monkey wrestles ghost

The opposition I wish we had

A conservative friend (yes, I have them) recently sent me a column that seems to be making the rounds in conservative circles (I had also seen the column referenced by Ross Douthat in the New York Times). My response to him was involved enough to qualify as my first blog post in six months, and hopefully enough to get me writing more regularly again:

I read this column after Ross Douthat referenced it in his NYT column. Obviously well-written and thoughtful, but rather unremarkable in my mind, except in that it represents what I find somewhat rare from the conservatism the Republican party represents these days -- moderate pragmatism. Just as conservatives feel they are caricatured, I think this piece demonstrates the caricature of liberals that is accepted wisdom among conservatives -- as aspiring Europeans. Is there such a strain in American liberalism? Of course. Is it equal or more dominant in the ruling liberal coalition than Tea Party-ism is in the ruling conservative coalition? I don't think so.

As a result, if the column represents mainstream conservative thought (which I doubt it does), I think it shows how little actually separates conservatives and liberals in this country. This is a manifesto of wise government -- a debate over means and not ends. Do I agree with the assertion that market based reforms will solve health care costs? No. But that is merely a factual dispute, and both the column and I are in agreement that near-universal health care is the goal. Similarly, I'd be curious to see how the tax system envisioned by the author produces enough funding to provide the means-tested entitlements he supports. I don't think it adds up, but again, that's a factual dispute and not a philosophical one.

I also think the column opportunistically indulges in the common fallacy that accompanies snapshots in time. Just as liberals were inclined to over-indict the failings of capitalism during the economic crisis, so to are conservatives over-dramatizing the costs and consequences of the welfare state at a time of public fiscal crisis that is not the norm. It's the political equivalent of picking the lowest point in the stock market to analyze long-term annual returns. The author cites a "long-term" unfunded mandate of $46 trillion -- but notably does not define "long-term". Unmentioned: that the Bush tax cuts cost roughly a trillion dollars and their extension permanently (as Republicans insist) would have cost more than $3 trillion in the first decade, and more after. That is, a significant portion of the unfunded mandate is addressed simply by restoring taxes to pre-Bush levels -- which were still historically towards the low end when measured by taxes as a percentage of GDP.

Which is not to say reforms aren't necessary. We have a serious fiscal situation, driven largely by spiraling health costs. Some means-testing of entitlements and other government spending is inevitable. Instead, what we get from conservative governance is the destruction of public employee unions under the banner of marching against socialism -- even when those unions have already conceded financially to help prevent debt crisis.

More than anything, what makes me a liberal today is not my political philosophy, which, if the column is to be believed, is not so far removed from conservative philosophy. It is the un-seriousness and dangerous nature of the Republican Party today. Animated by a belief in the near-inevitability of the fiscal and moral death cycle of the social democratic model, it has now embraced either extremism as a supposedly necessary counter-balance to that inevitability, or opposition by any peaceful (and sometimes rhetorically not so peaceful) means necessary, up to and including pure demagoguery. Few things are more dangerous to a democracy than when a significant portiof of its leadership embraces such views and tactics-- and indeed, these are precisely the bases of the critique leveled by conservatism against Islamist political parties.

If, however, conservatism does indeed stand for what this column embraces -- smart and economically efficient ways for a "sizable government" to achieve the goals of expanded health care coverage, aid to the needy, government investment in infrastructure and education, an opportunity society of upward mobility for all (including recent immigrants), regulation that only addresses critical societal needs (and how can the risk of climate change honestly not be categorized as society-threatening?) -- and all of the above in a fiscally responsible manner that has yet to be detailed! -- then at worst liberalism and conservatism would be debating solely over means and efficacy of achieving a shared vision of an ever more free, prosperous, and fundamentally moral United States of America. As a liberal, that's the opposition I'd love to have. 

 

2010 California ballot propositions

A few friends have asked me for my views on the various California ballot propositions, so I thought I'd throw together some quick thoughts for anyone who's curious.  As most of you know, I am left-leaning and a Democrat, but will try to put on my advisor hat, instead of my advocate hat.  Also, I am nowhere near as close a follower of state politics as I used to be when I worked in Sacramento, so take this with a grain of salt.

Proposition 19:  Pretty straightforward -- if you think marijuana should be legalized, you should vote yes, and if you don't, you should vote no.  To be clear, even if it passes, marijuana will still be illegal under federal law, so this initiative is more about expressing the public's view as well as whether *state* law enforcement resources should be applied to enforcing the law.  In other words, I wouldn't advise running out and opening your own marijuana dispensary if this passes!

Proponents include supporters of drug liberalization and critics of existing drug policy, as well as the NAACP (on the ground that drug law is disproportionately applied to minorities).  Opponents include law enforcement and public safety advocates (including the Republican and Democratic candidates for Attorney General).  There are a lot of good arguments and studies on both sides about how societally harmful/not harmful marijuana use is, and whether enforcing our illegal drug laws against marijuana users and dealers is societally beneficial that I really can't do justice in a blog post.

Propositions 20 and 27:  "Redistricting" -- OK, I know your eyes have already glazed over, but this is important stuff!  The way that voting districts are drawn can really affect who is elected, which in turn really affects the overall composition of Congress and the state legislature.  Historically, elected officials have had the power to draw the lines, but more recently there has been a push to give that power to some sort of "impartial" entity.  It's a complicated subject, and the best way I have to explain it is to describe my own personal views, which have changed over time.

I used to be a big proponent of traditional redistricting.  My reasons were:

1)  Like many aspects of government, redistricting is very complicated and involves really difficult policy trade-offs.  Isn't that exactly what legislators are supposed to do in a democracy?  And if we don't like what they're doing, we can vote them out.  Besides, do I trust some supposedly "impartial" body to do any better?

2)  I also have a big fear of gridlocked government that thwarts democracy.  I believe that America's dynamism and rapid pace of change are one of its greatest strengths, and I used to believe that you get the most democratic (and therefore dynamic) outcomes if the winner of the elections gets to implement what they want without too much obstruction from the losing side.  If the Republicans win in Texas, they should get to govern Texas, and if Democrats win in California, they should get to govern California.  To the winner goes the spoils, and if either party fails to perform, they'll get swept from office eventually.  In the meantime, government reflects the dynamism of American society, which is a good thing.

After spending a lot of time in government, I came to question my views, because:

1)  Redistricting is about the very rules of elections themselves, so when abused, it can actually makes it harder for true voter preference to be expressed in elections.

2)  And frankly, there is a lot of abuse, on both sides.  In Texas in the 1990s, Republicans deliberately drew lines designed to minimize the power of Democratic voters (e.g., draw the lines so that even if 40% of voters voted Democratic, only 25% of the state legislature and Texas congressional delegation would be Democrats).  Democrats have done similar things, and in fact, in California, Democrats drew the lines to make sure most existing Democratic incumbents were protected, even at the expense of having a legislature that had a bigger Democratic majority that reflected California's voters!

3)  But most importantly, I've concluded that aggressive redistricting doesn't result in the outcome I want, which is the best possible expression of voter intent in the form of actual government action (whether that action be "liberal" or "conservative" action).  Most districts have ended up being drawn in a way that emphasizes the voting power of each party's most motivated or organized constituents.  And for both parties, that has produced more ideological or ethically compromised legislators who actually contribute to gridlock and/or undemocratic outcomes.  Neither dynamic, nor democratic.

Whew.  If you're still with me, at a high level what this means is:

-- If you are more convinced by "Old Mike" and pro-"traditional" redistricting, you probably want to vote no on Prop. 20 and yes and Prop. 27;

-- If you are more convinced by "New Mike", you probably want to vote yes on Prop. 20 and no on Prop.27.

There are some nuances that are possible; for example, you may agree with one argument at the state level and another for Congressional districts, in which case you might vote differently than above.  If you want to get that detailed, see the League of Women Voters analysis.

Proposition 21: If you want to pay a $18 annual car license fee specifically to support state parks, you should vote yes.

In addition, some people feel that even if they support a particular cause or expenditure, it's bad policy to write into law a dedicated source of funding for it.  For example, in times of budget crisis, one might argue that the $500 million this measure would raise would be better spent on other things.  Certainly, my friends who work on the state budget find it incredibly frustrating that a huge percentage of the budget must by law be spent on certain things because of votes taken years or decades ago, even though times and priorities may have changed.  

On the flip side, education, transportation, and many other programs have dedicated funding, so if you feel strongly about parks, why shouldn't they get one too?  Also, if you are generally in favor of more government revenue, the money raised by this proposition means existing park money could be used elsewhere.  After all, money is fungible.

Proposition 22:  Prop. 22 is all about *who* gets to decide how state and local tax dollars are spent.  Normally, the state government gets to decide how your state taxes are spent, and local government (cities and counties) gets to decide how your local taxes are spent.  However, in the past several years, California has had serious budget problems, so the state government has used local tax money to help with the state budget.  This made the cities and counties mad, so they put this proposition on the ballot to stop that from happening again.

Some types of programs get more support at the state level, while others get more support at the local level.  That's why you see the odd (and somewhat sad) situation where certain interests (like police and fire departments, libraries) support the proposition while others (like teachers and redevelopment agencies) oppose it.   Basically, everyone is just fighting over the money.

So it's hard for me to even advise how you might vote on this proposition.  If you prefer that more of your local taxes be spent by local officials, you probably want to vote yes.  Then again, certain programs (like education) are heavily funded by the state, so voting yes might make it harder for those programs to get the money they want.  Really tough call.  I'm leaning toward voting "no".

Proposition 23:  This proposition would suspend enforcement of a recently passed state law seeking to limit carbon emissions that contribute to global warming, until the state's unemployment rate drops below 5.5% for a year (historically, that threshold has been reached very rarely).

If you support efforts at the state level to limit global warming, you definitely want to vote no on this one.  If you think global warming is exaggerated or a hoax, or that now is a bad time to try and address it, you should vote yes.

Proposition 24:  Corporate tax law is ridiculously complex, and I don't think you need to know the details to decide how to vote on this one.  If you think state corporate taxes should go up, vote yes.  If you think state corporate taxes should not go up, vote no.  All the usual arguments for and against corporate taxes apply, including how much tax in total you think we as a society should pay to support government expenditures, how that tax should be collected (corporate vs. sales/income/property taxes), and who should pay what share of taxes.

Proposition 25:  Like redistricting, the state budget process is hideously complex.  At a high level, a state budget must do two things: decide how much tax to collect, and how those taxes are spent.  Under current law, both those decisions require a two-thirds majority in each house of the state legislature, plus the governor's approval.  The state legislature has been majority Democratic for most of the past few decades, but never two-thirds Democratic.  This means that at least a few Republican legislators have to vote for a budget before it can pass.  

Democrats will tell you that Republicans have used this requirement to drag out the process every year, until eventually some special favor is given to a few Republicans to vote yes.  They will also argue that the Republican legislators have historically acted irresponsibly, refusing to vote for any budget but never putting forth any realistic budget plan of their own.

Republicans will tell you that without the two-thirds requirement, Democrats would "go crazy" and raise taxes and spend money the state doesn't have.  They also argue that the two-thirds requirement is the only way Republican legislators and their constituents get anything significant done, because it's the only leverage they have in an otherwise overwhelmingly Democratic legislature.

It's important to note that this proposition eliminates the two-thirds requirement for *how* state money is spent, but keeps in place the two-thirds requirement for any tax increase.  For committed Democrats, that's probably less than ideal, but still an improvement.  For committed Republicans, this is just the beginning of a slippery slope towards Democrats getting everything they want in the state budget.

The fact is that, at least at the legislative level, California is a Democratic state.  So if you have some sympathy for Democratic policies (or disagree with them but feel that as the majority party in the state they should get their way), you want to vote yes.  If you lean Republican in your outlook and want Democratic policies restricted or stopped (or otherwise feel that forcing a super-majority serves a good purpose), you want to vote no.

Proposition 26:  More arcane budget stuff!  You probably don't care whether money you pay to the government is called a "tax" or a "fee", but there's a big legal difference.  It can get really technical, and a little absurd at times when lawyers argue about it.  For purposes of this proposition, what you need to know is that taxes require a two-thirds vote at the state or local level, while fees require a majority vote.  This proposition would make all "fees" also subject to a two-thirds vote requirement.  

If on principle you generally oppose more government revenue, you should vote yes on this proposition because it makes it much harder for the government to create or raise fees.  If you are more supportive of government revenue for whatever reason, or you feel that a majority vote should be sufficient to collect new or more revenue, you should vote no.  

So there you have it.  All feedback welcome, especially if you think I've made a factual error!

 

A youthful autobiography in concerts

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to land a ticket to the Matador 21 show in Las Vegas -- a 21st birthday celebration for the now-venerable independent record label.  The indie all-star (if that's not a oxymoron) lineup included amazing sets from some of my favorite bands, such as Yo La Tengo and Belle and Sebastian, as well as nostalgic rockin' (if that's not an oxymoron) from Pavement, Sonic Youth, Guided by Voices, and Liz Phair.

With artists and audience now well on their way to aged hipsterdom, a knowing air of self-mockery pervaded the show.  Phair likened the event to a "high school reunion", while Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian threw the gut punch by noting that most of the audience was too old to dance.  Last year I mocked my parents for going to an Andy Williams concert (83 years old and still performing!), but I seem to be following in their footsteps.

Like the old man I am becoming, I left the show reflecting on the concerts of my youth, and here are five of the more memorable:

5)  Beastie Boys and Run DMC (1986, Irvine Meadows, Irvine CA):  The first tape I ever owned was Falco's "Falco 3".  The second was Run DMC's "Raising Hell".  So while the vast majority of fans at this suburban show came to fight for their right to party, I came to my first concert ever to walk this way.  By the time of the joint finale, the Beastie Boys were so drunk that Run had to hold MCA upright.

4)  Erasure (1988, Irvine Meadows, Irvine CA:  In addition to being an early "mostest favoritest band evah!", Erasure also has the honor of introducing me to the concept of homosexuality.  When Andy Bell performed in a leotard, I was confused.  When he emerged from backstage in a tutu, my sheltered, upper-middle class sensibilities reeled.  What does it mean?  Is he gay?  Wait, do I really even know what "gay" means?  

3)  Jeff Buckley (1994, Luna Park, Los Angeles CA):  Despite the consensus around his musical genius, I've never been a Jeff Buckley fan.  I went to this show because I had a crush on the girl who invited me, who in turn had a crush on Buckley.  As it turned out, she managed to slip backstage after the show to hang out with Buckley himself -- while I cooled my heels in the empty auditorium for an hour before pathetically asking the bouncer if he could find her and remind her I was waiting to give her a ride home.  A true low point.  But I ended up dating her ten years later.  She dumped me a few years after that, but not for Jeff Buckley.  He was dead by then.

2)  Nashville Pussy (1998 or 1999, Bottom of the Hill, SF CA):  Most regular concertgoers have a serendipity show, where by pure chance they experience a mind-blowing performance they never expected.  Mine came on a random night out at San Francisco's Bottom of the Hill, where my friend T. and I stumbled across Nashville Pussy, a punkabilly band whose cacaphonous live show included a seven-foot Amazonian bassist who spits fire, and a lead guitarist thrashing out while having beer poured down her throat (and all over her body) by her lead singer (as well as husband) while he screams into the mic.  It was by far the most rocking show I have ever been to, and I later learned that the bassist was the sister of a high school classmate (who ended up playing in the NBA), and went on to play bass for Hole.  Which I guess makes me two steps removed from Nashville Pussy, three from Courtney Love, and therefore only four from Kurt Cobain!!!

1)  Depeche Mode, the "101" concert (1989, Rose Bowl, Pasadena CA):  You have to remember that before the internet, every little pocket of emo teenagers lived in isolation, linked only by Rolling Stone magazine and the occasional concert (in the rare instance where tickets and parental permission could be obtained).  So when 60,000 angst-ridden youth descended on the Rose Bowl with lighters in hand, it can only be described as a religious experience.  Throats were screamed hoarse.  Tears were shed.  Mascara was ruined.  And most memorably, on an otherwise completely clear Southland evening, rain poured from the sky *only* for the duration of the pop-heretical "Blasphemous Rumors".  A religious experience, all recorded and later sold on the two-tape "101" album.  The grabbing hands grab all they can.

 

"Scoreboard"

An election is just weeks away, and most signs predict disaster for Democrats.  My friend K. and I were therefore engaged in the traditional liberal pastime of diagnosing what ails the country, and progressivism in general.  It was during that long IM conversation that I finally found my voice for my frustrations with the President, but even more importantly with the state of my country.

The economy is in the tank, and is likely structurally flawed for the foreseeable future.  Economic opportunities continue to evaporate and families continue to fall on hard times, with costs to society that extend far beyond what economics can measure.  To stave off total disaster, the government was forced to channel massive resources to undeserving industries, many of which made off like bandits, and few of whom made any pretense at attending to the public good to which their salvation was owed.  Not un-relatedly, wealth disparity continues to grow at an alarming and infuriating rate.

American soldiers continue to die in faraway lands, largely forgotten or ignored by a country inured to war but happy to engage in petty and cynical exploitation of the tragedy that sent us to war in the first place.  The chief exploiter?  The nation's leading media force, a conservative propaganda machine that consistently steamrolls the now-discredited "mainstream media".  Not un-relatedly, nativism and intolerance stalk the land.  

Government is increasingly dominated by corporate interests and money.  Both parties are increasingly in thrall to various narrow interests.  Not un-relatedly, government appears incapable of addressing fundamental systemic risks like our nation's long-term fiscal health and climate change.  

Against this backdrop, the President implores me to appreciate his many accomplishments: the health care reform liberals have fought decades for, a stimulus package that averted economic disaster, a drawdown of troops in Iraq, new comprehensive rules for the financial industry, progress on education reform, Supreme Court justices I can be proud of.  The President's staff tells me that I am ungrateful for what has been done, or unrealistic to expect more.  Or more likely both.

I am a baseball fan, so I will use a baseball analogy.  The President hit a towering home run with health care reform (and some nice doubles too).  I am neither ungrateful nor unappreciative of the accomplishment.  But the forces of selfishness and division ran up the score on us over the past several years, and I want to know what the game score is.  Is it ungrateful of me to ask?  Is it unrealistic for me to focus on winning the game?

Mr. President, we as a nation are losing the game, by a significant margin.  And sadly (and frustratingly), I fear you will only realize it after the election.  

Trip report: week one, Utah

Something's not quite right about this road trip.  I'm having a good time, but it doesn't feel as carefree or liberating as I had expected.

It's mostly my own fault -- the idea of a month with a jeep and no concrete plans was a romantic one.  The reality, though, is that I spend a fair amount of time and mental energy figuring out what to do next.  And last-minute planning is inevitably more complicated or expensive (or both) than planning in advance.  The travel world is biased against spontaneity.  

It doesn't help that I have a personality that is paralyzed by options.  I fixate on what I might be missing by making a choice.  I've yet to decide where to head tomorrow -- if I don't go to the San Rafael Swell on this leg of the trip, I might lack the time to explore it as much as I want.  But if I choose to route through the swell, I will miss out on the Needles section of Canyonlands and White Canyon.  And in studying the map to decide, I discovered the Dark Canyon Wilderness, which I'm now fascinated by.  Too many options!

I'm also bothered by recurring sense of guilt.  My parents have been worried sick at the prospect of me alone in Utah.  Faulting them for their love and concern for me would be truly callous, and instead, I'm sending them daily messages with my itinerary for the day.  Prudent?  Yes.  But it does kind of dampen the sense of adventure and freedom.  I also left A. and the cats in San Francisco to gallivant across Utah -- feeling some guilt about that, too.

Whining aside, I am enjoying Utah tremendously.  After dropping my parents off in Salt Lake City on Monday, I treated myself to two nights at the swanky Falcon's Ledge lodge, where I took fly-fishing lessons.  Fly-fishing is challenging but engrossing, and I now have another activity to aspire to improve at, although I did catch four fish!

Admittedly, they were all caught from a drift boat in a lake, rather than wading in a stream in "River Runs Through It" style.

I also visited two interesting little museums in eastern Utah:  the Prehistoric Museum of the College of Eastern Utah, and the Western Mining and Railroad Museum.  As far as dinosaur museums go, the Prehistoric Museum is small and reeks of the 1980s -- but because of it's size and sparse visitation it's quite intimate.  It's the first time I didn't feel trapped in some kind of dinosaur amusement park.  Eastern Utah is among the world's most rich source of fossils -- in part because of a local predator trap with so many raptor bones they named the species after the state (Utahraptor), and also because the desert used to be the terminus of a flood plain, so that the bodies of dinosaurs killed by devastating floods all washed up in a particular location (now known as Dinosaur National Monument).

 

As for the Mining and Railroad museum, I'd charitably describe it as a work in progress, but it is a touching attempt by the small town of Helper to preserve it's tumultuous and sad history, including the Castle Gate Mine Explosion, which killed nearly 10% of the town's population.  One exhibit in particular stood out for me:

 

Finally (for now), I spent the last two days in Moab and visiting Arches and Canyonlands National Park.   Both are uniquely amazing, and I was particularly wowed by the four-wheel drive Shafer Trail (trivia: the trail was where the final scene of Thelma and Louise was shot).  Driving the road gave me a real sense of the scale of the canyon-within-canyon-within-canyon nature of Canyonlands.

I'll leave off now to figure out where I'm headed tomorrow.  More pics to come once I've had a chance to curate a bit.

Ups and downs

This week, I'm visiting Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks with my parents.  Among the many things I owe them is my love of the outdoors.  We took family trips to national parks starting very early in my life, and although neither of them is a camper, they signed me up for the Boy Scouts where I learned to appreciate camping and backpacking (as well as how to get along with kids who weren't honors students -- more on that some other time).

Sadly, they've reached a point in their lives where they're unable to accompany me on hikes of any significant distance (although I have to give mad props to my dad for completing the Angel's Landing hike with me four years ago at age 72!).  So these days, when we travel together to national parks, we often end up doing separate activities for at least part of the time.  Which is how I ended up on my first ever solo backpacking trip, the one-night Paintbrush Canyon to Cascade Canyon loop in Grand Teton.

I figured a one-night trip with the latest high-tech gear would be a reasonable introduction to solo backpacking.  Day 1 of the trip involved 3,500 feet in elevation gain (from 6,200 ft. to 9,700 ft.).  Day 2 involved another 1,000 feet in gain (in one mile), and then 4,500 feet down back down to the trailhead.  The up was tough, and more than I bargained for at this altutude -- but at least when climbing you can rest and the pain subsides.  What I severely underestimated was the effect the descent would have on my feet -- and unlike climbing, the effect is cumulative and can't be eliminated by rest.  By the end of the day, I was in such pathetic shape that I missed the last boat home across the lake, but they actually turned around and came back for me once they saw me hobbling down the dock.  "You looked like me" a friendly old retiree observed once I had boarded.

Even with pain and exhaustion (or perhaps because of it) backpacking is an opportunity to set aside your everyday worries and learn something meaningful about yourself or the universe.  Among my epiphanies on this trip:

-- I think my ring toe is abnormally long.  I'm just realizing it now, but it's always the toe that ends up bruised and blistered when I do any major downhill hiking.

-- Lying alone in the dark is really boring.  Good thing I had my phone with me, so I could play Robot Tower Defender while the freezing winds howled outside the tent.  I also lamely attempted to send one work email (at 10,000 feet, I had line-of-sight cell phone reception).

-- It's crazy that the sun is more than 90 million miles away and can still pack enough heat to sunburn my ears.

OK, not the most meaningful insights, but I'm still recovering from he mental exhaustion of work, remember?  Baby steps.  Just not any downhill steps for the next few days, please.

 
 
 

With my feet in the air, and head on the ground

One week into my sabbatical from work, and the process of recovering my mind and writing again feels in many ways like physical therapy after an injury.  Once the pain has dulled, you think you're capable of previous levels of performance, but the reality is that you're a long way off.  Baby steps are needed, and basic facts are the writing equivalent of baby steps.

The move from New York to San Francisco went easily enough.  A. and I have a spacious apartment steps away from Dolores Park, and within a few blocks of some of the best food San Francisco has to offer (including the famed Tartine bakery, the artisanal ice cream of Bi-Rite Creamery, and the perpetual line at Delfina Pizzeria).  As a general rule, women who visit our apartment note the lemon tree in the backyard, and men note the lack of parking.

The New York vs. San Francisco conversation has been beaten to death, so suffice to say both of us find San Francisco "nice" and "fine", but pretty lame.  We can't abandon the metrics we embraced in New York.  Last night, as we experienced Fashion's Night Out in separate cities.  I went to SoHo and found the entire neighborhood joyously overwhelmed with people expressing themselves in every possible way through their clothing.  A. went to SF's Union Square and found little more than a DJ playing for no one in particular in Macy's.  I could be wrong, but I don't think we'll be calling San Francisco home for very long.

In the meantime though, we are consoled by two new additions to our household -- our kittens, Evey ("Evey-chan") and Maxwell ("Maxmax").  Evey is smart, affectionate, and a bit of a princess.  Maxwell is earnest, loves soft things, and is usually playing catch-up to his sister in the smarts department.  We like to joke that Evey will go to an Ivy League university if we push her hard enough, and Maxwell may want to consider vocational school.

   

So that's the domestic update.  As mentioned above, I recently began a three-month sabbatical from work and for the rest of September and a good part of October I'll be wandering around the American Southwest in a jeep with my backpacking gear, with no agenda other than to go wherever each day takes me.  If anyone wants to meet up with me, I can pick you up in Las Vegas or Salt Lake City with two days notice.  As much as I romanticize solitude, I'd love the company.  In the meantime, I plan to update the blog more frequently and in a more meaningful way as my life flows back into the nooks and crannies I've neglected.  

 
 

The only constant is change

It ends as it began -- living out of my cousin's apartment, two bags and a bike.  But so much has changed since I arrived.

The hasids and hipsters of the East River Park have been joined by families with strollers and SLRs, and condo towers have replaced the empty lots of Kent Street.  Construction has finally started at the site of the World Trade Center.  The New Museum opened on Bowery.  The Yankees won a World Series and the Giants won a Super Bowl.  The Plaza Hotel was condo-ized and Stuyvesant Town was turned over to creditors.  The Red Hook and Long Island City waterfronts have been transformed.  Grizzly Bear and Feist have gone national, and The National has gone international.  Wall Street cratered and came back -- Elliot Spitzer cratered and didn't, David Paterson cratered and won't.  The East River had waterfalls.  There are luxury boutiques south of Delancey.  The High Line opened.  Washington Square Park and the Knitting Factory closed and re-opened.  Florent closed and Ippudo opened.  The Misshapes went from weekly parties to Gossip Girl and Gap ads, and Montauk got douchey.  Bike ramps have been built on both ends of the Manhattan Bridge, and sheltered bike lanes have appeared throughout the city.  The Gowanus Canal is now a Superfund site and the Red Hook food vendors were forced into trucks.  Astroland is closed.

According to my friend A, you can't claim to be a New York without seven ten uninterrupted years of residence.  As a newcomer, I accepted that.  On the eve of my departure, I'm more inclined to agree with Tom Wolfe:  "One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years."  Goodbye, New York.  I'm proud to have belonged here.

 

The end of my empire state

Well.  It's been awhile. I don't have much news to report... except that I'm moving back to the Bay Area.  With A.  Oh, yeah, we'll be shacking up, too.  This collection of news has been more surprising to most folks I've told than it is to me.  I suppose that's because the process getting to this point is intimately familiar to me, and out of the blue for most others.  The most surprise has been expressed at my willingness to leave New York City.

There's a famous court case called Palsgraf v. Long Island.  A railroad guard helps push a passenger onto a moving train car, which causes the passenger to drop a package.  Unbeknownst to guard, the package contains fireworks, which explode, causing some scales at the other end of the platform to fall on poor Mrs. Palsgraf.  She, of course, sues the railroad.  The court finds that even though the guard's actions factually caused her injury (after all, if the guard hadn't pushed, she wouldn't have been hurt), the railroad isn't liable because the guard's actions aren't the "proximate cause" of her injury.  That is, there's a difference between what causes something, and what's actually responsible for it.

All of which is a long and legally dorky way of explaining that the reasons for leaving New York are many, and run the gamut from the philosophical to the mundane.  Love.  Mountains.  Jadedness.  Burritos.  Friday nights at home.  Work.  Vegas.  Friendship.  Old age.  Tennis.  Family.  Canyons.  Even without accidental explosions, the scales shift from time to time, and at this point they lean West.  As for the future, I've pretty much given up predicting that.

Utah trip report: Smoky Mountain Road

Enough with the introspection!  Now that vacation's over, it's time for a straight-up trip report.

Ever since my parents first took me to Zion National Park as a teenager, I've been fascinated by the American Southwest, and Utah's canyon country in particular.  It's a landscape perfectly designed to instill a sense of exploration, with vistas that unfold suddenly, slot canyons and arches that reveal themselves only from certain vantage points, and seemingly impassable cliffs and gorges with hidden paths that expose entirely new areas for further exploration.  Imagine driving from LA to SF, or New York to DC, where every mile travelled contains canyons, cliffs, desolate badlands, hidden waterfalls and river oases, and soaring peaks.  And above all, the remoteness -- there's nothing quite like the silence experienced with massive landforms as your only companions.

But with the exception of many return trips to Zion, my fascination hadn't yet translated into significant exploration.  When President Clinton made a national monument out of large swaths of the region, I rejoiced and made visiting a top priority -- that was more than ten years ago.  But the closest I got was staring wistfully out over the landscape every time I flew from New York to Los Angeles or Las Vegas.  On one recent flight, I saw a semi-circular geologic formation that looked like a titanic child had made a sand castle wall hundreds of miles long and thousands of feet high. That was the last straw -- my curiosity had reached a breaking point, and I began planning a trip.

With so much pent-up interest, it was inevitable that I would go a little overboard in planning.  The area has no shortage of four wheel drive roads that can be used for exploration.  For the first part of my trip, I chose the most remote and difficult one I could find: the Smoky Mountain Road, some 80 miles of barely maintained dirt road through the most remote sections of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  Armed with maps, a GPS device (which promptly failed on me - Garmin sucks), a shovel, and plenty of water, I set off across the Warm Creek badlands, an eerily barren landscape of grey, yellow, and red mud hills surrounded by imposing crumbling cliffs more than a thousand feet high.  After a brief detour down a narrow canyon to see the shores of Lake Powell, the road took me straight towards one of those cliffs.

Those who have written about the road all comment that until you hit the incredibly narrow and steep Kelley's Grade, it seems impossible that any road can take you up the sheer face of Smoky Mountain.  Even when you're on the road, it seems impossible at points.  The initial grade is steeper than any road I have ever driven, requiring the lowest possible gear and maximum torque to even inch forward in the gravel and rocks, and runs along the narrow spine of a ridge with steep drop-offs on both sides.  Once past the first segment (no pictures, sorry, I was trying to stay alive), the grade abates somewhat, but still continues for several miles of nerve-wracking cliff-edge driving before depositing you at a amazing vista atop Smoky Mountain.

From there, it's a fairly flat and smooth run across the Kaiparowits Plateau, a broad flat expanse of stunted pine trees and desert shrubs, until the road suddenly turns incredibly nasty in Carcass Canyon as it runs past Death Ridge.  Even calling this section a road is a bit generous, and the rental car company mechanic must be wondering what happened to the car.  After a few hours of violent jostling, the road eventually returned to a civilized state, eventually depositing me (and my back and neck pain) in the town of Escalante...

...Where I promptly got a flat tire.  I actually consider myself quite lucky, as a flat on some sections of the Smoky Mountain Road could have been a serious problem.  Unfortunately, I had to abandon my plans for dinner at Hell's Backbone Grill.  I left the car outside the closed auto shop, and walked across the street to the roadside motel, in the hopes of finding the mechanic first thing in the morning.

More on the trip later (especially the wonders of Capitol Reef National Park, and a great time in Zion with A.), if time permits.  Click here for pictures.

From Utah Road Trip, Oct. 2009

Does anyboy know a way that a body could get away?

Sitting at cliff's edge, 1,400 feet above the Warm Creek badlands, I flinched. Not physically, but emotionally.  And not from fear of heights, but from a reluctance to actually contemplate my solitude. Reaching for my wireless lifeline, I sent a text message to A.  Her reply: "stop txting and get some solitude :)".

A few hours later, I flinched again, while battling the tortured roads of the Kaiparowits Plateau.  My SUV was taking serious abuse, and I was concerned that it might fail in some way -- leaving me stranded on a road where I had yet to see another car after four hours of driving.  The thought of being marooned in the wilderness was unsettling (even with survival equipment), and I sought comfort in the radio.  It's hard to summon the willpower to be alone when blanketed by cell phone and satellite radio coverage. I was greeted by the chorus of "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes", by Modest Mouse:  

Does anybody know a way
that a body could get away?
Does anybody know a way?

I had to laugh at that -- laugh, and turn the volume as high as I could bear. Sometimes, you have to embrace the possibility that it's not just chance.

Today I realized that you're never really alone on a road trip, even if you're solo and without technology. After you've set aside the fear, gained enough distance from your regular life, and finished the immediate tasks before you -- you're still left with the journey itself, and the decision whether or not to continue.  And the choice to not continue -- to abandon imperative and just be -- does not come easily to us.  It's difficult to be alone.

On finding solitude

The process of finding solitude began, ironically enough, at a crowded craps table in Las Vegas, where I found myself isolated from others players due to my betting strategy and the amount that I was betting relative to my apparent youth.  Craps players will be familiar with this dynamic -- when no one at the table will speak to you other than the dealers.  There's rarely a sense of malice, only an alienation that drives me into a shell where I lose myself in my surroundings.

18 hours later, solitude found me, as I lay on a park bench waiting for the stars as dusk faded over the Utah sand dunes.  As pinpricks of light began to scatter across the night sky, I imagined myself without mission or purpose, family or loved ones, home or belongings.  Trying to erase the marks of our existence.  I failed, of course.  You can't leave yourself behind in a day.  But you can find yourself alone, surrounded by rock and wind, waiting for something you didn't even realize was missing.  It's a start in more ways than one.  Tomorrow I take the road less traveled, and am a bit trepidatious.

What happens in America...

After a recent weekend in Las Vegas, I came away more convinced than ever that no city better reflects American values.  Like the stereotypical "ugly American", the city may at first repulse  -- but a little familiarity helps you understand what makes Americanism the force that it is.

Let's start with the obvious: Las Vegas represents the best and worst of capitalism.  The amount of money you are willing to spend dictates how you are treated.  Crass?  Absolutely.  But also without pretense, and a reflection of the egalitarianism of opportunity that lies at the heart of the "American dream".  The city is indifferent to family pedigree, title, or caste -- and the only color it sees is the color of money.  Is there another city in the world that welcomes people of so many kinds and yet is so free of prejudice and lacking in hatred or vendetta?  Like America, Vegas is relatively unburdened by the weight of history, free to make its own way as it sees fit, for better or worse.

"For better or worse" suggests consequences, and in Las Vegas, responsibility for consequences is rooted in the modern equivalent of frontier individualism.  In many European countries, retailers are forbidden by law from engaging in "price discrimination", the practice of charging different prices for the same good or service.  In some countries, sales are allowed only during certain government-approved times of year -- a paternalistic effort to protect consumers from corporations and, perhaps more accurately, themselves.  In Las Vegas, a retiree can choose at any time to wager his entire life savings on a single roll of the dice, just as recent history has shown that almost any American can wager their entire family's economic well-being on a subprime mortgage.  In America, fools are as welcome as anyone else, as long as they live with their own consequences.  

But in every wager, no matter how foolish, there is an element of hope.  The neon and glitter of Las Vegas are not a disguise, meant to hide an ugly truth.  They are adornments, meant to highlight (ok, "sell", if you must) the hope that your circumstances can suddenly and drastically change for the better.  Indeed, the city itself sprang into being as an idea, audacious to the point of absurdity.  A metropolis in the desert made possible only through a series of engineering marvels of questionable sustainability.  An aspiration made real by ingenuity and effort, and heedless of obstacles.  What could be more American than that?

Nom

Ever since I moved to New York two years ago (!!!), food has come to occupy an ever-growing place in my consciousness.  Every city can boast superb restaurants, and many can rightfully claim to exceed New York in one respect or another, but none can match the dynamism of New York dining.  It's been a year and a half since I last posted a list of my favorite NYC food experiences -- an eternity in New York dining-time -- and I'm well overdue for yet another orgy of culinary superlatives.

-- The Transformative Dining Experience:  Lombardi's Pizza (Nolita, Mott and Spring)

People can (and vehemently will) disagree on whether Lombardi's is the best pizza in New York, or even whether New York pizza is superior to other types.  I'm still unsure of my own position, but it wasn't until I experienced Lombardi's that I finally understood the concept of the "New York pizza" and why it evokes such passions.  The simplicity of Lombardi's pizza brings into clarity the importance of oven technique and the oven itself.  You can discuss the sauce, the crust, the cheese, and the toppings all you like, but until you're discussing the oven, you aren't talking about New York pizza.

-- The Hidden Treasures:  Nan Shiang Dumpling House (Flushing, Prince and 39th Ave.) and "Fried Dumplings" (Chinatown, Mosco and Mulberry)

I had previously cited New York hamburgers as an "embarrassment of riches", but dumplings may be the hidden treasure.  Nan Shiang in Flushing serves the best soup dumplings I've had in my life -- hands down, bar none, no doubt, boo-ya, etc. etc.  They are hand-made to order in plain view, which is important because it means they aren't fraudulently augmenting the soupiness by either steaming with ice cubes or injecting soup after the fact.  It's pure buttery liquified pork-fat bliss.

The fried dumpling carry-out on Mosco alley is an entirely different experience -- five fried dumplings for a dollar, served out of a hole-in-the wall of questionable cleanliness by a cadre of industrious Chinese ladies.  What do you expect for A DOLLAR?

-- The New Yorkification: Fette Sau (Williamsburg, Metropolitan and Havenmeyer)

"Only in New York" is an overused cliche, but it speaks to the way the city can receive something from another place and make it its own.  Fette Sau is ostensibly a German barbeque restaurant, but to describe it as such misses the point entirely:  it is a New York barbeque.  Packed to the brim at communal tables with youthful patrons losing themselves in whiskey flights and pork belly, it's a celebration of life in the city.

-- The Expedition:  DDM Migliore Restaurant (Flushing, Depot Rd. and 164th St.)

One reason why eating in New York is so rewarding is that it can frequently be combined with urban exploration of the neighoborhoods and ethnic enclaves.  If you take the LIRR out to East Flushing (Broadway stop), you emerge into a large Korean community.  This oddly name restaurant (at least, in English) serves only three dishes:  pork belly, barbeque pork, and beef intestine.  These are cooked on a large round grill together with kimchi and vegetables, and served with an array of condiments that you can stuff into a lettuce leaf together with the meat and consume like a hot pocket.  After you're done with the meat, they offer bimbimbop (fried rice), cooked on the grilll in the sauces and remains of your main course.  Dericious, and the city is full of such rewards for the willing explorer.

You can see a full display of every restaurant I've eaten at in NYC on this map.  But I'd be remiss if I didn't at least give quick shout-outs to the canneloni bolognese at Piccolo Angelo (West Village, Hudson and Jane), the sushi "bombs" (a cross between a roll and nigiri) at Bozu (Williamsburg, Grand and Havemmeyer), the delightful counter service and Japense curry at Curry-Ya (East Village, E. 10th btw 2nd and 3rd Ave.), and the all-around superb dining experience in the beautiful dining room at Dressler (Williamsburg, Broadway and Bedford).  

New Mexico

I'm too mentally exhausted from work to write much, but wanted to let folks know that I've posted pictures from the trip A. and I took to New Mexico.  Click here for the pics.

The first thing to know about New Mexico is that the food is fantastic.  Especially coming from New York, where Mexican food is an overpriced travesty.  Of particular note are the amazing green chile enchiladas (often served using ground beef, the way I like it), and the sopaipillas, a fried bread that comes close to ambrosia when eaten with jam or honey.

Comestibles aside, New Mexico was a truly unique experience.  Utah may have more stunning red rock canyons, the Sierras may have more beautiful alpine valleys, and Nevada may have more harshly beautiful desert.  But New Mexico (at least, the area around Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos) brings some of the best of all those places together.  Combine that natural beauty with a culture heavy with Hispanic and Native American influences (and near-uniform laid- back and genuine kindness), and you begin to feel like you're in a world apart.  It's no wonder that New Mexico has become an escape for so many artists and freedom-seekers -- unlike so many other places overrun by the excesses of our modern society, New Mexico still delivers on the promise of the American West.

Every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser

Another lull in writing, the second this year.  "You're happy," a friend observed wryly, when I expressed frustration at my inability to break my writer's block.  Yes, I'm happy.  But the A-B test fails  -- I was happy last year too, at least as I remember it.  But memory is a facile liar.  For proof of that, I need only look back to the first sentence of this post.  When I fact-check myself, I realize that there isn't a unusual lull in my writing at all -- over the past few months I've done one post every month or so, pretty regularly with just a touch of arrhythmia.  Not a stroke at all, just the quiescence of complacency.

In a strange counter-coincidence, it's during my own quiet period that my friends and family seem to be experiencing dramatic changes in their lives.  The last few months have seen a rapid-fire succession of birth and death, turmoil and accomplishment, the forming and breaking of life partnerships, relocations and career changes.  The extraordinarily ordinary stuff of life, improbably clustered in time relative to me.  If I were a gambler (which I am), my disbelief in randomness would deepen.  No one gambles if they believe in true mathematical randomness -- whether they admit it or not, they see the face of some god in the tumble of the dice or the shuffle of the card.

I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs.  It's not because I nurse a moral streak (although I do), it's simply that my body doesn't take kindly to interference.  When people learn that gambling is my vice, a common reaction is total shock.  I don't understand why, it comes naturally to me (after all, I am Chinese).  It's not a ruinous vice -- I play just enough for it to hurt when I lose and thrill when I win.  What's the point otherwise?  It's a heady mix of controlled surrender.

In contrast, complacency results from a surrender to control.  When you've eliminated the unexpected from your life, a certain dullness can settle, and complacency arrives when that dullness becomes comfortable.  In looking at the lives around me, I'm finding that our complacency can and will be shattered, whether we're prepared or not.  And like gambling, the outcome can be good or bad, traumatic or exhilarating.  You could argue that this obviates the need to gamble, but I for one would prefer to gamble than to be gambled upon, even if the outcome is the same.

But it's a talking dog!!!

For 14 years, Pixar Studios has excelled at the delicate balancing act between child and adult, simplicity and context.  It's a shame that this balance is necessary at all -- it feels like an arbitrary task imposed by the notion that animation needs to appeal to kids first and foremost.  The Japanese, unhindered by this constraint, have been producing fine animation for all audiences (and I do mean all) for decades.  I can only dream of what Pixar might produce with the artistic freedom enjoyed by their Japanese contemporaries such as Satoshi Kon or Hayao Miyazaki.  But Pixar's constraints have not diminished the end product -- ten visually stunning feature films that delight audiences of all ages while producing nuanced social commentary on issues such as single parenthood and mental illness (Finding Nemo), corporate exploitation (Monsters Inc.), consumerism and the environment (Wall-E), family and fidelity (The Incredibles), and artistry (Ratatouille).  

This string of commercial and artistic success remains unbroken with the release of Up.  The studio has worked before from scripts that include emotionally dark openings (Finding Nemo) or unlikely protagonists (Ratatouille, Wall-E), but with Up they've outdone themselves.  The film starts with a heart wrenching montage of the lifelong relationship of Carl and Elie, beginning from an awkward childhood romance through marriage, the disappointment of infertility, economic troubles, and ultimately Elie's untimely death prior to the fulfillment of the couple's shared dream:  a trip to Paradise Falls. It is Carl the mourning widower joined by Russell, an unhappily neglected young boy (and a hilarious talking dog), who will serve as protagonists as the film morphs into an unlikely South American adventure.  

Incredibly, despite frequent reminders of Elie's death and Russell's broken family life, the film is ultimately uplifting.  The key lies not in what the characters achieve or overcome, but in the choices they make along the way -- to take others' problems as their own, to let go of the past, and to break from the pack.  The belief that good outcomes flow from the right choices is the optimism that lies at the heart of each Pixar film.  And in that world, and hopefully ours as well, heroism is found not in accomplishments, but in the choices we make.

Frontiers are never final

I was once in relationship.  Early on, we got off to an exciting and adorably goofy start, followed by a period of deep appreciation and mutual respect.  But as the relationship matured, my partner became dull and predictable, perhaps out of complacency.  I kept hearing the same old stories, and would just roll my eyes; eventually it felt like my partner was just going through the motions.  I suspect my partner eventually detected my dissatisfaction, but attempts to reignite my passion using the same old positions were futile.  I left the relationship, and can't say that I missed it.  It's a shame, really, because Star Trek was a beloved and important part of my youth.

Now the franchise has come to beg my forgiveness and ask if we can start over, with J.J. Abrams' Star Trek -- a film which seeks to replicate the sucess of Batman Begins and Casino Royale in reinvigorating a worn-out legend through a re-interpretive retrospective.  Like many a partner seeking to salvage a broken relationship, Abrams tries to invoke a sense of fun and a youthful spirit.  His success in doing so can in part be attributed to his own snappy directing, but mostly to fine performances from a standout young cast -- in particular, Chris Pine's revision of William Shatner's over-the-top Jim Kirk and Zachary Quinto's compelling humanization of Leonard Nimoy's revered Spock.  Add in vivid but tasteful special effects, and there's more than enough to overlook the various minor glitches (generally taking the form of cliched dialogue and action sequences).

There is, however, still the matter of time travel, a plot device so outrageously abused by previous Star Trek films that the first hint of it here made me cringe reflexively.  In previous films, it seemed as if the screenwriters cynically expected audiences to swallow whole anything that emerged from a black hole or gyrating energy field (whether it be whales or William Shatner on a horse).  This film retains a dose of cynicism in the use of time travel, by using it to conveniently reset the entire Trek storyline to enable sequels.  But cynicism in the pursuit of virtue is no vice, especially when tastefully rendered.  And my willingness to overlook it suggests that despite all the baggage that comes from years of hurtful neglect, I want this relationship to work again.  

Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!

In the days before comic books crossed over to mainstream respectability, the works of Alan Moore (and Frank Miller) were talismans that sheltered the ego of a youthful subculture from the derision of the masses.  If those who heaped mockery on superheroes in leotards hadn't read Watchmen, hadn't experienced the way it deconstructed and elevated what they scorned as a childish medium, well then, what did their ignorant opinions matter anyway?  And so, in 1994 when I bought my first bookshelf, I defiantly and reverently shelved Watchmen between the works of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas More, daring the world to question whether it belonged there.  Of course, the world couldn't have cared less where I kept my comic books, at least not until 15 years later when they could cash in on my reverence by producing a Hollywood film based on the now-respectable Watchmen "graphic novel".

It's no surprise then, that along with a generation of fanboys, I waited with trepidation for the release of Zach Snyder's Watchmen, poised to disown the film on any hint of lack of fidelity -- a hair-trigger self-defense mechanism evidencing a vestigal adolescent insecurity.  The most dangerous thing you can do to a fanboy is unfaithfully present the object of his adoration in a poor light before society at large.  It's like pointing out that his acne is fading at a family gathering -- it causes him to clench his jaw at the injustice of it all.

Snyder himself admits to being a Watchmen fanboy, and frequently whined about the pressure he felt to produce a film worthy of the original.  To his credit (and that of screenwriter David Hayter), the movie is visually and thematically faithful to Moore's work -- brooding and violent, with a complex and grandiose plot that strains credulity as it walks the fine line between pop philosophy and serious moral and political commentary.  It also attempts to replicate Moore's focus on characters, albeit with some of the inevitable loss that comes from translating a lengthy series into a film (as well as notably bad acting by Malin Ackerman as Laurie Jupiter).

Of course, like any fanboy, I have my complaints, and one in particular stands out given the very faithfulness of Snyder's rendition.  In the graphic novel, Walter Kovacs tells the story of when he became Rorschach. While investigating a kidnapping, he discovers that the child has been dismembered and fed to dogs.  Horrified, he takes vengeance by handcuffing the kidnapper to a pipe, dousing the room with kerosene, and handing him the hacksaw used on the child.  He then lights the room on fire, giving the kidnapper the "choice" of sawing through his own arm to escape the flames.  As he watches the kidnapper burn to death, Rorschach forms his worldview:  man creates his own morality through force of will, and only mankind can save itself.

The movie opts for a different take.  In place of kerosene and hacksaw, Rorschach simply takes an axe to the kidnapper's head -- a direct act of brutal violence that lacks the horrifying nuance of the original.  I can only explain this baffling departure by assuming that Snyder took creative license to substitute his own notions of horror for Moore's.  If so, it suggests an unthinking fidelity (rather than thoughtful inspiration) that should given any fanboy pause.  Because the truth is, despite how faithful the movie is to the original, I didn't like it.  Whether that's because, as Alan Moore insists, the virtues of Watchmen can't be translated to the screen, or because the film holds a mirror before the fanboy, I can't say.

"We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions.  Yet seen from another vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away." -- Dr. Manhattan

A thousand words can still be worthless

My New Zealand pictures are up, for anyone who's interested.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, I effectively composed my own personal "War and Peace" during the trip.  Photos don't do the country justice though -- I'd enthusiastically recommend a trip to New Zealand to anyone.

One of the albums includes pictures from Aoraki Mt. Cook National Park.  I was extremely lucky to get a full sunny hiking day there, although the pictures don't convey the "drama" of the day.  Here's the stream of consciousness summary I sent A. that evening:

Had the most ridiculous hiking day today in Aoraki Mount Cook NP.  Woke up a half hour before dawn to get some sunrise pictures.  Realized I couldn't get to the viewpoint in time to get the good pics, so tried to go offtrail up a hill.  FYI, what looks like "grassy meadows" in New Zealand is actually waist-high grass that conceals huge rocks, holes, and puddles.  Got trapped at the top of the hill (which didn't have a view anyways), took me about an hour to get down, soaking wet from the hips down.  Then I got lost.

By the time I found the trail, I was in a vicious mood, really kicking myself for being: 1) a crappy photographer (for not getting the sunrise shots even though I was up in time), and 2) a crappy outdoorsman (for doing a whole bunch of things you aren't supposed to do when hiking).  Since I was up so early anyways, I just continued on the trail in a black mood.  Ended up on a hilltop, brooding, when the sun suddenly broke the ridge and bathed me in sunlight.  And suddenly everything was rad again.  Wished you were there for that moment.

Decided to try to get as close as I could to the Hooker Glacier.  Spent an hour and a half scrambling over boulders, and crossed a small stream, to get right up to the face of the glacier.  It was amazing and scary.  I couldn't get too close because it was clearly unstable, and rocks and ice were dropping off it all the time, while it made huge cracking and booming noises.  In another example of poor judgment, I decided that I wanted to go up look at the glacier from the side.  Scarmbled up the side of the valley, and started walking on what I thought was the non-glacier part.  Until I tripped on a block of ice hidden beneath some gravel and realized, shit, I am on the glacier.  The whole top of it was covered in rock.  Kept going anyways.  :)

Eventually turned around and scrambled back down.  Sat at the base of the glacier for half an hour, camera ready, waiting for a big piece to fall off.  Decided I couldn't wait (hadn't eaten lunch, and was out of water), so picked my way back down the valley.  The small stream I crossed in the morning is now a raging torrent (yet another failure of outdoors judgment).  Wade across using my tripod as a stablizing pole.  When I reach the far end of the valley, I hear a tremendous boom.  A huge piece has fallen off the glacier.  So big it causes small waves at the our end of the lake.  I guess it's a good thing I wasn't very close -- but still wish I had been there for it.

Start the walk back.  Realize something is making a scraping noise by my feet.  Look down.  The soles of my boots are coming off.  I guess all the bouldering was too much for them (they're ten years old).  Kind of a problem, because day after tomorrow I go on my three day trek.  New boots are not a good idea (blister city), but not much else I can do unless I wear my poorly suited sneakers.  About half way back, I start to get really really hungry.  You know what $4000 worth of camera equipment doesn't do?  Feed you.  You know what it does do?  Weigh a ton around your neck, like the One Ring.  Could have used a Samwise Gamge to urge me on ("C'mon Mr. Frodo!").

Another thing that expensive camera equipment does is expose all the flaws in your photography.  The pictures are very mediocre, and the colors and exposures are off.  I'm tempted to blame the camera, but hard to believe that's really the case.  But you know what, even with a card full of shitty duplicative pictures, a busted pair of boots, sunburn, wet and blistered feet, and plenty of things to kick myself about, it was a good day.

I could go on and on about the rest of the trip, but for brevity's sake will just note that:

• Milford Sound is definitely worth visiting on both a rainy and a sunny day;
• If you're feeling splurgy, the guided walks by Ultimate Hikes are a fantastically pampered way to explore the incredible Great Walks of Fiordland National Park;
• Although bad weather made most of my pics worthless, Doubtful Sound is possibly even more spectacular than Milford Sound.  There's a great day cruise by Real Journeys.
• The Southern Scenic Highway is often overlooked, but makes for an idyllic road trip (or bike trip).  It only takes half a day to drive, but if you're the slow explorer type you could spend days doing side trips and exploring the back roads.  The Yesteryears Museum and Cafe in Tuatapere serves some of the best baked goods (including a scrumptious mince pie) I've ever had.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled life.