Burning Man Loses Its Innocence

...not the headline I wanted to see with my Mom and Irene out on the playa for the first time!

Thank You iPod...

...for another night of glorious music ....just when you need it the most.....

1. Track 2, Lounge Divine - Santana

A stunning mash-up of Santana music created by two European friends I've known for years, but only through the Internet.

2. The Angel Cried Out - Russian Chamber Choral (Tchaikovsky: Vespers)

This Tchaikovsky composition was my lifeline during my lonely days in Alexandria, Virginia.

3. Enigmatic Ocean, Part 2 - Jean-Luc Ponty

Sounds of my spiritual awakening in Phelan in the late '70s.

4. Orthodox - The Rastafarians

Life saving Santa Cruz reggae.

5. A Night in Tunisia - Lee Morgan

Lee Morgan makes everything about life better.

6. Represente - Orishas

The soundtrack to my first five years in Toronto, back when I studied Afro-Cuban conga with Jesus Valdez, the Aztec Clave.

7. The Way and the Truth - Kephas

Kephas (Richard Gonzalez) is an unbelievable, unsigned guitarist who does Carlos Santana better than Carlos has done Carlos in the past 8 years.

8. Father and Son - Cat Stevens

Deep, deep memories which have been waiting as a sign of my new reality.

9. Welcome to Mexico - Cheech & Chong

Cooler than you may think.

10. Agrippina, Act 2 - Lorriane Hunt

Another sign of the lonely days in Alexandria. This is a copy of the album I bought for Jim Wind for Christmas 2004.

11. Born Under a Bad Sign - Jimi Hendrix

This song proves Jimi will always be the baddest dude around.

12. Ai Ga Bani - Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate

Pure. African. Beauty.

13. Moanin' Dove - Michelle Shocked

Michelle Shocked is so beautiful. "Moanin' Dove, Moanin' Dove. Lord that's what I be. Moanin' for your precious love. Your love is what I need."

14. Tall Trees in Georgia - Leah State

The best rendition of this Buffy Sainte-Marie song besides Buffy herself.

Winnipeg Sunset

I missed the most beautiful moment of this sunset from Tuesday evening because I was on the phone talking to my web developer, but I think this picture still conveys my point that the prairies have the some of the best sunsets in the world. Especially after a summer storm. Even from my hotel window. Even as seen by my Treo.

First Day of School

Ok, it's not quite "school," but today was Amado's first day of daycare. And it was really only a half day. And I had to stay with him the whole time. But it was a tremendous experience for both of us!

I loved watching Amado interact with other kids in his age range (19 months to 2 1/2 years). It's beautiful to observe the different skills and personalities of each of the little kids, including Amado.

Amado loved all the balls there were to play with. It seemed like there were dozens! I could tell he also really liked being around other kids. He's going to grow a lot by going to daycare I would say. Amado didn't seem impressed by the catered lunch, or by the nap time, so we headed home. He returns on Thursday, after I get back from a meeting in Winnipeg.

See you then!

Anil's Ghost

I read Michael Ondaatje's book, Anil's Ghost, about two years ago now. It's a great book about a woman named Anil, who is a Sri Lankan forensic anthropologist investigating the political murders that had happened on the island during the civil war there.

There is one sentence from the book which occasionally rises in my memory that I'm still totally puzzled by.

When she was 12, Anil decided her given name was unacceptable and wanted to take the name "Anil", which was her 14-year-old brother's second name. He resisted, and after a lot of arguing and a failed intervention by their parents, Anil finally got her name by giving her brother:

...one hundred saved rupees, a pen set he had been eyeing for some time, a tin of fifty Gold Leaf cigarettes she had found, and a sexual favour he had demanded in the last hours of the impasse.

Three of the items I understand, but the fourth? Ondaatje offers no further explanation of this strange combination of goods it took Anil to get the name and never revisits it in the book. Could I be the only reader left wondering...

And the Beat Goes On

My father played alto saxophone. Unfortunately, I don't have any memories of him playing, but several people have told me he could play a lot of jazz.

My father also wrote poetry and many of his poems had musical themes. Here is one I found the other day in one of his undated notebooks. It reminds me of the old days when my parents were young and their lives were consumed with art---something I can remember myself. Of course, my Mom's ["Chris" below] life still is filled with creativity (see her here blowing my dad's horn, some years after his death).

Duos

I am overcome by a madness,
A Jazz madness,
A madness in which I feel
I must blow everything.
From the word by Trane and Bird...
To things Chris would sing.
Bop and Blues are my obsession
My only love the open session.

--Rex Gallegos

Totally Surfed Out Dude!

Ron Cestari cutting one off the lip (Serrano High School, Phelan, Calif., 1979).


Ron, great to hear from you man! Welcome to Alma's Soulfood. Click on "P*Land Blazes" to see more P*Land photos and video.


Peace Man!

10 Things I Thought about on my Summer Vacation

1. I missed many things about not being constantly on-line, but neither blogging or Facebook were among them.
2. I thought I was on to something when I saw some parallels between Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Yann Martel's The Life of Pi. Both feature solitary figures in out of control boats --- the old man being pulled by a marlin toward reality, Pi drifting with a tiger in tow toward unreality, etc. But then I got home and googled it and found out I wasn't the only one who noticed these similarities. Both are really amazing books though and I highly recommend them.
3. I don't like mice. Especially when they bust in our car night after night, leaving an ungodly mess. And all for a piece of gum.
4. I wish I had swam and kayaked more.
5. My BBQ chicken is absolutely the best.
6. There isn't anything much better than sitting in the sun, watching your son in the wading pool, and pouring over 3-day-old box scores of baseball games.
7. I'm reviewing The History of Barrios Unidos for Sojourners and found it a very inspiring book, though the reasons may be completely personal.
8. Michael Vick, one of the NFL's most talented players ever, will lose his career because of a dog fight?
9. I had fun drinking wine with my father-in-law on the last night at the cottage, although the evening ended in chaos.
10. It was great to see all my family from California here, together, in Northern Ontario. I would love to be able to hang out with them anywhere at least once a year. Twice a year would be better yet because I really miss them.

[Photo from a really neat Lithuanian's travel blog, but I'm sorry to say I can't find it anymore.]

We're Back...

...and here's one last vacation shot (though if my fans wish another, I must comply). It's of South River, a beautiful spot near Wendy's parents' cottage. I would love to go kayaking there one day.

We're getting everything together around here, so please bear with us! I'll get back to posting more regularly soon.

Peace Out.

She'll Be Comin' Round the Corner When She Comes

Not quite home yet, but we will be soon!

Above, the train bearing the mother load pulls into South River station last week. We picked my Mom and Irene up here right before making the last leg of the journey to the cottage.

Amado's Pool

Here's Amado playing in his new pool at the cottage. His Granmas Coop and Bean picked this up for him at the local hardware store and he loves it. He will play for an hour in it, even when it doesn't have water in it!

View from the Cottage

Still Up North

We're still up north at the cottage. I'm at the Red Brick Cafe in Sundridge, using their hi-speed wireless to answer some work emails and catch up on "the blogs". We had a great week with my family from California... mostly just relaxing and enjoying the water and the north woods. They've all headed home now, so Wendy, Amado, and I are spending a couple of days by ourselves before her family comes up next week. I'm reading Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Wendy's watching a DVD on William Sloane Coffin, and Amado is enjoying his new kiddie pool. It's truly beautiful up here, and it's really nice to relax for a spell. The only thing hassling us are those dang red squirrels! They are out of control! (No doubt getting back at me for what we did to their city cousin in the EZ-Anwser Squirrel video on wondercafe.ca!)

Sirens

In order to protect their innocence, I won't identify each these funny people---except to say that the cute kid on the far right is Wendy. The rest of you know who you are!

This picture was taken in the early 70s at Lake Bernard (not Lake Erie like I thought), around the time Wendy's family was building their cottage there.

We'll be doing some swimming there too in the next couple of weeks. One week with my family from California and one week with Wendy's family from Ontario. We are really looking forward to it!

Blogging will be sparse during that time, though I can't imagine I wouldn't be able to find some way to hook up to the Internet up north.

So see you soon! And stay cool!

Happy Birthday Irene!

When your Mom brings home a tough-looking hot rodder like this, some families may get concerned. Not us though. And after more than 27 years, we haven't had a single regret.

Happy Birthday Irene! We send you all of our love and look forward to seeing you very soon!

(See my Mom's blog for more birthday hoopla!)

La Notte

...and speaking of great directors...

Heading East, one of my favourite blogs, has a nice clip from Antonioni's La Notte (go there and click on the picture), along with an interesting discussion about whether or not there are any movie directors today in the same league as Bergman or Antonioni.

I love this clip, though I was too distracted by the staggering beauty of Monica Vitt to read the subtitles.

Cold Tea

Wendy and I finally had the chance to see Cold Tea the other day. This short film is a stunningly beautiful, poetic story about the power that love has to break through in our lives. We watched it three times in a row, with much awe and discussion.

My long-time friend Katie Bowen directed and produced this film, along with David Kosh who wrote it based on a short story by Katie's dad, Roger Bowen. Katie, you are such an amazing filmmaker! It's no wonder that Cold Tea is getting picked up by numerous film festivals!

We want an encore performance, or at least a podcast of the director's commentary!

Congratulations Katie on this sweet (and cold) piece of art.

Security Blanket

Amado and I can watch the lobby watch channel all day. Got to stay on top of who's coming and going, you know.

Reconnecting

"I have maintained open channels with my childhood. I think it may be that way with many artists. Sometimes in the night, when I am on the limit between sleeping and being awake, I can just go through a door into my childhood and everything is as it was - with lights, smells, sounds and people."

--Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)

I found this quote in a very interesting Ingmar Bergman obituary yesterday. In some of my most profound moments of late I have had a similar experience while putting Amado to bed. We both slip to the edge of consciousness---but aren't quite asleep---then a memory from my childhood surfaces and I just let it sit there in this place for a while. After a few seconds, it feels like it starts unfolding, with all the details---the colours and smells and tactile feelings---coming to life. I follow each of these senses like a path, deeper and deeper into the memory, which at that point becomes much more real than me lying on a bed with a baby in my arms. When I return, Amado is asleep and I feel like some sort of small healing has taken place inside of me.

18 months!

A year and a half old and on the run! Yesterday Amado had his check up and a couple of mega-vaccinations. He knew what he was in for when we walked into the doctor's office, so he was especially wiggly. We all survived though. Here are the stats discovered by Dr. Lau:

Head: 51 cm.
Height: 84 cm.
Weight: 27.5 lbs.

He's in the 78 percentile for height and weight, which means he's bigger than 3/4 of the kids his age. And his head remains in the 98 percentile for kid's his age! Wow!

We're on the run today to Port Stanley for the 50th wedding anniversary of Wendy's Aunt Barb and Uncle Gene, so I'll update this post later.

East L.A., 1970

This picture from the Chicano Moratorium reminds me of the East L.A. of my childhood...in fact, it was taken right next to our friends Dylan and Jocelyn's house. Somehow, this grey colour is how I remember everything as well.

I found this in the amazing UCLA photo collection, Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photos, 1920-1990.

Keep Santa Cruz Weird

Sometimes I tire of people here in the East who make jokes about Californians being strange. Then my Mom goes and blogs about her neighbour's lawn being decorated with corndogs. What can I say?

I know some Canadians who have never even heard of a corndog. How are you going to explain this to them?

Happy Birthday Katie!

You're looking very serious in this picture from 1988 or 1989, but it's one of my favourites so I thought I would post it. No doubt you were pondering your past and considering your future. But, hey, lighten up! It's your birthday!

It's been wonderful reconnecting with you through your blog. I hope you have an amazing and terrific day!

Beauty be upon you!

Yesterday I read a story by Sister Jose Hobday, a Catholic Native American nun and spiritual teacher. She writes about the Papago tribe on the Arizona-Mexico border that is 95% Catholic. Because they live in an isolated region, they often can't find a priest to celebrate Mass with. When there isn't a priest around, Hobday writes, they have created their own version of the "passing the peace" ritual when worshippers offer greetings to each other during the Mass.

In most Catholic churches this ritual is done by shaking hands or perhaps hugging those near you in the pews. Instead, in the spring when the desert wild flowers are in bloom, the Papago gather flowers and bring them to church. When the time comes to pass the peace, they pelt each other with wild flowers and say, "Peace to you!", "Beauty be upon you!"

If one among them is especially needing affirmation that they are loved, the Papago gather all the flowers together in a basket and dump the whole thing right on that person's head.

"Beauty be upon you!" "Peace to you!"

Today, I send out a virtual version of this flower shower blessing to Rev. Shawn in Manitoba, who doesn't seem like he has been getting what he deserves lately.

"Peace to you, brother!" "Beauty be upon you!"

Old L.A.

The last time I lived in Los Angeles, City Hall was the tallest building in town. I could see it from my school. That was a long time ago (though, perhaps not as long ago as when this picture was taken!).

BlueGreen

Happy 60th Birthday Carlos!

Thank you so much for raising our consciousness and bringing us healing through your soulful music.

Read more here...

Rock Climber

I'm afraid of heights, but that doesn't keep me from secretly wanting to be a rock climber.

Santa Cruz's Chris Sharma takes a spiritual approach to rock climbing and is a superstar of the sport. Check out a video of one of his crazy climbs here.

101 Simple Recipes in 10 Minutes or Less

The New York Times has an article that should be emailed to every home in North America, since most of us seem to have forgotten how to cook for ourselves. These are my kind of recipes, short and to the point!

Here's a sample:

45 Sauté shredded zucchini in olive oil, adding garlic and chopped herbs. Serve over pasta.

46 Broil a few slices prosciutto until crisp; crumble and toss with parsley, Parmesan, olive oil and pasta.

47 Not exactly banh mi, but... Make sandwiches on crisp bread with liverwurst, ham, sliced half-sours, shredded carrots, cilantro sprigs and Vietnamese chili-garlic paste.

48 Not takeout: Stir-fry onions with cut-up broccoli. Add cubed tofu, chicken or shrimp, or sliced beef or pork, along with a tablespoon each minced garlic and ginger. When almost done, add half cup of water, two tablespoons soy sauce and plenty of black pepper. Heat through and serve over fresh Chinese noodles.

49 Sprinkle sole fillets with chopped parsley, garlic, salt and pepper; roll up, dip in flour, then beaten egg, then bread crumbs; cook in hot olive oil about three minutes a side. Serve with lemon wedges.

50 The Waldorf: Toast a handful of walnuts in a skillet. Chop an apple or pear; toss with greens, walnuts and a dressing made with olive oil, sherry vinegar, Dijon mustard and shallot. Top, if you like, with crumbled goat or blue cheese.

51 Put a stick of butter and a handful of pine nuts in a skillet. Cook over medium heat until both are brown. Toss with cooked pasta, grated Parmesan and black pepper.

etc.

Self Portrait

Finally!

Congratulations to our friend Jeff Shriver and Gabriela Narvaez who were married in Nicaragua on May 5! Thanks to modern technology we just found out about this surprising turn of events now, so we won't delay in sending Jeff and Gabriela our best wishes. We're really happy for you!

Umm, dude, are those actual real fireworks in the background???

Breath

And speaking of Sojourners....

There are few places that I would call sacred. The library at Sojourners former office is one of them.

As Sojourners gossip columnist Julie Polter writes about the room, it was "the site of staff lunches, tense meetings, intern farewell skits, wedding receptions, worship services, and, of course, ping-pong tournaments." I would add to that list the amazing gatherings with youth-at-risk that I was part of in the mid-1990s with D.C. Barrios Unidos.

Sojourners has moved up the road, but apparently the space is still being used for spiritual purposes. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, in D.C. from his ashram in Bangalore, India, for a U.S. tour, gathered his followers (including Bill Clinton, according to the article) in the former Sojourners library for a session of deep breathing and meditation.

I don't think anybody at Sojourners could have imagined the library hosting an Indian guru, though the room has had some really amazing people in it over the years. Still, as the former embassy of Nicaragua during the Somoza era (that's the rumour anyway), the space probably still has a few ghosts that need to be cleared out.

Breathing always helps.

Turning a Robber onto Wine

Ryan Rodrick Beiler of Sojourners had a great blog post on God's Politics the other day...I've got a baby on my lap, so instead of trying to paraphrase the article I'll just reprint the whole thing. Thanks Ryan.

Turning a Robber onto Wine
This story in today's Washington Post made my day. As a pacifist Mennonite, I can't count the number of times someone has posed "The Question": If someone had a gun to your loved one's head, and you could use lethal violence to save them, what would you do? This scenario that unfolded in a D.C. backyard doesn't fit that exact hypothetical scene in every detail, but it does help point out the absurdity of it—what are the chances that reacting violently in such a situation is guaranteed to save your loved one and only hurt or kill the "bad guy"?

At the very least, true stories like this one remind us that violence is never our only option: A grand feast of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp was winding down, and a group of friends as sitting on the back patio of a Capitol Hill home, sipping red wine. Suddenly, a hooded man slid in through an open gate and put the barrel of a handgun to the head of a 14-year-old guest.

"Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he demanded, according to D.C. police and witness accounts.

The five other guests, including the girls' parents, froze—and then one spoke.

"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, blurted out. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The intruder took a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry and said, "Damn, that's good wine."

The girl's father, Michael Rabdau, 51, who described the harrowing evening in an interview, told the intruder, described as being in his 20s, to take the whole glass. Rowan offered him the bottle. The would-be robber, his hood now down, took another sip and had a bite of Camembert cheese that was on the table.

Then he tucked the gun into the pocket of his nylon sweatpants. ...

"I'm sorry," he told the group. "Can I get a hug?"

Of course, this story (and please, read the whole thing) is ripe with indirect biblical allusions—though the article makes no mention of any spiritual or philosophical motivations for anyone's actions. And of course, there's every possibility that in spite of a nonviolent response, it or similar situations might not have ended as happily—but Jesus never promised as much when he taught us to love our enemies and bless them. In fact, he promised the opposite. Still, it's beautiful when turning the other cheek, giving your shirt, and going the extra mile have the intended effect: confronting our enemies with our humanity—and their own.

Though theological arguments aside, I suppose another moral of the story could be, quite simply: In case of armed robbers, always have a bottle of good wine handy.

Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the web editor for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

The Axolotl

The Argentinian writer Julio Cortazar has a haunting short story about a writer who becomes possessed by an axolotl, which is an unmaturing larvae species of salamander from the ancient lakes beneath Mexico City.

The writer discovers the axolotls at the Paris aquarium and returns day after day to stare at them, utterly transfixed by the otherworldly creatures. In their faces he sees that they are suffering, imprisoned in a slug-like body and a glass underwater tomb.

Over time, the writer realizes that he is an axolotl himself and is on the inside of the glass tank, looking out at himself as a human looking in. The axolotl is terrified that he is a sentient being trapped in an axolotl's body. The terror of the axolotl consumes the writer and becomes the only thing he can think about. The axolotl hopes the writer will one day write a story to let the world know about his pain.

And, apparently, that is what happened.

Wanted: Tropical Leaf Counter

In 1989, I spent a couple of months in Bali counting the leaves on mango trees.

I was reminded of this yesterday when visiting prospective daycare providers for Amado. One of the women we visited had a incense-scented house filled with devotional images of Sai Baba.

My boss in the Balinese leaf counting project (it was more than that, but don't distract me), who was a worm farmer from Santa Cruz, gave us little paper packets of funeral pyre ashes from Varanasi that were blessed by Sai Baba. On an auspicious night, we opened them up and tossed them into the rice paddies around Ubud. The ashes sparkled in the moonlight.

And no, I don't remember how many leaves are on a typical Balinese mango tree, but it was in the thousands.

Being a leaf counter was hot, dusty, and sometimes I ran into huge spiders hiding under the leaves. But I persisted, compelled by my desire for the authentic dish of nasi champur that marked the end of each day.

Claude Owens

Each year around this time I am reminded of Claude Owens who died in a motorcycle wreck at the top of Sheep Creek Road in Phelan on the day of the All Star Game in 1984. I shouldn't say died---rather, he was killed by a drunk driver. It was a tragic loss the left me stunned for years.

Claude was the big brother of Calvin, one of my best friends growing up in Phelan. He was about four or five years older than us and we really looked up to him. He was big, tough, and intimidating (to me at least), but we also had a lot of fun with hunting, swimming in the aqueduct, wrestling, shooting, and doing all that desert stuff.

Claude was always involved in things that seemed mysterious to me.

He lived in Hawaii with his mom for a long time doing who knows what.

He ran with a biker gang in the desert for a while and got in a big shoot out at the abandoned house down the road from us.

He rolled a water truck at a mine in Boron, or Trona, or some god-forsaken place like that.

He drove a nail right through his hand with a nail gun.

He showed up unexpectedly and saved us the night we saw a ghost at the Snowbird.

I drove Ron, Claude and Calvin's dad, to Claude's funeral. It was at Memorial Lawns or Forest Hills or one of those huge industrial graveyards outside of LA. The funeral was a strange mix of desert folk, stiff in their fancy clothes, and Claude's relatives from Tonga sitting under the trees on woven mats (Claude and Calvin are half Tongan).

Driving home, I tried to avoid the turn where Claude was killed when we arrived in Phelan, but it's almost impossible to do since there is only one road into town. Plus, I was following Calvin and didn't want him to think we veered off the side of the road or something.

As we got to the top of Sheep Creek where Claude died, everyone in the car got silent and I snuck a sideways glance at Ron with me in the front seat. Ron was a pretty tough guy too, but as we rounded the corner where he lost his eldest son, I saw one big tear slowly rolling down his cheek.

To me, it was the biggest tear in the world.

Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami has been one of my favourite writers for a couple of years now. His books are incredibly surrealistic and wrestle with the quest of each of us to find that part of our souls which we have lost. They're almost shamanistic tales, really. I'm just finishing Kafka on the Shore now.

Murakami has written a short essay in the New York Times about how jazz played a role in helping him find his writing voice. It's pretty cool...

When I turned 29, all of a sudden out of nowhere I got this feeling that I wanted to write a novel — that I could do it. I couldn’t write anything that measured up to Dostoyevsky or Balzac, of course, but I told myself it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to become a literary giant. Still, I had no idea how to go about writing a novel or what to write about. I had absolutely no experience, after all, and no ready-made style at my disposal. I didn’t know anyone who could teach me how to do it, or even friends I could talk with about literature. My only thought at that point was how wonderful it would be if I could write like playing an instrument.

I had practiced the piano as a kid, and I could read enough music to pick out a simple melody, but I didn’t have the kind of technique it takes to become a professional musician. Inside my head, though, I did often feel as though something like my own music was swirling around in a rich, strong surge. I wondered if it might be possible for me to transfer that music into writing. That was how my style got started.

Union Now?

Tomorrow my office, the General Council Office of The United Church of Canada, will vote whether or not to join the CUPE union....and I have no idea how I will vote.

In theory, I'm pro-union. Autoworkers, teachers, city workers like Wendy should all be part of a union. But I'm often conflicted about whether or not it's the right choice for a church. Even a national church office.

Your advice would be appreciated.

Perhaps a Scottish Rite?

Mmmm, Haggis

My theory is that all of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare.

--Mike Myers