2004 November

Tonight I resolved to consume one of the more difficult items: a box full of dense, chewy Pemmican bars. There are four flavors to choose from: Carob Cocoa, Fruit ‘N Nut, Almond Coconut, and Sesame Lemon. The Sesame Lemon will require some advanced tactics, I think, so for tonight I selected the less challenging Fruit ‘N Nut. I can’t eat these things plain anymore, so I pulled a container of Brown Cow Maple yoghurt and a chocolate bar from the fridge for assistance. Read on to see the result…

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We awoke this morning to glorious phlumf in the front yard! We missed it so much in the desert. By the end of the day we had tromped through fields of it and had a game of dog tackle in the yard. Pure joy. (For a definition of phlumf, see phlumf.com.)

I didn’t plan it, but this movie provides a pretty amazing contrast to The Last Samurai. Here we also have Americans living in the midst of Japanese culture, but in modern-day Tokyo. It’s a pretty stunning comparison. I get the feeling that Sophia Coppola represents a unique phenomenon in Hollywood because her father’s name, connections, and resources give her a lot of freedom as a director. One result of this is some youthful self-indulgence in the movie as soaks you in various aspects of pop and indy culture. What saves it is that she has something to say about these cultural phenomena, and she does it without preaching or pounding you with her point of view.

I was first facinated by samurai culture as a kid when the SHOGUN miniseries came out on TV. This movie attempts to convey some of the same things, and it does so in a few ways. Most of the time, though, just when I was getting curious about some facet of the main character’s environment, the movie would brush it aside to get back to the long action-hero battle scenes. The suggestion that Japan’s “last samurai” was really an American captain who mastered their ways in a year of captivity is a conceit that unfortunately permeates the film.

There’s no date anywhere in this book that I pulled out of a box that has been in storage for a long time. I don’t remember writing this, but I think it’s drawn from my first solo backpack trip about 10 years ago:

I felt like a great sage descending from the mountains to bring my newfound wisdom to the turmoil of the city. My hair was as wild and tangled as the scrub brush that whorled its way up the hillsides with me to sweat beneath the purest rays of sun and to breathe the thinnest air. Alone on windy peaks my heart had found victory over fear and all my past dissolved away into insignificance. A thousand bumps and riddles spread out beneath the sun and me, each one signed by rocks, slabs, granite, scree, grass, and tiny flowers casting their labyrinth of shadows away from me, the source of light. Long piercing shouts would rise from my breast of their own accord, falling through the atmosphere to find no human ear. Not until the sun had touched the edge of the sky and the earth had told its story in a dazzling dance of shadows would I descend — to find each mystery multiplied right before my eyes with every step.

At long last, when my life had become so small I had all but forgotten it, I let my descent continue into valleys and forests, along creeks and streams and rivers, over trails and log bridges to a dusty parking area where I greeted my old blue van as if for the frst time.

An interesting turn in noir films, this 1950 movie focuses on human pathos. The orchestral sountrack is there from its predecessors in the 40’s, and there’s a little snappy dialog, but there’s no glamourous, jaded, unattainable beauty or lone idealistic sojourner wrapped up in an incomprehensible plot. Instead we have a simple story of people struggling to accept a world that fails their expectations.

It’s great to see a Chinese Kung Fu Comedy poke fun at western sports and movies as well as their own beloved Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Chow Yun Fat flicks. Like Mortal Kombat, computer graphics are used instead of wires to create impossible kung fu action, but all in the context of soccer. They did an amazing job of making the soccer ball appear to be under the influence of both real gravity and the superhuman Chi of the quirky kung fu masters. The wandering story loses steam a few times, and there is some obligatory gratuitous potty humor, but for me the moments of glorious, action-packed satire are well worth sticking it out.

What a good documentary. Because it’s so unpretentious and unpreachy, even the arguments presented that I disagree with (for lawsuits against fast food companies) are not offensive or a turnoff. It addresses a genuine curiosity: what would happen to you if you ate nothing but McDonald’s food? That curiosity is satisfied with shocks and laughs along the way. It left me asking myself, “If 400,000 Americans die each year from preventable obesity-related illnesses, and that number is growing, doesn’t that represent a much greater threat to our country than the ones we hear in the news?”

We have a problem. Due to many changes in plans during our honeymoon on the continental divide last summer, we have a generous supply of leftover backpacking food. Mountainous, even. Some of it is still palatable after surviving on it for four months, and some of it is hard to even look at. Much of it is trail mix, not even dehydrated, and before too long it will go bad. I estimate we’ll have to eat one item per day, each, five days a week, to consume it all before it expires. After eating it day in and day out for so long, are we up to the challenge?

We have had a little help recently in simulating an authentic backpacking food preparation scenario. The electrical outlet that supplies current to our stove has been sparking and shorting out recently. Yesterday it finally gave out entirely. Until it is repaired, we’ve brought out the backpacking stove. It’s amazing how well it works with no wind, rain, snow, or uneven ground to contend with. It’s a little stinky, though.

This morning I contributed to the cause by eating half of a powdered egg-and-potato breakfast. Truth be told, I only resorted to this when I discovered we were out of real eggs. And really these meals are pretty good, especially with a little cheese added. There are much more difficult tasks ahead, which I plan to document here. With creativity, determination, and perseverance, I believe we can eat our horde before it turns into boxes of compost and paperweights.

I pay my respects to the parting Secretary of State. President Bush will now rely heavily on Condoleezza Rice, Powell’s replacement, in his campaign to bring peace and freedom to the Middle East.

The assault on Fallujah quieted down today with only 20 deaths reported, while things heated up in Baquba where we dropped a couple of 500-lb bombs. The US military says it has killed about 1,200 militants. At least 38 US soldiers have been killed and 275 wounded so far. Six Iraqi government troops have also died.