An Indian Visa Run

Date: 25 Jul 11

Location of accommodation: Club Mirissa

Activities: Bus trip to Colombo for the Indian Visa, walk through Cinammon Gardens.

Money spent: 800 Rs. Roundtrip bus

                      1500 Rs. Food.

Special experiences: Telling the bureaucrat off at the Indian Visa office wasn’t healthy, but it felt good.

Insights: In Sri Lanka, always try to take the air conditioned busses. They are much more comfortable and faster than the public busses, and not as crowded as the train (and really not much slower than the train either).

Thought of the day: Rich neighbourhoods are haven’s for the traveller weary of poverty and normality.

Photo of the day:

Reflecting at Club Mirissa

Date: 23 Jun 11-27 Jul 11

Location of accommodation: Club Mirissa

Activities: Reading, guitar, surfing, running, swimming.

Money spent: Avg:

900.00 Rs/ night accommodation w/ breakfast

            600.00 Rs./day food.

Special experiences:

            I did absolutely NOTHING here but read, surf and hang out in my room. It was a very healing time, incredibly introspective and quiet, with absolutely NO pressure.

Insights:

            In Sri Lankan “May I help you” is, literally, “What do you want.” The Sri Lankans translate this to English and use it for customer service. It sounds horrible, but is by no means meant to be offensive.

           

Thought of the month:

            There is no loneliness that the road cannot drive away. It is time to move on.

            There is no activity as good as reading.

            There is no job as good as research.

            There is no sport as healthy as surfing.

Photo of the month:

Poem of the month:

20 Jul 11

The suns send sparkles throughout the daily hours

Not so like Earth,

And who can say if the lesser sun rules nighttime or day,

The moons are not visible anyway,

And you can read a book and drive your car

Without needing sunshades like when shines the brighter star,

Glare of sunscreen over the eyes is an artificial night,

And most of them sleep anyway, during this time.

But not so the wandering Beat Boys,

Named after so many years era’s gone by

Beatnicks, back before humanities joys

Had been exported beyond the sky

And ruled a paradise of transgalactic high-

Way hypertunnels through the wormholes

In the black sky that borders every life.

(God, they say, had to rescind his light,

to make room for the night. Rescind I’m

not sure, breath in,

breath in, and breath out the dark,

one might exhalation before he spoke the spark

of the Phoenix creator

that breaches the gap between first and last

so that there is no first and last,

only the constant cycle

pitter patter pitter patter

of rising and falling breath-filling life,

spoken as the reflection of God.

Are we breathing out while God is breathing in?

Makes you wonder,

And I do).

The wandering Beat Boys,

This galaxy isn’t big enough for our jiving styles

Our finger licks and our juju toys

Like a Carzac coin clipping wind on the flip-bys

Of the city street vacuum lamps,

Sucking up the heat of the Greater Sun

While the children sleep and the tramps

Break bread in the parks by the tun-

Nels of love, where the gay boys

Go to Beat sticks together in the anti-rhythm

Of howling against the skirt. Noise

Will always be noise, and the lights so bright in the pavilions

Of the tunnels that nobody can see what you do,

And those boys where the darkest shades you’ve ever seen

To block out the sun stream-

Ing in from on high. The sky

Erupts with the fire of young-men-never-die

Love raised to the startops of faraway blues,

Their feet itching on the underside from all

The sundrop beating on the blacktop, up through their shoes,

Mean 20^th century Industrial blacktop poverty crawl-

Ing on this world like indecision. The technological age

Never made it to Kelsa Minor, it’s always been a stage

For the theater of the blue jeaned lovers left stranded

In material time through some strange reflection

On a time they don’t want to teach you about but branded

On the palms of every 12 year old boy confession

Time confession time you know you do, too.

We all want to be cowboys, riding the Simatar

Hordes across the Plains of Blue

Where Kristam met his end at the hands of the Jews,

Or gay men in sun-swollen shoes

(so they’ll teach you in their church-swollen schools,

all Kristam Kristam till the last man is through).

The Beat Boys.

Now that’s a different drummer,

Running on the hills

And in the streets and on the soft grey

Chrystaline sea,

All splish splash splish splash

Too fast to be boulderdash

Sinking in the semi-liquid up to the knee.

Running on water’s always alright with me.

There’s Tomboy

Dickboy

Rickroy

And Slim,

And me and old Scrawny Kid

Don’t forget about him.

I’m worried about Scrawny,

He’s starting to pick up the sin,

I found spoons in his room

Bending over for him.

Tomboy’s a girl,

And I got in her shorts,

But she don’t like me no more

She don’t like me no more like that.

Dickboy’s from Chadding,

Just over the ridge,

Where the rich boys pretend

That they’re on Omega Six

Playing backgammon for money

With the superstar rich,

All in linen waisvests with no shirt on their skins,

Smiling and smoking and drinking their gin.

But Dickboy plays bass, so we’ll let it slide just for him.

Rickroy—he’s cotton, if ever cotton there was,

None of this polyester shit they got on all of us.

I’m so sick of the oil that keeps us stuck in the sludge,

This planet’s only oil,

What’s the use of that gunge?

(they say a thousand years ago, back on Home Earth,

oil was 100 dollars a barrel worth,

and they’d go to war with each other therefore.

I can’t imagine our lives could be worse—but that sounds

Like hell). Slim, he ain’t got no money,

He’s just like the rest of us down on his luck

And trying to pick up his payment

In the music we truck around on our

Backs like some Hadowinian Turtoise shell

From up Bleaker Bay way. We crawl in and out of it

Like we’re trying to make love to it. Hell, I don’t know,

I guess we are, and we’re hoping it will reproduce some ticket

Off of this rock. Me, you know. Scrawny Kid, he’s my best friend,

Always together, tight like the number two.

So they we were, speeding over Canal Street

Where the Sea of Blue pours over to meet

Roper’s Bay a hundred miles south of here.

(they built it three hundred years ago before the

big contractors came in to start exporting all the

Simatar Beef off planet. All the range rovers lost

Their livelihood, most of them, like my old man

Wandered into the cities to look for non-existent jobs.

That’s when he started playing the bars

Along Canal Street where we’re heading now,

But my old man’s a different story. You’ll meet him soon

Enough anyway, he’s got the sin pretty bad in him).

“Willam ‘Slick’ Burrows and the Beat Boys”

reads the marquis. Nice to see something there

talking about me and the gang,

and the old man’s been a local favorite

Since ’97, when he transferred up from

The lower vibrations—even if he still can’t shake

The spoon he’s rock solid on the sax.

I mean, not that anyone else talks about all that old-time

Materialist hype like they used to before high stakes

Capitalism moved in. Nowadays there ain’t no such thing

As spiritual materiality…it’s all just greed,

But we know what time it is around here

And my old man ain’t Willam Burrows by accident.

His mom’s got the third eye like you wouldn’t believe,

And she saw it from the moment of inception…

So she says.

They call me Junior, but I ain’t really,

Cause I ain’t much like my old man at all.

But that can wait.

Mirissa, Dimilla Inn

Date: 16 June-23 Jun 2011

Location of accommodation: Dimila Inn, Mirissa

Activities: Body surfing, reading and writing.

Money spent: Avg: 

                        800.00 Rs—room

                        500.00 Rs—dinner

                        100.00 Rs.—internet

Special experiences: the bay here is lovely, with almost perfect body surfing waves.  They aren’t perfect, because they break too much over the top, but the back wash is powerful enough to give good experience for the beginner, with little danger since the water is only hip deep at the most and the bottom is beautiful sand all the way around except for rocks on both ends. 

Insights: no matter what, and even if it is only a façade, it is better to be humble and nice then to be true and angry.  A man refused to serve me at the market on the 19^th, I think because I am white.  But rather then carry the grudge of it I pretended within myself a fake modesty, and had soon forgotten the incident.  I had other good interactions subsequently at the market.  But the Sri Lankans seem to be particularly racist, and I have met zenophobia and racism at every turn here, although more so in Mirissa.

Thought of the day: false humility is better then truthful wrath. 

Photo of the day:

Poem of the day: 

The sky is blue today,

The air is green,

The sea is white with foam capped domes

Aspiring to the light.  The dream is lavish

As the surf beats on the shore,

And I think that we shall not be coming

Back here anymore.

No, we shall not be coming back here anymore.

The love that once enthroned itself upon our hearts

Has beaten its retreat to other plains of wild grass,

Flowing seas of windy sweet grass,

Tall as leaves of grass upon the other shore.

This shore is not meant for us here anymore,

The sky has turned away its eyes

From crowning us forescore,

And we are left without the bud of grace that we once wore.

No, we shall not be coming back here anymore.

We shall not be coming back here anymore.

The long blue days of rocking stillness

That we once did enjoy.  The sandy pearls

That once were left cast upon the moor,

The tumbler full,

The art-imbued,

The ever ready score.

The phallic traces of my heart long whistfully, for sure,

But we shall not be coming back here anymore.

For all the worlds on fire,

And this is the eve of a new sunrise.

The helicopters beat their tomtoms through the midnight skies,

Enforcing all the codes of heavy handed suicides—

The shores we knew are now so few,

So much has run atide:

The air is green with dreams I’ve seen

And faces painted black,

Under the hat they sit, while my heart hangs on the rack,

And all the faces painted green will never bring them back—

For those brave souls have gone to worlds

That mean the death of that. 

And I know that we shall not be coming back,

Oh, I know that we shall not be coming back.

Galle Fort

Date: 24 May-16 June

Location of accommodation: Galle Fort

Activities: reading (mostly enlightenment history), writing (novels, poems, Wordsworth essays), tai-chi (nearly every night), swimming and jogging

Special experiences: My last full day in Fort, 15 June, was a full moon holiday.  There were many Sinhalese visitors on that day, and the shops were all closed.  I decided not to leave that day as I had intended, because the busses would be so crowded, and bought lunch at Thenu Rest.  That evening I went out walking, watched some cricket being played in the park, and had a nice chat with the owner of Thenu Rest.  The next morning I ate breakfast at the court house tea house, and prepared my bags, then headed out for the hour ride to Mirissa.  Having already a place prepared in Mirissa, I made it in without any inconvenience and promptly when out swimming in the beautiful bay of Mirissa and then for a short jog.

The night before I left I began to watch a BBC production of the life of Byron.  It greatly inspired me with a love for the man, and I wrote the following poem after I had been out for a short walk about town, admiring one last time the wonderful Dutch architecture and the lighthouse on the bay.

Photo of the stay:

Poem of the stay: Byron’s mother died

While I was out walking,

And the chanting of the Buddhists

Led her to her grave.

The stars of the Indian are particularly

Bright, they twinkle on neverminding

All the tit-tat tit-tat of petty human

Hearts’ conflict.  The lighthouse at the

End of the row is quite

Possibly the most beautiful thing

I have ever seen,

And Byron’s mother died while I was

Out admiring it.

‘Dead?’ you say.

Whatever could that mean? 

What will the poor boy do with himself?

(She always complained of being ill,

so he told me once.

He never was in a hurry for her health).

The sea breaks sadly on the rocks tonight,

Great gray foaming clouds exploding in the rain.

Byron’s mother died tonight,

As if Napoleon himself had led the charge,

All top boots and breeches and I remember

A beautiful French lieutenant once,

Who danced topless before the fire,

Her hair long and silken dewed

Nipples the color of amber honey

Kissable to the nth degree.

Yes, the jungle is warm tonight,

But Byron’s mother is no more.

The Peace Pagoda

Date: 04 June 2011

Location of accommodation: Galle, Fort

Activities: bicycling up to the Peace Pagoda above Galle Harbor

Money spent:  1000.00 Rs room

                           120.00 Rs. Breakfast

                            250.00 Rs. Bike hire

                             350.00 Rs.  Fruit

                             550.00 Rs. lunch

Special experiences: seeing huge iguanas climbing trees

Insights: don’t buy cheap batteries, they won’t run a camera long enough to even get one shot.

Thought of the day: the light inside is strengthened by the light of others.  Don’t be afraid of that light, embrace it.

Photo of the day:

Essay of the day: Rather than writing a poem or other creative work today, I have decided to write an essay on the Rurounin Kenshi anime series that was produced in Japan in the late 90s.  The first season of the TV program, as opposed to it’s OVA “Trust and Betrayal”, is, in its storylines and art, an adolescents program.  However, with the opening of the second season, the writers and artist matured the series full force to an adult-level program.  The first story of the second season tells the story of Kenshin’s dual with an old adversary from the Meiji period, a leader of one of the troops of the Shensingumi.  To fully appreciate what the depth and maturity of this storyline, it is necessary to remember that the Shensingumi fought on the side of the Shogun, while Kenshin, during his days as an assassin, fought for the side of the Emperor. 

            The whole point of this series is to tell the story of Kenshin’s life after he turned from being an assassin.  He swore to never again take a life, but to use his sword as a tool for helping and aiding people in their time of need.  For this purpose he takes up a reverse blade sword, one whose blade is actually dulled so that it can not be used to kill with.  In the first series, Kenshin fights numerous opponents with the reverse blade, but in the story opener of the second season, he is actually for the first time driven back to a state of mind where he is ready to kill in order to win. 

            The final fight scene is one of the most brilliant fight scenes I have seen in anime.  The opponents employ numerous tricks in order to outmaneuver one another, all the while growing more determined to kill.  Meanwhile, on the sideline, Kenshin’s love watches as the Kenshin that she knows gives way to the Kenshin that was—the protector gives way to the killer.  One of the most striking moments is when Kenshin’s friend tells her that only a person who lived through the Bakumatsu era could possibly stop Kenshin from becoming the killer again in this situation.  “They aren’t fighting here anymore,” he says.  “They are back in Kyoto, back then.  That’s how it was.”  This poignant statement stuns the viewer into realizing that far from being a children’s parable about why it is important to value human life, this is a historically and psychologically detailed statement about Japanese history and society, and about how humanity can become so determined in their beliefs that they slip into a darkness of death and killing.  The most poignant bit of all of that for me is to realize how intense the struggle for mondernization was for Japan, and for many other countries like Germany and Italy after WWI.  When death and killing is all around you, you do not, you cannot, afford the luxury of valuing life. 

            Far from being a story for adolescents, the first story of the second season the Ruruoni Kensin comes closest to becoming a true sequel for (what was actually made after the series) the “Trust and Betrayal” OVA.  For anybody approaching the OVA after becoming first familiar with the series, the initial reaction is shock at the graphic and adult nature of the OVA.  But this shock quickly turns to complete absorption as “Trust and Betrayal” lures us into its brilliant vision of love and brutality, masterfully utilizing art and music to evoke a distant, romantic sublimity that very much reflects the nature of the subtitle of the film “Tales of Romantic Japan”.  The OVA’s patient attention to detail and inventive artistry are perfectly harmonized to its script, and if at any point the original series comes close to connecting with the vision of the Trust and Betrayal it is, appropriately, in this first story of the second season, where the two sides, Imperial and Shogunate, once again come face to face 10 years into the Meiji era.  But perhaps the most significant emotional trick of all being pulled here is the way in which the second season takes the viewer completely by surprise, shedding the adolescents of the first season and coming full force into its own as an anime for adults. 

            I highly recommend the series Rurioni Kenshin, and very much also the OVA “Trust and Betrayal”.  But I particularly recommend watching “Trust and Betrayal” and the first story of season two of RK: they are perfectly matched and present an almost seemless historical account of the Bokumatsu era and its philosophical underpinnings.