Flee the Well

“To a frog at the bottom of a well, the world is just a blue circle.” Six days and a thousand stories ago, was someone else.

Dive deep, but breathe the sky.

(Missouri)

| Mar 05, 2010 |

One Jellyfish Hunter

The convenience store clerk studies my American friend guessing gum flavors in their Chinese packages. She waves me over, “Hello. Convince me of something. Convince me why it’s worth going to America, when I can find everything here in Shanghai.” I say, “In America, you can live life going entire days without seeing another person.” [...]

| Feb 08, 2010 |

Five Miles Per Hour

A cab driver tells me that he only ever drives when he works. “Frankly, if you don’t see something interesting walking six blocks in your own town, I question your fascination with life,” he says, “What you see going 35 miles per hour is not what you see going five.”

“I call architecture frozen music.” -Goethe

(olive [...]

| Jan 03, 2010 |

For the Love of Dirt

New friends around every corner.

“What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.”

(China)

| Dec 02, 2009 |

Opera for Breakfast

If I were riding my bicycle through the village at daybreak on a frigid September morning, wouldn’t I stop to hear a live opera performance at a noodle stand, too?

“I guess we’ll never know why sparrows love the snow.” -Adam Young

(Pingyao)

| Sep 25, 2009 |

“Yep, It’s Love”

A perfect day.

“Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away.” -from the ceremony reading

(congrats, Jody and Tom!)

| Aug 31, 2009 |

Would Rather Ironman’s Perspective

A wish fulfilled in sleep.

“Did anyone ever have a boring dream?” -Ralph Hodgson

(overcast day)

| Jul 12, 2009 |

A Tribute to Salt

“How much do you love me?” asked the king. “I love you as much as meat loves salt,” replied the third daughter (link)

(salt fields, California)

| Jun 24, 2009 |

Courage, Relatively

Choices test abilities test heart.

“Like ancient philosophers or medieval mystics, we long to perceive the secret and idiosyncratic patterns within chaos, the singular currents running through the tumultuous sea. We are denied this in life, since we can never recall everything in a messy event happening around us, no matter how many times we replay [...]

| May 11, 2009 |

Operator #1871

“You don’t have a TV? You must be an artist or something. People who don’t have TV’s are very interesting people. They gotta be! They can’t rely on their TV to make their life interesting. They are inherently interesting.” -Lynette, operator #1871, Time Warner Cable Customer Service

“Like dew on the tip of a leaf..” -Tagore

(sunrise)

| May 07, 2009 |

One Billion Heartbeats

How can we measure the length of a life?

“So let us look upon that clock on the wall, not as measuring minutes, but rather heartbeats of the creature watching it. It turns out that all animals live for roughly a billion heartbeats.” -John Lienhard
(Leica yawns, Bushwick)

| Apr 19, 2009 |

Slightly Winded

Nothing like tax day to wax existential.
“It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.” -Bill Bryson

| Apr 15, 2009 |

Prehistoric Dawn

“Just poured a cup of black tea with honey. It’s so cold the honey hardly ran out of the bottle and the tea is some kind of free organic promotion. The package said that ‘Each cup tells a thousand stories’. Who the hell comes up with these stupid things? Everyone knows a cup of tea [...]

| Mar 26, 2009 |

Invisible Sights Are Best Enjoyed Ignored

A traffic conductor strides into oncoming traffic. Two unmarked cars blow past him and fishtail stop, dramatically forming a barrier. In the same fluid momentum, one car door swings open and a man hits the ground sprinting. Mid-stride he intercepts a flying rubber cable hurtled halfway down the block by someone appeared on the curbside. [...]

| Mar 12, 2009 |

How to Orient Yourself in Park Slope

Mobile Phone Transcript:
pc: I’m out of the subway! Which way do I walk?
tk: Do you see this plane flying overhead?
pc: No, but I can hear it.
tk: Wait for the plane to fly overhead.
<plane flies overhead>
pc: OK I see it.
tk: Walk in the opposite direction the plane’s going until you see familiar buildings.

| Feb 23, 2009 |

Adolescent

One autumn night in upstate New York, we all made a fire and discussed superpowers. “Can I tell you something I have never told anyone?” asked the fire-tender, “I was very young at the time. When I shook my head, my ears would ring a little, and I believed this was the start of [...]

| Feb 16, 2009 |

The Shire Organist

In the exit row, a friendly young liver surgeon from New Zealand confirms my dreams: Middle Earth does indeed resemble The South Island. I confirm that some photojournalists shoot weddings on the side, and he nods knowingly. “I am a liver specialist. But on the side,” he muses, “I do kidneys.”
“They saw the sky below [...]

| Jan 07, 2009 |

Rock On

The first time I ever saw Rocky Balboa, he was trying to catch up to Carl Weathers sprinting across a sunset beach. Next commercial break saw him in a war zone covered in mud and weaponry. All this time I figured Rocky had enlisted to take his ring-fighter instincts to the battlefront in the next [...]

| Dec 28, 2008 |

To the sound of ocean pebbles clacking

From the Log of Inexplicable Dreams: We all raced to the green cliff and when we leapt off the edge turned into various seabirds, dived gracefully into the ocean and resurfaced as humans. I think I was a tiny penguin, but you my friends were species most impressive.

Wide awake.
(a summit in Piatra Neamt)

| Dec 15, 2008 |

All these male thunderbolts

I have been informed that it is still football season. Census strategy by Joubert, taxi driver, Coconut Grove, FL: “You can find out just how many New Yorkers live in Miami when the Dolphins play the Jets.”
“…Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels…” -Tennyson

(Roanoke, VA)

| Dec 14, 2008 |

Not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape

I love to leave this place I love returning to. Happy Thanksgiving,

“The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.” -Desmond Morris

(the L train, for ten15am.com)

| Dec 01, 2008 |

What is it else?

Strangers do bond over lighters and doorways.

“Love is a smoke made with the fumes of sighs.” -Shakespeare
(Soho)

| Nov 26, 2008 |

I Coasted West

Missing parts.
“A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.” -Debussy
(Dakar, Senegal)

| Nov 14, 2008 |

Can’t tilt windmills that aren’t standing still

Loving the romp through a jumbled tumble of ideas today.
“Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef” -Tom Robbins

(The Bund)

| Nov 10, 2008 |

The Hearts of Trees

So much change, so little time.
“Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” -Zen

(cliff by the lake)

| Nov 02, 2008 |

Rather ride on earth in an ox cart

A day like any other, but a city night through rose-colored glasses.
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” -Henry David Thoreau

(Fifth Ave after dark, NYC 2006)

| Oct 31, 2008 |

Buffalo Clouds

We saw a thunderstorm at a distance.
They were dark storm clouds like a herd on the range, overtaking blue pastures of hazy summer skies. Then glass noodle rain dangling in mid-air, darkened by buffalo clouds, backlit by sunlight sparkle. I think you might have loved to see.
(somewhere over the Mid-Southwest)

| Oct 21, 2008 |

Antigonish

Thinking of people who aren’t here. Come back!
“As I was going up the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. I wish, I wish, he’d stay away.” -Hughes Mearns
(Barcelona)

| Oct 21, 2008 |

Whether your hand was sweaty or not

Loving autumn in New York.
“You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really [...]

| Oct 17, 2008 |

Dad was told by mother you can’t have one without the other

Congrats Katye and Joe! It seems like only yesterday…
“Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage.” -Frank Sinatra
(2008 Laguna Beach, CA)

| Oct 17, 2008 |