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Archive for October, 2006
Portable Storage Devices
I’m a total photo junky. anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis probably understands this. As we get our gear situated for our trip to Asia, I’ve begun thinking about my photo gear. what to pack, to leave home and what to buy, to have an optimum amount of gear with the least weight.
Check this out: I’m not bringing a laptop. that’s two solid months with no regular use of a computer. Oh, we’ll duck into internet cafes, for sure, but I haven’t been without a computer, this long, since high school.
My idea is to invest in some sort of portable storage / multimedia viewer device that I can download cf cards to, on the go and then bring the device in to the internet cafe to have the files burned onto DVD. This keeps my gear small and light and allows me to shoot ’til my heart’s content. A device with 80 gigs of storage, I could go for weeks without hitting the cafe and with 120 gigs, i could conceivably go the entire trip, although out of safety concerns, this isn’t the best idea (if our gear ever got stolen, the photos would be the most stinging loss).
I shoot 4 gigabytes of photos on a near daily basis. 12 megapixel RAW files really chew up hard disk space. In hopes of using my 60gig iPod as a portable storage device, I bought the Apple Camera Connector. It took 2 hours to transfer 3.5 gigs of files. The entire ipod battery life was used up and most of the battery life on my Canon 5D, in addition, there is no preview for RAW files on the iPod. In other words, the experiment didn’t work. There are soome card readers, that the camera connector works with, although admittedly I haven’t found any that work.
Since then I’ve been researching several different models of varied pricing. Epson and Jobo make excellent high end multimedia devices, perfect if you’re rich and your girlfriend doesn’t watch you bank account. But for those of us who don’t have that much scratch lying around, there are several lower end options. here’s a pretty good chart of what’s currently available, that I found over on the thorntree forums. My favorites are the Vosonic and the Hyperdrive. Both have similar pricing. The Vosonic beats out all the higher end devices on hard drive space and color screen, but it seems that it’s on back order or it’s pricing may have been a fluke (rulex was lucky enough to get one and i get to play with it tomorrow). The Hyperdrive doesn’t come with a fancy screen, but it’s got great hard drive space, it’s light and it can take up to 120gb of photo transfers before the AA batteries die. now that’s cool. On the flip side though, it would be nice to be able to preview my images and delete ones that i know aren’t gonna work. saves time at the internet cafe for sure.
Needless to say, I’m still researching all this action. what sez you?
Tix Booked
We took off on wednesday to go to guadalajara to search out wedding rings and a dress and a suit. no dice on the rings, so we picked up stand ins, until we go to los angeles to get the real thing. we both scored very nice wedding attire, marcia got the most beautiful dress. very simple with mexican style embroidery. classic mexican, but also very modern at the same time. and i got traditional manta cotton pants and shirt with simple embroidery around the collar, breast-pocket and front over-lap. very nice and minimalist.
We got home, yesterday, to see our tickets had arrived by Fed Ex. it’s official, we’re going to South East Asia and India. Our flight itinerary is as follows:
December 3rd, fly to Los Angeles.
December 9th, fly to Denpasar, Bali.
December 23rd, fly to Bangkok, Thailand.
January 20th, fly to Dehli.
February 10th, fly to Los Angeles
February 13th, fly back to Puerto Vallarta.
I’ll be working out the details of everything in between these flights, but at least the backbone is in place, we have flights to start planning from.
It’s rough still but in Bali, we’re looking at staying in Ubud for most of the time, with a day or two trip to Lombok. and maybe a day jaunt to Kuta. i’ll be bringing a surfboard for this leg of the trip.
We have a month in the Thailand area, so we’ll most likely travel up to Chaing Mai for christmas and new years, hopefully doing some kind of trek into the golden triangle. and then back to Bankgok for a week or so and then split two weeks between cambodia and vietnam. Most of this part will probably be done spontaneously, but i’d like to get to Ankor Wat, Saigon, Hualong Bay, Hoi San and Hanoi.
Then on to India. whoa. this is the most elusive part of the trip. all the travel advice i read from the Lonely Planet forums, says that three weeks isn’t even slightly enough time. My list of places I’d like to check out are Agra, Varanasi, Benares, Rishikesh and then on to Katmandu. There are a million places I’ve been reading about and this leg is the least planned and researched, at this point. So far most of my research has been on the north, but i’m just starting to read about the south of India. Almost like another place.
Anyone have any advice, please feel free to comment.
The Little Things
So we’re head deep in planning this December 1st wedding. we went wedding ring shopping last week, here in Vallarta and found absolutely nothing. Some things you just can’t find, here in our little slice of paradise. Having lived in Los Angeles for so many years, it’s a bit hard getting used to planning purchases like that. Marcia also needs to buy her wedding dress. So tomorrow we are headed up to Guadalajara for a few days to gather the necessities. I guess it’s the same with any little podunk town in the U.S. as well. But it’s taking some getting used to on my part. I really thought we might be able to find some nice platinum wedding bands in Vallarta, but no dice.
La Ticla
On Friday morning, Indalecio and I packed up our gear and headed out for a surf trip weekend to a spot called La Ticla in Michoacan, about 6 hours south of Vallarta. He called it my bachelor party weekend. This was my first trip driving south along the coast and as we drove, I marked off each of the towns whose surf breaks I’ve heard about, but never been. Chacalatepic, Arroyo Seco, Pasquales. Hundreds of lesser-known and unknown spots dot the west coast from Jalisco to Oaxaca. In 50 years I’m sure the west coast of Mexico will be a surfer’s mecca. For now, it’s a relatively unknown, unpolished gem.
The drive was awesome, I’m in love with Mexico and every new corner I find, has interesting things abound. As we drove through Jalisco, Colima and then on to Michoacan I was amazed at all the coco palm and banana fields, everywhere. Michoacan in particular is raw and undeveloped and freaking gorgeous.
As we got to La Ticla and got our bearings straight, we pulled into the bungalow and camping colony just south of the river mouth. Palapa bungalows with attached bathroom $50/night. Private room with community bathroom $20-30/night. and camping site under palapa shelter $5/night. I was feeling very mexican, with my camping hammock, so we choose the $5 option. We situated our things and headed out to the break.
Ticla is on open sea with direct exposure to southern swell. To be honest I have no idea how this spot breaks normally, because a massive swell had started the day before we got there. Unfortunately, I didn’t really find this bit of crucial information out, until just before we left (more on that later).
Ticla sits at the bottom of a wide river mouth with a gnarly section directly in front, reserved only for the most advanced surfers. The left side (rights) is a closeout beach break and the right side (lefts) is a point break that stretches for miles, almost literally. To get to to the left break, you cross the 150 foot wide river with some areas being four feet deep or more. Don’t cross too close the river mouth or it will flush you out to that nasty looking break in front, you know, the one with teeth. Friday afternoon, sets are overhead and outside sets are double overhead. It takes 15 to 20 minutes just to paddle out to the break. The waves are hard, big and fast, real fast. If there’s a wait, in between sets, it’s not more than 2 minutes. The current from the river mixed with the pounding waves, pushes you down the beach and once you get out into the line-up the current pushes you back up towards the river mouth sets.
Now that you have the layout, sort of, in your head, let’s get to specifics before this entry gets too long and winded. To be honest and to the point: Ticla handed me my ass, on a plate. I am removing my name from the intermediate surfer category and putting my name up on the beginner-immediate category. It’s like that. No joke.
These waves were big and nasty and the currents were insane. Three broken boards the first day we were there and four on Sunday. Friday afternoon, I barely managed to get into the line-up. After having not been in the water for at least three weeks, it probably wasn’t the best idea for me to have charged this wave. I managed to not catch one single wave, as I did my best to handle my impending sense of dread each time that outside set came barreling towards me. I’ve been working on my left, but this wave walls up with a shelf that drops you at least three or four feet before you gain traction and i just couldn’t get it together to drop in. I made the surfer’s paddle of shame that evening as I took a smaller wave in, on my stomach and almost thrashed myself on the rocky coastline.
Saturday morning I trudged across the river again, picked a point near the river mouth, got my feet all cut up on entering the water and paddled for a good solid 20 minutes, before turning around to realize I was way down the beach and no closer to penetrating the growing swell of incoming waves. I finally just decided to quit and got out, managing to avoid hitting any rocks.
Saturday afternoon, After a healthy nap in the hammock, I paddled out again and finally managed to stay in the lineup without losing my shit (never mind just getting out into the lineup). As luck would have it, the waves were even larger. I managed to drop into a quick A-frame, right, the ledge was at least three feet high and the wave far overhead, I rode it for about three seconds, before it closed out and I punched out the back side, the power of the wave made my guts liquify. I tried to drop in, left, on several waves but either I was too far behind on the wave or I was just too plain scared. My lowerback was a ball of knots. I headed in.
Back on the beach, I watched Adan Hernandez, Kalle Caranza and the sayulita crew rip up the large sunsets sets. Some of those waves were easily 15 feet. no joke. big, long and fast. Tubes, barrels, aerials, sheeeit. you name it, I saw it. Saturday night was by far the largest waves I have ever seen in person and those kids knew exactly what they were doing. The sun setting behind them was just the icing on the pastel de chocolate.
Sunday morning we got up for our last session before heading home. I paddled out again, this time I found my cool. At the far left side, there was a nice shoulder and after finally making it out to the break, I could sit on the shoulder as it carried me towards the rows of incoming waves. After about an hour or so, I was really feeling myself again. I escaped a few large sets and tried to get in to a few of the smaller waves with no luck. My nerves had settled and I was actually enjoying myself, feeling the first bit of control and near delight. I asked mother ocean to send me a good wave. And a few minutes later a monster outside wave came in and slammed just a enough in front of me, to not let me slip blissfully underneath. I grabbed my board and held on for dear life. The wave tossed me end-over backwards, then end-over forwards and finally I realized that my legs were sticking out of the water as I was almost doing a handstand on my board, but the foam was keeping me from righting my board out, I finally got back to the surface only to get tossed by three more large waves. Each wave tearing me like a rag doll, as I tried to hang on to my board for dear life (Indalecio, would later say that he had seen the whole thing happen and that the first two waves were easily 12-15 feet). After those four waves, I was done, I rode a smaller six foot wave on my stomach towards the beach. The water was receding, showing the rocks underneath the sand line. As the white water came in, I was knocked off my board and I knew going into the beach that there was a good chance I’d slide over the rocks and then onto the beach, I’m talking about a shifting waterline 30 feet wide and six to eight feet high. i lifted my board over my head and slid onto the sandy beach, I was almost home free when a rock put a large scratch in my back and another, a gouge in the side of my foot, luckily, my board was ding free. As I sat on the beach, recuperating, at least 10 other surfers were coming out of the water, all with a similar experience. Again, the icing on the pastel de chocolate was the guy who walked up the beach just then, with the two halves of a broken board, cut cleanly right down the middle.
I headed back to camp and had a big breakfast. As I was eating, I was talking with a guy who had been staying at Ticla for a month, from Washington. he said that it had been dead for three weeks and that the swell had rolled in on Thursday and that it was a pretty massive swell. Up until that point, I honestly thought that this was the norm at La Ticla.
Indalecio and I packed our gear and headed home, reflecting in the car about our experiences. I’d have to say that Ticla humbled me to the core, as a surfer. We have it very good in the Bahia de Banderas. Our surf spots may be small and inconsistent, but they treat us well, there are no strong currents, they are easy to access and are at least slightly predictable. Surfing in open ocean is whole ‘nother beast and I can definitely say that I have so much learning to do in the surfing sphere. My time spent at Ticla wasn’t necessarily the most fun, I’d say I took maybe three waves, with only one short ride to result from three days of surfing. But I would say that I learned more about surfing in the past three days then I have in the past year. If Ticla had been a right hander, my experience would definitely have been far different and for that reason alone, I need to go to summer-school for left handers, cuz mine just flunked.
It’s a humbling experience to have your ass kicked that hard. La Ticla was an amazing experience, for sure. and for that, I am grateful.
Quintana Roo
So I’ve finally gotten around to posting the photos from our trip to Puerto Aventuras in the mexican state of Quintana Roo. photos taken in Playa Del Carmen, Puerto Morelos, Puerto Aventuras, Tulum, Tulum Beach and snorkeling in a cenote among other various things. Even though it was only a few weeks ago, it seems like so long ago that we were there, scuba diving with the fishes and eating Marcia’s mom’s wonderful cooking. The blue/green water and the fine-white crystalline powder sand. amazing.
The Information
I’m currently digging everything about Beck’s new album The Information. Everything from the instrumentation to the vocals and the production techniques, even the art work. It’s all so sick. sick. sick. Gives me warm feelings inside. Thank you Nigel Goodrich.
Upgrading Finally
I’ve finally decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to WP 2.0. if things are a little wonky for awhile, that’s why. If the site goes to hell, well, maybe it’s a sign from the goddesses.
Update: Ok, everything seems to be working smoothly, why that took me 6 months to do is beyond me. ya see, for some reason my database was like 60mb. and i couldn’t successfully load the backed up mysql file into my local hosted version of this site. i finally figured out that a plugin i was using for flickr had a 52mb cache. so i chucked that table, hence no more qualitypeoples.com/photos. I’ll reintroduce that part of the site in the future once I finish my on-going, six-month-in-the-works redesign. Yes with the just-jumped-the-shark light text on dark background vibe.
Visas
To be honest, when I started planning our South East Asia Trip a few days ago, I hadn’t really thought about visas fro each of the countries we’d be visiting. Luckily Marcia is on the ball. Today I came into the office and she identified all the countries we’d need visas for. She actually needs one more than I do, because she is mexican. it never even slightly occurred to me that our visa process would be different. Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and India all require visas. From Los Angeles, it’s probably pretty easy to acquire visas for these countries. But from a hole in the wall, little mexican town, it’s another story. We have to mail our passports, certified check and applications via DHL to each embassy in Mexico City, one by one. Sending your passport through any mail system in Mexico is not smart, especially if you’re a blonde haired gringo. No passport, no rights.
Through Marcia’s sheer togetherness we went and got passport photos taken and our passports are off to the first embassy, India. We’ll probably have to wait a week and a half to get them back. we’ll be cutting it very close, for sure. Folks, when planning a trip to several foreign countries, across the globe, make sure to give yourself enough time to get all this stuff straightened out.
Ok, now back to the wedding planning, where were we…
Wedding + Honeymoon planning
Marcia and I are in the midst of planning our wedding. It’s been a total nightmare. Neither of us are in to big weddings, but at the behest of my family, we tried to plan a March 1st wedding extravaganza, but luckily we had extreme troubles getting enough options for people to rent houses, hotels etc… We live in a very touristy area; the houses have all been rented out already and the hotels booked up with package tours, not to mention $500 plane tickets. It was becoming a logistical nightmare. So we decided to cut the wedding size down and have a small intimate affair, here in Bucerias, with just our immediate families and local friends (with a small shindig in LA for the LA peeps). We moved the date up to December 1st (our anniversary - it’ll be two years). Which is six weeks away! we’re crazy. Marcia has been spearheading the wedding planning part with my input of course. If all goes well, in six weeks I’ll be a mexican citizen and we’ll be properly hitched!
We’re also planning our honeymoon, a two month trip to South East Asia and India. I’ve just begun to plan the trip. And I am in waaaaay over my head. 2 months to hit Bali, Lombok, Thailand (bangkok, chaing rai, kho phi phi), Cambodia, Vietnam, India (veranasi, darjeeling) and Nepal. It’s gonna be a whirlwind trip. I’ve been casing the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Forums, as well as AirTreks.com, which has a cool little flash graphical trip planner tool (although I don’t like the sales tools stuck on to it, feels like Cars Direct or something, if anyone knows any other graphical trip planning sites, feel free to drop it in the comments). I’ve also been digging Flickr for photos of various places.
I had planned on getting an all-asia pass from Carthay Pacific, but that turned out to be a dud, since their deal ends Dec.13th. I also checked out United, One World, Star Alliance, etc.. and all sorta suck, one way or the other, mostly due to their lack of flexibility. But it seems like they’re for older, more inflexible travelers anyway. Eventually, I learned that getting around SE Asia is pretty easy with the help of several small airlines like Air Asia and Thai Airways. Also, conveniently, I have enough miles on my AAdvantage Card to get Marcia and I from LA to Bali and then from Calcutta to LA in business class, for free. Chalk that one up to the old days of buying computer equipment for mostasa. Yee haw!
If anyone has any insightful info on planning a trip of this sort, please do drop the knowledge on me, hot. I’ll probably update this entry from time to time with new info as I get it. Interested peoples can also check my backpack page I’m forming all this info on.
GDL Oct 06
Photos from our most recent trip to Guadalajara. lots of good street images, signs, etc. I’ve become obsessed with VW bugs (or “bochos”). as well as hand lettered signs. I collect all these things, like pieces of a giant puzzle. what to? i haven’t figured that part out quite yet. but every time I go to Guadalajara I see these things shining all around me, yet for each photo i manage to capture, there are a thousand more missed opportunities. mexico is a brilliant uncut diamond. don’t change, mexico.
The Search.
Perhaps I was a bit too overly zealous in my reporting of said rainy season being over. Saturday afternoon, a rain storm moved into town and dropped a good amount of rain on our heads, continuously, all the way through to this morning with a follow up shower in the early afternoon. As I lay in bed last night I could hear the sound of waves hitting the beach, something I haven’t heard in at least a full month or so, yet it seems like years.
I woke at around 8:30, this morning, got my dose of morning espresso courtesy of Miss Marcia, the best little espresso queen, you ever seen. and headed up to the breaks. From the lookout point at Destiladeras, just as I suspected, Veneros had around 10 to 15 gueys in the water and as I sat and watched the spot for 15 minutes or so, I saw one solitary 3 to 4 foot wave (binoculars come in handy). I could see Burros in the distance, didn’t look like much was going on, but I was hell-bent on getting in the water. As I pulled up to the condo gates and walked out, on to the beach at Punta Burros, I could see no waves at all, just a small raft of surge hitting the beach. not a soul in the water and all at the zenith of the hight-tide. dejected, rejected and smemeckted, I headed home with the thought that It’d be low tide, later on in the day and something would have to give.
Pato and I exchanged text messages and we hooked up around 2:00pm, and headed north to San Pancho. I’ve seen San Pancho but for one reason or another I’ve never surfed the hard and fast lefty beach break there. As legend has it, in October after the rains create a large lagoon, the beach opens up and deposited sand sets up a gnarly river mouth break. and the river, literally, opened yesterday. As we crossed the mountains and past Sayulita, we hit a rain storm and by the time we hit San Pancho the rain and wind were blowing out anything that might have been surfable 20 minutes prior.
Pato got in the water Immediately and tried to make due with the 2 to 3 foot, wind-blown storm surge and I sat at the waters edge contemplating whether I wanted to brave the surge or keep myself out of the water, considering it was slushy brown with the phosphorescent smell of laundry detergent run-off coming from the open flowing river mouth, 50 meters down the beach. Pato tried his best, for 10 or 15 minutes and then made his way back to the beach. The man was determined to at least get in the water. I was a bit more hesitant.
We sacked up and headed back down to Sayulita to see if the odd north-facing angle of the bay there, would eliminate some of the storm surge mentality. As we got to the beach, no luck. A few brave souls on the right break, with not much luck and not a single wave even grazing the left break. We stood on the tip of Sayulita beach, getting pounded by the cold rain. Shrugged our heads for a few minutes, hopped back into Pato’s truck and headed the back way to Punta Mita and then down to our last hope. Albercas.
Albercas had a nice, fast, arcing, 3 foot wave, but for the fact that it was pounding on to rows of boulders poking 2 to 3 feet out of the water. Burros, to the north, again not a soul in the water and Veneros, off in the distance. Sure, maybe a wave or two, with a boat load of gueys, all of whom had heard the same waves I had heard the night before. Pato and I surveyed the Alberca topography and preyed that a little storm currently coming north, might bring some nice heavy swell our way in the next day or two. And all the sea urchins smiled at us from their secure little nooks in the rocks below the swirling dervishes of water that ebbed and flowed between each wave.
Today was not our day.
Flatness
We’ve been back for a week now. and not counting the few little drops we received today, it hasn’t rained since before we left. The rainy season is finally over. and after three weeks, the brown is already starting to creep back into the scene and the air is filled with yard fire smoke. The Burning Season has started once again. It’s my third time experiencing the fall, here in Mexico.
The end of the rainy season marks a switch from southern swell to northern, a calm period. As with the rain, there hasn’t been a single solitary wave in three weeks. The pacific ocean is flatter then the caribbean, when we were there. All the local surfers’ waistlines are getting slightly larger, mine included. If we don’t get some swell soon, I’m gonna have to go get a gym membership.
Old Timey Folk Music
I’ve always had a thing for old timey appalachian folk music, I think it was the square dances at Camp Sloane. Slim, the dj, playing a bunch of old time 78rpm records out of his big blue van, songs like “The Wabash Cannonball” and “Montego Bay”. And then on to Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? T-Bone Burnett’s homage to early country, folk, blues, bluegrass and gospel. I listened to that soundtrack for a year straight. Recently, through Johnny Cash, I got into The Carter Family and then on to a recent group The Be Good Tanyas, whose first album Blue Horse is very early-folk tinged, with a side helping of hobo-culture romanticism. They perform an old creole folk song called The Lakes of Ponchartrain. I can’t stop listening to it. It has some psychic connection, in my mind, to the hobo culture flavored paintings of Margaret Kilgallen. Bent on getting other versions of this song, I remembered the Internet Archive, an open source collection of live performances and older un-copyrighted music. No luck, but I did a search for old-time music and came up with a ton of really interesting songs from people such as Eck Robertson, Dock Boggs, Ernest Stoneman and Charlie Poole. Very cool. On from here it’s a just a tumblelog of various google searches, wikipedia pages and more, in the pursuit of online pools of early country, folk, blues, bluegrass and gospel mp3s. is this what they call “amateur musicology”?
Denver Art Museum
The New York Times grills Daniel Libeskind’s Denver Art Museum. I just can’t reconcile the fact that his building is basically a Frank Gehry building with no curves, even down to the aluminum panels. Doesn’t make sense. I’ll have to go check it out, one of these days.
The Catalyst
The Catalyst. great article on Puma’s CEO and how he re-invented the brand’s tired image into a powerhouse of design using color, line and style. [via svn]
1week of art works
1week of art works. totally amazing and inspiring time-lapse video of some crazy japanese artists rocking a wall over the course of one week. bananas. [via wooster]
Friendly Fire
Sean Lennon’s wicked new album “Friendly Fire” has a video for each song, directed by Michele Civetta. It’s a great concept and the visuals are as beautiful as the songs. the trailer | an interview with Civetta
Ed Fella
My mentor from my CalArts days, Ed Fella has a new website up, that showcases his beautiful graphic design work. simple and so very his style. i wish the web designer had figured out how to combine his style with web standards or gone all flash, but never-the-less Ed is one of my core inspirations and an amazing graphic designer / artist (although he’d probably chuckle if he read that I called him an artist).
Lady In The Water review
Shortly before we left for GDL/Puerto Aventuras, we went to see M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water (yes it finally showed up in theaters, here in Mexico). After reading the scores of bad reviews the movie received, we were prepared for the worst, but seeing a movie this universally hated by movie critics is almost a must. I’ve generally liked Shyamalan’s movies in the past, albeit with a slight nod towards his cliched twist endings. But even his last, The Village, I dug the ending, however patiently I waited for it’s twist ending to reveal itself.
Lady in the Water wasn’t without it’s flaws for sure, but cliche was not one of it’s missteps. Marcia and I, both, really liked the film. It had very honest aspirations and that to me, is worth the price of admission alone. The movie is essentially a children’s fairy-tale book retold as an adult’s fairy tale movie. It requires a suspension of disbelief that most movie critics just don’t have in them. Not so much the “level” of suspension of disbelief but the “kind” of suspension of disbelief. In order to enjoy the movie, you must be prepared to except the rules of Shyamalan’s fairy tale and the themes he addresses, mainly: destiny, tyranny, faith, self-doubt, interconnectedness and interdependency. These are topics that are found in tons of other films, but Shyamalan wraps them up in a wholly original fairy tale with certain eccentricities* baked into it that act as trip wires for movie critics. It’s these eccentricities that make the movie hard to swallow for those that don’t like it but for most people these kinds of things will fly right over their heads. It’s as if he was giving the movie critics a big middle finger and they surely took him to town for it.
Further, fairy tales were never really just for kids until Disney stepped in and disney-ified the art of fairy tale story-telling, bleaching it into a mainly child-based experience (it’s especially ironic, considering his first four movies were released by Disney and this one was released by Warner Bros). Fairy Tales have contained adult themes since the beginning and are found in every culture on earth, acting mainly as a way to deliver in story form the beliefs, faiths and mores of the culture. Marie-Louise von Franz is famous for her research with fairy tales and how they reflect the collective subconscious of a society through archetypes.
In american culture, we are missing fairy tales. We’ve relegated them to the toy box and replaced them with schlocky movies and tv shows that rehash versions of the same 20 stories over and over. If nothing else, I admire Shyamalan’s noble intentions and I give a thumbs up to Lady in the Water for bringing back the notion that it’s ok for adults to dig fairy tales.
*The movie critic character and the “cookbook” character were a little over the top, but I liked them anyway.
BSG Season 1 review
A couple of weeks ago I finished watching season one of the new Battlestar Galactica. It’s an interesting series, for sure. Some great plots and characters but I just want to choke the frak out of that little grunt doctor what’s his face, Baltar? My suspension of disbelief just doesn’t go that far, that i’d believe a central character to the series would be that much of a frakkin’ schmuck. it’s just not logical. and using the word frak as a replacement for the mother of all curse words, is a great little invention (the FCC must have their panties in a bunch over that one - which is great, in my books), but by the second or third episode characters were saying ‘frak’ at least once a scene. it’s a cute invention, don’t over-do it. I look forward to spending the next week or so, watching the second season (i wouldn’t dream of touching the third until it’s over).
President Bush’s Job
we’re back in Bucerias now. a week and a half of roaming mexico, er well, having fun in guadalajara and Puerto Aventuras. and with self-imposed limited internets access. checking my feeds today, it came up with another brilliant Daily Show clip What Exactly Is President Bush’s Job? absolutely hilarious. [via platicbag]
Live from Aventuras
It’s out last night here in Puerto Aventuras, what “they” like to call the ‘Riviera Maya’. and it’s way too soon to go home. I’ve got a ton of good pics to show though and i’ve even been editing on-the-go for slightly more real-timey posting. I’ll document all adventures with pictures in the coming days but just wanted to touch on a few highlights:
Puerto Aventura has about 12 or so different dive spots and one in particular has become my new favorite. It’s called ‘Paradise’ (fitting name) and each time we’ve gone there i’ve seen some interesting fish and sea life: a turtle, lobsters, squid, trunk fish, trumpet fish, queen and grey angel fish, tarpon fish, barracuda, green and spotted moray, spotted-eagle ray, squirrel fish, parrotfish and a ton of others. Overall, you just get a vibe from some dive sites. This one gives me that vibe. I was home.
On Saturday we did a two tank dive in a group of three connected cenotes. It took me most of the first dive to get used to the confined space, cold water and sometime blurred vision from the mixing of salt and fresh waters. It was kinda like floating through space inside of a giant asteroid. But incredibly beautiful when the sun hits the cave entrance and floods the pool with light.
we visited the ruins at Tulum and headed to Tulum beach for lunch and a swim at an eco hotel called Mezzanine. Tulum beach is kinda like the Sayulita of the Cancun / Riviera Maya area and definitely worth a trip if you’re in the area. Mezzanine has a thai restaurant that had the best thai food i’ve tasted outside Los Angeles (and that’s saying a lot). The beach is killer too.
I’m fascinated with street imagery. hand-painted signs, taco stands, no parking signs etc… and Playa del Carmen is filled with these kinds of things. For every one picture I shot, there were a hundred that got away.
Tomorrow we’re back to Guadalajara and then on to Vallarta on Friday or Saturday. see y’all on the other side.
