One Earthly Thing

100 Years of...Smoke

2009-09-11T16:16:00.000-07:00

Now I know why Santa Monica hasn't hosted a fireworks show in more than a decade. Infernal ocean breeze!

Mineral King

2009-06-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

The Mineral King Valley was seriously dreary this weekend, but it's still a magical place. Just ask Walt Disney!

Yosemite

2009-05-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

Incongruous things I found on top of Half Dome: a snowfield; a swarm of breeding ladybugs (or, for accuracy hounds, ladybird beetles); a young boy (Me: "How old are you?!?" Boy (shrugging): "11." Me: "You're amazing!" Boy: "I was 8 the first time I came here."); chunks of cable (which, as you can see from the photo, need maintenance); a lighter; and, happily, not a cloud in the sky.

Monomania, In Praise Of

2009-04-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

There is a scene in "Into the Wild" where Emile Hirsch visits Salvation Mountain. That scene didn't stick with me, but a recent screening of "Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea" forced me to make a pilgrimage to Leonard Knight's mound of adobe and paint.

Farewell, George

2009-01-16T13:06:00.001-08:00

My virtual shoe (and friend) celebrate the end of George W. Bush!

In the Red

2008-09-28T23:13:00.001-07:00

On Friday, I traveled with 224 Californians to register voters in Las Vegas.

By the time our splinter group reached its first voter registration spot, a post office, it was 95 degrees. I was terribly nervous the first time I asked, "Excuse me, sir, are you registered to vote?" I got a shrug and a mumbled yes. At least he responded, I thought, which was encouraging. Before I could query a second patron, though, I got a tap on the shoulder. The tapper was a hairy post office employee who was very firm that we must leave the premises immediately. I was confused and irritated -- was it wrong to register voters in front of a public building that distributes voter registration forms? We decided it wasn't worth arguing, so we moved on to a Whole Foods parking lot. We agreed it was better to ditch the Obama paraphernalia, which would prevent getting the boot for electioneering.

Our companion, David from Long Beach, CA, was rabid -- he was determined to fill his quota of five registrants before lunch. So we parked and off he went. I got my first registrant almost immediately, a young black woman who was happy to chat and knew exactly who we supported. After her, registrations were hard to come by -- "I won't vote until the Electoral College is abolished," "I don't vote," "Don't speak English," "No!!!" etc.

I decided to split up and try my hand at a nearby strip mall. Panera was slow, Chipotle offered too many "Yes, I'm registered"s (and one "Yes, I'm a registered Republican!"), and Michael's booted me immediately. I was discouraged, but then I spotted a dream location across the 8-lane boulevard (in shade, no less!): a Coffee Bean next to, holiest of holies, a check cashing place. I high-tailed it over there.

Within 10 minutes I'd registered a caffeine-jonesing rocker with a birthday just south of mine. A couple of young girls followed, one of whom was ecstatic to register for the first time (giving me four total). I nearly eradicated those scores, however, by next registering a Republican woman (She was young! She was originally from San Francisco!). I didn't feel too bad, though, after David dropped by and reported he'd registered two Republicans. I wasn't sure whether he was serious or not when he said he didn't sign his name on their forms, meaning if those forms were somehow, oh, lost, there'd be no one to trace them to (and therefore no one to pin the $20,000 fine on).

After David sped off to a 99-cent store, I queried two musclebound black guys who emerged from the check cashing store. The bigger man immediately waved me off and disappeared around the corner. Ten seconds later he stuck his head around the building and asked, "I got a felony 10 years ago. Does that stop me from registering?" Our UNLV trainer had mentioned felons, but I didn't remember the protocol. I winged it and said no, they strip felonies from your record after 5 years (pulled wholly from my arse). It turns out felons who have had their "civil rights restored" are indeed able to vote in Nevada. My fuzziest feeling of the day came when he said, "They've taken away my rights for too long," and he guaranteed me he'd vote for Barack.

I encountered two more felons in the next hour, both of whom were not nearly as enthusiastic. Felon #1 said, "Sorry, boss, I got multiple felonies." Felon #2 was quite sure he couldn't register because he was arrested "yesterday." I conceded he probably couldn't vote, though I encouraged him to do so in the future. (I also witnessed a man emerge from his pimped-out car and hand a package to teenagers at a bus stop -- a felon-in-the-making?)

At the end of the day, our little group registered 18 people. Not a big number, but Nevada went red in 2004 by only 21,000 votes. 225 Californians x 18 = 4,050. Watch out, McCain.

Elitist Side Note: Casinos are the most depressing place on earth.

A Supposedly Fun Thing....

2008-09-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

David Foster Wallace killed himself last week.

Infinite Jest was the first time I heard of Mr. Wallace -- I was coming home from a hike in the Hollywood hills and saw a flyer announcing a "marathon reading" in honor of the novel's 10th anniversary. I decided to check it out. After all, I'd made it through Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses (barely), and a book that long, that footnoted, deserved my attention. I made it to page 40 and gave up.

Later on, after hearing an interview with Michael Silverblatt, I decided to give Mr. Wallace another shot (Brief Interviews with Hideous Men). Again, though, I had to stop. The writing was cutesy, turgid, ironic, indirect -- contradicting much of what I found touching in his interview, particularly his points about how young writers shouldn't be afraid to depict real emotion or to appear unhip (shudder!).

More time passed. After reading about Mr. Wallace's place in the Pantheon of Forty-something White Guys Who Have Written Brilliant Novels since 1990, I decided to go to bat one last time with his cruise ship travelogue, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again." Finally, I got it. In addition to being the funniest essay I've ever read, I had the sense I was in another world. Mr. Wallace navigated the ship like a benign ghost, returning each night to haunt blissful tourists, shoot skeet off the Lido deck, etc. It was such a clever, wonderful skewering that I wished the essay would go on for another 100 pages.

Of Kaua'i and Expletives

2008-09-03T23:02:00.001-07:00

In my wide-ranging survey (3 people) of which Hawaiian island people liked best, Kaua'i was the unanimous winner. I can now safely disagree. The Kalalau trail (waterfall a couple of miles in shown above), however, lives up to praise.

John Muir, Revisited

2008-08-24T23:05:00.000-07:00

In 2006, I thru-hiked the John Muir trail (JMT). I was long overdue for another visit.

Hiking buddy in tow, we braved 20-some miles of one-lane road to reach the Florence Lake access point. After being reminded why DEET is one of man's most underrated inventions, we joined the JMT at Muir Trail Ranch and began the uphill slog (nearly 3,000 feet of gain) to Sallie Keyes lakes.

Nearly every step of the JMT has a gorgeous view, but going uphill for hours with a ridiculously heavy backpack, with no shade, makes one focus on the destination. I thought I was hallucinating when I finally reached Sallie Keyes and saw a trout swimming with a plastic bag in its mouth. On closer inspection, the bag turned out to be another trout's severed head (which, I later found out, was dinner for a guy who was trying to fish his way through the entire trail).

The next day, we climbed to Selden pass. At the time I was reading The Power of Now, and I finally understood what it meant to be free of my "chattering mind" (at least for the time we spent admiring the ungodly beautiful view).

Cropping Crabbiness

2008-04-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

Resurgence magazine recently printed this photo, of a dwelling in Mondesa Township, Namibia, to accompany a "trilogue" on peak oil and sustainable development. It was an honor to have the image appear alongside the thoughts of Vandana Shiva, Richard Heinberg, and Wolfgang Sachs. Resurgence's photo editor chose to crop out the black strips (the window of the small van we were traveling in) in the final printed image. To my eye, the photo is much more balanced with them left in, fuzziness and all. The production editor agreed with me, but alas, the art department reigns supreme.

Amateur Film Critic (Circa 1999)

2008-04-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

A discussion I return to over and over with film-geek friends is the abundance of brilliant films released in 1999:

Magnolia (Unlike There Will be Blood, Magnolia produced a lot of disagreement. I'm not sure why, because it's far more nuanced, compelling, and re-watchable. For that matter, so is Boogie Nights.)
Fight Club (Well worth talking about.)
Election (Forget Sideways. Election is the essential Alexander Payne film.)
The Matrix (It hasn't lost an iota of repeat view-ability.)
Three Kings (For those exasperated by the slew of Iraq movies that will emerge the next 20 years, this film said it all before the first bomb dropped.)
Princess Mononoke (All of Miyazaki’s work is worth seeing, but this one is particularly charming.)
Run Lola Run (Thrilling, imaginative, and non-stop.)
American Beauty (I had issues when it was released—some of the characters are way hokey—but repeat viewings have affirmed its place in the 1999 pantheon. Little Children, released in 2006, actually out-did American Beauty and is a great companion film.)
Being John Malkovich (Another one I had trouble with on first viewing, but there's no denying the brilliance of Charlie Kaufman's script.)
Boys Don't Cry (Nails adolescent angst/the universal quest for acceptance.)
Existenz (An underrated David Cronenberg offering. Jude Law is great, and for Generation X folk and younger, it's a scary meditation on growing up with video games.)
Office Space (Flair, red staplers, TPS reports -- there's something gentle and infectious about all of the characters' job disgruntlement.)
Limbo (John Sayles is always reliable, even in his flawed films. Not the caliber of Lone Star, but the acting and pacing are perfect).
The Sixth Sense (Much like The Crying Game, the twist ending has become well known by even those who haven't seen the film. It's worth re-watching because the pacing, acting, and atmosphere are flawless.)
The Iron Giant (For fans of The Incredibles or Ratatouille, this conventionally animated film is sweeter and even more compelling than Brad Bird's Pixar films.)
The Hurricane (Kevin Spacey deserved the Oscar, but this is probably Denzel Washington's best acting performance.)
Twin Falls, Idaho (Odd little film that still resonates. It's a bit like an animated Diane Arbus photograph.)

Honorable Mentions:

The Blair Witch Project (The only film I have ever been shut out of twice because of a sell out. As one of the first shaky cam flicks it can grate, but the last 25 or so minutes is truly unnerving, and the end, much like Limbo's, is perfect.)
Felicia's Journey (Not nearly the quality of director Atom Egoyan's 1997 film, The Sweet Hereafter, but it's worth seeing simply for Bob Hoskins' look of rage that comes about 3/4 of the way in.)
Eyes Wide Shut (Far better than the critical drubbing it took when released. There are some truly wonderful images, and the slow pacing is a great big middle finger to MTV-type cutting.)

The Reluctant Castle-goer

2008-04-04T23:11:00.001-07:00

The little town of San Simeon is the launchpad for visiting William Randolph Hearst's monolith of self-indulgence, Hearst Castle. Hearst's family donated the castle to California in 1957, and it's since become an incredibly popular destination for both history-starved Americans and Europeans eager for a laugh.

San Simeon is a depressing strip of motels and restaurants masquerading as a town. We stayed at a trying-way-too-hard "spa" for the night, with a plan to have breakfast in Cambria (a nearby city), visit the area's elephant seal population, and hit the castle at 12:00 P.M. Cambria has a quirky, artsy vibe, much like New Hope, PA, or Julian, CA, and hosts more than enough cool little shops, galleries, and restaurants to fill a day. Our meals were far above average, and I discovered a small gallery showing some of Arthur Tress' photos, whose work I instantly fell in love with.

The elephant seal colony is about 10 miles north of Cambria. Docents warned us that a lot of pups were caught in storms the previous week, and many had died because their swimming skills weren't up to snuff. (This explained the crowd holding their shirts to their faces and gagging as they ran to their cars.) I counted at least 20 corpses, in fact, and the smell was overwhelming. A little exploration upwind, however, led to an isolated beach with an enormous bull, a slew of juicy fights between females, and some great opportunities to shoot landscapes with seals in the foreground.

The castle itself totally defied my expectations (i.e., it wasn't tacky). The exterior has a vaguely Mormon church aesthetic, but the landscaping and most of the sculpture—as well as the amazing swimming pool—are downright tasteful. The main room of the castle, where actors, politicians, and a menagerie of powerbrokers hung out, is an enormous rectangular hall. Countless antique furniture, sculptures, and tapestries from Asia and Europe fill the room. I wouldn't know feng shui if I tripped over it, but symmetry, in both art and home (or castle, in this case), appeals to me. I lingered behind the group just to marvel at the way the dining hall, main room, and "games" room were so logically connected and how their utility, for the most part, wasn't affected by the endless opulence.

Swim or Die

2008-03-27T00:47:00.000-07:00

Number one activity I will not repeat in 2008: the Alcatraz Challenge. Following is a recounting of my experience as a competitor in the 2007 race.

The pre-dawn drive to the registration area was mellow, as Cyndia’s brother lived close to the Presidio. I felt good—I’d done a lot of running, and I could comfortably swim for two hours in a pool. Moreover, on the shuttle to Fisherman’s Wharf I sat next to a housewife who had completed two Alcatraz swims without a wetsuit. I, too, was determined to escape The Rock as a “naked” swimmer, despite the 55-degree water. (I later found out only 10% of registrants made the crossing without a wetsuit.)

Even during summer, San Francisco is foggy and overcast. Race morning was no exception, so instead of trying to catch views or take pictures as the ferry churned toward Alcatraz, I concentrated on warming my palms in my armpits. Luckily, in no time a crackly loudspeaker clicked on and offered, “Are you ready?!?” The elite swimmers—clear from their perfect hair, musculature, and trim wetsuits—barely cracked a smile.

People jumped off a gangplank, a whoop sometimes preceding the “Go!” of the race organizers. Once I reached the gangplank, I knew I was in for trouble. There were waves. Not tiny, playful waves, but big, churning, irregular swells with whitecaps and angry-looking striations. I noticed people were barely swimming as they jumped in—they were just being swept away from the boat toward the Golden Gate bridge. (It passed through my mind that some swimmers are swept so far that they nearly pass under the bridge before being rescued.)

I lined up with two other wetsuit swimmers, took a deep breath, and jumped. The water was freezing, of course, but more frightening was going so far beneath its dark surface. When I bobbed out of the spume, my goggles were somewhere on my head, but I wasn’t sure where. I fumbled to get them in place and move forward as the swells knocked me around.

I swallowed water once (fine), twice (uncomfortable), and had to start treading water after the third gulp—I’d been in the water about, oh, 2 minutes. I immediately set aside expectations of getting a decent time and told myself, just make it to shore. Ten minutes later I flopped on my back to see how far I’d gone, and that’s when I started to get scared. I’d gone nowhere. Alcatraz was a huge, looming pyramid rising from the gray water, and the ferry was crawling away, having dumped its last swimmers.

My goggles were pushed off again, I sucked down more fetid water, and I couldn’t make headway in the swells. No mention of rescue boats or kayaks was made during the pre-race speech (that I remembered), but I spotted a kayak nearby. I waved as un-frantically as possible; he frowned and gave me a come hither hand motion. I grabbed the line on his bow and said, “I don’t think I can make it.” He said, “Can you swim to that boat?” and pointed toward a small craft about 200 feet away, which was—thank God—plucking other swimmers from the water. I nodded, but had to catch my breath.

Then I heard it, a crotchety, older man’s voice: “What? Who do you think you are? I want you to get on the boat. I don’t care! Get on the boat! GET ON THE BOAT! NOW!!!” Another voice, a woman, replied calmly, “Why? No….no. Look, I came all the way from Texas for this race. I’m fine.” This enraged the boat captain. I couldn’t hear everything, but he started being flat-out abusive, shouting and gesturing wildly for her to get on the boat. She held her ground.

A tap on the head by the kayaker jarred me back to my own miserable situation. I took inventory: no more coughing, the swells seemed more uniform, and now that the pack was long gone, I could actually see the line I should follow (from their froth). In an instant, I decided to go on.

Somehow, I made it to Crissy beach. After I got back to Los Angeles, I received a note from Gary, the race organizer, saying someone had died during the crossing. Not just someone, but a middle-aged woman from Texas. I was stunned, and quickly shot off a note describing what I overheard. He wrote back that it didn’t sound like her, that’s not how she would behave, etc., but I still can’t shake the feeling that I witnessed the verbal beat-down of a woman, later identified as Sally Lowes, who died in the icy water just behind me.

The 2008 event has wisely dropped the “Swim or Die” motto from its t-shirts, and Ms. Lowe’s race number has been retired.

Solitude in Spades

2008-03-20T21:45:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has traveled on a flight over the Pacific knows what a "few bumps" means when the pilot clicks on (i.e., mortal terror). Turbulence over the South Pacific was especially awful on my latest visit to French Polynesia, but the trip was well worth 8 hours of whoop-de-doos.

Having already experienced Moorea and Bora Bora, I wanted to explore further afield. Rangiroa was first choice, but like much of the Society islands, reviewer consensus was that both underwater and its Polynesian vibe have been spoiled by decades of heavy tourism. Fakarava then became the default winner, and tickets and a camp site were booked in short order.

For would-be visitors, some observations:

There is no bank on Fakarava. You must get whatever cash is needed to pay your host or restaurants prior to leaving Papeete.
The ocean-facing side of the atoll endures high wind and surf. Few people walk its beaches, which are covered with several inches of coral nubbins and flawless shells—I easily filled several mornings with beachcombing.
Lagoon snorkeling is best along the road nearest the airport. Just park your bike behind a noni tree, put on some booties (the shoreline is quite rocky), and jump in. The hard corals and large marine animals (rays, black tip sharks, moray eels, etc.) Tahiti is famous for are everywhere.
Signs are entirely optional on Fakarava. Boutiques and "snacks" that do have signs are uniformly closed during the hours of 1:00 to 2:30 P.M. and often do not honor their listed hours. Therefore, it’s best to ask your host a lot of questions before bicycling halfway around the atoll, only to be met with a Fermé sign!
Talk to the locals. The islanders were friendly and helpful, as tourists still arrive only in trickles (vs. the mammoth cruise ships and cattle-like flights the Society islands suffer from).
For divers and ocean junkies, the north (Garuae) and south (Tumakohua) passes are must-sees. Tumakohua pass takes a full day to visit and has some interesting history, including the coral shell of a church built in 1862. Another must do: grab a bike and head north for the airport, and continue past on the dirt road that parallels the lagoon. At kilometer 9, there is a spur that leads to a secluded beach—you will not find a more picturesque spot in all of French Polynesia.
Biking on the atoll is a joy, which will surprise anyone who has spent time dodging traffic on the busy roads of Bora Bora, Tahiti, or Moorea. You can bike the atoll's 18 km road in one morning. (The main road was paved in 2003 for a visit by Jacques Chirac, who never showed up).
Camping will save you a bundle. Even lower-end pensions are pricey, and they too have cold showers and lagoon access is available virtually everywhere.

Hollywoodland

2008-02-27T00:35:00.000-08:00

Upon moving to Los Angeles, I went on a tourism binge. I got the well-known spots quickly out of the way: Griffith Observatory, the Malibu beaches, the Getty Center, the Bonaventure, etc. The last icon of the city I ticked off was the Hollywood sign.

Getting to the sign takes some doing. The hike isn't particularly long or strenuous, but the route is a confusing maze of fire road and horse trails. My friend and I assumed the hike would end at the sign (i.e., we'd get a good, close look), but that is far from the case, as the trail dead-ends at a gate protecting a nest of nondescript communication towers. The Hollywood sign itself is on the mountainside several hundred feet below the towers.

It was clear we should not have hopped the tall fence protecting the sign; we should not have made our way down the same trail thousands of drunk college students stumble down on dares; and we most certainly should not have climbed the ladder and peered through the "O" to get a better view of downtown Los Angeles. We did all of these things, of course.

As I later read, the Hollywood sign has more surveillance on it than Fort Knox. Quite a few people question whether this is in fact the case, but I can attest it's true. We were able to explore the sign for almost 15 minutes (perhaps because it was Sunday and close to dusk), but our exploration was quickly interrupted by a raspy loudpspeaker that identified my backpack and my friend's t-shirt. I don't remember the exact verbiage, but the voice said something like, "To avoid arrest, leave immediately." Not a minute later we were buzzed by a helicopter, which hovered menacingly as we scrambled back over the fence and skedaddled down the mountain.

I half expected a police car at the end of the hike, waiting to whisk us away to wherever Hollywood sign violators are whisked to. Fortunately, we escaped down Beachwood Canyon sans handcuffs, and I got to keep my photos of a close encounter with the most famous creamy, corrugated metal in the world.

Halloween in the Bible Belt?

2008-02-23T22:39:00.000-08:00

I entered this photo in the World Press Photo annual contest. The talent level of the winners is frightening, but I was sad to not even receive a rejection e-letter. (The artful rejection letter has, alas, been slain by the Internet.) To this day, I have several old binders filled with dignified blow-offs from publishers, record labels, and coveted employers, all of which make for good reading on a rainy day.

The image. The 2007 Halloween parade of Roosevelt Elementary. The body-length placard worn by the little girl in the rear reads, in full, JESUS IS LORD. Location: Santa Monica, CA.

We Are Tonkinese, If You Please

2008-02-21T15:25:00.001-08:00

In 2002, when I decided to leave the comfy confines of Philadelphia for southern California, I made the difficult choice to leave my two cats, Iggy and Dot, behind. Thanks to the kind folks at the Morris Animal Refuge, Iggy quickly found a home, but I couldn't bear to find out whether his sister was put down or not.

Fast forward to 2008, after 5+ years of contented pet-free living (save one rowdy hamster):

Tess has been a dog lover since birth. Like most kids, she overlooks their smell, sound, behavior, and IQ. I've experienced several dog incidents, yes, the last of which was not one month ago, involving a random terrier nipping after I'd just run 20 miles, but even after that unprovoked attack, I try to be fair. (Most of my life, I've felt like the lead in E.S. Goldman's fantastic short story, "Dog People.") Cyndia made an overture to our homeowner's association to allow us to get a pug: small, quiet, cute, etc. It was stomped. Determined not to let a mopey 7-year-old go petless, she Googled "dog-like cats."

Up came Tonkinese, which also turns out to be one of the most hypoallergenic breeds (a plus for me). Three weeks later, after some e-mail wrangling with a San Diego breeder, we were the proud owners of Fizzle, a blue mink. Fizzle quickly justified her hefty pricetag—she genuinely fetches, she rides on your shoulder, she's unfazed by a dog-person-at-heart 7-year-old, she's neurosis free, and she's beautiful to boot. (She also went into heat before 4 months of age, but that's another story.) We quickly placed another order, and her half-brother, Nando, arrived less than a month later.

Despite our experience (to be utterly contradictory), I still believe a shelter animal is the way to go: you save a life and you often get a loving, healthy pet. However, I'm not sure I would be purchasing this, were Fizzle and Nando mutts.

Van Halen IV

2008-02-19T23:06:00.000-08:00

Mr. David Lee Roth returned to Van Halen in 2007. When I heard the reunion news I thought back to 10th grade, when my sole purpose was to convince every classmate of the genius of Bloom County. Binkley noted, quite naively I think (not having the prescience to look ahead to 2000), that the United States was “going to hell in a hand basket” ever since Roth left Van Halen. I was in firm agreement.

To this day, the pinch harmonics in “Jamie’s Cryin’,” the opening of “Panama,” or the main riff of “Mean Street” throw my body into Beavis-type convulsions. Look no further for evidence of Rolling Stone’s poseur-osity than placing Edward Van Halen at number 70(!) on its list of 100 greatest guitarists.

So how was the show? I saw two dates, one in Anaheim and one in Los Angeles. Roth was fantastic both times, I only sighed once or twice when I looked over and saw an overweight goth chick (i.e., Eddie’s son) in Michael Anthony’s place, and for a few seconds I even believed there was some of the old camaraderie between Eddie and his lead singer. (In 2004, when Sammy Hagar did his last stint with the band, I saw the show from the first row and got a fist bump from Edward, which nearly sent me into Beatles teenage girl hysterics. Eddie, however, was so detached he nearly forgot to do the obligatory end-of-show bow with his bandmates.)

There were many things to dislike: the balding, completely sloshed bonehead two seats over; the L.A. club girls who diddled their Blackberries pretty much the whole set; the lumberjack-ish dude who bowed down to snort something over and over; the fact that Edward was clearly blotto during the Anaheim show; the inclusion of “Romeo Delight” vs. “Take Your Whiskey Home.” Midlife being nigh, you might think I regret the multiple Benjamins I doled out for decent seats. Not a chance. Everyone needs at least one Teflon musical act in their closet, and the mighty VH remains mine.

26.2 x 2

2008-02-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

Marathon #2 complete (February 3). Some highlights: the kids in the park, high-fiving everyone even during a horrendous downpour. At mile 8, emerging from the park to the only real hill on the course, and having driving rain lash my face all the way to the top. The U-turn at mile 25 that I really wanted to cut. I never had the chance to get that satisfying, inch-thick layer of salty sweat on my face—the rain washed it off—but my knees kindly didn’t burn up. Whether that was because of the rain/chill I don’t know, but it was a vastly different experience than running the L.A. marathon in 2004, which was in nearly 90-degree weather. For my next marathon, I deserve perfect conditions!

Things That Might Kill You

2008-02-11T22:44:00.000-08:00

I helped develop and manage the content for The Complete Manual of Things That Might Kill You, a fetish book for hypochondriacs.

I spent 10 years working on oncology, dermatology, orthopedics, and neurology books, and I thought being involved would dispel some of the self-loathing caused by working in medical publishing for so long. Boy, was I wrong. The book turned out great, and the publisher was a joy to work with, but I found myself so crabby near the end that I essentially pulled myself from the project (karma fears, etc.). The last straw was when I found myself writing a sidebar on the top 10 most painful ways to die. My mother had perished from cancer only a few years before and detailing the effects of bone cancer nearly made me wretch. I’m happy the book made it to publication, but I still fear Marburg hemorrhagic fever will one day take its revenge on me.

Marmot babies!

2008-02-08T09:56:00.001-08:00

Proud momma with her offspring in the Mineral King Valley (Sequoia National Park). Tess assured the mother marmot we meant no harm by mimicking her high-pitched yelps.

Africa, Part I: The Animals

2008-02-08T02:14:00.001-08:00

I saw four-fifths of the “Big Five” (de vijf gevaarlijkste diersoorten in Afrika to my Dutch traveling companions). The closest it got to Animal Planet was the belligerent tooting and posturing of elephants as they bullied the other animals (and each other) away from a water hole in Etosha National Park. There was nothing even remotely like this, which is maybe the most interesting 7 minutes of African animal behavior ever photographed. (Yes, it’s shaky and poorly shot, but it’s clear what’s going on.)

Africa, Part II: The Townships

2008-02-08T01:14:00.001-08:00

I visited two townships (i.e., non-white slums), one in Swakopmund, Namibia, and the other in Cape Town. These “tours” were the best part of my visit to Africa.

In Namibia, children emerged from every alley with sticks, ragged dolls, and filthy clothing. One small boy, brandishing a bit of PVC pipe, pointed it at me, rifle-like, one too many times, and another boy, when he pushed up to see the shots I had taken, whispered menacingly in my ear in his native tongue. But for the most part, the flood of children offered nothing more than curiosity and smiles, and they asked for nothing.

In South Africa we visited Langa, the oldest and one of the most vibrant townships. The government has erected walls along the highway and provided small houses for some lucky families. These houses are visible to traffic, giving the appearance of relative prosperity if you drive by. Two streets back, however, you get into tin-roof shantytowns, with containers used as storefronts, endless corner bars, laundry lines practically strung across the streets, and converted apartment buildings. As in Namibia, most people offered smiles, the children were active, fit, and friendly, and I never felt a sense of menace like I would have in virtually any American inner city. At one point, we came upon a full block of sawhorses facing the street, where women were butchering cattle, goats, and various other animals.

JMT Snippets

2007-11-17T23:18:00.000-08:00

South Carolina and...Namibia?

2007-11-17T23:08:00.000-08:00

Much to the chagrin of my Dutch traveling companions, I found multiple opportunities to compare Africa to the United States. Apparently, Americans endlessly compare other places to the U.S. and I made the faux pas of doing this several times. Seriously, though: how weirdly similar are the two landscapes above, from coastal South Carolina and Dead Vlei, Namibia?