St. John (Day 2)

First full day here! As usual in such settings, I get up at the ass crack of dawn and walk on the beach. It's very new-agey of me, but I can't help it. The smell of the sea and the cold wind over it in the morning is intoxicating to me.

It's actually not quite that romantic here, because the bay below the villa (Hart Bay) is not real hospitable. It's very rocky and in the rough water the sea grass is full of sea urchins the size of basketballs. The wind keeps things pretty choppy and rough. When we snorkeled here last time, Jim wasn't real keen on being tossed about by waves with the aforementioned sea urchins all around. I'm not foolhardy enough (so far) to go snorkeling here alone. The word is though that you can see sharks in the channel off this bay, which would really be something!

And just getting down to Hart Bay is a challenge/work out. There's a path from our villa to the bay, but it's very steep and made up of indifferently strewn jagged boulders running through tall grass and cacti. It's pretty thick undergrowth (see picture), and full of critters: iguanas (see picture), scorpions, spiders, anoles, assorted birds and lizards, and who knows what else! Oh yeah, and mosquitoes during some parts of the day and bugs that bite (no-see-ums?). But it didn't stop me from heading down. At heart, I'm that kid who has to put his hand on the stove to know it's still hot.

The iguana in this pic is a male (I think), and we called him Big Daddy. He looked to be around three or four feet long, and he always sunned himself on a cacti just off our deck. He was like clockwork, sunning between 7 and 8 in the morning and 4 to 6 in the evening. There was always two or three smaller iguanas in his cacti (his harem, I'm guessing?)

Anyway, by the time I got down to Hart Bay, I'd pushed through brush, swept spider webs out of my way, and probably done several things an experienced hiker would have groaned at. And I was sweaty! So it wasn't especially pleasant getting down there, and the climb back up was definitely not fun. Regardless, I had had my morning stroll.

Aside from trying to spot as many iguanas as we could from the porch (I think we saw five on the cacti right near the villa) and trying to find anoles and other small lizards (seemed to be less of them this year), I have little to report about this day. That's right, we did nothing. NOTHING! We ate breakfast at a snail's pace, tanned all morning, swam in the pool, and then I had my daily siesta in the hammock. Then it was lunch, tan, pool, dinner, and a relaxing night with cards, books, and the stars. Life in the real world had gone slap right out of our pretty little heads, and I'm proud to say we kept it exiled for the entire stay. Work/Life may be about balance, but we were fully committed to being totally unbalanced in favor of Life.

St. John (Andante By The Sea)

I should plug the villa we've rented both times we stayed on St. John: Andante By The Sea. I totally recommend it! A couple named Marilyn and Richard own the place, and they are fantastic hosts. They have done so much to make this place perfect for visitors, and they are always available to answer questions. Really friendly couple with a great house to share.

The villa website is http://www.andantebythesea.com/. It's hard to do justice to the place in photos, but I've made an attempt with this panorama shot (click to make it much, much bigger). The railing looks all jaggeddy because it's something like a 270-degree view merged together.

Andante has everything: amazing views, privacy, a hammock in the shade of the lower deck, a big grill on the patio, a private pool and hot tub, a sound system that lets you play music anywhere in the house or decks via your ipod, and the ability to watch the sun rise and the sun set. There's also a great breeze that keeps the place cool enough so you don't need AC. The villa sits on the side of a mountain/hill, and there's a steep trail down to the bay below (Hart Bay). Not much of a beach, but the snorkeling is rumored to be pretty good. We've only given the snorkeling there a trial run so far...maybe another year we'll really check it out.

The best thing I can say about this place is that, even with all St. John has to offer, it's sometimes a tough choice whether to go out in the jeep and explore the island or kick back at the villa all day to tan and swim.

St. John (Day 1)

Flight time to St. Thomas is only about four hours (direct), so it's not bad at all. It was even nicer because we upgraded to first class which is always a good idea, because the trek to St. John isn't anywhere near over when you arrive at the airport.

Once we land on St. Thomas, we have to catch a cab with about eight other people for a winding ride across the island to Red Hook, where the ferries come in. From there, we ride the ferry over to Cruz Bay, which is one of the only two collections of buildings on St. John that can be called a town. From there, we grab our rental jeep (4-wheel drive, baby!). And head off to the villa. After checking in, we have to head right back out to stock up on food. All told, from when we woke in the morning to when we brought the groceries to the villa) it was about 10 hours. We got back, had dinner, looked out at the stars, and then went to bed.

The pic here was snapped on the ferry by a pair of lesbians we met (like all the pics I'll post, this one can be clicked on to see a larger version). It's becoming more clear to me that Jim and I can't go anywhere in this world without bumping into lesbians. And very nice lesbians who often seem to see us as quite a novelty. Like: "Wow, some boys!" I'm not too surprised by this reaction since we only seem to meet women when we travel and never any gay men. Anyway, Barbara and Deb chatted with us all the way over to Cruz Bay. Like they say: "We're everywhere!"

St. John, Virgin Islands

Just got back from our second visit to St. John! We had a great time, got very relaxed almost instantly, and got very nice tans! We did mainly all new stuff while we were there, which is amazing considering it's such a small island. I still feel like we could go back yet again and there would be plenty of new things to do and see.

For those who don't know, St. John is - unlike the other U.S. Virgin Islands - almost entirely set aside as a National Park. It's largely unspoiled, largely undeveloped, has no night life to speak of, and is not crowded. I think there's only something like 4,000 people on the whole island. Even when the cruise ships come by (and I think they land at St. Thomas), the most adventurous cruise ship denizens ferry to St. John and take these 30-seater taxis to specific 'must see' beaches. So it's easy to avoid the herds, and we often had entire beaches to ourselves or with only a few other people around.

I've put two maps in this entry (click to open) that show exactly where this island paradise is located, and I'll be posting entries just as I did with the London trip. I didn't enter anything down on St. John because I didn't bring my laptop with me. Not that there was a chance in hell I was going to log into my work email or surf YouTube rather than go outside, but part of me wanted to leave the PC and everything it represents behind.

Nice idea, but I'll never do that again! The villa had wi-fi, so I could have pulled up star charts to identify the stars we saw at night, done my blog entries on site, and maybe even researched some deep sea fishing places. Plus I could have watched DVDs on a nice large screen during the plane ride down. I should have trusted myself more. Next time, the laptop comes!

Anyway, on to the entries...

Peteradio

The latest tunes on Peteradio:

"Rondò Romano" (Redlounge Orchestra Epic Mix) - Tafubar - Awesome instrumental dance track that is super atmospheric. From the Lemongrass Music comp Lounge Du Soleil Vol. 9.

"Big Love" - MoShang - Mixes traditional Asian sounds and dance ethos. Very different!

"The Last Days of Disco" - Glam Sam and His Combo - See earlier post around this slice of dancefloor heaven. He's got a new album coming out that I'm certain to pay cose attention to!

"Chemise" - Sorcerer

"The Alkemyst" - Afterlife - Afterlife has a really chilled out sound, and the Spanish sounding guitar really adds a great vibe to this laid back track.

"Sweet Tides" - Thievery Corporation - More stuff keeps jumping out at me from the Corporation's latest release (Radio Retaliation). This has the traditional downtempo sound the boys are known for, but there's also a ballady feel to it as well. Check out the album review in another post on my blog.

"Daydreamer" - Michiko - She's got a new CD coming out soon, but I couldn't wait. Her album (of the same name) is a sophisticated piece of self-made music that shows you don't need loads of dollars and effects to make great music. Great slinky vibe on this.

'The Last Days Of Disco'

'The Last Days Of Disco' is the latest single from Glam Sam and His Combo, and it's such a great feel good song that I smile whenever I hear it. Just one example of the great stuff available from Lemongrass Music.

While surfing their website, I found this video. I'm not sure if this is strictly something created as a clip for the song or if this was a real wedding. However, if gay marriage is ever legalized, I would love it if our ceremony could have this kind of carefree energy.

Enjoy!

Horatio Hornblower

So I've moved on from Herman Melville, but I'm still in the sea novel genre. I just finished Beat To Quarters the first novel C.S. Forester wrote in his eleven novel Horatio Hornblower cycle (set during the Napoleonic Wars). The book falls at about the middle of Hornblower's story chronologically, but I read it first because it seems to be the best point of entry to see if you like the novels and want to read more. I do.

Beat To Quarters was written in 1937, so there's a lot more psychology in this book than in earlier periods of lit. That said, the book is mostly a sea adventure, rather than anything deep like Melville. The core of the book is the character of Horatio Hornblower, and it works because he seems very real to me. He's an excellent sailor and captain, heroic really, but in his own mind he has a lot of doubts and he views himself as cowardly and weak. Naturally, he always keeps a 'stiff upper lip' before his men.

I found that his internal dialogue helped me relate to the situations in the book in a greater degree, as it made me understand more clearly what was at stake in each situation. Hornblower certainly has flaws, but Beat To Quarters was written well before the 'flawed hero' transformed into today's whining anti-hero, so there's no sense of the author begging you to pity his hero. There's still enough of that old Romanticist tradition in the story to keep this an engaging adventure story.

The plot is rather thin, overall, but I found it to be a diverting read with a well-drawn main character. I actually felt like I learned something about leadership based on the qualities and behaviors Hornblower engaged in. I'll probably start reading the books in order of his life if/when I pick up the next one.

'Herman Melville Crazy'

Okay, I have officially fallen short in my goal in reading all of Herman Melville's novels in the order they were written in. The truth is that I have found Melville's novels - for the most part - deserve the praise or scorn that they have earned over the years. Since his novels after Moby Dick are largely ignored (as they were at the time he published them), I'm not really motivated to read them.

Still, 6 out of 9 (I'm not counting Billy Budd as a novel) is not bad. The ones I didn't get to are Pierre (infamously panned in an article titled 'Herman Melville Crazy'), Israel Potter, and The Confidence-Man. The only other work of his that I have read was one of his short stories (Bartleby, the Scrivener). It was an interesting piece that was almost proto-modern in its style and the depiction of the title character.

So long for now Hermy. But life twists and turns, so maybe I will return to you someday and finish what I started.

Hawt Car

On a recent business trip, I was able to enjoy a very nice ride! I've never gone 115 miles per hour in a car before, so this was definitely a first. I could feel the engine working, as well as the pick up during acceleration. I now understand why people in these little zoom-zoom cars go flying by so fast. What a thrill!

I only wish that I had brought my ipod hookup so I could have listened to some out of control techno. That would have been nirvana! Or some of that death metal I was writing about before. Pretty yellow car and Celtic Frost. Sounds like a great combo to me!

The business trip was a big success, so everything worked out well all around.

Kensho and Satori

Kensho and satori are two concepts relating to enlightenment, which is one of the most intense experiences one has when practicing Zen. (The Japanese symbol for satori is included in this post). I sometimes use the two words to mean the same thing, but I think they really are somewhat different. Kensho is more about having a glimpse of your true self, while satori is a more permanent realization. Sometimes I think a kensho experience can also be satori, but not all kensho would rise to that level. It's pretty personal stuff, and can probably seem a bit simplistic to the non-practitioner.

I have had one experience during zazen that I would absolutely claim was full satori or enlightenment. In this experience, I was sitting in zazen during the spring. I had my study window open, it was early evening on a clear day, the sun was setting, and there was a fresh, gentle breeze blowing into the room. I had a candle lit on the small table I have before me when I'm seated for zazen.

I got into samadhi and was sitting in a very peaceful state, where I was not really thinking about anything. In samadhi, you just have a very acute sense of your existence at that particular moment and you aren't planning, thinking, evaluating, or using your mind in any way. As I sat, I watched the light on the table slowly lessen and the candle slowly become the only illumination on the table. I could actually watch as the light ebbed while the sun was setting, and I felt the wind gently coming in and it was if I could sense every place it blew against me. I was incredibly relaxed and happy and alert, but I was not thinking about anything. This lasted for quite a while (not exactly sure how long, but I think it must have been thirty minutes or so).

As I was coming out of samadhi, I looked up and out the window and realized that the reason the light had been ebbing was not the sunset. Dark blue-black storm clouds had silently rolled in without my realizing it. And now the candle that I had lit was glowing in the study, which was by now very dim, and the trees outside were tossing in the wind. It was clear quite a storm was brewing, but the sound of the wind in the leaves had not alerted me that this was a storm coming as opposed to the wind maybe picking up a little.

Needless to say I was completely surprised at what a transformation had occurred outside! Yet, despite all that bluster outside (it really started getting windy at this point and the thunder started rumbling ominous and low), my candle was flickering peacefully and safe. I realized that this was exactly what I was trying to achieve through Zen. The idea that me and this little candle of illumination were so calm and serene while the storm raged about outside was exactly what I sought in my everyday life: the ability to not be swept up in the world around me. The ability to be calm and centered and happy, even while everything around me became chaotic, even threatening.

This image or realization stuck with me and gave me something to think about when I felt myself getting carried away by drama or emotions or stuff that just doesn't matter (or maybe it did matter but there was no reason to allow myself to get worked up anyway). If it wasn't enlightenment, then it was as close as I have come so far. And I have certainly been much better at living life in a calmer state since then. Not that I don't still fly off the handle or get wrapped up in worries about stuff that is never even going to happen, but I have been much better able to master my mind and thoughts since this experience, which is why I think it rises to the level of satori.

Continuing to study Zen will hopefully help me enhance this control and mastery until I can exist entirely in that kind of mindspace where, no matter what is going on around me, I can maintain my sense of self. It probably all sounds very simplistic to another person (most Zen experiences do), but it was incredibly powerful for me - especially at that time in my life - and it really changed me as a person.

Up

Jim and I just watched Up this past weekend, and all I can say is...WOW! This is one of the only movies that made do all of three things: cry like a little girl, laugh like a little boy, and dazzle my adult intellect. This film marries an amazing level of creativity and whimsy to a deeply touching story of humanity. Well deserved nomination for the best picture of the year.

This is a great kids film, but it's also something that any adult can watch and enjoy. The amazing thing is that as silly and laugh out loud funny this movie is, it's core is about some extremely heavy subject matter: death, loss, regret, and the feeling that life has passed you by. If you watch the first 10-15 minutes of this movie and are not fighting back tears, then you are either a heartless block of ice or have never loved anyone or anything in your life.

And then there's the message of the film. Positive, but aware of the oftentimes cruelty of life. Yes, life is an adventure, but it's not the adventure we plan, expect, or even want. And it always demands that we reach out for people and for life itself. When a story is uplifting at the same time that it touches you in a very private way, you have something special. I was astonished how much I loved this movie, and the way it worked me up to an intense level of emotion one moment, only to find myself in the next moment staring at the screen in gape-mouthed awe at the fantastic imaginations that were spinning out of control before me, and then to be laughing in delight the next moment.

I've seen a bunch of Pixar movies, including Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles (all of which I loved). Some of the more recent flicks, however, left me a bit cold. Ratatouille bored me stiff and I shut it off before the halfway point. WALL-E was cute and creative, but kind of lackluster in a way. Up is the best Pixar film yet, and I can't recommend it enough. It makes you feel alive!

Back Into Zazen

Wow! Quite a while since I blogged. Work has been pretty awful lately; I can't wait for this economy to turn around. Although I imagine half of the people I work with will bail as soon as the job market picks up. To cope, over the past several weeks, I have gotten back into meditating on a more regular basis. It's been great! Helps me maintain my sanity in the middle of all the ridiculous crap going on.

I have begun working through Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate) in English. It's one of the key koan collections in Zen. It was written in 1228 by a Chinese Zen monk named Mumon Ekai. These koans are quite a bit more challenging than the ones I was working on before. The koans in Mumonkan are the real deal; some of them are just completely impenetrable. So I give myself as many sessions in zazen as I need before I move on to the next one. I really feel the need for a Zen master sometimes, but since that is not really an option I must continue as best I can on my own.

Something has been happening lately that I'm not sure about. I've found that I've been able to reach samadhi in ordinary life without even really trying to. It just sort of happens. I'm pretty sure it's a good thing, as it suggests I'm learning how to export some of what I'm experiencing in zazen to my everyday life. The bad thing is that it may be making it harder for me to reach samadhi when I'm actually in zazen. It's almost like zazen has become an artificial act. I'm convinced I just need to be more disciplined, but it's got to be a pretty commonplace conflict. It's a disconnect between the pure and clear experiences I have in samadhi and how I deal with 'normal life'.

For now, I'm just going with it and we'll see where it leads.

Lisa Lampanelli

The other night me and Jim went to see Lisa Lampanelli, the self-proclaimed 'Queen of Mean'! Her entire act is around insults and racist/homophobic/etc. comments. It sounds really negative, but it's amazing how refreshing it is to see these stereotypes played with by someone who clearly is just doing it to give her audience a bit of a jolt. There were a few jokes she made that, as I was laughing, part of me was thinking "No! You can't laugh at this! It's just wrong!"

Bottom line she was very funny, and everyone knew it as all in fun. I think part of the reason the audience enjoys it so much is because there are so very few truly taboo subjects any longer. Hate speech and racism are definitely one though, but it's something no one talks about. To have those kinds of jokes thrown in your face is funny but also kind of freeing. In a way, by laughing at it we're affirming that it is a joke. Don't know if that makes any sense, and I know I'm reading way more into her act that she intends to put there. She's really just a 21st Century Don Rickles.

We had a great night, and we love us our Lisa. Even though she doesn't like to touch the fags because then you can get the AIDS. (Her words, not mine!).

It's My Birthday!

At least it was the other day, and my team at work decorated my cube in a Willy Wonka theme. Chocolate kisses and lollipops everywhere. Here's two of the pictures they photoshopped with my face and hung around the office with different quotes from the movies. It was very sweet,and very funny!

Goals - 1 month review

I've revised my goals a little (added a few things). Revised list is below, with my paltry January efforts in red.

1) Athletics/Wellness
- Go to Hapikdo 12 times a month. - I went 6 times in January.
- Lift weights 8 times a month. - Lifted 4 times in January.
- Get a massage once a month.
- Try one of the following: kayaking, boating, archery, camping

2) Life Experiences - Saw Pierre Boulez conduct the CSO through Ravel's Le Tombeau De Couperin. Main floor seats!

3) Financial
- Create a budget
- Quarterly additions to investments - Researched energy technology stocks to get ideas for investing.

4) Non-work career (Exploring 'careers' other than the one I have) - I bought a few books on ceramics, both history and how to handle clay. I'd like to read up on ceramics with the idea of maybe taking a class. The local community college offers classes, but you have to take drawing too. Hmmmm.

5) Activism
- Write at least one letter for Amnesty International each month.

6) Art - Engage in a creative project once a month.

7) Zen - Meditate at least once a week

8) Reading - Always be working through at least one book. Read Moby Dick. Read 'No Exit' again, and am now reading Emma again (after seeing the all-new, and not so good, new version on Masterpiece Classics).

9) Writing - 7 blog entries in January.

Not a stellar beginning by any means, but it is a beginning!

Goals 2010

The pic is me at Chichen-Itza at the top of the pyramid. Thought it would be a good picture to use for a posting about goals. I've spent a little time trying to come up with goals for this year, something I haven't done since 2007 (I think). So far, here's where I'm at:

1) Athletics/Wellness

- Go to Hapikdo 12 times a month.

- Lift weights twice a week.

- Get a massage once a month.

2) Life Experiences - Do something fun/new/enriching once a month. So far....

- January: Saw Pierre Boulez conduct the CSO through Ravel's Le Tombeau De Couperin. Main floor seats!

- February: We'll be seeing Lisa Lampanelli live.

- March: TBD

- April: Virgin Islands

- May: TBD

- June: May go down to Austin to visit Paul

3) Financial - I'd like to have a more structure monthly budget that I keep and track.

4) Activism - Get back to writing at least one letter for Amnesty International each month.

5) Art - Take a ceramics course and see if I'm any good at it.

6) Zen - Get back into meditation on a regular basis. At least once a week?

7) Reading - Always be working through at least one book. I have also been reading more about world events, and I'd like to keep that up.

So that's it. For now. Rough list; not final. But a good start.

Herman Melville - Moby-Dick (1851)

It took me a while this time around, but I've finally finished Moby-Dick. This is my third time reading it, and I'm probably going to need a couple entries to deal with it.

Anyway, I am now six novels deep into my attempt to read all of Herman Melville's novels in the order they were written. The scourge of high school students everywhere, Moby-Dick is probably one of the most written about and discussed books in world literature (certainly US literature). It's certainly the novel upon which Melville's reputation largely rests. So let's start unpacking what I think about this monolith.

First things first. My issue with Moby-Dick has always been my uncertainty as to whether the thematic depth of the novel is truly the result of careful and ambitious craftsmanship on Melville's part, revealing his absolute genius; or is it that the book was never quite 'finished' and that this patchy product ends up opening a lot of tantalizing doors that ultimately lead nowhere and add up to nothing, creating a thematic hall of mirrors for the reader to painstakingly make sense of. I'm not saying the book has nothing to say or is devoid of a theme (I think it has a very clear theme). However, I believe there is a lot of 'junk' - for lack of a better word - Melville left lying around or included for no particularly good reason. These red herrings and dead-ends are, at minimum, annoying and, at worst, make you question whether the book - and Melville - really deserve the accolades they have received.

From Melville's statements at the time and his reactions to meeting Nathaniel Hawthorne, it's pretty clear he was trying to craft something deeper in Moby-Dick than he felt he had done in his two prior novels (Redburn and White-Jacket). Since his last overt attempt at something 'artistic' was a hideously pretentious mess (Mardi), no one should be blamed for approaching Moby-Dick with scepticism (regardless of the hype).

Moby-Dick starts off as Melville's most atmospheric work to date. The story of Ishmael, who seems very much like the main character in Redburn in terms of situation, seeks out a whaling ship and comes upon the Pequod. Everything about his arrival in town and what he does there is full of drear foreshadowing. Humor, as well as Melville's always bracing narratives about sailors and the sea, breaks up the mood at times, but you never get away from the sense that something mysterious and dark is lurking under the surface. There are paintings that vaguely display destruction at sea, eulogies for dead seamen, warnings from madmen, dark shadowy figures on the Pequod. The mood Melville weaves is a spellbinding additional layer to his traditional storytelling, and is so well done that you clearly feel you are in the presence of a great writer.

Part of this beginning includes the much discussed two-men-in-a-bed scene between Ishmael and Queequeg. While I'm the first to argue that Melville was at least bi, I think people make far too much of this scene. Sure it's homoerotic, but there are other passages in Melville's writing that far more convincingly suggest the direction of his sexuality and that he was trying to communicate under the radar to any reader who could pick up on gay code. Anyway, now that the elephant in the middle of that room is dealt with, let's move on. The main purpose of Queequeg, in my mind, is an extension of Melville's theme of civilization versus 'the natural man'. Since Queequeg is a non-character once the Pequod goes to sea, I think it's safe to say that's where he begins and ends. Again, this an example of Melville starting something and then going nowhere with it both in terms of characterization and theme. What was the point of developing Queequeg as a character in such detail only to completely ignore him for the remaining two-thirds to three-quarters of the book?

For all this, Moby-Dick initially moves pretty well. At the same time, you can pick up Melville's theme starting to take shape like an evil fog just at the edge of your field of vision. This heightens the dread to a sharp edge. However, about 24 chapters into Moby-Dick, the Pequod sails. At this point, Melville shifts tone, focus, drops his storyline, and even kicks his structure to the curb as he enters into dozens of chapters that may or may not have anything to do with anything.

He has several opinion pieces (e.g., C.24 'The Advocate'). Some of them are interesting, of course, but others (C.32 'Cetology') are excessive and stultifying drab. There's a few chapters introducing the remaining main characters: Starbuck, Daggoo, Stubb, Tashtego, Flask, and ultimately Ahab. But Melville only gets back to his story around C.36 ('The Quarter-Deck') with Ahab's ever famous speech of intent to hunt the White Whale because the whale took off his leg. It's clear Ahab hasn't got both oars in the water (like my nautical imagery?) but most of the crew goes along gleefully with his vendetta which is sealed with an almost demonic religious rite, of a consecration. It's a very powerful scene that deserves its hallowed place in literary history.

Then you kiss the story goodbye for the bulk of the book. There's loads of Melville's little vignettes of seafaring and his pompously penned airy-fairy musings on...whatever. Frustratingly, for the reader, some of these chapters contain little glimmers of symbolism, and you think "Okay he's got a point in here I guess." For example, at the end of C.35 ('The Mast-Head'), there is a dark warning to those who meditate too deeply on one idea, as it may lead to their destruction. This warning fits the tone of the early chapters and seems to build into the theme of seeking, which we know will take it's most complete shape in Ahab chasing his White Whale. But too often these passages lead nowhere. They do not connect to the thread of the story or theme in any way and, as a result, they strongly suggest Melville was either a very poor editor or was just not in control of his material (and possibly both).

It's not until nearly a hundred chapters go by (in the vicinity of C.119 'The Candles'), that the story comes back to the foreground and the dark majesty of the first 24 chapters is somewhat revived. The narrative flow is largely unbroken through what's left of the novel, but that means Moby-Dick contains an awfully large amount of dead space and poorly conceived passages to slog through. Even if I accept that this is a masterpiece with a amazingly complex theme, did Melville really require all those pages to convey what he wanted to say? Was there no way to integrate it into his story? As it stands, the structure of Moby-Dick amounts to 24 chapters of narrative, 100 chapters of various odds and ends, and the concluding chapters which complete the story begun in the first 24. Such a lack of integration is the sign of either a bad writer (which Melville really isn't) or a writer who just didn't take (or have) the time to polish his work.

Even when the narrative returns, I can't say that the writing measures up to Melville's start. And it isn't until the last page, that Ishmael returns as the narrator. I think we're supposed to assume he's the narrator throughout, but the voice of the character just isn't there, and we're really dealing with an omniscient third party narrator. There seems to be little point in this shift (although I'm sure a clever Melville groupie could concoct some brilliant intent behind it), and it kills the immediacy of the story.

Melville further errs by toying with playwriting devices. He introduces characters and settings at the beginning of several chapters, not in his text, but as bracketed comments you'd see in a screenplay. This reaches a head in C.40 ('Midnight, Forecastle'), which is completely laid out as a play, rather than as narrative. While this may have eased his ability to display the famed 'microcosm' of the Pequod's multi-racial/national crew, it would not have required much effort to get this across in narrative form. To me, this is two parts laziness and one part gimmick. Doesn't add up to brilliant writing at all.

In fact, I would have to say that this encapsulates my ultimate opinion about Moby-Dick. It's got some brilliant writing in it, and some tremendous themes (to those in another post), but it's terribly underwritten and contains too many ideas that Melville played with, didn't develop, and left half-baked in the novel. The result is a continual sense of being interrupted or having to suffer digressions or losing the thread of where Melville is going. As a writer, he's like a tour guide who is charged with taking you to see the Empire State Building, but who ends up taking you to seventeen uninteresting and wholly unrelated stops along the way. You start to wonder if you will ever get to the Empire State Building at all or whether the guide even knows where it is! In short, Moby-Dick is brilliant in places, but frightfully amateur in others (many others).

Some critics call this 'modern' and praise Melville as being ahead of his time stylistically. While I agree some modern writers intentionally create disjointed and convoluted prose to get their point across, the difference is that I find them to be in control of what they are doing and why. I do not get this from Melville at all; he just seems messy and unfocused. Maybe Melville was ahead of his time, but that doesn't excuse a lack of craft. Personally, I do not believe he was ahead of his time; I think he just didn't work hard enough honing Moby-Dick (despite the fact he apparently drove himself to drink over it). In many ways, after reading six of Melville's novels, my feeling is that he is a talented, but very lazy, writer. He's big on ideas, ambitious in vision, but he isn't up to the effort required to edit himself or hone his craft in order to create art out of his big ideas.

Melville's masterpiece received some good notices, but just as many poor ones. Few people in the reading public were interested one way or the other, and Melville was pretty much irrelevant and forgotten at this point in this career. Not counting, Billy Budd, which I have never yet read. Melville write three more novels after Moby-Dick and all of them were ignored and, when reviewed, ridiculed. I can relate to his public from the time as, despite my desire to read all his works, I have little interest in tackling these last three.

Maybe later in life I'll pick up where I left off.

Guitar Hero? (Not)

Last night we celebrated a late Christmas with our close friends. Larry and Kelly are married and they and Jim have known each other since high school. They have two kids: Miranda and Lia who Jim is godfather to and who refer to us as Uncle Jim and Uncle Pete. As usual, we had a great time. Also, as usual lately, our visits have been partly spent trying out all sorts of Wii games. I really enjoy the Wii!


This time is was Guitar Hero. I did pretty good on the drums (90% on my first go), was absolutely useless on the guitar, but it was my stint as lead singer that is destined to go down in lore as a viral video worthy moment of embarassment. First of all, I cannot sing. At all. I'm not being coy or modest. I have taken lessons, and I cannot do anything but hit one note that's always flat. I am the anti-Susan Boyle.


The song selected for my vocal debut was "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I'd heard the song once years ago, disliked it, and never thought about it again. The lyrics to the song are a little...odd. It starts off...

Pack up
I’m straight
Enough
Oh say, say, say
Oh say, say, say
Oh say, say, say
Oh say, say, say
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Ma-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-aps
Wait! They don’t love you like I love you......


I obviously just didn't get it...and I was stone cold sober (really). When I got the alert Kelly had posted a clip of my performance to Facebook, I have to admit I was pretty scared. I knew it was going to be bad. But would it be funny-bad or I-need-to-move-to-another-country-bad? I think it's very funny-bad, so I'm trying to post it for posterity. Kelly thinks it has viral potential.

Xmas Present From Work

In what is a nice gesture in these times of cut backs, everyone where I work was given a $100 amazon.com gift card for Christmas. From my earlier post, you know I love me my gift cards! I haven't spent the whole thing yet, but here's what I have purchased so far:

Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini. This sea adventure is a piece of romanticist literature in the tradition of Dumas and Sienkiewicz. Sabatini wrote a bunch of adventure stories, and I thought this would be a good place to start to see what he's got.

The Zen Teaching Of Bodhidharma, translated by Red Pine. You know I like this guy! See my zen entries to find out why. This book contains translations of the four 'sermons' attributed to him. It's a bilingual edition, which is kind of neat. Even if I can't read Chinese at all. (I know it must be hard to learn Chinese, but being a visual person I wonder if I'd had any easier of a time with it?).

Melville: His World and Work by Andrew Delbanco. Slowly, slowly, slowly I am coming to the end of Moby Dick. Can't believe how long it's taking me this time. Okay, I admit that I got distracted by Kathy Griffin's 'memoir', which Jim got me for Christmas. She makes me laugh, and I love her. So poor Hermie has to suffer yet another indignity...being placed on the backburner for a D-List comedian. Anyway, this is a biography and literary analysis of Melville and his work. Should be intriguing to read after plowing through six of Melville's novels this past year.

Beat to Quarters by C.S. Forester. I believe this is one of the more popular books of the Horatio Hornblower series. Another sea adventure. If I like it, maybe I'll snag some of the other books in the series. I had tried Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander a while back and found it a bit dry. Hard to find books that strike that golden balance of literary merit and the taut writing and pacing needed for a great adventure novel. Hopefully this one's a keeper.

The Transcendentalists by Barbara L. Packer. Analysis and history of the movement that spawned and influenced some of the greatest writers and thinkers in early American literature. Could be an interesting read.

Roadhouse Sun - Ryan Bingham. I do not like much country music, and I'm not sure Bingham is really country. I file him under 'roots' on my ipod, where I put denim and leather jacket music that is sung by guys who sound like they've lived an awful lot of life. Ryan's raspy voice is exactly how I'd like to sound if I could sing, and he writes great songs too. Loved his first album Mescalito, and I hope this one's just as good.

Great to kick of 2010 with lots of new stuff to explore!

Hot Tub In The Snow

There I am at the right (with a friend holding his cup strategically in front of my equipment) enjoying my first hot tub experience in the cold. To get to this little oasis of warmth, we had to go outside and strip down in the cold snowy outdoors.

I love a hot tub, but it's extra awesome to be in one when you are surrounded by freezing cold and ice. In fact, we kept our drinks cold by placing them on a ledge off to the right of this picture. The ledge was covered with a four inch layer of snow, and we just reached over and scrunched our drinks into the icy snow to keep them cold.

We were out there chatting and watching random bits of frost come floating down. I put my arm outside the tub and watched it steam like it was on fire. After being pruned to perfection, there was the daunting prospect of jumping out into the cold freezing air and getting dressed before darting back into the house to dry off.

In a way, I kind of liked that we had to do that. It reemphasized the warmth we had just been enjoying. Back inside was the poker game we'd come for and plenty of cookies. It doesn't get any better than that!

Fermi Has An 'Issue'

Our cat, Fermi, is usually maintenance free but he had an 'issue' that needed to be taken care of this morning involving a gland in a rather unpleasant place. I had to take him into the kitty ER to have him taken care of so he'd be our happy little bundle of chaos again.

Jim and I put him in his carrier (okay that's a lie, we had to shove him like a French royal going to the guillotine), and I drove him off to the vet. Naturally, he associates being driven anywhere with all sorts of bad stuff, so he was mewling all the way. I did manage to keep him pretty calm though.

Once I got there, I was waiting with the cat in his carrier. There were four other people in the waiting room. One had a dog. Since I know Fermi doesn't like dogs (actually, he doesn't like cats or people who don't feed him either), I had his carrier positioned so he couldn't really see the dog and the dog and the people couldn't see him.

After about ten minutes of waiting room silence, a long low sound like a hungry stomach squealing slithers out of the cat carrier like a sonic serpent. It grows into a groan with an evil vibrato and finishes as a low growl. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at me and the carrier. I smiled and said: "We're here for an exorcism." Everyone laughed and it generated a brief conversation. At the end of which, one of the men pointed at the carrier and said: "So what's in there?"

Congratulations Fermi! You sound like something really scary! Good news is that - at least on this vet trip - we were able to get Fermi out of the carrier for the vet to examine without any undue drama. During a prior visit, the combined efforts of Jim and the vet couldn't dislodge our little darling from inside the carrier. They had to unscrew the top to get him out!

Anyway, Fermi is all better now, although we have to give him oral antibiotics for a week or so (that's sure to be a treat!). I'm looking forward to once again falling asleep with our warm little purr engine lying across my legs very soon.

Seasons Greetings to All!

Good wishes from around the world!

Little Treasures

I haven't written many Christmas poems in my life, but here's one I wrote over twenty years ago to someone who was very dear to me during a Christmas that was a difficult transition time for us both and neither of us had much to offer each other in the way of 'Christmas loot'. It may be a little too Hallmark for some people, but I still like it (even now that I'm addicted to giving and getting sweet Christmas loot)......

Not golden rings on silver lace
nor angel feathers shining bright
nor snowflake diamonds
glittering like crystals in the night
will bring elation to the face.

Little treasures
shining little lights
find their way to the heart.
Only the small precious sights
outlast the gold
spent to make them play their part.

Heart-shaped candle.
Tiny golden music box.
They conjure up
and never fade away.
Call them into play.

Riches and jewels pale;
little treasures never fail.

Yellow Belt with Green Stripe

Found out today I passed my rank test and now I have a yellow belt with a green stripe! A couple of the red belts became black belts, and both of them seem to now take a more active role in teaching us junior belts. I'm really happy about that because they are the red belts I liked being paired up with most. They push me, makes lots of constructive comments, and are really into martial arts. It's very energizing to practice with them. I think that's going to make each class even better.

I was pretty tense during this test, and there was really no reason for it. I probably even impacted my performance a bit. Not that I didn't do well, but I can't have as sharp an edge if I'm all doubting and second guessing myself. It's very unlike me to be that way, so I had to mentally bitch slap myself. In tonight's class, I made a conscious effort to stay relaxed and loose and I felt like I did a lot better overall and certainly I enjoyed myself much more.

Anyway, at the rank test, the yellow/greens testing for a full green belt did some actual contact sparring. Nothing like UFC or anything, just kick contact and stuff. That looks like a lot of fun, but I'm going to need to be loose and focused to do that well. If I'm all tensed up, I'll be slow and easy to throw off my game. Also I haven't yet been called out as 'excellent' at my two rank tests. I'd like to have that happen. So I'm just going to make sure I work hard and stay happy!

But for now, I'm proud of myself!

Turkey!

Me, Jim, and bunch of my friends belong to a gay bowling league that hits the lanes once a month. It's a good time, you can meet new people, and blow off a little steam while hanging with friends and knocking back a few.

I'm not what anyone would consider a good bowler but, now that I have my own ball, I've seen a definite improvement in my game. In fact yesterday I bowled over 120 in all three games of the night. That's the first time I've ever done that! I also had the joy of bowling a turkey for the first time (that's three strikes in a row for you non-bowlers).

Our team (the Barracudas) won 5 out of 7 points, which we badly needed to stay out of the cellar now that we've moved to the mid-level division. If this continues, maybe it's time to get team T-shirts?

Christmas Party 2009

For the last seven years, Jim and I have hosted a Christmas bash at our house. There's a big spread, a real tree (I only had fake ones growing up), a grab bag exchange, and wonderfully spiked punch. One of these days, I've got to remember to get some mistletoe!

Anyway, we usualy get 20-25 people: straight and gay, married with kids and singles, old and young, adults and kids. Lots of different kinds of people, but everyone talks to everyone and it's very nice to have people we care about in our home like that. Here's a few pics from this years' bash. You can click them to see a bigger size.

The 'Real' Egypt (part 6 of 6)

Threads are bad enough. What about the knots?

Dr. Rifai took us to a dinner party at the house of a couple he knows. After dinner, everyone socialized. Though I’m not normally good at dinner party patter, I didn’t want to spend the night huddled with the other members of the tour group, most of whom were complaining about everything.

A student a little younger than I met my gaze and introduced himself. His name was Romani. He spoke perfect English. We spoke easily and, at length, he told me his ideas about the great future Egypt had in store for it. He mentioned the capital flight that plagued the country and added, “…it’s hard to attract foreign capital. You people in America think we don’t have electricity or that we all live like nomads.”

“I didn’t think that,” I was able to honestly say. “My uncle worked in Saudi Arabia for many years and my cousin told me things were modern.”

“That may be,” he replied not sounding very convinced, “but, in general, people in America have a lot of misconceptions about Egypt.”

Through some miracle I hit on a very good point, the kind you usually don’t think of until days after a conversation. “I’m sure your right,” I said, “but I think it’s natural to have misconceptions about a foreign country. I’m sure you have misconceptions about the United States.”

He waved his hand at me. “No, I know all about America.”

“Yeah, well tell me what you think about America.”

“In America, everything is very modern and people have everything they need…” he went on for a minute or two about the paradise of America. I felt an odd mixture of pride in the image of my country and amazement at how incomplete and generalized it was.

“You’re wrong,” I said.

“No, I’m not.”

“Do you know there are people in America who don’t have a home and sleep outside, even in the cities? And there are kids who don’t get enough food and who have to receive welfare from the government?”

If I’d sprouted a second head right in front of him, Romani couldn’t have looked more shocked. “Not in America!”

Another member of the tour group, who probably thought things were getting too animated, interrupted our conversation.

Later, our tour group walked back to the hotel and I thought about how odd it was Romani would have such a limited picture of America. What was even stranger was how strongly he held to that picture. Perhaps I really was right. Perhaps everyone has misconceptions about what foreign countries are like and, even worse, what the people who live there are like.

However, I also had to admit Romani was right to a certain extent. After all, when I’d told people back home I was planning to go to Egypt the first thing everyone said was: “Aren’t you worried about terrorists?” As if I were going to meet Yassir Arafat in Beirut! Nothing I said could sway those people from their belief that all of the Arab world was a series of car bombs and gun-toting extremists, and nothing I could say would convince Romani that America was not a perfect paradise for all who live there.

Being in Egypt is like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. My fellow students and I were the minority, instantly identifiable as outsiders by our pale skin and foreign language. We were a small petrie dish of America floating through this other world and displaying all our strength and weaknesses in startling relief.

I saw my lack of knowledge of other cultures. At the same time, I knew I was from a land where one could go a thousand miles without passing into another country or being immersed in any language or culture other than my own. I saw my relative wealth, but I also saw how I was defined by it. I was labeled with as tight a stereotype as any the students I traveled with cast upon the Egyptians. I saw things about myself which I have since tried to change, things I never would have seen without the lens of Egypt.

* * *

Just over ten years later. October 2001.

“Bomb all the sand niggers!” “Islam teaches violence and hatred.” “Those crazy Arabs are animals!”

And on and on. And from people I know have never been to Egypt or any land in the Mid East. They condemn two dozen or so countries and hundreds of millions of people with the carelessness I’d use to crumple a piece of paper.

I can honestly say I hate the people who perpetrated 9-11. I would have no moral problem shooting one of them dead. I can’t feel anything, one way or the other, about those people who celebrated the fall of the twin towers. They are reacting from a place I do not understand.

But I love Egypt and I respect the people I met and saw there. I sometimes wonder how they are and what their lives are like. I hate hearing them denigrated. I can’t explain this to anyone because a month in Egypt doesn’t make me an expert on the country or its people. I do speak up and sometimes people admit they’re being stupid. Many times they don’t. Most of the time, I don’t think they care one way or the other.

But mostly I just wonder about the dark waters that cannot be seen into.


The End

The 'Real' Egypt (part 5 of 6)

As with all tours, the days in Egypt passed at a grueling grind. A week went by without unpacking. We walked in the hot sun over ruins, slept in the bus, waited each morning for Moumoud who was never on time (nothing in Egypt is on time), haggled with street vendors, and were constantly on the go. I was alternately excited beyond belief and bored to tedium. So many of my notes from the trip are scrawled words, hastily written scraps in between events attempting to preserve the swirl of input.

One day we stopped at a store where they sold carpets. They were all hand made and had the unique look of the Mid East woven into their multi-colored, silken designs. In the showroom, there were several looms set up and children of about seven or eight years of age wove the carpets with nimble-fingered dexterity. The guide tells us tiny fingers are required for the detailed work.

“Great,” Ruth commented in a low voice, “shouldn’t these kids be in school?”

“They are very poor,” Dr. Rifai said. “They work half the day and go to school in the afternoon. They use the money they earn here to help support their families.”

I wondered if this were true or if Dr. Rifai’s national pride sought to sugarcoat the less splendid aspects of his homeland. At the same time, I felt I was somewhat naive. Outside this store people tended goats and lived in dirty houses that looked like a good wind could knock them down. These children were healthy-looking and were earning money in a clean, cool environment. Egypt was not America. Why did I constantly impose my own sense of right and wrong on everything? Is child labor so wrong when the alternative is poverty and ignorance due to lack of money? Didn’t I myself have a paper route at this age? Maybe Ruth and I had read too many Dickens novels.

It’s like one man said as we cruised down the Nile in a boat belching out thick, black smoke. “You want us to use something else to power our boats? What would you have us use? We do not have the technology you do in America. You Americans want us to protect the environment but how are we to build our country if we cannot do anything? You don’t think of these things.”

Egypt has rules that make sense based on the realities within its borders. Not only the realities of life forge this national fabric, but also the history, religion, culture, and a million other details. They come together just like the thousand silk threads these children weave into a tapestry. Within the final design, the individual threads are so enmeshed as to be undetectable by the passing shopper.

So many threads.

Threads of national pride. A woman at an economic summit listening to the Governor of her province speak about the business climate. I see pride and determination etched into her face. Some Americans talk about how our country has oppressed people. I can tell this women would spit in my face if I suggested to her she were oppressed by anyone. And what hubris to assign everyone not as economically well off as we to the class of “the oppressed.”

Threads of history. One student at the summit was called on to make a statement about Egypt and, not knowing what to say, stated how Egypt had once been the leader of the world in art, engineering, science…everything. And it could be that way again. The last part was quite idealistic, but the audience responded with cheering from a fiercely proud people.

Threads of religion. There was a man with one leg and no arms hopping in the median of a street and begging for alms to be placed in a tin cup around his neck. “Look!” Alf snickered, “an Egyptian kangaroo!” I’d given up being disgusted by this point but Ruth shot a pointed rebuke at Alf. “He’s a person,” she finished. “Show some compassion! He could be homeless!” Dr. Rifai interposed: “All good Muslims give a certain percentage of their income to charity. I wouldn’t be surprised if that man lives in a very nice house.”

Threads of culture. Young men hold hands in Egypt all over the place. It’s just the way it is. Such an open attitude to towards male comradeship is impossible in America. Then again, we don’t enslave our women in shrouds and stone homosexuals (at least not openly).

And the largest thread of all, the Nile herself. We took a falooka ride on it. Sailing in a zigzag pattern over the serene waters at twilight is one of the most peaceful memories I possess. The wind blew softly over us and the water whooshed against the edge of the falooka. The quiet peace of the river makes clear the many instances of Egyptian lateness. It’s easy to see how time would be of no object in a land with a river like this at its core.

And, what about the threads I can’t see? How much wisdom flashes before my blind eyes like hieroglyphs on the surface of a river?


End Part 5...I'll be posting a part a day for the next week.

The 'Real' Egypt (part 4 of 6)

“Don’t tip them!” Moumoud shouts at us as men approach leading the camels we’ll ride to the Pyramids.

“Camel ride!” the men shout. “Baksheesh!” Baksheesh is tips or alms. The men obviously want them.

I’m lost in foreign culture and ways. Is Moumoud being a jerk? Are these people poor? Their clothes are a bit dirty but perhaps that’s the natural way a robe and turban look when you work amid the sand all day. I want to tip them, but is a dollar too much? Is it offensively low? Will they think I pity them? I don’t want them to think that. Or are they hoping I’m a foolish American tourist who drops cash into every hand thrust out at me?

I slip away from the unknowable at the sight of the camels. Have you ever seen a movie in which camels walk before a sunset? It looks so graceful and serene, but that’s all Hollywood. These lumbering beasts are as capable of such fluid movements as they would be of breaking into an arabesque. The men pull at the ropes, almost dragging the stubborn animals behind them. It seems it would be easier for me to sit on the ground, have them tie the rope to my legs, and drag me.

The men race to us, yanking their camels after them. A man stops before me. “Come!” he invites and demands. I step forward, Alf behind me. We have to ride two per camel. I stare up at the ten-foot high animal. “How do I get on?” I ask with a laugh.

The man pulls at the rope and fires a volley of rough sounding Arabic at his camel which responds with a curled lip and a jerk of it’s head. The man yanks again. The camel emits a loud hacking sound, like the noise Linda Blair made when she barfed on her exorcist, and refuses to budge. Infuriated, the man somehow makes the same horrid sound back at the camel. The beast drops to its front two knees then drops the back two to rest on the ground. A ridiculous red and gold padded saddle that looks like a harem pillow presents itself to me.

I get on, and Alf follows suit. “Damn this thing smells!” he growls. Only then do I realize the scent should bother me. I just don’t care to let it. The camel rises up and I grab onto the saddle so as not to fall off. The man drags the camel, which seems bent on going in any direction except toward the Pyramids, after him. The whole thing seems mightily inefficient and could easily be an “I Love Lucy” skit, but I dismiss this thought. I’m riding a camel! How Egyptian!

At that moment I see an image that wipes out everything else in my mind. The Pyramids are before us and from behind one a silvery car emerges and drives away. The juxtaposition of those structures from thousands of years ago and the 20th century technology knocks me for a loop. This country has been around forever. Pyramids, cars, America. It’s all a blink in the eye to the history of Egypt.

I wonder about the man tugging the camel. What would he think of my idea that riding a camel is Egyptian? Is it a stereotype? Why does he drag me on this camel when cars are available? Is it pride in the history of his country? Is it a quick buck? It is demeaning? Is any of this Egyptian? What is it to be Egyptian?

The camel ride is over and we stand before the Pyramids. They’re as big and silent as Time. Yet the pyramids are an illusion of Egypt. In movies they are grand and imposing, and I started this paragraph with an impressive statement about their presence. It’s very true but, at the same time, unless you’re at some photogenic vantage point, the Pyramids are rather underwhelming in a certain sense. They are tall, but in the desert there are no trees or buildings to give real scale to them. Their magnificence is muted. When you look up the face of the Pyramid from its base, it’s a series of large rocks shrinking into the distance and the top of the Pyramid represents a rounded arc rather than a point.

Worst of all, it’s impossible to get a picture of them “up close.” They’re too big. You can choose to see a lot of detail of the dozen blocks right in front of you or you can stand far away and see the whole structure while the individual stones fade into one another.

I reach out and touch the stones as if they have magical properties. How many hands over the past several thousand years have rested in that exact spot? A worker pushing the stone as part of his duty to his king and god? A conquering Roman soldier? A shifty tomb raider of unknown origin? An explorer from Napoleon’s France? Who knows?

At that moment, I’m treated to one of the students on the tour asking our Egyptian guide what she thinks about theories that aliens built the Pyramids because the ancient Egyptians couldn’t have done it alone. I wanted to slide under the Pyramids in embarrassment.

“You see over there?” the guide said, clearly irritated, and pointed to what looked like a series of rocky hills not far from us.

“Yeah,” was the dull reply.

“Those are quarries. The rock was craved out and placed here. Ancient Egypt was an agrarian society and the land was flooded for several months every year. A huge portion of the population was out of work and their king was their god.” She turned away and answered other questions, apparently mastering her outrage.

I looked at the quarries and wondered what I would think of an Egyptian standing before the Declaration of Independence and asking if aliens had written it for us. My faux pax at the mosque was a simple mistake, but the question about aliens was different. And it wasn’t the first or the last incident of this type I’d witness. Why did my fellow Americans have to say such stupid things?


End Part 4...I'll be posting a part a day for the next week.

The 'Real' Egypt (part 3 of 6)

“Boom Boom! Bambali booloo booloo! Boom Boom! Bambali naga naga!”

Those aren’t Arabic words (I don’t think) but a phonetic description of the chorus to a song our bus driver, Sofwat, is singing along to on the radio. We’re going to drive around Cairo and then off to the Pyramids. Sofwat snaps both sets of fingers over his head at once and somehow manages to shift lanes on a major thoroughfare of Cairo. I laugh at his devil may care attitude; he makes Chicago cabbies seem like old lady drivers. In fact all traffic in Egypt makes America look tame. There are four lanes painted on the road, but there are at least six lanes of traffic. Buses, dump trucks, cars, donkey carts, lots of bicycles, and even a few scooters vie to shift lanes to reach their destinations. Directionals are optional.

Sofwat toots his horn and swerves into the next lane. “Where the hell do these people learn to drive?” mutters a student named Alf. His name’s not really Alf. Everyone on the tour calls him that because he sort of looks like the sitcom alien. I look back out the window, slightly bothered by his negativity. Although we’ve traveled a good distance, I haven’t seen a single accident or near accident. Despite the lack of order, everything moves and nobody crashes. For a moment, I wonder if it’s the rules that create the accidents back home. Or maybe, I’m so used to the rules that I never even thought traffic could be handled in a different way.

We get out, walk around, shop at Khan Khallili, and tour a papyrus art dealer’s establishment. All fantastic stuff, but the thing I remember most about this day is something rather unremarkable on the surface. Dr. Rifai announces his intention to pray at a nearby mosque and asks if anyone wants to go. Most of the students are tired and hungry and decline. I vote to go with Dr. Rifai, as I’m impatient to see “the real Egypt.” Another student named Jean also decides to go.

I’m disappointed that we end up only a block from the tour bus, but the smell of Cairo - a pungent mix of horses, sand, and garbage - is stronger here. Jean isn’t allowed into the mosque because she’s a woman and we don’t want to leave her alone, so I stay outside with her. We’re both disappointed, but sitting outside doesn’t turn out to be so bad. We enjoy taking a load off without being on the bus. We people watch. We get some odd stares; people probably wonder why two white people, obviously tourists, are sitting here.

Suddenly an old man wrapped in a ragged set of white and brown cloth storms up to us. He’s not fierce looking, other than the massive dirty turban wound over his head, but he’s clearly upset about something. He starts chewing us out in Arabic.

“I’m sorry,” I say with a wide-eyed look and a shrug, “I don’t understand.”

The man rolls his eyes and look about ready to burst a blood vessel. He rags on us even more loudly. He points to the sky. I look up but there’s nothing over us. I shake my head in confusion.

“I’m sorry I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I’d better get Dr. Rifai,” Jean says.

“You can’t go in there, and I don’t think we should split up.”

She agrees but the man is getting angrier than ever, jabbing his index finger up at the sky like he’s trying to poke a hole in the air. Some people stop to watch.

Thankfully, Dr. Rifai emerges from the mosque at that moment and rushes up to us. He has a few words with the old man. Jean and I do not exist anymore. Within a few moments, both are smiling but the old man glares at us before he grabs his rickety bike, points at the sky yet again, and wheels away like Elvira Gulch in a turban.

“What was that all about?” I ask in amazement.

Dr. Rifai waves his hand in disgust. “He’s devout and he didn’t like that you were sitting in front of a mosque with an unmarried woman.” Jean and I looked at one another and burst out laughing. The idea of being in a foreign country was suddenly concrete. I had given offense without having the slightest idea why. Sure, this man was the Islamic version of some nutty Christian sect like Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it was clear I lacked the ability to know whether what I said or did was rude or not. The common sense rules were different – and unknown.


End Part 3...I'll be posting a part a day for the next week.