The day after my bike-punk friends arrived, Good Ol' Smitty descended upon us.... and to the surprise of absolutely no one, things got stupid quickly. (And by stupid, I mean hilarious and awesome.)
The first thing we did was pick fleas off each other.
Then we rolled on up the Greensprings Highway for some good ol' fashioned hair-cutting...
sun soaking....
and ear-candling.
Yes, it is as crazy as it looks.... and I don't think it worked, so we're trying again tonight. Part of me thinks it's just some hippie practical joke. Oh well. (Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I'll just pretend it worked.)
That's pretty much been the shape of my week. Lots of laughing, over-eating (the bikers can really cook) and lounging. In fact, we're doing that right now. Originally, the bikers had intended to depart today, but they've decided to hold off since it's snowing. Probably wise.
Don't you wish you were here with us?
| [+/-] |
The Smitty Cometh |
| [+/-] |
Visitors From Another World |
Two of the best people in the world arrived at my doorstep on Monday. My dear friend Rachel, and her fabulous hubby, Pauly, are on a massive bicycling adventure. They started in San Diego and are working their way up the coast to Vancouver. And then (becuase that wasn't enough?) they're biking their way back to Virginia. I highly recommend that you check out their travel blog here.
The mohawks were part of a pre-trip shaving bonanza, becuase of this universal travel equation:
They are now fully shorn, and quite presentable.
I'll be giving more updates on these yahoos later, but before I terminate this post, I want to mention Pauly's job. It's the coolest ever. He was working at Ferrum college, digging through their huge music collection, then cataloging it and putting it on the web. Thanks to Pauly, this awesome collection of blues, bluegrass, gospel, and old-time music is available to you, free of charge. Check out the collection here.
| [+/-] |
The Popul Vuh - Part 1, Chapter 2 |
Then they made the small wild animals, the guardians of the woods, the spirits of the mountains, the deer, the birds, pumas, jaguars, serpents, snakes, vipers, guardians of the thickets.
And the Forefathers asked: "Shall there be only silence and calm under the trees, under the vines? It is well that hereafter there be someone to guard them."
Then they also assigned homes to the birds big and small. "You shall live in the trees and in the vines. There you shall make your nests; there you shall multiply; there you shall increase in the branches of the trees and in the vines." Thus the deer and the birds were told; they did their duty at once, and all sought their homes and their nests.
And the creation of all the four-footed animals and the birds being finished, they were told by the Creator and the Maker and the Forefathers: "Speak, cry, warble, call, speak each one according to your variety, each, according to your kind." So was it said to the deer, the birds, pumas, jaguars, and serpents.
"Speak, then, our names, praise us, your mother, your father. Invoke then, Huracán, Chipi-Caculhá, Raxa-Caculhá, the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of Earth, the Creator, the Maker, the Forefathers; speak, invoke us, adore us," they were told.
But they could not make them speak like men; they only hissed and screamed and cackled; they were unable to make words, and each screamed in a different way.
When the Creator and the Maker saw that it was impossible for them to talk to each other, they said: "It is impossible for them to say our names, the names of us, their Creators and Makers. This is not well," said the Forefathers to each other.
Then they said to them: "Because it has not been possible for you to talk, you shall be changed. We have changed our minds: Your food, your pasture, your homes, and your nests you shall have; they shall be the ravines and the woods, because it has not been possible for you to adore us or invoke us. There shall be those who adore us, we shall make other [beings] who shall be obedient. Accept your destiny: your flesh shall be torn to pieces. So shall it be. This shall be your lot." So they said, when they made known their will to the large and small animals which are on the face of the earth.
They wished to give them another trial; they wished to make another attempt; they wished to make [all living things] adore them.
But they could not understand each other's speech; they could succeed in nothing, and could do nothing. For this reason they were sacrificed, and the animals which were on earth were condemned to be killed and eaten.
For this reason another attempt had to be made to create and make men by the Creator, the Maker, and the Forefathers.
"Let us try again! Already dawn draws near: Let us make him who shall nourish and sustain us! What shall we do to be invoked, in order to be remembered on earth? We have already tried with our first creations, our first creatures; but we could not make them praise and venerate us. So, then, let us try to make obedient, respectful beings who will nourish and sustain us." Thus they spoke.
Then was the creation and the formation. Of earth, of mud, they made [man's] flesh. But they saw that it was not good. It melted away, it was soft, did not move, had no strength, it fell down, it was limp, it could not move its head, its face fell to one side, its sight was blurred, it could not look behind. At first it spoke, but had no mind. Quickly it soaked in the water and could not stand.
And the Creator and the Maker said: "Let us try again because our creatures will not be able to walk nor multiply. Let us consider this," they said.
Then they broke up and destroyed their work and their creation. And they said: "What shall we do to perfect it, in order that our worshipers, our invokers, will be successful?"
Thus they spoke when they conferred again: "Let us say again to Xpiyacoc, Xmucané, Hunahpú-Vuch, Hunahpú-Utiú: 'Cast your lot again. Try to create again.' " In this manner the Creator and the Maker spoke to Xpiyacoc and Xmucané.
Then they spoke to those soothsayers, the Grandmother of the day, the Grandmother of the Dawn, as they were called by the Creator and the Maker, and whose names were Xpiyacoc and Xmucané.
And said Huracán, Tepeu, and Gucumatz when they spoke to the soothsayer, to the Maker, who are the diviners: "You must work together and find the means so that man, whom we shall make, man, whom we are going to make, will nourish and sustain us, invoke and remember us."
"Enter, then, into council, grandmother, grandfather, our grandmother, our grandfather, Xpiyacoc, Xmucané, make light, make dawn, have us invoked, have us adored, have us remembered by created man, by made man, by mortal man. Thus be it done.
"Let your nature be known, Hunahpú-Vuch, Hunahpú-Utiú, twice mother, twice father, Nim-Ac, Nima-Tziís, the master of emeralds, the worker in jewels, the sculptor, the carver, the maker of beautiful plates, the maker of green gourds, the master of resin, the master Toltecat,* grandmother of the sun, grandmother of dawn, as you will be called by our works and our creatures.
"Cast the lot with your grains of corn and the tzité.** Do it thus, and we shall know if we are to make, or carve his mouth and eyes out of wood." Thus the diviners were told.
They went down at once to make their divination, and cast their lots with the corn and the tzité. "Fate! Creature!'' said an old woman and an old man. And this old man was the one who cast the lots with Tzité, the one called Xpiyacoc. And the old woman was the diviner, the maker, called Chiracán Xmucané.
Beginning the divination, they said: "Get together, grasp each other! Speak, that we may hear." They said, "Say if it is well that the wood be got together and that it be carved by the Creator and the Maker, and if this [man of wood] is he who must nourish and sustain us when there is light when it is day!
"Thou, corn; thou, tzité; thou, fate; thou, creature; get together, take each other," they said to the corn, to the tzité, to fate, to the creature. "Come to sacrifice here, Heart of Heaven; do not punish Tepeu and Gucumatz!''
Then they talked and spoke the truth: "Your figures of wood shall come out well; they shall speak and talk on earth."
"So may it be," they answered when they spoke.
And instantly the figures were made of wood. They looked like men, talked like men, and populated the surface of the earth.
They existed and multiplied; they had daughters, they had sons, these wooden figures; but they did not have souls, nor minds, they did not remember their Creator, their Maker; they walked on all fours, aimlessly.
They no longer remembered the Heart of Heaven and therefore they fell out of favor. It was merely a trial, an attempt at man. At first they spoke, but their face was without expression; their feet and hands had no strength; they had no blood, nor substance, nor moisture, nor flesh; their cheeks were dry, their feet and hands were dry, and their flesh was yellow.
Therefore, they no longer thought of their Creator nor their Maker, nor of those who made them and cared for them.
These were the first men who existed in great numbers on the face of the earth.
NOTES:
*Here the text seems to enumerate the usual occupations of the men of that time. The author calls upon ahqual, who is evidently the one who carves emeralds or green stones; ahyamanic, the jeweler or silversmith; ahchut, engraver or sculptor; ahtzalam, carver or cabinetmaker; ahraxalac, he who fashions green or beautiful plates; ahraxazel, he who makes the beautiful green vases or gourds (called Xicalli in Náhuatl,)--the word raxá has both meanings; ahgol, he who makes the resin or copal; and, finally, ahtoltecat, he who, without doubt, was the silversmith. The Tolteca were in fact, skilled silversmiths who, according to the legend, were taught the art by Quetzalcoatl himself.
**Erythrina corallodendron. Tzité, arbol de pito in Guatemala; Tzompanquahuitl in the Mexican language. It is used in both countries to make fences. Its fruit is a pod which contains red grains resembling a bean which the Indians used, as they still do, together with grains of corn, in their fortunetelling and witchcraft. In his Informe contra Idolorum Cultores, Sánchez de Aguilar says that the Maya Indians "cast lots with a large handful of corn." As is seen, the practice which is still observed by the Maya-Quiché is of respectable antiquity.
| [+/-] |
Don Lopez |
He sits at the intersection every afternoon, and does what old men worldwide do: He watches.
The kids, in particular, are interesting. They’re almost always carrying something. The girls usually have a young sibling tied tight to their backs in slings of bright, woven fabric. Sometimes they have a basket of food or laundry balanced on their heads. The boys bend low under bundles of firewood or burlap sacks filled with grain.
He sits on his rock every afternoon, near the little waterfall that spills into the gutter, and watches the parade of ant-children as they carry their loads. From his rock he can
feel the pulse of the community. The ebb and surge of traffic on these streets indicates the approach and passing of mealtimes, the beginning and end of the workday, and the arrival and departure of students at the language school.
He sits in silence in the warm sun on the rock by the gutter, looking uphill to where the street meets the highway. That’s where the women and children appear when they descend from the forests with their bundles of firewood, and where the trucks drop off anyone coming back from the market in the city.
When he sits on his rock, everything about him is steady accept his shuddering hand that is perched on the tip of his cane. It causes the cane to wobble like a metronome.
****
Around the bend appears a group of machete-toting teenage boys. They strut down the street toward Don Lopez, laughing and jostling one another. Don Lopez waits until they draw near, then rises. He shuffles toward them, smiling, leaning lightly on his cane. They stop shoving each other as he nears them.
They chat for a moment. Then he makes a joke, and smiles as they break into laughter. But the boys' laughter twists subtly as it leaves their mouths. It develops a fine, sharp edge of pity and ridicule.
If Don Lopez is bothered by the boys’ reaction, he doesn’t give it away. He smiles cheerfully as he wishes the boys a good evening. He is smiling still as he shuffles back to his rock, where he waits for more passersby.
The boys swagger down the hill towards town, still laughing, and looking back occasionally.
****
Like most of the other villagers, they boys have abandoned their traditional clothes in favor of cheap blue jeans and t-shirts made in sweat shops. Don Lopez has also given up on the traditional woven fabric, but not – it would seem – on the idea of dressing like a gentleman. He’s wearing dark green trousers, and a rich brown sweater over a white, collared shirt. His clothes accent his caramel skin, white goatee, and broken, hawkish nose.
Only two pieces of clothing interrupt his elegance: the green woolen hat that he has tied snugly with a shoelace, and his Sun Surfer sandals which reveal his weathered feet - the nails of which are blackened and fibrous, like banana peels left to rot in the sun.
| [+/-] |
Sweet San Fran |
I went with a good friend down to San Fransisco this weekend. It was a delightful trip: good weather, great people, amazing food, and delightful walks in pleasant neighborhoods filled with homes that I will never, ever, be able to purchase.
I spent a surprising amount of time trying to convince myself that we weren't going to have an earthquake. My fear of those things has been huge ever since I checked out this site.
I also took some photos. Here's one. Click the "Read More" link to see more.
During the 5+ hour drive back to Ashland, we listened to Barack Obama's first book, Dreams From My Father. It's not Noble Prize caliber or anything like that, but it did get solid reviews in the NY Times and the Washington Post, and I liked it. I certainly feel like I have better insight into a man who may be our next president.
My problem with the whole story is how plain vanilla it all is: White mother from Kansas, black father from Kenya, childhood spent in Hawaii and Indonesia, studying in California, then working as a community organizer in Chicago, before finally meeting his extended family in Kenya...
...BOOOOOOOOOOORRRRING.
He wrote this story in the mid-90's, shortly after becoming the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, and before his political life really gets rolling. I'm assuming he continues his story in his newer book, The Audacity of Hope. We'll see.
Speaking of boring, my plan is to read the autobiographies of the top candidates from both parties before I vote. If anyone wants to join me in this thrilling journey, please let me know. (I'm not holding my breath...)
***
Here are those photos I promised. Click on them for a closer look.
A panorama of the bay.
We went fishing. I caught this. Then I rode it. This is the custom of my people.
Palm trees! 
These crazy things were chasing us all over town but we finally lost them by ducking into a Safeway. Looking back at these photos, it kind of seems like they just wanted a hug. Still. Better safe than sorry.