Postcards from abroad, episode 5: the Soviet Bloc reaches south

It wasn't the first thing I noticed about Mongolia. We'd been on the train for hours before we got to the city.


But wandering through the streets of Ulaanbaatar (Улаанбаатар), I could start to read the street signs again. Nomin (Номин), the state department store, took me back to Prague and the Socialist mall I ate in while I was there.


There was grit, to be sure. The tail of a long winter left the streets bare. Paving stones were still being shuffled from one spot to another. Long strips of sidewalk were still heaps of sand lying in wait.


Sharp angles in the architecture took me to the newer parts of Dresden, but even with the cold thickness of it all - so different from the traditional Mongolian gers with their round felt exteriors - there was a brightness to the city, a cheerfulness. For whatever brave expanses of solid concrete rose from the streets, there was texture and color.


The muted tones of the chipped and snow bleached apartment buildings seemed to suggest that the sunny summer days ahead were all they'd need to regain their color.


And the people, in their unbuttoned coats and winter boots, were laughing in the street.

after hours at the 5th string

I was tripping through Cripple Creek during my banjo lesson last night. Cripple Creek is one of those songs every banjo player knows. It's pretty simple and very repetitive, with an A part and a B part that are pretty similar, and the song structure goes A A B B. For whatever reason, I couldn't for the life of me count to two yesterday. Even when I knew I should be playing whichever part again, my picks would get caught in my strings and my tempo was off.

All of it was a big mess when I want to go in there and make my teacher proud that I've been practicing. So, we switched over to Fireball Mail, which I'm better at, and went over that first part of Salt Creek so I can learn it in bits while my GarageBand is out of commission.

Then after he was convinced I'd remember Salt Creek, we did Fireball Mail again. And I have to say that I'm on to him and his how about I kick things off so that he can play it faster than I would, but when we got to Cripple Creek again, he was playing it even faster than the speed I couldn't do earlier and goddamn if I didn't nail it. A huge smile broke out across my face. I almost started laughing.

Salt Creek

And here's the next song I am to master on the banjo:



It's called Salt Creek.

Firstly, I need to point out that this guy has the same banjo as me, and it gives me the warm fuzzies.

Man, I counted today that I've been taking lessons for three and a half months. One month of which, I was out of the country and banjo-less, which really makes two and a half months of learning tops. For a while there, I thought I was improving, but now I seem to have regressed, although I did play Fireball Mail pretty fast today. It's so much fancier than Cripple Creek, but I keep tripping up on that one. Granted I did spend a lot more time committing the song to muscle memory. I play better now when I don't pay attention.

Digression: I've been reading Oliver Sacks, and he's been talking about people with various neurological deficits. One woman lost the feedback between her body and her brain, so she had to watch herself doing all her motor activities to tell her limbs what to do. And it's funny the way that works with learning songs on the banjo. Because I almost always have to watch my right hand. My left hand can work it's fancy magic, but my right hand will slack off without supervision. Especially when I'm just playing chords. Even doing simple stuff.

Anyway. I wish I had people to play bluegrass with. If I could just throw myself fully into bluegrass and play nothing else, I'd do it. At least for the time being. The banjo teacher keeps tempting me with invitations to jam with his girlfriend who he's teaching banjo too. He seems to be convinced that I'm either an able student or friendly enough that he doesn't mind my company. Either way, that's sweet of him, and I hope that all works out at some point.

Hardly Strictly

Just look:


I haven't even read through the entirety of this list, but I can tell you right now, I know what I'm doing the first weekend of October.

And it's FREE.

Please, if there is a god, don't let Earl Scruggs be the same night as Sigur Rós.

The Life Pursuit

There has been a lot of persistent black cloud hovering about lately, but this weekend I did my best to emerge victorious over it. We'll see how I did. I think it's generally a good idea to keep oneself busy - idle mind, devil's workshop, etc. - but at some point the stuff you put off for later will catch up with you. All in due time, I suppose.

In any case, my interest in the Iceland adventure has rared up again. Which is not to say it was ever lacking, but that all of the going away and doing things that other people are up to these days, I want to be going away and doing things too. The original plan still seems solid. Iceland/farming adventure + Spanish learning adventure + Peace Corps adventure. To be followed by a better informed life pursuit.

What I really wanted to say though was that yesterday - yesterday was something of a gray morning, and not just because the fog was heavy - I found myself wrist deep in runny compost muck because it had seemed like a good idea to assess the situation in my worm bin. So I dug through the compost at the bottom of the bin. Black, black stuff that it is. I could never have imagined myself voluntarily submerging my hands in worm-studded runny blackness, but there I was doing it. And enjoying every second of it.

But, not just enjoying. There was a flicker of alive, realness that came as I worked the compost into the extra dirt from some old pots. As if I were doing real things in the real world for once. And I'd needed that.

Curious messages from the opposite sex

I woke up at 4:30 this morning to commute to work from Los Angeles and returned home to find this:



So, last week when I was chatting with our India office, I kept hearing a knock on my door. I couldn't answer because I was tied to the computer by headphones, and the computer was tied to the desk by an internet cable, and two roomsful of people would have been able to see me leave, but the knocking came back just as the meeting was ending, and it was my next door neighbor. Kind of an awkward middle-aged looking guy. He's lived there for a couple of months now and has recently taken to asking if I need help getting my bicycle and/or banjo into my apartment. (I always seem to be carrying too much stuff when he's walking by). I always tell him not to worry, that I can get it, and haven't had much interaction with him beyond that.

Then the meeting is over and I go to see who is knocking, and there he is. He explains that he needs some tomatoes for a BLT. Odd. So, I go get some from my fridge. I had a whole bunch of those heirloom mini-tomatoes from Trader Joes and wasn't even going to be able to finish them before I left for LA. I said it wouldn't be necessary, but he kept insisting on returning a tomato at some point. Hence, this note, apparently.

I don't even know what else to say about that.

Ah, here is knocking again...

...and here is the replacement tomato:



It's one of those round red ones, so not the kind with salmonella. I got it on Thursday, but you weren't here, he says, so the vine is no longer attached.

??

More on synesthesia

So, it turns out this whole synesthesia-running-in-families thing is a pack of lies. Or, at least not That common. Not a one of my immediate family members seem to make any color-number associations. So much for that.

Anyway, this is what letters and numbers remind me of:


I'm still curious as to what other people see. And how widespread it is. And if I can put it to any use.

Were you aware of it? vol. 7: Someone has been living in your closet

I don't even know what to say about this one. I am wonder-struck.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese man who was mystified when food kept disappearing from his kitchen, set up a hidden camera and found an unknown woman living secretly in his closet, Japanese media said Friday.

The 57-year-old unemployed man of Fukuoka in southern Japan called police Wednesday when the camera sent pictures to his mobile phone of an intruder in his home while he was out on Wednesday, the Asahi newspaper said on its Website.

Officers rushed to the house and found a 58-year-old unemployed woman hiding in an unused closet, where she had secreted a mattress and plastic drink bottles, the Asahi said. Police suspect she may have been there for several months, the paper said.

"I didn't have anywhere to live," the Nikkan Sports tabloid quoted the woman as telling police.

Local police confirmed that they had arrested a woman for trespassing, but would not comment further on the case.


**Courtesy of Reuters