psalms 23 & 85 [Tuesday, 20 December, 2005]

Like DC's Capitol Hill, most of Jerusalem's government buildings are consolidated into one area of the city. By far the most interesting and beautiful was the Bayt ha-Mishpat ha-Elyon, or Supreme Court.

It didn't take much to get lost in the meandering streets of Jerusalem, a city that seems to suffer from chronic rush-hour-itis, and the uniform white brick construction doesn't help. Neither, unfortunately, did our map, nor my grandfather's professed familiarity with the city (to his credit, he'd been there probably a dozen times before). But we did find the building, nestled in a grove of cypress trees and across from a federal parking lot.

This foot-bridge separated that parking lot and the Court itself. It was made, of course, from Jerusalem Gold stone, but the architecture was truly impressive -- skewed overhang, bold aquamarine steel supports, in one direction overlooking government buildings and in the other, an unpartable Red Sea of terra cotta roofs.


He restores my soul; he leads me in circles of righteousness.

Kind of a neat perspective of a very simple structure; a pyramid build into the Court building, with four circular skylights at the top. Every thematic architectural motif in this entire building comes from some Bible verse or another. Normally architecture doesn't really interest me, but this is like history and art and architecture and spirituality all rolled into one happy edifice! The building is very, very cool. If you ever find yourself in Jerusalem, check it out.


Truth will spring up from the earth; justice will look down from heaven.

The Supreme Court, though the highest in Israel, is only the third level of the state court system, and any citizen is allowed to take a personal complaint to the Supreme Court if her or his rights have been violated. Our guide told us that each case brought forth by Palestinians whose towns had been split in half by the new 5-meter wall to keep out terrorists is tried individually, rather than having a group decision for all cases based on one circumstance. If the government decides the human rights lost are more important than the security gained, they'll issue an order to reroute that portion of the wall. I thought that was pretty incredible. Of course, it'd be infinitely better if there didn't have to be a wall in the first place. She also told us about one man whose constant cases to the court had been consistently turned down -- every month he sent a new letter asking why he hadn't yet been made the president of the country.

This courtyard was the last stop on our tour of the building, which included a peek inside a courtroom in session (but everyone was talking quickly in Hebrew) and some more really, really awesome architecture. Out in the courtyard, it was an overcast day, but somehow that made this shot seem all the more beautiful. Even after days of seeing nothing but white stone, the courtyard was stunning and serene, with its "fountain of truth" patiently bubbling up from the earth.

Give us life, that we may rejoice. Love and truth will meet; justice and peace will kiss.

the ivory city [Monday, 19 December, 2005]

We took a sort of communal taxi into Jerusalem that night. Every building in Jerusalem is made of the same simple but elegant alabaster stones used in ancient times -- by law. Even the sidewalks are made of the same stone. It ties the Old City to the New City, symbolically, aesthetically and economically. It's all local stone. They call it "Jerusalem Gold," but it's really more like ivory. Some is left roughly cut, while some is meticulously sanded and buffed to almost a marble-like appearance. Of course there's stainless steel and glass too, and the ubiquitous terra cotta roofing. It's a stark contrast to see the conservatively-dressed Chassidim, with their black hats and suits, walking along a wall of windsmoothed whiteness.

About a block away from our hotel (or more properly, youth hostel), we passed this intriguingly beautiful building. We walked by it again in the morning and learned it is in fact part of a YMCA built by the British in the early 1900s. Ridiculous! Firstly that there would be a YMCA in the middle of Jerusalem, and secondly that it should look so decidedly un-YMCA-ish. If my local YMCA looked like this, you can be damn sure I'd work out there every day. Heck, going up and down the staircase of that ivory tower would be a workout in itself. I bet they have an indoor pool with water you can walk on, or something.

let go, but not free. [Monday, 19 December, 2005]

The terminal is not only the beginning of my journey but the end of the journeys of others. Cardboard signs with names in Hebrew, Arabic, English, and languages I can't even identify, dot the crowd. Anxious eyes constantly check wrists; feet tap irrhythmically. Suddenly, a child shouts, arms stretch out, eyes brighten. In an instant, heavy bags are flung aside like refuse; carefully-prepared bouquets fall to the floor; and balloons, let go but not free, wander ceilingwards.

shalom, chaverim. [Monday, 19 December, 2005]

People told me Israelis would be brusque, abrasive, and in - your - face, but I found quite the opposite. In fact, waiting for our suitcases to magically appear at the baggage claim at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, these two cheery sprites began to make circuits around the whirring metallic racetrack. shift - click - whirrr , shhhhift - click - whirrr.

I'd never seen anything like that before. I assume the bags were empty, and planted there by the airport officials, because I never saw anyone pick them up. Or do they belong to some idealistic globe-trotter? Would you pack your clothes and personal belongings into a plastic emoticon embodiment of Love? Could you hold your head high, walking through a crowd of foreigners and wheeling behind you a grinning Welcome jack-o'-lantern? It's like taking that piece of home with you.

Feeling welcomed in a foreign country is truly a wonderful feeling. And from other Jews who'd been there, I always heard that it "feels like home." After fifteen hours in the air, it may not have felt like home just yet, but it sure felt good.

slow and painful. [Monday, 19 December, 2005]

How anyone in the EU can buy cigarettes with these outrageous warning labels slapped on them is beyond me. Nestled cosily between Spanish paperbacks, Swiss chocolate and French wine in a duty-free shop at the Frankfurt airport sit packs upon packs of commercialised deathsticks. Who buys these things? You can't smoke on the planes anyway. It's kind of funny that they still even have those no-smoking signs along the aisles of every aircraft, right next to the "lavatory occupied" display -- because has anyone ever been on a flight where they turned those no-smoking signs off? No. They even post those warnings about like $8,000,000 fines for dismantling or tampering with the smoke detectors. It's probably illegal to show in-flight movies with smoking in them, at least on domestic flights, or something.

I've got a better idea. Like they do in most airports these days, have a "smoker's lounge" where people can go on a plane to fulfill their cravings. Some flights run upwards of eight hours. They've got to give in sometime, right? And then, when they're all done, a vent would open in the floor to let the smokers out. I mean, the smoke! Let the smoke out. Yeah.

Anyway I just found these kind of amusing. We spent like three hours in transfer in Germany: half that time I spent in the duty free shop looking for a book to read while my grandfather scoped out the booze situation, and the other half I spent in search of a bathroom. Damn Frankfurt Airport and its renovations, rendering every single men's room in the eastern wing inoperable.

is that really necessary? [Sunday, 18 December, 2005]

Dulles IA, again; about 90 minutes prior to departure time. I just noticed, pacing up and down the main terminal one final time, this anomaly. Two perfect, concise rows of electric lights, positioned strategically to cast light on, apparently, some outstanding square patch of flooring. This whole thing still boggles my mind. Why, in a cavernous hall with floor-to-ceiling windows on either side, is there any need whatsoever for electric lighting? In case of solar eclipse, perhaps? Was there some bizarre interaction of light waves around that particular point that called for alternative sources of photons? Or just for decoration, perhaps? Is that really necessary? It must be. Architects don't call for eight holes in a two-foot-thick concrete ceiling without some sort of reason.

On a slightly different note, I don't know why these two pictures were both in such pseudo-black-and-white colouring. None of my other pictures are like that. Just thought I'd mention that, so no one thinks my camera is some sort of wishy-washy device that doesn't take either full colour or full grayscale shots. On the contrary, my camera is a lovely little thing. It was my only sixteenth birthday present, given to me by my parents just nine days before I left for Israel. Nikon, 4.1 Megapixels, 10x zoom, very portable. I even found a little case for it that I can slip onto my belt and look really dorky. And I took something like 140 pictures on it, which works out to around ten pictures a day. Exciting, right? Yeah, there is a lot more coming after this. I can't say how frequently I'll update, especially given the three-week lapse between coming home and posting my first photo, but check back every few days, there might be something interesting.

finis.

a hungry serpent [Sunday, 18 December, 2005]

Please enter here, said the spider to the fly. It always irks me to see such labyrinthine queue lines remain empty. Marked out in subdued blue straps and stainless steel posts, this hungry serpent looks anything but inviting to the wary traveller. That brisk Sunday afternoon in the main terminal of DC's Dulles International Airport, I wheeled my faithful blue suitcase behind me, taking my time, taking in these last views and noises and smells before my departure. Destination: Ben Gurion International Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel.

I would fly not with American Airlines but instead Lufthansa, with a connecting flight in Frankfurt, Germany. My grandfather and I would spend twelve days in the Holy Land, doing whatever there is to do for an eighty-five year old man and a sixteen-year-old boy. Or a sixteen-year-old man, rather. The whole purpose of this trip was a (belated but no less appreciated) Bar Mitzvah present from my grandfather. Almost exactly a year ago, my older brother had been to Israel his first time with my grandfather on a presumably similar excursion. Now it was my turn, and I left behind yet another little brother -- eleven years old and constantly whining, "When's my turn, Grandpa?"

Poor kid. Who knows when your turn is? After you've had your Bar Mitzvah, he may be too old to take you. The political situation may deteriorate. Part of the reason my brother and I had waited almost three years after our respective B'nei Mitzvah to go on this trip was because our parents feared we would be in too much danger. Faugh, I say. I laugh in the face of danger. Unless it involves explosives and anti-Semitism. In that case I laugh but a little more discreetly, my American passport in one hand and my borrowed cell phone in the other.

But I digress. While safety was definitely an issue, there is another side. Being a holy land to three major faiths, a trip to Israel is necessarily more than a physical journey. Immersed in history, culture, and spirituality, one cannot help but feel at once both awestruck and strangely comfortable. This land, these cities, belong to more than just those who inhabit them today. They belong to Jesus, to Muhammad, to Joshua, to Isaiah, and everyone and everything who came between them and us. It is said all the Jews, past and present, stood in silent attendance at Sinai the night God gave them the Torah. That only makes it more important today that, if at all possible, every Jew, Christian and Muslim experience for himself the transcendence that is a journey to Israel. This is an experience not soon forgotten, not easily discounted.

Though in more ways indescribable than not, this journey I now feel more compelled than ever to document, in words and photographs. Think of it as a covenant between yourself and me. I'll tell you these stories if you'll listen. I'll try to convey the intensity, humility, and infinity I experienced during these two weeks.

shadows on the walls of the cave

it feels like it should rain tonight.



i slid out of my socks and stepped outside. The world, having trouble sleeping, rumbled distantly and kept dark... but not entirely. Without being fully aware i led myself down the fading oak steps away from fluorescent lights and whirring fans and metallic melodies. Under my bare feet the wood turned to stone and i turned, or maybe the world turned under me. i don't know. Through the ivy path and across the wooden bridge without hesitation. I turned and faced -- what? an old swingset, rusting, lopsided; the ropes smelling of mould and wearing thin.

please, a seat of long-dead pine beckoned to me, please. sit, and sit, and that is all. With the slightest detectable quarter-shrug of my shoulders, i granted its request.

The peach in my hand sucked warmth from the September dusk and from my skin. Four days ago it had not been ripe; three days ago it had not been cold; and two days ago it sat in the freezer, and had not been remembered. i pressed my lips to it tentatively. Not so much stung as scorned by the cold, i resisted the urge to pull back for a split-second and then gave in. The gentle rain, reminding me subtly of its presence at my mere request, fizzled as it cascaded over the slowly-thawing peach. Or maybe it was just my imagination.

peach, you are what is wrong in people. You are cold, and bitter, and unwilling to change. And so i justified my first bite.

i shivered as its icy flesh stuck briefly to the roof of my mouth. Subconsciously i had begun swinging back and forth, shifting my weight and the angle of my neck. As i hadn't been pumping my legs, i assumed this trick to be the work of the earth's rotation acting craftily on me, a boy in a swing, as it would on a pendulum.

peach, you are what is wrong with the world. You are not as perfect, as equal and spherical, as we want to believe; you are hard, indifferent. And so i took a second bite.

Barely scraping the thin, superficial layer of thawed fruit with my teeth, it melted on my tongue. The sensation was prickly, teetering on the border between satisfaction and pain. i thought i heard the rain pick up, but it was just the leaves shuddering in the wind. As i gazed upwards, i searched for the moon, who furtively hid from me and laughed.

peach, you are like people; you are not so bad. Slowly you are warming up to me, giving a little of yourself; slowly you are thawing. And so, graciously, i took a shallow third bite.

On the road to my left, i heard a car pass. Three seconds before i had seen its tentacles, reaching out blindly to illuminate the slippery night. Twelve seconds later i felt its breath on my neck.

peach, you are like a person, a person i know. You are firm but tender and forgiving. You are always changing. You are imperfect. And so i placed the fruit securely in the embrace of my lips and took a bite.

Now the juices of the peach and of my mouth trickled down my arm alongside raindrops of varying sizes. Now the wind picked up and died down and picked up again, and now i swung with my legs.

peach, you are like sex. You blossom into maturity, and you tempt me, and sometimes, when all is through, we are left with the promise of another life.

or are you more like love? You flower and grow at your own pace, and you are sweet and sour and cold and warm all at once, and on a lazy afternoon or a tense night or in the seconds before the sunrise, i want you.

perhaps you are just like me. You display an outside not entirely true down to your core. Sometimes, taste is all that matters; and sometimes you have no taste at all.

no. You are like a tired metaphor. There is nothing left of you now, save the juices still tracking slowly down my forearm and a bitter, wrinkled pit.

i debarked from my swing reluctantly and trodded through murky puddles in the equally murky night towards my house, leering inhumanly at me through square glass eyes. As i reached the door, i regarded the pit in my hand and remembered that it was not a peach at all. It was a nectarine.

i hurled the pit into the murky, slippery night and stepped inside.

everything else

i swear i am not gay just these are some hot flowers.


no matter how random the objects are, if you take a black-and-white picture of them, people will still take you seriously.






two towers


ghosts.


...or maybe just mosquito nets.


ghosts ii


hiked down to the waterfall and looked to the right...


...and to the left.


tents supplied to tsunami victims whose houses were destroyed






FGLDLGKJDG I WANT A VESPA.

bukit lawang (orang utan reserve)

bridge to our hotel. check out the sign on the left (closeup below)


quickly, Robin!


welcome to Eden Inn, a little slice of paradise...


male redhead, 35 years old, seeks open-minded, banana-loving mate. plays well with children.


the last picture my little brother, Daniel, ever took -- just before he was snatched away, and presumably eaten, by Kong the Terrible.


Kong uprooted this tree in his anger when we refused to offer my older brother as another sacrifice.


these fascinating creatures, though strange-looking, have an almost human intellect. also, there is a monkey on the left.


punk monkey sporting one heck of a mohawk


i think she is my soul mate.


OH MY GOD IS THAT HER NIPPLE?! APES GONE WILD WOOHOOOOOO

on the road in sumatra

INVASION OF THE CACAO SNATCHERS actually they are just choco-pods as i like to call em.


evil-looking macaque (say: "my cock")


coffee plantation YESSSS


do you know what this is? no, you don't. it is a baby pineapple. swear to god.


you have GOT to be kidding me. they don't actually grow like this, right? right?


the trees are bleeding.


alternate caption: rubber plantation. these are condom trees!


= 3 Asian airbrush artists + 20 lbs marijuana


did i tell you my brother is Spiderman?


just kidding! it was actually only this big.


restaurant where we had dinner one night. "Boruna" apparently is their word for "daughter." The next two lines are Dutch: "My four daughters bid you welcome." The last few lines try hard to be English. The front of the menus read: "Welcome to Boruna. We have four daughters. Also we have a son. We stop now."


pretty much this is the gateway to island hell.


it's kind of like a church for terrorists... JAY KAY