santa fe, please be quiet, please?

a dream i was telling two korean immigrants about my trip to new mexico on a red clothed-seated bus, who by the looks of their faces didn't understand a word I was saying. I was in Vancouver. all my things were intentionally scattered throughout the city in specific places; my bed under a tree, my toothpaste in a car exhaust pipe... I walked past a bombed-out building, people were sleeping and bathing in their cubicled rooms without walls. They were mostly Islamic. I wondered into the middle of a peaceful protest organized by Palestinians . A Conan-O-Brian look alike was running around acting his part. I picked up a sledge hammer and broke some windows that were lying amidst the rubble. I wanted to leave, but was stopped by Translink Security unit who held up a video camera to my face telling me the only way to leave was to plead to the government on a live feed, begging for my worth.


on top of the morning to you, santa fe---
an excellent breakfast at Tune Up Cafe, plantains, beans, tortillas, eggs, nopales, and a whirlwind of coffee.
walked around santa fe, reminding me of a victoria except with tan adobe buildings, a very bright sun, and very wealthy tourists. bought some boots, lit a candle in a church circa 1610, and needed to leave.
Drove through, suburbs? Rolling hills with trees speckled with, on first glance could be mistook-en for rocks, but were actually homes, up to Hyde National Park. Entered a trail, knee deep in dry, powdery snow and started my climb of one thousand feet. Swiss-army knife out, ready for attack, if I was to be prowled by a cougar.

I ended up on some highway with cars bolting which ways, looking for the trail head on the other side, that the map which fell out of my pocket during the ascent displayed. fuck it, there were no signs except for a girl guides campsite, long, long since abandoned. I started to trek down the interstate. It wasn't five minutes when a teal buick century pulled over and two young teens, grinning, asked the what fuck I was doing on the road. I piled in the backseat on top of a week supply of mcdonalds debris as the two teens passed a joint to one another. Yeah, I am from BC, and nope, I don't ski. They drove me the five minutes (really, I hiked all this way up) to the ski lodge.
microwaved re-fried beans for dinner on the bed with re-runs of seinfeld.
Awoken around 3am by boisterous laughter coming from the room next door. The laugh was so hard, the woman who was doing it, coughed periodically, stumbling over the hilarity. We couldn't help but joining in, so we laughed along. An hour later, the laughter started to sound like deep, perverse sobbing. Experiment with drugs? hostage? sex torture?
Woke up around 8am, to hear the same hard laughing/sobbing. Upon checkout we noticed her door was ajar, and probably was ajar all night.

Southwest

"Southwest"
Photographs
COMING SOON

VPW Winnipeg Public Television

Today I learned about VPW. Public Television in Winnipeg in the the 1980's. Here's a sample:
The Cosmopolitans
Nifty Natalie
The Ruffled Panties
alien invasions
ice-berg lettuce
avant-garde

Watch Winnipeg Babysitter to find the archive of VPW by Daniel Burrow.

Cold, Cold, Nudists

from the hotel lobby to the car was just about enough of the flash freezing i'd care for.
every mile we distanced ourselves from Gallup the temperature would rise by a degree or so.
purposely stayed on the scenic routes, tired of the monotony of flat interstates flayed out and unsurprising, as your destination is usually visible hundreds of flat miles away. Peacefully vacant roads. Went to Acoma Pueblo in some lowlands, badlands? The snow vanished and the sun was out, if I hadn't rolled down my window to get a feel for the air, I would have thought it to be a summer in the desert. At a viewpoint overlooking red rocks shooting up from the earth and the Pueblo site, signs told us: "No Camera (film and video) Recording Allowed."
Drove into the museum for the pueblo, $20 each! Nay, but what washroom facilities, I can see where the money is spent.
Took a wrong turn and ended up in a remote Native Reservation where even the adobes, built into the sides of huge bolting bright red mountains had eyes, and all were transfixed on us, getting the hell out.
Took another detour to Jemez Springs. A quaint village based around the several natural hot springs in the area. Spruce Springs, a free, untapped springs a short knee-high hike through the snow promised waters of 105F. Several intense nudists bathing in the steam, not very friendly, yet not very mean, as I begged to have their towel, as Caitlin and I had none. Ran through the snow back to the car in wet undies.
Drove through the mountains, a landscape that echoed notions of "home," to Santa Fe.

Cherry-eyed roaches

The sun arose, the color palette of this geography is unparalleled.
Old homes have screened-off porches and patios to keep night creatures away while victims of tuberculosis sleep outside, better for their lungs: this happened.
Back to an airport. A glass-fenced-off smoking room, a box of smoke, occasional glimpses of hands, cherried cigarettes through a cloud of swirling white and grays. Look out the window to the tarmac, a similar scene, blizzard. Will Caitlin land?
Walking the bitter-cold streets, Frontier Cafe, where spicy means spicy, four or five used napkins later. Hostel on route 66, the manager, an old, frizzy-haired lady, meanders and talks the speed of evolution, I watch the floor, two large cockroaches clamber out of the fireplace and march into the kitchen. Breakfast, we will have out. Our room, large, theme:sunflower, cacophonous radiator, a permanent kettle whistling and steaming.
To Gallup.
Checkpoint, Grants, NM. Sun and snow, bright-like the flash of a nuclear bomb, only 14F. A town with 3 stores, McDonalds, Sonic, and the Diner we chose. The heater was broken, truckers and small towners, knick-knacks: "Its hard to be optimistic when your "fat" pants are tight." Amazingly good coffee.
Gallup, route 66, the famous El Rancho Hotel, celebrities on their way to Hollywood would be seen here, or thats what they tell me. Our room, Lorraine Day. Car stuck in the snow, Red Rock Park. It took the two of us and four others in an oncoming car to get out of the snow, luckily they were there. New Years, walking in the cold, probably 8-10F, drudging through the snow finding a sort of downtown? Envelope with $300 was found and pocketed. Residential streets, silent, peaceful, the sweet smell of burning of pinon burrowing out of chimneys. New Years. The El Rancho bar, two other tables were occupied, one party of two Native Americans, and the other, the group that helped push our car out of the snow bank. They claim the El Rancho is typically the happening place in Gallup, where they are from, and could not gather why it was so dead. Last call was at 11pm. Champagne in Lorraine Day with the TV on, 2011.
Morning, awoke to the distant sound of a trombone. -5F, let me translate that, -22C. Now I have never experienced this, but while breathing my nose hairs froze.

pulau pejantan island

-Zhao Renhui
An uninhabited island in the Indonesian Archipelago first visited by scientists only in 2005, Pulau Pejantan (also known as "Sand Forest Island") has recently drawn increasing attention from researchers for its extremely unusual geological features and remarkable biodiversity. Two distinct environmental regions - a central semi-tropical forest, ringed by pale white sand dunes dotted with geothermal oddities like the extraordinary Black Geyser - harbor some six hundred species of fauna, roughly seventy percent of which exist only on the island.

From curiosities such as the ghost hare (a black and white animal that seems to share a genetic background with extinct species of both hounds and hares) to spiny burrowing anteaters, brightly colored dune-dwelling rock pheasants, and improbably oversized felines such as the heavy oncela and the iriamondi cat, Pulau Pejantan provides scientists with an extraordinary opportunity to study what is essentially a closed ecological system.

Conditions are difficult for observation on the remote island. Its peculiar hydrological activity and location in the doldrums of the equatorial region along the Java trench combine to produce a thick blanket of fog that covers its landmass essentially from sunrise to late afternoon, 365 days a year; as a result, much of the work must be done in poor light. The images of Pulau Pejantan presented were taken by Zhao Renhui of the Japan-based Institute of Critical Zoologists on an expedition to the island between January and April 2009.

More

psychedelic, angelic styrofoam soda

Biometric:
montane forest - temperate steppe - xeric shrubland
Airline Code:
pdx - slc - abq
English:
Portland - Salt Lake City - Albuquerque

the plane from portland to salt lake city was a rocky one from what I can remember. window seat, next to an older morman couple sharing angelic experiences, some personal and others from a book the woman got from a fellow parish'er as a christmas present. landed in the middle of a crater not long after the man expounded a vision involving a blueish haze at the top of a flight of stairs. peanuts and tomato juice.
salt lake city airport: myriad of uncharted fast food joints and broken moving walkways.
flying into albuquerque, i awoke from a ten second, passed-out, book dropping sleep to find the plane psychedelic; engulfed in pinks, oranges and reds, from a neon sunset. my fellow passengers sitting still whilst the telescopic-sized windows of the plane project malleable, shifting shapes of colors and patterns over our fold-down trays and Styrofoam cups of ice, (the most satisfying two sips of soda).
kalleigh, a familiar face, awaits me and drives me through streetlight-less roads in a mammoth-sized white pickup truck to corrales. transported through an unfamiliar geography in pure darkness is unnerving, how can I adapt to my surroundings if I can't see them? adobe house with alien cacti lining the fence, inside barking dogs, welcoming people, libations and my own bedroom.
alarm set for sunrise.