Pig Out

No, this post is not about food, but a short one on the deadly swine flu that promises to be the next Black Death.

Or not. You've probably seen, read or heard about a rash of deaths in Mexico from a virus that has apparently passed from pigs to humans -- and now possibly transmitted from person to person. 

Is this it? Killed off by a pig virus. I picture Will Smith running around an empty metropolis being chased by pink, snout-nosed humans who want to turn him into pork chops. The news reports always say the same things when these outbreaks first occur. From an MSNBC story: "World health authorities worried openly that the strange new virus could become a global epidemic."

It's not Waiting for Godot, but waiting for coup de grace of the race. Global warming, nuclear war, the plague, tobacco, cancer, high fructose corn syrup and really nasty cat allergies -- death awaits around every corner. The strange thing is that we almost seem eager to welcome it. What would get bigger headlines: Armageddon or a Cure for Cancer?

A freak. A brilliant freak. But a freak.

That's how I described Werner Herzog to someone today, who forwarded me a link to a recent interview by The Guardian with the German-born director. An avant garde, fringe director for decades, Herzog broke into the mainstream (again?) a few years ago with his documentary "Grizzly Man," about Timothy Treadwell, an Alaskan misfit who got a little too cozy with the wild Yogi Bears and paid with his life. 

Herzog is himself attracted to the fringes of society, so he was the natural choice to make a documentary about science and society in Antarctica, "Encounters at the End of the World," which was nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar. The film is far from fluffy, focusing on the quirky characters who live and work at McMurdo Station, most of whom I know to varying degrees. I was working at the station the summer Herzog filmed his movie, though my colleague Steven Profaizer ended up interviewing him for an article in The Antarctic Sun. 

He even came into our office one day with his cameraman, carrying the sound boom like a scythe. At one point, Herzog turned to me, asking a question. He smiled -- a grim smile like one that must greet the souls seeking passage to the Underworld on Charon's ferry across the River Styx. Smiling does not come naturally to that man, who in the Guardian interview admits that he likes to act a bit, playing psychopathic characters. Though he stresses that he's unlike those characters in real life.

Still, I think Herzog would make a good guide to Hades in a film directed by David Lynch and co-starring Laura Dern. Just because.

Poster Shock

I went to the Denver Art Museum today to check out its much-anticipated Rock Poster exhibit, a collection of psychedelic art, mainly rock posters, from the golden age of hippie music, from 1965-71. I don't think I realized just how dynamic that era really was. Everyone was there: the Dead, Credence, Joplin, Hendrix, The Doors, the Beats (Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Snyder, et al), Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, etc., etc.

A lot of the art certainly seemed designed for an LSD trip -- kinetic, organic, fluid, colorful. There were plenty of subtle and not-so-subtle drug references, such as a miner panning for gold at the corner of one venue, hinting of the discovery of a particularly delicious type of marijuana bud.

One poster advertised for a 1969 concert featuring Country Joe and the Fish, Led Zeppelin and Taj Mahal. But the most amazing thing was the price of the ticket: $3.50. And only $3 for Thursday's show. You can't even buy a soda for $3 at a concert these days!

A couple of other posters below. It's interesting to see how the style changed from the typical psychedelic look in the first poster to one more like a collage, something you would see on a Pink Floyd album cover in later years, in the second.

Click on any of the posters to learn more about them from the DAM's Web site. The three-month exhibit ends July 19.

Beep Beep

The car horn. Such a simple instrument, yet perhaps the most vital to self preservation while driving. But no one uses it here in Denver. Why? Are we afraid that someone will take offense and shoot us? I suppose that's a possibility, and my wife has often commented that she fully expects me to come to an early demise from my overly generous horn use.

But look at a place like Costa Rica, which I recently visited. Drivers there use the horn as regularly as tuning the radio or turning on the windshield wipers. A few beeps to say, "Here I am. Don't hit me. Look out. Oh my god I'm about to die on this 16-lane roundabout, get out of my way." Seriously, though, liberal use of the horn is just part of the driving technique there.

I've decided I'm going to start using my horn more liberally but with less malice, to tip the balance of its everyday use. This morning I was making a quick trip downtown, a journey I've done so often that I know how to hit all of the green lights. As I approached one intersection, a pedestrian unwisely started to cross, threatening my smooth crossing of the intersection. A few short but stern beeps sent her scurrying across, high-heeled boots and all, to the safety of the other side. Another life saved.

Now I just need a bigger horn. And bullet proof glass.

Travel Expectations

It's been about a week since I returned from a little vacation in Costa Rica. Based on the cynical descriptions provided in the Traveler's Bible (i.e., Lonely Planet), I had expected to find a hot and humid country with too many pale and bloated Americans, and the need to constantly watch my back for fear of being picketpocketed, robbed or scammed at every turn in the country's unpaved roads.

Hmm. Perhaps travel writers really do go to hell ... because that's far from the reality. Yes, the country is about 10 degrees on the sweltering side. There are a fair amount of gringos in the usual tourist traps. And, yes, there are a disconcerting number of barbed wire fences in the cities that would suggest that either Costa Rica has a large domestic market for barbed wire or that not everyone respects the rights of ownership.

But even on a short two-week jaunt it was easy to see that there was so much more to the place. I spent a few days in the very untouristed towns of Heredia and Alaquela, where English speakers were far and few, and the shady town squares, anchored by a Catholic church, offered a welcome respite from tropical sun. A solo trip to one of the nearby rainforests, up a 30-degree-grade dirt road, offered complete solitude. (An old man and young boy added some local flavor to the adventure when they tried to charge me for parking right outside the park. I most politely burned out of there as quickly as I could over the rutted road.)

The volcanoes were perhaps my favorite part. Belching a constant stream of smoke, Arenal is impressive (below), though the gaudy resorts clustering around its flanks like so many weeds were disconcerting.

Even more impressive, and with few tourists, was the crater at Irazu (below), located just north of San Jose and reached by a nice (for a change) paved road that only requires a suicide drive across the edge of the city.

My expectation had been that Costa Rica would be one of those countries to check off the life list of destinations: "been there, done that." Instead, I find myself wondering where I'll go next time. I'll just leave the guidebook at home.

Welcome to Fantasy ... Baseball

Well, I find myself on the cusp of my second season of Fantasy Baseball, a hobby that wastes prodigious amounts of time, and you don't even have a pair of mismatched socks to show for your six months of effort. I could probably have learned how to play the guitar and be able to read Mandarin based on the amount of hours I spent last year analyzing stats, following games online and reading news about some pitcher's wounded elbow. (Dammit! Ichiro has a bleeding ulcer ... how much did I pay for that guy ...?)

The funny thing: I don't really know that much about the game. Well, more accurately, that much about all the players. Sure, I know A-Rod was having relations with Madonna or Todd Helton is the reason the Rockies can't afford to win. But do I know their battering averages and strikeout to walk ratio from 2003 to 2008? The guys I play with have a sickening, encyclopedic knowledge of even the most minor characters in the great baseball drama. Stuff like how much Nick Swisher strikes out against lefthanders in ballparks built prior to 1984. I have trouble remembering if the Atlanta Braves are in the American or National league.

So why do I play?

Well, obviously it's a guy thing, this obsession with statistics and numbers. It's a confirmation that there is an established order to the universe, that even the best of us can only hit the little white ball with the red seams and get on base about one-third the time. The other two-thirds of the time you're striking out, getting thrown out or popping out. It's sort of like dating with cleats on.

I guess that's enough mixed metaphors and one-liners for one post. I gotta go: My first baseman, Kevin Youkilis, isn't feeling well ...

Third Time the Charm?

This is my third attempt at a blog in less than a year, after several years of simply refusing to be drawn into what I saw as a self-indulgent, narcissistic outpouring from the Age of New Media. But with the rapid demise of newspapers from around the world, and the apparent ascendancy of e-media of all types, such thinking is obviously hazardous to one's (career) health.

Both blogs failed, I think, because I tried to be too thematic: the first, an attempt to drive Internet traffic to my work Web site, The Antarctic Sun; the second, a memoir about my attempt to go a whole year without buying anything made in China. The former seemed too much like work, and the latter, while an interesting experiment, didn't provide much fodder since I'm not a very good consumer of new products. Of course, one must post more than twice a month for any blog to work ...

This latest attempt offers freedom for random ramblings (the "musings") and an arena for griping (the "rumblings) on just about any subject, though my proclivities tend toward the cultural and political, the environment and entertainment, entropy and epicurean delights. I've come to realize that blogs, Twitter, Facebook, et. al., aren't simply for inflating the ego -- though plenty of that sort of plastic pollution abounds (by "plastic pollution" I mean the worthless crap that circulates around the virtual and real world, like the Pacific Ocean gyre that contains a Texas-sized trash heap). Instead, many of these tools seem to represent a new way to converse in a world grown both smaller yet more fragmented.

Hopefully, I can add something useful to the conversation.