Goodbye, Grandma

My dear grandmother, Christine Blythe, died of lung cancer on Friday, April 7. The loss is still too fresh for me to really wax eloquent. But my grandmother was a fascinating woman. She was tiny, compared to me, and you could see the Cherokee heritage her family tried to deny in her jet black hair and killer cheekbones.

Born in Oklahoma, my grandmother was the treasured youngest of thirteen children. When she was 17, her 21-year-old boyfriend, LT Moore, was killed while driving drunk. A month later, young Christine found she was pregnant. After my mother, Jacqueline Kay, was born, my grandmother remarried the man my mother thought of as her father. Four more children were born to her -- Jerry, Barbara, Michael, and Tommy. Five years after Tommy was born, she divorced, remarried, and divorced again. Now living in Key West, Florida, my grandmother worked hard as a bartender, in what was mostly a gay bar. She served drinks to Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote, among others.

She later said that she really enjoyed her life -- that she liked her job, and that she had many good times with her friends. In fact, she was quite the partier, smoking and drinking enough to put the current Spring Break kids to shame. Even as she suffered with lung cancer, she said she never regretted the smoking and parties. She lived her life the way she wanted.

She must've been an excellent bartender, because she chatted easily with anyone. Everyone liked her. Even in her last three weeks of life, when she was taken to an in-patient hospice, she won the hearts of all her nurses and attendants with her easy-going nature and interest in their lives. She hardly ever complained, and enjoyed nothing more than juicy gossip, baseball (especially the Atlanta Braves) and football, particularly her beloved Miami Dolphins.

Nine or so years ago, she came to live with my mother. She was suffering then from various lung ailments and osteoporosis. For the rest of her life she moved around the country with my mother, uncomplaining, making new friends, and reconnecting with Mom, her oldest daughter. This was when I got to know her best. I didn't see her much when I was a child. Grandma was closest to those who were closest -- physically closest. With her in Key West and me in Hawaii, I never got to know her. But when she came to live with Mom I finally got the opportunity to really find out who she was, and to love her. For that and many other reasons, I'm grateful to my Mother for making a home for Grandma. She made a mean martini, watched "Regis & Kelly," and could quote baseball statistics till my eyes crossed. She loved chicken 'n dumplings, and baked carrot cake so good I'd end up having dessert for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

She always carried her soft southern drawl, and wasn't afraid to make tart observations. Her bartender training gave her a sharp eye for character. I asked her what Capote was like. She shook her head: "Mean drunk." And Tennessee Williams? "A flaming faggot."

"Grandma!" I said. "That's not a nice way to put it."

"I can't kindly help it," she said, shrugging. "I had a lot of gay friends, but I never liked the ones who were, you know, flaming. And he just always wanted attention, saying 'Look at me, I'm the big writer.' Well, nuts to that."

I tried to plumb her memories about the man who had been my grandfather -- the biological father my own mother had never known. But she couldn't remember much, and she didn't seem to care that she'd forgotten. Oh sure, she'd been upset when he died, she guessed. But that was all a long time ago. She wasn't a sentimental woman. That served her well during difficult unmarried teenage years with a baby, perhaps. It also lead to some estrangement from her children. And for an unsentimental woman, she nonetheless came to regret that distance. She knew that she'd created it. It had helped her lead the life the she wanted, but it had its cost. In those last nine years together, she and my mother came to an understanding, I think. And I came to love her more than I ever thought possible. She is missed.

Possum Central

I don't understand why people don't like opossums. I mean, look at this cute little thing. She's an arboreal marsupial, not a rodent. And that long, naked tail is prehensile. When she gets old enough, she'll carry her children in a pouch, like a kangaroo.

Her name is Leia, and she's the daughter (or son, possibly) of Lana, the first opossum I started feeding at the Cat Food Bowl of Plenty on my little back porch.

She's very shy. I tried to take photos through my screen door, but the flash just turned the screen into a blur. So I sneaked out, and she fled. I lurked. She toddled back and drank some rainwater out of an empty can of cat food left outside by my neighbors. (They are nice but tend to leave garbage out back for weeks at a time. I'm refusing to clean up after them, until I just can't stand it any more.) Then she made her way back to the cat food and began crunching. Guess she got used to the flash, because she stayed and ate while I got a few shots.

The other night I heard a scrabbling outside my front window. I pushed aside the curtains to see Leia's little paws clutching the ivy growing over the windows. I shone a light on her, to see better and perhaps discourage her from trying that too often, since if she fell, she'd crash through my screen. But she was gone. Opossums are arboreal, dude. They don't look as dextrous as monkeys, but stick 'em on a vine and watch 'em zoom upward.

Latest "Notes"

My latest column's online today at www.monstersandcritics.com. I review the first four episodes of "The Sopranos," a series which is reaching new heights in its final season. If you aren't watching it now, be sure to view it later, when it comes out on DVD.

The Chateau by Night

It's a rainy day here in Los Angeles. Rivers criss-cross the parking lot at work, making it an adventure to get to my car. Twas just such a night when I took this photo of my apartment building, not many days ago. It's got the word Chateau in its name and was built, or so I've heard, in the 1920's by movie stars Elsa Lanchester (aka the Bride of Frankenstein) and Charles Laughton (Henry VIII) to house their guests.

In spite of noisy neighbors, difficult parking conditions on weekends, and occasional hooker sightings, I love my neighborhood and my building. I won't live there forever. After all, a woman needs real closet space. But I've been there for nine and a half years -- longer than I've ever lived anywhere else in my life.

At night the lights glow forth from the apartments, and you can see the silhouettes of pet cats staring out the windows.

Wild parrots nest in that jacaranda tree out front. My upstairs neighbor keeps a birdfeeder dangling from a high branch to make sure they never leave us.

Late Night Eats

Another reason to love Los Angeles is Jan's. On a rainy night, if you need to mull over life's idiosyncracies with a hungry friend, the place to head is Jan's, here on Beverly Blvd, just east of La Cienega.

Want pie at 1am? Got a taste for bacon and eggs for dinner? Jan's is happy to oblige.

I've spent more evenings than I can count here with friends. The coffee keeps coming, no matter how long you sit. Across the aisle you might see a bent old man with a walker. He's a regular, wearing that green sweater and hopeful combover, doing a crossword puzzle. And the cops? They love this place. Venture here after midnight, and you'll often see three or four police cars, one of them a K-9 unit, parked outisde, while the officers sit inside, chowing down on fried zucchini or a spinach salad.

There's one particular waiter I recommend -- and whose name, of course, I've never gotten. He's latino, tall, slightly burly, and he's right there with your coffee. We always tip him well, and he always obliges me with an ice cream sundae simply swarming with whipped cream, cherries and nuts. The booths near the windows are nice, but it's worth it to sit in the back if that's where he's serving that night. Darn. Wish I had a photo of him. Maybe on my next visit.

Top Ten Reasons Not to Watch

Yet another shameless plug for my column, Notes from the Wasteland, at www.monstersandcritics.com. This week I list ten shows and channels that make you want to turn off the TV and get a life. It's pretty funny, if I do say so myself. Go to the website, click TV on the upper right, then scroll down to see my column featured in the text or check out the left hand column where my magnum opus (*cough*) is listed.

And even more importantly -- HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!

Top Ten Reasons to Watch

My latest column, which lists my top ten reasons to love TV, is up at www.monstersandcritics.com. Click on "TV" on the top right and then click on "Notes from the Wasteland" on the left hand side. Once I figure out how to put links in without just typing in the whole damned thing, I'll be able to say -- click HERE. Until then, you'll need three clicks or so to find my column.

People poo-poo TV, but that does a disservice to the many terrific and often brilliant people that work in it. Not to say there isn't a ton of crap out there, but consider any medium and you'll find that 90 percent of everything is crap. Most painters -- are not gonna get their stuff hung in museums. Most writers -- churn out forgettable prose. Most movies -- aren't worth putting on your Netflix list. So it is with television. But a few wonderful programs and channels do exist, and they keep me paying my exhorbitant cable bill every month. I list my reasons to watch -- from Animal Planet to The Wire. Check it out.

My Friends = Rock Stars??

After Brian regaled us with a LIVE version of the Pope's Pics last Saturday, we stayed on to "entertain" the other denizens of Broadway 11 with our song styles.

That's Kurt at the mic, doing a delightfully robotic "Jesse's Girl."











John Mark didn't get up, even though he probably has the best voice of all of us. He's the one with the Gene Simmons tongue, as if you didn't know.

Rachel and Valerie also neglected to get up. I can't blame them. After seeing how some of the other patrons embarrassed themselves (a very loud, off key version of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" especially comes to mind) it'd be only natural to want to avoid making a similar spectacle of oneself.


I've never done karaoke before, so I elected to back Cheri up (She's got the microphone; that's me on the right, next to Naomi. Alas, you can't see nearly enough of Cathleen in this photo) on a rousing version of "Proud Mary." Cheri rocked the house. As for me, apparently there's nothing like karaoke to show you how little you know about a song, even one so famous as this. Good thing I didn't have a microphone.

One highlight (or was it a low point?) of the evening for me was when a guy we referred to as "That Shuffle Dancer Dude" gave me what amounted to a lap dance while onstage a man named Kelly warbled his fifth disco tune of the evening. Wish I could remember what the song was, but the experience has given me Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and perhaps the inevitable flashbacks will remind me of it later.

Doc Berry - Environmental Pundit

My father, Paul "Doc" Berry, was interviewed by Hawaii Public Radio last week about the limits of Hawaii's environment and the impact of tourism. You can listen here: http://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/lewis/lewis1.htm
It's the first in the list.

The photo is of Kailua Beach, Oahu, just to remind you of the beauty we must learn to sustain in my home state.

Temples Everywhere

French archaeologists found a huge temple to the sun god Re under a Cairo suburb yesterday. (You can see one of the statues they found above. It's a rare one of a pharoah, in this case Ramses the Great, dressed as a high priest.) In the meantime, British archaeologists found a private chapel used by Henry VIII and other royalty under a parking lot in Greenwich, England.

Apparently all sorts of treasures lurk under our existing cities, waiting to be found. Beneath your feet could lie the evidence of long dead civilizations -- their places of worship, their burial sites, their sewers, their bedrooms. How fricking cool is that?

I spotted the news of the Egyptian sun temple on www.nationalgeographic.com. Per their article:

The discovery of the sun temple may shed light on the status of Heliopolis in ancient Egypt. "We do not know enough about Heliopolis, which was one of the main cities in Egypt and moreover a religious and, let us say, intellectual center," said French archaeologist Alain Zivie, leader of a team that has been excavating Saqqara, the cemetery of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, for more than two decades.
Zivie says the discovery also shows that much of ancient Egypt's treasures are still buried under modern cities, particularly Cairo and its suburbs.

"Cairo is the child of three cities: Memphis, [the Roman fortress of] Babylon of Egypt, and Heliopolis," Zivie said. "Expanding more and more, it swallows now its three mothers, especially Babylon and Heliopolis. But these [ancient cities] are not completely lost. They continue to exist in the underground Cairo."

Leo Depuydt, an Egyptologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, agrees. "The recent find of a giant temple built by Ramses II, ancient Egypt's greatest builder pharaoh, in Cairo again reminds us of how archaeological discovery would increase exponentially—almost beyond imagination—if digging under urban centers and dismantling buildings of later date ever becomes, technically and politically, even more feasible," he said.

But how to dig in places where people live without completely uprooting their lives? How to balance the needs of the living with the desire for historical and anthropological knowledge? Imagine the riches to be found if some genius engineered a marvel that would allow scientists to dig underground without disturbing the lives of those above. Scientists -- get cracking!

"Wasteland" & "Bleak House"

My review of the BBC's Bleak House TV series/DVD is out today on Monsters & Critics (www.monstersandcritics.com). Just scroll down the front page and look under reviews. For the record, I damn well cried twice while watching this fabulous Dickens adaptation. Granted, I can be a big ball of mush, but this is a mini-series done right. I highly recommend renting or buying the DVD to enjoy it.

My second column of "Notes from the Wasteland" is also up at M&C. From the front page, click on TV (on the upper right) and then scroll down. I babble on here (hopefuly in an entertaining fashion) about just how TV works as a writer's medium. I've long been amazed at how little folks know about how television really works. But then I work in the medium, so it seems like second nature to me. I think next week I'll get a bit jazzier, go the Entertainment Weekly "list" route and do a "Top Ten Reasons to Watch TV in 2006" column.

It's interesting how hard it is to write this sort of thing. It's like writing a term paper -- you've got to have a thesis and then back it up. And then you have to make it fun. College was never like this! So far the fun part is my big challenge. I think I have a fun writer's voice, but the challenge is to let it through and not edit it all away and be all serious and pretentious and boring. Guess I'm still finding that voice. I'm hoping all this dang writing will help me dig it free and set it loose on the unsuspecting inhabitants of this planet.

Wilder Los Angeles

One of the reasons I love Los Angeles is that it contains all the modern conveniences (and inconveniences) and yet remains touched by the wild. In my neighborhood in Hollywood, tree roots turn sidewalks into obstacle courses, snakes slither through the dead leaves at the bottom of the Wattles gardens, and raccoons come to my back door for a snack.

That's Rachel baring her teeth at me as I poked my head out from behind my screen door to get a better photo. (Don't ever try to photograph raccoons at night through a screen -- they look like gray furry blobs with red, glowing eyes.) Her buddy, Rocky, was far less intimidated and just kept an eye on me as he used his little black paws to scoop cat food out of the bowl and into his mouth.

See, I feed a couple of feral cats on my back porch nearly every day. My neighbors, though sometimes noisy, are nice enough to also put out kibble and tuna on occasion. The main recipient is the oh-so-creatively named Miss Kitty, the mother of my own cat Lucy. I rescued Lucy and kept her for my own, but Miss Kitty is far too scaredy to tame. I did, however, manage to trap her once and get her spayed, so at the very least there will be no more kittens to find homes for.

Anyway, Miss Kitty knows to come by when she hears my car pull into the garage. She meows quite demandingly as I approach my back door to remind me of my duty. I keep an old blue plastic bowl out back so my neighbors and I can just pour food in it whenever we hear the call.


But Hollywood lies at the foot of the Hollywood hills, and wilder creatures than cats roam these parts. I've seen coyotes on several occasions, trotting with that lean and hungry look right down the center of my street. Deer are too cautious to come down this far, but skunks make free of the hedges and yards, and I've seen them and several opossums help themselves to Miss Kitty's food stash on my back porch.

One thing these photos do not convey is just how LARGE these raccoons are. They are closer to the size of a Beagle than a cat. Their fur is thick, their eyes behind those black masks sharp and clever. The first time I saw Rocky he was sitting up like a person with the blue bowl between his legs, using his right paw to shovel the kibble into his mouth. He looked right at me when I said, rather startled, "Oh, hello." But he never stopped eating.

Column Debut

My first column appears today on a website called Monsters and Critics (www.monstersandcritics.com). I work in television, so my column will address various topics related to TV. This week, it's the change in the rules for the Emmys, recently brought about by the Academy for Television Arts and Sciences.

I've called it Notes from the Wasteland after the famous quote from Newton Minow's speech in 1961, wherein he said:

"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or
newspapers — nothing is better.

“But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set… and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland."

The editor of the site, James Wray, even gave me the cool little logo you see in the upper left. I love it! It looks just like the stretch of Hollywood Boulevard where I run two or three times a week to stay somewhat in shape, though the sky hasn't been quite that shade of brown since the fires last summer. I hope to write a column every week and also to contribute reviews of shows. I'm particularly looking forward to the final season of "The Sopranos" which debuts in a few weeks and hope to write about that, as well as whatever else catches my fancy. The gig is unpaid, but it nonetheless feels great to see my name in print on something other than this personal website. Gotta keep the ol' writing muscles in shape.

The Gypsy Guitar Player

I found this delightful clip of Django Reinhardt playing guitar via boingboing.net. You can view it with Quicktime at http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/02/videos_france_g.html. It takes a few seconds to load.

Before this I mostly knew Django as Sean Penn's nemesis in Woody Allens' last great film "Sweet and Lowdown." In it, Sean Penn plays the 'Second Greatest Guitar Player' in the world, after Django -- a musician of such greatness that Sean's character faints in his presence. You can see Django in the photo here, front and center.

In this clip you can finally witness Django playing and come to understand his greatness. I had no idea before I saw this that Django's left hand was terribly damaged in a fire when he was 18. The heat shrank the tendons in the fourth and fifth fingers of the hand he used on the fretboard of his guitar. Laid up for eighteen months after the fire, from which his wife also escaped, Django retaught himself to play with only two fingers on the frets. Occasionally he'd use the curled up fourth and fifth fingers on the lower strings for chords. The grace with which he plays is astonishing, and the sound that emerges is divine. Apparently Django was one of the first players to introduce the guitar as an instrument of melody along with Charlie Christian, Lonnie Johnson, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

In the first part of the film an announcer introduces Django and the other members of his Quintet of the Hot Club of France while Django and the violin player jam. You can clearly see Django's damaged fingers as his other digits dance over the strings. The film then cuts to a full-on performance in which Django gives a lovely solo. The song is "J'Attendrai" or "I Will Wait."

Unopened Tomb Found in the Valley of the Kings!

I'm usually opposed to using exclamation points in a headline, but in this case -- I just couldn't resist! My buddies know what a geek I am when it comes to Ancient Egypt and archaeology, so I know you'll forgive me if I ramble on for a second about how fricking exciting it is that they've found an unopened tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. An expedition from the Unversity of Memphis, Tennessee was working on a nearby tomb when they found indications that ancient workers had worked on the rock nearby. (Isn't archaeology amazing? They can tell where workers camped on bare rock thousands of years ago.) After weeks of digging right next to the tomb of King Tut, they found a sealed door to a shaft leading down to a previously unknown tomb.

Alas, the wheels of archaeology grind slowly. These scientists must be painstaking in recording every step as they essentially deconstruct and destroy what was created by people who lived, in this case, 3,000 years ago. 90 percent of what we learn from a site comes from context, so every tiny detail must be taken down in photos, drawings, written commentary, etc., because once taken apart, the context can nevery be recreated. The archaeologists in this case have not yet even entered the tomb. But we can see five sarcophogi, which probably contain mummies. The head of one woman is clearly visible, painted on her coffin. Another is in splinters due to termites. The style indicates that these were wealthy, influential people of the 18th dynasty court, possibly royal or favored courtiers. Only those at the highest levels would've been buried in the Valley of the Kings. Heiroglyphs on the coffins, once investigated, should reveal the identities of those buried in this tomb. The chamber appears to be only 12 by 15 feet, not a complex tomb like most of the royal ones in the Valley. My semi-educated guess would be that these mummies are not powerful members of the royal family, but rather favored friends of royalty, lesser relations, or high officials.

But you never know. Over the thousands of years of Egyptian history, priests and relatives moved bodies, even royal ones, from tomb to tomb, trying (and usually failing) to avoid robbers. The wealth buried with these bodies was just too tempting for even gods-fearing folk like the ancient Egyptians. Dynasties of robber families formed over the years, sharing secret locations and techniques for avoiding the pit traps and labyrinths of the more elaborate tombs. One member of a famous family of robbers even lead archaeologists in the 1800's to a large tomb filled with royal bodies -- after it had been picked clean of gold, of course. This more secret history of thievery is fascinating in and of itself.

So for now we Egypt geeks must watch and wait to see what has been found here. No spectacular gold piece, such as those in Tut's tomb, have yet come to light. But archaeologists can derive huge amounts of information from these mummies and the many jars they have been buried with. Who knows what else lurks beneath those piles of rotting wrappings and broken ceramic? This is the joy of archaeology -- the element of surprise. You never know what treasure you might find. Folks at the University of Memphis found a doozy this time.

V-Day

I can get pretty curmudgeonly about Valentine's Day. It's the commercialization of romantic love which obligates those with a sweetie to spend money and those without one to feel inadequate, blah blah blah. I'm all for romance, but to have it dictated to me by Hallmark and See's Candies riles my rhubarb.

Then my boss gave me orange roses. And then another co-worker brought in heart-shaped brownies, and yet another offered up frosted pink cookies. Now this is aV-Day I can get behind -- one full of love and goodies for everyone, not just for romantic partners.

Tonight my friends are throwing a Young, Single, and Angry Party. Although most of us are no longer that young, fewer and fewer are single, and, for me at least, the anger is flagging, it's good to keep the Anti-Valentine's furor going in protest. Apparently, we YSAs are not alone, because Yahoo News featured an article describing a bit of Valentine's backlash, where consumers are demanding more ironic and sarcastic V-Day cards and gifts. It's good to know that for once I am in sync with the zeitgeist.

Creatures in His Head

Disturbing stuff. Andrew Bell is an artist from England, now living in New York, who draws strange creatures, one almost every day. You can view monsters, rate them, and generate random critters at his very cool site: www.creaturesinmyhead.com. He also does paintings like those above and sells tshirts and other parphrenalia on www.deadzebra.com.

In Memorium - Natalie Downing

Natalie's been on my mind a lot lately because this is approximately the anniversary of her death last year at the age of 40. I don't know the exact date because she died alone on the street of alcohol poisoning, but it was about this time last year that I got the call that she had passed away. Now that some time has passed I can look at these photos of Nat and smile and remember how she was before she began to drink.

Both photos show her with her beloved Chow Chow, Frances, the world's best dog. On top you can see her grinning with delight at the puppy Frannie, who so resembled a baby bear that she attracted crowds of admirers when we took her out to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. I shot the second photo of Nat and Fran at Buzz Coffee in Sunset Five complex on Sunset and Crescent Heights. We used to hang out there for hours on a Sunday afternoon, exchanging deep confidences and laughing till we cried. This is the photo Natalie's sister put in a little memorial of Nat in the spot where she died. She laid out flowers, a candle, and this shot. It's difficult to look into Nat's smiling face here and reconcile it with how she died. Yet both Natalies existed.

There was no more loyal friend than Natalie, and no one you'd want more at your side in time of difficulty, or even in time of physical danger. Once we were sitting in my little Toyota Tercel, parked on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood, talking, when we noticed a bright red BMW behind us pulled up at the curb. Its license plate read: BH BRAT. Natalie had a bright red hatred for those who used their lives of privilege to move ahead of the pack, and this Beemer was the perfect embodiment of that. Next to the car a man in expensive casual clothes was arguing with two women, their voices rising with each successive sentiment, body postures ready to fight. Natalie and I stopped our own talk to watch.

The man got into his car and started up the engine, then got out of the car, leaving the door open. He walked up to one of the women and punched her in the face. She stumbled into the other woman's arms with a scream. The man ran back into his car and began to pull away.

I sat there dumbfounded, unable to believe I'd seen such an act of both malice and cowardice. But Natalie was out of my car in a heartbeat, a blond whirlwind of righteous fury. "Come back here and try that with me, you son of a bitch!" She shouted. "Come back here!"

"Suck my dick!" yelled the man as he gunned his motor and began to pull away.

"YOU suck MY dick!!" Natalie yelled after him, in tones that cut right through the sound of his engine and the sobbing of the women on the curb. I saw his head turn back to her in astonishment, then he raced off.

We had his license plate, and I suggested we tell the cops, but the women involved begged us not to, so we got back into my Tercel and headed toward the Promenade. After a few minutes deconstructing the event, Natalie never mentioned it again. But it always stuck in my mind that here was someone who not only felt deeply the injustices of this world, but who was willing to risk herself to do something about it.

She was damn funny, too. All those things you think about later and wish you'd said? Natalie said those things right off the bat, with perfect timing and insight. She loved nature and animals and had the greenest thumb. Her apartment might've been small, but it was lovingly and beautifully decorated. She painted and created useful works of art. She was never happier than when putting together a bookcase or tracking down the perfect flear market find. As her friend, I could tell her anything about myself, from the smallest personal detail to the largest, dumbest thing I ever did -- and I knew she would empathize, make me laugh, and make me see the situation in a way that celebrated who I am. Warm, insightful, feminist, funky, passionate, frank, angry, creative, a woman with a GED smarter than a few PhD's I've known -- that was Natalie. I miss her.

Dad's Latest and Greatest

My father's latest book has been published -- yet you won't be able to buy it anywhere! It's All Men Are Brothers: The Life and Times of Francis William Damon by Hawaii's resident genius, Paul "Doc" Berry. Only a few hundred were commissioned so that they might happily populate Hawaii's libraries and museums. Because I edited it (I'm mentioned twice! On the back flap and in the Acknowledgements.) I managed to snag a few copies for myself. It's a fascinating biography lavishly illustrated with authentic old photos, and based on newspaper accounts and papers provided by the Damon family itself. Did you know that Honolulu's Chinatown was deliberately burned down in 1900? You can see the horrible progress of the fire in this book, block by block, thanks to fascinating contemporary photographs.

Anyone raised in Hawaii knows the Damon name, but the rest of the world probably doesn't know that the Damon's were (and to some extent still are) an extremely wealthy and influential haole (that's Hawaiian for caucasion) family. Francis William was one of the poorest of the group, and he spent his life quietly working for the good of others, particularly the Chinese immigrants who were worked hard and exploited by the sugar cane industry. Early on Frank (as he preferred to be called) saw that part of Hawaii's strength would lie in her multi-culturalism, so he founded the Mills Institute on the grounds of his estate to educate immigrant children. The Mills Insistute later was expanded to become the Mid-Pacific Institute, still one of Hawaii's outstanding secondary schools.

Dad dedicated the book to "Hawaii's teachers, past and present, our keys to a better society." That just about says it all.

Sisypha

So I tried snowboarding for the first time last week. As one raised in a sunny clime with access to warm friendly waters 365 days a year, I've had little experience with snow and the sports that take place in it. I do recall one happy New Years when I was eight, I think, spent in the snow in Tahoe. We kids would get bundled up and go out and play for hours, making snow angels, hurling rocky snowballs at each other, and constructing elaborate forts. We'd only come inside the cabin when we couldn't feel our fingers and feet. The mothers would unwrap us, warm us, pour hot chocolate down our throats, then wrap us back up and shake their heads as we ran back out into the cold for more. At one point we surreptitiously hiked onto private land and found a long, gradual hill just perfect for sledding. I sat on a plastic saucer, cross-legged, and barrelled down that thing like a bullet through a rifle, screaming with delight until I bashed into a tree and went tumbling. But who cared? What a rush!

Since then I've gotten pretty good in the water, thanks to my near constant access to it and a father who let me hang onto his neck as he caught the waves at Bellows (my favorite beach -- see previous posts for pictures). Skiing looked like fun, but without snow in the vicinity I contented myself with waves. Six poverty-stricken years at college and grad school in Chicago offered no opportunity for snowplay, though I did force my roommates to join me in an impromptu snowball fight the first time snow fell my freshman year at the University of Chicago. When I spotted those initial flakes, my heart sang, and I rushed out, pulling my friends with me, calling "Snow, snow - yay!" More experienced Chicagoans were, of course, more sensibly thinking "Winter, winter -- oy!" Four months later, during the longest February ever recorded, I began to see their point.

Now that I live in Southern California, with easy access to snow at Big Bear about two hours away, I've got the opportunity to give the snow a try. I haven't rushed out there because of previous experiences with altitude sickness. I did venture to Mammoth one winter with friends, and after a glorious morning at ski school, I had to pole myself down the hill in slushy snow, nearly fainted, and ended up being taken down the mountain in a first aid toboggan by a cute but scornful ski patrol guy.

But now, in better shape than before, and with a group of friends determined to drag my ass to Big Bear, I went to snowboard classes at Snow Summit. It's good to stretch your limits, to try new things, to be uncomfortable for a while as you head into new territory. I coasted down the bunny slope with one foot in the bindings with relative ease. Sebastian, our instructor with a rubbery French accent, viewed me with approval as I turned and stopped both heelside and toeside without falling. Sure, I fell a few other times, but I was beginning to see how this could be fun. It wasn't that hard! I could do this! Tired, but satisfied, I boarded down the little hill, then walked back up it many times, dragging the snowboard with my left, weaker foot, breathing hard, feeling good.

Then Sebastian told us it was time to get on the chair lift. Uh -- what? You mean, now that I'm tired and cold and am just getting the hang of this thing, you want me to go up to the top of a more difficult slope and learn a new way of getting down the hill? My instincts told me no. Time to rest now, Nina. Time for hot chocolate and getting out of these wet things and then maybe a nap.

But I caved to the peer pressure and went. The chair lift wasn't too difficult to manage, fortunately. I have no fear of heights, and I coasted off it relatively unscathed to enjoy a breathtaking view of Big Bear Lake.

It was, literally, all downhill from there.

A hundred yards of groomed snow stretch down toward the bunny slope. Children as young as two zoomed past us, their parents shushing in front of them yelling out "Pizza, pizza!" The parents probably thought they were helping their kids keep their skis in the proper pizza slice form for beginners. But I know in my heart that this really worked as a sort of carrot dangling before the face of the donkey -- an incentive to get down the hill in one piece so that you can enjoy your pizza later, preferably while wearing jammie pants and sipping single malt scotch before a roaring fire.

Sebastian decided now was the time to show us a new way to go down the hill. Put both feet in the bindings and then face downhill in a sort of falling leaf back and forth motion. For me, alas, the phrase "falling leaf" was all to apt. I proceeded to fall all the way down the mountain. Not all at once in some long, glorious tumble, of course. No. I'd almost stand and coast for five feet, then I'd fall. Then halfway up, slip, slide -- woah! Smack! Grab snowboard with one hand, push up with the other, keep knees bent, don't lean, back straight, look up, push up, harder, I've got it! Slip, slide, lean -- woah -- smack.

And so on. Sebastian tried to encourage me. But I think he secretly despised me. How could he not? He of the easy swooshing motion, like a snow-dolphin, cresting hills and crevasses with ease born of long practice and powerful quads. I was more of a snow-flounder. My arms began to tremble. Not from cold, but from weariness at pushing myself up from prone over and over and over again. Snowboarding, I realized, was a very expensive way to fall down a lot. I had become the female Sisyphus. Instead of pushing the rock eternally up the hill, I was falling eternally down one. Just call me Sisypha -- emphasis on the sissy. I encouraged Sebastian to abandon me, and eventually he did. Sisypha had to face her burden alone, where no one could see her tears as she fell, once again, on her unhappy tailbone.

I took my feet out of the bindings and walked the rest of the way down to greet my friends. They all assured me this was a typical first day of snowboarding. I rallied, assured them I would try again -- that I had gotten too tired and that the beginning had been fun. But as I got colder and later viewed the deep black bruises on my knees and elbows, I had trouble remembering my early success.

We drove down the mountain as the sun set spectacularly into the clouds. I had tried something new. I had endured. I'd eaten delicious Porto's Cuban pastries on the way up, listening to Ricky Gervais' hilarious podcasts on Frank's Ipod. I'd watched Frank, Rod, and Maritza shush happily down the hill and had shushed, sort of, myself for awhile. The day itself was a success. But should I spend the money to try snowboarding again? Still I am not sure. Let me put on my jammie pants, sip my scotch and ponder. I'll get back to you.

Size Does Matter

From Yahoo News: A research team lead by Syracuse University biologist Scot Pitnick, pictured in Syracuse, NY, Monday, Jan. 9, 2006, found that in bat species where the females are promiscuous, the males boasting the largest testicles also had the smallest brains. Conversely, where the females were faithful, the males had smaller testes and larger brains. (AP Photo/Kevin Rivoli).

According to William Saletan on www. Slate.com: "Reason for big testicles: If a female is taking sperm from you and another guy, the best way to pass on your genes instead of his is to deliver more sperm. (This is why chimps have testicles "many times larger than those of gorillas.") Reason for small brains: Male bats that spent their energy making sperm beat out the ones that spent their energy thinking. Researchers' conclusion: "Size does matter."

My personal take on this news: How empowering is it for those female bats knowing that their level of promiscuity can affect the size of the male brain and balls? They really have got them by the 'nads, don't they?

The Glamorous Life

Those who only know me as somewhat decorous (*cough*) may be shocked by this post. But I feel the need to rant. I will reveal here that for a time I considered starting up a magazine entitled Squalor as an antidote to women's magazines like Glamour. I read these magazines regularly, and yet after I'm done I feel empty, as if I shall never have the right make-up, be fashionable, thin enough, or have slept with the proper number of men.

Squalor would contain articles on what it's really like to be a woman in this world -- instead of "Ten Ways to Please Him in Bed," the lead article might be entitled "Ten Ways to Make him Wear a Condom" or "Best Sex Positions for When Your Bladder is Full." (Keep in mind that freelance writers would be employed for some of these articles -- contrary to popular opinion, my knowledge does not extend in every direction.) Fashion articles would address the ridiculousness of gaucho pants, the color yellow, and plastic surgery while showcasing size-14 models in the comfiest of 'jammie pants. Instead of featuring the latest bridal wear or instructions on how to find "couple" time with your man, we'd show tips on hosting a "Yay -- I'm Divorced!" party (Hallmark take note -- this is an unexplored area for greeting cards) and how to send the right "kiss-off" email to that creepy guy you met on Match.com who won't stop wooing.

Yes, this is how my brain works. I'm not proud of it. Get used to it.

Come to think of it, we could expand Squalor to include the real lives that men lead in America. Look out Maxim! Surely not all men obsess about breast size, Armani suits, and "How to Persuade Your Girlfriend to Get a Brazilian Bikini Wax." Got an idea for Squalor? Post a comment or email it my way.

Lions and Tigers and...

I couldn't resist one more image from the cave in Chauvet, France. Spectacular, isn't it? As you may recall from previous my ramblings, this image was drawn on a cave wall using red ochre about 32,000 years ago. That subtle shading at the neck, snout, and forehead -- it's all deliberately done, folks. Da Vinci would have been proud to have produced such a drawing. The cave itself was occupied by many generations of cave bears -- creatures much larger than the grizzlies of today. The floor of the cave is littered with their bones, and the cave explorers found one bear skull placed on top of a rock. Nobody knows why.

I'm also using this post to announce that I'm going to try to use a LARGER font from now on for this blog, due to special request from a devoted reader. I love Blogger, the free service which allows for this blog, but I can't figure out how to get the font to default to a larger typeface, so I'm going to have to manually do it for each post. Feel free to remind me if I forget!

I also have yet to figure out how to get photos to post in the middle of a posting. That's why the photos are all at the beginning of each post. One day I'll master this thingummy -- and then I shall rule the world!

Intelligently Designed Hilarity

That Jesus, he was a pretty cool guy. Not convinced? Listen to Rowan Atkinson reading from the Bible:

http://www.devilducky.com/media/39524/

The Feline Helmet of Death

A simple orange becomes a noble helmet for Boone. Check out the genesis of this creation at: http://penguinx.org/?p=31

Don't you wish oranges were bigger so you could have one too?

The Dawn of Humanity

What makes us human?

Anatomically modern humans evolved some 130,000 years ago, but it wasn't until about 32,000 years ago that an explosion of art and culture appears in the archaeological record. Take a look at the images above -- they were inscribed on the walls of a cave in Chauvet, France 32,000 BP (Before Present). Can anyone look at these astonishing images and not feel an immediate connection -- not only to the humans that drew them in ancient times, but to all of humanity?

The hand, at top, is the product of one of the first spray-painters. Red paint was held in the mouth, the hand placed on the rock, and then the paint spat in a spray all around the hand to leave an unmistakably personal image. Given the various sizes and shapes of the hands depicted at Chauvet, anthropologists have concluded that women and adolescents probably participated in this as well. But why? Looking at this, we recognize the impulse to draw as one we all share. Was the hand a personal statement by an individual, what we would consider an artist, implanting his individual stamp on the cave? Or did it have some greater metaphorical meaning? Was it part of a ritual, a magical invocation, a shamanistic tradition? The latter explanation is lately the most popular amongst experts in cave art, but part of the allure of these images is their mystery. Sometimes the cave artists put red paint on the palms of their hands, then stamped multiple red dots in a pattern we can now recognize as a rhinoceros, or an antelope. These pointilists predate Seurat by over 30,000 years.

The second image is of a horse. Yes, it's probably just one horse. Our modern eyes see this superposition as an attempt to depict depth, but anthropolists have begun to think that this is in fact the movement of a horse through time. The image at lower right is the horse as youngster, growing older with each successive depiction. A similar idea occurs in the third photo with the rhinocerous on the middle right. It looks as if the artist may have drawn him and his horn many times, perhaps trying to get it right. But in fact, this is no drawn-over sketch. The artist decided to show the rhino's movement of his horn, perhaps scraping it against a tree or battling some other, undrawn beast.

Also remarkable is the plentiful depiction of predators like the lions shown in the third picture. Before the discovery of the Chauvet Cave in 1994, few dangerous animals like this were known to have been inscribed. From archaeological evidence, we know that early humans did not hunt lions (no feline bones found amongst their hearths or used for tools or artifacts), so this panel of huge cats came as quite a surprise to the experts who first viewed it. These lions have helped trample the popular notion that these cave paintings were intended for use as some sort of magical invocation for the hunt. In fact, few hunting scenes are shown in cave paintings all over the world. And in prehistoric Europe, from 32,000BP to 12,000BP, few human figures of any kind have been found. The closest we get to them are a handful of so-called "Venus" figurines (women, often pregnant), depictions of male and female genitalia, and the hands, as in the first photo here.

So why were these paintings made? Did the painters of that era have a concept of "art" such as we understand it? Studies of more so-called primitive peoples, like the Inuit in Alaska and the aborigines of Australia, suggest that we cannot impose our own modern reasons for image-making upon these ancient drawings. The Inuit, for example, can recognize an image no matter how it's oriented -- they have no concept of it being "right side up." When they draw, they often depict events happening all at once -- events that, in real life, occur in succession. Space and time, as they see it, are not compartmentalized, linear, or separate. How different, then must've been the thinking of the artists of Chauvet and more recent caves like Lascaux and Altamira (around 15,000 BP) even from the Inuit and aborigines.

And yet -- how human these paintings are. Whatever their pupose, we can recognize in them immediately our common heritage. The desire for image, story, and metaphor is one we all know. Although homo sapiens were anatomically modern long before Chauvet, it is here, I think, that true humanity begins.

Visit the cave at http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/

Every Day

Tom Judd is an artist who decided to draw a page every day for a whole year. The results are on his website, http://www.tomjuddseveryday.com/, and they are pretty spectacular. A quote from him:

"365 PAGES AGO I HAD A VERY SILLY IDEA. Draw a page everyday for one year. Each day I spent around 1 hour on the page, sometimes more, sometimes less. There was never any planning or preparation, I would just go at it whenever I had a spare moment in my day and had something I needed to write or draw. Some of the drawings are observational and some are just plain weird. Monsters and things seem to crop up a lot (robots too). I have no explanation for this and don't really care because its my book and I drew what ever I wanted on that particular day. Anyway, all 365 pages are on this site so feel free to have a good poke around. Let me know what you think and feel free to ask any questions. I'm going to sleep for a bit. Bye now - Tom Judd"

Excellent inpiration for artists looking to get their creative juices flowing.

Avian Calligraphy

From the Dept. of Isn't Nature Wonderful - a flock of starlings swirls in the sky above Algiers.

--Photo from A.P.

Trapped in the Closet

I had the most hilarious Saturday night in a long time, thanks to my friend Valerie. It's difficult to explain, but I'm gonna give it a try.

It seems that R. Kelly, the rapper whom I think is still charged with having sex with a minor, is in the process of making his magnum opus, a multi-chapter "hip-hopera." You can buy the first twelve chapters on DVD on Amazon.com, and word is that Mr. Kelly has agreed to make at least 30 more! Here's the cover of the DVD to inspire you...

Two comedians, Aziz Ansari and Paul Scheer (from VH1's "Best Week Ever"), hosted a theatrical event at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Hollywood. They held a deeply ironic symposium during which they and several other "experts" deconstructed and celebrated Mr. Kelly's video achievement. Symbolism was discussed, names such as Austen, Shakespeare, and Rosa Parks were bandied about. Two actors from the video showed up, and the producer spoke to us from the audience. All of this helped us understand and appreciate a saga in which a Midget named Big Man shits his pants. And that's just for starters. You haven't seen acting until you've witnessed R. Kelly wrinkling his nose, gun in hand, looking for the source of the stink after Big Man lets loose. We only hear Mr. Kelly's voice throughout, rapping the story, in a singsongy, repetitive "melody," but the actors on screen lipsync their dialogue.

And such dialogue! Memorable lines such as "I'm gonna heat up this chicken" and "I am that ho" still ring in my ears and give me food for thought. The plot involves R, in his persona of "Sylvester" waking up in the bed of a woman not his wife. Her husband comes home, and Sylvester must hide in the titular closet. But the real shocks are yet to come! The husband turns out to have a male lover, and when Sylvester returns to his own home, he uncovers his woman's infidelity with a cop -- the very cop that just pulled him over to give him a ticket! Heated arguments and injured feelings lead to much pulling out of guns and brandishing of spatulas. The cop, played by the gifted actor Michael Kenneth Williams of HBO's "The Wire" (what the hell is he doing in this thing? Can't he get a better job??) returns home to find his wife Bridget preparing a cherry pie. There's a piece of pie missing -- but Bridget is allergic to cherries! The cop furiously searches every drawer and cupboard, only to find the aforementioned midget (note how that rhymes with Bridget!) whom Bridget has apparently hired to service her in his absence.

We the audience got to watch chapters 6 - 12 on a big screen. After each chapter, the DVD was paused to allow scholarly discussion and questions from the audience. "Experts" (really actors, including the guy who plays Jim on "The Office") discussed their experiences behind the scenes, waxed poetic on the symbolism of shitting oneself, and found deep political implications in the cherry pie, which is clearly a comment on abortion.

I urge you all to take a look at "Trapped in the Closet" if you need a good, hard laugh. It's a seminal work of American genius!

You've got Great Expectations!

Okay, so the title of this post is a quote from a KISS song, "Great Expectations." My guess is that Gene Simmons got the idea from Charles Dickens' wonderful novel, but his conception of "expectations" is a tad different from the author's.

I'm finally reading this entire book, and I love it. Maybe I'm identifying too much with the protagonist, Pip, a young insecure man who finds himself in love with a cold woman who makes him miserable. Hmm. Pip grows up poor, raised by his grim older sister, Mrs. Joe, and her loving, underappreciated husband, Joe. In the justly famous first chapter, Pip visits the graves of his parents, only to be violently threatened by a convict, who has escaped from a prison ship in the bay nearby despite the leg irons that bind his feet. The convict, whom we learn later is named Magwitch, literally shakes Pip into promising to bring him food and a file. Dickens really knows how to start things off with a bang.

Pip helps Magwitch with a stolen pie and a file from Joe's smithy, only to see the man recaptured and taken back to the prison ship. That, he supposes, is that last he'll ever see of the man, and he tells no one how he took pity on a convict.

The wealthy neighborhood eccentric, Miss Havisham, asks to have Pip come visit her every week, and here we meet one of the craziest women ever to inhabit a book. Many who have never read Dickens still nod in recognition when you describe Miss Havisham. Miss H was abandoned by her fiance on the day of her wedding, so she has kept her house exactly as it was at the very moment of her humiliation. She wears nothing but her yellowed wedding dress, and gets her exercise only by walking around her drawing room, arm in arm with Pip, or by training her young ward Estella to break men's hearts. Thus she hopes she will gain revenge on all men. Poor Pip is the young man Miss H uses as a subject for Estella's tutelage. From the first he is entranced by Estella, who, although beautiful, is a consummate snob. When she insults his big, dirty boots, Pip conceives a sudden and almost debilitating hatred for himself and his poor upbringing.

Years pass, and Pip's obsession with Estella only grows with her beauty and her disdain. Mrs. Joe suffers a mysterious attack and needs constant care, bringing the warm-hearted Biddy into Pip's life. Biddy may love Pip. I'm not sure yet. Dickens excels at subtext, even as the text itself gives you an almost cinematic feel for the setting and characters. But Biddy also knows Pip better than Pip himself. She sees his yearning for a life above his station, and she knows she can never fit into his life so long as he wants the unobtainable Estella.

Then the bombshell falls -- Pip inherits a huge sum of money from a benefactor who insists on remaining anonymous. Famous attorney Mr. Jaggers is to administrate, and Jaggers and his assistant, Wemmick, are intricate characters who, along with Biddy and Joe, are also deeply good at heart. Part of my fascination for this book lies in how Dickens makes the good characters so complex and fascinating. Wemmick, for example, so scrupulously divides his life between business and personal such that he will offer Pip only the most pragmatic advice while in his office, but once at home with his deaf father, affectionately referred to as the Aged, he helps Pip as only the best of friends could.

Pip begins a rich life without real purpose once the money rolls in. His obsession with Estella grows all the more pronounced when she reappears all grown up and more beautiful than ever. Yet he remains forever miserable in her company. She treats him with nothing but coolness and distance, and yet his greatest wish is to marry her and forever subject himself to her. When I saw the movie version of this book, directed by David Lean, this was the part of the story I found most unbelievable -- and this in a book full of strange twists of fate! But reading brings a quite different perspective, as do life lessons, and I can see now just how a person like Pip could hang onto the very thing that makes him miserable as if it were the most important thing in the world. Dickens demonstrates an extraordinary understanding of psychology -- how insecurity and self hatred can lead to co-dependence. If we feel worthless enough we will go to any lengths to help and hang onto the person whose terrible treatment cripples us even further.

On top of all this, Dickens is downright funny. His sense of the absurd is acute. Here's a quote about Pip's sister and abusive caretaker:

"Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion."

Notice Dickens does not condemn all relgious folks -- just those whose grim obsession make their beliefs untenable to the rest of us.

I'm about to hit a major plot twist in this saga, wherein, I believe, Pip discovers that it wasn't Miss Havisham who gave him his "great expectations" at all. His benefactor is instead... Magwitch, the convict he helped when he was a lad, the very sort of man the now snobby Pip would be most ashamed of associating with. It's a delicious turn of events. I wish I didn't have plans tonight so I could really dig in as soon as possible.

Painting Egypt by the Numbers

Last Saturday, with much help and encouragement from my intrepid friend Valerie, I pulled up the ratty old carpet in my bedroom to reveal the lovely hardwood floors beneath. And now I want to make my bedroom even prettier, so I'm pretty set on painting it. Maybe even new curtains!

The problem with paint, of course, is -- what color? I like warm colors and greens, with occasional bits of blue. But which exact shade? After trips to Home Depot and OSH to look at gajillions of paint chips, I felt a bit overwhelmed. I'm scared of dark colors -- I've seen some walls done in darker colors that I just hated, and I didn't want to inflict that on myself. But all the pale, pastel colors just weren't cutting it -- too timid, too "almost there." Why not just go with off-white at that rate and be done with it?

So I went back to look at a place I've long been obsessed with -- Egypt. I loved the colors there. My photos of the Nile during our cruise are all of dark green river, brighter green fields, orangey gold clifffs, and blue sky, with the occasional fishing boat, irrigation ditch or water bird to break the monotony. The cliffs there are the same color as the temples. Makes sense. The temple stones were quarried from them thousands of years ago. That rosy limestone color just might be perfect for my walls.

I was worried that it might seem too girly. Then a male friend pointed out that I am indeed a girl and that this is my bedroom. What better place to be girly? It's a lesson in trusting yourself, this whole paint selection process.

So, thanks to the Sherwin-Williams paint selector online, I've started to narrow it down to a skin toned orange-gold. Should I go as dark as Autumnal, or be a tad lighter with Chivalry Copper? More yellow with Viva Gold? Darker with Bakelite Gold? Is it terrible of me to say that the names of the colors are part of their appeal? I'm so awfully word-oriented. (Is there a word for "word-oriented"?) I'm more likely to want to paint my walls a color called Autumnal than Blonde, for example. Unless Blonde was perfect. Which it isn't.

Saleh saleh!

Floating in a balloon is the closest I've ever come to what it must be like to be a bird relaxing on an updraft. To float above the Nile at dawn like an ibis was one of the highlights of my life.

I began this story two posts ago, so scroll down if you haven't read the beginning yet. Just getting to the balloon was an adventure in itself. And then, there we were, wafting gently over foggy fields, headed east and south -- toward the Nile and, eventually, Aswan. The sun rose over Luxor, beginning to banish the morning mist, pushing the color of the cliffs from rose to sunbaked yelllow.

We didn't quite go as far as Aswan, thank goodness. But after we crossed the river, the wind continued to take us south, away from where we had boarded the balloon, and quite far from where we were supposed to meet out tour group -- at the Colossi of Memnon (aka Amenhotep III) in little more than half an hour. Below us lay nothing but fields, sprinkled with the occasional donkey, farmer, hut, or child. It was in intimate way to fly, pressed butt to butt with your fellow passengers, and close enough to the earth to smell the cookfires where women were baking bread for the morning meal. No one spoke, and you could hear a donkey below stamp his foot, or a son call to his father in high pitched Arabic.

Twice our barrel chested Captain asked in stentorian tones: "Everybody having a good time?"

We all nodded reverently, murmuring, "Yes, yes."

He nodded in return, said: "Anybody not having a good time can get out!" After a moment to make sure we'd heard correctly, we all laughed. Then silence fell again, and a hawk drifted past. If the balloon dipped down, the captain would tug on a metal pulley and flames would shoot up with a ferocious whoosh, toward the center of the balloon, heating the air and my hair enough to lift us again.

Eventually the peace and quiet gave way to a smidge of concern. We drifted for 45 minutes in seeming random directions. Where were we going? Weren't we supposed to be heading toward a landing field or something? How would we get back to our tour? Would anyone ever find us in this maze of fields and ditches?

The captain also spoke in Arabic occasionally, and I finally saw that he was talking into a handheld radio of some kind. We floated downward, and he did not bother to heat the balloon's air. I looked where we were heading, a road, a field, a hut, another field. Um, was that where we were going to cra--land? More furious commands from the captain into the radio, and then I saw a white van racing along a road toward us. We were dipping quite low now. We barely skirted some trees, and then a dwelling loomed. The captain quickly let loose with the flames, and we drifted lazily upward. The dwelling got closer, and still we didn't have the height to pass over it. Another spurt of fire, more silent wafting up, and we made it over the hut, only to then slope preciptously down, toward the field. We were still skating along at a good pace, the ground less than a man's height below us.

"Crash positions! Down!" commanded the Captain.

But if I obeyed and crouched I'd have to stop looking at the ground. Some part of me reasoned that I had to keep an eye on the earth, or it might rush up too fast and kill me. "DOWN!" shouted the Captain with finality, and down we all went.

Bam! We hit the ground and dragged along for a few yards. A sudden sharp smell of onions announced the type of field we'd encountered. Another bump, then up again. Then down, and lots of dragging. The two balloon men in the basket next to me were up and out on the ground even as I tried to get up. "Down!" insisted the captain. Down I squatted as more anonymous bumping and dragging occurred beneath my feet.

And there we were, safely down in an onion field south of Luxor. The white van was pulling up on a nearby road, and six or seven men in white shirts ran out of it, yelling instructions at each other. Several of them helped us out of the basket while the rest gathered below the fabric of the balloon, which now streamed out behind the basket, lowering itself toward the onions. Several Egyptian men in long white galabiyah ran up, smiling and waving. Boys came over at speed from another house, jumping up and down with excitement as the big green and yellow balloon collapsed and all its hot air finally escaped to join the Egyptian day.

The men in white shirts were all smiling and shouting with joy. They took our hands and began singing and clapping. "It is a song of thankfulness to Allah for a safe landing," said one of them to me. "We have always sung it, and we have always had safe landings." We did our best to join in, and the boys sang too. A man in western dress with a big frown on his face picked his way over the onions to yell at the captain. Wendy and I speculated that he was the owner of the field, unhappy at the balloon-damaged furrows in his crop. The captain just waved at him and said a few choice words (in Arabic, alas) and the man subsided, quashed but still unhappy.

In just a few moments the huge expanse of fabric that made up our balloon was laid out, folded, and gathered, and we were ushered toward the (very small) white van, which would take us back to our tour. We waved our thanks to the men in white shirts, and the captain ordered us "Inside, inside!" We sat on hard wood benches, facing each other, while he took up the back fender and the van lurched forward.

"Now, we sing," said the Captain in a tone that brooked no contradiction. "I will sing (insert Arabic phrase here) and then you sing: Saleh, saleh! Right! Ready?"

We exchanged looks, dipped our heads uncertainly. And the captain began to sing. He shouted out his phrase, then looked daggers at us. I sort of mouthed "Saleh, saleh" along with maybe one other person, and the Captain's brows drew together in fearsome disappointment.

"You sing!" He ordered. Again, he chanted his phrase.

"Saleh, saleh," we sang back obediantly, a little louder this time.

"More!" He belowed. "Sing!" He sang out his phrase. Oh, I wish I could remember it. And this time we all sang out in response, full and unashamed -- "Saleh saleh!"

"Good!" he said. He sang another phrase. "Saleh, saleh!" we chanted back, as the white van wended its way along a dirt road. The captain sat on the back fender and sang at the top of his lungs to the villagers as we passed their shacks. We sang back as chickens scurried from the dust-spitting wheels, and children leading oxen looked back at us, puzzled.

Apparently the Captain had chosen a song that can go on as long as you like, because he kept coming up with new phrases, and our response of "Saleh saleh" was always appropriate. The white van came to a halt as we finished the final "saleh," and I saw the Colossi of Memnon, familiar from so many photographs and even "Ozymandias" standing alone in front of an empty field where once a mighty temple had stood.

The Captain vacated the back fender of the van, and we piled out into the parking lot near the Colossi. The sun was now at a mid-morning height. The fog had dispersed.

The Captain lit a cigarette and stared out at the as-yet unexcavated remains of Amenhotep III's vast temple. Little of it is visible these days except for the eroded giant statues, which are said to whistle strangely sometimes in the desert wind. I wondered what the Captain was thinking. Did he long to see the ancient treasures no doubt still buried there? Or did the ruins, familiar from years of airborne viewing, hold no mystery? From his balloon had he spotted many such likely sites, too many perhaps to ever be thoroughly explored?

Wendy and I and all the others nodded to him as we began to head toward our tour bus, which loitered nearby. I think it was Wendy who said "Thank you, that was wonderful," in a polite and slightly awestruck tone.

"In'shallah," he said, breathing smoke and gesturing, I fancied, toward the Colossi and the golden hills beyond. It was the traditional Egyptian greeting/farewell/welcome/comment on life, meaning "if god wills."

Then he sat back down on the back fender of the van, shouted something to the driver, and they disappeared in a cloud of dust.

The Basket

Here's the basket beneath our beautiful, our beautiful ballooooooon!

Note the red balloon invading some other lucky farmer's field in the background. Also note the man in the dark blue jacket sliding into the basket with his left hand holding the upper frame. That was our captain.

This inital group of passengers got out here, then it was our turn.

A Bouyant New Year

I just had to include a shot from that hot air balloon ride over the Nile. An incredible highlight of our trip to Egypt.

We got up at the crack of dawn and took a boat from Luxor across the river to the West Bank. Tea and biscuits (Brit for cookies) waited there for us. Winter in Egypt, so it was just a tad nippy with the promise of heat to come, and as the sun rose behind us the gray fog that hovered over the green fields began to turn rosy. Above us flew two, three, four brightly colored hot air balloons. Off the boat, full of warm tea, and an Egyptian man hustled us into a white van. Through the windows we spotted a green and yellow floating bauble headed back to earth. Our van screeched through dirt road villages, dodging goats and donkeys, turning first one way then backing up and trying another. We rode past irrigation ditches, families huddled around open air breakfast fires, children waving or herding geese toward murky ponds. In the distance loomed the pink cliffs of the Valley of the Kings. Our driver spoke vehemently into a radio, arguing in Arabic, and we began to wonder -- were we lost?


At last the houses opened up to show the green and yellow balloon just alighting at the edge of a field. About ten dark-haired men in white shirts were hauling on the wicker basket that held about 15 people, dragging it back to earth. The basket disgorged its passengers, and the balloon men (apologies to ee cummings) hauled us over the high wicker ledge and into the container, still bouncing slightly beneath the billowing striped canvas above.

"We show you the crash positions!" Shouted our captain, a tall mustachioed man of deep chest and commanding air. "When we land -- you get down..." he crouched, his hands clutching the edge of the basket. "Practice now. When I say -- Down!"

We crouched. My head went below the edge of the basket and I stared at the thick brown weave of wicker. Behind me, Wendy did the same. "Crash positions?" I whispered to her.

"You do this when we land, or if we crash, whichever happen first!" said our Captain vigorously. Then he let loose a stream of Arabic, aimed at the men in white shirts who surrounded the basket, holding onto its ropes to keep it grounded. Above us, the balloon tugged upward. Just above my head a large metal container 'whooshed' and a sudden jet of flame warmed the top of my hair. The men on the ground strained up on their tippy toes like gymnasts about to dismount. Two of them leapt into the basket, and then the rest -- let go.

There was no sensation of lifting off. Instead, as I looked down, the ground just dropped away. In utter silence we rose above the rosy mist. The family, in whose field we had been, waved up at us, and we drifted south.

To be continued -- wherein I describe how we crash. And we sing.

Hello 2006!

I looked for a positive image to start off the New Year, and I came up with quite a few. I have all these great shots of me with friends, me with family, me actually on a surfboard (instead of falling off), me with cats, me at my favorite beach, and on and on. I thought about a generic shot without me in it to symbolically sum up my hopes for the coming year. But I chose these because going to Egypt has always been a dream of mine. And inspite of many difficulties just before and during the trip, including illness and emotional crises, I made that dream come true.

I've been inside a pyramid! I wandered through a pharoah's rock cut tomb and I floated over the Nile in a hot air balloon. With help from my generous travel companion Wendy, I made my dream happen. I truly hope that in 2006 I can make a few more lifelong ambitions come to pass.