Making Antlers
East vs. West Coast
I
was recently asked to teach a small craft workshop on a Saturday
afternoon. As I make costumes that light up, could I teach others how
to light up?
Most of my projects require weeks of tedious tinkering, cutting,
soldering, and sewing – too much time for an afternoon workshop. I need
to explain a simple project. I have turned a strand of Christmas lights
into a rack of antlers that can be worn as a hat. The antler materials
are few: battery-operated Christmas lights, 16-gauge wire, electrical
tape, 24-hour epoxy, and Spackle. Trouble is, both the 24-hour epoxy
and the Spackle harden overnight, requiring cure times that would be
too long for an afternoon craft workshop. Furthermore, I don't have an
endless supply of Christmas lights.
I decided best to pare down the class to a small group of a dedicated
few. With enough perseverance, a participant could take home a wire
antler frames and finish up the rest of the antlers on his own. I
brought to the workshop antlers in various stages of construction. Like
on a cooking show where the raw turkey goes into one oven with a cooked
turkey coming out of another, I demonstrated over an afternoon how to
take antlers through the construction stages:
Cut 16-gauge wire into a bunch of pieces. Wrap the wire pieces around
themselves to build an antler armature. String the Christmas lights on
the armature and tape the lights down to the wire. Cover the armature
with 24-hour epoxy for strength. Cover the epoxy with Spackle for
proper texture and color. Sand down the Spackle layer. Attach the
antlers to a hat. Ta da! Easy!
Nobody finished a set of antlers. Sadness. This workshop may have
taught me the difference between east and west coast ethos. I do
generalize. The East Coast, where I'm from, has brutal winters. Cold
lasts for months. People can feel trapped in their homes and so develop
extensive basement projects in which patience and isolation are useful.
For years, I painted fantasy miniatures and wrote code in assembly. Now
I spend nights after biotech work doing the same bullshit craft work
over and over again: cutting out plastic cones, sewing fabric, and
soldering. It's not fun or glamorous work, but I like the flow. The
climate is better in the West Coast so it is much easier just to hang
out. Folks here like to perform. Drag is popular.
It is certainly easier and more relaxing to watch someone make antlers
than make a set yourself. I got a couple of armatures built, but none
of the epoxy applied. With so much going on in San Francisco, it can be
hard to cache personal time for projects, especially projects done
alone.
The workshop still was revelatory for me. I once was so protective of
my “art”. Having tinkered for so long developing concepts and
engineering, I oddly feared that showing another how to make a costume
piece was tantamount to giving it away.
On the one hand, even with the instruction sheet, there is so much work
involved that it is not worth it for most people. Many have asked if
they could simply buy a set - or more likely four sets - to avoid the
messiness that is tedious construction. Antlers are not going to spring
up all over the city.
On the other hand, why not give it away? Why be so coy? There's immense
joy in teaching others, watching them turn an idea into their own, and
having them teach another down the chain. I learned so much from
artists; I have so much to pay back.
There's also magic in having more than one of a costume piece. I have
loaner antlers now for a friend! A giant new revelation for all this
stuff I make is that I can bestow it on others: have other people wear
light-up outfits, and spread widely and closely the specialness that
comes from glowing.
A gang of antlers makes a group a recognizable set, a fraternity that
is connectedness by dress. So lonely these days, I strongly desire
connections. Costumes can help those who don’t normally stand out turn
into rock stars.
Begin
I
feel like my life stopped six months ago with the break-up. Friends
tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself as I did the dumping - playing
the victim is tacky, so apologies for my sadness. As what felt like
everything came crashing down, I withdrew, I emptied, and I tried to
rest. These six months have been a time of tremendous personal growth
through counseling, exercise, self-reflection, communication, and
reconnection with old friends. Yet it has been six months of singular
obessive focus on the past, a spinning of my mental wheels over and
over and over again. I don't sleep well. I am frequently frantic if I
have energy or maudlin when I don't. I haven't moved on.
Many near and dear counsel that recovery from break-ups take time, much
more time than the six months that have already passed. Although I
still suffer and feel intense guilt, I finally want to peak out to the
future for something, anything new. Here are a few projects I've put
off that I would like to restart:
Redesign my web site: I still use venerable Netscape composer to set
text and images on this site. Kids these days are likely unaware of
Netscape. The pictures of the site don't format well, and a style
designer would shudder at my overwhelming use of the color red. Time to
update and learn some internet publishing. I have selected WordPress as
the means to set this site; now I need to learn how to use WordPress.
Learn motors and make a kinetic art project: my days are ending working
with light-up art. I have enough to wear. Larger scale lighting
projects would involve more lights, wiring, space, and more money
($1000+) than I want to commit to the crowded creative field of light
sculpture. I've been meaning for quite some time to learn how motors
work. I want to make a kinetic light sculpture that whirls like the
planets. This first whirlagig would be simple enough for me to grasp
kinetic concepts. I already bought the motors; I need to work with them.
Learn programming languages and possibly program a phone: if I had my
druthers, I would transition from chemistry into software engineering.
At my ancient age of 40, that transition is likely difficult and not
lucrative. Nonetheless, I have ideas of interactive video projects for
which the Processing language could be useful. I also want to learn the
ubiquitous Python. Furthermore, many of my art pieces could be
controlled through either a cellphone or touch screen. I'd like to
learn how to program either device.
Leave this job: I have been at this company at least a year too long.
The salary is good and the responsibilities low. Five years of skills
means I'm quite efficient but prone to both boredom and distractions;
little here seems pressing anymore. Furthermore, I fight with my boss
and lament the lack of career mobility and novelty. Time to go! I'm
planning already to quit sometime in September but before my 41st
birthday on the twenty-fifth. A possible scenario would be to take on
another chemistry job, preferably at a small company, in or close to
San Francisco. Another scenario would be to go without work for six
months and live off savings. I'm scared of the uncertainty of
unemployment, but I also want the break. Unlike my last 10-month
respite in 2007 that commenced a trip across the country and living out
of my car, I would spend this break mostly in San Francisco. Ideally, I
would afterwards take on a job as a software engineer, but I'm unsure
whether any company would want to hire me.
Find friends: I know so few near and dear to me in San Francisco. Old
friends live in other cities. Many I know in the Bay Area are just
casual acquaintances. I hunger for a set, a community in which the
members look out for each other. This break-up has attuned me to what
I'm looking for in friends: high-communicators, loyal, local, and an
overlap in interests. This may mean trying out of a lot of people and
making risks to get to know strangers better.
Date: Ack, on-line dating here I come. I am quite ready for a life-long
partner. Let's try guys first on OK Cupid. I'll keep you posted.
Emptiness
It
is spring and I declutter. I sorted my books and sent a quarter of them
packing for resale to Phoenix Bookstore in Noe Valley. Due to a Kindle,
I may never buy another paper product. I went through my closets and
dropped off a bag of clothes, a skateboard , and a yoga map at the
Goodwill near Market Street. I took down old posters - anything
unframed. Gone Ibiza announcement, gone scandalous Iceland cartoons,
gone silver-on-black portraits from Boston.
I perused everything I've made. My apartment is covered with my fabric
and wire sculptures - on walls, under tables, and unfurling like plants
on bookcases. Some projects - such good ideas at the time - I now
dismantle back into components for other upcoming work. I shockingly
realize that I don't need anything more for Burning Man. I am complete.
I've built enough that lights up and can be worn for this one body of
mine. If I can wear something different every day for a week, well a
couple of weeks, isn't that enough?
It is a bit odd to think I may not make anything more for myself. I
empathize with my carpenter father. After stuffing his house with his
own furniture, he now asks sons if there is anything they want? He has
dutifully and generously built for me a bench, bed, and bookcase. I
should be making the light-up equivalents for a happy collaborator.
It is spring and I am emptying. I deplete my winter larder of meals
from the freezer. I sorted the spice drawer, emptied unwanted
toiletries, purged the storage locker, and even curated my iTunes
collection to delete much of what was there.
It is spring and I am empty. I have spent two hard months getting rid
of so much that I just a tidy shell remains. Is this the opposite of
nesting? - I feel no great urge to buy a couch. Am I making room for
the new or just making room for the empty? Out with Greg goes so much
stuff. Perhaps I prepare to depart or for an unexpected change. I may
live lighter but is this living?
It has been quite a long time since I felt that I both have so little
and yet so little to look forward to. I hesitate to make plans. A
future might involve stuff, and stuff is not what I want now. I crave
experiences. A strong spring wind could blow me in any direction.
A
Visit to the Doctor
Ow, my aching back
California
is at an interesting cross-roads with regards to marijuana. The passage
of State Proposition 215 legalized in 1996 medicinal marijuana. Since
then, cannabis dispensaries have been popping up like grow-lamp weeds
all over San Francisco and throughout California. The Feds have
inexplicably shut down some of these businesses; detractors blame a
pre-election initiative by President Obama to appear tough on crime.
Cannabis is still federally prohibited making complex the interplay
between state and federal law.
Just because medicinal marijuana has been legal in California for over
ten years does not mean that just anybody can buy marijuana. Just to
enter a dispensary, a consumer - rather, a patient - must carry a
prescription signed by a registered doctor to treat a particular
condition. Sounds restrictive to just a small portion of the citizenry,
right? I gather from the prevalence of dispensaries, at least four
within two blocks of my house, there must be a host of sick people with
a wide range of miserable conditions ranging from inoperable cancer to
degenerative glaucoma to the occasional trouble sleeping. A lot of
Californians have cannabis prescriptions, and many of them are not
deathly ill.
I have passed by dispensaries enough to be curious what happens within.
Having lived in the Netherlands for two years, I certainly was well
aware of Dutch coffeeshop culture, but remain ignorant of the
Californian analog. I can't go into a California dispensary because I
don't carry that all-important note from a doctor. Of course, I'm not
about to call up my doctor.
On the recommendation of a friend, I made an appointment for a medical
consultation on a Saturday afternoon. I have chronic back and shoulder
pain that just might be alleviated by the magic of this illicit plant.
I biked over to the shadier section of the Mission District on 20th
street and climbed up three flights of stairs to Priceless Evaluations.
As my friend counseled, the prescription process is more akin to
waiting at the DMV for license plates than sitting in a hospital. Along
with a crowd of people ranging from Oakland thugs to gay hipsters, I
filled out about eight pages of forms. I had to list pertinent
identification like age and social security number as well a brief of
my medical condition. I could at least corroborate with x-rays.
Although some would worry that this prescription may put me on some
government watch list that could possibly make finding work difficult,
I think the chances are low and if an employer wants to disbar me
because of this medical visit, then that is not the kind of job I want.
Two cheery college-kid receptionists efficiently marshaled the
crowd in and out of two dingy waiting rooms. They set up a queue to be
"on deck" outside of two doctor's offices. The forms I tackled sternly
stated that I need to "put something on every line."
Much like at the DMV, I sat and sat for forty minutes. I overheard one
receptionist make the same sales pitch over and over again to
recently-approved patients for which dispensary to visit: Shambala,
just around the corner. Me thinks this Shambala dispensary pays this
doctors' office some sort of new customer bonus.
Finally I was on deck outside one of the doctor's office. I entered
into a tiny white-walled room with a simple desk, two chairs, and some
posters of anatomy, enough of a veneer of the professional medical, if
professional meant Albania.
The doctor, German maybe, in his 50s maybe, spoke with me for about
five minutes. He asked about my profession - chemist - and wanted to
know more about DNA sequencing. We discussed my back for which he
recommended massage and swimming. He prompted me for any other issues,
and lit up when I said the magic word of "insomnia." He filled out a
sheet in the universally-illegible script of doctors everywhere. I
signed my embossed doctor's prescription and got up to leave. Adhering
to efficiency, he said, "That is all. Get your documentation at the
front desk. Leave the door open on your way out."
I exchanged $45 cash for a year's prescription for the right to buy
cannabis for my medical needs. The receptionist stuffed an envelope
with cannabis coupons and encouragement to visit Shambala, just around
the corner. A prescription renewal in a year's time will cost $35. At
roughly $40 for every 5 minutes of work, these doctors do well
financially unless they get raided or question their ethics.
Oddly, I'm in no rush to visit a dispensary. Friends recommend
home-delivery of medicinal marijuana as cheaper and more convenient. It
certainly would be a stunt to host a dinner party interrupted by the
ring of a THC delivery guy.
Mostly, I wanted to take part in this strange quasi-legal era of
cannabis, like one of the few that got medical prescriptions for
alcohol during prohibition. I suspect that in a couple or years or even
a decade, the state and possibly federal law will change again, either
making marijuana legal and regulated for all, or firmly prohibited. In
the meantime, this cannabis shadow world is speakeasy fun.
Spring
Cleaning
Making Room for the New
Spring
has come earlier than anticipated to California. Mid-March and the
surrounding cherry trees have already blossomed in epic pinks. While
Boston still slogs through more chilly snow, Bay Area spirits lengthen
with the brighter days.
On 14th street in San Francisco, I open the apartment windows and wield
the broom. It is time for spring cleaning. For the first time in my
five years here, I am methodically rummaging through all belongings
with a simple binary assessment: keep or go. Oddly, my approach is not
sentimental; it feels time to purge. I feel no pangs to throw out
objects that may be of use some day. The day is now.
So far, I have tackled the kitchen. I threw out frozen cherries,
spaghetti sauce, and marathon energy supplements. I repackaged and
labelled spices. I have tackled the living room. I removed half of my
books as no longer necessary. I will deliver these stacks to the
Phoenix bookstore in Noe Valley with the hope they will take them. I
next will pare down my clothes and then sort through the garage storage
locker. I wiped away the mold from the window blinds and took the dust
of the tables. I would like to give away some of my art creations; much
of the fun was in their construction.
I aim to shed at least 20% of my belongings. I'm not usually one to
have much stuff in the first place, living in an a 600 square-foot
apartment and having once moved to California by car. Still, after five
years, I've accumulated detritus.
Much of this spring cleaning is psychological. I want to live leaner
and freer. I can't anticipate the future, but if there comes a time
when I need to move and change, I'd like to be nimble now for the next
chapter. I may need to cram all this stuff back in the same car and
drive off into the American sunset.
I'm uncluttering. I try to think about less. I want to hold on to only
two objects at once. I want to sleep until I'm rested. I don't drink as
often. I stay home a lot. I'm stretching my hips upright and uncoiling
my back. I breathe.
Removing so much stuff, I hope, will open up something new - perhaps
not new stuff, but new experiences and people. I signed up for a
weekend welding course. I booked a retreat in April. It is spring and
I'm ready to wander. Do you want anything of mine?
Notes
from the Dance Floor
Burnal Equinox
Saturday
night, Public Works hosted a party called Burnal Equinox to celebrate
the mid-point between the previous September's Burning Man and upcoming
Burning Man. Sounds like a silly commemoration to me, but it is an
opportunity for a party near my apartment, and I have not been to tired
Burning-Man event in quite a while.
Earlier that Saturday night, I ushered Spinach and Giorgio out of my
apartment after a great dinner and two bottles of red wine. Departing
already drunk to party may not be a good idea, but seems more like
standard business practice for me. On to that alcohol fire, I threw on
a small medicinal edible that on the previous weekend made me giggly
during the All Worlds Fair.
Before I left the apartment, I strapped on some white Aztec Wings that
make me look more like a moth, and then marched down 14th Street with a
left turn on to Mission.
As the edible kicked in, the evening got stranger with vignettes of
confusion, giddiness, and excitement. It's getting harder and stranger
to be fucked up wearing something that glows behind me to deal with
that insanity along with my own internal insanity.
Downstairs on the dance floor, this little unfamiliar bear guy came up
to talk to me. We exchanged some pleasantries until he said, "Roar!" Of
course i had to roar back, so we kept roaring. I'm guessing he knows me
from another event, but given his make-up as a little bear guy, the
name and face were sadly unrecognizable. Such a drive-by roarer.
Later in the evening, Joseph with his vaguely Egyptian features and
goatee emerged like the ghost from Bartleby the Scrivener. We talked
briefly. He was between parties: Go Bang in SOMA and another event at
the End-Up. He told me that clubs hate people like him: he only does
guest list and doesn't drink, so he floats free through the night life.
I ran into old acquaintances: half of a Priceless contingent from a
festival many, many July 4th's ago up in Sierra Mountains. The two of
you had gone to sleep early that night and certainly slept soundly in
your tent. I brought seven back to our campsite on the hill. Three of
these seven recognized me at Priceless and wanted to know what I had
been up to all these years. There was some attendant awkwardness on
what to do next.
Around 1, the downstairs dance floor cleared to make way for a
performance. Two drag queens marched in, dressed in red and blue
cardboard rock-'em sock-'em robot costumes. They chased each other for
a bit until one picked up a bat. He started swinging pretty hard at the
other and managed to knock the red robot to the ground. I was stunned.
The evening ended for me with a vaguely Mexican indie-grunge band. They
bridged a song with a really long but funny spoken word on waiting in
line at Center Camp for coffee. I felt back at Center Camp, still at
Public Works, but wait it was just another Saturday night.
I get so jaded with San Francisco, but I need to remember how still
fresh lively the nightlife can be in this town.
The All Worlds Fair
Interdimensional Extra-reality
The
All Worlds Fair descended on San Francisco for one brief weekend
February 23-24, 2013. When the Fair was announced, I raced to buy
tickets for the Norfolk group at 7:50pm on Saturday night. I had no
idea what I was getting into.
As the night of the Fair approached, a few details emerged, more like
random edicts to attendees. The Fair would be held at the Old Mint
Building, yes, the San Francisco mint, a relic but survivor of the 1906
earthquake and fire. San Francisco is one of the country's three
historic mint cities; the other two being Philadelphia and Denver.
Admittance would be for a group of about 300 for a particular time
slot, such as our Norfolk 7:50pm slot. Once inside the Fair, the group
would have about three hours to explore. No digital cameras are
permitted. Attendees should wear monochrome: white with black, but
mostly white.
I did know that impressario Chicken John organized the event, and even
he had no idea what to expect, either success or a flop. We did expect
the strange and interesting.
Our group of six Fair attendees convened at seven o'clock at Rob's
apartment, located conveniently facing the Mint Building. We drank
negroni cocktails, changed into white and black, but mostly white.
Once outside the Old Mint Building, we stood in line for entry with
quite the fantastic bunch of attendees: white fur coats, black and
white checkered scarves, hats with white wings.
Our attention turned towards the commotion of a parade of 20 identical
women in red dresses and black antennae, led by a fop with a cane in a
three-piece red suit. This parade, we learned, was passport control.
After our group passed through a passport gate, we sat to fill out
forms delivered by passport control: "Form, please," "Incomplete Form,"
"New Form," "Good Form," "Reform," "Next Form." The passport ladies
would swipe one form from out clipboards to replace it with another. I
answered questions like who in the group did I hate the most, or what
did I dream last night?
Meanwhile, paramilitary troops sternly patrolled the crowd. A colorful
few were singled out by the paramilitary and brought near the
restrooms. Ah, too much color. Those who decided to flaunt the rules
were wrapped in white butcher paper fastened with black duct tape. A
man in a blue suit got wrapped in paper from neck to waist. A woman's
large yellow bag was wrapped in white. Yellow!? What were you thinking?
After filling out countless forms, we were ushered between and under a
row of elevated passport ladies. The red ladies berated and ripped and
inquired until simultaneously they raised their arms to stamp a set of
red passports that they distributed one to each attendee.
Grateful for our new red passports, we waited briefly in front of a
loading dock. A man in a bowler pushed us together. He readied us to
rush into what I thought was a freight elevator. The blast door opened
and we raced into: PANDEMONIUM!
We rushed into a hallway, more like a city street, teeming with
barkers, a blinking van, bell hops, mermaids, pirates. A bellhop
gathered our group and charged us down the hall.
For two hours we explored little scenes in rooms on two floors of the
Old Mint Building. Groups of artists had set up in the rooms different
tableaux that spilled out into the hallway.
I got arrested for consorting with trolls and was sent to court; I was
fortunately acquitted 3-2 by a jury of my peers even if the friends on
the jury found me guilty. I bet on one of four racing contestants, each
contestant fitted in electronic alternate-reality goggles; the
contestants stumbled two laps around a race track. I tasted an elixir
made out of the strangest of herbals. I got electrocuted while holding
on to a fluorescent light bulb in a chain terminated by a tesla coil.
Blindfolded, I swashbuckled a pirate with a cardboard saber. I rode a
seesaw with Rob and Ruben in the shape of a mustache - of course this
was a mustache ride.
Upstairs, the delights got stranger and even more delightful. I toured
characters from the Book of Revelations while a prophet read the
apocalypse. The Museum Mechanique had people not robots jerking like
animatons: a woman creepily laughed and laughed much like the famous
robot Laughing Sal; a grandmother snored on a couch until a girl
emerged from under a table to clatter cymbals; a fortune teller pressed
my forehead and then bestowed a fortune; a bellhop stamped passports
frantically until his batteries ran low.
Another room was empty except for a dancer laying on the bare floor. A
floor light cast her silhouette on the far wall. The crowd clung to the
walls to give her room as she had 3-foot long table legs attached to
her arms and feet. She whirled growing rhythmic circles with the ends
of these long legs. Gazing further, I realized she was an amputee; the
legs were prosthetics. Brave of her to feature what ostensibly might be
a deformity. She inspires me to flaunt my own deformities, physical or
other.
As the night wore on, the various rooms would simultaneously go mute.
The crowd was ushered from the ground floor on to the second floor into
more scenes.
When the second floor went dead, we were ushered into a larger dark
ballroom filled with hanging strands of crumpled white paper. Thunder
rolled and lightning flashed. Outside in the courtyard, figures in
white, some on stilts executed an intricate drama that we did not fully
understand. We crowded around windows to peer outside at the white
players.
As the thunder ebbed, some of the players came into the ballroom. Five
women in white, joined in a line at their waists, shuffled around the
seated crowd. In a corner, five more women in white bowed and gyrated.
When the two groups left, two dancers jumped in the middle of room. The
female dancer did several headstands on my surprised lap. So many of us
did not know what to expect.
When the final dance ended, we wandered outdoors in a daze . There were
no customary T-shirts, goodbye wishers, or the typical concert detritus
of beer bottles and fliers.
We knew we had just been part of something fantastic. I had gorged on a
cake so rich that it would take a week to fully digest. John and I
debated whether we should have joined the call for artists a month
prior. I quite enjoyed watching the spectacle this time instead of
building it.
So many of the original edicts made sense. No photography: no pictures
remain of the event, no encapsulation, no frantic worry during the
event of what exactly to photograph to upload immediately to Facebook
for validation. We were present. Wear white and black, mostly black:
the crowd was perhaps the singular best performer. Passports: I still
have my red passport. Each stamp is the memento, the veritable
photograph, for each of the rooms I visited.
More than just the creativity, the logistics of the Fair were
impeccable. The organizers quite skillfully moved the crowd along from
the ticket line, inside, through two floors of mayhem, to finish with a
performance. We never felt bored, manipulated, or rushed. I did not see
everything, but I did see many things. The event felt active, amazing,
confusing, and deliriously fun.
The return to the street may have been the harshest transition. For
three hours, San Francisco felt so far away.
FaceFuck
I finally liked
Facebook, the internet phenomenon I love to hate. So many waste so much
time either posting pictures of their dinners or "liking" what others
are eating. Through Facebook, new parents blast pictures of their new
kid, the highschool classmates you wanted to avoid snoop back into your
life, and drama queens fill the web with self-indulgent chatter.
Friending - sadly now a codified verb - seems so frivolous and empty.
Go outdoors and have a real conversation!
I held out from Facebook for so long with a pedantic sneer: Facebook is
for other people, lonely people, vain people. However, many now use
Facebook to organize upcoming events making it hard for me to learn
times and locations without a Facebook profile. So I meekly signed up
for a Facebook account but just to check information and lurk. Let's
keep it quick and clean.
Something changed recently to covert me into one of the Facebook
masses. Like it or not (ha, ha), Facebook has become the vehicle for
social niceties. If I cut myself off from social networking, I cut
myself off from socializing. It still feels painfully trite to click
that "like" button or respond with a "that's too bad!" but that is me
more accustomed to living in a cave.
Facebook also took over the need for chat rooms. A long time ago, you
could chatter away on message board with people you had never met. It
was easy but also empty and anonymous. At least with the chatter on the
Facebook scroll, I am well-connected to my circles of Facebook friends.
I do click refresh constantly for new posts like on an addictive
Skinner box, but for content from people I care about.
Furthermore, I resisted Facebook for so long because I resisted
exposing my own presence. What if those highschool classmates discover
I am strange and exciting? Fuck 'em, is my new motto. I've got just one
life to live and it's about time to share it with those shut up in
Worcester with new babies.
So I'll be on Facebook posting pictures of my dinner, but hopefully
dinner with drag queens. I'll be clicking "like" and would love to hear
from you. Do remind me to go outside to have a real conversation.
Back to Yoga
Opening Up
It was a cold spring of 2008 and I had just moved into a drafty house
in Cambridge, Massachusetts - my first apartment. The new job, but lack
of new friends, put me out of sorts in lonely Boston. Friend Alyson
suggested yoga. Hunh? My recent stint in the Netherlands certainly
didn't make me feel new-agey. Nonetheless, I needed something to do.
One evening a week, I would march down Massachusetts Avenue after a
hasty dinner to join the large class at Baptiste Yoga in Porter Square.
For ninety minutes in their hot box, we would sweat, stretch, downward
dog, and eventually slumber - I mean meditate. I was more out of shape
than I had thought, and even the beginning classes beat me near to
exhaustion.
Still, the instructors, especially Coehli, were incredible. She
dispense dadvice both on physical forms but also mental approaches to
life. She regularly broke down poses to explain how the limbs stacked
and from where the strength built. I grew aware of my body, how I
stood, how I curled improperly to bend.
For my two years at Baptiste Yoga, I never met anyone at their large,
impersonal classes. Eventually, even my progress tapered. I started
running and then ran away from Boston. Transient in New York and Texas,
I tried a few drop-in yoga classes, like yoga in Times Square, but
otherwise gave up the yoga practice.
When I landed in California, I took up running, and more running, and
even more running to train for two marathons. Coworker Natasha started
up an at-work exercise boot camp. Two evenings each week, Mondays and
Wednesdays at 5:30pm, about six of us coworkers jump on half-domed
bosus, bend into lunges, heave weights, and run in place. I'm in the
best shape of my life with these bizarre new abs of steel.
Something still nags in my body: in spite of super strength, my back
always hurts. I can't lie flat in bed. I wake up most mornings sore
from neck to ass.
Greg suggested yoga. As to most of his suggestions, I responded with
"not now" and "I already tried that." I was busy exercising at work,
getting a weekly chair-massage, rowing twice-a-week on a machine, and
doing push-ups at home. I don't have time for yoga.
As with most of his suggestions, Greg won.
I've only been twice, but once I get started with an activity, I
usually regularly continue it. Tuesday evenings after a hasty dinner, I
wander to Yoga Kula at 16th and Mission. There, Coehi's match, a very
kind Chad Stose, leads us gently through poses.
I have returned to yoga, but this second foray is quite different:
relaxed, intimate, serious, focused, open, growing. My first try in
Boston felt much like a martial art or team sport or learning a new
language - a lot of content and wonder without much individual guidance.
Here in San Francisco, there are usually only about eight in the Yoga
Kula class, and Chad insists on names. We don't sweat in a hot box; he
emphasizes finding your growing edge over exhaustion.
Moreover, I know this time around what I want to work on. I've lived so
long unwell in my body that I better locate its locks. It may sound
entirely cliche, but I so need to open up my heart and unlock my hips.
Thus, I now downward dog with ever-spreading shoulder blades and I
upward dog with ever-separating glutes. My shoulders and upper back are
a knotted mass of compacted tissue. My legs buckle together on
constricted hips.
In last week's class, as Chad bent me further in a wheel pose, I
screamed at him, "I want this to open." Someday it will. I try now to
walk differently, leisurely and square. The back still hurts but less
so as my trunk sits in a better stack..
I've got a long road ahead, but I finally have a good map.
Silence
The Vajrapani Institute
Ever since I started meditating a decade ago, I’ve wondered what it
would be like to take the solitary experience on the road, that is, to
go overnight on a silent retreat. Contrary to my usual frantic
demeanor, an overnight stay would open unencumbered time to sit, look,
unfurl my back, walk, think, not think, and grieve. What would it be
like not to speak for days? So much of me exists as a response to
others and what is planned ever next. The well-known meditation center
Spirit Rock rests nearby in Marin County north of the Golden Gate
Bridge, but this center’s shortest overnight stay is for at least four
nights, more time than I care spare from work.
When my counselor yelled at me one Wednesday to slow down and a friend
Jay alerted me to a another meditation center, I booked a two-night
stay at the Vajrapani Institute. Friday afternoon, I left work at four
and drove south through the outskirts of San Jose and into the Santa
Cruz mountains. As the sun set, I climbed elevation into redwood forest
and left behind the two-lane highway to make way for a twisting road
that became eventually dirt. I drove around ruts and muddy sink holes
under two gates of colorful prayer flags in to the parking lot of the
main building of the Vajrapani Institute.
A receptionist greeted me with a calm smile and drove me the quarter
mile uphill to the meditation cabins. She looked at my few belongings
and asked, “Is that all?” Unlike for either foreign travel or a
festival like Burning Man, I had brought little. The Institute’s
literature strongly suggested leaving behind laptops, reading material,
work, even a cell phone. I packed some warm clothes, a toothbrush, and
two empty water bottles.
The receptionist told me another guest checked in for thirty nights. I
would stay just two nights from Friday sunset until Sunday morning. She
showed me the communal bathroom, the showers, the two trailheads into
forest, and then my cabin. I would stay in cabin number 5, the fifth of
just six cabins, all of them defiantly single occupancy. This was not a
place for couples or friends.
She opened the door to a 10x15 foot room with a sliding glass door
leading to small porch with outdoor chair and sink. Inside there was a
little gas heater, a two-burner Japanese gas camp stove, a single bed,
a white Ikea chair, a meditation cushion, a small table, four candles,
and a photograph of the Dalai Lama. After her fifteen-minute
introduction, she wished me well on my weekend, told me that I could
check out on my own, and then left me to my own devices.
Perhaps unlike other silent retreats, there were no guides for this
one: no instruction, no lectures, no bowing at each other. Such a
different type of trip for me! My usual inclinations would be to unpack
thoroughly – but I had little to unpack, to read up on nearby
restaurants and attractions – there was no place to go, and to call the
friends I were to meet – there was nobody around.
Each day at noon, an invisible caretaker would deposit a bag of food
for me after which he or she would ring a bell. The red food bag would
contain a big hot lunch and a small cold dinner that I could heat on my
own when I wanted. Breakfast I could make from their communal supply of
provisions like granola, bread, and jam.
I was not sure what to expect from two days of solitude. Before I left,
I joked to coworkers that I would be the one cabin with lots of
roaring, or perhaps I would silently invite all the other retreaters
over for a silent disco party.
Instead, I fell into my own sort of routine. I sat on the cushion and
meditated until my hips hurt from sitting cross-legged at which point I
sat on the nightstand and gazed towards the Dalai Lama. I practiced
counting, of not-thinking, of noticing: “I’m hearing two crows,
thinking about my return to San Francisco, caught up in future events,
planning dinner, hearing one crow, leg hurts.” I stared at the
twilight, watching as the few stars poked into view over the
disappearing forest. I tried to think about Greg for resolution, but
lost focus.
When night fell, I turned on the cabin lights and set about dinner. I
reheated a ginger-coconut soup and unpacked a green salad with sesame
dressing. Meals lasted over an hour (I did not keep track of time),
much longer than my usual ten minutes of gobbling. I ate separately
each salad leaf and plunged into the diverse flavors of the soup. None
of the food was exotic or carnivorous, but the point may have been to
awaken the sense of the rich multiple of mundane tastes. I drank a lot
of tea, hoping that black tea in the morning would stave off a
caffeine-deprived headache. It did.
Night fell. I lit a tea light. I meditated further. I cranked up the
heat. Although I was still in California, the alpine climate and
February time meant a frigid evening outside not conducive to
lingering. I had forgotten a flashlight so I used my cell phone to find
my way to the bathroom and back. Every footfall was slow and
deliberate, especially since I could not find the unfamiliar trail.
There’s not much to do on a silent retreat after dark. I probably
stayed up two more hours and then went to bed, sleeping until sunrise.
I understand why monasteries keep early hours in time with the rhythm
of daylight. Dinners are smaller than lunch as one does not want to
sleep on a full stomach.
In the morning, I meditated some more and then performed a long bout of
yoga within the cabin. I finally unkinked my bag and discovered that
half of my posture problems stem from clogged hips. I should not cross
my legs so much and try to open my (um) groin more – my upper spinal
column will thank me.
I was excited to brown toast on a camping rack mounted at an angle on
the gas burner. After a diet of simple foods, a small round of cheese
tasted exceptionally sour and sharp. I napped midday.
In the center of the Institute’s grounds is a bright white funerary
monument to the Nepalese founder, a man who passed away in his fifties
around 1984. A poster discussed his life teachings and showed his
portrait as well as a picture of his skull on cremation. Life can be
brutally short.
In the afternoon, I left the Institute to walk up a path through the
redwoods to Castle Rock State Park. Although I walked only a mile, I
plodded so deliberately that my steps took at least hour to get there
and another hour back. I brought along a snack but no keys, water, cell
phone, wallet, or camera. The granola bar from work tasted
exceptionally sugary.
Funny about solitary retreats is that guests go out their way to avoid
each other. When the noon bell rang, I waited ten minutes lest I saw
someone else silently marching to get his or her lunch. I did spy two
women on retreat. They looked German.
The day passed and darkness returned. I meditated some more and
discovered that the Institute did not supply towels for the outdoor
shower. I watched the stars appear again and thought about home. My
body felt better but my mind was not at rest.
Sunday morning, I rose again at sunrise, the time I usually get up for
work. I made breakfast of granola and yoghurt, did some more yoga,
packed my bag, and nodded goodbye to my weekend companion, the Dalai
Lama. I took the stairs down to the main complex and found my car. A
member has placed an exit questionnaire on the passenger seat.
I drove off into civilization. The first few hours were strange zooming
through the alpine roads of Woodside. Much like in a car commercial, I
zipped by motorcyclists, adventure bicyclists, and sports cars. How
quickly to move from so slow to so fast.
I’m glad for the silent experience, but I need not return soon.
Instead, I shall bring the silent retreat in to my loud world. I’ll try
to savor meals more slowly, to unlock my back, to walk more gently, to
hold at most two things at once, to be more present and appreciative of
the current moment, to cherish those near and dear, and to live more
simply. Although not intended for work, those cabins could be helpful
for time apart to focus on a project like writing a novel. I learned
that I quite hard on myself and do wish to live more gently and
compassionately. Thank you, Vajrapani. Maybe next time I will be the
house that roars.
January
A beginning?
Ah, January, such a hard month. Returning New Year's Eve from the happy
tumult of Mexico, I assumed that the incoming 2013 would herald rest
and relaxation. Instead, the first cruel month of the year commenced
with a bender that has not quite unraveled.
For New Year's Eve, I wandered the four blocks over to Public Works, a
local club, for my third New Year's Eve there. This third time felt
different and empty without Greg also present, but I was already
discombobulated from waking up that morning in Mexico City. John Major
urged me onward after Public Works at 4am to Beat Box where he had set
up my LED flowers in a lotus configuration. Miss Jupiter wore one light
for a time on her chest. John ably navigated the building's fire alarm
from the DJ decks. By a bleary 8am, I trundled home through the
oncoming sunshine. January 1st was spent half in bed and the living
room.
The long nights kept coming through January. Greg and I met one
Saturday morning at Four Barrel coffee for an unexpected day of the 5th
we both now call "24-hour lunch." Another evening on the 12th, after
too much tiredness and too much to drink, I passed out on John Major's
living room couch amidst a party, only to wake well past dawn. I
soundlessly recollected myself that morning, escaped, and had a
confused coffee at Four Barrel. Was I still up after a long night, or
should I consider this morning the start of a new day?
Ruben blew into town for the Edwardian Ball on the 19th. I tied for the
first time an Elredge knot in a yellow necktie. With a lightbrella and
the suit Eleanor made for Ruben, we ventured off Saturday night to dine
at a local Izekaya and then on to the Regency Ballroom. The Edwardian
Ball is always the year's snazziest party as the dapper guests are the
main attraction. I noted a lot of women this year wearing boats and
chandeliers as hats. In the Masonic attic, a tout hammered a nail into
his nostril, the scorpion girl welcomed attendees, and a blues musician
played an electric shovel. On our 2am walk home, Ruben and I
encountered two bizarre fist-fights between wild-swinging men and women.
Blearily the next morning, we struggled to get into the Hayes Valley
beer garden to be told to return when they opened at 1pm. Instead, we
had circus food at Straw restaurant. Later in the afternoon, we cooked
the pheasant Ruben brought down from the Sacramento farmers market.
Ruben suggested to cook the bird like chicken and rice; I input that we
could just make pheasant risotto, and so we did along with the
strangest of zucotta cakes.
Tom helped me hang flower lights at our monthly party at Mission
Control on the 18th. It wasn't fun to take them down at 4am. I spent a
few days afterwards fixing the lights and spooling the phone cabling. I
have reprogrammed the flower lights so they aren't as jittery, perhaps
a metaphor for life currently. I sewed and lit a jaguar hat inspired by
Mexican ruins.
January was a month of leaving. Greg and I tearily separated for the
last time on the 24th. He is a better man than I, biking through a dark
San Francisco to discuss difficult and uncomfortable departures.
I stopped regular meditation and my daily regimen of 70-pushups. I
don't have zealous energy any more. I still Serbicize twice a week.
Although I have abs of steel, my back hurts almost more than ever. I
tried running for the first time since my half-marathon in February
2012. I ran 11 miles on the 26th to the ocean (Pacific!) and back to my
apartment. My right hip ached during the run; my legs and back were
murdered the following few days. I am officially an old man.
I reconnected with old friends Holly by telephone in Seattle and Jay by
beer on the hill of Guerrero. Both provide invaluable counsel.
Work drags on rather listlessly.
I spend most of my time by myself. I see movies, go to shows, and in
bars drink far more than should. I'm empty and lonely these
days, but into emptiness often comes new life. It is January after all,
the darkest of months.
Mexico City
All Things Aztec
Usually, the time between Christmas and New Year is an
indolent week at work catching up on projects, trying outlandish
experiments, and celebrating the end of the year with the few that
remain. The holidays are hard for travel because of congested airports,
the threat of blizzards, and high ticket prices.
This year, the company shut down between Christmas and New Year,
stripping employees of three vacation days and sending us to the
street. Then I must travel. Yet not home: I saw family in the Boston
area for both June and October.
Brother Ray and I used to travel a lot together. However, with his
academic schedule and my few vacation days, we have not linked up
recently on a trip. The planets aligned because of the company closure,
and this December we had the same time off.
We sought destinations that were warm (no Iceland in December),
affordable, and did not celebrate Christmas extensively. For strongly
Christian countries, we feared a week of closed attractions and
restaurants. We looked into Morocco, but calculated a trip there would
take 22 hours and $2200. Rio proved similarly exotic and expensive.
What about Mexico? Ray and I toured the Yucatan Peninsula ten years ago
in an exploration of all things Mayan. This time, we could check out
Aztec Mexico which meant the central area around Mexico City.
Ray invited Lee, his college friend. Lee could drive! I invited my
graduate-school friend Ruben. Of Mexican heritage, Ruben could
translate! So off we set, four recently-single 40 year olds on holiday
in Mexico. Sounds like the set-up for a Judd Apatow film.
We booked nine nights in Mexico. The capital city might be
overwhelming so I wanted an initial break somewhere smaller. We would
land in Mexico City, drive from the airport to the small city of Puebla
to spend the night there to eat Puebla’s famous mole. In the morning,
we would drive further south to highland Oaxaca. There, we could take a
cooking class, eat well, and check out Oaxacan markets. We would swing
the car around for five nights in Mexico City, flying out on New Year’s
Eve to get back to the States in time for 2013.
Unfortunately, shady AirTran Airways called me in San Francisco the
night before my flight to announce that my flight out to Mexico City
had been cancelled. AirTran could rebook me on another flight, but not
until 3 days later! I argued and lost. Panic. Furthermore, if I arrived
later, the other 3 travelers would have already left Mexico City for
southern Oaxaca.
While I jumped around my apartment, Lee and Ray from Houston coaxed me
into looking into last-minute flights on other carriers. United could
fly me open-jaw one day later to Oaxaca and then send me home from
Mexico City. Trouble was the obscene $1800 price tag, a thousand more
dollars than the original flight. I hemmed and hawed until Ray reminded
me that it was only money.
One day later than expected, I flew out early morning from San
Francisco to Oaxaca. I had sent pictures of Ruben to Ray and Lee so
they would know whom to meet in the Mexico City airport. I stupidly
left my phone at home, making me anxious whether the group would find
me in the Oaxaca airport or leave me to fend for myself. As I gathered
my bags from the small airport carousel, I did happily see three
familiar faces with a rental car. We were re-united for our Mexico
adventure.
We had no rain for nine days with warm – almost hot – days and brisk
nights. Our business resort hotel in Oaxaca had a chill outdoor pool in
which I tried laps one morning. Ray got sunburnt tromping through the
ruins of Monte Alban; the rest of us wore sunscreen.
I was once infamous for my Gestapo Tours – rushed
adventures through sites, topography, and cuisine. Breaks during these
tours were few because there was so much to see. Despite budgeting more
time on this Mexico trip – three days in Oaxaca and five in Mexico City
– we were still often on the move.
Oaxaca is quite the sleepy highland town, and a fine introduction to
Mexico. One afternoon, we took a cooking class with Oscar who led us in
the morning through a grocery market to buy provisions for lunch. Back
at his restaurant, our group made two types of tortilla on a metal
press, cooked a chocolate mole with 18 ingredients, blended four kinds
of salsa (one with avocado leaf, another with an agave worm), boiled a
squash-blossom soup, soaked rice with almonds for an horchata drink,
and froze chocolate ice cream. Oscar efficiently orchestrated the four
hours to prepare many dishes. Just as much fun as the cooking were the
other participants: two Dutch girls, an American and Australia that
jokingly called us “pathetic spaghetti,” and a family from Mexico City
that took a lot of photographs.
In Oaxaca, we checked out the large church, poked our head into an art
gallery, had weird bagels and local coffee, and shopped for tequila.
Our last night in Oaxaca, we ate dinner grandly outdoors at Casa
Oaxaca. I had venison in mole with a bottle of Mexican red wine.
Since it was the Christmas season, we got drawn into the Oaxacan
festive calendar. Mexico’s native religion is more a celebratory blend
of Catholic and pagan traditions. December 23 was “Night of the
Radishes,” in which local artists sculpt figures and scenes into large
red-and-white radishes. We though the city might be dead Christmas Eve
and Christmas Day. Not at all! Unlike in the United States, Christmas
is a time for outdoor parties. On Christmas Eve, each of the
surrounding villages parades a float with a flotilla of children around
the main square. Men carry poles topped with fireworks, and others wave
large puppets of Jesus, Mary, and even Bart Simpson. We drank beer at a
café on the main square and realized how far away were the snows
of the Northeast.
We spent Christmas at the nearby ruins of Monte Alban, the
best known of the Zapotec sites. We climbed pyramids, looked into
excavated tombs, and had tequila at the museum. Ruben can handle
heights, but only if he is at least a little tipsy. Lee poked at a huge
black tarantula.
Every one of us got a little ill during the trip, necessitating a night
in. On Christmas Day, I left the other three to play billiards late at
the Oaxaca hotel so I could sleep early. On another night, Ray felt
squeamish from something he ate. Ruben faded on our last day in Mexico
City.
We checked out of the hotel in Oaxaca on December 26 for the long drive
back into Mexico City. Lee expertly navigated the chaos of the roads.
Most of central Mexico is high desert, punctuated by brown hills, green
saguaro cacti, and expensive tolls. We fortunately did not run out of
gas and returned the car to the Mexico City airport before dark.
Five nights in Mexico City, a city of 23 million people, approximately
the sixth-largest agglomeration in the world. I feared implacable
crowds, unending squalor, and deafening chaos. When you set your
expectations this low, a place can really impress you: Mexico City is
quite wonderful.
We booked two Holiday Inn hotel rooms in the very center of Mexico
City, overlooking the busy Zocalo. The main square was decked out for
three weeks of the winter season with a skating rink, ski slope, and
snowmobile loop. Ruben and I checked into the fifth floor, while Lee
and Ray took the second. The rooftop restaurant was a great place to
have a sunset beer or for Ruben to finish grading exams.
Our first step out of the hotel, we got crushed by the
Mexico City’s early-evening crowd. Surrounded by wall-to-wall people,
we got swept along the pedestrian corridor. Dispirited, we settled down
for dinner at the fancy branch of Sanborns’s department store.
We later inferred that Mexico City is a monoculture. With many
inhabitants of the same area, religion, and tradition, the city moves
to a unified rhythm. Shops get slammed in the late afternoon; the city
center empties of people around ten at night; everyone sleeps in. As
long as you think differently than the herd, you can avoid the crush of
the crowd.
A city this large has something for everyone, and we sampled a lot:
Mexico City congregates the country’s best museums. Ray and I explored
all things Mesoamerican at the impressive Anthropology Museum. We
surveyed scale models of Tenoctitlan and Teohuacan. We learned about
the horrors of Aztec sacrifice, gazed at the enormous Aztec sun stone
unearthed from under Mexico City, and found giant Olmec heads from one
of Mexico’s oldest civilizations. Mexico for centuries has been home to
a large number of peoples: Olmecs, Toltecs, Mixtec, Zapotecs, Mayans,
and Aztecs. In one wing of the museum, we stumbled on cut-rock
sculptures from a contemporary artist, quite a welcome change from all
the text in the rest of the museum.
On Sunday, the free museum day, we hit the Modern and Contemporary Art
Museums. Although the Rufino Tamayo collection did not impress us, we
did enjoy the museum building and the unexpected lack of a crowd. It
was a different story next door in the Modern Art Museum. The
collection there of female surrealist art proved one of the strongest
art exhibitions I have ever seen. I spotted two famous Frida Kahlo
portraits and some awesome surrealist art.
In Mexico City, we ate both high end and low end. One night, we took
the subway to the fancy district of Polanco where the Porsche dealer
lies conveniently next to the Cartier shop. In Polanco, we settled down
for dinner at Izote restaurant, the supposed birthplace of nueva cocina
Mexicana under chef Patricia Quinta. I ate a great fish crusted with
mole, preceded by a corn and poblano soup. Ruben tried a quesadilla
with huitlacoche quesadilla, the dark gray fungus that grows on corn.
For low end, we ate lunch from a stall in Allende Square.
Ruben had the street version of a huitlacoche quesadilla while Ray and
I sampled the local Chilango snacks of pambazo and huarache. While the
chef grilled up our food, we shot bee-bee guns at small silver targets;
the bored police came over to see why adults would shoot at a kids’
game.
We toured the huge edifices of the opera house and palace, both of
which house amazing Diego Rivera murals so intricate that I spent
thirty minutes identifying the characters. The Belles Artes opera house
is the best example of art deco that I have seen: chunky silver
chandeliers, signs with old fonts, roof faces in the shape of Aztec
eagles.
Mexico City wasn’t all eating and art. We drank plenty, and the full
gamut of beer, wine, and liquor. Mexican wine is having a bit of a
renaissance, and much of it comes from Baja California. Ray picked out
a good red at Casa Oaxaca; Ruben followed up with an excellent Mexican
cabernet sauvignon at Izote restaurant.
Mexico has many brands of beer, most of it lighter lagers, and most of
it in bottles. Ray quickly identified darker Indio as his favorite.
Mexicans have an odd tradition of mixing their beer with other
substances to form a Michealada. Standard Michealadas consist of beer
and lime juice or beer and bloody-mary mix. One night at a Michealada
bar in the Condesa distrct, Ruben saw on the menu Marisco Michealdas
(seafood!). He ordered an oyster drink and wound up with a double
oyster on the half shell perched on top of his beer glass. The waiter
suggested he tilt the oyster into the beer; unfortunately, oysters
don’t float like ice, but sink like sewage. Nasty.
Tequila is the fermented, aged, and distilled agave nectar from the
region surrounding the city of Tequila. Mescal is the same product, but
from anywhere in Mexico (or the world). We drank a lot of both tequila
and mescal, usually neat, sometimes on the rocks. I dislike the wormy
taste of some mescals. However, if Mexican beer proves too low in
alcohol, mescal helps to get you where you want to go: drunk.
Pulque is the un-aged, undistilled sap from the agave
plant. Pulqueria shops are making a comeback from former old-man dives
to current hipster hangouts. On the bar row of Condesa, we ordered up
three half-liter of pulque. Ruben and Ray found formidable the
effervescent, slimy white beverage, but I degree it refreshing.
A bit tired of ruins and museums, Ruben wanted to see contemporary
Mexico, especially where the kool kids hang out. Saturday night, we
started out in La Zona Rosa in search of fun. Too bad this district
proved a wild goose chase of chain restaurants, touts for strip clubs,
and uncertain blandness. We redirected our hunt into the Roma and
Condesa districts, but had to walk dark blocks from one possible bar to
the next. Ray got frustrated leading a grumbling posse.
What we eventually found were amazing: two “entradas,” venues like
underground clubs or European squats. Both entradas had the goth look
that Ruben likes, and both were a warren of rooms. The second spot
“Paranoid Visions” had several bars within, great sculptures, cool
lighting, interesting people, no cover, and even a great band. We
watched a little of the Swedish vampire film, “Let the Right One In,”
while dancing to Cure songs. I don’t remember how many beers we had,
but everyone was happy.
We hired a car to take us 90-minutes north to the ruined city of
Teohuacan, better known in Mexico as Las Pyramidas. The largest
Mesoamerican city was not Teohuacan, but the Aztec city of
Tenochtitlan; in its heyday of the 16th century, Tenochtitlan was
second in population to Rome. However, Cortes and the Spanish not only
destroyed Tenochtitlan; they built Mexico City over it. Teohuacan’s
apogee was a thousand years before Tenochtitlan; Cortes didn’t destroy
it because Teohuacan was already abandoned and overgrown upon Spanish
conquest.
Because of its age and lack of surviving documentation,
not much is known about the Teohuacan ruins we visited. The people who
built the structures were precursors of the Aztecs and had similar
urban planning. We stood in line to climb the giant Sun Temple, the
second largest pyramid in the world (Cheops in Cairo being the
first). We all got a rush of vertigo navigating the narrow
unrailed walkways on the various levels of the pyramid. The views, of
course, are amazing. After descending from the Sun Temple, we climbed
up the smaller Moon Temple.
Many call Mexico City the “Big Taco” in reference to New York’s
appellation as the “Big Apple.” The two cities have a similar
overwhelming, cosmopolitan atmosphere, but Mexico City’s crush can be
thicker due to its monoculture. The two cities also treat congestion
differently. In New York, people orderly queue up with citizens
brusquely policing each other. If the rules are not followed, society
breaks down. In Mexico City, you must be loud to survive the fray. Many
shops and stalls have loudspeakers. In the subways, salesmen and
saleswomen hawk everything from bootleg CDs to gum.
The flight back to San Francisco took just four hours. I’m surprised
how close by sits this other world of Mexico City, teaming with masses
on the subway, full of great food, despised by most Americans, and yet
truly wonderful. I’m glad our band of four did not exhaust our
itinerary in a week. I want to return to see more of Mexico’s capital.
2013
A Fresh Start
Somewhat silly for me to make resolutions for 2013 if the world ends
next week. Nonetheless, I bet against disaster, and frequently win. I
did well at completing most of my goals for 2012, so perhaps I should
dream bigger for next year.
Family
Hard to plan when or if I will visit my parents in 2013 as last year
was the big year to celebrate birthday and anniversary milestones.
Unless I leave my job for a sabbatical, I don’t foresee yet a trip east
to commune with family. Vacation days are sadly tight. I would suggest
they come visit me in sunny California, but I know that will not
happen. Nonetheless, I’d like to persevere with my weekly call to
Wellesley. I hope Dad makes me a chair.
Spirit
I may be in the midst of a transformation. Relax! I’m trying to.
I have four months ahead of weekly therapy with Dr. Clinton that may
end or curtail May Day when the money runs out. He’s definitely helping
me introspect, accept complexity, prioritize and find solid ground.
Resolve with Greg.
I’d like to keep up my daily fifteen-minute meditation and see whether
I can stretch it to one hour on the weekend.
Bake a birthday cake.
Ayahusca
Health
Keep active. Keep Serbicizing.
I should return to yoga. Chad has a Tuesday evening yoga class that I
want to try. Yoga may open my back and help me breathe.
I want to see the physical therapist that Dr. Clinton recommends. She
may unlock my shoulders. In the meantime, I’ll keep rowing twice a
week, doing seventy pushups daily, and seeing my chair-massage guy at
work every week.
I want to enroll in an adult swim class at one of San Francisco’s
pools. If the swimming goes well, I want to race an Olympic triathlon
before the end of the year.
Surf!
I want my car to survive 2013. My stalwart vehicle will likely fail
smog inspection in March 2014, and that may be the end of the
yellow-and-blue beauty.
Work
I’m having a fine time at the job (finally!), but this ongoing refocus
to other parts of my life feels more like a temporary sinecure than a
career. Of course, my thoughts could change if the company’s stock
price jumps. By the end of 2013, I ought to move on from this position.
In the meantime, however, I still have much research chemistry that I
would like to incorporate into commercial products. Moreover, I have a
company of my own to run.
Art
I want to enter the SF Weekly newspaper Mastermind contest for new
artists. Unfortunately, the contest deadline too soon approaches on
January 4.
I want to host a runway show in 2013.
Sell a commissioned piece of art.
Give a lecture on the how’s and why’s of my art.
Learn how to weld, or rather braze copper. Make a fire sculpture
(antlers!).
I want to make a kinetic sculpture. I also need to rework the parts
from 2012’s Flowers project. Maybe the light boards can move
kinetically.
I would like to find a better solution for my website.
San Francisco
I want to see more new in San Francisco. I love you bars and clubs, but
I don’t need so much of the same oonz-oonz. There be instead film
festivals, music festivals, comedy nights, pop-up restaurants and
gallery openings.
Stuff I would like to explore: Noisebridge Hacker Space, Noisepop
Festival, Outside Lands music festival (might be a disaster), Writers
with Drinks at the Make-Out Room, Cable Car Museum, Randall Museum, and
a bonfire on the beach.
I would like to try dating again.
Throw a party at my apartment, maybe an afternoon event.
Start a monthly event.
Travel
Get out of the country at least twice next year, and make one place a
once-in-a-lifetime destination. Amanda and Patrick already suggested
Istanbul. Maybe look into the Galapagos or Morocco.
Every year I say go to the National Parks, and every year I don’t. I
would like to visit at least two National Parks, especially Crater Lake
and Sequoia. I want to check out Portland again before Tess moves,
visit Toronto, go back to SXSW, and attend the Kentucky Derby.
Take AJ to Commonwealth. Look into Benu or the French Laundry.
2012:
The Year in Review
The Year of Upheavel
The calendar reads only early December and I am already summarizing the
year, much like a newspaper or magazine too early closes out the year.
Nonetheless, I depart to Mexico on December 22, a day after the world
ends, and then in far flung tacque- and tequila- rias I won’t have much
space to think about the past year.
Borrowing from the Mexican, Aye Carumba, what a year of upheaval. Much
ended in the appropriately named “fall.” I spend the rest of the year
picking through the pieces, questioning what is important to me.
Here’s a synopsis of 2012:
Home
I still live happily on 14th street in San Francisco so no reason to
move after roughly 2.5 years of occupancy. The cute neighbors
downstairs yelled in glee through the Giants World Series victories,
jump-started my car when the battery died, and urged me to eat more
tomatoes from their driveway plants. My apartment may not be a mansion,
but I’m learning that the small space has all I need and keeps my needs
small. Dad built and sent me a bookcase this year to match the bed and
bench he built last year. I put up on the walls more of my artwork so
the apartment looks quite like Dr. Seuss’s home.
Work
A proverbial hurricane hit the company in the fall of 2011 when the
executives summarily laid off 30% of the workforce. Those that survived
the purge realized that we were no longer the golden company and that
our futures would be tenuous and uncertain.
2012 meant a year of rebuilding but also difficult and arbitrary
re-organization. Almost all of my closest colleagues quit: Greg went
back to Oregon, Jeremy and Ron took jobs at a competitor, and Bobby
moved to New York City. Unannounced company changes jerked me into a
new department. I was quite miserable for most of the spring and
summer. Many of my colleagues behind the scenes interviewed at other
companies; perhaps foolishly, I stayed put.
And yet when fall came, I calmed down with the company. Overhaul done,
company pressure abated. I freed up my hours and refocused my life on
priorities outside of work like mental and physical health.
The job is now just a job, and I am fine with that repurposing. I don’t
ask fulfillment or rewards from my position, but simultaneously, I’m
fine if experiments don’t always work or get delayed.
Travel
I left the USA twice in 2012, a recent record for me, as I’m usually
strapped to an office desk most of the year. In early spring, I
returned to my old stomping grounds in the Netherlands to visit old
friends in Eindhoven, empty out a Dutch bank account, speak some
Netherlandish, and take a farewell tour of Amsterdam. I had not been
back for seven years, but I still recognized many; Jolanda called me
one of the “good Americans.” However, the visit to Dutchyland felt like
a goodbye wave.
From Amsterdam, Greg and I took a train onward to meet Rob in Berlin
where we stayed four nights at the blue-and-brown Motel One. Greg and I
saw two museum exhibits featuring the art of Gerard Richter and then
hit some far-too-late night bars and clubs, two of which were in former
power plants. We saw some Easter snow one afternoon from a pleasant
Berlin brown bar, the only snow I saw all year.
I leave in two weeks for Mexico to tour Mexico City and the highlands
of Oaxaca with brother Ray, Ruben, and Lee. We’re renting a car, hoping
to spend Christmas Day on a beach south of Oaxaca. Six days in Mexico
City may exhaust us with its 19 million residents, but we are so
looking forward to the food and Aztec ruins. Perhaps Ray and I will
attend a Mexican wrestling match to bookend our visit long ago to Thai
kickboxing.
I retired my old passport, almost full with a Dutch work visa, Jamaica
stamps, and trips around Europe.
California suffered a drought at the beginning of 2012, forestalling
any skiing for the year. Now that planners AJ and Fiona have a newborn
son, our group may not soon ski again.
Which states did I visit in 2012? Wow, only 5 states including my home
of California, and only two of these states do not abut California. I
guess I like San Francisco so much that I hardly leave it.
March: OR
April: TN
June: MA
August: NV
October: MA
In March, Natasha and I flew to Portland for a quick weekend to visit
our former coworker Greg in his native Oregon. He took us to some great
bars run by the McMenamin family and we took him to two famous
restaurants: the earthy Woodsman Tavern and the Vietnamese-inspired Pok
Pok. I’d like to move to Portland in less than five years.
At the end of April, I camped in Tennessee with John Major, Mutt, and
Jason.
June was an auspicious month of anniversaries. I went home at the
Summer Solstice to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary and
my brother’s 8th wedding anniversary. We had a grand dinner for eight
veritable-Dudeks at the Blue Ginger.
Most years are not complete if I don’t go back to the Burning Man
Festival in Black Rock City, Nevada. This year, I went earlier than
ever and had a wonderfully pleasant time for roughly ten days of
not-rough desert camping.
I returned back home in October to surprise my father for his 80th
birthday. He only turns eighty once, and my father is such a super guy.
He was a little shocked to see both myself and brother Ray come through
the front door unannounced.
Body
The year started auspiciously with forty days of veganism. Many were
mystified, but friends were quite supportive and joined me for vegan
dinners. I enjoyed the restrictions, lost some weight, and got better
connected to food.
In August, we dined famously at the San Francisco two-star restaurant
named Saison. We choose it because we could walk there. Eighteen
magnificent courses later, we had shed five-hundred dollars (each) for
an amazing show of festing.
Twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays, I still go to the gym at work
to “Serbicize.” I have my own corner in the class where we throw
kettle-bell weights, jump on half-circle bosu’s, and do far too many
push-ups. I’m in great health. It’s bit odd for me to have abs of
steel, as for decades I never thought of my body as attractive.
I’ve given up on some of the athletics I used to do so often. I only
went to one yoga class all year. I guess I have done enough downward
dogs for a while, although I would like to get back in practice.
I no longer run either. My greatest feat of year was my last race in
early February. I ran a half-marathon through Golden Gate Park in a
lightning fast 89:43 minutes. The 6:51 minutes/mile broke my goal of
under 7 minutes/mile, and was an accomplishment I barely expected.
During the race, I urged myself to run slower to save breathe and
energy. I’ll likely never run a faster half-marathon. After that happy
dash, I hung up my shoes and retired from the sport.
2012 was a year of checking in. I saw my doctor who proclaimed me
healthy.
My back still aches most of the time. I see a chair massage guy at work
every Thursday at 1pm. He got me started rowing on a gym machine twice
a week; brother John’s wife was quite helpful to instruct me on proper
rowing form. Also because of the massage guy, I now do push-ups every
day to strength my chest and shoulders. I visited a back doctor who
surveyed neck and back x-rays; nothing wrong with my bones.
September, I got punched in the face while riding my bike Saturday
night through San Francisco. Fortunately, I did not fall off, but I did
wear two black eyes for a month. Was this cosmic vengeance?
Mind
2012 was the year of Greg. We spent much time together and traveled a
lot: to Europe, to Burning Man, to Oakland. However in the fall of
2012, mounting anxiety thunderously overtook complacent happy routines.
I ran away on September 26 to much confusion and lamentation.
Three months later, we continue to sort through the wreckage. As bad as
I am to date, I'm an even worse breaker-upper. Still, we have
progressed from coldness to civility to a weekly commitment to figure
out what went right and what went wrong.
The break-up prompted me to try therapy, even if the word rings creepy
to me. Thursday afternoons I see a Dr. Clinton to discuss all things
relationships. Even before tackling the failed relationship, we pouring
through family, self, and priorities.
Many have counseled that I need to slow down. I’ve resumed meditating,
work on breathing bigger, and try better to value friendship over the
new. Progress is slow and hard to quantify. I may be poorer in wealth
finishing 2012 than when I started, but I may be much better grounded.
Art
My art has taken on a life, intensity, and zeal of its own. I still
make clothes that light up, but both the clothes and the lights are
getting more complicated and abstract. I figured out how to light up
empty spaces supported by plastic frameworks. Now there are feathers,
hexagons, and spikes. This year brought the creation of the Neon
Indian, Turtle Shell, Hedgehog, and Mohawk. Tom called the Hedgehog the
canonical ideal of what I’m trying to make. A rapper recently wore the
Hedgehog for a song on stage.
I received an art grant from my Burning Man village. I spent much of
the summer programming eight flower lights, made out of IKEA lamps, PVC
poles, electronics boards, and infernal phone cable. Once out in the
windy desert, the lamps threatened to snap but did not. I’m glad to
have created the piece, and very much thank all the help, but the
Flowers are not yet my masterwork.
Life
In general, 2012 was the year of San Francisco. I started the year not
knowing almost anyone, and ended the year a recognizable face, just by
dint of going out a lot, meeting interconnected groups, and being
myself.
I did not take on much that was new, but I tried to take stock of where
I am at, and where I would like to go next.
Perusing my intentions for 2012, I did fairly well this year at keeping
up with my goals. I intended to run a race, go home several times, try
veganism, and slow down. I did not go to any national parks, learn to
swim, or find new work. Next year!
Post
-Consumterist
Beyond Stuff
Christmas
approacheth and the masses have already invaded the malls on the wee
hours of Black Friday to buy large tv's for a few bucks less. I stayed
home that Firday, and will continue to stay home. My attitude towards
stuff is undergoing a sea change.
When I was young, broke, and surrounded by classmates who were
wealthier, savvier, and more popular, I thought that the missing link
was simply stuff: if I just had the right computer, car, or shoes (we
didn't have cell phones and cell-phone envy in the 80s), then I would
be obviously as beautiful as everyone else. Stuff was my simple,
coveted entry point into the secret club. Which stuff exactly meant
exhausting noticing and inferences.
Or least that's what the culture pushed. If I just wore the right
clothes, if I just had the right electronics, if I just owned the right
furniture, then I would be happy, well-adjusted, sociable, and
inevitably content. Trouble was, acquisitions beget more coveting beget
more acquiring leading me further from, not closer to contentment.
I would wander malls alone with no singular purchase in mind. There
might be something here that would fill a hole in my life so I had best
look for it frequently. Giving stuff in the form of gifts signifies
love, doesn't it? I had best see what everyone else is buying because
that's what I should be getting next.
This is strange behavior coming from a family whose parents hardly
acquired anything. My Mother and Father exited the consumerist rat race
decades ago, much to my chagrin. Overloaded with aesthetic ennui and in
the midst of a striving private school, I was rankled by the
obliviousness of my parents. I fretted even more about stuff,
especially all the stuff I didn't have. Why am I the only kid that
walks up the hill to school while most of my classmates zoom on by in
their fancy cars?
In my twenties, I entered graduate school. For the next seven years, I
earned only about $20,000 each year, and yet felt rich. Although even a
beer in a bar felt extravagant, I was in California and just wandering
the hills was more than what could be for sale back east. I had a bike,
friends, and money to travel.
As my income has advanced to much more than $20,000 each year, my
expenditures did not keep pace. It was as if I hit some sort of maximum
spending ceiling. The rest got converted to savings. Sure, I'll buy a
laptop computer when the old one breaks, and that laptop purchase won't
break the bank.
Recently I looked around to find that I don't need anything more. I
tried buying small kitchen gadgets, like bowls, a year ago, and that
didn't do much for me. Sure, there could be plenty of purchases: my car
is old, coworkers brandish fancy iPhones, and I could eat at great
restaurants, but I don't want anything more. I no longer even troll
malls and shops thinking that they contain something that could fulfill
me, because I've dropped the notion that stuff fulfills. It's quite
empowering to be free of stuff. I'm officially post-consumerist.
But also quite isolating. Our consumerist culture is predicated on
acquisitions, and much of our social space is peppered with advertising
to prop up the acquiring. If stuff won't make me happy, what will? The
earlier equation of stuff = happiness was false but simple.
The new equation is frighteningly open-ended. I've left the herd, but
not necessarily found another way of being. What then are my goals?
What does money signify? What make me happy? It far easier if a new
toaster made me happier for a week, as that purchase is a navigable
transaction that I (and anyone) can do for the exchange of money.
I do find myself still wistfully looking at stuff in shop windows.
Picking up stuff with a price tag, I ask myself questions: is this
object useful? do I already own something that either looks like this
or serves a similar purpose? would I be willing to shed stuff to add
this stuff? am I just following a fad? Those orange running shoes at
Sports Basement resemble the orange shoes I already own; so I like
orange shoes, but I don't need another pair. I have so many green
shirts, so no more green shirts although I'm sure to find others.
It's not like I don't buy anything. The purchasing now is much easier
freed of the fulfillment expectation. I get wet biking to work. So buy
a raincoat. Ok. Will this raincoat make me sexier and more desirable?
No. Then get the raincoat that is constructed well, reasonably priced,
and - crazy - a color that I like. There's a lot less anguish over
every purchase. This rationale purchasing may be natural for you,
advanced beings, comes new to me.
Many have suggested that experiences can be more enriching than stuff.
Stuff is acquired, incorporated into one's world, and then quickly
taken for granted. That BMW was flashy for a while, but now it is just
the car, and one that is expensive to fix. An experience like a trip or
a good meal or even scintillating conversation (if we could just pay by
the word) involves complexity and temporal components making the
overall experience's incorporation less easy to take for granted. I may
not get much time off work to travel, but I would like to go to far
flung places to do amazing things.
These days I spend a fortune on physical and psychological improvement,
yet at the end of the day, I don't receive a worldly good I can hold,
like a toaster, for all this money spent on counseling. It would be
nice to display this toaster to others as a signifier or my increased
wellness and attractiveness. Still the trade of income for physical and
mental wellness is money well spent.
Coupled with my post-consumerism is a more disturbing trend: I'm
becoming post-people. Spending is an activity done often with people in
mind: exchanging money for services you can't do yourself, like a hair
cut, or going out to dinner because you don't like to cook. I've become
quite self-sufficient. If I have all I need and can feed and water
myself quite well, then why do I need people? There may be good reasons
why some monks become hermits.
Stuff does not fulfill happiness, but does this mean that social and
cultural events also do not fulfill happiness? If the new phone won't
make me better than perhaps that beer or show may also not make me
better. What is better and why the need to quantify? Still I have a
surplus of the twin limited resources of time and money and would like
to allocate them productively.
If I had my druthers, I certainly would stay home all the time to build
and explore, but implacable loneliness eventually drives me out of the
house. Maybe instead I just need more stuff.
In the Shop
Fixing to Fix Myself
This
fall, I've spent some time fixing myself and my surroundings. I'm not
usually the type who makes appointments with doctors and mechanics, but
turning forty sent me in for a check-up and an oil change.
HEALTH
Men don't visit doctors unless something is terrible wrong. A poor
friend's father went in with chest pains; his doctor told the father he
had inoperable. The doctor couldn't understand how the father lived for
years carrying such pain. Men bend until they break.
I buck the trend and see a doctor every two years whether I like it or
not. The unlike part is that a doctor’s visit necessitates the almost
unspeakable blood work (fainting as I write this). Fortunately, my
sympathetic nurse practioner prescribed Xanax to blunt the anxiety.
Thanks to modern medicine in form of a pill, I no longer crumple to the
phlebotomist's floor.
Because the nurse practioner moved on to greener pastures to direct a
college's health services, this fall I faced a new doctor named Mark. I
was surprised that my examination took less than twenty minutes. I
learned that forty year-old face few health concerns except to maintain
proper diet, exercise, and no smoking. When I reported to the doctor
that my back still hurts, he referred me to a back specialist.
MY BACK
And so a couple weeks later, I found myself upstairs of a
hospital in the waiting room of a back specialist. Like with the new
nurse practioner, I was surprised at the brevity of the examination.
The back doctor kneaded my fingers and arms to ensure that had not
suffered extremity nerve damage. All good, he sent me to the hospital
basement for x-rays of my neck and shoulder.
X-ray cameras don't use film anymore so no longer are there translucent
sheets that doctors snap to vertical light boxes. The camera operator
ran the machine like on school-picture day: head a little to the right,
a little forward, good! I was rewarded with a DVD of my skeleton.
Back in the specialist’s office, the doctor ruminated over my x-rays to
announce that no bones were amiss. The vertebrae were properly spaced
and I lacked bone spurs. Any discomfort would be from muscular
anomalies that could better be seen through MRI. Done with me, I was
free to go.
On the one hand, I was saddened that my chronic back pain did not have
a quick fix or explanation. On the other hand, it was not a tumor.
Once, I envied doctors and their jet-set lifestyle. My visit to this
back doctor did not arouse occupational envy. He works in a cramped
windowless office, examining malformed backs all day. He seemed quite
interested in news from the outside world - any place but that office.
Still, he works just a couple days each week, and probably billed a
fortune to my health insurer.
Taking care of myself, I get a chair massage every week
for thirty minutes from our corporate massage guy named Ray. Every
Thursday at 1pm, Ray and I trade stories of the weekend's adventures
while he adjusts my shoulders and pokes my scapula. He's not a doctor,
but unlike a doctor, he actually touches my back and can feel which
parts grind.
Hippie Massage Guy finds me a puzzle; I'm in good health, but why such
a bad back? He suggested rowing to build up the trapezius muscles so I
row twice a week on a machine in the gym. He suggested bulking up my
pectorals to support the shoulder so I do daily at least fifty
push-ups. We have discussed chiropractic work (charlatans!), physical
therapy, and rehabilitation.
This Saturday, I spend a small fortune on an initial consultation with
a San Francisco physical therapist/masseuse who I hope will diagnose
the conundrum that is my back. I’d want him to point out where my
vertebrae should align and which muscles I could strengthen.
EYES and TEETH
The body is not just the back. I saw my dentist recently for the
standard six-month cleaning. He wants to replace my metal fillings, but
otherwise my sealants hold up well from my youth. Dentists these days
seem to make their living off of externalities like cosmetic
adjustments or replacement fillings.
The eye doctor says my vision has not deteriorated and that there was
no apparent damage from the punch to the face. I spent some extra money
to get a digital picture of my retinas. I may not need bifocals until
I’m fifty.
THE CAR
Besides myself, the car is the machine I need regularly to maintain.
Like most men, I don’t repair much until catastrophe. Ever since
Burning Man, the car jostled. I knew the front struts were dying.
Shocks and struts are expensive to replace – I renewed the back ones
after driving my heavy belongings across the country in the trunk.
The wobble got more wobbly until the car chattered. I was humming (more
like shaking) down highway 101 on the way to work when – bam! – the
right-front tire popped and smoked. I calmly swerved the car to the
highway’s retaining wall. Yup, the sidewall of the tire had shattered
in several places. I jacked up the front fender, got the donut tire out
from the trunk, and loosened the flattened tire’s bolts. A repairman
pulled up to tell me that the car was rolling on the jack cause I
didn’t engage the parking brake. Whoops. Nonetheless, five minutes
later I was driving on a tiny tire through the town of Millbrae in
search of a garage. A couple hours later and $360 spent, the car had
four new tires. Silly that I wait for a tire to explode before I get
new ones.
On my last oil change, the mechanic noted that the battery was on its
way out. To me that means I have at least a year of battery life. One
Monday morning, I wake to find that the engine won’t turn. In response,
I turn the ignition again and again. Norm from downstairs pokes his
head on the window to announce, “Your battery is dead. I’ll get the
jumper cables.” I live with some great people. A few hours later and
$100 spent, the car has a new battery. Silly that I wait for a dead
battery before I get a new one.
Did I tell you that I recently saw a doctor, a back specialist, a
dentist, and an eye doctor?
The Rapy
Thursdays at 4:30
I
just finished speaking, or rather flailing, and my utterances hung in
the air. From his chair across the room, he looked back quizzically and
silently. Dr. Clinton pushed the silence further back to me almost
palpably. All was quiet. Was I to say more and dig the hole further? Or
was this some sort of silent test? I do like to fill empty spaces, but
am I paying too much to sit in silence? Thus continued another Thursday
afternoon adventure in a small home-office on 14th St, San Francisco.
I had a relationship blow up on me in September, or - more precisely -
I squashed it rather inexplicably and ran the other way. Greg and
others suggested counseling to sort through the wreckage. Trouble is, I
don't do counseling. I'm from silent, analytical New England stock.
Counseling, or worse that term "therapy," connotes self-obsessed
muddling, even insanity.
Nonetheless, in September and October I had hit some sort of bottom -
not a I'm-going-to-kill-myself bottom, but more that I couldn't figure
out what was happening. I so wanted a clearer assessment of my personal
motivations and see whether my actions were true to my feelings (ack,
feelings, run!). Mostly, I have been stuck in the same ruts for too
long.
So I called Dr. Clinton for an initial consultation. I still don't know
whether he's actually a doctor; heck, even I am an doctor, but not a
doctor-doctor. Apparently, therapy comes in all sorts of styles, such
as shouting, visualization, or dog-like barking. Dr. Clinton practices
clinical behavioral psychotherapy (ack, the word psycho). On-line
reading suggested to me that clinical psychotherapy rose in opposition
to the 50s prevalence of Freudian psychology with its symbolism and
obsession with the Mother. This new school of clinical psychotherapy
encouraged clients (patients?) to grow aware of their actions and the
impulses that cause them. The behavioral stuff came later; once a
client is aware of his actions, it's time then to modify the behavior.
After an initial consultation, Dr. Clinton and I settled on a weekly
time of 4:30 on Thursdays. I pay him an enormous $165 for each
forty-five minute session; the math balloons to $8250 for a year of
this treatment, none of it covered by insurance, although I hope to
flex-spend the shit out of it next year.
In this country, we pay exorbitant amounts for people to do things for
us. In gyms, we hire personal trainers. Some fancy ladies get
extravagant haircuts. We have doctors run tests and mechanics fix our
cars. Think of therapy as money spent to fix the psyche. If the
couching makes me a happier, well-adjusted person, then almost no price
is too high, and this therapy should have been done sooner than when I
turned 40.
"What's wrong?" many ask. "You seem fine to me." I can hold a decent
job, undertake all sorts of new athletic and travel endeavors, build
whimsical projects. Trouble is, almost anything that involves someone
else engenders difficulties. The world would be quite easier for me if
everyone just disappeared.
So every Thursday afternoon, I cut out of work inexplicably early to
zoom north on scenic highway 280 back to San Francisco. I hastily park
the car at my apartment and rush up 14th St to a Victorian. Dr. Clinton
sits in one overstuffed chair and I sit in another. We talk.
I haven't been going enough to figure out what should be happening. He
says little, actually nothing about his own life. Mostly, I do the
talking, and he does the noticing. As a scientist, I wish he were more
prescriptive, "Oh, I see you do this thing. Stop that problem by doing
this solution instead." He doesn't prescribe; I guess I'm supposed to
come up with the conclusions on my own and thus foment my own cure.
In the five or so sessions, I've aired many big concerns. So far, we
have mostly we've just looked at these concerns, much like a tour
through a museum. We've discussed relationships, parties, family, my
youth, and anxieties. I haven't done yet any behavior modification.
I'm a list maker, and so far I've created a list of 13 interrelated
issues that I've like to work on. I guess they are personal but still
quite general: 1. Breathing/My Back, 2. Choice/Commitment, 3. Anxiety,
4. Fast-Fast-Fast/Efficiency, 5. Fear of Missing Out, 6.
Spontaneity/Flexibility, 7. Control/Order, 8. Intimacy/Communication,
9. Whole Filling, 10. Wanting/Coveting, 11. Loneliness/Independence,
12. Black and White, 13. Sex and Drugs.
Whew. We do tackle behaviors, namely my poor behavior. Currently, I'm
feeling quite stuck. We've diagnosed that many of my interactive
behaviors are neither effective nor productive. So what then? It makes
me just want to go home and sleep. If the outside involves people and
my involvement with people isn't working than my bed is a much safer
place to be.
Furthermore, all this self-evaluation promotes cycles of insecurity. As
I analyze the reasons behind why I do everything, then everything I do
becomes a source of doubt. I'm learning that there are many wrong ways
- which are my ways; but I have yet to learn new ways to do things
right. Or write.
The one prescription Dr. Clinton dispensed was for me to dispense with
my chronic habit of the e-mail bomb. a lengthy message (quite like this
one) that is unilateral and at times overwhelming. Dr. Clinton
suggested that such an e-mail device is not as effective or interactive
as more direct conversation. But conversations are scary.
The analogy of a psychotherapist to a physical trainer does break down.
With a physical trainer, there are gradual but quantitative gains that
can be made at a gym: I've gone from 4 push-ups to 40 and I look more
muscly. With a therapist, I can't quantify and may never be able to
quantify gains with Dr. Clinton. Perhaps this whole therapy business is
an elaborate charade to separate wealthy, neurotic San Franciscans from
their cash.
The Thursday before Halloween I put on a Max costume from Where the
Wild Things Are and took it to his office. It's my money and I'd like
him to figure it out. Trouble is, he's not there to figure it out. I'm
supposed to.
When the session ends at 5:15, I skulk out of the living room. He stays
behind seated, I wonder, to make notes? I'm surmising he's got some
sort of master sheet with check boxes. Which boxes did he check? What
would he prescribe? It's a game where I'm not told half of the equation.
Nonetheless, every Thursday, I'll be heading up the hill. He suggests
that developing sound communication with him will enable sound
communication with the rest of the world. In the meantime, I continue
to hide under my desk. You can ask me which of the 13 things I'm
working on. All of them!
The Boyfriend
Greg
So
much beating around the bush. I grew up in an upstanding New England
family of the silent generation. Work and education were paramount. The
other details like happiness, relationships, and marriage were not so
consequential and little spoken about, almost as if they would just
quietly sort themselves out.
Life took an unexpected turn at end of July 2011: a party. I met a guy.
We hit it off. A lot connected: we find each other attractive, have
similar values, are age appropriate, live in the same neighborhood, and
most importantly are both single and want this to work.
We started dating. I thought the world would collapse. It's shocking to
tell the world that perpetually-alone me is not only dating but also
dating a he. I sent out trepidatious e-mail. Oddly, the world didn't
collapse. Friends were thrilled to find me happily coupled with an
impeccable boyfriend.
Boyfriend. Such a strange word for me, one that I still have trouble
speaking. Much easier to say with subterfuge, “Meet my friend,” or “My
friend and I, we’re going to the beach.” There’s a commitment and
connotation to boyfriend that rings foreign to me.
Greg. Long-term San Francisco resident who remembers those go-go
dot-com days of the late nineties. Software programmer through many
start-ups. Indie-music aficionado. Book devourer. Would be irked to
read all this. Screen printer. Clothes piler. Kale hoarder. Penguin.
Oh, those last few don't make sense, but they do to me.
As we know many wastrel vagabonds in our social circles, we had an
exciting time vetting each other. Upon surveying my apartment, he
asked, "Do you live here alone?" I was surprised that he owned property
and was over the age of twenty-nine. So responsible. Furthermore, he
didn't have an obvious drug problem, except for a peculiar preference
for nuts and cruciferous vegetables.
"I'm new to all this," I protested. Still, I vowed to take a day at a
time and see whether one day would lead to another. We climbed the hill
outside his apartment, spent a weekend away at a Northern California
hot spring, celebrated New Year's together, flew to Europe to see
Amsterdam and Berlin, met his brother the Medievalist, and camped
together at Burning Man. The days accumulated into months and the
months into a year. Whoa, farther than I had been in quite a while.
Trouble is, after the shock and newness of dating a guy wore off, I
started to confront whether this is what I wanted. I answered myself in
my classic style, "I dunno."
Mounting anxiety thunderously overtook complacent happy routines. I ran
away on September 26 to much confusion and lamentation. Jargon is
tricky for me; a friend said, “You two didn’t separate; you dumped
him.” I’m learning. Among other things, I learned not to abandon a
relationship when your boyfriend has already planned your surprise
fortieth birthday party (dinosaur themed – roar!).
Two months later, we sort through the wreckage. As bad as I am to date,
I'm an even worse breaker-upper. Still, we have progressed from
coldness to civility to a weekly commitment to figure out what went
right and what went wrong. If we both are terrible at communicating,
perhaps we can learn from this tragedy how to communicate better with
each other and the world at large.
I know, crass to write about my boyfriend now that he is gone. These
topics are new and difficult for me. Through the fourteen months, I
took on all the anticipated responses of friends and family. Gradually
and finally, I can say fuck ‘em, and carry on.
Friends are sad for me, and even sadder that Greg is no longer around.
Ruben doesn’t have someone anymore with whom to beat me at Settlers of
Catan. Greg’s departure has upended my world. The turmoil prompts a lot
of self-evaluation, re-prioritization, and doubt. This story is not yet
finished.
Punched
One Night in San Francisco
I've
been warned about San Francisco's dirt and crime. With all those people
crammed on a peninsula, something nefarious is bound to happen. In five
years, I have "lost" to the city: three bike seats, many bike lights,
and two bicycles. A friend got mugged at gun point; god bless him, he
grabbed the gun.
A Saturday night in September, 10:30pm, cool but not rainy, I'm biking
in the south of Market (SOMA) area of San Francisco accompanied by two
friends also on bicycles. Slightly drunk, we just left the theater to
head to a bar.
They ride ahead of me. I take a left turn from 9th St on to Folsom.
There's a standing gentleman gesticulating in the bicycle lane, not
unusual because many do hail taxis way out in the street. However, he's
not hailing a taxi; he's swinging at people.
My two friends ahead swerve around him. He punches me right between the
eyes. I don't remember what he looked like. Everything goes dark.
Miraculously I stay on the bike and travel down the street.
It didn't hurt much; I have a large nose to begin with. I go about half
a block and then feel a lot of wetness. Argh, I'm bleeding. A lot. I
pull between two cars and see the pavement shower with a copper
spatter. Tom asked if I'm alright. No, I'm not. Tom brandishes a bike
chain and threatens to go back and get the guy. I just want to stop
bleeding. He puts away the bike chain and pulls out a pink handkerchief.
WTF?
A woman has run across the street. She declaims that she saw
everything. She's throwing a fundraiser party next door. Would I come
by to clean up and have a cocktail? I continue to bleed in the
street. She's more insistent. Would I come by to clean up and
have a cocktail? I think she grabs the bike. We're going to a party.
She leads the three of us bicyclists into a loft space. I go upstairs
into a bathroom to rinse off in a sink. I'm sorry to have bled on me,
on her. Fortunately, she - Hannah - is wearing red.
She pours me a beer. It's comfort food. Her company is unveiling their
new product: furry, costume animal ears whose motions are controlled by
your brain waves. Cool! The product is called Emoki, and they are
raising money for it on Kickstarter. I tell her that I make clothes
that light up.
Guests look at me both confused and sympathetic. I'm the random bloody
one. A few of the party people were outside watching the crazy guy from
across the street when I got punched. I thank my damsel in shining
armor for saving this knight in distress.
The three of us did not stay long at the fundraiser, maybe thirty
minutes. John was waiting for us at a bar. I was out of sorts still
bleeding, not much for socializing.
Ruben often told me that I should get punched in the face to feel that
experience. Well, I have. Former colleague Greg mentioned high school
rumbles where he punched and got punched in the face. "Never gotten
punched in the face?" he asked increduously. Usually (I think) when you
get punched in the face, you see the punch coming and you know who
threw it - like, yeah, I shouldn't have harrassed that guy that much.
My unannounced punch didn't hurt that much - just shocking.
I was lucky not to be wearing glasses, not to fall off the bike (am I
glued to the gyroscope?), and not to get hit on the side of the nose. A
glancing blow may have broken my nose and tumbled me to the street.
Still, I was wearing a helmet and it was quite a well-aimed blow to get
me below the visor and between the eyes. I had been suffering a poor
week with lots of interpersonal angst. Nothing like a random punch from
the heavens to say, "hey, you, stop that."
The next afternoon after the punch, I attended the outdoor Burning Man
Decompression party. I ran into a few people that remembered me from
the fundraiser and asked about the nose. No, Hannah. Other friends at
Decompression wanted to know what happened.
My nose swelled but did not bruise as I got smacked right on the bone.
However, blood pooled and clotted into both the left and right sinus
under either eye. I had black eyes for about a month, bright magenta
initially than fading and filling in.
Facial bruises are difficult to hide and set off alarm bells. Many
conjecture bar fights or domestic violence. At the Decompression street
festival, I devised a poor game of, "What would be the most awkward
explanation at work on Monday morning?" Winners were, "He loves me; he
really loves me," and "Sometimes no does mean no," and "Don't practice
limboing around the house."
I'm surprisingly okay with the incident, because it was so random. I
could have been hurt much worse. I'm glad Tom didn't go back to beat up
the guy. I'm glad we didn't linger all night to press charges. Maybe he
was hailing a taxi? He certainly didn't come back to find out. Maybe I
got what I deserved.
Nonetheless, I experienced the worst and best of San Francisco in five
minutes. Get hit then go to a party. What I call it: Punch Drunk.
Electric
Hedgehog
Halloween 2012
San Francisco is perhaps the best city in the world to
celebrate Halloween. Temperatures are balmier than in the frigid
Northeast, and the Bay Area’s creative community supports a ton of
Halloween events. Even my workplace hosts a costume contest on the
Friday afternoon before Halloween.
My favorite holiday is Halloween. I like the outfits, the parties, the
trick-or-treating. It’s a secular holiday with no gifts or cards
required. As someone who makes a lot of costumes, this is the season to
wear them.
It has been a tough fall. I turned an unsettled forty in September and
then went through a break-up. Work has been steadily sliding away with
my confidence. I need armor. This Halloween, I planned to be a hedgehog
with spines to protect myself and keep people at a distance. Of course
the spines had to light up, and the whole outfit needed to be sturdy,
comfortable, and warm. I got the hedgehog idea from a kooshball costume
I saw years ago at Burning Man and later at a hay-maze party in Half
Moon Bay.
A month before Halloween, I made a pattern for a sleeveless hoodie out
of newspaper, based on a hooded vest from Ayyawear. From the pattern, I
sewed two hoodies: a brown fleece outside and a green fleece inside. As
much as I could, I used up fabric scraps from previous projects, like
the green fleece is a remnant from the famous dinosaur costume.
I planned to mount 50 white spines on the back of the
hoodie. Side spines, I would bump into, and front spines would look
weird. How to illuminate an empty spine cone but yet give the cone
structural support? I could fill the cone’s matrix with supportive
foam, but the foam would dim the light. I discovered that I could cut
and staple a cone out of clear plastic and mount the LED in the cone’s
base. The lights are two full-color 25-LED strands available from
either Sparkfun or Adafruit. From the spacing of the LEDs on the
strand, I spaced the cones at their maximum distance, making stringing
the cones into the hoodie quite a challenging maze.
I studied geometry to learn how to cut a cone properly from a flat
disk. I cut 50 holes out of the hoodie – let’s hope this works as I
just ruined the garment I made. I set the cones on a square grid array
turned 45 degrees. Originally, I thought I would mount the lights
directly to the green lining, but I discovered that I could mount each
light on a plastic strip stapled to bottom of each plastic cone.
With a weekend away in Sacramento to celebrate Ruben’s 40th birthday
and projects incoming at work, I raced to finish the hedgehog before
Halloween. I sewed 50 white cones into the brown fleece. I stapled 50
clear plastic cones to the LED strands. Now for the uncertainty: I put
the plastic cones into the garment, attached the green lining, and
inverted the outfit. Would the hedgehog work? Definitely yes!
I spent an evening madly programming light shows based on the code Greg
wrote for the Turtle shell. Since I could not see the back of the
hedgehog, I wanted the lights to blink automatically and not be
controlled by a keypad or buttons. As John Major complained that my
projects were too blinky, I put in long delays between light shows so
that the outfit would be dark.
Many, including myself, ask why I make these outrageous costumes. For
me, a lot of the pleasure is all that text above: the puzzle of
constructing something no one has made before. I have an idea for a
hedgehog – now how to make it? I don’t know what the finished product
will look like, and the engineering often dictates the outcome.
The Halloween season commenced Friday night with a show and dance party
at DNA Lounge. I found that I could bike fine through San Francisco as
a hedgehog. Life got immediately interesting when a couple ran up to me
just as I was locking my bike in front of the club. They wanted a photo.
I became a celebrity for a weekend of cameras, videos, high-fives, did
you make that?, and I want one. I enjoy the attention, but the
interaction is both non-stop and transitory. When asking about
construction, people just want to hear “LEDs,” and not the details. I
met many, many people, but few faces stick in my memory. There is no
place to hide; electric hedgehogs are not wallflowers.
The hedgehog took on a life of its on. People gather around its back to
look at the lights, but stand back a few feet from perceived sharpness.
Folks want to touch the cones; others want to lick them. When a show
ends and the lights go out, some run up to tell me I am dark. Some
demand a particular color or pattern, so are surprised when I tell them
that I cannot control the lights.
At Dr. Ricks, a photographer asked whether I was the Pope one year.
Why, yes, I was. At Public Works, a wonderful woman told me she taught
robotics to disadvantages girls in Oakland. Outside of Beat Box, I
kissed a spider. In the garden of Dr. Ricks, an insightful used-car
salesman compared the hedgehog to the Joseph Campbell light piece
hanging in the foyer of SF MOMA. I met a couple of women from the
Netherlands. A crowd on 11th yelled across the street, “Turn it on,
turn it on.”
Halloween evening brought rain. Fortunately, the critical electronics
are sequestered in a side pocket, but biking in the rain spotted most
of the lower cones with dirt. A few days after Halloween, I painfully
separated the lining from the hoodie, pulled out the plastic cones, and
washed the hedgehog in the sink. I felt like Superman on laundry day.
It was a great Halloween. What to make for next year?
Burning Man
2012
Victory
Ah,
summer ends in usual Dudek fashion much like the swallows returning to
Capistrano. I return to the hot and dusty Black Rock Desert for the
annual Burning Man Festival. Looking through my previous Burning Man
pictures on this site, I estimate that this year’s return was my
eleventh Burning Man, or maybe tenth. Like an old man, my memory fades.
Back now in the “terrestrial” world, in this case San Francisco, the
sky looks different and shiny. Fall has fallen and with it, the
autumnal angst of schoolchildren, Halloween costumes, and harvest. San
Francisco feels moist, cool, crowded, and fresh.
I spend subsequent days jetlagged and foggy from the
disjoint between desert revelry and the concentration on routine work
and colleague’s enquiries. Burning Man over, it is a period of dusting
dust, repairing and putting away clothes, and taking stock of my world.
What did I learn? What would I do differently? What do I want changed?
What should I do next? This time of year, most appeal is a run away to
join the circus.
To put each Burn in perspective, I try to catalogue ten ways this Burn
was different than the rest. So, in no particular order of chronology,
import or amazement:
1. Arriving early
Usually, I wait at the gates with the rest of the plebs for the
officials to open the event. As Burning Man grows in popularity, the
event starts earlier and earlier. I remember gate opening usually
Sunday or even Monday at midnight. Supposedly this year, gates opened
Sunday afternoon. However, I got to the Playa much earlier than that,
Wednesday night, the earliest I have ever arrived to Burning Man. Greg
and I prior arranged early-arrival passes to help set up the Comfort
& Joy Village.
While driving out, Greg counseled spending a night in Reno to ease the
transition from San Francisco to desert. I pushed instead for a long
one-day drive from apartment to tent. Although it was quite a long day,
I think we were both glad to avoid the night in Reno.
We departed an ironically rainy San Francisco at about ten on a quiet
Wednesday morning. We stopped first at a storage locker in Reno to pick
up PVC poles and rebar, parts to build our shade quonset, our home for
the upcoming week.
Greg knew a veggie restaurant in Reno called the Pneumatic Café.
We had an early dinner with beet juices and vegetables to fortify
ourselves for the upcoming excess and desert canned goods. At a Reno
CVS, we picked up one more case of Tecate beer and a few gallons of
water.
We crossed gates quickly and got to the Comfort and Joy Village just
after dark. Greg feared setting up a tent at nighttime, but with some
bright lanterns and advice from Tom, we got busy with unpacking and
constructing. It took us a couple of hours to put the tent and quonset
together, but we were both glad suddenly to have a home. Exhaustion hit
soon after and I incoherently crawled into bed.
We were already on the Playa on Wednesday night with gates not opening
for almost four more days. It was a blissfully, relaxed time of setting
up infrastructure and connecting with the rest of the early-arrival
crew. I steered clear of most intoxicants, and enjoyed the clarity of
sobriety to ease into this year’s Burning Man. On Saturday night Greg
and I cooked way too much tagine, but the Mediterranean meal was
appreciated, especially by the overworked kitchen managers Amanda and
Mona Lott.
I think “early” is the new Burning Man, and I almost cannot conceive of
arriving next time later than a few days early. I much rather help a
party build than pack it up. However, such a long stay in the desert
did mean sacrifice of seven of my fifteen vacation days for the year. I
won’t be taking another holiday for quite some time.
2. Home
Many of my early visits to Burning Man required tackling
infrastructure. I started with just a tent that got implacably hot by
late morning and then cold by sunrise. I next built shade structures
over these tents, but the impermeable tarps would flutter and sometimes
snap in the wind.
Years ago, I quite envied the quonset that Tom designed
made out of agricultural shade netting and joined pieces of
electrical-conduit tube. Last year, I bought and set up a similar
quonset based on Tom’s manifest and guidance. This year, we brought the
quonset out again to the Playa. Within the quonset, we rigged up
Christmas lights, lanterns, camp chairs, decorative fabric, and spots
for all of our bins.
My second decade of Burning Man and I feel like I have “solved” shelter
in the desert. The first night Rob was on the Playa, he confided, “Wow,
Greg has never camped better than I have, until now.” Next year I want
to bring a truck tarp to provide porous flooring. The Christmas lights
could be amber or red instead of the clinical white. Still, home in the
desert is indeed rather grand.
3. Flowers
For quite a while, I’ve been fooling around with color-changing LED
lights and microcontrollers. This year, I applied for an art grant to
build a sculpture bigger than what I could carry. The one-hundred
person Comfort & Joy Village set aside funds to allot to art
projects by camp members. The Village allotted me four hundred fifty
dollars for a project called Flowers. Although I might be able to fund
my project from my savings, the art grant provided the proverbial kick
to get the project done and make it as grand as possible.
I built eight flowers in the desert, each with a
color-changing light board. Each flower was a bright light housed in
white-plastic IKEA lamp. The flowers were mounted on floppy PVC poles
wrapped in pink-and-green organza fabric. I stuck two bright leaves on
each pole.
I spent about two weeks at home drilling out electronic boards, sewing
leaves, wrapping fabric, and soldering wiring. I built a control box
with three dials and two buttons to control the colors, pacing, and
patterns of the flowers. I attached motion sensors to each flower, but
alas couldn’t get the detectors to work in the desert.
A few pieces of advice for playa art projects.
Probably no art work is finished to the satisfaction of the artist. As
Tom said, “bring out the shambles of your art, and nobody will know
that it is just shambles; they will think it brilliant.”
Do as much work as you can on your project before you arrive in the
desert. We thought we might re-program the lights from the shelter of
our quonset, but once the party started, we had neither the time nor
inclination. When I set up a spindly sample flower by our tent, someone
asked, “Did you prototype this before?” As the PVC threatened to crack
in the wind, I realized I had not fully thought out the project. Every
time the dust picked up, I rushed out to count eight flowers, fearing
that at least one would blow away to the trash fence.
Most work on the playa takes much longer than you expect. We used Tom’s
nail-gun to drive in eight pieces of rebar to stake up the flowers. I
hooked up the electronics. Last step was simply to trench the phone
cord underground to wire each flower to the central control box. How
long should trenching take? Ten minutes? Greg astutely said that such
arduous digging would require at least four people and four hours of
time. We grumbled and yelled at each other but got the monotony done.
He was right.
A week passed and the flowers surprisingly did not blow away. Only one
of the light boards lost power in the red and green channels. Chickpea
occasionally dusted the fabric to make the flowers glow bright under
black light. Even a few people like the piece; the head of the Pink
Mammoth dance camp called it his favorite part of Comfort & Joy.
Nonetheless, the flower circle was my least favorite place to hang out.
I’m a bit shy around my own creations and furthermore did not think it
was representative of what I wanted to create. I was super-envious of
Blitzy’s amazing windmills that twirled brightly and thunked sonorously
like mills. Next time, I would like to make something more interactive
and more kinetics. Color-changing LEDs may be played out. Still, I
learned much at putting together a big piece and thank Comfort &
Joy tremendously for their art grant.
4. Getting to Know Drag Queens
One delight of arriving early on the playa is the extended
time to get to know the rest of the early-arrival crew, notably in this
case, a bunch of drag queens. Mona Lott and Amanda competently and
unflappably ran the kitchen. Ultra daily delivered ice. Chickpea and
alter-ego Amber Alert set up massive day-glo flags, hoops, and
pennants. Neon and alter-ego Playa Hole erected long columns of Mylar
Rain that delighted many who walked or rode through it at all hours of
the day and night.
Drag queens are real people, fun to see the transition “in face” and
after. Our group went Sunday night at midnight to Center Camp to watch
the queens put on a cabaret as appreciation to the workers of Center
Camp. On reaching the venue, a barricade told us that Center Camp was
closed, to which Patrick barged through, yelling, “Radical
Self-Entitlement!”
Ultra was the mistress-of-ceremonies and never is at a loss for a
charming word. She threw down a wonderfully cathartic number partially
as a way to get over difficulties from the close of last year’s Burning
Man. Even Amber Alert sang about a stolen purse.
5. The Main Tent
Over the years, Comfort & Joy has garnered notoriety for its main
tent, a place for “play,” or rather sex, and not just the man-on-man
kind. The reputation for the Main Tent grew enough that Kitten
requested that Comfort & Joy be left off the main map so that only
those in the know would find their way to our village.
Nonetheless, over the course of the week the main tent often was a
heavy mass of furtive, lecherous, and often not-attractive bodies. When
our flaky power cut out, John would rouse from his quonset and rush to
the main tent to turn on lights and music lest the sex zombies take
over the space much like cockroaches invading a dirty kitchen.
We tried to defuse the creepy sex of the main tent. One
night, John busted into the structure to announce, “I have cancer!”
There were some shocked looks. A girl ran out to tell him, “but you
still can have an orgy.”
On our last night, John implored us to put on the Sesame Street yip-yip
costumes. In the near darkness, our furry forms shuffled into the main
tent to harass the humping sex workers. I couldn’t see much through the
four layers of black netting in front of my face, but the peoples kept
fornicating in spite of the “yip, yip, yarg, yarg.”
6. Mob of Yip-Yips
Last year, I brought two Yip-Yip oufits to the playa. These
Sesame-Street costumes resemble furry burkas. One is orange and the
other is blue. Due to the veil over the face that lowers visibility,
you can wear the outfits pretty much only during the day. Due to the
heavy fur, you can’t wear the outfits in extreme heat. Last year, two
Yip-Yips would venture out from Serenity Giant Games Camp in the early
afternoon to invade other circles of people recuperating from their
long evenings. The Yip-yYp invasion was so unexpected and yet playful
that we got a round of applause from one group.
This past winter, Jack from Serenity Giant Games contacted me about the
construction of the Yip-Yip costumes. He, Rose, Patrick, and Amanda
made seven more Yip-Yips.
We arranged to get the nine Yip-Yips together one afternoon on the
playa for a Friday sunset tour. The art car across the street agreed to
drive us aliens to Center Camp. We suited up in our furry burkas,
boarded something that looked like a cable car, and set off on a slow
drive to the center of it all. I was surprised how hard it can be for
an art car to navigate around bicycles and a cacophony of other mutant
vehices.
Once parked outside Center Camp, we disembarked to cause mayhem. I lost
track who was wearing which Yip-Yip. Many strangers wanted to
photograph us, but Yip-Yips will not be wrangled! After bopping around,
one of us came up with the great idea of mobbing one individual. We
would circle unsuspecting prey, one Yip-Yip after another until we
trapped a person in a mass of fake fur.
After a long week and an especially energetic Wednesday
night, I was an unusually subdued Yip-Yip. Nonetheless, the group loved
the adventure, and with such a large group of us, it was a new and
unusual dynamic. As the sun set, we boarded the cable car for our
return trip back to Serenity Giant Games Camp. On our way back, an
enterprising and aggressive nurse with a megaphone waylaid our art car
into her marguerita bar.
7. Rockit Collective
Most nights during the week, the Main Tent of Comfort & Joy hosts a
late-night party called Afterglow that culminates on Friday with the
legendary dance event called Honey Dusted. By Friday, I’m often worn
out that the large crowd of Honey Dusted overwhelms me. I prefer the
Afterglow parties earlier in the week.
Tuesday night, or was it Monday?, San-Francisco based DJ group Rockit
Collective took over the Main Tent for the best dancey-dancey I did all
week. Vocalless, the music beeped and blipped like a harbinger of a
future utopia. The crowd was similarly futuristic and hot in metallics
and sparkles. Who needs Las Vegas if I have Rockit Collective playing a
midweek desert party in my home camp?
8. Max
A couple years ago, I made a Max costume from the Maurice Sendak book
“Where the Wild Things Are.” The off-white outfit has black ears,
pipe-cleaner whiskers, pockets, a long black tail with Christmas
lights, a crown that lights up, and enough absurdity for a child about
to turn 40. One Halloween, outside a San Francisco bar, a couple from
Canada instructed me better on how to channel my mischievous inner
fourteen year old. The training ended with me knocking her down to the
sidewalk. Oh, well.
Like my other Burning-Man outfits, Max now comes out just
one evening a year for an occasion on the Playa. This time, neighboring
camp “Glam Cocks” fortuitously hosted a Wednesday sunset party called
“Where the Wild Things Are.” Greg and I had finished cooking dinner for
one hundred. Too bad the Glam Cocks paid Max no heed.
I designed the Max outfit as a one-piece with deep pockets for those
evenings when sanity leaves and everything I wish to keep at sunrise
need be firmly attached to me or else lost to the dust. Needless to
say, by midnight, sanity did leave. Max took over and I searched for
trouble. We ushered something ridiculous from the drag closet to John
and Tom’s quonset. There was drinking and dancing and bicycling and
onward until dawn!
Greg and I saw the moon dramatically set over the mountains and much
later the sun rise in the east. I must have been loco, because Greg
convinced us to bike after sunrise over to the Steambath Project for
use of their sauna. In the advancing light, we found the steambath door
open and the project turned off.
Max demands a lot of energy.
9. Burn in the Deep Playa
Saturday night on the playa, Burning Man culminates with the namesake
burning of the man. For most, a night of excess and reflection, yet I
have had trying Burn nights. One year, I waited hours eventually to
video the Boston fire collective. Another year, I lay in a tent with
companions dysentery and fever. The night the Man burns is often a
night of dark energy and a bridge too far. The Man that anchors the map
of the playa suddenly and spectacularly leaves. What, then, else to do?
Last year, for the Burning of the Man, I accompanied a group of seven
on a little boat art car to the far reach of the trash fence. I got to
roar as a dinosaur while the Man burned and one of our group thought
she was dying from too much acid.
This year, I assembled a group of five on bicycles: Greg,
Patrick, Amanda, and their friend whose name I ought to remember. We
set off past the Man and its infinite waiting to the Temple and beyond.
Greg and I were looking for an art piece called the Kelp Forest.
Although we eventually found the underwhelming forest, the destination
did provide a pretext for exploring everything else.
Out in the deep playa, we biked from one little project to the next,
encountering a small island of isolated people, much like the Little
Prince visiting planets. Each stop, we dismounted, drank some Scotch,
checked our bearings, and kicked the tires of the art piece. Although
nothing in the deep playa was life-changing or awe-inspiring, I much
enjoyed this quiet bike around to reconnect with New York friends
Patrick and Amanda, and see the Man burn in our proverbial rearview
mirror.
10. Big Art
Many back in San Francisco, including my weekly hippie massage guy, ask
for a quick story to sum up this Burning Man. Although I had a
wonderful time this year, frankly there was no one heavenly explosions
life-changing epiphany. Overall, the event was an affirmation of the
course I have trod this last decade and a celebration of community,
art, and survival.
Still, there was plenty of big art out there that bears mentioning. You
want a story, well there was:
A giant three-story sunken ship at the end of a long pier leading from
the Esplanade. Greg and I climbed up the bow and below decks until we
hit the water of the hard playa.
The Mayan Calendar, an octahedral LED piece mounted on a swiveling
gimble.
A giant (a frequent word on the playa is “giant”) rotating titled disc
on which two large fires of logs burned and crashed.
The cubatron returned in toroidal form, upraised to allow mirthful folk
to lay underneath. The cute ping-pong balls have been replaced by more
sophisticated but less exciting rope LED lights. Proper viewing
distance is about twenty feet away.
A giant circle of rock in the keyhole of Center Camp that a team can
push with much force to rotate a central pendant of a giant boulder.
The steampunk octopus art car. Think of a giant copper-plated octopus
that shoots fire, bugs out eyes and tentacles, and –of course– moves.
A woman in a blue dress with a Queen of England mask pulling a long
strand of flags out of her vulva. Need more?
Return to
Europe
Amsterdam and Berlin
Way back in the hazy period of July 2003 to November 2005,
I lived in the Netherlands. I worked then as a post-doctoral researcher
in the chemistry department of the Technical University of Eindhoven. I
even wrote afterwards a little book called "Dutchyland" about my
European stay. Since leaving Eindhoven in 2005, life got in the way of
revisiting Europe: next I lived in Boston for two exhilarating and
depressing years; I traveled the country for ten months, jobless and
homeless, in a two-tone Toyota; and I eventually landed at a biotech
company where I have been moored now for four years in San Francisco.
Six years after departing the Netherlands, it was finally time for me
to go back.
Two friends, Greg and Rob, have been learning German in a San Francisco
adult-education night class. The two had a brief but great stay in
Berlin six months ago. Greg now has a flexible work schedule permitting
a long sojourn around Europe. The plan we three hatched was that Greg
and Rob would spend a week in Berlin. At the end of the week, Greg
would take the train to meet me in Amsterdam. Greg and I would tour
Amsterdam for four days, take the train back to the German capital, and
spend four more days in Berlin over the Easter holiday.
I've never flown from the west coast before directly to Europe, but I
scored this time a 9-hour KLM flight from San Francisco to land at 9am
in Amsterdam. In the prior month, Greg sent me a fasting plan to
alleviate jet lag: basically, I had to figure out when breakfast should
occur at my destination and then fast the 12-hours before that
breakfast to mimic the circardian rhythm of sleep. Although I was
bleary most of the first Sunday in the Netherlands, the fast did
work to prevent jet lag from the nine-hour time change.
As my KLM flight landed in Amsterdam, I was surprised how quickly
all-things-Dutch returned to my consciousness. I could read Dutch
signs, understand the airline announcements, knew which trains to take,
and how to find the right platforms. I helped the two Americans behind
me in line buy tickets, and they may have been impressed by my local
mad skilz. Sooner than I was ready for re-entry - just an hour after
the plane touched down - I entered the lobby of the Swissotel on the
Damplein in the heart of Amsterdam.
When we searched on-line for Amsterdam hotels, the
Swissotel was a bit of a last resort when more promising hotels raised
their rates or did not have vacancies. No heroin-fueled madness of the
muraled Winston Hotel for us. Yet, despite the name of the hotel and
the giant Swiss square flag handing outside, we still hadn't counted on
the Swissotel being Swiss. We found out that Swiss is a great for a
hotel. A cheerful chambermaid knocked three times a day to prepare the
room. During the evening shift, the staff turned on the room lights and
selected television music they thought would be appropriate. A bedside
brochure advertised many types of specialty pillows available from the
front desk. A small card listed tomorrow's weather in pictogram and
temperature in centigrade. The morning crew bestowed nougat candies on
the pillows and moved the more masculine hotel items like the tv remote
to my nightstand, leaving the complementary women's magazines on Greg's
nightstand, much to Greg's consternation. A note from Dagmar encouraged
us to call the front desk if anything was amiss. In our room's spacious
bathroom, a red cord ran the length of the tiled floor about four
inches off the ground. An enterprising Greg pulled the cord one
midnight setting off an alarm. Hilarity ensued, finishing with a
concerned knock on the door. Apparently, we were staying in the
mobility-challenged suite, and the cord was a safety alarm in case a
wheelchair user fell over in the bathroom.
Amsterdam was much how I left it. I could somewhat remember the
squares, bridges, and lanes. The old jenever shop behind the Hotel
Krasnopolsky stilled served firewater alcohol in overflowing shot
glasses. To drink the jenever properly, we were instructed to gulp the
spirit bent over without picking up the glass. The pancake house
"Pannekeuken Boven" still flipped all sorts of lunch and early-dinner
pancakes. The ginger flavor pairs surprisingly well with Canadian bacon
and melted Dutch cheese.
The big 3 Amsterdam museums were slammed with long lines, and I had
seen all three many times before: the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh
Museum, and the Rijksmuseum. Instead, Greg and I toured the FOAM museum
for photography to look at a collection of New York Times photos as
well as amateur pictures from the former Soviet republics. In the
Monday morning Noodermarkt, we got jostled by eager shoppers. On a
windswept Wednesday morning, we headed north of Amersterdam Central
Station to Java island where we peered into the future of residential
architecture.
Dutch cuisine does best in small measures. We scarfed classic Belgian
french fries (fritz), served in a paper cone, scooped out with
two-tined wooden cocktail forks. I had never before visited a Dutch
fish shop (vijshandel) despite the posters of fetching women eating
whole herring whole. In an alley behind the hotel, a kindly old
fishmerchant cut the tails off small fish and prepared herring
sandwiches smothered in onions and accompanied with cans of Heineken. I
think he was amused that we were the only ones in his shop.
What doesn't travel far out of the Netherlands is food
from Holland's former colony of Indonesia. The Indonesian standout is a
comprehensive rijstafel, an meal of many little plates. On our first
night, we had a small rijstafel off the Leidesplein at Bojo's, a little
wicker restaurant I visited in 1992 and 2004. I guess I've been hitting
Bojo's every decade now for three decades. The meat was gamey and a bit
off, but reasonably priced. We upped the quality on our last night at
the Antony Bourdain-recommended Tempoe Doloe, the finest Indonesian
Restaurant in Amsterdam. Scouting Tempoe Doloe's fancy white linens, we
postponed our dinner to the following night, returning with both a
reservation and collared shirts. Tempoe Doloe did not disappoint: we
leisurely devoured 26 amazing dishes with a gamut of spices ranging
from sweet to savory to the hottest little dish I have ever eaten. A
waiter ran to our table with a glass of guava juice to cool my burning
throat.
I had forgotten Amsterdam's congestion. Everywhere, we almost got run
down by pedestrians, bicycles, and trams. Sidewalks are narrow and
often obstructed by metal bollards. Likewise, Amsterdam is much more
conservative than I remembered. Absent are hipsters, piercings,
and the outrageous colored hair common in San Francisco. The Dutch
express their madness in architecture.
The city sleeps early, although we explored only Sunday to Wednesday.
Bars are small and mostly empty after ten o'clock. At the same time,
the streets had quieted from the frantic bustle of the morning and
afternoon commutes. No worries about the dead night life; after a day
of wandering Amsterdam, we were happy enough in our hotel room to watch
a British soap called "The Syndicate."
I revered Dutch coffeeshops for social atmospheres more
enlightening than alcohol-fueled bars. Yet on this trip, my beloved
Rokerijen, a chain of 4 Amsterdam coffeeshops, were inexplicably
closed. To make do, we visited Abraxas with its two floors and the
appropriately-named Amnesia. In both cases, I didn't get my groove on.
Either the music was wrong, or we were starring at a wall, or the
people around us were too confusing. Oh, well, you can't always go back.
The main purpose of my Netherlands visit was a day trip to Eindhoven.
For a brief 1.5 years, I lived and worked in the southern industrial
town of Eindhoven, home to Philips Electronics and the famed PSV soccer
team. Maybe because of Eindhoven's lack of tourist attractions, I
worked alongside mostly Dutchies in a friendly but practical
environment.
I took a Tuesday morning train from Amsterdam to Eindhoven. A voluble
middle-aged American woman at the head of the train car explained to
two Dutchies that she was revisiting Maastricht for the first time in
ten years. Her halting Dutch was more courageous than my flustered
language skills. As I stared at the passing Dutch countryside through
the train window, I dug up memories.
Once the train stopped in Eindhoven, rote action took over. I barreled
through the train station, across the boulevard to the university, and
towards the chemistry building. Students surged to class. Little had
changed. I flitted about the top floor, dodging vaguely familiar
people, trying not to be too noticed. It is awkward to resurface six
years later.
Faces recognized me in the hallway. I reported life in the United
States. Many names I could not remember so I just nodded. I found my
host, Michel, looking different and unshaven. In my brief afternoon, I
was surprised who avoided me and who was overjoyed to say hello. The
"Lab 2" manager Jolanda offered a second coffee and told me about her
new love: New York City.
Our group lunched in the Kennisport, the fancy canteen on
campus. Michel translated from the waitstaff that my restaurant receipt
entered me in a raffle. I still couldn't figure out Dutch life. After
lunch, I marched into town to the Rabobank to close out my Dutch bank
account. "Too late," the Rabobank chided. In 2008, the bank closed my
quiet account and transferred it to a new person in Hoek van Holland,
on the other side of the country. I marched back to Michel for advice
on fighting Dutch bureaucracy. It felt like old times, recalling my
stalemates with the tax office, the social security office, the heating
office, the post office, banks and the university. I spent a frantic
hour making phone calls to Rabobanks around the country. On my return
to the US, I received an e-mail from Rabobank stating that they had
located the my acount-closing records and would wire me the final
balance if I could fax documentation. I may have won. Still, the
Nigerian promised that he would return my cashed cheque once he
liquidated his oil reserves.
There's hope for Eindhoven in the unlikely guise of queer sculpture
next to the Black Box building on the university grounds. An artist
dredged a small pond, now full of bullrushes, to install giant floating
black balls, each topped with a solar panel. When the time is right, a
Buddha statue rises up from the pond, powered by the solar energy.
Apparently, the Buddha got stuck going up and down. Furthermore, the
dome surrounding the Buddha has shattered. Nonetheless, I laugh, laugh,
laugh at the concentrated work of the university to install a Buddha
with a stick up its ass rising with the sun from a man-made pond.
In the lab hallway, I met up with my former adviser for two minutes. He
had just returned from Japan and rushed on to join an afternoon group
meeting. Michel and I retreated for the rest of the afternoon to the
city square for a biertje op de markt. It didn't take long for it to
feel like old Dutch times, or perhaps that was just the alcohol. It may
be hard to pop up unexpectedly for an afternoon (like a Buddha), but it
is wonderful to feel welcome. Michel, thanks for the tour. Netherlands,
thanks for harboring me for two years.
Four days in the Netherlands was enough. Greg and I bid farewell to the
manicured Swissotel and hauled our suitcases to the train station.
Amsterdam is a city of wheeled luggage, bumbling over awkward
cobblestones to familiar rhythms. We rode the rails for six hours to
Berlin with one change in Hilversum. At the German border, the language
changed with a new crew of train conductors.
Four nights in Berlin, a city that pairs quite well with
the Dutch capital. If Amsterdam is crowded, outwardly conservative,
beating to specific circadian rhythms; Berlin is a sprawling, anarchic,
and roaring well past dawn. In spring, central Europe is often more
frigid than the coast. For our stay in Germany, the rains blew in with
the cold, turning once into a spate of snow, a marvelous show for
wayward San Franciscans.
All is new in Berlin due to the German bulldozers of modernity. Six
years ago, I stayed a long October in my brother's Berlin apartment.
Then, my brother and I exhausted the tourist sites in favor of bar
crawls. I'm glad we saw so much in 2005 as on our 2012 trip, we barely
saw anything ostensibly high-cultural in Berlin.
Greg took me to two art exhibitions, celebrating the famous German
artist Gerhard Richter, who turned 80 this year (like my father). Two
Berlin museums hosted a stupendous retrospective of Gerhard’s fifty
years of creative work, ranging from his grey paintings, blurred
photographic-like portraits, paintings of candles, colored mosaics, and
large stacked panels of glass. Gerhard courageously makes what
interests him, regardless of his expertise or curator desires. Most
captivating for me are his two colorful profile portraits of girls.
Most haunting is his morbid gray cycle about the killings of Oct 18,
1977.
Greg and I moved into Berlin with Rob, another San Francisco friend,
now a week already acclimated to Berlin. We dropped our luggage at the
Motel One, the Mitte location of a small German chain of affordable
hotels, all of which feature the odd but enervating colors of turquoise
and chocolate brown. In our room, I grew fond of the fish channel, a
hotel television station that repeated a video of aquarium fish
accompanied by ambient music. At noon, I would wake up to the fish; at
dawn, I would fall asleep to the fish.
In the previous week, while I was still in the States,
Greg wrote from Berlin to report bedtimes after 4am. I scoffed at such
reckless behavior: while traveling, it is important to sleep early to
enjoy the museums and morning markets of the big city. He was right.
For our four nights in Berlin, the earliest we went to bed was 5am.
Berlin just works that way. Young adults disco-nap from 5-8pm, go out
for dinner at 9pm, and get ready to barhop at midnight. With so much of
the city open late, we spent evenings traveling between one crowded bar
and the next. Establishments overflowed at 1am. At the entrance of one
packed bar, the doorman told us, "You can go in if you can fit." When
we declined that firetrap invitation, a exciting customer said, "If it
is too crowded, you are too old."
Berlin is a night city. Some parts of the subway run 24 hours. Bars
list hours like 10pm-late. There are plenty of 24-hour florists, if you
need to buy tulips at 4am. Most youth travel everywhere at night with
an opened bottle of beer, a sort of security blanket. Parks are
littered with broken glass.
The three of us ate heartily but not healthily. We filled our stomachs
often with Berlin's dish: the doner kebab, a pita sandwich of shaved
meat, hot sauce, and salad. For most of our meals, vegetables were
absent. A chicken sandwich with french fries soured our delicate San
Franciscan stomachs. Late one night, Rob brought in a take-out pizza.
Our first afternoon, we picked up a soggy box of baklava as Berlin is a
city of Turks. Still, the Germans love their potatoes and pilsners.
German beer isn't exciting due to beer-purity laws forbidding
additives, but the beer is of high quality and quantity.
Wandering around, recent construction blurred my memory of the German
squares. I couldn't find my favorite pretzel shop on Alexanderplatz. I
didn't know the way anymore to Hackeshermarkt.
Friday night and Saturday, we ventured to two clubs, Tresor and
Berghaim, both once city power plants. I must now insert some
dot-dot-dots, but I conclude the what was seen can not be unseen. We
crashed into the real Berlin, a cartoonish dystopian nightmare of heat,
darkness, bodies, and primal urges. Crowds were thick, beer was cheap,
and I can't say much more about what happened lest I incriminate myself.