Soon. Road Trip time 2013. Teresa and Patricia, my lovely granddaughters, and I will gas up the old Mazda and be off. To the Northlands. Through the Rockies and the Black Hills and maybe Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Along some stretches of the Great Plains. We will cross the border into Canada and spend the night in Winnipeg. THEN. MINNESOTA. All Minnesota for more than a week. Girls will fly back to their homes; I will pick up Cousin Vivian in Sioux Falls for our long-anticipated journey to see the last of our other living cousins in the Bitterroot Valley of Western Montana. Back to Sioux Falls. And finally, mid-June, I’ll drive home to Albuquerque.No freeways allowed at least until Vivian and I start back from Montana. I am only a little nervous. It will be about 5000 miles! Will the Mazda make it? Will I overdose on Cheetos, McD fish sandwiches and apple turnovers, Fritos and gas station bean dip. And just how many Starbucks will we find in back-roads America?

I AM VERY EXCITED. Road trips are the best of life experiences. On this trip I have the additional pleasure of introducing Teresa and Patricia to a part of the country they have never seen. This is a big bold beautiful country, the geography of which I love…some of the people not so much. But what a grand chunk of land—which I have crisscrossed many times, so many in fact it’s getting harder and harder to find new roads.

The trip will be outlined state by state in the next series of blogs on Time and Place (mneset.wordpress.com) in case you are ever going that way. An unfamiliar back road selected and then reviewed—Trip Advisor for roadies (of the car trip persuasion).

Each of the regions through which we’ll travel has its time-honored images, its romantic tales and improbable heroes. The Rockies for example—mountain men, trappers, wild horses, Kit Carson, John Denver (“Rocky Mountain High” has taken on a new meaning these days!), right-wing Christians in Colorado Spring, environmentally-aware artists in Boulder and staggeringly high snow-covered peaks/deep blue lakes/awesome pine forests. This will be my first time traveling north up the western slope so this piece of the road will be all new.

The Black Hills is a special place, not quite the high country of the Rockies but way more than hills. It’s Indian country with the Crazy Horse Memorial (honoring the Lakota warrior, also the largest sculpture in the world) and history country with Mount Rushmore’s presidential faces (name them!). With ranches straight out of the old west tucked in wooded canyons, tourist traps galore (Deadwood, Wall Drugstore, etc.), good buffalo burgers probably and plentiful photo ops with Sturgis motorcycle rally hangers-on.

Heading almost due north we’ll reach the North Dakota Badlands and Teddy Roosevelt National Park. I’ve gone this route a few times and I love it for its crazy rock formations and wild cowboy scenery all mixed in with the wide open spaces of the Great Plains. Cattle drinking around the stock tanks filled by the creaking pull of windmills; the loneliest of lonely ranch house in the distance, gargoyles of rock just around the corner looming over an innocent flock of sheep and their guardian border collie.

Because of our routing through the Rockies and the Black Hills there won’t be the usual endless miles of Great Plains that never seem to become boring to me if I stay off the freeways. Still, from Fort Collins, Colorado up to the Black Hills and then past the Black Hills, through the Badlands, over the border and into Winnipeg should give my granddaughters a good feel for these endless glorious expanses. This is really Indian country and I want the girls to read at least some part of Ian Frazier’s The Great Plains before/during the trip to get a feel for how completely tribal ways and tribal lore permeate every mile of this prairie. There you have an outline of the first third of this epic summer road trip.

Nora and her enthusiastic new fan, Teresa

MIRIAM, Nora Chipaumire’s new performance piece, consumed (as in “to fill somebody’s mind or attention” or be “fully consumed by a desire for new experiences”) the audience at the N4th Theater last weekend. One of whom was my granddaughter Teresa who said that MIRIAM left her feeling excited and joyful and like she had experienced something new that she wanted to know more about. She didn’t say ‘consumed’ but that seemed to be the experience she was describing!

Nora,  Okwui Okpokwasili, and the team were here for a wonderful week of rehearsing, teaching and visiting, for two unique and powerful performances and a final evening of Academy Award-show viewing.  After our brilliant first JOURNEYS week with Philippe Blanchard and company, it was almost an embarrassment of riches to be equally awed and overjoyed by a second week of all-around great performance and fantastic friendship.

The beautiful and talented Okwui Okpokwasili

Nora Chipaumire is, quite simply, a powerful presence in any setting. On the stage— motionless, moving, silent, sound-making; talking, teaching, writing about dance; sitting on the couch commenting on Hollywood fashion choices; or in her mom’s photos from a past life in Zimbabwe.

Young Ms. Chipaumire

Although I have only known Nora for a few years I have not wanted to take my eyes off her since seeing her first solo. She is one of a few performers I know who seems to concentrate more than her share of the universe’s energy completely within her own skin. When she is performing that energy field is connecting with other artists in the work and with the audience in quite a special way—like a fierce but friendly molecular exchange.

Okay, so that is too esoteric-sounding but it is as good a description as any of the way I respond to Nora the creative presence.

MIRIAM is a work about ‘othering’ and about the burdens of iconic women, i.e. Miriam Makeba. I mention this because I came away from the performance empowered by the camaraderie and authority that result from sharing dark places, with no experience of othering or otherness…the opposite in fact!

The darkness of the space, both for performers and audience pulled me right into the middle of the action. The separation from the performers/performance we normally experience—lit stage/dark seating area—are gone. I’m there. With the performers. It is a dense dark until your eyes adjust and the seemingly random bits of brightness eliminate our existential night fear. Flashlight, spotlight, headlight, bulb-light. match-light, exit-light. And there are strange sticks and shiny shapes  scattered around the yard/field/cave, random bits of trinkets and trash. And totems—perhaps? It’s a space in Africa, maybe Zimbabwe, Nora’s birthplace and home. I treasure “magic places” (we each have our own!). Mine include Christiania, an area in Copenhagen, settled by the counter-culture and still a sacred spot of “otherness” lit with candles and Christmas light strings and scented with smoke from small wood fires crackling and vegetables roasting and coffee boiling and tobacco and grass inhaling/exhaling. And Norway with thousands of small stones transformed into whimsical sculptures, towers, bridges, troll dwellings  blanketing the mountainsides. And Haiti—an entire magic country full of color and smell and rubble and confusion and voodoo. But NOW I’m with Nora and Okwui in this newly created magic place that used to be the N4th Theater.

So…in this small warm littered space to which I have been invited dwell two women. Or are they just passing through? The shouts, grunts, threats and soliloquies speak of intimidation and victory and of women’s losses and women’s gains. So…I am a woman and I am at home and comfortable here with Nora and Okwui and whatever other spirits inhabit our friendly dark.

MIRIAM is not a story or a dance. MIRIAM is a big human experience.

Nora spends Oscar night with us. “Seriously!…she’s wearing THAT on the red carpet?” says Nora.

Nora’s biography is long and impressive—degrees in law and dance, Bessies (New York Dance and Performance Awards), years as the featured performer with Urban Bush Women and positions in many colleges/recipient of multiple awards. She is married to the love of her life, a dance artist of comparable talent and a quite powerful presence himself. She is making new work that moves in yet another direction—and will eventually involve various family members from Zimbabwe, London and other far-flung places within Nora’s sphere of interest and world of possibilities.

The N4th Theater has presented an extraordinary array of international dance and dance-theater artists over the past years and we have been the beneficiaries of their global perspectives, creativity, skills, friendship and humor. Now, as we bring Global DanceFest/JOURNEYS to a close in 2013, I want to record a memory of each of the last four companies.

During a cold February, N4th‘s visiting artists explored the idea of ‘otherness’ in a piece created by Philippe Blanchard (FR/SE) called How about you? The idea that we need others to compare ourselves with and define ourselves through is not new but exploring it through an engaging piece of dance-theater performed by Italian identical twin brothers, Gabriele and Luca Stefani, is nothing short of brilliant. How About You? was the hit of ICE HOT, a dance festival of Nordic works held in Stockholm in 2010. Now it has ‘journeyed’ to Albuquerque—which is an example of why presenting international artists has been so appealing and pleasurable over the years.

Presenters are responsible for curating and implementing artistic programs. I became a presenter after discovering and falling in love with contemporary dance and theater and wanting to share it with my Albuquerque community. I became a presenter of international dance artists when I realized they could share so much about other cultures with New Mexicans… and because of my endless curiosity about global life and culture.

Through Global DanceFest and JOURNEYS, my curiosity has been both piqued and satisfied as artists from across the globe have visited the North Fourth Art Center and invited us into their artistic and personal lives through dance. How About You? seems—to me—to represent contemporary Europe intellectually/artistically and socially.

Creator, Philippe Blanchard, with important prop

It is a work about principal ideas—in this case identity. Blanchard has written: “There’s more of me somewhere else. Somewhere perhaps where I’ve never been.” This may be derived from the theory that people have twin souls, but also addresses the existential issue of how you identify yourself through other people, see parts of yourself in others, and as a result also judge and interpret other people by comparing them. (Cecilia Djurberg/ Nummer.se, 2010).

Through the Stefani twins identity is sharply questioned, vigorously investigated but never quite defined. How About You seeks another’s closeness, then rejects it when space feels invaded by that very proximity. Blanchard is a thoughtful and perceptive creator who could likely have made a theme such as this work with performers who look nothing like each other. However the conundrum that is identity is made even more perplexing when the study is being performed by identical twins.

The artists that comprise the creative and technical/management team represent the new Europe without borders, or at least with fewer borders, and where the wars are usually fought with currency not guns. They come from France, Italy, the U.S. and Germany. They live in London, Brighton, Stockholm, Paris, Ghent and Malmo. They are European socially with shared expectations of what social democracy has meant—support for the things that give life some measure of security and for the things (such as the arts) that offer citizens the opportunity to transcend the ordinary. Somehow they seem a little more self-assured than many of America’s contemporary artists because of that support—the next barista job being just a little further away than it is for most American artists.

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The performance was a success, the artist relaxes

ARTISTS AND SUPPORT STAFF:

Philippe Blanchard (FR/SE) is the creator/choreographer. His bio says…For nearly twenty years, Blanchard’s creative work has pushed boundaries and refused to conform to expectations, or to remain within one single frame. An adventurous artist daring to explore unknown subjects and methods, he develops his expression in a continual process of investigation where every project is bound to its own rules while moving consciously forward from the previous one.

Philippe and I had coffee on a blowy snowy Helsinki morning in December; he was bleary-eyed from exhaustion after a much-delayed flight but nevertheless articulate and very earnest about wanting me to understand his work. I liked him so much immediately…and thought what an ideal representative of European contemporary dance he is to be part of this final 2013 delegation of dance artists at North Fourth Art Center. He is an intelligent and original artist, born in France, living and working throughout the continent and the U.K., an artist who is always looking for new ways to examine ideas through artistic expression—exactly what we have been trying to do through Global DanceFest and JOURNEYS since they began. (MN)

It’s all about IDENTITY

 Stifani Brothers (IT/UK) are the Performers.  According to their bios… Twin brothers Luca and Gabriele Stifani were born 15 minutes apart in a small town in the south east of Italy in 1980. Growing up the sons of a butcher, they both developed a keen interest in film at an early age, putting years of cutting skills learned at the family-run butcher shop towards clipping and selecting raw video footage. At secondary school they majored in graphic design and photography, retaining film making as their great passion. They studied media production in the UK and have worked throughout Europe and South Africa. Luca and Gabriele Stifani are currently writing and developing their first feature film The Butcher. Performing/dancing is much newer to their lives but conducted with the same talent, skill and enthusiasm as their other endeavors.

 I had not actually met Luca and Gabriele until they arrived this month at the Sunport—although after watching How About You from the front row of a small theater in Stockholm, it was easy to recognize them. It turns out these guys are very special, not just because they are talented artists which they are, but because they are such very good story tellers, telling tales of their lives as small town kids, their pet horse—a very very mean pet horse, their road trip adventures, etc. The nicest thing in some ways is how thrilled they are to be here—in the wild west—and at our friendly little theater.

Uli, Maika, Peter

 The rest of the artistic and technical/management crew are equally creative, imaginative and friendly: Peter Connelly, from the U.S., living in Ghent, is the Sound Designer of How About You in addition to creating sound designs for many European productions. He moved to Europe right after film school because 1) all of his favorite movies were European and 2) he admired his classmates from abroad who seemed to have a different, deeper way of communicating  based on their home countries’ small populations and intensely shared histories. He has worked there ever since.

Maika Knoblich was born in East Germany and presently lives in Berlin. She is a talented Lighting Designer and is completing a Masters degree in Amsterdam. As part of that program she has worked on a project in Greece that involved her in a squatter’s theater (vacant theater occupied by artists) and a back to the land movement reflecting Greece’s troubled economy.

Uli Ruchlinski, Technical Coordinator, is German by birth but lives in Malmo, Sweden with his family. In addition to his stage building and lighting design he is also a boat builder although theater has mostly occupied his time in recent years. He is a full-time theater director at the present. Uli describes himself as a jack-of-all trades partially because, in addition to theater and boats, he is a musician—electric bass and guitar—focusing on psychedelic rock from the 60s and 70s and African drums.

Ophelie and Uli

Finally…last but certainly not least…that very efficient and accommodating Tour and Production Manager, Ophelie Alegre (France, Sweden, France) who turns out to be a serious music aficionado. She started out dancing to Michael Jackson as a young kid, graduated to “Carmen” because it was one of her mother’s favorites, moved on to Madonna and graduated to punk rock and setting up music shows on the local club scene. Ophelie was quite excited to find a band “Om” she has been following for some time, performing at Sister in Albuquerque while she was here.

We run into the Twins on their way out of NM-on the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge…we wanted to keep them here forever

Seeing the world through ‘time and place’ is why this blog exists. I have been thinking a lot about seeing this week as ‘stinging eye syndrome’ has been bothering me. Or maybe the condition is officially called ‘New Mexico dry eye.’ Anyway my sore eyes made me think about seeing and all of the ways we see the world…here are some of the ways and eyes through which I see the world.

• Teresa
• Filmmakers
• Dancers

Teresa, preparing for her working life

Teresa is my eldest grandchild, an exceptional (of course) 22-year-old who just graduated with a Civil Engineering degree from UCLA and who has an equally exceptional cinematographer boyfriend AND who is simply pure fun to hang out with. The world through the eyes of a young woman secure and happy with her childhood, reveling in young womanhood and excited about her professional and personal future is quite an enticing place. In Teresa’s case it is also a multi-cultural journey; she’s Asian/Caucasian, her friends have family origins in every corner of Asia and elsewhere and she and I have spent some quality travel time in Europe—where we read late into the night and consequently sleep so late we miss the full 12-hour sight-seeing experience—settling for a wimpy eight hours of trekking about on buses, trains and feet. I so love the world through her eyes, it is wildly diverse in cuisine, colors and climates from Filipino rice paddies to Icelandic glaciers. It has interesting people, fulfilling jobs and livable salaries. It has great promise.

On with the show…

ANOTHER MOVIE SUNDAY: Lina, Teresa and I slogged on through the Oscar nominations. Even though we all love movies…as I viewed my ninth film late Sunday afternoon, it WAS feeling like a bit of a slog! My own movie marathon included finishing two more Oscar possibilities and two Netflix items, The King’s Speech (brilliant) and Queen of Versailles (most interesting).

Reviews: First on Sunday, Life of Pi. A young Indian boy is the lone human survivor of a shipwreck, his only companion a very LARGE, very FIERCE Bengal tiger. The boy finally washes up on shore and is saved but the tiger disappears forever. Did it all happen? Or is it pure fable? The Life of Pi is another magical tale of survival, not entirely unlike Beasts of the Southern Wilds and neither better nor worse. It is cinematically lush and wild with big beasts and raging seas. Pi’s story is almost real, as was Hush Puppy’s. His adventure begins in India and winds up on a Mexican beach; hers begins and ends in the Louisiana bayous—but the passages are equally stormy.

Next we fortified ourselves with a tasty snack of cheesy-yet crispy, salty-yet sweet Portobello mushrooms, grilled shrimp AND beer at the near-by brewpub then returned to the theater for Zero Dark Thirty. I thought I knew something about the capture of bin Laden, turns out not so much. This is an intense dark too-real film about U.S. treatment/torture of terrorist suspects, the search for and killing of bin Laden and the woman who—to a great degree—made that happen. I had no clue about her story and imagine that may be true of most people who see this film. I very much regret not reading up on it ahead of time because it took the first 30 minutes of the film (admittedly that large glass of pretty amber brew didn’t help my level of alertness) for me to understand that it was HER story. It is a powerful movie based on a powerful story and, although there has been some flak about inaccuracies, I believe it is probably truer than we would wish. And yay for Maya/Jessica—she is very good. Of course I love smart stubborn women and Jessica Chastain plays this one with grit and intensity, at the same time always acknowledging her very human vulnerability. So far Jessica is my favorite for best actress…can’t understand why the chick in “Silver Linings…” is ahead in the Oscar polls.

Philippe Blanchard

THE WORLD… DANCED: A company of European artists arrived Sunday night—for Philippe Blanchard’s presentation of his piece, “How About You” danced by identical twin performers from Italy by way of London. We, at the N4th Theater, have now known these artists for two whole days and we are in love with them, individually and as a group. AND by the way, if you live in New Mexico go to http://www.vsartsnm.org to find out more about this weekend’s performances.

Besides the fact that they are most interesting and pleasant to be around there are at least two fascinating layers of ponderables with this dance and this company.
• Is “How About You?” representative of the best of the European contemporary dance/performance scene where dance is rarely as simple as pretty moves, where dance frequently calls commonly held perceptions about art and culture into question and where dance almost always takes you in a direction you didn’t know you were going? Blanchard has crafted a work that—in his own words—is a celebration of life exploring identity, the definition of self, the search for oneself in someone else, the possibility of discovering who we are through other people, and our attempts to understand our similarities and differences.
• How has the process of Europeanization influenced the work these artists create together or separately? The choreographer, performers, manager and technical crew come from or are currently living in Sweden, the U.K., Italy, Germany, France and Belgium so in my head they embody my favorite stereotypes, realities, myths, and opinions about Europeans. I think they offer a pan-European sensibility which I would describe as worldly, liberal, intellectual (with green tendencies), more reasonable, less aggressive than us. My stereotypical European does not include soccer bullies or gangsters. How to SEE that side of Europe?

Stefani Twins & Ophelie

MEDIA: I have been writing about media defined as communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data, or promotional messages are disseminated. Media includes every broadcasting and narrowcasting medium such as newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail, telephone, fax, and internet. (From businessdictionary.com) I have been pondering the differences between old and new media! Just to complicate things I have included my granddaughter, movies and dance among MY communication channels.

Just can’t beat OLD MEDIA!

MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES…BUT FIRST MY WEEKLY NEW MEDIA UPDATE: Last time I wrote about the old media of books and movies while nevertheless declaring my fascination for and appreciation of the NEW. Then this week my best new media friends betrayed me. Droid, it turns out was downloading email during my entire two-week holiday out of the country. I did not ask him to do that and, in fact, thought he had been temporarily suspended but no…I had not hit OFF in enough places and that data was just eating up $300 of February’s budget. Never mind. Droid has now been banished to a drawer while I chastise my careless self by reverting to my old dumb phone for some months of money-saving atonement.

NOW, ON TO THE MOVIES: First up since I already reported on Argo and Lincoln last Sunday is Silver Linings Playbook (troubled young man and woman meet, fall in love and live happily ever after, maybe) on Wednesday night. What a perfect film. But I wasn’t in love with it (unless just a fleeting fantasy about youth and Bradley Cooper counts?). Everything was just right: people said fuck a lot which is de rigueur for all hip flicks; mental illness was front and center and the exchange about actual commonly prescribed meds—half the movie audience was probably on—Abilify, Xanex, Effexor, etc. made it contemporary and sophisticated; there was a lot of fighting and yelling so we would know it was like every real family, and the urban landscape and local color were great—good old Philly, home of Bradley Cooper and cheesesteaks and such like. Just the youngish love thing was a bit tiresome but certainly not for people who are youngish and in love or want to be. So my jaded self rates “Silver Linings Playbook” somewhere just above good—and the ‘just above’ is because Robert De Niro is quite simply perfect.

Moving on to Beasts of the Southern Wild. (plucky young girl survives awful things, man-made and environmental, and lives happily ever after, I’m pretty sure) Watched it at home Thursday night (after rejoining Netflix so I would never get this far behind in movies again) with two glasses of wine and an egg sandwich. Somehow it’s just not the same without popcorn and the big big screen and other people breathing, giggling or whispering here and there. Beasts is a tale of survival, otherness, independence and a crazy kind of bravery all just outside of our favorite city—New Orleans. I say favorite because Americans have adopted NOLA for its joie de vivre; rowdiness; corruption; unique African, African American, French, Deep South, Redneck culture and its TRAGIC weather history. Beasts of the Southern Wild offers up a place fondly referred to by its ragtag collection of residents as the “bathtub,” bayous, oil refinery-cluttered skylines, a symbolic porcupine boat, ramshackle habitations and a BIG storm. The oddball little collection of blacks and whites (in NOLA they all get along) survive for the most part and fight back by blowing up a levy so their dying bit of swamp can live again.

The question is…without Quvenzhané Wallis would this movie have been nominated for an Academy Award? Probably not. Hush Puppy and her ne’er-do-well daddy, a powerful angry confused drunken black man who does love his kid and the bathtub, ARE the film. The mystique of New Orleans, our national Hurricane Katrina psychosis, and one little magnificent compelling mesmerizing black girl have infused an ordinary tale with meaning and power. Beasts is ahead of Silver Linings but not in the top three yet.

Finally yesterday—scarily, violently, brilliantly (I say with some reluctance) there’s Django Unchained. (a cowboy and his sidekick kill a bunch of bad guys to save the beautiful girl and the lovers ride away into the sunset to live happily ever after, yeah, right!)
In Northome, Minnesota in the ‘50s the Royal Theater showed two movies a week, each them twice an evening for three days (as I remember it). My cousin Audrey was the cashier and when I stayed in town I could go to work with her as often as I wanted. And I loved movies, loved them, loved them. Along with books they were pretty much my only interests in life. Especially westerns and all those galloping horses with their glistening coats of many colors and mountains and wide open spaces. If memory serves me I sat through the entire six showings of many of my beloved cowboy movies.  So really—to me—Django Unchained is just Roy Rogers with violence times 1000!

I’ve only seen Reservoir Dogs before this present extravaganza of blood guts destruction death. Wow. The blood is so bright and spouting and spurting and, well, colorful and see how the bodies dive and dance. The bullets fly, creating artful patterns in all manner of materials. Okay, now I see why magazines with hundreds of bullets are so important—can’t kill as fast as Tarantino needs you to without lots and lots of rapid fire.

At heart though this is just an updated western with the same beautiful daring cowboys of old. This time the star is black, that’s different, but he’s no more or less valiant and handsome and strong than Gene and Roy. And his love, a pure (but vulnerable) beauty is a modern match for the most sought after and equally vulnerable blonde in old Dodge City. The landscape is still grand, the horses still fast and sleek. And there’s a little perk that was almost never there with those cowboys of yore. The many grungy illiterate mean bad guys turn out to be funny, especially in the Klan scene, but there are bits of nasty humor all over the place like the banter between the German bounty hunter good guy and Django in their ever-changing sidekick roles, and the simpering sister and that odd kissy-face relationship with her brother at Candyland.

Django Unchained is spectacular in its own Tarantinoesque way. It is not thoughtful or meaningful or unique or enlightening but it is a fine fine adventure story. It might be tied in my number two spot with Lincoln. Even though I hate that I think this gun-mad event is so good. Okay, four to go.

IT IS 2016 AND TIME AND PLACE THE BLOG IS BEING TURNED INTO A SERIES OF BOOKS. THIS IS THE FIRST POST FOR THE 2013-14 EDITION. A note seems in order. This post really belongs in my book blog, Avoiding the Real World, doesn’t it? But no, that’s not true. It is very much about being out there in the world through our most consistently available and the most thoughtfully enlightening form of travel—reading, and one of our most pleasurable and easy forms of travel—movies. So please join me for all my travels whether in books and media; train, car and plane; Time and Place for 2013 and 2014. (San Diego, Thanksgiving 2016)

LAUNCHING 2013 DEEP IN ‘OLD’ MEDIA: What’s not to love about my new Surface tablet, laptops, smart phone, smart camera, etc.? About facebook and google and all things to come? Nothing. My communications would be considerably slower, more cumbersome without them. They are so immediate, so today. But my heart lags behind with my old familiar friends, my ‘old’ media—books with paper and pages, movies with people and popcorn.

This weekend belonged to them. My means of travel without a ticket and of forgetting anything out of kilter in my life. And plain old education and entertainment all wrapped up a hard/soft cover or a warm dark theater.

The Books: Chrystia Freeland’s study of The Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else does cover the world. Although I am only about halfway through, this book has been an eye-opener. The word ‘plutocrat’ immediately brings to mind a gouty old white haired white man and/or his handsome polo/golf playing son who is in the process of inheriting the family fortune made from oil or trains or canals—in other words real things. They have vast amounts of money and reluctantly part with any of it but on occasion the workers/masses must be pacified so a penny-raise here, a library there are doled out. Wipe that image out of your mind.

The new plutocrats are a truly international cast of character, still mostly male but as apt to be from India or Russia or China as from NYC or London. And for the most part they made their money—the old fashioned way—working for it. The fact is that largely unforeseen and impossible to imagine technological advancements and wild fluctuations in world economies gave these new workers, with their Ivy League educations and good opinions of themselves, just the right moment in time to launch their fortune-seeking. Voila! The new Plutocrats. A very good book but you must pay attention…Freeland tells us almost too much about these One Percenters. They are not like you or me but they are not like Rockefeller or Vanderbilt either. Bill Gates is one, Steve Jobs was one. Starbucks and Google as well as the banks and hedge funds created them. They run the world.

 Finished, in the middle of or just beginning tales of dastardly deeds from Paris (Murder in the Marais by Cara Black), Iceland (The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridsason) and Denmark/Lithuania (The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Friis). It’s all about seeing the world after all. Whether through the eyes of those new very rich kids on earth’s blocks or lively girl and cranky boy detectives it can still be an exciting trip. Cara Black’s heroine Aimee Leduc is simply too wild, crazy, cute, sexy to have the touch of believability I demand from my mysteries. She’s over the top—Angelina Jolie in “Salt.” I really like my friends in the murder business to be a bit gloomier and being a little older doesn’t hurt. Like Indridason’s cops, all flawed enough to be my neighbors, or the screw-up do-gooder character of Nina in “The Boy in the Suitcase” with a past that we are not privy to early on. Just started the latter book and these two Danish authors are new to me so not sure how I feel about it yet. As long as no superheroes, male or female, appear it may be alright. But Henning Mankell they aren’t.

Movies: Time to try once again to accomplish that ever-elusive mission—seeing all the movies nominated for Oscars before THE SHOW which is February 24^th this year. Starting this weekend with Argo and Lincoln and as usual cursing myself for not going to the movies more often because I so love them when I do.

Continuing with the weekend travels…books to film. To Iran this time with Argo which is now one of my 10 or 20 film favorites. Very unexpected. I thought I was going to a movie I would like but not love—but who can know when that magic moment will happen and you fall … in love … with him her them it. Argo is history lesson, suspense, comedy. True story. When Iran took U.S. Embassy staff as hostages, six people escaped and wound up at the Canadian Embassy; a crazy movie-making plot was hatched up by a CIA good guy, Ben Affleck; it worked and the six managed to make it to a Swiss Air flight out of the country in the nick of time. Even though I knew how it all turns out it was still edge of the seat for me. Not an easily achievable mix, tension and Hollywood wise guy jokes, but Affleck handily put it all together. There is certainly a political slant but no really pure characters (well except Ben’s CIA guy!).

Finally I stayed closer to home with Lincoln, traveling back in time to watch a badly corrupted, chaotic and frequently downright stupid U.S. House of Representatives. And yes everyone that says ‘things never change, do they…it’s just like today’, is partially right. But the worst of the reps from Lincoln’s time still don’t seem quite as disingenuous and cluelessly dumb as most of today’s U.S. representatives. It is a great movie in any case. I could see Tony Kushner’s theatrical sensibility everywhere (my imagination perhaps) in the dark and dreamy background, the vivid lush sometimes stark scenes, the staginess of it all.

A culturally rich few days with my old media pals…now back to posting, googling, blogging, texting…

A BELATED HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Me and my new best Haitian friend

Here in colonial Santo Domingo it is almost 4pm on a steamy Thursday afternoon. In (fictitious) Maarsdam, (maybe) Sweden it is cold, will be raining again in a minute and the murderer has just decided he must kill again. (“Hour of the Wolf”/Hakan Nesser)

In Haiti it is 1791 and the revolt of the slaves is taking shape. It is bloody from the beginning as has been the history of Haiti since Columbus arrived on these shores. Sugar cane fields are burning, knives are slashing, guns are blazing, rape is the ultimate revenge and let’s see where this all ends up. (“All Souls’ Rising”/Madison Smartt Bell)

Meanwhile… back to the north, Stockholm to be exact, it’s nasty December weather—what a time to exchange a warm stay-at-home evening for a face to face with colleagues you don’t like over a bloody body in a cold flat.  And to figure out what any of this has to do with a cold case attack on the German Embassy some year ago. (“Another Time, Another Life”/Leif F.S. Persson)

What I’m reading when I am not drinking beer.

MEANWHILE it is still the first week of January 2013 in Santo Domingo. Travel is many things. One of them is boredom. Enervating boredom. I have my book friends (referenced above) but at the moment neither Swedish detectives nor Haitian freedom fighters are of interest. I’m so done with the Calle El Conde of cheap stores, bad food and tacky souvenirs. What to do. One more day here. One at the beach near the airport. One to get home home home home.

Paul Theroux grouses about places and situations all of the time … so can I. And, honestly, the Santo Domingo is boring … in its lack of a strong cultural heritage; in the sense that it could be a slightly tacky Miami suburb; in that there’s just no here here. Although there are more malfunctioning car alarms per square foot than anywhere else in the world. And there may even be more pizza parlors. And and and and…

We did go to the Botanical Garden this morning. It’s reasonably beautiful. The famed orchids are in their off-season but a few brightened our walk. We stopped at what turned out to be a down-at-the-heels shopping center and walked from there to a little street side restaurant that specialized in white sauce (my fault, didn’t know what to order that wouldn’t be white!—whatever prompted me to come without a dictionary).

Enjoy my flowers.

Beer and white sauce, lunch of the gods

AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOODNIGHT! FROM THE SUNNY LAZY SLIGHTLY INEBRIATED CARIBBEAN.

Today, January 2, 2013, I am in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. And no matter what I do on these travels I can never get away from ME. I am observing my brother and sister-in-law closely and it appears they brought themselves along on this trip too.

I, for example, spent my first days in our latest little low-budget hotel on Parque Colon with my second-floor balcony doors wide open through the worst of the New Year’s noise because my brother selected this hotel in which, it turns out, the choice is between having a balcony room on a busy street in this spectacularly noisy culture and having a quiet back room without real windows. My ‘slight’ tendency toward martyrdom demanded I suffer—so for the many-hours celebration I was privy to every scream, shout, laugh, horn, siren, musical note, dog bark, fire cracker…and I suffered meaningfully! And here I thought annoying personal traits stayed at home if one traveled far enough. But no, wherever I go, there I am.

 It is not just me however.

Marsha, my fairly in-most-ways normal sister-in-law, has now taken note of, worried about, and/or commented on every single dog within sight. Fat dogs, skinny dogs…ugly, beautiful, big, small, mangy, slick, brown, black, white, nosing in the garbage, sleeping in the corner dogs. She looks optimistically about for a responsible adult—hoping against hope it is not just another stray. She has been known to speak ill of cultures, countries, societies, world regions, continents, hemispheres where dogs are neglected. She will NEVER EVER visit China even when they rule the whole world.

And then there’s Robert, the brother. He stalks down the street with a serious demeanor, hands in pockets, looking neither to the right or left. This works well on pleasant country paths, not so well on hectic city streets where he could easily lose his beloved wife and sister to a Dominican back alley. Blocks ahead he remembers he was with someone and peers around, relieved or not, to see us moseying along as though we were doing this for fun! And the other thing about Robert, like me he has a certain tendency toward Scandinavian moroseness, but the Jekyll-Hyde turnaround after only two Presidentes is quite remarkable. He’s practically fun…

Yet one more confession from me, major foodie failure of the world. Sadly this one also includes my traveling companions. While we say we want to experience the culture partially through the local cuisine—we actually want doughnuts, peanut butter and pizza. I hasten to say we do eat other things, nothing too adventurous but still food of the country. Pumpkin and corn soup, big platters of fresh avocado, lots of Presidente beer. But—and how I still hate to admit this—at the end of the day we long for…doughnuts, peanut butter and pizza. I am only exaggerating a little unfortunately.

I am including a pieces from the Museum of Modern Art that I cannot credit because I forgot to take the names. Please forgive me. I hope to go back to the Culture Park tomorrow or the next day and will get the names. 

The main Mercado, Museum of Modern Art and a walk by the Presidential Palace were on today’s agenda. And a most enjoyable lunch at a completely empty upscale restaurant near the museum where we had ravioli of a new sort; pear, blue cheese and arugula salad and carrot ginger soup. We wondered why there were no people until we remembered we were in a Latin country ordering lunch at 12:30. Some Americans simply have no class/manners/concept of time/idea of where they are.

The Museum was hosting a huge architectural exhibit so the only art-art was on the top floor and there was little of it. Interesting work from the permanent collection. A very sweet, articulate and knowledgeable guide accompanied me the whole time, speaking only Spanish. She smiled a lot so I know she was nice.  She spoke a number of Spanish words I recognized but unfortunately there were 10 or 12 words I didn’t understand between each of them. However she was speaking with such pleasing intonation that I knew that she knew just what she was talking about.

Robert just stopped by my room to tell me he had a hot dog on their evening walk. I think we can truly say we are not ‘ugly Americans’ but predictable might apply.

Here are many random shots from the Christmas New Year’s Caribbean adventure.

I do not know where to begin…except to say I have been to Haiti. It is true that the world is full of countries and place with great poverty amid great physical and human beauty. These places are all over Asia, Africa and Latin America. (And not totally absent from the “developed” world). It is apparent however (at least to me) that Haiti is special.

Really? Haiti? How special? How to explain?

THE VISIT: My time in the country was so brief. One day over on Capital Bus Lines. One day to explore the devastation remaining in downtown, to relax with naps and a nice dinner in the tropical leafiness of the La Plaza Hotel. One day to drive over the mountains to Jacmel, a peaceful picturesque colonial city built in the 1600’s, to buy a mask, have dinner at the historic Hotel Florita, and return to Port au Prince. Turns out the return trip was the biggest adventure of all but more about that in a minute. Then day four to make the long journey back to Santo Domingo. Border crossings here match and surpass all others I have made in Africa and elsewhere—except Nigeria. The border appears to be—on both sides—a mass of mud; dust; too many vehicles of every kind, make, purpose; and a whole lot of general incompetence.

THE BIG STORY: This is about coming back into Port au Prince from Jacmel. Now you must understand every city in the more heavily populated ‘developing’ areas of the world is almost choked to death by traffic. Every imaginable kind of motorized vehicle, every human movement on bicycle, foot, or donkey cart are all jammed together on totally inadequate roads. Port au Prince is no different but it may have even more spectacular traffic jams than Lagos or Jakarta or Dakar. And that is some competition. Oh yeah and it is a holiday weekend!

SO we get into the outskirts of the city about 6pm. For the next two hours our Mitsubishi SUV creeps forward. A few yards. A few feet. Rarely a whole city block. Huge heavily loaded semis, buses-regular/buses-piled ever so high with bundles and people, cars, jeeps, and motorcycles of every color, make, condition, power. Several lanes-some intended, some created especially for the situation of the moment.

Another 12 feet. There are five of us, my brother and sister-in-law, our “fixer”, the driver and me. It is not looking good and Robert is starting to exhibit symptoms of claustrophobic pissed-offness. Jean, our guide/jack of all trades/friend, says he will find motorbikes to take us into the center and our hotel, 15 or 20 miles away. A joke.

Then another half-hour, another city block. Robert says he’ll walk if he has to.

Four feet ahead this time. Did we actually even move? Okay we will do it—take bikes that is. Life is short anyway. Wonder what the Haitian hospitals are like… Jean commandeers the services of ‘friends’ passing by innocently enough, not knowing they are about to be carrying these aging Americans through what Jean says is the worst traffic jam he knows about EVER.

My brother is NOT a light person, but a brave young man on a 125 cc Chinese dirt bike  loads him on the luggage rack with Marsha crushed in between and off they go. It looks crazy—too funny to be scary but maybe a little scary too. Hope I see them again—undamaged.

Then my turn. I am littler and MY bike is bigger. The driver, me and Jean. Off. 15 miles.

It involves diving through water holes (created by god knows what since everything else is dusty dry), rearing up onto the sidewalks right into the people-crush, squeezing between idling monster trucks and pickups with a lone goat tied in back on its way to a throat-cutting for the New Year’s feast, edging aggressively between around in front of our fellow bikers—many in party finery for weddings or other family events of major silk, taffeta, organdy (often white) stiletto heel, dress-up proportions.

My knee bumps the bumper of the truck we’re crowding around. OUCH.

I am steeped in exhaust fumes, bathed in sweat, enveloped in smells of cooking, gasoline, candy, perfume, occasional whiffs of sewage, liquor—young guy on the next bike over offers me a swig…and I’m a little tempted. I’m in Africa-space—where personal space is an unknown phrase. I almost love it and know I will absolutely upon later reflection.

It’s the warm dark humanity-packed Haitian night and I’m a little nervous about broken body parts but overall feel so lucky to be here in the special land of mad traffic jams and warm people and high green (actually—partially denuded and brownish) mountains and voodoo and Prestige beer.

We all arrive safely and celebrate with Jean over chilled bottles of Prestige. Jean calls Alix the driver who is still in the non-moving traffic jam and who will be there until 4am! Gods of Whomever…Bless Haitians who never give up.

HISTORY: It was too short a time for a place so crammed with the most intense of historical events so having the most basic understanding of what happened when seemed important. Here is the extent of my knowledge—a place for you to begin when you plan your visit!

Haiti’s history is unique—brave horrific strong violent beautiful abused. The following really short version is brought to you courtesy of a tour led by a most knowledgeable and articulate guide at Musée National in Port au Prince; Wikipedia and the astoundingly brilliant historical novel “All Souls’ Rising” by Madison Smartt Bell.

Haiti was the first independent country in Latin America and the Caribbean and the first black-led republic in the Americas. Haitians are very proud of this—as well they should be. It all began like the rest of the Americas however.

The Taino Indians lived on the big lush green island of Ayiti. One fateful day in 1492 island life took a turn for the worse with the arrival of you-know-who. Of course the Spanish immediately claimed the land for their own and proceeded to kill off—by means of abuse and disease—the native people. Then who would work the gold mines and cultivate the sugar cane as that crop grew in importance? Slaves from Africa of course. Meanwhile the western tip of the island was serious pirate territory, eventually settled by French buccaneers—leading to the first hard and fast division of Haiti between the French and the Spanish.

The western French territory was called Saint-Domingue and grew very rich with a system of slavery said to be the most brutal in the world. In the late 1700’s the mixed population of free people of color and slaves were inspired by the French Revolution and a revolt began. Refugees fled by the thousands to the U.S. and battles continued until 1794 when Toussaint Louverture, former slave and a leader in the revolt, established a period of peace and prosperity. In spite of his military and political skills, Toussaint was ultimately sold out by France and the U.S. (we did not think it a good idea for slaves in the cotton growing South to have examples of black freedom and independence right here before their very eyes), captured and sent to death in captivity in France.

Although France tried a few times, eventually she gave up on the idea of re-conquering the territory of Saint-Domingue and former slaves were able to proclaim independence and rename their part of the island Haiti. Ruled by Dessalines, who exiled or killed all remaining whites, Haiti became powerful enough to even support Simon Bolivar in his battle to free more of Latin America from Spanish rule.

As usual, all good things come to an end and the rest of Haiti’s history is one of dictatorial rulers, coups, demands by the French for reparations for their losses when their slaves freed themselves! and American occupation. Then the Duvaliers, Papa and Baby Doc, and Aristide (I attended a speech he gave in Oakland CA back when the world supported his efforts to bring some relief to the Haitian people—he was a benign and unassuming presence, not particularly inspiring though).

Then the earthquake of 2010 when at least 220,000 people died. A similar magnitude 7 earthquake in San Francisco in 1989 caused 63 deaths!  Much of the difference due to poor construction and people already living in the poorest country in the western hemisphere—about to become poorer.

So there you have it. A sad history with a proud beginning.

The real anchor from the Santa Maria is in the Musée National along with an excellently laid out historical timeline and quite a lot of interesting art from the Haitian naïve period (the guide said).

I will return to Haiti I think. Even with so many passport stamps to go.

The Neset women who should be up in Minnesota baking cookies

December 24, 2012:  Miami Airport. Families headed home for the holidays…or away from home for the holidays—as in my case. Everyone in this airport is leaving for destinations Latino…Sao Paulo flight just announced, San Juan a few minutes ago. Me to Santo Domingo in a few more hours.

I am thinking about home-home. Me and dad and little brother out in the woods cutting down a spruce, a beautiful green needled, sap-redolent spruce. Knock off the snow, bring it in. Mom and me—can’t remember if Robert helped—will  decorate this evening. Small red and blue and green and pink and purple oh-so-fragile ornaments, some the silver and gold wearing off, and the old slightly tarnished tin candleholders on many branches holding REAL chubby white candles. Not so many presents but enough I guess. I don’t ever remember being sad about what I did or didn’t get for Christmas.  Mom’s tired from trying to figure out how to make Christmas Eve—when our family celebrated—perfect in her little household. We will have pyramids of sliced ham, topped with pineapple slices, sweet potatoes and pork sausages,  all sprinkled with brown sugar. And mom will make lefse. Wonderful  wonderful Swedish lefse. No potatoes. Just flour and cream and salt. Rolled out like a flour tortilla, cooked on a large flat cast-iron stove surface just enough for a few brown spots to say it is done. Cooled and spread with butter that has been creamed with more cream (yes I said that) and sugar.

Now they’re calling a flight for Nassau.

I guess my first choice would be a flight to the 1940s-50s just outside of Northome, Minnesota.  However…you really cannot go home again.

But away from this noisy 2012 airport for another moment. The lefse is cooling for later spreading but we’ve eaten supper and some presents have been placed under the tree and the candles are lit and mom reads the ‘Christmas story’ from the bible. The Book of Luke, is that right? IT WAS MAGIC EVERY SINGLE YEAR I LIVED THERE. Nothing has come close since.

The flight to Caracas is boarding.

Christmases since. Boys growing up. Trees. Special meals like the all-fish dinner I once made from a Scandinavian cookbook. Included making stock with a real fish head which kept bobbing to the top of the pot and starring at me. And Janson’s Temptation, a scalloped potato –like dish with anchovies instead of ham. Never made that meal again. Now, in Albuquerque, we make Swedish meatballs to celebrate.

Gate change if you’re headed for Panama City.

My kids and grandchildren are all in San Diego and part of me wants to be there. Grandchildren so grown up, so nice, smart, full of whatever energy it will take to be part of a new world. A family time with laughter and lumpia, fried rice, adobo, pancit and more traditional turkey and/or ham, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, cherry pie and many presents and Christmas Eve mass, a  blending of Filipino and American traditions.

 For several years I spent the eve and day with mom in the Northome Healthcare Center—the nursing home—and in some ways they were the best. We listened to Christmas music, read stories, ate our favorite things like stuffing and sweet potatoes and ignored the rest. Some little presents, nothing much. Surrounded by a snowy landscape. Robert and Marsha come in the afternoon with sweet treats. Max, the best dog in the world, sleeps in the corner.

Christmas sentimentality is acceptable. But enough now.

Last call for Caracas.  Flight to Managua boarding at Gate 49.

December 25, 2012: The night was not one of peace. We discovered from our ideally (NOT) situated hotel on Parque Colon that Dominicans are serious Christmas Eve partiers. Music (‘Silent Night’–NOT) loudly blared from a taxi radio most of night accompanied by shouts of good will and shrieks of joy. A noisy culture this is. VERY NOISY.

We spent our morning moving to a hotel a little more upscale and off the square. Drank Presidente beer with corn soup and avocado salad for lunch. Very little evidence of Christmas around. Just lots of people out strolling visiting eating shopping playing with their kids. It was odd, not exactly unpleasant, just anti-climatic. Seems like Christmas Day on a tropical island should be …more! Walked the unprepossessing Calle del Conde in the evening. My brother picked our dining establishment. Pizza Hut. Expensive and tasted like bad Pizza Hut pizzas everywhere. Not sure he gets to pick again.

If I travel out of country again on Christmas I think it will be a cold snowy holiday kind of place OR an absolutely different culture…maybe Tibet or Sri Lanka.

Amber Arts

December 26, 2012: So far … walked the Malecon Walkway (also known as George Washington Avenue), long strip of land, sidewalk, roadway fronting the blue Caribbean. Could have been a lovely walk. However the Dominican culture appears to be one that isn’t too troubled by masses of trash along the waterfront. When I began traveling years ago I had ready excuses for poorer countries with massive trash problems…’don’t have proper disposal means,’ ‘ aren’t prepared for the world of plastic throwaways.’ etc. I no longer am so forgiving. NO ONE in any urban society in the world has not been  exposed to the idea that trash isn’t healthy or pretty, and hasn’t seen streets that are clean, beaches that are litter free or parks not buried in plastic bottles or soft drink cans. There are some places in emerging world economies that are dealing with it. Rwanda for example. The Dominican Republic is NOT. The city streets are fairly litter free but at least part of the waterfront is a garbage dump. Shame on you Dominicans.

Nice ordinary lunch of crepes, pasta.

Nap.

I am bored.

Latin American/Caribbean places do not hold the same fascination for me as the rest of world. If my plan holds I can complete all Central and Latin America travels in 2014. But I do not know what to do about the rest of the Caribbean. Actually Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas will be more interesting if I must go because the every-country-in-the-world plan is still on the table!  Maybe I will have given it before then and won’t have to worry about all those other little sunny boring islands scattered about this beautiful blue sea!

Tomorrow Haiti. That should be an impactful experience. Good? Bad?