Maybe you’ve been up in the remote Rockies where the air straight overhead is a deep ocean blue, and the thin extremity veins of the roads peter out at rock formations that point roundly at the mountains as if toRead more…
One of the Cities of Gold is in Asia
A river winds through it, wide, slow waters churned by constant traffic. > The water is downhill and someone shook the city so that all the gilt glass blocks of the buildings tumbled to its edge. And originally I wasRead more…
How many boroughs in London
Staying in central London sounds like a fab idea. One short walk to the venue where we are offering the training. All the fab delights of modern london. A couple miles to old London (look, kids, Big Ben, Houses ofRead more…
A Race
The rumpled folds of the middle of Italy. An undisclosed hour in the night. The thick shutters are locked back against the villa. The big-paned windows, slightly wavy with their slow, liquid sink through time, invite the racing wind intoRead more…
A treatise on tight pants and headrests
Rick Steve is a real person, apparently, and he writes guidebooks. He rocks. He doesn’t send you to dives, like LP does sometimes. He urges you to be a reasonable traveler, and not to be quite as American as youRead more…
Breaking international law… by accident, officer?
I appreciate the way all trips abroad are Pilgrimage. We rise long before dawn. We pack what is precious. We go via unpredictable means to strange places where even the smells are familiar but strange. Nihil sub sole novum. There’sRead more…
Why Mina Birds whistle
The Suan Doi Guest House in Chiang Mai is a tropical paradise inside the urban riot of Thailand’s second city. Its spirit houses – outside and inside the property – are grand affairs befitting the jungle courtyard inside. Enormous urnsRead more…
On the Universality of Morning Doves
They’re here. Every morning, hidden away in the sparse jungle remnants around the condos. “hoohoo hoo”, they seem to be asking, and answering, “roo rooroo”. They’re not the smartest creatures, honestly. We had them in Ojai, and for some reasonRead more…
Inappropriate Foot
Every bodywork experience exists on a continuum somewhere between: 0 – Radioactive No-No Square (your bathing suit zones and nearby regions are strictly quarantined) …and… 10 – Happy Ending (rarely actually happy for anyone) Isaac Newton’s 3rd Law of MotionRead more…
Indian at the World Fair
It was common practice at the World Fair each year in England to bring natives – often whole family groups – from around the empire to live their daily lives, to exhibit themselves, for the edification and education of theRead more…