Poet Of The Wastes

Gazette Article

2011-04-22T09:52:00.000-04:00

I just got a write up in the Harvard Gazette, have a look. Spring is in full flux on the grounds, the cherries and magnolias are in bloom. Lilacs soon to come.

Nary A Rich Gadget, Yet A Love

2011-03-22T10:08:00.001-04:00

Just as I was trying to decide what direction to take in the next chapter of this blog...

The trash spoke in that unmistakable voice of intrigue, mystery and stinky grit. I seem to have stumbled upon a clue to a scavenger hunt of some kind (pictured below).

I was picking trash around one particular wrought-iron gate when I noticed this slip of paper in a zip lock bag, rubber banded inconspicuously around a lower bar. I assume this message was intended for a particular person so after making a digital scan I tied it back to the gate whence it came.

So dear readers - here begins the first ever Poet of the Wastes trash puzzle! Whoever figures out the four names that lead to the next clue will receive a POTW t-shirt (also known as my tour shirt, in brown or light grey with the same logo as my blog.) If we never actually figure out how to find the next clue (since it seems to claim to lead to a person - who's name might ring a bell with the intended recipient but not to you or me), I'll send a shirt to the first person to have responded with a 4 name guess.

Enjoy.

Guess Who's Back?

2011-02-17T15:53:00.000-05:00

I'll give you a hint: it's me. My year of traveling is over. Yesterday I rolled back in to Boston and today was my first day at work. I walked into my crew office and received a hero's welcome. It's good to be back.

My brain is filled with memories of wonderful people and beautiful new places. I loved being a citizen of the world for a year. Now if anybody has any leads on a great apartment...

A Victory In Egypt

2011-02-11T19:08:00.002-05:00

Today the Egyptian people demonstrated what is possible if we stand together against injustice. Tunisians and Yemenis have won equally impressive battles. May we all gain strength and and be emboldened by their efforts. There is much more to do, but every victory is worth celebrating for as long as we can remember to celebrate.

My good buddy Sandman once toured with an Arab-American songwriter and activist named Stephen Said. His first album is released under the name "Stephen Smith" because the label said he "could never have a career in the U.S. with an Arabic name" - until he showed them how wrong they were. He has recently recorded classic Egyptian civil rights anthem "Aheb Aisht Al Huriyah," (I Love the Life of Freedom) with words from Egyptian poet-laureate Ahmed Shawki, first put to music in the 1930's by great Egyptian composer Mohamed Abdel Wahab. Here it is, enjoy.

To download the mp3, right click here and select "download linked file".

Coming Home

2011-02-07T21:41:00.000-05:00

Let's see - a few updates:

Sad to say, my Iranian passport didn't come in time and I was not able to visit my family there. The up side is that it will come soon and I'll be able to make the trip some time in the (hopefully) near future.

My year long leave of absence has just about come to an end! When I return to work next wednesday I will have been gone for exactly 365 days. Whoooeee, what a ride. Thanks to everyone who made this year incredible - I am changed forever.

As for this blog - it started out as a journal of trash and work. Then it became a travel log...and I haven't decided what it will be next. Stay tuned, dear readers.

Film Ratings

2011-02-07T21:24:00.013-05:00

People are often asking me for movie recommendations - I decided to make a list. I'll update it as I see new movies (which is often), check back if you like. If you're looking for a particular film you can find it using the "search" feature on your browser.

Poet of the Cut and Paste

2010-12-05T12:35:00.001-05:00

I've always enjoyed how the folks at Google change their logo sometimes to keep us interested and informed in the events of the day. Late one night I got to messing around with my own logo. Here are some of my creations, I may switch them in when the mood strikes. You may have noticed that the heart in the guitar has changed to a pick, above.

One year older

2010-11-24T16:41:00.001-05:00

Sunday was my birthday, I am now 33 years old. The celebration included a home cooked persian dinner (made by Dariush Samimi, my father), a trip to see Harry Potter with Amanda (they finally got it right in #7, in case you were wondering) and making a batch of salted pumpkin caramels with my buddy Maria.

Someone reminded me of a birthday message Sandman sent me years ago, maybe the nicest I ever got. It went like this:

Day 1:

Nima Samimi reminds me of what a male human being would be like. I've never met one, but I've read books on the subject, and he fits the model. My planet has much to learn about this species.

Some may try to probe him, but he may not acquiesce to their wishes. Perhaps we should just take unobtrusive notes for a while.

Shazbot,

-Dr. Yrep Pi Ls

(Don't get the joke hidden in the signature? Read it backwards. It represents on of his many alter-ego's.)

Thanks to all of you who sent kind birthday wishes, they brightened up my week.

Road Trip

2010-11-16T13:14:00.002-05:00

My odometer tells me I’ve driven in the ballpark of 15 thousands miles since February. I used to get irritable and sleepy after a three-hour drive but at this point I can put in a solid 7 hours with no trouble. I’ve compiled this list of driving tips in case you also want to fortify your road trip stamina.

1. Eat well. Sugar, excessive fat and processed foods (i.e. everything they sell at rest stops) are guaranteed to give you a brief high followed by hours of fatigue and discomfort (and possibly the runs). You’re better off pulling off at any small town and eating at a non-chain restaurant. It’s rarely more expensive and always involves things very closely related to meats, vegetables and carbohydrates. Fruit is ideal car food – I find oranges are the hardest to eat but offer an ideal water/sugar/fiber ratio for staying in the driving zone. And no candy. Sorry.
2. Where to go for the cheapest gas: avoid gas stations just outside cities, these are usually wealthy suburbs. Poorer city neighborhoods usually have the cheapest city gas. Once you’ve driven a good 45 min outside a city gas gets cheaper but always takes a jump in price just before and just after any sign saying something like “next gas 50 miles” – avoid those. Small towns with one gas station can be pricey because they don’t have much competition. Look for small towns, close to other small towns that have multiple gas stations. One of them will often be a full 15 cents cheaper than everything else. Might as well let good ol’ capitalism save you some money.
3. Stretch your back, arms and legs every ½ hour in the car. Stop at least every 2 hours and spend at least 60 seconds stretching.
4. Yawn when you aren’t tired. When you’re tired yawning is a sign that you need to pull over and rest; when you aren’t tired yawning helps release physical tension and makes your ride more comfortable.
5. Drink enough water that your pee isn’t yellow but not so much that you need to stop more than once every two hours. A pee break doesn’t need to take longer than 5 minutes, just go in, do your thing, stretch for a minute and get back on the road. Rest stops are designed to waste your time: resist. Spend your time and money having one relaxed stop for a meal in a town. Never spend more than an hour holding a full bladder. It will tire you out and irritate you way more than it’s worth.
6. Entertain yourself. Music, podcasts, books on tape (et al) are the long distance driver’s dependable friend. This is also a perfect time to reflect on your creative projects. The road keeps the restless and worrying part of your mind busy and allows your creative brain hours on end to relaxedly imagine fantastic new things. I record my many incredibly awesome ideas on the voice recorder of my cheapo cell phone while I drive. Before you know it you could be in Memphis or Spearfish South Dakota.
7. In an ideal world, get some play/excersize once during a driving day – could be before or during (not after. Too late). That element of play and physical exertion is the opposite of staring at a road for 7 hours and the lightness of it will stay with you. I keep a basketball with me and 20 minutes of shooting around earns me hours of happiness. I had an especially fun time playing at a middle school ball court in west Texas under the beating sun. Other possibilities: run around, throw a football, cartwheels on rest stop grass, brief walk at a scenic rest stop.

Happy trails, fellow traveler. Send me a postcard.

(Touring with Chris on the West Texas Border Last April)

Flip-cam Hitchhiking

2010-11-09T21:35:00.000-05:00

A brief movie of my various hitchhiking, bussing and taxiing trips in Mexico and Guatemala. Recorded on a flip ultra hd camera.

Buffalo

2010-10-31T00:27:00.000-04:00

You know how every time you go back to places you knew as a child, they're never the way you remember them? They're smaller or newer or they smell funny? They sort of don't exist anymore? Somehow Buffalo is exactly the same as I left it every time I visit. I love it.

I'm here visiting my earliest childhood friends, the Baraie's. Tomorrow, off to my father's house in Seneca Falls, NY.

Here are some beautiful everyday things from Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.

Fortune Cookie

2010-10-19T14:25:00.002-04:00

My fortune cookie today said an important package was going to come in the mail. I really hope it's an iranian passport.

I'm working on new and half-written songs today here in Dallas. Uncle Craig has been really good to me - over the weekend we visited (among other things) the Dallas state fair and had our photos taken with a blue ribbon steer. I learned that antlers molt and grow back but an animal with horns has the same set for life.

My time south of the border is still percolating in my head; I can't help but see things differently here in the United States now that I'm back. Over a lifetime of living here I have gotten so used to having access to more or less whatever I want or need - and to that being normal. I am getting a fuller picture that our country is the exception and not the rule. I'll try to post 4 photos from my trip for the next few posts:

This was a market I especially liked in Mexico City

The green fruit was very like a pomegranite - I forget the name now

Part of a massive Mexico City bakery, way bigger and fancier than usual

Mexico City trashman - the barrel swivels so he can dump it out

In all the countries I visited most people were really skilled at fixing things when they broke and recycling old parts. I saw a family of 9 drive down the street in a car so old it undulated as if it had several moving parts. Every computer I used had been somehow frankensteined together. The incredible ingenuity and resourcefulness was inspiring. I would like to be a part of a world that wastes less.

Slideshow

2010-10-15T11:04:00.002-04:00

I'm back in Texas! Here's a slideshow of my last 9 weeks. More to come.

Here's To You, México

2010-09-28T10:05:00.001-04:00

Dear readers,

I wrote this short poem in Mexico City two months ago (August 2010). Enjoy.
-----------------------------------------------

The seeds of the sandía* are sperms
searching for flavor
and companionship

The caballero's* guitar strings
are a loom
to weave boleros*
of Metallica

Rain causes blackouts
and floods the streets
like a protest

The cheep plastic fork
scrapes my mouth
to make the chille covered fruit
burn brigher

Here's to you, México.

*watermelon
*gentleman's
*type of Latin American song with a slow tempo

Tulum

2010-09-24T11:17:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I visited the Tical ruins, near Flores, Guatemala - they are the largest of the Mayan ruins and from the tops of the pyramids you can sit back in the shade and cast your eyes on miles of jungle in every direction.

That evening I took a half an hour boat ride around Flores, which is an Island. I had awful luck with transportation yesterday - I actually swore out loud in English for the first time since I left the US. This morning I was supposed to wake up early to find my way to the bus station and figure out how to get to Belmopan in Belize...but I overslept. I was just about to leave the hostel when a guy walked in and said "bus to Belize!". As Westly Snipes ones said: "Even the sun shines on a dog's ass some days". I just crossed the Belizian border and am riding in a minibus, in my favorite spot - the front seat.

Top 5 comments about my visiting Belmopan, from various Latinos and foreigners alike:

1 why would you want to go to Belmopan?
2 there's nothing there!
3 all they have is a marcado
4 why would you want to go to Belmopan?
5 where?

At any rate, Belmopan is the capital of Belize, and I'm going to spend a day there on my way north.

I've had two month now to reflect on the challenges and strategies of traveling through Latin America. It is not always easy to find experiences that are meaningful to me. The most common budget traveler's strategy is to go from one tourist destination to another, staying in hostel dorms and seeing sites. I like to do this occasionally but get tired of it quick. Another option is to stray from the beaten path, to visit smaller towns and villages (capital cities?) and to wiggle your way into less conventional and usually more interesting situations and to meet people from that place. I tend to prefer that way but it can really wear you out and involves more risk - I spent about half of my time here with one health problem or another, partly because of my risk-taking. This two-pronged approach has done me well, it's been an incredible and eye opening few months. It's kind of the same as my radio-listening strategy at work: I start with hip hop and street humor on JAMN 94.5 - when it starts to drive me crazy (so sexist some times) I switch to NPR; when I can't take that white liberal voice anymore I go to conservative sports radio. When I've had more Obama bashing than I can take...I sing to myself and then repeat the cycle.

In spite of my fears that I wouldn't learn much Spanish, I am now a semi-proficient speaker. Just in time for Belize...where they speak English! It was a British colony. But soon I'll be back in the Spanish speaking world of the Yucatan in Mexico.
-----------------------------------------------

The Next Morning

After a full day of traveling (5 busses, 2 taxis and a good 3 miles on foot) I am now in Tulum, Mexico. Oy! Belmopan was great - I was litterally the only tourist there and took a packed local bus with students and people returning from their work day both ways. Then I tried to find a hotel to camp out in Belize City for the night...but they were really hard to find! And I was starting to look like an easy target to the local hustlers, I got a lot of attention as the sun began to set. I ate three fantastic things in Belmopan: a cup of soursop juice (sour, sweet, refreshing), a scoop of ice cream from a fruit I've never heard of (creamy, fruity) and a plate of stew beef with rice and peas, potato salad and pickeld onions. It occured to me that black Carribean food is a lot like Persian food. Rice dishes, stew dishes and pickels. The only thing missing is the yoghurt. I know in some carribean countries there are big Indian (from India) populations, Indian food shares roots with Persian food. From what I could tell, Mexian and Guatemalan food was not terribly influenced by Spanish culture. I read once that early conquistadores almost exclusively ate a salad of avacado, tomato and bread crumbs - they couldn't manage much more.

The tourist bus station had closed for the night by 6PM so I hopped on a 3 hour local bus to the mexican border (packed to the gills with people going back to their houses, isles filled with people.) At midnight I crossed the border back to Mexico (and got royally ripped off in crossing charges by the border guard; I suspect late night oppertunism), then got a taxi to a bus station just across the border that happened to have a bus leaving for Tulum (a beach town 2 hrs south of Cancun) at midnight. I managed to find a hostel that let me in at 4AM, caught a little sleep and enjoyed a cheap crepe this morning. The family that runs this place is really awesome, it's nice to be off the road. I think I'm going to take them up on their offer to rent a bike and snorkeling gear for 100 pesos.

So far I've only seen the town but the beach is supposed to look like this:

Guatemala

2010-09-21T12:20:00.001-04:00

My father's new Iranian passport arrived yesterday; it took the better part of 7 years for us to get it. With it I will be able to apply for my own Iranian passport and, with luck, will make it to Iran to visit my family there before I go back to work in February. I'll be in the city of Shiraz with my aunt Shalah and uncle Abbas - here's a picture of a Shiraz mosque, though it is most famous for it's gardens:

I got the news at an internet cafe in Guatemala city, where I am now visiting the family of my aunt Betty and cousin Ian, who are originally from Guatemala. Rosa and her son Yankell have been incredibly kind and welcoming. It has been so nice to be with family, for the first time in months.

In the email about my dad's passport arriving, my stepmother told me they needed some things from me in order to send in my passport application: 10 passport photos, in full suit and well groomed, a copy of my passport and an official copy of my birth certificate. Incredibly, Yankell just happened to have a suit and tie hanging in his mother's closet and while Doña Rosa was at work I walked to a nearby barber and have a set of somber looking (this is the islamic republic, remember) passport photos taken. And then I was able to mail it off with 6 day delivery. The incredible things is that if I had gotten word in most of my other destinations, that simple process would have been way more compilcated- the suit, the photos and expideted mail. Guatemala city looks more or less like this from the neighborhood I'm in:

What have I left out; I never wrote much about San Cristobal de las Casas, the old city in Chiapas where I spent a really nice week. I ended up in a place with a working kitchen and spent every other day in the marcado buying fresh foods and experimenting with them at night. Sucesses included roasted chiles with fresh fava beans and chicken marinated in this rub made of chiles and ground pumpkin seeds and then fried. San Cristobal:

There I with a friend to a nearby religious center (on horseback!), rented a scooter to visit a park 10km away and climbed massive hills that lead to two citadels on opposite sides of the city, overlooking the opposing buildings and mountains. From San Cristobal I took a passenger van across the Guatemalan border (about a 12 hour ride) through luch rolling hills and mountain-top towns - and through incredible rain, blinding fog and areas where rockslides forced both highway lanes to share one lane (often overlapping with the blinding fog; I practiced not looking and trusting the driver). I arrived that night in the city of Antigua, at the foothill of a giant active volcano:

Today or tomorrow I will probably move on to Livingston, Guatemala which is on the coast near Belize. From there I'll move on to Belize and then back to Mexico to the Yucatan coast. Then back to Dallas to see my uncle Craig, who has been a gracious host to me in Texas...

Chiapas

2010-09-07T19:38:00.002-04:00

As I make my way farther south in Mexico I often think of one of my favoirte Chris Sand songs, "Belmopan is Belmopan":

Mexico city
is a lotus land
and Veracruz
it is a candystand
and Chiapas...
it is a desperate man...ay...
but Belmopan is Belmopan.

I haven't written any new songs in a while but have found new creative outlets, like poetry and list making. Yeah, for some reason I feel inspired to make really great lists. I played a guitar for the first time in a month yesterday - my calouses are all gone.

I just left a very poor rural area where I was taking language classes. The landscape was lush and green (it being the rainy season), the air smelled of burning wood which reminded me of New England. I have four more minutes at this internet cafe computer in San Cristobal where am now staying for a few days. Next stop, Guatemala.

Oaxaca

2010-09-04T14:29:00.000-04:00

I got really sick here in Oaxaca and some new friends came to my rescue. I probably wouldn't have been able to find the hospital without Carmen - let alone navigate the Mexican health care system and get the antibiotics I needed. Then I stayed with her and her siblings for two days while I got over the worst of it. Mexicans have been extremely generous with me everywhere I've been.

If I understand correctly, Mexico has socialized health care. Even for me, a foreigner, I had to pay only a few dollars for my doctors visit (which couldn't have covered the labor involved in diagnosing me and cleaning up the mess I left on their floor.) The doctor was friendly and un-harried; the medications were free if they had them in their state run pharmacy and a few dollars (in the 50 peso range) to buy in the commercial pharmacy. There are also a number of natural health stores, where herbs and traditional remedies can be found - as well as a surpising number of homeopathic stores.

At 8PM I'll get on a bus for Chiapas and on monday I begin Spanish classes at a school run by the Zapatistas in a place called Oventic, one of the 5 "Juntas of good government". They just sent me a conformation email and said I needed to buy galoshes because it will be muddy.

And I'm learning my first Mexican song, "Cielito Lindo".

Acapulco

2010-08-24T10:19:00.000-04:00

I wrote this post almost two weeks ago but it got stuck on my iPod (I couldn't find any wifi to send it):

Well I managed to make it from Mexico city to Acapulco in one day. I've just pulled into this huge city in the passenger seat of a milk truck. Of course, I had no plans whatsoever to come to Acapulco...here's how it happened:

I took a bus to a small town about an hour south of the city for 5 pesos - about 40 cents. I debated just taking a bus all the way to Oaxaca but that would have cost about $40...cheap by US standards for a 6 hour trip but I'm on a budget and I keep hearing that hitchhiking is easy here.

So about an hour outside Mexico City I caught my first ride with a guy transporting wood. After about 30 miles he dropped me' off in a chilly mountain town covered in fog. My second ride was a man named Jesus in another work truck. Both men had three children, were around my age and had never traveled far from their region. Then a third short ride with two elderly men in an unbelievably old VW bug and a 4th on the back of a pickup truck filled with sheet rock and no tailgate. Three of us were in the bed, holding onto the detachable sides as sheet rock dust whipped our eyes. Finally I ended up at a place where lots of trucks stopped and I caught a ride (after a record hour and a half of thumbing) all the way to Acapulco with a guy named Alfredo. He drives a semi filled with milk for a huge company called Lala - their milk is everywhere in Mexico. Alfredo was great conversation. He spoke no English which was really nice, it meant we had to speak Spanish and had lots of patience. Several times he followed me' into lengthy digressions just to help me' understand a word. He wanted to pay every time we stopped and even pulled the truck over when we hit an especially breathtaking vista to show me the view. And we stopped several times to visit friends he had at familiar trucking rest stops, each time he introduced me as his Iranian friend. We had lengthy conversations (most of which I understood) about family, politics (he liked joking with me about weather I had bombs) sex. food and where I was going to stay that night. I think it troubled him that I didn't know, so he brought me to a crappy and overpriced hotel on the side of Acapulco where his delivery destination lay. I gladly stayed there and enjoyed a nearby meal of tacos al pastor - BBQ pork with a slice of BBQ pineapple, "verdurita" (means "a little vegetables" but is always diced raw onion and cilantro) lime and salsa.

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

I'm writing this post in two parts; now it's the next day.

I Got a good night's sleep and hopped on a bus for Acapulco. It w as a long ride and the bus didn't stop for me' to vet on,e and an elderly man sort of jog-stepped our way on to the steps. It was a long ride and we crossed several tolls and tunnels before getting to the tourist section of town. Immediately upon stepping off the bus a man offered to help me find a hotel. I've been practicing my bartering and managed to get the extremely hot and cave like room for cheeper than a hostel. It has rained almost the whole day and was super hot. I occupied my time with sitting on the beach under a palm frond umbrella (in the pouring rain), walking the length of the boardwalk, seeing the movie Salt (which was really a pretty good spy movie) and I just finished chilling m with a bunch of folks I met at the youth hostile and now Im having a bite on a rainy sidewalk with a man playing a really great rendition of "dust in the wind" (Chris Dunkle, are you out there?) on the guitar. His accent makes it that much more fantastic. Tomorrow I'll head south down the coast.

Sent using my big thumbs on a tiny iPod

(Travel log at http://poetofthewastes.blogspot.com/)

Gmail Trouble

2010-08-23T18:21:00.001-04:00

Dear friends and readers: After logging in to my Gmail account from many locations in Mexico, they took over my account and locked me out. It took me almost two weeks to get it back! They don't make it easy. Anyhow if you've emailed me this is why I haven't responded. Expect to hear back from me soon. I hope to write a new post tomorrow; I am in Puerto Escondito.

Milk Truck

2010-08-12T12:27:00.000-04:00

I managed to hitchhike from Mexico City to Acapulco yesterday, most of the way with a great guy named Alfredo in a semi carrying milk. He was great company and patient with my spanish. All of a sudden I can tell I'm making progress! Which is satisfying. Acapulco is huge and overwhelming (I never planned to come here but that's how the rides worked out! Took me 6 rides) and I need to get my bearings. I stopped at this internet cafe to learn about this place and print out a map. More soon...

Onward and Downward

2010-08-11T10:09:00.000-04:00

I've had an apartment all to myself for the last five days. It belongs to my new friend Yunuen, she very generously let me stay...today I'll take a bus just outside the city limits and begin hitchhiking south toward the Oaxacan coast. Probably won't be as easy to get Internet for a bit so if you don't hear from me this week, not to worry. I made friends with the carnitas vendors a fee days ago, Yolanda and her nephew Adrian...everyday they offer me' a new free food to try. Yesterday: a beef quesadilla, corn tortilla, deep fried.

- Posted with big thumbs on the tiny keyboard of my iPod

Location:Mexico City

Street Food

2010-08-06T16:16:00.004-04:00

My obsession with food has followed me, unsurprisingly, to Mexico. I've been here 10 days and think I'm starting to get a handle on eating.

Today I had the best tacos of my life (in Mexico a taco almost always means two small, soft, freshly made corn tortillas wtih some meat, vegetables and sauce) in a marcado (market) near my new host's home in the Moctezuma neighborhood, eastern Mexico City. I went for a walk in my new neighborhood and stopped for tacos in the first marcado I came to. Marcados are big buildings that house several dozen individual stands - vendors of cooked food, raw fruits and veg, and other household items. For example I wanted a simple piece of cloth (to sit on, for a blanket) and I bought one in the marcado; it has a nice green and red cotton weave. Then yesterday a new friend, Yunuen, informed me (amusedly) that this type of cloth is used to mop floors. This is my kind of country! So many things are both beautiful and functional (my favorite qualities) here.

Back to tacos; so I have discovered that not all tacos were created equal and the quality of the taco mostly depends on where you find it. There are two main kinds of "street food", the stuff you find in stands on the street and the food in marcados. This morning i had a porc taco for breakfast, that was in a oily red sauce with a spoonfull of rice - it cost 4 pesos or 30 cents. I washed it down with an OJ, queezed on the spot for 12 pesos or a dollar. I was pretty happy with my $1.30 breakfast, since I'm on a budget. But later in the day I went to this Marcado and asked a woman at a taco stand (fancier, with metal benches in a calm, quiet corner of the market) how much they were; 12 pesos this time, $1 each. Still very cheep as compared to the US but three times as much as my breakfast taco. (Tacos are eaten for every meal, but some are for breakfast and others for lunch and dinner; I have no handle on this yet and chose my tacos via ennie meenie miney moe). Anyhow, these tacos were a whole different food. The corn tortilla was fluffier, I want to say "al dente". The filling was this honey colored roasted pork, at least 1/3 fat (but not in an unapealing way) topped with a salad of cilantro and minced onion and a choice of red or green sauce. I started with red which had a strong and fantastic chipoltle flavor (orange fanta to drink) and then couldnt resist a second with the green sauce which may have been "mole verde", which tastes like onions, herbs and citrus. A lime is always included on every plate, no matter what you're eating and lime juice helped reign in the pork and onion.

This is a web image but looks something like what I ate

When I paid the woman bid me farewell and called me Joven (pernounced "Hoben") which litterally means "young one". But in my mind it means somthing more like "my child".

Mi Villeno Favorito

2010-08-03T00:33:00.001-04:00

After many days of searching I found a map of the whole of Mexico today - and it's beautiful. I've been having a hard time wrapping my mind around the geography here and this map has it all; each region by page, plus a whole map of the country with distance tables and an index...I'm kind of a geek for details. I have a fetish for really thorough footnotes too - to the point where I get disappointed when I read a book without footnotes.

Day 3 staying at this hostile with my new friend Loius. I was supposed to visit a friend of my aunt Betty's in the Yucatan peninsula but it didn't work out and I decided to stay here in Mexico city for a while longer. I asked Louis how he cleans his clothes and he said he washes them by hand in the sink of our dorm with a bar of laundry soap. So he gave me directions to the supermarcado - and I swear I followed them exactly! But I got lost and ended up in a local market (which is much more interesting than a supermarcado anyhow) and found a huge bar of rose scented laundry soap there. Then I bought some clothesline, came home and tied it between two bunkbeds...which made Loius laugh when he saw my clothes hanging there. He showed me how he just hangs his clothes on the bars of the bunk and hangs his shirts on coat hangers. So I washed my (now 3, I bought an extra one) shirts, my 5 new pairs of socks, 2 of 3 pair of underwear (had to wear something!) and in the morning all my clothes will be clean. I really enjoyed hand washing, I'd never done more than one garment at a time.

Now I'm in the hostile lobby, just made friends with a woman from Turkey and two men from India. Oh, and I took in a movie today just as it was about to downpour; "Mi Villeno Favorito" - the. US cartoon despicable me in Spanish. The language was nice and simple and clear.

- Posted with big thumbs on the tiny keyboard of my iPod

Location:Mexico City

Diego Rivera

2010-08-01T20:42:00.001-04:00

Today I visited two sets of Diego Rivera murals; one at the museum of Bellas Artes and one at the Palacio National, an area known as the Zocalo in the center of the city. It is next to a massive square where hundreds of workers have already begun preparing for Mexico's 200th (i think I understood that right) independence day celebration - it's the 3rd biggest square in the world.

These two things are related; Rivera's murals are intimate histories of Mexico. Of pre-colonial society, of his Aztec forefathers and Mayan countrymen, of the Spanish conquistadors (almost always portrayed as animals of some kind; donkeys, pigs, dogs), U.S. captains of industry, communism, war...and Corn. I overheard one man explaining to a group of visitors "in Mexico, everything is made of corn". It lay in almost every landscape, personal (like when you put it in your tummy), political (like when you try to change it's genetics to make money) and corporal; Mexicans themselves are made of corn. At least I thin that's what Diego was saying. I don't usually stay a long time at museums but today I stayed with those murals for hours. Then after sitting and interpreting as best as i could, making songs out of the stories, I realized there were free tours, explaining. And I was totally captivated for the whole thing. I think I might take that tour every day for the rest of mug stay in Mexico city.

Now I'm at a street vendor about to eat a quesadilla of squash blossoms and queso "oaxaquena" (= cheese from the Oaxaca province, where I'll go next - a sort of farmers cheese.) the quesadilla is hand made in front of me (corn) and is long and oval, folded lengthwise. To drink, a popular bottled juice called "boing" - mango today.

Here's one piece of the 12 part mural at the National Palace:
http://encontrarte.aporrea.org/imagenes/galerias/muralismo/10mundoindi.jpg

- Posted with big thumbs on the tiny keyboard of my iPod

Location:Mexico City

Untitled

2010-07-30T11:06:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was my second full day in Mexico City - I already feel like I've been here a week. At the same time I feel like I want to stay for a month. My body is starting to adapt to the variations in the food and the water (in spit of many warnings and my bet efforts I have consumed small amounts of impurities water - I can feel my stomach trying to decide what it thinks about this, so far so good).

Yesterday I went to the Frieda Calo museum with my French speaking friend and another friend who's couch surfing at the same house as me. She's an architecture student from La Paz Bolivia and, oddly enough also speaks French fluently. So between the three of us we switched in and out of our three languages regularly throughout the day.

We also went to Trotsky's house and the Diego Rivera museum. On our way there we met a Malasian woman and a South African man doing the same circuit and hung out together for the rest of the day.

For lunch we ate at a market. I had never seen one like this, in the open air with food stalls but organized more like a food court at a US mall, with a big block of tables and chairs in the middle. Waiters from the stalls took our orders and brought three courses of soup (cream of pumpkin flower) rice or spaghetti and a choice of entrees - I bad chilles rellenos, a big roasted stuffed chile with sauce and meat.

The subways are often incredibly crowded and women and children have a section for them only; folks here are mostly pretty annoyed by how...

Okay my iPod just deleted a paragraph in a different way than yesterday. I think I'll sign out for now.

- Posted withe big thumbs on the tiny keyboard of my iPod

Oops...

2010-07-29T12:21:00.000-04:00

I just wrote a whole post and deleted it with a few accidental touches of the iPod. I'll have to be more careful next time...

Location:Mexico City

Haya Llegado (I Have Arrived)

2010-07-28T00:01:00.001-04:00

...in Mexico! The truth is I have no idea weather or not Haya Llegado is correct spanish. But I sure am trying! Whew, what a day.

After a good nights sleep (I can{t find the apostrophe on this Mexican keyboard! That button only makes parenthasis!) I scrambled to get my things together (hrm, no semicolon either...my blogging style will have to adapt and change...i{ll have to use lots of dot dot dots...) - anyway, all my stuff fits in a small backpack.

Pack List

shaving razor and associated artifacts
toothbrush etc
small video camera and digital camera
blank notebook for songwriting and Spanish learning
spanish grammar book (old but looks like quality)
iPod touch (to blog on...although I cant seem to connect to the internet with it and now Im using a computer for 15 pesos an hour (12 pesos to the dollar)
headlamp (seemed like a good idea)
bandanas for blowing my nose and covering my eyes on the bus

two t shirts
three pairs of underwear (one of which is from REI and is supposed to take a while to get funky)
one regualr shorts, one running shorts
one button down shirt
a poly pro long underwear top and bottom
small pack towel
one pair of socks
new vibram 5 fingers shoes

I decided to only bring one pair of footwear - the vibram 5 fingers. They look like toe socks and are in direct violation of my main objective here in mexico city: (I found the semicolon!): To blend in. Well, that and not to look like I´m lost (heeey, I found the apostrophe too.) It´s actually been kind of fun, I´ve gotten a lot of smiles (I think they´re smiling AT me, not WITH me but oh well) and made one friend because of my amusing and futuristic shoes. First thing tomorrow, I will begin my search for a nice looking pair of locally made sandals.

Anyhow, when I got to the airport they had overbooked the plain and they offered a $500 voucher to anyone willing to wait (get this) an hour and a half for the next plane. Umm...so yeah, I took that. And I almost took their offer on the next flight for another $400 voucher to wait for the plane that got in at 7PM...but you know, first time in Mexico City, no plans, I know no one...I figured I should get in while there´s still daylight.

Then I landed, went through customs (for the first time in about 12 years! It was thrilling), changed my dollars to pesos and made my way to the subway. Now, my spanish is pretty terrible and I was fully expecting to bumble my way through taking a train to...well I wasn´t exactly sure where but I had some ideas. At least I knew a station that I knew was near a hostle. I was clearly eminating the statement "I´m lost, please help me!" and within about 10 seconds a really nice woman (who it turns out was a waitress at an airport restaurant) told me to follow her, as she led me to where I needed to be. As I was walking with that lady, a young woman overheard me speaking spanish and interrupted us to ask if I was French. Yes, that´s how bad my Spanish is. Well as some of you know, I speak fluent French so I guess it makes sense that my Spanish is Fracified. Anyhow, nice lady #1 then passed me off to nice French speaking young woman #2 (a college student who had done a semester in France) and she proceeded to give me a 4 hour tour of downtown Mexico City which was pretty damn cool. I ate some chicken with roasted poblano peppers and grilled cactus, then washed it down with a drink made from hybiscus flowers (called Jamaica). Then we went to a cathedral that was litterally built on top of a myan pyramid, the ruins of which were still visible in one part (incredible).

Then I made my way to the hostle I had heard about which I found with no trouble and paid 150 pesos ($12) for a bunk in the dorm. I have one dorm mate, his name is Louis and he´s a great f#%&ing guy. We just talked for about an hour, each in our respective broken spanglish and I took pages and pages of notes. He sounded out every letter of the Spanish alphabet for me and I wrote the letters down phoenetically. (It is just occuring to me that this computer is not able to check my spelling and I have no idea how to spell "phonetically". Maybe I´ll just spell it...nevermind.)

The way you say W in spanish is "double-eh-oooo" and for some reason this evokes uproarious laughter from somewhere deep inside me. I wanted to make sure Louis didn´t think I was laughing at him or his beautiful (s´frickin´ beautiful) language...it´s just so fun to say and it really makes me laugh. One of those "learning a new language" things. Anyhow, he had to turn in at 10PM because he´s a motorcycle courier and has to be at work at 2AM. I wish I could forge a stronger friendship with him, I like him already. But tomorrow I´ll be staying with a friend of a friend, which is cheeper and I´m sure I´ll like that person too.

Okay, I´m exhausted and still sick. Time for bed. Goodnight frineds, it was good to be in touch with so many of you before I left. For those of you I didn´t get to say googbye to, I´ll be in Latin America for several months and you can only reach me through gmail (nimasamimiATgmail.com - I can´t find the AT button) and I would love to hear from you.

Sending you warmth from luminous and expansive Mexico City. 6 Minutes left til the computer kicks me off...

Tuesday: Mexico City

2010-07-24T02:32:00.004-04:00

I've just installed an ap on my iPod so I can blog on it - here goes! I bought a one way ticket (autocorrect suggests a one way rocket) to Mexico and I'm not bringing a computer; I know there will be Internet cafe's but it's too tempting to get to blog and email on my iPod. So this is my trial run. Dallas has been great, I just got back from a ranger's game that ended with an incredible fireworks display (I'm not being metaphorical, they turned off all the lights and set off fireworks in the stadium). Before that I was in Austin with my cousin Ian: swimming holes, ska bands and we played basketball every day. Now I'm gearing up for leaving the country - the first time in 12 years.

After Mexico city will be Oaxaca, then Guatemala city where I'll stay with the family of my Aunt Betty (ian's mom). Not sure when I'm coming back to Texas to pick up my truck...but when I do I will hopefully be heading right back out to Iran. Dear friends, family and fellow travelers; I'm glad to be on this journey with you.

PS - I've tried to be diligent about posting pictures with my posts. Sadly this will no longer be practical. I will eventually share pictures and videos, bear with me.

- Posted with big thumbs on the tiny keyboard of my mobile device

Location:Dallas TX

Flight 2000

2010-07-11T12:40:00.011-04:00

I've put a new post-tour song on my myspace page: a love song for my favorite pin-ball machine, Flight 2000. Recorded at Sunset House in Seattle, dedicated to the Martin in Olympia.

And here's Flight 2000, live on the Mailboat

leaving Great Spruce Head Island in Maine

July Update

2010-07-11T12:28:00.005-04:00

Whew! So much has happened since my last post. Here's a recap:

After a great month in Seattle (living with friends, doing some interesting volunteer work) I spent a week in Denver with another dear friend. Then back to Boston to see people and handle some things. After that I drove to Great Spruce Head Island in Maine, where my old pal Barney and I cooked (with no electricity on only a wood stove) for an artist retreat for a week:

A lunchtime spread

Stove and oven

Making savory pastries

Me and Barn

Unfortunately I managed to get bit by a dear tick while home in Boston, which turned into Lyme disease while I was working on the island. And incredibly, Barney got bit too! We were both miserably sick, but we got through it together - and once we got antibiotics we were on the mend. This is one of the worst Lyme seasons on record so learn from me, freinds: check for ticks.

Then I flew back to Seattle, picked up my truck, bid my friends farewell and drove (with a guy I found on Craigslist) to Los Angeles, where I am now visiting another friend. Monday I'll start driving to Texas where I'll visit family, leaving my truck with them. Then on July 27th I fly to Mexico City where I'll stay for a week. From there I'll visit other parts of Mexico and Guatemala and maybe other Latin American countries. In some places I have contacts, family, friends of friends, in others I'll just show up.

Seattle

2010-05-20T14:33:00.007-04:00

My KYRS Spokane radio interview on Sharokh Nikfar's Persian Radio Hour came in the mail this week, I've posted it at the top of the page for you to have a listen. It's an hour long, so if you'd rather download it and stick it on your iPod so you can listen to it when you're stuck in line at the post office, there's a link for that too.

Sharokh and I on the air

I'm in Seattle for a month now, doing three months of work at a social justice organization and living with my friends Chris and Sam at the Sunset House co-op. The house is unusually empty and I had my pick of 4 rooms this visis; I took this long attic room in the end. I've written 2 new songs and should have them recorded and up here in a week or so.

On Saturday I caught an awesome hip hop show; Gabriel Theodros (left), probably the most progressive and original MC in rap, performing with his DJ/Producer Amos Miller (right) and two incredible vocalists who's names I don't know. Gabriel is of Etheopian decent and grew up in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of south Seattle - evidently the most ethnically diverse neighborhood in the country. His new album, "Lovework" is both deeply personal and political, with some of the best beats and rhymes I've heard in a while.

I also made an appearance on my friend Andrass Jones' "Radio 8 Ball" show,which I was happy to discover is located in Seattle's international district (which meant I ate Vietnamese food afterwards). Here's how Radio 8 Ball works: members of the audience are selected after putting their questions in a hat; then you spin a wheel (bottom right) and the number you get corresponds to a list of songs (bottom right) that the guest musician will play. The song is the answer to your question and you, Andrass and the guest musician (who was the fantasticly talented Tracy Bonham that night) try to make sense out of it. Good times...

There was even a "celebrity skype-in" appearance from Weird Al Yankovic.

Click Here and scroll down to the middle of the page to ask "The Pop Oracle" your own question. Don't hold back now, it only works if you ask a real question.

Perfect (breakfast) Storm

2010-05-09T02:05:00.000-04:00

Olympia has a great farmer's market, right on the Puget Sound. I couldn't believe my eyes when I found a mushroom vendor with a crate of wild foraged morels - the crown jewel of all fungus lovers. I've seen them dried but never fresh; the batch you see below cost me $5 (they're $40 a lb).

So the next day, I sliced them up

and ate them with an Oakland Bay pork sausage patty (from pigs that only ate grass, forages and roots)

and then scrambled the mushrooms with an egg...

the morels weren't flashy - no crazy flavors or inexplicable musk;
but they sure packed a satisfying punch.

Moth Written Blog

2010-05-07T19:53:00.002-04:00

I just noticed that Mary Robbins (Mary made my t-shirts and I also got to know her husband Nabil) from Portland, ME wrote a post on her blog about working with me: click!

The D.S.S.G.T.G Breakfast

2010-05-05T00:35:00.004-04:00

This post is a full year late; I took these pictures last summer of my buddy Jonathan (hair featured below) and I making a high energy breakfast cereal that I ate every morning for the last year.

Why, you may wonder, did I choose to post this long forgotten event? Because I'm in Olympia WA at the home of my dear friend David Scherer - the man who's breakfast food innovation prompted me to

1. buy a proffesional grade mixer (see pic 4)

2. spend almost $200 on a 5 gallon tub of brown rice syrup (BRS among us veterans, see pic 1)

3. find 10 half-gallon mason jars to divide the back-breaking tub into (pic 2) and

4. eat a cereal with the consistency of wet gravel for a whole year.

A brief history of the David Scherer, Super Goldberg, Tough Guy Breakfast:

This invention is actually a byproduct of one of David's earlier inventions: "Bihk". Bihk, "The Milk Of Nuts" was a creamy thin liquid that david made using nuts, brown rice syrup and water and sold to the co-op as a locally made milk substitute. After soaking the nuts in the liquid and removing the milk, a grainy sludge remained that, it occurred to David, he could eat. He then realized it was high in protean and complex carbohydrates...and when the time came to leave the Bihk business he continued to prepare it's sticky byproduct for his own enjoyment - with a new and ever improving recipe.

Enter the poet: I was having trouble finding a breakfast food that was quick, easy, healthy and filling. Then I remembered David's breakfast and he kindly sent me the recipe. It's probably the funniest recipe I ever read:

A cousin asked me to submit a recipe for a family cookbook she's putting together. I thought some of you might be interested in this for your own records, diet. David

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

Your Name: David B. Scherer

Town, State: Olympia, Washington

Recipe Name: The David Scherer Super Goldberg Tough Guy Breakfast

Ingredients: Three pounds of organic brown rice syrup (it’s best to order this thru a co-op or health food store in 5 gallon buckets), eight cups of organic raw rolled oats (not quick oats), a cup of cashews, a cup of almond butter, a cup of walnuts, a cup of dark semi-sweet chocolate chips, three cups of raisins, a shot of vanilla extract, and any old cookies you have laying around. You can add and change ingredients; I do just to keep things interesting.

Directions: First you put about a cup of the raw oats in the bottom of the bowl of your Industrial Kitchen Aid Mixer. If you don’t have one, go get one. You will break anything else you might use to make this. Learn from my mistakes. I’ve broken wooden spoons, a piece of rebar, a witch’s cauldron and my arm. Next you pour the brown rice syrup in and the nuts, vanilla, old cookies and chocolate on top of that. Then you start up the mixer. Maybe five minutes, until it’s mixed up, but not all homogenized. Then you add the raisins at the end and let those mix for about a minute. When it’s done it looks kind of gross, like some old hippie’s cookie dough. Makes about seven days worth of breakfast. Store it in the Kitchen Aid bowl in the refrigerator. Serve cold and raw with milk, yogurt, maple syrup, ice cream, pie, cake and cookies. Eat it right out of the bowl. I don’t eat it first thing. I wait until I’m real hungry, about 10 a.m. Get a serious spoon because the stuff is not only hard to eat, but it’s nearly impossible to spoon out. Assist youngsters before feeding yourself. If you eat it in the morning, you won’t want to eat until about 6-7 p.m., if ever.

Story: I started eating this in college because wanted to leave my apartment in the morning and not have to eat until I got home for dinner. I’ve been eating this same breakfast for nearly eleven years now and I’ve lived to be 32 years old. Doctors are baffled. There’s no scientific or spiritual explanation why I should like this. And, I really like it. This isn’t a joke. I don’t joke about breakfast. I’ve had girlfriends break up with me over this.

The reason why this food sustains one’s appetite for so long is because the main ingredient, brown rice syrup, is about 99% maltose. This sugar, unlike others, takes about 4-5 hours for the body to break down. It gives the body a steady supply of energy. There’s no spike, no “sugar rush” and the body uses no insulin to absorb it so it’s an ideal food for diabetics. Of course, there are the side dishes (maple syrup, ice cream, pie, cake and cookies) that aren’t like that. Also, I don’t eat sugar after breakfast. Who could? So I’m a little hypo-glycemic when I wake up. I also go running before eating breakfast. By 10 a.m. I’m so unbelievably hungry that I’d just as soon eat sheet rock or car tires.

To our knowledge David and I are the only two people who have attempted the breakfast. Please let us know if you ever join our ranks.

Finally, I'd like to share one of David's current projects with you, "Healing Journey" with Dr. Roger Sty Bantum (hint: it's David).

EROS and PSYCHOS from Healing Journey Television on Vimeo.

I know this post is getting long but I can't stop myself from linking to another project of David's, "The Flat Win Company".

Miss Rodeo Montana

2010-05-03T14:20:00.010-04:00

If you came to one of our shows, you probably heard that I am producing a new Sandman album - variously recorded in Birmingham, Dallas, Dunn Ceneter ND, Niarada MT...and maybe in your town too.

Here's one of 26 tracks we laid down in our 3 months on the road, just the raw recording.

Miss Rodeo Montana

Here's Chris at the recording session of this song in Nairada at the Morrow's ranch

Note the simple hardware of my mobile recording studio, "Studio In A Bowl" from left to right: Headphones, notebook, laptop, audio interface, mic stand and mic, cowboy, guitar.

End of Tour

2010-05-03T12:02:00.002-04:00

Whew! After 11 weeks on the road, Chris and I have hung up our 1/4 inch cables and parted ways. Chris, if you're reading this it was such a pleasure to spend three months living, playing and traveling with you. It was one of the best things I ever did. Let's do it again!

Here are a few highlights from our last shows. More to come...

They danced late into the night at Fergie's Bar in Hot Springs MT
(and we had a nice soak beforehand)

Riding through the mountains of western montana at the Morrows' Ranch

On the KYRS Persian Radio Hour in Spokane with my new friend Sharokh

(I'll post the whole hour-long show when I get it!)

Our last show, at the Hamilton Photography Studio in Spokane -

we got our first standing ovation! Because we're awesome.

"Roll Out Cowboy" Trailer

2010-05-03T11:43:00.002-04:00

The "Roll Out Cowboy" documentary trailer (a movie about Chris) has been released! The first showing will be in Marfa, TX this thursday.

Roll Out Cowboy from Roll Out, Cowboy on Vimeo.

Dunn Center, North Dakota

2010-04-17T10:58:00.009-04:00

I got to Chris' house thursday night, a sweet little one bedroom slice of the good life. Chris is driving truck until tomorrow so I've had the place to myself. My favorite parts of his house include

the living room where i've been writing,
recording and catching up on work

the kitchen that he and Hana (his girlfriend) have stocked with sturdy,
beautiful old kitchen gear(and there's a trap door on the floor by the
table, I'm really curious what's under it..I may have to find out today)

his claw-foot tub

their cozy bedroom (no more sleeping in the truck)

Last night his dad, Rob Sand, had me over for dinner and a walk to meet the grand Sandparents. I mean the Sand grandparents. We've now recorded songs that he wrote about each of his grandparents (and there's been plenty of time for family stories over the last months) and I really enjoyed getting to see them all. His mother, Mary Sand, is on a trip back to her native Montana and I hope to meet her when she gets back.

If you haven't already you might want to read Chris' last journal entry, it has a bunch of good insights into our last few months.

Lastly I'm reading a book (something I haven't done in at least a year) that I've been hearing about for a while - The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and enjoying it.

North Dakota is a beautiful place, with rolling grassy hills, grazing cows and bison, warm people and a rich local culture. It's a treat to be here for a week.

Panorama

2010-04-13T10:04:00.011-04:00

I stitched these photos of west Texas together (somewhere between Ruidosa and Presidio):

This is the Chihuahuan desert, which stretches from northern Mexico to south west Texas.

West Texas

2010-04-10T09:20:00.004-04:00

I've been a reluctant blogger; actually the truth is I wrote three posts that I didn't publish because I didn't like them. Which I realize is dumb because I know you all would have preferred my bad posts to no posts at all. On top of that, another thing that slows me down is that I'm kind of a perfectionist and Blogger is really clunky when it comes to layout...for example every time I try to upload photos they end up all crooked with the text spacing funny. Well I'm trying a new method, using a program that does all the photo uploading for me so hopefully this will encourage me to post more (and make it so posting doesn't take 2 hours).

I've just left the west Texas desert, where I was for three days or so. Well, three days in the open desert and another 5 days in the town of Marfa, where Chris and I played our last show. Chris flew back to North Dakota (on sunday) to minister his friend Dale's farewell celebration (see Chris's blog for more details on all of this) and I'm currently in El Paso (in the bed of my truck, lying on a mattress, stealing wifi off of the hyatt I'm parked outside of) on my way to visit friends in Santa Fe tonight. I've been sleeping in my truck for about 5 days, starting tomorrow I move indoors as I make stops in New Mexico, Colorado, South Dakota and finally Dunn Ctr. North Dakota where I'll see Chris's home for the first time.

Below are some pictures of the west TX plain, the last one is an abandoned prairie house I investigated. Last week I mentioned to Chris that I was interested in the hobby of 'urban exploration' and he reminded me of the pleasures of 'rural exploration'.

Big Easy

2010-03-21T19:35:00.000-04:00

We've been in New Orleans for 4 days; played 2 good shows that were very well attended. I just dropped Chris of at the airport, he's flying back to North Dakota to do a three day trucking run. Tonight I'm gonna hole up and write songs...

Nashville

2010-03-15T14:16:00.002-04:00

2 shows in Nashville; waiting to hear back from Birmingham. Then on to play a show hosted by my friend Ken in New Orleans. I'm enjoying the south. Last night we had the first Nashville show at the home of Chris's friend and former bandmate Camo Davi. I opted to sit that show out so Chris and Camo could rock it old school style - Camo's a veteran beat boxer who I have much to learn from.

Here's the second video Hanon shot and cut for Chris back in NYC; it's a real gem. This is a new song called "Damascus", not on any album yet and one of my personal favorites. Hanon's work is, as usual, nothing short of gorgeous.

cell phone post #3

2010-03-11T20:11:00.004-05:00

Just rolling into Ashville Noth Carolina...been driving all day...we're listening to Chris Rock comedy shows on my iPod...

Lazarus

2010-03-06T10:20:00.002-05:00

Sabzi - "the beast from the east" (my big green truck) is now back on the road and oh man I am happy to have him back. In honor of his resurrection I've christened him with a western name in addition to his persian one to galvanize him as a member of my family of misfits and half-casts (die-casts?): Lazarus.

Chris and I have a few more things to handle in Boston, then we'll be heading south again on monday...

The Resurrection of Lazarus by Vincent van Gogh

House Concerts and NYC

2010-03-03T08:39:00.004-05:00

We've been back in Boston for three days. I can't explain exactly how it happened (it would take an hour to write down) - but it looks like my truck will be up and running by friday, thanks to my uncle Bill who's a mechanic in Holbrook MA. I didn't think it was possible - Sabzi the big green Tundra rides again! We were on the brink of buying a 99 Subaru when we discovered the good news.

The brooklyn show this past Saturday drew a small but devoted crowd including my Cousin Billy, his partner Adam and my friend Hanon. We had a blast hanging out with them and eating German food (you ever had spatzle? Don't miss it.) Earlier that day Hanon shot a three videos of Chris at Billboard.com studios where he works: 2 music videos and 1 short piece of theater that tells people about our house concerts. Speaking of those, I'm really looking forward to a show I just booked with my buddy Ken Leavitt in New Orleans. He lives on Avery Island where they make Tabasco sauce and sent us a really warm invitation to come play.

So here's the one about house concerts - another video will be ready soon (Hanon, you kick ass). I'm editing the other one...don't hold your breath...

Baer's Den of Wonders

2010-02-23T03:08:00.018-05:00

Chris' friend Gretchen from Bisbee AZ arranged for us to stay with her folks while we played our island show; Jackie and Gene Baer were a fascinating pair. Their lives were full of painting, sculpture, music, writing...and their home was like an incredible museum (sort of a fine art museum meets an antique store meets a children's playhouse.)

Join me on a brief trip through their wold of fantastic imagination...

Jackie and Gretchen decorated a whole table with treasures from a local MV institution "the dumptique" and glued them to a table:

and when she was done, a truly magical land spread over the garden...

Gene was, among many other things, a children's book creator. He opened a treasure chest full of books he had made by hand, some of which had been published and some of which hadn't. This one was made of hand cut paper shapes

And before we left Gene sang us an amazing husky piano blues about how you can't get any love if you eat onions before you come over.

Jackie and Gene really inspired me; they are both so committed to doing things they love.

Martha's Vineyard

2010-02-22T20:37:00.009-05:00

This moning we got a ride with a woman named Treather from Martha's Vineyard to Boston; now we're riding with Senayit and her family to DC. Had a Reubin at Rein's Deli in CT. Napping...

(from the Che's Lounge show last night)

Ford Wagon

2010-02-22T00:33:00.007-05:00

It's almost 1AM and we just finished our show: another great one. The truck crisis took an incredible turn tonight; more on that tomorrow. Sleep beckons...

***time warp***

It's the next day (well two days later; 2AM in Washington DC) - the new truck development went as follows:

at our Che's lounge show in Vineyard Haven I was about to go on stage...when I looked over and saw an old friend - well a family member really. Sharon's dad was my stepfather for most of my teen years, a wonderful man named Gene. Anyhow, she caught our show and we spent the night catching up...and after she heard about truxplosion 2010 she told us she had an '66 Ford Falcon Family Wagon that had been sitting in her and Mic's driveway for two years - and that we could have it if we wanted.

As you can see, it's a beauty. It killed Chris and I to have to turn her generous offer down. But it needed a little more work than we were prepared to put into it. Now Sharon is investigating other car possibilities for us, which I appreciate so much.

Martha

2010-02-21T12:33:00.005-05:00

As requested by the website What's Up, Martha?, Sandino and I wrote this Martha's Vineyard rap. Well, he wrote it and I helped a little. I rhymed Gay Head (a town on the island) with K-Fed:

"When I say Martha, I ain't talkin' 'bout Coakly
Who lacked the chipotle to get enough votes, see
I don't mean Martha Stewart or Nancy Pelosi
I'm talkin' 'bout the Vineyard, y'all rock like Lynnrd Skynrd
My name's Sandman and even though Che's dead...
There's a riot goin' on from Nantucket to Gay Head
I'll be at Che's Lounge just loungin' like K-Fed
Stupid as Scott Brown, but sexier naked"

Thanks to Elsa and Jim for taking good care of us for the night, Elsa made a wonderful homemade pizza and salad.

We hit Che's lounge in Vineyard Haven at 7PM tonight. Tell your island buddies.

Hog Farm, Seed Pod

2010-02-20T18:01:00.008-05:00

Our last two shows represented a major breakthrough for me. I've finally started to loosen up on stage, feel the music, see the crowd. The Hog Farm Annex in Biddeford Maine was the best place ever. Coco and Gil, the couple who run it took incredible care of us - feeding us jumbelaya and muffelatea (a meat sandwich) and put us up for the night in their incredible farmhouse (formally an actual hog farm). They also run this cool store in Biddeford called Loving Anvil (and they sell Mary Robbins' shirts - the woman who made my tour shirts (see this old entry.)

Gil and Coco are also fine artists; I didn't get a chance to see Coco's work (that I know of) but Gil's paintings are some of the most exciting pieces of art I've seen. Here are a few I really like:

And this is their daugher Chloe; she's six and plays in a band called Sparklefive.

My set at Hog Farm Annex

We're playing three shows with Senayit Tomlinson (next stop DC...

if we can get there without my truck...) Senayit is an amazing singer and songwritier with a gorgeous fingerpicking style:

Senayit and her daughter Koki

Sandman, rockin' it

We do a few of his hits together

I cooked a persian dinner (with Chris as sous chef) for Senayit, her husband Jeff, her daughter Koki and her mom Sally in Orfard NH

And a few photos from the (awesome) Seed Pod coop show last night in Dorchester.

My friend Ayisha and I communicating on paper (since I don't speak sign language)

And finally the incredible Elizabeth Saunders who put the show on, got Sandman and I paid a nice sum AND managed to come up with quite a bit of extra money to give to our friend Pete's non profit AIDG

who is involved in the Haitian relief effort.

What a smile!

cell phone post #2

2010-02-20T13:55:00.007-05:00

With no truck to take us, Chris and I are hitching a ride with our dear friend Elsa to Martha's vineyard. The tour enters it's second chapter: busses and rides.

Crisis: Truxplosion

2010-02-19T16:03:00.001-05:00

After our best show yet at the Hog Farm in Biddeford Maine, the check engine light went on in my truck on our drive to play a Dorchester show in Boston. It turns out my truck is no longer at all drivable and I need to find out how to get another truck (after months of work I did to be sure that this wouldn't happen)...I am now in emergency mode. But I will not be stopped.

Home show at the Seed Pod Coop in Dorchester tonight.

Nima on the Radio??!

2010-02-18T15:14:00.004-05:00

Played a show in Montpelier on tuesday; my best set yet (but still a little shaky). More on that soon. Just remembered I'm being interviewed on WKYRS's Persian Radio Hour on May 1st in Spokane WA - a guy name Sharo does the show, this is him:

Persians, baby.

cell phone post #1

2010-02-15T09:15:00.003-05:00

I just foud out that Chris hates Lyle Lovett. It is the first major rift in our friendship.

Greenfield, MA

2010-02-14T22:25:00.008-05:00

This morning Sandman and I scrambled to pack up my green Toyoto Tundra, making last minute decisions about what to take and what to ditch. I left my winter gloves and hat (since we're mostly heading southward for lovely warm weather) and now I'm underdressed in western MA. Greenfield is beautiful, the evening sky was a cloudy electric blue.

Our show was a lot of fun; we're staying at Chris' friends Dan and Shira's house for the night. Dan and his band, Daniel hales, and the frost heaves (preceded by a fun harmonizing duo) played before Chris and I; I played two songs and then accompanied Chris on two songs. In the middle I interviewed a group of teens on my flip video camera who unanimously agreed that the show rocked. Then I realized we left $500 worth of tour posters sitting on the curb for the whole duration of the show.

Here's Chris playing "Damascus" - it's a new song, not on any album yet.

At the very end I met a young woman named Tisarra, who walked in with her guitar strapped on her back. She said she'd been playing for a few months and was in the middle of writing her first song and she let me record it:

Our interview got cut off when my video cam died - she's about to say that she's from New Jersey but she moved up to western MA. Chris noticed that she had a CrimethInc sticker on her guitar - that's the label that his new album is on.

Then tonight Dan and Shira invited me to make a persian meal which we just ate - lamb stew with eggplant, pickles, thick yoghert, shirazi salad and crunchy bottom rice (tah-dig chelo). Wasn't half bad.

February 14th

2010-02-14T00:19:00.003-05:00

I took art classes at UMass Boston with Neil Horsky. He's put together a piece of valentines day animation that I like a lot.

Tonight we sing love songs in Greenfield...I'm debating adding an old French song I used to play by Francis Cabrel to my set list.

Midway Cafe

2010-02-13T07:43:00.003-05:00

It's official! The tour has begun. Wednesday night Chris and I Sang our hearts out to a crowd of my closest friends at the Midway Cafe in JP.

We spent about four hours beforehand rehearsing together at Amanda's apartment, making set lists, packing gear and trying to figure out what to wear on stage. In spite of threats of an 8 inch snow storm, a good 30 or so folks came to listen. Thanks to everyone who came! It was great for me to play my first show with some of my biggest fans. Your heckles were all well placed, you seemed to enjoy when I forgot the words and liked when I sang the slide solo on heartbreak blues. S'good to have friends. And it's a lot of fun seeing you wear my tour t shirts, thanks for buyin'em. Now I'm ready to brave the unknown climates of our fair nation, to sing songs to strangers and try to let my creative mind go wild. Last night Chris and I had a great conversation where we started thinking about how to present our collective act as a Middle Eastern man and a man from the western US. It feels like being on the cutting edge of something.

Next stop: Greenfield on Sunday with a 2PM show. Today I need to finish finding a homes for my remaining belongings (it's like having 4 homes! My crap is everywhere.) After Greenfiled, Montpellier on Tuesday the 16th, Biddeford ME on Thursday the 18th and then back to Boston for our Dorchester show on the 19th. Then, southern US here I come.

T Shirts!

2010-02-05T18:44:00.021-05:00

I met Mary and Nabil at the "Bizarre Bizarre" - a big hodgepodge of vendors in the South End a few months ago. I fell immediately in love with Mary's work - she blends images with Arabic words to create a sort of conversation about our world, human beings, Arabic language, cultural exchange and other things. I saw these three shirts and said to myself: They will be mine.

Says: Kiss Me I'm Irish

Says: "Breakfast"

Says: "Glasses"

This happened right around the time that I was starting to think about silk screening some of my own T shirts. I came up with a few designs (which most people agreed were awful) and was still trying to work out something good when I met Mary and Nabil. I had already been thinking about having my name in Persian on my shirts...it was a little too perfect. So I ran the idea by Mary, she was excited about it - and the rest is history. I am now the proud owner of 100 shirts with guitars that say Nima Samimi in Persian (read it "backwards" now, don't confuse yourself.)

Here's my big box of shirts

My friend Ania

With her partner Ralf

Mary was kind enough to let me make a short movie of her silk screening operation (if you're like me and you love learning about how people make things, this one's for you.)

You can see the rest of Mary's work on her website,
http://www.mothwritten.com/.

Posters

2010-02-05T10:43:00.002-05:00

Man, am i busy! Chris and I are knee deep in emails, tour posters, bookings and plans. Our first show is coming up this Wednesday in Boston. I picked up my T shirts and pins from Mary and Nabil in Maine (I'll post a video and some pics about that soon) and we have 2 tour posters; one from Glen Hutcheson and one from Nikki Mclure (also the album art for Chris' new CD.) I pick chris up at Logan on monday and then (woah) we have liftoff. And on monday I start training my good buddy Patrick at work, he's taking over my job while I'm gone. OK, back to the grind...

Here are our posters:

From Glen:

And from Nikki

Chomsky on Haiti

2010-01-25T08:33:00.004-05:00

This is a clip from an interview with Noam Chomsky, talking about Haiti on the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show.

The Opening

2010-01-18T15:55:00.015-05:00

I have been thinking a lot about Haiti and the Haitian people this week, as I'm sure you have. As the people of Haiti fight for their lives and to rebuild what has been destroyed by this earthquake, I am reminded of one of the incredible and almost universally unrecognized contributions Haitians have made to our world.

In 1791, Haitians rose up in arms against the French colonial occupying power and in about 10 years accomplished something that no group had ever done anywhere: they ended Slavery in Haiti. This was the first and only successful slave revolution in human history of it's scale. Haiti was the major sugar producer for the French empire, competing with British Barbados and Jamaica in the Caribbean as well as the indigo, rice, tobacco and cotton crops of the Amerian south - and all of this wealth came from the work of enslaved African people. So it goes without saying that the threat that a revolution of enslaved people posed to all slave societies was enormous.

As a result, the United States (and other world powers) refused to acknowledge Haitian sovereignty after the revolution - in other words they isolated Haiti from any potential allies or trade partners in an overt attempt prevent the newly free people of Haiti from thriving. Industrial capitalism, globalization, white supremacy - Haitians took a stand against all of these things and probably a bigger stand than any one people has ever taken.

So when we see footage or hear reports of haitian businesses crumpled into dust on either side of the rock-solid American embassy, or hear stories of the forests of the Dominican Republic that turn to dirt at the Haitian border, it is important to remember how Haiti became the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. It was no accident. Let's stand in solidarity with the people of Haiti and insist on a world where all our children, sisters and brothers live in equality. Major changes are needed, a better world is possible.

Lastly, I'll add that I have always been particularly inspired by Toussaint Louverture, one of the key leaders of Haiti's revolution. Louverture was a name he chose for himself - French for "the opening".

A statue of Toussaint Louverture

For more information on the Haitian Revolution, see the classic text - CLR James' "The Black Jacobins" or the celebrated contemporary work by Laurent DuBois, "Avengers of the New World". I'd appreciate any recommendations for articles or books on modern Haiti that you might have, just post it in a comment.

Special Blend Studios

2010-01-15T23:00:00.010-05:00

I've been trying to record another song for my myspace page...I'm having a hard time getting the rhythm right. And the vocals are wobbly. My friend and deskmate at the Arboretum, Kyle Stephens, has lent me his condenser mike - maybe that'll do the trick. Behold, Special Blend Studios...

Tour Poster

2010-01-15T12:39:00.005-05:00

My good buddy Glen Hutcheson (who I've known since I was 11 and he was, I believe, 8) has agreed to make Sandman and I a tour poster. Glen just opened a show in NYC of the work he did since recieving the Hohenberg Travel Award which allowed him to study art in Europe. Here's some of his work:

Self Portrait:

Drawing:

You can check out all his work on his website and blog. Tour poster coming soon!

Live Acoustic

2009-12-14T09:25:00.011-05:00

You may have heard I'm going on tour in February with the illustrious Chris Sand AKA Sandman. Chris and I are in the middle of booking shows and planning the details of several months of travel and music. In fact, we will probably play your town or city!

I'm trying to put an album together, so far I've only recorded one song, called Heartbreak Blues. But this weekend I'm in New York City visiting my friend Hanon who works for the Nielsen corperation (the ones who do television ratings etc.) - they also own several magazines, including Billboard magazine. As a result, Hanon and his coworkers shoot and edit videos for some of the musicians they promote in their magazine and on their website. So on Saturday afternoon, with not a soul in the office, Hanon set up three cameras (including one gigantic "glide cam" that he strapped to his chest) and we spend three hours recording my first music video. And then he spent another three hours editing it. Here it is, enjoy. And when you're done, have a look at some more of Hanon's editing work.

Hiatus

2008-07-03T18:37:00.017-04:00

You may have noticed that I haven't made a new post since March. In the words of Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger: "I think hiatus is the word". I have had a busy couple of months, thanks for bearing with me.

This one will be short and sweet: a scene I love from a wonderful Persian film called "Under the Moonlight", the controversial story of a young man who is struggling to decide weather or not to join the Islamic clergy. This scene shows the playful, caring and brotherly side of Iran's men.

As you have seen in the western media, Middle Eastern men are most commonly seen being angry, mistreating women, acting the fanatic...these images are reinforced throughout western culture with disparaging references to us. Take, for example, this fireworks package I found on the grounds the week before the 4th of July:

It says several things. "Osama Bin Laden is a cartoon, a caricature, not a real man." "Blowing him up would be funny". "This would be a justified revenge." And how different is Bin Laden from other muslim 'fanatics'? Are all muslims 'fanatics'? Does this help justify violence toward all muslims?

One of the joys of watching Persian cinema is that you get indigenous glimpses at how our people live and interact with one another. "House of Sand and Fog" and "Not Without My Daughter", eat your hearts out.

Enjoy.

P.S. This is my first attempt to edit a film for a post. Here's how I did it:

1. I downloaded this film in .avi format from IranTorrents.com

2. I edited this clip (cut it from the film) in Final Cut Pro

3. I exported it into a Final Cut Quicktime File

4. I converted it in Quicktime to XVid format

5. I uploaded it to Youtube

6. (the easy part) I linked the Youtube upload to this page.

-POTW

Dog Bag Holder

2008-03-02T20:04:00.029-05:00

At long last, I am pleased to announce a new invention that has been months in the making; DOG BAG HOLDER. It all started when the dog walkers seemed to want to hang their extra plastic bags on the wrought iron gates to share with the other visitors. It was generally a very good idea, since it meant that 1. people had a use for their extra bags, 2. people who forgot their bags had a steady supply on the gates and 3. it encouraged people to scoop their poop.

The only problems were that 1. it made the gates look like they were covered in trash (and thus made me look bad) and 2. the bags blew off the gates and all around in the world. So I set forth and devised a solution - how can we provide a better way for people to share dogshit bags? First I thought about mounting a holder on the gates...but it turned out that gates are a sensitive issue around here, and people don't want to add things to them. Then it came to me: the trash barrels. Nobody cares how they look because they're already ugly (though I admit I find them more and more beautiful the more I paint their blemishes and hammer their dents - ever the doting father.) So, I discussed it with some people and drew up some plans (pictured below).

Then I faxed the plans over to the good people at ARC Welding in Waltham and they said they'd make a prototype. A few weeks later I visited their shop and picked them up. The shop was amazing - full of machines and chains and motors and noise and air so thick you could see it.

Bob had it all ready for me - and it looked amazing, almost exactly like I'd drawn it. Better really. It turned out that my plan was overly complicated and expensive, he simplified it and preserved the function and dimensions. I had him weaving metal strips together and he just made it out of perforated sheets. Here it is:

Then I took it back to the shop and painted it. I made the mistake of painting it with outdoor glossy paint instead of spray-paint - and the thick oil-paint clogged the perforations up. Then I tried to un-clog them (first with an air pressure hose, then with a pressure sprayer) which didn't really work. Live and learn, spray-paint next time.

Then, on a VERY cold day, I froze my hands off installing it on the Mendum St. Barrel. Several people, including my friend Ivy, have said they like the way it looks and they find it helpful. I'm pleased with it too. If the folks upstairs feel the same way, we'll order twelve more for the other gate-barrels.

Cinnamon Challenge

2008-03-02T19:42:00.004-05:00

This week I got an email from Eric in Plant Records with a link to this video, entitled "The Cinnamon Challenge", staring himself, Steve from IT and a whole host of characters up on 4S (the top floor). It's really very funny, you should watch it.

It took me a few watches to understand exactly what's going on: supposedly it's impossible to swallow a whole spoonful of cinamon - it absorbs all the water in your mouth and turns to cement. We're trying to think of another challenge for this friday but haven't found one yet - so if any of you have ideas, let me know - you could find your idea posted in another video next week. Also, Eric, Abby (who's in the film too) and I are entering a 3 on 3 basketball tournament in a few weeks.

Shotgun Singer

2008-02-18T16:25:00.008-05:00

Kris Delmhorst is my favorite local musician by a long shot. I first met her in 1999 when I was a waiter at Bella Luna restaurant and she would play a weekly gig in the corner alcove. I still remember moving the table and chairs out of the way and her playing songs from her first album - a cassette tape, if you can believe it. It was the best demo tape I'd ever heard and I've been a major fan ever since. She's a poet par excellence. Her long awaited new album, Shotgun Singer, is about to drop. And it's gonna be nice. Ania, Elizabeth, Amanda, Andy and I went to her last boston show on valentines day, which was f@*#ing great. Here's a clip of her from that show opening with a cover of Tina Turner's What's Love Got To Do With It (definitely wade through the first minute of crappy sound and visual, it gets better):

This next song is called Blue Adeline, from the new album (I was better with the handycam at this point.)

Persepolis

2008-02-18T15:32:00.018-05:00

If you haven't seen it yet, the film adaptation of the Persepolis Graphic novels (by Marjane Satrapi) is excellent - Amanda and I really loved it. It's a memoir of Satrapi's life in pre and post-revolutionary Iran and her families experiences under the Shah and Ayatollah. Remember, it's not to be taken literally as the only interpretation of 20th century Iran and the '79 revolution, but it is certainly valuable as one woman's story. Though it is a great victory for the world when a Muslim woman makes a film that is so well received in the west, it is nonetheless an example of the new orientalist narrative, where 'westernized easterners' replace western explorers as the conveyers of all things exotic and intriguing. This is particularly evident in her portrayal of religious Iranians in the film - they are generally shown as barbaric, vulgar and violent. But generally, her treatment of history and politics is nuanced and explores many sides of each issue.

Now, in local news...

In case you haven't had the opportunity to see this, here is a 'wood catalogue' that sits in the basement of our building.

It was made by Ralph F. Perry out of wood from our trees, and serves as a research tool for those interested in identifying wood based on its grain and color. It's really a thing of beauty. Here's his picture.

Bruce and Wes have been insulating the windows in our storage space for the last few weeks. It looks pretty great:

And Jen (multitalented as she is) wrote a great article on Mojito Cupcakes for her website Finders Eaters, which you should check out.

Here are some trash finds for the week:

Someone tried (unsuccessfully) to set up a tent on state lab slope

Someone tried (apparently successfully) to avoid giving life to their progeny

And I found some children's toys and dolls. Here's a character from Pixar's Flushed Away. I found it on the side of the road, still in the package...

and here's what was inside

I also found Tigger in the trash.

Tigger, you rock. Lastly, some natural and beautiful things. The birds use trash to make their nests:

Leaves frozen under the ice

And buds starting to appear on the trees

"No matter how cold the winter, spring always comes."
- Sandman

Button Pusher

2008-02-18T14:37:00.009-05:00

Sometimes I invent things at work. I do this either

1. to make my job easier
2. to make something work better
3. because it's fun or funny

Trashsled 2000 is one such invention. And soon I will post photos of the dog-bag holder I designed and had a welder build last week. For now, I'd like to show you something I like to call...

Button Pusher (Version 1.1)

(It's the metal bolt hanging off the crosswalk button panel)

Here's how it works: you take the pokey thing (a stove bolt, tipped with duct tape and attached with wire) and stick it in the crosswalk button hole to press the button. I and many others found that the button was impossible to press with gloves on, forcing you to take your gloves off and touch cold metal in freezing weather. Button pusher (Version 1.1) fixes this problem.

A closer look

Several people have reported that they enjoy Button Pusher v 1.1 and find it straightforward and easy to use, which makes me happy. I have worried, on occasion, that someone will think it's a bomb and call the police - but fortunately Button Pusher has not run into Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, or Guantanamo Bay yet.

I may be able to fix that particular bug in version 1.2.

Guantanamo Bay

2008-02-18T14:24:00.004-05:00

I've been experimenting with some new music production software lately, a program called Reason. I use my Powerbook G4 laptop computer, some hardware I got on Craigslist (an 8 channel audio interface, a 49 key midi keyboard, a microphone and my guitar), Reason and a few other programs to make beats. So far I haven't managed to record a whole song yet, but here is my first loop.

And this is the voicemail that Hanon left me after I sent it to him.

Blackwell Hole

2008-02-18T12:50:00.007-05:00

Welcome to the second installment of found photographs from the sleeping hole we found in the Blackwell hills.

(Click here for the first post which tells the whole story, and thanks again to Dan Fokine for lending them to me.)

They appear to chronicle the life of the man who lived in the hole last year. I think this might be him, lying in bed.

This gorgeous portrait is part figure, part abstraction

A family Photo

Another one of our friend

Abstract couple

Boy in a doorway

Mother and child

Fritschelles Club

2008-01-31T17:52:00.000-05:00

I'm delighted with this piece of dirty paper I found out in Cityshack this week; it appears to be an unfinished plan by a young person named Fritschelle to create her or his own club.

What a good idea! Everyone should have their own club, I think, and invite other people to join it. What does the square mean? Is it the beginning of clubhouse blueprint? Is it a box to put names of friends in? All I have to say is, Fritschelle, you're a genius. If you ever read this post, please leave your email address, I'd love to learn more about your club. And if you invited me to join it, I wouldn't say 'no'.

TRASHSLED 2000

2008-01-25T23:17:00.003-05:00

Our new favorite TV show at home is a Canadian series called "Little Mosque on the Prairie". It's really extremely funny. In episode four, the Imam decides to Islamize halloween and creates..."HALALOWEEN". I laughed for an hour. Amanda's got a special thing for Yasir Hamoudi on the show. (For the adventurous...)

Today the temperature didn't break the 20's. On that note, I'd like to introduce you to one of my winter trash collecting methods.

TRASHSLED 2000: THE MOVIE

(click the play button on the lower left)

This past July, my friends Dan and Samantha and I were cleaning out the hills behind the Blackwell path when Dan stumbled upon something interesting; someone had dug a hole in the side of the wooded hill, big enough for a person to sleep in (there was a couch cushion in it, all molded over), with logs thatching over the entrance. We wondered at how long the person might have lived in it. Then Dan found a package of photos that had been there for at least a season. They were all wet and decomposing, and the weather had done really cool things to the paper and chemicals. Each one looked almost like it had been painted in abstract, but you could also make out outlines of people and things. Here's one of the photos:

"Lady Madonna"

Dan lent me the stack of 30ish that he kept, so I'll scan them all in and upload some (or maybe all) of them in time.

This week I'm starting a class called: The Politics and International Relations of Iran. Dr. Houchang Chehabi has come highly recommended to me, I think this is going to be a good one.

And here's a voicemail from my old buddy Chris Sand "The Sandman, Montana's Rappin' Cowboy" from out in North Dakota.

Spilling the Beans

2008-01-23T16:21:00.000-05:00

Today I listened to an episode of "Democracy Now" on my iPod while I picked trash on South St. It was a heated conversation between Gloria Steinem and Melissa Harris-Lacewell (Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University) about their respective support of Clinton and Obama.

Harris-Lacewell's criticism of both Steinem and Clinton were, I thought, harsh; she said Clinton is trying to "have it both ways" by claiming to be qualified based on her own life's experience and at the same time profiting from her political exposure as 'Bill's wife'. I see no reason for her not to advertise both. But I appreciated and agreed with much of what she said about the overlooked intersection of race and gender and liked her broad perspective. I'll vote for Obama myself (if I don't vote for Kucinich). Steinem had great things to say about unity (that feminists need to maintain open discussion and good relationships in spite of disagreements) but, in the end, didn't seem to agree with Clinton on political issues (for example, the fact that she voted for war.)

This is one of my favorite trees, next to the barrel on Peter's hill: the honeylocust.

Sometimes I find ceremonial items on the grounds; this little package looked like it might be one...

And it was. Beans and toast.

Graf Writers

2008-01-18T18:20:00.000-05:00

This week it snowed so hard the trees groaned and broke. Heaviest snow I've ever seen. So heavy that some trees keeled over and their root balls ripped out of the ground. I wish I had a picture to post but I forgot my camera those days, and now it's rained over and melted.

I'm writing a paper about Abdul Karim Soroush, the Iranian secularist philosopher. People say he might be the 'Martin Luthor of Islam'. But according to Omid Safi (who Sandman opened up for last year, you can see the photo if you follow the link to his blog), they say that about someone new every 18 months, and on top of that, old ML hated Muslims, Jews and the Pope, so it's kind of a crappy analogy. Soroush thinks that there can be Islamic nations where law is based on a flexible combination of Islam and human rights. I can't follow everything he says, but I'm hooked on his ideas.

No interesting trash to speak of this week: all the snow put the kabosh on that. And nothing good in the barrels. In the summer it'll flow like the brook.

I discovered a blog on graffiti in Iran: http://irangraffiti.blogspot.com/, those Tehrani writers have talent. Here are some photos from the subway wall at the marsh behind the Blackwell path, at work. Our writers end up throwing their cans into the marsh and I'm trying to devise a plan to provide waste barrels for them. They don't want to get caught with cans if the jake finds 'em on their way out.

Three Women

2008-01-12T17:27:00.000-05:00

I found this by Poplar Gate on thursday. It's too bad when friendships get ruined. Hard to be a young woman these days, so many things to get in the way of your friendships. I hope they work it out.

First Post

2008-01-12T16:18:00.000-05:00

I am 30 years old. I work as a garbage-man for a public park somewhere in the United States. Really I'm a sort of outdoor handyman; some days I pick up trash with a trash picker and a barrel on wheels; some days I change the liners in the 28 trash barrels (lots of dog shit and coffee cups); other days I fix the wooden benches, remove graffiti from the roads and walls or rake leaves out of the sewer drains. Much of my work life involves garbage. The perimeter of the park is surrounded by city streets, and there's a street that bisects the grounds, so the streets form a kind of figure 8. People throw cans, bottles, drinks, packages, CD's, DVD's, cigarette packages and other things out their windows as they drive by. I don't really mind, they're the reason I have a job. (I do spend a lot of time ruminating about the waste created by advanced industrial capitalism, and on a broader scale that drives me crazy. A new Styrofoam coffee cup every day!?) People park at the gates at night and on the weekend when they need a private spot; I clean up their condoms and underwear. You'd think they would want to put the underwear back on afterwards, but this is clearly not always the case. People leave syringes lying on the roads and walls. I have a red sharps container where I collect those. At some point I'll take them all out and take a photograph of them. At certain times of the year, people leave sacrifices on the grounds; lots of coconuts, sometimes other vegetables and sometimes animals, usually chickens or other birds. I find those. I haven't been able to figure out exactly what religion these ceremonies belong to but my guess is either Haitian Voodoo, Cuban Sanataria or Brazilian Condomble. All of those communities are represented in our area.People leave couches and televisions, dolls and toys, books, clothes, magazines and torn up photographs. Once I found two 45 automatic shells. My plan is to begin photographing the trash and post it for you to see and share. My trash is your trash.