Summer is for the acoustic medley

By Jessie | Published: June 30, 2010 Leave a comment
Bob Marley - Acoustic Medley
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I’ve been on a non-stop Bob Marley kick for the last few days, and it’s had some unintended nostalgia-inducing effects.

I was never much of a Reggae person growing up, but during the summer when I was 15, I went with a couple of older high school friends to a Reggae Festival at SPAC, a large outdoor amphitheater in Saratoga Springs, NY that held all kinds of concerts during the summer.  We listened to Ziggy Marley, Peter Tosh and others play while sitting on the sunny, elevated lawn, watching people, and furtively taking short drags off of unfiltered, honey-dipped clove cigarettes.  I picked up a Reggae Festival t-shirt and it became one of my main staples to wear during field hockey practice that fall.

One of my fondest memories of being a teen was taking road trips to SPAC during the summer.  When my family first moved to upstate New York, my mom would often take us to see the New York City Ballet in August and the Philadelphia Orchestra in July.  The tickets were cheap, especially for those sitting outside on the grass.  For every 4th of July celebration, the Symphony would play the time honored 1812 Overture, a piece that, to this day, baffles me because it has absolutely very little to do with America and everything to do with Russia.  It always felt like such a luxury to be able to lie on a blanket looking up at the stars on a warm night while listening to incredible orchestral pieces and snacking on crackers and cheese; there wasn’t much to watch anyway.

The ballet was different, though.  Performances were typically held during weekend afternoons, when August’s humidity appeared and with it, its remarkable thunderstorms.  I can’t remember how many times I sat inside the outdoor amphitheater watching the dancers spin across the stage during Swan Lake or A Midsummer Night’s Dream while a storm exploded overhead, quickly dissipating the thick air and leaving it ten degrees cooler, my arms chilled.   During intermission, we’d walk around the park surrounding the amphitheater and witness elaborate weddings taking place inside a nearby atrium and hall, or wedding photographers shooting brides in their ornate gowns and grooms en route to their reception.

I always wondered who these seemingly moneyed people were, and what I might learn from them; Saratoga was a summer habitat for the wealthy — mainly “old money” like the Vanderbilts, but also for those associated with the horse track there, which held races throughout August.  I’d only been to the race track twice when I was around 11.  My dad let me bet two dollars on a couple of horses, which I quickly lost, not having any clue on the logistics of horse racing or betting.  It mostly bored me then.  What didn’t bore me was “the scene” there.  In retrospect, Saratoga is a lot like the Hamptons, sans the celebrities.  The summer mansions, the estates, the cars, the hats, the clothing — it was all completely foreign to me, who grew up eating powdered milk with my cereal.   Granted, although my family’s move to upstate New York was a strategic one that provided us with many more opportunities than we previously had, we were still far removed from these families who sent their children to private boarding schools and wore brightly colored Polo shirts and drove luxury cars.  I mean, we had five kids in our family.

Whenever we went to the ballet at SPAC or to the polo grounds, we were offered a glimpse into this mysterious world that seemed anything but tangible to me.  Mothers were delicate and primped, no doubt from a life comprised largely of leisure.  They wore summer dresses with matching jackets, hats, shoes, and purses.  Lots of white shoes for the grassy terrain.  Fathers carried an air of power and comfort about them, which prompted me wonder, for the first time in my life, whether people are successful because they are hard working or because they have a deep self-confidence.

It was the late 80’s, and I witnessed the new fashion trends among my peers.  There were a lot of pastels and prints, jeans jackets, white, chunky knit sweaters and Benetton sweatshirts.  Once, while leaving the ballet with my mom after a performance, I saw a girl a little older than I was wearing pink silk MC Hammer pants, and thought it a brilliant idea to re-appropriate them for the opposite sex.  I couldn’t imagine where this girl shopped.  I couldn’t imagine my mom ever buying me a pair of pants like that.  Years later, when I was in high school, we bonded over sewing short shorts and the somewhat ridiculous fashion ideas I got in my head, but shopping was generally out of the question.  We just didn’t have a lot of disposable income, and if I wanted things, I mostly paid for them myself after I turned 16 and started waitressing at a nightmarish steakhouse.

As time passed along, SPAC and Saratoga became less of a place of status to me and more a place for teenage indiscretions.  We went to the ballet and orchestra less and less, and instead, I attended an eclectic list of concerts there:  Depeche Mode, Steve Miller Band, Lollapalooza, The Allman Brothers Band.  I think I saw Peter, Paul & Mary with my dad.  I had my first experience getting stupidly drunk and passing out there, which luckily scared me into not ever drinking for a number of years.

Once I passed my drivers’ test, I probably drove to Saratoga once per week, if anything, to get out of our town for a few hours.  There were small shops and cafés lining the downtown area, and my best friend and I would leave right after school in the Plymouth “Reliant”, which my parents couldn’t even sell for parts, and which would often overheat on any trip extending over 15 minutes.  It was a stick shift, and occasionally that would somehow break, too.  We would chance the possibility of being stuck on a road in the middle of nowhere at 3:30 on a weekday afternoon, before the mainstream use of cell phones, for an hour talking in the car, windows rolled down, arms hanging out while feeling the wind dissipate the stale heat in the car, and another hour looking at shoes we couldn’t afford.  We were teenagers, and we basked in our new freedom and carelessness.

Years later, my parents left upstate New York, I graduated from college, and not long after, the love of my life at that brief moment in time gave me a mixtape with this Bob Marley medley at the end of it, followed by the upbeat alternative mix of “I’m Hurting Inside.”   I wish I could add the latter song to this medley, because by the time you’re finished listening to it and feeling saddened by the acoustic version of this song, Marley returns with a louder, more forceful way of telling his message, in a manner that makes you want to scream it along with him:  When I was just a child, happiness was there a while.  Then from me it slipped one day.  Happiness, come back, I say.  ’Cause if you don’t come, I’ve got to go looking for happiness...  I listened to this medley all summer long, sang along with it while driving alone to graduate school classes I’d enrolled in down in Philadelphia.  We listened to it while driving to a Pennsylvania beach on one of the bright, muggy weekends, where we swam in a lake with 8-year-olds, took photos, and lay in the warm sun before heading to my parents’ house to watch The Red Violin, drink iced tea, and listen to the crickets outside.

There is something about this time of year that makes me look back in time at summers past, at who I was at a given place and time this time of year when school was out with another school year over, and wonder whether I sufficiently grasped and held onto the opportunities that were given to me.  Did I enjoy myself enough?  Did I know how lucky I was?  Have I learned from those experiences?  Am I the kind of person I wanted to be 20 years ago?  And, maybe more importantly, will summer ever again feel like it did on one of those hazy afternoons in Saratoga Springs?

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Campfires

By Jessie | Published: June 18, 2010 Leave a comment

I am loving this series by photographer Greg Stimac.

(via)

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What did you think might happen?

By Jessie | Published: June 18, 2010 Leave a comment

Everest was the embodiment of the physical forces of the world.  Against it he had to pit the spirit of man.  He could see the joy in the faces of his comrades if he succeeded.  He could imagine the thrill his success would cause among all fellow-mountaineers; the credit it would bring to England; the interest all over the world; the name it would bring him; the enduring satisfaction to himself that he had made his life worthwhile… Perhaps he never exactly formulated it, yet in his mind must have been present the idea of “all or nothing.”  Of the two alternatives, to turn back a third time, or to die, the latter was for Mallory probably the easier.  The agony of the first would be more than he as a man, as a mountaineer, and as an artist, could endure.

—Sir Francis Younghusband, The Epic of Mount Everest (1926)

I finally read Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, and it left me stunned and searching for more information about the people and the events surrounding the May 10, 1996 disaster on Mount Everest, and also reading about other failed and successful attempts to reach the mountain’s summit.  The story itself is tragic and shocking — so much so, that it’s hard to believe it actually happened.  If someone wrote a fictional book about the same events, I’d imagine people might dismiss it as being overly dramatic and unrealistic.

Probably like most people who find stories like this or Into The Wild so fascinating, I want to understand the reasoning behind people’s motives in venturing into such dangerous and extreme conditions and climates.  Rationally, I know that individual reasoning varies.  For example, a Danish woman, Lene Gammelsgaard, who was part of Scott Fischer’s expedition during that fateful trip, made it off the mountain alive and was the first Scandanavian woman to reach the summit.  She later recalled that her passion for mountain climbing came about as a means for her to cope with her brother’s sudden death when she was 22-years-old.  It kept her physically and emotionally exhausted.  It kept her mind off of her pain and instead forced her to focus on immediate survival.  It made her feel strong again and capable of dealing with her world.

Climbing is a sport that ordinarily requires a great deal of trust, which was why I was attracted to it in my late teens and early 20’s, and ultimately left it.  For instance, typically, one climber is tied to one or more partners with a 150-foot length of rope, which makes each person directly responsible for the lives of others.  Roping in this manner makes it a very serious and intimate act.

Mount Everest (and other peaks like it) is a totally different entity, though.  According to Krakauer’s book, people aren’t physically connected to one another in the way that they typically are when climbing; expediency dictates this, given the high altitude.  During the storm that overtook the mountain on May 10th-11th 1996, five people on the South side of the mountain died trying to reach or descend from the summit, and three people died on the North side.  The lesser-known three on the North side were part of an Indo-Tibetan expedition from India, who apparently succumbed to high altitude sickness or the cold, or both, and died.  Three Japanese climbers, part of another expedition, passed the three Indo-Tibetan climbers on their way to the summit.  One was apparently close to death, another crouching in the snow, and another was lost 160 feet away.  No words were exchanged.

In their quest to reach the top, none of the Japanese climbers stopped to even check if the Indo-Tibetans’ oxygen regulators were working or covered in ice, or to offer them water or food.  They also didn’t stop on their way down, at which point one was clearly dead, one was missing, and the third was still crouching in the snow, visibly suffering from frostbite.  The Japanese climbers ignored the Indo-Tibetan climbers.  When asked about it afterward in an interview with the Financial Times, one of the Japanese climbers recalled, “We were too tired to help.  Above 8,000 meters is not a place where people can afford morality.”  There are other instances of this kind of conduct that occurred according to Krakauer’s account, but I don’t want to give the story away for anyone interested in reading it.

There is a “Death Zone” on Mount Everest (above 26,000 feet), where the body simply isn’t meant to be alive; it can no longer acclimatize (produce extra red blood cells for oxygen); it doesn’t get enough oxygen to sustain it for long; it’s difficult to eat or drink because one’s metabolism simply doesn’t break down nutrients; and so on.  The altitude literally causes the body to collapse.   I understand that this is partly what makes Mount Everest so alluring to thrill seekers: it’s a brush with death, a game of Russian roulette, a harrowing story to pass on to children and grandchildren and others like myself who are intrigued with such a feat.  A successful summit may bring fame or notoriety, or maybe even a potential book or movie deal, depending on how close the brush with death is.

I understand that climbing high is a survival game; it can be extraordinarily rewarding, but there is no escaping the fact that one may die on the mountain.  What I find difficult is the notion that Mount Everest is an amoral place.  Does one really owe nothing to anyone else there?

I’ve read several accounts from Everest survivors who have said that one cannot expect anyone to help them when they are up there, given the gravity of the risk and the likelihood of death; one’s fate is in their own hands, and one must take responsibility for their actions.  Of course, there are unwritten codes of mountaineering conduct, and spectacular rescues do occasionally occur, but everything one does is ultimately one’s decision.  ”You are responsible for yourself” is a life lesson anywhere, yet it somehow resonates as cruel in a climate where so many people die every year (which is why it exists).

Which leads to a related question Krakauer’s book left me wondering:  How long does it take to get over something one should have done but didn’t?  A person one could have helped, but failed to?  An individual one could have rescued, but was looking after their own needs?  What is the proper length of time to feel sorry about something like that?

When Krakauer arrived back in Seattle and wrote the contracted article for Outside magazine, many criticized him for his candidness and and for his own failures up on Everest.  A lawyer from Florida responded in a letter to the editor:

All I can say is that I agree with Mr. Krakauer when he said, ‘My actions — or failure to act — played a direct role in the death of Andy Harris.’ I also agree with him when he says, ‘[I was] a mere 350 yards [away], lying inside a tent, doing absolutely nothing… .’ I don’t know how he can live with himself.

Without giving away details, Krakauer, likely in his own affected state after reaching the summit of nearly 29,700 feet — near cruising altitude for most commercial airliners — made a relatively significant error by not recognizing that one of his teammates was suffering from severe hypoxia.  If he had, he might have helped the person down the mountain to a safer altitude, but he didn’t and the person died, leaving a wife behind.

In his book, Krakauer writes:  “[It was] a lapse that’s likely to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

There were other possible lapses in judgment made that day by others on the mountain, which, in hindsight, have led to many “what-if’s…”  Can you imagine the heartache?  And Krakauer bears some of the blame.

If one were to believe that life on Everest in amoral, then it becomes difficult to reconcile the “enter at your own risk” nature of the mountain and the guilt one will feel were someone to die, whom they might have helped.  If you look at the statistics, approximately one in 15 climbers die trying to summit Everest.  Then why continue to climb it at all?

After nearly 15 years, book and movie royalties keep rolling in and his fame and notoriety remain in check, but Krakauer would likely be the first to say it all wasn’t worth it.  At any rate, to enter a climate where one will, undoubtedly, pass at least one frozen dead body on one’s way to the summit (of a mountain actually littered with nearly a century’s worth of them) just seems kind of ghoulish to me.

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If I could I would go here…

By Jessie | Published: June 15, 2010 Leave a comment

So this is it.  There is no more procrastinating. No more perfecting my words. No more clearing my throat. Or doing more research. Or reading more literature, treatises, and case law. Or looking at pretty pictures.  The truth is, I can’t go to this place in these photographs.

It’s not because I have a broken leg or something.  Or because I can’t afford it (though that might be true).  No, it is because of something I said.

But what could I have said that could stop me from going to a place as magical looking as this?  The thing is that I only told one person, via our translator.  I mean, I am no speech maker; I only have a quiet voice.  So I haven’t announced this to some kind of an audience, or even to a group of individuals.  Well, until today, I guess.

I can’t visit this place because I made a pact.  You know how some people get tattoos together or maybe wear a token around their neck to symbolize some kind of an agreement or gesture.

I made a pact with a man named Tsering, and he was born in the country I can’t go to.  Perhaps I’m silly to have agreed that I won’t go there, because it is so obviously full of the kind of inspiration I crave –- it is full of natural wonders, full of color, full of wisdom and of life, and full of photo opportunities, to say the least.  Just like all the different ethnic cultures that creatives derive inspiration from, this country and its culture is probably at the height of it all.  It is, in fact, the rooftop of the world.  Yes, I’m talking about wonderful Tibet.

Not long ago, while I was sitting in an office on the 41st floor of a mid-town office building in NYC, probably dreaming about my next trip abroad or commiserating over my job, Tsering was trekking through the Himalayas en route to Nepal.  He was escaping, although he had done nothing wrong except speak his mind — of which most of us are guilty — and practice his religion at his monastery in Tibet.  He was arrested, imprisoned, disrobed, stripped of his prayer beads, beaten and tortured over a period of several months.  Then, as a condition of his release, he was forced to denounce his religion, the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama, and promise, in writing, never to practice Buddhism or return to his monastery again.  He would no longer be a monk.

The Chinese authorities warned him that if he were caught supporting any of the aforementioned again, he would, at the very least, be sentenced to life in prison, if not executed.  And so he fled after Chinese authorities came looking for him, once again, after suspecting his involvement in speaking out against the Chinese government, mainly handing out small photos of the Dalai and Panchen Lamas during a local festival. He was tending his wild stock out in the mountains when the authorities arrived at his home, and beat his brother and also his wife in an attempt to obtain information from them.  A relative rushed out to relay what had happened and to tell him to flee.  He did, without ever saying goodbye to his family.

Tsering is my client now; I am his lawyer, and we recently prevailed in his application for political and religious asylum after a trial at the Department of Homeland Security in lower Manhattan, even amidst a climate of fear mongering and contempt toward foreigners trying to settle and make a living there.  With many thanks to Amchok, our translator and one of the first Tibetan refugees in the NYC area granted asylum, who was shot in the chest while fleeing the Himalayas and yet somehow survived to make it to India and then the US, and to Bob Thurman, an expert witness on Tsering’s behalf.

I would be concerned about revealing general details surrounding Tsering’s experiences, but the sad fact is that his asylum case is like so many others pending in immigration courts around the globe (and his name is a very common one).

For 15 days, Tsering trekked through the Himalayas.  There were others too, a group of approximately ten people.  One died.  Others nearly starved or froze to death.  Since I met Tsering, I often close my eyes and try to imagine being Tsering in those mountains.  What would I see? Would I look back and whisper goodbye to my home?  And as I struggle through the snow with nothing but the clothes on my back, a photo of my wife in my pocket, and a fake passport, what would I be thinking as I watched others on my same path lay down of exhaustion and even die?  If it was me, I would be scared out of my wits.  But something must have been scarier behind Tsering than in front of him; otherwise, he would never have made the trip, left his family behind in search of safety and toward the complete unknown.

Fast forward to the year two thousand and six, when Tsering arrived at JFK, stepping off a plane for the first time in his life, knowing no one in New York, and not even having proper identification.  For the last four-plus years, he’s been working under the table as a per diem worker, living with others similarly situated in the outskirts of Queens, unable to take English classes due to his visa status being in limbo, unable to seek treatment for his PTSD for the same reason.  He hasn’t heard from his wife in years; he doesn’t know if she is alive or in prison or worse.  Ditto most of his family.

Tsering has been granted a special visa to live in the US, thanks to months of imprisonment and brutal torture in China for being a Tibetan monk.  And he was a special sort of monk; he was a Rinpoche, which, for novices of Buddhism like me, means he was a reincarnate.

I’m no Buddhist, so I won’t pretend that I know much of anything about monks and reincarnation.  I do know I’ve met many interesting and inspiring people in my little 30 years on this planet, and I can safely say that Tsering is, without a doubt, the gentlest person I have ever encountered in my life.  He has not even lifted a finger to kill a mosquito biting his arm while sitting in front of me.  In fact, while he feels the sting from the blood sucking creature, he just nods, smiles at me, and responds to my questions.  I can imagine why, too; that bite must feel like a kiss compared to what he has endured.

So under both heartbreaking and miraculous circumstances, Tsering’s and my life crossed paths, and we’ve been crossing and weaving each other’s paths ever since. And that is how and why I made this pact.  My reasoning is simple: for as long as Tibetans are not free to leave and enter their own country, on their own peaceful terms, then neither am I.  I made a pact to Tsering that I would not go there until Tibet was safe — saved.

Which brings me back to this post.  We all know Tibet has been in turmoil for the last 50 years. We all know that Tibet has been in the media for some time, and we all know why.  It’s hard to discuss the brutality that is still going on there because it makes me want to vomit.  Let’s be honest, are we not sick of hearing about the abuse of human rights in the 21st century?  I don’t want to hear about another Tibetan nun shot dead in the Himalayas, or see another photo of an unarmed Tibetan protestor shot dead by Chinese authorities.

I am no Björk, Tina Turner, or Richard Gere, though neither are most people.  But I am a friend of Tsering, Amchok, and this man, and they are a friend of this man.  And his people need people like us, who want people’s voices heard and to make this world a better, safer, more loving place.  In the meantime, I stand by my friend while his voice now echoes through the streets of New York City.  He does have a louder voice than mine, and a lot more to tell.  My wish is that one fine day, the terms of my pact will be fulfilled, and I will travel to Tibet with my best friend and have Tibetan tea in a place that looks something like this:

… And so in the meantime, if you are in New York and craving an authentic Tibetan experience, do go to Tsampa, on 9th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues.  The restaurant was opened by one of the first Tibetan couples to have obtained asylum in the NYC area, and has been passed down to their children.  If you are lucky, you might run into Amchok or a Buddhist monk sitting near the shrine in the back.

All images are from L’Internaute.

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Whatever you do, don’t let go

By Jessie | Published: June 4, 2010 Leave a comment
The Swell Season - Into the Mystic (Van Morrison cover)
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I listened to this song today and immense pressure was building inside of my ribcage the entire time, threatening to explode, leaving me a mere pile of bones and skin. It reminded me of humid summer nights spent together playing pool inside the seedy Reading brewery, only with the original playing on the jukebox. There is something so desperate about this song, so precious — to just turn everything bad that’s happened around and try to put it back together again, because it’s not okay to just give up on something you love without attempting to mend it. That, though, makes me want to cry the most, because would anyone be willing to fight for me, to hold me up to the light and tell me that I’m not supposed to give in so easily, that I am precious like a diamond or ruby? Or would they drop me like a glass of milk, but never shed a tear?

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Vocabulary

By Jessie | Published: June 4, 2010 Leave a comment

If people bring so much courage to this world, the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.

- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

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Wander & Wonder

By Jessie | Published: May 31, 2010 1 Comment

I don’t think I’ve seen photographs I have liked this much in a long time.  Photographer Jeremy Blincoe works and lives in Melbourne. His series entitled Wander & Wonder is currently featured at the Lindberg Galleries.  These fantastic images bring to mind, perhaps, the more innocent side of adult tales such as Alice in Wonderland or Huckleberry Finn, just before that darker something sets in, where pure curiosity still survives with wide eyes.  They almost look like paintings.

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Gen Why

By Jessie | Published: May 31, 2010 Leave a comment

Just venting.

I just finished an application for admission to a design school here in Denmark, and I think it may have been one of the dumbest things I’ve ever completed.  The theme of the test was “The young will revolutionize lifestyles industries,” and had much to do with the allegedly ADD-riddled, wasteful, ego-centric consumerism that characterizes Generation Y — my generation, depending on who or what you read — and how we can all accommodate them, because they are quickly becoming more powerful than even the Baby Boomers with their spending.

I strongly dislike generalizations for a number of reasons, but reading how marketers consider people around my age to have come from cushy families who really wanted, and carefully pruned, all of their children, doting on them, spoiling them out of sheer guilt over their marital indiscretions, etc. really irks me.  On the other hand, I don’t particularly seem to like or “get” many young people (ten years younger than I am) these days, because there just seems to be some disconnect in how we approach our lives.  I don’t need to be connected at all times, nor do I want to be;  I think the need for anonymous reinforcement on the internet is creepy; I value my privacy; I prefer paying for quality clothing that wasn’t made in a sweat factory in China; and so on.

Anyhow, one of the assignments for the entrance exam was to design a product that would appeal to Generation Y’ers.  Rather than create yet another disposable brand that can be marketed ad nauseam, I opted to design a hybrid/solar mobile phone that had a silicone body with solar cells, which would allow it, via suction, to stick to a window to recharge.  It opened up to reveal 3G capabilities, including a graphic user interface.  It was also designed for sustainability purposes, to resist breaking and shattering, which so often happens with the iPhone (this I know from personal experience), even with separate silicone or hard shell covers.

While it probably wasn’t the greatest design (though I am kind of proud of it), it got me thinking:  why do we constantly design towards Gen Y’ers’ perceived needs and not do a little of the guiding ourselves?  If there is anything to be gleaned from younger folks these days, it’s that they’re often easily manipulated by brands and perceived stimulation.  If Steve Jobs — and if anyone is in a position to manipulate trends, it’s him — opted tomorrow to create biodegradable MacBooks — or better yet, make sustainable bodies and batteries that last for more than two years, then surely people would jump on the eco-friendly band wagon.  He could make sustainability the new “cool” thing, and surely there would be ways to capitalize on this.  There haven’t been enough eco-friendly options, particularly when it comes to electronic gadgets, so there hasn’t been a lot of demand.

It irks me to no end that it’s become not only acceptable but nearly expected for people to replace their mobile phones and laptops every two years.  It’s disgraceful, really, when we know that they don’t go to Apple Heaven, that their batteries and parts often end up in our landfills, and that the technology is absolutely there to implement eco-friendly design.  Gen Y: let’s get over ourselves.

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