Oh, Stuff

Mungote Refugee

2011-09-13T13:55:00.001-07:00

Mungote Refugee, originally uploaded by jsgraphicdesign.

One of a short series of refugees from the Mungote camp in North Kivu Province, DRC.

Trattoria Tenor

2011-08-09T00:23:00.001-07:00

Finally starting to put up pictures from my family's travels in Italy and France this summer.

Trattoria Tenor, originally uploaded by jsgraphicdesign.

Via Flickr:
Through the open window of a restaurant in Verona, around midnight. One of my favorite shots from Italy '11.

New Mix: "Lonesome"

2011-06-06T15:07:00.000-07:00

Check it out:

It's one of my more eclectic mixes (decade and genre-wise). Some of these songs are pretty well known (like Thomas King's track from the O' Brother soundtrack), while others are more obscure (e.g., the Dylan bootleg or Grier's Engagement Waltz). I've been listening to a lot of downtempo music lately, so I figured I'd make a mix of it. The Jerry Douglas song is new to me, a real gem. My only regret is that I didn't have any Stuart Duncan to include.

No, Sufjan Stevens didn't make the cut. Next time...

810

2011-05-31T00:09:00.001-07:00

Today I went to a barbecue in the Mission with the Mother Jones reporter who took me to the DR Congo, and I met Justin Elliot, who writes about politics for Salon.com. Which is cool, not only because Justin is really nice and has also worked on the porn/obscenity stuff I wrote my philosophy thesis on, but also because he's one degree of separation from one of my most favoritest political columnists, Glenn Greenwald.

MoJo also currently has an austerely moving photo essay on the soldiers who prepare dead soldiers for the return to friendly shores.

Finally, here's another photo I took the other night. I'm trying to post more these days...

810, originally uploaded by jsgraphicdesign.

Via Flickr:
The blue light peeking through the crack in the fence is the dusk sky.

Luminous Plant

2011-05-27T15:31:00.001-07:00

Luminous Plant, originally uploaded by jsgraphicdesign.

Via Flickr:
Some furry plant in my kitchen, electrified by the window light. Taken with a Nikon 35-105mm f3.5-4.5 semi-macro on a D700.

Day with an M9

2011-05-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon I trekked down to Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) for the second time this semester -- the first having been for a wedding that I shot with my friend Angela. Here's a sample shot from that:

It was day two of New York Photo Festival 2011, featuring tons of galleries, photo book sales, free wine, demos by photographers from Win Initiative, and free Leica tryouts. Allergic to paying for the chance to view (and maybe buy) art, I skipped the galleries and went straight for the Leica booth. After waiting half an hour and surrendering my ID and credit card, they let me take out an M9, a full-frame 18-megapixel digital rangefinder with a $7,000 price tag.

When asked what lens I wanted, I pulled out of the air a lens I had read about in Popular Photography years ago, the Tri-Elmar 16-18-21mm f/4. The Tri-Elmar is weird in that its focal lengths are discrete: you skip from 16, to 18, to 21, rather than zooming continuously between them. As a result, it doesn't open up past f/4 -- not a problem, given the amount of diffuse, cloudy light -- and its minimum focus distance is 20" (versus 10.2" for the Nikon 16mm AF-D fisheye).

It also has to be used with a special finder that looks like a bizarre scientific instrument. The top knob is for adjusting focal length (which changes the boundary lines when you look through), and the bottom one is for adjusting for parallax (the offset between what the finder sees and what the lens sees). What's more, you have to focus with the camera's viewfinder (unless you're a rational person, unlike me, who will just trust that with such ridiculous depth of field you don't need to meddle with focus at all) and then compose with the external finder. In short, the learning curve is a bit steep.

On the other hand, the camera has an external shutter speed wheel and aperture is set via a ring on the lens (which nicely has half-stop increments), so it handles just like any rangefinder built since the '30s. And of course it's manual focus only, buttery smooth like a Leica lens better damn well be.

When I got outside, there was a band playing with a dancer, all in hermetic costumes and animal makeup/masks, for photographer Brett Beyer of boutique Stock Photo agency Win Initiative. He had some Broncolor lights set up around the band (triggered only by him, of course), but there was enough ambient light that I could get some fine shots. (Excuse the jpg fuzz in all of these: Flickr and Blogger don't get along as well as they used to.)

I actually had to bring each of these up around 2/3 of a stop in Lightroom because I shot them pretty dark. As I later figured out, the meter in the M9 freaks out when there's even the tiniest bit of backlight in a scene and overcompensates like crazy -- if, that is, you're even looking through the internal finder and holding the shutter half-way down to get a meter reading. This effect was even worse when the sky was in the frame. Since the M9 has no auto-exposure lock, to correctly expose a scene with the sky in it, you have to: 1) point the camera at the darker thing in your scene, say the side of a car; 2) turn the shutter speed ring to A, press shutter half-way down, and read the correct speed from inside the HUD; 3) set the shutter ring to that speed, recompose, and shoot. Or, of course, just eyeball it. Perhaps my D700 has spoiled me a bit...

Though the M9's default image profile (in .dng format) was pretty flat, with a bit of contrast in Lightroom, it turned out some really nice images. It recorded color especially well, though it may have shifted a bit green (easy to correct in LR).

At times I wished the Tri-Elmar 16-18-21 were the Summilux 21mm f/1.4 so I could get more dramatic depth of field effects, but you can't have everything:

More images here.

Now that school is over, I should be posting more. Stay tuned for my plans...

A blogpost!

2010-12-25T12:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's been quite a while.

After a terrible week of finals, Angela and I took our cameras out for a little stroll around the Meatpacking district and Upper East Side. We tried to go to the Whitney Museum, only to find out that it no longer gave free tickets to Columbia students, and then the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, which was closing in five minutes. Fail.

Since Angela had just gotten a 5D Marki II (the Canon equivalent of my badass camera), which performs really well after dark, we stopped at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where I had first broken in my in March of '09. The light actually looked like that.

More here.

by Angela

Currently in Southern California for the holidays, home tomorrow. Still trying to figure out what to do with all the pictures I took in Senegal and Europe. Flickr doesn't seem to be the right option. Hmmmm.

Burt's Pictures from Geneva

2010-08-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

Click here for some photos taken by Burt during my stay in Geneva. Images 1-21 are from while I was there. The rest are none of your beeswax.

Hi-ya ATLAS Detector!

More of Burt's work on Flickr.

Work in Progress

2010-07-26T16:49:00.001-07:00

I got creative in Google Maps today and made a map of all the places I visited on my trip. (By 'visited', I mean more than just 'passed through on the train' -- otherwise the map would be unusable.) For some reason, Google won't let me connect the dots with their trademark blue path to show the trajectory of the whole experience, so I'm adding date annotations instead.

I'll hopefully be putting up more content over the next few days.

View My Trip in a larger map
(Hover over a point to see the city name and other info.)

_ _ _

In other news, I haven't yet developed any of the 39 rolls of film I shot because, well, it's expensive. Waiting for that first summer paycheck.

More pictures from the farm

2010-06-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

Picture I like (by Paul):

Stalking photo opportunities in the lovely backwoods near the farm

Assorted images from the past two weeks (ish):

Half-blink in the windy heights above Lyon

Relishing a homemade whole wheat-tomato-camembert-mustard-watercress sandwich in a square Lyon

Photographing the fields, Rozier-en-Donzy

Looking cute at the sole bar in Rozier

View from Rozier-en-Donzy

How Paul usually looks

Paul and the kitten whose sex has not yet been determined, Kelli. Yes, it's in his shirt. No, it doesn't want to be there.

Our temporary pet frog Albert who had to be let go for lack of insects to feed him

Peeling homegrown "desir" potatoes in the kitchen (Marie Noelle in the background)

____

On Monday, we woke at 4:15AM to stumble 2km through the darkness to the house of our host-family friend, Didier the baker. Over the course of 9 hours, we baked 95kg (~200 lbs) of ten or so varieties of bread, including 5-grain, chocolate hazelnut, whole wheat, kamut, epeautre, and more. Didier makes his own yeast, doesn't use any electronic machinery, and bakes everything in three enormous woodfire stoves. Some shots from the process (all by Paul or me):

Didier kneading dough into loaves

Placing loaves on the sheet to rise

One of three wood-fire ovens used to bake

Paul gets overzealous with the dough (this one was 5-grain, I think)

Pressing dough into pizza-appropriate thickness for lunch (toppings: coulis de tomato, gruyere, olives, pumpkin seeds, poppy seeds, sesame seeds)

Risen, unbaked loaves with idiot in background

Didier applying marks to the loaves pre-bake so they can be identified afterward

Loading loaves in the oven

Done loaves

____

Finally, one of my favorite things to do here -- pick raspberries after a long day of work.

Today we're making a raspberry Charlotte, which is a dessert based on the same principle as a tiramisu. You line the sides and bottom of a bowl with lady fingers, fill halfway with a mix of fromage blanc, mint, and mashed raspberries, add a layer of lady fingers, repeat til full. Put in fridge for three hours, then remove and garnish the top with raspberry coulis. Mmm

Some pictures from France

2010-06-17T11:47:00.000-07:00

First, some pictures from life on the farm:

Paul and I weeding chamomile

Spreading out vervaine leaves to dry and make into tisanes

Me selling delicious bread at the Montbrison weekly market

Click below for a slideshow of more pictures from my two and a half weeks of solo travel in France!

More pictures from France!

Off to the Farm!

2010-06-10T00:10:00.000-07:00

I'm off to go harvest medicinal, aromatic, and gourmand (eg for condiments) plants for two weeks on a farm 12km outside of Feurs, France!

Internet may be limited there -- we shall see...

My Favorite Pic I've Taken So Far (On This Trip)

2010-06-08T07:09:00.000-07:00

From a hike up above Grenoble's Bastille, somewhere between the monument to fallen Mountaineers and Mont Jalla.

(Click to view slightly larger.)

As you may have noticed, the last few posts jumped around in time considerably, switching from the present to the past and so forth, and repeatedly abusing the word "now." (This post ends up doing so as well, unfortunately...) The reason is that I have a hard time making myself sit down and write when I'm somewhere with Wifi, especially when that place is a McDonald's. With email and skype to deal with, blogging sorta falls to the bottom of my online priorities, so I end up writing almost exclusively in my free time on trains -- which never have Wifi. To make matters worse, oftentimes before I have an opportunity to post what I've written, I do more stuff, which I then want to add to the blog, so I write more, etc. And of course the chronology is the first victim of all this, followed closely by stuff I just never get around to writing about.

Anyway, at the time that I'm writing this (6:35 PM, French time on 5 June 2010), I'm on another train, as alluded to above. This one is from Grenoble to Annecy, where I'll be until the 8th. (On a random note, Annecy is the fifth city in a row I'm visiting that's bisected by a river, and I didn't even plan it that way.) By now I'm familiar with the palindrome trajectory of these regional trains: city center, suburbs, countryside, suburbs, city center. At the moment I'm somewhere near where the Grenoblois suburbs meet the countryside, a valley protected on both sides by the green hills and, behind them, the Alps. This same scenery is what made my four-and-a-half days in Grenoble (part of the same valley, I think) so lovely: you can go from small French metropolis to lush Alpish hiking in under an hour on foot.

The city itself isn't half-bad, much warmer and more culturally lively than its smaller counterparts that I saw last week, Vichy and Roanne, where I actually felt a little hard-pressed for things to do. My three CouchSurfing hosts, Mathilde, Henning, and Emilie, even had a bike for me to tear around the amply bike-pathed streets on. I'm definitely coming back to Grenoble next time I'm in France. (A friend of my Roannais host had actually tipped me off that the Rhone Alpes region is much prettier to the south, as a comparison of Roanne and Grenoble readily confirms. That suggestion, along with the Quartiers Libres -- open/free neighborhoods -- festival that I read about in a newspaper outside Roanne, helped me pick Grenoble as my destination between Geneva and Annecy.)

Wednesday I tagged along for grocery shopping with Henning and ended up doing a short tour of Grenoble's farmers' markets and organic shops. In the afternoon Henning's friend Hanna joined us to watch the Quartiers Libres kickoff parade, headed up by a elementary school orchestra whose goal was to make as much noise as possible, children tottering on stilts, paper maché floats, and errant drummers. Afterward there was some youth-oriented storytelling and burlesque street theatre, presented in the two courtyards on opposite sides of a Cathedral. At one point some churchgoers exited exactly as the two actors were stripping down to sequined G-strings. Before the end of the show I found the event organizer and asked to join the technical/sound team for the following day's events, which were set to start at 2:30 in the afternoon. Surprisingly, he told me to arrive at 8AM! On vacation! I agreed to go anyway.

So the next day, or at least from the early morning to mid-afternoon, I helped set up a stage, risers, line arrays, subwoofers, monitors, lights, microphones, stands, a console, and more and more and more. The skillset of a roadie and that of a journalism school AV/radio/TV tech aren't exactly the same, but they overlapped enough for me to feel comfortable and useful in my role. When everything was installed and checked, I headed out on the bike to follow the Isere river and then climb its banks into the shady nearby villages until the combination of an almost-flat tire and gravely road surface forced me to turn around. In the evening I returned to the park with my hosts, a few of their local friends, and four of Henning's German, stereotypically beer-loving-and-toting pals to watch a concert on the stage I had helped mount. The first band was mostly instrumental folky swing clad in flanel and overalls with bluegrass flare, thanks to a lone banjo; they would've fit in well at the Sierra-Nevada music festival, for example. The second group was a self-styled 'Rock Cabaret', totally burlesque and over the top, full of genderplay -- I mean an outfit+makeup literally split down the middle, with breeches and 'stache on one side and foundation and dress on hte other -- and soaked in synth organ reminiscent of Dracula movies. (For the music geeks: the keys player had a Nord Electro and Nord Stage. I gawked while breaking down the stage until 2AM.)

Friday I was supposed to help out again but really didn't feel like working, so I ditched and hiked up to the Bastille instead. Sitting around 400m above sea level (I don't know how much higher than Grenoble that is), the Bastille is Grenoble's only real tourist attraction, though it fortunately wasn't that crowded. There's an awesome glass-bottomed gondola that rises from the base of the hill, above your head as you ascend seemingly endless switchbacks up to the castle. (The alternate route is a zillion jagged stairs that looked like murder.) The Bastille itself features incredible 360-degree views of Grenoble and the still-snow-capped alps, over the top of which sailed some intrepid paragliders. Behind the fortress there's a long, drippy, dark cave that General something-or-other built in 1844 to allow French troops to mount sneaky rear attacks on approaching enemy troops, at the other end of which is a parking lot with more views and then the ominous trailhead. From there I climbed to the top of Mont Jalla (641m according to the signpost though I haven't been able to locate this on a googlemap).
__

Here we go again: I just got to Lyon. I arrived in Annecy Saturday night and hung out in the beautiful, though crowded, Jardin de l'Europe for a few hours until my host, Max, arrived to take me to his friend's apartment. (A fire in his building had made his apartment temporarily inhospitable, and his friends fortunately had some free beds.) Monday morning he, his roomates, and I drove out to the foothills of the surrounding Alps with a ton of harnesses, carabiners, rope, and other technical climbing doodads. We also brought a bunch of groovy French climber jargon: apparently, "grimper" means "to climb" in French, "sec" means "hold tight", "mou" means "give me some slack", "un bac" is a handhold that you can get all five fingers around. I hadn't climbed for a long while, so they gave me a quick refresher on belaying -- the English word for holding onto someone's rope as they climb, sorta like a spotter -- and then put their lives into my hands five minutes later. Reciprocally, I trusted them enough to take their advice: "il faut voir tes limites." (You gotta find your limits, i.e., attempt holds you won't be able to maintain.). All of the routes we did were between 5b and 6b, though I'm not sure if this rating system is particular to France or universal.

Picture by Burt

2010-06-05T02:25:00.001-07:00

In the vineyards outside Geneva on an overcast day.

(Click to enlarge.)

I'm currently packing my bags in Grenoble, leaving for Annecy this afternoon.

Longer post coming soon...

Some glimpses of the past week

2010-05-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

Here I am on a train again, my third straight day of travel. This one, a so-called HotelTrain from Madrid to Paris overnight, is significantly slower than the last 'AVE' ride I took from Barca to Madrid, but the scenery is equally beautiful, if different. Here the sights are more mountainous, the grass shorter and less vibrant, the rocky plains closer but all the more obscure by a reluctantly setting sun that alternately highlights and silhouettes the occasional mountain range. My talkative Venezuelan cabinmate seems intent on preventing me from reading, writing, or doing anything but nod along to trophy stories about the nightlife in Miami, so I've escaped to the train cafe. The bar fits my laptop perfectly; there's Portugese on my left and Spanish on my right. At my side is a new copy of Lolita, something I should've read long ago.

[The introduction above should be rewritten in the past tense, as it's almost a week later now -- thanks to poor net access -- but I'm too lazy to change it. Also, the copy of Lolita no longer looks new.]

Wednesday morning I caught a bus to Toledo, the most famous tourist destination in Cervantes' Castilla-La Mancha region, just south of Madrid. From the bus station I walked toward town, crossing the bridge over the Rio something-or-other at the base of the walled city. Lonely Planet had talked of a youth hostel a short walk up from the river, but as I climbed all I saw was a castle in the place where the hostel ought to be. And then I saw the sign -- the castle was the youth hostel, converted to accomodate several dozen travelers at once, including the loud French high school group assembled on the steps when I arrived. What the place lacked in amenities (no handsoap in the bathrooms?) it made up for in character and price. I threw my bag in a locker and walked back down across the river. Through the gate lay a steep path that zigzagged up into the north part of old Toledo, not far from the main square, Plaza Zocodover, which was conveniently the starting point for Lonely Planet's self-guided walking tour. Sadly, the first four sites on the tour -- the Muslim fortress, military museum, museum Santa Ana, etc -- were closed, and the route was so labrynthine that I just ended up wandering, which I had wanted to do from the getgo. I wound up, down, around alleys this way and that, encountering a fork in the road every hundred feet or so. At each juncture I simply chose whichever way looked more interesting or photogenic, and off I went. On Calle Alfonso XII I stumbled across a small exhibit about Medieval and Early Modern torture techniques and instruments, with a focus on the Inquisition.

Saturday morning in Paris I found my connecting train to Gramat to be full, so I spent a surprise day walking around the Rive Droite (the side of Paris north of the Seine), especially Montmartre, my favorite arrondisement. When I ducked into McDonald's for Wifi that afternoon, a Parisian friend happened to be online. I suggested a drink and peoplewatching in the Marais; he suggested we meet at Les Halles around 7:30, and the plan was made. Afterward I caught the packed night train to Gramat in a reclining seat surrounded by red-and-black-painted travelers headed to a Rugby match in Toulouse. Despuite the terrible arrival time of 5 AM my CouchSurfing host, Bertrand, was waiting at the station. We drove home and I passed out in my own room.

Sunday I visited the cheese festival of Rocamadour, which was the main reason I came to the south of France in the first place, loving cheese and having few other ideas. I tasted literally dozens of goat-, sheep-, and cowmilk cheeses, Cantals and Roqueforts and St. Nectaires and Cabecous and Salers, far more than anyone really ought to in such close succession (not to mention the wines that went with them, plus a random Saffron chutney). I can't take all the blame for the gluttony, though I'd like to: as soon as I'd try a Cantal, for example, say the Jeune ("young" version, aged one to two months) the clerk would insist that I try the Entre-Deux ("between the two," aged three to seven months) and the Vieux ("old", aged more than eight months). Following the tastings, I sat down for a communal picnic lunch. The menu? Salad with mustard vinaigrette and (you guessed it) goat cheese, freshly baked thick-crust bread from Boulangerie Croustillot, Aligot (a more viscous version of mashed potatoes with a healthy serving of cheese mixed in), juicy barbecued lamb, and chocolate cake whose middle layer consisted of ground walnuts and almonds mixed with honey.

With a heavy belly I mosied back into the main part of town to join the throng of tourists descending le chemin des pelerins (the path/route of pilgrims), which led from one crumbling church to another, (the latter more Cathedral-like, to be fair) with photogenic views of the valley and overpriced, overhanging ice cream shops along the way. Up a calf-stretching path that resembled what San Francisco's Lombard Street would look like if the city's lawn maintenance staff went on strike and threw some religious statues along the route in angst, lay more views and an impressive chateau, but by now my digital camera was dead, my attention span shot, and my Euros haevily diminished. Exhausted, I returned to the festival as it was winding down to munch on more goat cheese and await my host.

Back at Bertrand's house, we opened a bottle of local rosé and I hopped onto CouchSurfing.org -- the house had WiFi -- to figure out where the hell I was going to sleep the following night, as my host in Cahors had just emailed me to tell me that her sister had just given birth somewhere in the north of France and she was leaving right away. I requested four couches in Aurillac, the largest city in a Département of Auvergne whose name I'm forgetting, and four in Vichy, the infamous former center of Nazi-occupied France. While I optimistically waited for the responses to come in, my host and I cooked dinner -- he cooked a magret de canard (duck breast) that he had bought in preparation for my visit, and I made a simple sautée of asparagus, endive, and some root with caramelized onions. The rosé, he explained, would not go well with the duck, so we opened a red (one of the few that are meant to be had cold) and chowed down in front of the TV.

Now, (well, "now" as of Monday afternoon), I'm on yet another train, my third but not last of the day, from Gramat to Brive-la-Gaillarde, to Ussel, to Clermont-Ferrand, to Vichy. (Regionally, that's Midi-Pyrenees, to Limousin, to Auvergne, to Centre, I think. Sad that I'm only seeing Auvergne from the train, as it's unbelievably gorgeous.) My layover in Brive was almost four hours, so a companion from the train and I sought out an open cafe -- not an easy feat in a Catholic town on Lundi de Pentecote (Pentecost Monday) -- and then wandered around before coming across a dog show (!) in the middle of the main park. We watched people in suits run in circles with their groomed canines in tow, imagining how ridiculous the spectacle would look like to someone unacquainted with such silly bourgeois relics. I'm planning two or three nights in Vichy and two or three in Roanne, CouchSurfing all the way. Tonight, in fact, my host is sleeping at his girlfriend's house, so he's giving me the keys to his apartment. Sounds like fun.

Spain

2010-05-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

My velocity is 295 km/h (184 mph) currently, and climbing. I'm sitting in a Spanish Renfe 'AVE' train en route to Madrid from Barcelona. The beautiful countryside is going by outside the window, and despite the many warnings I've heard that 295 km/h isn't exactly conducive to sight-seeing, I can see just fine. Honestly, I sorta expected the experience to be faster, like when you're standing near the freeway and a car goes by in a blur. More bullet-like, at least. I'm shocked at how much Spain looks like Napa valley. The vineyards here look especially cool at such crazy speed, with the rows of grapes ticking by like the edge of the Wheel of Fortune wheel.

Pictures:

Six days ago, I briskly said goodbye to my first Dakar host family, the Mendy's, thrilled that half the family wasn't home when I dropped by unannounced. Then I said goodbye (much more sincerely this time) to my second Dakar host family, the Gomis clan, promising a postcard and a return visit in a few years. Finally, I said goodbye to Senegal on a 2:40AM TAP flight to Lisbon.

Dakar's airport was really nice by Senegalese standards, but nothing had prepared me for the abrupt transfer to Europe. Lisbon's airport looks more like a high-end hotel than a transportation hub, though (possibly as some silly anti-terror measure) all the windows are covered in a dense black grid that frustratingly prevents your eyes from focusing. Nor was I ready to pay 1,50 euro for a cup of coffee after paying 50 CFA (10 cents) for four months. Besides the niceness shock and cost shock, Lisbon brought another surprise: a brusque TAP agent who told me my flight to Barca was canceled on account of the ominous, plan-destroying ash cloud. Fortunately, the agent at the gate told me the first agent was full of shit, and off I went.

From Barcelona's airport, I caught a speedy, brand-new bus to the city center for 5 euro and promptly got lost as hell trying to find my hostel. I stopped a local-looking woman with a meek "Pardon" (accent on the "-on") and then asked "Parlez-vous francais?" She shook her head. "Do you speak English?" Same response. "Parli italiano?" "Un po" -- success. Her directions, or at least what I understood of them, took me a lot closer, but the curvy alleys soon got the best of me again. This time, I whipped out my netbook, found an open network, and Google-mapsed it.

Hostel Itaca is nicer than some hotels I've stayed in, and definitely a lot more fun. There's a well-stocked kitchen, a dining room with balconies overlooking the street, two lounges with Wifi, and clean bathrooms. The staff is super kind and accomodating, plus you're in the historic center of town, a stone's throw from a million cathedrals. Definitely stay here if you come to the city on a low budget. I've slept a lot better these past six nights than I did in Senegal, getting at least 8 hours most nights notwithstanding the seven other guests in my room. I've been waking around 9 or 10, showering with hot water (rare in Senegal), and eating a breakfast of fresh fruit (a dessert-only food in Senegal), yogurt, and cereal on the balcony. At night, my hostelmates and I have routinely been out til 2 or 3 AM just walking the town.

Breakfast on the balcony:

Dinner on the balcony:

Highlights from my six days in Barcelona:

-Sunday night: watched soccer at an Irish pub with my hostel-mates. Man U and Chelsea kicked the absolute crap out of the opponents -- 8-0 and 6-0, respectively. (I'm a total dilettante soccer enthusiast now, having watched European games several times a week in Senegal.) After the match, we got delicious falafel and beer in the Raval district.

-Monday night: googled 'Catalan seafood recipe' and came up with Zarzuela, an extravagant seafood stew that we modified to fit our budget. The local grocery store had all the ingredients except saffron, plus decent Rioja for 1,35 a bottle. Back at the hostle, my South African roommate, Alexia, and I took charge of the cooking: she focused on the calamari, jumbo prawns, and muscles while I worked the vegetables, almonds, garlic, and spice. It was delicious. I highly recommend the recipe, especially if you can afford halibut, cod, and monkfish on top of the clams, calamari, muscles, and prawns...

Zarzuela:

-Tuesday day: toured the many paths of Gaudi's Parc Guell with a friend from Berkeley. One of the routes spiraled up to an incredible set of views facing all different directions -- complete with a friendly mojito salesman at the summit -- and then gently segued out of the park into the surrounding hilly neighborhoods.

-Wednesday: rented folding bikes from GreenBikes. The shop is run by friendly American ex-pats who came to Barca to study and never left. They care more about promoting biking than turning a profit, so theirs is the cheapest rental house in town. Another one of my hostel-mates, Theo, and I rode north-east along the beach for a while, stopping at various sculptures and architectural marvels along the way, including the skate park, where the cute folding bikes performed better than expected on the quarterpipe. Barcelona's downtown area, especially along the waterfront, is so chock-full of eye-catching installations that at times you feel as though the city planners were just showing off when they designed it.

After a while, we turned away from the water and let ourselves get lost in residential neighborhoods, zigzagging back toward the city center. Many streets had dedicated bike lanes, though it was occasionally hard to find them: on some streets each direction had its own lane (as in the US), on others both directions of bike traffic were together in their own protected lanes on one side of the street, and on some particularly large streets both directions of bike traffic were together in the middle of the road, three lanes of speeding cars on each side. To make matters or worse (or more fun, depending on your perspective), the lanes would occasionally end abruptly or switch sides, leaving you confused in the middle of traffic.

After dinner, we checked out a groovy gypsy swing concert at Big Bang Bar in the Raval district. The singer, though a Spaniard born and raised, sang in English with a totally believable twang that had me thinking of Woodie-Guthrie-meets-Django-Reinhardt.

Thursday: went back to GreenBikes to rent a bright orange aluminum Orbea, complete with Mavic Cosmos wheels, carbon stem, full Ultegra components, Selle Italia saddle, etc -- in plain English, a really sexy road bike.

I told Steve at the shop that I wanted to climb the mountain I had seen from Parc Guell, and he wrote me out a set of directions to mount Tibidaba. A few miles later, outside the city, I couldn't find Highway 304, so I decided to climb up to Parc Collserola instead. I started by taking the really steep, small streets that seemed to cut directly through the suburbs at the foot of the moutain all the way to the summit. No such luck. Instead, after ascending for twenty minutes or so and walking the bike up a long trail, I realized I was caught trespassing in a web of private driveways.

I rode back down and found the right route, reaching the summit just as it began to pour. Seeing no other paved way down but the route I had already taken (boring), I descended via dirt trails into a suburb named San Just Desvern, where I grabbed a coffee and sandwich until the rain abated. Without a map, I followed the signs for Barcelona as best I could, which put me onto the freeway for a few hundred feet -- OOPS. To get back within city limits, I took the Tram a few stops and then rode the rest of the way back to the shop. Fortunately, the guys at the shop didn't care that I had turned their Orange Orbea fairly brown.

Friday: hiked up to Parc Montjuic to visit the National Museum of Catalan. Got lost (again) in the rain (again) but the park was absolutely gorgeous in the downpour so I didn't mind. I.eventually found my way and skipped the older art in favor of the vast modern collection and disappointingly meager photography exhibit. I also hit the free CaixaForum on the way out of the park, where they were showing the complete works of French photographer Henri Latigue, plus some of his test prints, albums, and negatives.

The museum

At the foot of Montjuic

Favorite piece:

Fragment of a mural by Xavier Nogues

Kan nga gis sa regles?

2010-04-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I became an Ataayakat. Ataaya is Wolof for the strong Chinese green tea that's brewed with mint and served in shot glasses after most meals. The -kat suffix indicates someone who does or makes whatever precedes it. (A jaaykat, for example, is a salesperson because "jaay" is the infinitive of "to sell".) Since I first arrived in Senegal I've wanted to know how to make it. My Dakarois family, however, didn't drink it. Here in St. Louis, where my family drinks two glasses after lunch everyday, I expressed interest in learning right away, but the chance never really arose.

Then, a few weeks ago, I bet my host brother Pape Modou that Bayern Munich would beat Manchester United in the UEFA cup quarterfinal. If I won, he would have to show me how to make Ataaya; if he won, I'd buy him tea, sugar, and mint (about 50 cents altogether) to make it with his friends. As is clear if you've been following the tournament, Bayern won; they're now up against Lyon, whom they beat 1-0 on Wednesday. Pape Modou wasn't exactly forthcoming with my tea lesson, and I didn't push the point. Then today, out of the blue, Soukeyna insisted that I make the tea. Here are the steps (yes, I know one doesn't normally need step-by-step instructions to make tea:

She started by measuring 5 Ataaya glasses-worth of water into her kettle and putting it up to boil. Despite her insistence that I make the tea, this was certainly a joint effort.

Then she opened the box of tea, the size of a large matchbox, available at every boutique in the country, and handed me the small plastic bag of tea inside.

When the water was boiled, I poured in the tea and let it brew for threeish minutes. Then I added three heaping tablespoons of sugar, and then a fourth for good Senegalese sweet-tooth measure.

Meanwhile, I washed the mint and put it in the teapot. After a few more minutes, I removed the kettle from the flame and poured the now-brewed tea over the fresh mint.

A few minutes later, Soukeyna took over again and poured one shot glass of tea, which she then tasted to make sure the sugar and everything was right. Then, taking another glass in her other hand, she poured the tea back and forth in increasingly high pours until both had nice heads of foam. Then she repeated for the other glasses. Finally, she poured the now-cold glass of tea back into the pot, washed the outside of the cups, and poured them all full.

The second round, not surprisingly, was just like the first, though this time I did the high-pouring and foaming (read: splashing and spilling) while Pape Modou took photos (to be posted soon, promise).

After tea, I took a cab to my boss's house to await Monique*, a daugher of my colleague and one of ten "relais" who raise awareness about sexual/reproductive health and distribute condoms at their schools. (This "relais" system is the subject of the brief research I'm conducting here in St. Louis.) I waited for two hours -- not long by Senegalese standards -- during which I watched the brilliant Jamie Lee Curtis/Lindsay Lohan flick Freaky Friday dubbed in French. When Monique arrived, we walked through a neighborhood I hadn't seen before to the home of Khadiatou, a volunteer who has supervised the relais since the program started in 2008.

Ostensibly, we were going to meet with the other relais to plan and then carry out three "causeries" basically informal educational gatherings where a topic is presented, followed by a Q&A and the distribution of condoms. Instead, the meeting was a generous opportunity for me to pose questions to the relais about their experiences, sexual/reproductive health in Senegal, and the challenges they face. While we chatted, we drank Bissap (sweetened hibiscus tea) and Bouye juice(the French name, "père de singe," [father of monkey] must've been coined by an overzealous colonial botanist; I'm not sure if there's English equivalent). In the end, the three causeries became one causerie, scheduled for Sunday afternoon on the topic of HIV.

There's a lot to report from our conversation, but one point in particular is worth sharing: Senegalese women, according to the relais, are ashamed to let their [presumably hetero] partners know that they use birth control because their religious authorities condemn it. Savvy as they are, many of them use more easily concealable methods like the pill, Depo, Norplant, etc, even though these non-barrier methods don't prevent against STIs and HIV. The risk is nonetheless considered minimal because the vast majority of the women are married and [at least putatively] monogamous. But that also means that the women who do take condoms are automatically presumed to be having extramarital, inherently dangerous, blasphemous, socially stigmatized sex. One relais even told me that most of the women who take condoms are prostitutes. Now I know why, perhaps, the data I've gathered show that fewer than 3% of condom-takers are female.

After the meeting, Monique walked me back to Soda's house. On the way, we talked about her boyfriend, a 29-year old Christian, and what her parents would do to her if they found out she's dating a non-Muslim. She repeatedly used the French "tuer" (to kill), but I think she was exaggerating. At the very least, she said, they'd kick her out of the house. Monique had questions of her own about my [fictitious] girlfriend -- whom I invented long ago as to not get pushed into blind dates with 18-year old Senegalese girls -- and the conversation eventually turned to sex, which then led back to the work that she does as a relais and the counseling that I do at Columbia's Gay Health Advocacy Project. When I mentioned counseling for MSMs, she was shocked that I talk to "gorjigeen yi" face to face. Even brushing shoulders with an MSM, she said, could kill her chances at getting into paradise. (Tehe.)

Back at Soda's, I ate a hearty meal of couscous with peanut-black bean sauce, meat, and milk, followed by sliced orange and apple. I spoke my usual Frolof, mostly so that Soukeyna and Soda's maid could understand, feeling incredibly comfortable despite being caught between work life and personal life, between my house and boss's house, between French and Wolof. We joked about my host father, his two wives and nine children, and about the prospect of Soukeyna being pregnant again, which has become somewhat of an inside joke at ASBEF. While we talked, we watched a spelling bee on TV ("epelle-moi," in French), which made me hyperconscious of everything everyone was saying. Not in a nervous way though; in a deliberate, gratifying way. Going days without speaking a word of English has made me desperately miss fluency, but it's also made me pay attention to spoken language in a way I never have before.

Even sitting there in the living room, I found myself watching my auxiliary verbs, liaisons, and noun genders, taking note of idioms and slang being used around me and trying to incorporate those most frequently used. In the past two weeks, for example, I've mastered the use of "si", a third option outside the oui/non binary used for responding to questions posed in the negative. (English would seriously benefit from an equivalent word.) Example:
"Tu n'es pas allé à la boutique?" // You didn't go to the store?
"Si." // Indicates "yes, I went," whereas a simple "yes" in English remains ambiguous: does it confirm the whole statement in its original negation, or does it by some bizarre logic switch the negation to an assertion? (Technically, "no" is the correct response in English as double negation equals assertion, but it, too, remains ambiguous.)

The first casualty of all this thinking about language has been my French "r" sound. Before, it was a rough approximation of the French French "r", that is, a tight roll with a bit of roughness tucked inside, like a steamroller going over gravel. The Senegalese "r," on the other hand, is much softer and comes from the roof of the mouth rather than the throat. My "r" is now stuck somewhere between the two and sounds absolutely awful. The verb "regarder" (to watch) is a royal pain. At the same time, my Wolof has improved to the point where I can triage patients and sell them meds without one of my coworker's having to translate.

Today, Dylan and I are going to check out a photo exhibit on the island and grab a beer somewhere to work on our 20-page internship reports. This paper has been hanging over my head and even effing up my sleep for the past week, so I want to be done with it as quickly as possible. The irony is that I doubt anyone back at school is going to actually going to take the time to read 20 pages of awkward French prose when I'm not even taking these courses for major credit.

My last day at ASBEF is next Friday -- I can't believe how quickly the internship has passed. Dylan and I are taking a sept-place back to Dakar to reunite with our classmates, present on our internships, and generally bring the semester to a close. May 8th, my classmates fly back to the US.

Here's what the rest of my trip looks like:

May 9th, Dakar --> Barcelona to walk a lot, take pictures, and possibly meet up with an old friend

May 15th, Barcelona --> Madrid to stay with a friend who's studying there and watch the UEFA final match from a bar near the stadium where the game is being held

May 21st, Madrid --> Paris to pick up my camera and look at rentals-by-owner in Montmartre

May 22nd, Paris --> Rocamadour (departement du Lot, region de Midi-Pyrenees) for the 21st annual cheese festival, pending confirmation that I have the dates right

May 24th, Rocadamour --> ?

May 24th-June 8th = ??? Suggestions?

June 8th, ? --> Lyon to meet up with Paul

June 10th, Lyon --> Feurs for WWOOFing (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) on the farm of Marie-Noelle and Gunther, where we'll prepare vegetarian platters (cornucopia, even!) to sell at market on the weekends

June 25th, Feurs --> somewhere in Italy, possibly La Spezia, for hiking and sightseeing

July 3rd, Italy --> Anna parents' house (probably) to renovate the house and make Anna's parents drink slightly more red wine than they expect to

July 8th, Anna's parents' house --> Paris to stay in Montmartre, get a haircut, and see the expansive French Museum of Photography outside Versailles (one million photos in the collection).

July 13th, Paris --> Boston --> San Francisco

*Name changed for privacy

Another Week Here

2010-04-10T06:10:00.001-07:00

Not really much to report from this past week... I slept in as late as possible today, which means around 8:30, watched Murder at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave on TV (in French) with my siblings, and then walked the hour and a half to Chez Agnes, a cafe/bar downtown with fast wifi. Courtney and Renee are coming up here from Kaolack and Toubacouta, respectively, tonight. Don't have solid plans yet.

I've been writing in my journal a lot this week, and today I took my camera out for the second time since I got here (with Tri-X). It feels great to be taking pictures again, though I've met a lot of resistance so far. No one wants to let me photograph anything to which they could even remotely claim ownership without paying first -- like today, when I tried to frame a shot of some goats in the street through the open hood of a taxi. Kinda tiring, really. The sole exception is the children, though they all (not surprisingly) want to pose, while I want to do more candid, "street photography" style stuff.

Here are some pictures of my family (and a goofy one of me)!

My mom, adorable little sister, and my little sister's doll

My brother Pape Modou, the Ataaya expert

My brother Moussa, soccer star-to-be

My sister Magatte doing Bebe Khady's hair

My sister Ndeye cutting onions. I ought to take a non-cooking one as well...

Finally, what study abroad blog would be complete with out a photo of the blogger looking silly in the local fashion?

Photo by Moussa

This is what I wore to an 8-hour baptism after-party last Monday. I chose the fabric and had the shirt and hat tailored by my host mother's family friend, Malick Wade.

Gotta go catch the car rapide home for lunch!

St. Louis

2010-04-04T10:43:00.000-07:00

Now that spring break is over, I’m in Saint Louis, the former capitol of Senegal and the largest city in the country’s northernmost region. I’ve been here ten days as of today.

This week, some friends of mine took a ship south to Cap Skirring, a resort city in the notoriously violent and verdant Casamance region, while others took a 40-hour bus ride to Bamako, Mali. (Around the 27th hour, the driver almost fell asleep and the passengers then debated whether the driver ought to keep going despite his fatigue as to not waste time, or whether he should rest to ensure their safe arrival...) Frankie and his sister, however, came to Saint Louis for one night, and paid me a surprise visit. It was great to go out for a couple beers on the island, catch up, and watch the Moscow-Inter Milan soccer game (the bar sadly didn't get the Barcelona-Manchester United match). I've become somewhat of a TV soccer fan here, hoping to catch a game and a drink on Saturday to celebrate my birthday a few days early. (On the sixth, my host mom is cooking roasted chicken with onion sauce on a bed of salad, and Dylan's gonna come over to celebrate.)

MSID is currently in its internship period; mine is at the Senegalese Association for Familial Well-Being, as I wrote a few weeks ago. Monday through Friday, I wake up at 7:30, eat ndekkee (breakfast) in my room, and walk the half-hour to work. From 8:30ish to 2PM, I help carry out triage (in the sense of figuring out what the women need, not assessing ER-type needs) with Mariam, sell medicines in our small on-site pharmacy that doubles as the triage office, record data from pre-natal/family planning consultations with Ami, Aby, or Soda, and just generally observe what goes on. On alternating Saturdays, a driver brings an ultrasound machine from Louga (an hour away in good traffic), and I watch the doctor perform the exams.

At 2:00, I take the car rapide home for lunch with the family, followed by two or three rounds of Ataaya and lounging around. Every other day or so, I take the car rapide to the city center (on the island) to meet up with Dylan, run errands, or use an internet café. On the off-days I just watch soccer, chat with my host aunt who speaks French, listen to music in bed, etc. We eat dinner around 8:30, and by 10:30 I’m usually in bed. Unlike Dakar, it’s a fairly simple, repetitive life here. I spend a lot of time at home with the family, despite their difficulties with French and my even greater difficulties with Wolof. I even showed my little brothers Moussa (14) and Pape Modou (15) some Kuk Sool techniques the other night.

As I arrived toward the end of March, when the women of St. Louis had less money for healthcare as money from the last payday withered, work was fairly light during my first week. Except for zany ultrasound Saturday we got through the all the patients far before 2PM every day, which translated into a fair amount of down time. Since the 1st, things have picked up, but it never gets crazy. In fact, it’s mostly monotonous at this point. I mean, how many times can you observe a task that you’ll never yourself perform before it gets boring? My role as a scribe, writing down kilograms and centimeters and dates as they’re measured or reported, feels more like a charitable replacement for idleness than an actual contribution. I’d rather do something boring than something blatantly redundant whose interestingness has hit diminishing returns, so I spend a lot of time selling services and medicines in terse Wolof. I’m hoping to talk to my boss when she gets back from vacation.

Fortunately, my “work” at ASBEF is only half of the internship: I’m ostensibly supposed to be conducting some sort of research on a topic of my choosing (approved by my supervisor), though past MSID participants have said that the research report is more like a memoir or journal. My topic is currently the system of relais that the agency uses to distribute condoms around the city. On the quantitative side of things, I want to know who’s giving out the condoms (when, where, and how) who’s receiving them (sex, profession), how many are given out (per person, per month, etc), and what’s being done with them (used, redistributed, sold, kept). On the qualitative side, I’m interested in the discourse between the relais and the clients. In what languages, what terms, are the condoms being discussed, and in the context of what themes? What topics are taboo?

Lots of pomp and circumstance today: all the TV channels were broadcasting live footage of the parade and speeches surrounding the 50th anniversary of Senegal’s independence and the opening of its gaudy, Transformers-inspired Monument to the African Renaissance. I watched the propaganda all day – eek, tanks in the streets – until I couldn’t take it any more and met Dylan at the internet café.

Tonight, I'll watch the Yekini-Tyson wrestling match with the family. Tomorrow, I'm going to an 8-hour baptism... I have photos to post, but no way to post them.

Video from Spring Break

2010-03-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

I finally succeeded in uploading a video from spring break. This is the 360-degree panorama I took from the summit of our hike (hosted at drop.io because YouTube and Flickr timed out).

Spring Break Days 1-3

2010-03-26T11:13:00.001-07:00

To those of you who check this often, sorry I've made you look at my feet for so long.

Currently listening to: Allman Brothers Band – Mountain Jam (Live at the Fillmore East). This 31-minute jam is perfect roadtrip tunage.

Our spring break was everything I'd hoped for. We hiked, ate, drank cooked, wrestled, collected shells, boated, and watched the sun set every night. I even got to take a hot shower in Saly Niakh Niakhal -- my first in two months – and I’m tanner than I’ve been years.

Disclaimer: I wrote most of this during two consecutive days of bumpy bus rides. (Route: Dakar  Joal  Fatick  Kaolack  Toubacouta (spent the night)  Kaolack  Touba  Louga  Saint Louis.) So excuse any misspellings, godawful grammar, etc. Also, the Internet here is too slow to upload photos, so the filename placeholders will have to suffice for now.

Day One

We started out Saturday by taking a taxi from Fann Residence to the gare routiere (car station), or what we thought was the gare routiere before we got out and realized it was the gare ferroviere (train station) instead. So we wandered through the Plateau with the help of Lonely Planet, getting semi-lost in alleys and small streets until we saw signs for the pompiers (fire station), which is next door to the correct gare. Dakar’s gare routiere is basically an incredibly overcrowded parking lot full of semi-running vehicles and their over-eager drivers who swarm around white folks like ourselves offering destinations: “Saint Louis? Kaolack? Thies?.” With the unsolicited help of a “guide” who voir-dired himself by claiming to have visited the most far-flung villages of Senegal, we finally decided on a sept-place that would take us to Toubab Diallao for 22,000 CFA (~$47).

The sept-place draws its name from having seven seats, usually in the form of a defunct European station wagon from the 90s, most commonly a Renault or Puegeot. Our sept-place, defying all odds, actually had a working stereo and power windows – which might have helped account for us getting ripped off to the tune of 7,000 CFA (~$15). The 65-mile journey down the coast through Rufisque and Bargny would have taken about an hour, except that the autoroute leading out of Dakar is a perpetual traffic jam, so it took much longer. (Because the autoroute is so jammed up, vendors of everything walk between the lanes shoving products in your car windows. It's like a 6-mile drive-through convenience store, with pollution-scented air freshener.) At Diamnadio, we turned off the freeway onto a smaller, west-bound road, which wound through sparsely inhabited brush and then ran parallel to the Atlantic all the way to Toubab Diallao, where it dissolved into dirt.

In Toubab Diallao, we checked into our hotel (La Source Ndiambalene), dropped off the bags in our simple, ocean-view rooms, and sat down for a delicious and inexpensive outdoor lunch, surrounded by 180 degrees of coastline and miles of ocean out to the horizon, which was dotted with fishermen and the occasional buoy.

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The veranda
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Cool hotel architecture
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More cool architecture
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View from the room
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Dylan
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Other view from our room

While we ate Thioff (a buttery local white fish) and Yassa Ginaar (roast chicken with onion sauce) we watched the youth on the beach trying to bathe goats and sheep against the latter’s will. Each time one of the animals got free, it dragged the boys into a dusty chase scene that inevitably re-soiled all parties involved. (Because fresh water is at such a premium in villages like Toubab Diallao, where the residents share a communal tap or two, goats and sheep that manage to avoid the ocean sometimes become dreadlocked and stinky.)

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The restaurant
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Renee and Courtney
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View from the resto

From our table we walked down a flight of stairs straight onto the beach, which had some of the clearest water I’ve seen in Senegal. (Though not clear enough to prevent me from banging the hell out of three toes on a hidden chunk of concrete.) Spurred by a once-ever-five-years desire to build a sand-castle, and finding ourselves sadly without a bucket, Courtney and I walked up the beach to the closest restaurant, where the owner generously gave us two empty Sophia margarine tubs on the condition that we return for drinks. Some local kids helped us build a huge fort, which stayed intact until high tide overflowed the moat and forced us all to higher ground.

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Beach
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Courtney

As dusk was drawing near we walked north along the village’s main road, taking in the empty lots, cinderblock villas-to-be, and “A Vendre” (for sale) signs interspersed with fancy houses, some of them falling into disarray. Eventually we hooked a left back on to the beach to watch the sunset. As promised, we returned to the restaurant that had given us margarine tubs (Chez something-or-other), where the proprietor kindly moved a candlelit table onto the sand for us. I ordered Pastis and sautéed calamari and shrimp. While we chatted and swatted mosquitoes, the power went out (as it does every night without exception in most of the country), allowing the moonlight to replace what dim fluorescence had reached our table.

A few drinks later, back at the hotel, we moved a mattress out onto the patio and stargazed, accompanied by Bob Dylan.

Day Two

I awoke before Dylan (my roommate) and went down to the beach barefoot to stick my feet in. Courtney and Renee joined me on the sand, as they would every morning on our trip. Breakfast at the hotel was standard Senegalese fare: bread, jam, butter, coffee, and juice.

After breakfast, we packed up and took another walk through town, this time heading south on the main road, which climbed slightly along the shore once we passed through the downtown area. In addition to the omnipresent empty lots and cinderblock skeletons, we passed several boutiques (just convenience stores, not the flashy ateliers that the word signifies in English), quincailleries (hardware/building supply stores), and a spattering of hotels. Eventually the road dipped down again, dumping us near a sandy lagoon on Toubab Diallao’s outskirts.

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Kids playing on the beach
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Window
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Busted old car
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Interior
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Shed owned by development organization
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Telecentre named after a fruity liquor
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Construction
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Toubab Diallao hillside
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Concentric squares
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An empty lot and Great Wall-esque thing in the background
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The beach
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The lagoon

An hour later, we found ourselves retracing our steps on the way to Popenguine, as a friendly pharmacy clerk had warned us against taking the windy inland route out of Toubab Diallao (which has only two ways out). Despite the 90-degree weather, and notwithstanding the hotel owner’s brother’s offer to take us on donkey-drawn carriage, we had decided to hike the 7 miles, and we were ecstatic to find out that we’d be doing 5 of those miles on the beach, much of it completely unoccupied. We walked long stretches without seeing anyone, not even fishermen (though the petite cote is prime fishing territory). Even when we came across showy beachfront villas with verandas, most of them were abandoned and/or crumbling, as if this year’s tourist high-season (December and January) had passed them by. This was the most alone we had been since arriving in Senegal. A bit eerie, really.

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Toubabs
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Renee and Courtney
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Beach and abandoned buildings
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Dylan
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Courtney
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Renee
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More beach
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Cool striated rock
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A woman doing some sort of work

A few miles in, we passed by the village of ____, hiding behind a hefty foreign-funded levy that stretched on for at least a mile along the beach. At the outskirts, an old woman told us that we would need to take the road into Popenguine on account of the high tide and rocky shore. (She actually didn’t speak any French and conveyed all of this through gesturing and repeating Wolof phrases that we didn’t get.) Up on the main road, I was surprised to find the sidewalk intact and the signage clear – until a local pointed to President Wade’s barbed-wire-surrounded, turret-studded vacation palace, which apparently has brought a fair bit of money and honor to the village. When I asked, the man affirmed his support for the President, who’s currently serving a questionable third term and trying to single-handedly change the constitution to allow a fourth. (Senegal’s fourth constitution, adopted in 2001, has alredy been changed a dozen times.) The question, besides the obvious one pertaining to good governance, is how long you can blind the people to your two palaces, several mansions in France, and brand new $30-million Monument of the African Renaissance while many of them live in cases without regular access to drinking water or healthcare.

I digress. The main road in Popenguine led us to the town square before it quickly turned back into dirt. With no directions to follow toward our hotel (except that it was near the beach), we walked down to the water again and followed it south, looking for signs. Eventually, just before the end of the mostly signless clump of hotels, we asked for directions and soon found the Keur de Sable (a mix of Wolof and French: keur meaning “house” in the former, sable meaning “sand” in the latter). Rather than one large “keur” like a typical house or hotel, however, the Keur de Sable was really a collection of architecturally heterogeneous villas arranged around the bar and restaurant. Ours featured a kitchen (already stocked with oils and spices), living room-dining room combo, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a large ocean-view deck. All for 25,000 CFA per night (~$54), split four ways.

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Poured concrete bed (???) with Disney princess sheets (???) on foam mattress
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Blurry kitchen
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View out the front door
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View from the deck
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Chair on the deck

Stinking and hot from the hike, we downed some cold water, beer, and grilled fish at the bar and then headed down to the uncrowded beach. After a lovely sunset viewed waist-deep in the waves, we went to go buy fish and vegetables to cook chez nous, forgetting that the fish and vegetable vendors, almost exclusively women, rarely stay out past dusk. The challenge, then, conjuring up absurd images of Iron Chef Senegal, was to cook a tasty dinner for four using only the ingredients already in the kitchen (vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, piment chili pepper) and whatever we could find at a boutique. Oh, and the power was out.

The largest boutique in Popenguine was a mile up the dirt road (easier than the beach route at night), next to the town square. In the dim store, we found bread, canned tomato paste, spaghetti, canned mushrooms, canned peas, and canned corn, enough for a hearty poor-man’s pomodoro primavera sauce if you nuked the sugared tomato paste with enough garlic, piment, and olive oil. Except that there was no olive oil. No olive oil! No EVOO!  Dilemma of geopolitical proportions. The oil crisis of 1973, multiplied tenfold. Just as I was dialing International SOS for an emergency evacuation, Courtney suggested we ask for some at the hotel restaurant, which in fact worked perfectly. Whew, crisis averted.

We cooked by candlelight, ate on our deck by starlight, and passed the eff out on Disney princess sheets.

Day Three

My second morning was spent much like the first: meditative lounging on the just-past-sunrise, still-damp-from-high-tide beach, followed by bread (toasted!), jam, butter, coffee and juice at the hotel restaurant.

Impressed with our ocean-view villa, we had to decided to spend another night in Popenguine. But how to pass the day? Lonely Planet suggested the nature reserve, which sounded like the perfect idea for a sunny day. The reserve is managed by a group of women organized under some sub-department of the Ministry of the Environment, which also runs the campement across the dirt road from our hotel. Camo-clad and wearing stunning makeup, the park rangers sold us 4 day passes at 1,000 CFA (~$2.20) a piece and led us to the park’s entrance.

Just inside the gate, we passed by a large, placid lagoon which nicely framed the village behind it in the distance, despite the lack of waterfowl.

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Lagoon
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Lagoon

After a few hundred feet, the path began to climb, turning into bluff and then cliff. Soon, what had looked like a mountain from down on the beach became a hill. Near the summit, which flattened into a plateau, we came across crumbling bunkers and barracks, no doubt strategically situated vestiges of the colonial period.

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The hill
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Hiking up
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Hiking
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Popenguine off in the distance
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Courtney stretching
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View from near the top
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Red dirt at the top
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Looking southwest

One bunker’s circular roof suggested panorama, so I whipped out my camera and took a 360-degree video.
3259.avi
Popenguine to the north, the Atlantic to the west, villages to the south, and endless baobab trees to the east.
3533
Inside the bunker
3530
Coming out of the bunker
3538
Taking a break

There wasn’t much left of the barracks.
3540
Crumbling walls
3541
More structural carnage
3542
Walls
3544
(my favorite photo of the day)
3546
Graffiti on the walls – some of it religious, some of it profane
3548
Cross-section of one of the walls
3554
Plants taking over the house

We also found an enormous recessed circle that looked like it used to be a base for swiveling artillery
3566
3569

At this point, finding ourselves without water or food, roughly halfway between where we’d come from and what we took to be La Somone, we had two options: call it a day and return to Popenguine for lunch, or keep hiking south until we found water and food. We chose the latter, and started our descent.

3567
3572
Looking south
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3574
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3578
Hiking down

Unlike the pristine, semi-vacant beach in Popenguine, the shoreline we met at the bottom of the hill was littered and crowded with squads of men of all ages gradually pulling in fishing nets from far out at sea, as if playing tug-of-war with the ocean itself. Some of the younger fishermen defected from their tugging to follow us; as they shook our hands one by one, we greeted them in clumsy Wolof:

- Asalaa malekum.
- Malekum salaam.
- Nangeen def? (How are you doing?)
- Nungi fi rekk. (We are here only.)
- La Somone fi? (Is this La Somone?)
- Deedeet. Guero la. La Somone foofu. (No, it’s Guero. La Somone is there.) They pointed to the south.
- Ñaata kilometre? (How many kilometers?)
- Benn. (One.)
- Jerejef. Yendoo ak jamm. (Thank you. Pass the day in peace.)

3580 from edits
One team

Like Nyaning(?), Guero was set back from the beach at 10-20 feet above sea level; but instead of using a concrete levee to keep the ocean at bay, the huts here just rested on a gradually receding bluff. So when we finally climbed the bluff via steep concrete stairs, we ended up in someone’s back yard. Beyond the huts, in the village center, lay a beautiful mosque and (even more importantly, given our thirst), several boutiques – all of them out of bottled water. Though it seems trivial, these boutiques were the first we’d encountered without water throughout two months in Senegal, even though they were far closer to the nearest large city than some of the other villages we’d visited.

3582
Goat on the bluff
3584
3587
The shoreline
3589
Looking through a house at the ocean
3603
Windows in Guero
3590
Dylan and Renee next to the mosque

On the other side of town (already at least a kilometer down the main dirt thoroughfare from where we’d asked for directions) we found some cold bottled Fontaine and asked about a restaurant:
- Am na restaurant fi?
- Deedeet.
So we continued down the dirt road, alternately passing and being passed by horse- and donkey-drawn carriages bearing water, hay, other staples. For a while, dense greenery replaced the dusty lots on both sides of the path as we approached a mostly dried up mangrove lagoon, where the ground was just beginning to harden. To the east we saw little roofs, which turned out to be a ritzy but small European style resort tucked between the dried up mangrove lagoon and the much more expansive still-wet one.

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Main road
3594
Greenery along the path
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Cool tree
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Drying lagoon
3601
The restaurant

The food – fish filet, chicken meatloaf, and garden salad – was overpriced (by Senegalese standards) and served in such underwhelming portions that even the roasted beets in the salad couldn’t win me over. On the other hand, the restaurant had a pingpong table where Dylan and I relished a few rallies… until he hit the ball on the roof. After lunch, we took the same route back through Guero and into the nature reserve, but this time instead of going directly up and over the hill, we dropped down into the ravine and followed a beautiful winding trail back to the entrance.

3610
The ravine
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The path
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Hillside

An hour later, some friends from Dakar who were taking a daytrip down the Petite Cote met us for beers on our porch. We all watched the sun set from the beach before they left, and then realized we had missed our chance to buy fish and vegetables again. So Courtney and I cooked a yummy sequel to the previous night’s pasta, this time with a bit more oil and a bit more piment. And more stargazing.

Tanlines

2010-03-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

First, to offend the eyes:

Look at those gnarly Chaco tanlines...

Now, to please the ears (hopefully)...

Sorry for the crappy quality -- I recorded this on a point-and-shoot still camera. You can ignore the video altogether and just focus on the audio. The only reason I posted this on Youtube at all is that there's no comparably easy way to embed audio.

This clip is from my friend Lindsay's birthday beach soiree, which took place last Saturday night on Plage Virage. The word you hear the chanters repeating is "Mandiarra", which is Lindsay's Senegalese name, after that of the mother of Chiekh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke, the founder of Mouridism.

There were massive power outages across Dakar Saturday -- les coupures come to the hood more often than the garbage truck does -- so we lit the small indoor space with candles (hence the small pockmarks of light in the video) and set a large bonfire on the beach out front, just 20 feet from the gently rising tide. While the American/Canadian contingent danced like white people do, talked, and swam, the djembe went around the bonfire, followed by a concentric circle of dancing Baay Falls which resembled a defunct conga line.

Other than the beach party, my Saturday was pretty average (I have no idea why I'm recounting this in reverse chronological order). I woke up around 10, read and listened to music in bed for a while, and then hung around the house with the extended family. Around 1 in the afternoon, my host sister Honorine, who has gourmet taste and a US Embassy job to support it, brought over eggplant, mushrooms, and oysters to make into lightly breaded croquettes -- "California cuisine" with a twist? I wanted to help cut or fry or bread or (at least) plate something, but men don't do that here, so I just watched TV with my grandmother. Which is to say, I watched American music videos from the 80s with my grandmother (on MTV2), specifically Michael Jackson's Beat It. And she didn't even flinch at the homoerotic switchblade fight (3:32).

(My grandmother is actually quite progressive as the older generation here goes. Last night, after I noticed my nine year-old brother watching How High [it won the Stony Award for best Stoner Movie of 2002], I asked her in roundabout terms what she thought of the Internet and its influence on her grandchildren's upbrining. Unlike my development professor, who worries about the Internet exposing his thirteen year-old daughter to porn, my grandmother is pretty nonchalant. In her words, "tous les Africains sont éveillés maintenant": all Africans are awakened/aware these days. Moreover, she told me that the Internet is a tool for Tony, Michou, and Mami, whose chances of getting a job will be significantly higher if they can use Microsoft Office, the Internet, etc. The hours they spend on Facebook and other websites, then, are a fair price to pay for electronic literacy.)

On top of the croquettes, we had couscous, rice, and mashed potatoes (3 starches?!), salad, crab stew, and barbequed ribs! Afterward, to balance out the gallons of palm oil, peanut oil, and sunflower oil that I had just consumed, I went for a long, pro-digestive walk with Adrienne through Mermoz, Karack, Baobab, Liberte 1, Liberte 4, Diepeul, Liberte 5, Sacre Coeur, and back to Mermoz. In general, I've been trying to walk around Dakar more, which is also, of course, a great way to see some of the neighborhoods that have eluded me so far. I've also been exploring my own neighborhood. Here are two photos of my terrain de sport at dusk:

Basketball in the foreground, soccer in the background. Yes, that's sand. Grass is very hard to find in the hot, arid climate of the Cap Vert peninsula.

As you can see, the sports fields are sandwiched between residences.
Wish I hadn't messed up the horizon here, though I think the symmetry is coincidental.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I booked all the hotels for our Spring Break trip today -- getting excited! My mother, who moonlights as a travel agent, will be proud

Weeee

2010-02-26T05:57:00.000-08:00

Sur la plage, avec mon amie Gazelle
photo par Lindsay Applebottom Partridge

Good Times

2010-02-22T07:21:00.000-08:00

Me, at Phare des Mamelles near sunset

Our Spring Break is rapidly approaching (March 13-20) though I have no idea what it's a break from. Certainly not hard work. Anyway, Dylan Renee, Courtney, and I will be heading to the Petite Cote (Little Coast), which starts just 40 miles or so south of Dakar and runs along the coast until Mbour. Our first two nights will be spent in Popenguine or La Somone, each of which has beach-front hotels, its own bird preserve (flamingos galore) and easy access to Accrobaobab, a dorky rope course through ancient Baobab trees. For the next three nights, we'll head a little farther south to Saly to go fishing, rent a catamaran -- if you've driven anything with an outboard you can drive anything else with one, no? -- and generally hang out on the beach. According to the guide, some top-rated restaurants in Saly have three-course meals for the equivalent of about $16 US. Finally, the last two nights will be the most quiet and least touristy -- we'll be staying in a tiny town called Warang whose hotel has beds (with mosquito nets) and other amenitites on the roof for stargazing and stuff. There's also a distillery in town that makes fresh fruit liqueurs.

We celebrated Mardi Gras at Frankie's house with a late afternoon brunch. The night before, we had prepared a bucket of sangria with red wine, fresh fruit, and brandy, to which we added seltzer just before serving. We also whipped up a bucket of mimosas and a few pitchers of beer to go with a huge American-style brunch. As home fries are my specialty (crispy, the way momma likes em), I had three enormous pans going at once, which meant I was literally constantly stirring, spicing, flipping, and sangria-ing for an hour and a half straight until all 15 peeled and diced potatoes were done. (No matter how much peanut oil went into those pans -- and, oh damn, it was obscenely oiled -- they didn't become non-stick.) When the pancakes and scrambled eggs were ready, we all chowed in a huge circle and danced with Frankie's parents to mbalax music.

Idiot

This weekend has been pretty cool, too. Friday after class, Adrienne, Charlotte, and I cabbed up to Ngor Beach to meet up with Lindsay, Patrick, Frankie, and some others. The water was even dirtier this time than the last (trash, not silt), so we mostly hung out on the sand and skipped stones. Dakar's constant frenzy of demolition and construction means that you can always find flat things like pieces of tile to use for skipping. As dusk approached, we hopped on the car rapide back to Lindsay's to eat an unbelievably delicious dinner of roasted chicken, stewed chickpeas, and salad. But we were already late for the free afrobeat/reggae concert at Cultural Center Blaise Senghor, so we got into another cab (cheaper this time, haviing been flagged by Lindsay's host brother) which took us down to Point E for the show.

Of course, had we thought about it, we would've known that the show hadn't even started yet, because if there are two things that delay events, they're certainly 1) being from Senegal, and 2) being affilitated with reggae. In fact, we were just in time for Jack et le Tafeika, who, after working out the kinks, showed some serious chops and played a fun, dance-worthy set. Jacques plays acoustic guitar, backed up by a rhythm guitarist who also sings harmonies with him. The bassist is a funky albino girl who locks in really well with the band's two drummers: one on traps and one on West African drums. After the show we found a chill bar in SICAP Karack whose floor was made entirely of small bits of sand-beaten shells.

Something that continues to surprise me here is how the Senegalese (in general) are far more interested in greeting and getting to know toubabs like us than other American-looking students we see in the street, on the beach, at bars, etc. My first instinct when I see another toubab here is to find out which study abroad group they're with, or what they're doing, yanno, across the world. It's safe to assume that every toubab here has some sort of reason for going -- I doubt American students come here on a whim -- so what are they all doing? You'd think the oh-you're-American-in-Senegal-so-am-I-how-weird reaction would start at least a few conversations, but it seems that our compatriots are, sadly, no less American here than at home. (Notable exception: drunk frat brother at the American Club was happy to talk to my [female] friends, telling them he "just can't handle the American culture.")

Saturday morning I needed to go back to Lindsay's to get the backpack I had left there, as did Adrienne and Elisa, so we all walked to Mermoz to catch the car rapide up the Oakham. While the others got lunch with Lindsay's host brother's friend, I car rapided (it's a verb now) back to Mermoz to meet up with co-students Sophia and Zawadi, and Karamba, one of the students who had accompanied us to Toubacouta a few weekends ago. At Karamba's apartment building, his friend Sophieauw (similar to 'Sophia' in pronunciation) took the girls and I shopping for lunch supplies: 1.5 kilos of beef, 200ml of peanut oil, three tomatoes, a green bell pepper, 3 eggs, 2 kilos of rice, 200g of pasta, a head of garlic, 2 little bags of unground black pepper, a little bag of dried piment (hot pepper), 2 tubes of spice mix (bullion-ish), and 6 onions. The meat came from the 'Belle Viande' (beautiful meat) truck, and everything else came from little street-side stands or the corner stores known as 'boutiques' that are found all over Senegal that carry 95% of life's necessities. All for something like 7 dollars, which would end up feeding eight people after two and a half hours of cooking.

Back at the apartment, Sophieauw was surprised that I (as a male) wanted to cook, but she agreed to teach me along with Sophia and Zawadi anyway. The first step was to grind the black pepper, the piment, and the entire head of garlic in an enormous mortar with a 4-foot pestle (or was it an ogre's club?). That was some pungent stuff -- in Berkeley I would've mashed in a ball of goat cheese and baked it in pizza dough. While I was pounding away, ex-vegetarian Sophia cut the beef into little cubes and tried to discard as much of the fat as possible, and Zawadi sliced the tomatoes and bell pepper into nice rounds. The crafty beef salesman, it turns out, had sold us almost an entire pound of unusable fat. Once my piment-pepper-garlic mix was done, we spooned some of it into a pot with the beef, around 150ml (in the American systen, that equals a lot) of oil, and a splash of water to start cooking.

Equal parts oil and pasta

Then we moved into the courtyard to sit in a cirlce and mince onions. Four onions' worth went into a pot with spice mix, piment-pepper-garlic mix, a dash of vinegar, dijon mustard, and the remaining 50ml of oil to cook into a sauce. We set the other two aside for later. While the beef and sauce were cooking, we washed the rice and put all of it into this enormous colander-type dish, leaving a hole in the middle. Then we balanced the colander on top of the cooking beef, as to cook the rice with the steam from the beef. Sophieauw even tied a scarf around the place where the pot and colander met so that no steam would escape.

When the rice was almost done, we took off the colander, stirred the pasta into the remaining beef mixture to cook, and added the rest of the onion and piment-pepper-garlic mix, too. When those seasonings had sufficiently infused the beef, we stirred in the rice, let it cook for a little longer, and then served it into a huge round platter. For garnish, we stirred the tomato, bell pepper, and hard-boiled egg with some black pepper and vinegar and then layered that on top of the beef-rice layer. Voila. I got a huge food coma and reclined in a chair while Sophia played some jigs on violin.

Sunday I hung out at the house in the morning before spending the late-afternoon and evening at a lovely, uncrowded beach with clean water (plage des mamelles) and the neighboring lighthouse (phare des mamelles), from which we watched the sun set while eating fresh beignets au noix de coco (coconut donuts) and ataaya au poisson (fried fish pastries).

Lindsay

Adrienne

Then Patrick, Adrienne, and I went back to Lindsay's to cook a fish stew from scratch -- and I really mean from scratch, like a whole big dead fish with a head and a tail. This was no Whole Foods $16/lb wild salmon. Damn it was delicious.

In Other News...

2010-02-17T02:14:00.000-08:00

A photography-related article I penned about a month ago is finally up at The Faster Times. (Bonus: a lively and dorky discussion about the relative merits of digital and film photography has broken out in TFT's comments section.)

Check it out, and feel free to chime in.

Toubacouta Part One

2010-02-12T02:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a fun story: Last year, the government of Dakar decided it wanted to improve sanitation services in the city by building a landfill about 40 miles east of Dakar, between Rufisque and Bargny. Of course, the government didn't poll the residents whose farmland was about to become a dump, which made the residents quite mad. So when the first garbage trucks arrived, so the story goes, the lcoals went to see their marabouts (Mouride priests) and had them curse the bajezus out of the trucks, filling them with snakes and other traps. Now the trucks sit idle in a long line next to the highway because even the army is afraid to move them. How's that for grassroots organizing against the man, eh?

Anyway, I didn't hear about the trucks until the tail end of my trip last weekend, so let me rewind a bit. Last week I said we were headed to Tambacounda. That was wrong: we actually went to Toubacouta. Friday morning at 7AM, we convened at WARC before making the 6-hour drive through Mbour, Fatick, Kaolack, and Sokone. Several students from Universite Cheikh Anta Diop (the main university in Dakar) who grew up around Toubacouta came along for the ride. I don't think I've ever seen traffic as bad as the highway out of Dakar -- it took an hour to go the first 15 miles, what with all the street vendors darting between lanes of the highway selling phone cards and cashews. I also saw several bicyclists lane-splitting against the flow of traffic (remember, this is the freeway)!

After Kaolack, the paved road ended -- though it was being repaired by volunteer public workers (echoes of Senegal's socialist past) -- and our twenty-person bus bounced along the dirt detour for several hours, frequently zigzagging back and forth across the trail to find the smoothest routes. Finally, we arrived at Kairaba Club de Vacances Ecotouristique de Toubacouta, the poshest joint for miles around: "a haven of leisure with a taste of the exotic."

Each set of two students got their own little cabin with A/C, TV (2 channels), and a bathroom. There was also a pool, bar, and three-meal-per-day restaurant.

After a lunch of seared shrimp over rice, followed by Ataaya, we got back on the bus to go give thanks to the local authorities, the leader of which bears the title Sous prefet, PCR. Though his office was dim, he wore sunglasses during our entire visit. I didn't dare photograph him.

The WARC staff must think Americans are very, very lazy, because we never really got to walk anywhere. Instead of walking the quarter-mile or so to where our tour of Toubacouta began, we all piled into the bus again. And the "long" tour they warned us about? It lasted for a few blocks and then turned down onto the beautiful delta/beach, where I tried to take some panoramas and failed miserably. I did get these shots there, though:

The little Canon lets me compensate exposure. :)

Downtown Toubacouta

Our next agenda item was to see the Poste de Sante, but the doctor had plans elsewhere, so we went to visit an elementary school on the outskirts of town. The facility, sponsored by the Japanese government, was split into two sections on opposite sides of a dirt road: to the East, the academic buildings and offices; to the West, the residences, livestock, and study rooms. Though many students lived nearby, others commuted as far as 10km by bike and stayed on campus during the week.

Pigs

The well

The road between the two parts of campus

After the school, we went back to the hotel for pool and beer time before a dinner of roasted chicken and french fries. Then, bed.

More to come soon!

---------------------------

It has been snowing like crazy in New York the past few days, and I'm sad to have missed the first SNOW DAY in 6 years. On the other hand, I don't have midterms! Woo!

Dakarchitecture

2010-02-04T08:14:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to: For Every Man - Jackson Browne

First, a few tidbits:

I'll be doing my six-week internship in St. Louis (Senegal, not Missouri) at an organization called ASBEF: l'Association Senegalais pour le Bien-Etre de la Famille (Senegalese Association for the Well-Being of the Family). It's sort of like a Senegalese Planned Parenthood. Excepting the thick Wolof language barrier between most of the clients and me, I think my work at LYRIC, SFAF, and GHAP will have prepared me relatively well for the job. I have no clue what my daily tasks will look like, much less what I'll be researching, but I'll find out more as the start date (mid-march) nears. (Surprise: A past intern there told me they handed her a speculum and asked her to do an OBGYN exam, assuming she was a med student...)

In other news, my group is leaving Dakar tomorrow for a four-day excursion to Toubacounda nestled in the forests of Eastern Senegal. Today, it's 106 degrees there, with hi's above 100 the entire time we're there. Thankfully, we'll be staying at an air-conditioned hotel with a pool, and the MSID staff has allocated 6 1.5L bottles of mineral water for each of us. The schedule for the trip is jammed pretty tight (though always includes pool time) so that we can visit local health centers, meet municipal government leaders, walk among the mangroves and learn about ecology, compete in sure-to-be-awkward dance competitions, and talk with local students while leaving time for plenty of Ataaya. Mmmm, hot tea in 100 degree weather... I'm also hoping to get some pleasure reading done and take lots of pictures, provided the emulsion on my film doesn't melt. (I'll post a picture of me in my big dorky sun hat, I promise.)

...

Today I didn't have to be at school until 10:30, so I decided to take my time on the way in order to grab some pictures of my neighborhood and its weird archictecture. Voila:

I suppose the garden used to be a garden. Now it's all sand with piles of building materials and a rusty slide.

Some columns in my neighborhood, and the really vividly colored bourganville that covers everything here and makes everything else seem desaturated by comparison

A small barbershop. The barber hangs out in the lawn chair while waiting for customers. Also note the raised threshold -- Dakar's just above sea level

More columns and the peculiar (yet prevalent) exterior usage of what look like blue bathroom tiles

More exterior bathroom tiles

Some sheep that baaaah at you when you walk by

An alley in SICAP Baobabs, one of many

A girl running with some water

Some interesting forms and colors on this one

The ministry of public health and medical prevention (not in my neighborhood), which my public health class will visit

Two Weeks In Dakar

2010-01-31T04:56:00.000-08:00

Today marks the end of my second week here in Dakar. I'm beginning to feel quite at home, which means I've done many things locals do that foreigners are generally supposed to not do, like riding the car rapide, hanging out at the beach near sunset (but never after), and dancing at nightclubs into the wee hours.

The car rapide, basically a decrepit school bus adorned with Islamic catchphrases (e.g., 'Allhamdoulilah'), costs only 100CFA (about 22 cents) to go from residential neighborhoods in around Dakar like Oakham, to the city center downtown (>3 miles). Seating preference, like most privileges in Senegal, is accorded on the basis of age, which means younger riders occasionally hang off the back of the van while it's in motion, even on the highway -- non, merci.

There are many beaches in Dakar, one of which (Oakham beach) I mentioned last week. However, since Oakham is farther north and usually crowded with fishing boats (painted by the same artist who does all the cars rapides), we spend more time at the beach in Mermoz, which has turned into an after-school tradition. While we lie on the beach or get beaten up by the surf, local youths hold pickup soccer games, wrestle, and work out. You can even buy a little bag of freshly roasted peanuts for 50 CFA.

I have a bit of a routine during the week: Dylan, Renee, Claire (and, starting this week, Logan) and I all walk to WARC together in the mornings, and some combination of us normally treks back home together, too -- that is, if we don't end up at the beach. During the week I try to make it home for dinner, which is usually served at 8 or 9 o'clock. As the guest, I'm always served first, and I always eat at the table along with Mami, Michou, and Tony. The others either take their plates into the living room to watch TV, or they wait and eat around the table in shifts. Only rarely does the family eat in traditional Wolof fashion autour du bol, which means sitting on a plastic mat around a large bowl and using the right hand (never the left) to form little balls of rice, vegetables, and meat; and even when they do, I have to sit at a separate table and eat using a fork and knife. Privilege, it turns out, can be quite alienating.

Some part of a non-avian, non-aquatic animal being grilled. (Goat knuckles? Kidding.)

My room here is totally adequate, though it gets pretty stuff at times because I have to leave the windows closed to keep the mosquitoes out. My bed is comfortable, though a bit sandy from all the beaching. Not really much to say about the room -- it's a room. Pictures below:

Bed

Desk and nightstand

Front gate

Courtyard thing in back

Last night I washed the unmentionables that my family (per tradition) won't wash, using two big buckets on my bedroom floor and the travel clothesline I got for Channukah. Despite the taboo that surrounds my underwear, Mami insisted on watching and laughing as I scrubbed each brief ("that's not enough -- here we take our time with our washing, 10 minutes per garment!") and spilled suds here and there. Oddly enough, doing chores (however briefly, no pun intended) made the house feel more like home, as did lending my iPod shuffle to my little bro' Michou.

As I mentioned last week, classes have started up. The development class involved intense lecture on the economic history of postcolonial West Africa, accompanied by two oral presentations (one group, one individual) and a stupid paper topic (the following Senghor quotation: "la raison est hellene, l'emotion est negre." Country analysis class has so far consisted of Wolof proverbs and folklore, with its own annoying paper topic to boot: "in 5 pages, substantiate the following statement in light of the Museum of the Woman (on Goree island): 'woman is pillar of her society.' Not terribly difficult, but also not terribly interesting. Here's one relevant proverb that I can't help but share:

"Jigeen soppal te bul woolu"
Love the woman, but do not trust her.

Surprisingly, we barely discussed this proverb's implications for gender dynamics. I'm a bit disappointed at the emphasis on quantity of proverbs discussed rather than quality of discussion.

It's not the writing that bothers me, nor even the relatively unquestioned chauvanism, but the open-ended prompts that allow for BSing. I'd much rather write about the museum in light of a scholarly text or an interpretation of Wolof culture than draw on my own temporally and geographically limited observations about women here. This whole prompt has gotten me into a kind of funk.

Anyway, the public health class seems like the most interesting course. In today's introductory session we covered a lot of ground, touching on general indicators of health as well as definitions and priorities specific to Senegal, and the standards set by the Millenium Development Goals. The professor wants to spend a lot of time on sexual health and HIV/AIDS, which is perfect for my interests.

All in all, I really miss working on philosophy. I miss the intellectual rigor, the precise language, the close reading of texts, the skepticism, the attempts at removing one's (and everyone else's) prejudices from one's work instead of stubbornly setting them on the playing field only to trip over them a few minutes later.

I don't really know what to write right now. Need to process. Au revoir.

Best Day Yet

2010-01-25T03:12:00.001-08:00

Well, the day started out crappy. I was itchy from the heat and pollution and mosquitoes and who knows what else when I woke up, and my first exchange of the morning went as follows:
Me: "Bonjout, tout le monde. Na nga deff?"
Esther: "Bonjour, tu vas a l'eglise [catholique] avec les enfants."
So I went to church with Michou and Mami, where I pissed off Mami because I refused to take communion. She can be quite the nag, though she's generally very sweet.

I wanted nothing more than to just go walk around in the hot Dakar sun when I got back, but I had to wait for lunch. (West African International Time = WAIT; aux EU, le temps controle l'homme; ici l'homme controle le temps.) So around 3PM, with a full belly, I finally managed to sneak out of the house and walked North along the Ouakham to Mosquee de la Divinite, where I met my friends Lindsay and Adrienne, djembe in hand.

We went down to a nice, rocky, breezy spot on the beach, right by the water, just north of the fishing boats and started to play -- Lindsay on one side of the drum head, me on the other. After a little while, a man (whose name, we would later find out, was Sarr) approached us and invited us to his beach shack, constructed out of palm trunk sections, concrete columns, fishing net, and whatever else happened to wash up on the shore or get tossed into one of the many surrounding piles of ordures (garbage). Sarr and his friends, all of them members of the Muslim hippy-ish sect 'Baye Fall' told us they enjoyed our djembe playing and offered us some freshly caught and grilled fish, accompanied by the usual onion sauce -- this time less oily and more spicy than it's often prepared. Delicious.

We spent the next four hours or so playing djembe, chatting in French, drinking Ataya and Cafe Touba (flavored with a mysterious herb I've never had before called ndja in Wolof), eating fresh peanut brittle (nougat d'arachides) and just generally having an awesome time. At one point we even got into a really interesting discussion about over-fishing and the possibility of replacing fish with a different export for a few years to allow the populations to regenerate -- but we couldn't really come up with another one. (Senegal's other two main products are phosphate and peanuts.)

As it was getting dark, Lindsay went home, and Adrienne and I split a cab back to our respective neighborhoods, just in time to... eat. Again. For the first time, I politely declined the pork and just had rice, sauce, and vegetables. Over dinner, Michou and I discussed the two measurement systems on my Nalgene bottle -- metric and American -- what it meant to be 'base 10', how to convert from one system to the other, etc. We also talked about centigrade and farenheit, and the freezing and boiling temperature of water, followed by a litany of questions about the snow, something that Michou has seen on TV but never experienced.

I also asked Mami about the Baye Fall, to see if she could tell me more about them before I googled it. Our brief conversation:
"Tu peux me dire quelque chose des gens qui croient en Baye Fall?"
"Ils sont tous mauvais."
"Pourquoi crois-tu qu'ils sont tous mauvais?"
"Je sais qu'ils sont tous ca. Je crois pas."
"OK, comment sais-tu qu'ils sont tous ca?"
"Je mange d'abord. Je te dirai apres."
Needless to say, I never got my answer. Not sure whether she's just being provocative or whether she's serious, but she's very, very smart, so I'm inclined to take her at her word.

In any case, classes begin today.
Schedule is as follows:
Monday: Country Analysis, Public Health, Wolof (no County Analysis today)
Tuesday: Development, Research Methodology
Wednesday: Development, Wolof
Thursday: Country Analysis, French
Friday: Wolof

The Public Health professor is sick, so I'm hanging out at WARC for a few hours until Wolof starts.

PS
Last night I started reading London Fields by Martin Amis. Wow. This book is incredible.
PPS
What the @#$%^& was the Supreme Court thinking in striking down limits on corporate campaign spending?...

Photos from WARC, The Beach, and Dakar

2010-01-23T06:24:00.000-08:00

Goree Island and Stuff

2010-01-22T04:55:00.000-08:00

Sorry, this post is long overdue, as the Internet connection here has been spotty. And while my French has improved a lot, I hope the improvement doesn't come at the expense of my English. Anyway...

We arrived in Dakar early Monday morning and, after a short wait, were taken straight to a hotel with air conditioning, an indoor restaurant, etc. The view from my room was breathtaking and evocative of some of the daydreams I'd had about Dakar -- a mix of white roofs, piles of trash, sand, people walking by in xaftans and boubous.

I was in a sorta weird state, having skipped two consecutive nights of sleep, but I finally managed to get myself out of the hotel room and down onto the street below, along with one of my groupmates, Kaela. As is fairly common for the area around airports, Yoff Residence is a pretty depressed section of Dakar, but we were entranced! The first thing I noticed was the co-mingling of Westernized wealth and deep poverty: children begging for change next to new BMWs, and fruit vendors squatting in the shadows of JVC showrooms. At noon we went North to the house of Honorine (coincidentally my host sister) for the beginning of orientation, a dance lesson, and traditional Ataya. Ataya is a very strong green tea, served in demi-tasse glasses with lots of foam. The more foam, the more prestigious the server. The program also gave us cool Senegalese pants to dance in (skirts for girls, the bottom half of a xaftan for boys).

Then we went back to the hotel, showered, and passed out. The next morning, we went to WARC (the West African Research Center) where we'll be taking most of our classes, before heading to our respective host families. Mine, the Mendy family (pronounced the English way), is located in SICAP Baobabs, one of many slightly defunct housing developments in the North-ish part of Dakar.

So far I've connected best with Mami, une fille de 7 ans, Michou, un garcon de 7 ans, and Tony, un autre garcon de 16 ans. Mami is always very rambunctious when I come home from school, and loves to talk to me in French. She speaks VERY well for a seven year-old whose first language is Wolof. Michou is a bit more reserved, but also playful. Tony and I had a great conversation about photography and the American school system, but he has soccer practice a lot and spends most of his time in his room, so I haven't gotten to know him that well. The rest of the family watches lots of TV, including many awful dubbed soap operas like Amour Impossible, plays solitaire on the PC, or checks Facebook. The maid does most of the cooking and cleaning.

Two days ago we went to the Island of Goree, a UNESCO world heritage site. Goree was the 'point of no return' for slaves leaving West Africa, so the spot has been visited pretty frequently by politicians and religious figures who want to apologize on behalf of their constituents for years of slavery and suffering. As our guide said, the Senegalese will forgive but never forget.

While on Goree, we visited the Museum of the Senegalese Woman, as well as the Slave House. I have to write a paper about the former, which I'm not happy about, because I REALLY haven't had the time to sort out all the gender stuff going on here (and I'm not taking a class on the subject, either). Not that much to report from the Island.

Since then, we've been finishing orientation, discussing the pretrip readings, and walking to and from school. Honestly, I'm still just really jetlagged and trying to find a good sleep schedule. Tomorrow we're going on a tour of the city, so maybe I'll have more to write about after that. I can't wait to actually get out in the city and figure stuff out. It'll be good to start classed on Monday, too.

In Senegal!

2010-01-18T00:52:00.000-08:00

Two posts today!

Safe and sound in Dakar!

Here are a few pictures from the window of the hotel room I'm sharing during orientation. Today we're making traditional Ataya tea, going to the beach, and seeing a dance performance.

Layover

2010-01-18T00:47:00.000-08:00

Red-eye flights are never a good way to start things off. Legroom these days is tiny enough, but when there's a service dog at your feet -- not a robust one like a German shephard or something that you could use as a foot rest, either -- plus a sleeping child in the next seat over who wets the 'bed' mid-flight, sleep is hard to come by. And it takes a lot to overcome 25 mgs of diphenhydramine.

Nonetheless, I arrived in DC in a great mood, wolfed down a bagel, and headed out to West Falls Church on the Washington Flyer bus. Then I hopped on the Metro to L'Enfant Plaza and hoofed the 7 or so rainy blocks to museum row. The National Mall was EMPTY, save for one intrepid jogger. I've been to DC four times now, and I've never seen it anywhere near this quiet. The National Monument looked beautiful through the thick fog, as did the other stately buildings, but I decided to save my film for Senegal. (Come to think of it, I should've snapped some digital pics. Oh well.) The walk through the rain was actually really pleasant, especially after being cooped up on the plane all night.

I'm currently in the food court of the Newseum, eating leftover Cheeseboard pizza. This place is far and away the coolest museum I've ever visited. And not just because I'm a photography dork. Everything here is well designed, (with one exception -- more on that in the PS), engaging, and educational. There are hydraulic glass elevators, panoramic viewing decks of the capitol, a fully functioning three-camera HD studio that ABC frequently uses, 13 theatres, etc. There's currently an exhibit on Woodstock, featuring never-before-seen photographs that were taken by a high school photojournalist and then kept in a cardboard box for 40 years -- they nicely complement the better-known shots of Jimi, Janis, & co.

I'd also recommend the gallery of studio and on-location portraiture taken by Walter Looss, Jr. for Sports Illustrated. The shots are huge and beautifully printed, with an explanatory tidbit from the photographer that gets a bit technical while remaining pretty accessible. These exhibits aside, the museum is pretty blatant in its preference for 'hard news': war correspondence, political campaign coverage, investigative reporting -- the kind of stuff that makes it into American history textbooks. In another context, this might come off as self-aggrandizing or just plain boring, but not here. There's incredible coverage of 9/11, including the museum's centerpiece, a collection of hundreds of front pages from 9/12, recently recovered video taken from ground zero during the attacks, and interviews with reporters and photographers who arrived after-the-fact. I also spent a full hour gawking at the gallery of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs, well accompanied by interviews with the photographers. A famous photographer (I can't remember who) is quoted in the gallery as saying something about a good picture making you cry, and damn, some of those Pulitzer-winning images just mess you up. (Think of the canonical Napalm Girl, followed immediately by starvation in Darfur.) I guess I've been able to handle them one at a time in the past, but all at once it's pretty tough, especially when I'm sleep-deprived and mentally preparing for Senegal. You can imagine how well I dealt with the memorial to journalists killed in the line of duty...

The text of the First Amendment spans the entire front face of the museum, and many of the exhibits pay homage to freedom of the press, stopping here and there to condemn the Sedition Acts and McCarthy hearings. But then they hit you with this huge, beautifully designed world map showing how "Free" each country's press is. Senegal, unfortunately, falls in the "Somewhat Free" category, meaning that journalists have been imprisoned for criticizing the ruling party -- ironic given that Wade himself was once an opposition party leader who spoke out against former President Abdou Diouf.

I'm not suere where all of this leaves me. I am thinking a lot about things that I've taken for granted until now: the cameras in my bag (and the Flickr account that goes with them), a business card that says 'Photojournalist', and even this blog, which never has been and probably never will be censored. Hope that's not too trite.

Now back to the airport to meet my fellow MSID participants!

PS The so-called “4-D movie” is a huge waste of time, unless you like bad acting, uncomfortable seats, and getting squirted in the face by water jets that are (oddly) embedded in the seatback in front of you.

Tiny Cameras, Lots of Film

2010-01-16T14:21:00.000-08:00

Olympus XA, Canon SD400
40 rolls of film

Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible...

Gearing Up for My Trip

2010-01-01T13:58:00.000-08:00

As many of you probably know, I'll be leaving for Senegal on January 16th, to spend a semester learning about public health and development. Instead of starting a new blog, I decided to change around the formatting of my old one a bit and let everyone (that means you) know that I'll be updating it again.

The program I'm going on is called MSID (Minnesota Studies in International Development) Senegal. I'll join 17 other students, most of them from Minnesota, in Dakar, where we'll spend the entire first week in a hotel learning how to approach the culture-language barrier, a barrier that the program leaders seem to find quite, err, thick. (I also have to complete an online, module-based orientation by Tuesday. Yikes!)

After the on-site orientation I'll be living with a large host family: Pa Mendy, Mère Vitou, their four daughters Honorine, Binette, Ester, and Suzanne (one of whom is married and lives elsewhere), and their three sons Joseph, Dominique, and Jean Jacques (two of whom are married and live apart). Suzanne has two kids, Michou and Mamy. Mère Vitou is unfortunately not in very good health due to diabetes and hypertension but I'm told she's very fun to be around nonetheless. Many Senegalese families prefer to speak Wolof in the home, so I'll have to hit the ground running in that regard. Hopefully they'll humor me in speaking French until my Wolof is up to scratch. (Thanks, Mom, for the phrasebook!)

Besides Wolof, I'll be taking three other courses:

International Development: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Practice (with a focus on public health)

Advanced French with a focus on some aspect of the humanities (hopefully philosophy?)

MSID Country Analysis (a broad, multidisciplinary survey of Senegalese history and culture)

Both Critical Perspectices and Country Analysis will be taught entirely in French, with written assignments and discussion in the same.

Most importantly, I'll also be doing a six-week for-credit, unpaid internship at a public health not-for-profit organization, though I don't know my exact placement yet. The internship requires 25-30 hours per week of work, on top of my courses! But before the internship begins on March 22, my classmates and I get a 7 day break to travel around Senegal by ourselves. The trip also includes a guided excursion to Gorée Island.

After MSID ends on April 30th, things get really interesting. To put it bluntly, my flight home doesn't leave until July 15th... And it's leaving from Paris CDG. So I have two and a half months to get from West Africa to Western Europe by any means necessary, charting a course from hostel to hostel like a game of connect-the-dots. Sweet. If my internship is really enjoyable, I may ask if I can work a few more weeks. In any case, the tentative plan (read: very tentative) is to fly to Marrakesh (for $500), hang out in Morocco for a few weeks, fly the 1,500 miles to Tunis (for only $500), hang out in Tunisia for a few weeks, then take a boat across the Mediterranean to Sicily or Naples. Flights are necessary because taking the train through Mauritania and Algeria could be very dangerous. Unfortunately, since each of these flights costs around $500, I'll probably have to choose between Marrakech or Tunis, instead of both. (Quel dommage.)

Assuming I make it to Sicily or Naples, I'll hike and bus and train my way up the Italian-Mediterranean coast until I reach Genova, after which I'll head North, through Milan, to Switzerland to meet up with friends in Geneva. Finally, I'll cross the border into France, which should plop me right into the beautiful Rhône-Alpes region. My feet, buses, and trains (again) will then take me through Auvergne and Bourgogne, before arriving in Ile-de-France (the center of which is of course Paris).

For the North Africa portion of the trip, my friend Jonah might come meet up with me, in which case a visit to Cairo would be in order. Otherwise, I'll try to find someone from MSID to travel with, since I'm afraid to travel through Northern Africa on my own. As for the Europe part, I don't think I'll mind traveling solo. We'll see.

I'm packing light for this trip, bringing just one large backpack filled with medicine, t-shirts for my family, my netbook, an Olympus XA subcompact 35mm film camera, 40 rolls of film, clothing, a book, a journal, mosquito netting, soap, etc. (Please don't panic if something crucial is missing from this list, but do let me know if you have any suggestions.)

Internet access may be spotty, so I don't know how often I'll be updating this blog, but if you subscribe, Blogger will email you every time I post something. In addition to blogging, I'll be checking my gmail account. Please feel free to email me and let me know what's going on in all of your lives.

Finally, if you're planning on being anywhere in Northern/Western Africa or Europe in May, June, or July, let me know! Maybe we can meet up. Also, if there's any interest in reading blogposts in French, I might try blogging en vernaculaire. Well, that's all for now.

Be benen yoon! (Wolof for 'Goodbye')

SHARPNESS

2009-02-25T06:42:00.000-08:00

Photo from this morning:

Crop from that photo (you can read the frigging "EXIT" sign)

Lots of New Photos (And a New Camera)

2009-02-10T17:49:00.000-08:00

In light of my recent work for Interview Magazine, which can be found here, I decided to buy a new camera, the full-frame Nikon D700.

Photos for Interview Magazine (I can only post images older than 60 days, as per my contract.)

Kingdom and Zach, at the Six Scents party on November 16th, 2008

Gareth Pugh, one of the designers at the Six Scents party.

A family friend also mailed me a 28mm f/2.8 Ai-S, which is super sharp, though a bit hard to focus on the digital body. The awesome thing about the D700 is its low noise at high ISOs. To break in the new camera, Angela (the Spec Photo Editor) and I went to the churchyard of St. John the Divine at night. This shot was taken at ISO 6,400!

An old wheelbarrow in cool lighting.

The next day, I took some pictures at my friends' band practice. They're called Chief Haney. (They don't have many songs up.)

Drummer Will Ewing

I finally picked up a roll of color film (Portra 400NC) that I had dropped off at B&H in late November -- they had put my account on hold for non-payment... All the photos on it were taken at Bard College in upstate New York during a weekend visit. I think they came out nicely. (Camera was a Canon TLb with 50mm f/1.8 lens.)

A sculpture on the green.

I took the lens off, turned it around backward, and did a makeshift macro shot of some leaves.

This one's ethereal.

Yesterday, I photographed Brooklyn Artist-Musician Jeff Lewis for the Spectator's weekly Arts magazine, The Eye. He was squirmy and camera-shy, but I got a few good ones.

Out in front of his Brooklyn apartment.

With his extensive Lou Reed record collection.

And today, Veronica and I took a walk around Columbia's campus, which was the first time I had used the telephoto (80-200 f/2.8 AF-S) on my new camera.

Looking sultry.

That's all for now, photo-wise. I'm trying to add photos to my Flickr at least once a week, so keep checking back often.

Notes on the Return of NROTC to Columbia

2008-11-24T01:27:00.000-08:00

Today Columbia students will have the chance to vote on the return of NROTC to their campus. I will vote No.

From a pro-NROTC leaflet slipped under my door tonight:

"We strongly oppose DADT, but we believe that boycotts are not the most effective form of protest...Thousands are working from within to make the military a more progressive institution...DADT is a federal law, passed by congress in 1993 and signed by President Clinton, and the military does not have the power to overturn it.

The military is a tool of democracy—it carries out the wishes of the elected representatives and should represent all sectors of society. Excluding the military is an abdication of responsibility. Columbia students should not side on the sidelines, and wait for others to create change."

As for the first paragraph: Isn't it at least a bit contradictory to simultaneously exhort gays and lesbians to change DADT from within the military, and to assert that "the military does not have the power to overturn [DADT]"? If an estimated 65,000 gays and lesbians currently serving in the military, the explicit opinion of 104 retired admirals and generals, and strong popular opposition to DADT are not enough to keep President-elect Obama from delaying his promised repeal, possibly until 2010, what difference will a few thousands LGBT folk make inside the military that they can't make far more strongly outside it? If the authority to overturn DADT lies with Congress, as the leaflet implies, then those seeking its repeal can (and I think, should) find their outlet for influence in the entry points of American democracy—as lawyers, activists, academics, politicians, writers, advisers, and political advisers.

I, for one, think that the upcoming Day Without A Gay protests will send a strong message from LGBT citizens to the incoming Obama administration and the democratic majorities in both the House and Senate: "we voted for you in droves; throw us a fucking bone!" Of course, if a gay or lesbian person on active duty in the military were to "abdicate [her] responsibility" in vocally coming out through an act of civil disobedience, she'd most likely join 12,000 of her ex-colleagues in ["dishonorably"] finding herself out of a job.

With regard to the second paragraph: The American military is indeed a tool of democracy, and it does carry out the wishes of the elected representatives who vote to send it into combat. Likewise, the military is also a highly effective tool of violent, authoritarian regimes the world over, and it often carries out the wishes of a single despot for his own personal gain. In other words, the military's demonstrable utility does not justify service as a universal responsibility, nor does it provide sufficient grounds for killing people. (On the other hand, mandatory, non-violent public service without DADT is fine by me.) Moreover, if the military "should represent all sectors of society," one need not join it to have her voice represented; protesting the DADT and the War in Iraq, and electing to office politicians who promise to end both, are powerful ways of influencing the military's actions and policies without enlisting.

Finally, the last remark, that "Columbia students should not sit on the sidelines, and wait for others to create change," is ludicrous. Whether we interpret "change" here as general improvement in the world or specifically a repeal of DADT, even if we grant that the military is an avenue to these ends (which I doubt), it is by no means the only or best way. The most simple utilitarian thinking shows that opportunities for positive change abound outside the military: in AIDS clinics, in microfinance firms, in not-for-profit organizations, in classrooms, in the Peace Corps, in pharmaceutical laboratories—thousands of opportunities for change exist outside the military, and it would be insulting to describe any of them as "sitting on the sidelines" or an "abdication of duty."

A Summer of Images - Part One

2008-07-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

I could chart this summer chronologically, counting the weeks and days as they slip by, or by bizarre changes in climate (does it really rain in July?), or by the cameras that I've been buying, borrowing, and exploring faster than I can keep track of. At the beginning of the summer I borrowed Paul's dad's Rolleiflex 3.5SE, complete with the original yellow filter. Like most of Neil's camera collection, (which also includes the wacky fisheye adapter I borrowed earlier this year), it's in mint condition. The absence of a light meter makes things a bit more challenging, but I just went with the "Sunny f/16 rule" since I was shooting outside. I can't exactly figure out how to get the film counter to work, so I wasted most of the first roll of Kodak C-41 process black and white, but here's one shot from it:

Then there was the Konica Autoreflex T4, which is a small, leatherette coated SLR from the late 70s that had a sweet 40mm f/1.8 pancake lens. The plastic chassis and compact lens made it featherweight and great for carrying around. All in all, I ran around four rolls through it, before selling it a customer at Sarber's Cameras on Solano Avenue, where I'm working this summer.

Shots with the T4:

Next, I picked up a used Nikon D2H, which is Nikon's professional DSLR from 2003—the equivalent of the Cretaceous in digital camera years—also in mint condition. At only 4.1 megapixels, I won't be using it for studio work, but it will be perfect for photojournalism.

Paul and I did a photoshoot at the construction site next door:

Eight frames per second allows for awesome action shots, like this mid-jump capture:

Of course, I've still been using my mom's old Canon TLb a lot:

Finally, I borrowed an Olympus XA rangefinder, the camera my parents used to photograph my birth until an orderly stole it. It looks like something Q would give to James Bond to take covert photos of Soviet missile silos—if Bond would settle for manual focus and aperture priority. The fixed 28mm f/2.8 lens is wide and sharp.

My favorite photo from the XA, so far:

And another:

That's all for now. Enjoy.

New Photographs

2008-05-02T18:15:00.000-07:00

Seek and ye shall find.

A Fishy Reasoning

2008-04-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

If you get in a 1987 Mercury Sable and beat down the most scenic piece of asphalt in the country, Highway 1, you'll eventually hit the muse of old-timey American literary icon John Steinbeck, Monterey's Cannery Row. The author himself, captured in a rough monochrome rendering, stares down at you from banners, silently imploring you to pass up the souvenir shops and tacky art galleries and read a damn book. Forget all of that though, even the infinitely enticing "authentic" Italian restaurant with striking coastal vistas. The only reason anyone ever comes to Monterey is its Aquarium, the largest on the West Coast.

The Aquarium is an awesome place to spend a day, and if you go in the right state of mind, you'll really dig it, along with the burnt out soccer moms and 4,238 kids. You can pet the sting rays (sans stinger), put your fat index finger in the mouth of a juicy anemone, or watch the sharks swim over your head, among countless other attractions. You can even "find" Pixar's adorable Nemo, either by perseverance or by asking Debbie, the charming 72 year-old volunteer at the information desk, where the damn Clownfish lives. In other words, if you want to get close to marine life without getting wet, this is as close as it comes.

But like the aquarium's terrestrial analog, the zoo, that's not very close. An omnipresent barrier always prevents real contact with the animals. This block is sometimes physical—as in the glass plate or guard rail; other times it's psychological—as in the rays' clipped stingers and the anemones' confinement to artificial tidepools. The entire relationship between viewer and viewed, then, is predicated on that distance, that control, try as they might to disguise it with slogans of "close-up access" and "touching."

Tourists flock to zoos and aquariums for the exotic intrigue of the dangerous, the beautiful, and the rare, presented in its "natural" habitat. And to be fair, the hammerhead shark is probably a lot more interesting than the ground squirrels that dig tunnels in most tourists' suburban backyards. But compare the numbers that go to the aquarium versus those who drive another half-mile down the coast to molest anemones and urchins in their natural beach habitats. If we wanted to, we could get a lot closer to marine life than the aquarium, but we don't, because the aquarium farcically purports to have already collapsed that distance.

How else could the aquarium's restaurant serve fish and chips? By presenting crustaceans and fish as something marveled at through glass, something made innocuous in the form of miniaturized stuffed animals, something confined to the "touching pool," the aquarium strokes and legitimizes our anthropocentrism. The animal becomes something for the fulfillment of human pleasure, be it visual (in a Foucauldian way), tactile, or gustatory. As a result, the real animal is ultimately stripped of its animality and replaced by a Baudrillardian facsimile, abridged and polished into that which we wish it to be.

This should not surprise us. The subjugation of animals for food, for labor, and finally, for entertainment has long been supported by philosophical, theological, and scientistic notions of prescribed domination and inherent inferiority. Examples of these justifications abound: in Descartes' famous description of animals as soulless "machines," in God's exhortation in Genesis to take "dominion" over the beasts, and in 19th century biologist Lloyd-Morgan's doctrine of ascribing animal behavior to the lowest possible faculty on the "psychological scale." This rhetoric has stuck with us, motivated by our craving for meat and justified by anthropocentric research in the natural sciences that imbricates our desires for the world with how the world "objectively" is.

This is not to say that in practical terms, the marine animals at the Monterey Bay Aquarium aren't the happiest on earth—they're kept in climate-controlled water and fed dietician-approved nourishment several times a day. But the presence of fish and chips at the aquarium's restaurant indicates a bizarre speciesism, not only between humans and the fish whom they exploit and consume, but between the fish on the dinner plate and the fish in the tank, according to their bright colors, potential to scare us, quirky behaviors, and prominence in animated movies. You won't find any Clownfish on the aquarium's menu. What's more, it reaffirms that the Aquarium offers a perverted understanding of fish.

Perhaps, as suggested above, the fish in the aquarium's tank appear so docile, so controlled, so anthropomorphic (think Nemo), that they transcend their wild animality (or fish-ness) altogether. As we allow them to move upward on a biological hierarchy that extends from bacteria at its bottom to humans, we accord them more of our respect. This is how we overcome the distance imposed by guard rails and clipped stingers. We feed, protect, and even revere them, as long as they swim in circles: beautiful, menacing, and utterly amusing. (Interestingly, the eccentric 17th century theistic philosopher Anne Conway envisioned a similar ranking in the world of creatures, depending not on animals' beauty or entertainment value, but on their proximity to God's perfection. Today, we've substituted humans for God as the telos by which we assess animal worth. Whether this makes us more or less arrogant is up for debate.)

Meanwhile, the wild, animalistic fish remain "fish" (and only fish). We keep them outside the aquarium, in the sea and in the river, or at the fish farm, where "real fish" belong. This is the real distance—geographical, biological, and metaphysical—that the aquarium implies but doesn't reveal. Nemo and his amusing counterparts silently urge us to think about the ugly, banal fish who swim in the dirty coastal waters outside; recognizing the essential differences between them can determine whether we spend our day at the aquarium or the beach, but assigning one a greater entitlement to life is irrational and morally bankrupt.

New Black and White Film

2008-04-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

In the past two weeks, I've added twenty new black and white film photos. Give 'em a look.

Click here.

Narrated Photo Slideshow

2008-03-03T13:29:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

The Spectator's wonderful Isabelle Mills-Tanenbaum compiled a slideshow of seven of my recent photos, complete with narration, that you can view here.

As always, your comments are welcome.

Enjoy!

Film!

2008-02-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

Besides Cheeseboard pizza, the coolest thing I brought back from Berkeley was my mom's 1972 Canon TLb with a 50mm f/1.8 and an 85mm f/1.8 for portraits. Ain't it pretty?

Right before I left, a certain someone and I went on a photo outing to San Francisco. As I had been addicted to coffee table-size books of Cartier-Bresson, Atget, and Brassaï for the previous two weeks, I decided to emulate their styles. Had the meter been working, they might have turned out better, but I kinda like these two, which I've resurrected from the depths of underexposure and grey in Photoshop.

Brief Update

2008-01-26T13:53:00.000-08:00

Hey All,

Let's get to it: This semester, I'm taking:
Literature Humanities (that Western lit survey course)
History of Photo (with a philosophical, non-linear approach)
History of Philosophy II: Aquinas-Kant
University Writing
Intermediate Italian

Photo stuff is getting crazy. I'm editing one night a week at the Spec, shooting a few news assignments per week, and taking an increasing (yay!) number of freelance jobs. Notably, I'll be covering Mercedes Benz Fashion Week at Bryant Park for our weekly arts magazine, The Eye.

Finally, I found a really cool way to show my photos:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Peace.

Making Sense of What Matters: Genetics and the Discourse on Marriage Rights

2007-12-29T14:56:00.000-08:00

According to a team lead by Jamie Q. White of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, scientists switched a gene in the brains of female worms, causing them to express sexual interest in other female worms. William Saletan, science Columnist for Slate Magazine, points out two possible conclusions:
"1) Sexual orientation is hard-wired. 2) This study bolsters other research (in flies and mice) indicating that the capacity for male sexuality is wired into female brains, subject to a genetic switch."
As usual, he also includes three important caveats: "1) It's just worms. 2) The worms have no eyes, almost no males (one in 500), and the "females" are really hermaphrodites. 3) Our brains are a lot more complicated."

Flies, mice, and worms. Maybe. Or even sheep. Charles Roselli, the leader of this study on sheep, says his research "strongly suggests that sexual preference is biologically determined in animals, and possibly in humans." But again, maybe. What about humans? If the United States were to extraordinarily render hundreds of women to a secret lab in Belarus and tinker with their brains such that many of them displayed lesbian or bisexual tendencies, would it matter? (Besides the blatant issue of medical ethics.) What if it were to be incontrovertibly proven that homosexuality is 100% biologically determined? For geneticists, it would be monumental, like any other important discovery. But would it, or should it matter for people and politics?

Nope, says I. Marriage rights should not be predicated on biology. Given that psychologists and neurobiologists agreed long ago that almost all behavior is partially genetic and partially learned (though certainly not 50-50), it's more than likely that some sort of genetic cause could be discovered—with at least a minimal degree of credibility—for any behavioral "disorder". Take pedophilia for example. A study from October of this year linked male height to pedophilic tendencies. The point, obviously, is not one of causation, but correlation—in this case, a pre-birth factor that contributed to both increased height and pedophilic behavior. If pedophilia were discovered to be as genetically caused as homosexuality, would lawmakers legalize it? Of course not.

And regardless of what I think, biology doesn't matter when it comes to marriage. From an evolutionary perspective, polygamy is perfectly biological. Like the heterosexuality that conservatives argue is so overwhelmingly pervasive in the "lower" animals—and thus "natural"—the majority of animals are polygynous or polyandrous because it ensures that their genes are dispersed. But polygamy is illegal in the United States.

Genetic or not, it just doesn't matter. Biology is irrelevant to the discourse on marriage rights for queer people. The argument here should be one of pragmatism, law, and philosophy. Parts one through five of this series provide a good introduction, though Fowler's discussion assumes an overly strict definition of "queer" and puts far too much weight on historicity. As if monogamous groups of two people are the only viable arrangement. As if it matters whether homosexuality is as old as the oldest profession or newer than skinny jeans. Anyway, the point here is not to critique Fowler, because his thesis is an engaging discussion of the subject. The point is that Fowler never engages with the biological/genetic hubbub, and for a good reason.

My Website is Up and Running!

2007-12-23T00:06:00.001-08:00

My photography website, www.josephshemuel.com, is now ready to go!

Check it out!

Coney Island Photo Essay

2007-12-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

Coney Island, once a popular tourist destination, has been in continual disarray since fires destroyed much of the park on May 26th, 1999. Efforts to revitalize the area in the early 2000's largely failed, and the historic site has yet to recover. On my visit yesterday, only one of the dozens of businesses along the beach was open. Most storefronts were covered in graffiti, obscuring brightly-hued advertisements for cotton candy, popcorn, and other typical American carnival fare. The boardwalk, however, was still thriving, though the clientele has changed markedly. The wide-eyed tourists and families that once filled the area have been largely replaced by the homeless, bored teens from neighboring areas, and intrepid joggers.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in cooperation with Borough President Marty Markowitz, Council Member Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., and several other local bureaucrats, have pledged a total of $83.2 billion over the next 10 years to make Coney Island "once again the playground of the world." The Coney Island Development Corporation has created a new promotional campaign that features a vector drawing of Coney Island as they envision it, surrounded by gaudy colors and the slogan "The Future of Coney Island." They have mounted banners bearing the design all around the park's numerous construction sites. (See title photo.) During my visit, no construction was underway, and some of the machinery had begun to rust.

The question is: a future for whom? Can the city remodel the attractions, infrastructure, and residences without taking into account the people? The diverse residents of the Brighton Beach area seem increasingly like permanent components of the park: human installations, themselves bodily amusements. Will a plan that neglects them succeed in its vision?

Check out the slideshows below, and decide for yourself.

To view in black and white, (all of the photos; my preference):
click here.
To view in color, (fewer photos, alas):
click here.

Meteorological Madness and Photo Fantasmagoria!

2007-11-19T13:27:00.000-08:00

First of all, it snowed today. Let me repeat: it snowed today. Ok, so it only snowed for a few hours, and it was barely intelligible as "snow", in that it looked more like white rain and melted upon contact with the ground (and my hand), but it was, by all objective accounts, meteorological and otherwise, S-N-O-W. Needless to say, I donned the long underwear and hat-with-flaps, only to find myself uncomfortably over-dressed when I got to class. They don't prepare you for this stuff in Cali...

In far more interesting news, I shot The Eye's winter fashion spread yesterday in and around a SoHo faux-Français bistro called Lucky Strike. The shoot, which featured three professional models who attend Columbia when they're not on the runway, followed a [cheesy, Playboy-esque] narrative about a femme fatale who finds her boyfriend snogging with another dame. Needless to say, it turns homo-chique by image four, wherein the offender tries to seduce the offended over coffee at the aforementioned cozy café. The betrayed woman wants none of it, of course, and she goes outside to smoke, calm and collected, of course, whence the last photograph.

Voilà.

New Photos with the New Lights!

2007-10-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

Last night, a beautiful dame I know, Veronica, and I hung out in a grungy stairwell and took some hot photos!

Check it out:

Photography and Hypocrisy

2007-10-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

As someone dear to me recently pointed out, my blog has taken a turn for the more personal. My posts of late have been more about my life at college and the photographs that depict it, while my political and philosophical insights (read: rants) have taken a marked back seat. This post will try to be both.

I have midterms this week - yippee! But seriously, I should be rejoicing; I only have three midterms out of five classes, and only one of them appears to be difficult. Tomorrow, Natalie Portman's gorgeous presence will be gracing this campus as part of her recent campaign (FINCA) advocating microfinance as a means to develop the third world. But one of those not-so-nasty midterms happens to coincide with her holiness' visit, so I won't be able to get a glimpse. Some other lucky photographer will get to ogle her through 100mm of glass. On the upside, this Saturday, I'll be photographing a woman who is certainly less attractive but maybe a tad more important: Hillary Clinton. I'll tell her "hello" for all of you, even those of you who are rooting for someone else to lead us out of misery in '08. (Maybe telling her "screw you" is more appropriate.) I sure as hell won't be voting for her.

To tell you the truth, podium shots are boring as hell. It'll be nice to have her prestigious name in my photojournalism portfolio, but she's not exactly going to make interesting subject matter.
Which is why I'm so excited for the Columbia Eye's upcoming fashion photo shoot. In preparation, I dropped a Benjamin on a 45" umbrella, stand, and mount for that pro-looking quality of light.
It's only gotten a little use so far:

I'm excited to put it to the test with real models wearing real, designer clothes from the current fall/winter lineup.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been listening to copious amounts of bluegrass these past few weeks. If you don't have it, PLEASE find a way to listen to Hell Among the Yearlings by Gillian Welch. Unfortunately, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2007 came and went in San Francisco, and I was just a bit too far away to make the show. I hope those of you still residing in the Bay got a chance to check out at least one of the days of FREE music.
___________________________________________

Bizing! Topic change!
As if an event starring conservative firebrand David Horowitz and laughable pundit Sean Hannity (who, believe it or not, runs a website called "HanniDate" so like-minded Republicans can find love) couldn't get any more ridiculous, a consortium of Columbia's progressive student organizations has proposed Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week Awareness Day, complete with a corresponding Facebook group (of course). The best thing to do with such an idiotic event would be to just ignore it and hope that others do the same, but by striving to make people aware of the idiocy of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, they're indirectly making more people aware of "Islamo-Fascism," thereby furthering the goals of the idiots in charge. I can hardly think of a less productive project for them. The irony is that my Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week Awarenes Day Awareness Blogpost suffers from the same exact paradox. I'm not holding an online candle-light vigil, though.

My [unrelated] point is more that religious members of the right wing can't exactly denounce the "fascist" consequences of Islamic theocracy when American strains of Christianity, specifically Evangelicalism, have hardly "freed" the American public. This being my blog, I'm not going to go into it, partly because I need sleep, but how about a few buzzwords: The Defense of Marriage Act, homophobia, intelligent design, abstinence-only sex-education, the list goes on. It makes me disgusted.
How about Evangelicalo-Fascism Awareness Week?

Loitering and Tarrying in Tarrytown

2007-10-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

My folks came into town on Thursday for Parents' Weekend here at Columbia, and we spent Sunday in a small city up the Husdon River called Tarrytown. We took a nice long walk through the city's residential neighborhoods. Kidna reminded me of Berkeley. Hmmmmm.

Like always, I brought my camera, but this time I coudln't get any good shots of the city itself. You can enjoy these two instead:

and

Peace.

Woodstock and Errata

2007-09-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

I just spent the last hour at my work-study job watching videos from Woodstock on Youtube, and now I'm all nostalgic (undeservedly so?)about a concert that predated me by two decades. But more than that, I'm anxious, and a little let down. What's going to be the defining musical moment of my youth? College is here, and I'm still waiting. The popular music of my day has almost entirely gone to shit-Woodstock 2007 would probably be a bigger flop than Britney's performance at the VMAs-so what's left? If not music, what then? Some might mention the Internet and Youtube and the whole technological orgy that's allowing me to disseminate this leggorhea as we speak, but that's more of a movement, a gradual, global paradigmatic shift; I'm not looking for another 60's, or 70's, just another Woodstock. It's gotta come through music, man. Of this I'm convinced. Maybe Garth Hudson will leave the studio to tour the states again with Bob Dylan and a whole host of other killer musicians, or maybe the Wailers will realize that they've become about as rootsy as Van Halen with their stacks of keyboards and overdriven guitar solos and they'll give reggae a less commercial, synthetic rebirth, or maybe some other consortium of awesome bands will all get together to eat 40 pounds of mushrooms and play a great show in Sullivan County, without the $12 beer, rampant corporate sponsors, and general bad vibes that seem to pervade every festival these days, save Reggae on the River. That's what I want for my birthday - another Woodstock. Who's with me?

Evil Comes to New York!

2007-09-24T20:14:00.002-07:00

In what reminded me (metaphorically speaking, of course) of Godzilla's terrifying cinematic rampage in Gotham city, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in New York today to address Columbia University. To be frank, for all the whining on Capitol Hill about "giving megaphones to megalomaniacs" (thanks, Mitch) and hundreds of disoriented protesters, what the fuck is the big deal? You don't throw a World Leaders Forum to invite just the leaders of Western democratic nations. That's what the G8 is for. Kinda.

Anyway, I'm not terribly interested in the politics of the whole ordeal, but the protests did allow me to snap some awesome photos. Enjoy.

2007-09-23T17:42:00.001-07:00

My friend Lola and I spent the day at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx! What a relief from the hubbub and concrete expanses of Manhattan.

A few photographic highlights:

and

Untitled Short Fiction #2

2007-09-22T22:05:00.000-07:00

Untitled Short Fiction #2

"I'm here." The letter, delivered to him just seconds ago by the anonymous postman, says nothing more. Such a simple message presents itself with equal anonymity: no endearing salutation, no signature, no postscript marks the occasion, but he knows exactly whom it's from. The statement is stark and unwavering, like the work of a typewriter. He has no doubts that she is indeed "here." For him, seeing this sentence on paper casts it with newfound certainty. She is "here" and "here" is her. It is a sentence of scientific, empirical conviction, an identity, like that which relates the pressure and volume of a gas; the symbols constitute a semiotics deeper than he can understand, a meaning of medieval sensibility, blind alchemy. But "here" is just that: "here." He lets his stream of thought rupture. "Here" is a tropical dystopia, a drink of gaudy hue resting in her hand, adorned—of course—with an umbrella and sordid flower petals; "here" is a vivacious metropolis at the vanishing point of which is her, subtle and absolute; "here" is aisle cinque in an Italian supermarket, floor-to-ceiling with canned tomato derivatives of assorted viscosities from paste to purée; "here" is every combination of the divers possibilities its own ambiguity and the field of blank parchment surrounding it lend to it. But "here" is also nowhere, as the vast whiteness is also quick to suggest. He imagines her at the vertex of an infinite 3D space, white extending into every direction. She casts no shadow; "here" is another version of such a limitless space, this time replete with impenetrable darkness. She disappears. He is disheartened, perplexed, puts down the letter.

The envelope, lacking a return address, yields no further clues. It bears only his address, which he knows, because it's his. Just a plain, black font on white paper, identical to the letter itself.

Like the apartment they used to share—black and white throughout. But not an apartment of monochromatic furnishings, metaphorically suitable for a couple that shares a life bereft of stimulation; a black and white that transcends color because it is the consummation of color, all colors simultaneously absorbing, reflecting, coloring. And it is this because it is "here," or so she said as she stood at the threshold, two years ago to the hour.

"I'm here," she had said, though the words didn't matter. She could have said something entirely different, or made a popping noise with her tongue, or even whispered "I'm not here." And he would have known. Because it was the sound of her voice, the vibrations, the waves of varying frequency and amplitude that titillated his inner ears, not her transient words, that betrayed her location and made him feel her proximity throughout his own. "Here" filled the space as she said it, or rather, the space filled "here," and the tract of white linoleum on which she stood became its singularity. She was "here," and he understood. Then she walked out that black door onto an avenue of bilateral symmetry. She chose a direction—left or right, one and the same—and took it. He did not follow. Was she still "here?"

That was then. He recalls the "here" of two years ago, wonders if it is the same "here" as the one in his hands, or whether the "here" which is now filling him with unearned nostalgia was only the "here" of a discrete moment, separable and distinct from the "here" of its future, of her future, of now. The letter offers him one parallel between the two—her existence; if she is "here," she is; she exists, still. This simple revelation dissolves the colorless muck that has been corroding his thought process since the letter arrived. He begins to think clearly again. Then the phone rings, the same ring of one year ago to the minute.

He picked up. He knew who it was.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"I'm here."

He explored the infinitesimal space between her syllables, the intonations, the vagaries of her speech as filtered by a thick wire of indeterminate length and the innumerable connections that separated her from her message, he again searched for the context that he knew must confine her words—clamorous horns, rushed conversations, the cyclical din of turbine engines; classical music, clinking utensils, hushed terms of endearment. But it was nothing more than imagination; before, between, and after her words there was only a low-frequency buzz that indicated life at some level, on her end or his. She was only "here," isolated in geographic ambiguity; she lost time, place, and history one-by-one until her identity, her being, was reduced to "here" and nothing else.

Just as her words now appear in the letter—the locus of a white void, shrouded in obscurity. He reads it over and over, ambition mounting upon confusion. With or without return address, he knows that the letter bears some evidence of its sender's current location, or at least the location from which the letter was sent, whether or not the sender was, or still is, there, though he assumes, possibly incorrectly, that these two locations are the same. And he knows he will find her, because he is "here".

Ecclesiastes and F-Stops

2007-09-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd go in Columbia's chapel, but I got bored and did. Czech it out!
(Note: these were taken with a Canon 10D and 17-40mm f/4 lens, not my usual Nikon kit.)

and

Weeeooo

2007-09-12T17:43:00.000-07:00

Look who made the front page!

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/

(Scroll down to the .pdf of today's issue.)

AND, my photos of Tim Hamilton's Spring Collection are being featured on Refinery 29's Web coverage of Fashion Week, available here:
http://www.refinery29.com/runway_and_shows/the_runway_part_ii.php?topcategory=fashion

In the Pit

2007-09-06T05:41:00.000-07:00

As the fashionably inclined among you may know, Tuesday brought the start of Fall Fashion Week in Bryant Park, Manhattan. I was lucky enough to score a press pass to an off-site show for New York-based designer Yigal Azrouel, where I joined photographers from Vogue, Elle, and other top-shelf fashion journals in the press pit. My work scored a spot in the Columbia Spectator's print and online editions, as well as a slideshow in the weekly art magazine, The Eye.

The Online Story

The Print Version (.pdf)

The slideshow should be up within the week, available here.

Additionally, if you're interested, the Eye ran a brief interview with me which can be found here.

Dorm pics + classes

2007-08-31T08:03:00.000-07:00

http://flickr.com/photos/jshemuel/1251084005/

and

http://flickr.com/photos/jshemuel/1251083795/

Course list:
European Literary-Philosophical Masterpieces
History of Philosophy: Pre-Socratics through Augustine
Animal Rights - Theory and Practice
Frontiers of Science
Hatha Yoga

That's it - gotta run for a Work-Study interview.

The Most Exhaustive College Blogpost I Will Ever Pen

2007-08-27T11:34:00.001-07:00

Smart frat boys are a scary thing. Normal frat boys are easy to dismiss because you can ignore them or outsmart them, but Columbia's polo-shirt-no-shave hounds get to be obnoxious and witty. Luckily, there was only one on our 150-mile sojourn up, across, down, and across (again) the Hudson River with Columbia's Outdoor Biking Orientation Program (COBOP). His name isn't important (because this variety of Greek life-er can read, and so can his buddies), but neither is he. So, where do I start?

I arrived at Columbia Wednesday night after an all-nighter and two flights that were so emotionally charged I resorted to the entire Iron and Wine discography, which of course only made the misery worse. On the plus side, arriving seven hours late meant that I missed all the idiotic name games... and dinner. So I walked down Broadway two blocks to Coronet's, where for three dollars, you get a slice of cheese pizza that makes Berkeley's Fat Slice look like some BS gourmet truffle-artichoke-zinfandel pizza from a trendy tapas joint on College Avenue.

After my makeshift dinner, it was time for bed - a sleeping bag on hardwood floor, sans pillow or thermarest. I was prepared not to sleep (that is, my ipod headphones were tucked discreetly in both ears), but, miraculously, skipping a night helped lull me right into REM. I also spooned with a wonderful classmate and friend from SF, Nora. We had a dense discussion of the various Taqueria names in the Mission before dozing off.

In the morning, we took the MTA North to Tarrytown, where we collected our bikes, found helmets, and got on the road... after an hour of standing around while logistics got dealt with. This was to become a recurring theme of COBOP. So, in order to totally immerse us in awkward nice-to-meet-you's without hope of escape, our leaders confiscated all watches, phones, books, etc - anything that could potentially connect a biker to the outside world, lest he talk to a worried parent whose name begins with J... They also didn't tell us the route, nor gave us maps. This throws somewhat of a monkey wrench in my blogging, as I can't show you where we went. A rough outline: First, we followed the Hudson north from Tarrytown through gorgeous forests and small towns full of Civil War landmarks, cemeteries, and McMansions. They fucking defined "quaint," like if Alexander Hamilton were having his Sunday Dinner, the horse-drawn carriage carrying him and his stately entourage would have followed us the entire way. These towns had names like Bedford, Montrose, Crotonville, Ossining, etc, etc. I'm sure there would have been plenty of perspective and home-style cooking to imbibe if I weren't wizzing by at 25mph. Actually, it was more like 15mph, tops. More on that later, too. The best part of these towns was the road signs. I didn't get a photo (since my camera's battery was dead), but one of them said, "Town of Doodletown Town Hall." Three "town"s on one sign, not to mention the ridiculous name "Doodletown!" We also passed near the town of (get ready for this one) Dickiebusch. That one was worth a few laughs. But where's my maturity? I think I left it on the inside of my jersey...

We crossed the mighty Hudson at Bear Moutain bridge before tackling the mountain itself. The bears (the other kind - those who drive cruisers, wear funny hats, and have slightly less body hair than their ursine counterparts) unfortunately weren't too happy with our 300-yard-long trail of bikers crowding their scenic drive to the summit, but a few quick cyclists and I at the front of the quasi-peleton managed to make it to the top undetected while the rest had to bake in the sun at base camp, which truly sucked for them. For us lucky few, it was a magnificent climb despite the 95-degree weather and 40% humidity. Here's a crappy photo of the coveted view:

Our Southern return was fairly similar to our Northern departure - beautiful forests, rolling hills, and more towns with silly names. The best part of the ride was the last hour, when we crossed the George Washington bridge and rode as one huge pack down Fort Washington Ave from 178th Street all the way to Columbia's campus. We filled an entire lane of dense traffic and chanted Columbia's fight song the entire way. Riding no-handed while conducting sixty bicyclists with an invisible baton in heavy New York traffic was thrilling as hell.

My only complaint about COBOP was the pace and the logistical stalemates. Since it was open to all cycling abilities, we took every incline at 5mph, no matter the grade, and we took water breaks every half-mile. Not the right way to climb hills. Fortunately, the breathtaking scenery alleviated my impatience, and I never once told the tiny Asian girl 50 yards back that breaking on every descent meant she was screwing herself for the inevitable subsequent ascent.

Back on Columbia's campus, I enjoyed an Ethiopian feast, generously provided by the COÖP program before borrowing some soap to take a long-awaited shower, which really hurt the scratch on my ear that I picked up in hand-to-hand combat with a bobcat. You should've seen the bobcat... And then, what to do? What the hell does a teenager with clean clothes, cash in his wallet, 240-square feet of dorm, and no obligations do on a Sunday night in Morningside Heights? He calls his parents. And his friends. And then he drops $50 on toiletries at Duane Reade. Ugh.

I eventually did meet up with a gaggle of new friends, and we went to a fun party or two, before crashing at 3:30AM. My sheets, along with most of my other packages, were stuck in the package center, so I slept on a bare mattress with a towel for a pillow, until 7:30, when my enthusiastic roommate, Noah, arrived with the Noah's Ark of dorm supplies. Let's just say it's a good thing that we* pay a flat-rate electrical bill.

Now it's 3:40PM, and I just woke up from a short nap on my new, Columbia-colored sheets, while listening to Linda Rondstadt, Joni Mitchell, and Joan Baez on the sweet speakers I brought with me. And I slept right through stupid convocation, which started at "two hours and thirty this afternoon." Read that with a pretentious British accent and you'll understand why I declined the invitation.

Brief tangent: I've been reading if on a winter's night a traveler (intentionally lowercase) by Italo Calvino, and I'd like to share a passage:
"Only the ability to be read by a given individual proves that what is written shares in the power of writing, a power based on something that goes beyond the individual. The universe will express itself as long as somebody will be able to say, 'I read, therefore it writes.'"

The thing about this kind of voyeuristic, almost diary-like blogging, as opposed to my impassioned political/quasi-philosophical rants and short stories, is that it's not narcissistic; this really is for you, because I know some of you genuinely care about how I'm doing at college. And I appreciate it.

And here are two pictures of my dorm, taken with a crappy camera:

*Here, "we" means my parents.

Explain this to me...

2007-08-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

Rant:
How is it that concerns about "immorality" and the well-being of offspring become the consummate impasses to marriage rights? A man who, for example, kills four babies and serves his time can legally marry a woman who, say, regularly has sex with her dad's best friend while drinking sheep blood, yet both are exceedingly "immoral" by what we can assume is the conventional, "universal" American moral code. But when two gay men try to marry each other, the "immorality" of their relationship becomes a sacrosanct impediment. A little inconsistent, if you ask me. Furthermore, besides ludicrous claims about morality posing as objective moral truth, opponents of gay marriage frequently cite the dangers that children of gay couples face. The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuals (NARTH), among other pseudo-scientific organizations, publishes dozens of studies on this topic, such as this one, while the scientific community at large counters with its own legitimate, peer-reviewed studies. But again, it doesn't matter. The law doesn't seem to care about the well-being of potential progeny when issuing marriage licenses. Alcoholics with violent predispositions can freely marry released child molesters, though their children will (relying on common sense, not empiricism here) be much more likely to end up as alcoholics, sex offenders, or otherwise mal-adjusted individuals. Why should the bar be set so much higher (or even set at all) for same-sex couples? The hypocrisy is striking.

Colors and Kites

2007-06-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

I've been reading far too much postmodern lit recently, so if the following seems derivative of Pynchon or DeLillo, don't hold it against me.

Colors and Kites

We walk along that stretch of ingenious urban planning which circumscribes the marina's grass, a reprieve from the sub-metropolitan atmosphere that was thought to induce stress, though I have found none in Berkeley. High winds, lethal sun indicate Sunday afternoon, but it may not indeed be after noon. And if it is, it is before the next noon (assuming there will be another), so we can agree that it is somewhere between two noons, and that the sun is out, and that the winds are strong. Kite-flying weather. Many have already caught the wind - professional stunt sorts of kites with long tails, solemn colors, and intent pilots; others dawdle just above the grass: under-inflated cartoon characters, animals, and other sordid forms that dance out of reach of their young masters. They pull strings, run and jump. Just try to grab the vinyl zeppelin with both hands. Fail. The winds are sovereign in the air.

One of the latter sort, a brightly-colored teddy bear, has made it up. It steadily ascends, its hue disrupting the celibate tranquility generally maintained by those that can fly higher than the rest. The chromatic dissonance is now hard to miss, so I say "Hey" and point upwards.
"See that? How'd a pink teddy bear get so high up?"
"What pink teddy bear?" Dad asks.
"That one." I pull his head over to share my view of the the offending satellite, which grows smaller as I point more insistently.
"You mean the orange teddy bear up there?"
Are there two neon tedddy bears? Has my mind resolved the two bears into one bear? If so, how come I see only the pink one? Does pink resolutely block orange, the spectroscopic trump card? "No," I insist, "the pink one."
"Joey, there is only one neon-colored teddy bear up there, and it's orange." He asks my mom her opinion. "Orange," she concludes without hesitation. Then, "Pink, Joey? Pink?" she asks in that tone that people often adopt when something as fundamental as their five senses is being questioned. Like I'm telling her that she's six-foot-five and has nine toes on her left foot. Where's the empiricism in color?
"Maybe you have some chromatic abberation in your eyes," Dad says matter-of-factly, the hypochrondriac projecting. "When was the last time you had your vision checked?"
"July of last year. 20/19. Perfect relative tint detection," I rattle off my optometry chart.
"But what about color?" he persists.
"What about it? I say pink. You and mom say orange. Where's the absolute in two-against-one? What if everyone else in this park said pink? Would it be orange or pink?"
"I'm not sure."
"What if everyone else in the park said green? Would it then be neither orange nor pink?"
"I don't know."

We both look skyward for a second. The teddy bear kite is now just little more than a speck against the void. Its operator seems to have lost interest and is now drinking a beer down by the water. The reel of string spins, one end stuck haphazardly in the dirt.

"Even if we got all seven billion people in the world to come witness this kite, and six million, nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred ninety-eight of them said pink? Would that make it pink?"
"That's ridicuous."
"Allow the hypothetical."
"Then I guess that would make it pretty fucking pink."
"If seven billion people say pink, it's pink, but if forty-some-odd park-goers say green despite the three of us, its color is still indeterminate? We're clearly not dealing with a simple majority here, so where's the threshold?"
"Fuck, I don't know, Joey. Forget seven billion people. Ask the scientists. It's not about the subject here; it's about the object, the teddy bear kite. And if scientists are reliable at anything, it's objectivity. Two plus two equals four, carbon has four valence electrons, and ribosomes produce ATP, right? If we took a sample of that teddy bear's vinyl skin and popped it into a spectrometer, it would give off electromagnetic waves of a certain wavelength, and then we could match that length to a color on the Visible Spectrum. There you go."
"So that's what color is?"
"I think so."
"But how did they make the Visible Spectrum? Someone had to see the colors at some point. Did the scientist who came up with it look at light of varying wavelengths and then write down all the colors he saw? Because that's no less solipsistic than me telling you that the bear is pink because it looks pink to me. Or did he poll all the scientists in the lab and then go with the consensus at each wavelength? Were there any dissenters or was it unanimous?"
"I have no idea - I wasn't there."
"Exactly. You weren't there and neither was I. How can a certain wavelength be green if those who decide what's green and what's not did the deciding without asking you, probably before you were born? Do colors change, respond to political climate and pop-culture trends? Was the green of a certain wavelength in swingin' 1927 the green of that same wavelength during, say, the Great Depression, 1934? Do colors become vibrant and muted as the economy booms and busts?"
"I doubt it. Look at Yosemite. The redwoods have been the same green since I first went there in 1971. They never change, never die."
"Everything dies."

We fall silent. Take long, deep breaths. When we return to the sky, the neon teddy bear is gone. There is no contrail, no pink or orange or green streak in the sky where we all think we saw it, no visible change in the density of air molecules, no phase change, no condensate. No bear.

Unalienable Rights

2007-06-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

"Life, liberty, and estate (or property)."
-John Locke

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
-American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson

So why the divorce between Locke's tripartite motto and Jefferson's more yeoman-friendly rehashing? That's not really the question I want to address here, though Robert Dahl does a fantastic job of summarizing the conflict between popular sovereignty and property rights, and how Jefferson, Leigh, and other statesmen debated the issue, in Chapter 2 of his Preface to Economic Democracy. (1985, UC Press)

I actually want to touch on a separate, but related, argument found in Chapter 3 of the same text, one with which Jefferson would have presumably agreed. Roughly paraphrased (because I can't find the damn direct quote), Dahl states that a right to unlimited accumulation of property cannot be a natural right because it invariably hinders another citizen's right to accumulate that same property. In a capitalist democracy which permits the exclusive ownership of land, possessions, and inventions*, etc. property is a commodity, something of limited availability.

Several of Dahl's other chapters concern the right to property as a menace to another member of the trio - political liberty.

So what do we have in instead of "property" in our Declaration of Independence? The right to the pursuit of happiness. Happiness, on the other hand, is not commodifiable - it has the potential for an unlimited existence and distribution, regardless of supply, demand or any other law which binds tangible substances. Moreover, my unlimited possession of happiness does not necessarily hinder your right to a similar accumulation. Some would even argue that my happiness invariably contributes to your own happiness. In this case, the paradigm would completely flip.

But the pursuit of happiness is admittedly a fairly vague goal, no less nebulous than all this hoo-hah I hear daily about "making a difference," or "changing the world." How does one pursue happiness? Given that everyone will necessarily have his or her own [disparate] answer to this question, perhaps we can find something codified, a mutually acceptable roadmap to happiness.

To be sure, millennia of religious movements have offered answers to that question, but from what I've learned, each requires too many logical concessions and fallacies to make its roadmap worthwhile. With the possible exception of the Eastern religions, which I'm still exploring, they all punctuate their roadmaps with detours and flat tires.

Enter eupraxsophy, or Paul Kurtz' term to distinguish humanistic convictions and practices from religious systems of faith and belief. A brief look at its etymology reveals all:

Eu- is a prefix that means “good,” “well,” or “advantageous.” It is found in the Greek word eudaimonia, which means “well-being” or “happiness,” and it is also used in English terms such as eulogy and euphoria.

Praxis (or prassein) refers to “action, doing, or practice.” Eupraxia means “right action” or “good conduct.”

Sophia means “wisdom.” This word appears in philosophy, combining philos (“love”) and sophia (“wisdom”) to mean “love of wisdom.”

Kurtz differentiates Eupraxsophy from theistic religion in his article Eupraxsophy Revisited:
"The theist often has a degraded view of human beings who, beset with original sin, are incapable of solving life’s problems by themselves and need to look outside of the human realm for divine succor. The humanist accepts the fact that the human species has imperfections and limitations, and that some things encountered in existence may be beyond redress or repair. Even so, he or she is convinced that the best posture is not to retreat before the unknown, but to exert intelligence and fortitude to deal with life’s problems. [...] He or she expresses the highest heroic virtues of the Promethean spirit: audacity, nobility, and developed moral sensibilities about the needs of others."

His explanation's emphasis on decision-making and personal responsibility reminds the reader of Sartre's lecture entitled Existentialism Is a Humanism, which he delivered when Existentialism subject to misunderstanding and attack similar to that which Kurtz feels is being inflicted on secular humanism.
"If, however, it is true that existence is prior to essence, man is responsible for what he is. Thus, the first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders. And, when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men."

Kurtz goes on to explain how happiness can fit into what may seem like an austere prescription of sterile reason and science:
"Joyful exuberance is enhanced when we not only fulfill our needs and wants, but creatively express our goals and aspirations. It denotes some degree of excellence, nobility, even perfectibility, of a person’s talents and achievements. It comes to fruition for those who find life intensely worth living and at times exhilarating. [...]
This occurs when a person is able to realize his or her wants and talents, dreams and aspirations, and when a person is able to share the bountiful goods of life with others—children and parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, colleagues and neighbors—within the various communities of humankind."

So, if I can attain my happiness without hindering your own (and possibly while encouraging it), through methods which appeal to my [hopefully] rational mind, then I am convinced that it is my right to do so, I should do so, and you should do so, too.

*One could argue that the capacity to come up with ideas is as unlimited as the capacity for happiness and that one's unlimited possession of lucrative ideas cannot hinder my own, but the product - a commodity such as intellectual property - makes the distinction significant in my mind.

No One Was Left to Speak Up

2007-05-31T16:08:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following essay for The Holland Knight Foundation's Holocaust Remembrance Project. The winning essays for this year's contest, which unfortunately don't include my own, can be found here. Personally, I think most of them are melodramatic and contrived rehashings of essays from previous years, but to each his own. Enjoy.

She was only 16 when she heard the shots. As the only surviving member of her family, Savta fled her rural village of Lawochne and never looked back. She hid in a ditch, then in the deep woods of the Carpathian Mountains, before making her way to Debrecen, Hungary in what she later called, with her typical irony, “my eight-month adventure.” (Ben-Shmuel, 2005) Unfortunately, despite her blonde hair, blue eyes, and knowledge of the Catechism, the Nazis caught up to her there. Imprisoned in Budapest, she seemed bound to suffer the same fate as her relatives and six million others.

But before the Nazis could fill the next train to Auschwitz, a fellow inmate introduced Savta to a wealthy man who “talked about a brighter future,” and arranged for her transfer from prison. He wanted to adopt her, but she yearned to join her people in what was to become Israel. Faced with a choice - adoption in Budapest or a new life - Savta tearfully waved goodbye and boarded a Kindertransport. No one waved back.

Savta’s solitary flight from the Nazis underscores the intense isolation that she and other Jews experienced during the Holocaust, bringing to mind the famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller, an outspoken German resister:

First They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. […]
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up. (Niëmoller, 1976)

Who was there to speak up for Savta and the rest of the Jews? With few exceptions, those who could have raised their voices didn’t, until it was already too late. Indeed, Niemöller’s parable applies just as chillingly to the Allied nations as it does to Eastern European minorities; Prime Minister Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler and international apathy were nothing more than a worldwide refusal to speak up for the future victims of the Holocaust. (Wheeler, 2002) As historian D.N. Dilks puts it, appeasement was “something sinister, the granting from fear or cowardice of unwarranted concessions in order to buy one’s own temporary peace at someone else's expense.” (Dilks, 1972) That someone else, among others, was the Jews.

Sadly, Niemöller’s poem still applies on an international scale; the rise of the global economic ethos has not been accompanied by an awakening in global perspective. The First world has retained its cowardly, self-interested viewpoint toward the Third, employing colonialism, neo-liberal policy, and simple greed in order to protect its capital over human rights and even lives. As the pattern violently repeats itself, the world again refuses to speak up, but this time its silence is called “profit” instead of “appeasement”; the deadly cowardice of the Holocaust has become the economic self-interest of today.

Such dangerous economic practices, however, began long before WWII; Belgian colonists arrived in Rwanda in 1916, where they segregated the Tsutsis and the Hutus and began exporting coffee, before granting Rwandan independence in 1962 in the face of impending ethnic tensions. Thirty-two years later, those same tensions erupted into genocide, leaving 800,000 Tsutsis dead. Despite international outcry, the United Nations drastically reduced its troop presence in the middle of the genocide, and the Clinton Administration balked at filling the void. Moreover, U.N. sanctions did little to stop the violence. In his report on the Rwanda genocide, historian Phillip Gourevitch wrote, “[the decision] wasn't a failure to act. The decision was not to act. And at that, we succeeded greatly.” (Gouveritch, 1998) Economist Richard H. Robbins adds, “Perhaps there is no better case than Rwanda of state killing in which colonial history and global economic integration combined to produce genocide.” (Gobbins, 2002, p. 269) In its tacit, self-interested apathy, the West had again refused to learn from the lessons of the Holocaust.

Sadly, Rwanda is not unique; genocide has occurred in Bosnia, Cambodia, and Guatemala, and another genocide is claiming lives as you read these words: Darfur. Over 400,000 Sudanese people have already been killed by Janjaweed militants, with another two million displaced. At first glance, history seems doomed to repeat itself, but now, the world is voicing concern about Darfur, and I am proud to be a part of the chorus. As Director of Debate for the California Junior State of America, a political organization whose motto is “democracy is not a spectator sport,” I have helped sponsor resolutions and discussions on Darfur at our statewide conventions, and they have made for some of the most stimulating and well-attended debates in JSA history.

What’s more, compassionate students have taken their activism from the convention floor to some of the best-attended political rallies in recent history, which seem to be making an impact on Washington: On April 18th, 2007, President Bush echoed the increased support for Darfur, threatening the Sudanese government with increased sanctions if it did not support UN actions and control the Janjaweed militia. But provisional sanctions are not enough, as Rwanda sufficiently proved, and the United Nations understands this, even if China, who has continued buying Sudanese oil despite the genocide and refuses to ratify a joint resolution supporting the use of force, chooses to ignore it. In his April 18th address, Mr. Bush should have called upon China to support the UN resolution, but the U.S. and China are close trading partners; the United States has just as large, yet indirect, economic stake in Sudanese oil as China does. This is why President Bush called only for sanctions, not direct military force, and this is why the United States is again aiding and abetting genocide for the preservation of its own economic self-interest, exposing its failure to learn from the Holocaust for all to see. Students must persevere if America is to turn tentative sanctions into saved lives any time soon.

In a world so unabashedly hostile and selfish, it is not surprising that Savta rarely spoke of the horrible hardships she endured during the Holocaust; but we would be as foolish as the townspeople of Chelm to suspect that she had forgotten or failed to learn from them. In the years to come, it will be our actions, not our words, which show our remembrance of the Holocaust and our renewed commitment not to appease, but to speak up for those who cannot.
Works Cited:

Ben-Shmuel, Miriam. Personal interview. Mar. 2005.

Dilks, D. N. "Appeasement Revisited." University of Leeds Review. 15 (1972): 28-56.

Gerstenzang, James. "Bush Warns Sudan Over Darfur Crisis." Los Angeles Times 19 Apr. 2007. 22 Apr. 2007 .

Gourevitch, Philip. Interview with PBS Frontline. The Triumph of Evil. 1998. 23 Apr. 2007 .

Greene, Richard A. "Critics Question Regan Legacy." BBC News 9 June 2004. 18 Apr. 2007 .

NiëMoller, Martin. First They Came... 1976. New England Holocaust Museum, Boston, MA.

"Responsible China?" Editorial. Washington Post 6 Sept. 2006, sec. A: 14.

Robbins, Richard H. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Allyn & Bacon, 2004. 269

Wheeler, Charles. "Czechs' Hidden Revenge Against Germans." BBC News 3 Dec. 2002. 20 Apr. 2007 .

Zinn, Howard. People's History of the United States. New York, NYC: Harper & Row, 1980. 26 Apr. 2007 .

Beliefs

2007-05-29T02:11:00.000-07:00

There are some things that I truly believe, like gravity exists and thought doesn't have to be a means to an end, and other things that I want to believe. The distinction here is more important to me than I can possibly express, as are the things that fall in the latter category. Usually when I get going on philosophical streams of consciousness like this one, I reject specific examples, since they rarely get me anywhere; a counter-example can always be found, neither one is more valid than its contradiction, and the resulting dialectic is bound to provoke more questions than it answers. But for illustration, they'll come in handy, and their inutility may actually explain my disdain for them.

First on the list is a universal moral of compassion. I'd love to believe, as a humanist, that our actions are governed by an enlightened self-interest that takes into account the other. But I can't believe in moral universalism in general, much less compassion as its leading trait. China's buyiing oil from the Sudanese government; a project for communal bike ownership in Portland failed in weeks; people keep admiring Ayn Rand. If compassion's part of a universal "moral grammar", it's definitely off in the footnotes or margins, or maybe even in the appendix.

The next is monism, (for those of you who don't mentally masturbate) the belief that sensation and cognition, or mental and physical, are one and the same. Again digressing to specific examples, think about a magician with a card trick. Dualism would say that I sense (through my eyes) that the card is disappearing, and then think that it's under the table or up his sleeve. Monism would reject the distinction.

Last is pantheism, that the ostensibly inexplicable in nature can be written off as magic, or more conventionally, an immanent and omnipresent, albeit impotent, god. I can look at a leaf with its lattice of veins and consider how it photosynthesizes to get ATP, how its green hue has been selected in lieu of its brown and yellow counterparts. But the void between what I'm seeing (and thinking about, regardless of the existence or nonexistence of a separation between them) and what I understand is significant. No doubt, there's a scientific theory out there capable of explaining that which I don't understand, but living is so much more enjoyable if bask in that obstinate, ignorant, blissful crevice.

Flick!

2007-04-05T23:50:00.000-07:00

The sound, or rather two sounds, that a lighter makes are unique. When taken separately, they're just bland, but the combination is far greater than the sum of its parts. The first part of such an auditory synergy is the quick clicking sound made by turning the wheel. A socket wrench wrenching or a steel-bristled brush brushing. Now that the lighter has been cocked, like a six-shooter revolver, the next step is release. The depression provided by your thumb on the semicircular tab below the wheel releases invisible gas from the depths of its liquid reservoir into the air pocket above the metal aperture, where it combines with the spark to ignite into an elongated ellipse of red, orange, blue, and white that you may know simply as "flame." The sound this step makes could be compared to a short, gentle exhalation, a whisper, Marilyn Monroe as her red lips part to hiss, "Happy Biiiirthday, Mr. Preeesssideeent." As you keep your thumb down, the lighter falls imperceptibly silent, unless you put your ear so close to the flame that it would get burned anyway. That flame may waiver in the wind, stretch upward toward hither and yonder, or stand perfectly still until you charm it toward an awaiting bowl, blunt, or bong like a withholding snake charmer. But your flute is broken and it won't fucking listen anyway.

As I sit here in half-lotus on a dirty cushion (the living room's only two chairs are in use on the balcony), pondering the two ounces of molded plastic and aluminum in my right hand, I can think of nothing else. Would I even want to if I could? Flick. Flick! The folks at Bic would be proud. But this lighter, if anything, is two-sided. I could easily - and justifiably - burn this motherfucker to the ground, starting with the cheap, not-up-to-building-code walls, or maybe one of the paper plates that litter the carpet, in hopes that it catches the others and inaugurates a whole goddamn bonfire of debris. But for now, this lighter is serving another purpose. Flick.

The Ten Commandments, Hate Crimes, and the Family Research Council

2007-04-05T10:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Family Research Council,

Your recent "Stop Thought Crimes" video is not only appalling, but counterproductive to your goal of maintaining a reputation as a trusted group on Capitol Hill, most notably because it contains several blatant lies. If the FRC purportedly defends "Faith" (the second item in its catchy triplet, "family, faith, and freedom"), then why can't it uphold the 9th Commandment prohibiting "bearing false witness?"

Firstly, the video falsely claims that no current Hate Crimes legislation exists, when in fact 18 U.S.C. section 245, which was passed in 1969, already enforces hate crime laws for racially based crimes.

The video also repeatedly claims that the new laws will unlawfully restrict freedom of speech, when in fact the laws only affect cases of physical injury - intended or actual - based on sexual orientation, gender, or disability, not the mere disapproval of homosexuality. If we refer to FRC's article entitled "Questions and Answers: What's Wrong with Thought Crimes ('Hate Crimes') Laws?" (http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF07C02) by Peter Sprigg, we find a more detailed explanation of this argument.

After conceding that the proposed legislation only "could eventually threaten freedom of speech and religion," (instead of definitely and immediately doing so, as the video claims) the article goes on to state: "With 'hate crime' laws, however, people are essentially given one penalty for the actions they engaged in, and an additional penalty for the politically incorrect thoughts that allegedly motivated those actions." This would suggest that consideration of a alleged criminal's mindset is unprecedented, when in fact the opposite is true. It is a far more serious crime to contemplate and mentally plan a crime prior to committing it than to commit it spontaneously in passion or anger. Clearly precedents have been set for consideration of a defendant's mindset and motivation, and they have stood up to legal challenges, even if Sprigg's article claims that they "violate... the equal protection of the laws," the same laws FRC ignores when helping defeat legislation to legalize same-sex marriage.

What's more, Sprigg refers to hate crime laws as "favor[ing] some victims of violent crimes over other victims of equally violent crimes." I find this wording deceptive; victims of violent crimes - who may be dead or irreversibly harmed - are not the ones who will be affected by new hate crime laws. It's the criminals who will have suffer the consequences of new hate crime legislation, and rightfully so.

It seems to me hypocritical to criticize gays for "sexually deviant" behavior that can only be "proven" through circular religious logic or studies from scientifically laughable groups like NARTH, while deceiving (read: morally deviant behavior) your entire constituency on the Internet.

Sincerely,

Joseph Shemuel

My Middle, Excluded

2007-03-15T21:41:00.000-07:00

They went up and down and around and around and around. With each sway in perpetual motion, the young riders shrieked gleefully and threw their hands in the air, only to steal them back down an instant later for fear of falling. Their wooden steeds, painted silver and gold, obeyed without whinny, never demanding water or hay or rest. Each one had a brightly colored light on its head and if I squinted, they made blurry rainbows against the dark sky. Lively classical music emanated from boxes on the merry-go-round’s top rail. The cheap speakers discolored it – no treble, no bass, none of the thrill or emotion that I had loved as a child. It sounded like a song you hear in action movies when the protagonist, probably a suave young outlaw played by Heath Ledger or whoever, is escaping through the forest on horseback with the cruel oil tycoon’s sexy wife. It was Beethoven’s fourth, I think. After three minutes and twelve seconds – I was counting on my Timex – the music and motion and lights came to a stop and parents surged up to collect their children before vanishing back into minivans and hybrid station wagons.

I looked down at my book. The old brown pages reflected just enough tinted light for me to discern the words, but the spinning shadows from the carousel made me nauseous. I kept reading Either/Or, trying to separate the pseudonymous characters. Kierkegaard was nearly impossible to understand even with full light, and eventually the Danish words all looked the same. I closed it and glanced around. The park must have closed because its lights and music were off and everyone was gone, except the attendant. My watch said 8:13, so I got up to leave.

I could barely see anything, but I could hear the man’s broom scratching on sheet metal as it swept up candy wrappers and that was enough, as long as it didn't stop. Every time he paused between strokes to stretch his back, stare at the stars, or who knows what, my stomach tightened a little. The bus stop was just over the hill behind me, a ten-minute walk if I went through the dense ivy and eucalyptus instead of taking the path. But I couldn't make it in the dark or the silence. I walked toward the attendant, away from the jungle. When I came near, he jumped back, dropping his broom. Like I was crazy or something.

“Shit! Where the hell did you come from? Park’s closed, man,” he said.

“Hi,” I said. Then, pointing over my shoulder, “From that bench, the brown wooden one.”

The man tried to see, but I guess it was too dark to make out a brown bench against a black forest. He picked up the broom again but didn’t start sweeping. He held it in front of him, the bristly part up, right hand grasping the handle, like the old farmer in Woods’ American Gothic. His face wasn’t far off - all white and gaunt, but with dark, furtive eyes. “How can I help ya?” he asked.

“Ummm – just one thing,” I said quickly, looking him in the eye, “Don’t stop.” His shifty pupils were dilated and I could tell he was still scared, which was odd because I was sure he’d recognize me after all the days I’d spent up here. “Don’t stop sweeping, OK?”

“What? Oh, well, uh. Almost all the trash’s gone and my shift’s just about over, but I have a few more minutes,” he said, taking a step back. The way his lips curled downward and his nose wrinkled a little, I knew he still didn’t trust me. “After that, no promises, kid. Again, the park’s closed. Alright?”

“OK. Thanks,” I said.

He turned around and began sweeping again, more violently this time, pushing the bristles back so far they almost snapped on every stray pebble or woodchip, but I didn’t mind. I walked back the way I had come, past the bench and into the thick darkness behind it. My watch read 8:27. The last bus came at 8:45. The ivy seemed much more densely tangled at night and grabbed my bare ankles on every other step. But I could still hear the broom switching back and forth, so it was all right. I felt mosquitoes landing on my neck and forearms. Tiny insects crawled up my calves and when I tried to brush them off, my foot caught and I tripped. It wasn’t all that bad, really, down on the ground. The ivy was tall and covered the edges of my body. I doubted that a passer-by would have even seen me. I rolled over and looked up into the stars, but it was too foggy to see anything beyond the tree silhouettes – not uncommon for Berkeley. A thin film of luminance made it through the foliage and hung on the ivy, which made the darkness pleasantly tolerable. I lay there for a few minutes, occasionally glancing at the jade Indiglo on my watch as the seconds ticked upwards. Forty-one, forty-seven, fifty-four.

Then the broom sound stopped. I leapt out of the ivy and tore through the woods toward where I thought the bus stop was. I kicked my feet high as I ran to avoid the earthen snares below. As each foot stepped down, the ivy yielded and twigs snapped. Once in a while, the top of the ivy rippled with a sound like cards shuffling, and I heard rodents scurry away from my footsteps. I knew there were hundreds of ancient eucalypti all around me, but I somehow dodged them while running in a straight line. After several minutes, orange light filtered toward me through the impenetrable forest. I followed it and stumbled into a clearing lit by a narrow cone of light from a sole streetlamp. Inside the glow, there were three wooden tables with benches, but they were all empty. On one table, flies swarmed around the remains of a barbecue feast left by inconsiderate picnickers, so I held my breath and went around the other two. Beyond the clearing, I found the road. The bus stop was just down the hill and I walked along the shoulder.

Like most roads in Tilden, it wound back and forth and back and forth, forming an infinite series of tight turns that caused the occasional car to hug the divider. I was wearing all black, which was unusual for me because I preferred to wear at least one brightly hued article so that the goths or punks or whatever didn’t talk to me like I was one of them. I wasn’t, usually. When cars came from the front with their lights shining, I ducked off the shoulder and turned to cover my eyes. But I gave in to the lights because I had to, and because I liked them.

After a particularly steep and windy turn, I saw the bus stop. The bench wasn’t empty. Toward the far end of the bench, the side I always sat on, there was a non-descript lump. The shape seemed to smolder in the dusty air and shreds of moonlight which reflected off the metal bus stop sign. As I came closer, the winds hissed, shifting the figure to the right. I slowed my feet down, closed my eyes, and sat down on the opposite end of the bench, facing away from the thing. My Timex said 8:44. Nothing came for two minutes and twenty-nine seconds. Finally, cantankerous and blinding, the old bus came into view and I turned to follow its headlights with my eyes. It passed me and stopped at the bench’s other end with a sound like choked exhalation. I stayed seated, staring at its vague contour. The shape rose into a human form but didn’t shed its cloak. Then, in the puddle of light afforded by the bus’s interior, I saw it – an old faceless hag wearing burlap. She dug in the canvas folds and found handfuls of coins which glittered in the bus’s sickly gleam, before disappearing into the bus. I followed.

There was no one else on the bus – just the driver, the shape-shifter, and myself. She had taken a seat at the back and appeared to already have begun her metamorphosis back into the invalid I had seen before. Sparse fluorescent ceiling lights illuminated the rough texture of her garments and the indistinct skeleton below them, but left her visage in shadows. I chose a place at the front, in the “handicapped-only” section, and stared out the windshield, warming my hands under the heating vent. The bus started down the hill. Every few seconds, I gave in to my curiosity and twisted to observe the lump in back. The driver seemed not to notice her, keeping his eyes on the road. After one particularly long stare, I rose from my seat and steadied myself with the poles along the ceiling. I strained to pull my body toward the rear of the bus as gravity dragged me back the other way, down the steep road. The woman didn’t move, but I couldn’t tell whether or not she’d noticed me, or if she was even awake. As I fell into a seat adjacent to hers, she suddenly lurched forward, sloughing her hood. I slid further away but then lowered my head toward hers. Doughy, pale, wrinkled.

“Ummmmm, hi,” I said. The voice wasn’t mine, but I had heard it.

“Hello there,” she said. Her words were like honey dripping onto a plate, a Billie Holiday 78 if you played it at 33. “I’m Charlotte. What’s your name?”

I didn’t like to say my name, especially not to people I didn’t know, so I didn’t. In the dim light I picked a familiar name. “Johannes.” It was half-true.

“Johannes? Johannes,” she repeated, each syllable its own word, making my head tingle. “What were you doing in the park this late?” Unlike most people, she didn’t accent any of her words, and her hands remained still, tucked into the folds of cloth. Her speech was flat but not unpleasant.

“Nothing,” I said, which wasn’t really a lie. “Just watching the merry-go-round, and reading, and sitting on a bench. Then I walked here to get on this bus. Now I’m going home.” I would have asked her the same question, but I already knew the answer. Instead, I just stopped talking and stared, waiting for her to ask me something else. She seemed good at conversation, at least for a street woman like her. I gazed through the window at blurry lights and old homes. The bus turned onto Rose Street, only a few minutes from downtown.

“Where’s home?” she continued. My stomach began to hurt again and I waited for a while before responding, “I can’t tell you.”
“Neither can I,” she said, “but I can tell you where I’m going: the City.” She said “City” just the way the college kids did, like it was the coolest slang in the whole damn dictionary. “I’m going to meet some old friends.” I didn’t know if she meant “old” like wrinkled and dirty, or “old” like she’d known them for a while. Probably both. “What are your friends like?” she asked.
I opened my mouth to respond, but no sound came out. Silence, except for the bus’s deep rumble. I shifted my weight and looked at my shoes, then the ceiling. My stomach churned again. Not this question. Charlotte could not know, not that she would have believed me even if I had told her. “Good. He’s good,” I murmured, and that’s all I said, but she didn’t appear to mind. She turned away – only her head and shoulders moved – to face the window. I looked out of mine.

“Downtown Berkeley,” the driver announced. “Center and Shattuck. Last stop.”

Time to go. “Goodbye,” I said to Charlotte.

“Goodbye, Johannes,” she said, making the wrinkles and blotchy pigments move around into what she must have intended to be a smile. I tried to smile back.

I thanked the driver and exited the bus through the rear doors, out into the rain and lights and people. Too many people. There weren’t as many of them along the outside edge of the sidewalk, so I clung to the buildings like they had told me, except for at the corners and crosswalks, where I had to walk with everyone else. I put on my hood and concentrated on the lights reflected in the wet pavement, occasionally glancing at the timer across the street through the mob of heads in front of me. Three. Two. One. Red hand. Then there I was, in front of the BART rotunda, one step closer to freedom. I descended, down, down, down the escalator into the bowels of public transportation. More people on the tracks. 9:14 on my watch.
“Five-car San Francisco/Millbrae train in four minutes,” the sterile female voice announced over the intercom.

I secluded myself on an empty bench, not too far from the rest of the riders, and read my book until the train arrived. I chose the second-to-last car on the train, shrunk into a seat at the end, and waited for the high hum that would signal the doors were closing. The train smelled like sweat and stale food. There were empty bags of chips, candy bar wrappers, beer cans. Stains of various colors formed profane polka dots on the cushions and graffiti made it impossible to read the advertisements on the walls and ceiling. But none of it was there if I didn’t look at it.

I was the only person on my side of the car, but in the gloomy, flickering lights, I noticed one other rider across the car. Seated in the last row before the door to car three was a figure, stiff and indistinct except for the fabric over her chest, which slowly rose and fell. I could tell from the burlap cloak and depressed posture that it was Charlotte and I wondered how I’d missed seeing her board the train. She and I were alone.

Now we were underground, our high speed only evident from the mechanical clamor and the occasional sideways centrifugal lurch. I read and counted time on my watch until the train suddenly rattled to a stop. The lights flickered out. The pain in my gut instantly returned. I sat and looked straight at the black ceiling where I thought the lights would be, waiting for them to turn back on. When they didn’t return, I pressed the Indiglo button on my watch, but its faint green glow was not the same, not enough. There was nothing but black. I told myself it was OK and took deep breaths like I was supposed to, but it didn’t work at all. I needed to get out of the train, out of the dark. Supporting myself on the seats, I felt my way to the main doors and tried to pull the two handles apart, but they wouldn’t give. I pounded with both fists, first on the metal, then on the glass, to no avail. I shouted, “Let me out! Let me out!” but there was no one on the other side. Just darkness. Then I tried the door to car five, this time with my shoulder. Nothing.

I called out, “Charlotte! Charlotte?” She didn’t respond. My head throbbed and my stomach burned. My breaths were quick and coarse. “Charlotte!” I stumbled down to her end of the car, drunk on pain and fear. She was the same as when the train had left Berkeley, slumped into a listless mass of cloth. I bent down in front of her old face. Her eyes were closed. “Charlotte! Help!” I shouted again. “Charlotte! Wake up! Charlotte!” No response. No one had taught me how to deal with this.

I grabbed bunches of the crude fabric and shook her shoulders. Rattled her head. “Charlotte!” Hard, violent, anything to wake her up. Tears blurred my vision. “Charlotte! Wake up!” I shouted one more time. Her body convulsed forcefully, then remained still, eyes shut, head twisted perversely to the left. The loose burlap over her chest sagged. It stayed that way. As my breathing quieted back to normal, I heard music – thin and shrill, like from headphones. Under her heavy burlap shroud, a pair of earbuds hung from her neck, screaming out a jazz song I didn’t recognize. A saxophone blew a long trill and held the note for several seconds until it reluctantly faded to silence.

The lights came back on. “Sorry for the delay,” the train operator announced. “We’ll be arriving at Ashby in just a minute.

Thank you for your patience.” The train sped up briefly as it rolled into the station, before stopping as quickly as it had started.

The doors slid open, and we left.

Three (or so) Stupid Postmodern Questions

2007-03-01T00:15:00.000-08:00

First, during the thirteen years I've been in public school, the single most pervasive theme echoed by all the teachers and administrators has been "changing the world." According to popular belief, apparently, education is a means to that specific end. But a "change" doesn't necessarily imply an improvement. Furthermore, what's so universally broken about the world that our single focus as students should be changing it? Do other, more important concerns exist, or are they already vaguely covered under the umbrella goal of "changing the world?" If "changing the world" covers anything anyone could ever dedicate one's life to, is it even a useful goal? Finally, can pre-collegiate students effectively grasp a concept this broad and obscure?

Second, let's assume for the sake of discussion that there exists in a society a universally condemnded action, and that one or more people have committed it. If said offender(s) then decide to make amends (in an admittedly bizarre way) by telling others not to commit the crimes they did, shouldn't we applaud them? What is the effectual difference between being told not to commit a crime by a saint and by someone who's committed it? In other words, what's the inherent problem with hypocrisy?

Third, does Derrida's deconstructionist claim that what authors mean by their words is completely irrelevant make writing pointless? If so, or even if not, are his extensive writings on the subject highly ironic?

Shades of Brown

2007-01-23T19:01:00.000-08:00

I started the following story of hardship in post-Katrina rural Louisiana about a month ago for my Short Stories class and now it's done. I know it's long (11 pages), but if you feel inclined, give it a read and leave me some feedback in the form of a comment. Thanks in advance. If you'd prefer to read it as a word doc, shoot me an email.

Shades of Brown

She sat up, glancing over to make sure Benoit was still asleep. He was. She gingerly slung her legs over the side of the bed, and then checked again. After reassuring herself one final time, she slowly put both feet on the floor, picked up her clothes, and slipped them on. It wasn’t easy in the dark. She didn’t bother to put on her shoes. Then she tiptoed over to his side of the bed, to the nightstand. On it were a few keys, a small foil wrapper, and a wallet, the leather worn and brown, homemade maybe. She took a final look into his eyes, which were still shut, and paused, searching. His chest rose and fell, his feet twitched, but his eyes were sedentary. Looking at just his face, she would’ve guessed he was dead. She picked up the wallet and walked straight out the door, taking care to make sure the flimsy aluminum didn’t slam. She escaped out across the tracks into Gautier and didn’t look back.
The sun in Gautier had not yet risen and the birds, those that were left, hadn’t begun to caw and crow. Even the docks hadn’t yet come to life; the colossal steel machines were still. It was silent. The levee stood, incomplete and unassuming, a buffer between the unpredictable terror of the Gulf and the certain banality of civilization. The rain fell steadily, etching small ravines down the levee’s two sides, until it merged with Pascalouga Bay on the one side, and formed a ruddy puddle on the other.
Two-point-three miles inland, through thick marsh, across the wispy downtown stretch of Graveline Road, and past the tracks, Benoit Morell’s alarm clock beeped. 5:30 AM. Without looking, he jabbed the Snooze button with a well-placed poke. “Good morning, darlin’,” he mumbled, fumbling for his wallet with his free hand as he turned over to hug the empty sheets. His eyes snapped open. No woman; no wallet. “Sonofabitch.” He flipped on the desk lamp and searched the room, just to be sure, but who could hide in a one-room trailer? “Damnit.”
Now standing, he looked around the room again and then flicked on the clock radio, as if the airwaves contained the answer. They were doing the weather.
“Expect another day of rain, folks,” the forecaster said, “Boy, is it coming down.”
“Fuck,” he grumbled and pulled on a flannel shirt, a heavy parka, dirty, dark jeans, and a scarf; the trailer’s heater had failed months ago. The linoleum floor reminded him to double up on socks and to cover his bald head with a beanie. He lit up a Lucky Strike, his first of the day; breakfast would consist of little else. The fridge was empty, but he looked anyway, and then sat down on a stool at his makeshift table - an inverted crate he’d taken from the dock, savoring his nicotine in long drags. The smoke hung in the air, wafting over scattered piles of bills, the New Orleans Times Picayune from October 14th, 2006, and that goddamned letter. He pulled it out of its envelope and then read it over again - the seventh time, to be exact - a look of disbelief imprinting itself more and more firmly on his brow as his eyes moved down the page. This time though, instead of restoring it to the center of the table to be avoided, he tore it in half, bisecting the Official seal and five of the fifty stars on the envelope. He crumpled the shredded remains and threw them at the corner wastebasket, which was overfilled, so the paper bounced off and came to rest on the floor.

The Number 14 bus, running late as it often did when it rained, dropped him off at the end of Bay Point place. The driver, an old black man who had driven Benoit to and from work enough times to call him “Ben” and let him ride for free, given the circumstances, parked in the cul-de-sac and lit himself a Benson & Hedges. Benoit saluted the old man as he walked away, toward the docks, but the white smoke had obscured his face and he didn’t notice. He didn’t wave back.
Benoit arrived at the waterfront at 6:22 AM. A mechanical, invariable hum grew louder and louder in his inner ear, suggesting work to be done. The other levee workers, or Associates, as they were supposed to be referred to but seldom were, stood in a line outside the Employee Center, a drab aluminum quadrangle with bathrooms, a cafeteria, the cigarette vending machine, and most importantly, the punch clock. The fluorescent tubes marking the entrance were the only source of light and the metal roof shook loudly as the rain came down, contributing to the din. Benoit fell in with his Associates and waited. He shuffled his feet, lit another Lucky Strike, and ignored the men in front of and behind him until he no longer could keep it in.
“Mornin’, Bill,” he said.
The man in front of him turned around, surprised that anyone was making conversation at this hour. A couple other men also wheeled around, also surprised - and lonely- but none of their names was Bill.
“Mornin’, Ben,” the Bill he had intended, the real Bill, responded.
“Ya know what happened to me last night, man?” Benoit started, “Bitch took my wallet while I was sleepin’.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. I had about ninety dollars in there, too. I better not see her again-”
Just then, the boss appeared out of nothingness and walked up to Benoit, halting the conversation. Winston James was a sturdy, dark man who stood about seven inches taller than Benoit. They were a Colonel and a Private, Winston and Benoit.
“I heard about your wallet, son,” the boss said, his words straight and flat. “Why don’t you clock in half an hour early today?”
“Thank you, Mr. James.”
“You’re welcome,” Winston said. A notion of a smile seemed to cross his lips, but it quickly disappeared. Then he turned and walked back into the dark.
When Benoit finally reached his section of the levee, the rain was constant and he no longer cringed as it permeated every last layer of cotton, wool, and polyester. He strode with purpose, fully upright. His three fellow Associates were already deep in the 9-foot trench that paralleled the levee along its entire 1.7-mile stretch, and they nodded their heads to him as he took a shovel and descended into the ditch, where he joined in their mechanical rhythm, trying desperately to heap more mud onto the barrier as nature refused to yield. Benoit and the other men lit Lucky Strikes to pass the time, but the rain put them out. A nostalgic observer might have described the group of men as a prison chain gang, though their uniforms were mud, rain and sweat instead of black and white striped convalescents and there weren’t any balls and chains tied to their ankles.
“Nick, Dan, Ryan, how’re you guys doin’, besides this shitty job, I mean?” Benoit asked.
“The usual, man. Vicky’s pregnant though,” Dan said, beaming. “I’m gonna be a dad.”
“Just another fucking mouth to feed,” Nick grumbled without looking up from his shovel.
“You’re just mad cause you’re not getting any,” Ryan said. “I wish I had a wife, someone to love me. You know it says in the book of Mark that man-“
“Shut up,” Nick shot back. “I don’t want a wife and I damn well don’t care what it says in the book of Martin.”
The four of them stopped, fell silent, and devoted all their attention to shoveling. Every time one of them put another scoop of dirt on top of the ridge, the rain carried down two scoops worth, which collected at the bottom of the trench, indistinguishable from the rest of the mud on which they stood. The brown muck slowly rose around their feet, until it surpassed the tops of their boots and poured in. Their toes were too numb to feel the cold sensation, and none of them would have noticed it, had it not anchored their boots to the sludge every time they tried to rearrange their feet.
“We’re actually not married yet,” Dan clarified after about fifteen minutes of silence. “She’s just my girlfriend.”
“Hmmph,” Benoit snorted. “Fuck ‘em all. That’s what I say. Whore stole my wallet this morning. Ninety goddamn dollars.”
“That’s what you get for sleeping with prostitutes, Benoit,” Ryan said quietly, before looking away, as if Benoit’s anger couldn’t touch him if he refused to acknowledge it.
“Fuck you then,” Benoit said. He shook his head and lit another Lucky Strike, which the rain again promptly extinguished.
As they toiled in the trench, Winston James drove his backhoe over to the edge and tooted the horn. Benoit and the Associates spiked the shovels into the mud in unison and turned. His stuck in deeper than the rest. From the depths of the ditch, they had to crane their necks to see into the high cabin of Mr. James’ backhoe. Mr. James cut the engine.
“I brought you boys something special,” he shouted. He took four thermoses from deep in the cab and carefully descended.
Three of the four men climbed out of the ditch and met Mr. James on the solid mud, where he handed over the steaming cups of coffee. He kept the fourth one for himself.
“Thank you, Mr. James,” they said, taking the cups. Then they nodded their heads and dropped back out of sight into the trench, where Benoit was waiting. He looked at them and shook his head. “Bitches,” he mumbled. His knuckles turned white, constricting the brown, wooden handle. The others shrugged and turned away. The deep drone of the backhoe started again and then slowly faded out.

By 7:00 PM, any light that had graced Gautier had retreated and it was now dark again. Benoit waited to board the number 14 bus, but he wasn’t alone this time. Twenty-three of the 24 Associates on the Number 14 got off at Le Temps Libre Saloon down on Graveline Road. One of them, however, exited the bus on the road that ran along the tracks, across from the entrance to Bonne Chance Mobile Estates.
Benoit looked both ways before crossing the tracks, more out of habit than precaution - the trains no longer ran through Gautier - and then passed through the tall, crooked gates, wrought of crude iron that had rusted years before. He walked by his neighbors’ trailers, wincing at both the cries of agony and the whimpers of subdued ecstasy that emanated from their translucent plastic windows. A few children played in the puddles. Some of them squealed with joy as they splashed; others coughed or sniffled.
Benoit kept his head down and went to the mailboxes on the left side of the camp. Most of them were visibly empty. Some hung open, as if their owners were welcoming the mail but knew not to expect any. He took out his mail key, which was dripping in mud, and tried to wipe it off on his pant leg, which unfortunately was also sopping, so he mashed it into the slot anyway and tugged until the weak hinges yielded. The water bill and two plump breasts from November’s issue of Hustler stared back at him.
The door to his trailer was open, flapping loudly against the doorframe in the wind. On the way in, he slammed it until it latched. He wiped his feet on the brown doormat, threw off his boots, and then took a few steps into the trailer. His soaking socks prevented him from feeling it, but the linoleum was two-inches deep in water. Rainwater dripped steadily from a one-point-five-inch wide hole in the roof located directly above his makeshift table. He took the Times Picayune from his table and found an old sweatshirt, which he wrapped around the newspaper. Then he jammed the ball into the hole. His wet garbage can had begun to smell, and as he walked over to empty it, he noticed the tattered letter lying near its base. The red, white, and blue dyes had run together to form a brownish, fibrous mass. He lifted his foot and flattened it.

When Benoit awoke, his alarm clock read 5:50 A.M. The water level in the trailer had risen overnight and he didn’t bother to turn on the radio. He dressed himself carefully, keeping his other set of work clothes dry in spite of the flooding, but his boots were still thoroughly saturated with mud. He soaked paper towels in hot water to stuff his pockets and then rummaged around under the bed. One pocket of the parka bulged more than the other. He grimaced as he pulled on the damp boots and then strode straight past what remained of the bills, past the empty fridge, and out the door.
Benoit got on the Number 14 at 6:27 - “the late bus,” as Mr. James had described it before - which reached Bay Point place at 6:49. His beanie was already drenched, his feet numb. The walk to the docks took him five more minutes than usual. The motorized clamor had already reached its climax; the line for the punch clock was short. As the rain continued to hammer the aluminum roof, Benoit pushed his hands in his pockets. One of them found comfort in the warm tissues. The other was cold. While he waited, Benoit stared out across the docks. He clocked in - forty minutes late - and slipped out the side door, where the backhoe was now parked, its engine silent. He walked around it and continued down to the levee.
Nick, Dan, and Ryan were working feverishly when Benoit arrived, their shovels making blurred arcs through the air, one after the other. Dan waved. If the other two noticed Benoit’s arrival, they didn’t let on. Benoit’s strokes were different today, slower and more deliberate. He let the blade sink in at the beginning of each stroke, as if he were scooping out the clay and rock that lay below the mud, and he lifted each load vigilantly. It seemed that he was trying to preserve every last grain of soil in spite of his intense shivers that made the blade wobble. His section of the levee began to sag noticeably and the rain carried it down like the rest.
The other Associates soon noticed that their shovel blades were rising far more often than Benoit’s, but they stayed quiet. After close to an hour, Ryan put his shovel down.
“What’s goin on, Ben?” he asked quietly.
Benoit didn’t look up. He steadied himself and prepared another large scoop.
“C’mon, I know you hear me. What’s up? Are you ok?”
“Leave him alone, Ryan,” Nick said. “He probably got ripped off by another thieving call girl and isn’t in the mood to tell us the details. Get it?”
Dan and Benoit stopped working. Benoit drove his shovel into the mud again as if he were going to take out another scoop, but then he left it there.
“The bitch,” he began calmly, “is not the problem. The fact that my fucking trailer got flooded last night is not the problem.” He picked up his shovel and spiked it into the side of the levee. “This levee is not the goddamn problem.”

At 10:03 A.M., a dark green humvee bearing an American flag from the passenger side window exited Highway 90-S at the Van Cleave Road exit and turned left into the Singing River Mall parking lot. It came to a stop in front of the International House of Pancakes, taking up almost two full spaces. The driver, Lieutenant Richard Adderley, enjoyed a complete breakfast of orange juice, coffee, grits, pancakes, sausage, and toast. He complimented the petite waitress on her new shoes, and with his muscled physique and cleanly trimmed face, he lured her into a romantic rendez-vous behind the tinted windows of the humvee’s rear seats. After they finished, Lieutenant Adderley pulled a hundred dollar bill from the pocket of his camouflage pants and handed it to her - a nice tip. Then he started the humvee again and drove down Ladnier Drive to the docks, where he took an envelope from the glove compartment and stepped out into the mud.

The rain turned to hail and fell faster. The wind grew to a howl and began to swirl around the mud on top of the levee. It blew through Benoit’s beanie and burned in his ears. He was panting and grinding his teeth, and the other three men stared silently. Over his deep breaths, they could hear the waves stirring in Pascalouga Bay, crashing violently against the unseen side of the levee. Without another word, Benoit heaved himself over the lip of the trench and took off running toward the Employee Center. He slipped in the mud several times and twisted his ankle, but he got back up and kept going. When he was a few hundred feet away from the glowing front doors, he cut sharply to the East, toward the side of the Center where the backhoe was still parked. Benoit glanced over his shoulder and then scrambled up the ladder. The key was still in the ignition. He grasped it firmly in his hand, paused, and then torqued it hard to the left. The crows on the Employee Center’s roof took to the skies and the surfaces of the mud puddles near the backhoe’s chassis rippled. His entire body vibrated with the undulations of the 12-cylinder engine as he clutched the steering wheel and gearshift, feeling the power sesep into him. With one smooth motion, he put it in gear. His feet found the pedals. The machine lurched forward and then slowly accelerated to the Northwest, reaching a steady 26 miles per hour against the thick mud and relentless wind. Benoit stood up as he drove and scanned the area around him.
Winston James was shooting the shit with a group of Associates under the awning the Administrative Offices, passing around cups of warm cider, when the rumble began. The group wheeled around to look toward the ocean and froze. All along the levee, the Associates were scrambling out of the trenches, shovels in the air, shouting. Their cries were punctuated by thunder and cracks of lightning. The waves’ crests were visible over the top of the levee, first one by one, breaking intermittently along the 1.7-mile stretch, and then in unison, pouring into the trench below.
Benoit pushed his right foot down even harder, willing the backhoe to go faster. It refused and continued to progress toward the gawking group at a constant pace. Winston James and his cohort were too engrossed in watching the levee deteriorate to notice the slight rumbling that was steadily growing louder between fits of thunder and lightning. From a hundred feet away, Benoit could distinctly see Mr. James, whose back was turned, and another larger man whom he didn’t recognize, dressed in military fatigues. At fifty feet out, the backhoe began to slow down, but Benoit hadn’t released his foot. The rumble increased to a cacophony as the old gears, now rusted from the rain, ground against each other, competing to compel the backhoe’s inner workings to an imminent halt. The cogs and rings whined and screamed, struggling for a mutual goal. When the backhoe was twenty feet away, Winston James turned toward the noise’s source. He stood in place, staring at Benoit through the fogged windshield. When there was ten feet between the two men, as Benoit looked up and their gazes met, the backhoe gave a final, deafening screech and stopped.
He reached into the right pocket, the cold one, and pulled out a slender .22 caliber pistol. For a moment, the machines paused, the surfaces of the puddles became still, and the thunder and lightning died away. Benoit rose to his feet and lifted the object, looking for a straight line between Mr. James and the front of the barrel. He paused. Three sharp noises echoed across the brown plains. Then, sucking in last aspirations that sounded like boots squishing through mud, a body slowly faltered and fell from the cabin of the backhoe to the mud below.
Lieutenant Adderley lowered a .45 caliber pistol and turned to Mr. James.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
Mr. James nodded and looked at the man but didn’t respond. The rain started up again, lighter than before. Mr. James and Lieutenant Adderley looked down at the body, staring as droplets of mud splashed onto his pale skin. The brown water rose and washed over, and before long, his face was completely brown.

Conservative Combustion

2007-01-09T16:23:00.000-08:00

I was checking out pictures of a conservative JSA member on Facebook the other day, and I couldn't help but notice that in almost every single one, he was holding some sort of gun - pistols, rifles, shotguns. To his credit, in most of them he was also sporting a neon green hunting vest and one of those ridiculous hunting hats that remind me of Davey Crockett.
The point is that it made me think about his conservative stance on the 2nd amendment and gun control laws, which then led me into a tumultuous brainstorm about the right wing in general. I ended up at drug control.

Anyway, I've shot guns before, and frankly, they're pretty damn fun. The kick of a .45 is enough to get my blood running, well, everywhere. The flip side to the whole experience is that every time I pull the trigger, I get this adrenaline-filled tunnel vision, which is almost numbing. My dad reports having similar feelings. All in all, I'd rather play paintball, because something about the sheer power of projecting a scrap of lethal metal at 1300 fps is a little over the top for me. Guns are dangerous, they kill thousands of people each year, yada, yada, yada. Conservatives wouldn't deny these statements. In fact, they usually attribute them to a lack of gun education and responsibility, not a lack of gun control. I partly disagree, but I'm not going to delve into the merits and flaws of that stance right now.

What bothers me is that some conservatives take a laissez-faire position on gun control, but then turn around and advocate billions of dollars each year for the DEA and its infamous War on Drugs. I see this as nothing more than an equivocation. What's that you say? Guns can be used responsibly, given the right information? So can drugs. There are plenty of responsible drug users out there who smoke their poison of choice in the comfort of their homes, the same way that responsible gun owners hunt on private property where it's OK to engage in the inherently dangerous activity of shooting guns.

And responsible gun owners keep their guns locked away, where kids won't get into them and make the 6 o'clock news? Responsible drug users keep their stashes under the bed, or locked away somewhere. We can't allow people to use substances that temporarily alter their minds? Isn't that exactly what the adrenaline-filled power trip that follows the click of the trigger does? You'd have to be crazy to intentionally partake in an activity that could kill you, they say. But you'd have to be equally nuts to say that this argument doesn't apply just as strongly to guns.

Check out the comments on this posting to read an interesting argument over a few of the points I made.

Follow-Up to Iraq Piece

2007-01-04T01:36:00.000-08:00

This article is related to the theoretical mumbo jumbo I posted on Tuesday, December 26th, and it's from Slate, which means it's well written and a tad cynical. Give it a read.

Voilà.

Evangelicalism

2006-12-29T11:26:00.000-08:00

OK folks, this time around, I have a question for the dozen or so of you who read this.

Why is it that we condemn evangelical religions for trying to impose their beliefs on others but then have no problem trying to impose our political beliefs on anyone who will listen?

Is it some sense of enlightened self-interest: that another’s religious beliefs won’t affect me so I have no justifiable cause to change them, but their political inclinations might, so I can reasonably try to alter them to further my own agenda?

If not, why? This question’s been puzzling me for quite some time, so if you have an answer, feel free to leave me a comment or email me at jshemuel@gmail.com

In Pursuit of Artistic Reality

2006-12-29T00:33:00.001-08:00

As I try to become more creative, expressive, and prolific, I struggle with what is art and what is not. Can I, as a dilettante art critic, impose a litmus test on art to sort out the "real" art from the "fake art"? I don't think I can. But there's still a distinction to be made.

As I write this from a modest, old apartment on the Upper West Side, I'm thinking about Midtown, and I don't like it one bit. A consensus about the two neighborhoods would undoubtedly reflect that the enormous, colorful animations are far more artistic than the understated architecture of a brownstone or art deco high-rise, but to me, the ostentatious displays of the former pale in comparison to the latter. The more I think about midtown, the more I'm reminded of an experience I had around a year ago:

On the way back to Berkeley, Jill suggested a detour. She had a surprise, she said, grinning. It was around this same time, one year ago, and as she slowed the car to allow us to take in whatever she had in mind, she made a left onto suburbia's version of the Vegas strip. Her surprise was a a two-block stretch of ostentation - enormous demi-mansions, none of which was different from the rest, entirely covered in christmas lights like they were being infected by a new species of twinkling poison Ivy.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she asked and snuggled closer across the center console.

The eight responses that went through my head all began with "No," but I mustered a "Sure" and snuggled right back at her. I think I could appreciate her passion, even if it couldn't have been further from my conception of "art" or "beauty."

Thinking back, the light displays weren't really additions, but almost masks intended to shield the public from their true states. A street full of intrinsically architectural houses with no apparent regard for the holiday season, each surrounded by pure night as to be observed in its natural condition, would have been infinitely more appealing.

But gaudy houses are just the beginning. It seems that the more I look around, the more the world appears to be comprised of "fake art." When I walk past a group of "plastic" girls, smothered in makeup and lusting after the $5,000 collagen injections they've been promised as graduation gifts, I cringe. Their supposed "enhancements" have the same damning effect as 90' advertisements or 300,000 watts of multicolored LEDs.

The list goes on and on. After viewing the Robert Doisneau exhibit at Hôtel de Ville today, I'm even more convinced of the distinction; digitally altered photographs (especially my own) will never again pack the same artistic punch as their 35mm predecessors and the graphic design I've done in Photoshop can't compare to pieces drawn by hand.

Fortunately, the subtle hypocrisies here are irrelevant as long as I acknowledge my point, which is not really to deny anything its status as art, but to give credit where it's due - to "real" art, which often doesn't come from colored LEDs, concealer, or Photoshop, but from blueprints, pen and paper, and good ol' mother earth.

Iraqi Mores

2006-12-26T11:06:00.000-08:00

On December 6th, the Iraq Study Group reported its finding to Congress, recommending a reduction in troops, diplomacy with neighboring countries like Syria and Iran, and a continuation of the current administration's political structure.

Several parts of the group's report have come under attack from Democrats. Senators such as Russel Feinold (D-Wis) complain that the lack of a timetable "weakens both our efforts to help Iraqis reach a political solution in Iraq and our national security" while others like Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) argue that the study group's failure to federalize the structure of Iraq's democratic government will make it much harder to reach stability.

But arguments such as these, as well as the entire notion of an Iraq Study Group, operate under the assumption that democracy can actually be reached in Iraq, in two years or ten, under a federalist system or a centralized one, with or without the help of bordering nations.

But is democracy even possible in Iraq? Alexandre de Tocqueville proposed four main criteria for democracy and liberty:

The first is that the populace must feel like it is prospering and getting a fair cut, regardless of whether it actually is, based on "perceptions of relative advantage and deprivation." (Dahl 1985:46)

The second requires a large number and diversity of independent groups, or as he described them, not only "commercial and manufacturing companies, but associations of a thousand other kinds - religious, moral, serious, futile," etc.

Thirdly, some measure of decentralization is necessary, be it between the various branches of a federal government or spread throughout the provinces and cities, or both. (Biden is on the right track.)

Finally, the fourth factor to a functioning democracy is a little more abstract than the rest, but it is the most important. de Tocqueville claimed that it wasn't enough to have the institutions of democracy [criteria 1-3] if the subjects didn't have the mores, by which he referred to manners, "or the various notions and opinions current among men, and to the mass of those ideas which constitute their character of mind," that were attuned to practical democracy.

Dahl summed it up nicely:
"...scholars who attempt to to grapple with the question 'Why do democratic institutions exist in country X but not in country Y?' tend to agree sooner or later with Tocqueville, that neither prosperity nor a good constitutional system will ensure democracy among a people who lack the essential predispositions for it, attitudes that are transmitted and supported by the broader culture, belief systems, habit, manners, and mores." (1985: 49)

A September 2006 poll from the Program on International Policy Attitudes(Click here) showed that 79 percent of Iraqis say that the US is having a negative influence on the situation in Iraq, with just 14 percent saying that it is having a positive influence.

Is it possible that the Iraqis welcome American democracy while giving America the cold shoulder? I doubt it. Moreover, even if the Iraqis actually desired democracy, its success wouldn't be guaranteed, because democracy would not yet be a part of their "broader culture and belief systems," and the Iraqis would only debatably be predisposed to a system they had never sought for themselves.

In short, even if American manages to implement a functioning democracy that conforms with criteria 1-3 before civil war erupts, it will be short-lived at best, which leads me to ask myself: If we can't fulfill the ostensible goal of a democratic Iraq, full of the "liberty" and "freedom" which Bush manages to repeat 312 time per speech, why are we still there?

That question will have to wait for another blog, or maybe another blogger.

Wanderings in Florence

2006-12-19T16:04:00.000-08:00

The Bay Area Travel Writers Contest called me today to inform me that my story was chosen as this year's Honorable Mention. In addition, the Contra Costa Times is going to run the story, along with a photo of me. What follows is the story I submitted. I hope you like it.

Scossa e Riverenza

Florence is a city known for its churches, art and women. Portraits and guidebooks suggest a uniquely thriving mélange of commercialism and religion. The airport, however, seemed just like any other, especially after passing through SFO, JFK, and LHR in the same 24-hour span. Jamie, my traveling companion and best friend since diapers and sandboxes, seemed not to care, mesmerized by the signs and advertisements he couldn’t read.

“They sell everything here with sex,” he said, pointing at a billboard-sized woman holding marinated artichoke hearts over voluptuous, Italian breasts. “It’s genius,” he concluded. I had to agree. We managed to pull our eyes off her artichokes, and then looked at each other, still perplexed and still very lost.

“Where are we supposed to meet this dude anyway?” I shrugged. We wandered through terminals, arriving at the taxi stand - where we both snickered as travelers asked the employee for a “tassi” - baggage claim, and finally the public transportation center. There, a smiling, middle-aged man held a sign bearing the names “Jamie and Jonh.” Jamie and I turned and looked at each other with identically skeptical expressions.

“Jonh?” we asked. As we walked towards him, the letters on the sign didn’t rearrange themselves into “Joe” as I had somehow hoped, so we again shrugged and awkwardly stopped in front of him. We stood silently, each expecting the other to blurt out something Italian-sounding, but luckily, the man saved us the trouble.

“Siete Jamie e Jonh?” he asked.

Recognizing that yes, those were our names, as Jamie prodded me to say something, I gave a “Si.”

“Va bene! Sono Paulo,” he replied, folding up the sign as he lead us to the parking lot. Just as the van came into view, emblazoned with “Istituto Michelangelo” (the name of our language school) and a small headshot of David, I called out, “Shotty!” and ran to the front door. The drive back was filled with scenic Italian countryside, surprisingly slow driving, and equally slow conversation, as he realized that his English was better than our Italian, despite the year of bi-weekly 7:30 AM Italian classes I insisted I had taken. Entering la periferia (the outskirts) of the city, one-way streets became two-way as our driver navigated into my obscure, residential neighborhood of Le Cure. (Italians have an innate sense of direction, Jamie later explained to me.)

We dropped off Jamie first and then drove the two blocks to my apartment in reverse, where I hopped out and managed to say, “Grazie infinite, Paulo. A domani.” Balanced on the narrow sidewalk, I stared straight up. The ubiquitous green shutters jutted out in all directions from every window, forming a vertical labyrinth on the ancient plaster. I buzzed number twenty-one and began the long ascent up the church-like marble staircase to floor seven.

Rejected

2006-12-14T15:56:00.000-08:00

As many of my friends learned of their rejection from Early Decision colleges, I realized that I had been rejected today as well.

When I heard Berkeley High and the Red Cross were doing a blood drive, I signed right up, happy that I finally met their 17 years-old, 110 lbs criteria. I went to my 12:15 appointment on time today, and sat down with my classmates to wait my turn. As I waited, I read the cautionary literature, musing over the "Who should not donate blood" section. No, I hadn't spent three months in the UK. No, I haven't used intravenous drugs. No, I haven't had sexual contact with anyone carring HIV/AIDS. I didn't meet any of the other obscure risk factors, so I thought I was clear to give, until I reached the bottom of the list.

"If you are a male who has had sexual contact with another male since 1977, [when AIDS first popped up] you should not give," it read. Two powerful but conflicting ideas came into my head. On the one hand, I could lie and I'd still be able to share my blood with the sick people who needed it. I knew for certain that I didn't have HIV, (having been tested) so I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't just give the Red Cross the answer it was looking for. It seemed win-win. But then I considered the other side. It wasn't right that gay people couldn't donate blood. Sure, the infection rates for homosexuals have been far higher than those of heterosexuals, but the discrepancy had started to level off, and didn't they screen all the blood for HIV anyway? And hadn't I just affirmed that I didn't carry HIV?

As I continued to wait, I went back in forth in my head about what my response would be. When they finally called my name, I took their self-administered Health History Questionaire. I answered it honestly. Then I signaled the adminstrator that I was done, and she checked over my answers quickly, until the computer gave an error sound and a warning message.

"Oh, um, sir," she faltered. "We can't let you donate today. I'm sorry" - a response I had been expecting.

"Fine," I said, and got up to leave, but she stopped me.

"Wait one second, please." She took a piece of paper from the printer and handed it to me. It was a generic letter apologizing for not letting me donate - Dear Potential Donor, etc. In the center of the page was a large rectangle with a title above it which read, "Reason for Dismissal." The rectangle was empty.

A more politically oriented follow-up to this blog will appear in the next few days, so check back often.

25 Songs To Relax Your Head

2006-12-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

If anyone is looking for some relaxing music to check out during the stress of school and college apps, look no further. Actually, please do look further; if you like something you hear, check it out.

Song title Time Artist

1. Abraham Martin and John 3:18 Dion
2. Karma Police 4:23 Radiohead
3. In the Race So Far 6:25 Midnite
4. Get Together 4:38 The Youngbloods
5. A Change is Gonna Come 4:21 Otis Redding
6. Sittin Here In Limbo 6:52 Jerry Garcia & David
7. Far Valley 4:40 Bob Dylan
8. You've Got A Friend 4:32 James Taylor
9. Adieu False Heart 3:35 Linda Ronstadt With
10. Fever Dream 4:16 Iron & Wine
11. Roots 3:43 Bob Marley & The W
12. Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby 1:57 Emmylou Harris, Alisson Krauss, and Gillian Welch
13. Once I Loved - Astrud Gilberto
14. Walking My Baby Back Home 3:12 James Taylor
15. Walk Away Renee 3:26 Linda Ronstadt With
16. Each Coming Night 3:27 Iron & Wine
17. Running Dry 5:36 Neil Young
18. Mellow Mood 2:27 Bob Marley & The Wailers
19. Every Single Soul 5:43 Michael Franti & Spe
20. Wild World 3:19 Cat Stevens
21. Naked As We Came 2:32 Iron & Wine
22. The Last Train 4:25 Josh Rouse
23. Only A Pawn In Their Game 3:29 Bob Dylan
24. Gaia 5:31 James Taylor
25. Only With You 3:34 Teenage Fanclub

Enjoy.

Matriculatory Masochism

2006-12-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

For most of my friends and me, the college application process has been self-destructive; As I near the end of the ordeal, I'm beginning to care less and less where I go next year. But simultaneously, the suspense of knowing the answer to that exact question is killing me. Yes, this may seem hard to grasp, so I'll try to explain: My Georgetown letter is due to arrive sometime this week, and I've been checking the mail more than The Unibomber. But at this point, I'd almost rather already have the slim envelope than have to wait a few more days for the promisingly plump one. I just want to know.
Everyday, I hear more and more people say that they just want it to be over with, that they'd rather be accepted at their two or three last choice schools than have to write three more essays for a longshot at their two top choices. I can't say I disagree. Interestingly, though, out of a process that has made me utterly disenchanted with the schools to which I'm applying, or at least with their offices of admission, I've become more and more anxious to actually get the hell out of here. After having finished all my applications, the second semester is going to feel like dead weight.
It seems that everytime I "apply myself" and cross one item off my interminable checklist, my inbox makes the telltale "ping" that I have a new email, and I discover another form to fill out, another arbitrary word limit. I need a nap, a glass of wine, a break. Of course, come next September, it'll all be worth it, but it sure doesn't seem like it now.

The Personal Computer

2006-12-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

Since this whole blogging thing is at the forefront of today's internet and computer technology, I'd like to take the time to tell you about my experience with computers:

I was born with neither good handwriting nor the ability to do much of anything with my hands, without the aid of a keyboard or maybe massage oil at least. My penmanship is more quickly identified as Sanskrit or gibberish than English, and my artistic abilities stop just shy of the anatomically correct stick figure (they’re all hung like horses and racked like Dolly Partons, respectively.) Just yesterday, one of my teachers help up a paper without a name - a classic Joey mistake, even as a Senior - and when I recognized it as my own, he jerked it back, a look of bizarre incredulity on his face. “This isn’t yours,” he said. “It’s too neat.” I snatched it sheepishly and sat back down. I later explained to him that since I couldn’t do math on the computer, and pencil was distracting and ineffective, what with all the smearing and obscure marks, pen was the only option, even if it did mean that half of every assignment was erratic black scratch-outs. On AP Physics problems, long arrows and squiggles usually connect the first line and the final answer and my diagrams all inevitably look like marijuana paraphernalia. (“If a 3-foot cylinder is connected to a small pipe that juts out at 30˚ angle, 1 foot above the bottom, how fast will the water…”) With the exception of physics, I use the computer exclusively.

Of course, the computer wasn’t initially a tool, but a way for my parents to subliminally educate me. After graduating from the colorful but tiresome KidPix, my parents plugged me into “games” like Millie’s Math House. (I’m surprised the alliteration-obsessed marketers hadn’t gone for “Millie’s Math Mansion.”) I attribute much of my math skill to counting the chocolate chips and sprinkles on scrumptious-looking cookies as a decorator in Millie’s psychedelically colorful Bakery. The catch, I soon learned, was that a cheeky monkey named Albert always ate the cookies after they were done - I never got a single bite. Every time I mention Millie, my mother is quick to remind me of the time when I came to her sobbing, hollering that I had won a stuffed animal for my quick “plussing”, but that the prize seemed to be stuck in the computer and hadn’t come out of the printer as expected. Despite my permanent math scars, I visited Millie and Albert frequently, but soon it was time to move on.

After numbers, words were next. Reader Rabbit (again, kids love alliteration) and I got along well at first, but I eventually read faster than his bushy tail could jump from letter to letter. Besides, I had read enough inane stories about Cathy cow and Danny Duck! It was time to write my own barnyard epic. But first I had to learn how to type. Who would’ve guessed that they keys weren’t laid out from A-Z like the alphabet? To help my fingers accustom themselves to the magic of QWERTY, my parents tried a whole slew of typing software, which my mom luckily got for review from Technology & Learning Magazine. First it was Typing Tutor Ten, which was a program designed for adults, and didn’t include nearly enough games to hold my attention. Not surprisingly, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was equally serious. My parents finally caught the drift, and I switched to games like Paws in Typing Town, Timón and Pumba’s Typing Adventure, and EXTREME Typing. Though all three offered plenty of useful lessons, I played the games almost exclusively, pecking out nonsensical series of letters like “agd” and “jsk” and squinting down at my fingers to find the keys. I doubt I used my pinky fingers at all. Since I couldn’t progress past the home row games without completing additional lessons, my progress reports told my parents that my Words Per Minute was high, but showed little activity on any keys but A,S,D,F,G,H,J,K,L, and semicolon. My rate on the X key was a shocking 0 WPM.

I have no idea how many WPM I type nowadays, but suffice it to say that my mind can’t keep up, and I no longer have to look at the keys. However, my aversion to using my pinkies has stuck around. I type somewhat like a meth addict who can’t make up his mind, banging out several long sentences at a time and stopping intermittently to jerkily hammer the backspace key loudly for a few seconds, before resuming the composition. It’s better than the low-tech alternative though: what used to be Sanskrit or gibberish isn’t really any language at all now. A freshman year obsession with graffiti didn’t do much to help my penmanship.

Over several years, my experience with the computer has undergone a role reversal: instead of commanding me via the words and gestures of childhood cartoons, the computer now does as I dictate with the mouse and keyboard. Since I can’t draw much of anything with my hands, I’ve learned how to use programs like Adobe Photoshop, which allows graphic professionals and noodlers alike to doctor photographs and create almost anything, provided it’s in 2D. Through four different versions of the software, I’ve made everything from flyers for Frisbee team tryouts that depict a determined jock grabbing the disc from an alligator’s gaping maw, to psychedelic art, to a logo for a local DJ crew, The Rock-It Scientists. In SketchUp, which is geared towards architecture and civil engineering instead of graphics, I’ve designed a cologne bottle, a museum, and several houses, none of which would stand up to scrutiny in an architecture class, a course I’ve ironically never had the chance to take. I have a pretty steady stream of requests for, say, “put so-and-so’s head on so-and-such pornstar doing this vulgar sexual act, and then post it on so-and-so’s Facebook page, Joey.” My art has been almost as much for my friends and clients (I love that word, “client”) as for myself, because I can’t think of many creative projects on my own, though I have been known to distract myself from homework for hours on end, fiddling with Photoshop’s Clone brush for the best way to enlarge my pecs.

Without becoming too much of a basement-dwelling, stereotypical computer addict, I can say that there’s a reason for my high-tech attachment, besides my sheer lack of manual dexterity. Similarly, the reputation of the computer as the anti-social dork’s lovechild has disappeared; instead of insulating the user, the computer almost mandates contact with our friends, providing several different, yet simultaneous ways to interact, such as MSN, AIM, ICQ, Facebook, MySpace, and plain old email. Of these six, I use three. I talk, share clips and songs, and just generally stay informed and connected. I could go on for pages just about the internet and the way it has revolutionized our lives.

But of course the computer is not only social. It’s first and foremost, as the folks at Dell and Apple would like you to believe, intensely personal. I watch and make my movies, listen to and produce my music, view and alter my photos, and in general enjoy and manage my life. In the AM, my iBook wakes me up with a song from my MorningMix playlist and tells me the weather automatically, and at night, it syncs my precious schoolwork and college essays to my external hard drive, all with minimal effort on my part. As I write this, iTunes is playing a folk-ish indy song chosen at random based on the relaxed mood I told it I’m in, and Word is saving this document every five minutes; my computer seems to know me. It’s almost a human, or more accurately, a friend. However, when I’m not at home with my computer, as is often the case, I rarely even think about it, much less miss it. It’s ubiquitous, but passive. Computers have basically become society’s slaves; little would get done without them, but the credit invariably falls with those operating them - people like me.