Bay Station "Go Out and Make Some" Tour Recap

I wrapped up the Bay Station Duo Go Out and Make Some Spring Tour with Kwame Copeland a couple days ago. Wowza. Over the past three+ weeks, we drove more than 6000 miles to play 22 shows in 15 states (including two double-days, one radio station, and (at least) one former brothel). We crossed the Mississippi River multiple times, skirted the base of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, and landed in the Mojave Desert. We ate tacos in New Mexico, hush puppies in Louisiana and fresh fruit pie wherever we could get it. Along the way, we happily gained a sense of the local music scenes in Nashville and San Antonio, connected with fellow touring artists in Dallas and Atlanta, and resumed old friendships in Austin and Chapel Hill. It was great to share our music with new ears, and get that much more inspired. Travel to different corners of the US is simply eye-opening.

Indeed, we experienced a sampler plate of what half the country has to offer: it's good, bad and ugly, red and blue. We were treated with the South's trademark charm while being constantly reminded of its oppressive and violent history. We talked to committed and aggrieved voters in Arizona, played the "only blue county" in Kansas, and were subjected to the gamut of political billboards in Missouri and Texas.

Mostly, we felt very fortunate to have music as our compass through such varied terrain, as it led us toward many warm-hearted and generous souls. I now feel much like I did when I finished a ride on the Big Dipper during childhood summer excursions to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk: "when can we go again?"

While I figure that out, we’ve a whole bunch of fun shows lined up around the San Francisco Bay Area during the next few weeks. Find my schedule and Bay Station's, at our sites:

www.deborahcrooks.com

www.baystationband.com

Desert Postcard: A week in the Mojave

Moonlight Mesa under the sun.

A visit to Radio Free Joshua Tree

Another sunrise

Joshua Tree is beginning to feel like a home away from home. Sunrise, sunset, ravens, rabbits, writing, singing, playing and strolling the desert mesas and trails is good for the soul. I'm so grateful for this piece of land and sky. 
As most areas of beauty in these times, there's careful balance to be struck between conservation and recreation. You can find out more about the hard-won, and always in need of protection, California Desert Conservation Area via The Center for Biological Diversity.

Read.Eat.Listen: Big Pictures

Another benefit to road-trips/tours is the capsule that the car becomes, be it for listening to music closely, having long conversations or reading. Last week's run up and down the 5, to Washington State and back for shows and family visits contained all of that. The passenger gets to be reader, sometimes to oneself, sometimes aloud, and much of my time on this trip was consumed with news and long-form essays on big picture issues. On the way North, it was climate change, on the way down I scared the bejesus out of us, reading aloud from the New Yorker article about the Cascadia Fault, while driving through the very landscape which would be irrevocably altered by a mega-earthquake. By the last day, we were in outer space, marvelling over the NASA reports about Pluto. I'm not sure why I'm seeking solace in geologic and space time, time where I'm small, a speck of animated dust just holding on like a bee in a hive, working for the honey. Part of it might be the sheer wow-factor: all this big science reminds me of how wondrous the facts, including our little lives, are. And part of it, I think, is that as much as I find the thought of huge earthquakes and tsunamis terrifying, I'm always glad to know the earth knows how to take care of itself even as we humans so often fail it.

Read: "The Earthquake That Will Devastate Seattle" by Kathryn Schulz, in The New Yorker. 
"When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job"by John H Richardson, Esquire
A view of the worlds around us With the fly-by of Pluto, we now can visualize all of the planets in our solar system. Here's a two-minute tour of the sun and the nine planets. Posted by Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Eat: Healthy eats at Harlow PDX

Portland was the food winner on this trip, and how nice we were staying walking distance from gluten-free veggie Harlow. Just read their menu and get the idea.

Listen: Kwame's brother Kwab Copeland is another fine musician writing and playing "raw, rustic verse set to rollicking badland bomp" (Chris Estey) out of Seattle. He, aka The Demon Rind, just released a winner in "Love Is Perfect":

Read.Eat.Listen: Pools

My sister was pushing me faster and faster around the pool, as I lay on one of those inflatable floating mats. This was thrilling. There was much shrieking and splashing. And then the mat flipped. All was quiet as I swam underwater for what was likely no longer than 15 seconds, but felt like a vast sea of calm.
My family was up at the river, visiting my aunt and uncle who had the place in Guerneville with the pool. On a hill full of redwood trees, the cabin's northern California landscape setting wasn't so different than the one that surrounded our house, a few hours south. But "The River" was a different place. People came here to get away from the city, to retreat and frolic and vacation, not raise kids (though of course, there are plenty of families here, too).  Along the clean air and views of the country, the little unincorporated town had a bakery and  restaurants within walking distance of my aunt and uncle's place.
The fact that they had a swimming pool, a round fiberglass number,  was a big deal at the time.  I must have had a swimming lesson or two by the time I visited, but as a rule, we didn't swim much.  When it was hot in the summers, we ran through the sprinklers to cool off if we didn't head to the beach. Our favored, and closest, beach, 10 miles west of where we lived, had huge signs in the sand warning of rip currents. We didn't dare go in past our knees. So the sudden immersion into the round, not-too-deep-but-deeper-than-a-seven-year-old pool waters turned into my first 'swim.' I was pleased with myself when I surfaced, but my mom was as angry, and scared, as if I'd been swept away by one of those Pacific riptides. It was a confusing re-entry, kind of like taking a nap and then walking outside onto a construction site. Perhaps its why swimming pools never really became my place of solace. Still, in lieu of a beach....
Read: I'm already annoyed* with Michelle Goldberg's book "The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West," or rather with Goldberg, but I'm eating up this book all the same. Indra Devi, one of the more famous and few women students of  Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, had a long and colorful life so she makes for a great subject. 
*Goldberg breezily (which is damningly and inaccurate) describes traditional Ashtanga yoga as being originally intended for young boys.
Eat: Chances are, we were eating Popsicles while poolside. Those multi-color rocket ones or maybe a fudgesicile. Circa 2015, I'd make it more like this vegan Fresh Summer Apricot Pop.
Listen:  More recently, we've found ourselves driving on a lot of dirt roads, in the desert a couple weeks ago and this past weekend in Marin. Some of the best listening while driving those dirt roads, we found, was the wonderful and wise Greg Brown. I love his daughter Pieta Brown's music, too, so I started digging up more of her tunes. Goodness.
Then I found this video of Pieta Brown playing a Lucinda Williams song with Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey. So here you go:

Read.Eat.Listen: All

Anyone who has practiced traditional Ashtanga yoga has heard "practice and all is coming." It was one of Ashtanga-originator Pattabhi Jois's favorite instructions: a succint way of saying: do your practice first, everything else, the 'all' of life, positive and negative, as well as the fruits of practice, will work themselves out. It's at once an inspiring, maddening and accurate instruction. Inspiring, because when things are hard, who doesn't want to hear that it will change or become clear? Maddening, as this direction is nowhere near a quick fix. And accurate, because, as someone who began Ashtanga during a low, low point in ones life, I've experienced the steady expansion that goes hand-in-hand with regular practice. Even when I've felt pissed, injured, bored, old, lazy, or disappointed with my practice, I know now, over years of coming back to the mat, all (all kinds of all) does come.

This week, quite serendipitously, we had opportunity to stay a few days at Rancho Valencia, a spa resort in San Diego County replete with tennis courts, swimming pools, fine restaurants, olive and citrus orchards, beehives, and multiple swimming pools. Tastefully decorated with original art, our suite was larger than our house and just as comfortable (if not more so!). The only thing missing was our cat...who will likely never forgive us. Hummingbirds buzzed the patio morning and evening, and freshly squeezed orange juice was delivered to our door each morning. A lot of allness! 

Though our every need was taken care of, and there was even a yoga pavilion, I ventured outside the grounds a couple of mornings, to practice at the Ashtanga Yoga Center on the border of Encinitas and Carlsbad. I've made many trips to Encinitas over the years, as it's the first place in the United States that Pattabhi Jois taught when he first came to the States in the 70s, and several teachers have since maintained Ashtanga's strong roots here. I practiced with Jois here in 2002, on one of his many teaching trips, and several times with Sharath Rangaswamy after he took over the reigns from Jois upon his passing.  Likewise, one of Jois's first American students, Tim Miller, has run hid influential Ashtanga Yoga Center here for many years. I was fortunate to practice at his studio this week, my first visit to the Carlsbad location. While the studio is now inland a bit, in one of San Diego County's seemingly omnipresent malls, Miller's big heart and dedication permeates the Center, a practice environment that strikes an admirable balance between friendly, relaxed and focused. 

Read: Oliver Sacks' "On the Move." If you've read any of his other books or articles — "Awakenings" or "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat"—you know Sacks is brilliant and human, warm and wise, light-hearted and endlessly curious. I'm so glad he sought to pen and complete his memoir "On the Move" which is a beautiful look inside the life and mind of one of our greats.

Eat: "Food is the final frontier [of practice]," wrote another senior Ashtanga teacher, David Garrigues, and this entry, alas, doesn't speak to a fully-tamed frontier (albeit all the food in question is organic). I first tasted hushpuppies as a 10-year-old on my first trip through the deep, southern US. Fried and with a name I thought was funny, the Louisiana-made cornmeal hushpuppies weren't anything like I'd tasted before. I can still remember the wonder I felt at their flavor. But I was only visiting the south and its cuisine. I've seldom come across hushpuppies since (and they're definitely not a dish that fits with my attempts at healthy yoga-practice encouraging eating). Regardless, when I saw "wild ramp and garlic hushpuppies" on the menu at Full of Life Flatbread, the foodie and wine-wise restaurant in Los Alamos where we pit-stopped on our way to San Diego, I had to place an order. They were presented beautifully in a white bowl with yummy green goddess dressing. I was a little underwhelmed by their flavors, but my childhood memory is a hard one to live up to. I'm not complaining. These circa 2015, California versions evoked a strong and happy memory...and went great with the house red, a salad and some of Full of Life's truffle-oil infused cauliflower soup. Yum. 

Listen: Truth be told, we've mainly been listening to ourselves this week, rehearsing our Desert Songs between the yoga and work that brought us here. Nonetheless, we perked up when The Carolina Chocolate Drops came on the radio amid our drive. Modern roots music with a side of gospel, this group is talented, spirited and aware...and no secret. They're at SF Jazz Center in May. 

Florida Postcard

I was delighted and privileged to have the opportunity to attend a conference the Florida Nature and Culture Center outside of Fort Lauderdale last weekend. The FNCC is situated on the border of the Everglades Wildlife Management Area so in between conference sessions on Buddhism, philosophy and everyday life, I took out my binoculars and checked out some of the local flora and fauna (ibis and black vultures and anhingas, oh my). Beauty and truth, always a winning combo....

More Inspiration from Mad Scientist Mind

Not long after my post referencing my love of mad scientists, I happened into a shrine to mad scientism, The Huntington in San Marino, CA. OMG! Founded by railroad tycoon and evident honorary mad scientist, Henry E. Huntington, in 1919, his namesake institution fully expresses his "special interest in books, art, and gardens."
"Start with the library," I was advised by the woman at the welcome desk.
"The Huntington Library is one of the largest and most complete research libraries in the United States in its fields of specialization. The Library’s collection of rare books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, maps, and other materials in the fields of British and American history and literature totals more than nine million items."
We're talking manuscripts and first editions from Shakespeare and Chaucer, Thoreau and Audubon. I was blown away. Thankfully, the Huntington Gardens beckoned and I cleared my mind with an eye-boggling meander through the 120 acres of cactus, bonsai courts, rose gardens and lily ponds. I was so glutted on beauty and wonder, I didn't make even it into the galleries to view the extensive collections of British and European art.
"Your first time?" the cashier at the gift store asked after I'd done a quick, slightly dazed holiday shop.
"Yes," I said, explaining that I was from out of town. "I had no idea."
"Yes," he nodded, "We're one of LA's best kept secrets."

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

1151 Oxford Road

San Marino, CA  91108

626.405.2100

Deborah Crooks | A more diverse form of Americana | Latest Cds

Rainy day museum visit

"When you put a seed in the ground, it doesn't stop growing after eight hours. It keeps going every minute that it's in the earth. We, too, need to keep growing every moment of every day that we are on this earth." -- Ruth Asawa

I left the uber rainy SF Bay Area for equally wet LA this week to hang with my sweetie, work on some writing, and dig a little deeper in my yoga practice. I still found time for an afternoon at the Norton Simon Art Museum which was so, so pleasing. I was delighted both to see a special exhibit of Ruth Asawa drawings and prints as well as an extensive Asian collection.
Throughout I kept coming upon paintings of flowers, studies, drawings, etchings. I loved the fact of visual artists coming back to  simple, ordinary captures of floral beauty through the ages. These flower paintings, from Asawa, Latour and de Heem, span 350 years. 

Hawaii Postcard: Walking Up Hills

                    Old ghost ranges, sunken rivers, come again

                             stand by the wall and tell their tale,

                     walk the path, sit the rains,

                     grind the ink, wet the brushes, unroll the

                              broad white space:

                     lead out and tip

                     the moist black line.

                     Walking on walking,

                                              under foot          earth turns.

                     Streams and mountains never stay the same.    

                                                                      -- Gary Snyder, Endless Streams & Mountains

In a new landscape, the mind reaches for known landscapes. My body reads 'tropics' on the skin and in the air, and automatically conjures up paths it's stepped, breathed, been before. In the years since I took that first flight to Hawaii, I've been to many other lands, other islands. Driving through Honolulu this week, I'm recalling Mysore, India; Austin, TX; St. Croix, VI; and, seemingly pedestrianly, Sacramento, CA. All of thes places I've been, share heat, a certain stickiness, and similar foliage (and some birds, native and/or introduced).*

Walking up Diamond Head yesterday, hearing multiple languages as we switched back up the side of the crater, my mind scrambled with memories of walking the stairs of Chamundi Hill, in India; and  ascending the cable route of Half Dome; as wells as a low-slung mountain that the painter Cezanne was said to favor outside of Aix. 

I've read body turns over all of its cells every 7 years, but somewhere there's a file of miles walked within me, beyond it seems, even the cellular. The mystery of being glimpsed yet again.

The view from Diamond Head

Hawaii Postcard: Wherever you go...

I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Wherever you go, there you are....it was fun to happen upon several paintings by Georgia O'Keefe at the Honolulu Art Museum this week. The Dole Company paid for O'Keefe to fly here in 1939 in exchange for two paintings (on any subject) they could use in their pineapple juice ads. She produced 20 paintings inspired by her time in the island landscape, and the three I saw were lovely and so immediately recognizable as her work. Even though Hawaii is 180 degrees different than New York, where she was living, and Santa Fe, where she settled. It reminded me what I've been feeling this latest bit of travel, and what I've learned in the past: wherever you go there you are
For a long time, my urge to travel was to get away. But my need to escape myself was cured  by my last trip to India. Both knees injured, yoga practice compromised (physically), far from my love, I felt finally a big 'uncle' in me. Realizing once and for all, I was not going to transmogrify into a fantasy of myself that had it all together and was pain (physical, emotional, you name it) free. No I was me, that wasn't going to change fundamentally, this lifetime. So when I came home, I really came home, and started to put down roots for the first time in years. I've travelled a little in the past three years, but it's been pretty west-coast centric, road-trippy and domestic.

So flying to Hawaii this week was the longest I've been on a plane in a bit. Still it felt pretty natural and familiar and I arrived curious for perspective rather than looking for escape.  Flying out over the Bay Area, getting a clear picture of my home territory: the small island of Alameda we call home, the vast, bridge- becrossed San Francisco Bay as well as Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands, and Pt. Reyes jutting out furthest west fromthe mainland as if it wanted to go to Hawaii, too, was the literal broad overview. And being here has been a balm and extension of that. It's been great to mostly unplug and not do too much -- not try to see everything, everywhere, or play out or what have you, going to the yoga studio in the a.m., writing and strumming a little, albeit augmented by warm water, acai bowls and sand. Mm mm Mmmmm.

Earthquakes past and present

The view of Dry Creek Valley from Sbragia Winery

As timing would have it, we had a gig in wine country on Sunday. It was in Sonoma County rather than Napa, but like most people living in the Bay Area, we'd felt the earthquake in the wee hours of the morning. Like most California natives, the feel of an earthquake is familiar. The first hints of movement, the approaching tremors and then the peak of the shake. Kind of like thunder in the earth. This one felt long and steady (I think I woke up after the sharpest of the jolts), not enough to get out of bed but enough for us to know it wasn't an inconsequential tremor. It felt to me that we were at or very near the center of something moderate...or somewhere not too far away, some peoples lives were changing considerably...which they were. My best wishes are going out to those in  Napa who are reeling from the 6.1 quake's aftermath, and whose nerves are likely rattling from the 80+ aftershocks.

While I don't think of moving from California when an earthquake reminds me how fragile things really are, something primal in the survival department does get rattled. The earth moving is an awesome event, period. And I have instant recall of the two other largish and large earthquakes I've been in (5.9 in 1979 and 7.1 in 1989, both while I was living in Santa Cruz), down to what I did (ducking and covering under a dining room table and doorway respectively), and who I was with, and also that knowing that 'this one' is a 'big one.'
I had the brief  thought on Sunday that maybe we shouldn't go the gig in Geyserville because of the quake. There were bridges to cross, after all, and we'd be heading closer to the epicenter than we were here in Alameda. Then I realized how silly that was—that while we could control how close we were to a fault line, there are infinite risks inherent to living anywhere, but it's the living, as risky a proposition as that can be, that's the point. And so we made the drive, and enjoyed playing atop a beautiful hill with a bucolic view of Dry Creek Valley.

Loving Some More

“Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”   -Victor Frankl
There was a time I considered applying to work in Antarctica. I'd been traveling in New Zealand where I met a bunch of people who'd been working on Earth's southernmost continent. Part of the deal of working there for half the year was a return ticket anywhere between the Antarctic science base and the rest of the world. Post Antarctic-living, New Zealand, Australia and South America were popular way stations. It seemed like a cool deal.
What the hell were you thinking? You might ask, to want to check out nearly as much as possible to spend 6 months working in one of the remotest coldest, parts of the planet. It's likely not hard to surmise I was pretty disappointed with humanity and myself at the time. Having gone through a nasty divorce and its subsequent fall-out, I was in a nothing-to-lose time, that was at once hellish and liberating.
But I didn't go work in Antarctica.  Job placements like that require stability, as well as curiosity, good attention and a will for it all, not exactly what I then exhibiting. Instead I headed back to California to work on getting real about who I was and where I came from, rather than running as far away as possible (though of course I did more of that, too, just not so far).
I remembered my Antarctic considerations this week while reading the chaotic and troubling news of the world near and far. My old desire to check out starts to rear its head. But while running away from things doesn't add to the problem but it doesn't solve anything either. I know now change is always possible, if not easy, and generally better than the alternative.  

il Moderato

I'm not a clotheshorse. Shopping in large stores induces overwhelm and even if it looks good, if I don't feel comfortable in it, the item will soon gets relegated to the Goodwill or clothing-swap bag. Still, when I find items of clothing I like, I wear it until I can't be worn anymore: the favorite jeans that finally wear out in the butt, the green coat with threadbare buttons, the worn-down heels that can't be repaired. And then there's the limiter of living in a small house. I don't like clutter. Sometimes, I'm sad to realize I've donated something prematurely (When did I toss out the vintage clack cape with the green lining or my dad's old buckskin jacket?). But some things have persisted. Saturday I was happy to reach deep in the depths of the closet and find an old favorite jacket, that I can't justifiably wear everywhere anymore, but I that I can't part with either.

 "It's made entirely of recycled or repurposed materials," said the young New Zealander about the one-of-a-kind short coat I was trying on in the middle of her store. The gold-and-cream brocade jacket's material was as well suited for a couch as it was a body, but I immediately knew it was mine...even if it hadn't occurred to me to buy a jacket.  

I'd wandered into the eco clothing boutique not far from the Wellington ferry terminal, with no clear shopping objective. Past the initial reporting work, which had brought me to Auckland a few days, earlier, spontaneity and intuition were the themes of my third trip to New Zealand. It was the first time I'd traveled here as a freelance writer, and it was the first long trip I'd taken after a long relationship crashed and burned. After months of feeling blue, the trip to New Zealand offered some needed perspective on starting over. So as soon as I finished filing my report, I rented a car and decided I wouldn't follow a set itinerary for the next 10 days of vacation. I'd wake up each day and then decide where to go and what to do. 

Reading the paper at breakfast that day, I learned Wellington was hosting The New Zealand International Festival of Arts and off I went, catching the ferry across Cook Straight, between the North and South Island. With some time before the evening's performance, I window-shopped. And while I didn't know what I was looking for when I walked in the store, I gravitated toward the rack of jackets made from upholstery against the wall as if the garment were calling me. It was a bold jacket. Complete with black faux leather collar and zipper lining and slash zippered pockets that were roomy but not bulky, the jacket hugged me just enough at the waist to confirm curves without being tight. Durable, but stylish, ready for anything, rich but not ostentatious, it had a character I aspired to.  

I wore the jacket to the show that night, Mark Morris's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and I wore it for the plane ride home to San Francisco, still sandy, and now blissed out from my few days on the beaches of Golden Bay.  After 12 unplugged days of traveling by myself, soaking in hot springs on the Coramandel Peninsula, watching whales in Kaikoura, kayaking on the bay and eating mussels and thick toast with my feet in the sand, I was starting to feel a part of the living again.

I may have looked too happy. The security guard held me back, asking me to remove the jacket. I watched as he ran his fingers along and around the black collar, checking for contraband. But he stopped short of cutting into it when I protested, and, muttering, returned the jacket to me.

For several years, I wore the NZ coat everywhere. It went well with jeans and it worked over dresses.  The pockets could hold a few Cds, keys, lipstick, a cell phone and money. It made sense to wear in all but the hottest of weather. Always, someone would remark upon its specialness. In Paris, a woman stopped me on the Ile St Louis to finger the sleeves, circling me, appraising its cut, approvingly. It was slightly weird, she opined, maybe a little too heavy, but it worked. 

And like the well-loved sofa it would have become, it became faded and worn in places over the years. When the elbows began to go threadbare, it became something I only wore with jeans.  Today, more than 15 years after I bought it, it very seldom leaves its hanger, but I keep it as a reminder of the possibility I remembered when I bought it, as much as of the places I've been.

Ode to Pliny

"I have a big inner life. My struggle is how to organize it." -- Baz Luhrmann  New York Times 2/9/14

Rainy day here. Rainy days. As California basks in belatedly falling rain and snow, I'm happy to be warm at home, reading the Sunday paper, recovering from my venture into beer tourism.

 I'm not a big drinker and, when it comes to alcohol consumption of any kind, I'm more apt to have a nice glass of red wine. However, my SO has a high regard for IPAs and enough interest in craft beer to brew up a batch at home from time to time. So when another friend who is likewise partnered to a beer lover invited us along to enjoy Russian River Brewing Company's annual release of its renowned Triple IPA 'Pliny the Younger,' we said sure. 

As the event showed up increasingly in the press, it dawned on us that the Pliny the Younger release was a very big deal among beer drinkers. Expensive and time-consuming to brew, Pliny the Younger is considered one of the very best tasting beers in the world, but is only available at the Santa Rosa pub for two weeks each year (with very limited shipments elsewhere). People from all over the country (world?) — we'd meet a woman from Texas who flew in and got up at 5 in the morning to get in line — gather in Santa Rosa each February to consume the rich beer. And so I found myself rising early Saturday to join my friends and the gathering throngs to await our turn to taste Pliny.

The drenching rain didn't keep the crowds away and it was late afternoon by the time we were let inside Russian River Brewing Company.
 Inside the brewery, it was nearly standing room only, shoulder-to-shoulder, elbow-to-elbow, as the capacity crowd toasted glasses and sipped on the golden ale.  The pub serves an extensive list of other highly regarded and artful brews, including Pliny the Elder,  all year, but it was Pliny the Younger's day.
"Are you leaving?" I asked a man getting up from an adjacent bar stool, hoping to secure more perches for my party. 
"No," he said, looking at me aghast. "I'm staying 'til they close. 
Eventually, we got a table to sip and further consider this year's Pliny over pizza and pub sandwiches. 
Was it all that? I'm hardly the best judge, but I will say it was the smoothest, most drinkable beer I've tasted.

We're again participating in the RPM (write an album in a month) Challenge this month. I don't know this Ode to Pliny will make the KCDC 2.0 cut, but this is what appeared today:

Ode to Pliny the Younger

What you'll do for a fine craft beer 

Why wait in the rain in a soggy chair

As Triple IPA is a strong and special thing

May alter your reality, may make you sing

Oh Pliny the Younger, you sneaky little thing

Oh Pliny the Younger, 

Oh Pliny the Younger, 

Hoppy, smooth, a beer so right

We waited for hours

And now everyone's a little tight

We stood outside though the rain did fall

What folks will do for rare alcohol 

The cops came, the merchants swore

But we all bought T-shirts 

From The Pliny the Younger store

Oh Pliny the Younger, 

Oh Pliny the Younger, 

Hoppy, smooth, a beer so right

We waited for ours 

Then off we went in the night

Will you do it again? Some won't some will

Fly from all over to get their fill

Maybe if there's another sort of inebriation

Perhaps a quadruple IPA creation?

---KCDC 2/9/14

Two states, one day, things read on the way

Gary Snyder has a book/epic poem "Mountains and Rivers Without End," an opus that draws on all his Beat Poet/Zen/Nature crazy wisdom. I thought of that title today, rolling across Utah and Nevada with their respective mountains and deserts and highways (rivers not always evident), without end. Many of the parts of Nevada and Utah that the 80 traverses are the hardest bitten ones: great swatches of possibly inhabitable land. Colorless, hot and dry, they've the look of being filled with snakes, barbed wire, abandoned buildings or ...explosive devises (we read such a warning in the Mojave last week). We crested a hill and saw two white military dirigibles hovering over some treeless ridges. Again: WTF? Thank the advent of Smartphones that you can Google "military blimp" in the middle of seemingly nowhere and find out that these floating behemoths are used to mount radar and are being tested in Utah. Hmmm... All that highway calls for much reading, aloud as to entertain the driver, including facts about the towns we're cruising through. Who knew Rock Springs had such an oppressive and violent past? Likewise a recent New Yorker provided additional information for review of such humans-behaving-badly matters. If you want to get more up to speed on the implications of the recent Supreme Court ruling Shelby v. Holder do read A Critic at Large: The Color of Law, by Louis Menand. Voting rights and the Southern way of life. http://nyr.kr/14AVbO8 



NOW.  It is a chilling review of the horrific obstacles the civil-rights workers endured en route to securing voting rights for African Americans in the 1960s and the very real and troubling politics that are in play today.

On a more positive note, we pit-stopped in Salt Lake City and enjoyed an evening stroll through the 80-acre Liberty Park, so named as its fountains, lake, picnic areas, aviary, tennis courts, trees and lawns were intended for all to enjoy, and indeed a large cross section of the city was happily doing just that on a warm summer evening.

Listening Via @nprmusic: The Mix: Songs Inspired By The Civil Rights Movement http://n.pr/12LEvRg

Mountain Towns, Wolves & Winding Roads

I awoke this morning and thought, 'oh, duh, Laramie is a mountain town.' Sure there were cowboys and cowgirls dancing in the street to a band wearing LARGE cowboy hats, and it's pretty flat in town overall, but the elevation is 7165' and the thunderstorms mountain-issue. We waited in the car for an extra half hour before unloading our gear last night as lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and a deluge of rainwater filled the gutters. Earlier in the day, before the clouds moved in, we did a short walk/hike on the Happy Jack Trail in the Medicine Bow National Forest, 15 minutes out of town. Today, starting our return trip home, we drove the Medicine Bow Scenic Byway west, enjoying views of 12,000 foot peaks and... a wolf! By its size and color, we were sure it wasn't a coyote loping through a clearing in the woods, but we weren't certain of our assessment until a little fact checking revealed Wyoming wolf populations are deemed 'healthy' enough to permit a hunt. The concept of trophy hunting these animals is not a pleasant thought to my mind. Especially since Wyoming wolves were just down listed from Endangered and Threatened Status in 2012. Ugh. 

I read more about wolf population numbers and hunting math here: http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2012/12/29/wyomings-first-wolf-hunt-soon-to-close/, and found that in most of the state, wolves are considered a Predatory animal and can be shot on sight. Double Ugh. But even placing my views on killing/hunting animals aside, it appears more protection of wolves is warranted and justified to maintain a viable population of this native animal. The wolves' clearly beleaguered status notwithstanding, we felt privileged to see a gray wolf, for a moment, running free.

 

* Save the Gray Wolf https://secure.defenders.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=savewolves_homepage

& Wyoming Wolf Facts http://wgfd.wyo.gov/web2011/news-1001287.aspx

Mountains, craters and gorges

This has been the week of natural, scenic beauty, driving across the southwest, up through Colorado and now in Wyoming. We've slept in the desert, soaked in mineral hot springs, peered down into meteor craters and river gorges, looked up at extinct volcanoes and imposing 14,000' mountains, and played music in backyards, bars, farm-to-table restaurants and ale houses, with time for reconnecting with friends and family along our route. It's been a rich time -- and reminds me again how many great places there are to experience. 

Desert Views & Voices in Joshua Tree

Coos, clucks, the occasional rasp. The sun rose at 5:40 am and so it seemed did every other creature in the desert. I popped my head out the door of our rented casita not far from the West entrance to Joshua Tree National Park and saw a flock of quail, several finches, cactus wrens and hummingbirds busily foraging amid the cactus before the temperature skyrocketed. Yesterday's high was in the 105 degree range which seems unlivable until you find yourself in it (not that we would have lasted without AC). On the way in from LA, we pit- stopped at Desert Hot Springs Spa and marveled at how odd it was to have air and water hovering around the same temperature.
It's not the ideal time to be here but we intentionally planned a stop in JT on our way to New Mexico and, as expected, the desert has charmed us. Within a few minutes of rising we watched two coyotes waltz by. A pair of sparrows landed on a nearby rock and sang a sweet song as we drank mugs ful of strong coffee. We were greeted by friendly staff at the Park visitor center who helped us plan some beat-the-heat morning nature walks through Joshua Trees and the rounded granite rock formations the place is known for. By noon, we were ready to head back to town for smoothies from The Natural Sisters Cafe and lunch provisions from the weekly Farmer's Market. It may not be peak season but JT was abuzz with friendly locals and farmers. Everyone we talked to seemed to be an artist or creator of some sort. Perhaps it's the heat, perhaps it's the vistas. Maybe it's the fabled 'vortex' of the area. All told, we're similarly inspired and invigorated, wondering aloud how and when we could return for a longer stay....

Read.Eat.Listen: Bend

It's been a week of listening to the world news: to Lance & Oprah, President Obama's inauguration, Beyonce's lips, Hilary testifying about Benghazi... a lot to process. Above the din, a few things have caught my ear  to provide some inspiration
Read: I heard a review of this book on NPR and rushed to find out more. "Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds," is Ping Fu's story of surviving the hell that was the Chinese Cultural Revolution,  being exiled to America (for her research on female infanticide) and going on to become the influential CEO of Geomagic. Here's a story for crazy times!
Eat: Goa Fish Curry. A couple years ago, I tacked on a few weeks' time in Goa, India, after several months spent in Mysore. Kwame flew out for that part of the trip, which involved more beach time than yoga. As many of the best places to eat are in the beach shack restaurants that line the beach, and many a sunset dinner involved the local fish curry. Since a birthday is going on 'round here, a Goan curry is in the making (albeit without the beach shack dining room). I didn't do any cooking in Goa, so I'm happy to have a copy of Niloufer Ichaporia King's  'My Bombay Kitchen'. The book is a good foodie read period; I'm glad to finally cook something out of it!
Listen: Of Monsters and Men 'King & Lionheart'

Portland: Go west, near east

It's no secret that one of the many great things about Mysore-Style Ashtanga Yoga is the global tribe of Ashtanga practitioners. Visit nearly any place in the world and you can likely scare up at least a couple Ashtangis with whom to share practice. I've found practice groups everywhere from living rooms in Santa Cruz found by word-of-mouth to the most bustling urban capitals. Portland is no different, with at least two established Mysore groups. When I visit Portland, I call up a local I met in India in 2008 to set me in the right direction. This go Karen graciously shepherded me to Near East Yoga, a Northeast Portland studio led by Casey Palmer, which has been going strong for a good number of years. On-point instruction, good vibe, friendly community...what else does an Ashtangi need?

Well... food. We found post practice eats at Bijou Cafe which knows how to make a kick-ass, authentically French omelet. Plus they'll serve with a salad.  Très bon. (Yogis know better than to enter the Voodoo Donuts outpost up the street from Bijou, but I can't tell you how many Portland residents told me about Voodo so I'd be remiss not to mention it. Voodoo is renowned both for wacky flavor combinations as well as anatomically correct donuts. The actual Voodo donut features a pretzel stick stake through it's doughy heart.) Back to Bijou, the cafe not only serves great food but hosts a weekly Supper Jazz series on Friday's. Next time...Visiting on the front end of a week, we missed a whole slew of Portland's musical scene (other than the visiting guitar in the hotel room). Fortunately, Jimmy Mak's Jazz Club, in the Pearl District, hosts an interesting program of resident and touring artists nearly every night of the week. We enjoyed an early show by a young Portland ensemble on Tuesday in its cozy dinner club listening room. Yes, life is good in Portland.