I hope that all Americans had a great Thanksgiving, and to them and everyone else and with indiscriminate love I hope you've had a great past few days, just because. Today, I'm thinking about gold.
I have asked myself before about the uses of gold, and wondered what, apart from the intoxicating sheen, is this metal really good for anyway? When explorers of any and all nationalities left their homes to search for the yellow metal, did they have any idea that it might one day prove quite useful as a conductor of electricity, dissolved in medicines, hammered and spread into a thin layer over airplane cockpits for de-icing? Well, medieval physicians did think it was useful in medicine, but not for any sound scientific reason, but simply because anything that beautiful and rare must have been wholesome.
The value of gold has been universally acknowledged since long before the time of airplanes, modern medicine, and artificial electricity production. Ancient Egyptians lined their mausoleums with the stuff, and the God of the Christians and the Jews has, depending on the occasion, conferred it upon those he favored and struck down those who have used it in ways in which he did not.
Not to be too self-consciously aloof about it, but I don't care too much for it. I have given it as a gift before, but mainly because I was supposed to, mainly because I had been worn down into thinking I was a bad boyfriend by the theatrical surprise of countless friends and family members when they learned that I had been dating for all this time and still hadn't given her some gilded something-or-other. I wonder how many relationships have met their end, finally, for lack of a bit of gold? How often has the promise of continued affection been held hostage with a bit of gold for ransom? I'm sure I'll feel differently when the time comes to get my sweetheart a ring and ask her to marry me. On that day, I have no doubt that I'll want to get the nicest ring I can afford to make her happy and show her how much I care. Still, there's something about it that doesn't sit well... It's just a bit of metal, after all. Something I'm supposed to give. I like to try to be romantic, and I like to try to be creative about it. The last thing romance wants is a formula, it seems to me, but...
...well, enough of that: There is a reason why I'm writing about gold this morning after writing about nothing for a month or so, and the reason is that gold is all I can think about today. It's all that I can see. I woke up early and walked a pretty girl to work, and then, having nothing to do for several hours, I made my way into town. As I walked by the harbor, I noticed that the pointed dome of the train station was... well, golden. And I, like countless many before me, was drawn in. As I walked toward the station, I noticed that an unremarkable street corner had been turned to silver in the morning haze. I set my bag down and withdrew my camera, and unself-consciously began to snap several pictures of concrete and metal. Then, the sun stretched, yawned, and rose over the tops of the buildings that surround the harbor, and everything, everything, was turned to gold.
I wonder: Would European explorers ever have left home to find gold if they had risen early enough to greet a sun who's glancing blows turn indigenous stone to purest gold? Would they have had the heart to risk life and limb knowing that ordinary brown cobblestone turns to gold in the morning light? Of course they would have, and I'm glad they did. America might never have happened without a human's preoccupation with gold. Still...
People cherish gold because it is beautiful, but also because it is scarce. I have heard that all the gold that has ever been found would barely fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools. Scarce, indeed: Both in technical economic terms as well as in common usage (i.e. the opposite of plentiful). If the measure of the value of a substance is scarcity, then my gold is somehow simultaneously mundane and incalculable in value. It is at once plentiful and rare. A strange and inconsequential paradox, and to an aspiring romantic, the paradox itself confers value. Anyway, I don't suppose I will ever solve it, and I'm happy to let the matter rest. For the moment, I'll just enjoy fleeting glimpses of that most scarce of precious substances, the gold that disappears just as you reach out to take it. Leprechaun gold, and honestly, is there a better or more pure type of gold?
Monday, November 30, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The Savage Coast, Part 2: It's Not Terrible
Poised for a moment on the edge of a rural roundabout, Franck honked his horn. Cloistered as I was in the back seat in a cocoon of board bags, I couldn't see anything, so I asked him what happened.
"There was a cute girl... we... saw her side, but we wanted to see her face..." he said in halting English. "It's a basic strategy," he concluded.
"I can't see anything!" I complained bitterly, in broken French.
"You... can trust Chanchan and me," he offered.
"I trust you! It's a not a question of trust; it is to say that I can't see anything from here! I would like to see them myself," I mourned.
Guys are guys everywhere.
****
Minutes later, we were getting into our wetsuits, and Chanchan was making fun of me for closing my eyes every time I went for a big move on my surfboard. The two of them laughed when I told them, in heavily accented French, that it was only because my "style" was too intense to look at. I told them the joke about Bangkok being the capital of Thailand, and we started our trek through the trees and stinging flies, out to the beach.
****
The surf was small and blown out, and it was almost impossible to get any speed to do anything. I paddled over to Franck.
-What's another way to say 'It has nothing to commend itself'? I asked in French.
-It sucks, he said.
-More polite?
-C'est pas terrible. 'It's not terrible.'
****
That was it... "it's not terrible". Condemnation by backhanded compliment. Of course, it really wasn't terrible. For my entire life, I've had a strange love of standing in random places and thinking about how I might never have been there if I had not made some small decision(s), at some point, to follow my fleeting inclinations. In High School I decided to study French. I continued in college. My senior year in college, Mitch and I decided to go live in France. I wasn't accepted the first year, but I got in the next year. I went to France, worked for 7 months, then applied for another job in Royan. I got that job. Yesterday, while I was running back and forth between the bank and the bike shop, Franck called and said he'd be at my place in 25 minutes. One hour, and several dick jokes, later, we were in the water. And it wasn't terrible. The waves were disappointing, but I was glad to be there because I felt that feeling that I am always chasing, and that eludes me most of the time. I was glad to be exactly where I was.
From the Sunday session:
"There was a cute girl... we... saw her side, but we wanted to see her face..." he said in halting English. "It's a basic strategy," he concluded.
"I can't see anything!" I complained bitterly, in broken French.
"You... can trust Chanchan and me," he offered.
"I trust you! It's a not a question of trust; it is to say that I can't see anything from here! I would like to see them myself," I mourned.
Guys are guys everywhere.
****
Minutes later, we were getting into our wetsuits, and Chanchan was making fun of me for closing my eyes every time I went for a big move on my surfboard. The two of them laughed when I told them, in heavily accented French, that it was only because my "style" was too intense to look at. I told them the joke about Bangkok being the capital of Thailand, and we started our trek through the trees and stinging flies, out to the beach.
****
The surf was small and blown out, and it was almost impossible to get any speed to do anything. I paddled over to Franck.
-What's another way to say 'It has nothing to commend itself'? I asked in French.
-It sucks, he said.
-More polite?
-C'est pas terrible. 'It's not terrible.'
****
That was it... "it's not terrible". Condemnation by backhanded compliment. Of course, it really wasn't terrible. For my entire life, I've had a strange love of standing in random places and thinking about how I might never have been there if I had not made some small decision(s), at some point, to follow my fleeting inclinations. In High School I decided to study French. I continued in college. My senior year in college, Mitch and I decided to go live in France. I wasn't accepted the first year, but I got in the next year. I went to France, worked for 7 months, then applied for another job in Royan. I got that job. Yesterday, while I was running back and forth between the bank and the bike shop, Franck called and said he'd be at my place in 25 minutes. One hour, and several dick jokes, later, we were in the water. And it wasn't terrible. The waves were disappointing, but I was glad to be there because I felt that feeling that I am always chasing, and that eludes me most of the time. I was glad to be exactly where I was.
From the Sunday session:
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The Savage Coast
Sunday morning I was in the cafe where the workers have come to hate me with that contempt that familiarity breeds. Every morning I go to the Garden Ice Cafe, which offers free wifi, to check my email, facebook, this blog, etc. I do this because my Livebox, which will allow me to connect from home, has not been delivered to my house, and because actually stocking Liveboxes at the store would just be silly. I would love to write, and probably will write, a post soon about the way that French companies seem chronically taken-aback when they realize that you wouldn't mind using their services, you know, some time this week, maybe...
...anyway, back to Sunday, and I would not have started out by complaining except that it somewhat informs this story. My mood Sunday was... bland, maybe? I don't like having to come here, and I was thinking about this blog, trying to think of something to write, and I realized that I had not had any adventures worth the name in a few days. Almost exactly on cue, my facebook message screen pops up with a message from local legend Chanchan, who advises me to call my friend Franck if I want to go surfing. I was intrigued, but I'd left my phone at home to charge, so I told him I'd call him soon, and resigned myself to probably missing the session, because I still had a few things to take care of on the internet. A few minutes later, Franck posted a message on my wall from his phone:
I took off on my first line (the first line is like...) just as the first trickles of water like searching, icy fingers found their way into my wetsuit. There was the usual feeling; the clawing at the water, the acceleration as the wave takes you in, the small flurry of spray at your back as the crest begins to fall forward, the hurling yourself to your feet and now you're up! and you're taking weight off, throwing it back on, your board is slicing through the water like a hand held out of a car window, up and down, using the energy of the wave and then throw all of that energy at the end section, lay back, (you'd like to think your mind is clear, but you know Chanchan is taking pictures so...) BRING IT!! slicing through the oncoming crest and then it's done, and you collapse theatrically into the shin-deep, icy brine.
It was a good start, and the next hour or so was spent chasing incoming left-handers and threading our way diagonally toward shore around portly and nude older gentleman. It's a nude beach, I forgot to mention, and I forgot to mention it because don't get too excited the only people who ever take advantage of nude beaches, in my experience, are older men.
(New French vocabulary: Les vagues extraterrestres are the waves that come out of nowhere when you're not paying attention.)
...anyway, back to Sunday, and I would not have started out by complaining except that it somewhat informs this story. My mood Sunday was... bland, maybe? I don't like having to come here, and I was thinking about this blog, trying to think of something to write, and I realized that I had not had any adventures worth the name in a few days. Almost exactly on cue, my facebook message screen pops up with a message from local legend Chanchan, who advises me to call my friend Franck if I want to go surfing. I was intrigued, but I'd left my phone at home to charge, so I told him I'd call him soon, and resigned myself to probably missing the session, because I still had a few things to take care of on the internet. A few minutes later, Franck posted a message on my wall from his phone:
"wtf u doin then we wait in f of garden ice ten min"
I hastily paid my bill, and went outside and met Franck.
Approximately 30 minutes later, we were walking down a forested path toward one of the many stretches of beach that make up the Côte Sauvage, or Wild Coast. There were horseflies, and don't ask me how, but they always manage to land on the hand that is holding your surfboard so that swatting them is an awkward and ungainly adventure that seems barely worth the effort. That's why it's good to have friends...
"You enjoyed that!" Franck seethed, when Chanchan swatted a fly perched on his arm with more force than was strictly required. Chanchan was hurt, indignant, see if I help you again...
The first look (the first look is like the first time, the confrontation with the reality of what you've been privately hyping up in your mind) was... well, could be good... Not firing, per se, but... whatever, let's go!
I took off on my first line (the first line is like...) just as the first trickles of water like searching, icy fingers found their way into my wetsuit. There was the usual feeling; the clawing at the water, the acceleration as the wave takes you in, the small flurry of spray at your back as the crest begins to fall forward, the hurling yourself to your feet and now you're up! and you're taking weight off, throwing it back on, your board is slicing through the water like a hand held out of a car window, up and down, using the energy of the wave and then throw all of that energy at the end section, lay back, (you'd like to think your mind is clear, but you know Chanchan is taking pictures so...) BRING IT!! slicing through the oncoming crest and then it's done, and you collapse theatrically into the shin-deep, icy brine.
It was a good start, and the next hour or so was spent chasing incoming left-handers and threading our way diagonally toward shore around portly and nude older gentleman. It's a nude beach, I forgot to mention, and I forgot to mention it because don't get too excited the only people who ever take advantage of nude beaches, in my experience, are older men.
On Sunday, the sky was blue and the waves were fun, and I was in a random spot on this Earth perfectly placed to enjoy them. This is what we want, and these are the moments that call us back. It is a beautiful kind of isolation, when you know the most significant thing in the world has just happened right here, when a moment danced lightly across the stage, twirled, and disappeared completely forever, exiting stage-right. A small, fleeting moment that somehow means absolutely everything precisely because it amounts to nothing.
Nothing apart from memories, maybe a good photograph or two, and my satisfaction at having something to write about in my adventure blog.
(New French vocabulary: Les vagues extraterrestres are the waves that come out of nowhere when you're not paying attention.)
Monday, September 21, 2009
Pregaming at the Cognac House
Saturday was "Patrimoine" day in France, all over France. I'm still not sure how to translate "Patrimoine", but I guess a good translation is "Heritage" day. A practical translation is "Everything's Free."Museums, aquariums, zoos; everything that is owned publicly is free. Many of the private attractions are free as well, which brings us to Cognac on Saturday morning.
Our friend Lauren works in one of the Cognac houses (Remy Martin) and we would head there after lunch, but first we were stopping off the Martell house, founded in 1715 by Jean Martell. We did not tour the actual production facility, but rather a special tourist edition, complete with animatronic boat, giving the whole place a strong Pirates of the Caribbean (CaRIBbean... CaribBEan...?) vibe. The tour was in French, and I learned quite a bit of Cognac-specific vocabulary. At the end of the tour, we were treated to a Cognac tasting (for FREE!), and then we left, with me somewhat disheartened that I never thought of anything smooth to say to our tour guide, whom I thought looked a little bit like Natalie Portman.
After lunch at a kebab in town, we clowned-carred our way to the one of the Remy Martin houses in the back of Lauren's company car. It was one of two houses in Cognac, and one that they had purchased in the 60's in order to accommodate their own vineyards, and though it was only about a half-century old, the buildings already looked ancient due to the layer, on every wall, of a kind of mushroom that thrives on the "angel's share" (evaporated Cognac) from the production houses.
No one else had booked a free English speaking tour (their loss), so Lee, Laura, and I had a private tour with Lauren who - rather sportingly - put on her best tour-guide voice while I did my best to derail her by indignantly demanding a new guide when she said she was American. Like a pro, she ignored me when I did this, and we learned quite a bit about cognac, and about Cognac. (By the way, following up a French tour with an English tour is not a bad way to nail down your vocabulary.)
Finally, to bed, again.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Guerilla Recycling
"We're not really certain that what we did was wrong, but we're certain that we what did was right."
- Lee Davis
We: two furtive shadows in the mid-day sun. We: Conscientious, concerned, determined. We: Fearless, seizing opportunities, daring anything. The town was dissolving into the two-hour long torpor of the French lunch hour. My kitchen table: buried; table space lost, languishing beneath a mountain of that which was reducible, reusable, recyclable. Yellow: The color of the bin lids dedicated to recyclables. Green: That's for everything else.
It finally had to be done. We had held off for us long as we could. A bag of trash here, a plastic bottle there, abandoned nervously - one at a time - into bins for as-yet-undetermined types of detritus. Never enough. Our mountain of recycling was too high - and our love of BN cookies too fond - to entertain the hope that we could continue to stem the tide in a piecemeal fashion. We had to take out the recycling.
Recycling, in addition to being a noble and beautiful thing - good for the world - is compulsory in France. Failure to recycle could, as far as we know, incur penalties ranging - we didn't really know - from a stiff fine to - why not? - deportation! We're immigrants, after all, and we seldom know but always worry, just a little bit.
Stealing down the street toward the center of town with eyes flicking from one side of the street to the other, Lee and I strolled along clutching a cargo of recyclables and looking for an empty recycling bin. Okay, there's a yellow lid. Full. Fuck! I don't even know if we're allowed to use these! What's the penalty for using someone else's recycling? Deportation, probably. Another one; full; fuck.
Finally, I spotted a likely candidate by the back-alley door of a main street shop. The owners were probably at lunch. Silently, I opened the lid and emptied my bag as carefully as I could. The cacophony of clattering coke cans... fuck again, and again! This is stupid, I'm trying to save the world for god's sake... Why does France make me wonder if I'm doing the right thing? Is it all the paperwork? They love their paperwork; I should've filled out some paperwork for this... Lee hoisted a box, an ersatz recycling bin full of other boxes, cans, and miscellaneous plastic... The bottom of the box is kind of shitty, should we still try to save it? My mind is humming, lucid; the tension clears away every thought not corresponding to the disposal of reclaimable refuse.
- Leave it! Leave the box! I hiss under my breath, and we close the lid.We will leave a man behind.
Okay, done... walking away. Not too fast... casual, but let's keep moving. Should I whistle? No, rookie mistake. Okay, home. Inside. Up the stairs. Sigh of relief. So... okay. Yellow for recycling, green for everything else.
Now for the glass... we've been stacking up some glass bottles, and will have to deal with them pretty soon. Glass goes in a completely different container.
Vive la France.
- Lee Davis
We: two furtive shadows in the mid-day sun. We: Conscientious, concerned, determined. We: Fearless, seizing opportunities, daring anything. The town was dissolving into the two-hour long torpor of the French lunch hour. My kitchen table: buried; table space lost, languishing beneath a mountain of that which was reducible, reusable, recyclable. Yellow: The color of the bin lids dedicated to recyclables. Green: That's for everything else.
It finally had to be done. We had held off for us long as we could. A bag of trash here, a plastic bottle there, abandoned nervously - one at a time - into bins for as-yet-undetermined types of detritus. Never enough. Our mountain of recycling was too high - and our love of BN cookies too fond - to entertain the hope that we could continue to stem the tide in a piecemeal fashion. We had to take out the recycling.
Recycling, in addition to being a noble and beautiful thing - good for the world - is compulsory in France. Failure to recycle could, as far as we know, incur penalties ranging - we didn't really know - from a stiff fine to - why not? - deportation! We're immigrants, after all, and we seldom know but always worry, just a little bit.
Stealing down the street toward the center of town with eyes flicking from one side of the street to the other, Lee and I strolled along clutching a cargo of recyclables and looking for an empty recycling bin. Okay, there's a yellow lid. Full. Fuck! I don't even know if we're allowed to use these! What's the penalty for using someone else's recycling? Deportation, probably. Another one; full; fuck.
Finally, I spotted a likely candidate by the back-alley door of a main street shop. The owners were probably at lunch. Silently, I opened the lid and emptied my bag as carefully as I could. The cacophony of clattering coke cans... fuck again, and again! This is stupid, I'm trying to save the world for god's sake... Why does France make me wonder if I'm doing the right thing? Is it all the paperwork? They love their paperwork; I should've filled out some paperwork for this... Lee hoisted a box, an ersatz recycling bin full of other boxes, cans, and miscellaneous plastic... The bottom of the box is kind of shitty, should we still try to save it? My mind is humming, lucid; the tension clears away every thought not corresponding to the disposal of reclaimable refuse.
- Leave it! Leave the box! I hiss under my breath, and we close the lid.We will leave a man behind.
Okay, done... walking away. Not too fast... casual, but let's keep moving. Should I whistle? No, rookie mistake. Okay, home. Inside. Up the stairs. Sigh of relief. So... okay. Yellow for recycling, green for everything else.
Now for the glass... we've been stacking up some glass bottles, and will have to deal with them pretty soon. Glass goes in a completely different container.
Vive la France.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The Assistant's Creole
When you live in France, but you still spend a fair amount of time among English speakers, strange things can happen to your language. I was Skype-calling my dad yesterday, and I told him that I pay a fixed rate of 100 euros for electricity, but that the figure would be regularised at the end of the year. Dad knew what I was talking about, but was still undoubtedly wondering why I didn't throw in a nice phrasal like "balanced out" or "evened out" or something. The reason I didn't is because it didn't occur to me. It had been explained to me in French, and so I explained it to dad in the Assistant's Creole.
Language Assistants will know what I'm talking about, because we all notice it/talk about it/revel in it. There are a variety of reasons that language assistants find themselves substituting French words for English ones, and one of them is simple economy of syllables. When you have two languages (more or less) at your disposal, and you are lazy, you can code-switch freely to save yourself the strain of using, say, six syllables when you could use four, or even three. For example:
English: Do you like that idea?
French: Est-ce que ca te dit?
Assistant's Creole: Does that te dit? Or, "That tell you?"
(Mitch)
Sometimes you might just like the sound of a word. You might, for example, find "bouger" to be more pleasant than "to move" or "to head out", thus:
"You guys wanna bouge?"
(Mara)
Sometimes the use of the Assistant's Creole reflects cultural differences between one's country d'origine and one's adopted country. It was not uncommon, among American assistants, to have never traveled by train before arriving in France. Thus, the word "train station" is not part of our functional vocabulary. So, while a British assistant might suggest we head on down to the "train station", an American Assistant would - I think without exception - suggest we go to the "gare". Another example is the creole for "bakery". I, for one, did not frequent bakeries before my time in France. Thus, I do not refer to them as bakeries, but rather "boulangeries" or "the 'ol boulanger".
The Assistant's Creole is often wielded to humorous ends as well. Much comedic hay is made of the fact that the French word for bread is "pain". Thus, when you see a boulanger called "Maison du Pain", you can selectively translate the title of the establishment, yielding "House of Pain." Another favorite is the literal translation for the French expression "Tiens-moi au courant," which means something like "Keep me posted" or "Keep me up-to-date." To stay up-to-date in the Assistant's Creole, one would use the more literal "Hold me to the current", which sounds more appropriate for a situation with a car battery and an agreed-upon safe-word than for making plans.
As a final example of the Assistant's Creole in action, I offer this real-life example that came up even as I typed this essay:
Laura - ...okay, we'll probably take one of the direct trains.
Jon - Sounds good.
Laura - Alright, well see you soon. And if you pass by a boulanger... bring the pain.
Jon - Done.
Fin
Language Assistants will know what I'm talking about, because we all notice it/talk about it/revel in it. There are a variety of reasons that language assistants find themselves substituting French words for English ones, and one of them is simple economy of syllables. When you have two languages (more or less) at your disposal, and you are lazy, you can code-switch freely to save yourself the strain of using, say, six syllables when you could use four, or even three. For example:
English: Do you like that idea?
French: Est-ce que ca te dit?
Assistant's Creole: Does that te dit? Or, "That tell you?"
(Mitch)
Sometimes you might just like the sound of a word. You might, for example, find "bouger" to be more pleasant than "to move" or "to head out", thus:
"You guys wanna bouge?"
(Mara)
Sometimes the use of the Assistant's Creole reflects cultural differences between one's country d'origine and one's adopted country. It was not uncommon, among American assistants, to have never traveled by train before arriving in France. Thus, the word "train station" is not part of our functional vocabulary. So, while a British assistant might suggest we head on down to the "train station", an American Assistant would - I think without exception - suggest we go to the "gare". Another example is the creole for "bakery". I, for one, did not frequent bakeries before my time in France. Thus, I do not refer to them as bakeries, but rather "boulangeries" or "the 'ol boulanger".
The Assistant's Creole is often wielded to humorous ends as well. Much comedic hay is made of the fact that the French word for bread is "pain". Thus, when you see a boulanger called "Maison du Pain", you can selectively translate the title of the establishment, yielding "House of Pain." Another favorite is the literal translation for the French expression "Tiens-moi au courant," which means something like "Keep me posted" or "Keep me up-to-date." To stay up-to-date in the Assistant's Creole, one would use the more literal "Hold me to the current", which sounds more appropriate for a situation with a car battery and an agreed-upon safe-word than for making plans.
As a final example of the Assistant's Creole in action, I offer this real-life example that came up even as I typed this essay:
Laura - ...okay, we'll probably take one of the direct trains.
Jon - Sounds good.
Laura - Alright, well see you soon. And if you pass by a boulanger... bring the pain.
Jon - Done.
Fin
Friday, September 11, 2009
Mea culpa, September 11
September 11, 2001 was the first time I left school during the day and just drove off. I went home, followed the news, called people, and looked at old pictures of myself on top of one of the WTC towers. If I remember correctly, I bought a special edition of the Florida Times Union or the New York Times, which featured a photo of a man in an apparently graceful headfirst dive toward the ground. It's a famous picture, now. That night, I showed that picture to my dad and told him "No one should ever have to do this." He said he was proud of me for thinking that way.
Earlier that day, I had told my friend Joanna, echoing the sentiments of one of my teachers, that "someone [was] going to get their ass kicked over this". By this I suppose I meant that some number of anonymous people - let's call them all "x" - were going to die violent and early deaths in payment for this...this... Perhaps they would do this with their families, perhaps alone, maybe stoically, maybe terrified as darkness crept from the edges of their vision inward, and they had their last thought, said their last prayer, whatever. I guess that's what I meant when I said people were going to get their asses kicked, and that's what I wanted more than anything. Blood for blood in uneven ratios. I wanted "them" to pay, etc. I wanted blood. That's what I meant when I said that thing about ass-kicking, and when I said that thing about "no one should ever have to do this," I guess what I meant is that "no American should ever have to do this."
I quickly came to the conclusion that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attack. My evidence was this: I had seen his name at the top of an FBI "Most Wanted" list. His blood, then! Just the blood that the situation demanded! So, I didn't protest at the beginning of the Afghan war; and when my leaders produced a litany of reasons to suggest that Saddam Hussein's blood might be good to have as well, I went along with it. It doesn't matter that I never voted for George W. Bush (couldn't, at the time - before 18 you can't vote, you can only be exploited); I joined the chorus with a full-voice, and as small as my voice was, every breath and overtone of it demanded violence as a repayment in kind for Sept 11.
Since 9/11, we have entered into two wars, ended countless lives, and made the world a more dangerous and suspicious place. We were sucker-punched, and while we were dazed and our vision was blurry, we threw a blind, giant backhand punch, and we felt better! We congratulated ourselves that we had prevented any further terrorist attacks. Never mind that Spain, whose government had supported us, made herself a target, on 11 March, 2004 and 191 people died and 1800 were wounded. Never mind the London bombings of 7/7/2005. "No American should ever have to do this." And no American has, since. Never mind the troops (but we are only to support them, not ask ourselves whether they are dying for a good reason).
Eight years ago to the day, I told Joanna that someone was going to pay for this, that someone was going to get his or her ass kicked. She said she hoped not. I was taken aback, and a little frustrated, because all I really wanted was to indulge my need for action, revenge, something... I thought she was being naive. She was, in fact, the only person that I encountered on that day that was big enough, level-headed enough to realize that violence only ever begets violence, and that an early and violent end is always tragic, in some way or another, whether it happens to "us" or "them".
I don't intend this to be a space for me to air my political views, but this is something that is important to me. To the degree that I worked toward, or failed to work against, the propagation of violence in this world, I feel I must now work against it. To the degree that I was indignant and outraged that someone could do such a thing as destroy thousands and thousands of lives on 9/11, I must be willing to honestly examine the actions of my country - as thoroughly as I must examine my own actions and impulses.
I am ashamed at my own blood lust and blind need for vengeance on 9/11. I am sorrowful that other people seek to further stoke the fire that feeds the fight that we all felt we needed on 9/12. I am enraged at the politicians who try to control me with my fear, who play upon my fear in campaign adverts (roll twin-towers footage! Cue the crying widows! Flash the photo-negatives of terror suspects! Havoc! Let slip the dogs of war, and all that). On September 11, 2009, I rededicate myself to the search for a peaceful solution to all problems, and to making justice universal, regardless of religion, color, creed, etc. I hate the way I felt, but I intend to make it right.
This is a long post, and I haven't bothered to edit it, but...well, there you go. I feel the early inklings of a freedom that is absolute; a freedom from the darkness inside myself that demands your blood in repayment for mine. The kind of freedom you win WITH - not from, or in spite of - the other people we run into in our lives. This is a hard-won freedom (and I'm still not there yet), but on this September 11, my heart is light. I will not be manipulated, and I will not be ruled by fear. I will make myself whole and good, and if I'm fortunate I will continue to live that way no matter what happens to me, no matter my fears.
So, that's that.
Earlier that day, I had told my friend Joanna, echoing the sentiments of one of my teachers, that "someone [was] going to get their ass kicked over this". By this I suppose I meant that some number of anonymous people - let's call them all "x" - were going to die violent and early deaths in payment for this...this... Perhaps they would do this with their families, perhaps alone, maybe stoically, maybe terrified as darkness crept from the edges of their vision inward, and they had their last thought, said their last prayer, whatever. I guess that's what I meant when I said people were going to get their asses kicked, and that's what I wanted more than anything. Blood for blood in uneven ratios. I wanted "them" to pay, etc. I wanted blood. That's what I meant when I said that thing about ass-kicking, and when I said that thing about "no one should ever have to do this," I guess what I meant is that "no American should ever have to do this."
I quickly came to the conclusion that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attack. My evidence was this: I had seen his name at the top of an FBI "Most Wanted" list. His blood, then! Just the blood that the situation demanded! So, I didn't protest at the beginning of the Afghan war; and when my leaders produced a litany of reasons to suggest that Saddam Hussein's blood might be good to have as well, I went along with it. It doesn't matter that I never voted for George W. Bush (couldn't, at the time - before 18 you can't vote, you can only be exploited); I joined the chorus with a full-voice, and as small as my voice was, every breath and overtone of it demanded violence as a repayment in kind for Sept 11.
Since 9/11, we have entered into two wars, ended countless lives, and made the world a more dangerous and suspicious place. We were sucker-punched, and while we were dazed and our vision was blurry, we threw a blind, giant backhand punch, and we felt better! We congratulated ourselves that we had prevented any further terrorist attacks. Never mind that Spain, whose government had supported us, made herself a target, on 11 March, 2004 and 191 people died and 1800 were wounded. Never mind the London bombings of 7/7/2005. "No American should ever have to do this." And no American has, since. Never mind the troops (but we are only to support them, not ask ourselves whether they are dying for a good reason).
Eight years ago to the day, I told Joanna that someone was going to pay for this, that someone was going to get his or her ass kicked. She said she hoped not. I was taken aback, and a little frustrated, because all I really wanted was to indulge my need for action, revenge, something... I thought she was being naive. She was, in fact, the only person that I encountered on that day that was big enough, level-headed enough to realize that violence only ever begets violence, and that an early and violent end is always tragic, in some way or another, whether it happens to "us" or "them".
I don't intend this to be a space for me to air my political views, but this is something that is important to me. To the degree that I worked toward, or failed to work against, the propagation of violence in this world, I feel I must now work against it. To the degree that I was indignant and outraged that someone could do such a thing as destroy thousands and thousands of lives on 9/11, I must be willing to honestly examine the actions of my country - as thoroughly as I must examine my own actions and impulses.
I am ashamed at my own blood lust and blind need for vengeance on 9/11. I am sorrowful that other people seek to further stoke the fire that feeds the fight that we all felt we needed on 9/12. I am enraged at the politicians who try to control me with my fear, who play upon my fear in campaign adverts (roll twin-towers footage! Cue the crying widows! Flash the photo-negatives of terror suspects! Havoc! Let slip the dogs of war, and all that). On September 11, 2009, I rededicate myself to the search for a peaceful solution to all problems, and to making justice universal, regardless of religion, color, creed, etc. I hate the way I felt, but I intend to make it right.
This is a long post, and I haven't bothered to edit it, but...well, there you go. I feel the early inklings of a freedom that is absolute; a freedom from the darkness inside myself that demands your blood in repayment for mine. The kind of freedom you win WITH - not from, or in spite of - the other people we run into in our lives. This is a hard-won freedom (and I'm still not there yet), but on this September 11, my heart is light. I will not be manipulated, and I will not be ruled by fear. I will make myself whole and good, and if I'm fortunate I will continue to live that way no matter what happens to me, no matter my fears.
So, that's that.
Friday, September 4, 2009
The Last Week, Abridged
The language on some of the websites I frequent has switched, automatically, to French. It has been about a week since I last wrote anything, and it has been a... an unusual week. There have been parties, last-minute preparations, and things that stressed me out beyond measure.
There were long goodbyes to people I love, and in particular, a long goodbye that I had no idea how to impart to someone who may or may not know what it means that I will be gone for as much as one year. And there was the sharp pinch behind my nose and eyes when I dropped him off at his house.
There were the last minute efforts to finish the music I'd been working on all summer, both my EP and my stepmother's Christmas CD.
There were departures; arrivals; connections; planes, trains, and automobiles; and clouds that looked like glaciers butting up against mountains that were young by both atmospheric and geological standards. There were clouds thousands of feet below, set ablaze by the light of the morning sun and looking like cotton balls that someone had partially pulled apart.
There was a panic, lasting all day on Wednesday, as I arrived in Paris and found that I couldn't access my money. A train journey with a surfboard in tow and in the company of a French surfer who was similarly encumbered, and hours spent fighting fatigue in the compartment between train cars, shuffling the boards from one side of the train to the other at every stop (somehow, we always managed to place the boards on the side with the platform of the upcoming station). There was the arrival in Royan, the trip to a local restaurant to use the internet and Skype-call Wachovia, and the relief when I realized I'd have access to my funds. Then there was the surrender - after 36 hours of consciousness - to a sleep that could no longer be refused.
Yesterday, I went to my place of employment and was oriented. Then I walked around for a couple of hours and found a tree branch that was lodged in some rocks, rocked continuously by the incoming swell. Grateful, I took at least 50 pictures of it as the waves crashed and swirled around it. Then I went and moved into my apartment - a nice and reasonably spacious place downtown. Finally, there were drinks at a coworker's house, and then back home for a few episodes of The Office before bed.
There were long goodbyes to people I love, and in particular, a long goodbye that I had no idea how to impart to someone who may or may not know what it means that I will be gone for as much as one year. And there was the sharp pinch behind my nose and eyes when I dropped him off at his house.
There were the last minute efforts to finish the music I'd been working on all summer, both my EP and my stepmother's Christmas CD.
There were departures; arrivals; connections; planes, trains, and automobiles; and clouds that looked like glaciers butting up against mountains that were young by both atmospheric and geological standards. There were clouds thousands of feet below, set ablaze by the light of the morning sun and looking like cotton balls that someone had partially pulled apart.
There was a panic, lasting all day on Wednesday, as I arrived in Paris and found that I couldn't access my money. A train journey with a surfboard in tow and in the company of a French surfer who was similarly encumbered, and hours spent fighting fatigue in the compartment between train cars, shuffling the boards from one side of the train to the other at every stop (somehow, we always managed to place the boards on the side with the platform of the upcoming station). There was the arrival in Royan, the trip to a local restaurant to use the internet and Skype-call Wachovia, and the relief when I realized I'd have access to my funds. Then there was the surrender - after 36 hours of consciousness - to a sleep that could no longer be refused.
Yesterday, I went to my place of employment and was oriented. Then I walked around for a couple of hours and found a tree branch that was lodged in some rocks, rocked continuously by the incoming swell. Grateful, I took at least 50 pictures of it as the waves crashed and swirled around it. Then I went and moved into my apartment - a nice and reasonably spacious place downtown. Finally, there were drinks at a coworker's house, and then back home for a few episodes of The Office before bed.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Leaving in a Week
"Do you ever miss having a normal life?"
This was the question put to me by my brother's girlfriend, Wyndi, and I wasn't sure how to take it. I liked it for the way it made me feel sexy and daring, like the kind of person who picks up and goes and doesn't look back and.... But none of that really sounds like me. I don't just pick up and go. Things could go either way in my constant internal tug of war between a desire, a need, to have things the way they always have been on the one hand, and...something... boredom? (probably)...a spirit of adventure?(I hope)... pulling me away from what I've seen to find the things I haven't. My life feels extraordinary from the inside, but I don't assume it looks that way to everyone, or even anyone. But it's my own, and I love it.
So, Wyndi, here's what you need to know: Yesterday was the first day of autumn. No one has noticed, and no one has officially called it yet, so I'm going to. The dew point was lower, the air less humid, something. Maybe it was the light. But something about this time of year forcibly reminds me that time is barreling forward, a torrent that can't be refused and a current that won't let me keep my feet. It's a time of year that makes me antsy and blue, and when that feeling comes upon me, I have to start moving. One day, I'll take an honest look within to determine the source of the creeping despondency that keeps my fingers drumming nervously on whatever when I'm standing still and my heart burning for something to break the routine, but not today.
I'm leaving in less than one week; moving to a small city of 19,000 or so called Royan, in the Charente-Maritime département of France. It is less than a half-hour by train from where I used to live in Saintes, on the ocean - well, at the mouth of the Gironde Estuary, anyway. I've been there a few times, and I'm glad I'll be living there. I have a lot to get done this week, and a lot on my mind. But I do not miss any other life I could be having, except for one.
This was the question put to me by my brother's girlfriend, Wyndi, and I wasn't sure how to take it. I liked it for the way it made me feel sexy and daring, like the kind of person who picks up and goes and doesn't look back and.... But none of that really sounds like me. I don't just pick up and go. Things could go either way in my constant internal tug of war between a desire, a need, to have things the way they always have been on the one hand, and...something... boredom? (probably)...a spirit of adventure?(I hope)... pulling me away from what I've seen to find the things I haven't. My life feels extraordinary from the inside, but I don't assume it looks that way to everyone, or even anyone. But it's my own, and I love it.
So, Wyndi, here's what you need to know: Yesterday was the first day of autumn. No one has noticed, and no one has officially called it yet, so I'm going to. The dew point was lower, the air less humid, something. Maybe it was the light. But something about this time of year forcibly reminds me that time is barreling forward, a torrent that can't be refused and a current that won't let me keep my feet. It's a time of year that makes me antsy and blue, and when that feeling comes upon me, I have to start moving. One day, I'll take an honest look within to determine the source of the creeping despondency that keeps my fingers drumming nervously on whatever when I'm standing still and my heart burning for something to break the routine, but not today.
I'm leaving in less than one week; moving to a small city of 19,000 or so called Royan, in the Charente-Maritime département of France. It is less than a half-hour by train from where I used to live in Saintes, on the ocean - well, at the mouth of the Gironde Estuary, anyway. I've been there a few times, and I'm glad I'll be living there. I have a lot to get done this week, and a lot on my mind. But I do not miss any other life I could be having, except for one.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Killing Bill
-My brother Mike, on my voice mail.
Last Thursday, I was at Mike's house painting a surfboard. I had chosen to portray a giant hurricane bearing down on the State of Florida, in honor of the actual giant hurricane, Bill, for which the board was made. Chances were, Bill was going to start sending us the best surf of the year in 24 hours, and Mike had enough confidence in Bill to shape a board to the conditions we were expecting, and enough confidence in me to ask me to decorate it. The hurricane went on fine, but Florida...
-Uh, Mike? I've got some bad news.
-What? he said, glancing over. Ah, c'mon, man! You're killing me. (My attempts to freehand draw our already phallic home state left it looking even more penile than usual.)
-Hang on, let me draw some rivers...
-Those just look like veins.
-I think we're done here.
Friday evening, we pulled up to the ocean. Checking the surf, we saw that the first of the groundswell from Hurricane Bill had already arrived. A few minutes later, I was dropping into my first wave, a 3-foot-overhead left. I was on my own homemade board, Don Quijote, which was not consciously designed for waves like these, but it did fine. Paddling over to Mike, I told him I was okay with dying today, if I had to. He concurred, and we went back to catching waves. His new board was performing exactly as he'd hoped it would.
By Saturday afternoon, we had been surfing more or less continuously since Friday evening, pausing only to eat, drink, and sleep. Our shoulders were aching, and the skin over the points of our ribs was tender from lying on our boards all day. We'd had to leave Guana River State Park, where we'd started that morning, due to an apocalyptic lightning storm that had arrived while we were in the water. We had just arrived back at our friend Isaac's house, and I'd hoped to take a break, as I had been dealing with a - let's call it "advanced dehydration" - since I woke up that morning. From outside, I heard Mike's voice. I stepped outside, trying to let the balcony railing hide the fact that I'd already changed into dry clothes. I told him I'd meet him out there, but fifteen minutes after he had encouraged me to "grow a penis and some balls" and paddle back out, I was back in the ocean.
My last wave was a left, a near-perfect mirror image of the wave that had started my session on Friday. I dropped in (back on Don Quijote) and stayed as close to the peeling lip of the wave as I could. I shot out of the pocket, cut back, and maneuvered back into the right spot as a massive scream was building inside me, like the scream you feel in a horse race when your horse is in front, or as you watch a footballer streak toward the goal with the other team in hot pursuit. Finally, the wave closed out and I just as I was about to get crushed by the lip, I shot over the top of the breaking wave in an ungainly dive toward safety. I stood up in the chest deep water, and bellowed at the top of my lungs. Do you see that? Did every one of you assholes SEE THAT!? WOOOOOOOO!!!!
Bill had been a success, and arriving as it did less than two weeks before my departure for France, it felt like a gift. Good times.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Mission Statement
The name "1,000 Dead Ends" has a faintly cynical ring to it, but my designs for it are resolutely positive.
Here's my whole thing:
I am in a strange place in life - post-graduation, pre-career. Like in The Graduate, and like all my peers. In this place, you watch, you wait, you play cards close to chests, and you pursue the moments that look like they might have that abstract, illusory quality of being "defining." This is a place where, in your native language, you flick words like "safe" and "comfortable" and "practical" sneeringly off your tongue in caustic tones to describe the lives of other, successful people.
Why do you do this? Why not live and let live, or hell, do some of your own succeeding? Because you are afraid to fail. You're unaccustomed to failure. This is not because you are great, but because you haven't tried, and if you try nothing you can fail no more. So you "rise above" and give a careless middle finger to the choices that could lead to success and greatness by any other path than a glorious, meteoric ascent. You wait for the one moment in which your potential explodes in a cataclysmic flash that elevates and illuminates the 1,000 and more moments before, which all passed unmarked in a slow-moving flow of wild dreams that begin where you are, and end with you transcending your condition in some way or another (but you didn't really have the energy or focus to figure THAT part of it out). It feels inevitable, like destiny.
Here's my other whole thing:
I am also in the place where I'm beginning to suspect deep down that these magnificent, potential-energy-exploding-into-light-of-a-thousand-suns-in-a-single-defining-moment kinds of lives are difficult to come by in real life. Also, I'm pretty sure that no one has a destiny. We DO have signposts to guide our way, however; well-worn adages that read like this:
-"Nothing good in life comes easily."
-"Great achievements require great sacrifice.
-"Etc."
These words are designed to grant you the license to dream big and swing hard. What could go wrong? Well, a lot, I suppose. There's the fear, and the distinct possibility that every avenue that appears to you could lead to a soul-crushing dead end; where dreams slink away, broken and shamed, like the soldiers of an unsuccessful revolution. There could be a thousand or more such dead ends in life.
It's a daunting and ambition-quenching project.
However, there is a positive message in all of this, for though I want adventure, I have to accept that the pursuit of it may incur some misadventure. I want to try, but I have to accept that I might fail; and learn to laugh away the failures like I laugh away the clumsy efforts at poetry that I find in my old notebooks in storage units. I have to dream, and if nothing comes of them, at least will be able to say that once I had doomed dreams that I followed to a nadir.
So, with all of that in mind, I'm creating this blog to:
-Practice writing.
-Help me to maintain my interest in adventures.
-Shame me, by its very existence (and the attendant risk of hypocrisy), into having adventures when I might feel too tired or whatever to pursue them.
-Entertain and/or enlighten anyone who might wonder "what [I'm] up to these days?"
Hope y'all enjoy.
"I can wish nothing more for myself than this, that I find, somehow, courage to pursue wild dreams to their 1,000 dead ends, and hope that the 1001st dream is a success."
-Author Unknown
Here's my whole thing:
I am in a strange place in life - post-graduation, pre-career. Like in The Graduate, and like all my peers. In this place, you watch, you wait, you play cards close to chests, and you pursue the moments that look like they might have that abstract, illusory quality of being "defining." This is a place where, in your native language, you flick words like "safe" and "comfortable" and "practical" sneeringly off your tongue in caustic tones to describe the lives of other, successful people.
Why do you do this? Why not live and let live, or hell, do some of your own succeeding? Because you are afraid to fail. You're unaccustomed to failure. This is not because you are great, but because you haven't tried, and if you try nothing you can fail no more. So you "rise above" and give a careless middle finger to the choices that could lead to success and greatness by any other path than a glorious, meteoric ascent. You wait for the one moment in which your potential explodes in a cataclysmic flash that elevates and illuminates the 1,000 and more moments before, which all passed unmarked in a slow-moving flow of wild dreams that begin where you are, and end with you transcending your condition in some way or another (but you didn't really have the energy or focus to figure THAT part of it out). It feels inevitable, like destiny.
Here's my other whole thing:
I am also in the place where I'm beginning to suspect deep down that these magnificent, potential-energy-exploding-into-light-of-a-thousand-suns-in-a-single-defining-moment kinds of lives are difficult to come by in real life. Also, I'm pretty sure that no one has a destiny. We DO have signposts to guide our way, however; well-worn adages that read like this:
-"Nothing good in life comes easily."
-"Great achievements require great sacrifice.
-"Etc."
These words are designed to grant you the license to dream big and swing hard. What could go wrong? Well, a lot, I suppose. There's the fear, and the distinct possibility that every avenue that appears to you could lead to a soul-crushing dead end; where dreams slink away, broken and shamed, like the soldiers of an unsuccessful revolution. There could be a thousand or more such dead ends in life.
It's a daunting and ambition-quenching project.
However, there is a positive message in all of this, for though I want adventure, I have to accept that the pursuit of it may incur some misadventure. I want to try, but I have to accept that I might fail; and learn to laugh away the failures like I laugh away the clumsy efforts at poetry that I find in my old notebooks in storage units. I have to dream, and if nothing comes of them, at least will be able to say that once I had doomed dreams that I followed to a nadir.
So, with all of that in mind, I'm creating this blog to:
-Practice writing.
-Help me to maintain my interest in adventures.
-Shame me, by its very existence (and the attendant risk of hypocrisy), into having adventures when I might feel too tired or whatever to pursue them.
-Entertain and/or enlighten anyone who might wonder "what [I'm] up to these days?"
Hope y'all enjoy.
"I can wish nothing more for myself than this, that I find, somehow, courage to pursue wild dreams to their 1,000 dead ends, and hope that the 1001st dream is a success."
-Author Unknown
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