Sober Kerouac and the Tea Muses: A Vancouver Diary
I tell Peggy I’m drinking the hell out of pu’erh these days. It connects me to the earth. And Tang Dynasty sages. I imagine living as a hermit 1000 years ago in some remote cave somewhere, uninhibited by tech workers, Virtual Reality sycophants, people on the bulletproof coffee bandwagon, or any of the usual bullshit in Silicon Valley.
Grado, Italy: In the Footsteps of Biagio Marin
The Northern Adriatic: A part of the world drenched in military history, political skirmishes and ethnic composites leftover from fallen empires. Germanic, Slav and Italian influence fused into a breathless aura of ghosts. Expired novelists, poets and exiled artists seemed to stalk the landscape. I was in the right place.
Langkawi: A Hole in the Wall
With a sweeping gesture, left to right, he proclaims: “This is Langkawi. Empty roads and no one’s in charge.”
A Giger Harvest in Switzerland
When I arrived at the H.R. Giger Museum in the medieval village of Gruyères, I was immediately transformed. The place stuck out like a decapitated thumb.
Scotland's Pittormie Castle, Home of The Eden Club
The ghost of Timothy Leary dissolved my melancholy at Pittormie Castle. And I was stone sober. Pittormie Castle in Scotland was originally the home of the first Duke of Fife in 1593 before King James VI gave it to Ludovic of Lennox...
Matera, Italy: Guided by the Ghost of Giovanni Pascoli
Myricae was the Latin name of Tamerici — Tamerisk in English — everyday invasive shrubs, but ones that produced gorgeous flowers. All of which was a metaphor for Matera.
Walk With Me in Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai overflowed with low-budget travelers from all over the world. I could do my laundry here for a fraction of what it cost back home — both my literal laundry and my psychological laundry.
Haunted by Sound: Calgary Folk Fest and the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio
Inside the truck, the original custom Helios soundboard from the late 1960s, in all its dirty analog glory, was now fully restored, along with decades-old half-inch tape decks. Upon entering, one could almost smell the history.
48 Hours in Prince Rupert, British Columbia
The public portion of the airport terminal was just one large room. I didn’t even see a clock anywhere. A connected row of faded plastic orange chairs, circa Taco Bell 1975, sat in front of one window, overlooking the small runway.
Hermann Hesse Museum, Montagnola, Switzerland
The primary focal point was Hesse's typewriter, sitting atop his writing desk, calm and still, as if meditating. On this very typewriter he wrote Magister Ludi, Narcissus and Goldmund and The Journey to the East. Standing in its presence, I felt like I was looking at the Bodhi Tree in India, where the Buddha achieved enlightenment.
Whyte Ave, Edmonton
If Edgar Allan Poe skulked his way down Whyte Avenue in Edmonton, he would have stopped for women’s clothing at Nokomis.
Banff and the Ravens of Creativity
The ravens helped fortify an alchemical process, inspiring me to banish some repressed misery from my college days 17 years earlier — the last time I’d visited Banff.
Pub Crawl Vignette in Žižkov, Prague
Žižkov was an old working class neighborhood, riddled with at least a century of arts, literature and political resistance. At the time of my visit it still seemed grungy and grainy and gorgeous and murky and sentimental.
Basel: A Thrash-Punk Crossover of Swiss, German, and French Influence
At the table, I opt for pasta as the slim-suited waiter takes my order. Not because I want pasta. Not because it's the only item on the menu I can identify. But, rather, so I can claim that I ate Italian food in a French restaurant in a German train station in Switzerland.
Fusing the Opposites in Geneva
Here in Geneva, everything started to click. I could almost imagine the opposite halves of myself beginning to alchemically fuse. The counterculture piece of myself no longer felt incongruous with the business traveler part of myself.
Cooking With Tam: A Lesson in Thai Cuisine
Tam opened her cooking school in August of 2008 and named it after her daughter Amita, which means “eternity.”
Montreal Grand Prix Weekend, 2003
To get out of the rain, I slip into a bar called the Madhatter at the corner of Drummond and Maissoneuve, calling itself the “best dive around.” The far wall is "el muerte wall"—the dead wall—with photos of Jimi Hendrix, the Rat Pack, James Dean and more. Handwritten across a wooden crossbeam in big black lettering I see Morrissey lyrics: “What she asked of me at the end of the day, Caligula would have blushed.”
An Evening at Jules et Jim
I was drinking on a Saturday night, in a Québec City bar called Jules et Jim. Dark, smoky and its subterranean walls adorned with old movie photos befitting a place named after the classic François Truffaut film...
Roppongi Vignette, 1999
As we walked, he spilled the lowdown on scams perpetrated by some of the seedier karaoke joints. Once midnight hits, he told us, the prices go up and you never know what you’ll get charged.