Somewhere round the 20th of April

Yes, I´ve fallen way behind with this journal, so I´m going to skip over quite a bit (which I´ll catch up on later), and provide an update. Right now I´m in Caldera, on the coast about halfway between Santiago and Calama. Caldera is a tiny port town, and down the road is Bahía Inglesa, a busy beach resort in the high season. At the moment, both are well and truly off the beaten track. Chile´s first railway line went to Caldera, from the nearby copper town of Copiapó. It´s not historical interest that´s brought me here, though, rather a recommendation from Connie, a receptionist at Hostal Bellavista in Santiago. She suggested it as somewhere nice, off the tourist trail, and a place to investigate voluntary work - since Habitat para la Humanidad has some projects here, where they help local people to build houses. Plus the fact that her cousin Alex runs a hostel and associated operations at Bahía Inglesa.

The bus ride here was a little over thirteen hours from Santiago, and much worse than it should have been. It was a "semi-cama" bus, with super-comfortable seats which fold back to 65 degrees. For comfort and value for money, Chilean and Argentinian buses are, in and of themselves, unparalleled. The only problem is the insistence in keeping the heating wacked up at night time, to maintain an interior temperature of no less than 28 degrees (I know this because the temperature alternates on a digital screen with the time and the availability of the bus´toilet). With near-zero humidity and general passenger body heat, this dehydrates the hell out of you and makes it near impossible to sleep. Or at least for me. The accumulated light snoring of those who had dropped off didn´t help either - including that from the bloke who occupied the seat next to me from about halfway through the trip and immediately begged for some of my water - he said he´d been sitting in the terminal eating and drinking a little beer, and was terribly thirsty.

When we started off, about 8:00 pm, the heating was way up. After about 20 minutes into the journey, when it became clear it was likely to stay that way, I asked the guy who comes round to clip the tickets if they could turn the heating down. He said yes, they would fix it in just a bit. Sure enough, they turned it down, and the temperature came down to a much more comfortable 21 degrees. But about 10:30, when the movie finished and they turned off the lights, it was whacked up once more.

Conversations with people today and previously suggest that this is standard practice, so the "viejecitos and guaguas" (old people and babies) don´t get cold. But, as we all agree, a temperature close to 30 degrees where it´s impossible to to sweat is at least as unhealthy. I´m thinking of writing to the bus company and asking them to justify their rationale.

Am I sounding like some kind of middle-aged American or something? What a wuss, I can hear people saying. Wait till he gets to Peru and Bolivia, where equally long or longer trips take place in ancient buses with uncomfortable seats, jammed full of pigs and chickens...

It´s always a little daunting, arriving in towns like Caldera as a traveller, especially in a semi-conscious state first thing in the morning. There you are, bien gringo, getting off the bus with your blue and purple Great Outdoors backpack, generally in the dusty outskirts where the bus stations tend to find themselves, no idea where you´re going. Subjected to double-take looks from local people, like, what the hell is he doing here? And you don´t really know the answer yourself...

Still, weird as it may feel at the time, out of the way places tend to leave a disproportionate impression on you, even if you´re only briefly passing through. I have quite vivid memories of, for example, Comitán in Mexico, a pretty but nondescript town near the border with Guatemala, where I felt like practically the first foreigner to visit.

The best way to get equilibrium in these situations, I´ve found, is to buy a pack of cigarettes. This serves a couple of purposes. It immediately involves you in a couple of transactions with local people - the first in the store or kiosk where you buy the cigarettes, subsequently with anyone who tries to bum one off you - which proves that you´re not actually an alien being, and can speak the language. It also gives you something to do as you walk along and makes you look slightly less geeky.

I found a place to stay in a residencia by the plaza, which is listed by both LP and a Chilean booklet. It´s pleasant enough, but the owners are rather the opposite of gergarious; they´re an elderly couple who seem rather ambivalent about having guests at all. They have a "salón de belleza" out front (a hairdressers, really), and seem a bit irritated by the guests.

Before getting some lunch, I talked to a Colombian girl who was selling necklaces and other artesanías by the plaza. She said she was from Cali, and had travelled down through Peru and Ecuador to Chile, selling her things along the way. She had a beautiful, soft accent, and I felt kind of pleased to meet a fellow traveller. She said I should definitely go to Cali, where "they treat you well". I didn´t want to be pressured into buying anything; I showed her my pounamu necklace and said that was all I need to wear, and now wasn´t yet the time for buying presents. Anyway, I was really hungry. She said "bueno, comes; después hablamos". I went to eat and then snuck out of the diner to avoid talking to her again. But later I thought that one of her shark-tooth necklaces would have made a great present for Meghan or Ben (step-niece and nephew), for only 1,000 pesos ($1.30 U.S.); I could easily have mailed them home. I looked for her later in the plaza, but she was gone.

After lunch I walked to Bahía Inglesa. It took longer than I thought - they had told me "half an hour, tops" in the diner - but was worth it for the landscape. The area around Caldera is completely, romantically, desolate. Especially today when the sea fog had come in early and stayed all day in a low-hanging drab overcast above the coastal desert. From the town outskirts, in the typical Latin American urban fringe textures of tin, concrete, dust, graffiti and litter, the desert stetches off - sand, a little rock, and the most rudimentary and occasional forms of scrub, towards the fog-shrouded mountains and grey sea. Boy, you could make some dialogue-light existential films here.

After two days in the Barrio Paris Londres, I moved to a hostel in Barrio Bellavista area, to try out a different area and be somewhere a bit livelier at night. Bellavista is on the north side of the Rio Mapocho (rio? qué rio? – it´s more like a huge drainage canal with a little water rushing down the middle between concrete walls, rubbish strewn along the sides and an unpleasant smell drifting up). Bellavista is another “bohemian” barrio, relaxed, pretty, tawdry round the edges. The main street, Pio Nono, heads north to the nearby Cerro San Cristobal (about which more later); market stalls selling fried empanadas and artesanias line the roadside on the first couple of blocks, and the streets are full of students drifting back and forth from the law faculty building of the Universidad of Chile (a concrete building of Mussolinian classicism). The streets are narrow and a little dirty, the buildings mostly brick and stucco, some crumbling, others freshly painted in what I´m terming “Latin earth” colours – lapis lazuli, ochre and terracotta. Tired-looking oaks and maples line shade Pio Nono, almost meeting in the middle of the street. Restaurants and bars crowd together, and at night there is a crush of people in white plastic chairs sitting out on the pavement while others file past. Hosts and hostesses from the various restaurants and bars practically beg you to come in or take a seat. When I went to walk up Cerro San Cristobal it was late afternoon and the sun was still up, but the restaurants were already touting for business. At several places they offered me a table despite me striding along purposefully with a backpack and sweaty t-shirt. When I said I was just off to climb the hill they gave me plaintive looks: “But when you get back…?”

I moved into a hostel called Hostal Bellavista, two blocks off Pio Nono. This turns out to be one of those “home away from home” hostels – not necessarily the quietest or the most comfortable, but immediately friendly, with all the right feng shui. Balconies onto the street, a terrace at the back with a view towards the Andes, free internet, cable TV, etc. Everyone talks to everyone else, as if that were normal in real life.

When I arrived there, a British couple were trying to check in. Only the woman who I guessed was the one who cleans and makes the breakfast was there. She was trying explain the prices to them and ask how many nights they wanted to stay, but they did not speak one word of Spanish. I, standing in the doorway with my large pack still on my pack, had to translate the entire transaction. After that, the cleaning/breakfast woman (whose name is Sofía) and I became quite buddy-pally. She is gregarious - her favourite saying is "Aquí todos son de confianza! Es como tu casa!" ("Here, everybody can be trusted! "It´s like being at home". She´s also a little needy, though this becomes quite understandable once you know her story.


Sofía is from Peru, and has been working in Chile for about seven years. She says she had a daughter at age fourteen and the bloke in question (guess what) ran off. Her daughter is now twenty and is at university studying to be a nurse. Sofía came to Chile to get work to support her daughter, who lives with Sofia´s mother in Peru. Despite the seven years here, she hasn´t been able to pass through many of the graduated stages of Chilean residence and citizenship yet, because apparently you have to work for two years in the same job to get to the next stage (Sofia has only been at Hostal Bellavista about four months). But there´s kind of a happy ending to the story. The daughter has a boyfriend whose parents emigrated to France, and he can get French residence. She is thinking of going to work as a nurse in France when she graduates. Meanwhile, however, Sofia keeps sending money home, but hasn´t been able to see her daughter for two years.

Do I believe every word of this? I suppose I should, but she does look quite a bit older than the reported thirty-five years. Though this too is quite understandable...

The hostel is owned by Gonzalo, a Chilean who lived his first eight or nine years in the U.S. He is still in his twenties, I´m guessing, but has that blingual, dual-cultural ease and confidence plus, I have to say, a great and eclectic taste in music. It seems that his parents have set him up with the business. Judging by the success and "buena onda" of Hostal Bellavista, he´s on the right track so far.

Graffiti on a wall in Barrio Brasil: "Nos hacen usar uniformes porque nos quieren uniformar". I presume this was written by high-school students, who all wear uniforms here. Couldn't help thinking that you'd be unlikely to see this kind of commentary from kids in New Zealand, tying a personal hassle to the wider ideological context. I used to really admire the political awareness and involvement of students and young people from Latin countries, and think the apathy and ignorance of their English-speaking counterparts a real defficiency. Now I'm not so sure - I wonder if it's not a symptom of the troubled histories of their countries, rather than any greater innate thoughtfulness. The sad fact seems to be that the societies that work out the best are often ones where people can't be bothered to argue about ideologies, and just unimaginatively get on with trying to make money.

There are lots of stray dogs in Santiago. I only noticed this on Friday and Saturday, when there were fewer people around because of Easter. Apparently a lot of people here get dogs as puppies, then ditch them when they grow up. They are mostly quite big dogs, cross breeds. Mostly they seem quite clean, and the majority aren't too skinny. The most notable thing, though, is how casually well-behaved they are. They sleep anywhere, seeking out bus stops, telephone booths, or any other suitable spot. They look before crossing the road, aren't excessive about following people who have food, and just generally behave like reasonable citizens. Someone I talked to agreed that they are probably better-behaved than domestic dogs. A lot of the nastiness and annoyance that comes from dogs seems to be due to their territorial nature, and desire to defend their designated enclave. But with the whole city to roam in, it´s all public space, and no one feels too threatened most of the time.

Santiago is also full of embracing couples. On Cerro Santa Lucia there are kissing lovers esconced in alcoves all the way up the hill. But even on the main streets it´s common to see effusive public displays of affection, people stopping for a hug and a snog. I don´t know whether this is something intrinsically Chilean, or a reaction to it being frowned on or forbidden during the Pinochet years (it´s not really the kind of thing you can ask people). Either way, you can´t help feeling rather envious.

One more prevalence that I´ve noticed in Santiago is that of the police, or "los pacos" as they´re called here. Mostly young and intense-looking, their rakishly-cut light khaki uniforms and holstered pistols give them a vaguely menacing paramilitary aspect. They often seem to move in groups, and there are clusters of them by the government ministries around the Plaza Constitución. Almost nobody stops at pedestrian crossings here, but one time when I was waiting to cross there was a policeman standing at the same crossing; two cars that had considerable momentum ground rapidly to a polite halt and let everyone cross.

Street vending seems to be officially illegal but generally tolerated here. The other day I stopped to talk to some guys selling their homemade necklaces, earrings and bracelets laid out on a little blanket on the pavement. They had wanted to bum a cigarette, and then we got into a conversation about where I was from, where I was travelling,what I thought of Chile, etc. One of them reached into his pack and offered me a glass of beer, which was great as I was pretty thirsty. As we were talking, some police on motorbikes approached, and the vendors started rolling up their blankets and making as if to walk off down the street. The pacos slowed right down, frowned meaningfully, then drove on. The two guys turned round and rolled out their blankets again. I asked if it was prohibited to sell things on the street. They shrugged. "It´s just that you have to show them some respect" said one. Apparently, they would have been more concerned about any drinking on the street (which at that time only I was doing). But, they said, "they´d never do anything to you, never". Why I asked, because I´m a turista, and they nodded yes.

8 April, second day in Santiago.

ok, so maybe my understanding of chileno is not all that crah hot after all. Stopped in the Plaza de Armas near a big crowd watching two guys doing comic street theatre; I vaguely followed it, but every time everyone laughed I had a completely blank expression. Mind you, I was behind five rows of people, and their voices were muffled. Later, I watched the evening news and, though I followed the stories, I missed quite a few details. This is annoying, because when I watch CNN en espanol I understand it pretty much word for word.

Another new food word: "manjar", which is a kind of dulce de leche. I bought some buns from a bakery, on impulse while I was out walking, and didn't really know what I was getting. I asked the woman who served me, but by then I had already paid for it. With the already sweet bread, manjar is overpoweringly cloying. I don't think I'll get it again.

Oh, for a telescopic lens. I walked down to Cerro Santa Lucia, which is a hill in the middle of the city with rocky steps leading up it, a couple of leafy plazas and a "torre mirador", a kind of turret lookout point. There are great views towards the Andes, and over the city to the hills and mountains to the north, west and south. The massif and soaring peaks of the cordillera inspired me, and pretty much everyone standing in the torre to whip out our cameras. The sense of being awestruck by a landscape - artificial or natural - is one of the principal pleasures in life, and a reason to go travelling and seek out new places. The first time I came into Paris and was struck by the sheer magnificent scale of the Hotel des Invalides, for example, was such an experience. In time it fades, and you become blase. Unfortunately, as soon as I got the mountains into the viewfinder, they were diminished. The whole vista - city, foothills, cordillera and peaks - has to crowd into a small rectangular box, and you just know the photos will be a disappointent. A flow-on effect was that, looking at the mountains with naked eye afterwards, my brain couldn't help referencing how they looked through the view finder, and they seemd already less impressive. I felt a little cheated, as though I'd short-circuited the becoming-blase process.

Coming away from the Cerro Santa Lucia, I was accosted by two students who were seeking "donations" in rereturn for a (truly awful) poem printed on a slip of paper, and a hard-luck story about how fees had become exorbitant since Pinochet privatized the universities. I'm still eager enough to talk with just about anyone, so I gave them a small donation in return for an enthusiastic discussion of New Zealand, Lord of the Rings, etc. They made out to be offended at how token it was - "this is for our university studies!" but I pointed out that, bloody hell, yo tambien ando medio pobre, I'd saved four years for this trip, and fees in New Zealand were also substantial (they'd assumed university there was cheap or free). Anyway, the poem was crap.

After a hot and sleepless flight, flew into Santiago with a breathtaking view of the cordillera sitting massively above the dry patchwork plains of Central Chile, the highest peaks snowy and jagging into the sky. Santiago itself was completely invisible under a blanket of brown smog. On the ground it was still, cloudless and getting rapidly warmer, well into the mid-20s. We were waved through immigration and customs, and I then had to fight off a flock of offers for special buses, taxis, accommodation and rental cars. There´s something about me that attracts touts and those seeking to sell something. Maybe it´s the vague, disoriented look and air of vacillation. If only they knew it was permanent. Eventually got on the bus which goes into Santiago, on the long boulevard Avenida Liberatador Bernardo O´Higgins (la Alameda) which runs into and through the city. From the outskirts it changes from industrial to wholesale retail, to more upmarket commercial nearer the centre, moving from looking like Mexico to looking like Europe.

Everything is a hassle and a trial when you´re newly arrived, and I think I do tend to handle these things worse than other people. The buses, the metro (where do the lines go, which direction is which, ah, what do you with your ticket to get through the barrier, god, you should have seen me blundering around), the money - Chile seems to have had similar bouts of hyperinflation to Italy and everthing is in hundreds (small change), thousands, tens of thousands, all the notes in similar colours. Lesson #1 - there is no 5,000 peso note; do not give people a 10,000 note for something small - I did this twice, which produced panicky and exasperated efforts to give the right change while other customers banked up. Language lessons also: avocado here is called ´palta´; yes, they know very well it s aguacate in Central America, but not here. A ´churrasco´ is what in America would be called a sandwich and in New Zealand a burger (i.e. stuff between burger buns). A completo is a small American hot dog.

Ended up in a hotel on the calle Londres; more idiocy - at first decided not to stay there because the price was significantly more than it said in the LP, then went back because it turned out to be better than anything else in the area anyway. The proprietor was tolerant and amused. A beautiful street - cobblestones, and magnificent three story buildings of stone with arcaded balconies, arched windows and wrought iron. Little plazas with shady slim trees with reddish leaves (have to find out what they´re called). The area is like a cross between Barcelona and Paris - though without the rubbish or dog turd of either.

I like the look of the central city - classical style stone buildings side by side with supermodern glass sky scrapers, wide boulevards of traffic with paved pedestrian malls running off. East along la Alameda the huge peaks of the Andes poke above the skyline. Barrio Brasil to the west of the city is downbeat and "bohemian", as says LP, the stone and stucco buildings more eroding and dishevelled, a nice plaza of date palms and market stalls at Plaza Brasil.

I like the people too, or at least what I´ve seen of them. They stride along purposefully, but with a touch of joie de vivre and without the robotic blankness of a city like London. And the streets are full of adults in their twenties and thirties! How one misses that in New Zealand, where outside the 9-5 workday the streets are owned by teenagers. People are super friendly and helpful when you ask for directions, but not over helpful - apart from at the airport, you blend in and don´t get hassled or strange looks. The general populace seems to be much like Carolina, Ignacio et al (my Chilean friends from Wtn). So far, no problems with el español chileno either - obviously those drunken nights at Latinos have helped (plus having a Chilean lecturer - thanks Lorena).

Still suffering from jet lag, though - beat in the middle of the day and awake at 5 am. I´m off now to do LP´s "walking tour", and hopefully will make it through to the late evening before crashing.

Saludos a todos

Early on a Thursday morning, my last in Wellington, two guys from the Salvation Army knocked on the back door, somewhat earlier than I had expected them. I helped them carry my bed, mattress, and computer table out the back door, and they loaded them into their truck. My chest of drawers and little bookshelf (which I had inherited from other people anyway) I left for Avril, who is always a little avaricious for furniture and other junk. The entire rest of my life I was able to fit snugly into a Toyota Celica. Of these items, there was one computer in several boxes, which I have now given to Sophia. She and Jeremy also inherited my two guitars (one to mind, one to sell for their own profit). With my parents, I’m leaving one box of books, a little pile of clothes, 30 or 40 CDs, and a small collection of papers and computer discs (my works in progress). In return, I managed to get rid of over half of my stuff which had been sitting in boxes in their garage. So they made a considerable net gain on the transaction.

Pretty much everything else – including my new Kathmandu hiking shoes - has fit with surprising ease into my backpack and detachable shoulder pack. My entire existence contained within a few square feet of Great Outdoors canvas. Hardly ever do I feel so secure and complete than at moments such as this.

I’m flying out today and feel extremely nervous.

Saturday April 3 2004 – Sophia’s wedding day

The day when my youngest sister became the first of four siblings to tie the knot arrived with a morning of implausible perfection. Friday was a warm 27 degrees with a gusty nor’wester which died towards evening and shifted off that quarter. By Saturday morning it was cooler but clear, steel blue with only the gentlest of zephyrs. The wedding ceremony was to be at my uncle Tom’s place at Robinson’s Bay, on the road to Akaroa. Tom and his wife Rosemary have a wooden cottage there with a sloping front lawn, framed by young ngaio trees, which looks south-west over the Onawe peninsula and Akaroa harbour.

Mum, Sophia and the bridesmaids had stayed the night at a motel in Akaroa. Dad and Cecilia headed over there at 10 am so Cecilia could do Sophia’s makeup. I decided to take myself over to Robinson’s Bay in my own time. I was dead keen to stay out of the way of the mounting, ill-directed stress emanating from both my parents. This tends to take different forms: Mum works herself into a self-perpetuating flap of obscure worries and unfocused nervousness; Dad makes an explicit effort to seem calm and controlled, but nevertheless suffers from occasional attacks of anxious authoritarianism. I was a little worried that Dad might have a problem with me going over by myself – “Why? There’s plenty of room to come with me”; “No, we’re doing this as a family”; etc. – but to my relief he was fine with it, and I was happy to be able to take my time getting ready.

The drive out there was spectacular in the intense sunlight, winding around the rocky bluffs where the peninsula hills meet the plains, then climbing up the steep valley above Little River. I had to grit my teeth at being stuck two vehicles behind a dangerously timid driver who practically ground to a halt on some of the tighter bends, but eventually we hit the hilltop and a breathtaking view of Akaroa harbour, opaque turqouise in the dead calm.

At Tom’s place Dad was marshalling cars into parking spots. He issued instructions like a nervous military commander: Rebecca’s boyfriend Tim would continue directing cars; Cecilia would hand out the programmes; I would pour out and serve drinks to arriving guests. But of course we weren’t to feel constrained to remain in these exact roles; we could interchange them as we saw fit, as long as there was always someone at each post…Then Dad had to rush off to Akaroa to pick up Sophia and the bridesmaids. Meanwhile Mum was working herself into paroxsyms of nervous worry – it was one o’ clock, and where was Jeremy! He was needed to set up the sound system. And I definitely shouldn’t put the champagne flutes on a tray – she couldn’t possibly carry them; she’d drop them and break them (this despite the fact that * I * was supposed to be serving the drinks).

People started arriving: Sophia’s friends and work colleagues, musicians from the Folk Club, aunts, uncles and cousins from both sides of our family. Cecilia had worked her way through four glasses of champagne and was greeting everyone effusively. To Gran’s friend Pam, a rural district nurse from Waverley: “Pam, you look * great * in pink! Pink is, like, totally your colour”

We decided that Tim should call Rebecca and tell them to hold off coming for another fifteen minutes. Not all the guests had arrived, and we were a little worried that Dad might interpret the concept of the bride arriving fashionably and suspensefully late as meaning an entrance at 2:03 sharp.

I was starting to feel a little nervous myself – I was to read out a sonnet by Shakespeare, his 16th (or 116th?), as practically the first act of the ceremony – so I had a glass of champagne, then another. Tim, Cecilia and I stood out on the road and had a cigarette.

The mixture of people put me in a slightly surreal position. Now, I’m not necessarily that au fait with my extended family, but Gran was asking me to point out the aunts, uncles and cousins from Mum’s side, while both Tom and Mary asked me sotto voce who the various members of Dad’s family were. Meghan came by with her friend, chuckling “So, I guess you’re going to be my step-uncle now” Despite being about the least “family-oriented” person I know, all this seemd oddly nice.

Everyone drifted from the brick courtyard by the front door down to the lawn. I was still organising my grip on my camera, champagne flute and the weathered little book of poetry I was to read from, when the proverbial hush descended and Dad appeared, leading Sophia, Rebecca, Moata and Sonja down the slope to join Jeremy and his entourage under the trees at the bottom of the lawn. Girls, the bride was wearing a simple cream dress with a green sash – the effect was ‘mediaeval Irish princess’. The bridesmaids wore dresses of a, uh, soft creamy mint green (??), which matched Sophia’s sash.

The marriage celebrant was a smiley middle-aged woman with short hair. She gave a brief, ecumenically Christian introduction (I found myself thinking “ah, a progressive Anglican”), then I had to read the Shakespeare poem, which I did with solemnity.

The rest of the ceremony I and the approximately twelve other self-appointed photographers shuffled about, trying desperately to capture all the important moments against the stunning backdrop of blue harbour, vivid sky and contoured hills. Despite my distraction, the nervousness and sincerity of both Sophia and Jeremy were palpable. Their vows were lumpen-throated and barely audible against the punctuating whirr of automatically rolling film and the whisper of the breeze.
“Do you take Sophia to be your wife…” said the marriage celebrant.
“Yes” said Jeremy.
“I haven’t finished yet” laughed the celebrant.
I almost think I had to take more photos to hide the fact that I was quite moved by it all.

Jeremy’s brother Simon made a speech incorporating a compendium of quotes, also from Shakespeare, on the theme of marriage. Sophia and Jeremy went into the house to sign the register, came out again, then everyone went inside to attack the finger food and drink more champagne. After a while Mum, in imitation of her late father, decided it was time for everybody to go and shooed them off, while Tom and Rosemary stood grinning by their piano.

After we all had a weary cigarette on the balcony, I took Cecilia, Moata and Sonja back to Akaroa to get their things from the motel, then, in the sinking afternoon sun, we started on the long and winding road back to Christchurch.

Thursday 25 March, midnight, having finally gotten everything packed into the car...

I was a little anxious about taking the car onto the ferry, it being the first time I'd done it. Would I get there in time, find the right place, have the right ticket, park in the right spot? Everything went ok at first - I got to the ferry terminal, checked in, and parked in the right queue. But I was so focused on doing the right things that I neglected to give the attendant my boarding pass when it was our line's turn to drive up the on-ramp. He gave an anguished yelp as I eased past in second gear, and I braked guiltily. He wandered over to my window, shook his head, held up his stack of plastic orange boarding passes and said "I've been doing this for fifteen years, and everybody always gives me one of these"

The tiny number of people on the ferry were an odd assortment of creatures, like refugees from a socially-inflicted gulag. Examples: a short, thin, bearded, fiftysomething man in short shorts and a cardigan, his legs covered in tatoos. An extremely obese family, shuffling along with difficulty, like reluctantly migrant tree sloths.

"Cruising on the inter-islander" is totally a misnomer. A great viewing platform on a clear day for the Kaikouras and Marlborough Sounds the ferry may be, but otherwise it's threadbare, draughty and uncomfortable. The Railways tearooms of travel. People travelling on the ferry are almost always predominantly weary or sleepy, yet there seems to have been some kind of "sleep-disallowing" clause in the original interior design spec. Serried rows of thin, stiff-backed chairs joined together with metal arms which dig into your back if you try and curl up in any way. I was so exhausted that in the end I took my pillow and lay down on the floor between the seats. I managed almost two hours' fitful nap there, as the boat gently pitched and yawed. Surprisingly, no one came along and told me I was creating a fire risk.

Picton 4:30 am and the cars rolled off the ferry, heading south in a procession of headlights. At Blenheim the lit-up strip of 24/7 service stations signalled blessed relief for my serotonin-deprived nerve endings - I was suffering from the feeling that William Gibson nicely calls "soul lack" in his otherwise banal novel Pattern Recognition. I drained a bottle of V and there were the first suggestions of a return of appetite as I ate at least the first half of my microwaved beef and cheese burger with some hunger.

I struggled out through the Awatere Valley and along the coast; it felt like the car was handling badly with all the extra stuff in it, yawing awakwardly like a pregnant fish. In hindsight, though, I think it was just my atrophied reflexes creating the handlingproblems.

I stopped at Ohau Point seal colony to watch the sun slip over the horizon; the seals were all asleep, apart from the infants, which splashed about in rockpools near the shore - the seal version of morning cartoons, I suppose. All the adults were totally crashed out on the beach. I looked down at them and thought: I'm up before you.

On the outskirts of Kaikoura I pulled over in a little park and took an hours nap in what may be my strangest sleeping position ever - my body still pretty firmly in the driver's seat, my head on a pillow on the passenger's seat. Despite the contortions, I droped straight off.

After that the neurotransmitter levels seemed to have regenerated somewhat and the rest of the drive was better. The Celica chewed up the Hunderlees, threw itself willingly into a 3rd gear 125 km/h to overtake a recalcitrant shuttle bus which refused to go in the slow lane, and in no time we were in the picturesque dry hills of Cheviot.

Coming down into the Waipara Valley, I got a bit of a shock to see the rows and rows of new vine plantings, still attached to their fenceposts and plastic, spread out beside the highway. The eighteen vineyards in Waipara have always been fairly unobtrusive, tuckd away on hill slopes or river terraces. But now Montana has bought a stake there, and the landscape is being transformed.

It saddens me a little. I've always loved the look of the Waipara Valley; coming from Amberley in summer the road suddenly dips down into the heat haze and an epic sweep opens up between the Teviotdale Hills and the stacked ranges of the Southern Alps. Everyone is always so eager to define New Zealand as green and lush and bountiful; in my contrariness I've always treasured the corners that are dry, gravelly and bitter. I like the fact that good wine grows in Waipara; I just don't necessarily want to see my dry hills buried in grapes.

The same thing has happened in the Cromwell Basin. There used to just be a few apricot orchards in a pit of gravel. It had solitude and arid romance. Then they put in the lake, and now the whole area is buried in pinot noir vineyards - sort of Burgundy-on-the-Clutha. It's nice enough, but something has gone forever.

I joined the southbound traffic at Amberley and wended my way into and around the Christchurch outskirts. At 10:30 am I pulled up in front of my parent's place at Rolleston. I was pleased to be there, but a little miffed that I was the first to arrive. With the four prodigal children (well, three of us at least are prodigal) reuniting for one brief weekend, I would have preferred to be the *last* oneto sweep dramatically in. Instead, waiting for the others to show up from Adelaide and Miami, I felt almost like a homebody.

This is my Amazon reviewer profile. I have a current ranking of 325, 289. I guess I need to write some more reviews, especially of more recent releases. Perhaps some books. I also need people to click "yes, I found this review useful".

The only way is up.

This is a relatively interesting meditation on the relationship between Science and Poetry by Paul A. Cantor - but, of course, I have to criticize it. Through discussion of how various Romantic writers engaged with the science and technology of their day, Cantor tries to show that literature is needed to flesh out the consequences and meaning of technological advances, otherwise:

"As [Shelley's] portrait of Victor Frankenstein suggests, such a liberated science may lead to a new kind of slavery, as human beings lose control of the products of their technological imagination, and perhaps end up serving the very forces that were meant to serve them"

This is a trite prognosis. I talked about it in my oral presentation on "avances tecnologicos" in Spanish class last year; I believe in the introduction I rhetorically asked whether "...nos volveremos esclavos a nuestras propias herramientas?" (will we become slaves to our own tools?)

My conclusion in that discussion was that the unpredictability of the consequences of technology, and the lack of control its creators have on its development, can have positive as well as negative results. For instance, the internet, developed by the military-industrial complex to serve its own purposes, has ended up being an immensely liberating force in the lives of many people. Technology developed from wave/particle physics resulted in the atomic bomb, but also the laser eye surgery which has corrected my chronic short sight.

Canton argues that literature can "help out" science by imagining the human consequences of technological developments. Bollocks. Literature provides insights into what it means to be human, and into our dreams and fears. The Prometheus/Frankenstein myth is about fear of technology itself, and is a variation on the Garden of Eden myth, which is about fear of knowledge. Specific science fiction writers tend to reflect the fears of their own age, and mostly get details of the future wrong. You don't see Philip K Dick being invited to sit on MIT's artificial intelligence development committee, and H G Wells was never an advisor to NASA.

It's right to consider the ramifications beyond the success or failure of one's immediate technological tinkerings. But you don't need to be a poet to look at the big picture and consider the wider human and ethical issues, which in the end is all we can ever do.

Why I am bothering splitting hairs over this article? I'm slightly irritated by the assumption that there ever could be an "unbridgeable gulf between science and poetry", as if they didn't inevitably cross-fertilize one another through the mediation of that swamp of paradigms, prejudices and ideologies we call "culture". But I think what's really bothering me is the suspicion that what this is really about is "the role that literature can play for science". Despite appearing to make a robust defence of poetry, Canton in fact appears to be cravenly buying into the view that all endeavours should have some kind of instrumentalist justification in relation to science. In the positivism-crazed 20th century, many disciplines desperately tried to show either that they were sciences themselves (psychology, sociology) or that they could "usefully serve" science (analytic philosophy, by clarifying concepts). Literature, it's suggested here can help by imagining the consequences of technological developments.

It can't. But it doesn't need to. Literature helps us grapple with what the hell it's all about (at least some of the time reaching into the grab bag of current scientific facts for its material; Martin Amis' London Fields is a good example). It needs no further justification or reconciliation - end of story.

Desert Island Discs Revisited
I'm submitting this to my work newsletter as a follow-up to my previous Desert Island Discs. But I think it might be a bit long...

===
When I had my first go at picking my Desert Island Discs, I got quite a few comments along the lines of “you have rather…eclectic tastes”, some of them accompanied by slightly sceptical expressions which suggested I might perhaps be a bit of an obscurantist tosser. I hastened to admit that yes, I’d probably played up the eclecticism a bit, and that nos. 4-20 on my list would be dominated by white guys playing guitars. So, to set the record straight and because, dammit, other people have had two goes, here are my “alternative” DIDs.

Honourable mentions (and these are all white male guitar bands, too): The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses, REM – Life’s Rich Pageant/Green, The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy, Counting Crows – August and Everything After, Suede – Dog Man Star, Pavement – Slanted and Enchanted, Radiohead – The Bends, U2 – The Unforgettable Fire/The Joshua Tree

Big Country – The Crossing

The greatest band many people have never heard of. Formed in 1983 by Scottish singer/songwriter Stuart Adamson, Big Country were often grouped with contemporaries U2 and Simple Minds as part of a new wave of Celtic rock, but their sound and style were truly unique. Driving, layered drums were mixed with soaring Celtic melodies from the twin lead guitars of Adamson and Bruce Watson; the songs vignettes from Scottish history, yearning romantic ballads or lyrical elegies about industrial decay in Scotland and northern England. Their debut album The Crossing was huge in both the UK and USA, and follow-ups Steeltown and The Seer also produced a number of hit singles. In all they made eight studio albums up until 1999, but never recovered the extraordinary creativity of the 1983-86 period.

Big Country fans the world over remain convinced that the band produced some of the most original, passionate and moving rock music ever made and that if other people would only listen, not only would they become converts, but the world would be a better place. No other music has ever provoked such a visceral and instant response in me.

The best known Big Country lyric, from their signature song, “In a Big Country”, says:
“In a big country, dreams stay with you/like a lover’s voice fires the mountainside – stay alive”.
Tragically, Stuart Adamson didn’t take his own advice. After battling drinking problems for many years, he was found to have committed suicide in a Hawaii hotel room in 2002.

Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run

There are a lot of misperceptions about Bruce Spingsteen. Many of these are based on an awareness dominated by 1984’s Born in the USA (he’s been releasing albums since 1972) and a view that that album is somehow a piece of flag-waving jingoism (it’s not). But while Born in the USA and subsequent albums have plenty of merit, it’s in Springsteen’s 70s catalogue that the real genius is to be found. Before the smoothed-over, commercial production of Born in the USA, Springsteen and his E-Street Band created a warm, joyous wall of sound in which horns, piano and organ wrestled for space with the drums and guitars (think Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”). Lyrically, Springsteen had a snappiness and verbosity which would embarrass many a hip-hop artist. How’s this from “For You”:

“Princess cards she sends me/with her regards/Her bar room eyes shine vacancy/to see her you gotta look hard”

The pinnacle of this period was 1975’s Born to Run, which achieved the near-impossible task of living up to the hype (Springsteen had been described as “the future of rock and roll” and appeared simultaneously on the covers of Time and Newsweek). It opens with “Thunder Road”, which is one of my favourite and most-played songs ever. It also happens to be one of Nick Hornby’s favourite songs, and he dedicates several pages in 31 Songs to an articulate defense of it and Springsteen himself. He has considerably more space and talent at his disposal than I, so I highly recommend checking that out for further elaboration on the topic.

The Pixies – Trompe le Monde

Goodness me – I’m quite surprised that this has got in here. On another day, one of the other discs from the “honourable mentions” would have supplanted it. It’s not even the Pixies album rated most highly by informed opinion – their debut Surfer Rosa or perhaps Doolittle are normally considered their finest moments. But because I’m writing this today, and because I’m not constrained by informed opinion, Trompe le Monde sneaks in there for several reasons. Reason one is the supercharged version of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Head On” – a nasty and sexy surf guitar anthem which sounds like it has petrol fumes blowing out the back of it. Reason two: “Planet of Sound” – a lesson in how to make a song that’s evil and horrible yet totally groovy and poppy at the same time – with lyrics like “I got to somewhere renowned/for its canals and colour of red”. Reason three – and this is the clincher – is “The Sad Punk”, and the lyric which I consider is the coolest, like, evah. After a couple of mad, million miles an hour verses, the song completely changes and there’s a long, lilting guitar lead out in which Black Francis sings:

“And evolving from the sea/would not be too much time for me/to walk beside you in the sun…”

Why do I like this so much? Who knows. But I think it has something to do with expressing something sentimental , corny even, without ever losing the façade of sunglassed cool – which somehow makes it seem more sincere. Or because it produces a genuinely surprising image, and fulfills the function of hyperbole at its best – to provide insight into the literally inexpressible.
There you go – now I’ve ruined it.

Went to see “The Spanish Apartment” last night in Brooklyn with Paul and some of his frisbee friends – my god, it was like somebody had made a movie of my life. It captured the working/studying/travelling abroad experience really well – the excitement of the mix of nationalities, where you swap between languages but there’s always someone who speaks your own, and people are from all over but are all young, educated and middle class – so it’s exotic and familiar all at once; the “alien, virgin” city becoming just as (or more) familiar than home once you’ve crossed the same street “10, 50, 10,000 times”; the painful tribulations of finding your way around which become amusing adventures in retrospect; the romantic liasions – the opportunism, infatuations, bitter jealousies, tradeoffs and regrets at lost opportunities; the realisation that national stereotypes are actually mostly well-founded (apart from in your case – you’re a citizen of the world); the desolation of going home, like waking up from a warm crazy dream to the cold blankness of reality where nothing’s changed and no one understands.

The setting in Barcelona was just right, too – universal but distinctive. It brought it all back for me – la Rambla, Parc Güel, la Sagrada Familia, Placa Real, the waterfront, the bars, la Barria Gótica, the palms, the sun, broad avenues and tight alleyways, the dirt and rubbish, the Mediterranean Sea. Some of the details were just perfect – the gormless yet know-it-all American from Santa Fe who goes on about “this crazy experience at the Taj Mahal” and plays “No Woman No Cry” on his guitar (on the island in the middle of La Rambla, the main street of Barcelona, between the jewellery stalls and the people creating sci-fi space scenes from spray paint, there is an average of about two guys on every block with acoustic guitars singing “No Woman No Cry”).

The plot was a bit by-numbers – the mandatory madcap dramatic irony set piece, “everyone ending up in the same place with different ideas about what the hell’s going on” – was contrived, but I still laughed till my sides hurt.

The end wasn’t realistic either – Xavier runs away from the terrifying prospect of his job as a faceless bureaucrat, “to write”. That’s not how it goes – or at least it’s more complicated than that (you’ve got to cop at least three years as a faceless bureaucrat first). But hell, it was a lightweight film. And maybe that *is * how things work in France…

It's a little ironic that I've managed to get everything set to leave town just at that point when I'd got somewhere in that long and incremental struggle to "settle in". This state of being, which is not at all the same as "settling down", is partly about having friends and knowing people. But also something subtler about being comfortable in the sociogeography, about knowing where to go and what to do and how to get things done.

I had my hair cut the other day and there was some mutual sense of regret when it was established that I wouldn’t be back in the medium term. As I was going Natasha said “well, it’s been a pleasure cutting your hair over the last year and a half”. I went a little red and said something stupid like “well, thank you for working on it so assiduously”. They gave me the salon email address and told me to send photos (here’s me looking a little straggly on the Inca trail, probably not using enough product; here’s me in the Amazon, six days without a wash…)

I had to inform my ophthalmologist that I wouldn’t be able to make the six-month check up on my laser surgery. There was even a smidgen of regret when I told my dentist I couldn’t make a repeat appointment with the hygienist. I’m having to cut short my fledgling relationship with my preferred auto mechanics. A little tailor’s shop on Willis St may miss my occasional need to have pairs of pants adjusted. The library will definitely miss their regular income from my overdue books.

There’s also my salsa class, soccer team and university Spanish department to farewell before I even get on to flatmates, workmates, and those rare beasts, non context-specific friends.

The irony is that some of these people are saying things like (slightly wistfully) “oh, so we won’t have you round for much longer” and “we’ll have to go out for drinks” when for the majority of the time I’ve known them it’s seemed that going out for drinks, or even having a conversation outside the designated context, just wouldn’t be the done thing.

Why has it taken so long to get to this stage? Partly because for at least the first year I was here I was emotionally somewhere else, quite convinced that I would be out of here bien prontito. But also because it just is hard – it really takes quite a long time to settle in somewhere without the context of university or backpacking. A moderately pretty girl who isn’t cripplingly shy can probably cut the time in half or even a quarter, but for the average person I would say it takes at least a year. Is New Zealand worse than elsewhere? I used to think so, but now I’m not so sure. Wellington, for all its claims to be vibrant, cosmopolitan, transient and bohemian, is actually supercilious, cliquey, insular, and monolithically family-oriented. Though it’s better than Christchurch - I used to comment that Wellington had been voted New Zealand’s “most liveable town” but that I would replace the “most” with “only”. In truly big cities there’s a shared anonymity amongst the crowds which makes you feel less like an outsider. But I suspect it’s still just as hard, if not more so, to get to know anyone.

Now I’m leaving I’m getting these twinges of fondness, and wistfulness about things I haven’t got round to doing (like replacing my curtains, getting a decent computer, moving closer to town, going on more tramps, taking up cycling, revamping my wardrobe, doing French classes, setting up a stand-alone web site, starting another band).

This precooked nostalgia undeniably has something to do with the fact that I’m escaping. It’s always easier to feel fond about something (or someone) that you’re not bound or committed to.

I remember a character in a novel by “young adults” author S E Hinton saying something like “there are people who go; and there are people who stay”. I’ve always thought I’m one of the people who go (though I’m a Cancer; I’m supposed to be one of the people who stay). As a lazy and - I would have to admit – rather fearful person, it’s the one thing that’s always got me to beat the ennui and timidity – moving on.

How sad is this: the great excitement today is that it’s a sunny, almost windless day, even up in Brooklyn, and this gives me the opportunity to indulge in an orgy of clothes and bedding washing. Not only is the weather improbably good; no one else is home and the clothes line is empty. I’ve already washed and hung out pretty much my entire wardrobe and am now moving on to my sheets, pillowcases, duvet and duvet cover. It gives me an almost physical pleasure – since they closed down the Brooklyn launderette, being able to dry our washing within one day is a rare and precious thing. All things are relative.

Meanwhile, I seem to have now gone almost 48 hours without a cup of coffee, which must be something of a record. It’s been more inadvertent than anything; I ran out of plunger coffee last Sunday and didn’t buy any more. Then yesterday I slept in late, was somewhat hungover, and faffed around the house until I made it down to the Brooklyn shops at tea time to get fish and chips. So I find myself this morning still coffee-less. I certainly feel like I want some, but the world’s not ending yet. Last night I even went pretty much straight to sleep. So maybe there’s something in this “limiting your caffeine intake” thing…

I try and trace the beginnings of my truly massive coffee habit, and I suspect it dates back to the last carnival I worked at in Miami before coming back to New Zealand. Back then, James and Rick got me hooked on the café cubano; we would buy "una colada" and drink it in thimblefuls. Café cubano is made by pouring a quadruple-shot espresso into a cup directly onto several spoonfuls of sugar. They call it “liquid cocaine”, and it did have almost miraculous powers of rejuvenating the most beat and trash-tired carnival worker. Even just prior to that, in Guatemala, I can recall enjoying my morning coffee, but not feeling the need to have another and another, like I do now at work. I could maybe blame the carnival experience for the subconscious certainty that what I need if I’m feeling listless and jaded is just one more cup. But I suspect the real reason for the compulsion to chain-drink coffee is the crushing ennui created by your common-and-garden sedentary job. Coffee assuages this; it provides an instant little narcotic kick, gives you an excuse to get out of your chair and go for a (purposeful) walk, and it’s something to pick up and put in your mouth from time to time. I do usually try and make 1 or 2 pm the cutoff for coffee ingestion, but what interferes with that resolution is if there’s an afternoon meeting. Meetings are a bit of a bete noire for me; I find I have to bring a cup of coffee as a crutch against the dread and nausea they provoke.

Of course it all goes in a vicious circle. It’s got to the point where not even excessive amounts of exercise will send me quickly to sleep – I lie there physically exahusted with my brain fretting and worrying. About what? It isn’t sure. But it must fret, preferably about several poorly-defined things at once. And then the next day the whole process starts again. I’ve never really considered making a concerted effort to break the cycle, though. Coffee is my friend; I like at least part of how it makes me feel. I’m not sure that cutting down or even cutting it out would transform me into the kind of person who leaps out of bed at 7:00 am and works through their day in a measured, efficient way. There are worthier things to focus my limited supply of will-to-power on.

The Orewa speech and all that
I’m really a little saddened by the Government’s so-called “about-face on Maori issues” following the reaction to Don Brash’s Orewa speech. We had moved on too far; we were out of step with public opinion, says Helen Clark. We’re not reacting to polls; we just want to take account of what people are saying…
Leaving aside the disingenuousness of that statement, why is there no reasoned account of why they might have “moved on too far”? What happened, not only to having the courage of one’s convictions, but being prepared to explain how those convictions were formed in the first place? If a government isn’t prepared to give a reasoned defence of its policies, what does that tell us about how they were formed?

Now we have Trevor Mallard combing legislation and departmental policies for “race-based” approaches. Overnight, “need-based not race-based” has become a sort of catch cry, while it has been left to the unlikely voices of the Dominion Post and Sunday Star Times leader writers to point out that any apparently “race-based” targeting in health and education is well and truly justified on the basis of need. But the Government knows that, surely? Didn’t they implement the policies?

What is truly surprising is how easily Brash has been allowed to define the terms of the debate – the first time in my memory that the Opposition has managed to achieve such an advantage over this Goverment. His Orewa speech may have been inflammatory and divisive – but it was certainly rather vague and waffly. Most people who were polled as “supporting Dr Brash” haven’t read the speech itself but were responding to choice soundbites served up by the media (“Brash tells Maori they’re not special”, etc.). Yet instead of calling Brash on the facts and arguments, the Government has thrown itself into an embarrassing retreat based on vague public reaction to a vague speech. Michael Cullen did have a column in the Dominion Post in which he attempted to dispel some of the misunderstandings about the foreshore and seabed (which is a completely different issue from public policy in health and education but has been allowed to be bundled together with them under the heading “Maori Issues”). In general though, there has been precious little attempt to engage in clarification, explanation or debate. This seems to imply one of two things. Either the Government really doesn’t believe its policies are defensible. Or it has an insultingly low opinion of the public’s intelligence. Neither option is particularly inspiring for the citizen and voter.

Wow – this is Samuel Huntington, the “Clash of Civilizations” guy. Looks like American civilization is under attack again – but not from Islamic fundamentalists. Nope, this time it’s Mexicans – hordes of ‘em. Their seditious plot? Well, just to chase the American Dream, really, only en español.

According to Huntington, “American values” are actually - as maintained by anti-American conspiracy theorists all along - “Anglo-Protestant values”. Originally, he says, Americans defined themselves through “race, ethnicity, culture and religion”. The drive to independence produced the need to define America “ideologically”, to distinguish it from (also Anglo-Protestant) Britain. Thus were produced the Declaration of Independence and so forth. Which would in future allow commentators, in endless scholarly articles featured in Arts & Letters Daily, to contrast American belief in “universal values” with irrational European “blood and soil” nationalism – a useful distinction to make whenever France or Germany are being intransigent about something.

Then, with the conquest of the American West producing surplus land (allowing future scholarly conservatives to talk about how the US is the “only Great Power in history to have no imperial ambitions”), and the drive to develop industry, the Anglo-Protestants were good enough to let in a whole bunch of Krauts, Polacks, Paddys, Eyeties, and even eventually let black people have the vote. E Pluribus Unum.

But now, says Huntington, it’s time to step back from all that “universalist” stuff and reassert the core WASP identity of the USA. Because this is under threat from an endless stream of chicanos. They just keep coming across the border, they outnumber all other immigrants put together and, worst of all, they want to retain their language and culture. There’s a risk we could see, through peaceful, demographic means, the Hispanic reconquest of the entire Southwest.

What could be the outcome for America if this goes on unchecked? Well, it could turn into Miami. This is what Huntington has to say about Miami:

The economic growth of Miami, led by the early Cuban immigrants, made the city a magnet for migrants from other Latin American and Caribbean countries. By 2000, two thirds of Miami's people were Hispanic, and more than half were Cuban or of Cuban descent…

The Cuban takeover had major consequences for Miami. The elite and entrepreneurial class fleeing the regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in the 1960s started dramatic economic development in South Florida. Unable to send money home, they invested in Miami. Personal income growth in Miami averaged 11.5 percent a year in the 1970s and 7.7 percent a year in the 1980s. Payrolls in Miami-Dade County tripled between 1970 and 1995. The Cuban economic drive made Miami an international economic dynamo, with expanding international trade and investment. The Cubans promoted international tourism, which, by the 1990s, exceeded domestic tourism and made Miami a leading center of the cruise ship industry. Major U.S. corporations in manufacturing, communications, and consumer products moved their Latin American headquarters to Miami from other U.S. and Latin American cities. A vigorous Spanish artistic and entertainment community emerged. Today, the Cubans can legitimately claim that, in the words of Prof. Damian Fernández of Florida International University, “We built modern Miami,” and made its economy larger than those of many Latin American countries.

Sounds good. You come, you expand the economy, you conquer.

But no, says Huntington. The difference is that (apart from Miami being a steaming swamp anyway, so who cares) the Cubans were initially mainly upper and middle class (and, though he doesn’t mention it, white). The flood of Mexicans, by contrast, is predominantly poor and uneducated, which spells some kind of poorly-defined trouble. They may not actually be potential suicide bombers. But there are important “cultural differences”. We know this because, for example:

“Author Robert Kaplan quotes Alex Villa, a third-generation Mexican American in Tucson, Arizona, as saying that he knows almost no one in the Mexican community of South Tucson who believes in “education and hard work” as the way to material prosperity and is thus willing to “buy into America.” Profound cultural differences clearly separate Mexicans and Americans, and the high level of immigration from Mexico sustains and reinforces the prevalence of Mexican values among Mexican Americans.”

Rigorous evidence, certainly.

Huntington does have tables of stats showing how poor, uneducated, insufficiently upwardly mobile and just damn good-for-nothing Mexican Americans are. I’m sure plenty of holes could be picked in them, but it’s not clear that they’re actually relevant. On balance, he doesn’t actually seem to be claiming that Mexican Americans are a drain on the economy – anyway, where’s the table tracking “numbers of tomatoes in California that need to get picked”?

Rather, the key concern appears to be that the preservation by Latino migrants of their language and culture, and their ability to not be fully “acculturated”, might create a “self-sufficient enclave” outside the “mainstream”. He issues vague but stern warnings about this prospect. He suggests that future American public servants might need to be bilingual! He quotes flaky liberals who suggest that that might even be a good thing. In a worst-case scenario, the US might end up like (shock) Canada or Belgium.

The hordes of chicanos, and their damnable insistence on not speaking *only* English, says Huntington, could be “the one thing that will choke the melting pot”. But it’s not clear that the melting pot is at risk, so much as the Anglo-Protestant dominance of how the shape, colour and smell of the pot is defined. The lesson from Miami, after all, is that Anglos can end up being an ethnic minority, too. And won't necessarily like it.

It’s hard to see too much else going on here apart from an ethnocentric distaste for genuine diversity, and a disquieting lack of faith in the genuinely integrative force of “universal values”.

I need a strategy for my trip to South America. I need a Statement of Intent and Key Performance Indicators.

There’s many things I want to do – explore Macchu Picchu and other lost Inca things, penetrate to the heart of the Amazon, bond with local cultures, do voluntary work, write lots of travel journalism and other stuff. But the bottom line is that I don’t end up – read this, Simon Bidwell, in six months time! – stuck drinking tequila in a backpackers bar in Cuzco with a bunch of alcoholic Danes, pissed because some mildly interesting Canadian girl has rebuffed my timorous advances. Therefore I’m setting the Terms of Reference now, and I’ve decided that language immersion and improvement will be the minimum contracted requirements for my travels:
Target 1: take my Spanish to the next level
Target 2: get some Portuguese going

Actually, the Portuguese is optional and secondary. The absolute minimum I should expect from a year or so in Latinoamerica is * much better Spanish * This will require effort, but – that’s not too much to ask, is it?!

Today's Dominion Post reprinted an article from the Times which is enthusiastic about the prospect of Kerry as president. If the Times likes him, that means Murdoch tolerates him, or is at least prepared to hedge his bets. This has got to improve Kerry's chances.

Tellingly, the Times was particularly upbeat about Kerry's views on energy policy and his intentions to make the US less dependant on Middle East oil by promoting energy effiiciency and conservation. While that might seem like a "progressive" issue, it's worth noting that Big Oil and Big Media seem to be, fairly uniquely in the world of global capitalism, not incestuously intertwined. This allows even the purveyors of Murdockian orthodoxies to articulate common sense and sanity, should they become overwhelmingly compelling. Though probably not Fox News, because that wouldn't be sufficiently Fair and Balanced.

My newly intensive relationship with the medical world continues. Last week I (finally) got the crown put on my tooth implant, and yesterday I got the first three in a series of vaccinations before I go travelling. Yesterday afternoon I amused myself by telling people "don't come too close - I've got yellow fever, measles, mumps, rubella and tetanus"

Next week will be even more amusing, when I have hepatitis A, hepatitis B, typhoid and rabies. Ha ha.

From the Economist, the latest popular science article on how "scientific research shows something you thought you vaguely understood to be something just as vague but with more sciency words like 'dopamine' and 'promoter sequence' "

In this case, it's that old hoary chestnut revisited - the "chemical basis for love". Quite amusing, but with some rather scary bits, viz:

"That raises the question of whether it is possible to “treat” this romantic state clinically, as can be done with [Obsessive Compulsive Disorder]. The parents of any love-besotted teenager might want to know the answer to that. Dr Fisher suggests it might, indeed, be possible to inhibit feelings of romantic love, but only at its early stages. OCD is characterised by low levels of a chemical called serotonin. Drugs such as Prozac work by keeping serotonin hanging around in the brain for longer than normal, so they might stave off romantic feelings. "

Conclusions include:

"So love, in all its glory, is just, it seems, a chemical state with genetic roots and environmental influences."

Hmm, what did the scientists expect they might find?
"Love discovered to be the eternal, transcendental union of two human souls"...

"Invisible arrow-wielding infant figures may be responsible for love between humans"....

This is classic, though:

"Rats can be conditioned to prefer particular types of partner—for example by pairing sexual reward with some kind of cue, such as lemon-scented members of the opposite sex."

Maybe I should try lemon-scented aftershave..."attracts members of the opposite sex while you do dishes!"

The telling admission (almost) comes at the end:

"Romantics, of course, have always known that love is a special sort of chemistry. Scientists are now beginning to show how true this is. "

Right, so, the article is littered with popular song titles and metaphors ("Addicted to love" etc.) to illustrate its points, and we learn that (surprise!) lust, romantic love and long-term companionship are all different and have different effects on behaviour. In exactly what respect, then, has 'hard science' inproved on literary, artistic and folk wisdom? And why do we necessarily need the former to validate the latter?