwards, ten inches or so from the point where i was aiming.

yep.

also found a house in ballard. more to follow.

Celluloid Bainbridge : Installation #1

2007-03-13T12:57:00.000-08:00

On Sunday afternoon, some seven minutes and a handful of seconds after the screening of my short documentary "One with the Work", I stooped and spoke into the microphone behind a podium to an audience of roughly forty.

"It is important to acknowledge the collaborative nature of filmmaking..." These words from a recent email from Californian friend gus stuck in my head as I addressed the piece. I acknowledged Don Sellers, the cameraman who shot the field footage, Katie Jennings who co-produced, and most importantly, Mr. Dave Ullin for his willingness to participate in the making of the documentary.

A collaborative effort. Reconstructing the pithy old saying about the lone tree falling in the forest, old time friend Pat Scott asks me the question "If a Van Gogh sits in the attic and no one sees it, is it art?" Pat has spent more time pondering this aphorism than I and readily came up with the response. "No!"

Pat's understanding of art is an understanding of the transmission and reception of an idea. The artist creates, the audience through the simple act of participation with the creation, allows creation to live. The audience completes the art. Therefore, audience is just as much a part of the filmmaking process as the cameraman, the producer, editor, or subject.

"I'm happy you all came out to support independent filmmaking," I said, the MC of the festival gently raising the microphone, straightening my stature. And I mean it. Without audience, these pieces, in this case, Dave's vision, sits in the attic and collects dust.

Living art.

Earlier that afternoon, I was startled by a gentle tap from on my shoulder from behind followed by the gritty growl of my name.

I turned and wrapped my arms around the huge man. Dave's shoulders were wet from walking through the drizzle to the Lynwood Cinema. I inhaled the same sweet, damp smell that clung to his skin, to his green wool sweater, the same sweater he wore during the interview a year before.

Translations

2007-03-12T11:57:00.000-08:00

Indianola, WA

This morning I was composing a letter to one of my good/true spanish friends, Gala. We met in Granada, toured down to Chefchouen, Morocco with her friends, my friends Marcos and Judit. I spent ten or eleven days with them in the three-story house they were renting for 150o Dirham a month. They used to laugh good-naturedly at my Spanish, even went so far as to make a list of the many words I would fabricate during conversations as I attempted to take advantage of the common Latin roots of our respective languages.

"Contendedor" was one such attempt. The fabrication bubbled up in a particularly light-hearted game of Parcheesi, a game that has curiously swept across Spain and Morocco, embedding itself in the culture with the same lasting strength that we in America might compare to football or pizza. As a chessplayer, I long misunderstood the true importance of the game; "It's so painfully simplistic," I thought, "It's all subject to chance." After a few games, I realized that it wasn't about the game, it was about the interaction the game provided.

The fact that the game is so entirely out of one's control allows a person to relax; it's no big deal. If you loose, no hard feelings - bad luck with the dice. Nobody ever walked away from one of our parcheesi games angry. I couldn't say that for many of the chess games I've played.

I rolled the dice. "Yo quiero ser contendedor," I said, actually trying for "I want to be a contender". Marcos and Judit and Gala looked at each other. There was a brief silence there in the small shaded square outside of the cafe where we sat with our green teas in hand. a brief silence, then laughter. And after using an the online translator Babel Fish to translate this morning's email from my Spanish back to English, I can see why:

Intended:

"I never had the chance to show you guys any of my piano music. Here's a song."

My Translated Spanish to English Result:

"Tapeworm the opportunity to never embosom the musica to them mia of the piano aqui this."

Fluent? Not quite? Conversational?
Though once I believed so, also questionable.

***

I miss you guys.

life.

2007-03-10T21:37:00.000-09:00

we walk down the beach together, back towards the dock. it's overcast, drizzling, but comfotably warm with what the folks down at KOMO 4 call the "pineapple express."

"he's my friend. if i saw him in the store, i'd say hello. 'you sure do bike in all kinds of weather' i'd say.

when i pass him, i wave and he waves back. sometimes it's after i've passed already, i look into my rearview mirror and he turns around and gives a good wave. i think he's friendly by the kind of wave he gives. you know, not just a half-raised arm, but he lifts it and shakes his hand, even.

i wouldn't even recognize him if i saw him without his mask on. i may have seen him before when he's not all bundled up. i wouldn't even know it. and i don't think i'd want to - to recognize him. it's somehow better this way.

it's more powerful that way. it's not just one person. he's a representation of all people. of all waving people. of something good about people. and i've always looked for that; the good in people."

earlier, dad and i drew equations in the rippled tide flats; we were calculating the speed in miles per hour of 10 knots. dad used to wake me up in the morning back when i was home-schooled. math at 7 am. he'd swing open the door, "time to get up, son. put your feet on the floor," he commanded, knowing that if i stayed lying in bed that i would fall back to sleep. some mornings, he'd bring in fresh bread just out of the machine. i big slice of metling butter. i remember the whole house smelled of bread.

those days it was easier to get up.

tonight, in a flurry typical to last-minute post-production, i am formating and burning the final "one with the work" documentary for the screening tomorrow. i've added a thank you to dave ullin and also placed the islandwood media productions logo at the end of the piece.

that's the update.

Letter to Dawn

2007-03-07T17:27:00.000-09:00

indianola, wa

i live at home, in indianola, the town where i grew up, where i drank mickey stubbies on the beech, hunted for crab with sharpened sticks with my cousin, and split the skin of my head jumping into the metal ring of a miniature basketball hoop while showing off for a girl. i sleep in a bed i have slept in for 15 years, the same bed where i lost my virginity, the same bed where my father awakened me with news of the attacks on the twin towers, the same bed that i passed out in after late nights of drinking.

since i returned, i've begin gutting my room. in addition to the many boxes and assorted shit that i've collected, the room has become a storage space for the rest of the family: folders and clothing and posters and a cork board and shoes and a fan. i pulled out a paper mache mask and a photograph from a box full of all the little things my first lover gave to me. i framed the photograph, a blouse blowing in an open window, and hung it alongside the mask.

i hung them to remember that i had been in love and lost love before.

i see people that i know here in my hometown. they say hello. i found myself sitting with tom today. he's an alcoholic; i think that's why his teeth are the way they are. he is an alcoholic, but i think he's come to terms with that. he told me that he's drowned three times during basic training with the seals when he still believed in the military as an institution. he talked, i listened. "what i did learn from from my time with the seals was how to face my fears."

he didn't ask me what my plans were; it was nice to talk with him.
other friends: steven is still working on the tugboats; he's got his hours cut down, no longer working 6 straight 12 hour days. tristan has a baby now and is working as a technician for some behemoth digital printer. his dad got him the job. tito is in mexico city; he and his girlfriend are taking a couple of weeks to look at the artwork. they hope to push as far south as oaxaca. gabe and lydia seem happy. gabe is putting together his portfolio for grad school; he wants to be an architect.

sarah is graduating soon - she came down to redmond and visited nana and i, she rocked me as i cried and then we went out for salad. i hear brad is now a special ed teacher "mr. roden". coling rides his bike to work at the seattle p.i., writes about climbing and art preservation among other things, and loves his job. ryan is a computer programmer, but i think he's just gathering steam to take over the planet. roemer is working at the ferries, excited to start working the kingston/edmonds run again. roemer has been helping me out a lot latey. sara is studying, research with a favorite faculty come spring. we talked on the phone for the first time in seven months - talked like friends.

i'm looking for work - corresponding regularly with a guy in missoula montana about a aerial photography job. they shoot ten-inch wide film with a camera mounted through the belly of the twin engine plane, and though the explanation was rather vague, i think they are putting together aerial grids. i've also applied for a job with an expedition company as a shooter/editor, as a production assistant with a couple local freelancers, and front desk administration at a theater in portland.

in my spare time, i read about the eye, take beach walks, and meditate with my dad.
i'm trying not to eat refined sugar.

life.

One with the Work: A Documentary by Noah Dassel

2007-03-05T19:55:00.000-09:00

One with the Work

"One with the Work" is a video documentary I began in 2006 during my internship with the School in the Woods, Islandwood. The subject of the documentary is one Dave Ullin (depicted in the image below), a captivating Bainbridge Islander who demonstrates the falling of a Hemlock using old fashioned tools. Dave describes his rich history with what he calls "purposeful work" and details each step in the tree-cutting process.

"One with the Work" will screen this Sunday at Lynwood Theater's Celluloid Bainbridge Festival at 6:15pm. For more information about the festival, check out the detailed schedule. To view the documentary, click below>>>>

One with the Work

Many thanks to Katie Jennings and Islandwood for their support, to Don Sellers for the tree-cutting footage, and to Dave Ullin for his willingness to share his wisdom.

...

Dad and I

2007-03-01T19:15:00.000-09:00

A gentle tap on the door, just the tips of two fingers against the wood.
"Good morning son."
I groan to something resembling awake, twist my face from the pillow to look at my alarm clock, 15 minutes before seven. I've been getting up early, well, early for one in charge of their own time, but rarely earlier than seven.
"Do you want to take a walk?"
I pause in bed, slurping inhale.

Two hours walking through the snow.
Four inches - deep for a small town near the water.

Since Mom is spending all of her free time in Redmond caring for Nana, Dad and I are living here in Indianola alone, eating together, meditating together, talking, walking together. Roommates

Sometimes one of us comes a little unglued, usually over politics. Ego - we b0th know the force well. But we've been doing well. In the evenings, he studies his Spanish, occasionally popping downstairs to the computer room, my office, where I spend many hours a day typing emails and looking for work. "El pan es un alimento. Es una comida. Now what is 'alimento' ".

It's nice to help.

holy shit, i'm not in school anymore

2007-02-27T16:03:00.000-09:00

holy shit, i'm not in school anymore.

job search.
pounding out the job applications left/right/up/down.
phone calls and drop-ins and emailing.
yeah, looking for work.

i'm beginning to realize that this little world isn't quite so gentle and giving as i thought.
but, horns down, full blasting rockets, slashing through the thicket.

production assistant, editing assistant, shooter and editor, soon to be radio reporter/producer -

one after the other like pistol shots and a steaming hot chamber.

cheers trigger

flaming ::: you son of a bitch

2007-02-22T19:31:00.000-09:00

a friend sent me this link.
i found it interesting.
i hope you do, too.

flaming

and no, i won't take it back...

happy valentine's day

2007-02-14T14:50:00.002-09:00

. L o v e . P a t t e r n s .

nana

2007-02-11T21:51:00.000-09:00

indianola, washington
us.america

& fields of gold

this past two days i spent in the company of my nana.
she's called nana, we call her nana.
"why not grandma?" some ask.
"grandma, she felt, sounded much too old,"
i say.

and she now lives in a retirement community
called emerald heights.
it costs a lot of money
and the people who work there are kind and thoughtful,
the staff in numbers bountiful.

it's not a typical retirement home,
the familiar, but un-placeable smell of old folks
is vacuumed up every evening.
there are dances and young men
come with their cellos to share their talent.
the food is good,
chicken and steak,
a salad bar and soups,
a selection of deserts.

nana lives in the assisted living unit.
she spends her days in bed
looking out the window
at the tops of the evergreens
tall and mighty and cold across the street.

and lately i have been trying to see her as much as possible.
she now has pneumonia.
she coughs,
the evil phlegm stuck
between the bottom of her chin
and her lungs.
just stuck.

fucking stuck.

"that's the way a lot of older folks go,"
my dad tells me.

and this time,
during my visit,
i rubbed her head
and held her hand,
and she looked through her oxygen mask,
and said,
"don't worry, honey.
there's nothing you can do."

this is the first time
i have ever heard her speak
of her own mortality.
and i began to cry.

and it's beautiful
to cry for someone else.
to cry and care for someone
other than myself.

i wanted it to be over;
the cough, the frail body, the half-open eyes.
so slow.

mom teaches gently,
says sometimes she feel the same,
"but then i remember that it's not about me,"
and then
"this is about nana."

and i realize she is right;
nana will go when she is ready to go.

bounced checks

2007-02-09T17:13:00.000-09:00

slather a sliver of sweet butter
over this stiff corpse
and tell me
you don't love me

i, i, i.

you gasp, but it wastes.

and now, while she snorts cereal and broken glass
through silver straw reciting god's gift to humor

x= mazes - y+ (90)
:::lewdly:::

i, always i, though the face at times contorts
pleads "don't, stop, i want out "
insert smiling face . .

hardly drove the car through the living room wall,
the radio swollen like the face of a taxidermist
huffing shrew hair . .

you want more?
try taking what you give.

freewrite

2007-02-04T18:34:00.000-09:00

indianola, washington

it's been awhile since i last posted >>> weeks. much has passed between the time that the plane set down gently in seatac and this present moment, sitting here typing in indianola. working in the city, in aurora, an internship for a show scheduled for pbs called biz kids, like bill nye the science guy but relating to finance. fun atmosphere, good people, interesting work (recently logging clips from interviews with innovative young entrepreneurs), but hellish commute. lately i've been frankensteining my travel to the city from indianola where i am temporarily squatting with my mom and dad.

and now i'm thinking a lot about what to do next. a swirl of ideas, mostly snubbed before they can take off. just yesterday i changed the long term plans for the rest of my life thrice: from nutritionist to documentary filmmaker/teacher to nurse practitioner. fuck. i feel like something is out of order. i spoke with my long-time buddy richard roemer this afternoon about concerns/possibilities for the future. his advice in a bullet casing:

"nothings perfect. just commit to something you like and see where it take you."

i think i can see the rationale behind this kind of thinking. for the longest time, my entire life, really, i've been looking for something perfect, something to pursue that has no flaws - music? nope, i convinced myself, the impact is too ephemeral. media making? naw, too corrupt, again not certain it's making positive change. nursing? too proud to work as a nurse, a male in a female dominated field. doctor? well, starting too late. teaching? too simple, too easy, the burnout potential extremely high.

one after the other, i snub these possibilities and others before they can breathe even a moments life, before researching, investigating, pursuing even in the most cursory form. i cut them out one by one without consideration because they are less than perfect.

but what i am realizing is that everything has flaws. maybe this idea of perfection is just a joke, a concoction, a fantasy that i have convinced myself exists. i want the golden bullet, the panacea to all of my worries to be capsulated neatly into this one, gleaming career path. i fear boredom, exhaustion, ethical impurities, commitment.

and by accepting this fear of commitment, i have systematically and subtly removed all possibilities. and here i am, right at the beginning.

i thought i could easily and happily explore for the rest of my life. but it's no longer true; i want expertise, i want to develop. i want to throw my energy into something completely, i want to become it, to eat it and think it and live it; but i have told myself that i don't know what it is.

but maybe roemer is right:

just choose something you like. nothing is perfect.

it has been an interesting ride

2007-01-17T00:35:00.000-09:00

and yes, getting used to, adapting to another keyboard. and this one
feels somehow the strangest of all. an american keyboard, all of the
letters exactly where i left them on the third of july, a day before
independence day in 2006, nearly seven months ago this week when i
departed friends, family, country, known for london, spain, france,
and eventually morocco. yes, the fingers adapting once again to the
idiosyncrasies of this layout as i sit here on this bed in this house
in this neighborhood in london, the night before the day when i pack
my beaten, dusty backpack for the last time and head to heathrow for
the many hour trip back to seattle washington, the city where i was
born.

yes the adventure, this adventure is coming to a close. after some
thought, after a letter from my mother concerning the fast failing
health of my grandmother, who's charity without which the last lef of
this trip would not be possible, my grandmother who i realized in the
desert i would never see again in this earthly context, who i want to
see, my nana and the combination of a tired squeezed account and a
real urge to go "back." i won't readily or easily write the word
"home," that foreign four letter collection of letters, the
significance and meaning of which traveling forced me to question time
and time and time and time. but back, back to something old, but with
something new; a new mindset.

does that make old new? we shall see, we shall.

and here with two dear friends: sasson and kissley from the writing
center, the newly married couple transplanted to london, living with
sasson's grandmother near the golder's green underground subway stop.
and these two friend take me in for two nights, and we and grandma
talking about global politics and Judaism and the world war II and
she recounts over pork chops and stirfry the vision of watching a
stray german missile fly up the valley, watching it come and pass and
then disappear out of sight, looking for a place to spray the dirt and
stone and bone with its destructive guts. "i used to do my homework
under this table," she says, patting the sturdy, oak top.

and tonight after the natural science and science museum combo,
kissley and i with umbrellas tucked under armpit, met sasson after his
day of "honest" interviewing at the office, we met for a kebab, then
two, the lamb juicy and plentiful. the familiar chatter of arabic
somehow more familiar than the sound of english.

"waha." okay.

then to the sooshi or hookah lounge, a stiff cup of coffee to prop the
drooping lids for myself, telling sasson and kissley the proper
moroccan "when" as he added 3 seconds of streaming white sugar to his
mint tea. the coffee takes affect and we pull out the camera,
filtering the flash with a yellow bus ticket connecting markus and
jackie and i between rassini and marrakesh.

and marakkesh where the three of us good good good friends finally
broke that connection. an early morning goodbye after a sleepless
night and i knew from his tears that markus and i really did effect
one another. a true, golden, heartfelt connection that i feel mighty
fortunate to share. a good friend. "travel well, dammit" and i knew he
meant it. and i meant the kiss on the cheek; a brother of mine.
family.

dammit, you travel well, too markus. life flowed esay through those
evening you and jackie and i spent playing cards and eating and
arguing and loving one another's company. i will always treasure these
memories like an old woman treasures the photos of her long-lost love:
nostalgia for a time completed, but the possibility that perhaps
someday, some life, somehow you and we will be again brought together.
and you, markus, you have taught me to follow my own progression. you
have taught me, markus, that traveling isn't as my aunts frequently
remind me "good to do now because you won't get another chance." you
have taught me the importance of focusing and developing (like you and
your guitar and your card tricks) that which inspires from within. you
have taught me, markus. and even if you and i never make that trip
trip by bicycle down through mexico and into the central heart
countries and finally to south america, even if this doesn't happen,
you will always be with me in spirit and in ideology.

i take you with me, my friend. my friend. into my heart, big welcome.

you and the others. i have learned from every one of you: jackie from
colorado, quiet calm; reginald trotter, buzzing earpiece steve reich
symphony, southern hospitality, first sexual experience; natalia,
chicken dinner and love-making - "you can take me again if you want,
too" lovely girl; bato your fierce anger and frightening ikido/blade
power, our late nights watching films and eating sock cheese; yussef,
grapes and afternoons spent smoking cigs under the fig tree, your
laugh like a sunburst; joseph beeson, gigi, sandra, some of the
healthiest food i have eaten this entire trip and i look forward to
returning your kindness when you arrive in all of your collected
frenchness to portland; anja, paris, france and we drink coffee from a
machine in mcdonalds? i wish i could now collect that metro-kiss; anna
catalan stone worker; merika the exploring the rich mines of self with
sexual dynamite; laura, my friend, where are you now?; angel, brief,
but everlasting, a street corner hug i hope will never release; june,
fatty herple, first sunset; marcos, solid like an ox's angel,
headstand yoga king, teacher and true friend; gala, thank you for
sharing your bed, raspy smoker voice spouting five languages, culinary
guru; judit and joe, know that you will be happy; jd, save this planet
and let's record.

and the list, this list goes farther. you all, you people, i take you
all with me; i take you all. thank you for your lessons, your
kindness, your honesty, bravery, strength, and love.

it has been an interesting ride

ain°t never been to merzouga?

2007-01-14T05:20:00.000-09:00

.:::. photos from south .:::.

markus playing dry high noon berber rummy with the arabs.

°one dirham, one point?° nope, but marcos would have pulled in

a hefty sum. markus, interesting character, stoic card player.

been to vegas, played online with the same dedication that he

shows to his guitar practice, his django reinhardt songs and the

creation of his °not songs, licks.° exceptional guy, this markus:

one of my teachers on this trip. learned that life is a lot more

complicated and interesting as i originally believed. i feel lucky

to have shared his company for the moroccan leg of this journey.

inside of the van, the ride back to risani from the thick desert

sands. our driver stopped the old orange van to pick up

many of the local villagers living in the nearby splattering

of homes. all berber. early morning, not much chatter.

the back of the heads of two men. still in the van.

j o k i n

2007-01-14T04:16:00.000-09:00

interesting article concerning moroccan free speech and humor. in general, i have found the people of morocco to take things pretty seriously: people laugh, yes, they enjoy one another, kiss and hold hands, but there is a sensation of heaviness. conversations have a point. men converse about politics, about futbol, about money in the cafes, but there is little laughter, and the smiles exchanged feel slightly pinched, the humor brittle.

the attached article is perhaps a glimpse into the reason why.

before the current king of morocco, the °fairly genial° king mohammed VI, generations previous lived under the rule of Hassan II in an era coined °the years of lead.° as quoted by the article, °thousands of people disappeared in those days.° and i think one can still feel the ripples of that epoch.

as an relatively sheltered american, i found it initially strange that there are still kingdoms and kings; it seemed so medieval, what i imagined to be a political system that expired along with the crossbow or the black death. but it morocco is very much an autocracy, royal bloodlines determining the political governing future of the country. the king apparently makes occasional visits to towns, accompanied by tinted van loads of special guardsman. gala told me that in chefcaouen, the two open clothes shelters by the river where women hand-wash clothing were a gift from his majesty.

and free speech? another subject i think i took for granted. what does it mean to be in a land where all the expression of all thought is allowed?

sometimes i feel the same sense of oppression as an american, not in the political sense, but in terms of what our family, our friends, our employers, our culture deems acceptable. how many times have i written °something other° than what i was thinking because of an underlying and assumed cultural pressure? but this is something quite different, less connected, less obvious. here in morocco, the lines are more clearly defined.

which is more destructive?

spectacular stomach

2007-01-13T07:21:00.000-09:00

marrakesh, morocco

this evening, markus, jackie, and i dove mouth-first into the night life here in the crowded al fna, the same football field plaza the lonely planet enthusiastically deems ::: one of the greatest spectacles you will ever see! ::: after breezing casually from from the snake charmers wooing limp cobras with fast flute tunes to a fortune teller speaking in charged arabic to his palmed brown egg and finally settling briefly to watch a boxing match between two adolescents.

no blood, no fun.

*jackie and marcus*

so, we turned to the culinary spectacle in the adjacent, smoke from the dozens of small meat-charring fires shrouding temporary booths serving colorful meats and seafoods and breads and vegetables, men in dirty white shin-length coats aggressively funneling shuffling tourists to the plastic tables. in a little less than two, i had the following juicing harmoniously in my stomach:

french fries, battered squid, tomatoes and tomatoe puree, olives spiced and slick, soup with noodles and beans, rice, bread, sardines, cookies and cinnamon snails, lamb bits in boiled in dark broth, a cup of yogurt, a sticky peanut bar, prange juice, coffee, 7up and coke, and finally to wash it all down, a luke-warm sip and a half of moroccan mint tea.

oh, and i forgot to mention the brain. markus and i saddled up to the row of goat heads, cooked flesh taught and brown, pulling the lips away from the still grinning upper jaw and row of teeth. °the next time someone asks us what the strangest thing you have ever eaten is, you are not going to say snails° i goaded markus. the chef looked at us with disinterest, deftly ladling out a half lobe onto a small plate then dicing it up with the edge of a spoon. white, the veins a spartan network of webbing. we tucked in, bread in hand; creamy like a whipped cheese, adhering slightly to the roof of the mouth, the flavor something close to animal food. we are champions, ate it all, i vowing never to order another plate of brain again. °it wasn°t bad° markus says, wiping the grease from his lips with the butcher paper.

dedicated to all the heartbreakers out there

2007-01-11T05:02:00.000-09:00

what follows is a razored down online chat between my brother and i. he asks some pretty good questions and the result is a pretty fair overview of the last few days here in morocco. please forgive any errors in spelling or punctuation.

me: james dassel?
james: holy crap
me: holy smokes
james: how are things?
me: fucking marvelous. you?
james: Things are well. I just finished my PLSC class
me: plsc...
james: Political Science class,
me: that is what i thought. good?
james: The professor is woman who is quite eccentric
me: how so?
james: she kind of squeaks when she gets excited
me: nice sounds cool

james: are you with friends?

me: yes; a german and an american. two good friends. we just spent the evening playing cards on the rooftop watching the sun go down.
james: cool, I am happy you have company. how are you? where are you?
me: really well staying here in rashini. i think that's how you spell the name. starting to get the flavor for this traveling in morocco lifestyle. lots of changes, though
james: how so, with the changes that is ?
me: this city is probably one of my favorites so far; its not some tourist stop

james: is it medieval?

me: people live and work here. no, not in the strictest sense of the term.

me: but it does have some pretty medieval style about it. for instance, this guy with a big container full of live chickens pulling them out one by one wiping the blade clean on their feathers then slitting their throats right there on the street corner or the people working with metal and wood. it is very much alive.

james: Just on the street? That is new to you probably. Is tradition and religion deeply embedded in the culture?

me: yes, very much so. today at 2:30 people were laying out their prayer mats praying right there in front of their shops and the mosques here old and beautiful many they have these loudspeakers connected to the towers and five times a day, they +broadcast+ the daily prayers it+s quite remarkable to hear the city erupt in sound moaning like a group of people mourning for the dead, but powerful. it really makes me realize how much western culture lacks such ritual.

james: they moan during prayer?

me: no, they are not moaning, but sometimes it sounds like it. they are actually reciting a series of phrases. Allah ak bar: allah is greater. together it sounds like moaning or weeping but like i said, beautiful.

james: I agree that we do lack some ritual. What do you do when they are praying. Have you found that you feel very much like an outsider in there culture? Is it awkward at all?

me: yes, like an outsider the skin gives it away it is hard not to become jaded every time someone approaches you, you know it has to do with money a child asking for a dirham, a clerk persuading you to come into his shop.

james: do they think that you are very wealthy?

me:yes, and we are wealthy. the very fact that we are traveling in this country signifies wealth even though we don+t consider it wealthy by western terms.

james: do you feel vulnerable? Do you stick out like a sore thumb?:

me: yes, we stick out especially here but i don+t particularly feel vulnerable.

james: is it uncomfortable?

me: you just play it cool, try not to make any promises you cannot keep. its funny, my friends and i have been talking about it lately; to make somewhat of a gross stereotype, moroccans don't steal. from for instance, we left our bags in the front of some cafe this afternoon after we ate breakfast the owner watched over it all while we used the internet, took a walk to the bus station. no, there is little outright theft here. the moral standards concerning theft are much much higher than that of the united states or western culture.

james: hmm.

me: but if they can, moroccans will consensually trade you blind. a roll of film for 10 euros for instance or last night; checking out of the last place we stayed °a tent in the desert° when i went to pay the bill of a thousand dirham, the cashier told me it was 1000 for each person what?6:47 PM no way he quickly reduced it to 2000 for the three of us, still straight faced pfff... upon my continued obstinance, he finally admitted that he was °joking° and took the thousand but i dont think it was a joke. i think he would have taken the money had i given it to him i think the people realize that we have money and we are often oblivious to the true price of things, the often quoted °moroccan price°. nothing has any prices attached to it in stores, for instance you live and learn here.

james: that is total crap. So you have to be guarded with your cash.

me: but us tourists we haven+t been living here long enough to know... so we learn

james: it is probabley good life training. Just dont get your toes burned

me: trying not to.

james: Money is replaceable

me: sometimes its hard not to get burned financially but i am learning i am learning to be more open, i think more tactile more involved.

james: do you feel perfectly safe, like the saftey you felt in spain?

me: no not always. it is just that everything here is so entirely foreign, but i think its safe another example the moroccans will really let rip when they argue, it sounds like someone is on the verge of death. we took this bus ride from fez to merzouga; long ride, ten hours total by the end, we were pretty wiped out so the money handler on this bus, a friend, comes up to us and says °watch out for the irregular guides° at the next stop irregular meaning °fake°. well, we didn°t head the advice so well and the next thing we knew, there were these two really hungry scary looking guys offering us a dirt cheap ride to merzouga.

james: doesnt sound like thte wisest idea.

me: fortunately, i asked the bus driver for some advice, he advized to stay on the bus and these two are still all over us even after i told them that we were disinterested then suddenly, this full out screaming match starts between them and our friend the money handler. a huge crowd of people gather saround just following us, in our face, not taking no for an answer and it just starts to escalate and my friends and i escape back onto the bus and we=re watching through the window and i seroiusly thought someone was going to get smashed. but it was just barking, fortunately no biting and i have seen these heated echanges before. i think its a part of the custom

james: that is a frightening story noah. I am happy nothiing happened.

me: i even saw a brief scuffle in fez, but no punches were thrown

james: family's prayers are going to good work. me: i tihnk the violence here ispredominantely verbal yes, i thank you much.

james: do you think that people are often on the verge of violence there?

me: that could have been a bad situation what i have noticed is that there is a tension people are not laughing in the streets, for instance they speak seriously often* especially when money is involved which is all of the time with us tourists. but like i said; i think the violence is mainly verbal.

james: there are not many tourists you said?

me: very few . we have stopped in a town that really has no tourist appeal

james: I sure hope so. What sort of safety net do you have?

me: money wise, you mean? the cash is running low, well below the thousand dollar mark really making it stretch, though. the room where we are stayinfg is 3 euro a night and it is great.

james: dont starve yourself noah. I believe your family owes you a christmas present of some sort.

me: thanks bud, dad threw a hundred bucks in my account much thanks that is another week here at least.

james: how exactly have you reasoned to return? If you are returning? With so little cash?

me: but i am thinking about coming back to the states.

james: always good to hear. so is the itch to come home gorwing? me: yeah, an itch? i would like to see nana that is one of the main factors. i had a dream last night. she was crying and we held each other and we kissed and she said she would never forget my voice that she would always remember me. i think it was a warning or a goodbye i woke up crying.

james: noah dont beat yourself because you are not here. You must enjoy the time you are having in europe or north africa or wherever, and you must be there completely. When you feel a need to return, you must come back here completely.

me: thanks for the room, buddy.

james: Nana was a traveler and she understands that, and she loves you all the same

me: thanks. i have to fly, man i love you very much

james: I love you noah. it was great talking to you me: we will talk soon in person james: sounds very good.

me: love you, bud

james: smooth traveling.

me: until then.

politics

2007-01-11T03:28:00.000-09:00

i woke up this morning, sore from another night on the lumpy sofa in the room i am sharing with my friends marcos and jackie. from the window of the hotel room, i watched a group of kids in their early teens push one another across the street; the largest bullying smaller ones, they in turn finding someone smaller yet, the smallest eventually kicking a door.

¨they°ve started another war today¨ the young man said as my friends and i drank our coffee at a cafe near the bus station. without asking, i knew who ¨they¨ was. on monday, the united states conducted air strikes on southern somalia in an effort to kill suspected al qaida operatives. ¨and they are planning to put more troops into iraq; new strategy. that is all the people here have been talking about¨ the young man continued, sitting down at our table, a warped reflection of our faces in his aviator glasses. i asked him what he thought the general sentiment towards the united states was in morocco. ¨we hate america. they keep attacking muslim countries. why? for oil or for bases.¨ and when i asked him if he thought it was safe for americans to be traveling in morocco; ¨yes, of course. americans are welcome here. they live here, on the coast, they have moroccan wives.¨

in my limited experience, what i have found of moroccan men is that they are particularly well informed about global politics. they will talk for hours open ear provided. in chefchaouen, my friend gala spoke in arabic with a man in one of the many small shops on the shadowy streets of the medina. this a day after sadaam had been hung. gala summarised as we walked away. the man stressed the idea that removing sadaam from power did greater damage than good. ¨at least when sadaam was in power, there was a working infrastructure. now iriaq is completely fragmented.¨

from what i have gleaned, many muslims view the american attacks in afganistan, iraq, and now somalia as attacks not against islamist fanatics as attacks against the muslim culture. ¨sadaam was hung on one of the most important muslim holidays.¨ the man from the cafe bus station continued, ¨this is an important day for us.¨

interesting to get the other side of the story.

merzouga - rough draft

2007-01-09T01:43:00.001-09:00

merzouga, morocco

southern morocco, way down south in berber country. after a lightening visit in fez, marcos from berlin, jackie from colorado and i made the ten hour bus trip from fez to the sand dunes and desert of merzouga. the bus trip was wholly uneventful other than the geographical shift between green mountains and pasturelands to the arid earth and dust flats of the south. also an eruption between the buses money handler and two men trying to sell us a ride to merzouga for 20 dirhams a piece. a huge explosive argument, flailing gestures and yelling.

more shortly.

friends and feasts

2007-01-05T08:47:00.000-09:00

i wished my dear spanish friends goodbye yesterday afternoon. hugs, handshakes, and deep cheek kissing in the chefchaouen bus station parking lot up until the closing hiss of the buses door. we made ellusive plans to meet again upon my potential return to chefchaouen from southren morocco, but somehow the waving goodbye from the back window at the fast diminishing figures of marcos and gala felt final. amazing moments passed with these kind folks: sunny rooftop breakfasts of fresh fruit salad, coffee, and toasted bread slick with tomato and oil; hiking hard into the rif mountains, battling snarling dogs, shin splitting shubs, and the nasty combination of low-tread shoes with loose-rock decents, clomping full speed down the hill from the mesquita to the cemetary bellow, yelling and whooping as the trianglar cement outlines of the open graves grew closer. and perhaps most memorably a visit to the neighbors house on the muslim holiday Eid where families slaughter goat in a sacrafice to allah. i watched as our friend Hassin slit the neck of a goat: the young man holding the goat down sprang back as blood squirted from the open wound in the neck, the goat briefly righting itself, attempting to perform the familar motion of breathing with no results, the tringular gaping wound now streaming red. in time, the goat collapsed, kicked in place. from my vantage, i could see into the wound, a pooling cavern of blood, the flesh colored esophogues contracting, rising slightly. not a pretty death. when the animal was dead, the head was severed from the body altogether. one of the older women handed me the head, all of us chuckling and smiling. taking the goat by the horns, i looked into the eye, still clear with life. the jam slack, hung hanging and loose. this was only one four of the goat deaths that i had seen that day; the other three from the roof of my friends home. what most impacted me about the process is how life and pulse and breathe can transform so quickly into parts; from a bleating goat into a ten pound head, a jaw and teeth and an eye. really fragile, this thing life. hassin, cleaning the blade of his knife in a small bucket of water, then sliced into one of the goat thighs and, like inflating a balloon, breathed air into the incision, inflating the skin and thereby separating it from the meat. next, the carcass was strung up with rope by the heels to a corroding steel bus fender secured above. ¨i have been busy today¨ Hassin told me i broken spanish, ¨eight goats altogether. mostly for other families.¨ as he deftly separated the carcass from the body, i could understand why he was in such demand. the skin removed, Hassin then sliced lengthwise down the belly, a grayish slippery mass of innards spilling out in a gleaming wave into the wash tub below, still steaming. after the carcass was thoroughly cleaned °including a particularly interesting method where Hassin filled his cheeks with waters then blew-spat through the anus dislodging a series of popping, bouncing turds onto the cement floor° we were invited in to eat. gala, marcos, judit, and i sat around the table sipping moroccan tea with Hassin, his wife, and their four children. we slurped up oil and well cooked and crispy innards with chunks of bread, listening, singing, and dancing to traditional moroccan music. afterwards, a little after-dinner keef of which many of the older men in chefchaouen partake. true moroccan hospitality.

and now i am in fez.
more soon.

The Hammam

2007-01-03T05:39:00.000-09:00

Chefchaouen, Morocco

The hammam is a public bath house, the space where many locals here in Chefchaouen regularly bathe and to socialize. The hammam is a series of three rooms, the first cool, the second a little warmer, the third the warmest. I went for the first time last week to thaw out the chill hanging in the marrow since Ibiza. When I arrived, I negotiated the price of thirty Dirham, stripped down to the skivies, grabbed a bucket along with a smaller cup for rinsing, and headed in through the plastic sealed double door to the coolest of three rooms.
Goose speckled skin, I strode to the back, slipping and nearly falling onto the tile floor before finally finding a seat near the fountain that pipes out scalding water heated by the wood furnaces adjacent the building. Within ten minutes, I was sweating and started to scrub away the dead skin and dirt accumulated from perhaps two months with something akin to a sandpaper sock. In thin, worm like rolls, the skin peeled off my back and shoulders and arms, the texture and color akin to clay. And I washed with my right hand as the left is reserved for personal hygiene. All wearing boxers, some briefs, not one of the forty some patrons nude.

the strangest christmas ever

2006-12-26T09:17:00.000-09:00

Chefchaouen, Morocco

parenthesis and apostophes? please pardon the punctuation, i am still discovering the subtleties of the keyboard°

allah be praised, i have made it to morocco. i arrived in chefchaouen late christmas eve with my three new found spanish friends, judit, gala, and marcos. we arose in granada after with little sleep and proceeded to make our way south by foot, train, boat and taxi in what became quite easily the strangest christmas i have know.

by far the most impressive part of the journey was the taxi ride. you thought they were bad in new york? totally exhausted from traveling, i sat stiff and transfixed on the road as it broke through the night into the taxis headlights, the driver spending a disproportionate amount of time hanging halfway into the lane of oncoming traffic. at one point we found ourselves speeding up a blind curving hill, the headlights of an oncoming truck sparking the cab full of light. ¨welcome to morocco¨ gala said with a hearty laugh after the traffic had passed.

and complete, mind=crippling culture shock upon arriving tetuon, the streets plugged with people, walking through a market, suppressing the urge to grab marcos by the sleeve so as not to become lost. soup and bread in a local kitchen and a moroccan comes up and in a friendly manner, lays his hands on my back, my thigh; personal space means something entirely different here. and as a foreigner, a red headed backpacked laden american, i have already found that we are seen as an opportunity; ¨money with legs¨ marcos said with smirk. constantly being proposed hash or a place to stay, asked for a dirham. of course not by all, but by many.

much much more to tell, but all for now.

merry christmas

2006-12-25T09:10:00.000-09:00

merry christmas from morocco: more to follow shortly.

- granada, installation two -

2006-12-21T08:06:00.000-09:00

- granada, spain -

feeding the cats squishy slices of blood red fat-speckled chorizo in the palace courtyard this afternoon; small, unfortunate creatures scrambling for the scraps, the ribcage riding underneath the skin like a birdcage in a balloon. sunshine, but the cold wins here in granada. we struggled with paul's camera, a nikon, a recent used purchase to replace the other that was stollen in istanbul from friend-turned-thief -samu abudabi same-. the mirror inside the camera was sticking in the upright position, the shutter not opening at all. ¨everything is always a little harder than it should be,¨ says paul, repetitively depressing the shutter release button. but he´s surprisingly cool about it, calm even. but it´s a lousy place to loose one´s capacity to capture images.

the alhambra. at first i thought the walls covered in decorative calligraphy and geometrical perfection were engravings chiseled into the stone. ¨nope. alabaster,¨ dr. sandy, the lawyer, college professor, universal traveler, and bunk mate at the rambutan hostel informs paul and i as we meander through the streets looking for socks to keep the coldness from our bare toes. alabaster poured or lathered into molds, dried then placed together seamlessly. and each piece, even under the close inspection of the seventy-five millimeter lens, every small quadrant is perfectly whole and simultaneously flowing. an entire wall connected by one fluid, snaking line.

an expression of mastery.

the kind dr. sandy left this morning, a handful of hours after justin walked harumi to the bus-stop to catch a eight o´clock to morocco; a sleepless night for all and all fine people, all traveling people. all people in a state of transience, fleshy proof that the nature of the universe is movement. we exchange emails on torn slips of paper, the occasional phone number. possibly vague plans are forged for future visits.

gaining lots of practice, but it´s still hard to say goodbye. i, and possibly we, by habit form expectations pf relationships. a social capitalist, expecting gains from the emotional ¨investments¨we make. it takes energy and time and focus to form the trust to be close to someone, to reveal and to share freely with another. and then they evaporate, leaving only their scent behind.

falcon blanco video & granada : part one

2006-12-17T12:52:00.000-09:00

- granada spain -

i´ve left falcon blanco. shocking, yes. it´s been only a few days since i traveled with my israeli friend danny by boat and bus and foot to the rambutan, a cozy hostel on the side of the hill overlooking the alhambra; only a few days, two sleep-saturated nights away from ibiza, but falcon blanco has already begun to haze over like a dream from the night before last.

a beautiful send off; a dozen or so friends to standing around laura´s car to say last goodbyes to danny and i. individual hugs, a group hug, some tears, many smiles, much laughter; a community living together, sharing ideas and meals and laughter and emotions.
team falcon blanco.

the video is finished. i sliced it up into six clips and uploaded it all to the public video-sharing internet service youtube. still in progress, the working title is falcon blanco. take a look, tell me what you think.

f a l c o n b l a n c o

--

and now granada, an ancient city originally established by jews infroms the texan in an impromptu five minute history lesson as we walked towards the downtown market. this city is amazing, my fast favorite of europe. it´s double-dipped in history: the last european moorished stronghold, under arabic rule from the eigth to the fifteenth century, granada was conquered by christian king ferdinand and queen elizabeth in 1492.

surrounded again by good people.

blog lite

2006-12-08T13:47:00.000-09:00

- falcon blanco, spain -

been a little light on the blog entries lately. assuredly, it is not for lack of happenings: burn-out break-up with a long-time pal from san fransisco, plans to blast off to granada this thursday, and currently squeezing from the last of my energy reserves to pull this documentary together. it's almost done and i will make it available for you all on you-tube. more on everything later. right now, consolidating energies to complete the video.

late-night editing

film and friends

2006-11-30T13:26:00.000-09:00

- falcon blanco, ibiza -

in the throes, deep in the throes, in the throes of editing. this film, hour stacked upon hour, is slowly developing from a folder packed with forty gigabytes of assorted avi files into a thoughtful presentation of sound and image. yes. after much forehead to computer-screen bloodsport, particles of product are forming. the piece, still in draft form, revolves around a series of two interviews with ramon and covers a wide expanse: collection tendencies, recycling, expectation and disappointment, and falcon blanco history.

--

tonight my friends and i escaped falcon blanco, blew out the rat-webs and walked just out of the nearest town of san lorenzo to the restaurant es pins. good company, good food. we talked about our addictions over coffee, fried chicken and pork chops, fries, complimentary olives, bread, and a creamy garlic spread. and like small, uneducated children, we scribbled our portraits onto the paper tablecloth then carefully tore out each image.

these are my friends, two of the eleven here at falcon blanco, people i have grown to trust and to love. and together we learn. in order of appearance:joe, noah, and matt, who really looks nothing like the "pig-monkey" depicted in the drawing.

(((pics taken by joe's steady hand)))

update

2006-11-26T10:52:00.000-09:00

-- ibiza, spain --

i just awoke from a six hour nap; puffy eyed and new to the world. and for the first time in awhile, i felt scared of the dark. i knew where i was, but nothing felt familiar.

detached

last night i decided to postpone sleep last night, and instead to push through and digitally capture my vhs footage. it's done and i'm happy, one huge gulp in drinking this small lake of a documentary. my work for ramon is generally done. i may have to polish the website with my friend o-tix and prep some non-demo editing software, but i'm through the heat of it.

i've been anxious of late, feeling like this process could blow apart at any minute, a pinching anxiety that this whole process could blow apart into a thousand little fragments in any moment. ramon and i agreed when i first arrived that i would be here to work on two sets of videos: his and mine. but now i feel like i have to be secretive about my own video, that because its not laser-tailored to the likes and wants and vision of ramon, that it will be discouraged. though rationally i know that it's merely a nightmare, i can't escape the fear that someone will walk in and pull the plug on this little project of mine, tell me to leave, tell me "no".

paranoia.

it's bee a hard week and a half: my grandmother became ill, ended up in the hospital. i spent a few days vacillating on whether or not i should should return to the states to visit her. she improved, spent thanksgiving with our family, and i decided to continue traveling. but it took some thinking, some walking.
.
guilt.

i'm taking another walk.

- something brief -

2006-11-25T18:22:00.000-09:00

falcon blanco, ibiza

beiyin's health trilogy is now shot, edited, and published (with the exception of a few disagreeable links) and i am now chiseling my energy, surging forward with my own documentary.

more soon.

the photo album: a developing thread

2006-11-22T17:39:00.002-09:00

- falcon blanco, ibiza -

a small collection of photos taken by assorted photographers here at f.b.

photography

- would like to search for a free album that doesn't clutter the page with ads -

> > > > suggestions?

anna the catalan

2006-11-22T16:28:00.001-09:00

triglycerides : new friends

2006-11-19T06:12:00.000-09:00

ibiza, spain

but i am gaining weight just like a any normal twenty-something year old who scarfs half-loaves of dumpster bread daily. no exercise and poor eating habits never effected me in the past: blast through a charlston chews and whole milk, banana, & peanut butter smoothies, leaving metabolism pick up after my thoughtless eating.

judging by the slowly mounting midriff jelly, that epoch is coming to a close.

the b a t t l e & not yet

2006-11-14T10:56:00.000-09:00

::::::::: my little studio ibiza, spain : : :

and the battle surges on.

blood-tipped lance work and speckled red shields like a spit shine. the clattering of armor. these muscles flexed, the cold nerve pinch where meat meets metal. and the ground is slick and gravity is singing heavy and inch by inch, i slip slightly and slowly but surely; imperceptible movements in 1one's and 2twos, but when summoned, make months. eternities.

the falcon blanco documentary: more growing experience than video. every day a new adversary. not a complaint, but a marvel, something at times unbelievable that forces out ulcer laugh. and here comes the sequence:

non.existent and broken equipement stacked in boxes

hardly.hardy.hardware wires too, bunches of wires like pawing through cold, cooked spaghetti
software problems and software absences entire

Ohne zusätzliches Rendering oder spezielle Hardware können and unterstützt alle gängigen Formate für die Aufnahme und Bearbeitung

" h.a.c.k. " the two week internet gag
adobe's a stubbornly silent timeline and stevesmart's help forum isn't so smart

& maybe i'm just stupid. maybe it's me, technically cursed, the king midas of falcon blanco where everything i touch looses it's electrical ground. i've been pointing outwardly, maybe i need to twist my finger. and maybe i need to smile and try it as process. things are good now, possible, an "end". this whole experience has slapped me hard, let me know that my attitude is largely based on efficiency and productivity. i'm happiest when i'm creating, product-ing, moving, whether it be literally or metaphorically, charging forward.

i'm here to create: it's how i self-validate. and it's exhausting.

and i imagine at some point, thirties, forties, fifties, i'll burn out, what's left a small hiccup of igniting gas. i'll burn out and i'll screech to a stop like metal skidding over concrete.

. : . but not yet . : .

the other day, i pulled off the car onto a dirt driveway and watched a hotair balloon ascend and then stop. it stopped and then it simply hung there breathlessly in the air. i was startled to see something so large hanging so still: a red.yellow.green moon. a moment and then moments passed and i realized that i had stopped, my brain had stopped. i looked not to analyze or to capture or to understand, but simply because.

i was and it was only because. a simple perfection.

and then i took a series of pictures. not yet; you'll still forget me when i die.

the blue falcon

2006-11-12T04:10:00.000-09:00

the island of ibiza, spain

the blue falcon: the same savaged salvage i rescued from the side of the road last week, once homeless and tattered, leaning lifelessly against a dumpster. splintered plastic body, electrically inept with the exception of the red running light that pulses to life with a twist of the throttle, a precarious marriage. and no key, no kill-switch. instead, an arm-length wooden dowel to pop the single spark plug from it's base and stop the motor.

pop kills the motor.

"son eternal," miguel says, referring to the longevity of the honda, miguel as aghast i that someone would junk such a masterpiece of modern locomotion. we speculated : making room cleaning their garage. perhaps stolen and abandoned.

the blue falcon, a named coined in a late-night brainstorm, ana's suggestion. belching oil-blue smoke, the engine cranked to life. the sound, a gutteral tongue-roll; small contained explosions if slowed to ten percent their original speed would produce the muffled gurgling of an old man, the life story of the machine.

and i steered, my good friend merika straddling behind, her hands lightly cupping my shoulders as we bounced down the dirt driveway to the main road. to the main road, the lifeline to everything un . falcon blanco. our intention was to drive one kilometer to san lorenzo for a coffee, but we continued. the freedom, the promise.

such a simple freedom, the freedom to move, the freedom to exchange one physical space for another. and a freedom that before i came to ibiza, i largely took for granted. days go by where my movements and the movements of those here are limited to pathways worn raw by pinball plodding predictability :

be droom to kit chen
kitche n to bathr oom
bat hroom to be droom
to kitc he n
to office
to be droo m

but we didn't stop in san lorenzo for coffee. to the beach, the clear green ocean, the piles of shredded seaweed, rocks climbing for the water like an extended coral. and merika drove part of the way home, her first time behind the handle bars.

the blue falcon: her maiden voyage, her last voyage. we returned to falcon blanco to find ramon throwing lettuce from an embankment to the ducks below. his eyes reached mine: a lopsided smile, a softly inflating brow: a look i've learned broadcasts concerned disapproval. "i wouldnt' recommend driving without papers," a diplomatic "no" followed by sensible rational. "the motor could be stolen, it has no papers. if you got in a wreck, lawsuits. fines."

fines, perhaps. but fine?

the internet (a blossoming theme)

2006-11-09T10:45:00.000-09:00

ibiza, spain

and now, some two weeks after the initial cyber-fall, we have internet; the blinking lights lined up like a toothy smile. frantically downloading software, scratching for lost time and ready to lay into editing.

shotgun update

2006-11-06T08:27:00.000-09:00

santa gertrudis, ibiza

my stomach is bubbling with acids. i´m sapped and i´m anxious.

i´m writing from the wing of a church in santa gertrudis; a government service providing free internet service. still no luck with the internet at falcon blanco, though i gave it a mighty fair shot this afternoon. the stuff of nightmares, fifteen calls in all today; one company, two departments, each department refering me to the other, each department impotent ¨hasta que...¨

and the film? joe, the newest reqruit to the falcon blanco squad, an american from phoenix, is graciously allowing me to bum his sony laptop for video editing. i´m currently learning the video editing software premiere 6.0 in german with an english user manual at the ready. technically a struggle, a challenge, but fun. and i have time.

the structure of the film is slowly morphing; the longer i´m here, the more it changes. i´ve learned that it is a film about ramon, he is the subject and falcon blanco is an extension of his personality.

more later.

the scooter

2006-11-03T03:08:00.000-09:00

this morning, while driving to santa gertrudis to use the internet, i chanced upon a broken, battled motor scooter at the side of the road.

the scooter was propped up against a dumpster in an area that frequently burps-up interesting junk: a television, a hand painted little mermaid puppet stage, chairs, splintered dowels and shattered porcelain toilets. only a week before, ramon and i had plucked a pair of grease-caked skillets from an unordinarily plentiful collection of throw-aways. but upon this passing, only the scooter, and, a van, seemingly belonging to the portly middle-aged man who stood examinaing the machine. at first, i passed. i slowed, considered stopping, but then nudged my toe downward onto the excelerator pedal and breezed by.

¨it probably doesn´t work anyway,¨i told myself, ¨and if it does, that guy is going to be all over it.¨

i put the thought to bed.

in less than two kilometers, i found the car circling one of the rotundas trimming the town of santa gertrudis, and strangely, heading back in the direction from which i had come. almost impetuous, almost beyond control, i started back.

* * *

since i arrived here in europe, i have nurtured the dream of touring on a scooter: not a quick way to travel, or safe, but simple, fuel-efficient freedom, perfect for the dry, cracked back roads of spain. and a machine under 150 cc´s doesn´t require a motorcycle liscence. insurance and papers are another matter.

i had first been enticed by the bi-cycular mode of transport in barcelona. my parents and younger brother had just left for the states. i was excited to be alone, but lonely. and here i began asking myself the question that eventually frequents the mind of many a traveler i have encountered : ¨what the fuck am i doing here?¨ a fine question, one that arises from a lack of responsibility and an excess of possibility. an ultimately selfish question.

and a question that was answered later that week as i clutched christa's shoulders from behind, squeezing my thighs around her waist as we circled round-about near the port of barcelona on her vespa. fast, too fast. and an enormous round-about, five, possibly six lanes rippling out from the center, traffic collecting and compounding from all directions. the sun, the danger, the possibility, and then the quintuple-domed outline of the Museu Nacional d'Arte de Catalunya.

and for a moment, i stopped asking and started allowing. something close to euphoria.

fine, euphoria.

* * *

and as i drove back towards the abandoned scooter, i glimpsed the possibilities: further streamline my luggage, buy a pair of leather working gloves, and hit the road; ¨ciao pakistan¨ as some say here in spain.

and now i have a pseudo-functional scooter leaning up against a stack of pallets at home.

technical difficulties

2006-11-02T08:19:00.000-09:00

falcon blanco, ibiza

ramon and i have been tearing the place apart this week trying to get the internet back online: yanking, connecting, twisting, popping ethernet cables ports, unplugging, replugging, replacing modems, tampering with internet settings, diving deep into network settings, window after window of preferences i never knew existed. today someone from the telephone company came out, poked around for an hour, wrote a bill, left.

and still falcon blanco is down.

and my half hour is up.

the shriveled muse

2006-10-27T12:46:00.000-08:00

i'll be honest with you; i'm struggling. there's been a recent pile-up of intense email exchanges with friends. i'm spent - an outpouring of mental energies leaves me tonight tired and sub-inspired.

but a blog is a agreement between writer and reader: ideally, if i write, you read. it's an exchange. two or three days without a post and your attention, as does mine, starts to fade. and it's been three days. and this ideal keeps me going, keeps me writing to know that these words, this word is being read, perhaps considered, even acted upon. it motivates me to know this communicative medium is completing it's intended cycle.

tonight i pass the baton to the filmmaker Virgil Widrich and his twelve minute film COPYSHOP. the technical concept behind the film is pretty fresh : shot digitally, each digital frame was then photocopied and then shot stop motion onto black and white 35 mm film.

reduced to normalcy > > >

2006-10-25T11:57:00.000-08:00

- falcon blanco, ibiza -

and now, a new challenge in writing : trying to find the exceptions in a space that has now become familiar.

i have been here for a month now, at falcon blanco. this weeks exodus of four wwoofers leaves a vacuous campus calm. june disappeared to the far south, the "irish contingent" transplanted to the bountifully bare 'n busty beaches of alacante, and nana left for barcelona taking her colorful handmade twirling batons. no longer the daily shifts of fresh perspective.

we are now eight, the veterans. we "understand" falcon blanco and, like social scientists, have formulated and tested and proven our perceptions. the animal kitchen, the recycled pastries, the ozone sauna and the pallets, these are now all everyday, common faces. subjects in the past i exploited in writing with easy success. now forced to look for the subtleties.

normal - what an ugly concept.

it's this concept that keeps me from committing to a career or a relationship or from calling a place "home". it reeks of stagnancy. it means death to me, it means giving up entirely. "normal" signifies an end of exploration. and i fear it; i fear it because it suggests an end to distraction.

it suggests calm.

tonight in the dome i spent twenty minutes squirming in place during group meditation. the others sat like tuning forks, rigid and upright and reverberating stillness. and my own brain, dozens of thoughts a minute, many incomplete, directionless : a theme park full of lost children and a dysfunctional family dinner conversation - a clubbed-foot relay race.

static.

we'll always have falcon blanco: another honest attempt

2006-10-22T01:55:00.000-08:00

- falcon blanco, ibiza -

this place is slowly disintegrating, slowly crumpling and folding into itself. one by one, people are starting to trickle out. is it the result of three hours dumping pallets of expired milk into the pallet-walled compost pit? or perhaps the rampant stress hanging stagnant in the air like bad gas? the food? the random hours? the general chaos and disorder? or maybe one big steaming pie of all the above.

it's breaking apart and you can feel it. people are low on energy, don't pick up after themselves in the kitchen. work is half-hearted. scattered and confused: a collective depression. falcon blanco is a living organism: we all feed off of one another, are totally and completely influenced by the highs and lows of our companions. one person has a bad day and well all feel the rippling effects. we move and don't move as one.

and i'm feeling the weight today more than most. this morning, i lost my good buddy june. off to london, a brief layover in "some middle eastern country", and finally to cape town, south africa, the foreign land that she refers to as home with a watery eyed-grin. i drove june to the airport this morning in the old red vw here at falcon blanco; coffee, porridge, and an out the door foot-scramble, one hour "early" for an international flight: pretty typical twenty.something patterns, thinking a pinkies distance ahead. "god, i would hate to be my mom," june mused.

june. june.bug, or affectionately "fatty.herple", the sticky nickname, a projected tag reflecting the nutritional plummet of her eating habits here at the white falcon. a projection - that is, if she stayed.

but she didn't.

she left. i'm not choking on my tongue with sobs, but i've lost an understanding companion in this saliva-stutter of an experience. we've been knocking about together for nearly six weeks. june is as much of my ibizan experience as the clotted fields of tilled earth or the thick sea.salt of the mediterranean.

* * *

june and i never slept together although i think it may have crossed both of our minds at one time. things get lonely on the farm, away from the distractions of the city, away from friends, and family, and familiarity. instead, a female friend, a bi-gender union powered by something other than the carnal pulsing engine of sexual tension; powered by the same curiosity that levitated us to begin our travels. a mutual understanding.

early in our friendship, the topic of relationships arose one late one evening at can jondal over a tea infusion and toasted bread. sarah had just sent me a longish email after breaking up with me some two weeks before, justifiably angry that i cheated on her with a woman in barcelona.

"Come on, be a man. You should have broken up with me. Grow up, buster."

i read the letter once, twice, and then over and over again, letting each word sting. i suddenly realized i was a cheater and that not everyone back in washington was eager for my return. i was the cause for another's pain. my warped, travel-distracted brain hadn't considered it cheating until i received her note : i was cowardly non-committal to make the effort to stay together or to face the pain to break apart. in fact, it was one of the propellants that landed me here in front of this very computer nine thousand miles away from everything i know. love hurts, but not nearly as much as breaking a dependency.

sarah's letter was like a punch to the neck, a lingering dull pain preventing full breaths. i took a chance at honesty with a stranger, split wide open and june was there to sift through the fragments. she listened and gave simple, rational advice and offering her own experience. funnily enough, we shared a few.

it was here in the kitchen that i realized that our stubbornness, our coupled vulnerabilities and inabilities to effectively manage a relationship would in time would lead to a messy end if we were to become romantically involved. i think i realized that we would make much better friends than lovers. june may have come to the same conclusion; she may not. indeed, it is possible that the scenario never crossed her mind and it is entirely of my own concoction.

unfortunately, i never mustered the courage to ask.

* * *

june, your saw.tooth cynicism and belly laugh will be missed. thank you for your insights, your freshness, and your friendship. i wish you all the best fooling those fickle custom officials; if not, there's always snakeman.

luck,

nbd

ozone sauna & full frontal for radichal michael

2006-10-18T10:28:00.000-08:00

- falcon blanco, ibiza -

i just crawled out of the sauna, an ozone sauna. the sauna rests against the wall of ramon's studio apartment in one of the corners of the falcon blanco campus. there's a tube, a funnel attached to one end, the other end runs into a regurgitation machine; an ozone regurgitation machine. you direct the ozone to the parts of your body that ache or are blocked or are tense. i'm honestly not sure what the ozone does to the body: according to bo and ramon, it has healing powers. i don't know if the ozone did much of anything, but i was stupid.hallucinating.hot from the steam.

"yes, kevin? where does the steam come from? from a nearby kitchen stove, a pressure cooker and another tube. good fucking question."

i feel awesome, totally and completely drained. and i decided to quit smoking today; not the first time i've quit. (i suspect that i begin this behavior just so i can feel good about quiting later). just thinking about quiting made my body feel lighter, more nimble. and the sauna will help: my body sweet-sweat cleansed.

my head stuck out of the sauna. the rest of my body was encapsulated by a box, a box draped in wool blankets to keep the steam from escaping. i look something like a squat peruvian football player with enormously broad shoulders. the heat arose from below, licked hot up against my shins. the box was a little to small for my frame, my neck slightly pinched in the opening. thirty minutes altogether, i started to get light headed during the last four or five minutes.

and they offered it to me. i've talked shit on this place, on falcon blanco. sure, it has it's faults, but the people though a little neurotic and stressed at times are good people. ramon is a good person. bo is a good person. laura is a good person. and i like them. the land is cluttered and ripped up and chaotic, but i've trying to start looking beyond this, beyond the immediate appearance and to see it for what it is: a group of people doing their best to live out their ideals.

p.s.        much thanks to june for gerbil-feeding me water and snapping these incredible photographs while i roasted.

. . . innovation, invention, insanity . . .

2006-10-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

- falcon blanco , ibiza -

innovation, invention, insanity ::: possibility, potential, preposterous

    these are words, brief strings of words, clever collections of syllables employed to convey reality through abstraction. photos accompany, composed of thousands of pixels too small even for ribbon floss. together, this dynamic media team combines sinew to represent yesterday's shoot.
    no batteries, no functional tripods  >>>  hence wires and cameras and plastic egg and milk crates and adapters and a broken green ladder and plywood and an extension chord wheel all fused together by
powered brain-battery and body.

and that is, this is i, the smug trace of smile much deserved after magnificent material manipulation: shooting down through the roof of the meditation dome onto the mat where bo demonstrated exercises, ramon coaching to the side.

" dear ed,

. .. .. ..  . h a v i n g ..  . f u n .. .. .  ... . . . .. .. .  .

... that's  still okay, right ? "

a thin slice of ramon

2006-10-17T09:06:00.000-08:00

- falcon blanco, ibiza - 

aside from the documentary on falcon blanco, i am also shooting and helping to realize a series of health related video clips for ramon by ramon; he hopes to post them on his website.
for years, ramon struggled with fibromyalgia, a lesser-known disease pseudo-crippling three to six percent of the population in the united states.apparently this disease also effects germans.

    ramon describes his battle with fibromagia as all consuming and life-draining, aching and painful: "i hardly had the energy to read four lines on the computer screen," he recalls, recounting the two years he spent researching healing methods for the disease.

he's also got a hernia, i think from lifting pallets. he went to various doctors and delved into more internet research: all suggested surgery; one doctor warned that if ramon didn't have the surgery within five months, that he would likely die. but ramon was opposed to the idea. and he's found a way to manage; he works his ass off to keep his body fit: an hour to an hour and a half of muscle-strengthening exercises every morning, meditation, and use of the emotional freedom technique or EFT, a "psychological acupressure" that involves tapping with one's fingertips various zones on the body and simultaneously saying a mantra. his is "i'm in perfect health, full of energy, and in a good mood."
an amazing character, this ramon. a purist seemingly unwilling to compromise his ideals; black and white. i think i originally wrote him off as just another old eccentric teaching looking for eager disciples, pupils that lap up his honey words as they spill from his mouth. and i don't think that my original judgement was totally off, either. but our relationship, one beginning as two curious strangers, has morphed over my time here at falcon blanco. we like one another; we shake hands and smile. this evening after interviewing him for the second time today, we hung out in his room and just talked, camera off. talked about meditation, but casual.
a friend? a grandfather figure? too soon to say.

.something.supple. + the code to my heart

2006-10-15T15:33:00.001-08:00

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honesty: why not? because it's fucking t.e.r.r.f.y.i.n.g.

2006-10-14T10:41:00.000-08:00

::: brain folds, noah dassel :::

i'd like to dedicate this entry to my friends and inspiration: gordon s. dawn m. and kelly h. i've been encouraged directly both directly and indirectly by these insightful iconoclasts to get honest & get real. i encourage this readership to take a peek at dawn and kelly's blogs to see this honesty in action. as for gordon, he originally folded back one of my earlobes years ago and planted the following phrase:

"the deeply personal is the universal" 

- ginsberg -

this posting is more of a flavor than a complete meal, a test . and it's practice. i want to be honest, i don't want to hide, at least not so much. so i'm making a conscious pact to let it out, the blood, the semen, the beauty. in the words of her majesty kelly h. in a recent combination warning/disclosure email:

"SEVERELY HONEST.  
Do not read if you don't want to get to know my experience here closely."

*  *  *

my face is getting older. there is a pock mark, a furrow in the center of my brow where eyebrow meets eyebrow; a dent, a divot where the skin has bunched time after time in frustration or anger or curiosity. and now it stays there. the skin doesn't spring back like it used to, tired of making the trip so many times. and it looks as though someone took a doll-sized icecream scoop to dark tracks under my eyes. i have stubble now, not peach fuzz or spartan pubecent patches, but man-fur. i can grow it out and my lovers can grip handfuls during climax. but i haven't.
climaxed, that is. at least i don't think. but i'm close. in terms of age.
i'm two months away from twenty-five, two months away from the year where people are supposed to transition between young adults and responsible adults. twenty-four is the waking dreamland before making this knee-breaking leap "forward" and i'm nowhere near ready. i could easily remain irresponsible, fun-humping, and selfish for ten more more years. you folks that know me, i may have fooled you into thinking that i'd never be the kind of person to regularly smoke cigarettes or to wash my ass in a public sink. i'm sorry, you're wrong.
may look my age, but i'm still an immature little eleven year old that flies through this life with flaming wings and a broken compass. lately i've been eating like i used to drink alcohol: i can't stop. i won't stop. i choke chocolate pastries and slurp coffee violently. i eat with vengeance. i think there's still a part of me that wants early death, the same part that used to induce me to slice into my pecs in the bathroom or punch telephone polls in drunken night walks. but unlike before, i'm not angry, or at least i don't think i am. i'm just a little crazy.
a little crazy.

potentially possible

2006-10-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

((( ibiza, spain )))

and the soup thickens.

falcon blanco, with all of it's cracking, sticky, fizzling characteristics is a playground for potential; the very disorganization, the clutter, and the vibrating chaos enables, indeed, pleads for creation. this "complex complex," as one wwoofer recently inspired to word, is a place of possibility. the idea that things can only get better is liberating: you can take chances, break rules, imagine.

whether expressed in the form of cooking interesting, sumptuous, and non . intestine . tearing . or . spinal . chord . debilitating meals with dumpster delicacies, to fuse salvaged wood and wire, batteries and bulbs with globs of fingerpaints into artwork, or the honest nailing of the sturdiest of alpha pallets together to construct homes for the increasing trickle of wwoofers, here at the white falcon, there is room for innovation. the possibilitiy for creation combined an increasingly addict-like consumption of vanilla-filled principe cookies and coffee keep me wired early into the morning, the same buzzing energy that prompts these fingers to type these words in these minutes.

this word.

...because your ears need to eat, too...

2006-10-09T06:25:00.000-08:00

>>> ibiza, spain<<<

after yanking a dusty boombox out of a vacant bedroom and repositioning it in the more heavily trafficked kitchen, we here at the white falcon chanced upon sonica.

although the ibizan radio station gets a trite heavy in the evenings, the boosting base and accelerating tempo causing softer parts of the body to bruise, during the day (while most of you happy west.coaster's are still drooling into your pillows) the music is friendly-fresh and phlem.phree.phunk.

for those of you who enjoy using your bodies in the ancient expression of self through dance, this station is a must. enjoy, becuase eventually we'll all be dead.

+ + +

p.s. i had some trouble streaming the station online from either of the two working computers here at f.b. if you encounter similar problems, post a comment to let me know and i'll do a little sluething.

<<< falcon blanco : installation two>>>

2006-10-08T18:01:00.000-08:00

* * * ibiza, spain * * *

like many good things, it started small: "swing by if you would like and take a look my media equipment," ramon invitated. "sure," i thought, "a chance to get out of my tent, take a hot shower, sleep in a warm bed, and work with something other than a rake or a shovel for a handful of hours. it shouldn't take more than a couple of days." i've been here for two weeks.

* * *

i was introduced to falcon blanco through my friend june; before completing her stay at can jondal, june began looking for another farm that hosted wwoofers on the island. casita verde, the hip, competitive, and cutting edge "agroturismo" farm boasting weekly sunday organic feedings for the public complete with a live dj and open bar was not accepting volunteers until december. the only other option was falcon blanco.
we hitched to san lorenzo at the north of the island and then began our search for falcon blanco on foot. after the fruitless knocking on a few doors and the near mauling of june by chained pinscher, we finally came to a small yellow sign in the shape of an arrow pointed down the long dirt road. "art and music therapy: falcon blanco" the sign read. within the first ten minutes of our visit, i realized that i could never live in a space as dirty and cluttered and chaotic as falcon blanco. the first impression, the introduction, the very handshake of the white falcon was stacks of pallets and a fuming compost field. "fuck this," i thought, "i hope june thinks this through."
and then we met ramon.
ramon has been here for some thirty years. originally from germany with a university background in psychology and architecture, ramon picked up and moved to ibiza in the seventies. he stumbled across falcon blanco in november with a friend which at the time was a solely few scattered buildings on five or six acres of empty land. the place was for sale and he had the cash. he moved in with his dog and his horse, spent his first rainy season sleeping in a roofless single room and passing the hours watching television powered by a hand-crank generator: "the most interesting part was when the television started to loose power and the a white dot appeared on the screen and then faded to black," he explained to june and i at the table shortly thereafter making the proposition about the media gear.
i hesiated to accept, and i imagine i would have continued with my plans to trek to granada that week. but then he told a story that made me reconsider. the story was about a young spaniard who had come to wwoof some years previoius. he stayed only one night, left early in the morning without mentioning anything to ramon. apparently bubu, the resident bull mastiff had growled at him while he was repairing pallets. "he left and this was exactly where he needed to be," ramon told june and i, "he left because he was scared, maybe he'd been bitten before. but he chose to flee rather than confront his fear. and he'll now have to continue to live with this fear for the rest of his life." i thought about my own bias about the lack of cleanliness, the disorder. was i considering refusing because to flee a fear? i decided to return, if only for an evening. and i'm happy i did.

* * *

i'm in the production stages of making a documentary about falcon blanco: the place and the people. this place is simply too odd, too unique, to incredible to pass up. i want to record and then i want to share.
ramon has squirelled away six or seven video cameras here at falcon blacno. i'm shooting vhs, because that's what we have. it's old-school, but appropriate to the venue: everything here is just at least a little bit outdated. because there are no working batteries, i have to string together a series of adapters and extension chords to shoot outside. today i shot two wwoofers taking an ozone sauna. the entire body excluding the protruding head rests inside of a wooden box and is licked by the steam and buffeted by ozone. the steam emanates from a pressure cooker heated from a gas stove in the adjacent kitchen, the attached tube swathed in electrical tape and piped into the bottom of the box by the knees. and the ozone? apparently it realigns the bodies negative and possitive structure. similar implementaion.

oof. four am. do you know where your mind is?

chicken death: a dassel.herpel collaboration

2006-10-06T02:43:00.000-08:00

((( ibiza, spain )))

june just told me that she saw another dead chicken; that's number three? four? "it's at least three," june says, "no, it's gotta be four counting the recent passing of the rooster." why are they dying? that's the next logical question in the string of detection. avian bird flu? and are we safe? will falcon blanco put spain on the map for the first widespread human epidemic on the planet?

or, maybe laura's rationale is something closer to the truth: "they're old."

like everything here at falcon blanco, the pallets of expired milk, the baskets of tangled electrical wires and dusty adapters, the leaning piles of clothing and heaped shoes and sandals, there is also an excess of fowl. this week we acquired an additional package of twenty-five geese and ducks from a neighboring farm. though we of the white falcon abstain from eating any of the resident geese, duck, chicken, cat, dog, or rat that peck, scuffle, forage, respectively, there is still some hidden purpose.

the falcon blanco sessions

2006-10-05T14:45:00.000-08:00

( ( ( ibiza, spain ) ) )

the past two evenings, we, this assorted band of varying degrees of transience, united under the white stuccoed roofs of falcon blanco to fuse instrument and inspiration. the first of what i hope and plan to be a series musical jam sessions stretching skyward like the sinewy limbs of a yoga instructor into the early morning, so early in fact, that by the time the sounds take rest, the ambitious rooster from the eastern block, is already opening his wattled throat to great another sunny offering.

the man with no hair wearing glasses and coddling guitar is miguel: originally from uruguay, miguel and son gabriel, the tiniest in stature of the four depicted in the photos, came to falcon blanco some seven months ago. though he speaks neither language, "gabi," a sixth grader, studies english in catalan.

* hostia *

my gleaming face is easily recognizable, but i imagine you may be curious about the beautiful young woman with the nuclear cloud of curly hair. in this collection of photos, anna, a spaniard from catalonia, is splicing attention between playing harmonica, and restringing one of the three available guitars with fibrous twine.

and suddenly, everything's okay. in fact, it's fun.

falcon blanco: installation one (bold courier for you mac heads)

2006-10-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

* * * ibiza, spain * * *

i just finished an hour long video interview with ramon, the seated king of falcon blanco. it's one piece of many, we think. he hopes to cover a network of interlocking philosophies from health to recycling and then to post them to his website; i'm just happy to offer a skill other shucking almond shells or mending pallets. over the years, ramon has managed to annex into his possession a collection of vhs cameras of varying states of complete-ness. "i bought them from military auctions," he tells me, "cheap." and like everything here at falcon blanco, you have to put things together in pieces. there are no "wholes" here, just parts that snap together, sometimes without effort, more often with super-glue, shoelace, and the curious human desire to create. in the case of the interview tonight, a Styrofoam-tabletop combination tripod, a drying rack-broken broom handle medly serving as an audio boom pole.

the mother ...

and there's so much to choose from here. this place is a livable landfill: sometimes you find treasures like chocolate bars or functional 15 inch computer monitors. other times you dig up relics that should have been extracted long ago ir left alone altogether.

this afternoon i spent an hour pulling dripping plastic grocery sacks and the disintegrating pieces of a rat infested mattress. i worked with a laura who has lived here for the seven odd years. at one point while she was scraping the cakes of rat feces from the cement floor with a trowel, she looked at me and said in spanish "i can't. i can't do this anymore". these words after a morning yelling match between bo, laura, and ramon in the pallet ghetto. lungs squeezing empty with high, frantic screams. merica, a pollack wwoofer slugging buckets of soupy water up and down the dirt driveway, informed me that the dispute "had something to do with bo and ramon putting dead meat into laura's garden."

i think laura wants to change this place, clean it up, have a functional garden. but things start to pile up fast: pallets of milk and chips and wine and juice. everyday ramon drives up the driveway, honking the horn like we're all supposed to come running. "the pallet-truck is here, everybody!" we unload free stuff, the garbage of supermarkets and butchers that we call dinner; tonight, gnocchi in a homemade garlic, onion, and tomato sauce with a heaping bowl of green salad and nuts, all of which was either scooped out of the dumpster or left in the sun on a pallet behind the store.

sure, some of it's inedible. maggoty eggs, and fruit beyond bruised, old fruit that's hasn't known vine or earth for weeks; there is an entire storeroom that smells of rat piss filled and is with ketchup and rice and caffeinated green tea. the following image pretty well sums this place up. as you can see, there is a pig hoof sprouting from a crevasse in a stack of pallets. little hidden gems. it's all sorted together here: the olfactory coupling of cooked assorted meat parts used to feed the 26 cats and the pungent smell of fresh figs weighing down the branches of a nearby tree.

but really, this eating experience here at falcon makes me think about how quickly i tossed food that reached and surpassed those little printed numbers signifying freshness. sink it into the trash without the gentlest sniffs, or pinky dip. some of the edibles here that have "expired" are perfectly good, perfectly safe, perfectly tasty. i just now devoured four pieces of bread and half a container of skippy peanut butter, all of which was supposedly way over the hill. and i feell fine., .

and the dying chickens? have to wait for installation number two.

eating well and staying healthy

2006-09-29T10:58:00.000-08:00

my body hates me right now.

i've been subsisting on tubes of expired pringles and bar after bars of nestle cappuccino chocolate; nearly eaten an entire box. and coffee; four cups today. i can feel the sickness in my throat and nasal cavity, silently nibbling at the edges of my fast-fraying health.
for the past three nights, i've stayed at falcon blanco, another wwoof site here on ibiza island. no garden, no almond trees, or grape orchards. instead, a wooden pallet ghetto stacked fifteen high and, at the end of the dirt driveway, slumping boxes of expired rolos and ketchup and coffee and the aformentioned pringles, both original and cheddar flavor.
ramon, a kindly german overseer of the premises, drives his van from falcon blanco to ibiza to collect discarded edibles from supermarkets and butcher shops. ramon transports baggage sacks full of assorted meat, blood and gristle and vein and bone cooked to feed the dozens of cats that slink about the premisis. ramon and falcon blanco have a vision: to reduce waste through recycling. regardless of the passed expiration date, much of the food here is edible, food that would otherwise be disposed of.

stuck in honey, honey

2006-09-28T14:13:00.001-08:00

* * * ibiza, spain * * *

ibiza, spain. i can't let go of this island. i've made.plans.have.plans to push south into the highlands of granada for a week or ten days, to spend money again and to shower with soap in a hostel and to drink green tea in the alhambra; and then east to portugal to wwoof and build strawbale houses on a farm on the atlantic in carrapateira. and morocco: my family doesn't want me to go and my father sends me emails, attached articles hinting at shadowy tragedy for the hapless american traveler venturing so far south, so far different, a tragedy brought by hand of muslim extremist. i don't blame him and i understand his motivation for the emails. and i feel selfish because i will go if i am able. you had your motorcycle; i have northern africa.
i will go and these are my plans.
but plans change, or, in this case, the timeline becomes elastic. ibiza, spain. i planned to leave after i finished my two/week commitment at can jondal; take a ferry to denia and then a bus to granada. but it's been over a month:i'm still here. "this island either embraces you completely or spits you out," a friend tells me as we drive north to buy apples and carrots from an organic farm. i sit in the back, cracking almonds between my molars, almonds shaken from a tree with a foraged bamboo shoot only moments before she stopped to pick me up hitchhiking at the side of the road.
i am one of the embraced.
and june was right: this island is "like a dream." ibiza is what you read about in your lonely planet guidebook, the descriptions that you exchange when talking to a random acquaintance back home in a supermarket line or on the bus or in a cafe: "it's so relaxed", "the people are incredible", "beautiful beaches". it is all of these , and then, it is something more.
this island is magic. this island is a gift. and this island gives.
sensations: i swam in the company of a school of thousands of translucent fish, they just beyond my reach, slipping through my fingers; i watched lightning explode silently over the low mountains and felt a warmth normally reserved for late mornings in bed with no agenda for the day; and my single, swollen tonsil, the hairless testicle of a moose in rutting season, the apparently inescapable result of two-months of travel; "something about the native and foreign flora and fauna fighting it out in the intestines," wrote gus, a dear friend and veteran traveler from the states.

and i've met people, kind people like yussef the forty year old moroccan wwoofer, a playful sparrow of mind and body, his ritual four pieces of toasted bread slick with olive oil and vinegar for breakfast, the sharp propellant laugh opening completely and closing just as quickly like the valve of a heart. and i've met angry, hurting people, beatriz the wrinkling princess of can jondal, so critical that one expected all interactions to be those of conflict, "forged in the deepest, hottest fires of hell" as one friend wrote.
but, it's all new. this, i have found, is one of the greatest joys, and one of the most dangerous aspects of traveling. it's all new, it's all addictive, and i'm terrified to return home.

¨like a dream¨

2006-09-25T04:46:00.000-08:00

* * * ibiza, spain * * *

Last night , friend and fellow WWOOFer June Herple and I slept in a field under a tree. We passed the hours between midnight and seven AM huddled together, gripping the dewy folds of a stollen paper tablecloth close to our bodies for protection from the equally stinging gnaw of wind and ant. "It's like a dream," June says.

This is June gently working the cork from a bottle of wine a little earlier that evening. An expat from New Hampshire, June is taking a break from her home of three years in Cape Town, South Africa and is WWOOFing her way across the Iberian Peninsula. We met at Can Jondal a few weeks ago and fastly became friendly.
The rocks in the foreground flex from the waters of Benniras, a well-trafficked cove and fun fussion of tourists and locals to the north of the island. Benniras is known for explosive Skittle-vomit sunsets, committed hippy throngs slinging bracelets from sandy blankets, and combustible drum circles as depicted below.

my items

2006-09-23T05:22:00.000-08:00

I live out of a backpack. From Barcelona to San Sebastian, Saintes to Paris, Madrid to Ibiza, I carry the few and carefully selected items of my life over my shoulders.

The life of an urban backpacker is a little like walking around naked. We backpackers often have no other recourse than to bear our lives to everyone: frantically thrusting a hand into the top compartment for change in a supermarket checkout line to buy bread and bananas, digging for city or metro maps or a translation guide on the subway - everything is exposed. Things fall out, break. And the appearance of the backpack is never the sleek, streamlined representation advertised in the glossy photos of outdoor magazines. My backpack is a bulging amoeba, yogurt stained and sand speckled. Space consideration necessitate strapping shoes or water bottles or trash to the outside of the backpack. And people notice. Children and old men stop to stare . And unlike at home, things are all mixed together. Few rationally minded humans would consider consolidating the refrigerator, the bathroom sink, the bed, television, and wardrobe into one small space.

Space is essential. I have developed a method for packing based on observations of size, weight, and frequency of use. All Sleeping gear and clothing is stuffed to the bottom. Next up is shoes, toiletries, and food. The top tier is composed of the essentials: wallet, not and sketchbook, camera, and phone. I recently adapted the front zipper pouch to hold all of my books. They fit nicely, but now I´m not sure where to put my water bottle. Will keep you posted!

My items, my friends. What follows is a list and a brief description of my traveling companions. Kudos to journalist Colin McDonald, a friend who´s blog Bicycling to Beaumont helped to inspire this posting.

Top Row (Left to right): 1. Sleeping bag loaned from my good buddy Dick Roemer - it´s light weight, extremely compressible, and after two months of travel, the fart smell is finally gone. 2. Two-person tent by Walrus. 3. Inflatable mattress by Thermarest - I hope I´m mistaken, but I think this little baby might be leaking air. Sssssssshit. 4. Vacuum sealed clothing sack by Ziploc. 5. Assorted toiletries and towel including essential toothbrush, paste, floss, hair gel, and loufa. 6. Black compression food sack that doubles as a daypack. Also included, Tupperware container for delicate perishables.

Middle Row: 1. Books including Guns, Germs, and Steal and Spanish-English dictionary. 2. Two euro sketchbook, hand fabricated cardboard and electrical tape case, Moleskine notebook (graph style), and pencils. 4. Fast-disintegrating Nikon 35 to 70 mm zoom lense. 5. ratty green satchel I found in a Paris side street originally containing hundreds of expired phonecards. Now contains all of the small essentials enclosed in individual zip lock bags: passport, wallet, glasses, cds, gluestick, etc. (for full list, come and visit me) 6. Old school, my parents generation by Berghaus. Lightweight internal aluminum frame and broken shoulder straps nicknamed¨¨Championess¨.

Bottom Row: 1. GTX sneakers I picked up for a euro at a flea market gathered outside of a cathedral in Barcelona. 2. Chacos: the most versatile tmild-climate footwear I have ever encountered. Great for swimming, chopping wood, picking grapes, dancing, climbing cliffs, and walking city streets. 3. Fleece jacket by Alpine Lowe.

a beautiful place

2006-09-21T04:34:00.000-08:00

what is this place, this beautiful place with the skin-splitting rocks that burst from the sea and blemish and blanch under the sun´s gaze? ibiza spain, the northern part of the island. yes, i´m slumming it on the beach, tent, sleeping bag, and air mattress. eat your soul out, kerouac.
i nearly killed myself in the decent down into the cove. i used my sloppily-fitted backpack as an anchor, dragging it behind me as a scooted down on my ass. the shopping list for four days ended up being bread, meat (that i dropped into the sea within ten minutes of making camp), cheese, two bars of chocolate with almonds, two bottles of water, milk, cereal, and four yogurts, two of which exploded in my bag during my decent down the gully of an avalanche chute to the rocky cove below.
i´m naked except for my sunglasses. everything feels better naked: sleeping, eating, reading, and swimming. three times today i immersed my salt-caked frame into the water to dodge the purple, stinging madusas, jellyfish that float like afterthoughts on the waves.
i am terrified of the water and i force myself to swim. today i jumped off a large rock surrounded by water. i landed some two meters from a jellyfish that looked like a cross between a brain and boiled cauliflower. i watched it for awhile, and then swam, fear in my throat, to the shore.
i float in the water here, i don´t sink or struggle. i float. the mediterranean is so full of salt it shoots up my nose. i use a pair of scratched and tinted goggles on extended loan from my brother.

sketches of a the back of a man´s head

2006-09-13T10:07:00.000-08:00

sketches from an evening bus ride back to the farm from ibiza. a three-quarter view of the back of a man´s head. a sliver of neck, the sharp unison where the hairline comes to a point where the spine meets the skull, and the most prominent feature, the brow. a what a magnificent brow on this man, bold, but smooth and flowing and unmistakeably present. a handlebar, a feature that one could latch onto for safety in the case of an earthquake or a wild dog attack.

i never did see the rest of his face.

this is my face

2006-09-08T08:42:00.000-08:00

this is my face, a self-portrait drawn four days ago with a black ball point pen on a white sheet of paper. the drawing is my attempt at honesty because often, my words lie.

Personalities of the Auto-Stop

2006-08-30T08:49:00.000-08:00

I shuffle in place, the place where the sun meets the pavement and the cars and trucks and mopeds push the air from one side of the island to the other. R103, the life-line that connects the twenty kilometer stretch between Can Jondal, the remote organic farm where I spend my mornings picking grapes and mending fences, with the infamous Ibiza Town, as much vortex sacred to trance-tripping clubophiles as nexus of righteously scandalous sun-dried hippies. I venture the twenty kilometers between these antipodes with, most frequently, my right thumb.

Hitch hiking is an art: a loose fist, fingers almost dangling so as not to seem overly militant, and the thumb, attentive, fully extended, but never rigid. Remove the sunglasses to reveal the eyes, the very portal into the human soul. Curiously, to this West Coast-bred American, smiling appears not to help.

* * *

The Motorists:

Percy from Germany. Big into organic foods. Mentions that he´s ¨bought a lot of land¨ in Argentina to develop farming. Tells me that Ibiza is a wonderful place, progressive and full of ancient energy. ¨Everything here is very free¨and, glancing at me ¨sexually...¨. For some reason, this is the only part of the list of everything he shares. He´s into meditation, a devout practitioner. Owns a telecommunications business. As we pull into the petroleum station to drop me off, he makes the definitive claim ¨Money is important¨ before he strikes up conversation with a drunken German skooterist wearing a in a red helmet and cowboy boots.

German Waitress. Enter the car, she smiling and tattooed, a thumping remix of familiar music. DJ Shadow reaches my ears again, this time on the other side of the planet. She breaks-up laughing when I tell he I´m working for free, not some subtle chuckle, but laughter. Happy to make her happy, I laugh, too. She ends up driving me all the way to my destination, Benniras Beach at the northern tip of the island, a little cove boasting Sunday night drum circles and fire dancing. On the way down the car-cramped access road to the beach, we take out someone´s side mirror with our own. She´s still laughing.

Family from Madrid. Jose the father, Marcos the son, and the mother´s name I miss in the gushing hiss of the air surrounding the four of us in their outback convertible rover as we drive. They comment on the night sky, the vast number of stars available to the eye. They give me their scarves and I wrap torso and legs to shield myself from the cold. Jose, a hair stylist, is kind enough to take me all the way to the bottom of the farm´s dirt road.

Leo from Sweden. House music thudding against the cars interior. He explains to me that he has a wife and a child. Extremely odd job: Works for an old woman, stays in her home from 8:30 PM to five the following morning, awake the entire time making sure that no one breaks in. He can´t watch the television; it tends to wake the poodle. Spends his hours reading. Normally works as a gardener.

Fragments

2006-08-26T08:19:00.000-08:00

It´s tough to write regularly. Here are a few fragments from past emails to good friends and family. Enjoy

26.8.06
Ibiza, Spain

i´m here in ibiza now, working on an organic farm on the main island some thirty minutes by bike to town. i found it through the program WWOOF, world wide opportunities on organic farms http://wwoof.org/. it´s a pretty great set up, i think. we work from 8am to 1pm six days a week and the hosts feed and house us. the majority of the day is ours. i can take a break from spending money for three weeks, eat well, learn spanish, work in the dirt, read, meditate, and plan the next portion of this trip. not sure, but i´m thinking about africa, traveling and then maybe doing some kind of volunteer (or paid) humanitarian work.

as for my three weeks here, i have a pretty good feeling. the farm i work for is owned by a middle aged woman (a little testy at times and who, despite my requests to speak spanish, continually addresses me in english) and her 34 year old son who so far seems to be a pretty level headed, cool character. They´ve both been here on the island for the vast majority of their lives.

this morning, my first morning of work, i picked tomates fresas, cut grapes from the vine, and swept. yes, an indescribable amount of sweeping. the farm is not only an organic, sustainable agriculture facility, but is also a hotel full of germans, english, aussies, and french. apparently part of our duties as WWOOFer´s is to keep the entire grounds looking good. Check out the link, if you would like.

http://www.canjondal.com/nuestracasa.html

i live in a little one room shack near the pool.

25.8.06
Madrid, Spain

i also am enjoying myself here in madrid. i just flew in on the 22nd after spending two weeks in paris with friends. it´s good to be back in a country where i can communicate without the constant need of gesticulations and sketches. so yes, i am in spain. i´m getting ready to spend the night at the airport this evening where i will fly to the island of ibiza in the early morning. i´ll be working on a farm through wwoof, picking vegetables and fruit, riding horses, and learning about sustainable ag. why not?

***

i just arrived here in madrid madrid on the 22nd after two long weeks in paris. i stayed with a dentist that i met through couchsurfing.com. interesting guy. he collects tarantulas, has something like a dozen of them sleeping less that a meter from where i bedded down each evening. terrifying bedfellows, but quiet.

paris is like a well lived-in museum: book stores pressed right up against the original fortifying wall of the city, an in-use eye-hospital in a building that dates back to napoleon. it´s remarkable to see the interaction between the present and the past. and there is SO much to see. the eiffel tower was a blast, the ascent a little terrifying, the view spec-tac-ular. the arc de triumph, the museum of modern art, notre dame´s high arching ceilings, a great cavity for worship. ah, even people that live in that city haven´t seen it all.

and the streets are packed with tourists, snapping photos, bumping into one another, speaking all varieties of languages. it´s kinda a mad house right now, honestly. hour long wait to enter the louvre, quarter kilometer lines to enter the notre dame. i honestly didn´t really realize how crazy it was until i arrived here in madrid. i went to the prado and didn´t have to wait at all! just walked right in. and what a museum. it´s three stories of classic art up to the 17th century, some of the sculptures dating back 100 b.c. check out valasquez if you get the time. he´s an amazing spanish artist with entire rooms dedicated to his work. my favorite of his represented pieces was ¨fragua de volcano¨. i had just read the story of volcan, the greek god of fire and metal in homer´s ¨the odyssey¨. vulcan was an impotent god that spent his waking hours pounding away at metal. his wife, the goddess venus, had an affair with another god. the painting depicts the instant when apollo, the god dressed in the tunic, tells unhappy vulcan, the shirtless and bearded man closest to him, of the affair. what i like about it is the intense emotion that is depicted in the scene. the expressions on the faces are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. here the link.

http://casl.umd.umich.edu/hum/spanishco/11.Murillo_y_Velazquez/images/065Velasquez.Vulcan.51184c.jpg
yes, history. you have to sift through the history here in europe.

tomorrow, i leave for ibiza. the more i´ve read about it, the more apprehensive i´ve become. sounds like a real party spot. of course, the farm isn´t right downtown and i should be able to avoid the nonsense for the most part and i am keeping my fingers crossed that there will be a mass exodus of people come the beginning of September. it´s almost as though everyone trades countries here in europe for a month. the french go to spain, the spanish go to italy, the italians go to france. but back to the farm. i´m excited to test my hand at gardening and horseback riding. and they have a piano! good lord i´ve missed that instrument. traveling has definitely put that in perspective.

***

me? i´m kicking it here in madrid, capital of spain. i met some really terrific folks on couchsurfing.com and i´ve shacked up with them for a few nights. they´re college students and two of them (funnily enough) remind me of alex bainbridge. quiet and kind and totally and completely goofy. one of them, angel, is learning to ride a bike so there´s a chance we may hit the road today, go to a park and ride a tandem bicycle! we´ll see. yesterday i went to a little museum called the PRADO. yes, you may have heard of it. it´s quite famous. i saw some original work from the likes of the painters DIEGO VASQUEZ, CARAVAGGIO, EL GRECO, and my favorite, AEKEN BOSCH. weird stuff; i had no idea people made such strange paintings in the 16 century.

¨Build To Jump¨: Eiffel Tower Graffiti

2006-08-24T04:44:00.000-08:00

On the third floor, the top floor of the Eiffel Tower some 1000 feet above ground, a height that allows the onlooker to predict where the passerby below is going long before they know themselves, on this top, third floor that sways like a steal tree in the wind and reverberates like a kettle drum with the scratching, thumping, shuffling movements of the many millions of tourists that occupy this small space every year, a space no larger than of overpriced studio apartment New York, a space that is a platform that is a ring that circumvents the fingertip of the tower, in this small space at the top third floor of the Eiffel Tower is a collection of graffiti on the railings and on the beams that I collected in the course of one revolution.

*Build to Jump*
*Thank you Mom & Dad*
*I will come back Franch*
*Free Teckno! Paris-Wein*
*Essouidi*
*This is the SHIT!! Mo, Rusty, & Anna livin´it up in Paris*
*On the surface*
*Et ainz, et gnois ne sufront jamais a tedique con bien carn ene une vie entifre nest às sufrisante.... merci*
*Fighting!!!*
*El Negro*¨
*We are the Korean*
*Deutchlan es wird weñtmeister! 2006*
*Rancid*
*I was here-- find me 01-36004260henagelo*
*Bob loves you*
*Mati Monte Cello New York. Ilya Brooklyn Nigga Rory W stunt penis*

Ritual and the Travel Toothbrush

2006-08-18T01:32:00.000-08:00

I have a travel toothbrush. It has an transparent orange base and a white stem. It fits comfortably into my hand. I use it to brush my teeth on my travels. I use it to brush my teeth and my gums, the roof of my mouth, to brush the white bacteria from my tongue. Sometimes I plunge the bristles of my travel toothbrush deep into my throat to hack away the pieces of paella or baguette lodged in the recesses of my tonsils.

I try to brush three times a day with my travel toothbrush, and, as a traveler, this often proves difficult. The life of the traveler does not lend itself easily to the life of ritual. Everything is always in flux, everything is new. Everyday is fresh:

*An old man walks up to me at the outdoor market. His shirt is entirely unbuttoned revealing speckled sunspots and whispy gray hair. He speaks from behind a pair of broad rimmed glasses, and, squeezing my arm tells me in heavily accented English ¨you wouldn't last a day in the Siberian salt mines¨ ¨What do you do¨I ask. He pretends to stroke a huge phallus ¨Spanking the monkey, three times a day¨ Cracked smile.

Everyday is fresh for everyone, anyone who is alive. But as a traveler, these experiences are amplified; these are experiences that fall somewhere outside of our own social familiarity. It is And these are experiences that happen with startling frequency and are in no way limited in character to the ancient pseudo-lechers roaming, breast exposed, through the brightly colored corridors of fruits and meats at the market.

Everyday is fresh. Which is precisely the reason I try to brush my teeth three times a day with my travel toothbrush. Indeed, not so much to keep crisp the mint tip of my tongue, but for the sake of ritual. Something to ground the brain, something to depend on when every other aspect of life is fluid. A predictable and manageable act.

Not sure how, but I think the trick is to transfer the ¨fresh¨out of traveling and plop it into ¨everyday life¨But that's another post.

Pollo Rico: Sizzling Hot Fat Bucket

2006-07-31T10:15:00.000-08:00

Pollo Rico
Sant Pau 31, 08001 Barcelona
934 413 184

Pollo Rico is a shotgun blast of grease. As soon as you walk past the hand-painted menu and into the restaurant, all a great wave of heat sweeps over the entire body. It´s rare to find a space where the heat inside is more stifling than outside. Pollo Rico just so happens to be that space. But the heat only adds to the overall atmosphere. The waiters, all men well into mid-life, shuttle commands between the customers at the steel counter to the cooks sweating over the industrial grills. The shouting, the intense pace, the heat, it all produces an image of the cramped quarters of a submarine before it prepares to dive.

I shuffle through the layer of grease-saturated napkins coating the floor and sit down at one of the wooden stools. ¨Dime.¨ The waiter speaks quickly, setting out the paper place-mat with the grinning chicken logo and then slapping down a knife and fork. I order a quarter chicken, with ¨papas¨ (french fries), and a coke with ice. My waiter shouts out the order, simultaneously turning and jotting down the order onto a pad. Within a few short minutes, the food is placed before me, glistening with grease.

I sink in, the meat melting off the bone as I chew the skin. After stuffing my face for a few moments, after the pangs of huger have subsided, I look around. Mostly men, in fact, all men sit at the bar. One shovels food into his mouth with his fork, a great plate of mixed seafood, rice and vegetables, the traditional Catalan dish known as Paella. Another eats a plate of assorted shrimp and squid. The man next to me tosses back the remainder of his espresso with rum and wipes his lips with a napkin.

Normally I´d spring for a slice of Sandilla (watermelon), but I´m already fast depleting my cash reserves and, after writing for a dozen minutes, I call for the check. It´s funny, since I´ve been here in Spain, I´ve rarely had a check delivered to me without first asking for it. Unlike the United States, more time is allocated to the process of eating, before, during, and after. A little more time to digest without having to worry about freeing up space.

The bill comes, an astounding 4,80 Euros for all. I slap down a five, wipe my face, anD toss my napkin to the floor. I walk outside into one of Barcelona´s signature cramped streets, the temperature dropping a noticeable few degrees, already hungry for another quarter bird.

Feldman: ¨One Hundred Years¨

2006-07-29T10:30:00.000-08:00

Museu d´Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBE)
Hans Peter Feldman, Photographer

We are all gradually dying; Hans Peter Feldman just shows us what it looks like. From the oily, soft skin of an eight month year-old baby girl to the awkward lankiness of a prepubescent teen, from the chiseled definition of a twenty-five year old male to the puffy, heavy cheeks of a middle-aged woman, ¨One Hundred Years¨ strips time bare of its elusive fluidity and presents the aging process, naked and bare, to the eyes of the viewer.

The exhibition, a string of one-hundred and one framed black and white portraits, depicts in chronological order the human body as it develops with age between the ages of eight months and one-hundred years. Each photograph is situated at eye level, the faces looking from the frame into the viewers eyes. No two subjects are the same.

I found twenty-four. I was expecting youth, vigor, spice, at least a smile. But the face seemed old, weary. His clothing hung loosely as though they were damp. He seemed disinterested. Maybe the photograph was taken after a particularly heavy night of drinking. Maybe he had not slept, worked a graveyard shift the night before. Or maybe the subject and I shared the same intense feelings of confusion and doubt that accompany a twenty-four year old without a plan.

With each breathe of life, we become one breathe closer to death. Yes, I thought about death when I viewed the exhibit, but at the end, it was more uplifting than not. It made me realize that we all have a finite amount of time on this earth, that life doesn´t start tomorrow or in five years: It´s happening right now and we´had all better make the best of it because another ten photographs and we´ll have a career, another twenty and we´ll be a father or a mother, another fifteen we´ll be thinking about retirement, another fifteen and, well, we´ll be damn lucky to be alive.

¨One Hundred Years¨

29.7.06 Barcelona

2006-07-29T04:23:00.000-08:00

The first of what I hope to be many entrees. Let´s see if this works.