Laissez la Roue de la Loi roulez!

Where You Been?

2008-12-11T22:03:00.003-08:00

Looking for a job, interviewing for jobs, getting a job, and moving to job.

And settling in. The first semester is almost over, and I finally have caught my breath.

I reckon I won't have tons of time to blog, but I am working on my Best of 2008: music, movies, shows, food, and all the rest of things that make life worth living.

Tibetans Rise Up

2008-03-15T16:13:00.002-07:00

You might have seen on the news that there are riots in Tibet. The best source that I know of personally to comment on this is the entry "Lhasa Burns" by Jason Sangster. I met him and his wife, Leigh, in Kathmandu several years ago, and they lived in Lhasa for a year and a half. They have friends there and sources of information.

The situation is extremely grave because it appears that Tibetans are attempting to protest this year because of the Olympics in Beijing. I have one good friend in Lhasa that I am very worried about. Let's hope for the best and that the government of the PRC becomes wise and compassionate.

Made in the Shade

2008-03-06T22:34:00.002-08:00

So those nice boys in the Red Stick Ramblers from Lafayette and Baton Rouge are asking folks to check out their latest video, "Made in the Shade." I think they'd like you to mosey over on to CMT.com and request it as well.

I unfortunately missed them recently when they made a pass through the Northeast. Only by a day because I was out of town and then went through New York City the day after they played at Joe's Pub. I hope they had a good show. I'll catch them next time 'round or when I go to Louisiana to visit friends.

Where's My Southern Accent?

2008-01-09T20:14:00.001-08:00

I often get asked why I don't have an accent: Texan, Southern, or otherwise. Tibetans have even asked me this question, and nobody likes to disappoint Tibetans, nor get suspicious looks about whether or not they are really from Southeast Texas. I reckon nobody in this case means me, but I never had an answer that made any kind of sense.

That is until now, and it's courtesy of Dr. Megan E. Melançon, sociolinguist and Cajun. From the webpage for Cajun English from the PBS series, "Do You Speak American?", Dr. Melançon states:

"Although there are many dialectal oddities in Cajun English, five features strike the listener right away: vowel pronunciation, stress changes, the lack of the /th/ phonemes, non-aspiration of /p/ , /t/, and /k/, and lexical differences. The use of these features has resulted in no southern drawl at all in Cajun English. Cajuns talk extremely fast, their vowels are clipped, and French terms abound in their speech."

Finally, an explanation!

No Southern drawl at all in Cajun English. Since I spent a lot of time growing up around both sets of my Cajun grandparents from Louisiana, I must've developed a Cajun English dialect. I have been told, not by sociolinguists, however, that I do have more of what has been vaguely described as a "Louisiana" accent, especially when I'm tired or tired in that special way when I have had a drink or two.

I'd also add that not only do Cajuns talk extremely fast, but they do so with their hands. The old joke that if you tied a coonass's hands behind her back, she couldn't talk ain't too much of an exaggeration.

I was starting to think that it was because I'm adopted that I didn't have a noticeable accent, but I vastly prefer this explanation. I was adopted at 6 weeks and moved to Texas when I was 3 so I don't think my genetics no matter how Yankee they are (and they are very Yankee indeed) can resist the juggernaut that is a Southeast Texas drawl without a good reason.

No drawl, no foul, right?

Best of 2007 - Bonne Année!

2008-01-01T09:46:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted in such a long time because of various commitments, some more pleasant than others. The job search is going well, it seems, but it is time-consuming so I thought I'd do a quick (or not so quick) Best of 2007 list.

ART

Anselm Kiefer - Heaven and Earth. Massive, brooding, and now I want to visit his estate/compound in France.

Hiroshi Sugimoto. So nice I went twice.

Graphic Modernism from the Baltic to the Balkans, 1910-1935. An unexpected pleasure from a recent visit to the New York Public Library. Modernism reigns supreme in this tiny yet delicious exhibit.

MUSIC

My music comes achronologically so these are not necessarily releases from 2007.

Max Richter - Memoryhouse. Maria, The Poet (1913) I found incredibly compelling.

Lonely China Day - Sorrow. Fascinating post-rock glittering with Chinese folk influences from what will soon be again The Middle Kingdom if the Han can beat the demographic clock.

Sawako - Hum. The process is that of a precocious child, limpid field recordings mixed with softly chanted vocals.

Lily Allen - Alright, Still. Allen's song Knock 'em Out reworking of the New Orleans' classic Big Chief is either genius or heresy, but this album is such an exuberant slice of summery pop that I don't care.

The Red Stick Ramblers - The Red Stick Ramblers. Cajun fiddle tunes, Western swing, and traditional jazz? Grand Tasso gives me shivers.

The Associates - Sulk. Startling production. A lusher New Wave/New Romanticism reimagining of Bowie's Low.

BOOKS

Shane K. Bernard - The Cajuns: Americanization of a People. Very informative about the cultural damage done to Cajuns, particularly as a result of World War II.

William Gibson- Spook Country. Bill never disappoints. Ever.

Simon Reynolds - Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. I am behind the times as usual. Educational, eye-opening, and essential if only to figure out who's getting ripped off at the moment by the flavor de jour over at pitchforkmedia.com.

MOVIES

Control. Ian Curtis biopic that revived my interest in Joy Division. A careful and extensive reevaluation of their corpus made me realize that Martin Hannett was so perfect for them that it had to be Fate.

Yojimbo. Again, I'm late to the party as usual.

The Color of the Pomegranates (Sayat Nova). Visually stunning.

LIVE MUSIC

M. Ward with Victoria Williams at Bimbo's 365 Club, San Francisco, February 7th, 2007. I can't say that I exactly enjoyed Victoria's set, but I was intrigued. M. Ward was amazing, even without a supporting band. I can't believe I hadn't seen him before since I've been into him ever since I heard Carolina long, long ago.

Jordi Savall - First Congregational Church, Berkeley, May 4th, 2007. Many thanks to Dex who had an extra ticket. Savall performed Suite d'un goût étranger by Marin Marais, which was such a treat. It was wonderful to see and hear Savall in his flowing black caftan.

Cajun French Language Tutorials

2007-10-13T12:35:00.001-07:00

If you're looking for some help with your Cajun French, I'd advise you to click on over to Cajun French Language Tutorials. This site is run by James Leger who used to teach at Lamar University in Port Arthur, which is my hometown more or less. He helpfully provides the audio so you can hear just how all that Cajun French is pronounced. You can subscribe so that when he updates the site, you'll get a notification via email, a very useful feature.

Créole Cajun and -neaux to -no and Back Again

2007-09-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

I was pleasantly surprised today that my blog was linked to by Michael Hébert in Evangeline Parish, writer of the blog CreoleCajun and that I got a subsequent bump in visitors from Louisiana, visitors that took a considerable and gratifying amount of time to read through my blog. Thanks for stopping by, y'all, and as Michael said, if you can help me out with Cajun French, I'd appreciate it.

Just to let folks know, both sides of my family were from Houma and those parts, but because of the stigma attached to speaking Cajun French in 1940s, my parents weren't taught by their parents. In fact, my maternal grandfather went so far as to change the spelling of his name from Babineaux to Babino in an effort to make his name seem less Cajun. My aunt had her name changed back to the original spelling some time ago in an effort to reclaim her heritage, a gesture I fully support.

It is extremely unfortunate that I didn't learn Cajun French from my grandparents, especially since I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time around them as a kid. They of course used it as a language to secretly communicate in around the grandchildren, although my grandfather did try and teach me some choice obscenities to say to my grandmother when I was about 5. I quickly forgot all those phrases since my grandmother would get so shocked.

Anyway, once I get done wrasslin' these dissertation, I plan on studying Cajun French when I can. I actually minored in French in college, but most of it didn't stick since I focused on reading. Now that I've learned a fair bit of spoken Tibetan by having a tutor for 2 hours a day while I was in Nepal, I realize that the only way to learn to speak a language is a lot of practice so if anyone hears of a teaching job for someone to teach Buddhism and Hinduism in Louisiana, I'd gladly take the opportunity to take speaking lessons in Cajun French while teaching.

Valse de Port Arthur, Part II

2007-09-15T20:27:00.000-07:00

It's time to clear up a vocabulary item in a previous post, and it'll be about Port Arthur, since it was about the far edge of the Western frontier for Cajuns. But also especially since it got hit by Hurricane Humberto this past week quite suddenly and unexpectedly. No damage to my father's home, but it was a surprise: go to bed and wake up to a Category I hurricane.

I'm revisiting Valse de Port Arthur, and thanks to Yé Yaille, Chère!, Traditional Cajun Dance Music, by Raymond E. François, I now know what was transcribed as 'tit mom'.

Here's Mr. François' full transcription:
Verse 1
Eh, 'tite fille, j'va' m'en aller
Oh 'tite monde, aujourd'hui tu veux p'us m'voir.
Eh yé yaille! Toi tu m'as dit que tu m'aimer!
Oh, 'tit monde, aujourd'hui tu m'tourne le dos!

Verse 2
Eh, 'tite fille, t'as trouvé tu m'aimer p'us!
Oh, 'tite monde, aujourd'hui tu veux p'us m'voir,
Eh yé yaille! Ca fait d'la peine mais c'est te voir,
Ouais, tout l'temps j'va m'en aller au Port Arthur!

If you compare these verses with the other version that I discussed previously, you can see that verse 1 is vastly different. This doesn't really matter, for variance in Cajun songs is pretty standard, and the point I wish to discuss is the phrase 'tit' mom'. I wrote:
I suspect that this might be le môme which is a derogatory term meaning 'lad, kid'.

I couldn't have been more wrong. It's 'tit monde, and there is in fact another Cajun song by that very title.

Mr. François translates the above verses like this:
Verse 1
Oh, little girl, I'll go to Port Arthur! Oh, little one, today you don't want to see me anymore!
Oh, it hurts! You said that you love me! Oh, little one, today you turn your back on me!

Verse 2
Oh, little girl, you decided that you no longer love me! Oh, little one, today you don't want to see me anymore!
Oh, it hurts! It's sad to see you, yes, all the time! I'll go to Port Arthur!

So I suppose 'tit monde literally means, 'little everything', but Mr. François chose to translate it as 'little one' and leaves it untranslated in other transcriptions of songs in his book. Note that the narrator in this song is threatening to go to Port Arthur which was at this time a place to make money and the far edge of the Cajun diaspora.

Valse de Balfa, Part II

2007-09-13T17:56:00.001-07:00

In an earlier post about the Balfa Brothers song, Valse de Balfa, I posted the lyrics and translation, and I made note of an idiomatic phrase, où mourir au bout de mon sang at the end of the first verse. Ann Savoy translates this as "or to end my own life", but I have come across another translation that sounds more accurate to my admittedly untutored ears.

It's from the wonderful book, Yé Yaille, Chère!, Traditional Cajun Dance Music, by Raymond E. François.
Here is the first verse again:
Quand j´ai parti de la maison
J´avais fait mon idée
J´étais parti pour te chercher, cher,
Où mourir au bout de mon sang.
Mr. François translates this verse thusly:
When I left from my house, I had made up my mind.
I was going to get you or die bleeding.

Although theoretically I have access to my good French dictionary, it is now in a box somewhere in the basement because of lack of space in my tiny room so I can't check it. However, it's more literal and implies violence of some sort which suits the theme of the song so I favor it.

Ah the joys of translation.

My Birthday

2007-09-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

Since today is my birthday, I thought I'd share with you, the gentle reader, some art produced by others as well as the year of their birth who share this auspicious day as their natal day.

1524 Pierre de Ronsard
Je te salue...
Je te salue, ô vermeillette fente
Qui vivement entre ces flancs reluis;
Je te salue, ô bienheuré pertuis,
Qui rend ma vie heureusement contente !
C'est toi qui fais que plus ne me tourmente
L'archer volant qui causait mes ennuis;
T'ayant tenu seulement quatre nuits,
Je sens ma force en moi déjà plus lente.
ô petit trou, trou mignard, trou velu,
D'un poil follet mollement crêpelu,
Qui à ton gré domptes les plus rebelles:
Tous verts galants devraient, pour t'honnorer,
à beaux genoux te venir adorer,
Tenant au poing leurs flambantes chandelles!

1862 O. Henry
O Henry - Biography and Works

1885 D. H. Lawrence
Lady Chatterley's Lover

1903 Theodor Adorno
Frankfurt School: The Theodor Adorno Internet Archive

1935 Arvo Pärt
The Arvo Part Mp3 Page

Cantabridgean Again

2007-09-07T04:16:00.000-07:00

Say hello to my little friends.

That's Heraclitus on the left, Euclid on the right.

I'm finally somewhat settled into my new apartment in Cambridge, although it's become an exercise in minimalism since the room I occupy is 9' by 10', and that includes the closet that was built into that space. There is some storage space in the basement, but I had to clear out old broken chairs and lots of bottles and cans that were laying around down there. Old tenants move out and leave the most ridiculous things such as boxes of old college catalogs and tampons, and this eats up the space for us new tenants.

The weather has been lovely, and this has certainly eased the transition and the exploration of my new 'hood. Close to MIT, I've been discovering the restaurants and shopping so I don't starve nor go about in tattered rags. Embarrassingly, I've been fighting a spot of jet lag.

Thanks to lots of help from Shawn, I got everything out of my old storage space yesterday, although I had forgotten some of the things I had and do not have. I have a great poster of Man Ray's The Observatory Time - The Lovers that I had picked up at a sidewalk sale in my former 'hood. I, however, left all my kitchen things with my former roommate, and he left them at his old apartment so I'm missing my old pots, pans, and tea kettle, as well as my French press, but perhaps I'll be able to recover some of these things sometime soon.

At least Heraclitus and Euclid, my two stuffed octopi, survived the two years of storage, although I lost two wool sweaters to moths. It's amazing how much clothes I actually own, so a stiff purge of clothes is necessary. I still await 9 boxes of books from Berkeley, but there should be space in the basement for the overflow.

I'm thinking of purchasing a loft bed from IKEA since my ceiling is 9' high. I'm comfortably ensconced on my full bed that I missed, and if I can get up up up, then there will be space for all. Fortunately, my department has secured me a cubicle at the Asia Center to work in, so a modicum of office space will make working in my room full-time not necessary.

Huzzah!

Valse de Balfa

2007-08-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

Another song that's been haunting me recently is Valse de Balfa, another song written by the Balfa Brothers. I was first struck by its plaintive power while listening to the Red Stick Ramblers' version from their eponymous debut. Their version, which unfortunately is not available online for listening, is driven by big propulsive drums. In contrast, the Balfa Brothers version from The Balfa Brothers Play Traditional Cajun Music lacks drums, not uncommon at the time, but carries that droning fiddle lines and more of an urgency in the vocals.

Here are the lyrics in French and the translation, again by Ann Savoy. Most poignant is verse 2, a common experience for most of us, I think.

Valse de Balfa (Balfa Waltz)
1. Quand j´ai parti de la maison
J´avais fait mon idée
J´étais parti pour te chercher, cher,
Où mourir au bout de mon sang.
When I left the house
I had made up my mind
I left to go find you, dear,
Or to end my own life.

2. Quand j´ai arrivé à ta maison
J´en ai trouvé -z-un autre avec toi
Ça, ça a cassé mon cœur, cher,
J´aimerais mieux mourir que voir ça.
2. When I got to your house
I found you with another.
that broke my heart.
I would rather die than see that.

3. Si j´aurais cinq jours dans ma vie
J´en donnerais trois dans les cinq
Pour passer las deux autres avec toi
J´aimerais mourir dans tes bras.
3. If I had five days in my life
I’d give three of the five
To stay the other two with you
I would like to die in your arms.

I had never seen the idiomatic phrase Où mourir au bout de mon sang but the construction with the verb mortir + au bout de mon sang is pretty well attested in Standard French, although I am sans my good French dictionary.

Another Cajun classic that goes a long way in explaining certain Cajun attitudes.

Port Arthur Blues

2007-08-28T08:51:00.001-07:00

Since I haven't been able to resolve some of the vocabulary issues of Valse de Port Arthur, I thought I'd give the lyrics and translation of another Cajun song about Port Arthur, Port Arthur Blues. This one was written originally by the Balfa Brothers, and it's short but poignant. Transcription and translation is courtesy of Ann Allen Savoy from her wonderful book, Cajun Music: A Reflection of the People, Vol. I.

1. Tu m'as dit hier au soir / tu pouvais plus rev'nir
plus t'en revenir pour me rejoindre à la maison
ô ya-yaïe!
1. You told me last night
You couldn't love me anymore
You couldn't come back to meet me
At the house anymore, oh it hurts!

2. Mon, je vois pas / Qui je t'ai fait
Quo' faire donc, tu veux pas / T'en revenir au Port Arthur?
ô ya-yaïe!
2. Me, I don't see what I did
So why don't you want to anymore
Come home to Port Arthur?
Oh, it hurts!

Not much to comment on, 'cept that quo' faire is Cajun French for 'Why?'. I do believe the translation of the first verse is a bit off since it looks like it should read:
You told me last night
You couldn't come back
You couldn't come back to meet me
At the house anymore, oh ya-yaïe!

Valse de Port Arthur, Part I

2007-08-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

Since my last entry ended up being about Port Arthur, I present to you one of the Cajun songs about Port Arthur. It is a waltz called Valse de Port Arthur:

1. Oh, bébé, moi j'm'en vais au Port Arthur,
Oui, 'tit' fill', c'est toi la seul' qu'moi j'aimerai,
Oh, 'tit' fill', tu es si loin de moi,
J'reviendrai pour te r'joindr' au Port Arthur.

2. Eh, 'tit' fill', t'as trouvé qu' tu m'aimais plus,
Ouais, 'tit' mom', aujourd'hui tu veux plus m'voir,
Oh, ya-yaïe, ça fait d'la pein' de te voir,
Ouais, tout l'temps j'vais m'en aller au Port Arthur.
*Transcription of the lyrics is courtesy of http://membres.lycos.fr/breric/cajun.htm.

As you can see, there is quite a bit of slurring which utterly defeats my French transcription skills so I must rely on the kindness of les étrangers. I won't offer a translation now, but I will comment on a few peculiarly Cajun French lexical items.
'tit' fill' = 'tit' is a common abbreviation for petite, sometimes shortened all the way just to 't', especially in nicknames. My cousin Anthony was referred to by my grandfather as 'T-Ton'. Somewhat obscurely, my other cousin (and we ran long on cousins, thank you) Robert was termed 'Boscoe'. This is a long-winded way of saying that 'tit' fill' is 'little girl', a term of endearment.
ya-yaïe = "oh it hurts", a very common exclamation of pain in Cajun music. Sometimes spelled yé yaille. Cajun French transcription can be non-standardized.
'tit' mom' = I suspect that this might be le môme which is a derogatory term meaning 'lad, kid'. I'll have to check and discuss it further in Part II.

Buddhism in Southeast Texas

2007-08-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a recent article about a Vietnamese Buddhist temple in my hometown, Port Arthur. I visited this temple many years ago, and the lotus ponds were beautiful then. Next time I go home I'll have to take pictures.

I really like this.
"Buu Mon" means priceless gate and sounds similar to Beaumont, which is why it was chosen, according to the archives.

Here is their homepage. I wonder how large the Vietnamese population is in Port Arthur? There is also a large garden with statue of the Virgin Mary on the other side of Port Arthur that was sponsored by a Vietnamese association. I didn't have a camera the last time I visited, but I suspect she bore a striking resemblance to Kuan-yin. Ah, there was one picture of it via google images but the link was broken. There is this image from flickr. Not like Kuan-yin at all.

It is called Hoa Binh Park and was built by the parishioners of the Queen of Vietnamese Martyr's Catholic Church in gratitude to the city that welcomed them upon their arrival from Asia. Here is another nice photo.

That's my hometown. A smidge of cultural diversity.

The Origin of "Laissez la Roue de la Loi roulez"

2007-08-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

My last post was my 50th, so I thought I'd celebrate that mild milestone by explaining the title of my blog.

"Laissez les bons temps roulez" is a Cajun expression, and according to the Encyclopedia of Cajun Culture, it "strongly conveys the "joie de vivre" ("joy of living") attitude that pervades south Louisiana." Amen, but I'd amend that slightly to include Southeast Texas since there is a high concentration of Cajuns there. There will be another post about that later.

In fact, you can almost declare about 10 square yards around any Cajun extraterritorial Acadiana because that joie de vivre can be infectious, particularly under the influence of good cooking and other less salubrious substances.

Now I modified this hoary but perspicacious truism by replacing the phrase "les bons temps" with "la Roue de la Loi" which in French refers to the dharmacakra, the Wheel of the Law. The term dharma is extremely multivalent in Indian religions, but here it refers to the teaching of the Buddha. The dharmacakra is the metaphorical wheel that the historical Buddha first turned at Sarnath outside of Varansi when he gave his first teaching. The dharmacakra is also a symbol of the universal emperor, and you can see the original sculpture of such a wheel that adorned the pillar of the Mauryan emperor Aśoka here. This capital of this pillar ended up on the national flag of India.

There is also an excellent sculpture of the Buddha giving the first teaching in the museum at Sarnath. You can see it here.

Obviously, my ability to pun in French is limited by my meager francophone abilities, but that's my attempt to capture two of my preoccupations when I started this blog: my Cajun heritage and Buddhism. I hope to up the Cajun content in coming days, but no promises.

Onward to 100 posts!

Yelping all the Way Back to Boston

2007-08-16T00:45:00.000-07:00

It's pretty amazing how I can scout out my new neighborhood in East Cambridge through yelp.com. I have a good idea where to get Greek food (at the end of the block), where to pick up a few things grocery-wise (up on Cambridge St.), and go sit in a coffee shop (looks like Starbucks... argh). The coffee shops really are sub-par in the Cambridge/Somerville area. Most of that is due to lack of space in retail settings. Everything is so cramped that there is no space for armchairs or couches. Or free wi-fi, apparently. Oh, The Golden Roast, how I long for your comfy seating!

I'm in the Kendall/MIT Square neighborhood, and it looks alright. I know it's very industrial-parkesque down there from the occasional jaunt to the movie theater, but that means I'll be close to MIT for free classical music concerts. Perhaps I can find a nice quiet place to study at MIT as well.

Grand Tasso

2007-08-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

It's rare, but it does happen on occasion that a song affects me deeply. Last night I was listening to the Red Stick Ramblers, one of those young and upcoming bands that is preserving Cajun music, and I was dumbstruck by the song Grand Tasso. You can listen to it for free here, it's under their 2002 album "The Red Stick Ramblers." I can't stop listening to it.

Apparently it's a traditional song with additional lyrics by two of the band members, and I'm frantic that I can't find the lyrics to the song anywhere since I'd love to learn it. My French isn't good enough to decipher it, and although I can make out some of the lyrics (mixed with some English), I imagine the dialectical differences would defeat me.

In Cajun country, there is a food called tasso--a highly spiced and dried pork sausage that is an essential ingredient in gumbo and other gastronomical delights. There is a community called Tasso, by Bayou Mallet, near Eunice, deep in an area of road houses where Cajuns come to dance at the fais do do's each Saturday. The place figures in many a traditional song.

Well, there you go! The Red Stick Ramblers not only play traditional Cajun music, but they incorporate Western swing and jazz influences from folks like Bob Wills and Django Reinhardt, and they cover some of their songs as well.

Great stuff. I know Michael Doucet also recorded Grand Tasso, but the droning fiddle of the Red Stick Rambler's version gives it a touch of melancholy that fits so perfectly and the vocalist has that touch of world-weariness that carries it home. Anyone who covers That's What I Like About The South has got my admiration.

Kill!

2007-08-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

Based on the same source material as Kurosawa's Sanjuro, but much funnier, I saw Kill! a couple of days back. It was a relief, actually, since the last couple of samurai films had been heavy going with all the tension and unhappy endings. Kill! is rather goofy in its humor, and bless the director, Kihachi Okamoto, for that. I imagine in 1968 it was time to back down from the strident anti-authoritarianism of films earlier in the decade.

Tatsuya Nakadai, a former samurai who is now a yakuza, and Etsushi Takahashi, a ridiculously strong yet goofy farmer who wants to become a samurai, form a hilarious Felix and Oscar Odd Couple as Nakadai susses out the situation and manipulates it to a fine resolution. Nakadai, last seen in Harakiri, with his deadpan face turns in a great performance.

Recommended.

Hiroshi Sugimoto at the de Young

2007-08-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

I finally got out to see the Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibit last night at the de Young since they are open to 8:45 pm on Friday nights. The new de Young museum itself I wasn't very impressed with at first, since it looks like the painted backdrop of a Star Trek: The Next Generation city from afar, but it grew on me as I went throughout the museum. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an example of such a backdrop from TNG so my google-fu must be weak today. I don't think the metal cladding on the building was a particularly felicitous choice. It seemed too sterile, and the texture was off putting. Perhaps as it ages and acquires more of a patina it will soften.

Whoever funded the entry court should get their money back. It's cold and uninviting and does not welcome lingering. However, the built-in fern court was a nice touch, and there could have been more warm touches such as that to lessen the monolithic dread of the rest of the building.

The view of San Francisco, however, from the Harmon Tower is magnificent and truly itself worth a visit to the museum. There is a small Ruth Asawa exhibit at the entrance to the elevator to visit the top of the tower, and that was nice to see since I missed the big exhibition they had early this year or last.

The Sugimoto exhibit itself was very dimly lit with the photos lit from behind. I suppose I enjoyed it, although it struck me that anything tastefully photographed and reproduced in monumental size would be impressive. Perhaps my expectations were too high. I found his compositional skills somewhat too frontal and centered. There were a number of series, and of course the seascape series was my favorite. That must've been anticipated by the curators since that's where they put the benches for folks to linger. I wasn't impressed at all by the temple photo, since it was stitched together from many photos and the joins were not seamless. That seems just careless in this day and age.

His abstract forms were good, but again, they would fall prey to the criticism of being interesting simply due to their size. I wasn't and haven't been very interested in his photos of dioramas and wax statues, but they are also compelling in an odd removed from reality twice sort of way. The series of drive-in theaters is very good and more complex visually due to jet-trails flying overhead than the similar set from theaters. I also liked his architectural photos, blurry yet still preserving some of the abstract majesty of the famous buildings that he photographed.

I also enjoyed the landscapes by Shi Guorui, a photographer in residence who is from Beijing. I found them terrifying in a nightmarish way, reminiscent of the old Twilight Zone black and white episodes. The series of photos of the 19th-century hand tools I found much less compelling. They are simply Ray-o-graphs, or photograms if you like, and disappointing compositionally, presented in a highly formal and flat way. I think they are to be linked with 19th-century Chinese immigrant labor, and if so, they did not serve that notion well.

The rest of the collection I zipped through, sparing a glance here and there since I suffer eye-fatigue at a museum fairly quickly. The Friday Nights at the de Young series is an excellent idea, and there seemed to be a crowd of people enjoying that under a massive Gerhard Richter.

Harry Callahan

2007-08-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

Magnificent. I don't like all of his stuff, but he comes the closest to the aesthetic I've been lazily striving for in his photos of buildings. I love that he focused on the daily life of where he lived in his early work, photographing the mundane and making it beautiful, like this, the last photo that is of a building wall in Chicago. He experimented like mad, but his abstract photos were so tasteful.

Look at the composition of this. So fortuitous, but apparently he worked hard to get a handful of photos a year, photographing more in a weekend than others did in a year.

I love the barrenness of this. Mies Van Der Rohe was a big influence on him, great portrait.

Look how it abstracted and simplified this through contrast. Lovely.

Another beautiful winter scene from Chicago. Inspiring. I'll have to look for more books on him. It's becoming obvious that I need to take a history of photography class.

Hall and Oatesmeal

2007-08-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

Look, I think, despite all evidence to the contrary, that I am still a pretty hip guy. With it. You know, on top of trends, despite my vastly outdated slang in that first sentence.

I try and do keep up, but you know, glancing at pitchforkmedia.com every so often just doesn't cut it. I straddle that grup line, but it's starting to wear thin. Either the line or my straddle.

Anyway, I feel entirely vindicated today because in this week's SF Weekly in an article entitled "I Can Go For That: The Web 2.0 Generation recharges Hall & Oates Hits" I learned that Hall & Oates (H & O) are back. And if you check my lastfm profile, you'll see that H & O are my third most played artist. Again, I'm just ahead of the curve. Here's an interview with Oates in the SF Weekly.

Actually, I played H & O obsessively while grinding out two draft chapters of my dissertation in January and February. For some reason, the extremely well-crafted pop allowed me to hack my way through about 100 pages. I used to buy a CD when I had to write a paper. I'd just play that sucker over and over again, and I suppose H & O got me through the hump this past winter, although others suffered my enthusiasm for Messers Hall and Oates. My apologies again, J., but a boy's gotta compulsively blast his brain sometime.

Iceland in Hot Springs, Arkansas

2007-07-30T09:46:00.001-07:00

Sometimes the cognitive dissonance gets a wee bit too much. But here's a point for the South. According to pitchfork media, Sigur Rós' Jón "Jónsi" Birgisson and Parachutes' Alex Somers have been coming together for the sake of art under the name Riceboy Sleeps and they are having an exhibit in Hot Springs, Arkansas at Gallery 801. What a coup for Gallery 801 based on the attention that they are getting. Riceboy Sleeps does paper and book art, it seems, and I think they did at least one album cover (ok, CD cover) for Sigur Rós.

Now, I've been a huge Sigur Rós fan since pretty much the beginning. I flew out to the Bay Area to see them on their first American tour in 2001 since they were only touring the Coasts. Well, I snuck in a night at Nickies to see DJ Cheb i Sabbah too. I even wrote a review about the show, which has been removed from their official site, and my encounter with three members of Metallica at the show. Metallica? Sigur Rós? Say it ain't so, Hall! I actually thought that the lead guitarist for Metallica at first was Dave Navarro and almost said so. That would've been funny.

I'm also a big fan of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Why? Well, I've taken two long weekend-type vacations in that area, and when I lived briefly in Dallas, not exactly a nature preserve, trips up to Lake Ouachita (one of the cleanest lakes in the nation because you cannot build on the lakefront) were balm to my humidity-flayed soul. Hot Springs has, of course, old spas from the late 19th-early 20th century, which are a kick to visit, and the scenery is quite nice. You can rent a boat and go out on Lake Ouachita, which I've done twice, and there are some great swimming holes in the area.

But how did Riceboy Sleeps get a show there? There were a ton of little galleries the last time I was there in the mid-90s, but most of it was Western-oriented. They were a few galleries a bit out of the ordinary. I remember one that sold welded sculptures of hockey players dressed as samurai swordsmen, but still. Not exactly the most avant-garde place, Hot Springs. Or is it? Great story about how the exhibit came about here. It never hurts to ask.

Just don't eat at the Thai restaurant in downtown Hot Springs.

With a Samurai Rebel Yell!

2007-07-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

Samurai Rebellion. 1967.

Ah, Toshirō Mifune. I have a great idea for a book based on you.

Yōko Tsukasa as his best friend. Masaki Kobayashi as the director. Another long slow boil until the film finally erupts into violence. Don't watch the trailer, it gives away too much. Masaki-san claims that Mifune was distracted in this movie because he had just started his own production company, but who'd have guessed?

Mifune finally starts showing his age, looking haggard with bags starting to form under his eyes, and he plays the henpecked father who retires quietly but is stirred back to life when his daimyo makes outrageous demands on his son and daughter-in-law. It's an odd romantic triangle in a sense, but it works. You have to love the Japanese sense of politeness, at least in the subtitling, when a character apologizes profusely while dying from multiple musket wounds, saying, "I can't take you to Tokyo! I am sorry. It can't be helped."

Another best of samurai film in the bag. One of the better ones for building up psychological tension.

Bhangra, Sitar, and Tabla at the Stern Grove on a Sunday

2007-07-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

What a disappointment. I've liked Karsh Kale since his first album, Realize, and I suspected that I was not going to enjoy the concert yesterday at Stern Grove after previewing some of the music online and sadly, I was proven correct.

I suppose there are several factors to account for this:
1) Somewhere in the past two years, I've gotten burnt out on Asian Underground, Asian Massive, Ethnotechno (my favorite generic tag since it's more... generic and allows for music from Africa, especially North Africa) or whatever you want to call it. I used to love this stuff, but now most of it sounds... bland.
2) The Karsh Kale/Anoushka Shankar 'Breathing Under Water' project, which played yesterday, has impeccable credentials, but sadly, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. I'd expect that Karsh, Anoushka, and members from MIDIval Punditz would add up to something grand, but it was the aural equivalent of slightly pleasant and vaguely ethnic wallpaper from Pier 1. Perhaps I just don't get the 'rich orchestral textures' that seems to be an increasing part of this genre by Indian musicians. I know it's from Bollywood film music, but it makes it sound... syrupy. I thought that this element really weakened the last Badmarsh & Shri album, Signs.
3) The mix was horrible. There was no balance. In fact, given the intimacy of sitar and tabla, perhaps a smaller venue would have provided the intimacy to set the proper mood for appreciation of the music, but I doubt that it would've help.
4) Finally, arriving at 1:30 assured that I was perched precariously and uncomfortably on the hillside just to get a glimpse of the performers on stage. I have no idea why that they have put in tables in the main Stern Grove area. It seems to be a terrible waste of space and only allows a certain amount of people to actually be able to see the concert. And the number of folks in attendance yesterday far outnumbered that small space. Would felling trees actually be a bad iea in this instance to landscape the side of the hill into, I don't know, a proper amphitheater?

Random Thoughts from a Sunday

2007-07-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

First:
If you are an Asian woman with attitude to burn, wearing this shirt should provide maximum deterrence against the would-be fetishists who seem to be endemic to the Bay Area. I saw this shirt on the MUNI, and that woman had attitude to ignite a fusion reactor.

Second:
The new movie Underdog has on its promotional poster at bus stops the following:
Underdog. One Nation Under Dog.
However, I initially read it as One Nation Under a Woof, riffing on the classic by Funkadelic, One Nation Under a Groove. Seriously. This is how my mind works. I actually like my slogan better since the original by Disney could be construed as blasphemous.

I suppose if you were Irish, you might read it as One Nation Built on a Bog. One Nation Under Bog would be the Clockwork Orange slang (nadsat) version.

Besides, I'm enough of a Gen-Xer (wincing) that I can't believe they are shot the new movie as a live-action film, abandoning the classic cartoon Underdog. Sad, the continuing regurgitation of the pop culture of my childhood. This ranks alongside with the new Bionic Woman, sheesh.

Third:
I've added some new elements to the blog. I have no expectations about the Google AdSense button. I hardly expect to make any money, but I was curious to see what kind of ads they'd run. Very similar so far to what I get in gmail. Ho ho ho.

Pottering Around

2007-07-22T09:20:00.002-07:00

Well, I finished off the last Harry Potter book yesterday, and there weren't any major surprises, except that I for some reason was expecting a higher death toll. Shame on me. It was pretty engrossing, but it's hard to determine if that was due to the desire to race to the end to get it over with or genuine pleasure. I suppose it depends on where you fall on the Harry Potter like-spectrum.

I also saw "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" last Thursday at a matinée showing in downtown Berkeley. A blissfully empty theater, but never sit against the wall where another action movie is showing because the sub-sonic rumbles from the Surround Sound were quite annoying.

I think that they did a disservice in cutting this movie. I've read that it's the shortest of the films, and that's alarming, considering how dense the last 3 books are. Surely, given the target market for these films, children, the child-like and me, they could've gone for a longer cut because it seems like it was the breathless Cliff Notes to the book (with a few inevitable minor changes), and I think anyone who hadn't read the book would be hardpressed to make sense of it all. Hasn't the Lord of the Rings films taught anyone that or is it going to be the inevitable DVD release with all the extra scenes or the director's cut to sop up some more of that marketing money? Alas.

It was disconcerting for a while until I realized that Robert Hardy, who plays Cornelius Fudge in the movie series, is also the voice for one of the main characters, Lord Malan, in my favorite new BBC radio comedy, His Master's Voice. He is quite spry for a gentleman of 81 years, for I would have never guessed his age.

One thing that they did absolutely right was the casting of the character Luna Lovegood, a 5th book character addition that adds a lot to the series. They picked the perfect unknown actress, Evanna Lynch: she has the perfect look, manner and voice. Kudos for that. She is apparently quite the Harry Potter fan with correspondence with J. K. Rowling predating her involvement in the franchise. The rest of the film was enjoyable, but marred by the necessary perfunctory treatment of most of the major characters. I await the DVD then.

Always Awake for the Earthquakes

2007-07-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Yet another earthquake that I wasn't asleep for. This was my third, and I was already awake at 4:30 am this morning, probably due to the first BART train waking me. This was the worst I've been in, actually. The one I was in in Boston just rocked my old dorm room back and forth gently, there was one I was in in Oakland that felt like a truck hit the building with a short sharp jolt, but this morning I was afraid that the bookcases were going to come down in my room.

The one in Boston I was awake for (it was very early on a Sunday morning) and that I wasn't really sure it was an earthquake was because I was... um... tired from the rather active evening before, let's say and couldn't sleep.

I suppose the strength of this earthquake due to being close to the epicenter here in Berkeley, unlike the other earthquakes. Ke garne. I was always terrified of an earthquake while in Kathmandu since the geology there is very similar to Mexico City: a valley of loose soil above a major fault. And the faults don't get any more major than when the Indian subcontinent rams into Eurasia. And given that KTM is due for its periodic 75 year quake, it seems inevitable sometime soon. Cinderblock buildings seem to have little chance against any earthquake of any size, the one international airport in KTM would probably be damaged, and the overpopulation and overbuilding in the KTM Valley in the past 10 years would all add a major catastrophe. It was the biggest fear of most long-term expats in KTM, not surprisingly, even after Jana Andolaan 2 in 2006.

Well! That's gloomy enough to begin this morning.

Bowling by Candlepin Light

2007-07-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

Look, metafilter: candlepin bowling, while it might be experiencing a revival, is really, really an offense against the gods of polished wood slats. It may be that I haven't bowled in an antique wooden alley in New England or Nova Scotia, no, I haven't, since my haunt of choice was Lanes and Games. It screws up your regular bowling game like that one semester of badminton (don't ask) screwed up my tennis game.

It was sure entertaining to watch candlepin bowling on cable access in Boston though. Too bad I don't have a candlepin bowling Hall of Fame t-shirt to match my bowling HOF tee.

Get a Southern Belly

2007-07-17T13:35:00.000-07:00

Not a Jelly Belly, not a beer belly, nor a red-bellied woodpecker, but a Southern Belly.

Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South by John T. Edge looks great. Any book that discusses Kool-Aid pickles has got to be a keeper. There is a good article in Salon about it.

What is it about the South and pickles? I had a deep-fried pickle spear with my BBQ in the Charlotte N.C. airport, and I'm still bemused.

Harakiri

2007-07-16T12:32:00.001-07:00

Praise all the chthonic spirits that Berkeley Public Library has such a good film library. I finally got back to watching samurai movies last night, and it was a gem, a psychological thriller that burns slowly until the very end, Harakiri. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the introduction by Donald Richie, the doyen of Japanese cinema, to play, but what to do, neh? Surprisingly, there wasn't a full commentary, usually a feature of Criterion Films, especially for a 2 disc set.

I got to tick that one off the list of the 50 Greatest Samurai Movies that I got from a book which unfortunately I can't find the title of. Tatsuya Nakadai, familiar from Akira Kurosawa's films, was excellent. It's one of those anti-authoritarian early 60s samurai movies similar to Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Sanjuro, but with much more pathos.

I highly recommend it.

BBC 4, Baby

2007-07-11T11:17:00.001-07:00

Recently I've taken to listening to the BBC while working since I'm doing rather repetitive grunt work at the moment. Normally if I'm writing, I can only listen to instrumental music, preferably baroque music, with the odd earworming infinite repeat of certain bands that aid me in my madness. I'm sure you can suss that out if you check my lastfm stats.

However, I've been really enjoying BBC, particularly BBC 4 "Literate Speech" for the indeed literate and often very witty discussions, and the comedies can be hilarious. It's like reverting back to the Golden Age of Radio.

For comedy, I particularly recommended His Master's Voice, a political satire that has just started, and I'm Sorry I Haven't Got a Clue, an extremely long-running program that bursts with innuendo and bon mots.

For a more serious bent, there is Start the Week, a discussion group of four newly published authors about their books and related topics. Very literate, very well-informed. It's hard to imagine mainstream media of this quality in American.

You can also poked around and find local programming in the arts scene in Scotland, say, which can be fun. I think I'll avoid the Welsh language programming for the moment though.

7:07 on 07/07/07

2007-07-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

First pitch for the Red Sox game tonight in Detroit was at 7:07 pm on the 7th of July, the 7th month of the 7th year of this Millennium.

Good timing, I'd say. Today most numerologists and astrologers are going nuts, I reckon.

A Picture in the Hand is Worth Two in the Gym

2007-07-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

Ah, good news to brighten a dreary June gloom Berkeley day.
Tomorrow begins the Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibit at the de Young in San Francisco. I became aware of Sugimoto-san's work while in Nepal from an international version of Time or Newsweek, so I am very excited that I'll get the chance to see this exhibit while in the Bay Area. It runs from July 7th to September 23rd. I'll probably have to go at least twice!

There was a book signing by Sugimoto-san tonight, but oh well, can't be everywhere all at once.

In other related news:
It's rare that I find photography that I like so today when at my gym I discovered some photos that I really admired in a new exhibit I was of course excited. The quality of the exhibits at my gym, Berkeley Ironworks Rock Climbing Gym, has been mediocre at best so today was quite a surprise. The photographer of the new exhibit, Ryan Zeitler, seems to have a deft touch with abstraction and landscapes. His website is Sharp End Photography. However, once I visited his site, I realized that all the pictures out of what he has available for viewing that I like best are of course the ones that he has put up in the gym in his Focus Exhibit. All of his other photographs of climbers and outdoor scenes are well done, but I'm enthralled by his compositional skills.

New News on Old Persian

2007-07-04T11:12:00.000-07:00

Over at the Language Log today, there is a brief article on the discovery of an Old Persian administrative text on what looks like to be a clay tablet. Old Persian was thought to perhaps only have been used for inscriptions, but this looks like evidence that the use of it might have been more widespread that thought. I've only briefly studied Old Persian at the University of Texas, Austin, with Dr. Mark Southern when he was there, and it was striking how similar it was to Sanskrit.

However, the reason that I posted about this is that the article mentions one of my mentors and my teacher of Khotanese at Harvard, Professor Prods Oktor Skjærvø.

It is gratifying to see that the Language Log has mentioned the various Iranian language primers that Dr. Skjærvø has generously made available for free download at a webpage entitled Iranian Studies at Harvard University. I know he worked hard on those primers with a lot of feedback from his students.

So you can now get started on Old or Young Avestan, Sogdian (which I studied with Dr. Skjærvø for two years) or Old Persian. Just remember that I believe that it was Émile Benveniste, the famous linguist who called Sogdian "the devil's own language." Don't say that I didn't warn you.

There are also two Kurdish primers by W. M. Thackston, and two course readers for Dr. Skjærvø's Intro classes for Zoroastrianism and Manicheism.

All in all an Iranian cultural feast gratis.

Turkish Maps and Legends

2007-06-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I helped a friend pack a container for moving, and the result of carrying hundreds of pounds of a tasteful book collection down two flights of stairs is aching hamstrings. These tender 'strings of mine reminded me, naturally, of the mountains and passes that comprise the heart of Inner Asia, especially since for light bedtime reading I've been working through Peter Hopkirk's corpus. This morning when I woke up rather too early for my lackadaisical tastes I finished off his Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Secret Exploration of Tibet.

A lot of Westerners attempted to reach Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, by traveling through the extremely sparsely populated and desolate plain in the north of Tibet, the Chang Tang. The harsh climate and the eventual discovery of their parties usually defeated them before they were able to reach Lhasa, and in any case, the so-called race to Lhasa had been won by a Bengali, Sarat Chandra Das, one of the so-called native explorers, or pundits, trained in surveying.

In any case, thinking about the northern part of Tibet reminded me of something I stumbled on recently about Khotan. Kashgar would be usually be the gateway for any 19th century Western explorer who attempted to enter Tibet from the north or who wanted to explore the Tarim Basin, and when I recently did a Google search on Khotan, as I periodically do, I was somewhat surprised to find some new information that had been added to the wikipedia entry for the Kingdom of Khotan.

Under the sub-heading of Culture, there is this new (at least new to me) bit of information:

In his Diwanu Lughat at-Turk, the 11th century Turkish scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari included a verse describing the Muslim conquest of Khotan:

Like river torrents

We flooded their cities

We destroyed their monasteries

And shat on the statues of the Buddha.

Now I am certainly familiar with the Muslim conquest of Khotan in 1006, and I've been searching for references to it in Tibetan sources connected with the Western Tibetan kingdom of Ngari somewhat desultorily since the Qarakhanids were also active in Western Tibet and there seems to be some connection between Khotan and Ngari in resisting these incursions, but I had never seen this particular and unfortunately scatalogical reference. Further investigation via wikipedia reveals that Mahmud al-Kashgari wrote the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, the Dīwān ul-Lughat al-Turk (Arabic: Collection of Turkic words) in 1072. This, of course, is the source mentioned above.

But that's not all. There is a fascinating map in this text showing the distribution of Turkic tribes. Here is some more information on how to read the map.

Well, of course I had to look and see if there has been a translation of this text, and sure enough, after rummaging around on the Internet with my extreme flopping fish google-fu, I found this:

Maḥmūd Kāshgarī, 11th cent.

Türk şiveleri lügatı = Dīvānü Luġāt-it-Türk / Maḥmūd el-Kāşġarı ; inceleme, tenkidli metin,vİngilizce tercüme, dizinler, Robert Dankoff, James Kelly.

Duxbury, Mass. : Tekin, 1982-1985 (Printed at the Harvard University Printing Office)
3 v. : folded map ; 28-29 cm. + 7 microfiches (11 x 15 cm.). ( Doğu dilleri ve edebiyatlarının kaynakları ; 7. Türkçe kaynaklar ; 7 = Sources of Oriental languages and literatures. Turkic sources ; 7 )

Actually, it wasn't Google, but the good old Harvard Hollis Catalog. But don't discount the difficulty to find this reference though.

There was also this reference from my notes:

Mahmud al-Kashgari, Diwan Lugat at-Turk ("Turkic Lexicon"), translated with Introduction by Zifa-Alua Auezova and Index by Robert Ermers, Almaty "Daik-Press" 2005. ISBN 9965-699-74-7.

I'll probably have to scour the Interlibrary loan for that one though since I'm not sure where I stumbled across that reference. In any case, the vitriolic tone of the above passage from the "Turkic Lexicon" might provide another nugget or two of information about Khotan, something I'm always on the lookout for. I wonder if the city was named explicitly since the reference given in the wikipedia article is singularly uninformative and somewhat hard to find in the U.S.

Unknotting Knoxville

2007-06-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

A few farewell photos of Knoxville, mainly of the part of town called the Old City. The Old City is a few square blocks that consist of very old buildings under heavy development. Unfortunately it's penned in by a highway and the railroad, but it is rapidly gentrifying with design and architects' offices. Great bit of graffiti. My sister tell me that this local artist is well known and that people will pry off the plywood at building sites to keep she often sketches on. Summer thunderstorm sky over downtown Knoxville.

The old JFG Coffee building where they roasted coffee since 1926. It's been recently closed and operations moved elsewhere. Repurposed bowling alley as car lot. Doesn't get any more post-modern than that, does it? Bricolage amongst the suburban detritus.

My Grandparents and Father Jules Daigle

2007-06-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

I have kept few mementos of my adopted maternal grandparents. I had a leather bag full of things belonging to my grandfather, but that bag molded over in the Southeast Texas heat and humidity while in storage in a shed. I think somewhere else in storage I have some of his things, but I don't have anything of my grandmother's since I was not in Texas when she died, and she had been sick for so long with Alzheimer's, that most of her possessions had been discarded or absorbed into the family.

Last night I was looking through a stack of my sister's books, and I found my grandparent's copy of A Dictionary of the Cajun Language by Rev. Msgr. Jules O. Daigle, M.A., S.T.L. It's signed by Monsignor Daigle, but unfortunately there is no date. Here is the information that I've been able to find about Father Daigle from here:

Jules Daigle, born December 4, 1900, is the son of Oscar Daigle and Eliza Landry and the 6th of 17 children. Father Daigle spent the first 2 years of his career in Baltimore, Md. and the final four he studied in Rome. He boasted that all of his professors went on to become Cardinals. Father Jules Daigle, who was ordained at the Vatican in 1926, returned to Louisiana where his sermons in Cajun French drew overflow crowds. After 48 years as a priest, he retired in 1974 and began a writing career. By 1984, using his own money, he published his 600 page dictionary which immediately became a best seller and supported many charities. His influence has spawned successful education programs teaching French to South Louisiana's children and adults even after his death on January 2, 1998.

He was also the author of a book called Cajun Self-Taught. Apparently, he was fluent in eight languages and a main proponent of the preservation of Cajun French. He certainly had some acerbic things to say about topics such as "Is Cajun bad French or just different French?" and "Other myths about the Cajun language". He had earned the right to be cantankerous, for he states in the introduction that he has been using the language for 84 years.

On the backside of the front cover in what I think is my grandfather's handwriting is his and my grandmother's names and their address. They must have purchased this somewhat close to the end of my grandfather's life, for the address indicates that it was after they had sold their house and moved closer to my mother so that she could care for them as they grew infirm.

I was able to find one book review of Father Daigle's dictionary:
Mary Patricia Trenkle, The French Review, Vol. 59, No. 5. (Apr., 1986), pp. 836-837. Although Father Daigle was convinced that Cajun was a separate language from French based on a variety of factors such as vocabulary, question formation, the uses of après, donc, and voir, abbreviations and repetitions, Trenkle remains skeptical. I leave that matter to the experts in the field and those that like to smash their heads against the language versus dialect debates.

I've always regretted not having been taught Cajun French by my grandparents, especially after I started studying French in high school. They didn't teach it to their kids, but it wasn't until recently that I realized the stigma attached to speaking it from the beginning of the 20th century to about the 1970s. From the same page above that gave me that biographical information on Father Daigle:

The French language was once so dominant in Louisiana that official state documents were published in French and English. In 1898, the State Constitution provided that "the French language may be taught in those parishes and localities where the French language predominates". But in 1921, the Louisiana Constitution prohibited the teaching of French in public schools. Children were spanked for merely uttering French words on the school grounds.

It's been said that the stigma against Cajun French was because que ce n'est pas le bon francais, but the stigma must've been stronger than that, for my grandfather even went so far as to change the ending of his name, Babineaux, to an -o, Babino, to make the name appear more Italian. I'm uncertain when he did that, but my maternal aunt, being the maverick that she is, changed her name back to the original spelling several years ago. I should look and see if I can find the documentation for the spelling change of his name. I'll have some more posts about this kind of stigmatization later.

I'm sure my sister will hold onto the dictionary. It doesn't look used at all, but I'm sure my grandfather and grandmother had little need of it, except as a reminder of their heritage and to honor Father Daigle.

Waitin' and Grabblin'

2007-06-25T00:34:00.000-07:00

Ah, the delicious dichotomy of sexual mores that is the South.

One can see several billboards around Knoxville promoting abstinence. Yes, and by abstinence, I mean sexual abstinence, not abstinence from deep-fried foods and the flesh of swine roasted over various types of wood. These billboards have been around since I visited here previously in 2005, but they appear to be in good repair. The name of the organization is called Just Wait. Apparently, it is a local organization, for the homepage declares eagerly that:
"We have gone from teaching in 3 counties to 13! We have gone from a staff of 3 to now more than 10! We now see over 25,000 students and have the privelege of sharing the life-changing message of abstinence until marriage."

I had assumed that this was a national organization. One wonders where the funding is coming from. Their graphic design is somewhat effective, I suppose, in a cheery vacation bible school sort of way. The most eye-catching of the billboards is the image on this t-shirt, which at least gave me pause to investigate what was going on further. I'm not so sure about the veracity of their slogan "Safe Sex Isn't", but apparently, you can add sexual education to the list of topics such as politics and religion that aren't to be discussed in polite company but can be trumpeted from billboards.

Now for the grabblin', brought to my bemused attention courtesy of the weekly here in Knoxville, The Metro Pulse. And what is grabblin', you naturally ask? Welp, according to catfishgrabblers.com, it is:
"... the art of fishing with your hands. In the spring of the year the catfish move to shallow water to lay their eggs. Spawning is triggered by the increasing length of the days and the warmer water temperatures. Spawning in the Tennessee River area usually starts about late May."

For further details, I refer you to this page. And why do I bring this up in a discussion that is presumably about the sexual mores of the South? Simply put:

Girls Gone Grabblin'

Yes, it's a take-off on the infamous Girls Gone Wild video series whose highly repetitive commercials afflict those cursed with insomnia and who happen to stumble (or is it thumble with a remote control?) upon one of the many channels that hammer these products ad nauseum and ad infinitum in the wee hours of the morning.

However, Girls Gone Grabblin' simply must be infinitely more charming, for who can resist the following ad copy:
"Believe it or not! We now bring you the first and only Girls Gone Grabblin' DVD ever produced. Be one of the first to watch & be amazed as 35 Southern Women bring you the thrill of catching catfish weighing up to 44lbs. with their hands and wrestling them to the bank."

Folks, I too find it hard to believe that this is the first and only Girls Gone Grabblin' DVD produced. But I predict that in this specialized case, the supply will create the demand, for who can resist the allure of not 10, not 20, but 35 Southern women catching catfish and wrestling them? It would take a stronger and far more virtuous man that I, given my predilection for all things deep-fried and the fact that these are not, I repeat, are not farm raised catfish fed Purina Mills Catfish Chow so they'll taste right once cleaned.

Grabblin'. You couldn't make this stuff up.

"Boy, thou uproarious shark of heaven..."

2007-06-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

Heavens, how have I not read Kim until now? I am assuredly on a Raj-era India literature kick, but I lay the blame squarely (or rectangularly as the case may be) at the feet of Book Eddy here in Knoxville, those purveyors of $1.50 soft cover books that I cannot resist. I'm also working my way through Orwell's Burmese Days, although that is a dreary trudge given that it is mainly set in the hot before the monsoon in Burma and supremely depressing in the inability of anyone to really communicate with one another.

Does not the title of this post suit Kim, even though it is taken from A Clockwork Orange? One of the great characters in literature, comparable to the immortal and redoubtable Zorba the Greek in sheer joi de vivre.

If you have a taste for it, and mine waxes and wanes dependent on some mysterious cycle unknown to me, there has been a fair amount of post-colonial criticism of Kim as well, most significantly and beginning with, I assume, Edward Said, "Kim, The Pleasures of Imperialism," Raritan, 7(1987): 27-74. One can also sample online a paper in a similar vein by a former student, Nandi Bhatia, at my alma mater, the University of Texas, Austin. The paper is titled, "Kipling's Burden: Representing Colonial Authority and Constructing the "Other" through Kimball O'Hara and Babu Hurree Chander in Kim."

I did not know that John Lockwood Kipling was the curator of the Lahore Museum that figures prominently in the beginning of Kim. If that's a fair representation of Kipling Père, then he was a burra sahib indeed in language skill and art acumen. It's been a long time since I've read it, but I'm certain that Stanley Abe's "Inside the Wonder House: Buddhist Art and the West," in Curators of the Buddha, ed. Donald Lopez (1995) deals with Kipling's depiction of the Lahore Museum. Perhaps Dr. Abe was able to give an accurate account of Kipling Père's true abilities.

I also seem to remember that a former professor of mine at the University of Texas, Dr. Janice Leoshko, writing something on this very subject. Ah, here it is:
Janice Leoshko, 'What is in Kim?: Rudyard Kipling and Tibetan Buddhist Traditions', South Asia Research, (Fall) 2001, pp. 51-75.

Quite an interesting topic, given the state of knowledge about Tibetan Buddhism at the time of the composition of Kim (1901-1902, I believe). I cannot remember offhand if L. A. Waddell's work on Tibetan Buddhism with the lengthy title of Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism, With Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology and in Its Relation to Indian Buddhism had been published at this point. Yes, it had in 1895. My, Waddell seems to went off his nut later on in life, if the following publication is any indication: Phoenician Origin of the Britons, Scots, and Anglo-Saxons (2nd ed. 1925). I wonder if anyone has written a biography on him.

There is this, English in Tibet, Tibet in English: Self-Presentation in Tibet and the Diaspora, by Laurie Hovell McMillin. Sounds like just the thing for exploring some of these issues based on the table of contents. One of her chapters covers Kim.

There is still the question, at least in my mind, of Kipling's sources for the Kulu and Kangra districts and the religious practices there. I shall have to procure a copy of Dr. Leoshko's paper once I have significant library resources.

Good lord, Peter Hopkirk has also published a book of note on Kim. Entitled Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Game, it is said that "the author visits the locations of the novel and discusses the real-life personages that may have possibly inspired its characters." I believe this man has had entirely too much fun mucking about Central Asia and writing about the Great Game and the exploration of Central Asia and Tibet.

Hiroshi Sugimoto, how do you do it?

2007-06-21T20:38:00.000-07:00

Experiment at the Quarry Lake in Knoxville. I need to figure out how to do a long exposure with this new camera without everything washing out. I had borrowed my sister's tripod to do this since I could tell from Google Maps that this pond was a cerulean blue.

Well, 'magine my surprise. Sugimoto-san had an exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum in D.C. when I was there last week. Somehow I missed that in my trip planning.

Dang.

And his exhibition at the Asian Art Museum isn't 'til this fall. When I'm not likely to be in the Bay Area.

Dang.

Nevermind, his show at the Hirschorn was last year. Still won't get to see his show at the Asian Art Museum.

Dang.

Here's a photo to calm down with.

Rock and fire, baby... rock and fire

2007-06-21T20:23:00.001-07:00

Here's me at the Tennessee Smokies game on Tuesday night, trying my hand at the pitching booth. I think that radar gun wasn't calibrated correctly. That young lady next to me was condescending after she asked my age. I should write a complaint.

Phyllis and I had a head to head challenge. I barely beat her, but she couldn't hit the backstop!

Here's a picture of my sister below. That girl's getting more tat work than a white trash carnie.

Always good advice.

Baseball pastoral.

Knoxville Perambulations

2007-06-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

Quite a bit of ground covered today in Knoxville with a walk of over 4 1/2 hours. I walked up to the Harold Lambert Overlook Park, which is across the street from my mom's and sister's apartment. This is where the Civil War era Union fort, Fort Dickerson was located. The views across the river are obscured by the luxuriant summer growth, but it was a nice hike up and I learned a fair bit about the siege of Knoxville by Confederacy forces. I then walked downtown, stopping frequently to take photographs of various architectural details as is my wont.

Since I had ample time to cogitate, I was struck as I always am when I cross the South Gay Street Bridge on foot by the thought that I can't imagine a more thorough bungling of riverfront property than in Knoxville. Building an expressway right next to the riverside and having only one pedestrian bridge for access from downtown is just about the height of stupidity, especially since there is frantic development downtown gutting old buildings and putting in lofts. What a waste of real estate and a sad reflection of the overwhelming influence of car culture.

I worked my way up Gay Street, and I finally ended up in an alley between an abandoned building that I was taking photos of and a building that apparently houses the printing press that churns out University of Tennessee t-shirts. There was a gentleman there who was sitting in the shade, and it looked like he had been there a while, given the number of empties he had next to him. He asked me not to take his photo, which is natural, given that he was drinking in an alley. He didn't look homeless; rather, he looked like he just wanted a quiet place to drink. We chatted for a while about various things. For a man in a deserted alley, he seemed eager to talk, telling me of his sexual exploits in Vietnam while he was there during the war.

After excusing myself, I walked back up the street to purchase an iced coffee, my summertime drug of choice, and walked across Gay Street to pop into Yee Haw Industries, a self-described industrial letterpress. I really like their Southern influenced design work, and it's a shame that I'm so skint at the moment, otherwise there were several extraordinary posters I would have walked out with. This poster for a Freakwater show is just wonderful. They have a nice storefront, which I neglected to take a picture of.

Specialized English Vocabulary for Khotanese

2007-06-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

Today I've been working on an index for the third (and as far as I know, last) volume of Studies in the Vocabulary of Khotanese. (See below for full bibliographic information.)

Khotanese is a Middle Iranian language with a large amount of Buddhist literature extant, hence the interest. Khotan itself was a thriving center of Buddhism in Inner (or Central Asia) for most of the first millennium after the birth of Christ, so the study of Khotan and Khotanese literature is important in understanding the spread of Buddhism from India to the rest of Asia. I'll be talking more and more about all things Khotanese as I get to various topics since this is one of the main areas that I am researching.

I've been working on this list in the hope of eventually creating a composite index of Khotanese words. Not necessarily a dictionary, but merely an index that lists where words are discussed since Bailey's dictionary only lists words of Iranian origin, and you often have to check in a variety of places to find a particular lemma. And this gets wearisome, so a master index is necessary. It's not like using a single dictionary while working in other language; I often have to check in three or four places without any guarantee of finding what I'm looking for. Eventually, with a master index in hand, the time to work through a text should be cut way down, but of course, I have to put in the time to create a list in the first place.

The 3rd volume of Studies in the Vocabulary of Khotanese is an ideal place to start since it is itself an index for all three volumes and the lemmata correct mistakes, problems, or ghostwords in Sir. H. W. Bailey's Dictionary of Khotan Saka. Incidentally, if you'd like to purchase a copy of this extremely rare dictionary for my use, it's only about $700. You'd have my eternal gratitude, of course.

So I'm going through making an index of the lemmata or headwords with a minimal amount of information such as location in the volumes and the translation of the particular term, and I have run into a surprising number of words that I had to look up so I thought I'd share them and their definitions with you in no particular order:
1. beestings - n. first milk given by cow after calving
2. supervenient - adj. surprising, unexpected
3. efflate - to fill with breath; to puff up.
4. simplex - having only one part or element; "a simplex word has no affixes and is not part of a compound--like `boy' compared with `boyish' or `house' compared with `houseboat'
5. raphe - n. seam joining two halves or parts of a body part (Anatomy); median line of the cell wall of a diatom (Botany)
6. clyster-pipe - n. injection of a liquid through the anus to stimulate evacuation; sometimes used for diagnostic purposes

Learn Khotanese, improve your English vocabulary!

For the pedants: Emmerick, R.E., and P.O. Skjærvø. 1997. Studies in the Vocabulary of Khotanese III, (Veröffentlichungen der iranischen Kommission herausgegeben von Heiner Eichner und Rüdiger Schmitt Band 27). Wien: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften.

Biscuits and Gravy? Minor League Miscellania

2007-06-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

I went to a Tennessee Smokies baseball game tonight, and I was somewhat puzzled by the above ball cap I saw in the souvenir shop.

Which team is that?

Turns out it's...

the Montgomery Biscuits, Double A team in the Southern League. Only a team affiliated with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who have their own name problems since the devil he lurks in them mangrove swamps, could be named thusly. Can you imagine the ribbing these guys get from the other teams? I thought the Austin Ice Bats were kinda strange, but hey... the Biscuits? How do you get your game face on when you're a Biscuit?

My favorite sports team mascot and image remains the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs of the Central Hockey League. There is just something about a crawfish as a mascot for a hockey team that I find compelling, especially as one that looks as angry as this.

Addendum:
For more minor league hi-jinks, the manager for the Mississippi Braves totally wigs out and crawls around on the field after getting ejected from a game. Video is here.

Tacqueria Mexicana

2007-06-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

So while I moseyed on down to the Book Eddy today to replenish my stock of casual reading, I was afflicted by the sticky heat. Today was much more oppressive than it's been the past couple of days, probably because we're due for rain.

I was feeling dizzy from the heat, aided no doubt by lack of sleep, but I did leave victorious with my spoils:

Lost Horizon - James Hilton. A fine piece of idealizing Tibet and introducing the myth of Shangri-la (or more properly, Shambala) to a wide audience. Strange that I hadn't read it yet, but that will be rectified.

Plain Tales from the Raj - edited by Charles Allen. I'm sure it's ammunition for post-Orientalists, but I found Charles Allen's book, The Search for the Buddha: The Men Who Discovered India's Lost Religion (I prefer the British title, The Buddha and the Sahibs: The Men Who Discovered India's Lost Religion), quite compelling, albeit not as well documented in that pedantic academic way as I would like.

And a translation of Milarepa's biography. More on the reason behind purchasing that later, hopefully.

After leaving Book Eddy, I had intended to walk downtown to photograph some of the old buildings being renovated, but I thought perhaps I should fortify myself first. So I popped into Tacqueria Mexicana in the same strip mall as Book Eddy. It's combined with a Mexican grocery store, which has some great Mexican football league hats. I covet the Club Deportivo Cruz Azul one the most.

The waitress seemed quite surprised when I, a gringo extraordinaire, came in. It was long after lunch, and I suppose they were setting up for dinner. She shyly asked me what I wanted to drink in Spanish so I got an agua fresca, tamarindo. Delicious. I tried to summon up my restaurant Spanish, feeble at the best of times, but I kept getting it mixed up with Nepali. No matter, dos asada tacos got me two great tacos, a plate full of pico de gallo, chopped onion, and cilantro. For less than $5, I had a great meal and the pleasure of shocking the waitress and checkout person since I think gringos are not the usual patrons of this establishment. Incidents like this drive home just how divided culturally the U.S. is in some way. I think I'll go back and order a torta some other time after brushing up on some pathetic Spanish.

As I was ruminating and paying the bill, I noticed on the counter a brand of condoms I was not familiar with: Rough Rider. Marketing for condoms must be a fun gig, but who the hell came up with that name? I suppose the ad copy just writes itself. Turns out this particular brand is appropriate for Knoxville since there is a statue of a Rough Rider downtown.

The Road Goes On Forever...

2007-06-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

Dunno 'bout the party ending though.

"I'll write you once from Knoxville..."

2007-06-18T00:27:00.000-07:00

Title is courtesy of some of my favorite lyrics from the song, "New York City Isn't Going Anywhere" by The Star Room Boys. This song resonates with me every time I get homesick for the South.

Naturally enough, I'm currently in Knoxville visiting kinfolk where the big attraction this summer at the Knoxville Zoo is an albino alligator. I kid you not.

What's really humorous about all this is that the blurb from the website states that "Known for their pink eyes and rare white skin, white alligators are said to bring good luck to those who dare cast a gaze upon the majestic creature."

Who says that? Who writes ad copy for the Knoxville Zoo? And what's up with the fake Cajun phrase in the ad, "Look in dem eyes!"

Terrible when we all know that Cajuns would look at an albino alligator and think:
1) I sure like country fried gator tail
2) That gator there would made some nice boots

On the Buddhist Studies front it's currently like the Battle of Somme: lots of trenches dug but not a whole lotta movement.
I think from now on I'm going to be making war allusions to chart my progress. Or lack thereof. And so as not to pop a vein in frustration, I'll use pre-Korean War metaphors.

Update

2007-03-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

So I'm back in the US, skritching away at the dissertation and hanging with the almighty J.

That's not much of an update, is it? Well, since my life consists of going to the library to get books and return them, that's about all you get.

Posts stopped while in Nepal due to a lingering throat malady which could probably be attributed to the air pollution of the Kathmandu Valley and the revolution that happened in April 2006.

There are pleasant interludes, like classical music concerts, for the Bay Area has an abundance of those. That reminds me, I need to buy a ticket to see Jordi Savall.

I will try and post things that I drafted from my year in Nepal, along with some very belated photos, such as what little I saw of the protests of April 2006. In case you think I'm cowardly... you're damned right.

Shechen Lamas Got Big Ups

2006-02-25T18:26:00.000-08:00

I went to see cham, so-called "lama dancing" at Shechen monastery yesterday. It's to avery obstacles for the Tibetan New Year which is Tuesday. I don't know much about cham, so I've included a lot of pictures. It's involves a lot of leaping and takes hours.

Crane style. People whistled like mad when this group of four dancers came out. Why, no one I asked has any idea, even T.J. and that boy knows. I thought it was because two of the dancers have bird masks. Tibetan ritual is rock sometimes, to quote T.J.

These guys are skeletons. And got bounce. Big ups in Boudha.

My new Tibetan posse. You know how we roll, Tibetan butter tea in our 40s, slangin' tsampa. Chang for our dead homies. Chubas over our unlaced blackmarket Nikes.

Me. Notice that Beard Experiment 2006 is nicely underway and past the itching stage. Sporting that 'Horns cap because my hair's a mess. I'm scared of going to a barber here due to the last haircut.

The subtropical sun was quite bright yesterday, and this was a large concrete courtyard so everything looks bleached. And nicely reveals my photographic incompetence.

Thug life, Tibetan style. You best step.

Leechcraft on the Edge of Tibet - Part 1

2006-02-25T18:12:00.000-08:00

Those of you that know me well know that I’m not a thrill-seeking guy. My thrills often come intellectually, not adrenally, and even those over the years have been muted somewhat as I’ve gotten even more conservative in my choice of academic delights. Nonetheless, this past year I’ve gone white-water rafting in the U.S. twice before coming to Nepal.

The first trip, my first time white-water rafting, was in early May in eastern Massachusetts. I signed up for the trip through the Graduate Student Council at Harvard several weeks in advance, thinking that surely by early May it will be warmer. This, sadly, was not the case. Spring in MA often comes with April showers which bring May showers. Flowers we get, but this past year spring was marred by persistant rain for something like eight weekends in a row.

Temperatures in the low 50s with a persistant drizzle is not my idea of a good time. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so cold in my life, even with a Farmer John wetsuit, a waterproof windbreaker, and booties. Add approximately 100 middle school kids on a trip in the surrounding rafts and an extremely slow agonizing 3 hour trip, and you can imagine how my discomfort grew expontientally. However, my raftmates, all grad students from Harvard, and the guide, an older gentleman from England, made this foot-numbing trip as pleasant as possible. It is ironic that all the people in my raft were all from hot-weather climes: Israel, New Delhi, Texas, and Los Angeles. This trip was mainly class II rapids with one class IV rapid right before lunch. This was the highlight of the trip, and the rafting company took pictures of us going through this. Needless to say, after lunch, despite consuming four cups of coffee, I had no desire to get back into the raft since all we had to look forward to was piddly dinky little rapids.

My second trip was in early June with my sister and a group from her theatrical company in Knoxville. Theater people are lovely, especially those from Tennessee, if somewhat tiring with all that drama, armwaving, and excessive emoting. I love the South, especially since I have spent the past four years in the Northeast. I love the gentility, the friendliness, the “those damn Yankees” attitude which I increasingly share. Of course, these benefits mask horrific spectres such as rampant racism, profound ignorance, and poor taste in sports, such as NASCAR, baffling to me because it consists solely of a left turn for several hours. Even so, these things are endemic to American life as a whole, so you might as well enjoy pleasant weather and the occasional nip of moonshine. Even the humidity is different in the South from Boston, a soft kiss as you slowly sweat, and Knoxville felt like home to me.

I was paired off in the front of the raft with my sister, and we had a great time, especially since it wasn’t raining, and the temperature was in the balmy 80s. Add to this a nice set of Class IV rapids and this was a much more exciting trip than my first time out rafting.

Papa's Gotta Brand New Bag

2006-02-22T02:22:00.000-08:00

Check out my new Tibetan man-bag made by Tshering Pasang, a Dol-po-pa. It was my Christmas present to myself, a little expensive since I hate bargaining. Especially when the maker lives in a single room with his entire family. Best part of me trying to explain pathetically in Tibetan what I wanted was when I asked him when will it be finished. He replied, "Happy New Year's rje la". rje la (which is pronounced jay la) is a postposition meaning after, so this literally means after Happy New Year's. I was amused that Tshering-la had picked up the English phrase. Best part of the bag is the button that holds it closed. It's a small bell made of brass, Tshering was bemused when I asked for it, and now I tinkle when I walk (avoid making the obvious joke, please).

New and Cool in the 'hood

2006-02-20T19:45:00.000-08:00

kurta with jeans, three-legged dogs, chubas for the little old Tibetan ladies, winter valley air inverted with claws, om mani peme hum, blatant staring, endless cricket games in the dead dog field, public urination for men AND women, pressure cooker bombs, obscured Himalayan skyline, porn on burned CD-ROMS peddled on the street by guys whispering "sexy, sexy", a curious subcontinental predilection for "Mein Kampf" sold on street corners, the gorgeous results of long-isolated population groups procreating together, and the late afternoon circumambulation of one of the largest Buddhist monuments in the world.

Mighty Mickey Mao Redux

2006-02-18T20:21:00.000-08:00

And so it goes. Recent news reveals that the Maoists have called for an indefinite bandha (that's general strike enforced through terror by the Maoists) starting in early April. There will also be blockades of the roads into KTM and all the major cities in Nepal.

So, what’s the latest in the ‘Du? Things are quiet, or perhaps it’s that I just can’t bear to read both English dailies everyday. I check my google.news for the headlines, but I’ve been busy writing grant proposals (always secure funding, 1st rule of grad school) and other more pleasant distractions. As long as I’m not having my epidermis sanded off, almost anything is more pleasant than writing grant proposals. You’d think I’d be used to them now, but noooooo. If you’ve read the business proposal section in the Cryptonomicron, it’s just like that, except I don’t get as much start-up money.

We’re currently in the midst of the longest ever recorded drought in KTM Valley history (4 1/2 months). Hopefully, the monsoon will come early and profusely. Farmers are suffering, and that means famine in certain districts. I don’t know what the status is for the indefinite bandh and blockades of all major cities starting April 3th.

US Ambassdor Moriarty was all over the papers today. Headline in the Nepali Times, the well-written weekly of the Himalayan Times, above a sinister looking picture of His Excellency, is “Professor Moriarty strikes again.” Ah, what a pleasure to have actual literary allusions in print media. Apparently the Ambassador will be on Kantipur TV twice next week to talk about what the US wants, now that it appears that the US has thrown its support back behind the King. He did meet with some of the seven major political party leaders, but the gist of the meeting was to suggest that the twelve-point agreement with the Maoists is a big mistake. I admit, I can’t force myself to keep track, really, now that I’m out of the habit of reading both dailies cover to cover. I got out of the habit when I had what I like to call obstreperous throat. I know some of the major actors, but I’d need a scorecard anyway. Who’s in jail, who’s under house arrest, who leads what party. With seven major political parties, I hope no one blames me for not being exactly up on who’s who.

However, do check out www.samudaya.org. It’s a forum by expat Nepalis to spread awareness for democracy, pluralism and free press, according to the article in this week’s Nepali Times. It’s blocked in Nepal by the government, but there is a mirror-site at www.everybodybreed.com (strange choice, that). Who knows how long that’ll be accessible here in Nepal. I’ll have a gander today. They’ve also started Creative Dissent Nepal, “a movement of people wokring towards supporting and promoting democratic ideals through participatory, creative, and non-violent activism.” All Americans, take note. You might want to take notes on this stuff, given the recent appointment to the Supreme Court.

It’s for keeps here in Nepal, folks. Massive human right violations, google Nepal human right violations and UN report. Violence can be casual and brutal, and facing a lathi (a bamboo staff) charge by the police or military police here is no laughing matter. During the protests leading up to the sham elections on February 8th, the cops brought their own truckloads of brickbats (brick shards) to protests to throw at protestors, who, of course, were doing the same.

Pay close attention, Americans. ‘Course, we don’t roll like that in ‘Merica, we’d bring our gatts, and bloodbaths would ensue. Sorry folks, but it’s true. Civil war in America would, has already been once, hideous. Let’s not let it come to that, shall we? Vote in this election in November, and throw out the party in power in at least the Senate or the House. Get at least a deadlock in the government, hopefully to begin impeachment hearing. What’s some admittedly ethical dubious sexual misconduct to outright lies that lead to a war that has caused thousands of American deaths and many, many more wounded people. The Imperial Presidency has gone way way way too far, and now with the Judiciary swinging hard to the right, things are about to get worse.

Lessons could be learned from Nepalis. I cower out here in Boudha, while folks are out laying their asses on the line during protests. I feel guilty ‘bout this, but I’m not a Nepali, nor a U.N. human rights observer, nor a journalist, and I like to keep my skull intact, thank you. Leigh and Jason got caught in a protest, and Leigh was fortunate to get away with only getting her camera broken.

Rant over.

My New Favorite Drink That I Invented

2006-02-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

A Post-Castro Cuba Libre:
Start with 3 fingers of white rum in a chilled glass, preferably Cruzan Estate Light Rum cuz it's cheap in the islands and tasty. Reminds me of my time in the BVI and the USVI. Stay far away from those tropical flavored rums, a travesty like flavored coffee, unless it's an Irish coffee on a chilly San Francisco night. Add plain soda or a sugar-free lime or lemon soda. Squeeze 'bout an 1/2 ounce of lime or lemon juice respectively. Toast the inevitable absorpton by global capitalism of a lamented worker's paradise of your choice.

Mighty Mickey Mao

2006-02-16T19:36:00.000-08:00

Well, it's with great relief and a slight reduction of my constant low-level annoyance that my pre-paid cell phone is now working. Give me a tinkle sometime. I wasn't sure how the cessation of service protected the security of the Nepal dictatorship, but there you go. Uh oh, I dropped the D bomb.

Things are quiet here in the Valley. There has been the occasional bomb, some of which were defused. A few exploded up in Jorpati up the main road a bit from Bouddha at a go-down or warehouse of some sort. One in Ratni Park that was placed in a bin (or garbage can if you prefer).

Outside the valley there was a significant attack (at least in my opinion) in Tansen. Who knows what goes on out in the countryside. I read the newspapers everyday but it's hard to get a sense of what's going on outside the valley since I've just gone once up the Arniko Highway to the Tibetan border.

There has been a call by Prachanda, the supreme leader of the Maoists to form an alternative government along with the seven major political parties. They go by one name, like Prince or Madonna cuz apparently it's good PR and psychwar tactics, as if to say I'm such a badass that I no longer require my last name. The US ambassador strongly warned against this yesterday in a statement, but what are folks supposed to do?

Sham elections (massive armored personal carriers parked outside polling centers?!?!), draconian control against any sort of significant protest, and a complete and total lack of real democracy really do limit the masses' options. I'm open to suggestions. How 'bout denying visas to all Nepali govermental officials and freezing their accounts in the US? How 'bout the US not training a Ranger force for the Nepali government. Ah, but Nepal has become a small pawn in the new Great Game between India, China, and the US, with a rapidly ascendant PRC providing an alternative to Nepal's traditional partner (some would say master) India. So has Pakistan, just to goose India, despite their good relations.

Look, no one has a problem with a constitutional monarchy. Lots of Northern European nations get along just fine with them, provided that the post is largely ceremonial. The king and the royal family could do a lot of good if they wielded the royal mana in a righteous way. They could become cultural ambassadors to the world for Nepal. People love Nepal, have for years, and probably will for a long time to come. Nepalis are lovely people, there are a ton of other ethnic groups around, incredibly scenery, and a large expat Tibetan population that has the ability, the means, and infrastructure to draw the curious and practicing Western Buddhists. Going out into the world as benevolent ambassadors would inhance these images. We'll discuss later some of the orientalizing aspects to them, but still... you do need revenue.

Meanwhile, the infrastructure, such as it is, decays. 17 hours a week of power cuts due to low water level in the hydroelectrical reservoirs. Last summer's monsoon was weak, but there has been no new power plant construction in years due to... you guess it, the insurgency. Hydropower could be a major Nepali industry with exports to India, despite the inevitable enviromental damage. There are massive dropoffs in tourist arrivals and hence tourist dollars, pounds, and Euros. I'd hate for my country or state or town or whatever to be dependent on tourism (right, Shawn? how 'bout New Orleans, corruption, and murder even before Kate the Shrew stomped on NO?), but there are really no other alternatives.

Well, to reiterate: things are quiet out here in Boudha. I suspect though, that the Maoists will step up their attacks since security has gradually loosen in the Valley. I wouldn't've attacked during the elections, the curfews, and on the anniversary of the beginning of the insurgency. I'd wait 'til after, to lull the government into complacency.

Meanwhile, I'm off for my daily Tibetan lesson with Dawa. I'll try and upload some new photos later.

Top 10 Things in 2005

2006-02-14T06:09:00.000-08:00

Let's just say that since the Great Anthropological Experiment of 2006 (GAE 2006) failed miserably, I've branched out into other venues. I've had a lot of downtime as I waited for my throat to quit oozing pus and barking at me. Now, since that reference to GAE 2006 was cryptic enough, onto the show.

1) Passing my qualifying exams. It's all a blur, I swear. A hot muggy September day in a typical stale air Harvard room and lots of cold sweat.

2) Getting my dissertation proposal approved. Thank you, Fulbright-Hays for making do this already pretty much. I've have to lump receiving the Fulbright under this heading since it completely slipped my mind while composing this at home, although that other grant I received made me reconsider coming to KTM. Praise Allah I came to my senses and took less money but did the 'Du.

3) Seeing Gang of Four at tha Avalon with my friend Yammo sometime in the spring. Old-school post-punk at its finest. Eat that, the Liars and Bloc Party. I've never seen so many old hipsters in years. Damn, that describes me.

4) Tihar in

Nepal

. I love Tihar, hopefully my birth mom, Pamela, will visit next fall during it. A five day festival with kukkaripuja, which is the worship of dogs who receive tikas and marigold malas, and ends with bhaipuja in which sisters garland and tika their brothers who give them money in return. Somewhere in the middle is Lakshmipuja, when people draw red lines leading into doorways to invite the goddess of wealth into their homes and businesses. Much less gruesome and tense than Dasain and Kalipuja, which involves copious animal sacrifices, blaring music on those distorted developing country sound systems to all hours of the night, and an undercurrent of violence itching to explode.

5) Christmas 2004 with my birth mother in Berkeley. Close enough to 2005 for government business. We ate tons of Alaskan crab, divine cookies from the Cheeseboard, went for a long walk at Point Reyes on Christmas Day, and generally just got to spend our first major holiday together.

6) Narrowly avoiding Hurricane Rita in Beaumont by two days. If I hadn’t left when I did, I wouldn’t gotten out for months. Thanks for the great visit, Dad and Kathy, but whew.

7) Thanksgiving dinner with the US Ambassador, his equally accomplished and gracious wife, cornbread dressing(!), and a surgical strike team of servants who got me tipsy through no apparent effort on my part. This rolled on into a night of pub crawling through Thamel with T.J. to an ungodly hour of the morning. Male bonding at its best. Many Cuba Librés consumed.

8) Dinner after passing my exams with Yammo at the best Middle Eastern restaurant I’ve ever eaten out somewhere in Cambridge, Argana. It was spectacular, all the usual dishes you might expect, but what a difference due to I don’t know what (and it couldn’t have been the mojitos). It might have been the best meal I’ve ever had. This wasn't just due to my relief, right, Amzig?

9) A two day rafting trip s on the Bhote Kosi near the Tibetan border. Set after long set of insane Class V+ rapids just post-monsoon straight off the glacier in Tibet. Day one is pleasant and fun, below the first dam on Bhote Kosi with tons of Class III and IV rapids. Day two begins approximately 5 klicks from Tibet with beautiful scenery, but terrifying rafting. I suspect it was because the guide, Som, probably weighed all of 120 lbs soaking wet and due to his limited mass, couldn’t steer the raft. When I belatedly realized that he too was terrified by the hysterical tone of his voice, it added that special frisson of sheer cold animal fear to freezing milky green glacial water, massive rocks, and substandard equipment. The best part was when the guide fell out of the boat (and stayed out) at the beginning of a set of class V+ rapids, thus leaving us to go down the wrong chute without anyone to steer the raft. All in all one of the most exhilarating experiences that I’ll never repeat in my life, especially since I have subsequently heard about the rafting fatalities (notice the plural) in a Nepali friend’s family.

10) Summertime in Knoxville TN. I didn’t get to enjoy it as much as I could’ve due to the massive anxiety concomitant with my impending exams, but I sure did enjoy being back in the South for a summer. Lovely moderate weather, especially compared to Texas, mountains, rafting, sweet Southern drawls, an excellent coffeehouse with free wi-fi, slit-eyed groundhogs in the kudzu, a decent university library, and a satisfying chunk of time with my sister and mother. Didn’t make it to Dollywood though, more’s the pity.

Four Things. Part II

2006-02-14T03:36:00.000-08:00

I promised you a rose garden, not brevity.

4 TV Shows

1) The West Wing

Tivolike capabilties at my mother’s house this past summer has allowed me to almost complete seeing all episodes of this, except for the most recent and final season since I’m obviously in Nepal. Great ensemble acting that acutely satisfies my wish-fulfillment regarding the 2000 Presidential Election while I regretfully reside in a State of Denial.

2) Gilmore Girls

I know, I know, I’ve openly emasculated myself. Mea culpa. However, smart, sharp, and rapid dialogue laden with literary and gratititious pop culture references, Alexis Bledel’s otherworldly eyes, small-town New England weirdness, and a shoutout to Third Uncle Brian Eno in a cubicle farm has won my heart. I don’t care what you think.

3) Battlestar Galactica
This is it, serious smart sci-fi that’s also probably the best drama on TV. Deliberate documentary-like shaky handheld cinematography, minimal breathless background music, claustrophobic shipboard sets, and the deepest, darkest sci-fi TV show since Babylon Five (until that stinker of a last season). I hope they haven’t blown all of their intellectual capital on the first two seasons. They’re not Cylons, they’re really Mormons! I’d kill (ok, maim) to have a glance at the series’ bible.

4) After that, I’m stumped.
There was nothing else I regularly watched for the past few years ‘cept Red Sox games. Buenos noches, amigos. RemDog! I watched tons of CSI with Shawn due to sheer inertia, and I blame him for my distaste for forensic dramas, despite Lenny letting love rule. What the hell is up with this genre anyway? See J.G. Ballard’s essay as an attempt at some sort of explanation for the hold it has on the American imagination nowadays.

4 Websites I Visit Everyday
(everyday I have broadband access, you mean)

1) metafilter.com

2) pitchforkmedia.com

3) questionablecontent.net

4) news.google.com

4 Favorite Places I’ve Vacationed

Long-term underemployment and seven years (and counting! I’m in my 8th, you were right, Lil, I’ll be that perpetual student) of grad school have not enabled many vacations. However:

1) Zacatecas, Summer of 2000
I could’ve stayed longer, if it weren’t for my unnamed poisonous ex-girlfriend’s stupidity before this trip. Hanging in the zocalo, eating avocado sandwiches, drinking lovely Zacatecan wine, few non-Mexican tourists, and a comfortable climate in July at 9000 feet was well worth the 18 hours it took to get there by bus from Austin. Cheap too. I’ll do it again sometime minus the toxic ex.

2) Weekend Trip to Vermont, Summer of 2003
Vermont is fantastic. These people with their no-billboard policy understand my need to decompress from omnipresent advertising. A fun but too brief roadtrip, but I got to enjoy touring Ink’s old collegiate stomping grounds, a swimming hole on the AT, sleeping in a lovely old farmhouse in chilly weather, escape from Boston’s mugginess, and a surprisingly good Tex-Mex dinner. Bucolic.

3) Mexico City, Thanksgiving 1994
My girlfriend at the time and I received a free trip from her mother that was won by her friends at a Chili's. They gave it to my exe's mom who couldn’t use it because she had burned up all her vacation time in Turkey, who in turn passed it on to us, broke student and recent ex-student. You got that? The result:

A free week in the Radisson while I desultorily studied for the GRE (which I broke like a cheap maquiliadora piñata despite being unable to afford real Princeton Review tutoring),
luscious dark Mexican coffee in the mornings (we couldn’t resist racking up a room service tab just for it despite stocking the room’s fridge with sammich makings)
fantastic museums (20th century Mexican painting is so underrated)
Teotihuacán
great window shopping
the best subway system for the money in the world.

4) Manali Summer 1998
I went there for a week as a treat after 2 solid months of attempting to work in Dharamsala. This was the summer of heightened nuclear tension between India and Pakistan, highlighted by a kill radius of one of the bombs tested by Pak published in some Indian newspaper centered on Connaught Place. Let’s just say this little jaunt involved all the things that Manali is justly renowned for, an unrequited crush on a Flemish girl, my one true whack at the great American novel, a Brit named Rug who, quite appropriately, resembled an ambulatory rug, soi-disant “space cake”, and the transcendent post-modern moment of hanging out in a cafe and listening to techno music and a sadhu chanting along in time.
Oṃ Shivāya nāmaḥ*

*(Heaven help me if I've gotten the diactrics wrong. All my costly education gone to waste.)

After meticulously compiling this list, I now wish I had added the two trips to Arkansas to hang out at Cossatot River State Park & Natural Area and Lake Ouachita. That, sadly, would have violated the one trip per ex-girlfriend unofficial rule, despite the wonderful memories I possess.

4 Places I’d Rather Be

Nowhere else right now, but in the future:

1) Vienna
Coffee, Riesling, Guglhupf, and kipferl. Klimt, Mahler, and Wittgenstein. You do the math. Anyone please, puh-retty puh-lease send me a copy of The Austrian Mind right now. I’m craving it after reading "Wittgenstein's Vienna" and “Vienna Blood.” See below.

2) Vientiane and Luang Prabang, Laos
I can’t wait to go there; I have to get there soon, soon, now, right now, maybe hopefully sometime this year. Apparently, more French people are living in Laos now than during the colonial period. Good French bread, yummy Laotian food, a mild Southeast Asian climate, hopefully miminal development, and a Theravadin Buddhist environment. Yes, please.

3) Vladivostok
Who knows, this place might be a pit, and it’s not even listed on the Lonely Planet Guide website (is it in the book?), but flying just past it on my way to Nepal this time has whetted my appetite for Far Eastern Russia at the edge of the continent. It’s a dark post-Soviet/newly petrochemically power Russia mystery to me. I can’t help it, Alaska is too passé.

4) Venice in the Winter
It’ll be poignant, and I’ll spend an afternoon on or near the Bridge of Sighs as a prisoner of desire in the weak winter sunlight, contemplating the decrepit beauty of the Bride of the Sea as she glacially, gracefully, and gratefully sinks into the Adriatic.

4 Recent Books

1) Vienna Blood - Adrian Mathews
A surprisingly good techno thriller set in Vienna in 2026. This has a strange but lush tone, enough extrapolation that should satisfy sci-fi fans, and a truly interesting engagement with biotechnical, genetic, and political issues that are coming soon to a neighborhood near you. Keywords: eugenic, cacogenic, aristogenic. How ‘bout aristomemic for a neologism, Dick Dawkins and company?

2) The Annotated Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
I’ve been waiting to read this after reading “Reading Lolita in Teheran.”When the annotated version showed up at Pilgrims Books at a cut-rate, I was happy. Still am, the annotations help with some of the 50s period references that would’ve escaped me, and I always love intertextual goodness. Too bad I read the intro first though. I know this book disturbs women, and rightly so, but I expected more insight into the allure of younger women who are not necessarily illegally young.

Nevertheless, it is still a stunning indictment of American bourgeois society that resonates today despite a shift to a hyperconsumer society with a focus on connoisseurship in incidental commodities like coffee, gourmet food, and mid-20th century modern furniture for the moneyed and not so moneyed self-styled dissidents among us. Umm... It’s bougy, baby! Still required reading, especially since Nabokov despised psychoanalysis and carefully crafted Lolita accordingly.
Bravo, Vlad! Ce n’est pas une pipe, Siggy.

3) Playback - Raymond Chandler
It's a Raymond Chandler Evening
At the end of someone's day
And I'm standing in my pocket
And I'm slowly turning grey
Thanks, Robyn. I think I’ve finished all seven Chandler books with this one. Sigh. Here he makes deliberate references to the genre, the last one he wrote, but not ironically. Was he incapable...

Look, here’s my recent epiphany. Hardboiled fiction is the equivalent of Harlequin romances for men. We all (those among us who gender-identify with virile male/tough guy) vicariously imagine ourselves to be a tough broad-shouldered and ruggedly handsome man who rights wrongs outside of the law, frequently sleeps with extremely eager and curvy women with minimal courting, can take a vicious beating, and settles beefs decisively with a gun or our fists. Least that's how I read this genre. Chandler isn’t so blatant with these particular genre conventions, but it’s so readily apparent with Mickey Spillane and the Mike Hammer books that it ain’t funny, sister. So what? Take off, buster. You annoy me. I’ve met all kinds of punks in my time... Ah, call it a guilty pleasure and I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more Dashiell Hammett books here in KTM.

4) Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms - Stephen Jay Gould
A collection of his monthly essays from Natural History magazine. An excellent stylist, clear and extremely interesting in that nerdy science way that is leavened nicely with ample historical documentation that thoroughly satisfies the inchoate historian in me. I’ve grown more interested in the effect that the theory of evolution has had on the social sciences, particularly philology and Buddhist Studies à la Baumann and Briggs. Hopefully at some point I’ll have a brilliant idea or two in this regard, but let’s not hold our breaths, shall we?

Now, The Four People I Tag:

Don't have four people. Most of my friends, as far as I know, don't have blogs, and I mulishly refuse to insist that they start one to satisfy your unreasonable demands. I can't imagine that Shawn would put something like this on the Trivia Jihad webblog since jihadis are too busy drinkin', trivia-playin', and whorin' their way through the great Boston metropolitian area. I'm sure Ryan is actually working on his dissertation. Padre Scott don't seem like that type either. Yammo, a.k.a. Amzig, updates more infrequently than I do.
I'm stumped, Miss Ladie, you'll just have to cope.

Four Things. Part I

2006-02-12T18:55:00.000-08:00

Well, since I've been tagged by Miss Ladie, I reckon I have to rise to the challenge of my four things. My list is more extensive, since I've been sick and this was a pleasant way to while away an afternoon. I'll update more on the political situation here in KTM, but briefly, it's the same old story out here in Bouddha.

Without further ado, comrades, and I promise not to be brief, My Four Things, Part 1.

4 Jobs I've Had

1) Retail slave at Whole Earth Provision Company. One of the true slacker jobs in Austin. Probably my favorite job, although I doubt I could do it again because I despise waiting on people.

2) Dishwasher at several pizza restaurants. I like washing dishes, if it paid more, I might consider it for a career. You can get a lot of thinking done, you don’t have to talk to anyone, and it’s soothing (see Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins for further info).

3) Telemarketer for FedEx and other much less savory businesses that I refuse to reveal. My one truly shameful job. Getting fired from three other jobs doesn’t come close to comparing to the continuing shame I have about this one.

4) Selling meat out of the back of a truck door to door. Oh wait, that’s Shawn, my erstwhile and hopefully future roommate. Whassup, Shawndawg? Damn, I have nothing that can compare to that. I was a janitor at a movie theater for a number of years, starting when I was 15. I believe this explains my extreme reluctance to attend movies in situ. You try cleaning up after a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

4 Places I’ve Lived
1) Austin TX. You know I’ll always care for you, baby, but I had to move on. We had some good times, the best, and I’ll always remember those cool spring afternoons where we napped with all the doors and windows open in the house, the weekly gigs with my grunge band where I screamed my guts out, that March day where the grass in Zilker Park was pounded into overlapping circles by the hammer of God, and that 78704 lifestyle (ignore this).
Damn, I still love you girl.

2) Lowest Greenville, Dallas TX. Best neighborhood I’ve ever lived in, despite the tree falling on our apartment when a squall line of thunderstorms moved through. It was so noisy that I didn’t realize it ‘til the next morning when I went outside. Walking distance to everything you’d need, Whole Foods, ethnic grocery stores, the best Thai restaurant in the US, a coffee shop, and bookstores. Too bad Dallas is bighaircorporateplasticsurgeryevilland.

3) Somerville MA. Ugh. Maybe if I had lived closer to Davis Square I wouldn’t be the bitter broken man I’m today. Really, what the hell is up with the real estate prices here? Lacks the culture(s) and restaurants of New York, the natural beauty and enforced culture shock of the Bay Area, and finally, it has the crappiest weather in the world, so what’s the appeal?!? I remain baffled.

4) Kathmandu. Kat-daddy-mandu. The ‘Du. My newest love, despite her winter air with particulate claws in it, an extremely septic environment, and a slow shamble to failed state status. You’re my slattern and tattered goddess, befouled by overpopulation from war refugees from the countryside and a consumer society that noticeably increases before my very eyes. You’re the disheveled siren that’s called me since my early 20s, and now we’re finally together despite pressure cooker bombs, bandhas, frequent gastrointestinal distress, and cabbies that make me want to kill.

4 Favorite Dishes

1) The Greek Noodle Bowl (stupid name, but tasty linguini, pesto, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, kalamata olives, and scallions) at Mars Restaurant and Bar in Austin.

2) Chicken gumbo. I came to this late, I hated gumbo as a kid after a bad duck gumbo experience involving sinew and gristle. Environment will tell though, since I don’t have that coonass blood. Coonass is sometimes derogatory slang for Cajun that's been re-appropriated by my peoples, y’all. Viva la race, chère! (but you gotta say it that Caju way /shah/).

3) Pad Thai. I could mainline this everyday. Why I’m not doing my research in Thailand or Laos baffles the hell outta me. My one true academic career mistake. Always pick a research area with excellent cuisine (sorry Tibetans, y’all don’t qualify through no fault of your own). Actually, let me amend this to Thai green papaya salad, Som Tam. Mmmm shrimp paste, chili, vinegar, grated green papaya, and hopefully fresh seafood.

4) Tex-Mex food. Our one true contribution to the world (ok, maybe also Bob Wills. who will always be King). I could eat this everyday, twice a day. I’d have to say migas at Kerby Lane Cafe would be the one dish I’d pick. Soft black bean tacos from there run a close second, although cheap greasy breakfast tacos from that joint on Airport Drive are the ultimate hangover food. Vitamin G, y’all. I loathe Boston for the lack of good dependable Tex-Mex food.

4 Current CDs in Rotation

Lemme check my new Sandisk Sansa 2 GB mp3 player. Being a lapsed Catholic boy, I have deliberate catholic tastes. Heavy rotation of aggro boy rock(Jesus Lizard for example) is usually on here cuz that’s what I work out to, but I’ve mellowed recently in my music selection due to infectious obstreperous throat that just won’t go away.

1) MIA - Arular. A critical fave. Check out pitchforkmeda.com for the saliva-laden accolades. A refugee Sri Lankan women in London whose dad was some sorta Tamil(?) rebel in Sri Lanka, hooks up with the hot DJ Diplo who’s mining baile funk from favelas in Brazil for beats, to form a winning combination. The post-post-colonial hiphop, with a hybrid shoutout to my Homi Bhabha.

2) Bark Psychosis - Hex. Early languid post-rock. 1994 was a productive year for these lads. Radiohead should pay them royalities for parts of their early albums. How did a xylophone become de rigueur for this kind of music?

3) The Decemberists - Her Majesty, The Decemberists. This one always makes me smile, but I can only take it in small doses, usually half the album at a time. “Your Red Right Ankle” is a brilliant example of wistful boy rock™. A jollier Smiths with a pirate fetish.

4) Antoine Forqueray - Pieces de viole - Suite I et II - Jordi Savall. I’ve become obsessed with viola da gamba music. French Baroque, and you know what they say, if it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it. Nothing matches the warmth and approximates the range of the human voice like a viola da gamba. Jordi Savall, along with Paolo Pandolfo, are the modern masters. Paolo, I could kiss your stubbly Italian mug for your revisioning of Bach’s Cello Suites.

The Phones Have Been Cut

2006-01-18T20:04:00.000-08:00

According to Reuters, the phones in and out of Kathmandu have been cut. Internet access is still available, but I might be incognito for quite a while. All this means is that there'll probably be a spate of posts at some point. I'd blog more, especially about how I do not think that the elections will take place, but I've got some business to tidy up.

Juxtaposition is a Funny Science - Life During Wartime

2006-01-15T23:19:00.000-08:00

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons,
Packed up and ready to go
Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway,
A place where nobody knows

You may or may not have heard about the recent attacks in KTM. The Maoists, apparently for the first time, coordinated nearly simultaneous attacks throughout the valley. At 7:15 pm on Saturday night, as I was dozing in my bed due to a stomach bug and reading Stephen Jay Gould and listening to classical music, I heard a loud bang. For about 5 minutes afterwards, I heard 4-5 pops that sounded like small arms fire.

The sound of gunfire, off in the distance,
I’m getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstore, lived in the ghetto,
I’ve lived all over this town

This was a small bomb at a municipal building here in Bouddha. Not within the stupa area itself, since Maoists usually only attack police outposts and government buildings. This was just off of the main road. We (my roommate and upstair's neighbor) initially suspected that the police station on the main road had been hit.

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco,
This ain’t no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
I ain’t got time for that now

Now, you might wonder why the hell I'm not extremely worred at this point, given my strict vow of cowardice (but I only strictly follow the One Commandment). During my stay here in the summer of 2004, I reckon I picked out that blasé expat attitude that most long-term residents here in KTM have. A Maoist blockade of the valley, riots following the senseless killing of Nepali workers in Iraq, and a shoot on sight curfew in which I walked (about 45 minutes to an hour) to the airport, has left me somewhat distanced from fear. Then again, I had some nervous moments walking back from the airport, especially since Ryan left me abruptly (long story, but thanks again Ryan!).

Transmit the message, to the receiver,
Hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, a couple of visas,
You don’t even know my real name

I haven't received any panicked emails yet from relatives, but I still need to email my birth mother. The funny thing is that I really was more nervous the times that I went to Times Square or any crowded area in Manhattan during 2002-2005. I hope, however, that the government doesn't decide to cut off communications from the outside world like after February 1st, 2005.

High on a hillside, the trucks are loading,
Everything’s ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nightime,
I might not ever get home

I know some people that have decided to leave. They should do what they need to do to feel safe, but I hope we see them back here soon. I hope I don't get pulled out by the U.S. government, but then, I'm much more invested in living and working here. I like KTM, and I always wanted to live here for a while, ever since I was about 19 or so. KTM has always been THE city of exotic allure for me, and it hasn't worn off yet.

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco,
This ain’t no fooling around
This ain’t no Mudd club, or C.B.G.B.,
I ain’t got time for that now

No more late night pub crawls in Thamel for the near future. Apparently, there is a semi-official curfew from midnight to 4 a.m. (according to today's Himalayan). If I want that bombed out post-apocalpyse developing country drinking ambiance with trash fires burning to warm the beggers and military police carrying assault rifles at 2 a.m., I'll have to wait. Not that I've ever done that.

Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, PA?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
Somebody might see you up there

I've heard gunfire quite a bit when I lived in Lowest Greenville in Dallas. (This, by the way, was the best neighborhood I've ever lived in. Just across the street was a Whole Foods, the best Thai restaurant ever and a whole host of other great things was in walking distance. It's too bad that Dallas in general is Black Line Big Hair Hell). So, gunfire itself doesn't worry me, stray bullets on the other hand, do cause me some concern. Then again, I didn't see someone get shot to death like my ex-girlfriend Tanya did in Dallas.

I got some groceries, some peanut butter,
To last a couple of days
But I ain’t got no speakers, ain’t got no
Heaphones, ain’t got no records to play

So we wait. It's bizarre that I was listening to viola da gamba solo music when this happened. A bit of the old Nero fiddlin' while Rome burns vibe, but I was ailing and trying to get my stomach right. At dinner on Friday night, Suzanne and I met some extremely long-term residents of KTM, and she asked their opinion of the situation. They shrugged and replied that they're stocking up. So are we. There is a natural gas shortage here, and the Maoists have declared a six day bandh. That's an extremely long time for a bandh, and unfortunately, the poor are the ones that suffer due to the shops being closed.

Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time
Can’t write a letter, can’t send a postcard,
I can’t write nothing at all

Actually, I am now facing a hard deadline of March 1st for two draft chapters of my disseration. Teacher James has graciously agree to read and critique my dissertation proposal, and since he's a sharp guy, I should be getting excellent feedback. We're currently experiencing rolling blackouts due to the energy shortage here, so hopefully I'll have enough juice to get this done.

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco,
This ain’t no fooling around
I’d like to kiss you, I’d love you hold you
I ain’t got no time for that now

Actually, civil war in a developing country is like a time-lapse war. Not for the poor souls suffering out in the countryside, but here in KTM, the only signs are more and more refugees pouring into the city, a massive building boom to try and accomodate them, and frenzied political rallies that I avoid at all costs. Fortunately, Bouddha is far away from most places that have rallies, except Chabahil up the main road a bit.

Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock,
We blended with the crowd
We got computer, we’re tapping phone lines,
I know that ain’t allowed

I hope, for the sake of the country and the people, that all of this resolves peacefully. I have the disturbing intuition that we're heading for some sort of climax, an intuition that most long-term residents here scoff at. I think they're inured to thinking any other way, given their commitments to living, working, and studying here. I also selfishly want to be able to go to Dolpo sometime this summer and visit Dawa at the village where he teaches. Shawn might make that trip with me, and we'll make it "Razor's Edge" style cuz that's how we do.

We dress like students, we dress like housewives,
Or in a suit and a tie
I changed my hairstyle, so many times now,
I don’t know what I look like!

Incidentally, I've been asked by three Nepalis, once quite confrontationally, if I am a Muslim. I suppose the beard does it. Amish-type beard must be THE major signifier for male Muslimness.

You make me shiver, I feel so tender,
We make a pretty good team
Don’t get exhausted, I’ll do some driving,
You ought to get some sleep

I suppose I'm be sleeping less once things start on January 20th with the enormous political rally that the seven major political parties are holding. Supposedly 500,000 people will be protesting. Needless to say, I'll be holed up here in Bouddha awaiting developments.

Get you instructions, follow directions,
Then you should change your address
Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day,
Whatever you think is best

With the election that the main political parties are boycotting on February 8th and the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Maoist "people's war" on the 15th of February, I might be forced to change my residence. I wonder if the Fulbright folks will be take me all the way out or allow me to go to India. If I go to India, then I face the noisome burden of deciding where the hell I'll go and work. I think Suzanne is going to Dharamsala, which should be habitable by the end of February (it's cold up there right now). Sarnath is another choice, so is Bir, but damnit, I've got everything arranged here: good Sanskrit and Tibetan tutors, a great living situation, and research opportunities galore. It's petty of me to whine, but I hate to pack, and I enjoy observing Newton's 1st Law (The Law of Inertia): "Unless acted upon, a body at rest stays at rest, and a body in motion stays in motion." Always have, always will.

Burned all my notebooks, what good are
Notebooks? they won’t help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace,
The burning keeps me alive

So, here, finally, is a longish blog entry. I have plenty of ideas, and maybe I've have the impetus, the time, and the energy to keep up the pace in the coming days. It's sure to be exciting, and I wonder if there is a Tibetan proverb that parallels the pseudo-Chinese curse/proverb, "May you live in interesting times." More on Tibetan proverbs later, since they form a major part of my modern Tibetan lessons.

Try to stay healthy, physical fitness,
Don’t want to catch no disease
Try to be careful, don’t take no chances,
You better watch what you say

Well, I'm off to purchase some Azithromycin. Hopefully, that's unknot my stomach because the Ayurvedic remedies don't seem to be making a dent in whatever has taken up lodging in my stomach. If this entry seemed forced, well, that's the nature of art. Besides, you can blame Suzanne for encouraging me to blog more.

It's hard to type in KTM in the winter

2006-01-11T18:35:00.000-08:00

Dawa, my Tibetan tutor on my porch, and of course he's on his cell and looking through a dictionary at the same time.

Of course I fully intended to update my blog regularly while here in Nepal, but the strange thing is that sitting at a computer and/or sitting in an Internet cafe coaxing along the narrowest bandwith I've had the displeasure in years to encounter just does not seem that appealing here.

Above is the top of the bus on the ride home after a two day rafting trip on the Bhote Kosi. You see Scott, John, David and Derrick.

I wonder why updating my blog holds so little appeal? Could it be that Kathmandu is a vibrant crazy insane developing country capital convulsed with civil war? Or that I'm spending a solid four hours a day trying to beat modern Tibetan into my brain and I'm totally exhausted afterwards? Or that I'd much rather walk and look and smell the city than write about it?

However, I will post some updates soon, especially about the rafting trip of death on the Bhote Kosi.

In the meantime, I'll also post some links on the left to other Fulbrighters who are much more generous with their blogging than I, selfish bastard that I am.

I also posted a few pictures for your bandwith whores, even though it takes kalpas of time to upload them.

To Buddh or Not to Buddh

2005-06-30T21:31:00.000-07:00

One of the questions I get asked most often when I tell people that I study Buddhism in grad school is whether or not I'm a Buddhist. I don't like this question because I've never come up with an adequate answer. Folks usually seem to be disappointed that I'm not meditating for umpteen hours a day and this usually grinds the conversation to a halt. That's not a problem for me because I don't normally like to talk in detail about what I actually do as a graduate student for fear of boring my conversational partner to death. Actually learning some of what might be termed the canonical languages of Buddhism such as Sanskrit and Tibetan don't seem to count for much unless I am on a cushion somewhere with slitted eyes thinking hard about nothing. I've had discussions with true blue Western Buddhists about how all of the work that goes into translation and reading and thinking about the history of Buddhism entitles me to call myself a Buddhist or not. I have other terms I'd prefer to be called, but I can't reveal them until I get my own little tax-free church up and running. More on that later.

I have to vet folks carefully to see if they can handle the minutiae that my work actually involves. I've often had discussions with a previous roommate of mine who was also a grad student about how he thought that studying Buddhism was much sexier than what he was studying (let's say, medieval history somewhere east of the Fertile Crescent). However, unless I start hanging out with lamas in caves and subsisting on nettles (and those of you who know me know how likely THAT is), I'm afraid the sex factor for the general populace will remain low.

Adventures in Cajun Buddhism

2005-06-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

Howdy everyone. This blog might give people a chance to see what I'm up to as I finally get to spend a year outside the U.S. since I'm a horrible correspondent. It may be awfully exciting, given the political situation in Nepal. Then again, reports back on my days spent in the National Archives in Kathmandu (or as S. refers to it, Kat-daddy-man-du) combing through manuscripts might induce a deep narcoleptic state in you, my dear reader.

I've been kicking around the idea of writing a blog for a while, and since I was encouraged recently to keep a journal about my upcoming year in Nepal on a Fulbright AND encouraged by my friend, Y.'s attempt to found her own patch of land in cyberspace (does anyone use this word any more?), I thought I'd take a shot at it since it was free, and I might learn something. Besides, the pun in the title was too good to resist, even though my French is execrable. I found it amusing, especially since I only started basing my identity on being a Cajun after I moved to the Northeast about 4 1/2 years ago.

La Roue de la Loi is the French translation for the dharmacakra (or dharmachakra), the Wheel of the Law (or Teaching or whatever, it's mulitvocal and best left in the original Sanskrit) that the Buddha was said to have set into motion when he first preached after his Enlightenment at Sarnath oh so many years ago. Laissez les bon temps roulez is, of course, the rallying cry for crawfish to be boiled and beer to be ingested at alarming rates from where I come from. At least for that part of the population that descended from the folks that got out of Lafayette and the surrounding environs because, as Steve Earle said, there ain't nobody hirin' back in Lafeyette. Anyway, part of the inspiration for this my first post is from a member of my academic cohort, Ryan and the subtitle of his blog. There, I have acknowledged and properly credited my sources as a good grad student should.