I don’t trip very often, but the sometimes are usually incredible, and a week ago I had perhaps the best psychedelic experiences to date. What made it incredible was not hallucinations but realizations– about the nature of reality and time and relationships and helping the world.

The story is long, but it deserves it.

A very intense trip

My beautiful and talented girlfriend, Johanna, wants to cook your dinner!

Johanna was a personal chef in NYC, taught at French cooking school, and has worked in myriad cafes and bakeries. She enjoys combining flavors in inventive ways, and has the best food sense I’ve ever met.

And she has free time, being underemployed! The deal is you pay $50 an hour, from which she’ll buy food, make it, and clean it up. That’s for a family-full of people, and other situations are negotiable. The best nights are Tuesday or Wednesday. She’s vegetarian, so her experience with meat is limited, but she knows fish.

Reply to me if you’re interested and tell your friends!

I want writing to be a much bigger part of my life! I’m mainly interested in writing non-fiction: essays, analysis, persuasion, particularly after reading the excellent On Writing Well. But I suppose that the absolute mastery of the English language is found only in traveling all its paths, so I’m forming a…

Writers Anonymous Group!

This was ‘s idea, but she’s busy and gave me her blessing in starting my own (while reserving the right to start her own later).

Here’s what I wrote to a list:

I’m leaving Boston again soon– looks like June– so this will be a distributed support group for people who want to write, meeting online (hence, anonymous). I think it will be really fun, and good incentive and feedback for writing. Let us make words!

So tell me you want to join and start writing!

The development studies department was late with their letters, from the onrush of applicants this year, so they attached it in email: Don’t come. Tudo bem! Now I can try applying to grad school the way I tell other people to try– make correspondence with the people you want to advise you and go wherever they are. But that’s a whole year away; it’s time for me to make plans for this year!

I wanted to wait for whatever imminent news from Oxford before posting– Flame got hers a week ago (not this year)– but I suspect that my application got shuffled into the later-applicant pool after a snafu with my transcript. So, moving on!

I’m back in Cambridge! It’s fascinating to see what’s changed in seven short months, what’s remained, and what was already history before I left it. But I’ve gotten back into the rhythm of the land, quickly enough, and the sweet and salty of it is not much different.

I now have a beautiful apartment, Bluehouse. It’s on Highland Ave., a ways after it’s forgotten its Davis roots, but not far from Porter. The other residents seem really cool, and the whole place– from stairway to bathroom– is filled with art.

I have a new cell phone. Ask me for the number.

I am going to Burning Man! I hope to stay with Auto-Sub and help with their preparations! I have a plan for an art installation, if I can get the equipment together!

Outside of A.I. work (which I adore), my big todos for the season include documenting my Brazil experiences, expanding the Travelers Network, authoring an O.C.W. course, writing on work revolutions, developing my Forum Projects, and taking a driving class. And, I’m building a mailing list for virtual seminars– information in the next post!

I can barely believe it, but I have ticket to prove it: I’m coming back to Boston! Not for more than six months, but for more than a visit. I’m tired of traveling, I’m in love, and I have jury duty– it’s time to come home.

Anyone know of rooms available for six months? If I get into Oxford, I’ll be heading there around September. Otherwise, I’ll probably go live in San Francisco for a while, and maybe head there early to prep for Burning Man. I can’t wait for the next bite of life!

and www.livejournal.com have been having problems in Brazil– one or the other hasn’t been available for weeks. But I’m alive, and feeling it. A lot has happened! Briefly:

Flame arrived. We flew to Salvador. We got mugged. We got kidnapped. We ate great sushi. We chilled on an island known for its lace, but found no lace. We flew back to Belém. We partied with the World Social Forum. We attended one out of the ten lectures we tried to find. We took over a stall and collected people for my projects. We went to Marajó island and saw many water buffalo. We biked around town, and to a fishing village, ranch, and beach. We bussed for three nights to Campo Grande. We’ve seen 12 live music performances, eaten at 10 by-the-kilo places, took two warm showers, memorized one poem, and kissed an enumerable number of times.

Our subsequent plans include three days of Pantanal tour, one day of Bonito snorkeling, one day at the Foz do Iguaçu falls, three days of São Paulo, three days of Rio, a plane to Recife for four days of carnaval in Olinda, two days in Fortaleza, and a sad goodbye in Belém.

The beautiful Fire, a friend from Cambridge, is arriving tomorrow morning in Brazil for the World Social Forum! I hope to show her the best of Brazil while we’re at it– four days in Salvador, a week in Belém, and three more days probably on the island of Marajó.

She also nudged me to post pictures from the last forever. So here they are.

São Paulo: (see more)

“A Party at Alex’s”

The Brazilian Town

The mall is full of it.

Brasilia: (see more)

Brasilia Cathedral

Congress Building

President’s first stage

Universo Paralello:

Main floor stage

Pratigi Beach

Sand Sculpture

São Luis:

Down a street

Over the “river”

Overgrown building

Lensois Maranheses: (see more)

Dunes

Dunes

Dunes

As I get better at understanding Portuguese conversation, I start picking up on funky peculiarities. Like, the Portuguese word for “everyone” is “todo o mundo” (“the whole world”). A little voice in my head always translates it as meaning “even Thailand”. “Vamos pra o bar antes de restaurante, e o todo o modo fica feliz.” (Let’s go to the bar before the restaurant, and the whole world will be happy), and I imagine the Thai all parading through their streets. But there’s something beautiful about the phrase. In English, every time we say everyone, we reassert our individuality– that there are a bunch of us ones for there to be an every of. In essence, we say “I mean all of us here together– but don’t think I’m calling us a group!” The Brazilian, on the other hand, one day meets a visitor from Thailand and thinks “Oh, you’re who I’ve been talking about all along!”

Here are the projects I’m going to collect people for at the World Social Forum! I’ll paint the pictures below on either side of a sign to sit next to me, and have the short descriptions translated to Portuguese. And I have plenty more details on both.

You interested in joining? Ideas? Questions? Comments on the designs and descriptions? Tell me!

		Sustainable Travel and Service I’m looking for people who want to experience South America, help the poor, and live and travel on a sustainable bus. I have friends involved in BioTour, a traveling sustainability education non-profit. They modified a bus to run on vegetable oil, which they recycle from restaurants. I want to do the same– plus collect a share of energy from the sun too, as they do. Half of the bus would be for us, including places to sleep and enjoy ourselves. The other half would have services for poor villages we visit on the way. That could include facilities for basic medical care, internet access, and the opportunity for people to record their stories and be heard. I also want to just travel around South America in an interesting and fun living arrangement. I think I can make it work for a fraction of the cost of hostel-stays and commercial bus travel.
Join an Economy of Passion Do you want to be involved in something great? I have an idea for a way to build a new economic world, run by people’s interests instead of money, starting online. How will it work? Anyone can propose a new project/business. It could be for-profit, for a particular community, for charity, for art, whatever. People can search through these projects and “sign on” to participate, with whatever time and skills they can provide. The site helps connect people and resources, and supports non-monitary compensation: an economy of time and reputation as well as money. What are the requirements for projects? All projects must be sustainable, economically just, and cooperatively organized. When would it start and how can I help? Development can start immediately. I need website developers, graphic designers, and business people to find support and spread the word.

I’m now in Salvador, the Afro-Brazilian capital of Brazil, after a few wonderful days at the 14,000 soul rave festival Universo Parallelo, after a few harrowing days of trying to get there. With the new year, every resident of Bahia wanted to drain the same ATMs and take the same ferries as me, and I don’t want to dwell on the life lost standing in all those lines.

Universo Parallelo was incredible. Endless dancing, creative music, zany art, good beach and sun. And it’s a lot more new-agey than I expected, with people meditating on the beach, energy workshops, and lots of tasty veggie food spots. If it’s no Burning Man (I can’t get anyone here to have a decent intellectual discussion, :(), it’s far more than the overgrown child of the Brazilian rave scene.

Last night, I registered for the GRE, which I take in two days. I’m going to apply to Oxford for a masters in Developmental Studies. Wish me luck!