adrian is rad

Somehow I started a tradition a couple years ago of donating some money to charities around my birthday. Here’s how it worked out this year:

• 20% Catholic Charities, CYO, Archdiocese of San Francisco—local—I feel like they’re one of the better organizations serving the poor et al in San Francisco
• 20% American Red Cross (National Disaster Relief Fund)—national
• 20% South African Development Fund—international/ South Africa
• 20% African Medical and Research Fund (AMREF)—international/ Africa—they do research and have medical aid for AIDS and malaria, among other things.
• 20% Freedom from Hunger—international

Criteria: I like Africa and South Africa in particular. I like efficient organizations. (I only donate to four star charities.) I think international charities can help more people per dollar than American charities. My primary concern is saving lives now and in the future. At the same time, I think one should strive to help out locally and nationally as well.

Okay, that’s it, I think. I’m a little reluctant to post about this as always.

Disregarding living in a foreign country but otherwise in a stable place, I was traveling all or part of 97 different days last year. Basically I was a tourist for over a quarter of the year.

One of the odd abilities I picked up along the way was this sense I get of where the most likely place will be to have a publicly accessible restroom.

For instance, in touristy areas, your best bets are medium-sized mid range-to-upscale hotels. There’s almost always a bathroom off the lobby.

Today while out in the Inner Sunset (right near this beautiful structure actually), I had the urge and only a bunch of liquor stores, dry cleaners and a tutoring center close by. Then I saw an Albertson’s. Supermarkets, in America, for whatever reason, almost always have a restroom.

Relieved, I was able to take the long route home with a nice walk in there.

I haven’t talked about him in a few years but I’ve been following Oscar Pistorius, the young South Africa double leg amputee that runs fast enough to compete in able-bodied events. His goal was to compete in the 2008 (able-bodied) Olympics.

I was just expressing my consternation last week to a friend that he’d been banned based on his carbon fiber lower leg prosthetics “giving him an advantage” and being against a rule that appeared to be written by the running governing body solely to ban him.

Well, unexpectedly, he got reinstated on Friday. He still needs to cut half a second off of his 400m time before the Olympics to qualify, but if he does, he’ll be able to compete.

Check out this video of him competing in Rome. The ground he makes up starting in the last turn is pretty amazing.

has shown me that one of the charities that I regularly donate to has sold or given away my address to other charities.

A) I hate junk mail from charities–please spend your money on what I’m donating my money to get you to do, not on sending junk mail and B) I’m giving you my money because I trust what you do with it. Selling my address isn’t a great way to retain my trust.

Number of days: 112

Number of days or parts thereof spent traveling: 47 (3 to/ from, 7 intra-Taiwan (3 Kaohsiung, 2 Taroko, 2 Kinmen), 37 intra-Asia (7 Indonesia, 5 Thailand; 15 Hong Kong, Macau, China; 10 Japan)

Number of countries visited (since moving): 6 (Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan, U.S.) + 2 special administrative regions with separate border controls (Hong Kong, Macau)

Number of countries visited (year to date): 8 (above + South Africa, Swaziland) + 2 S.A.R.s

Number of flights (since moving): 14 (SFO-> TPE-> CKG-> DPS-> CKG-> TPE-> BKK-> TPE-> HKG-> TPE-> NRT-> TPE, TSA-> KNH-> TSA, TPE-> SFO)

Number of flights (2007): 31 (SFO-> CVG-> IAD-> JNB, DUR-> CPT-> JNB-> JFK, BOS-> JFK-> SFO-> BOS-> DFW-> SFO-> HNL-> LIH-> HNL-> SFO + above + SFO-> CLT-> DCA)

Miles flown (since moving): 27,406 miles (44,106 km)

Miles flown (2007): 63,569 miles (102,304 km)

Number of high speed train journeys: 4 (Taipei->Kaohsiung->Taipei, Tokyo->Kyoto->Tokyo)

Number of train journeys: 6 (above + Taipei->Hualien->Taipei)

Approximate number of km ridden on scooters: 225

Best hotel (overall): Kamandalu Resort, Ubud, Bali. A connection to the cousin of the owner opened the door for staying in this swanky place. Gorgeous surroundings and really nice rooms. Private verandas looking over rice paddies. The service was also excellent. We went out riding bikes around the rice paddies one day and came back sweating. Pretty soon after we entered the lobby we had cool moist towels to wipe our faces with. Perhaps the only nicer place I’ve stayed is the ridiculous Schlosshotel Veir Jahrezeiten (Four Seasons Palace Hotel) in Berlin. (They had a Ferrari convention while we were there and it didn’t seem out of place.)

Best hotel (value): Hirano Guesthouse, Kyoto. 3500 yen a night in Kyoto is very cheap and besides a nice place to stay, the owner was very friendly, helpful and accommodating, making us tea when we came home for a break in the afternoons. She also made us breakfast every morning, let us use her bicycles and computer/ internet. Oh and there was a candy bowl and after we ate an unreasonable amount of it, she didn’t complain, she just refilled it.

Number of American chain stores patronized (not counting convenience stores, exact): 3 (2 Subways-Taipei, 1 Denny’s-Kyoto)

Number of American chain stores patronized (counting convenience stores[1], approximate): 22.2 (the above + Circle K’s in Taiwan, Bali, Thailand, ampm’s in Japan, plus 0.2 for a Mister Donut in Japan[2])

Oddest food obsession: Harbo’s Happy Cola gummy candies

Most common food eaten: rice (~ >1.5 servings a day)

Most common food product eaten: Kinder Chocolate (~ 0.6 a day)

Most “exotic” foods eaten: crickets, silk worms, frog

Number of Dr. Peppers consumed: 2 (one in Japan, one in Thailand)

Foods most missed: good bread, good cheese, Dr. Pepper, good beef, shelled shrimp, deboned fish.

Number of Hello Kitty products seen: in the thousands

Number of Hello Kitty products purchased: 1 (alarm clock, convenience store, Japan)

America: so quiet, so dark, so many English speakers, so many whites/ latinos/as, blacks. big supermarkets. low population density.

Least useful piece of clothing: dress shirt (the greenish one, never worn, given away at the end)

Most useful piece of clothing: shoes (the brown Adidas, nearly daily)

Most useful piece of clothing out of its original purpose (and new use): board shorts-style swimsuit (exercise shorts)

Piece of clothing I most immediately realized I’d forgotten: navy blue cotton boxers (that I use as warm weather pajama bottoms)

Number of books read: 5.75 (2nd 0.5 of Slow Man by Coeztee, Love is a Mixtape by Sheffield, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: a Story of the Hip Hop Generation by Chang, Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Klosterman, Born on a Blue Day By Tammet, You Don’t Love Me Yet by Lethem, first 0.25 of About a Boy by Hornsby)

Number of concerts attended: 3 (Emily the Band @ Underworld, Apples in Stereo @ the Wall, Sugar Plum Ferry @ the Wall)

Number of CDs purchased: 19 (5 in Hong Kong (Monitor), 5 @ WWR (1st trip), 5 @ WWR (2nd trip), 2 @ IMPO, 1 @ FINAC, 1 @ Roses(?))

Number of pieces of mail received: 6 (3 packages of promo CD(s); 1 each from Ian, Lauren, Gumbeaux)

[1] This is tricky because things are confusing. 7-11 is Japanese for instance.

[2] Mr. Donut is an American brand but the Asian stores are run by Duskin Co out of Japan under a licensing agreement.

Springboks win. World champions! Vrystaat!

Update: This is likely better news for Southern Africa, though Zim is still screwed as far as anyone can tell.

Thanks for the good suggestions. Here’s who I ended up donating too.

• local 1/4 Catholic Charities CYO, San Francisco Archdiocese They provide a variety of good services to people in San Francisco and San Mateo (my) county.
• national 1/4 American Red Cross national disaster relief fund. I think the Red Cross does really good work and you never know when the next disaster will be.
• international 1/4 African Medical and Research Fund I like that they’re doing research into malaria, which is a major problem, in addition to many other major problems (HIV/ AIDS, TB, safe water, etc.)
• international 1/4 Compassion International A suggestion of Colin last year. Worthwhile services for impoverished children in the developing world.
• international 1/4 South Africa Development Fund They sponsor a wide variety of worthwhile programs of all different sorts in my ancestral home.

Yup, that’s 5/4. I ended up finding more worthwhile charities than I originally was going to donate to so, I just ended donating more.

Last night I saw another film at the SFIFF: Bunny Chow (official site, wikipedia).

[Note: the film is named after a food popular primarily in Durban by the same name. Despite the description, it’s not a sandwhich. It’s hollowed out bread filled with curry.]

It’s a South African film (so I have an immediate bias) about three comedians and a random fourth guy who travel to a primarily music (but also comedy) festival together. It’s also about the comedy business and different approaches to women.

It’s a good film. It’s was a bit here-and-there, very conversational and, though it had an obvious plot, seemed like you were just watching friends hanging out a lot. I found it engaging. On the negative side, though I did laugh, I thought a film about stand up comedians would be funnier.

I’m fairly used to listening to various South African accents, but Gumbeaux had a hard time, he said. There were some parts that had subtitles even for English in the film (the Zulu and Afrikaans were obviously subtitled). I think the film could use subtitles throughout for American audiences.

Here it is, a little late as always… (I should just say that I’ll post it on the 21st of every month instead of mid-month…maybe I’d be on time more often).

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file—I think the m3u file might actually be right this time)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list. you should now have the 2007march playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here (first time as a google doc). This one includes a strange variety of music. I have a few indie pop/ rock songs (Benoit Pioulard, The One AM Radio, etc.), a couple field recordings of prison work songs and then a few South African songs, given that I spent much of February there.

Adrian’s March 2007 mix tape [zip file]

This’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week) before being moved to a password protected folder.

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

There’s an interesting study on genetically modified mosquitos that can resist malaria. Malaria is serious business. Once you get it, you never get rid of it and if you don’t catch it early on, it can be fatal. I chose one of my charities based on the fact that they supported research into malaria in addition to HIV/ AIDs and other prominent medical problems in Africa. I’m worried about malaria every time I go to high risk areas.

I’d always thought that a solution to the malaria problem would come from the human medicine side of things. Of course getting rid of mosquitos helps the problem a lot too, but I’d never even considered that it might be possible to change the mosquitos themselves.

This story seemed cool, but worried me at first. I mean, couldn’t this just be a mongoose-introduced-into-Hawaii sort of situation? That’s the cool part of the findings, though. Feeding on non-malaria-infected hosts, these mosquitos replicated the same as normal mosquitos. On infected hosts, they have lower mortality and were more fertile.

I’d like to see follow up studies, of course, but this seems like one promising path.

I meant to post this the one day I was back between South Africa and Mexico, February 14, but I got held up. I had a brilliant theme, given that it was St. Valentine’s Day: Love Songs: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Well, it almost worked out but I feel like it won’t have the same relavence or weight posting it today. Oh well.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file—I think the m3u file might actually be right this time)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list. you should now have the 2007feb playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. There are a bunch of great songs on here, from 60s girl groups, to Pedro the Lion (he sure is good at the Bad and the Ugly), to Jose Gonzalez. I also took this one apt opportunity to throw in a couple ‘emo’ songs.

Adrian’s February 2007 mix tape [zip file]

This’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week) before being moved to a password protected folder.

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

Anyway, I hope you like this one even if it’s a bit past its due. I have a bunch of great songs in my mind for the next one, so hopefully I can get back on track for that one.

I really like traveling and I’m usually not ready to go home, but I’ll tell you, when I got back yesterday, it was nice to sit on my couch, sit on my chair, sleep in my bed, eat out of my cupboard.

madiba is my homeboy. I got a shirt that says this today.

I’m totally a south african hipster now.

it’s awesome having fast internet again. my mind has a problem slowing down to dialup speeds.

After a mostly crazy and ambitious itinerary for the first ten days of my trip, I’ve arrived in Cape Town, where I’ll stay for the rest of my trip.

Dug said yesterday that I looked energized and asked why. I like this city. I like it a lot. It’s definitely in my top five cities ever (though I don’t have time, or really care to make a full list right now).

This city is also familiar to me. I know people here; I know places here. The Cash Converters (thrift store) is still down the street in Sea Point and it’s still a great place to pick up an extra suit case on the cheap in case you bought too much stuff to fit in the luggage you brought with you. The Vondi’s Holistic Pet Nutrition store that I like to make fun of is still here too. I know where to get a good bite to eat and where to do laundry. We’re even staying in the same place
(where my parents have a time share). Perhaps the only other foreign city I have this familiarity with is Stuttgart, where I lived for a summer.

Traveling in a foreign country is largely about learning and experiencing new things, so you may wonder why I enjoy this familiarity. Well, it’s hard being out on the road and rushing around in a very different culture for ten days and coming here has the feeling of coming home and that’s always nice. It’s very encouraging for my thoughts of moving to this city in a couple years.

The water off of Camp’s Bay (Atlantic side) is freezing, but even that was nice somehow. Sundowners on Camp’s Bay is still one of the best things.

The cycling shop that I liked in Sea Point has been torn down though. I don’t know if they relocated or what.

Just a handful more days here. I’ll try to make the most of it, but I also don’t need to wear myself out any more on vacation.

[Oh, Ali’s daughter is on TV. She’s fighting here in South Africa. The other day I heard her on the radio say that she puts Mandela on the same level as her father. Um…Ali’s good and all, but Nelson Mandela’s slightly more important.]

I guess this is my first real update about my South African trip with Jon, Helene and Dug.

My goodness, it’s been quite a trip so far.

I started in Jo’burg for a few days, mostly running errands and spending time with my aunt and uncle. I did go to the Apartheid Museum in Soweto, though, and it’s really good, a very well done museum.

Once everyone arrived we headed out to Graskop (hint–not pronounced with a ‘g’ sound at all). That was our home base for exploring the Blyde River Canyon. The views from God’s Window and at the Three Rondavals were amazing, both in the foggy evening and the clear next morning. We also saw some beautiful waterfalls and swam in some of the natural forming pools.

We had our first braai of the trip too (though I’d had one with my aunt and uncle already). mmmm lamb boerewors and steak. delicious…

It was a fairly long decent drive from there to Kruger Park, Satara Camp the next day. We found an elephant before we’d even gotten into the park–it’d trampled the fence at a neighboring private reserve, it appeared. We didn’t even stop for that long and, as you might expect if you expect irony, that was the only elephant we saw. The night drive was a bit of a disappointment, but the drive right as the gates opened the next day was amazing, with fairly close encounters with lions, rhinos, buffalo (not bison), zebra and giraffe. We just kept on driving south from Satara, out of the camp, through that little stretch of Mpumalanga and into Swaziland. It was a long drive that day, with a stretch of KwaZulu Natal after Swaziland to get to Ingwavuma.

Ingwavuma is a rural town up in the Lebombo Mountains on the border with Swaziland. It, like much of the rural towns in that area and much of southern Africa, has a massive problem with AIDS and unemployment. A family friend is working up there with an NGO called Zisize, who are doing some great work with the children of the village. We also visited a couple income-generating groups for the local women: Fancy Stitch and Ingwavuma Women’s Center. We bought some of their beautifully made, locally produced goods.

Bridgie, the family friend, and everyone else we met there was really great to us.

Yesterday was our last big drive of our trip was yesterday, from the dry heat of Ingwavuma to the hot humidity of Durban. We’re still figuring out what we will be doing these next two days before our short flight to Cape Town, where I’ll meet up with my family.

Since my South Africa/ Tanzania trip of 2004, I’ve thought a lot about how lucky I am, but I’ve been reminded once again. If you’re reading this, you are probably quite lucky, too: you are reading the internet. You are probably sitting comfortably in a home or apartment. You can probably open the tap and get fresh, clean drinking water. You have electricity. You probably are able to purchase food for dinner and earn a reasonable wage for your work. This isn’t the norm of the world, not at all. I don’t mean to preach.

I’ve arrived. The two days on planes wasn’t all that horrible, actually.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to rock this jetlag thing. I am multitalented, after all.

Incidentally, The Queen is good. The Guardian is not.

Alright, I’m heading off to the airport in a few hours here.

Have a good few weeks and remember: life is not about fear; life is about love.

I’m a pack rat. I keep everything, though at time (when I’m moving, particularly) I get ruthless and throw everything out.

I am also disorganized. Most people looking at my desk or closet would wonder how I could find anything.

I also have good spatial skills and spatial memory.

Somehow these all work well together. My last trip to South Africa was a bit over two years ago. This morning I reached onto my desk and found 2 R20 notes and one R10 note without searching around at all. They were just in a middle of a pile. I also found about R10 in coins in my everyday shoulder bag which I was repacking it as my carry on.

I’m totally going to be able to buy myself a coke at the airport.

I’m leaving for South Africa (and possibly Swaziland) on Wednesday for a few weeks. I then get back and go to Mexico for five days. I’ll be back in the States ‘full time’ the third week in February. I won’t be blogging much during that period, though I’ll try to write some periodic updates (and also update my lifestats).

It’s a duel-activity trip. Road trip with friends (Jon, Helene and Dug) and family stuff in Cape Town. I’m flying into Jo’burg and spending a couple days there before the rest arrive. From there we go to Blyde River Canyon (including God’s Window). We may stop in the Kruger Park before driving through Swaziland to Ingwavuma. From there we drive to Durban for a couple days before flying to Cape Town. I’ll be in Cape town a little bit less than a week this time. (I was in Cape Town two weeks last time.)

After being home for less than a day, I’ll be heading to Playa del Carmen for a long weekend.

If you need to contact me, email will probably be best, just the same email address as always. If it’s urgent, my parents will have my full itinerary.

There are a few links I’ve been meaning to put up. Things I find interesting but I don’t want to add to the sidebar on the right.

Random links:

• designverb: a blog about design related topics, largely product design and the like. fairly interesting stuff.
• rbally has a nice Cat Power show from Berlin for download [update: rbally seems to have taken this down/ broken]
• youtube has a great chemistry lab safety video explosion. (dylan, are you seeing this?)
• bitsandpieces silly college humor, but sometimes entertaining
• wikipedia has a list of African countries by GDP (adjusted for purchasing power parity) per capita. South Africa’s on top, but barely. For reference, the US is 3rd in the world for GDP (PPP) per capita at about $42,000.
• oregon trail is it possible you haven’t played this game? there are even shirts about it. And you can download an emulated version
• Tom Wilson I feel like I should add him to my list of best producers. He did Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Velvet Underground and more

For my upcoming South Africa trip:

• 3 X 2GB SD cards (in addition to the 2 I already have)
• 6 X Velvia 100 color slide film, 6 X Tri-X 400 black and white negative film

Just because:

• One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost & Found
• one CD not to be named due to its embarassing nature (I’ll chalk it up to comfort music) [update: oh fine, it might be this]

[another update:] I also bought a few tickets to this year’s Noise Pop:

• Feb 28: Sebadoh (orignal line up) at the Great American Music Hall
• March 2: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at the GAMH

I wanted to make a list of my overseas/ abroad trips. We always traveled a lot because my parents are from South Africa and Germany and we have relatives in five or six countries (more now) so we were always visiting and whatnot. With my dad’s help, here it is:

• 1982 March-April: South Africa, Holland and Germany, Düsseldorf for my Opa’s 70th
• 1984-85 Dec/Jan: England, Gloucestershire, South Africa (the never-ending Christmas presents in 3 countries)
• 1985 July: South Africa, surprise trip for my Grandpa’s 75 birthday (the last time I saw him)
• 1987 April: Germany, my Opa’s 75th; Holland, Düsseldorf, Köln, Nürnberg, Regensburg (Bischoffshof), München (except Frauenkirche inside*)
• 1988 August: Germany, my Oma and Opa’s 50th wedding anniversary, Black Forest, Düsseldorf, London
• 1991 March-April: South Africa, Johannesburg, Kruger Park
• 1992 April: Germany, Aachen, Holland, Belgium, Düsseldorf for my Opa’s 80th
• 1994 July-August: England and Netherlands with Alex, first trip without my parents
• 1995 July & August: Germany, Solingen, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Austria briefly
• 1995 October: Germany, my Oma’s 80th in Berlin
• 1997 March: Hong Kong and China with my Mom
• 1998-99 Dec-Jan: South Africa, Vic Falls (Zimbabwe, Zambia), Kruger, Cape Town
• 2000 May: Italy, Alex’s graduation
• 2001 January: England, with Andy Chadwick
• 2001 March: South Africa, my Granny’s 90th
• 2002 Summer: living in Germany, Stuttgart, Behr Group, side trips to France and Switzerland (and America for the weekend)
• 2003 May: Greece, my graduation
• 2004 Sept-Oct: South Africa and Tanzania, my dad’s 60th
• 2005 February: Mexico, Cabo San Lucas
• 2005 April: England, London for my cousin’s wedding
• 2006 February: Mexico, Playa del Carmen
• 2007 Jan-Feb: South Africa, my mom’s “40th”
• 2007 Aug-Dec: living in Taipei, Taiwan
• 2007 September: Indonesia; Thailand
• 2007 October: Hong Kong, China, Macau; Kaohsiung (TW)
• 2007 November: Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo)
• 2007 December: Taroko, Kinmen (TW)

The counts are, I think.
Germany: 7
South Africa: 7 (8th in January) 8
England: 5
Netherlands: 4
Mexico, Hong Kong, China: 2
1 each: Hong Kong, China, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Italy, Greece, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Tanzania, Indonesia, Thailand, Macau.

Averages (per year of my life):
Countries: 1.38
New countries: 0.62 (or one every 1.6 years)
South Africa: 0.27 (or once every 3.7 years) (this will lower to once every 3.3 years in January)
Germany: 0.27 (or once every 3.7 years)
England: 0.19 (or once every 5.2 years)

*The Frauenkirche Incident as I call it. We’d toured Germany and went to famous churches in every town. By Munich, I’d had enough so I said “I’ve had enough! No more churches!” and sat down outside the Frauenkirche. Much to my surprise my parents said “Fine.” and they cycled in with my brother. I still have not been inside the Frauenkirche. It is on my to-do list.

Note: updated 13 Oct 2007.

Note: Updated 22 Jan 2008

With my dad working for a coal company, I grew up around talk of mining coal veins and the like, but I was a little surprised to see this in an article about Centro-matic:

Centro-matic’s dynamic is intelligent, emotional American rock that mines some of the same veins as My Morning Jacket, Son Volt and the Drive-By Truckers.

How about that? Is that a common expression? Does your average San Jose (or other major city resident) know that coal (and other fossil remnants) is located in veins?

I always have moments like these because the linguistic hodge-podge that’s in my head: South African English, Pittsburghese, south-eastern PA dialect, geek slang. I know that 98% of what I say is understandable by the listener; it’s that last 2% that I’m never sure if it’s some specific or specialized term, phrase or way of talking that I’m not sure is in the common lexicon.

So I made some decisions and made some donations. I checked all the charities out on charitynavigator.org beforehand to make sure my money was going to the right places.

Here’s the breakdown of charities and portions of total money that I gave:

• Local 1/4 Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco
• National 1/4 American Red Cross
• International 1/4 to African Medical and Research Foundation; 1/4 South African Development Fund

I don’t think any of these are perfect, but they all do good work. Thanks for the suggestions earlier. In the running for next time are Catholic Charities CYO, Archdiocese of San Francisco, Compassion International, and Worldvision.

note: Those of you who know me probably realize that I’m not writing about this because I want to draw attention to myself or anything like that. I’m not (or I hope I’m not). Perhaps you will see this and think about charities if you have the means.

note 2: It’s nearing my birthday and I’m thinking it might be a good tradition to give to charities every year around this time.

Monday:

1. Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island
2. walking the Brooklyn Bridge (west to east)
3. Grimaldi’s Pizza and Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory with Paul Koh of earbud clip fame
4. wandering around [and purchasing foam headwear in] Chinatown and Soho
5. aforementioned PowerDinner(TM) at Hallo Berlin with mim, liz, jdawg, perlick and qwdgbo

Tuesday:

1. Empire State Building
2. pastrami and dr. brown’s at katz’s deli
3. rye playland! with liz and later jonwerberg and helene [who, I’d like to make clear, despite earlier implications is no way a freak and whose school is only sort of a freak fest]

Wednesday [are you ready for it?]:

1. B&H
2. the Met, the Guggenheim, the Cooper-Hewitt, and the Moma
3. watched a taping of Conan with jweberg and liz
4. pizza in Williamsburg [/Greenpoint?], Brooklyn with Jens Lekman in the catty-corner booth with the above plus mim
5. Jens show at Soundfix Records with the above
6. drinks at d.b.a. with the above
7. a savanna dry cider with jdawg back in the bronx

Today I finished Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane. I blanked out part of the name above because K- is an offensive racial slur equivalent to the N-word in America (when said by non-blacks at least). Basically it’s best to only say it in context of the title of this book.

This is the latest in my series of South African books (Cry the Beloved Country, Country of My Skull, Tsotsi and Karoo Boy were among the SA books I read in the last year), this was possibly the hardest to get through, though Country of My Skull is up there too. As with Country of My Skull, it’s not hard to get through because it’s poorly written—both are well-written, in fact— but this is just some heavy heavy shit here. I picked it up in early April, read the first bit and then put it down for a few weeks before I could pick it up again.

This books is a memoir of Johannes’ (aka Mark’s) youth in the Alexandra township (”ghetto”) outside of Johannesburg. There are graphic descriptions of things he saw and went through in everyday life: violence, disease, malnutrition, and prostitution. I would be reading this during lunch at work and find myself nauseated by it and have to stop reading so that I wouldn’t lose my stomach; or I’d have to close my eyes for a few minutes.

The book is divided into three parts: Road to Alexandra, Road to Knowledge and Road to Freedom. The first part is the heaviest and the one that brings about this feeling of dispair. The second and third parts are more optomistic. The book, in the end, is, in part, a story about overcoming adversity, but it’s also about the system that lead to this adversity and the anger and frustration and hatred bred by it.

As I said, it’s well-written, though I actually found it a bit on the overly descriptive and heavy handed side of things at a few points. A lot of questions are raised in the book, many of them thought-provoking. The book is written, of course from one perspective and it has its biases, biases that history (the book, incidentally was completed and published years before apartheid was abolished) has shown to be on the right side of things. However, as with some other books on apartheid, whites are painted in one of two clear camps: revolutionaries/ those that actively help blacks and racist biggots who fear blacks and want to hold them down. As much as Mark defends himself in the book for having friendships with sympathetic whites and for not being a revolutionary himself, so too are there whites that would defend themselves for not being revolutionaries and yet would still put themselves in oppisition to apartheid.

It’s a worthwhile read, though. Like many things, even after the main conflict is over, the ideas are still true and for many years yet, no doubt, there will be other peoples in human rights struggles and in similar situations.

As much as I’ve been enjoying this literay tour through South Africa, I need a break for a while. I think I’m going to read Chronicles, Vol 1, Bob Dylan’s autobiography, which will go along well with my recent Bob Dylan kick.

I’ve been pretty slow on the posts recently, large because I’ve been busy doing stuff that is sort of not-interesting-in-the-blog-way.

So I decided I’d turn all this stuff into a post.

One time things and whatnot:

• Nedelle’s pretty rad. She’s going to be playing on my radio show this Wednesday at about 10:15pm PDT. I’m pretty excited. I’ll see if I can get a copy of the show up for you east coast people to listen to.
• I’m getting ready for the Tahoe Century ride in about a month. I’ve been trying to ride a lot in preparation. I rode today and yesterday, but I’ve also been having problems with getting an inordinate number of flats, so I need to resolve that. But my goal over the next three weeks is 3 rides/ week: 2 x 30 miles and 1 x 15 miles, including at least one trip up Old La Honda or King’s Mountain per week. At this point, I alternatingly feel I’m screwed and that I’m doing fine.
• I’m going to be in Philadelphia/ DC, NYC and Pittsburgh for about 10 days total in late July for a couple weddings. It’s pretty exciting. I’m thinking about Rye Playland and Kennywood among so many other things. I might also try to catch a taping of Conan, try to catch a Buc’s game and, of course, see some fantastic friends and take lots of pictures with too many cameras.
• I just now found a weird and kind of interesting acoustic cover of Sigur Ros. I never considered that someone could cover Sigur Ros. They’re no Sigur Ros, but it’s cool.
• I’m going to South Africa again next February. February 2007, that is for my mom’s birthday. I’m going to spend a week in Cape Town, but I’m also going to try to spend 1-2 weeks on the road driving around South Africa. I’m looking forward to going back to South Africa.
• It looks like my laptop (Proud Owner of Brand New Canada) is near its end. Unless something changes about the situation, I’ll probably be getting a new one in the next few weeks/ couple of months.

Everyday stuff:

• I’m still taking spanish at the Palo Alto Adult School. It’s about 2 hours a week and the pace is slow, but I’m learning stuff so, yeah, it’s good.
• Lots of KZSU stuff. I’m doing my indie show. I’m not longer hosting the the Lunch Special but I’m still acting as the producer. Lots of interesting guests bringing their music. A schedule is on that page I linked up there. I’m also the Promotions Director, so I try to organize tickets for concerts for on-air giveaways. As the promotions guy, I’m also writing a custom PHP web app. This stuff is not obvious and not easy, at least not for me, the mech e. I’m getting the hang of it, but I’m also pretty much sick of writing this app.
• I’ve been challenged by lawn bowling and recently applied for membership at the place I’ve been bowling, the Palo Alto Lawn Bowling Club. The green is closed until the end of May, though, so no bowling for now.
• The BoSox are tied for lead in their division. The Pirates are a couple steps away from the bottom of the league. The Steelers got what look like a couple good WRs in the draft.

In the last week I finished Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon and In the Aeroplane over the Sea by Kim Cooper.

Michael Chabon has become famous for books since Mysteries of Pittsburgh, most notably Wonder Boys and the Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay. It’s a story about a kid’s post-college summer, his gangster father, his gay friend and his retro-loving girlfriend. It also takes place, in part, in Junction Hollow, the “Lost Neighborhood”, an odd place in a ravine beneath CMU that one can end up accidentally, but rarely on purpose.

It’s a well-written book, interesting and engaging. It’s bittersweet; not too bitter, not too sweet. It’s like an indie movie.

Then I read In the Aeroplane over the Sea about about the best album of the last decade. It’s a small book, barely hand-sized and only a little over a hundred pages long, so you can really gun through this. But then again, it’s sort of like extensive liner notes and how many liner notes do you know that are a hundred pages long? The book goes through the history of the band and the Elephant 6 collective, and the events leading up to the recording of the album. If you are obsessed with this album, I’d recommend this book.

Next up: Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane.

I learned today that the bocce courts I thought I saw in Palo Alto were actually lawn bowling greens. There’s a Lawn Bowls club! My grandma in South Africa used to go lawn bowling (or as she called it, bowling) every week until she must have been 85. I know the basic rules—it’s very similar to bocce except the balls are weighted so they curve as you bowl them. My brother and I even got a carpet bowls set one time in South Africa.

It turns out that there’s also bocce in the area.

Palo Alto Weekly even did an article on the club.

I think I might investigate this place. They give free lessons.

[Update: Apparently my great aunt was the national lawn bowls champion of South Africa for her age group.]

I’m planning to go to south africa for probably about 3 weeks in just under a year (maybe Januardy 21-Feb 11, 2007 give or take a week or two). I’m psyched to drive around the country. I’ve been thinking about where I want to go, so I made a page about stuff I want to do.

If you have suggestions or thoughts, let me know. If you are thinking about joining me, that’d be cool (I’m looking at you jon!) Driving around a lot would be a lot better with someone else.

South Africa brought home its first Oscar for Best Foreign Film yesterday for Tsotsi last night.

I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s going to be showing locally in a couple weeks so I will, but I read the book recently and it’s a good story.

Any ideas where to find video of the acceptance speach online? I missed it live. I’ve looked briefly but I couldn’t find anything.

In yet another South-African-book-now-made-into-a-movie-which-I-haven’t-seen is Tsotsi (the other ones are Cry, My Beloved Country, which I’ve since seen the 1995 movie version, and Country of my Skull). I got the book back in South Africa in October 2004, but it’d been sitting in my stack of books until I saw a preview for Tsotsi, which has since been nominated for an Oscar. So I decided I should read it before it’s out in the theaters.

It’s by Athol Fugard, known mostly as a playwrite. I’ve read and enjoyed a couple of his plays, including Sorrows and Rejoicings. This is his only novel.

It’s about a young thug in Johannesburg in the apartheid days (published in 1980, it was written in the 60s and set in the 50s, though it’s pretty timeless). His life changes when he is left with a baby after a woman he’s accosting runs away. Similarly to Cry, My Beloved Country, though it’s not about the conditions under apartheid, there is a lot that reflects on and reveals those conditions.

It’s a largely psychological novel with relatively little dialogue. The characters are very well fleshed out . The descriptions of events, people and places throughout are sometimes a little much but are always thorough. The ending is a bit unsatisfying, but in a book like this, the ending isn’t as important as the journey.

I like this book a lot. If you want a more narrative story from South Africa, you might want to start with Cry, My Beloved Country.

Slightly related note: is there an equivalent to IMDB for books? Wouldn’t that be useful?

Actually tomorrow on PBS!

The movie is Yesterday.

PBS is showing it (without commercials, like PBS does) tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9pm. It doesn’t even come out on DVD until next Tuesday!

It’s a good movie about a woman with AIDs in the rural Zululand area of South Africa. It’s the first isiZulu feature-length movie.

I was trying to find examples of South Africans talking to play for a coworker and I discovered the International Dialects of English Archive, which has an Accents of South Africa page.

This “heavy accent” sounds like a lot of Afrikaaner women I’ve met or talked to, including the proprieter of The African Hut.

This one is probably my favorite. It’s by an older man who pops his r’s, which I like a lot. I think my granny did that. (The woman in this one practically rolls her r’s. That’s so fun!)

My parents have a fairly weak accent, closest to this one probably, among all of the ones listed.

There are, of course, many recordings from other parts of the world, including many in America. Disappointingly, there aren’t any good recordings of a solid Pittsburgh accent!

You can hear Germans and Irish and English and many other accents (in English) if you click around. It’s pretty interesting stuff.

I was struck today by how Zulu has the best greetings of any language.

Particularly (and their translations):
Sowubona - I see you (used as “hello”)
Hamba kahle - Go well (as “goodbye”)
Sala kahle - Stay well (as “goodbye”)

I guess “God be with ye” which is what “goodbye” came from is alright, but there’s some thing so simple and elegant, yet personal about the Zulu greetings.

Strangely, I’ve bought lots of things in the last 24 hours. First I got a call from African Hut to say that the goods I had ordered in mid-August had come in and they were sending them. Then, later in the day I decided to pick up that Mark Kozelek/ Sun Kil Moon Modest Mouse covers record from Insound at which point I found that you could answer a stupid quiz and get 25% off your whole order, so I got a few things there. Then, this morning, I read that there’s a new 7″ Half-Handed Cloud/ Sufjan Stevens EP out today so I decided to pick that up and noticed something else while I was at the Asthmatic Kitty website.

So, the full haul:

• a case of Savanna Dry Cider, originally meant to be consumed with Jon Werberg, but that will do just fine now.
• 1/2 lb of biltong
• 1 can of guava halfs (or as I call it, 1 can of pure heaven)
• If You’re Feeling Sinister by Belle & Sebastian. I’m finally picking up a CD copy of this. ($8.99 minus 25%!) I now have all the B&S albums on CD.
• The Exquisite Death of Saxon Shore by Saxon Shore. I liked their previous album and decided to give this one a try.
• Summer in the Southeast by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. The first time I heard Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy in any form was live at Club Laga. I’ve wanted a live recording ever since and now he’s coming out with one. Pre-order for November 15.
• Bodies and Minds by Great Lake Swimmers. I liked GLS’s debut when it came through the station. This effort is apparently good, so I thought I’d pick it up. (What was I thinking last night? I never buy this many “gamble” albums at one time.)
• Tiny Cities by Sun Kil Moon. Aforementioned Modest Mouse covers album. Pre-order for Nov. 1 though I think I’ve heard they’ve started shipping them.
• What’s the Remedy by Half Handed Cloud. Aforementioned collaborative effort with Sufjan Stevens. Vinyl 7″.
• Sufjan Stevens Illinois shirt. They didn’t have them when the concert tour came through here in July but they wore them on stage and boy were they hot.

So yeah, that’s me going crazy. I’ll be getting piles of stuff over the next few weeks though!