April 2009 - Meandering home

April 18. Locro, Picante, and Llajua.

If you have the feeling that you cannot do anything right, that you are doomed to mediocracy in whatever you undertake, stop worrying about it. Just think about the hour of your death: you will be perfect at it. You will look to your left, you will look to your right, and bam! you will ...

28 April, 2009

Boliviano, Llajua, Locro, mediocracy, Picante

Travel

April 16. Buenavista Coffee.

Buenavista coffee beans, dried on the groundDays begin with a cup of Buenavista coffee in a small tienda artesenal and some empanadas to bite on. I look for a place in the shade and write. Today, I work on my novel again, after many weeks. I'm a bit worried I can't repair the narrative anymore ...

28 April, 2009

Buenavista, coffee, dream, mosquitos

Travel

April 17. Tuqui.

A photosession with the local toucan called Tuqui, the most fascinating resident of a house facing the Plaza Principal of Buenavista. He was hiding in the garden, but after some searching we found him sitting on a branch of a cacao tree. He gave kisses with his big yellow beak that is really not so ...

28 April, 2009

camera, kitten, orchestra, Toucan

Travel

April 15. You may skip this.

Wrote. Just more words. If you want to read them, they are all in your dictionary, only their order is less contaminated there. Walked around in the village to investigate the people of Bolivia. Entered a pharmacy to ask what medicine costs here. She started to tell, aspirin is four tablets for one Boliviano, and ...

28 April, 2009

Boliviano, McDonald's, Santa Cruz

Travel

April 14. Just another day.

I decide to return and stay some more days in Buenavista. I can work there well, and La Paz can wait. A taxi takes me back to the village and the kind people of the restaurant Paraba Azul. They have offered me a place to stay. I can write in a house again, get some ...

24 April, 2009

Buenavista, computers

Travel

April 13. Village life.

I wake up and I think it's late but it's not. It's only 9:30. I pay the old lady and go. Carolina will show me a traditional village, where ecotourism has become the main source of income. I am shown cocoa trees, and taste the sweet pulp. I chew a seed too but it doesn't ...

23 April, 2009

Buenavista, Camilo, village

Travel

April 12. Some words about “moral”

Remember yesterday? That I dressed up a bump from head to toe? And proudly presented it to you? Today it's time for a little moralist sneer. Why do you have to tell this kind of stories, to proof you're good? Do you want the reader to admire you for it, do you want to tell ...

23 April, 2009

Buenavista, butterfly, Montero, Morales, moto, Santa Cruz

Travel

April 11. But he didn’t use the soap.

Today, I wake up in a nice bed in a pension in Santa Cruz de Bolivia. This is Bolivia's boomtown, strongest growth of them all. Towns that used to be rich in colonial times are very poor now and vice versa. On the roof are my clothes and I think the morning sun already dried ...

23 April, 2009

bump, chess, Santa Cruz, soap

Travel, Writing

April 10. Adieu to necklace “small luck”

Good morning. I hate to tell you this. I am a narcissist: I think there always has to be - me. I am looking for a cure. If you can suggest one, I'm open to everything non-narcotical. What I could try, metaphorically, is taking a sharp cutter and hollow out the eyes of the soft-skinned ...

23 April, 2009

Bolivia, Morales, narcissist, Santa Cruz, small luck

Travel

April 9. More nonsense.

Working on fear. My traveling is a kind of therapy program, but it's not only for me individually. I want to use my person as an example, make a little sacrifice to psychological science. When you die, you can fill out a form (that is, before you die of course) declaring that Science can use ...

23 April, 2009

being, fear, nonsense, Santa Cruz

Travel

April 8. Sex and the City.

There is now even a Sex and the City episode based on this character, I mean, there has to be one. Sex and the City is very popular.

Enter Rosy and Claire in a fancy New York café.
"Hi Claire, you look good today. You shine."
-"Thanks. I know what you're gonna ask ...

23 April, 2009

Bolivia, dialogue, Escher, jazz, New York, sex and the city

Travel

April 7. Power.

Power. That is my subject. A theory of power. To start off, let's reflect on authority a little. I wrote an accepted PhD, yet you will not be accepting my authority here, as you will in the case of Heidegger, or Jesus. Why not? We leave that question open. Everybody knows what power is, and ...

11 April, 2009

Asuncion, escapades, power, slums

Travel

April 6. Into Paraguay.

An idea: economy of participation. Imagine a grocery store. Every person that participates in the store either as customer or as a worker gets a share of its stock. The more goods and services people buy, the more stock they get. The harder people work, the more stock they get. Hence, the store is owned ...

11 April, 2009

Asuncion, Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, Taiwan

Travel

April 5. Iguazu Falls.

I have to admit the ad was too hysterical. Sorry for that. But I was a little bit bored and that's one of the things you do when you're bored. The other thing is to construct a theory of Pure Being. I'll do that later.

First, I'll tell you about the beautiful national park ...

11 April, 2009

butterfly, Catarates, temptation

Travel

April 4. Temptation.

Upon arrival in Iguazu, I checked in the first hostel I saw and booked a tourist-rip-off trip for 90 pesos called gran aventura which of course turned out to be a dull truck ride followed by a boat ride underneath the big waterfall that got us really wet. On the plus side, ran into a ...

11 April, 2009

hostel, Iguazu

Travel

April 3.

Two people sit in a bar and have a conversation about what they read. Both of them boast with big Authors, with Grand Novels that make it all the way to the intellectualist Olympus. O yeah I read this I read that you missed it O you really should read this and that. They talk ...

11 April, 2009

conversation, Iguazu

Travel

April 2.

I know people. I know people that really love the idea of doing everything that can be done automatically automatically. They tell me about their dreams. Wouldn't it be nice they say, wouldn't it be nice to have a computer that does all that work for us? I mean, that's what really keeps them warm. ...

11 April, 2009

automatic, Hoyt

Travel

April 1. Cookies.

Gee, this guy must have a huge authority conflict. Since I am not reading this kind of feedback, I provide it myself here. It's a common reaction. This guy is looking for something beyond authority because he is looking for something not yet infected by fear. And that something he hopes, that long thread of ...

11 April, 2009

authority, cookies, Jarrito

Travel

March 31. The Stranger cannot win.

O The biggest poser might also be saying some true words. I play this. This is a first-person novel but as a person I want to put you first. It is an experimental thing I think should be done and it costs me less time doing it myself than looking up in the records of ...

3 April, 2009

communication, smile, Stranger

Travel

March 30. Time, being, freedom, etcetera.

Instead of this:
"Time/being/freedom/the soul/matter/consciousness itself is like dripping honey" I advice you to write this:
"I think about dripping honey and I feel good."
Perhaps you like those abstraction. I reckon you know them much better than I do. I don't like to talk about these words because it O feels like arguing ...

3 April, 2009

being, breakfast, consciousness, freedom, matter, soul, time

Travel

March 29. Come on, it’s monday.

I write for a few. I need only a few to convince me of the fact that my endeavour is not completely futile. But don't worry. You can stop reading; I'll have ten other readers to replace you. Writing should be like painting, splashing the words on a mental canvas, and the writer should develop ...

3 April, 2009

boredom, football, funeral, phase

Travel