Jonathan, Hardly Blogging

(unretouched photo showing actual lattitude orientation)

Dear Friends,

Sorry to leave you wandering blindly in the dark, troubled by noxious odors and frightened by faint sounds of- what are those, crying babies? Overblown clarinets?). Three things have happened that have cut deeply into my bloggin' time:

1) I got better, and have been surfing everyday.
2) I've begun working- I clean the large communal kitchen... at six am.
3) My camera broke.

The first two developments sap my energy and wit; my will to blog is mashed, blunted. The third has hamstrung the fleet appeal of sharing images and text together; the very heart and soul of blogging, if you ask me. It's frustrating and I don't feel inspired to simply yak at you.

So until I buy a new camera, Pretty Vacation will be on vacation. If you want to read prose-only entries, just let me know. I'd just die without comments (and *cowboys*, that's an in-joke for Gregory, hi pal!), so feel free to do so.


By the way, I'm having a good time and it's been very pretty here.

Where am I?

Here. The hostel consists of period railroad cars that have been dragged up onto a hillside overlooking the Tasman sea, about six kilometers south of the tiny town- village I suppose- of Raglan. Here is a view of the “carriage house”(the common room and largest kitchen), with Mt Karaoi in the background. Once again, it’s a beautiful day, and everybody is off surfing (everybody but me. I’m still fusing).



Pictured above is the secondary kitchen- the “dining car” The other kitchen is in the “carriage house” I prefer this one, which is smaller and frequently quieter. The carriage house is “party central”. No thanks.



Here’s the sliding hatch door of my room in “The Lady Eleanor”- the employee lodging. A grand name for the location of countless tawdry episodes, no doubt. Sitting on the step to the compartment, I feel like I’m in a Dorothea Lange photograph.



And this is as much of my living space that I was able to fit in a frame. It’s tiny, and smells musty. I bought some “white sage” incense from the local video store/internet café/incense store, and lit one stick before I decided it made it smell worse. Home for the next seven months?

This is a short entry, just to share the pictures. Diane asked me to take a camera video of the nurse as she removes my stitches. I don’t think I can upload video, but I’ll see what I can do, Diane. By the way, clicking on these pictures blows them up to a huge size on your screen, which Janet said worked to great effect on the “gaping wound” photo.

Hope all are well. Miss you.

Dreams of the Antibiotic Fiend

Hello Whomever,

The last few days I’ve been feeling the effects of the antibiotics I was given when I cut my leg- the infection appears to be gone, but I’ve been tired and woozy, feeling like I had the ‘flu. Too tired even to blog. Screw blogging. Just wanted to lie in my little train room, and read the Tom Clancy novel I bought at the charity shop.

Actually, the Tom Clancy book was so aggressively awful, I decided I had to go find a decent used bookstore. That would be in Hamilton, the nearest city to Raglan, about an hour away by bus. Got there, found a bookstore, did a few more errands, and really started to feel rotten. Sorry, no pictures of Hamilton. I wasn’t in the mood.

That was yesterday. Today I woke up to more of the same feeling- bleah. Slept most of the day, just waking up long enough to take more of the pills that were both healing and ailing me, and eat a little. It was very warm, and quiet. Eventually I woke up, and realized why no one was around- the hot, still weather was perfect for surfing. Everyone was at the beach.

Eventually woke up (this is kind of a “gears and cogs story”, sorry!), and decided to hitchhike to town to get food. The view from the top of the driveway shows both the harbor and the Tasman Sea. Can you tell from the photo how warm it is? Also, please try to imagine the rolling buzz of cicadas.



Here’s the view from the turn out just up the road from the place where I’m staying (you can see the switchbacks of the driveway). This is what I see when I’m hitchhiking.



If I turn 30 degrees to my right, I see this:



That’s the first of the three surf spots that make Raglan famous- Manu bay. The waves are small, but the conditions are perfect. No wind, water about 75 degrees. After Friday, when I get my stitches out, I promise you I won’t be standing here taking photos when it’s like this.

Hitchhiker Chronicles: Ride back was nothing interesting, but the ride to town was exciting- the folks that picked me up were a Swedish couple in their sixties, freshly arrived in a rental car. The ride was exciting because they didn’t pull over when they picked me up- they stopped right in the middle of road. For some reason, the fellow, the driver, got out and helped to opened the door for me- unnecessarily and very, very slowly. I kept waiting to get rear-ended.

When I arrived in town, I discovered it was in the midst of an electrical blackout, and had been for hours. The market was open. People shopped and workers stocked shelves in the dim half-light like nothing was wrong. There wasn’t the usual excited tension I associate with blackouts. It was slightly surreal. Here’s two-thirds of downtown Raglan- actually, this is looking back from my hitchhike spot as I try to leave town; it’s what I see when I wait for a ride out.



Halfway home I got dropped off at the local surfboard maker’s shop. He fixed my broken fin. His name is Ray, and he allowed a photo of the view from one of his workspaces. I’ve never seen such a picturesque surfboard factory.



Well, my board is fixed, I had some yogurt, fruit and antibiotic, and it’s still hot, windless and daylight at seven pm. I’d hoped that writing this would lift me out of this muzzy thickheaded antibiotic haze, but apparently not. Hope all of you are well.

Hold Your Nose and Say "Pardon?"

Hello Non-Vacationers,

I’ve been having a lot (or “heaps” as they say here) of literal down time, as I follow the doctor’s orders to keep my leg elevated. Well, I suppose, theoretically I could continue to sightsee and do errands, if I possessed extraordinary agility and could hold my leg far above my head while hopping on one foot en pointe, but sadly, that is but a wistful dream... But I like to think every gaping wound has a silver lining, and in this case it’s a fine time to catch up on Pretty Vacation.

Where to start? Now that I’ve (somewhat) figured out how to upload photos (pick a smaller size and retry over and over), and can show you the sights, I’d love to figure out how to share the sounds I’m hearing- rain squalls hammering on the roof of the railroad car at night…the nagging continual “chk-chk” of reggae music from the festival over the hills/the coach house stereo/passing car radios/the spheres (New Zealand is absolutely mad about reggae)…the pulsing narcotic buzz of cicadas (“the sound of summer”), and, so difficult to describe- the sound of a New Zealand accent.

I’m still trying to nail down just what it is. Like U.S. and British accents, it has regional variations-perhaps this accounts for why I’ve never heard “Opoutere” pronounced the same way twice (though every time I’ve said it to a New Zealander they’ve guffawed and “corrected” me to their particular way). However, with time, I’ve been able to note several consistencies of pronunciation. “I”s can become “e”s and vice-verse: “Ever” becomes “ihvah”, with a soft “i” (as “with”). “Pen” sounds like “pin”, or more accurately “peen” “Weather” is “witheir”, or sometimes "withuh", and so on. You'll also note a kind of drawl in the previous examples (often punctuated by a questioning “Ay?” at the end of a sentence, though this trait seems to be shared by Australians and Canadians as well). There’s also a certain nasality: "Myarrrrcus! C’yumyeere!" (Marcus! Come here!" ) that eludes mimicry and transcription, as well as a lilting softness- occasionally and unpredictably combined. I sometimes hear “Pardon?” when I speak too quickly, and my own accent becomes unintelligible to a New Zealander, which comes out- how can I render this- “Pahrd'n?” O.K. Jonathan, that’s not quite it, but oh! how much more charming than the doltish American ascending “Whuuuut?”

At this time I’d like to inaugurate a blog-within-a-blog: The Hitchhiker Chronicles. In this friendly country, hitchhiking is still practiced and as I have no car, I do it several time a day. Today was unremarkable- Out: a Maori family of three with his n' hers fluorescent street construction worker vests slung over their car seats…very friendly and in good humor- they explained that they’d just sold their house in town that they’d bought twenty years ago- with Raglan’s trendiness and the rise in home prices- well, nuf said. Back: an unremarkable new age hippy couple who didn’t talk much. Utilitarian today, but their kindness got me to the doctor and back.

But from time to time, the rides are much more interesting, and telling too- and when they are, I’ll add to the Hitchhiker Chronicles.

Miss you all.

Gaping Wound! Down to the Bone!!

Hullo friends,

Sorry for the problem uploading photos. I'm connected via a wireless connection at the office of this hostel, and I reckon (as they say here) the signal is as laid-back as Raglan is in general. Speed up, goddamit! I'm from 'Frisco.

But I vow to you, with all my heart, that I will publish a photo of my (formerly, it's been stitched) gaping leg wound.

**UPDATE** Managed to slip in a small photo. Enjoy.

On my first day surfing, in beautiful, perfect waves, ocean warm as bathwater, a full-arching rainbow, fer chrisssakes, I wiped out, and was struck by one of my fins. The force was enough to bash the fin clean off the board, and open a wound (through sheer force- my wetsuit was uncut!) all the way down to the BONE, that's B*O*N*E, right about where the shin meets the calf muscle, or shank in butcher's terms. My wetsuit, which had been utterly superfluous, became useful as a compress for the copious amounts of blood that wanted to gush, and later did.

I was lucky that I recieved a ride back to the hostel (about 2k away), and again, when a vacationing nurse had the supplies and skill to dress the wound. The next day, I hopped a ride to Hamilton, and got the entire thing sewn up and antibiotics for about sixty dollars N.Z. What would it have cost in the US? The doctor descibed the wound, in technical terms, as "gaping". Horrible, I know, but at least it wasn't "sucking", as in "sucking chest wound". Actually, I don't know what a "sucking" wound is, but it sounds awful, and I don't want to know.

So... I have to stay out of the water for ten days. Lots of time to make music, look into the volunteering I want to do in Raglan, and write to you in this blog... and figure out a faster way to do photos.

"Bone" appetit!

Process of Stratification (Now! With Photos!)

Hello Everybody,

First off, thanks for sharing comments on the last entry. I’ve disabled the silly google account thingy, so you can now leave comments as an “anonymous” person (though I hope you sign your name somewhere), and I sincerely hope you do.
Secondly, sorry for letting this blog rot on the shelf like a forgotten bun. I’ve been busy- picking up things like a NZ voltage adaptor, for instance, for powering my mac. Forgot my Thom's toothpaste too, and discovered an apparent antipathy from New Zealand's makers of "natural" toothpaste toward fluoride.

Just to run it down: the flight was fine. About 11 hours. Didn’t sleep, really… just sort of… abided. Too excited! Watched The Simpsons movie. Landed pre-dawn. Suffered the mild indignity of having to have my tent inspected by a pest control agency. Took a shuttle to the city, and got dropped off at The Brown Kiwi Backpackers in the Ponsonby district of Auckland, which is my favorite part of town. Ponsonby is a combination of what would be separate ghettos in S.F.- gay, Asian and “hipster”(a la The Haight). I’m sorry to say I didn’t take the time to take any photos of the Elizabethan business architecture this time around- at this point it’s too familiar to remember to document- the only picture I took was of the fire escape plan in my room, which I thought expressed a certain Kiwi practicality -note alternate escape route suggestion:



One full day of errands in Auckland was plenty. The air was soft and warm, a gentle breeze made me yearn to get out into the beautiful countryside. I rented a car, took a deep breath, pulled out into traffic (stay on the left!), got on the motorway onramp, and off I went- south on route 1- toward the east coast and the city of Tauranga, where Dean and Anj, my dear friends, lived. My first glimpse of the beach was this place- Waihi. This was what I came here for.



It was wonderful to see the Ellery’s again. All of them (including Asher and Zaphia, their children) are artists, and their house is a mad gallery of original art, with a heavy emphasis on the work of Anj, who is a professional, and truly gifted. I was too busy reveling in the heady brilliance of this family to take pictures of their pictures, but promise I will when I see them again, and share them with you all.

I did get a picture of their new kitten, Pepper. Here she is feeding, with Anj’s legs in frame on request, for scale.



After that brief visit (see you in March for the Jazz Festival!), I drove across the island from the east coast to the west coast (about two hours), to Raglan, where I'm writing this now. I'm planning to stay here for a while... months... so more on Raglan soon. It's a small town, full of eccentrics, and I hope to relay some of the stories I've been hearing about the people here.

Thanks for the calls and comments. It really feels good to stay in touch, and makes the eight thousand miles feel insignificant.

Hope all of you are doing well.

11:40...

Hi!

It's 11:40 pm on Sunday night. I just got back from the last The Five Found Outers get-together for a while. This photo was from our show at the Li Po Lounge a few weeks ago. Tonight we (Jon Arnold, Diane Wallis and myself) recorded a few stray songs in our rehearsal space (goodbye Fern Alley!), which the other Found Outers will be obliged to finish in my absence. What great people!! How I'll miss them.

This post is just to get in the swim of "blogging" (thanks Diane for helping me set it up). With it, I'll be able to keep in touch, and show you photos of what I'm experiencing. Tomorrow: flying away. Day after that: New Zealand...

Goodbye, San Francisco!