Pre Burn

Posted on August 25, 2015 by admin

Burning man might be a week long social experiment/festival for some, but for other’s it’s a year-long hobby that increasingly takes over their life as the burn gets closer. Hanging out in San Francisco I got to meet some of the people who invest their time and money to create the magic that is Black Rock city. Read on

Where dreams are built

The first time I walked into Nimby (not in my back yard), a massive warehouse in Oakland, the cynical bastard in me went to sleep for a few hours. It was at the back stage where dreams were being set up, like some scenes in Niel Gaiman’s Sandman. All around me people were working on projects that they chose to work on, investing their time and money on something that had no practical use. “We just like building stuff,” most people would tell me when I asked why they were doing this.

Even Dr. Brainlove can’t escape bureaucracy of licencing and a license plate.

I joined a group called Phage which exists for around 10 years trying to ‘infect the playa with science’, their art car called Dr. Brainlove models brain activity by using 400 meters of LED’s on a massive steel framework that can be climbed on.

After running around taking pictures and poking my nose around I asked to help and was put to work painting. I was delighted by the large percentage of women that were involved, many of them leading the project.

Build parties

Nimby might be where all the heavy duty work took place, but cutting of the LEDs, soldering and the programing mostly happened at the crazy house of two amazing technical artists (check out their web site called sustainable magic and their workshops and events). I have always used the technique of calling something a party + ordering pizza and beers to get people to build my garden, paint my walls, help me move to a new apartment. These people have taken it one step further with their ‘build parties’. I practiced being a Chinese factory worker for a few hours of cutting LEDs. My main contribution was probably finding a way to reduce the labor for that specific task by sliding the LEDs then cutting them just once instead of cutting them on both sides.

Chinese factory worker, just with music, friends and as many breaks as I want.

I also joined the sustainable magic crew in a last minute attempt to save the day by using their laser cutter to create thousands of plastic pieces that will hold in place the material used to defuse the LEDs light. The warehouse they work in was another small version of Nimby with amazing art created for burning man in previous years.

Another project I helped out with a little, mostly by giving massages, although I got to grind some of the rust away with this massive machine without killing myself, was the Tree of missed connections. A bunch of friends working in their back yard creating a LED-lit climbable tree, yes people like to climb on thing at burning man!

The Tree of missed connections

Both these projects were funded using crowd funding and let’s admit it, would probably not have come into being if the day jobs of a lot of the participants and their friends wasn’t the booming high tech industry in the area. This doesn’t lessen their accomplishment by one bit but shows that the freedom to create comes at a price that most people probably can’t afford.

Some amazing art from last year!

These people and thousands of others creating the art for burning man will be working right up to the burn (and after). They will reach the playa even more exhausted than most but at least for some the added value of creating something together as a group is enough to keep them going and send them raving into the night… well, some chemical assistance might help as well.

See you on playa!

Let’s Play

Posted on August 24, 2015 by admin

San Francisco is known for its luscious sex scene. Visiting the city I took the opportunity to explore some of the play parties here and came back with mixed feelings… read on

The info

There seem to be two main venues catering to different sections of the population. “mission control” parties, catering to the fetish oriented, sex positive, queer friendly community that like to play dress up; and “club kiss”, for the hetro-normative swinger population which requires ‘pre-approval’ by the organizers. Behind the scenes both parties are actually organized by the same people and I was slightly disappointed to discover that both parties used the same venue, a two floor strange building, with two play rooms on the bottom floor and a dance floor on top.

80’s porn influences?

The beginning

Both parties began with the thing I hate most in the world, small talk. There was a definite difference though. Mission control party was more like a community, there was a feeling that most people knew each other, while club kiss had more of an awkward feeling to it. Both parties did not serve alcohol due to licensing reasons but people were allowed to bring their own drinks to serve as a social lubricant.

The screaming clown- not sexy!!!

Mission control had half an hour of terrible amateurish performances. They showed non classic body types which was nice but the actual ‘stripping’ performances were terrible. At some point two half naked clowns began screaming and I actually had to leave the room because it was too awful. When I came back it didn’t get any better, they were in the middle of performing a cult-like ceremony. “Put you hand on somebody’s ass and repeat after me”, a woman on the stage was saying, “Ask first!” she reminded the crowd. I refused to take part and don’t even remember the words they were saying, something about a ‘sexual revolution’. If I wanted idiot brainwashing rituals I’d have stayed in my religious school.

In general the club kiss crowd seemed older, mostly in their 40s, while mission control party had a wider variety of ages. In both parties the participants ‘looks’ were probably slightly higher than average but again, there was a wide variety.

The negotiations

At mission control, most of the party was centered around the dance floor which was way too hot and crowded, people were catching up and some light ‘play’ was taking place. There was some action in the play rooms but they were never really packed. At club kiss at some point the dance floor was totally empty, people were there to have sex!

Well, how do you go about negotiating a ‘play date’? I guess things were mostly honest and open but also a little business like. The thing I disliked most was the fact that couples were dealt with as a single unit. Even though in mission control people didn’t have to come as couples, two guys could just come together, even if they weren’t gay (this somehow didn’t affect the men/women percentage too much) their playing was still totally couple oriented. The fact that I find most guys unattractive meant the partner I was there with was limited by the interactions he could have. I did feel very safe throughout the entire party, a lot more safe than normal dance parties.

The revolution is still couple oriented

The finish

The truth is I wasn’t horny at all in either of the playing situations I participated in. There was novelty and fun in them but it really was more like an ‘act’ for me. At the mission control we played a little with another experienced couple and I came up with ‘games’ style ‘who’s better at what?” The club kiss play room really looked like some massive porno movie site. And I found myself ‘fluffing’ some of the couple around me while one of them went to the bathroom or to get some lube. Towards the end the organizers kept walking in “10 minutes to lights on,” they shouted trying to get people to leave. “Honey, forget about your underwear just put your clothes on” someone said just before I left, and I cracked up trying to imagine if there was anywhere else I could ever hear that sentence.

Rail Meat

Posted on August 7, 2015 by admin

Boats have always been my nemesis. Last time, in Thailand, I threw up and swore I would never get on a boat again, the time before that, in Ireland, was even worse and my gastric fluids turned into fish bait! Somehow a sail boat competition I got invited to made me give boats another chance… read on for details…

It’s crowded out there!

Don’t worry, no one really let me drive

I’ll start with the end, and get the suspense over with. I didn’t throw up! I’m not sure if it was the relatively calm bay or the fact that I had to be physically active, but I was mostly fine. The physical activity was what convinced me to come along. Every person on a sail boat has to help with the sailing, even if it’s just being ‘rail meat’ like I was, having to crawl under the sail and switch sides every time the boat turns to help keep its balance and speed.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, because before you actually start sailing there is a lot of prepping to do. I usually complain about the hassle of lead climbing, having to go through the rope and clip on all the quick draws. Well sailing is sort of like that, just 100 times worse. You have to unpack the sail, thread lots of ropes in the right places, tie them and then recoil them so it doesn’t get too messy. The knots were mostly figure 8 knots I use in climbing so I had that down but the rest was totally new with the pro lingo being total gibberish to me. The only word I still remember is ‘head’ for the top part of the sail. Oh, and grinders, can’t forget that, they are these handles that are used to turn the ropes that controls the sail.

All those ropes!

Turns out sailing races are all about getting to the starting line on time and in the right position. These things are really hard to maneuver and never stand still. So if you accidently go over the start line ahead of time you disqualify. Also with so many boats so close together it was pretty hard to avoid crashing into others. Luckily, there were two pro sailors on board who directed the 5 others who didn’t know much of anything. I got the very important job of calling out the depth so we don’t get stuck in mud before the starting line. Then I was sent forward where my meager weight could be used as counter balance. It was pretty scary to duck under the sail and switch sides as the boat turned sometimes tilting sideways at crazy angles. It seemed very easy to slip and fall over board. I got a few bruises and screamed a few times but it was good fun.

Sailing races are also like judo, there are various categories based on length. In our category (over 30 ft) there was only one other boat, which we left in the dust! We even managed to catch up with some of the faster boats that started ahead of us, even without using the secret weapon of a spinnaker, an extra massive sail that is used to go upwind. The pros thought it would be too much for us to handle.

The most impressive part to watch was actually reversing the boat back into it’s docking place! Talk about some tight maneuvering. After that we had to fold all the gear, but it wasn’t as bad as expected. All I had to do was use my weight once more to keep the sail from flapping while others folded it. And we could do it while doing what sailing enthusiasts seem to like best, drinking beer!

Silicon smiles

Posted on July 28, 2015 by admin

A new Start-Up decided to celebrate its success in a fancy party, and on my first night in San Francisco I got an invite and decided to play dress-up. Read on.

Dress up time!

It’s probably been more than two years since I put on high heels and a pretty dress and tried to play normal. The dress, bought on a shopping spree with my sister was a great success, as for the normal I’ll leave it to you to judge.

It’s also been a long time since I was close to the start-up world, but after around the third or fourth conversation I got the point and remembered why I hated that world. No one was there to have fun, they were all selling something; their start-up, a friends’ start-up, office space for start-ups, you name it. Except for a few unlucky friends of friends that got sucked in by the promise of free alcohol and hors-d’oeuvres.

I tried getting some people to dance but it didn’t work. The music was pretty shitty but I spent some time on the dance floor, twirling alone, looking around, at all the masks, all the people who cared too much about how they presented themselves to actually make a connection or have fun. The real rich ones were mostly older investors; there was this slight distance around them. The entrepreneurs would sometimes ‘disrespect’ the venue and came with flip-flops and short. ‘We don’t play this game’ their game face was saying.

Empty dance floor

There were a lot of women, I’d guess around half were from the actual industry and not just girlfriends. There was a really annoying affect that I noticed. If I was talking to a guy or in a group anyone who wanted to join the conversation would make eye contact, smile, and wait to be invited. But if I was talking to another women they would just barge in and introduce themselves, positioning themselves at the top of the social hierarchy.

Free booz = drunk men = me almost punching some of them

It was only in the after party in another club that things reverted to usual, business hours were over and sexual frustrated was in. I can’t even remember how many guys hit on me each in an idiotic and more annoying way then the other. I practiced being assertive and not my violent crazy self. “If you respect me you will respect my space and take your hand off my knee,” I told an Indian man who apologized and excused his behavior as culture differences. “I’ve been to India, so don’t bullshit me,” I said with a death stare.

Most men ended up going to a strip club, probably woke up with a killer hangover the next day, ubered to work and sat in front of the computer all day feeling empty inside. It’s a sad world out there folks, filled with silicon smiles and bubble dreams just waiting to burst.

My Dutch Week

Posted on November 16, 2014 by admin

I’m still trying not to get run over by bicycles every day and feeling ridiculous being the only one standing on their feet at a traffic light. But I’m hoping to get a bicycle next week. Still contemplating whether I should get a bicycle helmet and be ridiculed.

no words!

Yummy!

I’ve also stood in a long line to eat the “best” pancake in Amsterdam. It was good but not worth the wait. On the way back I encountered one of the strangest festivals ever. It’s called Black Pete parade and it’s this strange take off on Santa. But in the Dutch version Santa comes from Spain and his elf is a black guy called Pete. Some say Pete is black because he comes through the chimney but I’m not sure that would explain his frizzy hair. It’s more likely to do with the Dutch history of imperialism and slavery. So basically you have a bunch of white people getting dressed up as black people and running around carrying presents and giving away sweets while a white Santa is riding on a horse towering over all of them. Sounds racist? Well some people think so and there is a big debate including heated demonstrations for and against Black Pete.

I think I was expecting a little more from the public transportation here. It’s frequently late and only a few lines work throughout the night on the weekend. I’m still trying to figure out the garbage disposal system. It seems very complex and I’ve even met a girl who keeps her wet garbage in the freezer because you can only throw out the garbage once a week.

I miss burning man!

I was at the Dutch decompression party which is a continuation of the burning man culture. It was pretty good with and definitely gives you some flashbacks from the burn. Cool art, some naked people and a healthy dose of mayhem.

In between all of this I also managed to find an apartment. I knew Amsterdam housing was crazy but turns out my little university city is pretty tough too. I saw some rooms that were totally unlivable (even in my living standards) for 500 euro.Finally I found a small room in a very nice house with 2 flatmates that have the potential of becoming good friends. Wish me luck.

Just to show you I have soaked in some of the culture, let’s talk about the weather. So far it has been better than expected. I got a few hours of sun on most days and when it rains it’s this drizzle which isn’t too bad and it isn’t that cold yet. But as the saying goes, winter is coming 🙂

It Is What It Is

Posted on September 7, 2014 by admin

This amorphic title is probably the smartest thing I can say about my experiences in the massive (70,000 people) social experiment called Burning Man. But since stupidity has never stopped me before, I guess it won’t stop me know… read on for some personal accounts of this mayhem.

The Way

First of the RV breakdowns. A total of two flats, two tires came off, the propane pipe teared, step broke, roof leaked and the headlight burned out !!

The adventure began when I joined Cinco, an old friend, who was kind enough and connected enough to find me a last minute ticket. I joined the two Lords, who were to become my guides and close friends in the days to come. We traveled in an RV manufactured on the year of my birth, which made me feel really old, especially as it started to disintegrate. The first explosion of a tire happened close to civilization, at the outskirts of Reno. We waited 6 hours until a truck big enough to lift the RV and put on the spare tire arrived. When the second spare tire exploded we were in the middle of nowhere and ended up spending the night camping on the side of the road with the beautiful starlit sky above us.

The city started out empty

The rest of the way to the town of Gerlach we drove at 5 miles per hour with one wheel missing. We got a taxi from Reno to deliver two new tires to the local car shop and we were finally on our way to the famed Black Rock City, or so we thought… Passing the line at the entrance only took us an hour and a half, almost a miracle as people sometimes wait 12 hours. But the adventure wasn’t over. We got pulled over by the Police because one of the RV’s headlights had died. Dogs were running around the RV and sniffing it searching for drugs. We were saved, (once again) by Liz, a bubbling green braided master of flirtation who had been traveling behind us since the first flat tire. She had spent the day in Gerlach talking to the cops and knew the guy who had stopped us. She told him about the horrible two days we had and we were let off without even getting a fine for the busted head light, just a citation, the policeman said ‘you can smoke because it means nothing’.

Work Hard Play Hard

Building our camp!

Cinco, who organizes the couchburners camp (based on couch surfing ideas), had gotten us early entrée tickets and from the night we arrived we began working. We marked the camp territory, built shade structures, organized hangout spaces, a kitchen and a makeshift shower; in essence we made a home for us and the people that would shortly join.

Seeing the city slowly build up and getting to experience it while it was still quite empty was a real privilege. Once the official gates opened an influx of people arrived and the mayhem began.

The Rules

Radical self reliance. Prepared for everything 🙂

Despite what one might expect, there are many rules to burning man and much bureaucracy; there is even a DMV office to register art cars and a media office you have to get permission from if you want to use photos for commercial use. The first few days, my rebellious self felt annoyed by these rules but throughout the burn I had come to look at the rules differently. First I thought they were a great way to create some common ground for a community, then I felt that the rules were an anchor designed to help me create some structure in the mayhem. Finally one of the Lords corrected my way of thinking, making me look at things from the view point of the burning man meme itself. The burn is an idea that has been evolving for 30 years and these rules were the evolution needed for the burn’s survival, any symbiosis with the human population, was because the burn needed humans. If too many people died or got injured the burn would be canceled. The same went with the no Mooping (matter out of place) rule. One had to pick up all the garbage because it was federal land and that was the rule they put forth. It wasn’t there to help me not lose my stuff (although it did as I devised a philosophy of MacGyvering everything to my body with carabineers and duct tape!) It also did not mean burning man was a community based on ‘green’ ideas as the carbon footprint of burning everything was massive.

The Radical self-reliance rule was much the same. A festival insisting on keeping its own freedom from any cooperation or endorsement, especially in the harsh environment of the Nevada desert, had to depend on participants’ self-reliance. The fact this rule created abundance which allowed for a gift economy and from my subjective point of view made me feel that the playa ‘provided’ me with help whenever I needed, or that by giving to the system I felt immediate benefit because I was part of the system, did not mean I was actually of any importance. It was a byproduct of the meme’s survival.

For me, self-reliance also meant that as usual, I came expecting the worse. Perhaps that was the reason the harsh conditions (a hail storm on one day and a sand storm on another) almost did not interfere with my experience. It might even be the opposite; they became part of the adventure.

The city filled up! Room for everyone and anyone… with a ticket 🙂

Inclusion is another one of the burn rules, you do need to have money for your ticket and food and water but except for that the burn accepts everyone and anyone – this rule gives the burn an extremely robust survival trait. The byproduct of this is that there is something for everyone. From hippy new age ceremonies, to alternative energy lectures to 24 hour raves, a roller disco, opera, endless art, things to climb, games to play and more and more and more! Even an orgy dome I tried to enter, but the line was too long. Personally I found the burn was a great place to taste new things like trying to play with Aerial silk for the first time, but it was not a place to deepen skills to a higher level. Martial arts and contact improve classes were present in the burn but at a surprisingly amateurish level.

The Candy

A picture that is worth one word!

There are many different candies present at the burn, some legal everywhere, some legal in certain states and some that should be legal. Experiencing the city in different states of consciousness made me think of the burn as an amusement park specifically designed for taking psychedelics. It’s probably the safest place in the world to experiment with your brain, not only because the community tolerates it but the city’s design itself, with the man and temple at its center, surrounded by the circular streets provide order and structure and safety. Crossing every main intersection in a straight line is almost impossible as something random will pull you towards it. So you wander around bouncing like a particle in strange magnetic fields using your momentum to explore and move randomly but still being pulled back to safety and close to assistance.

The truth is the only times I got injured or felt things were dangerous and didn’t make sense were when I was totally sober. I injured myself while climbing, crashed my bike and got totally lost, my attention kept being distracted by whatever craziness was going around me leaving me vulnerable.

An infinity mirror from our neighbors, the Thumper music camp, who played amazing music day and night (pic from their Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thumpercamp)

Tasting different candies with different people was an amazing experience and experiment I have yet to fully digest. It allowed me to experience the circles within circles of social holons, there was me, there were us, there were others, closer and further, disco balls reflecting each other bouncing our signals, creating an infinity mirror. The multiplexing of the input channels I perceived changed based on the distance to others, how well I knew them, and the candy.

The famous pulpo mecanico art car. It shoots fire at night.

On my first night out with the two Lords I felt (or imagined) what I can only describe as the ‘collective’ consciousness of the playa. I was pulled towards these massive music breathing mechanical beasts lined up, shining, moving twirling in a line. I was the first to realize it was the art cars, waiting for the DMV to give them a license. We danced in front of them and I noticed how each art car sucked in different people based on their musical preference. We finally moved past them and entered a ‘hotel’. It might be moving but not because it has wheels. The Lords laughed as I was sure the hotel was moving. We walked on a two story high plank (safety third!) into what I perceived as endless looping corridors (next day I realized it was just two rooms with a window connected between them). Most of the time I didn’t know if I was in a dreaming or not, it was a reverse function of a lucid dream, a dream reality, a rabbit hole. I collected Chewy bar wrappers I ate as a ‘reality check’ to test the time passage and consistency of this world.

That night I learnt the importance of being well lit at night. Providing light to the playa at night is a gift for everyone. Besides, having a special light signature means people will find you and you won’t have to search for them. Luckily, the two Lords were priests in this light religion creating their own led lit clothing and ‘pimping’ my outfit for the next nights out.

The city at night, so many lights!

There was so much information, so much noise; the easiest way to stand out, to be something your brain could focus on was to increase the volume. More light, louder sound! This is probably what leads to the burn philosophy of ‘if you can do something you might as well over do it!’ An interesting ‘Dan Arieli’ phenomenon I became aware of was how comparison is an important factor of my brain function. Music or no music my brain was always attracted to music, even if when I got to the sound system I didn’t actually like it! The expectation, the need for it was almost more enjoyable. It’s an important bias to remember, something or nothing (relationship, work or whatever), your brain will always tilt towards the something, even if it’s not what ‘you’ really want.

I also realized how awful this ‘body bureaucracy’ is. Drink, pee, drink, pee, eat! my body kept signaling and pulling me away from all the wonders around me. Peeing is one of the hardest things on the Playa, you can only pee in designated bathrooms that are hard to find and each visit to them is terribly magnificent. It also offers a ‘time out’ from the others, just you and the melting, breathing toilet walls.

That night l got the playa name ‘Ninja’. Cinco gave it to me while we were talking quantum physics on the couch on top of the school bus. I love the name, and it’s a great excuse for me not to hug people which is one part of the burning man religion I choose to be very selective with. ‘Sorry I’m Ninja, I don’t hug people I kick them’. As for the rest of the ‘religion’, I was only too happy to convert. The burning man is something to believe in, something bigger than me. It has no god, it does not presume to make sense but if every one believes in it, the power of belief makes it real. When I realized that, I joined in doing things I wouldn’t usually do like drinking some alcohol and enjoying the collectivization of it.

Another night there were four of us roaming the playa as if in a computer game charging up from heat or music, laughter or comfy cushions, creating our own unique space, attuned to each other’s needs and feelings in a way I could not have ever imagined. “Someone needs to pee but it’s not me,” I remember saying and someone would admit it was them. I got sucked into Monica’s white laughter managing to escape only because I remembered Lord’s instructions, “That empathy, you have to learn how to put up borders, how to realize if something is coming from you or if is the being imposed by something outside of you. It’s all about suggestibility; your brain can be convinced of anything. Try to realize how other people or groups affect you and change the environment and the dynamics of the moment. That’s why tripping with someone is the truest mirror.”

My failed reaction time experiment. The first hour or two after taking candy there is a slight improvement but later, when the ruler looked like it was leaking and moving results get worse with time.

There were moments I literally could not identify my own hand and for the first time nail polish did not seem totally idiotic, it could be used as a personal identifier for body parts. I played with this suggestibility convincing myself and others that I was never cold and could be used as the group’s radiator. A later experiment proved that this suggestibility has its limits. I was unable to convince my brain my reaction time experiment was important. I was however able to ride a bicycle 10 times better in these altered states, even through a dust storm which blinded me. My current hypothesis is that my brain recognized bicycling as a survival need while catching a ruler on cue was not deemed important enough to allocate resources to. The limbic system has much more power over the organism in these altered states – it doesn’t help to ‘tell’ your brain what to do, you have to ‘feel’ it.

I found myself unable to enter someplace (the embrace massive statue which felt so ‘heavy’ and depressing) while physically being stuck to others (an art structure called the bee hive). In my two visits to the temple I was totally brought back to real reality. The temple is a place where people mourn, cry and release whatever is in them that needs letting go of. They write on the walls and leave notes and pictures and at the end of the week the temple is burnt down in silence. I understood the need for such a place but felt it was not for me, the most I could do was offer my support to those who needed it.

Another life changing experience was feeling a funktion one audio system, the crisp clean waves of sound engulfing me creating coherence even if I didn’t like the music itself, an audiophile was born!

I do not know if these candies are ‘only’ a magnifying glass of all the tinny cues and inputs that usually do not reach the higher cortex functions or if it really is an ‘extra’ sense, I have yet to be convinced that there is a practical difference.

The temple

Anyway, this crazy night ended with watching the sunrise outside the temple. It was nothing like any sunrise I had seen, the colors were changing in super slow motion, the mountains were emerging, vibrating into reality, bringing a new day. I had this intense epiphany, realizing the world was like the playa, it my playground, to explore, to experiment, to enjoy. A few nights later trying to survive a dust storm as the man burnt (What’s the big deal? It was just like sex for the first time, too many expectations!) I felt the exact opposite ‘I was the world’s playground’; being pulled and pushed by so many forces that were totally out of my control.

The sensor Hamsa! Part of Pulse And Bloom by Saba Ghole

That’s when Lord noticed what I thought was the most amazing art piece on the Playa (Photos HERE). We were sitting on comfy cushions below fake led lighten palm trees. There were two ‘hamsa’ shapes marking hand prints on each side of the tree. “There is a sensor here,” he said as I looked at him, thinking he had finally flipped. “It measures your heart beat”. As he touched the sensor the led colors changed and began pulsing at the rhythm of his heartbeat. When I touched the other sensor my heart beat was added in a different color. A biofeedback loop was created slowly causing us to merge our heart beats, ultimately syncing them into mesmerizing pulses of light. I melted, loving this world, where someone will create such beauty, such genius, even though so few will actually notice it. It is what it is, I thought for the millionth time that week, letting it all pass through me.

Mexican Tidbits

Posted on August 18, 2014 by admin

Food, culture and climbing, my experiences of Mexico are all here, read on!

Fold it yourself Taco!

Everyone knows Mexico is the land of Taco’s, or is it Burrito’s or Tortillas? What is the difference? I asked the same thing. Tortilla is the wrap itself. As for Taco or Burrito, it would seem size is what matters. Anyway the big surprise is that no one wraps them for you. They are served flat on the plate and need to somehow be folded and shoved into the mouth. This was fun because I like eating with my hands but much harder than you might think!

Lemony beer!

In general I could only deal with the ‘not spicy’ food which was obviously spicy! Most of the dishes were tasty but what even I found disgusting was a favorite dish here called ‘Chicharron’– pig skin! I noticed that if you want to do it like a Mexican you better squeeze some fresh lime on top of it, Taco’s, salad, soup, even beer, basically whatever you put in your mouth! My veterinarian friend claims it helps kill some of the bacteria. He also fed me with anti-worm pills he claimed will save my stomach, and wouldn’t let me eat almost anything because I have a gringo stomach!

Sweet version of avocado

The good news was I found new tasty fruit I hadn’t yet seen on any of my travels!

The clocks in the metro. Is this why Mexicans are late? The actual time was 17:46

Moving out of the food department, it seems time has little importance here in Mexico. Every time I met up with a local they were late, on average about 25 minutes late. Maybe this has to do with the terrible traffic or just the laid back attitude. It also seemed the culture was not as Christian dominated as Colombia. I base this analysis on the people selling stuff in the metro trains (thankfully not on the buses like South America!) they never evoke Jesus when trying to sell you some candy.

Glad I survived.

Except for eating and failing to surf, I did some climbing around Mexico City. Nature is beautiful and the climbers are super nice. The only qualm I have would be safety issues. Much like the laid back attitude towards time, climbers tend to be laid back when it comes to safety. I found myself climbing on a rout which has a well-known massive slab that shakes! I shook as much as the slab when I climbed that part. For cleaning routs people tend to use just one quick draw from the anchor for a safety and the belaying is too relaxed for my liking. It seems to work for them, as climbers here are at a very good level (not much of anything to climb below 6b) but for me it was an added fear factor (as if I need reasons to be afraid when I climb!). All in all it was great fun and I’m glad I survived!

The Secret Sense

Posted on August 5, 2014 by admin

Was Asimov tripping?

“Intricate patterns of brilliant tints formed and faded, beating in silent bursts of color upon the young man’s eyeballs… Somehow, he knew that what he saw, heard, and smelt were mere delusions— mirages of a brain that frantically attempted to interpret an entirely new conception in it… The effect of the hormone became stronger, and suddenly — in one burst — Fields realized what it was he sensed. He didn’t see it — nor hear it — nor smell it — nor taste it — nor feel it. He knew what it was but he couldn’t think of the word for it. Slowly, he realized that there wasn’t any word for it. Even more slowly, he realized that there wasn’t even any concept for it. Yet he knew what it was. There beat upon his brain something that consisted of pure waves of enjoyment — something that lifted him out of himself and pitched him headlong into a universe unknown to him earlier. He was falling through an endless eternity of — something.” Asimov, ‘The Secret Sense’.

These words were my words, these sensations were my experiences as a miniscule amount of a miraculous chemical bubbled threw my veins passing the blood brain barrier. Read on…

Inside

outside

I was in a safe space prepared by friends. I was opening and closing my eyes, alternating between my inner visions and viewing the outer world. Closing my eyes, I saw cheap ‘Las Vegas’ light displays, complicated kaleidoscopic images, people dancing, a black and white image of a woman, animated lizards, huge white ping pong balls bouncing, old colourful pixelated computer game. The images came and went like the wind faster than I could ever describe. The outer world mostly looked normal except for when geometry went all crazy and the room turned into an Escher painting or for the green glow that surrounded my fingers and shone around the words I wrote.

I realised that these visions were just a side effect of my brain adapting to something new. But what was it?

Words were hard to come by especially while writing. It was easier to speak than write. I could speak about anything except what the hell I was sensing. A theory in neuroscience equates consciousness with the ability to report. For me, this experience threw that theory out of the window. I was so completely conscious, perhaps more than I have ever been, yet it was so obvious to me that words were too small, too limited to describe what I was going through.

Normal?

During this ‘acclimation’ period it all felt normal. Even though I knew I was not ‘normal’. Besides the visions, my nervous system was sending mixed signals, I was hot and cold at the same time and my heart rate was elevated. Yet despite this the ‘normal circuit’ in my brain was turned on. Time still felt ‘normal’, the speed of my thoughts still felt ‘normal (unlike weed, which plays with these perceptions by affecting receptors in the short term memory part of the brain). “Your hands are shaking,” my friend said. “No they aren’t,” I argued looking at my hands. I held a glass of water, putting it on the floor for support and sure enough ripples and waves began flowing through the water. How could my brain trick me thus? Was there any sensation I could trust? Perhaps this was what schizophrenic people felt? Normal, absolutely normal.

Lose yourself

Open that door!

“You are looking for a model that will never be complete. The world is just too worldy. The subject is so biased and small,” I wrote as the distance between the outside world and the inner perceptions of that world began growing. I felt the distance between Sense – Perception – Action. One was so limited by the specific senses through which one came in touch with the world. There was so much out there that we would never know or feel or experience, and what did come through and was recognised as our ‘perception’, was so warped by our survival instincts, by our past experiences, by our emotions. “To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system.” As Huxely put it in The Doors of perception, where he described his experience with the Mescalin drug.

Slowly but surely these warps in perception began clearing up. We listened to music and watched Samsara, the images and sounds were extremely clear but the judgement connected to them was gone. Whether something was beautiful or scary it was just an image, just pixels, just photons transferring their energy to my retina. Beauty, pleasure, fears they were all interpretations; they were not the sensation itself.

This was the complete opposite of any other drug I have tried. This was the Buddhists Nirvana. Everything existed as it was without the ‘I’. Words were so weak because they were part of the subject, and the subject was so unimportant. Tears were flowing from my eyes but they weren’t my tears. I’ve always considered my tears a truth indicator and here was a truth I could not deny. “To actually feel that I don’t exist!” I wrote. The ‘professional’ term for this phenomenon is “death of the ego”, yet in this death I felt more alive than ever before.

Please shoot me if I become a hippie!

We watched videos of LSD experiments from the 50 and I knew these people were sensing the same thing that I was and they were just as incapable in describing it.

What would I call this extra sense If I had to limit it to a word? The Paradox sense! I knew it at once, I was sensing the uncertainty principle, I was sensing Gödel’s paradoxes, I was sensing the very limitations of an organism looking on itself. And it didn’t feel bad.

“If I write this I just might puke,” I wrote, “But love, is not an emotion it is the I. it is the only thing that can converge me. The only thing I can still identify with.” I seriously contemplated how one could research the connection between consciousness and love. And I laughed. Oh, how much I laughed.

Most my life I’ve been obsessed with paradoxes, I wrote a whole sci-fi book about them. The philosopher Ken Wilber explains the world in terms he calls Holon, things that are simultaneously a whole and a part. Usually the sensation of these different aspects of the Holon I call ‘me’ or the Holons of the ‘universe’ evoke the sensation of pain, of contradiction. In this state I was fully aware of these contradictions and of the limits of my own being, but there was no pain. Things were as they were and that was a huge relief, a type of bliss. There was no pain and no fear, not even of death. And if pain or fear existed they were not mine!

Masaccio

Paradise Lost

As the perceiving “I” was taken out of the picture I realised there was no telling what actions this organism might decide to do. “Would this organism take care of itself?” I asked myself. “I’m not sure. Maybe,” was the answer?
It was extremely hard to care about this ‘body’ to feed it, to get it to drink. Yet when a pain was too strong I stopped it, when I walked down a dark stair case I held on to the rail and walked slowly as not to fall and I still wouldn’t agree to eat oranges even if I didn’t feel I hated them.
“You would never survive out there like this,” my friend insisted. “Out there I wouldn’t’ but in a safe environment I think I could. I would be functioning at around 60%. But why not live like this with truth before emotions?”
“Where could you find this type of environment?”
“The Garden of Eden,” I blurted. I could go around picking fruit and staring into the air. I could do this. I would never be bored. Was eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge an ingenious metaphor of humanity developing an ego? And if so why couldn’t we go back there?

After some experimenting I came to believe humans could not only live like this, they could procreate too. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that ‘my’ organism could feel horny. Sex itself was utterly clear without any annoying voices in my head, without ‘trying’ to achieve an orgasm. And when the orgasm did come it cut sharply through all my senses verging on pain.

Final words
“This is when you realise so many of the artists you love were trying to express this feeling,” my friend said at some point. “Yes, Art tries, music tries, love tries, nothing can,” I agreed.
My friend, an advocate of Wittgenstein, claimed that this was proof of Wittgenstein’s ideas, that language puts a limit on the expression of thoughts. For me this was proof of the exact opposite, thoughts, sensations, consciousness are so much beyond language. “But how will you express these thoughts and pass on this knowledge to other people if it’s beyond language?” My friend insisted. “Easy, I’ll just give them some of these magic molecules and let them experience it first-hand.”

The Power of the People

Posted on July 12, 2014 by admin

On my first day in Lima I watched as a quiet art exhibition in the center of the city turned into a riot when city officials tried to arrest the artists… Read all about this and more of this crazy city.

Two worlds one city!

I had heard Lima was supposed to be a beautiful city but upon arriving I encountered an urban mess of crumbling, half finished buildings, roads filled with garbage and the tuk tuk was back. The well documented eternal greyness in the winter, didn’t help much. The sky was hermetically covered with clouds, not even one ray of sunshine could filter through.

“How long do you think it will take a city like this to look like a modern European city?” a friend I’m traveling with me asked.

“Never, it will have to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch,” I said.

5 hours later standing on the beach walkway of the Mira Flores touristic district in Lima I swallowed my tongue. Never in my travels have I encountered such differences in one city, it felt like a completely different country. Even the rich parts of Mumbai do not manage to hide the third worldiness of it. The noise, the garbage, the smell filter in but not in Mira Flores where there are no tuk tuks, no honking and there are garbage bins at every corner. Even the people look and dress differently.

It was a slow change from one part to the other, buildings grew higher and more modern, sidewalks appeared, tuk tuks and graffiti disappearing.

The Human statue in silver surrounded by the crowd after the attack.

The transition area seemed to be at the old center of the city. There were old European style buildings that had seen better days but still offered charm and beauty. Roads filled with modern stores and hundreds of people going about. It was here on a crowded walkway that I witnessed police brutality, the kind of which I have never seen with my own eyes before. I also stood in awe as I saw the masses stand up to it.

It began with a simple ‘human’ statue. The center of the city is filled with many artist and musicians but for some reason a city official was trying to shut this one down. The artist stayed in character and refused to budge as more and more people gathered around the scene. Then all of a sudden many city officials arrived along with several police men. The pushed the artist outside the circle and began to beat him. One of the policemen took the shovel that the artist was using as a prop and began to beat him with it.

Suddenly almost as one, a roar rose from the crowd. They rushed forwards pushing the police back with their bare hands and surrounded the artist protecting him. The police quickly disappeared. The crowd kept close to the artists, giving him money and tending his wounds. My friend, a local to south America said that the police were the lucky ones to get out of there alive.

Causa – Octopus and a special type of potato!

I have been to many demonstration, and I have witnessed police brutality but I have never seen this type of reaction from the crowd. It wasn’t one or two people that were brave enough to defend the artist, it was every one including old women and young children. I could actually feel the power of the people. My friend tried to explain this by the fact that democracy is quite a new thing here, people still remember overthrowing dictatorship, they remember their power. People do not trust police, they are still considered as little more than thugs. He explained that in the culture here there is a difference between ‘legal’ and ‘legitimate’. Even though the government is the one that decides what is legal it is the people that decide what is legitimate, and on the street it is the people that count.

Somehow I had a very hard time imagining this scene in the clean and modern district of Mira Flores. It is likely that the police there would not have acted as violently but even if they did I doubt that the people would react in the same way.

Rocoto Relleno – stuffed pepper, and a food festival.

I’ll end with a lighter note, as the one thing Lima did live up to was its reputation of food. It didn’t matter if I ate in the poor area or in one of the 50 best restaurants in the world (astrid&geston) the food was delicious and unique. Strangely enough the price differences between the two parts of the city weren’t that big between 5 – 15 dollars, somehow I would have expected more. Then again as a local I was staying with in the poor side of the city told me, “I don’t know which restaurant is good because I eat at home…”

Ecuador Bits

Posted on June 30, 2014 by admin

I’ve been in Ecuador for almost 10 days so I guess it’s time to tell some tales… read on!

It’s not a poster it’s the view from the window!

Nature in Ecuador is beautiful. The long bus drives are filled with amazing views that can compete with New Zealand or Switzerland. So much untouched nature between one human settlement to the next. Taking that into account the roads are surprisingly good.

Spot the nickle?

Like all third world countries there is a vast difference between the cities and the villages. The cities are cities, Guayaquile could just about be manila or even Tel Aviv. But the villages are a different story. People look different, they talk different, there are no fast food chains and almost no one speaks English.

Ecuador uses dollars which makes things more expensive than some other places in South America but still cheaper than Colombia. The strange thing is they use a mixture of U.S Coins and local coins (and they use a lot of coins!) but don’t use $50 bills! I guess this is the best proof that the whole money system is a belief system like any other.

Sandwich Sandwich

Rolling the boat on the log into the ocean, simple human ingenuity.

Canoa is a strange little beach village in the center of Ecuador. It is dependent on tourism but is still a fisherman village with families rolling their small boats on tree logs into the ocean every day casting their nets for fish and huge shrimp! Not all families are created equal, some have many young men and boys helping, others had old women pushing. It was strange to see that the boat engine itself is carried each day from the house and connected to the boat, theft is a big issue.

Boat loads of dead sardines are dumped back in to the ocean by the ‘corporate’ boat because there is no demand for them. At leas the Pelicans enjoy this feast 🙁

My well documented sea sickness prevented me from joining a local fishing boat that my friend managed to get invited on to. He came back with the most hilarious tales. The fishermen spend the day smoking weed while laying their nets. Then they head out to a larger commercial fishing boat were they begin to negotiate with the ‘corporate’ fishermen. The men manning the large boat stay at sea for days at a time and for a fresh can of soda or some chips will throw some fish into the local fishermen’s boat. When all valuable goods had been traded for fish the local fisherman commanded my friend “Make me a sandwich sandwich”.

“What’s that?” My friend asked.

“Two pieces of bread with another two pieces of bread inside”.

“Oh, you have a sandwich sandwich” said a ‘corporate’ fisherman and traded some more fish for it.

After trading the fisherman return to their nets to collect the day’s loot.

Surfing Vs. Climbing

Art or destruction of nature?

Ecuador is known for its surf but a ‘professional’ surfer I met wasn’t happy with the waves. “They are all mushy,” he said. “And there is no easy path out into the ocean because the waves break everywhere.” The biggest surprise for me was how much your ribs hurt after a day of surfing. Laying on the board and battling the waves gets your chest and ribs scratched up and banged up!

The climbing so far has been surprisingly good. It is a new young sport here and the rock was well bolted and local climbers were at both crags we arrived to. One of the crags just outside of the city was covered with graffiti which I had mixed feelings about.

Ecuador Vs. Thailand

The beaches I’ve seen were not as good as Thailand but this is not the high season so the sky is always cloudy. The coconuts and fruit shakes can give Thailand a good fight but they are more expensive here so once more Thailand is at an advantage.

Only in Ecuador?!? Yes the shrimp is bigger than the fork!

It also feels a lot less safe. Bags are stolen (including my friend’s) and locals warned me not to sit outside the backpackers with my computer or a camera at night. The buses are easy to use and cheap but not nearly as fancy as Thailand buses. I guess for these reasons and more Ecuador is a lot less touristic than Thailand. I have also been using Couchsurfing here which I never did in Thailand. From the locals I learnt that I just missed the Gay parade which had thousands of people marching in it. Although tolerance here is not close to the strange status gay and transgenders have in Thailand it’s nice to know things are getting better (While in Israel the minister of education said that a Jewish state should tell Gay couples they are not a family).

Children playing football on the beach all day, every day.

Still In The Trees

anthropological experiences from the fringe frontier

Category Archives: life style