The top

As all of you who read that email know, I am totally sick and way out of it at this point. See, my headlamp is still switched on. It's 7 a.m. and I've been climbing straight up, begging my guide to lie and tell me it was almost over, for the last 7 hours. I thought for sure I had frostbite on my fingers and my face is covered in tiny splinters of ice from my breath. The darkness of the night had been so monumental that the sunrise became this kind of holy grail. I thought for some reason that it would dispel all chill from my bones, all that was exhaustion and bad. In general, make the world a better and more hospitable place.

And, boy was it beautiful. No one has lied - it is one of THE places to witness a sunrise.

But, it was also not quite the answer to my every prayer. The air remained as cold as before and all I could think of was how desperately I wanted to get down and get off of the mountain.

Onward and Upward

After my day of acclimatization, we travelled out of the moorland and into the alpine desert. This was the day of not just the 1000 meter ascent to the next campsite but the beginning of our summit attempt - which was to commence at midnight. All in all on this fourth/fifth day we climbed 2200 meters. If you look closely, you can make out the switchback trail we used to get to Gilman's Point (the entry onto the crater rim). It is dark grey and barely visible but quite definitely there; scary upon first sight. I think my exact thought was "No fucking way."

While I'm on the subject of film....

Oliver Stone's WORLD TRADE CENTER.

Shameless, shameless, shameless.

Let it be said that I went under duress and already expecting to hate what I saw - however, to be fair, I allowed myself to be talked into the thing, if only to confirm my suspicians. Such sentimental trash. Disheartening to read a review in The Economist which says "the film contents itself with a tribute to the working-class heroism that shone out of the black hole of the event". Our poor working class Nicholas Cage, just as painful to watch as ever, with his Long Island accent fading in and out; his special family moment, doing what working class men do - sawing wood with his son, smiling up at his wife who is contentedly cooking dinner; the heartwrenching worry over another mouth to feed.

All this adds up to is an elitest idea of what it means to be working class. A film that, in a sense, denigrates the individual men and women who responded to the World Trade Center disaster by lumping them into a 'class' and presenting them as one-dimensional stereotypes, in the form of wincing actor who daydreams of jesus and prays.

What else. Besides the absolutely juvenile film-making. An empty subway train to represent the people who were lost. The excruciating attention to providing a viewer with nothing more than the images we all saw on the nightly news, or heard about from New Yorkers. It was almost a primer to the day. Beautiful morning. Check. Shadow of a plane. Check. Papers falling. Got that. Man falling. In the can.

All in all, a film meant to become a classic. Shown to schoolchildren of the future - forever linking the attack on the World Trade Center with a call to American Patriotism and the war on Iraq. (Where is the natural conclusion to the tag about the religious Marine going on to serve two tours of duty in Iraq - namely, 'a nation that had nothing to do with the attack".

I only write this out of frustration with all of these positive reviews that I keep seeing.

Why?

Quick and probably obvious universal lament to follow.

Michael Heneke has finally gone the way countless fairly good European and Japanese filmmakers before him; he's agreed to remake his terrific film FUNNY GAMES in English, with Naomi Watts and Hollywood backing.

Why remake something that exists so perfectly?

Exasperating. Are we so U.S.-centric that we can't watch something with subtitles - all signs point towards yes. As with THE VANISHING, this is sure to disappoint, due to audience testing and a general lack of imagination among the movie going public. If it were to end the same, would it need remaking. In the HAMPTONS no less!

OK, I'll shut up now, eat a fig and bicycle off for some skim milk

through the first view....

With some time having passed, my body generally recovered and all of my more mundane concerns having filtered back into my conciousness - I think back on my week on Kilimanjaro like someone might remember an episode from one's childhood. Save for the physical exertion, the monotony and the exhileration I felt at being truly alone in my own head is my only real souvenir. It is something not easy to recreate. Walking for days on end is an almost mindless activity - it became, for me, a true exercise in endurance of a sort completely different than I had expected. With this in mind, along with my impressions of Ethiopia, I started - last week - to read Rory Stewart's book about his walk across Afghanistan, THE PLACES IN BETWEEN. I highly recommend it.

But, I digress.

The main point of this entry is to give anyone who didn't get that long, long email a quick photo essay on my recent climb. Now, you too can witness how a girl can go from smiles to complete done-in-ed-ness in less that seven days!

These pictures are of the first two days - see, I start out looking all outfitted and collected, shorts and waders. We move to our first night's encampment on the border of the rainforest and moorland - it was very misty, wet and chilly when the sun set. Not, too horrible though - and, exciting as it was the first day. The next day gets even more misty - we ate our dreadful boxed lunch (fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a tiny banana and sugary water) at a small circle of metal tables positioned just about halfway through our day's trek. The last picture is of our arrival at the second group of huts - our first view of the summit, covered and snow and impossibly high and far away.

This is where we stay for our extra acclimitization day....

From Roth to McEwan

More for the summer reading list....
Saturday.

One sitting and wrap yourself up in that almost perfectly pitched prose. Read it on the bus from Langano to Addis; all save last three pages. Damn. Had to be called out on that by Erin who wants me to personally ask redemption from LA book critic who suggested the read all in one place job!

Well...no matter how ya read it, just do. Then go and listen to your Goldberg Variations...now move!

mountains as high as plane windows

Goodbyes and breakfast of porridge; onto a plane and onto a runway.

Hours later, the pilots voice. Look to the left. To the left is the biggest damn mountain I have ever seen. Am I out of my mind?!

Bit of a tremble, than compose myself.

Land and fall in love with the landscape; different, so different than Ethiopia. So much less poverty; I gawk at the stores that seem as if they've seen westerners more than once. My heart races at the wide, wide fields of burnt corn and sunflowers.

I arrive in Moshi. Settle in. Get this great DSL line and write. I leave tomorrow at 8 a.m. with lots of warm clothes; feeling great at this point. So ready for this and excited. I am here in the middle of Africa alone and it feels so fucking great!

a sky so black

An hour on the sand, staring up at the blackest sky. The most star-filled sky I've ever een under, it seems; think of navigators and people on ships. Lack of light from any source other than those far pinpricks and I'm stretched out on the sandy beach of Lake Langano. Not alone, but flanked to left and right by quiet thoughtful lovelies who break the silence every now and then with a sonorous voice. A comment about the universe, Bill Bryson, the ozone being as thick as two layers of paint. Back at my room, I can't bear to go inside and instead stand alone on the edge of the small porch - my handwashed socks and underwear strewn over the railing. My breath thick in the wet air.

These three days, post-work. This small section of this vast country. Wandogent. Awassa. Langano. They mean something to me now and Ethiopia as a concept has disintegrated into a thousand bits. Roads and huts and people. Mountains. Lakes. Each with their own distinctive smells, people, attitudes. A month ago AFRICA seemed a single monolithic place. It all breaks apart - kind of like artistic style, from the precise and pseudo-real to the abstract all too real shadow filled life of it.

So I stand on my balcony and wait. And listen for a click.

Ethiopia

Apologies to anyone who has looked on this lately expecting a post. Due to lack of any kind of internet infrastructure in the Shashemene area, I've been keeping a journal and will publish it on my blog once I am back in the land of DSL.

Right this moment, I am sitting in Awassa - the clouds are heavy and grey overhead. Trees are blowing around in the wind, looks as though a rainstorm is brewing. But weather here is momentary. It comes and goes in a matter of moments, clouds give ways to blue expanses of sun and puffy clouds.

Today was the last day of my Habitat work proper - we've been, for two weeks, building homes (well mostly carting dirt and rocks - I have personally carried over a TON) in the same area of the Shashemene, Ethiopia. We have gotten to know the people, gotten to know the land. So much to tell. Mostly, I want to say that this experience is a great one. I have been happy here, uncomfortable here, triumphant here - felt so many things. A bit homesick sometimes, not for home per se - for familiarity.

I send you all love and promise to write more soon.

The world's first vaguely touristy activity that has ever worked out to anyone's (much less my) satisfaction

It almost defies believability - the notion that a place everyone says is SO beautiful really is SO beautiful. But, the Cinque Terre hike is proof to the contrary. I don't even want to say too much, other than that you can link to the website using my title to this post and if you are in Tuscany, don't miss it. Not one step. And, make sure to dive into the crystal clear, cool water at the end of the road....salty heaven.

New York

It always takes about a week for me to shake it off - to get used to not doing a thousand things in a day, to get used to there not being a thousand things to do in a day. It's like going through caffiene withdrawl (see below); my body gets all jangly and ennervated. I feel disconnected and lonely. Lonely for turning the corner at LiLac and crossing Hudson to get a coffee and a muffin. Lonely for the annoyance I feel when there are slow-walking, dare I say strollers, in Chelsea Market (even for the strange ballroom dance classes that block the western exit). Lonely for K and lonely for J and lonely for the thousand and one dinners, films, plays, concerts and readings that a person can fill an entire calendar with.

But.

The one thing I'm not feeling lonely for is....how do I put this....the feeling of feeling lonely. Introspection. Doesn't happen alot when a person's running from place to place, just doesn't. So, I'm crossing this river from one bank to the other, both seem to be dry land. It's all the rushing current in between that seems tricky to navigate. Yesterday, I saw the other side for the first time and it was full of flowers and slowness and time.

It's good, forcing oneself to do things that seem counterintuitive at the time - they often prove to stretch a person somewhere in the vicinity of the right direction.

"Full many a flower..."

Oh yes.

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

- thomas gray

Walking today, amidst all of the dying cooler air flowers of spring; the blackberry blossom wilting and turning into the hard green burr nettle that will ripen with the sun throughout the summer. Others, too. Glorious. Ruddy pink Azaleas that will last throughout the summer with their sharp, long leaves. Sporadic shoots of Poppy and clumps of Scotchbroom. Yellow Thistle and purple Trumpet Plants, holding strong - low to the ground, shaded by the jagged grasses and blackberry bushes that cling to the steep side of the hill. Listening to songs about flowers and songs with fiddles and songs with slowness to them. Solitary walks in the countryside.

Coffe, Cafe, Espresso and Latte

God, how I love it. And, God how I hate to give it up for a second.

I'm an addict, OK. There I said it. Damn.

Having just arrived in Italy, I'm taking the first step in my temporary back-turning on caffeine. I think it's (supposed to be) bad for altitude adjustment - which seems strange as it grows at altitude. Hey, someone tell Ms. Levin that! This anti-caffeine platform was promulgated by an art critic, to whom I had the misfortune to sit with, at a dinner in Vegas. (double damn Vegas now). By the sorbet she had me swearing to quit by the time my foot hit the lovely coffee-crop dependent country to which I am travelling.

Right now, I am having a coffee.

But, it's only one cup. One cup a day until, well until I see fit to take the next step. Methodone.

xo to you all - I miss you each and every one, already. More on that later.

Arthur Murray

Rhymes with 'flurry'...used to great effect in a Vic Chesnutt song.

Accurate description of life this past week. I've recovered from the 'most fake boobs ever' capital of the country and now have to get used to leaving the 'so many great things about it you don't want to leave ever' capital of the country. Mixed feelings about heading off...at least I get to go and see MacBeth before I go. Not Polanski, sadly. Schrieber.

Speaking of Polanski, I want to go on record with my wholehearted support.

So, there!

T-shirt update

When it was suggested that I wear my new 'Rachel Cory' t-shirt out to get ice cream at my most favorite gelato place I knew there was bound to be trouble. I just knew. I mean, I know my ice cream guy. He's smart and Argentinian and Jewish and I knew....I just knew there'd be trouble enough to threaten my entire summer's worth of coconut cones! Sure enough....

Viva Las Vegas!

Mixed feelings about the whole Vegas or bust scenario - definite highlights including that hike in the Red Rocks with the great K and our dawn drive across the desert. Damn fine time with the two lovliest families around these parts - Mulls and Rosenfelds neck in neck for the title of 'Family We'd Be Most Happy to be Stuck in A Car with for Many Hours'. Robyn and her lion-cub-having new boyfriend might help to edge the Mulls out, though.....

Vegas itself, however. Well, that's another story. Yikes. Tough crowd and smoke and sad people at slot machines. Not even the least bit Romantic these days of the Bush administrations war against the middle class.

Laziness and a Lack of Ideas

As we move from spring to summer....

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to get fired up about anything. There, I said it. I have tried to come up with a post for quite some time, but there's nothing in my head except endless details as I prepare to leave for Africa. Africa. For everyone who has asked and not gotten a good answer out of me...yes, I am going to Ethiopia in July. Ethiopia and then on, to Tanzania where I plan on climbing Kilimanjaro. Not a technical climb, so don't worry - the difficulty is in acclimatizing to the altitude. Kilimanjaro is over 20,000 feet above sea level and the trek up takes one through five distinct climatic zones, from rain forest to snow and ice. And yes again, I am going alone. And, no no no - no one should worry about me once I'm there. What people should worry about is getting me out of New York - with another draft of the screenplay to write, kids to play with and visa issues - the mountain part is seeming like pure pleasure. So that's where I am and that's why I haven't been moved to write anything in awhile...

That said, you should all go out and buy a copy of Philip Roth's latest book, EVERYMAN, immediately. I was literally breathless at points, and I'm in my early-thirties so mortality is not the most pressing issue on my mind at this stage in life. Oldsters, beware! (for those of you above fifty and men...double beware).

Peter Viereck - Founder of mid-20th Century American Conservative Movement Dies at 89

"The liberal sees outer, removable institutions as the ultimate source of evil; sees man's social task as creating a world in which evil will disappear. His tools for this task are progress and enlightenment. The conservative sees the inner unremovable nature of man as the ultimate source of evil; sees man's social task as coming to terms with a world in which evil is perpetual and in which justice and compassion will both be perpetually necessary. His tools for this task are the maintenance of ethical restraints inside the individual and the maintenance of unbroken, continuous social patterns inside the given culture as a whole."

-"The Unadjusted Man" (Beacon Press, 1956)

For those smarty-pants among you who think they know the difference between Liberals and Conservatives, read a bit of Viareck before you align yourself with the propaganda-based definitions commonly accepted post-Buckley. Check out the Times obituary, as linked to this post, for a quick overview. I recommend reading his book, "Conservatism Revisited". Us 'liberals' would do well to revisit his theories.

Things I've Learned Today

1. Insta-families, much like sea-monkies, are possible, minutely lovely - and pretty damn cute, as witnessed this afternoon in TioPol, after a patient wait for my erstwhile Parisian, by way of New York, friend J and his new brood of multi-lingual boys. The changes a year can bring, here's to a future generation of voices booming out 'Heath' from afar.
2. Seven shots are also possible. Innoculations. Without fainting, but aching arms and hot headed.
3. An addendum to above: A vast collection of arrowheads gathered during the ill-fated, Stanley-led Emin Pasha Relief Expedition are on view at my new doctor's office at 5th and 66th Street. Fun for girls who've been engrossed in Colonial history and expeditions (much the way a teenage boy circa 1952 might have been).
4. JS is alive and well and resting (?) in Brussels.
5. Goulders alive, well, spawned resting in ........ (bad news for my autumn solitude - no laughs K, no laughs).

ViviaN GiRlS on the RuN

I wanna be the Henry Darger of the jogger/gator battles to come....