cardiff by the sea

a beautiful sunny but windy sunday
windy! & then some windsurfing...
at cardiff by the sea, california

windsurfing - w/the same old digital camera (smile here...)

happy chinese new year

Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later.

camera: nikkormat EL, film: FujiFilm Reala ISO 100
look closer...

flor at home, I planted this plant back in September 2006
it was doing fine, but in my vacation to Autlan, it became dry
since I came back I have been watering it more often
and added some plant food
the stems still seem dry, but a couple of days ago
it surprised me with a new lovely purple flower
this photo is from last Thursday, by today it has already another 3 flowers
it is still a new year, at least for the plant & the chinese!
hope that the moon brings you wishes to reality soon

café with press pot

while my aunt was here
I got a french press pot for just $7.99!
the jar glass is not very thick but it holds the heat nicely
but the colander/filter is great
a stainless steel mesh
nothing for breakfast as press pot coffee
it just taste 'earthier' than the dripping method

I also found this mexican peaberry,
that trader joe's (the best grocery store in the world!) has
just $5.99 the can, sadly, a limited edition
I usually like darker roasts, especially for espresso
and in the winter... but this mexican peaberry with medium roast
is, as you can read from the can, bright, smooth, and sweet... sweet!

the hope of a new day, comes along with the smell of a nice cup of coffee
no matter how dark some nights can be...
just have to remember, there will always be another day
arriving with a new morning, and if lucky with a nice cup of coffee
the morning coffee is a sign of a fresh start, everyday...

mi amigo: the grasshopper

this grasshopper

lives in my front little patio
for a while now
probably over a month
i see him mostly on the weekends
on that big palm
and when i water the plants, he jumps
by the chair or besides the palm
and waits until i am done watering
as i close the water hose... he jumps right away back
to his house the big green palm
i am sure it is the same grasshopper because
every time i see him
it is a little bigger...
my aunt said she saw him too
a strange & neat keeper to my front door
mi amigo the grasshopper
i must confess , i look forward seeing him on the weekends
he eats parts of the palm
sometimes, when i don't see him
i check the palm, if there's a hole in it
is that mister grasshopper had already his lunch

film

photography: time & light... Life.

ah! after many months of struggle to decide on a new camera
I got, at least for the moment, a new one
I wasn't really get into film these days but I found a beautiful in mint state
Nikon Nikkormat EL, almost new... original case
I couldn't resist... before getting it
I played with my old Zenit a little [photos]
film is tough and requires lots of patience and like all analog
media is moody and impractical
yet... when a film photo comes out nice
is like the melody of pure visual poetry

yeah! here samples of the film moodyness struggle

I embrace photography
I think
because encloses the essence of two magic elements
in nature/universe
2 mysteries that have capture always my heart and mind:
time and light (energy)

roböexotica

thank god for friends over-seas willing to share!
before Jaime & Monki have sent me neat packages
from Spain and Seattle
but a couple of days ago
i got a yellow padded folder from Vienna via mister Magnus!
i requested some stickers but ah! neat surprise
a beautiful screen printed long sleeve t-shirt!
and some very handy stickers (heh heh)...

click here to help the cause of an American Roboexotica
and cheers!
Danke schön Magnus

sparklehorse - it's a wonderful x-mas present!

one of my x-mas presents is
a ticket to see sparklehorse
a very unique alternative band
tonight! in a couple of hours...
at the belly-up, in solana beach, california
a 22 minutes drive from home

sometimes, somedays
it's a wonderful life!
here from their album with same title

books lately

The only bookstore in Julian, CA
April, 2006

here a list of
the books that I have read since April 2005

1. Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy
2. Paul Auster – Timbuktu
3. Paul Auster – The Brooklyn Follies
4. Paul Auster – Leviathan
5. Paul Auster – Oracle Night
6. Colson Whitehead – The Intuitionist
7. Colson Whitehead – The Colossus of New York
8. Emily Brontë – Wuthering Heights
9. John McNulty – This Place on Third Avenue
10. John Hardwood – The Ghost Writer
11. Yukio Mishima – Spring Snow
12. Yukio Mishima – Death in Midsummer
13. Kobo Abe – Kangaroo Notebook
14. Julian Barnes – The Lemon Table
15. Julian Barnes – Flaubert’s Parrot
16. Julian Barnes – Arthur & George
17. Haruki Murakami – A Wild Sheep Chase
18. Haruki Murakami – After the Quake: Stories
19. Alice Munro – Runaway
20. Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
21. Douglas Adams –Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul
22. Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner
23. José Saramago – El Hombre Duplicado (read in Spanish)
24. José Saramago – Blindness (in English)
25. Angeles Mastretta – Arráncame la Vida (Spanish)
26. José Agustín – ¿Quién soy, dónde estoy, qué me dieron? (Spanish)
27. John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces
28. Jasper Fforde – The Eyre Affair
29. Jasper Fforde – Lost in a Good Book
30. Nick Hornby – A Long Way Down
31. James Joyce – Dubliners
32. Alan Hollinghurst – The Line of Beauty
33. Lafcadio Hearn – Some Chinese Ghosts
34. Erik Larson – The Devil in the White City
35. Arthur Machen – The White People and other Stories: The best weird stories of Arthur Machen
36. David Sedaris – Me Talk Pretty One Day
37. David Sedaris – Holidays on Ice
38. Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
39. Chuck Palahniuk – Lullaby
40. James Frey – A Million Little Pieces
41. T. S. Elliot – The Waste Land and other Poems
42. Herman Hesse – The Fairy Tales of Herman Hesse

maybe I am forgetting some
I can’t shake that feeling of my head
that I am missing some

The list comes to 41 or 42 books in about 2 years
makes an average of 1.7(something) books per month

I have another list of ½ read books, the not finished ones
mostly because I didn’t find them engaging enough
or I know the require a frame of mind or deep concentration
that hasn’t suit my mood around that particular time

but the list above… all finished from the 1st to last page

some have been magical, some not as immense
some are hard and slow to read
some wonderful and hard still…
some surprisingly fast and inspiring
all of them always enriching
and a couple of them, truly life changing

from time to time
one regrets the wasted time in life
but I could never regret
a single second I have spent
behind the pages of a book

& endless thanks to all my friends
& all those titles above
I know through them
Some have been dear gifts
Some soulful recommendations

Dissipating the brumous

The past 2 days have been a rush of blood to the head
Crossing the border 7am Sunday morning / aunt to Tijuana airport
About to leave the parking lot
Hey! I have 2 more hours of free parking in Tijauan… so
A still-in-pajamas border fence photo shot session
The 2 magical hours!

Forgot how much I love parking lots, mostly the empty ones
And the further away from home, the better
The creative process restoring the soul
in contact with yourself real time
While creating or 30 years ago: playing
In this case, I - with my cheap camera, aha!
Away from any communication media
And meeting random every day people
chat with a parking lot employee
A woman on her late 30’s, with a life so different than mine
3 kids, second husband, part time job
the guy carrying suitcases, 28, arrived to Tijuana a year ago
wife and kid in Michoacán, expecting for pay check monthly
he smiled nicely, wisely, when he spoke of his son
soothing...

wow life was outside in parking lot at the Tijuana airport
then I saw the fence again, and what are those posters?
Images and energy re-considering a come back

a man standing, can see he's from a mexican small town
are you a reporter, señorita?
many people from the TV and radio come to see the posters...
a broken smile with missing teeth through these
his sunny soul made merry appearance
wearing wool checkered jacket
sun shining
clouds smiling

And tonight, unexpected late small banquet
at Parkhouse eatery, a fine selection of fish, meat, & seafood
little crab cakes
crème brule & a very small glass of champagne
on a Monday night? Things like these doesn’t happen anymore
and certainly not to me lately

all after a week of being host of one of the most wonderful and pure gold heart women
in the world, mi tia Margarita, a delight of human being

maybe I was taking life too serious?
And I forgot to wink at it?
I felt fine to believe in my old-fashioned quirky self tonight
In the weird slightly crazy completely foolish woman I am
but people smiled back

Not sure what’s turning around in my life today
And yesterday
guess the brumous was getting too thick
but as the days get warmer
life seems to be coming back around
to dissipate it

vinyl posters from Fence of the Mexican-American border
Tijuana, BCN México - February 05, 2007

memories

this is an old photo i took in 23July16 (according to the folder)
i assume the 16 meant '06
it is the same antenna, bit of ceiling, & sky
of every morning
means leaving home, facing life, the little antenna