Corey and I are getting to know our new neighborhood pretty well. In the past week we've biked to the Dollar store and to this awesome sale at REI--we arrived in the last hour at the former, just when the 30% off signs were being switched to 60% off. Pretty sweet. I finally got a rain jacket after four years of being wet and sniffly.
I turned down the job at the Boys & Girls Club because I didn't think I was the right person for it. I'm still looking... I mean, I've only been back in PDX for eleven days, for goodness sakes, so I should go a little easy on myself! I have an interview tomorrow morning to be an ESL teacher. It's such a pet peeve of mine when people don't get back to me or follow up to the applications I send them.
We went to the Milwaukie Farmer's market this morning. Surprisingly, there was no culinary mushroom stand in sight! So we talked to the market managers, and hopefully by Wednesday we'll hear back from them if they have a space available to rent us. They sure did seem excited about having a mushroom stand, so that was definitely a good sign. The idea of going into the mushroom-selling business still feels a little hard for my brain to wrap around. But very appealing. We found about 20 pounds of chanterelles and lobsters last Friday alone.
I have 54 seconds remaining on the public library computer, so I guess I'm going to have to go ahead and post this.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
BACK IN PDX!
I've been back in Portland for all of six days, which is almost a week, I guess. Corey's dad arrived from New Orleans to visit us in Portland exactly 12 hours after we arrived from Quito. It was an exceptionally long journey, complete with food poisoning in the Dallas airport, then arriving at the new house to discover that the keys didn't work. COLOMBIAN KEYMAKERS = FAIL. Laura and Cara (who picked us up) were absolute DEARS and drove us back downtown so that I could meet up with my brother, get his keys and then drive back. All this with cramping and nauseau!
I spent the next day completely wiped out. On Friday I rode 40284934928 buses in strange dark corners of SE Portland. I ended up in the Gateway Transit center TWICE by accident, because I got on the wrong bus heading the wrong direction. Julie's navigation skills = STILL A FAIL! So far, out of the three interviews I had, I have one yes, one no, and one I'm still waiting for. The 'yes' I don't want, the 'no' I wanted, and the 'waiting for,' I am ambivalent. Such is the post-graduate employment quest......
This morning Corey and I biked downtown to PSU so he could meet with his adviser about working in the lab this semester and I could work on job applications and try to figure out how to register for the GREs. I thought that you had to take them on October 25th, but it looks like this may not be the case? I guess you can take them.... whenever you want? Depending on what the respective universities you're applying to request? I also need to remember to stop by the Career Services office to photocopy/borrow their GRE practice tests. Because I am a broke mofo and $35 per book in Powells is a no-no.
Anyway, the bike ride downtown this morning took approximately an hour, which is not bad at all, especially considering my chunky belly from a summer of pollo and papitas. 12 miles, most of it along the beautiful Springwater Trail. When we got to PSU I was high and tingly all over. Bikes are pretty wonderful, what can I say. I'm excited about biking everywhere and getting mad buff.
Other things:
- Went mushroom hunting with Corey and his dad on the coast. We experienced a moment of horror when we thought the porcini were infected with this terrifying white-powdery mold, but then much to our relief Corey deduced that they were another species, Old Man something, which is good because first of all it is waaay too early for the porcini to be out and second of all they are so delicious, a mold that killed them all would be really sad.
I spent the next day completely wiped out. On Friday I rode 40284934928 buses in strange dark corners of SE Portland. I ended up in the Gateway Transit center TWICE by accident, because I got on the wrong bus heading the wrong direction. Julie's navigation skills = STILL A FAIL! So far, out of the three interviews I had, I have one yes, one no, and one I'm still waiting for. The 'yes' I don't want, the 'no' I wanted, and the 'waiting for,' I am ambivalent. Such is the post-graduate employment quest......
This morning Corey and I biked downtown to PSU so he could meet with his adviser about working in the lab this semester and I could work on job applications and try to figure out how to register for the GREs. I thought that you had to take them on October 25th, but it looks like this may not be the case? I guess you can take them.... whenever you want? Depending on what the respective universities you're applying to request? I also need to remember to stop by the Career Services office to photocopy/borrow their GRE practice tests. Because I am a broke mofo and $35 per book in Powells is a no-no.
Anyway, the bike ride downtown this morning took approximately an hour, which is not bad at all, especially considering my chunky belly from a summer of pollo and papitas. 12 miles, most of it along the beautiful Springwater Trail. When we got to PSU I was high and tingly all over. Bikes are pretty wonderful, what can I say. I'm excited about biking everywhere and getting mad buff.
Other things:
- Went mushroom hunting with Corey and his dad on the coast. We experienced a moment of horror when we thought the porcini were infected with this terrifying white-powdery mold, but then much to our relief Corey deduced that they were another species, Old Man something, which is good because first of all it is waaay too early for the porcini to be out and second of all they are so delicious, a mold that killed them all would be really sad.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
LAST DAY IN QUITO!
I just printed out 984389238402 maps in order to help myself figure out how to navigate around my strange new neighborhood of Milwaukie, especially to and from interview sites.
To-do today: turn in mushroom info poster/sheet to Jungal Tours, trip to market to pick up last minute gifts, and then maybe if we´re ambitious (probably not) a trip to the dentist. Home to pack up the stray things lying around the house, such as toothbrush, pajama pants, etc. Then we need to set the alarm for 4AM in order to be at the airport two hours in advance for our flight (6.45 AM = FAIL)
I´m afraid of going back to the States. I´m afraid of having no health care and media saturation. Well, we have a return ticket in January, I guess.
The thunderous African music orchestra playing on the screen behind me has had the extra effect of making me especially jumpy and jittery.
To-do today: turn in mushroom info poster/sheet to Jungal Tours, trip to market to pick up last minute gifts, and then maybe if we´re ambitious (probably not) a trip to the dentist. Home to pack up the stray things lying around the house, such as toothbrush, pajama pants, etc. Then we need to set the alarm for 4AM in order to be at the airport two hours in advance for our flight (6.45 AM = FAIL)
I´m afraid of going back to the States. I´m afraid of having no health care and media saturation. Well, we have a return ticket in January, I guess.
The thunderous African music orchestra playing on the screen behind me has had the extra effect of making me especially jumpy and jittery.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
More Books Read In Ecuador
Here are some more reviews of books I read in Ecuador.
Lies My Teacher Told Me (James W. Loewen)
This book seemed okay to me at the time when I read it, and then exceedingly less interesting after I read ¨A People´s History of the U.S.¨ The information in both books is basically the same! At least this book employed a copious amount of footnotes, making his claim of a plague that killed off the majority of the Indians before the Spanish got there decidedly less dubious. My eighth-grade self would have probably really liked it.
Rating: Don´t Bother
Intelligence in Nature
A very hippy-dippy book, donated to the house by one of the beloved tour members, who herself was somewhat hippy-dippy but also very cool (throughout the tour I kept thinking ¨wow, I want to be just like you when I grow up!¨, minus the Dead Head phase, I guess). Throughout this book I kept wishing that it had been written by a scientist instead of an anthropologist. Anthropology´s fine and dandy, it´s just that every time the author self-righteously asked one of his interviewees whether they thought it was moral to do experiments on butterflies and slime mold (!), the inner hippie-dippy hater in me cringed. However, it was an interesting enough book, very readable, an anthropologist´s attempt to answer the question ¨is there intelligence in nature?¨ which inevitably leads to all sorts of other questions, like ¨what is knowledge?¨ which I liked a lot, because it reminded me a lot of (WHAM!) my thesis.
There was one quote in the book that I liked enough to write down, in the last chapter, which was about nature´s constant tendency to transform itself: Now other species seem more human to me, and humans seem more natural. Recognizing that the capacity to know exists outside humanity leads to a richer, more adventurous, and more comfortable life. Instead of trampling blindly all over the planet, we see that life´s prodigious powers are housed in all its denizens.¨ I like the idea of the necessity for constant change. I guess I fear growing stagnant, stale, crusty and moldy over the edges. It´s been a long time since I´ve had a routine. Never mind, I guess going to classes is a routine of sorts. It´s really kind of ridiculous how thrown out-there you are into the world after college. Another adventure!
Rating: Maybe Read This, If It Seems Like Your Thing
The Prophet
Definitely one of my favorite books now. I´d started but never finished it a dozen times before, but on a quiet day that I meant to be deliberately meditative and introspective, this was the perfect book to read. I can´t really describe it… the closest fiction author I was reminded of was Calvino, minus the po-mo stylistics. Anyway, you should just own a copy of this book in your house, so that way, one day when you´re in the right mood (preferably after doing yoga and listening in full to Tori Amos´ Under the Pink, you can read it.
Rating: Read This Before You Die
A People´s History of the United States
Again, another book that took me all summer to read. Even now I´m still not sure if I technically read it ¨all,¨ since the majority of it was consumed at bus stops, with me flipping around to different sections, depending on what I felt like reading about at the time. There might be a part in there about early revolutionary America I never got around to. But yeah, I knew this was a famous, best-selling book, so I was surprised at the strong Socialist Rhetoric. I thought America hated socialists! Anyway, one thing I found completely, emphatically unforgivable about this book was the fact that HE DOESN´T USE FOOTNOTES. HOW CAN YOU CALL YOURSELF A PROPER HISTORIAN AND NOT USE FOOTNOTES? THE MIND BOOGLES. End caps lock. The lack of footnotes somewhat ruined this book for me, in a sense, because it meant that anything he said, I automatically questioned myself, ¨where´s the source for this? Is he just pulling this out of his butt?¨
Anyway, just so you know, the most interesting chapters of this book deal with the labor and union strikes of the early 20th century. Maybe I´m just biased, because that´s a period of history I know very little about (Corey said he preferred the Civil War and Reconstruction bits, which are good too, if a bit skimpy, perhaps unavoidable in a book this large). Also, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the chapters about Reagan and Clinton, again, another period of history I know very little about, even though Clinton was the president throughout my childhood. I was too young and out of it to care about politics, though, the most memorable things I remember thinking about the Clinton presidency is reading in the Scholastic newsletter in first grade that Clinton played the saxophone and thinking that was very exciting.
Rating: Read The Parts of This Book That Seem Interesting To You Personally
Collected Fictions (Borges)
This book is awesome, Borges is awesome, what more can I say. I can´t believe it took me this long in life to finally read Borges from cover to cover, as opposed to just the odd Borges tale in class and different compilations. I especially like how the book jacket in this edition includes ¨tigers¨ as one of Borges constant themes, among the more obvious: labyrinths, libraries, detectives, gauchos, and so on. Really, I´ll have to go away for a while and then come back before I can write eloquently about Borges. He makes me want to continue studying literature, and that´s saying something. ¨The South¨ with its amazing last sentence and ¨The Aleph¨ are two of my favorites.
Rating: Read This Book Before You Die
I also reread ¨American Gods¨, ¨Three Cups of Tea¨ and ¨The Trial.¨ All good, read-now-recommendable books. I have yet to finish ¨Open Veins of Latin America¨ and ¨Crude Chronicles,¨ both books I´ve started at least two other times during my college days, but alas, have never managed to get all the way through. I don´t know why. It´s just like with me and Virginia Woolf´s (whom I greatly admire) ¨To the Lighthouse¨: there are just some books you have in your life that you always, always begin but never, ever seem to be able to get through.
In other news:
- Our time in Ecuador is drawing to an end! Only three days left!
- Corey´s dad is coming to visit us on September 19th, exactly two days after we get back from Ecuador! He´s staying in the house with us! Hopefully we´ll rent a car and go mushroom hunting! Hopefully I won´t seem hopelessly burnt-out and strung-out in the classic Pachico way, and instead will be able to adopt some of the easy-going, chill nature that is the Way of the Guidrys.
- I have three interviews lined up, two afterschool teaching jobs and one at a Boys & Girls club.
- I decided not to apply for the Fulbright because 1) I´m too lazy to finish the application, 2) I don´t really want to do it, even in the rare chance that I actuall got it, and 3) our new housemate-roommate is a Fulbright scholar himself and a bit of a turd who wants to work for the F.B.I. and corporate America and dismissed the Fulbright as ¨something that´ll make my resume look good¨ as opposed to an opportunity to do something genuinely wicked cool and helpful and great and amazing. I know you´re not supposed to let one bad apple spoil the barrell, but still, the exchange left a sour taste in my mouth about the whole thing. I think I´d rather do cool stuff on my own, as opposed to on the federal government dollar, bearing the time when I actualyly *want* and *need* it, as opposed to just applying out of my half-assed tendency to want to apply for EVERYTHING.
- I´ve been doing a cleanse/juice fast, just because it felt like it was the right time for it. I never thought I would be full from just drinking maracuya juice, but there you go. This has been a good way for me to learn to 1) exercise my willpower and self-control, two things that definitely always need constant work, and 2) how to be hungry without being cranky and intolerable, as I usually am. We´ll see how I feel by the end of today. Will I feel high and detached in the best Zen sense, or merely... intolerable?
Lies My Teacher Told Me (James W. Loewen)
This book seemed okay to me at the time when I read it, and then exceedingly less interesting after I read ¨A People´s History of the U.S.¨ The information in both books is basically the same! At least this book employed a copious amount of footnotes, making his claim of a plague that killed off the majority of the Indians before the Spanish got there decidedly less dubious. My eighth-grade self would have probably really liked it.
Rating: Don´t Bother
Intelligence in Nature
A very hippy-dippy book, donated to the house by one of the beloved tour members, who herself was somewhat hippy-dippy but also very cool (throughout the tour I kept thinking ¨wow, I want to be just like you when I grow up!¨, minus the Dead Head phase, I guess). Throughout this book I kept wishing that it had been written by a scientist instead of an anthropologist. Anthropology´s fine and dandy, it´s just that every time the author self-righteously asked one of his interviewees whether they thought it was moral to do experiments on butterflies and slime mold (!), the inner hippie-dippy hater in me cringed. However, it was an interesting enough book, very readable, an anthropologist´s attempt to answer the question ¨is there intelligence in nature?¨ which inevitably leads to all sorts of other questions, like ¨what is knowledge?¨ which I liked a lot, because it reminded me a lot of (WHAM!) my thesis.
There was one quote in the book that I liked enough to write down, in the last chapter, which was about nature´s constant tendency to transform itself: Now other species seem more human to me, and humans seem more natural. Recognizing that the capacity to know exists outside humanity leads to a richer, more adventurous, and more comfortable life. Instead of trampling blindly all over the planet, we see that life´s prodigious powers are housed in all its denizens.¨ I like the idea of the necessity for constant change. I guess I fear growing stagnant, stale, crusty and moldy over the edges. It´s been a long time since I´ve had a routine. Never mind, I guess going to classes is a routine of sorts. It´s really kind of ridiculous how thrown out-there you are into the world after college. Another adventure!
Rating: Maybe Read This, If It Seems Like Your Thing
The Prophet
Definitely one of my favorite books now. I´d started but never finished it a dozen times before, but on a quiet day that I meant to be deliberately meditative and introspective, this was the perfect book to read. I can´t really describe it… the closest fiction author I was reminded of was Calvino, minus the po-mo stylistics. Anyway, you should just own a copy of this book in your house, so that way, one day when you´re in the right mood (preferably after doing yoga and listening in full to Tori Amos´ Under the Pink, you can read it.
Rating: Read This Before You Die
A People´s History of the United States
Again, another book that took me all summer to read. Even now I´m still not sure if I technically read it ¨all,¨ since the majority of it was consumed at bus stops, with me flipping around to different sections, depending on what I felt like reading about at the time. There might be a part in there about early revolutionary America I never got around to. But yeah, I knew this was a famous, best-selling book, so I was surprised at the strong Socialist Rhetoric. I thought America hated socialists! Anyway, one thing I found completely, emphatically unforgivable about this book was the fact that HE DOESN´T USE FOOTNOTES. HOW CAN YOU CALL YOURSELF A PROPER HISTORIAN AND NOT USE FOOTNOTES? THE MIND BOOGLES. End caps lock. The lack of footnotes somewhat ruined this book for me, in a sense, because it meant that anything he said, I automatically questioned myself, ¨where´s the source for this? Is he just pulling this out of his butt?¨
Anyway, just so you know, the most interesting chapters of this book deal with the labor and union strikes of the early 20th century. Maybe I´m just biased, because that´s a period of history I know very little about (Corey said he preferred the Civil War and Reconstruction bits, which are good too, if a bit skimpy, perhaps unavoidable in a book this large). Also, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the chapters about Reagan and Clinton, again, another period of history I know very little about, even though Clinton was the president throughout my childhood. I was too young and out of it to care about politics, though, the most memorable things I remember thinking about the Clinton presidency is reading in the Scholastic newsletter in first grade that Clinton played the saxophone and thinking that was very exciting.
Rating: Read The Parts of This Book That Seem Interesting To You Personally
Collected Fictions (Borges)
This book is awesome, Borges is awesome, what more can I say. I can´t believe it took me this long in life to finally read Borges from cover to cover, as opposed to just the odd Borges tale in class and different compilations. I especially like how the book jacket in this edition includes ¨tigers¨ as one of Borges constant themes, among the more obvious: labyrinths, libraries, detectives, gauchos, and so on. Really, I´ll have to go away for a while and then come back before I can write eloquently about Borges. He makes me want to continue studying literature, and that´s saying something. ¨The South¨ with its amazing last sentence and ¨The Aleph¨ are two of my favorites.
Rating: Read This Book Before You Die
I also reread ¨American Gods¨, ¨Three Cups of Tea¨ and ¨The Trial.¨ All good, read-now-recommendable books. I have yet to finish ¨Open Veins of Latin America¨ and ¨Crude Chronicles,¨ both books I´ve started at least two other times during my college days, but alas, have never managed to get all the way through. I don´t know why. It´s just like with me and Virginia Woolf´s (whom I greatly admire) ¨To the Lighthouse¨: there are just some books you have in your life that you always, always begin but never, ever seem to be able to get through.
In other news:
- Our time in Ecuador is drawing to an end! Only three days left!
- Corey´s dad is coming to visit us on September 19th, exactly two days after we get back from Ecuador! He´s staying in the house with us! Hopefully we´ll rent a car and go mushroom hunting! Hopefully I won´t seem hopelessly burnt-out and strung-out in the classic Pachico way, and instead will be able to adopt some of the easy-going, chill nature that is the Way of the Guidrys.
- I have three interviews lined up, two afterschool teaching jobs and one at a Boys & Girls club.
- I decided not to apply for the Fulbright because 1) I´m too lazy to finish the application, 2) I don´t really want to do it, even in the rare chance that I actuall got it, and 3) our new housemate-roommate is a Fulbright scholar himself and a bit of a turd who wants to work for the F.B.I. and corporate America and dismissed the Fulbright as ¨something that´ll make my resume look good¨ as opposed to an opportunity to do something genuinely wicked cool and helpful and great and amazing. I know you´re not supposed to let one bad apple spoil the barrell, but still, the exchange left a sour taste in my mouth about the whole thing. I think I´d rather do cool stuff on my own, as opposed to on the federal government dollar, bearing the time when I actualyly *want* and *need* it, as opposed to just applying out of my half-assed tendency to want to apply for EVERYTHING.
- I´ve been doing a cleanse/juice fast, just because it felt like it was the right time for it. I never thought I would be full from just drinking maracuya juice, but there you go. This has been a good way for me to learn to 1) exercise my willpower and self-control, two things that definitely always need constant work, and 2) how to be hungry without being cranky and intolerable, as I usually am. We´ll see how I feel by the end of today. Will I feel high and detached in the best Zen sense, or merely... intolerable?
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Books Read So Far in Ecuador
I´ve been in Ecaudor for almost two months now, so I thought I´d do a little catch-up on what books I´ve been reading here, during that time.
Quarantine by Jim Crace
This is the first book I read in Ecuador, during that first week when we were bussing across the country with Jess´ parents. I´d read it before back in ninth grade, but I think (no, I know) most of it went over my head. The main scene I remembered from the first time I read it is the part when a dead donkey is thrown off the cliff but the other folks in quarantine, and Jesus in his little cave, twitching in a hallucinatory state, thinks that it´s a demon-angel falling from the heavens to further test his will.
I love historical retelling what-if fiction, and this one is particularly delicious since the particular history it reinterprets is Jesus´ 40 days in the desert. Such a set-up leads to numerous great scenes as Jesus descends further into hunger and nakedness and bare desert craziness (to paraphrase ¨Lawerence of Arabia¨: ¨only gods and Bedouins enjoy the desert, Lawrence, and you´re neither¨). I especially like the parts describing just how damn boring it gets, being in the desert for forty days and forty nights--in this novel, Jesus deals with his boredom by writing words from Roman coins with his fingers in the sand and soon he finds this more useful and rewarding than his prayers.
I like how in the end, Jesus´ miracle abilities are left ambiguous. Is he just the Galilean equivalent of ¨Into the Wild,¨ or genuine miracle man? Also, I thought it was really interesting that Jesus´ biggest fan throughout the book was the supposed villain, the merchant. In the end I couldn´t decide if this was a kind of dramatic irony--the reader knows the merchant is right in the end, perhaps granting him a little more sympathy--or if it was supposed to be a kind of commentary on the ultimate commercialization and marketeability of Jesus. It makes sense in a way, that Jesus´ biggest cheerleader would be a merchant: Jesus as brand product has certainly led to a lot of money for a lot of people, as the merchant in ¨Quarantine¨ astutely and accurately sensed.
Rating: Read This Book
I Came Not Alone by I don´t remember
I picked this up off of Jess and Brian´s bookshelf and read it in a single session during one of those rare time-off days we had, hanging around in Quito. I wanted to read namely because it is about a foreigner living in Ecuador in the 60´s, in the same neighborhood as us (good old Guapulo). Unfortunately, reading it for the sake of seeing familar street names and bus routes in print turned out to be the most worthwhile thing about this book. Written by a Peace Corps guy, it made me doubly glad that I ended up turning them down: maybe things have changed in the past forty years, but this guy was a total stooge, partying all the time, looking down on the local people, and generally doing crap at his work. OK, maybe I´m being too judgemental, but he definitely is a poor writer.
Rating: Don´t Read This Book
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
I read this before and during the Mycotour. It took a long time but I got through it, whereas I´d never managed to completely tackle ¨No Logo¨ in full. This is an awesome book. I think I finally understand what neoliberalism is--maybe. Mind you, Klein has a thesis and a specific political stance from which she argues that thesis, which is fine by me--what´s the point in trying to be objective or impartial, when that´s obviously impossible? Better to be ballsy. She really hammers you over the head with her argument, though. I´d recommend skipping the chapters on Poland, Russia and China, and instead read the parts on Argentina, Chile and Bolivia (the most interesting of the book), the section on Iraq, and the last chapters on the tsunami and New Orleands. Oh, and the very fine introduction and conclusion, of course. All that should be more than enough to drive her point home.
After writing a puny paltry thesis meeself, I have great appreciation and admiration for Klein´s clear and readable style, the way she carefully organizes the points in her argument, her topic senteces (man! can this lady make transitions!). Very smart lady and very smart, relevant book, which left me with a lot to think about.
Rating: Read This Book Before You Die
Tales of a Shaman´s Apprentice by Mark J. Plotkin
Corey and I slowly but surely read this book together, reading it aloud to each other before going to sleep each night (a hobby we first started with Cormac McCarthy´s ¨The Road,¨ which is a great book to read aloud, by the way!). This is a good book to read when you´re working or even just visiting the jungle. The author is very much not a dry scientist at all, but instead fills his novel with plenty of funny, strange anecdotes (especially memorable is when a hallucinogenic plant dust is blown up his nose with great force by a blowpipe) and lots of interesting asides about the chemistry and use of so and so plant. I could have done with less copy-paste excerpts from eighteenth-century naturalist-botany texts, though.
Rating: Read This Book
Savages by Joe Klein
It took me yonkers to finish this book, namely because it kept disappearing. I finally got to finish it in Yasuni Park, by the Shirpuno River, which appropriately enough is Huaorani territory and one of the primary settings of the book. I even got to meet the guy on the cover, Moi, at the Shiripuno Bridge, which was very exciting. I was appropriately tongue-tied and starstruck, most likely to his great amusement.
This is a great book to read if you´re looking to understand in greater detail the effect of oil development in the eastern Oriente (or Amazon) of Ecuador. Klein´s carries on the great journalist tradition of Orwell, in which the observer´s present and his private opinions of the matters at hand are acknowledged, rather than ignored or disguised. Particularly memorable is Klein´s story of being lost in the jungle with the twelve-year-old Huaorani guides (one of whom who walks everywhere with a single white sock on his foot, slapping against the mud), with no food, no dry clothing and no idea where they are, and Klein is forced to deal with the sentiment that very few of us would every like to confront in our lifetmes: the feeling that one is going to die, in the jungle, lost, wet, and scared witless. Pretty gripping stuff.
Klein ends the book with a simple yet important question: if oil development is to be done in Ecuador (and the argument that it is inevitable is a strong one), and if it´s going to be done on indigenous land, shouldn´t there at least be an effort on the oil companies parts to at least know whose land they are using? In other words, to sum up the final message that I gleaned from the book: what a bloody mess.
Rating: Read This Book
Wizard of the Upper Amazon by F. Bruce Lamb
Wow, the synopsis of this book is crazy: a young Peruvian teenager, working as a rubber tree cutter in the Peru-Brazilian rainforest in the early 20th century, gets kidnapped by an uncontacted tribe of Indians and raised among the community, who has the intention of making his chief. Say what?? Why haven´t I heard of this crazy story earlier, or at least, why hasn´t there been an extensive, detailed ethnography published about it? (I certainly hope so--anthropology is not my field!) The story is so crazy, that I actually wished this book was longer, and went into more detail. Because of the book´s brevity (a hundred something pages), a lot of stuff I wanted to hear more about was skimped over: like the feeling of being in a totally alien community, not knowing the language, the customs, the culture or anything. The book is written with little self-analysis or introspection and kind of just moves from one interesting anecdote to another, which is fine, but I was definitely left craving more. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the story was retold by a source who met the guy, rather than by the guy himself? Anyway, the definite highlight of the book are the descriptions of the ayahuasca ceremonies. Very trippy (haha) and interesting stuff.
Rating: Read This Book
Prey by Michael Chricton
Man, if this book hadn´t been published almost a decade ago, I would call this Chricton´s comeback. I read this on a hammock in Yasuni, in between bouts of leading Swiss and French tourists around the jungle. It was definitely a very good braindead book for my dead stressed brain. I mean, the part where the killer nanorobots start infecting humans and become transmitted by kisses is a little far fetched, but what else can you ask from a book about killer nanorobots? I like typing that: Nanorobots. Yessss.
Rating: Maybe Read This Book, If You´re In the Right Place and Mood
Tropical Nature: Life and Death in the Rainforests of Central and South America by Adrian Forsyth and Ken Miyata
This is a good book to read if you know obviously nothing about rainforests and tropical ecosystems and botany (raises hand). Wait, (lowers hand), I know more now than I did before, ´cause I´ve read this book! The authors go out of their way to discount the stereotypical dry, boring scientist-writing, and instead use a style that is engaging, entertaining and highly readable. Each chapter is about a different aspect of the rainforest, such as fruit, orchids, ants (memorably called ¨Tiny Socialists¨ by the chapter title) and matapalo, or the killer strangler figs. I am now filled with knowledge about the rainforest that is probably basic to all scientists, but extremely exciting for me. For example, did you know that the sloth buries its poop at the bottom of a tree, which possibly indicates a symbiotic relationship between the two? DIDN´T THINK SO. The sloth eats the tree´s fruit and doesn´t move, since he´s a sloth, while the tree benefits from the fertility of the sloth´s poop. SRSLY.
Rating: Read This Book
Respiracion Artificial by Ricardo Piglia
Corey stumbled into this book for me after meeting an Argentenian at a house party in Guapulo and somehow ended up discussing Faulkner and Onetti (THEESISYES!!). I was in the jungle at the time, but the Argentinean ended up lending Corey this book, which he promptly delivered to me in Yasuni. On the first page someone wrote ¨! Este libro no se presta. No insiste.¨ (This book is not to be lent. I don´t insist). So I don´t know whether to be flattered or confused that this ended up in my grubby hands.
Anyway, this is a great, great book. I should have read this book for my thesis. I am seriously grinding the tip of its spine against my skull in self frustration. I used Piglia´s essays from Critica y ficcion, and I remember my advisor reading some excerpts from Respiracion artificial to me, but what with everything going on... I just never got around to actually reading it, I guess. It made for a great, exciting walk down memory lane, right off the bat with the T.S. Eliot epigraph: ¨We had the experience but missed the meaning, an approach to the meaning restores the experience.¨ OH SNAP SECOND CHAPTER! I got a little lost during the last 50 pages, but that was likely a result of the classic Julie-reading-fast-in-eagerness-to-get-to-the-end symptom.
How do I even begin talking about this book and how it´s now offcially one of my favorite books ever? Every page of this book was like a delicious treat, like an interesting, fascinating conversation. The plot is impossible to summarize. On one level (and there are many), it deals with a nephew corresponding with his uncle, who is obsessed with researching the life of a man called Enrique Ossorios, who was writing a novel. This book brings new meaning to the phrase ¨cake layers¨, the novel´s intricate layering go above and beyond the cake. More than anything, I loved this book because it is so obviously written by someone who himself loves books, intensely and absolutely. Indeed, the love of books is an important theme. The second page discusses the nephew´s failed novel, an attempt to imitate the voice of Faulkner, but as translated by Borges, which instead ends up as nothing more than a bad parody of Onetti. Oh, it makes me tingle just to remember it. This book makes me tingle, and when you have time and space in your life, please read it.
Rating: Read This Book Before You Die
Quarantine by Jim Crace
This is the first book I read in Ecuador, during that first week when we were bussing across the country with Jess´ parents. I´d read it before back in ninth grade, but I think (no, I know) most of it went over my head. The main scene I remembered from the first time I read it is the part when a dead donkey is thrown off the cliff but the other folks in quarantine, and Jesus in his little cave, twitching in a hallucinatory state, thinks that it´s a demon-angel falling from the heavens to further test his will.
I love historical retelling what-if fiction, and this one is particularly delicious since the particular history it reinterprets is Jesus´ 40 days in the desert. Such a set-up leads to numerous great scenes as Jesus descends further into hunger and nakedness and bare desert craziness (to paraphrase ¨Lawerence of Arabia¨: ¨only gods and Bedouins enjoy the desert, Lawrence, and you´re neither¨). I especially like the parts describing just how damn boring it gets, being in the desert for forty days and forty nights--in this novel, Jesus deals with his boredom by writing words from Roman coins with his fingers in the sand and soon he finds this more useful and rewarding than his prayers.
I like how in the end, Jesus´ miracle abilities are left ambiguous. Is he just the Galilean equivalent of ¨Into the Wild,¨ or genuine miracle man? Also, I thought it was really interesting that Jesus´ biggest fan throughout the book was the supposed villain, the merchant. In the end I couldn´t decide if this was a kind of dramatic irony--the reader knows the merchant is right in the end, perhaps granting him a little more sympathy--or if it was supposed to be a kind of commentary on the ultimate commercialization and marketeability of Jesus. It makes sense in a way, that Jesus´ biggest cheerleader would be a merchant: Jesus as brand product has certainly led to a lot of money for a lot of people, as the merchant in ¨Quarantine¨ astutely and accurately sensed.
Rating: Read This Book
I Came Not Alone by I don´t remember
I picked this up off of Jess and Brian´s bookshelf and read it in a single session during one of those rare time-off days we had, hanging around in Quito. I wanted to read namely because it is about a foreigner living in Ecuador in the 60´s, in the same neighborhood as us (good old Guapulo). Unfortunately, reading it for the sake of seeing familar street names and bus routes in print turned out to be the most worthwhile thing about this book. Written by a Peace Corps guy, it made me doubly glad that I ended up turning them down: maybe things have changed in the past forty years, but this guy was a total stooge, partying all the time, looking down on the local people, and generally doing crap at his work. OK, maybe I´m being too judgemental, but he definitely is a poor writer.
Rating: Don´t Read This Book
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
I read this before and during the Mycotour. It took a long time but I got through it, whereas I´d never managed to completely tackle ¨No Logo¨ in full. This is an awesome book. I think I finally understand what neoliberalism is--maybe. Mind you, Klein has a thesis and a specific political stance from which she argues that thesis, which is fine by me--what´s the point in trying to be objective or impartial, when that´s obviously impossible? Better to be ballsy. She really hammers you over the head with her argument, though. I´d recommend skipping the chapters on Poland, Russia and China, and instead read the parts on Argentina, Chile and Bolivia (the most interesting of the book), the section on Iraq, and the last chapters on the tsunami and New Orleands. Oh, and the very fine introduction and conclusion, of course. All that should be more than enough to drive her point home.
After writing a puny paltry thesis meeself, I have great appreciation and admiration for Klein´s clear and readable style, the way she carefully organizes the points in her argument, her topic senteces (man! can this lady make transitions!). Very smart lady and very smart, relevant book, which left me with a lot to think about.
Rating: Read This Book Before You Die
Tales of a Shaman´s Apprentice by Mark J. Plotkin
Corey and I slowly but surely read this book together, reading it aloud to each other before going to sleep each night (a hobby we first started with Cormac McCarthy´s ¨The Road,¨ which is a great book to read aloud, by the way!). This is a good book to read when you´re working or even just visiting the jungle. The author is very much not a dry scientist at all, but instead fills his novel with plenty of funny, strange anecdotes (especially memorable is when a hallucinogenic plant dust is blown up his nose with great force by a blowpipe) and lots of interesting asides about the chemistry and use of so and so plant. I could have done with less copy-paste excerpts from eighteenth-century naturalist-botany texts, though.
Rating: Read This Book
Savages by Joe Klein
It took me yonkers to finish this book, namely because it kept disappearing. I finally got to finish it in Yasuni Park, by the Shirpuno River, which appropriately enough is Huaorani territory and one of the primary settings of the book. I even got to meet the guy on the cover, Moi, at the Shiripuno Bridge, which was very exciting. I was appropriately tongue-tied and starstruck, most likely to his great amusement.
This is a great book to read if you´re looking to understand in greater detail the effect of oil development in the eastern Oriente (or Amazon) of Ecuador. Klein´s carries on the great journalist tradition of Orwell, in which the observer´s present and his private opinions of the matters at hand are acknowledged, rather than ignored or disguised. Particularly memorable is Klein´s story of being lost in the jungle with the twelve-year-old Huaorani guides (one of whom who walks everywhere with a single white sock on his foot, slapping against the mud), with no food, no dry clothing and no idea where they are, and Klein is forced to deal with the sentiment that very few of us would every like to confront in our lifetmes: the feeling that one is going to die, in the jungle, lost, wet, and scared witless. Pretty gripping stuff.
Klein ends the book with a simple yet important question: if oil development is to be done in Ecuador (and the argument that it is inevitable is a strong one), and if it´s going to be done on indigenous land, shouldn´t there at least be an effort on the oil companies parts to at least know whose land they are using? In other words, to sum up the final message that I gleaned from the book: what a bloody mess.
Rating: Read This Book
Wizard of the Upper Amazon by F. Bruce Lamb
Wow, the synopsis of this book is crazy: a young Peruvian teenager, working as a rubber tree cutter in the Peru-Brazilian rainforest in the early 20th century, gets kidnapped by an uncontacted tribe of Indians and raised among the community, who has the intention of making his chief. Say what?? Why haven´t I heard of this crazy story earlier, or at least, why hasn´t there been an extensive, detailed ethnography published about it? (I certainly hope so--anthropology is not my field!) The story is so crazy, that I actually wished this book was longer, and went into more detail. Because of the book´s brevity (a hundred something pages), a lot of stuff I wanted to hear more about was skimped over: like the feeling of being in a totally alien community, not knowing the language, the customs, the culture or anything. The book is written with little self-analysis or introspection and kind of just moves from one interesting anecdote to another, which is fine, but I was definitely left craving more. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the story was retold by a source who met the guy, rather than by the guy himself? Anyway, the definite highlight of the book are the descriptions of the ayahuasca ceremonies. Very trippy (haha) and interesting stuff.
Rating: Read This Book
Prey by Michael Chricton
Man, if this book hadn´t been published almost a decade ago, I would call this Chricton´s comeback. I read this on a hammock in Yasuni, in between bouts of leading Swiss and French tourists around the jungle. It was definitely a very good braindead book for my dead stressed brain. I mean, the part where the killer nanorobots start infecting humans and become transmitted by kisses is a little far fetched, but what else can you ask from a book about killer nanorobots? I like typing that: Nanorobots. Yessss.
Rating: Maybe Read This Book, If You´re In the Right Place and Mood
Tropical Nature: Life and Death in the Rainforests of Central and South America by Adrian Forsyth and Ken Miyata
This is a good book to read if you know obviously nothing about rainforests and tropical ecosystems and botany (raises hand). Wait, (lowers hand), I know more now than I did before, ´cause I´ve read this book! The authors go out of their way to discount the stereotypical dry, boring scientist-writing, and instead use a style that is engaging, entertaining and highly readable. Each chapter is about a different aspect of the rainforest, such as fruit, orchids, ants (memorably called ¨Tiny Socialists¨ by the chapter title) and matapalo, or the killer strangler figs. I am now filled with knowledge about the rainforest that is probably basic to all scientists, but extremely exciting for me. For example, did you know that the sloth buries its poop at the bottom of a tree, which possibly indicates a symbiotic relationship between the two? DIDN´T THINK SO. The sloth eats the tree´s fruit and doesn´t move, since he´s a sloth, while the tree benefits from the fertility of the sloth´s poop. SRSLY.
Rating: Read This Book
Respiracion Artificial by Ricardo Piglia
Corey stumbled into this book for me after meeting an Argentenian at a house party in Guapulo and somehow ended up discussing Faulkner and Onetti (THEESISYES!!). I was in the jungle at the time, but the Argentinean ended up lending Corey this book, which he promptly delivered to me in Yasuni. On the first page someone wrote ¨! Este libro no se presta. No insiste.¨ (This book is not to be lent. I don´t insist). So I don´t know whether to be flattered or confused that this ended up in my grubby hands.
Anyway, this is a great, great book. I should have read this book for my thesis. I am seriously grinding the tip of its spine against my skull in self frustration. I used Piglia´s essays from Critica y ficcion, and I remember my advisor reading some excerpts from Respiracion artificial to me, but what with everything going on... I just never got around to actually reading it, I guess. It made for a great, exciting walk down memory lane, right off the bat with the T.S. Eliot epigraph: ¨We had the experience but missed the meaning, an approach to the meaning restores the experience.¨ OH SNAP SECOND CHAPTER! I got a little lost during the last 50 pages, but that was likely a result of the classic Julie-reading-fast-in-eagerness-to-get-to-the-end symptom.
How do I even begin talking about this book and how it´s now offcially one of my favorite books ever? Every page of this book was like a delicious treat, like an interesting, fascinating conversation. The plot is impossible to summarize. On one level (and there are many), it deals with a nephew corresponding with his uncle, who is obsessed with researching the life of a man called Enrique Ossorios, who was writing a novel. This book brings new meaning to the phrase ¨cake layers¨, the novel´s intricate layering go above and beyond the cake. More than anything, I loved this book because it is so obviously written by someone who himself loves books, intensely and absolutely. Indeed, the love of books is an important theme. The second page discusses the nephew´s failed novel, an attempt to imitate the voice of Faulkner, but as translated by Borges, which instead ends up as nothing more than a bad parody of Onetti. Oh, it makes me tingle just to remember it. This book makes me tingle, and when you have time and space in your life, please read it.
Rating: Read This Book Before You Die
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
housefullness
Back from the Plunge. This completely fails to sum it up properly, but it was a really great experience. Needless to say, I learned a lot and made a lot of great new friends. I especially bonded with Sarah (the Plunge coordinator) and Clare (another one of the day leaders), both of whom were closest to me in age. I really enjoyed hanging out with all the kids too: they were all really positive and enthusiastic, especially in my group. We did all kinds of different placements during the week, like cooking and serving lunch in the Clark Center (men's shelter), weeding in the community gardens at the Oregon Food Bank (we did a lot of weeding this week, it feels like), and working at Sisters of the Road, the downtown cafe on 6th and Burnside that I had heard about but had never visited. I highly recommend it: there's a really great community atmosphere and the food is good and cheap ($1.25 for a meal and a drink). They have an interesting system where people can get barter points for meals by working at the cafe, so it's a much different atmosphere but the traditional paternalistic church-charity handout.
I think I did a pretty good job as a leader. Our group name was "The Sensational Six Power Plungers Exclamationpoint!" (in our cheer, I got to say to "Exclamationpoint!", in a style reminiscent of Kool-Aid Man). I got us lost basically every day (thank you trimet for telling me to "walk southwest" when I have no idea what that means). We also burned everything we cooked for dinner the one night it was our turn to prepare it: the pancakes were black, the hashbrowns were gray (apparently a result if the potatos are wet; my fault for washing them beforehand), and the sausages were raw in the middle. The only thing we didn't ruin was the soy yoghurt and granola for the vegan girl. We had a great time together, though. There was one afternoon where we all panhandled down by Powell's and Whole Foods, and this girl from my creative writing class gave us all the change in her pocket. When she saw me holding my little "LEARN TO LOVE BEFORE IT'S MADE ILLEGAL" sign slumped against the wall, she was like "JULIE" and I was like "hey, I graduated from Reed!" because it all seemed a little too complicated to explain right then and there. I'm sure I must have seemed like an excellent epitome of the post-grad lifestyle.
Apart from the small group placements there were some activities that we all did together (25 kids--I mean, students, in total), like a tour around Old Town to see where all the differents services, or our last placement, a visit to the Volunteers of America men's rehab shelter, where they send men who just got out of prison or rehab and need to learn how to be members of society after spending thirty-forty years being addicted to drugs or a life of crime and so forth. I was pretty nervous about going there because I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of guys there had been sent for prison for certain acts of violence; namely, rape. But it turned out to be the best experience we had all week: we participated in a neighborhood clean-up with the guys, picking up dozens and dozens of cigarette butts off the little side streets stemming off of MLK, and then had a giant BBQ together. It was really fun. I got asked for my number twice so that was a little uhhno. But it was really interesting, getting to spend a day talking to people whom society has basically told us to completely give up on. Everyone I met was really sweet and polite and I enjoyed talking about football and basketball with them. I even got offered a job by the VOA program director, who told me "if you're thinking about a career in social work, give me a call if or when you get back." That felt pretty good.
More than anything else, what I really enjoyed during the week was walking and taking the bus around all the Portland neighbors I am so unfamiliar with: all of NE and N Portland, basically. We were staying in St. Francis, the church with the big park on 12th and Oak. I remember hanging out there summer freshman year at the VOZ office but I completely failed to make the connection that it was the same place until I got there. Basically, this was the first time I felt like a Portlander rather than a Reedie, and it was really nice. Also, I know I told everyone beforehand that the point of the Plunge was to "live like a homeless person" but I really need to correct that and apologize for it right now. Basically that was a really offensive statement on my part: it wasn't a week about trying to "understand" or "know what it's like" to be homeless or poor or recovering from addiction or mentally ill in Portland, it was more about getting a clearer picture about certain issues that have to do with urban poverty and getting to hear some stories that could be pretty intense at times and meet some people, most who were nice and some who were mean but all who were worthwhile. There are a lot of really lonely people out there...
So it was a very interesting week with a lot of intense conversations but I feel bit deep contemplative-out right now. It was really nice to sleep in a bed last night, and it was great seeing Corey again. We have a lot of packing to do: basically, everything. And so much laundry. And I have to return all those overdue library books. Plus this computer. And e-mail people who aren't here and see people who are in order to say goodbye. I don't like goodbyes, I like see-you-laters.
I feel it's fitting to end with the closing words from Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, which I used in the group discussion/reflection I had to lead on Thursday, with the theme of social justice:
"My story ends here. It is a fairly trivial story, and I can only hope that it has been interesting in the same way as a travel diary is interesting. I can at least say, Here is the world that awaits you if you are ever penniless. Some days I want to explore that world more thoroughly. I should like to know people like Mario and Paddy and Bill the moocher, not from casual encounters, but intimately; I should like to understand what really goes on in the souls of plongeurs and tramps and Embankment sleepers. At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.
Still I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning."
I like beginnings!
I think I did a pretty good job as a leader. Our group name was "The Sensational Six Power Plungers Exclamationpoint!" (in our cheer, I got to say to "Exclamationpoint!", in a style reminiscent of Kool-Aid Man). I got us lost basically every day (thank you trimet for telling me to "walk southwest" when I have no idea what that means). We also burned everything we cooked for dinner the one night it was our turn to prepare it: the pancakes were black, the hashbrowns were gray (apparently a result if the potatos are wet; my fault for washing them beforehand), and the sausages were raw in the middle. The only thing we didn't ruin was the soy yoghurt and granola for the vegan girl. We had a great time together, though. There was one afternoon where we all panhandled down by Powell's and Whole Foods, and this girl from my creative writing class gave us all the change in her pocket. When she saw me holding my little "LEARN TO LOVE BEFORE IT'S MADE ILLEGAL" sign slumped against the wall, she was like "JULIE" and I was like "hey, I graduated from Reed!" because it all seemed a little too complicated to explain right then and there. I'm sure I must have seemed like an excellent epitome of the post-grad lifestyle.
Apart from the small group placements there were some activities that we all did together (25 kids--I mean, students, in total), like a tour around Old Town to see where all the differents services, or our last placement, a visit to the Volunteers of America men's rehab shelter, where they send men who just got out of prison or rehab and need to learn how to be members of society after spending thirty-forty years being addicted to drugs or a life of crime and so forth. I was pretty nervous about going there because I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of guys there had been sent for prison for certain acts of violence; namely, rape. But it turned out to be the best experience we had all week: we participated in a neighborhood clean-up with the guys, picking up dozens and dozens of cigarette butts off the little side streets stemming off of MLK, and then had a giant BBQ together. It was really fun. I got asked for my number twice so that was a little uhhno. But it was really interesting, getting to spend a day talking to people whom society has basically told us to completely give up on. Everyone I met was really sweet and polite and I enjoyed talking about football and basketball with them. I even got offered a job by the VOA program director, who told me "if you're thinking about a career in social work, give me a call if or when you get back." That felt pretty good.
More than anything else, what I really enjoyed during the week was walking and taking the bus around all the Portland neighbors I am so unfamiliar with: all of NE and N Portland, basically. We were staying in St. Francis, the church with the big park on 12th and Oak. I remember hanging out there summer freshman year at the VOZ office but I completely failed to make the connection that it was the same place until I got there. Basically, this was the first time I felt like a Portlander rather than a Reedie, and it was really nice. Also, I know I told everyone beforehand that the point of the Plunge was to "live like a homeless person" but I really need to correct that and apologize for it right now. Basically that was a really offensive statement on my part: it wasn't a week about trying to "understand" or "know what it's like" to be homeless or poor or recovering from addiction or mentally ill in Portland, it was more about getting a clearer picture about certain issues that have to do with urban poverty and getting to hear some stories that could be pretty intense at times and meet some people, most who were nice and some who were mean but all who were worthwhile. There are a lot of really lonely people out there...
So it was a very interesting week with a lot of intense conversations but I feel bit deep contemplative-out right now. It was really nice to sleep in a bed last night, and it was great seeing Corey again. We have a lot of packing to do: basically, everything. And so much laundry. And I have to return all those overdue library books. Plus this computer. And e-mail people who aren't here and see people who are in order to say goodbye. I don't like goodbyes, I like see-you-laters.
I feel it's fitting to end with the closing words from Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, which I used in the group discussion/reflection I had to lead on Thursday, with the theme of social justice:
"My story ends here. It is a fairly trivial story, and I can only hope that it has been interesting in the same way as a travel diary is interesting. I can at least say, Here is the world that awaits you if you are ever penniless. Some days I want to explore that world more thoroughly. I should like to know people like Mario and Paddy and Bill the moocher, not from casual encounters, but intimately; I should like to understand what really goes on in the souls of plongeurs and tramps and Embankment sleepers. At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.
Still I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning."
I like beginnings!
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