New Art Blog!

Check out my art blog .... I might try somehow to integrate random reflections/writing/etc on it and make it a multi-genred blog. I haven't posted in writing in years (loss of confidence, not writing as often, computer self imploded and lost all scribbles i wrote, etc.)

Cheers!

America

So I'm back in the states. I guess... I shouldn't be updating on this blog anymore because it's a travel diary but... I think its time to break kosher.

Being in D.C. again is so strange. I feel like I'm in an alternate reality where I know the street names and the metro lines but something is terribly twisted. A twilight reality where everything is shades of grey, ashen, and empty. That's one thing Abroad has taught me, America is a oh-so quiet place. In my brief stint in the Texas suburbs, the houses loomed like impossibly silent brick gravestones. And the only sight of life was glimpses of Christian-radio listening, inward looking housewives padded, heated artifical autos and oversized suburbans.... I thought maybe it was just the suburbs, but when I came to D.C. the reality was unbroken. Instead of autos, denizens of D.C. had their ipods, iphones, and icy coolness towards strangers. Crowds brush up against each other on metros, street corners, while barely making an eye. The buildings were ashen modern things looming like mausoleums against empty vast parks broken by recreations of a greco-roman ancestory in the Old World.



I guess all this feeling I get about American culture cumulated in a visit to the Hopper exhibit at the national gallery. I think he felt it too. That lonely individual nature we Americans have. Even back then in the 20s... he was spying on people through urban windows, painting the silence in the cities and suburbs... In the end, America is fiercly individual, beautifully and tragically so. We are an introverted nation, idealistically believing we can do it alone.

Is there real estate development in Heaven?

So... I had a crazy dream last night.... In fact... its really weird, so maybe you should stop now.... Here's the scene:

An old warehouse district of a city fainting resembling Deep Ellum, mostly resembling Adams Morgan but meticulously clean. Businessmen and women in suits come, following a real estate developer who is converting entire portions of the area into old lofts.

The district is quite ancient... resembling something from the post-Civil War industrial boom. Its known as the area where parents leave unwanted children... In fact, billboards advertise this fact: A giant baby against a pale green background with bubble letters (We'll take care of them).

Wandering the streets are countless transvestites... dressed in glitter, lime green face paint, and ragedy magic dresses. They look less like homeless transvestites and more like androgenous beings- holy almost. (I think I was subconciously blending the idea of Hijra's in India with the androgony of angels themselves)


I'm floating above this scene watching everything unfold...

The transvestites have lived there for generations... taking unwanted children and nurturing them... and now there home and the children's only hope was slowly being sucked away.... the real estate developer is slowly destroying their home...

the dream ended with teh billboards of the giant babies starting to come to life.... and as I opened my eyes... The first thing I thought of... is if that is where all the babies that die young go. Do they go to a strange district of heaven inhabited by androgenous beings... angels... transvestites....? More importantly.....

Is there real estate development in heaven?

I'm blind.

The smog blows and my eyes water up into dust, I wonder why I’m here. The city teems with a competing beauty that tires me. I want so much for something unknowable to be.
I’ve found myself lately staying up late reading Origen or browsing through Gnostic theory. I wake up after dreams of other places and times. The back of my mind is never in the reality that I am in. It’s a strange adriftness, I’m so enwrapped in a dream here. It’s just a long still line that never stops.
Along university road, I saw a blind man - dark waves against fluttering lashes, round shoulders and a golden jaw. He saw right through me and for a moment I had a vision.
I kissed his lips, I painted his face on a canvas he would never see. I poured coffee into a never ending glass we shared, and drank from the cream jar straight. Our hands touched the sounds of the unknowable… A champagne covered sunrise filled everything with warm and bubbly loss. We drowned ourselves in all that was gourmet and left our walking canes at the door.
Then, I read his cards, and envisioned a future without us. Our lives parted over broken dishware and tainted evenings. Suddenly I was on a plane again running away to a new known – a place like every other place. Suddenly I was in an un-homely sanctuary. Suddenly, I was walking down the street again, passing a blind man I never knew, I never met... Back to the unreal reality and the daily footsteps of paced life.

Iceland?

SO....

I might be going to Iceland for Springbreak....


Anyone wanna join?!

Skype

I got Skype.


a_chamy.

There ya go. Talk to me if ya got it.

Feline cities with refugee reflexes

*** Will add pictures of recent trip to Petra and Wadi Rum soon*** This blog explains why I don't blog as much in Jordan:

It is true that Amman is a city of refugees. Every soul has been swept by all encompassing change, and altered their existence. All beings in this place are searching for a home… Some, the Bedu and Gypsies, were driven from their wandering by the fierce economics of the “modern” state. Others are Palestinians or Iraqi’s broken by violence and fear. Some are Westerners, going to the East to find meaning. All, call Amman home, all call Amman their refuge and sanctuary. Truth, in this place, is a matter of memory and a contrasting matter of survival. Everyone is pulled by false Eastern traditions and impossible Western futures. And so memory balances with sanctuary. The future balances with survival.
In this city of limbo, only the cats truly survive. For the month that I have been here, I have yet to spy even one dog or rat. Like the refugee-citizens, the felines are clever and abandoned. Dirty but not savage, and completely alone, they are fighting to survive amiss the unforgiving cement of the city.
Here, all are scared by visions of a darkened past and a cloudy future. Its strange, because by the mere fact of being here, I feel myself swept into this multilayered system of being. I am stuck in a strange limbo sanctuary where the sweeping pattern of my existence lays broken in a knot. Its all unchanging and in conflict. I’m double-minded, unwilling to look for solutions and dwelling hapless on the problems.
This isn’t to say that I’m unhappy. I am stuck. I am stuck on unchanging happiness and unchanging problems. I’m stuck on a cloudy future and a false history. I’m stuck in a limestone city with so much to offer but few open doors. I’m stuck searching for a future under relentless blue skies that stay the same azure.
This weekend I went to the Wadi Rum – an ancient landscape, the Bedu call the face of the moon. It was beautiful, it was stunning, but completely empty, overwhelming unchanging. That’s where I am. A place of monotonous joy and colorless pain. Everything is the same and everything is beautiful.

Two weeks and it's hit me.

We sat there that night in that café up on the hill... Eyes glassy over the shisha smoke, throwing stories into each other’s mouths. We were filled to the brim with explosive possibilities of brilliant conversation and dreams of expatriation. Studying abroad is like that… exploring who you are as you invent yourself for a new set of friends.

I have to say, Amman has become a strange hallucination for me… I find myself retreating to expat hang outs much more than I ever did in Spain… Everything is so brilliant and new and englightening but… simultaneously not knowing the local dialect makes things impossibly frustrating and overwhelming. To top it off, I’m not in a walking city. I’m bound by psychological blocks against dirt cheap taxi cab fares and minimal distance.

The physical appearance of the city is everything I hate: post-world war two industrial mayhem in an white and dusty boxy urban sprawl of interlaced car driven suburbia. The culture is something completely comprehensible. As much as I may appear to be 100% American, my father’s side is arab and I understand a fair amount of the culture backdrop. The difference is… I empathize with arab culture rather than fall into it. Certain traits in me I see reflected in this place but others are complete opposites…

So amist this internal backdrop, I will return with my new friends over shisha or mint tea and we will contemplate the next few months. Contemplate our news lives. Discover our surroundings until our new lives become our old lives. And our surroundings disappear as we venture off to where our lifelines may take us.

Ok. Its much easier to do this:

Go to this website to see pictures.

The end.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Truth.and.Beauty.Bombs/Amman

P.S. Tommarrow I'm going on a hike through the desert.
DID YOU KNOW? Jordan is set to be one of the top adventure tourism spots in the world?! I didn't.

Ok. Its much easier to do this:

Go to this website to see pictures.

The end.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Truth.and.Beauty.Bombs/Amman

Vintage suburbia in West Amman

I know I haven’t updated as much or often as I did in Spain… However, perhaps that is a good thing. I could tell you of the ruined villas and secret hideaways of Jebel Amman or I could relate the eccentricities of my cousins. Though both these topics have elicited some degree of interest to me, the revolving allure of Amman occurs indoors.
Gardens is the improperly named dusty district where my friends are housed. From the outside it looked no different than the tiny boxy villa rowhouses, however the inside proved to be a complete break from 21st century realities. The walls were plastered with 60s stylized amber wall paper, as artfully spotless vintage couches dotted every room. The lighting was that dim honey that commonly cloaks antique Polaroids. They sent me on a tour of avocado coloured bathrooms and James Bond stylized beds equipped with built an antique radio…
The bubble of lost time extended itself not only to the interior design but also the very actions of the inhabitants. Coffee was served out of a French press, as everyone ate cookies and talked of how our respective families were doing. A girl was knitting in the corner as 50s stylized French pop drifted from hidden speakers. We found ourselves sucked into the past, and I felt oddly right at home.

Week one

So much has happened, its truly impossible to recapture it. I decided pictures would do it best. For those of you that don't know, I got terribly ill and had to go to the hospital. I was well within 24 hours but hte medicine has made me absurdly thirsty and ADD. Therefore, I'm not going to write much expect explanation for the pictures.

One is my bedroom.
Some are just general pictures of Amman.
One is a photo inside of a cafe I will likely frequent a lot.
And the rest... seem explanatory.
cool.

*****UPDATE PICTURES WON"T LOAD****

Week one

So much has happened, its truly impossible to recapture it. I decided pictures would do it best. For those of you that don't know, I got terribly ill and had to go to the hospital. I was well within 24 hours but hte medicine has made me absurdly thirsty and ADD. Therefore, I'm not going to write much expect explanation for the pictures.

One is my bedroom.
Some are just general pictures of Amman.
One is a photo inside of a cafe I will likely frequent a lot.
And the rest... seem explanatory.
cool.

Home again, home again?

September 1, 2007

Against a steep incline on a hill overlooking the Jordan University lays a boxy concrete villa surrounded by olive trees, grape terraces, and fig. My initial impression of dread and nervousness cloaked all beauty in a hazy rumble of my stomach. My given description of the family was only somewhat accurate:

Name Birth Sex Speaks English Occupation
Issa 1937 Male Yes Retired
Nawal 1947 Female Little Housewife
Carol 1977 Female Yes UN officer
Sylvie --- Female No Maid/housekeeper

Religion: Roman Catholic
Family name: Alam-Salman

Equipped with this meager knowledge I was expecting to be greeted by an elderly slow moving small household…. However, when I arrived the building was bursting with persons. The 5 children of Issa and Nawal lived within mere blocks… one even lives on the bottom floor of the villa. All have kids, all the cousins live close enough to visit every few weeks, and so I found myself with a typical Arab family – loud, noisy and full of love.

My first day was rather dull, but my second was disastrously dramatic. I awoke that morning to a cup of Turkish coffee. Moments later my stomach rumbled. Minutes after that, I excused myself to lie down. Within an hour I had Montezuma’s revenge, could not hold down any food without throwing up, and was dizzy with a 102-degree fever.
They called my coordinator and rushed me to the hospital. They diagnosed me with the vague but accurate “tourist bug” and stabbed my arm into an IV. For the past day and a half I have been battling that. Heavy drugs make me sleepy and yet I feel only nominally better… The fever has passed, as had the vom.
Tonight I’m to meet my cousins. Their relation to me is somewhat distant. They are my father’s first cousins children and family. I hope everything will work out and I desperately hope I will not feel sick when they come to pick me up.
Hope everything is well with everyone!! I have Internet from Sunday to Thursday sporadically. Feel free to send e-mails and such. If you begin the thread, I’ll respond. Much love.

Pictures from Amman

* The language center is basically where all my classes are and where my educational life will be centered around when I'm there.

* The weird statue is the oldest human statue in the world. There was otherones that looked the same but had these creepy wide eyed faces but... I forgot to photo them.

* The rest of the pictures are of the old citadel of the city, pretty much everything from Roman ruins to Ummayyad ruins

Enjoy.

Little Boxes

My first impression about Amman came hours after I had arrived… The plane landed, I was rushed to the hotel, I made a few fool-hearty hellos then I slept. At 5:30 am, I awoke – eyes wide open – to a reverberating spiraling voice beckoning the faithful of the city to prayer. All was still… the sun had just dawned leaving a blue cast to the…. Boxes.
Amman, Jordan is a city of little boxes tossed up on 7 hills and convoluted to fit the ideological mold of a “modern city”. Individually, these boxy buildings are nothing but slabs of grey concrete with perfect rectangular eyeholes… Little more ingenious or beauty than a concrete parking garage.
However, in the early morning or with a carefully achieved viewpoint, Amman morphs. The thousand and one holed buildings become honeycombed in shape… The dusty monotony of the concrete becomes a clear grey calm against the blue sky. The call to prayer beckons the soul to tranquility and you submit.
My first day in Amman has been just that… submission. A calm acceptance to the drudgery of jet lag and the pace of orientation. We saw sites, we ate food, and we go to know one another. All very routine and predictable in a way… the city itself breathed calm and I submitted.
Even the unexpected news of my home stay assignment with a family brought little surprise. Maybe this will be how all my time is here? Calm and relaxing learning. Peace in the face of surprise. Gentle submission to the greater powers above.


Pictures are to come, as soon as I unpack my bag (next few days)

Endgame Spain

Monday, June 30, 2007

I have been of two minds lately. Half avoiding, half anxiously longing to update for days…. Days? No, it’s been weeks! It’s been weeks since I have last written. I suppose first there was Morocco, a sad-glorious whirlwind of leather tanneries and impossibly crowded souks. There was the serenely passive second journey to Granada. Which ended with the arrival of my Parents. Then, a farewell party. Then the trip across Andalucia, Extremadura, and Portugal... All the different beds, lifestyles, and emotions scrambling together. A fevered rush I’ve had… never having a moment to break… or, maybe having a small moment but only a moment long enough to nap and plan what to write. To dream for only a moment, then begin life again.
And here I am now… outside beside the pool of the last parador of our tour… It’s an ancient Renaissance-Mudejar monastery, set within a picturesque and remote Portuguese town by the name of Evora… so many towns, so many crazy hotels for so many days. My father is one of those characters who adores researching… At his job, he researches population statistics, budgets, and government grants. In his spare time – when not sleeping at odd moments of the day – he obsessively pours over travel magazines… Furthermore, he NEVER disposes of these travel guides. Conte Naste, Geographic Traveler, amongst others pile on already crowded shelves and seems to sit and rot for years. Then suddenly, after many many months of thought, he finally chooses a locale. Then the pouring over the magazines begins again. In time, he tends to create truly spectacular trips… And this one has been no exception.
However, as our trip concludes, I am truly relieved to be going home. I adore my dad’s silly French-Canadian-Arab cousin Patty, and likewise my mother and father are excellent company. Again, Spain and Portugal has been more than incredible. However, the contrast between my life in Sevilla and my two weeks of traveling with my family felt like going between fire and ice. I went from daily outings to bars and clubs. Constant reckless youthful nights went to two weeks with less than a conversation with someone under the age of 55.
It’s been fun but now, I am much too ready to be home. Looking as to how unreliable internet access is, and how little time I have when road-tripping. I think this will be my last entry in Spain. I'll write in a months time in Jordan. Much love.

I´ll update soon... I promise. Parents have been in town, classes are ending, I´ve been traveling across southern Spain and Morocco for the last week and my life is a mess.
Talk soon. Write later.

Wipe away those tears....

Monday July 9, 2007

I suppose I am still recapturing the last few days… So let’s begin where we left off… the end of Alemeda… The whole situation had left me with unprecedented depression. It was like seeing a friend die without ever appreciating their presence…without ever saying goodbye. With my heart heavy, I decided to take a weekend trip away from Sevilla… to forget the ills of the city and discover a degree of peace. … When the program offered a free trip to the rural province of Extremadura, I took it…
Extremadura… how to describe such a place? It was very rural… thus the people were exceedingly friendly… The towns were perfectly preserved medieval villages and castles surrounded by sleepy eighteenth century constructions… There was no nightlife or partying in the streets… All was quiet tranquility, a soothing massage to the wound wrought by Alemeda’s demise.
Indeed, there truly isn’t much to say. I could spout out historical facts about the place…. point to conquistador houses, babble about Roman amphitheatres, and describe Moorish castles… However, I feel all that wasn’t really the importance of the place. It was walking through the narrow medieval streets in the evening twilight. It was taking long naps in the afternoon, and having delicious cookies from a local bakery. The sights on the trip were beautiful, but it wasn’t the sights that made the trip so great for me… It was that cool relief that the countryside brings. It was a mourning period, where thoughts were collected and sorrows pardoned. It was a trip to a sleepy province that took you in with open arms.
I’m still not over what has happened to my beloved Alemeda, but I feel as if I can now at least move on. I doubt with my limited time left I’ll discover a place I love as much in Sevilla, but at least I have my memories of place. So many people on the trip were just on the brink of discovering this hidden pocket and never were able. I can at least be thankful for that.

Enjoy the pictures in lieu of descriptions.

Manana no existe

Sunday July 8, 2007

I have not been keeping up with my entries… I suppose I’m starting to become jaded with this place, so completely at home that I have ceased to see it with child-like eyes. Then again, this week… by waiting… I have a story to tell that would not have been a story if I had taken everything day by day.
It began at the Clam – the modern, sleek teahouse-bar in Alemeda de Hercules. The day was sweltering beauty with a cup of tea serving as the perfect relief. The day, spoke of newness of creativity. The day of hinted of beginnings. We never had been so wrong.
At the Clam, we happened to chance upon acquaintances we had met in Alemeda a few nights before. They kissed us on each cheek, as is the custom in Sevilla, and we made small talk and promises to reunite in Alemeda once more. In and out, we half spied all the Alemeda regulars that we had grown to love, though we were so consumed in our own affairs we failed to notice.
We asked for our check around eight o’clock. Our waitress was one of our favorites… a thirty something year old hipster inclined to give sparkling smiles and speedy service. “Billete” we said.
She stopped and gazed briefly into each of our eyes. Her response was something so unexpected, our language skills completely fell apart.
“Manana no existe”, she said. Her eyes tranquil and sad. Was the store closing? What of our bill? What exactly did she just say?
Noticing our confusion, she broke into melodic English – “There is no tomorrow, no yesterday, just the moment.”
She walked away… our tea was free for the day but something had definitely changed.
On the way home, we went over all the theories possible, and settled on the dark fact that she likely was quitting… The Clam had changed dramatically since we had first frequented it. All our beloved waiters had been disappearing… we blamed long vacations and illness… They were gone for now but soon to return … Whatever our notions, the word “quit” had gone completely unuttered for weeks… Her dramatic farewell had changed our minds.
Manana no existe… Manana no exite... It drifted in and out of our mind throughout the rather uneventful next few days…
By Friday, it was time for Aterciopelados, a favorite Columbian rock band that was to perform in Sevilla. I got my hair cut… quite short. I robed myself in brand new clothes I had bought in Spain. I wanted this night to be a change, a break from the past and a new future. I was right, in the worst of ways.
We paid the bargain price of 5 euros, and made our way to the Festival of Culture - the site of the concert… Eating kebabs and curried chicken we sat along the Guadivilir river, dreaming of Morocco to come, excited for the concert at the moment, and nervous about the Clam…
The concert, was beautiful… all sadness had been thrown out of us. The lead singer told stories of her child, of war in Columbia, and of love. We swayed desparetly clinging to the spiraling melodies. All the tents at the outdoor festival were glowing like lanterns, and the river breathed a chilly sigh that competed with the summer heat… It was undoubtedly one of the greatest concerts I had been to in some time…
We planned to botellin in Alemeda afterwords… Botellin… I expect you do not know the term… Its drinking in the streets… a Sevillan custom for generations… only within the last few years had it been limitied… Alemeda was one of a handful of places where botellin was legal.
We raced to our home away from home, to the sparkling roman columns, and sleek exciting bars… It was time to drink in the streets, to reunite with old friends, to kiss the ground where hippies met college students met professionals met intellectuals. We went to Alemeda de Hercules but it wasn’t the Alemeda we had always known. Police lined the streets…. People were forelornely scurrying about with unopened bottles of rum and sacks of ice… There was an aura of fear and extreme sadness.
The city had rushed a vote to outlaw bottlellin… in effecting killing the Alemeda we had always known.
Tears come to eyes to write this… I have only been here for two months, but Alemeda was everything I loved in Sevilla… everying.
Manana no existe… Manana no existe.. Her words finally made sense… Tommarrow, Alemeda wasn’t to exist. The Clam and its comforting staff were fleeing. The hippies who used to juggle fire were no more. The bars lost their luster without the hundreds contently milling in the street. My home, had been burnt to the ground.

* * * * * * *

I had craved for something new… the concert, my haircut, the atmosphere of the festival, all hinted at new beginnings, but with all beginnings something must come to a close…Why must we destroy the past in the name of progress? Why must Alemeda die for something new to begin…



I honestly feel like its my time to leave Sevilla now… I’m only going to be in the city for eight more days… I’m spending four days in Morrocco and two days in Granada to total two weeks left on my program… And then my parents, my cousin, and I are to travel across Andalusia and Portugal for a week and a half… Life is a pattern. A tapestry. It took me about eight days to find Alemeda… and eight days before I leave Sevilla… Alemeda has left me…

“In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind and dreaming ahead. At least I think that’s so.” –Angels in America, Tony Kushner