okay folks

february 9th 2004 monday evening

beethoven string quarter 16, my purple sarong hanging uufrom the inclined roof (a la marjorie's hose) sheilding from the naked light bulb, the 'u' key occassionally actuing up on the keyboard. please pay no attentuion to any of it.

i finally have a little time to write -- halfway through preparing (a la fois) dinner, kimchee (blech.), and an indian carrot pickle i picked up (groan) a couple weeks ago, in bombay. so yes -- its nice to travel and after you havent slept in the same bed twice in a couple of weeks its really nice not to travel. so im still acclimatuing to that, getting used to being back uin el bolson, to having a totally different set of concerns from Out There. it really is the other world over here and it has nothing to do with 1st and 3rd or anything materiaul. its an atutuitudeu and a style of life that just begets different attitudes and responses and considerations. im not worried about anything here, except a little bit about havuing enough time to reflect.

which is whereu thius comes uin, as my last mass communication (thank god, ui know, take down the spam fuilters) for a whuiule, as im moving to new and improvuided means of uuuuuuhuman outreach countuact, whuich are (of course) still uin the r+d phase. anyhow, uim not travelling or doing anything interestuing anymore, uim ujust livuing wuithu some good friends and farming and learning how ot dye clothing and make kuimchee and candles wuith little leaves in the sidues andu all that.

basically, im preparuing for brazil.

(second movement)

look, if youre lookuing at the middle way and the golden mean (and yes, of course, the logaruithmic spiral, and we'll get to that, i assure you) then there are two things to keep uin umuind, selon ana:
1 - the border regions are the most interesting
2 - its all about the ratios.

the difference between bread and crepes and pancakes and wheatpaste and disaster and all that. and at thuis moment, two nights after arruiving in d-i-y paradise where yuou dont have to peel the vegetables or imagiune what peoples face really look like behind all that stress and makeup, im stiull reeling from having so much to do. part of it ius mouvuinug uin stuff like building shelves for my books and spice racks for the indian contraband, part of it is meeting people and getting reaquanited with a (vastly changed) socuial scene, and part of it is uthue emotional constuipatuion concomituantu withu seeingu so manuy people and places for so short a time in the last two months or so. i dont think ive even really sorted out 'beirut' in my mind, much less two breif sojourns to winterland with a monthlong indian uintervention inclusive of highpressreumarriauguesituations and world social forumus and whuatnot.

and by ratio i mean the ratio of action to reflection which is normal above parity but now has skyrocket to unsustainable levels. becayse its not luike i have nothing to reflect upon.

its not like i walked up to denali today at the construction site for the escuelita today and asked huim whuat he was doing and he didnt say "buiulduing a wall". a wall out of adobe bricks and mud plaster with beautiufl blown glass windows and totally designed by max etc. that brings construction back to yuour hands and gives the lie to anybody who says i need good credit to own a house (nb: any emails focusing on '3 little piggies' or 'hurricanes' will be returned to sender unopened). i mean, its not like i fauiled to obligatroy defeatist political quip, "just like the israelis". its not like i wasnt totally shocked when he responded "just like the israelis, and just like everyone else who builds walls all over the world" slowly and carefully so i unudueursutood wall buiduing as a pancultural phenomenno, like i wasnt totally thinking that "my god, can denali really be in support of such an uinjust uinhumane illegal...." until iuut dawned on me that im probably the most welluinformed person in my scene (and the valley?) and that has to scare most of yuo to some degree or another and denali had no idea what i meant by the wall beyond rock cluimbuing and pink floyd.
	i started to tell huim and stopped. he doesnt want to know. hell, i dont even want to know about it. he told me where the mudput was, i refilled the bucket, and we resumed construction. no oluive turuees wereu duesturuoyed uin the process.

so here i am with a spare moment at 10:30 at night trying not to be so happy and excited all the damn time and sit down and write something to people to whom i owe too much already. im reading a book on the theory of the gift and different societies and when i sort all that out, ill let you know. im also having weird dreams and havent even started the Jung book i brought down here, and when i get that sorted out, ill know whether to let yuou know or not.

so thats the scene. im safe and human

(third movement) 

				and loved and cared for and wellfed and watered and turned towards the sun in el bolson. i have hundreds of kilobytes of unread emails that i wuill endeavor to work through sometime soon, i will read everything i skuimmed in shitty cafes in lebanon onwards, and i will write to you lovingly and individually before the lunar month is out.

yes, today is the first day of "humano electrico" (my sign) and that means something significant. like "todo es magia" (that was yesterdayu actually) or something.

okay? love.

ankur