Second day.  A dance, an exhibit of photos of dancers, a dancer dancing through and about the exhibit of photos of dancers and three more dances. After all this is a festival of dance called Danse l’Afrique danse…and they are. And dance is among my favorite things…as are cinnamon rolls, Johannesburg, Antoine, Boyzie, Panaibra …all on today’s delectable menu. 

As I watch I think how very different this array of dance looks from a typical U.S. showcase or festival. I could not make an apt description for dance experts if my life depended on it…but I can speak for untutored dance aficionados everywhere! 

Here is a place, a continent, where the past is more clearly prologue than in some other parts of the world. History’s influence is strongly felt and it does provide much of the context for the present. Sometimes that means traditions are reflected in the movement, sometimes that the political past and present are referenced—obliquely or very directly (as in today’s INKOMATI).

FIRST THE EXHIBIT: Beginning with the exhibition “Let’s Dance” I can say that Antoine Tempe’s dance photos are simply brilliant. There’s the act of dancing and then the dancer. Antoine manages to portray the heart of the actor (dancer) and the action as one thing…a multi-dimensional entity somehow captured in two dimensions.

Antoine knows everybody in this world of African dance and everyone probably has their favorite story of meeting him for the first time. Here’s mine.

I met Antoine in Madagascar (I think it was Madagascar), a sunny restaurant, a last coffee, getting ready to leave after my first edition of Danse l’Afrique danse. He was the interesting-looking French guy at the next table…we started talking and—since I was, and continue to be, curious about everything African—I asked questions. And heard the story of his walkabout in Burkina Faso or Mali, photographing the local villagers and their lives. Dinner of boiled goat’s head, then sleeping over the leftover goat’s head which was stored under the bed for safekeeping from the animals/rodents of the night.

I was full of awe and envy of this guy. My life as it should have been had I been a little braver, smarter, and more adventurous earlier….  I suppose I don’t really want to sleep over a boiled goat’s head but I choose to imagine that was the actual path intended for me if I hadn’t been waylaid by stuff.

A few of Antoine’s dance photos were on good display in an open space near the Newtown dance venue’s, the day was sunny and spring-crisp and Fana Tshabalala entertained viewers with a lovely bit of dance fun.

PERFORMANCES THEN. There were several, all interesting and engagingly performed. I can only talk about one now…and that is Boyzie Cekwana and Panaibra Gabriel Canda’s THE INKOMATI (DIS)CORD). This work has fascinated me since I first heard Panaibra and Boyzie talk about it several years ago on an extended visit to Maputo, Mozambique where they were developing this quite out of the ordinary idea.

You see, both men happen also to be thinker/philosopher/activist/political kinds of artists. So naturally something as basic to their lives as the troubled relationship of their two countries, Mozambique and South Africa, and the damage that caused in so many lives, was of interest to them.

The Inkomati Accord was a non-aggression treaty between Mozambique and South Africa (named after the Inkomati River which divides the two countries). It did not work as planned, sentenced to die by a myriad of world leaders (including the U.S.) who stood to gain by the ongoing battles between the two.

So Panaibra and Boyzie set out to make a dance based on this difficult (and to most of the world, obscure) topic. Of course. Neither of these artists has ever made work intended to appeal to the broadest possible audiences waiting to be entertained.

I am a historian (meaning I have a college history minor) so I have been curiously and anxiously awaiting this work since the beginning. And, since I admire and love what these two do so much, I was prepared to care about the work—no matter where it wandered.

I am so pleased to report that I am thrilled with The Inkomati (Dis)cord. I believe it is a brilliant uncompromising absorbing important piece of dance theater. It must come to my town before I end my presenting career. It must be contextualized in a thoughtful way because for people unaware of or disinterested in this piece of history (that would be 99% of the population) the stage has to be carefully set or they definitely won’t get enough of the content to care enough about the work. We can do that.

To tantalize you who are reading this…here are excerpts from the description in the program. “The two choreographers use this abortive treaty as a pretext to explore their unique identities, held up to the mirror of a history and geography obliterated by colonial borders….The halting gestures seem to ask the forced stereotype question: how can you be yourself when you’re being pigeon-holed with a prescribed identity? How do you move when every gesture already has connotations: white, revolutionary, tribal, martial, labourer, black?” 

There are powerful dance sequences (the duo between Panaibra and Maria is astounding and so so beautiful), tiresome emoting (that is intended—it mirrors the endless and meaningless rhetoric of political players since time immemorial—and whatever language they speak for the performance you don’t need a translation if you’ve ever listened to one political rant in your lifetime), poetry and dialogue that is pertinent and consequential (if only I understood all of it) and finally a curious grab-bag of paraphernalia which decorates set and performers.  So you understand I think this is a great piece of work!

Then we went home and I ate the rest of my cinnamon roll.

First day.  And they danced. And a cold wind blew in from the North? South?

There were speeches—many. Food—much. Friends—quite a few. A magnificent new art center in Soweto to celebrate. And the first four festival dances. A fine way to begin.

Opening ceremonies began early evening at the new performing art center in Soweto. A very grand affair of curves and colors, putting yet another claim on Soweto’s status as a city to be reckoned with. Developed as a township for blacks evicted from Johannesburg proper and site of the Soweto uprising which in turn was one of the primary events leading ultimately to the end of apartheid. Soweto was all black and all poor but never without people power, determination and the kind of intense energy one feels in only a few places in the world such as NYC. Photos of the spectacular new Soweto Theater can be found at mambaonline.com.

It is not possible to write at length about all of the performances offered at Danse l’Afrique danse so one (or occasionally two) at a time must suffice. Besides since I am not a dance critic these observations are simply my own thoughts and images and not intended to be learned or important to anyone but me.

Fatou Cisse (Cie Fatou Cissé) from Senegal performed “Regarde-Moi Encore” in the Blue Theatre, a black box seating just over 100.

I want to use words like riveting or spellbinding but maybe they are too strong—although my attention was riveted on Fatou throughout the dance. Fatou is a lean limber presence, her skin stretched tightly over that elegant frame. I purposely did not read the description before watching the performance so I could think my own thoughts. 

The adjectives I scribbled during the performance say…’angular, small movements growing, angry and impatient, sexy, loose-limbed, mistress of the small gesture, in turn prissy and slutty, she’s playing—she’s pissed off…’  Happily the description says I’m on the right track (hopefully the artist dictated it). 

The piece “Regarde-Moi Encore” or Look at me again!  is the voice of an angry woman, first very still, she is thinking/twitching/growing impatient or as the brochure tells us “She is indeed looking for her space. She wants it. She takes it. With her body, which is animated, and her gestures, anchored to a crazy day-to-day reality, she escapes the tedious days through her facetious audacity.” It is an apt description, She is so forceful one moment and all little-girly the next.

Fatou has made a piece you must pay attention to…how to describe…forceful but made up of layers of subtle gestures and movements. Very nice and not easily forgettable—which is important in a festival of so many works.

A good start. As we left the theatre, many speeches and two performances later, the weather had turned ugly…cold and windy, all to disprove the claim I make to everyone that the weather in Jo’burg is always perfect spring or fall.

Home to my cozy little room (with a bathroom of grand palace size oddly enough) at Thulani Lodge where fortunately there is a little heater next to my bed… More to come.

4am Wednesday…Leftover coffee, shower, throw out perishable and do not leave a cup of coffee/milk in the microwave. When you return the pungent odor of sour milk still lingers. As usual I swear never again to make travel plans that include early early mornings but of course I will. Unfortunately to get anywhere from Albuquerque you must start in what is the dead of a summer/winter night.

6am Steven picks me up. Airport. Pleasant check-in with United. Check-in person wants to know where to stay if she gets to Johannesburg. Prepared to hate United, the hungry python that swallowed Continental, but so far they’ve been okay…helps if you are some rung on the precious frequent flyer ladder…even on the lowest rung you get to board early and have extra legroom.

8:55am Off to DC. Does it really have to be this cold in here? Good thing I’m prepared for this. Two shirts, a sweatshirt, a big warm hoodie, socks with my sandals, my best Walgreens scarf and purple airplane blankie. New Mexico is beautiful in the morning light.

2 something-5:40pm Dulles airport. Wine and a po’boy. I’m re-reading Cloud Atlas in preparation for the movie. Should get me through the 15+ hour flight ahead. OFF TO JOHANNESBURG BY WAY OF DAKAR.

I can see my house from here…………

5:41pm Wednesday (EST) to 5pm Thursday (Jo’burg time—which is 9am MST) or, in layman’s terms, quite a while. Cabin freezing. Food bad. Stomach hurts. Then feet legs back neck shoulders wrists hips knees hurt. Oh it’s not that bad. Like childbirth you forget the pain because the reward is so great? Fortunately Cloud Atlas is strange enough to preoccupy one for long stretches of time.

Then there’s the ugly American behind me who in the dark and quiet of the big cramped bedroom-in-the-air goes to the bathoom and upon returning decides someone has stolen his headphones. Causes a bit of a scene only to discover them under his seat of course. The soft soothing South African accents of the airline staff let him go on longer than a sharp-tongued American attendant probably would have. What asses people make of themselves.

The plane is full of oil workers, returning vacationers, and, most happily, 57 bright-eyed earnest smart good-looking healthy Peace Corps volunteers. Love them. Their intentions are almost pure. They’ll learn languages, try their damndest to help, have love affairs, get sick, get well and come home to write books about it all. In my next life I am going to be a Peace Corp volunteer.

LEE and LORN (Photo courtesy of Larry Goodell)

I fell in love with contemporary dance in the late 70s and/or early 80s. Being a grown-up by that time and never having heard of…much less seen…contemporary dance, this new found passion came as a great surprise to me.  I had, almost by accident, attended performances of Lee (Connor) and Lorn (MacDougal) …and, voilà, I was a dance aficionado!

With inspiring guides/mentors/advisors from around the country and abroad I watched and watched and watched more dance and hung out with dance people and got to know something about the subject—although of course I would never catch up in dance knowledge and language with my compatriots.

ME, KiMo Theatre

This new interest led to a multitude of dancers presented during my time at Albuquerque’s KiMo Theater and eventually, in 2001, to a program called Global DanceFest (GDF). Dancers appeared in Albuquerque from around the world—the U.S., Europe, Asia, and especially from Africa. During the years of GDF, my dance friends and I found a community of believers—in dance and in what the world of dance has to offer.

KOTA 2005 (Photo by ARingger)

Global DanceFest officially ended in the spring of 2012 but the mission continues.

VINCENT 2010 (photo: Richard Malcolm)

JOURNEYS in Dance and Discourse/2012

September 2012. A new program is launched. JOURNEYS in Dance and Discourse. It will be smaller, richer, deeper and equally as enticing and engaging as all our programs that have gone before.

Many of my brilliant and adventurous dance artists and friends from around the world will return to the North Fourth Art Center where, since 2006, they have shared their work with this community. New artists will arrive, especially from Africa and northern Europe, but also from exotic destinations such as Brooklyn and points America. So while the quantity of presentations may have been slightly reduced that is obviously not true of the quality.

IN DANCE

KOTA with glowing (photo Kota Yamazaki)

For example, this September brings Kota Yamazaki and Mina Nishimura, and Vincent Mantsoe back to town. Old friends with new work. Favorite artists with different perspectives. Global citizens offering a new look at the role of place in the creation of art—which brings us to the discourse.

VINCENT 2012 (Photo by Lynn Shanliew Kolber)

IN DISCOURSE

Dance speaks its own language, enchanting and informing us at the same time.

But, the idea goes, if words are added that encourage post-performance discourse to go on and expand and confront, won’t the experience be even more valuable, even more stimulating, even more fun. Sometimes it’s all about the layers.

Geography and the Muse is the focus of this fall’s discourse. Geography is about place and the Muse is the goddess of creativity so our Journeys’ question is whether our goddess’ speaks to artists differently depending on where they live and travel and work and dream.

The topic had to resonate with the dance artists and their work. The 2012 Journeys artists are certainly mobile enough to challenge any muse.  Vincent Mantsoe is from Soweto, Gauteng, South Africa and lives in Saintpont, France. Kota Yamazaki and Mina Nishimura are from Tokyo, Japan and live in Brooklyn, New York—all artists born into places and cultures far from where they presently make their homes and create their work. Furthermore they are artists who cross borders with great purpose and ease to include performers from a multitude of cultures in their work and to perform the work once it is created. Geography and the Muse: Cross Cultural Creativity seemed just right.

When I began thinking about how grand it would be to have a real dialogue among visiting dance artists about topics related to their work and lives, I knew it would be important to have a writer, journalist or scholar participate. Who else could give us, the audience, a way in to talk about the world of dance…as shaped by culture…as impacted by geography?

The next step was to find just the right wordsmith to both lead and participate in this learned discourse. We thought and asked and pondered and the perfect name appeared—as though by magic!

HAKIM (Photo by Wes Naman)

Hakim Bellamy, writer, performer and Albuquerque’s first Poet Laureate, will lead the post-performance panel discussions as well as sharing his experiences as an African American artist in Albuquerque’s Hispanic-Native American-Anglo world and the east coast/west coast cultural dichotomy on which his artistic development is nurtured.

September 14-16 is going to be a splendid weekend with the spiritual and physical intensity of Vincent’s uniquely South African-based solos; with Kota and Mina’s rare ability to cross cultural boundaries as they work within their own Japanese heritage and with American and African dancers, and Hakim’s wide-ranging rhetorical skills.

Friday and Saturday shows start at 7pm so that ample time is available for light food, nice wine and profound and/or sparkling discourse afterwards. On Sunday music and a light supper have been substituted for discourse between performances by Kota (4pm) and Vincent (7pm).

Here are things in honor of the muses who lured me into dance….

The High Dessert has many mysteries

A piece from 1987 about Lorn and Lee:

Dance: Lorn MacDougal

By JACK ANDERSON
Published: November 08, 1987

ON Friday night at the Triplex Theater of Manhattan Community College, Lorn MacDougal danced the premiere of a solo about matters many people might prefer not to think about. Choreographed by Lee Connor, her former partner, ”Daily Living: A Tribute, a Transfiguration” was based upon Mr. Connor’s own battle against AIDS.

Like a sleepless patient, Ms. MacDougal tossed and turned with a pillow to electronic music by Alain Le Razer. Struggling to stand, she made the pillow seem sometimes a heavy burden, at other times a banner she tried to wave in defiance. At the end of the solo, she stared resolutely, yet at the same time vanished into shadows.

The poignant work was neither glibly optimistic nor self-indulgently lachrymose. And by casting a woman in this solo, Mr. Connor, who died in September, transcended the particulars of his own medical history to warn viewers that anyone may contract AIDS. His dance also reminded one that all human beings must learn to live with the knowledge of their mortality.

Larry Goodell’s Poem…in honor of Lee

LEE CONNOR

A DANCE AGAIN

We danced we did

we danced the did did dance

the dance we did dance in we did

we did the dance indeed we did

the did & done & dead with dance

the dance done in, we did it in

we did it in the dance we did

the did did dance and done we did

the dance again & did the whole thing in

we did it in we did the dance

and did it in we danced it dead

until it twisted

dance and did it back again

we danced it in and did it in

and brot it back to dance again

we brot it in and danced a sin until it sings

we danced it in and out again

and did we dance? did we dance?

did we dance it in again?

until it sings until it sung

until the song sang again

we danced a din and danced a sing

song again we did a dance

and danced we did

we did a dance a dance we did

again we did a dance again

again we didn’t dance again

we stopped and didn’t dance the dance

was done we did it dance and all

the ball was over dance & hall

we did a dance once and for all

we did a did and done dance and did

the dance we did again.

And did we dance again

and did we dance again.

LEE … SOARING

Sunday, August 12/6:30am: Time to leave Viking Country East—or as we fondly refer to it locally—Minneapolis, Minnesota. My car has been parked here at the Mall of America/Airport Super 8 motel awaiting my return from real Viking country and our journey back over the Great Plains—on different byways this time.

……..

 Two days ago Teresa and I were still on the trail of our Viking ancestors—our last day in Iceland about to begin. We began with a rather fancy green and leafy Icelandic pizza at a new and very hip waterfront hotel. Tried to find a place where we could gnaw on leg of beast and let the grease run down our chins but all of these bloodthirsty seafarers have turned to fresh veggies and linen napkins.

But our sissy lunch was quickly followed with a blustery outdoor adventure at hot springs, geysers, waterfalls and the rift valley (where North America meets Eurasia). We clamber up and down rocks and hillsides and around hot water puddles, getting soaking wet and cold in what feels like gale force winds.

The background for these dramatic displays is pretty spectacular all on its own. Emerald grass on black and deep red lava, all sharp and shiny in the rain. Round white plastic-wrapped hay bales dot the landscape and the shaggy Icelandic horses (do not call them ponies we are told!) stand with their butts to the biting wind.

SoCal girl capturing her northern adventure.

Rivers of heat, air of mist

It is all grand here. No wimpy scenery in this country.

In spite of our attempt to stay focused on the natural wonders of the northern world thoughts of cozy room, sweat pants and Nutella for dinner cross our minds. Teresa’s actually trying the dried fish with butter that Icelanders eat with such pleasure. It is our last night and she is torn between her desire to go out and watch the wild partying that consumes Icelandic weekends or huddle down in her blankets with a movie. The latter wins.

But every adventure must be followed by the long ride home. Saturday was our Delta day. Bob stops over in NYC, Teresa flies on to Los Angeles and I go back to Minneapolis.

We are sad to leave our Icelandic hut in the wilds of Reykjavik.

One last breath of unpolluted air before Los Angeles.

…….. 

Back Outwest. Well, still Minnesota actually…but western Minnesota.

8am: I am happy in this Sunday morning rain driving along on U.S. Highway 212 which begins here and which I will take almost all of the way to Rapid City, South Dakota. Cows and fields and groves and grain and corn and a dark red barn.

9am: Countryside is opening up. I will consider this the transition place from the Viking country of  Minnesota with many trees to the Great Plains…I don’t feel quite ready to leave Minnesota…but I must go. Bird Island, Olivia “The Corn Capital,” 59°, Sheep Shedde Motel. We had a sheep shed on our place when I was a kid. Later it became the chicken house and now it has fallen down.

The Olympics are ending, U.S. won a lot of medals which proves we’re better than the Chinese at something?  Romney picked Paul Ryan as his running mate which proves the desire to eliminate every vestige of all social gains of the last century is alive and well in certain quarters of this country. Driving and thinking is a fine sport—Olympics-worthy.

10am. 212 detour, no towns. I’m lost. Will never find McDonald’s hash browns for breakfast. Not so bad to be lost in a green drizzly farmscape—I’ll just eat my yogurt from the breakfast bar at Super 8.

It is the time of year in northern places when the trees are discussing fall colors. Not actually changing yet but a hint of gold is in the air.

Further and further from Viking land and into the Great Plains—which I was quite romantic about on the way here…but now I am thinking one drive through the vast beautiful emptiness is enough for this year.

Wonder where I am. Good paved and gravel roads, prosperous farms, ponds, bogs, creeks but no one out and about. No signs, no traffic, no noise, no humans. Just me and the corn and the song birds.

I have crossed into South Dakota but don’t know when. And a nice lady stopped by my car as I sat pondering my atlas and gave me directions back to 212.

11:15: Almost to Watertown.

11:45; Wrong turn in Watertown and a Starbucks appears. Venti non-fat latte please (haven’t said those words for three weeks). Lemon cake and Sunday NYT. Re-entry into real life I suppose.

3pm: I have crossed the wide Missouri for the second time…further north in South Dakota…just before I travel over into the Cheyenne River Reservation.

Amidst all of this wide open grandeur are many sad little towns both on and off Indian land. Dilapidated and/or deserted. Among the picturesque acres of sunflowers, herds of semi-wild horses and steady stream of bikers—for we are in biking land. The only traffic on much of 212 and the other roads this side of Rapid City and Sturgis are bikes. Big bad boy bikes, not the pretty lightweights of urban cyclists. No neon spandex cycling shorts on these highways.

4:50: I stop at a little crossroads store to ask directions—remember I am only driving back roads—very back roads, not so far from Rapid City but in the true middle of nowhere. A handsome weather-beaten oldish guy tells me which way to go. His store is well-stocked with the staples of life including decent booze and it looks like he has a great apartment out back. I want to live with him…in the middle-of-nowhere and write books and help out in the store and travel half the year and be all cozy here in winter blizzards rescuing lost travelers who have strayed down the wrong road today or in life.

But alas, there’s no flyer advertising an opening for just such a position. So back on the road again……….

5pm; Almost to Rapid City for my night’s stop. Temperature has climbed from mid 50s in am to mid-70s, cloudy or overcast most of day. Perfect driving weather. Just me and my Mazda. La Quinta in Rapid City.

Monday, August 13

6:30am: Just out of Hot Springs I pass the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. A place to which I will return. The Black Hills is a dream land with powerful iconic sculpture and Indian history galore and the most graceful sleek pintos and bays and palominos any little girl (the one still buried deep within me) could wish for.

7am: Less than an hour to Hot Springs. But I’ll go on to Ardmore SD for gas since I’m already on Highway 71.

7:30am: BAD decision. Gas light comes on and it turns out Ardmore died some years ago from lack of water…Towns are 50 or 70 miles apart here. But Fire Station appears maintained and open and lo and behold the men-of-the-plains cowboy firemen are here for my rescue. Couple gallons of gas and lots of dead town photos and I’m on my way again.

Firemen to the rescue. Ardmore, South Dakota.

8:15am: I GET GAS and peanut butter cups for breakfast.

All day: I am driving straight down Nebraska and Colorado Highways 71. For space to be grand there must be a little up and down to it, a glimpse of something in the distance. This country is just flat and brown and sky. Still I rather like. Two lane road is straight and empty and I can drive fast.

In a small town store an 81-year-old guy working 12 hour shifts at the wind farm (I know because he tells someone else) turns to me to exchange a pleasantry, I congratulate him and say I want to work that long. He responds with “Well if somebody’d shoot that SOB in the white house the economy would get better and everybody wouldn’t have to do this.” “George Bush did that to the economy,” I say. “But this sonovabitch made it worse…somebody oughta take a gun and shoot him,” he repeats. “Boy, that’s a responsible attitude” I say…and walk out. Fuming for miles and miles over what I should have said about guns and the he-men who love them. Does spike my adrenaline and keep me alert for the next 100 miles or so of driving.

5pm: I cross Raton Pass in a downpour—the likes of which I have not seen since I lived in tropical jungles. My only concession to freeways is I-25 on into Albuquerque when I am very tired. Ice cream sandwich in Las Vegas. Albuquerque. Home.

3511.5 miles.

Across the wide wide Missouri.

Broken but still a thing of western beauty.

End of the trail.

PUFFINS…JUST BEFORE THEY LEAVE FOR WINTER AT SEA

Wednesday evening, August 8.  Teresa and I all snug in our room on backpacker street. Outside 55° and raining. Inside about 75° and we’re drowsily in touch with you all via Google, facebook, blog, email and telepathy. We are satisfied travelers: slightly aching feet from pounding the pavement between museums, slightly too full bellies from slightly too much dinner at our favorite Icelandic-food restaurant, slightly sleepy, slightly worried about how much everything costs…all the typical travelers’ laments.  Our travel buddy Bob is at his hotel probably all tucked in for this long summer’s night as well.

How to talk about Iceland. I know they had a huge ashy volcanic eruption in the recent past and not too long before that a financial melt-down. I know that it is a chill and isolated land. But there is no whining in Viking land…and Iceland IS Viking Central.

When the Norwegians, Swedes. Finlanders and Danes sailed from the Scandinavian lands of northern Europe between the 8^th and 11^th centuries they explored, raided and even settled in Iceland and Greenland along with their forays as far east as Russia and down into Ireland, Great Britain and France. Their captives/slaves appear to have come mostly from Ireland according to major DNA studies. Celtic blood in fact accounts for the majority of Icelandic female bloodlines while the majority of male DNA is Scandinavian. So, the story goes, these mostly Norwegian adventurers brought home their Irish and Scottish slaves/captives/brides to Iceland and lived happily ever after producing beautiful babies with just a hint of red in their blonde curls.

Probably however the biggest factor in the Viking presence in Icelandic history is that, while the rest of Scandinavia was part of the population flows of the European continent, Iceland’s isolation kept the Viking story alive and, to a large degree, the old Norse language, bloodlines and mythology pure.

So Then…the only other place in the world where you can experience this much Viking overload is in Minneapolis-St. Paul just before a big Vikings game!

To fully experience Vikingdom, we have pursued the following—which I intended to describe more fully—but there were places to go…puffins to see

Teresa with her luncheon corncob. She’ll wash up later.

Great great great Grandma and her first husband…right after he told her to go kill the troll.

Bob, thinking about what he will say in that first saga….

Monday: Our FAVORITE adventure took place—a trip to the top of Langjokull Glacier, part of which was in an “8X8 Monster Truck” (purchased from NATO where it was used to carry Polaris missiles and brought here from Poland) modified for this Ice Explorer adventure-travel. It was brilliant. Three Americans (us), three Indians and one Spaniard, bumping over this vast sheet of ice to the tune of “Take It to the Limit One More Time” So put me on a highway
And show me a sign
And take it to the limit one more time

A cold blue world.

A dark and forbidding world.

Volcanic ash still colors in some of the landscape.

To glaciers everywhere!

I do love the world and its places.

Monday’s trip included steaming springs, awesome (as in truly awesome…not just “awesome, dude”) waterfalls, farms with colorful sheep and shaggy horses and last but definitely not least—the Thingvellir where, it is claimed, parliamentary/democratic government was born. Wish we could have kept it.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Many museums. Bob has become something of an expert on early Norse/English/Viking history including reading the sagas over the past few years so Teresa and I had our own personal expert by our side. We did some serious walking in the rain all over the city, indulged in open-faced sandwiches (putting butter on sandwiches is just one of the many good things offered to the world by the Vikings) as one must in Scandinavia, and fell into bed with good Icelandic crime fiction every night.

Thursday: Bob finished the museums and Teresa and I did the Puffin Tour. AND a lunch of RAW puffin, salmon, lobster/shrimp and lamb AND the dreaded rotted shark. The latter is served separately in an elegant white bowl. We had to do it. For the honor of travelers everywhere. This Icelandic delicacy has the consistency of a bunch of rubber bands melted together and tastes like a blend of Comet Cleanser and urine.

Live puffins.

Dead puffins.

Today/Friday: We will go to a geyser and hot springs and pack. And finish our exotic grocery store snacks of Nutella and Philadelphia Cream Cheese and van der Meulen Melba Toast!  Obviously adventure ends at the door to our room.

Travel is a fine way to spend time. It is not for the faint of heart, even an easy trip like this with family and friends. I once spent an entire day in bed in Paris, reading a book about Paris and subsisting on Madeleines. But when traveling with others such sloth is not permitted—and besides when will we ever get back to Iceland.

I am thinking of trying to write a story about two places I have visited this year and how they contrast to fill the world with diversity and challenge and beauty—Nigeria and Iceland. And about getting a degree in Geography. And riding freighters across the seas. And I will never have to eat rotten shark again because I already did it.

THE SHARK FROM HELL…

Teresa…on the road…around the world.

Our street

Sunday, August 05/10:45pm: It is dusk. West coast cool sea damp feel. Lovely here. Scandinavia simplified. Deep primary colors of many buildings against the undecorated concrete of others. Teresa and I live in the AR Guesthouse, small clean quiet backpacker haven. The electricity just went out but a staff was here to fix it quickly and upon request supplied a fan for the white noise Teresa and I so treasure.

Happiness is being places. Here. Reykjavik. Settling into our digs in late morning after a ($100) ride from the airport. Showers and determination not to give the day over to sleep. Meeting Bob for a late lunch of traditional Icelandic food: beef burger with mushroom gravy and Skyr with blueberries, cream and sugar. An elderly gentleman played ancient favorites on the accordion while we dined.

All Icelandic music is not Bjork.

Pleasure is wandering about a refreshingly cloudy and invitingly low key, clean and accommodating small city that could be said to have an opposite vibe from the pulsating energy of Lagos for example. Reykjavik doesn’t feel intense like big important cities; it feels human but not at all bland. More like a primary color city: simple, straightforward with that old Viking essence of bold.

Contentment is a first day in an almost new place that lets you acclimatize without pushing and shoving and insisting you pay attention right now. Less exciting maybe, more humane surely.

Delight is a caramel muffin so moist and delicious as to warrant a food group all its own, streets full of eclectic restaurants and souvenir shops with tasty and excellent quality stuff, surrounded by a green rocky treeless countryside, with glaciers and mountains in the distance—where we will venture tomorrow.

Marj, Bob and Teresa LOVE Iceland.

I love Places. Almost all Places.  Right now I am feeling especially sentimental about a place called Minnesota because my annual visit is nearly over. Until another year then…lefse  walleye lakes 3.2 beer hay shocks marshmallow malts DFL Lutheran snow salad-of-lime-Jell-O pineapple-grated-carrots-cottage-cheese-sweetened-mayo sour cream pie sour cream raisin bars trees trees trees sandwiches with butter hunters “the old place” swamp lady slippers tamaracks blue flags cat tails goldfinches robins bluebirds Baltimore orioles tufted titmouse cinnamon rolls crusts of homemade white bread spread thickly with butter browned in the oven served with hot cocoa after school first whiff of rich black soil with the advent of  spring thaw Milacs Lake Island Lake Lake Bemidji Red Lake cosmos moss rose sweet peas poppies evening stock moss mud blog blueberries June berries chokecherries gooseberries Rainy River Deer River Mississippi River Chippewa Falls International Falls Big Fork Littlefork Grand Rapids Park Rapids Blackduck suckers bear Norwegians Swedes Finlanders Chippewa/Ojibwe Paul Wellstone Paul Bunyan Margie Gunderson Gurney’s seed catalogue cream check pulpwood lumberjack purple martin houses small smelly beer joints creeks Ike’s creek Orth road Louie and Helen Knute and Agnes Ole and Matea Shorty Tula Cherry Pal Shep Laddie 47°below blizzard drift yellow snow clover dandelions goldenrod  Ovidia Mathilda Floren Sven Neset

Dad was a lumberjack and Mom was a farmer. We lived at the end of a gravel road. Now our house is crumbling sinking staggering resignedly into the ground…the walls and roof still stand but the floor is done down decayed declining…but I like being there.  I try to come at least once a year to say hello to the ghosts.

Here it is…the old place we call it.

My bedroom was a lovely safe place where I dreamed that the books I wanted would be right there on my pillow when I awoke.

This field was alfalfa…if the sheep got loose in it they would eat too much, get bloated bellies and literally tip over onto their backs…had to be rescued or they would die.

Things get left behind.

The front room this was called. And that couch was always very ugly.

Robert and Marsha. Marsha grew up about 30 miles away in comparable rural splendor.

Old windows, bright thistles. The beauty of old and prickly!

That would be an outhouse…a real one. With the mosquitos waiting hungrily for bare butts to bite.

When I stayed here one summer 15 years or more ago with my border collie Max she watched for deer on this field. When she saw one she raced wildly toward it and then came to a dead halt about halfway…looking puzzled…like “what on earth would I do with that big thing if I caught it?” Max was a city dog.

Milacs Lake. A grand wild lake in the summer and an ice fishing village in the winter.

Visit with the folks.

My Very Own Personal Minnesota (Photos and miscellaneous comments in some sort of order at the end.)

Home is…where you were born? Where you live now? Where you lived the longest? Where you were happiest? On my journeys when people ask ‘‘where do you live?’ I say New Mexico. When asked ‘Where’s home?’I say Minnesota. And always, when I cross that Minnesota state line, I know that is true and I am back home.

There are many Minnesotas however. The culturally rich, sophisticated and arts-loving Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul; in the south Rochester and the world-famous Mayo Clinic where the famous come to live or die; the soybean, corn and sugar beet farms in south, central and northwestern Minnesota—home to the Jolly Green Giant and many of the beautiful blondes in my extended family.

And then there’s the land of birch and spruce and tamarack and lakes and mines and walleye and deer and bear and hunters and fishermen. My Minnesota. (Even though my dad disliked hunting and fishing intensely, preferring rambles through the stands of fir and popple on our land or cutting down the trees where his logging jobs took him. It still seemed in those days that the forests would never end.)

Much of the other Minnesota can be classified as the eastern edge of the Great Plains so my journey through that world doesn’t really end until I cross over some imaginary line between Roseau and Red Lake. My Minnesota starts where the plains leave off because, although still flat, the profusion of lakes and trees leaves little doubt that the prairie of grazing herds and wilting corn has been left behind. My Minnesota lies roughly between Bemidji (Paul Bunyan land), Red Lake (home to the Red Lake band of the Chippewa nation), International Falls (“Icebox of the nation”), and Grand Rapids or even further through the mining towns and almost-mountains to the shores of Lake Superior (although none of us ever went that far when I was a kid).

This territory is just a little wilder, a little grittier, like any frontier where the footloose and mildly criminal and those with dreams of a fast buck congregate. Tall tales from the weeks in isolated lumber camps filled the air already redolent with bad whiskey fumes, and finding frozen bodies behind the saloons, which still outnumbered the churches, was not uncommon. Those times were largely over when I was a kid but their essence lingered.

In fact…In 2005, the Grand Rapids Herald-Review published this tidbit in a section called A Century of Memories: Jan. 3, 1945—Mrs. Swan Neset of Nore Township was seriously injured when struck by a load of fine shot fired by her neighbor, Gus Senkapiel, who thought he was shooting at a strange dog which he believed was attempting to attack his flock of sheep.

Since mom was walking with our quiet shepherd, Pal, and carrying a lantern we always attributed the accident to the fact that Gus had hated us ever since Dad nailed boards in a V (for Victory) on the garage door (which faced Gus’ farm) and painted them a glaring white. Gus was a German immigrant and Dad, a Norwegian immigrant, didn’t take kindly to the news from Europe.

I fiercely defended the wooded wildness of my youthful stomping grounds against all references by my mother to the more settled civilized lands of the Sioux River Valley in eastern South Dakota (her birthplace) or the Red River Valley of Crookston Minnesota where she worked as a young woman.  That is…until the day I graduated high school and left as rapidly as possible for Minneapolis and city life.

On Thursday this week I crossed over from the Great Plains on Chippewa land and  stopped by my home disintegrating quietly at the end of a road through the woods before going on to my brother’s in Grand Rapids. My family still owns the land so I can visit at will and I do as often as possible. My collage of memories is bright and clear. The reality isn’t sad. It’s history and it’s home.

Happiness is a sign on a back country road.

Clara

One of the beautiful blondes of the northwestern prairies.

One of the other beautiful blondes.

As kids we were awed by this lake ‘you couldn’t see across’–just like the ocean we said.

Right three miles to home.

Almost there.

Without family smells, sights, sounds, touches to nurture you just quietly disintegrate.

My room, guarded against all intruders…like my brother.

The tree is my age. Looks older than me I think. But more interesting.

At the end of the afternoon. Or the drive. Or the walk. Or the life.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 7:11 AM. 85°. A summer of record-breaking temperatures on the Great Plains. It is 1055 miles and 19 hours from Albuquerque to Sioux Falls—my way. Google says it is 1131miles and 17 ½ hours their way.

I meandered, not setting wheel on any form of freeway from Trinidad, Colorado to 829 North Van Eps in Sioux Falls. No radio or book tape, just driving and looking and thinking about starvation and global warming as I passed the dying corn and observing how many roads there are with no traffic and how nicely Highway 14 in Nebraska balances the 405 between San Diego and Los Angeles at rush hour. If you write the ‘who we are as a people’ articles you need to know both. Red State, Blue State!

Out on the Great Plains a mirage of smoky Indian villages and racing ponies and buffalo and battles between tribes, and between the natives and the interlopers is always shimmering just ahead and overhead and underfoot. Of course this whole continent is “Indian Country” but it feels especially present in this central emptiness. In New Mexico Native America is real and down the road and at the store and part of our everyday culture. Here on the prairies it was America’s manifest destiny to drive the native cultures underground—often literally—so you must envision the dancing running fighting Sioux, Crow, Blackfeet, Cree, Cheyenne, Arapahos, Apache, Comanche and so many others across the sky.

The dying corn is with me all of the way from eastern Colorado into South Dakota, but nowhere is it so drastic as along the Kansas roads I traveled. I stop often to tromp around on the edge of fields and take pictures. We had big garden and planted fields of alfalfa on the Minnesota farm when I was a kid but they never died from a hot killer sun. Reports from the drought-stricken corners of the African continent always include photos of the brown wilted plants and the extended empty bellies of the babies that are the effect. Here in the U.S. the cause and effect are distant from each other, barely linked in fact. The corn is dying and according to the web site of the National Corn Growers Association nearly everything good and warm and homey in our lives contains corn. That link is pretty clear. Dead corn; our favorite sweets are history! Unfortunately it is now pretty clear that the high-fructose corn syrup that makes all of these fields so profitable is as deadly as it is tasty. And then there is ethanol—good product, bad product?  Corn is a complicated plant. Best reserved for tortillas.

My driving thoughts are more about what it is like to watch the live things you planted from seeds and waited to sprout and are depending on for food and/or income wither and brown and droop and die.

Finally, across the wide Missouri near Springfield, South Dakota. What wild and beautiful country—the spirits of Lewis and Clark accompany me.

Journeys officially begin at the first state line.

On both sides.

Hotter going north. That’s not right.

The Platte River

Dune buggies on the river bottom. 102°  119°  113°  107°