meaning in the moving design

filling up or filling out

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 15:00:57 PDT

Untitled
Originally uploaded by quiet.fyre

Lately, I've been eavesdropping on a lot of people talking about greatness. Toronto is a magnet for ambition, and for people who thirst and strive for greatness. I started asking myself if that was something I strove for and the answer came back a very resolute NO. I don't want to be great. I just want to be whole.

It's the difference between growing in a line and growing in layers; filling up and filling out. I don't care for the greatness of stuff, the greatness of ego and self-importance- really, I'd like to trash that whole show. I hate capitalism in part because it engenders this very idea of greatness. I never want my sense of self to be tied to my job title. My thirst is for something different. I want to feel... full. My life choices are all about making me feel this intangible fullness, wholeness, satiated with ideas and knowledge and never-befores...

I keep waiting for reality to kick in, to realize I'm old and need to be making more soberingly responsible decisions... but it hasn't happened yet. I think I'm going to ride this out as long as I can. I hope the world can live with that.

Hannah and Me vs. The World

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 16:03:38 PST

I am a shit talker. I love telling stories- about myself and about the world- and when I'm talking about anything, in any context, about anyone, you can be sure that it's really just all about me.

Consequently, when I interact with others, I can't help but assume that they too are wrapped in self-reflexive sticky tape, and that the whisper of insight I glean from our interaction is a small fraction of the scream they intend to communicate. This is pretty much my working assumption with all attempts at communication- I don't know you; I can't know you; I can only know the you in me and that you is a story I've crafted through careful detective work laden with my own subjective bullshit.

So I find it pretty amusing that I've somehow found myself dating someone with an unshakeable faith in words; who firmly believes in the importance of classification; who has an aversion to narrative; who is happy to see a spade as a spade, whosoever should call it so. All this talk about talk brought me back to certain ideas that I used to circle around a lot, and back to Hannah Arendt. Last year, while writing an article for work about Women and Philosophy, I discovered Arendt's The Human Condition, and found all my thesis ideas articulated by A Famous Person, which made me feel both cheap and unoriginal, and immensely privileged to be philosophically aligned with A Famous Person.

Hannah (The Famous Person with which I am aligned and thus can casually refer to on a first name basis) and I both agree that understanding people through their words is about as exact a science as meteorology- you can amass as much evidence as you want to support your assertion that x is x, and you can devise your plan of action accordingly, but it simply may not be so. We all know this (duh, people are complex) but we sometimes don't recognize how much of our actions and interactions are based on these quick fix placeholders. We are in love with our nouns; intangibles don't sit well with us. So, to get through life without having our heads explode in the ideological netherworld, we say "ok. I know x is not exactly x, but let's assume it is... for the moment" and then we plan our counter-actions accordingly. But the assumptions build on more assumptions, and the placeholders of ourselves become the charicature stand-ins in our shared reality with others.

In Hannah's words, there is a distinction between "who" we are and "what" we are; and words can lead us only to the what: "The moment we want to say who someone is, our very vocabulary leads us astray into saying what she is; we get entagled in a description of qualities she necessarily shares with others like her; we begin to describe a type or a character... with the result that her specific uniqueness escapes us" (The Human Condition, 181).

This is why I put all my words in brackets, and why I like fridge poetry, anecdotes, rants without context, exquisite corpsey writing and non-sensical non-sequiters. Language to me is about codification, so I figure, if I can confuse the law that language governs; if I can use words in ways they aren't meant to be used, then maybe I can reveal more of myself. If I don't name my truth, it forces you to fill in the blanks with your youness, and maybe that will lead you to it via the scenic route. That mystery and revelation, that intangible moment in between, is honestly what most humbles me about being with and among other people.

Ok, let's leave that for now. Let's just frame this conversation in simpler terms- objectivity and subjectivity. Hannah talks about our subjective selves, and about a) how we relate to the common things and stuff of our shared world and b) how we relate to each other. She calls these relations "in-betweens" and says this:

Action and speech go on between men, as they are directed toward them, and they retain their agent-revealing capacity even if their content is exclusively objective, concerned with the matters of the world of things in which men move, which physically lies between them and out of which arise their specific, objective, worldly interests. Most action and speech is concerned with this in-between... most words and deeds are about some worldly objective reality in addition to being a disclosure of the acting an speaking agent.
[Another in-between] consists of deeds and words and owes its origin exclusively to men's acting and speaking directly to one another. This second, subjective in-between is not tangible, since there are no tangible objects into which it would solidify; the process of acting and speaking can leave behind no such results and end products. But for all its intangibility, this in-between is no less real than the world of things we visibly have in common.

The Human Condition, 182.

To better explain this to myself, I drew a diagram (the conical shaped things on the sides [that look like tadpoles] are actually supposed to be eyes).

Figure A. illustrates how we relate to "worldly objective reality", you know, my red isn't the same as your red etc. Figure B. illustrates how that simple subjective premise is amplified when you're dealing with and reflecting back a whole other set of subjective filters. The effect is akin to holding a mirror up to another mirror- it's an endless strange loop of interpreted and reinterpreted subjective baggage and poof! brainfuck!

How do we resolve this? How the hell, then, can people understand and relate to one another? I feel like the answer is two-fold: look in and act out. One of the most profound analogies I've ever heard came from a live Saul Williams event at Glendon campus a few years back. He was talking about connecting to people, and he said there are 2 ways of going about this. He said

I can relate to you all in one of two ways. I can do it by looking out, and saying 'oh, he's dark like me, she's dark like me, we're connected'. Or I can relate to you all by looking in, right? By looking in, I feel a greater connection. It's like I have a well in my backyard and you have a well in yours. We both go to our seperate wells to get the water, but the source of water is the same, right? So that the deeper you get within yourself and getting to know yourself, like you transcend selfishness and go to the point of community where you have a complete understanding of your interconnectedness with every single living being and organism on this planet. And that's fucking enlightenment.

This, to me, is the starting point. With every social interaction, we should come into the conversation knowing that we're really (in a cynical sort of way) just talking to our own reflection.* That this "ask and answer" just happens to necessitate another body to help you in understanding yourself better. This may sound unconscionably self-serving but I actually think it can be very symbiotic- we are helping each other recognize ourselves more fully; to dig deeper inside to find the source material from which we are all made; to touch the intangible in-between Hannah refers to.

We are all made of the same "stuff", but how we articulate that- the patterns we weave with that universal source material, this unique and unrepeated design called the Self- is infinitely complex. So here comes the second part- I've always thought that the greatest gift you can give the world is to keep articulating who you are and why you are to everyone you encounter. In turn, I also think the most beautiful and humbling part of talking to people is trying to understand who they are and why they are, and this process- of recognizing how we have drawn from the universal "stuff", how we've taken from it or how it has taken from us to weave a unique life experience- this is how we connect.

Hannah and I both agree that the most beautiful thing about humanity is its ability to collectively reflect on both the sum and its parts. Hannah calls it "the paradoxical plurality of unique beings," and that is exactly how I understand the idea of community. Only by screaming out your own subjectivity can you arrive at an honest point of connection*, and it's this gift of difference that we can all collectively draw from, revel in. "Speech and action reveal this unique distinction. Through them, men distinguish themselves... they are the modes in which human beings appear to each other... This appearance rests on initiative, but it is an initiative from which no human being can refrain and still be human" (The Human Condition, 176).

Ok, this is long and rambly and I've only told you half of Hannah's story (or my story about Hannah and all this other stuff I thunked up) Hannah actually talks a lot about actions... and I've managed to say an awful lot about saying things and nothing about doing stuff.

So I'll end with a reflective observation about me and action. Hannah uses this term called praxis, simply put praxis is the process of gathering your reflections and ideas, and giving them life- putting your ideas into action.

Here's what I'll say about praxis. I use Firefox's "save and quit" function to keep all my existing tabs open, so that the next time I turn on my laptop, I have several tabs staring back at me, reminding me of what my focus/interest/obsession was from the day before. Some of these tabs have been hanging about on my computer for some 10 months- no joke. Here are my tabs:

1. reroot organic CSA, internship information
2. "Make Radio", This American Life
3. Transom.org- Ira Glass interview on making radio docs
4. My own tarsier photo on flickr (to remind myself I want to print it out)
and, newly added
5. Wikipedia definition- praxis

Ahem. I done praxis dem sludam** wicked well. Big up Hannah to the massive...

* You don't have to agree with me. I don't even know if I agree with me... but here's another paraphrased quote to excuse everything I've said: "Things go through me. And if I am individual it is because these threads are knotted together in this particular time and this particular place, and they hold."

** sludam is plural for sluts. I learned that from a Teen Slang expert

the CBC has failed you

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:41:35 PDT

It's the close of the G20. After a month of media distractions about security budgets and fake lakes and riot anticipation and thugs in black and burning cop cars and all the rest, are you perhaps needing to remind yourself of what the hell it is that the G20/G8 does and why it's important and why all these people are out on the streets anyway?? If you don't know the answer to any of these it's because mainstream media has failed us. It's because Harper's gamble- that holding the G20 in the heart of the city would cause enough of a media circus to distract us from the real issues- is paying off. Don't take the bait.

http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/why-are-they-protesting/3843

I am so disgusted with the CBC's coverage of all of this- so many collected quotes about the "thugs" and "hooligans," none about the illegal house raids, the random arrests and deplorable detention centre conditions. Of all the online mainstream media, national post has been the only one even remotely on point is the national post (?!?!). And I think it's because they're really pissed that their staff got arrested.

A humble thanks to all the folks at the Toronto Media Co-op for their sacrifice to give us the other side of the story.

bringing people together to find a central happiness that is common inside of everyone

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:54:03 PDT

T-minus 7 days to G20... get your dose of happy now! [maybe we should make this mandatory training for G20 security guards??]

June 16th – 20th - Rainbow City Installation at Queen’s Park
PRESS: Rainbow City welcomes all into a world of Magic, Luck, and Friendship! As the highlight of the 10-day festival, FriendsWithYou transform Toronto’s Queen’s Park into Rainbow City from June 16th-20th with their largest and most impressive installation to date. The Rainbow King and a cast of celestial pals embark on a mission to delight citizens by welcoming them into Rainbow City, a magical kingdom where happiness is the key and the more you play the better you feel!

[2008 Fun House – Scope Art Fair, Art Basel Miami, FL]
Bounce, dance and chill as the Wish Come True characters bring you into their colorful alternative dimension of gigantic totems, mushrooms, and bounce houses while inflatable friends shower you with magic, color, and love! FriendsWithYou and Luminato are offering this unique experience with the hope of bringing people together to find a central happiness that is common inside of everyone.

I am keen to check this out. But I am equally keen to be there during take down... and watch Rainbow City slowly deflate as Tent City rises. Someone should do a time lapse of central happiness giving way to police blockades, tear gas and chaos...

Feather Stars are the Ninjas of the Sea! (preceded by a brief rant about Version Pi)

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:58:16 PDT

Getting old is a sneaky thing. Everyone always complains about the rumble of the big 3.0 but I'd say that my 30th birthday was perfectly chill- no neurotic impulse to deconstruct my life, no aching sentimentalism about all the lost years of my youth, no reminders of how time has past and the awe or reverence that comes with that.

No... that's all hitting me now, at 3.14159... tricky dick, that 31-and-a-half. Lately I've been running into a lot of old peeps. Not just people I used to hang out with, but also (and even weirder), people that I just used to see around. Like, back was I went out more. It's a strange feeling to be outside of a community you once felt so entrenched in, one that feels like it still carries that version of you with it.

I recently ran into some musician friends from OM days. I'd met their daughter when she was barely able to walk (we had a nice bonding moment when I picked her up as she was crying and she clung to me and fell back asleep. [Especially impressive because it was the morning after a sleepless night during which I was probably up to no good]). Last week, I saw her for the first time since and it blew my mind. She's six now. Six. like a completely real, actualized person. WEEEEIIIRD.

To save me from all these head trips, I recently got obsessed with feather stars, or rather, I reawakened an old obsession. I caught sight of these wily ocean invertebrates in Borneo, I was snorkeling along and suddenly I saw this awesome wiggling, wiggly feather thing. Then, when I dove down to get a better look, it went perfectly still and pretended that it was a plant!

Check it (sorry for the shaky video):

Ninjas of the sea! Look at that stealth.

The feather star's cousin is the sea cucumber (and the starfish). Most of the time, when we think of sea cucumbers (... assuming that you think about sea cucumbers every now and again), we think of limp sluggish sausage-like guys, like this:

But some sea cucumbers look more like bare, foliageless little trees, like this:

And at night, sea cucumbers get REALLY exciting. I once did a night dive in the Philippines and had a total BBC moment when I saw a sea cucumber feeding.
Check this out: (not my video and I know it says feather star, but I'm pretty sure it's a sea cucumber)

It's not that I have a problem with getting old, or older. When I look around and think of some of the friends that have stuck by me in the last ten years.. it's beautiful. I love that we've gotten older, more mushily sentimental, less (or more) sketchy, more (much more) ridiculous... The part that unsettles me is this feeling that people my age have their shit together in a way that I don't. Not the big stuff, I'm not sweating the big stuff as much, and if I am, I know it's silly. But there are little things that... feel like should be easier. Tis all...

Whatever. I guess I'll always have my little amusements.

My Cute Dad

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 15:54:29 PST

I come from a typical middle class Chinese family. My mother was a nurse, my father was an accountant. Growing up, all that was ever expected of me was to do well in school, get a higher education and find a good, well-paying job. One of those jobs that everyone's heard of, like Teacher, or Doctor, or Lawyer, or (... shudder) Dentist.

So when I started working in the arts, my parents were not only disappointed, they were confused. "Do you make movies?" they asked. "Are you a Director?" No, I said, I present movies at film festivals. I help publicize them, and I organize classes and events that help filmmakers make better films. That kind of stumped them. There was no easy NOC occupation that went with that, no one-word answer that they could take back to their friends. In short, they would rather I be a Dentist*.

When I was in Taiwan, I made things a lot easier for my parents. "She's a Writer," they would brag to their friends, relieved to finally have a name for me. But now that I'm back in Toronto, and have made yet another lateral step across careers (this time into environmental non-profit), I've once again put my parents in the awkward position of trying to figure out exactly what it is that I do. But they're trying....

This is just one of many cute emails I get from my dad, and it kind of made my day:

(Click on this to read it)

(the other super cute thing about my dad and emails is that he always puts the salutatory exclamation point in the wrong spot, like "Hi! Anita,"
... which, when I say it out loud, makes me laugh. A lot.)

I personally LOVE not being a one-word answer. And that's probably precisely the point, I'm happy to do laps around any word, any label, any noun. Happy to indulge this childish instinct to dance around the oppressive thumb trying to pin me down...

I am a living document, dagnammit.

So as for what it is I do....

A lot. I do a lot. Come talk to me about it sometime.

*Who the fuck grows up wanting to be a dentist?? That, to me, just points to an utter lack of imagination...

a thousand above

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:53:54 PDT

a thousand above
Originally uploaded by quiet.fyre

I got my fridge poetry set back recently. I missed its randomness, the effortless you can patch together meaning using words in ways they're not meant to be used. I'm a pretty veiled person, and fridge poetry is like this gutteral incoherent mess that bubbles up from my subconscious. A beautiful mess.

Usually my fridge poetry makes sense. However abstract, I can usually see where I'm going with something; I know what I'm trying to say to myself.

... This one escapes even me.

(I love how I take fridge poetry so goddamn seriously. I've tried so hard to write something funny with these things and I've failed every time.)

East Coast in Fragments

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:06:55 PST

disclaimer:
I usually try to clean up my writing before broadcasting... but this is about 6 months old and I'm kind of mad at my own lazy lack of productivity, so I'm just lettin' 'er go*.

Michael and Ba
We tramp down the hill in search of a coffee shop. A man comes out of a nearby house waving emphatically. "You turists?" he asks. We explain that we'd been hiking the East Coast Trail and that we were in town for the night. He slams the porch rail enthusiastically and invites us in. "Ba!" he calls into the house. "We got guests! They're turists!"

Inside the house, a toothless man sits at the table in a simple kitchen. A few slabs of unidentifiable grey meat are sizzling in a pan next to a pot of boiled potatoes, and a half-drained bottle of rum sits on the table. The waver's name is Michael. He greets us with a combination of cheek kisses, hand-holding and fist pumps. The toothless man is Michael's uncle, whom he calls "Ba" but isn't actually related to him at all. Michael keeps apologizing because Ba is drunk... even though Michael is clearly drunk too. He chastises Ba with stern little speeches. "You can't be drunk, Ba. We got turists here. You're lucky to have turists in yer home like this. No more drinkin', ok? Tomorrow we stop drinkin'"

"Weeengshmaaaa," gurgles Ba.

Ba has the unfortunate disposition of being entirely incomprehensible. Three main factors contribute to this:
1. He's drunk
2. He's toothless
3. He's a Newfie

"Alright, I love you Ba" Michael says with a kiss to the forehead. Michael offers us some tea and sits down to give us a snapshot of his life. Like so many other Maritimers, Michael'd moved to Fort McMurray to make a living. Stayed there for 8 years and made a mint, but got into the crack. Got married, had a daughter, got divorced and made his way back to Witless Bay. No real family left here, but there're some friendly neighbours and good folk. And Ba.

"We's like family," Michael says as he sits the somewhat confused Ba on his knee. "Ain't we? I love yeh, Ba"

"Ngmrrawww," bubbles Ba.

We finish our tea and stand up for the goodbyes. Ba teeters towards me, arms outstretched. I lean in for a hug but he doesn't seem satisfied with this. I offer a cheek but he doesn't bite. So I stand dumbly, facing him, holding both his hands as he stares at me, glassy-eyed with drink.

"Ngashweeem," he gurgles.

"I love you too, Ba" I say.

Mr. and Mrs. Marilyn
The first thing that strikes us about Bay Bulls is that it's expanding. Houses are going up everywhere. About 1500 people in town now... they had a couple of thousand in the 1950s but everyone left in search of jobs, bigger houses, bigger lives. But now there's oil in the Maritimes and people are starting to come back.

The O'Dea house sat appropriately enough on O'Dea Lane, facing the open harbour. The house had belonged to Mr. Marilyn's grandfather and had kept all the pages of its history in its walls. "I counted 24 layers," Mrs. Marilyn says. "When we were doing the renovations. Twenty-four layers of wallpaper."

Mr.and Mrs. Marilyn were sitting on their front porch watching the freight ships come in. They see all sorts of people without ever having to leave their front stoop. After a polite chat, they invited us up for afternoon tea, which ended up being a second lunch... substantially bigger than our first, incidentally.

She had been retired for a week and, to my eyes, wasn't taking it well. She strikes me as someone who was used to being much busier, who thrived when she bit off more than she could chew. She is as I imagine my own workhorse mother to be when she finally retires- bored, fidgety, itching to do more than there was to do. She speaks a mile a minute, not accustomed to having the time to finish a thought. He, on the other hand, hardly speaks at all, not accustomed to not being interrupted.

When I ask to used the washroom, she hastily apologizes for not being home to clean all day, and races on up the stairs ahead of me. In a flurry, she picks a few towels off the floor, wipes down the counter and puts the toilet seat down, all the while apologizing for her messy boys. As she bustles by me, she adds "And lock the door. I've got an autistic son and he don't knock" before slamming the door shut behind her.

High Time at the Harvest House
30 some years ago, the area around North Sydney was booming with industry. Over the years, the steel plant shut down, then the fishery and finally the mines. There's little left in Cape Breton, many of the older folks are drawing EI while the younger generation look to the wild West for work. Maritime couples are becoming accustomed to living apart, as the men spend half the year in Fort McMurray clogging their lungs to support their families.

Politicians and government seem a million miles away from the day-to-day reality here. "They say they're gonna do this or that, they ain't doin' nothin'. Just pocketing money, that's all their doin'".

I'm sitting outside Harvest House with Hector, who's got straggly long hair, a wild beard and a hearing problem. He's also got a wonky leg, and he's taking the time to show off his new walker. It's got 4 wheels, a basket and hand brakes. He squeezes them to show me how tight they are. "Don't know what I'm going to do in the winter, though," he says as his eyes crinkle. "I ain't got no snow tires!"

We'd spent the night camping on an amused townie's front lawn while he sat inside and watched True Blood. In th morning, we'd stumbled into town for breakfast and were enticed by the provocative sign outside Harvest House that read: "FREE COFFEE".

Inside, a round man with a bushy stache greeted us warmly and invited us to take anything we saw. His name was Paul Coady, and he was a kind, earnest man with a great, hearty laugh. Kind of like Santa with a Maritimes accent. Paul was a natural conversationalist and a rare kind of Christian- the non-dogmatic kind. The kind that recognized that what motivated people to be good didn't matter... so long as they did good.

Paul lets us leave our bags at Harvest House as we split up on our errands. I come back early and divide the fresh blueberry pie we'd bought amongst our new friends. "Hey," says Paul. "Do you know what kind of pie people like to eat at Halloween?" his eyes crinkle. "Boooooo-berry pie!" Paul breaks out into a huffing throaty, knee-slapping laugh and I decide I like him even more, because easily-amused people are, to me, instantly trustworthy.

There's a couple from Newfoundland there as well; they're engaged and after the wedding, he is heading out to Fort McMurray for 6 months. "I speak four languages," she boasts to me. "English, French, Micmaq and Newfienese." And so it was that I got my first lesson in Newfie:

Ya dern say! Yes, bye How ya doin' daday? Where you to?

The sun is setting behind the stores on main street as the row of us enjoy the last bites of our pie. "Here comes Tim," Paul says. "Hey Tim! You know what kind of pie people like to eat at Halloween..."

*There's also supposed to be a chapter on Benjamin Jordan, this guy who'd paraglided across Canada and how Tim and I hitched a ride back with him from Newfoundland in his school bus.... but I'm sure everyone's already heard me tell that story...

One of Those Uber Self-Indulgent List-Making Thingos

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:15:04 PDT

Everyone loves making lists for the new year. That's what new years are all about: lists. Nobody actually cares if you quit smoking, you just have to put it on your list...

All this end-of-the-decade listmaking makes me want to make lists. I don't know how many hours I've spent watching movies this decade, probably something in the region of "a fuck of a lot," so I guess that's as good a place to start as any. So, in no particular order, here we go.

TOP 10 FILMS OF THE DECADE
Waking Life- (Richard Linklater, 2001) When I saw this film I was 22, and I remember feeling as if all the meaningful conversations I'd ever had in my life had somehow made it into this one film. I haven't seen Waking Life in a long time... I wonder if, with all my newfound maturite, I'd feel differently about it now...

Nobody Knows- (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2004) I was introduced to Kore-eda through After Life, a film that posed a simple question in the most beautiful way. Nobody Knows is another incredible film... but it doesn't make me anyway near as happy.

The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach, 2005)- I fell in love with these characters... so much so that in the last five minutes of the film I had a mild moment of anxiety because I really couldn't bear the thought of leaving them.

In the Mood For Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000)- The last great Wong Kar-Wai film, starring the only Asian man I'd ever want to bag and the only (other) Asian woman I'd ever want to be. This film captures the class and elegance of 1960s Hong Kong like no other...

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman, 2004)- We all know Kaufman is a tortured soul, trapped between laughing at himself and the world.. and wanting to stab us with his corrosively bitter tears. Eternal... catches Kaufman in his middle phase, post-Malkovich chortle and pre-Synedoche self-loathing.

The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)- inspired a whole phase of my life governed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet logic- coincidence and happenstance = destiny.

Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002)- Art film at its artiest. Zhang and cinematographer Christopher Doyle attack us with gorgeous colour and a pretty clever story too. Amazing cast.

Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)- I saw this film during TIFF at 9:30 in the morning. Not the most light-hearted way to start your day but anything that can make you feel that fucked up is a pretty brilliant piece of work.

Away We Go (Sam Mendes, 2009)- I'm not sure I will agree with this in years to come, but I loved this film. Maybe it's because it was made for my demographic, or maybe I've just gotten really soft and sappy since leaving my twenties but when the credits rolled, well... you know that raised eye look you have when you look at super cute kittens or puppies? Yeah. Like, for days.

TOP 10 DOCs OF THE DECADE

In the Realms of the Unreal (Jessica Yu, 2004)- A brilliantly realised and humanely painted portrait of the secret life of Henry Darger.

Dark Days (Marc Singer, 2000)- A doc capturing the lives of people living in the underground tunnels of New York City. Great premise, with some quirky characters that can lift you up, and heart wrenching stories that will slam you down into the dark dark dark...

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (Jeff Feuerzeig, 2005)- It was a great decade for music docs, but this was the only one that made my big burly lumberjack friend cry until his beard was soppy.

Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005)- Oh Herzog...

Spellbound (Jeffrey Blitz, 2002) - Super cute kids that know how to spell words I've never heard of. Prior to this film coming out, people used to make fun of me for watching spelling bees on TSN, but suddenly it became all the rage. Told you so.

Our Daily Bread (Nikolaus Geyrhalter, 2005)- I can't believe I watched this and didn't immediately convert to veganism. This film is a hauntingly silent condemnation of the food industry. There is no soundtrack and no dialogue, just a slow panning camera and crisp, beautifully staged shots of some of the most horrific things I've ever seen.

Bus 174 (Jose Padilha, 2002)- Another TIFF pick. A brilliantly staged documentary that takes a snapshot of a bus hijacking in Rio de Janeiro and examines the situation from all angles. Padhila cleverly pokes and prods at all our assumptions, and at every turn offers up another perspective that prevents us from ever drawing easy conclusions.

The Exhibited: A Lars von Trier project (Jesper Jargill, 2000) - I talk about this film so much that I feel like I've thunked it up myself.
OK.
So, there's a house in Copenhagen that Trier and his gang use as a theatre space, 50 actors and 100 rooms. Each room in the house has a set of lights- red, blue, green, yellow etc. Each of the actors are given a skeletal outline of a character. The actors are instructed that, when the lights change in the house, their character's mood will change - blue = angry, red = desperate etc. - but each character will respond differently to any given color.
Meanwhile...
There are these ants in New Mexico. There's a camera pointed on the ants and the feed is transmitted back to Copenhagen. von Trier and his team split his image of the ants into sections on the screen. When the majority of the ants hang out in the top left corner, for example, the lights in the house turn green. When they mosey on over to the centre right, the lights in the house turn yellow. And so it goes...

Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jareki, 2003)- A doc that proved that the best documentaries are the ones that directors never intend to make.

Manufactured Landscapes (Jennifer Baichwal, 2006)- Industrial waste never looked so gorgeous...

midnight fare of the decade
Dainipponjin (Hitoshi Matsumoto, 2007)- You need about 20 minutes of patience but.... AWESoME AWESOME AWESOME (gushy gushertonawesome)

Undead (the Speirig brothers, 2003)- The very last film to screen at the Uptown Theatre, I watched this with the best zombie-loving crowd in Toronto. What better way to cap things off than with a deadpan Eastwood-esque hero and zombie fish?

Gozu (Takashi Miike, 2003) Quotes from my Gozu shirt: "Bloody fingernails yakuza dog pissing in public Nagoya dead end Can you incant the spirit? love hotel electric shock liquor shop mother's milk A friend in need is a friend indeed whip 2nd floor virgin The answer is "time"
... I think this was my last Miike film

Three Extremes trilogy: Dumplings (Fruit Chan, 2004)- The first installment of this horror trilogy explores the old Chinese tradition of fetuses as an elixer for everlasting beauty. The vanity and materilism of Hong Kong culture on display is almost as scary as the film's premise.

Naisu no mori aka Funky Forrest (Katsuhito Ishii, 2005)- You have to appreciate a movie so self-aware of its complete weirdo-ness that it includes a generous 2-minute intermission after an hour-and-a-half of viewing... right around the time your stoner high might need a little top-up.

Bubba Ho Tep (Don Coscarelli, 2002)- Elvis, a black JFK, mummies and a whole lotta awesome.

Dans Ma Peau (Marina de Van, 2002)- I have a bad reputation of taking the wrong friends to see films at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal, a month-long orgy of horror, kung-fu and "extreme" cinema. One friend passed out. Another puked. This was the puker film. Despite this, I will defend this film to the death.
A story about a woman taking the final steps toward a picture perfect life- marriage, job, house- who goes on this shadowed journey of experimenting with self mutilation and auto-cannibalism. Those two points may not sound like they compute, but it made perfect sense to me- the "show" of the woman everyone wanted her to be, and the aching curiosity to- literally- dig into herself to see if that was really the stuff she was made of. The most clever thing about the film is that, despite its premise, we never actually see any of the mutilation- it's all implied by our imaginations. It all happens right below the bottom of the screen, which means you can't see it and can't bear to see it... but kind of want to see it. Brilliant, that is.

I'll throw a few shorts into the mix, here...

Egg (Benh Zeitlin, 2005)- My introduction to Benh Zeitlin and Court 13, for which I am eternally grateful. A twisted retelling of the Moby Dick myth, with pirates, chickens and an awesome soundtrack.

Fallen Art (Tomek Baginski, 2004)- I love this film. Read my rant about it and watch it here.

Death to the Tinman (Ray Tintori, 2007)- My second favourite offering from Court 13. Their bone dry brand of humour really makes me chortle. Watch it on youtube or click on the link for the whole shebang.

shorts also worth mentioning but I'm too lazy to think of 10...
Patterns trilogy- Jamie Travis
Never Like the First Time- Jonas Odell
La Regulateur- Philippe Grammatiopoulus
I met the walrus- Josh Raskin
Hardwood- Hubert Davis
Ryan- Chris Landreth
Avant Petalos Grillados- Velasco Broca

Geomorphology- Everything has a name

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:06:26 PDT

It started with a gulch.

We were on the East Coast Trail in Newfoundland, reading out directions from our trusty map: "Following the path, you will pass a small gulch, followed by two larger gulch-like gulches, which in turn precede a particularly steep gulch just left of the isthmus."

We... had no idea what a gulch was.

That got me thinking that all those other pretty things I was gushing over probably had names too, like not just "that rocky shelf thing with the cool guy around it..." So I've decided to dedicate an entire post to geography, or more specifically, geomorphology- that mysterious, creative force that shapes all that natural beauty around us. Time to get your learn on....

Let us begin.

A shoal is a bar of sand. A dune is a hill of sand. A dune field is a field of dunes. An erg is an extremely large dune field.

(Easy so far, eh? Take a deep breath...)

A valley is a dale. A gully is a small valley. A valley full of water is a vale. A wooded valley is a dell. A small valley surrounded by mountains is a hollow. A deep, narrow valley is a coombe or a glen. A deep valley carved by water is a gorge or a canyon. A wide and shallow valley carved by water is a strath. The opposite of a valley is a hill or knoll or mound.

A drumlin is a long whale-shaped hill formed by glacial activity. A crevasse is a fissure in a glacier. A moulin is a fissure (such as a crevasse) through which water enters into a glacier. A pingo is a mound of earth-covered ice. It is also a friend of Pingu the penguin.

A bay is a bay. A cove is a bay with a narrow mouth. A gulch is a rectangular-shaped cove with steep sides (at least in Newfoundland). A gulf is a large bay. So is a sound or a bight. A fjord is a narrow bay with steep sides, carved by glacial activity.

A river is a river. A stream is a small river. A bayou is a slow-moving river or stream, or a marshy lake. A bayou is also an anabrach, which means it will divert from the main waterway and rejoin it at a later point. An estuary is a brackish body of water that sits on the mouth of the ocean and also has freshwater (ie. rivers and streams) flowing into it. A delta is a landform composed of sediments that forms at the end of a river, before the river flows into a lake, an estuary, an ocean or another river.

A ventifact is a rock or stone that has been shaped or polished by wind. A yardang (which comes in mega-, mesa- and micro-) is a ridged ventifact shaped like the hull of a boat. An eolianite is any rock created by the wind through the compacting of sediments. A mesa is a mountain or hill with a large flat top and steep sides. A butte is like a mesa, but with a smaller flat top and really steep sides.

A stack is a tall column of rocks found near the coast. Stacks are remnants of headlands that were eroded away by the waves. A headland is also a cape. A hoodoo is also a column of rock, but is only found in the badlands. They're usually composed of sedimentary rock, but have a hard hat of volcanic rock that protects it from erosion. Badlands contain canyons, hoodoos and eroded sedimentary rock. Malpais (or "bad land") are like badlands but contain eroded volcanic rock. A scree or talus is a pile of rock fragments found at the base of a mountain or a cliff or a crag.

A ridge is an edge of a landmass. An arête is a super thin ridge of rock. A defile is a narrow pass between a hill or a mountain. A debouch is the wider space at the end of a defile. A monadnock or inselberg is a rocky hill, ridge or mountain found in a predominately flat area. A kame is a hill composed of sediments deposited by glaciers. A kettle is a water-filled valley containing sediments deposited by glaciers.

An alas is a valley with steep sides formed by the melting of permafrost. It may contain a lake. A lake is a lake.

An archipelago is a series of islands. An atoll is a circular reef with a lagoon in the middle, formed when a volcanic island sinks into the ocean. An isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two other pieces of land. A strait is a channel of water between two land masses.

And a horse is a horse, of course.

*Thank you Wikipedia and Wiki Commons

The Zen and Zombification of Work and Play

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:42:30 PDT

Ambivalence.
I think that's my favourite word. Or at least based on my definition of it. Ambivalence, the way I intuit it, is not about uncertainty, it's about feeling strongly about two opposing concepts. I imagine a line, or a metal pipe. I imagine bending it in ways that purists and bureaucrats would frown on, until the two ends meet, tensely, but with intention; the poles perspiring in resistance. I like being there.
But that was a tangent. This post isn't about ambivalence. It's about action. It's about my ambivalence to action.

I kind of straddle the line between being really active and really... not. Most people who know me would probably say I'm pretty active, and in broad strokes it's certainly true- I'm constantly squirming to do something or go somewhere, I work multiple jobs*, I have a really short attention span, I get depressed when I'm bored...
But I surprise myself constantly because in all these little ways, I am consistently able to do nothing for long periods of time, and do it really well. In fact, I often find myself actively seeking this out, clearing my schedule and opening up a time and space to do nothing. Everyone thinks that travel is so adventurous, so "active," but one of my favourite things about it is getting on a bus for 8-10 hours and dedicating half a day to staring out the window. When I go to visit my grandparents in Etobicoke, I don't even bring an mp3 player for the 1.5 hr commute, I just sit and stare at things: people, passing trees... poles. I savour these quiet times between places, when there are no distractions and I'm forced to shut my mind off and just enjoy the ride.

All my hobbies operate on the same ambivalent principle. I've come to recognize them as experimental adventures in stillness; activities of non-activity. They are pastimes that teach me how to live in real time.

Take scuba diving, for instance. Diving is the only sport I know of where the less energy you exert, the better your perform. It is a sport that's about 10% physical ability and 90% mental fitness. It has two golden rules: Remain calm and Breathe. If you don't remain calm, you run out of air and have to surface. If you don't breathe, or try to hold your breath, your lungs will rupture and you die. So, as in life, remain calm, breathe, and you'll do just fine.
Diving also has the added bonus of making you feel like you are One with the Force, it's the best real life example of positive thinking I know of. When you want to descend, all you have to do is think it. Think down, and exhale deeply... and down you go, like magic. Think up and inhale, magically you rise...

I take to hiking and canoeing for the same reasons, it's moving meditation for the body that teaches me something, in this case, how to focus mentally. It's about planting feet and oars, one step at a time. It's about the mindlessness of repetition, an appreciation for muscles and ligaments, focusing on the minute, the trivial, the inconsequential. It's a mindlessness that is decidedly different from just relaxing with a book on the beach. It's that metal pipe of ambivalence again; pushing your body so hard that your mind goes comatose.

I've just spent the last 3 hours applying for jobs, and I have to say- minus the prettiness and the physical exertion... it's kind of the same. Mindless, trivial, inconsequential. You forget yourself. You go on Auto Pilot and just do it for the sake of doing something. And you know that all this time and effort could be for nothing, but you're ok with that. It's almost... meditative.
There's supposed to be a line there; there's supposed to be a mindlessness that's good and a mindlessness that's bad, and I'm supposed to know- to feel- the difference... but all my definitions are blurry; I don't seem to discern.

I think I'm too in love with the Process. I honestly get no satisfaction out of whether anything ever materializes**... maybe that's dangerous, but I guess I just never feel like the result adds to or takes away from what I've put into something. And I guess that's why I never get anything done... I'm just Sisyphusian by nature. (Note to Self: pick up a copy of Camus' Myth of Sisyphus... I think he's onto something)

But but... Then I recognize that I'm actually like this when I'm focusing on work too. You get into a zone.... mindful mindlessness. Doing something starts to feel like doing nothing. The ends of the metal pipe are kissing again.

* ... or none, as the case may be
**A few notes on The Process:
1. I am writing a lot these days, just not finishing anything... (this entry itself feels like a bunch of parts that don't quite make up a whole...)
2. I'm getting too enamoured with the Process of job-hunting, should try to, uh, set a goal or something

Lazy post- let youtube do all the work...

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:32:46 PDT

I've been shamelessly obsessed with So You Think You Can Dance for about a year now... so dance is on the brain. This is awesome. Spoken word dancing should be the next new thing (along with capoeira martial arts films and breaking to classical music). Me likes...

That is all.

YYZ

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:52:21 PDT

Oh Toronto.

I'm back in the southern True North, basking in the cool summer sun, happily munching on grilled meat and sipping (yes, sipping) Canadian beer.

Back in the warm, cozy cradle of toronto indie music, tdot beats, rep cinemas and art films, street festivals and community dinners, great food, great films, great music, great taste in everything, and great people.

I love this city for all that and more. Yes, it's true, Toronto is busy... but it's busy in a way that is so much healither than the way Asia is busy. Here, people don't pour their energy into their useless 9-5 jobs (unless those jobs are wicked cool and not useless at all), they pour energy into creative, pro-active, community-giving ways of life. People here dare to dream, and it is beautifully inspiring, especially if you're a lazyass half-start like me. This city amazes me.

But I wouldn't be me if I didn't have at least a minor neurotic twitch at the thought of being here again. Coming home is always a little traumatic. If I travel for longer periods of time than most it's because I love the feeling of coming back to this city and having it look slightly unfamiliar... that it can look unfamiliar to me is so exciting. Everything ordinary is given this thin coat of newness and that potential for discovery is so full...

At the moment, Toronto is half living up to this promise of discovery. I'm living in a new hood and getting to know my neighbourhood, I'm discovering new bike roots* and avoiding job hunting by playing in my new garden. On the other hand, I speak the language and most things feel... old. Or rather, everything's the same, and I feel old. Sigh...

Everyone's been asking whether I'm happy to be back, and it's really a hard one to answer. My standard answer is that 'happy' isn't exactly the right word, but I know that it's right to be back. I'm kind of sorting data as I type here, but on a personal note, I feel like I need to "settle down," and by that I refer mostly to internal geography, not external. There are things I need to settle within myself, and Toronto seems the safest and most supportive place to do that. I'm not broken by any means, but I've realized that the challenges of travel and displacement have kinda acted as decoy distractors, they come at the expense of other challenges I'm ignoring, am happy to ignore...

I had a conversation with someone recently, about the idea of wholesale change, of displacing yourself, and why we do it. And we both hit on this one reason- we do it to prove we can do it. There's nothing like diving into a foreign situation, and watching yourself rise to the challenge to give you an incredible- and incredibly addictive- rush of "Yay, Im Awesome!"ness. And then that becomes the easiest way to feel awesome, so suddenly you're doing it all the time and you get all cracked out on this Awesome drug and you can't stop....

So you come down from your Awesome drug and you go home and you find yourself In Transition again, and you're familiar with this place but it's the one place that never stays the same. And so you undergo these familiar/unfamiliar rites of coming home, the settling part, when the universe trembles and pushes and figures out where to fit you into a life that has gone on without you for 2 years. You feel like a triangle shape being manhandled by a fat-fingered kid; you're not sure whether Jolly Bo Gumption here is going to slip you smoothly into the triangle hole or try to jam you stubbornly into the square cutout. There's fear there, you can't help but look back. But there's also this other thing, some sort of inner acceptance that enabled you to go away in the first place. You'll fucking deal. And you'll do it well. Awesome.

And then...

*an honest ta gawd typo, almost but not quite as good as "scene of changery"

The Last of Borneo - Derawan, East Kalimantan

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:45:22 PDT

The first thing you'll hear about Pulau Derawan and the Sangalaki Archipelago in East Kalimantan (...if you hear anything at all) is that it's a pain in the ass to get to. The second thing you'll probably hear is that it is worth all the pain and more.

This place is magic. There are no cars on Derawan, no ATMs, no money changers, no internet cafes, no German schnitzel, no Muesli breakfasts, and no electricity during the day. Hardly any tourist infrastructure at all. Just a handful of losmens, some exceedingly smiley locals and a very out-of-place, fancy-shmance dive resort that is always empty. Oh, and a few hundred turtles, pristine coral and tropical fish to keep you company. Yes, it's as good as it sounds. These tiny little islands are... it's like... well they're just completely unspoiled havens of pure underwater WEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I really can't explain it better than that. But to give you an idea of what I mean, here's a breakdown of my week.

Friday
Snorkeled with dozens of manta rays in the plankton-rich waters off the coast of Sangalaki. Came so close to these graceful majestic creatures that, on more than one occasion, I thought I would get clubbed in the head with their giant wings. Thankfully, they saw me at the last minute and swooned past me, all stealth bomber styles. If my mouth wasn't clutching a snorkel, my jaw would've been perma-dropped all day. They were beautiful beyond words.

Saturday
Did one of the craziest dives of my life at Barracuda Point near Kakaban. The dive entailed dropping down 30 meters into a very strong current, getting pushed mercilessly along the coral wall, and then, at the sound of the guide's signal, swimming furiously across the current to calmer waters (or risk getting pushed down to the 50m-60m mark by a raging down current!!) I'm not a very strong swimmer, so I was nervous as hell before entering the water- especially because the equipment was rather sketchy and I didn't have a depth gauge... but once in the water, it was pretty fun. My dive partner and I even struck a Superman pose as we flew along. The coral wall along the calmer bit is gorgeously intact with loads of fish abound.

During the dive break, we took our snorkeling gear into Kakaban Lake. The lake consists of warm brackish water (both sea water and fresh water), which makes for an interesting species soup. An ice age about 12,000 years ago transformed the waters into a landlocked marine lake, with a bed of sea water at the bottom. Millions of stingless jellyfish roam the lake, a specially-evolved species that was able to survive due to lack of natural predators. Millions. You couldn't swim a single metre without bumping into twenty of them. The mangrove forest that hugs the lake also added to the fairy tale feel of the island- the tree roots were covered in coral! Weird magic!

Sunday
Went down to the beach on Derawan and watched a few giant female sea turtles struggle up on shore under the bright waxing moon. Watched one choose a choice spot, dig a hole and lay a few dozen eggs. Then watched it toss the eggs like salad, using its back flippers to throw them around and bury them in the sand.

Monday
Stretched out in my hammock, stared at the sea, read, and napped with vigour.

Tuesday
Feasted on coconuts fresh from the tree, delivered to me by two happy, charming Indonesian brothers (erly and henri) who have the curious distinction of being able to speak both Bahasa Indonesia (obviously) and... French. Not a word of English. They were my ideal language skills practice partners. Communicated in Frahasa Indonesia for most of the afternoon. Took a sunset canoe ride along the coast of Derawan and was smiled and waved at enthusiastically by Derawan locals.

Wednesday
Went back to Kakaban and tried to capture the magic on camera...

Thursday
Snorkeled around Derawan and found crazy abundance of marine life- crocodile fish, scorpionfish, morays, lionfish, nemos... Spent more time in hammock. Practiced being lazy.

Derawan was just... ridiculous. If you love sea creatures and the simple life, I can't think of another place that could be more fulfilling. It does take a minimum of 2 days to get here, but the upside is, you won't want to leave anytime soon. If you're used to easy traveling, well, it's not easy... Almost no one speaks English, and unless you're willing to pay the big bucks, no one is going to organize anything for you. But considering the reward, this place is a bloody gift. It's amazing. Go. GO NOW.

The Nitty-Gritty Details
Getting There:
There are 2 ways to approach Derawan. The easier way is via Malaysian Borneo. From Tawau, take the ferry to Tarakan (145MYR). Then it's Tarakan to Tanjung Selor by ferry (80,000INR); Tanjung Selor to Berau (70,000INR) by kijang (share taxi); and Berau to Tanjung Batu by kijang (60,000INR). From Tanjung Batu, you'll need to charter a speedboat to Pulau Derawan. The boatmen typically want 200-250,000INR per boat, so it's a good deal if you can find folks to split it with.
From the south, it's a 16-18 hour bus ride from Balikpapan, the capital of East Kalimantan, to Berau.

Being There:
Rooms: 75,000-200,000 per room (I stayed at Losmen Danakan, which was wonderful)
Food: Typically 12,000-20,000 per meal. There is a great restaurant closer to the end of town (going towards the mosque) that has a gaudy pink exterior. The ladies here don't speak English but they serve fresh fish that you pick yourself and a host of super yummy vegetables, tofu and tempeh. Their Nasi Kuning (coconut saffron rice with fish steak and sauce) is sooo good. Danakan does meals too, but I like to spread my money around...
The Fun Stuff: To get to Sangalaki and Kakaban means finding a boat, ie. a local fisherman willing to take you out for the day. Again, there's power in numbers. Typically, boats run for 600,000 to Sangalaki and as much as 800,000 to Kakaban, but if you know who to ask, the prices can come down significantly. Don't be afraid to negotiate. There's a guy named Tiar (I call him Manta Orang) who owns a really slow boat, but he's a lovely lovely man and definitely knows how to spot the mantas. His house is a few left of Losman Danakan's, the one with the circular steps. He doesn't speak a word of English.

Diving and snorkeling equipment can be rented from the dive shop at Losman Danakan, but I personally think they suck. I didn't do a lot of dives out here because I was pretty unimpressed with them. The diving equipment is sketchy, their attitude was horrible and they're quite expensive. It's about 500,000 for 2 dives, not including boat rental, wetsuit, torches or anything else, so it adds up. They're very money-grabby, which is a personal quality I happen to hate. What's more, unless you're into crazy currents, there is almost nothing you can't see just by snorkeling (the mantas came right to the surface, and most of the fish are no more than 3-5m down). The snorkeling right off the jetty on Derawan is excellent.

Erly and Henri run a mini golf course on the far side of town (past the mosque). It's super fun and they are lovely boys to chat with if you speak French (or B. Indonesia). That side of town is also where the sun sets and the beach is quite nice. Watch out for falling coconuts.

More photos here. That is all.

Along the River, Under the Sea and Into the Jungle- Parts 2 and 3

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:20:04 PDT

My time in Sipadan (world renowned dive site) and Danum Valley (one of the last remaining swathes of primary rainforest in Sabah) was really defined by sights and sounds. In Sipadan, everything was bigger and more abundant than anywhere else I've dived- the turtles and fish were ginormous and the schools of fish were overwhelming. In Danum, hornbills, warblers, cicadas, gibbons and orangutans provided the lively soundtrack for our jungle walks. I'm having a hard time writing about it because those experiences feel really... tactile, like you really had to be there to get it: the sweat and the sounds and the leeches; the need for ninja stealth when looking for wildlife and the anticipation of spotting an animal; the giant, century-old trees towering above you; the quiet awe of being surrounded by a giant swirling school of barracuda; the jedi mind trick of scuba diving and being able to control your movement with your breath... Words just aren't cutting it, so maybe photos and recordings will do better (the recording ends with a gibbon duet :)

Under the Sea

Into the Jungle

Along the River, Under the Sea and Into the Jungle- Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:49:56 PDT

We pick up where we left off; Our Intrepid Heroine (OIH!) is in Borneo, making her way east across the Malaysian state of Sabah. Determined to indulge in a sumptuous diet of Mountain, Oceans and Jungle (or MoJO, if you will), OIH! arrives in Sukau, a sleepy village that sits on the banks of Sungai Kinabatangan, the longest river of the region. The area is home to a cornocopia of Bornean wildlife; orangutans, gibbons, hornbills, and the endemic proboscis monkey are all here in mad abundance.

I became an instant nature geek (I think Borneo has this effect on people). I learned how to identify the mating call of a female gibbon, recognize the dominant male in a proboscis monkey harem, differentiate between various species of hornbills, and name loads of other beautiful tropical birds by sight.

The Lower Kinabatangan is teeming with life. I've never had so many successive days of feeling so awed and humbled by nature, EVERY DAY I saw, heard or learned something new and incredible. It helped that I met a guide there who was also a total nature geek. Jamil had worked as a photographer/videographer for conservation NGOs for over 10 years and was "taking a break." He was a brilliant guide and just a generally happy and adventurous chap. He'd once climbed a tree and slept in an abandoned orangutan nest just to try it out for a day.

The Lower Kinatabatangan offers the best opportunity in Sabah to see animals in their own natural habitat, but it's a bit of a catch 22. The irony is that the relatively common sightings of wild primates is only possible due to the massive deforestation of the area- we can only spot the animals because their natural habitat has been so incredibly devastated.

We turn to the enemy- palm oil. Over half of Borneo's forests have either been logged or burnt down, much of it replaced by ever-profitable palm oil plantations. Palm oil is used as a cheap substitute for vegetable oil, and is found in everything from soap to cosmetics to food. As of late, it has also been touted as the EU's biofuel solution (another display of environmental shortsightedness a la ethanol). Malaysia and Indonesia are the biggest producers of palm oil in the world (together they make up some 85% of global palm oil production) and all this economic stimulation is directly threatening one of the most biodiverse pockets of the world. Borneo has already lost almost half of its primary rainforest, and Indonesia's deforestation rate has earned it the honour of being the 3rd largest carbon emitter after the US and China.

You can't blame Malaysia and Indonesia for thinking this is a good idea. Ok, maybe Malaysia (that's Strike 2, Sabah), but Indonesia is pretty poor and frankly just needs some- ANY- economic leg to stand on. For both countries, it's essentially a double bling- they log the forest and make a killing on the hardwood, and then they set up palm oil plantations, which are fruitful and immensely profitable.

Sounds great... too bad about all the orangutans, though. The plantations stretch all the way out to the river, so the stretch of rainforest along the Kinabatangan is often interrupted by a plantation lot. This effectively traps the orangutans between plantation lots, which, while isn't anywhere near as bad as a cage, isn't a whole lot better either. What's more, orangutans who venture across or into the plantations are usually shot by disgruntled owners, who consider them pests- no joke. There are some great conservation efforts in the area who are working with local property owners to buy back key plots of land and build a green corridor along the river for the orangutans. Two great organizations in Borneo include Red Ape Encounters and BOS.

Kinabatangan wasn't just about gawking at animals, either. I happened to come across a Muslim women's beauty pageant while I was there too. It was Women's Day, so all the mothers in the village dressed up in their best and strutted around the stage in front of a panel of judges. Surprisingly, some of them could really work it:

Fresh Start- Sabah, Borneo

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:46:31 PDT

I really had no idea how much sweat my body was capable of producing until I came to Borneo. It's mind boggling, really. I mean, I don't want to turn this into a big philosophical thing, but there's a certain zenful rite of passage that everyone travelling through the tropics must undergo. You go from furiously wiping your brow, your neck, your upper lip and any other part of you that's publicly acceptable to wipe, to just letting the sweat slide gracefully off your chin (sometimes into your dinner); from being completely disgusted with the smell of your sweaty, rank body to recognizing that smell but accepting it as your own. eau de you.

It doesn't take much to get you all hot and bothered in Borneo. It could be as simple as getting a bad seat on the bus. Walk a few steps and you sweat. Walk a lot of steps and you're fucked.

I found this out early, as I started my time in Borneo with a trek. Every hour or so, at a rest point, the guys (it was 4 dudes and lil old me) took off their shirts and wrung them out. About half a beach pailful of sweat. Disgusting. Me, I just carried all that sweat with me (which no doubt made me heavier) and tried to admire the prettiness around me through my fogged up glasses (humidity percentage sits in the high 80s throughout the day). And my, was it pretty...

Ok, I must pause here to rant a bit about Malaysia and the Sabah government. Everyone comes through these parts to hike Mount Kinabalu, which sits some 4000m over the region, a tempting peak to bag. Unfortunately, the Sabah government has sold all the accomodations in their public national park to one private enterprise, Sutera Lodges. In the past few years, this monopoly has quadrupled the price of accommodations in the park, making the climb ridiculously expensive, something in the region of 700RM, or over $200CDN for a 2-day climb. Ridiculous. The mountain hut that every hiker is obligated to stay in costs over $100CDN a night. Ridiculous.

So I said "fuck that." I found a guy on a travel forum who freelanced as an adventure tourism guide. He was testing out a new trail and needed guinea pigs, so I signed up. The 3-day hike took us through rivers and meadows, along mountain ridges, and into the jungle. At night, we camped in villages dotted along the foothills and ate, drank, sang and danced with our gracious hosts (well, for the first night anyway. The second night we were sort of accosted by a drunk villager who just wouldn't shut up...) Anyway, it was nice.

So here's a plea to all the backpackers en route to KK: don't do the summit trek. Tell the Malaysian government they can't sell off their public parks and expect people to shut up and pay out. If you put up with it, the price'll just keep going up. Besides all that, there are prettier mountains to climb, tougher peaks to bag. Don't do it for the bragging rights. It ain't worth it.

Onwards.

After the trek, I headed to Poring Hot Springs to chill. The hot springs themselves weren't that exciting (no hot springs will ever be the same after Lisong...), but I did have my first close encounter with a wild orangutan. Well, semi-wild. Her name was Jackie and she came down from the jungle every day to pick up various edible goodies from the park rangers. I was totally awed by how human her facial features were...

All in all, a good start. The plan for Borneo was to bounce between its bountiful varied natural environments, partake in a steady diet of Mountains, Jungle and Ocean. So it began.

Last Flash in the Bedpan - Cordilleras, Philippines and various mishaps

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:46:31 PDT

There was a plan. The Plan was to hike into Batad, a small rice terrace village only accessible by foot, and then spend a few days going further afield, staying in remote villages and traveling deep into the valley before popping back out onto the main highway. The Cordilleras in Northern Luzon is a beautiful stretch of eye candy; a mountainous region shining an unreal neon green. What's most amazing about this place is that its beauty is entirely man-made. Thousands of years ago, the Ifugao people of the region started hacking into the hills surrounding them and planting rice. They devised an ingeneous irrigation system and in the process created hill after valley after hill after valley of terraced neon green fields.

The Plan did not start well. On my way into Batad, I became aware of a certain "flippity flop" sound coming from my feet. I look down to find that the front of my precious Vibram soles (both of them) were no longer attached to my boots. I pulled out my trusty duct tape and did an emergency patch job. My muddy wornass 8-year-old boots now donned a swanky, stylish, nouveau moderne silver glean that pleased me immensely. I felt like a cosmonaut...

They lasted the first half hour of a 4-hour hike. We tried salvaging the situation by wrapping plant vines and various other miscellania around the duct tape, around the flopping sole... but to no avail.

Somehow, I made it to the wedding. Did I mention there was a wedding? In keeping with Ifugao tradition, the merry couple invited the entire village and all the neighbouring villages (basically anyone willing to walk hours on end for free food and rice wine- which is, as it turns out, a fuck of a lot of people) to partake in the festivites. They drank, danced and were merry.

Back to the boot fiasco. On our way home, I rashly decided to rip the flippity-floppity soles off and I spent the last hour of the hike sliding downhill along the slippery muddy trail. RIP Merrells. It was then that I decided to abandon the Plan.

Did I mention it was raining? Boo global warming, because it rained every goddamn day. From noon to night (the only way to beat it was to get up every morning at 7am to enjoy the few precious hours of sun) And I'm not talking about a light drizzle, I'm talking monsoon. Which doesn't go well with hiking. With anything, for that matter.

I thought that the monsoon was only restricted to the mountains, so having abandoned my Plan, I wanted to escape to the beach. A sunny beach. A beautiful sunny deserted beach with turquoise waters and a few friendly fisherman...

Now, these are a dime a dozen in the phils, so I picked one that was relatively close (8 hours from Manila) and off I went... without checking the weather report. On the way down, I had a foreboding sense of dread... because it was pouring. And it turns out Bicol is not 8 hours from Manila. The entire stretch of road was undergoing perma-construction, so was reduced to a one-lane highway. Kids were out in droves carrying red and green flags but not knowing how to use them so traffic got pretty fucked up. The bus driver got really impatient. After we got through slow zones, he started driving really fast. And so we got into a car accident.

I have to say, I am a lucky lucky little girl. I was in the front seat and it was a head-on collision. Had the bus not been built like the Hulk, I'm positive my leg would have snapped off (I raised it when I realized we were about to collide- which uh, probably isn't what you're supposed to do).

Because it was one-lane traffic, we effectively stopped traffic dead. Everyone was alright, but shaken. A new bus was on the way, but couldn't get through the traffic so after about an hour- and I think this part was WAY scarier than the accident- we DROVE our mangled bus another half hour to go meet it. The front windshield was busted and cracked glass was shaking in the wind as we drove, the door was so fucked we had to squeeze our bodies through it while someone else propped it back, and nobody even tested the bloody thing- you know, to see if the gears and brakes worked.

After this, I gave up. I went back to Manila 5 days before my flight and did nothing. I stayed at my friend's house and let her maids pamper me. I played a lot of frisbee. I rode the MRT. I shopped... Oh, and guess what? Sunny. Every day that I was in Manila, it was freakin beautiful. But I didn't bite- I knew I was weather cursed, I knew as soon as I made a plan- climb a mountain, go to Lake Taal- I knew that day it would rain on me.

So. Let me recount my lifetime travel woes: I've been robbed, I've gotten a tropical disease, I've had flight disasters, I've broken up with friends, I've been hit by a motorcycle, and now a car accident! Happy day, I think I've almost done em all. I should write a book.

city mouse, country mouse

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Wed, 13 May 2009 05:16:03 PDT

This was never meant to be a travel blog. Even the pretentio-title of the blog doesn't refer to travel in the literal sense. But alas, I've been doing a lot of traveling lately, so posts have fallen into a kind of routine. I have a childish aversion to routine. I'm sick of listening to myself tell all these "and then and then" stories, so I've drudged up a stray thought, circa New Years 2009.

A few friends and I went down south and stayed with my friend's relatives in Changhua. Her cousins were in their early 20s and we had some interesting conversations. Us Western folks are have completely spoiled ideas of "the country". In Taiwan, "the country" doesn't consist of beautiful pastoral fields with rolling green hills abound, it's more like lonely looking mansions and industrial buildings and abandoned factories sitting atop dying grass scattered across Nowhere. It's, in a word, ugly.
And all this ugliness, well, it does a Body no good... Here's basically what Cousin Larry had to say:

Country Cat
he said that young people in the country had no power. That there were too many old folks dusting their coffins, shuffling around him in slow motion, made him dizzy. he said the air tasted dead. Everyone was dying or waiting to die, and the stillness seeped into him, slowed him down. He had to drive everywhere and driving made him tired, everything made him tired. Young people in cities don't have this problem, he said. There were lots of them, enough to fight the tired sickness. Enough to push past the haze of boredom and dead air. Enough to do, make, dream, take....
Power in numbers.

City Dog
he said he didn't want to live abroad because it was too calm, too relaxed, and that was dangerous for a person like him, someone who lacked ambition and was prone to laziness. He needed to live somewhere fast, driven, pressurized, a place that would make him do better, be better, where ambition was in the air, he hoped to inhale it, use osmosis to attain it, that pop and bang of dreams that would signal the start of his life...
Living abroad is too easy, he says. Save that for when I'm 60. For now, I wanna live. Live hard.

down and out on the up and up- Exit Jiaming Lake and Lisong Hot Springs

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:46:31 PDT

I woke to the sound of Tim discussing the weather situation with the Germans*. "It's the worst of the worst," one declares. Cloudy, rainy, foggy morning. If I'd thought the day before had been bad, well. We took our time with breakfast and started out once the downpour was down to a drizzle. It wasn't so bad, actually. Aside from occasionally having to brace myself against the punishing wind, and, well the last hour, the way down was kind of fun.

Trails always look different on the way down. It's a challenge of a different kind, it's no longer about endurance and stamina, it's about balance, weight distribution and minimal impact. The trail becomes a jigsaw puzzle for the feet. It's a game of brain not brawn. If going up is the mindless zen of planting feet and just keeping the pace, going down is the thoughtful process of planning ahead- left foot pushes off here so that right foot can use this foothold... Working my way down a trail always gives me a serious appreciation for that ever-underrated art of trail making- all those artfully or randomly distributed rocks and logs and leaves that all do their little part to ensure that you don't go sliding down on your ass for 3000 metres (... although that might be kinda fun too). Not only did a few good folks take the time to haul several giant rocks and whatnot partway up a mountain, but they really thought about how to lay them down properly. That's a beautiful thing, that is.
Onwards.
After a longish slog, we get down and are met with the hospitality of the Siangyang police. They are about to have lunch and insist that we join them. When I refuse, they say "hey, we are police. We must take care of you." After Tim and I get over the shock of hearing this, (I mean... they're cops) we sit and relax with tea, food, and a bit of rice wine.

After lunch and mounds of tea, we head to Lidao, descending into the fog. At some points, vis was a mere 10 metres ahead. In Lidao, we park the car and look around for a homestay. Walking down the street, we're met with a chorus of "Hello friend!". A massive group of Bunun aboriginals (ones we later learned we'd passed on our way up from Jiaming) were celebrating their mountain descent in a big way. They'd slaughtered 2 pigs (or rather, were in the process of slaughtering [the two decapitated heads were facing us, their expressions something between solemn and bored]) and had been at it for 2 days. We joined them, drank, and were merry. They laughed a lot, which made us laugh a lot, and best of all, they told all their jokes in Mandarin and I understood everything, which made me laugh even harder.

Lidao sits low in a valley below the mountains. Everywhere about is forest and bamboo and green and green and fog. It's apparently a town of 300, and evidently Bunun. Also evidently poor for the most part. Houses are makeshift- some are sheet metal shacks, some towers of tile, some take the remnants of old brick walls and tack on some corrugated metal to fashion a roof. Everywhere we turned, there seemed to be some form of innovative architecture at work. A cool town, indeed.

Back at the homestay, Tim and I sit down for tea with an oldish Taiwanese lady who'd been living in Virginia for the past 38 years. In the midst of our lengthy conversation, she taught us the finer points of deer hunting (she's got a 2-barrel rifle and a sharp eye), did an awesome Chinglishstrian impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and tried to turn us against Darwin and evolution. She was... interesting to say the least.

The next day, Tim and I decide to relax with a trip to the hot springs. We have our choice of a few, but us being us, we opt for what I can only call "the adventure springs." (Neither of us have this "relaxing" thing quite... figured out, exactly.) The Lisong Hot Springs are natural sulphur springs that run down to the river. To get to them, you have to drive to Motien, walk 2km down along a gravel road, cross a farmer's field, hike (or, if you're in sandals, slide) down a super steep forest trail of leaves and trees and giant boulders, cross the river, and scramble over some rocks. Then you're there. And man, is it fucking cool. Getting there was half the fun- especially the rock scrambling. Here's an artist rendition (that's me suspended horizontally using a giant log to get over these giant rocks):

The river itself was freezing cold, and the hot springs were, well, really hot. To get that real "ahhh" feeling involved a carefully maneuvering of rocks, allowing just enough cold water in so as not to burn, but not enough to totally cool down the water. We soon discovered that our talent in mixology was... not that great. Often we'd find half our bodies totally scorching while the other half shivered with goosebumps. Midway through conversation, one of us would interrupt with "burning... burning". and so forth.

We ended up accidentally staying the entire day. When, after several attempts to leave, we finally made it out, I wondered why it looked like it was getting dark. Turns out it was close to 6pm and we had been in the springs for over 6 hours. Driving back, I discovered yet a new record for bad vis- I couldn't see the road at all. Somehow, we made it back, crawled into bed and promptly passed out.

There is a difference between living somewhere and travelling somewhere. They are two very distinct paths, present two pictures of the same place, each with very specific trade-offs. We only get a glimpse of life in the places we travel, and we never seem to travel the places we live in. I lived in Taiwan for 15 months, and I've just traveled it for a week and a half. I felt like I was in two different countries, but in any case, I'm glad I got to see them both.

*The Germans are 3 dudes we met en route, hereafter known as Hardcore (he was rather.. hard), Mediumcore (our favourite), and Vertigo (so named because he was afraid of heights)
**more pictures of Lisong and Jiaming can be found here.

Jiaming Lake, Day 2 - ... where's the lake??

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:46:31 PDT

I woke before my alarm went off. My cell phone read 3:55am. Still dark out, but the adrenaline was pulling me out of bed. After coffee, breakfast, and a bit of stumbling around, we set out at daybreak. Well, sort of. The thick blanket of fog only let in a wee little bar of light, but it was pink and pretty and enough to make my heart swell and sigh in a satisfied "aahhh" kinda way.

The path to Jiaming Lake is, for the most part, a long narrow trench cut along the side of a ridge, dipping up into peaks and down into the valleys for about 5km. When the fog opens up (or on a clear day) the view of the surrounding mountains and the valleys below are just amazing. I also love the vegetation at these heights. Toughened by the cold and wind, the grass, the trees, even the rocks have a different kind of character. It's vast, barren, rocky terrain- totally my thing.

We soon reached the lake... or thought we did. We weren't quite sure. It didn't look anything like the photo.

Hmmm.... Jiaming Lake:

.... Jiaming Lake?

Tim insisted that we were in the right place, so we sat around and stared at the fogged out hole while the wind blew mercilessly at our backs. After a while (admittedly a long while [let us not speak of lost hours of sleep]) the sun blessed us with a few clear moments, enough to snap off a few impressive shots before the fog rolled back in. It was actually a lot more exciting this way, like it sort of gave the lake a magical mystique; it shone brilliantly but only at certain special moments. As we were joined by more people, a chorus of excitement would rise up around the lake whenever the sun came out, which pleased me immensely. [Much in the same way that plane rides in South Asia do, how everyone onboard breaks out into relieved applause when the plane lands smoothly. Like, hooray! No one was maimed or injured! and so forth. That might've been a tangent, but in my brain, it connects.]

After making our way back from the lake, we chilled out at the cabin for a little while. In the late afternoon, I ventured out for another walk. The 2km before and after Jiaming Cabin was probably my favourite stretch of scenery of the entire trek. Part mossy green forest, part barren golden grassland, the landscape made me feel very far from home... which, incidentally, is a feeling I really like.

Not 3 minutes from the cabin, I spot an animal in the trees below. It had the face of a raccoon, but a yellow stripe and a long bushy tail. Here is a picture I attempted to take while running with my camera. You can just maybe sort of make out the, um, tree:

Here's a better photo. It's a Formosan yellow-throated marten (黃喉貂). We're especially tight because we have the same family name. Whattup, coz.

All in all, it was a pretty kickass day. Tim and I were both happy that'd we'd chosen to stay the night and didn't have to rush back from the lake, pack and slog our way down the mountain. Night set in, and after the bustle of dinner, everyone settled into their sleeping bags. Unofficial lights out, some time around 8pm. Party hardy.

Highway 20 and Jiaming Lake, Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:46:31 PDT

Taiwan is almost entirely mountainous in nature. Once upon a time, the plates around the South China Sea trembled and pushed inwards, resulting in the long range of central mountains that run the entire length of the island. There are 3 cross-island highways, each twisting and turning through the country's mountainous interior before flattening out to reach the coast. Only two of these highways actually make it to the other side; the Central Cross Highway was taken out of commission by a devastating earthquake in 1999 and has remained like the elevator-to-nowhere ever since.

I'd heard that the South Cross Highway (Hwy 20) was the most beautiful and least trafficked, and so it began. After a year of feeling trapped in Taipei, I was finally going to be able to a) stretch my hiking legs and b) (arguably more exciting) experience Taiwan on a weekday, without the hoards of people that had disappointed many a weekend of the past. The plan was to rent a car and drive across the island, from Tainan to Taitung, with a few stops in between to hike the surrounding peaks, including a 3-day jaunt up to Jiaming Lake.

I'm going to pause here to give a hearty thanks to Richard from Barking Deer. I had trouble finding English info on the hike, and I threw out a posting on the Formosa forum (which is a great resource for hikers in Taiwan, btw). Richard served me up a whole bevvy of it, not just on Jiaming, but about other hikes off Hwy 20 as well. What a star! I never got to meet him or treat him to the beer I'd promised him, but he incredibly helpful in planning the logistics of our trek, down to the tiniest detail- from weather and permit info to trail descriptions and choice camping spots. Much obliged, thanks Richard!

From Tainan, we made it to Meishankou by early afternoon. The friendly police processed our permits on the spot, one for our day hike to Guanshanlingshan and one for our 3-day trek to Jiaming Lake. By 4pm, the fog had set in, giving the forested scenery between Tienchi and Yakou an atmospheric mist a la Lord of the Rings. On the other side of the Yakou tunnel, it was as if someone had turned the fog switch off. The climate was completely different- the air was crisp and dry, not wet and misty, and the sun even looked like it'd been out and about. At the lookout, we gawked at the infamous Sea of Clouds, a phenomenon whereby all the surrounding peaks look like distant islands washed over by wave after wave of puffy whiteness. At over 2700m, Yakou is the highest point on the SCH, and as such, probably the stupidest place to choose to camp. But we were high on scenery adrenaline and the promise of a beautiful sunrise was too much to pass up, so we secured our tent and settled in under one of the lookout gazebos. That night, I froze....
Onwards.

Jiaming Lake is one of the youngest meteor lakes in the world, a crater bowl set amongst alpine grass in a rolling mountainous valley 3300 metres up. The trailhead starts on the back end of the Siangyang Forest Recreation Area, on Hwy 20 just east of Yakou Tunnel. From here to Siangyang Cabin it's a gentle switchback trail through a beautiful mossy forest. The path is of the soft, spongy forest floor variety, with the usual confusion of tangled roots for steps. Could've all been nature's design, for all I could tell. I was especially happy that the trail is made with special care to those of us with short legs. As a small girl, I tend to... not so much hike as shuffle along a path, trying to exert as little energy as possible. Normal steps for other people can end up feeling like hurdles for me, and can really kill my stamina on long hauls. But the Jiaming trail is perfect, easy on the legs... well, at least for the first hour.

From Siangyang cabin, the trail climbs steeply. I have to admit that for this stretch, I was mostly doing one of 3 things: looking uphill, looking at my feet, and asking everyone that passed me how much further to the next cabin. The path here is a little more savagely cut; we were scrambling up long narrow ditches cut by rock slides, mercilessly steep and somewhat precarious at points. As we climbed, the altitude began to take effect. I felt like I was hyperventilating every 5 minutes, the cold air just couldn't feed my lungs fast enough.
The scenery changed too, the alpine climate gave rise to a rougher tougher breed of plants- bonsai variations, gruff porous pines, and my favourite, the white trees. Trunks burnt hollow by forest fires, the dead and naked. There was something about the bareness of the forest that really struck me, always does. I had old imaginings of the forest in action, of the trees in dramatic pose, communicating elaborate messages to me and each other. As the wind grew stronger, I saw my old green-haired goddess friends stretched in yogic prostration, reaching out to wrestle the wind.

The 2km before Jiaming Cabin was awingly beautiful, even despite (or especially because of) the fact that the fog had set in and everything beyond a couple hundred metres was completely whited out. Naked bushy-haired bonsais bowing low amongst yellow alpine underbrush, along a dramatic ridge down down down into the fog. After 7 hours and about 500m gained in altitude, we arrived at Jiaming cabin. I was achy, exhausted, and filthy. But fuck, was it beautiful.

dromo

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:00:50 PDT

I almost failed art class in high school. I know, it's a pretty hard thing to do, impressively so even. The art teacher used to look over my shoulder and shake her head worryingly at my cartoonish mock-up of a fellow classmate. She took pity on me and gave me a C+ as a final grade. It was the lowest mark I ever got in school. Even today, it's hard to distinguish my drawings from a 7-year-old's. But once in a while, I slip out of self-consciousness (or get stoned) and decide to make something.
This is my mania contribution, although it's a little inexact. I could've opted to show you the 26 web links (and counting) of travel research I've collected for my upcoming trips around Taiwan and to the Philippines, Borneo, and Indonesia... but I thought this might be a liiittle more interesting. I have a horrible habit of always looking too far ahead or behind me, and as such, usually end up not watching my step and landing flat on my face. One day, thems smarty mcsmarterton physicists will build a space-time magic machine that will fix all that. yes.

dromomania - compulsive longing for travel

The First and Last Gasp of Mania! Mania! Mania! (for simon)

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:57:04 PDT

Most of the time, I don't quite mind being a total shit talker. I find my shit talking kind of endearing, honestly, and I dare say others do too. (Zis is true, yes... You simply cannot resist zee charm of my sweet sweet sheet-laden words, mwahaha....)
But there are times when I get totally fed up with myself, feel shamed by my own impotence to action, feel the need to rise from the slovenly pile of utter laziness and, well, fucking DO SOMETHING.
... And then I notice my shoelace is undone or something and the thought passes and I go on with my life.
Sigh.
I'm sitting here, beating my head to the floor, because I remember a great idea that I had, oh, a year ago, that I haven't acted on. Thanks to the fine, edumacated folks at The Phrontistery, I hold in my possession a giant list of manias, and a headful of ideas on how to visually or aurally reproduce them.

The idea was to spread the list far and wide, and get different painters, writers, photographers, musicians, filmmakers, mimers, interpretive dancers, balloon animal..ists, and competitive Scrabble champions to freely interpret a mania of their choosing in a work of art.

Here are a few choice examples:

phytomania obsession with collecting plants

hagiomania mania for sainthood

micromania pathological self-deprecation or belief that one is very small

thanatomania belief that one has been affected by death magic, and resulting illness

Now, you can see how this has the potential to be really funny, poetic, serious, interesting, and above all, just fun. But alas, I am but a lazy sap... and unfortunately, the 5 other people I sent the list to were also lazy saps, and so the Mania! Mania! Mania! Project just fizzled out. Well, actually, of the aforementioned saps, there were only 4 saps. I have one friend that laughs down laziness with a lumberjack's roar, and upon emailing him my idea, I got an mp3 of a fully finished original Mania! song in 3 days. Godd Bless you, Simon!

So this is a humble bow n kowtow to the unlazy among us. It aims to inspire.
Now, go forth and do stuff! ANYTHING! (but if it happens to be mania-related, do get in touch)

zoomania - insane fondness for animals

entirecities.ca

Palawan, Philippines Part II: El Nido

noreply@blogger.com (quiet.fyre) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:49:09 PDT

Wherever I travel, I'm too late. The orgy has moved elsewhere.

- Mordecai Richler

After almost 11 hours in transit*, I expected more from El Nido. More... or less, actually. With the end-to-end line of beachfront cottages and seaside restaurants, the barrage of signs advertising tours, and the string of Internet cafes every 100m, Nido is a lot more developed than I'd expected. I felt like I was on Any-Island, Thailand; time and that every persistant promise of profit had turned Jacques Cousteau's Last Frontier into just another backpacker haunt. After I had walked one length of town, I was almost ready to hop on the next bus and go right back to Sabang... but the draw of the beach and the islands won out.

There are at least a dozen tour operators in town, the biggest of which is the Art Cafe, which initially, I'm told, held a bit of a monopoly on tours, though business is beginning to fan out through the island. Unfortunately, everyone in town has followed the Art Cafe's lead and adopted the same utterly unimaginative names: Tour A, B, or C. Each tour consists of a group of islands, and while the list varies from operator to operator, there is a lot of overlap. So, travellers are forced into these assanine conversations about their daily activities, like
"What did you do today?"
"I went on Tour A..."
and so forth.

This is the cynical traveller in me, though, because when you get right down to it, northern Palawan is beautiful. The charm of Nido lies outside Nido, amongst the outlying islands that make up the Bacuit Archipelago. On a clear day, it's pure eye candy- turquoise water spotted with towering limestone cliffs jutting up from remote junglified islands... it's where the bush meets the ocean. The beaches and lagoons up here are incredible, and if you paddle far enough away, you can even feel a bit of that lost Brooke Shields magic... So yes, it's a bit of regimented fun, but in the end, it's just fun. So I stuffed my internal cynic under the bed, took a deep breath and just... enjoyed it. Tour A, B, and Ced it. Kayaked out to a deserted beach. Rented a motorbike for a day and outran a storm. Didn't think- just enjoyed.

Almost every morning, I ate breakfast at the small roadside canteen next to the police station, run by a sweet toothless lady named Lucy. Cheap and tasty (the food, not Lucy). My favourite was her eggy eggplant- a long skinny eggplant cut lengthwise and dipped in egg- ingeniously simple and oh so yummy! (Lucy will even shoot whiskey with you at 9 in the morning, if you're into that sort of thing.) You could easily save loads of money eating from these canteens, which are about a third of the price of the restaurants along the beach.

If you are going to splurge, go to The Alternative. The food can be hit and miss (their banana leaf curry and desserts are reeeaally good, though) but the atmosphere rocks. By far the best seats in the house are the pods that jut out over the ocean, cushioned with bean bags and designed for putting your feet up- for a long time.
As I was eating, a mini posse of boys gathered beneath my pod, all armed with fishing lines wrapped around a Pert Plus bottle in one hand, and a handful of bread in the other. First they threw the bread out, and as the fish swarmed around, they flung they fishing lines out, hoping to drag their hook along the water and magically ensnare a fish. There was lots of excitable discussion about this, presumably criticisms on Boy A's throwing technique, or Boy B's angling and what not, but the boys seemed quite jovial and brotherly in their collective confusion. No one caught any damn fish, in any case.
Amidst all this excitement, one boy climbed up the leg of my pod, poked his head through a slat and said "hello." I smiled and 'hello"ed him back. Seemingly satisfied with this response, he climbed back down and rejoined the fishing experiment. After a short while, a waitress came over and shut off my TV by shooing the boys away.

If you are going to Nido and have company, here's what I'd suggest:
Strand yourself on a deserted island, Robinson Crusoe/Tom Hanks style.
It's what I'd hoped to do, only I was rained out on the two days I'd set aside for such an adventure. The boys at Sea Slugs, however, offered me a killer deal- P350 for boat transfer, cooking gear.. and a cook. That's right, they'll stay the night with you, if you want. Or not. Oh, and incidentally, P350 is cheaper than most accommodations in Nido. Except, instead of bad Western food and a crappy room, you get a deserted island, a campfire, a seafood dinner, and a night under the stars. Pretty sweet, no? Yeah.. it would've been.

But... onwards.

I didn't spend much time in Puerto, but here's my two cents anyway:

Puerto seems like a city haphazardly built atop a jungle. Take any gravel or dirt path off of bustling Rizal Street, walk down about 100m or so, and look around. You'll notice something somewhat rare for a capital city. It's green. Really fucking green. Lush ,junglified, and abundantly green.... hell, I couldn't even hear the traffic over the sound of the birds! Just past my guesthouse, there were a few bamboo-thatched huts and a little grove of bananas. My kinda city... Best of all, it had a Vulcanizing Shop, o boy! I've always wanted something vulcanized!

I'll be going back to the Philippines for one last trip in April, this time for the full 21 days of the visa. No time limit, wee! My co-workers here in Taiwan totally don't understand me. They keep saying "Philippines again??" Fact is, the thousands of islands of the Philippines are so spread out, and each island so distinct in culture, that I could easily come back dozens of times and still not get the feel of the country. But I guess I could say that about a lot of countries I've been to...

*Boring transit details- I took the bus from Sabang to Salvacion, where I had to wait another 2.5 hours for the Nido bus. The bus is a real bus and the road is fine- don't listen to the wingy English travelers that tell you otherwise. I chose not to take the boat because 8 hours on the road is much more manageable than 8 hours on a boat, in my opinion. Plus, the bus was 1/4 the price.

Other Useful Bits
El Nido
Room: P400 Single (El Nido Plaza Inn- don't stay here unless you can lull yourself to sleep with the sound of cocks crowing from 3am till morning), P300 Shared (Tandikan Cottages)
Food: P50-P250
Island-hopping: P600-P700 (includes massive lunch)
Survivor styles: P350 (tent, cooking gear, boat transport and optional guy; food separate)
Bus to PP: P350

Puerto Princessa
San Jose Terminal to town: P40-50
Room: P500, single (Amelia Pensione)
Food: a splurageous amount, Ka Lui (pretty damn good... but all the restaurants in that are looked good, so take your pick)