a bar in hollywood is selling the celluloid version of itself through whiskey tinted eyes. christmas benefit show and all the same hipsters are wearing tinsel and string lights.

i step into the parking lot to smoke a cigarette. i won't quit for another week, but still i inhale with a nostalgia for addiction. across the strip mall parking lot, several booze soaked steps later, i am reading  reflexology chart outside of the thai massage parlor. a man and a woman emerge and begin to close the sliding metal gate - the kind that you find in old service elevators that remind me of new york and paris. the man eyes me for a minute. he and the woman exchange a nod. he asks if i would like a massage and the woman is already reopening the gate.

inside an led desk fountain sings a perpetual brook and a calendar with shitsus wearing ribbons is on the wall behind the desk. there are no more clean clothes; in broken english she sheepishly asks if i don't mind being naked. (it's already weird enough, so i roll with it). i undress in the narrow corridor while she waits around the corner. the mattress is on a raised platform with a carved wood frame. she covers me with a thin sheet and my skin goose pimples through the cotton.

i meditate on her moves as she form valleys in the muscles of my upper back and crevices in the tension of m calves. i cry a song of locked emotion in my neck and an aria to my forearms. somehow, somewhere, this woman was my grandmother, soothing my tired and broken body after hours while my friend texts "where r u?" i drink tea when its over and drive down the abandoned streets, catching every red light.

Monterrey, Mexico is a geodesic prism of youth culture that lies under the radar of foreign tourists. I arrived after three ten-hour days of driving in the desert in a van with no air conditioning. My glasses had broken at the onset of the trip when the car broke down in New Mexico. Rather, I broke my glasses in the broken car and it all seemed so fitting – Murphy’s Law or some other idea that can be referenced in situations like those where everything is spiraling in a direction you’d rather not see it go.

Two hours into a month long trip through seven countries, the car broke down. Parked at the closed mechanic's shop, I practiced yoga in the back of the van. When I got up from a shoulder stand, my glasses were absurdly looking back at me in two pieces. Like a pug whose eyes look in two different directions. Maybe I shouted, or maybe I laughed, but in either case I was frustrated, and continued to be playfully frustrated for the next three days as I wrestled my broken glasses onto my face with duct tape.

Now in Monterrey, the same city blocks had been looping of our frustration for an hour. The heat was melting the glue of the duct tape and the glasses were falling off my face. This furthered my inability to see either the map or the streets we were trying to navigate. This feeling of frustration at being lost shrunk the physical space of the car. In losing the road and losing my space, I lost my patience. I bolted in a 7-11 parking lot, telling Stosh, the driver, that we would meet back up in an hour.

Time was marked by miles driven and state lines crossed, each day characterized by ambiguity, openess, and indeterminacy. Dreamscapes gave way to landscapes and the lines of Mexican city-states blurred. Now that I was outside of the car, I was able to get outside of my head and enjoy my surroundings. Cobble stone roads were lined with college students sporting dyed mohawks and converse. Abstract murals with ethereal creatures and the Beatles were on virtually every block. It was the first time in Mexico that I had seen something counter-culture, global or cosmopolitan. The students haunted vintage shops and retro vegan restaurants. This I could dig.

I met a man whose small, dark eyes were framed by a gaunt face. He called himself "Kone", which meant "Rabbit". He illustrated his name to me by pointing at a homemade tattoo of a rabbit on his forearm. He lead me to Monterrey’s Museum of Pop Art, where there was a photography exhibit on Mexican wrestling - luchadors. I didn’t understand much, though i did glean the immense celebrity these men (and some women) hold. Their personal lives, costumes, and life drama was chronicled in photographs that were described by a young volunteer. As she took Kone and I around the large single room, they gossiped feverishly. Which wrestler had won which match when, how they had to accept wearing a different mask afterward, a faked stunt gone wrong. They were talking the way I could imagine talking about Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, or maybe Lady Gaga. I nodded politely, pretending to understand more than i actually did.

When I returned to the 7-11, Stosh was just returning from getting the car fixed. He had met a local college student who spoke English. He was eager to help get the car fixed in return for a ride to Cascada Cola de Caballo, a local tourist destination that features - yes, you guessed it - bungee jumping.

"Cola de Caballo" is Spanish for “Horse’s Tail” and describes a waterfall that sits atop the forest canopy an hour outside of Monterrey. The place reads like Disneyland: families, resorts, stalls selling knick-knacks and food - all in a way that seemed utterly foreign, and strange. The concept of taking a natural landscape and creating this kind of tourist attraction seemed odd to me; In America, we build roller coasters and Ferris Wheels for this kind of enjoyment. Nature is held in a forced state of pristine beauty, in reserves and national parks. Here, the peacocks were drinking pina coladas the size of my head, and a midget ticket taker was sitting on a donkey.

Hypnagogia is the liminal state between wake and sleep when reality blurs into dream. The grind of the wheel and the dance between cultures and customs, toll booths and Stosh’s stress over the broken car - it was too much. Throw in midgets and I’m ready to throw myself off of a cliff. Literally.

It was a rebirth. The newness of travel was beginning to wear off and the surroundings had begun to sink in. I fell backwards into the abyss and I heard myself scream and then all I could do was laugh and whoop and cry. All those sleep-state memories of wonder and worry were flung out beneath me onto the canopy floor and I awoke out of liminal wonder.

I shrugged off the sleep of disbelief. But Murphy wasn’t quite done with us; on the drive back to the hostel, the car broke down again.

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dear sun:

today i am grateful for  yoga, chai tea, rolling tobacco, mail delivered by hand, light cotton dresses on hot summer days, dreams, writing letters to friends.

dear sun:

it has been awhile since i've written you. it has been awhile since i patterned my asanas after your rise and fall, since i drew your energy through my vessel and out my fingertips, pouring words into the soil so they may grow as a vine back up to you.

i have been thinking on the moon recently. how when we look at the moon, what we are really seeing is the sun's interaction with the earth; the sun's light reflected on the surface of the moon, the moon's sense of fullness created by the earth's shadow.

the ancient mexica had twelve different words for the soul. each kind of soul had both a light and a shadow side; the soul created breath, and words and breath were nearly the same.

"su resuello, su espiritu, o su palabra. se dice por el razonamiento que hace el senor a sus principales, o el predicador a los oyentes"

[Weirdstock, YMCA Cambridge, Central Square. August 14th 6pm-12am, August 15-16th 12pm - 12am] advance tix $7/day, $8 at door]

I first heard of Shepard Fairey in 2001. I was in high school in Los Angeles and my friend Mark Hunter got a gig working for the then unknown artist, postering "Andre the Giant has a Posse" all over town. Fairey has come a long way since then, gaining increased fame in the street art world with "Obey" and other campaigns. Last February, he became a household name after his arrest for appropriating Obama's image for his "Hope" campaign. When I heard he was doing a DJ night at the ICA, I had to go. With tickets going for as much as $500 apiece on e-bay, I faked my way in by posing as an intern with the Dig.

The DJ night was part of an event series accompanying Fairey’s spotlight exhibition, "Supply and Demand" at Boston's Insititute for Contemporary Art. The exhibit marks Fairey's Basquiat-like crossover from street art into mainstream exhibition. Basquiat dealt with issues of race in America, packaging his message of oppression to be consumed by the very oppressive powers (read: rich white patriarchal supremacy) he was challenging. The beautiful irony of Basquiat was his ability to sell ideas of social inequality to those perpetrating it-- and have them love him for it. Because Fairey tackles the issue of consumption itself, street art provided the perfect acapitalist avenue to address the destructive way (read: global hegemony, war-for-oil, economic colonialism) the consumptive lifestyle shapes American culture and politic. Supply and Demand is the most successful exhibit the ICA has ever had, with tenfold attendance of any other exhibit in the museum's history. The irony of placing of street art, a historically anti-consumer art medium, in the context of a museum exhibit, is that the work becomes consumable itself, where accessibility is mitigated by entrance fees.

In the same way that DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album (a remix of the Beatle's White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album) brought proverbial hippies and gang bangers into creative genres they may have never before explored, the beauty of Supply and Demand is its aim to expose museum-going individuals to the idea that street art can be held as high art, while also exposing street artists to the museum scene. At the event last Saturday, Fairey was spinning, mixing artists like House of Pain and the Pixies, recalling nostalgia for all of us who grew up in the 80's. Later, Public Enemy’s Chuck D sampled newscasts of Henry Louis Gates' arrest as part of his set. The event took only the parts of urban culture and black opression most accessible to rich white America - the attendees were mostly twenty-something artists and forty-something funders who spent more time talking about the ability of Fairey to bridge communities, than actually dancing to the music. The elephant in the room was that representation from one side of the bridge - the street artist community - was visibly lacking. While the myth of "Supply and Demand" is that it is the proverbial Venn diagram overlap between street artists and wealthy entrepreneurs, the reality is that it's just another kind of social gentrification.

the drive from boulder to des moines is flat in both the physical and mental senses. the long rolling glasslands of prismatic consciousness coalescing into the monotonous hum of big rigs and the angry neon lights of gas stations.

one lovely thing about santa fe is the volume of independent theatres it possesses. i recently had the pleasure of viewing the nina paley's brilliant piece sita sings the blues at the santa fe film center. a lovely, unassuming theatre featuring homemade popcorn and couches.

the ramayana is a hindu epic poem, predating the oddessy, that chronicles the story of rama, a prince, an incarnation of lord vishnu, who has come to earth to rid the world of an evil rakshasa, or demon, named ravana. rama's wife, sita is kidnapped by ravana, and the ramayana (sanskrit for rama's journey) is a chronicle of rama's journey to save sita and kill ravana.

the film is a modern retelling of the ramayana through a multi-layered narrative. four stories woven together, each with its own style of animation, incorporate modern indian understanding of the tale, the creator's journey that led her to write the film, the original version of the story itself, and jazz montages with sita singing classic soul songs.

insightful, aesthetically intriguing, and a critical examination of the patriarchal undercurrents in the ramayana, sita sings the blues should not be missed! i highly recommend the film, and you can watch it for free online!

http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

i hope ya'll enjoy the film as much as i did.

peace, love, and yes!
s

it is twelve am. i wake up and it is my twenty-first birthday. i am on a plane to china. i celebrate with the bearded hippy dude next to me. he gives me alcohol and muscle relaxers. he hasn't cut his hair in ten years and he is smuggling an ounce of pot in his colon. he tells me he doesn't like to smoke unless the pot has gone through his system.

it is one thirty in the morning and i anger the well-groomed flight attendant after four drinks when i steal alcohol off of an unattended cart.

i am on a plane to china and it is my birthday and the security alert has been raised to orange because terrorists in london have tried to blow up a plane using gel bombs. it is after that day that liquids are not allowed on planes.

it is twelve pm and i am hungover and my headache won't let me sleep and i am still on a plane to china.

months later when the air is heavy with moisture and my chest is heavy with the rise and fall of each breath, it is two in the afternoon when i realize that my friend is holding a live chicken by its feet. he swings the chicken like a softball, the bird flailing as it rises and falls above his head with each swing of his arm. he lets go and the chicken soars over a wooden fence, across a moat, and into a yellowed field of emaciated lions.

i watch as feathers fly as the chicken is ripped apart.

we are in a zoo just one and one half hours south of shanghai in zhejiang province.

this is the sort of thing you don't hear about china. you hear about the pollution, the overpopulation, tibet, baby girls, tainted dog food, mao zedong, the great wall - but you don't hear about this.

i try to throw a chicken, but it smacks into the fence. the chicken stands up and runs around like its head is already cut off. my acquaintances are laughing and i am laughing. but i don't really know why.

the short browned man in blue picks up the chicken with surprising ease given the frantic pace at which the chicken is running. it is quarter to three and the chicken is flapping its wings in vain as it sails over the fence and into the jowl's of a lion.

the zoo is empty, deserted. an average chinese person can't afford the entry, which amounts to half a month's salary - five dollars US. looking at these ragged, patchy, and thin lions, i wonder if the tourists who throw them live foul are the only ones who feed them.

the zoo is a small trace of the overwhelmingly individualistic capitalism cropping up in china these days; these days full of attempts to modernize, to democratize, to westernize. the zoo is a manifestation of western culture in a way that is uniquely chinese, and in a way that is beginning to disturb me. but what really disturbs me is that i feel i am the only one disturbed among the smiling and enthusiastic faces of my acquaintances. they spend an hour throwing chickens into the mouths of wild beasts.

it is three thirty and i am smoking a cigarette when a llama snatches the cigarette from between my fingers and swallows it whole. llama, what are you doing here? so far from home? stealing cigarettes from me when i am so far from home?

llama, don't you know what time it is?

in a country far away that i call home, it is past my bedtime and past the time when i should have stopped wondering how i ended up here.

when i get back to my apartment, i smoke cigarettes and drink grain liquor and watch bad chinese opera on t.v.

on the metro. i have just taken the RER to paris from charles de gaulle. i have come to meet duncan, my lover. i smiled with the cute french boy on the plane when the steward speakes over the intercom with an embarrasing french accent.

i get off the metro at lamark on the 12 line. i get lost trying to find the apartment. but i have an hour, so i let myself get lost in the sleepy neighborhood as it greets the day.

after half an hour, i change directions back towards the metro. i am really lost. my pack feels heavier with each step. i buy rolling tobacco and realize i have no papers. i look at the ground. when i look up duncan is walking towards me. for minutes, all we can do is laugh. he knows where the apartment is and he has rolling papers.

we sit down for coffee. what a wonder we had run into eachother! duncan had planned a scavanger hunt for me to find him at trocadero much later in the day. he had a mustache, was wearing a prince rama of ayodhya shirt, and a handsome hat.

he didn't look like anyone else i had seen that morning. it was so great to see his familiar face when i had just about given up hope. i couldn't take my eyes off of him. the man i had been dreaming of for the past three weeks just saved me on my first day in paris, and then he bought be coffee.

the apartment was clean, modern, and small. it was hopelessly parisien. the owner, a dignified and handsome algerian man thoroughly detailed the apartment. to a comical length. or perhaps duncan and i were too impatient for him to leave, because we made love for several hours afterwards. we bought grocieries and cooked a small lunch.

we walked around paris for hours enjoying eachother's company. at a brasserie we shared beer and then walked over to the seine. it was an hour before twighlight, when the sun shares it warmth with the cool of the evening. we walk past an old cathedral and joke about it's buttresses, that we like it better from behind. the front isn't bad either, though.

when we have hunger we eat escargot, couscous, and fish at a morrocan restaurant. we make up stories about the french couple sitting next to us - he is a well-established historian who teaches at university and she is in real estate. they never had kids. after dinner we try to buy a bottle of wine to drink along the seine, but to our surpise you cannot buy alcohol after 9 pm in that district. we are in paris and we cannot buy any wine. the irony is not lost on us.

we walk along the seine sans vin. along the river groups of students, foreigners and musicians share wine and words as les bateoux moches pass by, increasing the noise floor at intervals.

we decide to head back to the subway when we hear drums and see dancing. we're game! duncan walks over and is immediately invited to grab a drum. i sit with my journal and begin to draw. eventually i engage in a conversation with some kids, but they are too drunk and my french too poor to carry on any kind of substantive conversation. as duncan pulls me away, i am struggling to understand a journalism major's commentary on the current role of the journalist in today's economy. (a couple days later i find a quote on the subject in a gallery book that i happen to pick up.)

they are leaving as well, so we walk toward place de la concorde together, duncan and i several yards behind, arm in arm, watching these silly drunk french kids trying to bum a light of off those passing by.

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