brothers & sisters, introducing... ben's lenz

"I had one problem in this trip, because one small fuck rock entered in my ice. But now im ok!"

2012-02-01T15:15:00.000+05:30

it's true. camping between these two volcanoes, mt. ruapehu on the left and mt. nguruhoe on the right, brother pedro had caught some dust, a little micro-rock in his eye. impossible to fish out, eye drops and h2o, stuck between lids, it reminded me of carved rocks in siem riep and yes, even a beautiful union beside the hudson, you three h n h bagels, from nz to 380 then beantown come i soon...

so beneath summertime snow and on the foothills of ruapehu, after midnight tent to porch snooze pursuits in gusty gales, under satellites and stars, we walked forro, two by two is 22, we finally reached whakapapa village (Fah-kah-pa-pa, heard).

thumbs up siempre, from cars to cola, and a colombian who helped us hitch it to the corona. health care and hospitals gratis, we returned to the waikato with a stop at the royale with paneer and lived, grateful that it was only one small fuck rock.

it could've been worse.

love and health to all...

almost there...

2012-01-30T15:14:00.004+05:30

that's the thing about new zealand, everything is mad close. and in fact, it seems like my postings haven't gotten there yet, as i never finished the journey up north... nevertheless, we'll get back to that northland pilgrimage at some juncture on the path...

...this weekend, these three phd students from the university of waikato (know them?) and one english student made the journey to tongariro national park, new zealand's first national park. more than eleven years ago with a posse of carleton college students, i had completed this epic one day 19 kilometre crossing, through a wide magnificent saddle situated between two active volcanoes. although hamilton is three hours from the park, the "are we there yet" was wondered and mumbled as we initially couldn't seem to find the free d.o.c. campground where fires are permitted...

...eventually mon frere from bordeaux, a skilled navigator, found the road less travelled and my two european colleagues led the way for pedro and i...

...the drive was worth it and he hike even more so, though mimicking pirates and structural problems would mar our detour... more on that later... for now, some scenes to tongariro and making our way together to emerald lakes and past mt. ngauruhoe... ...some fotos from the future to the past...

love and health to all...

spirits bay...

2012-01-23T13:57:00.002+05:30

a few days after christmas, pedro from sao paulo state and i stood 15 or so kilometres from spirits bay with our thumbs out, in the hopes of hitching a ride. we ate a couple bananas and we had sipped a touch of whiskey before throwing our packs on. it was probably two in the afternoon. it didn't take long and soon the both us were squeezed next to a young woman who was pregnant and her partner and her partner's friend who spoke with the thickest kiwi tongue i've ever heard. i could barely understand a word out his mouth and through it all, i could only imagine pedro must've been daydreaming in Portuguese.

we made it to spirits bay on a windy late afternoon. the campground was massive, though empty, the weather forecast must have scared folks. we set up our tent in the difficult wind and then headed down to the beach, el pacifico. we hopped in the ocean and soon two sting rays appeared right next to us.

a little later, we climbed a mountain and met a nice young lad, johannes, from france. the three of us climbed a saddle of green, high above spirits bay. the wind was whipping, the sea was crashing, the energy was vibrant.

johannes decided to accompany us for our first day hiking and tentless, he slept under his fly in a gazebo that was on the trail. we slept in the gazebo too, though in a tent. there was a tropical depression off the coast of queensland and it was seriously representing on our way to cape reinga... johannes, hitchhiking and woofing through new zealand, stopped by hamilton this week to chill for a couple days at pedro's house. it was nice to see him and catch up.

it's getting late here in n.z. and i'm listening to one of the dopest albums i had known about for years but never knew what it was - novos baianos, "acabou chorare"

songs on this album remind me of the sweetest of times, in the vista with mis hermanos, roaming long island shores, clambaking, and living...

those were the days...

love and health to all...

who'd a thought...

2012-01-18T13:57:00.000+05:30

...that new zealand's largest sculpture park is a twenty minute drive from where i live.

true it is and this past saturday, two of my buddies from the university of waikato, raphael, mon frere from la ville de bordeaux and luke, born and raised near the meeting of the pacific and the indian oceans, hopped in the smooth riding corona and headed out to the sculpture park at waitakaruru arboretum for an afternoon of structure pondering.

we didn't know what to expect and we were surprised at how much fun we had in our two hours or so at the sculpture park, i have to say, it's mad cool and well worth a visit.

above are some highlights of our journey and at the bottom is a snap of some old nails on a rock that seemed to be the most beautiful unnoticed sculpture in the whole place...

love and health to all...

scenarios.

2012-01-12T13:44:00.002+05:30

there are those times in life when you find yourself somewhere, perhaps confronted with a scenario that was once a moment but is now long gone where you wonder, damns, what went down? really what is seen is a scene, a fossil of a minute in time when, well, the people that were present at that time must have thought the same thing - damns, what should we do?

this was one of those fossils. what scenario could've possibly allowed this campervan to have been swallowed by the tides and time...

a question that will only be pondered and probably never answered, but a lesson for certain, visible and as clear as day...

miti miti beach, northland, new zealand, december 2011.

love and health to all...

stone holiday dinners & grains of sand along the tasman sea.

2012-01-08T02:31:00.001+05:30

scenes from the small enclave of miti miti before after and during the christmas time. to be honest, it didn't feel much like christmas or the december holidays at all for that matter. the hope for a white christmas is a dream i've had since i was a little one and most likely will always have...but this small maori community took us in and even invited us to their home on christmas day for a traditional hangi, which as my flatmate said last night while we were watching gordon ramsey travel to nagaland on the telly (food was on our mind), it doesn't get any more new zealand than that...pedro getting some christmas eve dinner ready and the two of us exploring the long praias round miti miti...love and health to all...

the beach at miti miti.

2012-01-06T04:00:00.003+05:30

miti miti early morning on christmas day.

love and health to all...

driving up northland...

2012-01-05T02:54:00.003+05:30

the day before christmas, pedro and i packed the '89 corona up with mad camping equipment, heaps of water, dried fruits and the like (little did we know that the dried fruits would stay drier than we would during our 9 days camping under the stars and the long white clouds of this fine land). we were on our way north, to hike the cape reinga coastal walkway, a 3-5 day horseshoe trek around the northern tip of new zealand, from the pacific to the tasman...

the corona was fine and strong and so were we, heading north and out of the waikato, past auckland, soon to be entering the northland region of new zealand. the scenery from the car was stunning and the drive was a perfect preface of the natural beauty yet to come.

by proper christmas eve, by the time the sun had set, 5-6 hours on the road, we had crossed hokianga harbour and were on our way to the small maori community of miti miti

scenes from our road trip north - new zealand pride strong and true and always all black, hokianga harbour repping stunningly after coming round the bend in a northland road, scenes in omapere while waiting an hour for the ferry across the harbour...

love and health to all...

sea-land...

2011-12-23T04:27:00.003+05:30

...haven't seen the sea much since arriving here in aotearoa, though last weekend i rolled out to the beach/surf town of raglan, about 40 minutes from hamilton...

it was my first sighting of the tasman sea and soon after, i went for a refreshing dip...

tomorrow i'm off to northland with my man pedro from sao paulo state, brasil. we're planning on rocking the cape reinga coastal walkway, where most certainly we'll be peeping the seas, from pacific to the tasman in fact...

listening the low end theory and prepping for some hiking, "so push it along, trails we blaze..." goes jazz (we got the...)"

love and health to all as 2011 and blends into 2012...

p.o. boxes...

2011-12-22T02:10:00.002+05:30

...in new zealand.

a mailbox round the corner from where i live.

hamilton, new zealand. december 2011.

love and health to all...

there's a pot of gold...

2011-12-20T16:26:00.001+05:30

after fish & chips and on my way home.

old farm road. hamilton, new zealand.

december 20, 2011.

love and health to all...

wheels...

2011-12-19T13:54:00.003+05:30

nah d, not that wheels, though i do got a lot of love for y'all...

today, i got my first true ride. it took til a touch under thirty, but it's now officially registered via the new zealand transport agency. a 1989 toyota corona saloon with a sticker from the red iguana in salt lake city adorning the back. a big thank you to both shraddha and alison for that connection, the only hint a gringo is manning these wheels...

"today was a good day," sang ice cube way back when... and this day felt like that. i started the morning off at the hamilton central police station, where i dropped off a wallet that my boy joshua and i found over in the town of raglan on sunday. from there i linked up with my phd supervisor at one of the crisp cafes in hamilton that serves loves cafe. we sipped on cappuccinos and flat whites.

but most importantly we got a lot of work done, connected fully and finally, i'm beginning to visualize a creative and exciting path forward that is inspiring and will make the next three years of phd-ing incredibly fun, interesting and challenging... much much more to follow in regards to all that...

so i drove the ride home to old farm road. ran inside and slapped a red iguana sticker on the tail and then gave a gentle woot woot outside doctor j's tin shed to see if he was awake and would take a photo of me and my ride. he was and obliged...

this is me and my corona. and that's dr. j mid tire tread inspection...

love and health to all...

sup doc...

2011-12-18T06:01:00.002+05:30

it feels like its been raining here in the waikato region for more than a week straight and truth be told, i think it has been. mist and rain and spitting rain and drizzling and downpours have been permeating everything around, getting in between bones, manufacturing shivers and chills, reinforcing an omnipresent wet. i hope it stops soon.

on cycle, with chappals and boots too, i've made it to my office off and on for the past 2.5 weeks since i arrived here. there is a sign on the door of my office - "French Tutor." And though I am not the french tutor, i'm there anyway and soon there will be a french tutor too, an english tutor as well...

so this is my office on a rainy day. it's the corridor and hallway too and though you can't see it, on a bright and sunny day there is a view of a small mountain so many kilometres away, hinting at what lies beyond, tasmanian seas, farms set in fertile and green volcanic lands and used cars galore...

love and health to all...

yo ump, what's the call?

2011-12-15T15:57:00.001+05:30

upper west baseball memories going down in the bx...

gui and me. high school daze...

love and health to all...

hare krishnas in the southern hemisphere...

2011-12-14T06:47:00.002+05:30

auckland, nz last week.

filming some hare krishnas singing and dancing on queen street downtown auckland, a little before i scurried to catch my bus back to hamilton...

love and health to all...

a conference at the marae...

2011-12-10T07:04:00.004+05:30

this week i spent three days in auckland. the largest city in new zealand with a population of about 1.5 million, i had been in auckland 11 years before on the carleton college studio art in the south pacific seminar and returning to auckland was a reminder that just 90 minutes north of the university of waikato is a pulsating, vibrant, polynesian city, full of diverse people and creativity, not to mention an abundance of hills.

i was in auckland to attend the expanding documentary conference, where i presented a paper and a story on a panel that included 2 phd students, one from australia and one from the states.

it was my 2nd "academic" conference and i had attended a conference in new york city this summer that had been intense and not as nurturing and supportive as i had initially hoped, though in the end the nyc conference turned out to be great as well!

the auckland university of technology (AUT) hosted the conference and it took place on the marae of AUT. new zealand has some crazy progressive indigenous rights that i'm getting reaquainted with and mos def, this place still has got a long way to go, but it puts the rest of the world to shame. and i think shame would be a good word for it, as colonialisation has usurped the importance of oral cultures and radically altered the way we interact with our world. alas, AUT is built on maori land and an elemental and sacred space on the campus is the marae, a communal maori space. the marae is the building you see but also the green space outside, not pictured, and some surrounding areas.

shoes were taken off every time we all entered the marae and the conference itself began with a welcoming ceremony from a few maori elders including one man who went on about trip he took to new york city and how much he loved it there. i was beaming with pride on the low, until he forgot and asked, "what's that black area?" and i chirped from the side, "Harlem!"

all the carvings in the marae are done by hand and brothers and sisters, many a marae are found all over these two blessed islands dotted with volcanoes in the middle of the pacific ocean...

i linked up with some good peeps, documentary creators and makers and even a sister from south africa who is about to launch a hot method of media making for township documenteurs globally who will be checking out the internet for the first time via their mobile phones, yes i, it be true, our world expands far and wide to forests and fog, and with a camera and video "right in the pocket" as my man felipe says, changing the way we meet peeps and potentially flipping up third world cinema into it's next revolution. information and power is in the hands of the people, let us remember this siempre!

more next level academic and street corner poetics and purpose (sometimes rambling and other times not, to come from Aotearoa and beyond today, tomorrow and par so...

love and health to all...

dairy lands, regional city living & showering under long white clouds...

2011-12-05T09:42:00.003+05:30

this is my street. i live right down that driveway and the home on old farm road where i live is tucked in off the street which is nice. though time and again i do love to sit on a stoop and watch the world go by...

these are the views from across the street. looking left, then looking right. rural regional new zealand city lands. hamilton, new zealand, the 4th largest city on this country of two big islands.

when asked about hamilton, people tend to love that it's near much. one coast, the tasman sea to the west, 40 minutes away. and the pacific ocean, about 90 minutes east. tea estates and farms with avocados and macadamia nuts are around this town. hamilton't farmer's market is full of yummy goodness, strawberries and blueberries galore, rocket (also known as arugula), fish and lamb of course...

hamilton is near everything and soon i hope to find out what it's near besides green fields of dairy cows, which i love too...

and the shower, yes this is the outdoor shower i tend to bathe in early morning. washing under blue skies and white marsh-mellow clouds. after all, this is the land of the long white cloud...

love and health to all..

rolling while healing...

2011-12-03T05:29:00.002+05:30

back in the day my family used to drive a vista all around. the car, which we still own but is on its last days, was a ride that defied generations, technology and even lives. often people get attached to a ride, but the vista is and shall i say, was special.

in my travels as a young lad, i saw the vista throughout the world. and for me, the sightings of the vista brought a smile to my face, the names bestowed worldwide offered an added intrigue to the car. in vietnam there it was in blue, called the chariot. here in new zealand, the first time i visited to study in early 2001, i saw a white vista rumbling up a hill in auckland, except it was the space wagon! what a name for a car i remember thinking...

in this surreal shortened week, due to time zones and new hemispheres, it's summer! didn't you know... i bought a bicycle. my roommate (well, sort of), joshua, a phd student at waikato from florida, who lives in a small tin shed in the garden of my crib, offered to drive to a used cycle shoppe here in hamilton, nz. it took some time to test ride a few bikes, different styles and in the end i picked the one that seemed right. it was made in new zealand back in the day which made it even better.

sadly, i'd guess there are more car names on this planet than bicycle names. and i wonder, do you think there are more bicycles or cars on this globe? anyway, i've seen some interesting cycle names, like the road king, representing out of t.o. but joshua, before leaving the store smiled at me and said, "dude, healing! that's a beautiful name for a bike!"

and truth it is. i'd like to think that when i'm rolling i'm healing and it feels that way. bikes are like that for me, any kind for that matter.

alas, i live in a small regional city called hamilton new zealand. it is, if i may say, in the middle of nowhere. 1st and foremost the country and secondly, the city. new zealand is a small country and to access the natural beauty, the mountains and rivers and oceans, requires exploration and preferably a car too. it's day 4 since i arrived on wednesday and this bike makes everything seem better and closer.

so there you have it. writing this blog post, i've been sipping on my first cup of chai. which makes me happy too, like a bicycle. new zealand is an interesting country. and along with somalians, cambodians, folks from thailand and taiwan, indians and fijian indians, pakistanis and omanis, not to mention americans and kiwis, this town and country, less than a week in, though quiet and laid back like no other, seems to have a lot to offer. only time will tell...

this is the used bicycle shoppe which is right next to a new indian sweet shoppe. and of course, a close up of healing.

love and health to all...

waikato living...

2011-12-02T04:00:00.003+05:30

the university of waikato is in the small city of hamilton, new zealand smack dab in the middle of the waikato region of the north island of new zealand, an hours and a half or so drive from auckland (an urban of a million and a half and the largest polynesian city on the world), over the bombay hills, the lush green turns into mad dairy farms. fonterra, the largest dairy company in the world is based in hamilton. goodness, a lot of largesteses for such a small spot.

on some crazy steez, i live here now. yup, truth indeed, i'm a phd student now. word. and words and imagery, i'll be here getting my research on, on the daily, monthly, yearly. three years of funding and work i gots going and going i'll be doing...

so i'm sitting in my new office. the first office of my life. the door says french tutor, but he's long gone. i got a view of mountains in the distance and these lands are lush. greener than green, but not ireland. different and at the bottom of the globe or the middle of the globe, depending on how brothers and sisters situate themselves. new zealand, the last land mass inhabited by humans. i believe...

i got here two days ago and getting my bearings i saw in the distance mad big buildings and i thought it was the city centre but alas, it was actually the university which sits atop a big hill and has big ole and new buildings...

so here are a few snaps from my first day here. making my way up to the university to meet my supervisor, this is my walk and now cycle ride (more on that soon) to this wananga institution...

so check in now and again for news on this project and journeys - new zealand, australia, asia and beyond...

love and health to all...

ny to nz...

2011-11-28T04:54:00.000+05:30

love and health to all...

stopovers.

2011-11-23T00:36:00.002+05:30

my brother sam once had a stopover on his way to africa in an airport in the country of qatar.

i'm sure it was a stopover like many are. landing in an obscure country, in a time zone where dawn could be dusk and night could be morning or morning night. stepping off a plane without fresh air into an airport without fresh air too. no familiar faces, no familiar phone codes, nothing really familiar, besides the planes and the stores perhaps and maybe a day old new york times for sale.

on recalling his stopover in qatar, sam mentioned that he had a conversation with a local gentleman over there, who was waiting for a flight with his family. they discussed beards and beard lengths as final boarding calls were called and plane doors closed.

sam also bought this shirt at the airport, which is still in our house. sometimes, though not often, i wear it and look at pictures of sam in botswana, where he wore it too.

this photograph was taken by april johnson a few years back.

me wearing sam's shirt from qatar.

love and health to all...

beautiful utah clouds...

2011-11-11T03:27:00.002+05:30

...on a hill with shraddha in utah this august...

love and health to all...

in the shadow of freedom tower.

2011-11-07T02:32:00.002+05:30

a few weeks back i was down in wall street and stopped by zuccotti park to see what's up with those folks holding it down over at occupy wall street.

the scene was festive and for me, inspiring. it was almost like a return to a time when the town square was the epicentre of dialogue and discussion and the day i visited there were people or all backgrounds discussing the past, present and future of our world.

so as autumn wanes and the nights get colder, the question remains, what will happen to this movement? certainly this country is in need of a revolution of some sort. we are still in two wars. health care is abominable and our strong values, many of them, eroded long ago.

perhaps what i found most interesting about occupy wall street is that it is much closer to the slowly filling footprint of the twin towers, than it is to wall street. freedom tower is right there and the lines for the 9/11 memorial are right around the corner...

so the question is i guess, not what could we have done differently, but what can we do now to make things right and alter the course of history for the better...

perhaps cliché, but peace not war, love and not hate is a good start...

so one month after these photos were taken, they've been processed and here they are.

a month ago, october sometime in zuccotti park.

love and health to all...

was...

2011-10-31T21:55:00.002+05:30

...up in the month of october but now down.

love and health to all...

have you seen this man?

2011-10-28T01:17:00.003+05:30

summer may be gone but the joy of getting close to finishing an epic story is right on the face of this young poppa al...

109th street, nyc, august 2011.

love and health to all & al...

canoe-ing the cedar river flow...

2011-10-15T00:19:00.002+05:30

...a few nights in the woods with e-doubles.

october 2011.

love and health to all...

willy & sammy.

2011-10-14T06:46:00.001+05:30

back in the day.

pure love. family style.

love and health to all...

to the woods with an old friend...

2011-10-10T08:51:00.002+05:30

...though not one of these guys.

a doctor, a dreadlock rasta from the 00's who may be a doctor one day, sammy holding it down from the shores of kerala to the sands of new zealand, an mc and kink mad hungry, munching over at the old bussola...

love and health to all...

young pristos, little kink and a lenzos in the middle.

2011-10-06T22:22:00.001+05:30

trying to keep my dusting spontaneous and up to date, past alive, future present, now now.

steve, sam and sam, keeping generations alive.

love and health to all...

where do these roads lead us?

2011-10-03T07:54:00.003+05:30

it was a blessed weekend of family.

we're all in this life together. traversing paths both paved and dusty, with shoes, sandals, barefoot and crawling...

molokai, hawaii.

photograph by sam lenzner.

love and health to all...

eight hours...

2011-09-30T10:24:00.001+05:30

...of cleaning what should have been cleaned moons ago...

...though some things just take time...

back in the day, ben, sam & david.

love and health to all...

neverending...

2011-09-23T05:43:00.001+05:30

love and health to all...

iladelphia in nola...

2011-09-19T08:10:00.002+05:30

back to those still squares and digging in the late night crates and made my way back to nola...

seems like cats be checking out nola memories too

the lower ninth ward of new orleans, louisiana. spring 2009.

love and health to all...

believe me, there was snow in july...

2011-09-17T00:33:00.002+05:30

you take one u-haul.

you fill it with mad clothes and books and hard drives and bicycles and all types of goodies that accumulated in a crib over two years.

you put an american in the driver's seat and a canadian who decided last minute to accompany that gringo to the good ole u.s and a.

then you drive to the border, get that truck x-rayed and continue driving 8 hours to the city of new york.

then one day, you get on two bikes and cycle from 110th street to the beach at fort tilden.

and along the way, in the middle of a hot-as nyc summer afternoon, the canadian sees a pile of snow, and frolicks on the frozen water as if its a nice maple leaf mirage of home right there in brooklyn, ny...

this is daniel and i exploring the big apple, right outside of floyd bennett field...

love and health to all...

night at arches.

2011-09-13T18:20:00.003+05:30

it was a beautiful evening.

shraddha and i had cooked a lovely meal of either indian food and parboiled rice, both in bags. or annie's mac and cheese. or another possibility now escaping my early morning mentals that was easy to cook on a butane powered camping stove.

we had entered arches national park and it appeared that the campground had run out of firewood for sale. yet when the campground hosts came by our site a little while later to say what up and we mentioned to them that we were in hot pursuit of dry firewood, the hosts departed only to return some time later with some firewood they scrounged up, old, simple fence posts.

surrounded by a never-ending sky of infinite stars, red rocks creating amphitheatres everywhere and two families' of toasted german tourists unaware that they happened to be toasting with a wall of rock behind them, we started a fire and sipped some simple digestif purchased at one of the few and far removed from the town centre liquor stores in utah to soothe the boxed eats in our tummies.

we started a fire with the fence posts.

"damns! i wish i had a camera that can rock a long exposure of this fire..." i remarked, knowing that navigating the menus of my ancient point and shoot would be a epic journey in patience, small thumbs and ruinous to my pupils, now wide and open to the sky and the stars, to the cool night breeze, yet heavy from a day of desert sun.

"wait! i do have a camera that can rock long exposures!" i suddenly realized. and with that, i got my trusty rollei, waddled over to the germans like a penguin at the edge of an iceberg, made some comment about the light pollution of their r.v. trifing my night photography, giggled about my attempt to be a good campsite neighbour with shraddha, placed my rollei at the end of the picnic table at our campsite and snapped.

this is good living, outside in the world, under the stars at arches national park.

august 2011.

love and health to all...

the twisting and turning and meandering and flowing...

2011-09-12T19:07:00.001+05:30

...colorado river and canyonlands national park.

from dead horse point state park, utah.

august 2011.

love and health to all...

from São Paulo to Williamsburg - fred forest & sociological art.

2011-09-09T20:11:00.002+05:30

a september thursday in williamsburg.

on a sociological art walk with the french artist, fred forest.

love and health to all...

antelope island.

2011-09-06T17:43:00.001+05:30

floating in salt.

the great salt lake, utah.

august 2011.

love and health to all...

the open road...

2011-08-23T21:56:00.003+05:30

...the mustt kalandar & bens lenz. four eyes on the road and the earth's wilderness in our sights.

can't wait.

foto by mustt kalandar. winter 2008/2009.

love and health to all..

dipping and diving

2011-08-19T21:35:00.004+05:30

hay kink,

this be a great place to dip and dive with the fam-a-lams...

summer time sites in august, how come these days go so swift?

any ideas how to slow it all down?

what?

life silly!

foto by shraddha borawake

love and health to all...

mountaintop lounging summertime fun

2011-07-26T09:31:00.003+05:30

me, shraddha and lil' kink giggling away up top and on the high side of a beautiful catskill mountain, first weekend back stateside...

andes, ny. summer 2011.

love and health to all...

t.o.... a la prochaine...

2011-07-14T18:39:00.002+05:30

til the next time t.o...

summer 2010. toronto, ontario.

canada.

love and health to al...

arghh! we've sighted land!

2011-07-07T20:49:00.002+05:30

a coalition of canadian and american pirates, arghh matey! took to the high seas of lake ontario yesterday...

they were pirates of peace and tranquility and the lake winds and beautiful clouds treated them right.

arghh!

this is cap'n nigel and first mate d lenz. july 2010, ontario, canada.

love and health to all...

japan.

2011-06-30T04:04:00.000+05:30

japan on the streets of nyc.

summer 2011.

love and health to all...

the backwards revolution rolls to nyc...

2011-06-21T09:43:00.004+05:30

New York City - Saturday June 25, 2011 at 4pm

Bicycle Film Festival

Anthology Film Archives (32 2nd Ave. at 2nd St.)

tickets available here.

the backwards revolution rolls into town...

this is the backwards rider.

toronto, canada, june 20, 2011

love and health to all...

poppa.

2011-06-18T21:49:00.004+05:30

today my pops turns 47 years old, happy birthday poppa!

it takes much in life to be born back in 1937 and live for so many years yet still be turning a young 47 after decades of world exploration...

but one thing i know about this man, my poppa, is that he is an amazing father, the best in fact.

so pops, i just wanted to wish you a happy birthday from me with a couple gems of i and d lenz.

enjoy this beautiful and blessed day!

from south african lands winter 2010, state side summer 2010.

love and health to all...

happy birthday mom.

2011-06-13T09:30:00.002+05:30

happy birthday momma.

everywhere and in between. in the tangible and intangible.

sammy and momma chilling back in the day, columbia university campus, springtime, sometime.

love and health to all...

By the Shores of a Great Lake.

2011-06-09T07:40:00.002+05:30

love and health to all...

in the skin of a lion

2011-06-06T01:27:00.003+05:30

according to my sources, this building, the r.c. harris water treament plant on the east end of toronto, is an important player in Michael Ondaantje's In the Skin of a Lion.

alas, i've never read it but i heard. this art deco water plant first operational in 1941 was open last weeked as part of doors open toronto. instead of the sugar factory, i journeyed here. it was the first time it had been open to the public in ten years.

it's still cleaning water for torontonians to drink...

love and health to all....

halfway between...

2011-06-03T20:48:00.001+05:30

...a sugar factory and a big old beautiful water treatment plant.

toronto, ontario, spring 2011.

love and health to all...

Thornton & Lucie Blackburn

2011-06-02T09:10:00.002+05:30

arrived in Toronto in 1834. They had fled slavery, Kentucky to be precise, through the Underground Railroad, staying in Detroit for a couple of years and eventually imprisoned there as well. They escaped Detroit with the help of disguises and 400 men who stormed the jail and they fled further north to Canada. Michigan requested that they be extradited back to the states and the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada at the time, refused, "noting that a person could not steal himself." [www.lostrivers.ca/points/blackburn.htm]

Residing in Toronto, the Blackburns built a house her, outside this school but much before it even existed. Thornton Blackburn started the first taxi cab company in Upper Canada. He call his first one-horse cab the City. It was painted none other than yellow and black. During their lives in Toronto they continued to stay involved in antislavery movements.

This is outside the Inglenook Community School, where Colleen Ayoup, a soon to be MFA graduate at Ryerson, exhibited her project, wired to learn, for the first time this weekend.

It's a beautiful thing when history surprises with a reminder of the paths taken on the lands beneath our feet.

love and health to all...

trams & streetcars

2011-05-31T20:35:00.002+05:30

it's finally summertime here in toronto and in celebration i took an epic and solo bicycle ride out to the east end of toronto for the doors open weekend, where many city buildings that aren't usually open, throw their doors open wide to the general public.

my journey started at an opening of a co-classmate as part of the doc now festival and my initial thought to check out a sugar factory that still processes sugar changed in order to check out a big water filter out east that makes a grand appearance in a novel.

actually, history was present throughout the beginning of the day and it started at the public school installation where i began, which if i may add, also has a lot to do with taxis. alas, here is a taxi.

eh hem. so as an oncoming storm approached my belly was full with a wonderfully flavourful veg. thali. the centre bar of my bike had a bag of bagels dangling from it due to the fact that my bag, which hadn't thought much about stuffing things, was bursting open with my first box of 2011 indian mangoes. which will be ripe tomorrow or the day after and will certainly make that moment of mango eating bliss.

ah yes, so almost home, after goodness knows how many kilometres biked, i stopped on a dime at spadina and college to watch a passing old school streetcar running the lines here in toronto. the windows were open, it was summer and just then and there everything seemed to be just right.

snap! captured, past present and the future all at once!

everything is growing right now. yup. can't argue that one.

love and health to all...

June 9, 2011 6-9pm Toronto, Ontario, Canada

2011-05-25T19:19:00.000+05:30

This Is Just Batting Practice: A Tale About G.I. Joes, Tomato Boxes, Rivers & Reincarnation

2011-05-18T19:11:00.005+05:30

This Is Just Batting Practice: A Tale About G.I. Joes, Tomato Boxes, Rivers & Reincarnation

a film by ben lenzner

World Premiere!

TIFF Bell Lightbox

350 King Street West
Toronto, Ontario

June 9, 2011
6-9pm

love and health to all...

www.docnow.ca

2011-05-09T18:59:00.003+05:30

it's alive!

www.docnow.ca

love and health to all...

blossoming...

2011-05-08T20:33:00.002+05:30

buds & blooms.

spring & spirits.

papers & pictures.

sam and dave cold chilling in riverside park, back in the day.

miriam makeba making the morning, a cup of cafe and a bagel, just right with the sounds of "unhome."

love and health to all...

a roof and some rain.

2011-05-04T07:49:00.005+05:30

it's been raining here for almost a month straight.

it's nice to have a good roof in order to stay dry.

though sometimes it's more than a roof that makes a house feel like a home.

off to hit the hay...

love and health to all...

to ring in the spring with a vote...

2011-04-29T23:52:00.002+05:30

up here in canada there has been a national election campaign going on for the past month or so.

the house of commons called an election a while back for a variety of reasons, the budget, some pro-rogueing that went down some time back, stephen harper, the prime minister for many years rolling on the conservative tip, not feeling dissent, dialogue etc... no much different to kind of stuff we deal with in the states.

so the conservatives are trying to get a majority govt so they can do their thing. the liberals have been moving and shaking, but not so well, they may actually come in 3rd for the first time ever and the ndp, and their leader jack layton have been finessing the voters and may come in second.

alas, the election is monday, may 2nd and the fireworks may not end there. even though stephen harper probably assumes he'll take the reins, it may not be so. there could a coalition govt formed like was done in the u.k. some time back. i think it'll be the first time, or the first time in a long time that that has gone down if it does. stephen harper is working the fear card on that tip for awhile, but alas, the power, like everywhere, is always with the people...

it'll be interesting to see what goes down in the beautiful country, our neighbors up north...

this is a campaign sign or two and a few in the distance on my block in the t dot o dot.

love and health to all...

running past topographies...

2011-04-25T04:59:00.002+05:30

as the sun sets here in toronto, and the day winds down, the trees finally beginning to bloom, i thought i'd share some topographies from my run up and back on down the west toronto railpath.

it was round 6:10 or so and impulsively, as most of my runs start, i was sitting on this here computer, not on it like a chair, but with it and boom, i realized it was time to get my body moving, time to go running.

so i threw on my running gear, laced up my kicks and ran. it was gorgeous, the sun had some time left on the horizon. and it wasn't until i had turned around over by cariboo street, heading on home that i saw this prehistorical creature creeping out a bin of scrap metal... a couple was right there and with not much breath, i smiled running past, "that would be a snap eh?"

so i picked up my paced and ran on home, grabbed a digi camera and old rollei. hopped on my bike and doubled back. this cautious tree only came into view as i was meandering home again, sweat turning to salt on my forehead, what an interesting evergreen!

enough writing for me, back to editing!

love and health to all...

the doc and the lion.

2011-04-18T18:28:00.002+05:30

digging deep in the crates this early morning, while sipping a mug of joe and listening to the robert glasper experiment, i found this gem of the doctor and the lion sitting atop a roof in the city of jaipur, way, way back in the day, let's say, fall of 20 two.

kite flying on that annual autumn day in jaipur when all and everyone gets their kites ready to battle in the windy skies with the hope of ending the day with the same amount of kites the day began with...

that was a brilliant day...

love and health to all...

the big boss.

2011-04-15T08:18:00.002+05:30

this is the big boss.

officially retired, a couple years back.

from 110th to down south, just lampin'.

hope you kicking it big boss wherever you may roam.

love and health to all...

samuel send some sweet spirits swiftly...

2011-04-08T07:39:00.002+05:30

sammy,

send down some energy when you get a moment to make the spring winds blow and thunderclouds clap and seasons shift...

...i could use your inspiration to sweep me up and direct this moment of creativity truly in need of some strong crafty creation.

love and health to all...

past... present... and future....

2011-03-31T10:20:00.001+05:30

a still. march 1978.

filmed by herbert adasko.

love and health to all...

doc now 2011

2011-03-25T19:39:00.004+05:30

the doc now festival 2011 website is now online!

held in may and june, the doc now festival is ryerson university's annual mfa documentary media festival.

the film i've been working on for over a year now will be premiering at the lightbox in downtown toronto the first week in june!

the site will evolve over the next few weeks and soon will be fully up and running with info on the festival, dates, films, photos, installations, new media, storytelling galore!

for now here's a sneak preview and be sure to check out docnow.ca

love and health to all...

school daze.

2011-03-20T19:41:00.002+05:30

if it wasn't for school, i don't think i would have ever gotten into photography.

it started with my high school photography teacher, ms. johnson. by far, she was the most influential teacher i had during those high school years, guiding my creativity with photo assignments that i still integrate into classes i teach, 15 years later...

those early assignments from back in the daze, playing around with shutter speed and exposure, point of view and the thing itself. those were the moments of crafting and creating, i'll never forget placing that first sheet of photo paper in the darkroom, into a bath of developer and watching chemistry and creativity appear like magic. i hope those moments never disappear from the present, from memory.

and as computers transitioned and transition our photographic creativity i came across this image from an assignment in college, to create a book cover. i chose "The Jungle" by upton sinclair, a book that still resonates to this day. i remember roaming over to northfield's supermarket and roaming the meat section, snapping photos.

this was the image and title that made the grade.

love and health to all...

happy birthday sammy.

2011-03-04T22:13:00.002+05:30

Dear Sammy,

Happy birthday Sam. It's March 4th today, your birthday, and I hope wherever you are, that you are celebrating it with mom and marvin, with grandma and grandpa, grandmother and grandfather. I hope that neville is there, it would be nice to see his smile and grin again. if yann is cutting the cake, do tell him that i celebrated my birthday with lars this december and that it's always great to hang with his bro. of course, clara sends her love to you and to ellen, we all do in fact, and please give mom a big hug and big kiss for me and tell her that pops and dave and i are all doing well, sticking together like always, and that we miss her and love her.

Sammy, you'd be 27 today and though i wasn't there, i do remember your last birthday here on earth. you were in cali and i think davey might have been out there for it. either that or he came around this time. i think you guys went to coachella. alex might have gone with you guys too. though i was abroad i made you that birthday video greeting card with the help of the world's largest democracy. sometimes i go into dad's room and watch it on my computer. it makes me smile but it also makes me cry. i miss you more than i think is possible to ever express and i don't think it will ever go away.

just five years ago we were still hanging. i know the times were tough, but we still were together watching t.v. on late spring afternoons. and we got out a little too that summer and not just to the hospital and shit. remember that great walk you and i and alex and pops went on across the brooklyn bridge? man, i misjudged the distance that day, dad was making fun of me and we all got to where we were going, which by the way, i've forgetten what our destination was that day...

i was talking to uncle hardy at the end of last summer about that late august dinner we had in long island. remember we bought a whole fish and ev-doggs cooked it. hardy and shelly were there, plus d and i and ev and alex. i just looked at the photo, it was the 7 of us.

oh yeah, i got an email from nelly today in gaborone. i don't think she knew it was your birthday, but she just emailed to say hello. i told her it was your birthday and that the stars or the heavens must've hinted it to her and perhaps that's why she wrote. she had a baby girl a month or two back, her name is lone dawn. everybody in botswana says hello and they miss you too.

sammy, it's been five years. how time flies? and i do have to admit, it seems just like yesterday we were all hanging. i think probably for the rest of my life it will feel like that, even when i'm old and gray and perhaps even a grandpa, but who knows. like pops says, one day at a time.

and though i see and think about you everyday, when storms roll in and waves crash and pops harks that the peregrine falcon is on the balcony, i can't wait to see you soon.

be sure to say hello to everyone when you reach their shores, the fams in montevideo and santiago, in dehradun and pune, by the ebro and through the okavango, over pints in dublin and derry, the five boroughs and beyond...

i love you sam.

happy birthday, ben

from screen to screen.

2011-02-27T22:21:00.002+05:30

when i was a youth, in those funny and weird years of being a teen and even before, i used to love going to see movies with my mom. a saturday morning or a weekday during a school break, we would look at the daily film listings in the new york times and decide what to see. both my mom and myself were big into art films, we connected on that level and routinely you could find us sitting side by side, eating popcorn down at the angelika film center on houston, the subtle rumble of subway cars, like a gentle earthquake low on the richter scale, peppering films such as roadside prophets or la haine, as we enjoyed an afternoon together. sometimes we'd just go to lincoln plaza cinemas on broadway.

i'd always want to go check out camping equipment at ems afterwards.

going to the cinema was one of my favorite things i did with my mom through my lifetime, talking about the film over a perfectly blistered coal fired pizza crust and a root beer at john's on bleecker.

so with the academy awards tonight, i woke up thinking about those times long ago...

tonight, for the first time in awhile, i don't think i'll watch the awards. no, i think i may just work on my own film instead...

this is an old cinema in dakar, senegal. back in like hmm, 2004...

love and health to all...

generations.

2011-02-24T02:57:00.001+05:30

my mom, my grandmother and my great-grandmother.

back in the day in brooklyn.

love and health to all...

warm days & cool nights.

2011-02-21T07:26:00.002+05:30

damn skippy, from +10 to -10 celcius, seems like nature is cycling through it's end of winter confusion.

the days been warm and the nights cool. snow falling now, day before yesterday chappals would've done the trick.

sweet nectar of the gods, it's just the ways and means, the methods and modes of life, the earth, the globe.

no buds of bloom in site just yet, but must be round the corner in these parts, as autumn finds itself on the tip of tongues in other lands.

from sees to seas...

this is a late night light writing adventure on those back in the few day brown ledge shores...

love and health to all...

snap, crackle, pops!

2011-02-16T22:02:00.001+05:30

yo, flipped up for real yet again!

life, you so crazy!

at the thanksgiving day parade with poppa, 1980s nyc...

love and health to all...

oumou on the 1s n 2s n 3s

2011-02-14T08:54:00.008+05:30

grannies staying warm.

aight!

making that throne passed down new again.

true!

embracing winter with sum canal gliding.

smooth!

transfixing memories on vintage stages of yesteryear.

life!

love and health to all...

it's sunday, time to get pious, listen to a little de la...

2011-02-14T00:49:00.003+05:30

...and be focused on this here schoolwork.

amen!

beside the shores of atitlan, autumn in 'o4.

love and health to all...

a river. a border between french and english.

2011-02-08T01:45:00.002+05:30

our director was marco (see above). he had a plan to head to ottawa and interview a woman he had never met before. this woman lived next to a covered wooden bridge in wakefield, québec. so, we hopped in marco's car and drove to ottawa, the capital of canada.

ottawa, for the record and the photos will arrive soon, is amazing in the winter. there one can skate on the rideau canal, the world's longest and largest ice skating rink. i can only say that we skated the day and nights away, gliding from point a to b to c and back, not cold for that matter, but warm and sweating from kilometres upon kilomtres of skating and gliding.

with the help of a good director we spent a saturday in the wilds of québec, surrounded by cougars and trees, snowshoes and whiskey, french and fresh snow. these memories are from then.

the whole trip was a beautiful reminder that it seems as if i feel most at home outside. more marination on that required.

love and health to all...

staring down winter.

2011-02-02T07:58:00.000+05:30

toronto, canada. january 2011.

love and health to all...

some late brunch on sunday

2011-02-01T03:28:00.004+05:30

woke up on sunday and then fell back to sleep. hadn't been sleeping well, tossing and turning, brain flowing a hundred miles an hour right about the time it should be resting, years ago when i was a teenager, summer before i went to college, i had this crazy bout of insomnia and since learned my lesson, it happens sometime, but eventually sleep will land, calm will set in.

so round one, not like the boxing ring, but like the p.m., my t dot friendly neighbor and sometimes partner in canadian city explorations, gave a ring. i was sacked out and answered twice before i realized that in fact, the reason i couldn't hear anything was the ear piece was in and i was trying to talk through the phone.

"yo man, it's beautiful outside. cold but beautiful. let's go for a walk bro, i need some sunshine," my main man daniel my brother sermonized.

no truer words had been spoken that day, and after a smooth as silk latte to go later, walking feet, exploring vibes flowing we found ourselves beside lake ontario.

we eventually made our way to exhibition place right on the concrete shores of toronto lake lands.

exploring the old fairgrounds, it was certain that this city sojourn was much needed. fuel for creativity and blood flow and good sleeping too!

this is the food building. next a space that looks like its been empty since the 70s and finally, the co-explorer high above and on the lookout for old school photographers with expired film and a smidgen hefty, breaking through thin lake ice.

love and health to all...

the wind blowing between the reeds...

2011-01-30T21:48:00.005+05:30

love and health and faith to all...

it's noon & it's snowing

2011-01-21T22:37:00.002+05:30

yup, the sun is shining here in toronto, but the wind is blowing and the snow is falling. it's quite nice actually, to sit here, watching old footage of brooklyn and beyond during the middle and late 1900s.

thinking about some doing some storytelling myself.

this is my mom and her mom, my grandmother on my mom's high school graduation day.

brooklyn, ny in the 1960s...

love and health to all...

back from bank street and on to thundercats

2011-01-19T21:42:00.003+05:30

for the new year.

this is sammy, circa those beautiful 1980's thundercats years...

home from school, a little homework and ready to watch thundercats.

love and health to all...

The Birth of Southern Sudan

2011-01-12T01:29:00.007+05:30

Southern Sudan Referendum - Toronto, Ontario

Starting Sunday, January 9th, 2011, Southern Sudanese have journeyed from throughout Eastern Canada and the Northeast United States to vote on a referendum to either stay unified as one Sudan or secede and become a new nation, Southern Sudan. Canada was designated as a country with a large population of people descending from Southern Sudan. With a strong Southern Sudanese diaspora present, two voting centres were designated, one in Calgary and one in Toronto. The voting will take place for one week. When the polls close on January 15, 2011, the country has 30 days to announce the results of the referendum.

My buddy Marco and I trooped up to the York-Weston Community Centre this past Sunday and found well, pure positive loves...

Camera: Marco Avolio
Sound & Editing: Ben Lenzner

love and health to all...

dufferin groovin'...

2011-01-07T08:01:00.002+05:30

dufferin grove park, december 2010

love and health to all...

la rosita

2011-01-04T03:39:00.003+05:30

it's a new year but sometimes you just need to go back.

rummaging through my mom's closet, a space where i rarely find myself exploring, i came upon her old 35 mm konica camera, the same one she used to take snaps with all throughout my childhood. yearning for a camera to use, and realizing that mine were in toronto, i bought some new batteries and began taking some snaps myself. the penny sized batteries didn't help the light meter and i found myself guessing exposures.

i brought one roll of black and white into the shop and back came a mere six pictures, none had i taken during this december. instead, what i saw was a relic from the past - la rosita restaurant - a photo of my favorite breakfast spot of all time, the best cafe con leche evah! and you believe me, that's a known fact for all who grew up round 110th street in the 80s and 90s. i bet this photo was made waiting to grub with my main rosita compadre, the atlas who holds the world...

this, if i were to guess, was taken near the end of la rosita, those somber days when we all wished something or someone would save it. when would that be, well, perhaps 2004 or even earlier...

memories...

love and health to all...

a dc dusting...

2010-12-31T07:17:00.001+05:30

...of snow.

washington d.c.

december 2010.

love and health to all...

doggone...

2010-12-28T10:21:00.002+05:30

...missed that snowstorm by about 200 miles or so...

...c'est la vie...

...oh well, that's the breaks...

love and health to all...

to the nation's capital...

2010-12-23T19:25:00.001+05:30

...no, not ottawa silly...

that be d.c.

happy holidays & peace in the new year...

love and health to all...

back in the day holidaze...

2010-12-22T10:01:00.002+05:30

double exposed seasons greetings...

380 back in like '82.

melorra, david, marv and me.

love and health to all...

one day...

2010-12-20T19:17:00.002+05:30

...when i get older, with a home i call my own, i'd like to have a vegetable and herb garden for pizza. maybe even a pizza oven too...

dufferin grove park, toronto, ontario. fall 2010.

love and health to all...

eyes closed and in...

2010-12-16T04:30:00.003+05:30

...sudan with mohammed wardi...

...havana and bamako with afrocubism...

... in toronto, with mad dog... he shows up at the dufferin grove farmer's market every thursday and plays his guitar for the people. this day it was raining till the sun came out. mad dog had designed a styling slicker to cover his instrument and his body, allowing him to carry on through the changes in weather.

the sun came out right as i was giving props to mad dog for his crisp cover.

toronto, november 2010.

love and health to all...

the chalk mystery

2010-12-09T02:14:00.003+05:30

chalk.

that was the name of my brother sam's imaginary friend when he was young. he used to talk to him, talk about him, and chill with him too. chalk always seemed like a cool dude and a good friend even if he was invisible to the rest of us.

one recent cold early december toronto morning i woke up and directly in front of my house was a chalk drawing. beautifully crafted, it said happy b'day guy with what appeared to be a steaming slice of pizza just beneath the words...

who, i wondered, was the birthday guy?

i couldn't help but think whether this was the work of the only other sam i've shared the same roof with for more than a year and that being my downstairs neighbor, sam. sometimes he calls me guy and i thought, well, it's december and my birthday is coming up and maybe he's the artist? i asked him if he had created this great work of sidewalk art and of course he said no and that in fact, he himself, had been wondering who had created this street graffiti chalk drawing directly at the foot of our stairs.

happy b'day guy and a slice of koronet's appearing out of the blue and even after a couple nice days of snowfall, it's still there on the sidewalk directly in front of my house.

sam and chalk and mom too, thanks for the early birthday wishes...

sam and the chalk drawing in little portugal, toronto, canada, december 2010.

love and health to all...

back empire state way...

2010-12-05T21:09:00.002+05:30

a bob dylan and johnny cash fusion getting my tired eyes started on a late dimanche canadian morning.

a paper to write, the island of manhattan on the horizon, hudson rivers, peconic bays, the east coast of america.

the world never ceases to amaze and confuse, this first week of december, no different in a sense like that crazed december in 1980, a decade and a decade and a decade ago, a december and a big apple back then, mad death and new life, 1980 to 2010...

some still here, others gone, illness and accidents, tangible smiles and then sweet memories...

this crew is love. posting up on springs stoop, back in the day, some city slickers out for good country beach living...

sammy, davey and susannah enjoying that good atlantic ocean air, long isle, ny, perhaps the early 1990s...

love and health to all...

a sunday in canada

2010-11-28T22:54:00.002+05:30

trying to get homework done.

sweet day dreaming in between.

gray skies as the sun tries to breakthrough.

soul tunes to further distract.

a sunday in canada.

this is jeff jumping into a lake that wishes it could freeze.

and a lumberjack who spends his winters in the cook islands.

ontario, canada, autumn 2010.

love and health to all...

beach glass

2010-11-27T23:53:00.010+05:30

a young boy was wandering along a lake shore alone and in search of coconut trees in preparation for winter. the cold compounded by wind had arrived overnight and although the beach front offered no respite from the elements, it was the only place where the boy believed he could find enough brown husks to press oil for the winter.

the lake water lapped along the shore, the sand and snow seemingly melting and freezing at the same place, at the same moment, a curious phenomenom that only nature's creativity could envision.

at once nestled beneath a small grassy tussock, beside the exposed toes of the young boy, lay a brilliant piece of beach glass. the boy reached down for the smooth shard and brought it to the sky for a better look. he was amazed, first that the edges of this piece of glass had morphed and adapted, glass soft to water and malleable to the elements, certainly the result of high seas and cyclones, devoured by whales in one gulp, processed through the intestines of sea creatures that even man had never seen, those glorious hot pink and glow in the dark green blowfish that live where sunlight is merely a dream.

but what truly amazed the young boy was that this brilliant piece of sea glass was here on a lake shore, far from any ocean or river. the boy had never encountered sea glass next to a lake and as the wind picked up, he looked out past the jetty, over the white caps and attributed this anomaly to either the constant beauty of life or the greatness of God, though neither had ever really made much sense to him, that being the meaning of life or God's relation to sea glass.

at that precise moment of his day dreaming, with a thought distant and a mind even farther, a gust of heavenly wind blew across the lake and scattered stinging sand everywhere. the boy closed his eyes and covered his face in his shirt. the sand stung his ankles and burned his exposed tummy, his paunch bare for the sake of his vision.

though the fury lasted mere seconds, it seemed like forever and when it stopped the boy opened his eyes and looked around. the wind had blown the sand and snow back into the lake and had exposed a beach full of round and perfectly smooth sea glass as far as the eye could see. it was a beach of sea glass, millions of pieces, each glass morsel as smooth as a vintage cola bottle.

the boy got down low, his face at ground level and he closed one eye for a better look. the rainbow glass went on forever, an infinite shore line resembling a kaleidescope. and it dawned on him that not only was he looking at a stained glass shore, but beneath his feet, on this beach, lay glass once sharp that had been battered and bashed, broken and shattered, yet it was something about the journey on the sea of life, the yielding to the elements, soft overcoming hard, water shaping glass, that had smoothed what was once rough and sharp and jagged into a complete complementary creation.

alas, the boy was tired and after a short swim he returned to shore exhausted and took a nap, baking in the sun.

then hours later, waking up, the young boy started to build a beautiful sail boat out of that beach of sea glass, intent on navigating the winds and the blowing breezes. although he didn't know how long it would take, the boy did know exactly where he was hoping to go and whom he was hoping to find.

love and health to all...

lakes to rivers to seas

2010-11-20T22:20:00.008+05:30

back in the day, even today, sailors on boats write messages, children on shores place poems and addresses into bottles, capped and plug to float the high seas until their messages reach a land far and wide, with the hope that maybe they'll get a letter back from the lucky beach wanderer or kayaker who comes up with the bottle, a message bobbing on the surface, in the hopes it will find its reader.

but what happens when that bottle is tossed from a boathouse on a lake, far from a river or ocean. will that lake allow it to journey to the destination the stars have set for it, distant lands? perhaps, like the cycles of life, it will in due time make it, though it may lay stagnant in an eddy for a day, or perhaps a black bear will play with it and stall its course, but eventually yearning for the fast flow of water, to allow it to surf and catch its weight and most importantly its intended direction, the address inferred through fate and eventual destiny.

but it is the tides and the time, patience really, that allows for the message in the bottle reach a shore, or another boat, the hand that finally lifts the bottle from its journey, curiosity as to what a bottle with a note is doing on this shore. of course, the journey, through stormy seas and calm dawns, those cycles, those seasons, in the end, it's not the journey of the vessel but the words inside that are most important...

this is a lake in northern ontario in november 2010.

love and health to all...

hibernating

2010-11-16T20:58:00.003+05:30

why don't humans hibernate? or do we in our own special ways? sometimes i think i'm a bear, perhaps a black bear or perhaps a grizzly bear, but a bear resting throughout the winter. i'd guess that bears do a lot of meditating in the winter time, poking their heads out their caves and looking at the beautiful blanket of white covering the world around them. bears and other creatures in the world must think about life throughout the winter and in anticipation of spring and flowers and life.

the winter is coming here in canada. to embrace it is vital, to hibernate is healthy, to smile through it essential.

this is up north huntsville way at my buddy blair's cottage. owls inside and right side up and wood birds outside, november 2010, ontario, canada.

love and health to all...

lost skateboards, blowing leaves of autumn, asleep in a field.

2010-10-30T22:09:00.003+05:30

the warmth of the summer sun was on its last legs in the city of toronto and alone, i lay on green grass, surrounded by windswept autumn leaves, brilliant in their glorious shades of fall. the wind blew across my brow, eyes closed, clouds floating across cities and towns, through provinces and counties, no borders to stop these puffs of marsh mellow glory. the blue sky, the tree tops, the clouds of fluff was all that i had framed, my head covered in grass, ants and other small park creatures, exploring most happily my dome of curls, the proximity, mind was close to the earth, touching it.

meditating on a spinning globe, contemplating a relocation of current realities, watching skateboards roll to their deaths, listening to sly and the family stone, reflecting on what is seen in a pond of stillness,...

past and present, today and tomorrow, summer to fall to winter to spring and back...

this is the indian ocean, off the coast of south africa, on the trail from port st. john's to coffee bay, spring 2004.

love and health to all...

october corn...

2010-10-27T19:27:00.004+05:30

october makes me think about corn. yes truth, here in northeastern north america, the sweetest of sweet corn is ripe and ready mid-summertime. but late october is the time of year i think much about corn of different colors and dry husks, beautiful they are hanging ornamental...

these daze have got me working in a zone of typing concentration, transcribing interview after interview, countless hours of typing which never seem to end. it's a good way to stay focused as falling leaves, ornamental corn and changing seasons got me meditating on never-ending thoughts of existence and happiness, orbiting and daydreaming through streetcar journeys, wind blown bicycle rides and trees of autumn reincarnating into their birthday suits, from green to red to yellow to soil.

the aravali hills (a few hours from udaipur), rajasthan, autumn 2000.

love and health to all...

from grapes to wine...

2010-10-22T19:17:00.004+05:30

the liberation of my disappearance and my disappearing act was miraculous in the sense that it took quite some time to accomplish and more than i thought, the temptation to not vanish, poof! like fog, was harder than i had ever imagined.

no, the disappearance had nothing to do with the curly locks i lost this morning under the scissors of an elderly barber from calabria. nor was the vanishing act related to the misplacement of anything tangible and loved on this fair earth. though perplexed i have been over those emotions as well, but alas, that's another story and one for the birds and the bees only.

it was just that i had vanished, houdini-esque in our modern world. it was a coup and one that allies and i had whispered about in cafes from connaught place to the hungarian pastry shop. it was a silent coup, without fanfare, without an announcement (though one, naturally, had been pondered). no, this vanishing act was reinforcement that yes! i am human on this earth! a living and breathing being that resides in the city streets of the world, one who shields himself from rain under forest ferns and a man with bones and muscles, a heart and a mind. that is me, one to meet outside under the stars, on subway platforms, jumping from cliffs into lakes, reading novels in cafes and sitting beside fires on braided rivers of the world.

and then on the cusp of sleep on my bed of hay, i wondered, admittedly with vain, if anyone would wonder if i had died...

these are grapes right after the harvest on a finca outside of san juan, argentina...

love and health to all...

caution... the road is wet...

2010-10-13T21:32:00.003+05:30

sometimes i sit and wonder how we get to where we are...

do we choose our journey? or is our journey chosen for us?

these are difficult questions and philosophers have been asking these same questions since the beginning...

certainty is something we can never count on. today is a blessing and tomorrow is a gift.

happiness and health are the highest of high. and i think that sometimes the road is rocky and uneven and in those daze of sorrow, one thing can be sure, happiness is right around the corner, sometimes new and other times in forms reincarnated fully bright and renewed...

love and health to all...

Ode to the Night Watchman

2010-10-04T02:11:00.002+05:30

In the cold of the night, the watchman sits and watches the land. He is cold, he is tired, but he perseveres.

Nothing is awake in the brisk night besides the watchman himself. The land is silent and then the birds begin to sing.

The night watchman is awake and the cold wind is biting. He is the silent brother, the one all pass by, yet he is strong and stoic, biding his time til the day dawns.

To the watchmen far and wide, the night is yours, stay strong and stay warm.

Toronto City Hall, Nuit Blanche, October 2010.

love and health to all...

getting to be...

2010-09-27T09:18:00.002+05:30

...late night in the t.o. and i've been getting my presentation skills back on track. sorting out gleaning, dv camera movement making, simmering on thoughts of agnès varda and heart shaped potatoes, yup, time to figure out ways to spend my days outside cause this technology gets me in a haze, reminiscent of saturday morning on the rare t.v. watching tip.

kev brown beats got me shakin' at this hour. thoughts of celebratory documenting and fresh autumn air with two day old portugeuse bread, perfect for french toast.

this is champabai back on the first journey to india. goodness gracious, that's be right round the autumn of 2000. thinking bout it, this kodak moment could've been caught on this here day ten years back.

that is real, or was.

the aravali hills, rajasthan, india, autumn 2000.

love and health to all...

cave living.

2010-09-22T21:41:00.001+05:30

this is inside a cave on the puna plateau, trying to get some rest and stay warm at the same time after the most epic hike of all time, higher than high altitude.

i remember getting back to this cave with the most splitting headache after climbing a peak about 18,000 feet with little water, a lot of coca leaves and then after dark, having no clue what valley our ride was in!

la puna, northwest argentina, spring 2007.

love and health to all...