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This Land

Ha ha... surf over to jibjab.com and check out the new Kerry vs. Bush animation. Funny stuff. Then when you're done, go to the Democratic Convention site and see speeches by Carter, Gore and the Clintons.

And then if you really feel like it, go make a contribution for the cause. We have to win this one.

In Transit

I'm sitting in Toronto Airport again, this time in between San Francisco and Copenhagen. I'm fatigued out of my mind, Eno's "Julie With..." on the iPod, and I am trying to process the last couple of weeks.

San Francisco was a trip- beautiful as always, with the same undercurrent of sketchy madness. There seem to be a lot fewer SUVs, and a lot more conspicuously insane homeless people in the city. The dot com bust accounted for the SUVs (thank fox), and I heard a rumor that the police in the rural American midwest are solving their own problems with crazy homeless people by buying them all bus tickets to San Francisco, where they then become somebody else's problem. I don't know if it's true but it sounds just like something the bastards would try. In any case, the city definitely hasn't cleaned up the way New York has. Market Street and Civic Center are pretty dodgy now- worse than they used to be.

It was great to be back though- great to see old friends again (Hi Marissa, Marcella, Jake, Michele and Sue), and great to just walk the streets again soaking up the city. I was happy to see that the people at Warakubune remembered me- I walked in the door and Fi and Tiffany were like "Hey, where have you been?!" I also got out to the Shipyard in Berkeley to see some industrial art. That is such an awesome place- kind of a Christiania-like Temporary Autonomous Zone. Thanks, Jennifer and Dragisa for turning me on to it! Next time I'm in town I'll try to spend some more time in Berkeley (and be less tired too).

San Francisco was kind of weird though, too, because while the city hasn't changed that much, it became obvious after a while that I really have. Seeing some of the old places, I was faced a whole lot of stuff that I'd chosen to forget or block out over the last four years. I was very naiive when I lived there.

I'll put pictures from Toronto and SF up when I get back to Copenhagen. I got some good shots.

Leaving Toronto

I'm off to San Francisco in an hour. Toronto was really good, and I always regret leaving a good place before I've had a chance to really get into it, try to understand it, find the underground places.

But it's always strange, living like this. I love the city after city of it. I love the different skylines, the languages, the different styles of clothing and tattoos. But it's always so busy and I'm always so jetlagged that what I'm left with afterwards is a swirl of pictures and feelings rather than a narrative memory. This is what it's like...

Approaching the skyline at night in the back of a taxi, seeing the city for the first time, unfolding itself around you, lit up like a dream. The smell of subway, memories of New York. The spiral tattoo on the lower back of an Asian girl as she waits for the light to change. Falling asleep to thunder, the strange and somehow comfortable disconnectedness you feel, sleeping alone in another hotel room. The hard grinding, hung-over, jetlagged fatigue of early morning at the airport, feeling the way you imagine an engine feels when it tries to run without any lubrication. The kerosene smell of jet fuel, washing over you as you wait for the plane. All the faces of all the people on all the streets, bored, busy, beautiful, suspicious, laughing, kissing, crushed, hopeless. And all of this, Jesus Christ, you try to hold on to all of this but you can't, and all you can do if you're lucky is find just one moment to sit and breathe in silence, say a couple of namu myoho renge kyo's and try to process, to internalize it. To just be here, now, whatever place you're in.

And as much as you can, to forget nothing.

Stop Complaining

On another note, Sara told me I need to stop bitching. I was talking to her last night and was kinda complaining about the crazy schedule I've been on--Amsterdam, Utrecht, Copenhagen, Toronto, etc... and she said basically, uh huh... you have a really tough life.

So I'll just shut up now. Cheers Sara, I needed that!

The Japanese Theory

I really shouldn't give the technology guys such a hard time. What they're doing is important. Even if they're individually working on some esoteric technology like developing a language to help business information systems talk to each other, or whatever, all of this development helping the tools get easier to use, smarter, and less visible.

For a lot of these guys, making our machines smarter is like a religious quest, and I can respect that. The Japanese Theory says that as long as the technology keeps getting better, we don't have to worry so much about the population explosion or resource consumption. With good technology, we'll find new ways to use resources, or make resources... let's say we can use smarter machines to help us design advanced energy systems or bacteria that can eat pollution.

I like the idea of the Japanese Theory, and if you compare the resource use of Scandinavia and, say, China, India and Ukraine, it seems to be working pretty well. Scandinavians use good technology to consume much fewer resources per capita, and even so they have a much higher standard of living than most of the rest of the world.

My only beef with the Japanese Theory is that I'm not sure it will save us in time. We're going to start to need these advanced energy systems and exotic technologies pretty soon, and I'm not sure they'll be there when we need them.

I was talking to a chemical engineer in Utrecht about this--conversation over beer kinda thing--and I asked him, with his experience in the development of new materials, if the Japanese Theory is right, if we'll get there in time. He said no, materials aren't improving nearly fast enough as we need them to.

But at least the technology guys are still trying, and who knows? We might get lucky.

Toronto

It's a pity I can't upload photos to my server from here, because Toronto has a gorgeous skyline. Really beautiful city, and my hotel is right on the water by the CN Tower. I ate some great sushi last night at a pretty authentic restaurant (we were almost the only Gaijin in the place). That leads me to something else I really like about Toronto, it's incredibly multicultural. I had no idea.

I had heard that Canada had, at least until the recent past, a very open and benevolent immigration policy, and now I can see the results of that- good restaurants and a laid-back, open feel to the place. I could get used to this.

Of course there are few pleasures that don't have to be paid for in one way or another, and so my pennance for the happiness of being here is that I've been sitting trapped in a convention center all day, surrounded by sociopaths.

Ah well, it's not all that bad... I want to say a special hello to Shanti and Deborah- I'm glad I finally got a chance to see a little bit of Canada.

Off again

It was great seeing Utrecht last weekend and hanging out with Bram, Klaartje and Yvonne. I got about three hours on Saturday afternoon to just walk around the town and remember my time there from 2000. It was so mindblowing the first time around- starting in the international program, living in another country for the same time, and meeting everyone in the program, who are still some of my best friends. Meeting Cecilie in Utrecht was pretty nice too. Good memories. Here's a pic of the mini-reunion between Klaartje, Yvonne, Bram and I. Those of you in the program will remember our old friend Ever Closer Union...

I'm off to Toronto in about an hour. I'll be there till July 14, and then I fly to San Francisco. I can't even believe I'm going to see my old city again. That's going to be some reunion too!

By the way, I finally figured out how to check my home account from the web. So everyone can keep mailing me on pdarling@tdcadsl.dk, and just forget about the Hotmail address.

Love you all! xx