rising sun

the window in my dorm room faces east. on some days boston has one of the reddest sunrises i've ever seen. they are some of the most surreal five-minute spans.

the wonder years

"we never really talked about it afterward. but i think about the events of that day again and again and somehow i know winnie does too. whenever some blowhard starts talking about the anonymity of the suburbs, or the mindlessness of the TV generation. because we know that inside each one of those identical boxes, with its dodge parked out front, and its white bread on the table, and its TV set glowing blue in the falling dusk, there were people with stories. there were families bound together in the pain and the struggle of love. there were moments that made us cry with laughter. and there were moments, like that one, of sorrow and wonder."
- the wonder years. what a great show.

my morning

oh man. my field trip was awesome. we drove out to the sri lakshmi temple in ashland, mass. the temple itself is very impressive. inside were several shrines to different gods. each shrine was recessed and kind of self-enclosed. i watched a ritual puja (i think a kind of service) for the god venkateswara. the statue was a gorgeous black stone four-armed statue with a yellow cloth around his waist and a gold chain draped around his neck. "venkateswara (as i read from the guide) is believed to be one of the many forms of incarnations of vishnu, who is in charge of preserving the universe... the left hand is in the katyavilambitha mudra. this gesture signifies that the ocean of samsara is only knee deep and can easily be crossed over with faith in god."

so i stood around and watched a fat shirtless priest and his apprentice perform rituals for the statue. the priest would pour cup after cup of milk onto the statue, giving it a gorgeous ghostly appearance, before washing it off with water. this was repeated with cup after cup of cream, and then a thick paste which he spread over venkateswara's chest, and then honey, and then a white dust/grain which made the statue look amazing, and then a dusty orange paste. at first i thought "boy this is out there" but for some reason it felt kind of right.

i also met a professor from BU medical school who chatted with me about sanskrit and atman, paramatman, and mahatma. he was surprised to find that i'm already a pro at that stuff. later on when i was watching a puja for ganesa, i found myself in line for devotion and a priest dabbed a little white paste onto my forehead. the temple also has a cafeteria (for some reason most temples do) that serves great lemon rice and yogurt rice.

naptime.

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here are some photos of the outside of the temple - they don't allow you to take photos inside.

passage

how do lives unfold? sometimes i feel like it is nothing more than person sitting on a big conveyor belt sliding from room to room. one room for new york, one room for boston, hammering away here and there, fiery blazes that temper you like a carframe.

this very moment i'm reading a book by my professor and mathilda's godmother diana eck:

darsan: seeing the divine image in india

having held onto the concept of traveling around india seeing cool stuff after graduation, this class swam up to me like "hey XXXX. take me, i'm right for you." so i did and it is. another thing that strikes me about this book (in addition to its world-expanding analysis of siva representation) is the awesome design of the book. check it out:



booyah. it looks amazing sitting here on my desk. i love it. i love diana, who i chatted with at lowell house tea this afternoon.

more thoughts later.

the abyss

i have a hole in my soul and nothing can fill it. not even god.

i feel destined to travel over the world and search in vain.

"do not seek yourself outside yourself." - horace

Lauryn Hill - When It Hurts So Bad

"when it hurts so bad
when it hurts so bad
why's it feel so good."

exams.

i am on the verge of being completely murdered by my classes. i need to lock down immediately.

"it wasn't the cubs' fault when that douchebag grabbed the foul ball either but they still don't get a world series ring. there are no asterisks in this life, only scoreboards, and ours is currently reading 'fucked.'"

wilderness notes

ascending into a cloud covering the top of a mountain is an amazing experience. i've always wondered what the inside of a could felt like. now i know. imagine it was raining and then all of a sudden time stopped, so you had millions of tiny raindrops suspended in air. as you glided forward in space (perhaps on a chairlift!), you met all of these small drops while their brothers simply stayed in place.

the briefest images can instantly remind me of completely vivid and immediate experiences. examples from vermont:

driving through the fog - much like driving through the fog on the autobahn into munich from vienna. fucking exhilarating, even at 20kph. it took complete faith to keep moving along that road, trusting in god that there wouldn't be a two-story eighteen-wheeler barrelling towards italy. this morning as i drove down the west side highway the hudson was blanketed by a completely thick fog - i couldn't even see the water, much less new jersey. ships at sea in that weather = complete faith.

pulling by the side of a pitch-black highway road recalled the desert expanses of the red centre. during the day everything was surreally tomato-red against a blue cloth sky, but at night it was deathly quiet and cool, too many stars on a black sky with barely perceptible washes of indigo and fatigue green. the night light gave everything an eerie glow, almost industrial if the landscape weren't completely barren.

a small bridge over bumblefuck river reminded me of evenings in guadix in the summer - isabel, spanish girls wearing black and holding calimochos in the plastic containers that, despite seeing filled with x chinese soup later in my life, i would always associate with spain.

Chinatsu Ban

thursday

my first trip into soho since a long time. passed by la esquina, shady shady place - they have an outdoor service area. imagine a roadside dairy queen in northern jersey with prison-meeting-type booths. still, probably a pleasant outdoor experience. the restaurant itself is small and unassuming, but the real draw is the vaunted underground bar/cafe where ny's most hipsterish convene like cess to a drain. walked up lafayette from canal to prince. the streets are sunny and pleasant by day but unbearably dark by night. the blocks became more and more "sohoish" - you know, dark brown shopfront facades, cobblestone streets, fire escapes, etc. passed by savoy, one of ny's most fantastic restaurants on one of its smelliest corners. honestly, that corner reeks. i came onto broadway by the scholastic and began thinking of roxy. soho broadway, for all my non-ny readers out there, is gorgeously chic and full of life, with cabs whizzing one-way past huge tapestries and two-story store windows covering mannequins and gigantic faces. wondered if roxy still lived on spring. wondered if she was employed. wondered if she was single. went into the apple store - they had a deafeningly loud DJ in there who happened to be completely AWESOME!!!!! i chatted with her, her name was E Frank (really Ellen Frances).

ellenfrancesidontlikeit.blogspot.com

beats sicker than mark foley. saw a devastatingly gorgeous tall modelesque hispanic woman who laughed when i reacted to a song change by lifting my head and shaking my ass. i scanned her hand for a ring (none) and got her name (angelica).
after apple i took the train up to columbia to start the night.

i will miss these nights the most when i am having them in asia next year.

xoxo