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[05 Jan 2010|12:59am] |
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Coded Language-Saul Williams (Amethyst Rock Star) |
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Who was I back then?
Nothing there; inquire within.
I occupy now.
© 2009 Jones Alexander
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| Love |
[05 Jan 2010|12:50am] |
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1987-Saul Williams(Amethyst Rock Star) |
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"I've always loved you"
is another way to say
"We've never been two"
© 2009 Jones Alexander
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| Circular (To Be Revised) |
[05 Jan 2010|12:48am] |
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1987-Saul Williams(Amethyst Rock Star) |
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I'd been thinking about sharing the prayer we pray
At any and all times each and every day
sometimes with no consolation
after those moments, with a tender kiss
Notice how our bodies--even they--
when they say such meaning as we mean
tend to lisp, and no angry words unsay that joy
and this fervor shakes its ass,
knows nothing at all, especially not enough.
have you not heard a coyote mourn?
It sings the same way. Longing and breath.
Pouring it all in the lonely moon.
We two were born in the east.
We were our parents' promises to each other.
We are the heartache and pride
of mountains and deserts and everything else
self sufficient, seeming desolate, ignorant of desperate
How I have loved you!
How your irises have always soothed me
and your closed eyes are why night comes.
This closeness stretches out like no border,
like deathlessness, like the truth of one.
© 2009 Jones Alexander
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| Thirst |
[05 Jan 2010|12:46am] |
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Om Nia Merican-Saul Williams (Amethyst Rock Star) |
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I
A ravenous thing,
I desire every lick--
every star haunts the urge
These words are flung:
salt, life, warmth, openness
seasons, torrent, fervor, mood,
longing, reflection, smoothing,
harbor, genesis, symbol, host,
death, undertow, blood, home.
II
I have cried out in passion, no nails.
You have seen a dogwood wither
You have seen in its leaves
the moving from purity to experience
white becomings to bloodied falls
And my heart, transmuted
evanescent bloom to aging cypress
I have dreamt your hidden name
and awakened warm, in sweat
the whisper of cymbals against
my dark skin, dark eyes
where your tears have been--
Also sacrosanct, fearless,
Without self-esteem or awareness--
a drum resounding intently
through my resting flesh.
And the earth is becoming
a grave for words, only rustles remain
The glass is grateful to the wine.
You know what it is to bear
the means of drunkenness
and its muddled rhapsodies,
determinations, warmth, pillow talk.
But what thanks have you given
to be such a vessel?
When have you been content
or crept closer still? Or slept
without thought of tomorrow
what you will eat, sleep, wear
In my patient, starving arms?
My love, nobody gets to be the meaning.
I think you know this and are maddened.
III
The old oak loses it's voice until spring
And I, a man, a thing with only one tongue,
Clumsy and earthen, must only layer clothing.
What is the high point of a curse?
How many supplications have been laid--
green, then golden, then waiting to rot
without a hope for any personal glory and
lacking in meaningful sacrifice or pain--
at your beleaguered doorstep,
as if to harvest g-ds or young queens.
I have seen your smeared rouge
and the bruises singing glad from your skin
and the offering smoke in your eyes
And I remember the slaughter of the prophets
After they'd cut themselves for a deaf god
And I remember Jesus' initial silence,
the Word writing every accuser's sin
I will taste him on your lips
and touch where his fingers looked.
Yes, I will seek out your infidelity
And taste it and welcome you still.
.
Haven't you heard?
Winter is coming.
And "judge not," lest she leave you.
And, "Lo, I am with you always."
And, I do not have the dignity of Habakkuk.
And, "I say, 7 times 70, you should forgive."
And perhaps in spring when the oak
interprets again for the wind...
© 2009 Jones Alexander
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| mulu caves, borneo |
[01 Jan 2010|08:14pm] |
I spent New Years at my parents house in rural SC. As you can imagine there wasn't much going on down here so I spent some quiet time with myself. I grilled up a t-bone, mixed up some powdered potatoes and sat down in front of my parents giant screen TV to watch some episodes from Planet Earth. The first episode I watched was the one that explored caves and it made me a bit reminescent of my time spent in Borneo. Because I visited one of the caves that the PE featured! In checking through my past entries I realize I never got around to writing about visiting Mulu Caves nor did I get around to posting any of the photos. I am sure I meant to but slow per-minute internet connections coupled with other things going on conspired against me.*
It's pretty much impossible to reach Mulu caves by land as they have been formed in a remote area of Borneo frequented only by locals or logging companies bent on cutting down as much as the rainforest as possible. During certain times of years one can take a series of jeeps and boats to the complex but the journey is long, uncomfortable, expensive and extremely unreliable. I decided it would be best to fly in. Everything that I had read suggested a flight to this portion of Borneo is about the only flight that needs to be prebooked. With few (1 or 2) airlines serving this route seats are limited and fill quickly. 2 months beforehand I attempted to book a few flights only to discover that they were all "booked" but when I checked a few weeks later openings had suddenly appeared. I was even more surprised when I boarded the plane to discover only 9 other passengers, on a plane designed to hold around 50.
The caves sit in a national park and have been classified by UNESCO as a world heritage site which has the added benefit of forcing the Malaysian government to properly maintain and protect this site. Once arriving at the park I was immediately impressed by the infrastructure. A variety of accommodation is offered, from deluxe air conditioned cabins to 14 bed dormitories. There is an onsite restaurant that serves up a variety of hot and cold dishes at reasonable prices (except for the extortionary cost of bottled water). A wooden boardwalk connects all of the buildings with the surrounding caves and places of interest. The visitor center has a wonderful museum explaining a bit about the area and offers a variety of inexpensive guided programs. It is forbidden to enter a cave without a guide.
I spent two nights here and visited 5 caves in that time, all over the course of one very long day. The 3 caves in the morning while impressive where nothing extraordinary. They were caves. Similar to caves that I had visited in the US. However the two caves I visited in the afternoon where the showcase caves and the main reason for the popularity of this park.
Deer cave, up until earlier last year, had the honor of being the largest cave passage in the world. It has been said that it is possible to fly a jumbo jet through it. While this might technically be true the plane wouldn't get far as there are a variety of obstacles that would stand in it's way. It is named deer cave in recognition of the multitudes of deer that used to come to the cave to eat the large piles of bat droppings that litter the floor. But, sadly, thanks to tourism a deer hasn't been spotted in the cave in a long long time. However the bats are still there, 3 million of them is the best estimate, and still produce big piles of guano in between their constant chittering that echoes throughout the cave. They often all swamr out of the cave, en masse, at twilight each day but they were on strike when I was there. They never flew out (rainy conditions had kept them inside for about a week). Aside from the vastness of the passage, the massive piles of guano and the chittering bats Deer cave isn't a pretty cave. For real beauty you have to visit the cave next to it, Lang cave.
And here I will let photos show just how beautiful this cave is.
Check out the bat in the lower corner of this photo. It was a nice, and totally unplanned, surprise!
( Deer cave and the others )
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[31 Dec 2009|04:36pm] |
Below the cut I have collected the first lines from my first entry for each month this past year. It's amazing how unrepresentative they are of my year! I was also surprised with how little I posted during the middle months.
I suppose I can't complain about this year. It's been one of the better ones for me and my family. My parents retired, my sister got engaged, I spent xmas with my family for the first time since 2006 and I didn't lose anyone who was close to me.
I spent my first winter in Antarctica. I experienced some of the coldest, windiest temperatures I ever have and survived without getting frost bite once. I had toes so cold that they took all afternoon to thaw out. I had a beard so long it could have supported a small colony of chipmunks. I counted stars at noon and watched grand auroras fill the sky. I got to crawl around in sewage and submit an entry to Antarctica's only 48 hr film festival. I drove vehicles with tires as big as me and mastered the art of driving the archaic m4k forklift.
I set foot on my final continent and then traversed the whole thing on a train. I observed up close and in person wildlife that previously I had only seen in a zoo or on wikipedia. I experimented with fruits and developed a taste for the delicious durian. I jumped out of a plane and then got to meet Locke.
I turned 30, and although it was at a place I never imagined I would visit, I am still as lost as I was when I turned 29. I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. I decided to return to McM for another winter although with much more hesitation than I did the first time. I didn't fall in love this year, I didn't meet the person that has been promised to me by fairy tales. And even though Astrology.com begs to differ I don't think that will change in 2010.
So, yeah, a good year. I suppose. Hopefully 2010 will be more than more of the same.
( Read more... )
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| My 47th state* |
[30 Dec 2009|04:10pm] |
Walking through Hawaii customs I was immediately disappointed. All I found waiting for me was heat, sunlight and stray luggage carts. There were no hula girls. There was no Don Ho sitting in the corner playing the ukulele. More alarmingly there was no one to place a lei over my head, like I had been promised by every movie I had ever seen that took place in Hawaii.
Disgustedly I pushed my way through the crowds and headed to the exit, disappointed by my lack of a lei but pleased to be back in an American airport where I didn’t have to listen to a chorus of ‘transport” from the taxi boys. For this leg of my trip I was staying with a friend who had arranged to pick me up. I waited.
After a few minutes she arrived and jumped out of the driver seat to give me a hug AND place a brand new, fresh, lei over my neck. I was so happy. I was so excited. This was the Hawaii that I had come to see. It was from this blessed moment that my Hawaii trip began and from this moment that my expectations continued to be met and exceeded as each day proved more exciting than the last.
While Oahu has a fairly extensive bus system (named “The Bus’) that can get you to most of the island I knew that in order to see the things I wanted to I would have to rent a car for this leg of my journey. Before arriving I priced a variety of models and companies online and was surprised to discover how inexpensive it could be to rent a car. Being rather cheap I was leaning towards the 20 dollar economy car but then discovered that at Advantage I could rent a mustang convertible for only 30 dollars. I splurged and got the convertible.
Admittedly I was a bit nervous about the whole thing as this was the first time I had driven in the real world since September of 2008. Luckily driving a car is like riding a bike and it all came back rather quickly. I soon discovered myself cursing Oahu’s ridiculously low speed limits and became desperate for speed. The highest limit I came across was 60mph but most of the roads were around 50mph with random and inexplicable sudden drops to 25mph. I might have gone a bit over the limit at times. Purely accidental, of course. I had a brief moment of panic when I was pulling into a parking spot at 7-11 and watched the car next to me back into the front of my car. The loud crunch that resounded as we met belied the lack of damage that ultimately ensued. Amazingly not even a scuff mark was on the car, which made the other drivers, a kid, explanation of “I just wasn’t looking” seem a bit more palatable.
I don’t eat fruit on a regular basis. Occasionally I will stuff something fresh down my mouth but it’s done as a novelty, something unique, done for the sheer shock value to benefit on looking friends. Still I am a bit curious about the fruit industry and decided to drive over to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. To be honest I didn’t learn a whole lot from the visit. I did get to see some baby pineapples and then had my finger pricked by a pineapple plant branch. It was as if the plant knew that I despised it and decided to lash out at me. I always knew fruit was out to get me. The highlight was getting lost in the “world’s largest maze”. The object was to locate 8 stations as quickly as possible. The record was around 22 minutes. It took my friend and I around 70.
Before arriving in HI I knew the one thing I definitely wanted to visit was the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. This is one of the ships that the Japanese sank and was the ship that suffered the highest amount of casualties. I didn’t really know what to expect when I arrived here. Obviously the site, and the ship, is an historical relic but unlike other props of the past this one is still alive in a sense. There are still men alive who escaped the ship as it sunk, still men alive who remember the bombing of Pearl Harbor, who still hear the sounds of the explosions and smell the burning fuel. Having this living connection, knowing that something as massive and tragic as this event occurred in someones lifetime, perhaps the old guy sitting next to you on the shuttle boat, some how makes it feel a bit more meaningful and I found myself wandering around with a profound sense of reverence and fear.
The memorial sits above where the ship sank and you are able to view many parts of the upper deck as well as small surface pools of oil that have been leaking up ever since the sinking. Evenly spaced vantage points provide views of the shore and concrete bulwarks indicate where the other ships were sitting on that day in December. I’d say I tried to imagine what it must have been like on that morning but my mind turns to Ben Affleck and I embarrassingly realize I could never understand. At the far end of the memorial is a marble wall bearing the names of everyone who perished on the ship. The names are overwhelming, a numbing list that humbles while raising the specter of your own mortality, and provide a little more context to the stark figure of “number of casualties.” When you have names you have people, you have lives, you have so much more than a statistic. I don’t like saying that this place was great as the adjective tends to lump it into other more mundane experiences but it was great, for what it is. It was very tastefully done.
For a few more weeks Lost will be filmed on Oahu as it has been for the entire length of it’s run. What this means for Lost tourists is that the island offers an abudance of “as seen on” moments with an occasional unused prop thrown in on occasion. I did some research about this before I came to the island and selected some iconic things that I would recognize. I quickly realized that most jungle or beach settings would mean nothing to me as I probably wouldn’t be able to tell if I was on a “legitimate” spot. Basically I ended up tracking down the fuselage of the doomed airliner, the plane that Eko’s brother crashed in, the cockpit of the Oceania flight (on private property, I was asked to leave) and the dock that the Others use. It all sounds dorky, I’ll admit, but it was a lot of fun to track these things down!
I’d feel remiss if I don’t mention the beauty of Hawaii. It is all around you, it permeates from everything. Even as the highways and buildings try to hide it away it still manages to overwhelm our modern constructions. Highways double as scenic over looks and offer up frequent turn offs, as if the planners realized that the astounding beauty would cause traffic jams lest an outlet was provided for distracted drivers. Waves lap and crash into the white sand beaches as turtles swim freely near the shore, their large shells, moveable rocks, protruding from the surface.
*remaining states:
West Virginia (might be visiting next week)
Alaska
Wisconsin
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| BBC: Life |
[28 Dec 2009|09:55pm] |
as my return to Antarctica grows closer I find myself seeking out blogs and other websites related to the continent in an effort to provide an outlet for some of my excitement. A few days ago I came across a clip on Youtube from the new BBC series "Life" that was filmed at McMurdo when I was down there. I met the people who filmed this clip. I still think that is awesome.
Before the BBC packed up and left they showed us some of the raw footage of this clip but it's much more exciting to hear Sir Attenborough (who, incidentally, will be down there when I arrive in Jan. Luckily I will arrive just in time for his presentation to the community. CAN'T WAIT!) narrating it.
The clip is time lapse video which is why the starfish are moving so fast. The clip was shot over weeks and edited etc. It was also a rigged shot. The seal that all the animals are feeding on was found, already dead, on the ice surface and the BBC guys came around and "sunk" it.
YOutube won't allow me to embed the video but here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG17TsgV_qI
It's about 2 and a half minutes long and quite wonderful. For an underwater shot the clarity is amazing.
Now, a question. I am thinking about buying this series to watch during the winter. Since it is only available in the UK I would have to buy it from Amazon UK. Now the DVD is region 2 and with the PAL format. Obviously I won't be able to play it on a US tv but would it work on my laptop?? The series won't be aired in the US until later next year and the narrator is going to be Oprah which is a bunch of crap.
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