Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Spencer Tunick
We prepared for the event by covering one another, head to toe, with sunscreen and as requested, dressed for quick disrobing - sans underwear. Ironically, however, the moment we all got down to the area where we were supposed to pose, and just before we disrobed, we were drenched by a sudden thunderstorm, postponing the shoot by nearly one cold, wet, miserable hour. When the sun finally re-emerged, I can tell you, being unclothed never felt so good. Of course, we then faced the challenge of clambering, naked and barefoot, over huge boulders, and trying to avoid thousands of hidden cacti, to get to the places this artistic madman wanted us to occupy. At one point he asked us men to lie down in a field of small barrel cacti, posed so that the cacti shielded our genitals, making it look, I guess, like we all had thorny green boners. When I got up, I found three clusters of thorns embedded in my back and butt cheeks. (The red rashes are just now starting to disappear.) And to add insult to injury, for the final shot of the day, he asked me and two other gringo guys to step aside because he thought our skin was too white! Ah well... It was still a great experience to have shared with a bunch of our closest friends. In fact, our friend Mary's niece, who was visiting from Charleston, celebrated her 34th birthday naked on the rocks with the rest of us. And what a trooper Mary was, just a few days shy of another chemo treatment, she was climbing up and down the rock formations, with a "Fuck you, cancer" look of determination on her face. A wonderful memory!
If you're not too squeamish, you can view a short video Spencer created of the shoot for our recent San Miguel TEDx conference. If you look closely, at about the 2:15 mark, you can see Mizzy featured in the bottom-center of the frame hugging a lady she'd just met for the first time.
Epilog: Saturday evening, after the TEDx conference, we headed over to Café Rama, our favorite San Miguel restaurant, for mescal and tapas. A new waitress approached us from behind and asked for our order. As Karen turned around and looked up, their eyes widened and both let out a little yelp. You guessed it. She was the "stranger" Karen had shared a nude embrace with just days before.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
To Our Female Friends...
Yesterday we attended San Miguel's second TEDx event. For those of you who aren't familiar with the concept, TEDx events use the TED brand identity (Ideas Worth Spreading) and follow the general format of the large international TED conferences, but are independently organized and for the most part, are locally focused.
As you might expect, several of the presenters were less than captivating and the event was plagued by minor technical glitches, but overall we were really impressed and inspired. We heard from a man who does "transformational art," teaching kids in the poorest neighborhoods of Mexico City to create colorful caterpillars -- socks filled with soil and seeds, that when left out in the elements, sprout into living vegetable gardens. Another young guy discussed his efforts to bridge the huge digital divide in Mexico by setting up pre-fab computer centers in poor neighborhoods to provide access and training for local citizens. We heard from a lady trying to transform Mexico's huge, bureaucratic education system and from a passionate South African director who's making a film about ordinary citizens in Mexico's Sinaloa state who are are standing up to the drug cartels. The composer who created the soundtrack for the The Piano, Wonderland and a bunch of other films, spoke and played. And we watched a video made by Deepok Chopra specifically for this San Miguel conference.
But once again, as you might expect, the most riveting presentations were taped talks from previous international TED conferences, the best of which was delivered by the Chilean author Isabel Allende. If you haven't seen it already, I urge you to watch it here. And then pass it on to every young woman you know and love.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Hello Little Rock and Roller
Fast forward to April, 2011. While visiting Greenville, several friends mentioned having seen her (yes, she's a she) speak at the Greenville TED-X event, and one friend who'd recently met her, said Marshall often visits San Miguel de Allende. Who knew?
Last week, we received in invitation from our close friends Warren & Tuli to attend a potluck dinner and private concert at their home, featuring none other than Marshall Chapman.
What a serendipitous delight! After having rained like a bastard all afternoon, the skies cleared, the wind freshened and we were given a perfect, clear, cool summer evening. We sipped wine and tequila as Marshall mingled with us in a tank top and flip-flops. We enjoyed an over-the-top feast. Warren built a crackling bonfire as the sun set. And soon we two dozen guests gathered around Marshall -- no one further than 15 feet away -- and lost ourselves in her funny, sweet, meandering acoustic set. It felt so intimate I never even took a photo. I was afraid to break the spell, the intimate connection we all felt with her and each other. Karen and I agreed, it was truly one of the most magical evenings we've ever experienced any time, anywhere.
At one point, between songs, she looked up and asked "Which one of you is Goot?" Everyone pointed; I think I actually blushed. She said numerous folks had told her she needed to meet the Goots in San Miguel. I suspect we didn't much measure up to the hype, but it was a fine "fifteen minutes of fame" moment nonetheless.
Now Marshall and I are in the same Warren Hardy Spanish 1 class together, three mornings a week for three weeks. It feels sort of like we're new-found friends, the only two South Carolinians in the room. Whatever. It's an amazing, small world we inhabit and San Miguel continues to be an inexplicable magnet for kindred spirits from near and far away. May it long continue.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Have a _______ Day
Have a ______ Day
by Lou Lipsitz
Have a nice day. Have a memorable day.
Have a day of soaking rain and lightning.
Have a confused day thinking about fate.
Have a day of wholes.
Have a day of poorly marked,
unrecognizable wholes you
cannot fathom.
Have a ferocious day, a bleak
unbearable day. Have a
riotously unproductive day;
a grim jaw-clenched, Clint Eastwood vengeful
law enforcement day.
Have a day of raging, hair-yanking
jealousy and meanness. Have a day
of almost grasping
how whole you are; a finely tuned,
empty day.
Have a nice day of walking and circling;
a day of stalking and hunting,
of planting strange seeds and wandering in the woods.
Have a day of endearing nonsense,
of hopelessly combing your hair,
a day of yielding, of swallowing
hard, breathing more deeply,
a day of fondness for beetles
and macabre spectacles, or irreverence
about anything you want, of just
sitting and wondering.
Have a day of wondering if it's
going to help, or if it just doesn't matter;
a day of dark winds
and torrents flowing though the valley,
of diving into cool water
and gasping for breath,
a day of sudden hunger for communion.
Have a day where the crusts you each
were given are lost and you stumble
with your fellows
searching endlessly together.
I Wish I'd Thought Of This
Today I shouted, "YOU'RE NOT MY REAL LADDER!!" at my step ladder.
Of All Places...
Last weekend we attended what was billed as a Corn Festival, hosted by a local organic farmer. Nice event – the farmer provided baskets full of freshly picked sweet corn, guests brought their own picnic fixins and beverages. The farmer, an American guy in jeans and a work shirt, was gracious and folksy, showing off his fields, mixing with the crowd and encouraging them to drive out to buy fresh organic veggies. If we had a car, we certainly would. We were floored, however, to find out this was just his little hobby farm. Turns out he owns thousands of acres outside of town, where he grows cucumbers for Vlasic. He employs hundreds of workers who have to pick the cucumbers when they reach a very specific size – to fit uniformly in pickle jars – and immediately load them onto waiting 18-wheelers. 17 hours later they’re in Texas somewhere being made into pickles. Who knew? So next time you tear into a jar of Vlasic pickles, think of the Goots down here in the agricultural heart of Mexico.
Friday, July 01, 2011
The Spirit of Independence
I don’t know why, but this poem seems to capture the weird spirit underlying our move to San Miguel. Enjoy.
Bandito
By Eleanor Lerman
What gets you up in the morning?
For me it is the thought
that someday, I will be
as far away from here
as I can get
Watch me
rubbing out the lines behind me
I recommend it
I recommend
fooling everyone into thinking
that you have settled down
and then heading for the hills
The dog will bare his teeth
if instructed and meet up
with you later. It's good
you named him Bandito:
he'll watch your back
This, by the way, this is not a fantasy
It is page 69 (ha ha!) of the manual
I read when we were planning
the takeover
So it didn't happen—so what?
This is better
Wait until I tell you
what's on the next page
A World of Trade-Offs
"In some parts of the world they don't have clean water. But they also don't have Kardashians."
Kinda says it all, doesn't it?
Monday, May 02, 2011
Critters on the Shore
A couple of months ago, we took advantage of an opportunity to swap houses with friends who own a beachside condo on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Nearly three weeks of perfect weather and unabashed laziness. Not that our "normal" life is all that stress-filled, but we definitely got in touch with our inner sloth.
Other times we'd visited Boca de Iguanas, the wide sandy beach has been perfectly clean. Great for swimming or jogging, less so for shelling. This time, however, for reasons no one could quite explain, the beach was littered with all manner of aquatic corpses. In the course of one week we stumbled across the remains of an old sea turtle, numerous puffer fish, and one of the strangest, most awesomely beautiful creatures I'd ever seen – a yellow-bellied sea snake. [see photo] At the time, we had no idea what it was. But after a little web research, learned that the snake in question is one of the deadliest snakes on earth. And yikes! It had obviously been swimming around in the same surf that we had been the day before.
Most amazing of all, however, were the thousands of jellyfish that washed up on the beaches. One morning you'd come out to find the beach covered with them, as far as you could see. [see photo] After the next high tide, they'd be totally gone. Then two days later, we'd see another glistening batch of them. This pattern continued for our entire stay. Weird.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Ted Kooser
Today is Ted Kooser's birthday. A former U.S. poet laureate, he is almost single-handedly responsible for getting me excited about poetry again, after a series of well-meaning English teachers and literature profs had systematically sucked my enthusiasm for it dry. So, at this post-60ish point in my life, I was delighted to read the following quote from the now 72-year-old Mr. Kooser as he reflected on his life.
"The image is this: feeling like one of those telephone poles you see on the street on which a lot of notices have been stapled and then torn away, and they leave little triangles of paper, held by staples. On those notices were things lost and things found and the photos of people missing, and now even the photos are missing as a metaphor for what happens in life. All this experience is tacked upon us and then torn away, and we become a residue of all this experience."
Residue. Metaphors don't get any better than that. Happy birthday, my Midwestern amigo!
Mid-Life Wisdom
Karen continues to chide me for my alleged self-deprecation. What can I say? It's the way I've learned to vent the ever-present Jewish guilt that bubbles away in my subconscious mind. Anyway, after reading a quote from Homer Simpson the other day, I believe I've finally seen the light. Wish me luck. And if it works for you, feel free to follow Homer's advice:
Homer said, "You can't keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once, and move on."
Under The Knife
Last August, convinced that I was a young athletic stud disguised as a graying middle-aged man, I accepted a challenge from my much younger sister-in-law Bonnie to play a few sets of Pickleball. "Damned if I'm gonna get beat by a girl," I huffed as I ran from one end of the court to the other trying to return her deft shots. This Saturday, however, I got my comeuppance: arthroscopic surgery to repair a badly torn meniscus in my right knee.
Having had some minor surgeries in the past, I arrived early and confident. "They'll have me put on a gown, wheel me in, give me some feel-good medicine and next thing I know I'll be waking up to a smiling, watchful nurse, feeling like I just had a fine mid-morning nap." Wrong!
I should've known something was wrong when the anesthesiologist rolled me over on my side and made me tuck into a fetal position. (No sexual jokes, please.) Once he'd jabbed me a few times and taped some tubing to me, he re-placed me on my back to await the surgeon's arrival. Shortly thereafter everything below my naval went numb, while everything above my neck was fully awake. And stayed fully awake throughout the hour-long procedure, keenly aware of every push, pull, request, clank, buzz, sneeze and cellphone call. No, I didn't feel any pain, but Yikes! I was uncomfortable as hell, kinda bored, kinda scared and totally unable to do anything but itch my nose from time to time.
The surgery itself went well. I can already walk around the house and climb stairs with very little pain or stiffness. Our retirement nest egg took a hit, but being here in Mexico, the surgery cost a fraction of what we would have paid "up north." No, the recovery was where my hubris was justly rewarded. Once my toes, then feet, then legs slowly began to regain feeling, I persuaded the doc to let me get the hell outta there. So Karen helped me get dressed. As I struggled into my shorts, My hand came in contact with this strange rubber chicken-y sort of thing. Ohmygod! While I was able to walk, my entire "package" was still out of commission. And stayed that way for several awkward additional hours. Driving home, I was terrified that I might leak, without ever knowing it, on my friend Charles' leather front seat. (I didn't.) It was early evening before everything returned to normal. (Don't even ask about the experience of trying to wipe a numb butt.)
Karen has made me swear off Pickleball (knowing full well that she really wants me to swear off delusional thinking and macho posturing). And I made a promise to myself: If I ever have to undergo another medical procedure, I'll either be drugged into oblivion or suffer the problem in silence for the rest of my life.
