This video is blowing my mind. Tina & Ike Turner on Hugh Hefners’ Playboy After Dark (Mr. Playboy is the dapper guy in the tux, looking slightly out of place smoking the pipe, and dammit he’s always in the way when the camera pulls back for the dancing.) She’s somewhere around 30 here and is 100% absolutely without a doubt on fire. That version of I want to take you higher is so good. Those shouts just before they break out of the chorus, particularly the one at 3:10, are AWESOME – primal, sincere, pure confidence. I don’t think I’ve ever been that confident, and Tina’s doing it dressed in a table cloth. I’m sure there was enough coke in that room to teach the whole world to sing, but you can tell that folks are really digging it, particularly the dude in the yellow shirt, and that blond woman in the front row. You can’t fake that kind of awe when something like that this is unfolding in front of you.

I wonder if Tina has time to be a mentor, I hear she lives over this way these days.

Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams is one of my favourite films. Made up of a series of dreams that he recorded over his lifetime, and then made into short films in the last years of his life. The chapters range from beautifully sublime to post-apocalyptic. I’ve been watching the film somewhat obsessively over the last months, and the final dream, Village of the Windmills, has become a parable for where I see myself right now. You should really watch it above (click for 480p, and also watch the equally beautiful second part) but it’s the story of a man with a hat walking through the Japanese countryside. As the film opens he is crossing a series of bridges that span a river filled with watermills. A group of children pass him, gather flowers from the riverbank, and then drop them on a large stone on the other side of the bridge. The man with the hat then meets a village elder, who he approaches and begins to enquire about the village. The old man explains that they live very simply, without the need of modern convenience, and the latest science. They might live simply, but they live well, happily, and completely in tune with nature. The man with the hat enquires about the children and the flowers, and the village elder replies that long ago a sick traveller died in that spot. The villagers took pity and buried him, having ever since left flowers there in his memory. The man with the hat then hears music, and asks if there is a celebration, to which the village elder replies that no, there is a funeral. The entire village is commemorating the life of an old woman, having just died at 99 years old. The old man excuses himself to go join the procession changing into a bright orange coat, grabbing a musical shaker, and picking a small bouquet of flowers. As the funeral procession approaches the villagers are singing and dancing, children are scattering flower petals – the old woman’s coffin in the midst of them all. When procession comes closer the village elder steps in to lead as it slowly passes in-front of the man with the hat. After it passes he begins to make his way back across the bridges, but stops and quickly returns to pay his respects to the sick traveller, placing flowers on his tomb. The film ends with a shot of grass billowing in the flow of the river.

To me there is a progression here between the characters: the sick traveller becomes the man with the hat, who becomes the village elder, who becomes the old woman, with the village at the centre of everything. The sick traveller was never able to learn about the village, but they have welcomed him in nonetheless. The man with the hat is also a traveller, but is healthy. He enters the village, and though he has preconceptions, is open, and inquisitive. The village elder knows that within just a few houses there is everything one needs to be alive, and live well. The old woman celebrated by the entire community is the proof.

For the longest time I feel I have been the sick traveller – dead, but remembered out of kindness by the communities that I very nearly reached. For the last year I feel I have been slowly transitioning to the man with the hat, but I was still too focused on the road, on my old self as the sick traveller. I was inquisitive, but not open. The village elder has been wanting to tell me about the village, nonetheless, and has always come to me in times of crisis to say ‘look, this is all here in front of you, and it’s all you need.’ I’ve never quite been able to turn the corner and speak to him though. The first time I met him was almost a year ago exactly, at a wedding in Boston. He was there laughing, pointing at me, and I while I could hear him, I couldn’t really bring myself to listen. His presence moved me, just not enough, and I didn’t take my hat well enough in hand. Since then he’s returned regularly, each time becoming a little more persistent, a little more intense about what was at stake, but I’ve always had an excuse ready so I could walk away.

This past week he has come back with a look in his eyes as if to say that this is my last chance. He’s holding his breath to see if I’m ready to really, truly become the man with the hat, to begin the conversation with an inquisitiveness, and an openness that is the key to the village. I’ve lost the trust that he had in me the first time we met, and now he’s a little more intent on his work on the waterwheels than he was before. As I realize that I no longer want to be the sick traveller – or ever really wanted to be, that it was just a role I got used to playing – I’m panicked, and I’m shaken, and I’m scared. I want to be able to go back and sit and speak with him from the start, but that’s impossible. I’ll have to wait now until he’s ready, and listen fresh.

I’ve always been afraid of the fact that once I did speak with him it would mean the start of a transition to take his place, my chief fear being that my world would suddenly become too small for me to live in. But now I see that the community that he’s been wanting to speak about is huge, and far better than that it has a profound depth. I think he’s annoyed that I’ve been keeping the procession waiting, keeping the natural flow of things stopped up for too long. It’s clear from him that this is the last chance I have, but I know from my own reaction over the past few days that it’s the last chance I will need.

Konnichiwa… please.

Yes, another website. I just launched a new project website where I can bring together all my thinking, research and writing on the various projects i’m involved in at any given moment, but more to start highlighting voices I admire through guest postings, interviews, collaborations, links to articles, etc. I’m still working to get content in, but feel I’ve made a good start.

I’ve also launched a mirror site on Facebook (now that everyone hates FB) and am giving away a cookbook to celebrate. Still some slots left before the draw (lots, actually) so see the Facebook page for details.

Fais toi plus belle pour la fête au village
Fais toi plus jolie pour la fête au village

Et je serais la plus belle pour toi mon amour
Et je serais la plus jolie pour toi mon chérie

Fais toi plus belle pour la fête au village
Fais toi plus jolie pour la fête au village

Et je serais la plus belle pour toi mon amour

Je suis un paysan, un cultivateur
J’ai dans mon champs, du riz, et du maïs

J’ai aussi dans mon champs
du coton, du fonio et des haricots

Des haricots dans mon champs, pour les Kéita, Coulibaly
Des haricots dans mon champs, pour les Dembélé et les Traoré
Des haricots dans mon champs, pour les Koné et les Diarra
Des haricots dans mon champs, pour les Touré et les Samaké

Fais toi plus belle pour la fête au village
Fais toi plus jolie pour la fête au village

Et je serais la plus belle pour toi mon amour
Et je serais la plus jolie pour toi mon chérie

D’autres viendrons en moto,
D’autres sur les vélos,
D’autres dans les bateaux,
Et d’autres dans le train,
Certains dans les camions,
Pour la fête au village

Et je serais la plus belle pour toi mon amour
Et je serais la plus jolie pour toi mon chérie

Je mettrais mon jolie soulier,
Mon jolie pantalon, ma belle veste
Et ma belle chemise, ma belle cravate,
Pour te séduire.

Nous allons chanter
Nous allons danser
Nous allons nous dire des jolies mots d’amour

Fais toi plus belle pour la fête au village
Fais toi plus jolie pour la fête au village

- Amadou et Mariam

If you happen to be in northern Italy next month – or western Solvenia, for that matter – some of my work on Palestine is being shown in Gorizia via Renegade-Vision, a cooperative effort between artists Galvin Harrison and Kevin Broadbery and Sturiale, an Italian arts agency. Sounds like it will be a good time: projected photography, drinks, and a DJ, what else do you want?

I’m spending the next few weeks in the south, mostly in the agricultural town of El Ejido, which is quite literally an island in a sea of plastic greenhouses, producing a large percent of the supermarket vegetables for Europe. Last count I read was close to 27,000 hectares of production. I just got here, and had to deal with an overbooked hotel for the first while I was in town, but this evening I took a long walk through the greenhouses, and even walking for a good couple hours barely scratched the surface. It’s greenhouse after greenhouse after greenhouse after…

To honour a very good, but wet Friday, March 33rd Elis Regina & Tom Jobim’s Águas de Março. Doesn’t that giggle just slay you?

The other day I met a local vet named Suso, who works on several farms around Orense, and I’ve started heading out with him when he does his rounds. On Monday we headed out an hour into the mountains east of town to take some blood from a herd of cattle. I’ll post some photos soon, but in the meantime I wanted to present a little video I shot while I was there.

I think it turned out pretty well, don’t you?

Being based now in Orense I’m only an hour or so from Santiago de Compostela, which is the final stop for the various pilgrimage paths through Europe know as St. James Way. Folks who decide to take on the pilgrimage typically start at least 100km out (that’s the distance the Catholic Church uses to differentiate a pilgrimage from a stroll in the Spanish countryside) and gradually make their way to the Cathedral in Santiago where they meet up in the plaza under it’s twin spires and give each other high-fives. (The pilgrimage is believed to have started as a pagan fertility ritual, or as a means for Christian penance, but today it seems largely adventuring 20-somethings.)

Being so close I’ve decided to do a little project on the city, take a look at the (quasi) religious side of Santiago, versus the other modern secular side of town. There are lots of interesting cross-over points, and so far I’ve just been hanging around the cathedral, but will start heading back regularly to see what I can find around the rest of town.

So, to honour the scallop, the symbol of the pilgrimage, and all those pilgrims on the march to heaven, how about a snack…

Angel Hair Pasta with Scallops

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound sea scallops, sliced 1/4-inch thick
• 1 medium fresh tomatoes, minced into 1/4″ pieces
• 4 slices bacon or pancetta, diced fine
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• Fresh thyme, salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pound angel-hair pasta

Directions:

1. Boil water for pasta. When it begins to boil, add salt and oil, then turn down and start the sauce.
2. In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon or pancetta to render out some of the drippings. Add garlic and stir to brown. Add scallops, cooking quickly to avoid browning but to cook thoroughly.
3. When the scallops look nearly done, turn the water back up to a boil, then put the tomatoes into the skillet at the same time you put the pasta into the water. Cook for the requisite amount of time (2-3 minutes fresh, 6-7 minutes dried), then drain and lightly oil the pasta with a good extra-virgin olive oil (this will help keep the pasta from clumping while you eat it). Toss the fresh thyme into the skillet and stir through before removing it from the heat.
4. Toss the pasta with the sauce and serve with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

Coruña, Spain, 2010. An African worker.

Conference on challenging racial profiling in Spain.