Me Speaking

Alan by no means appears the strapping type who would cross continents and traverse oceans in an eight year drive to meet the peoples of the world. He approaches instead the diminutive. We sit across from one another in couch chairs one afternoon last week talking under the bamboo roof of the guest commons at Hostal Rosario del Villa in Cuenca . He laughs easily and looks about 42 years old, wears a worn baseball cap and appears altogether nondescript, perhaps even somewhat undernourished.  Istanbul, Turkey Alan’s assured cadence and deep voice tell a different story. Those reflect a personal need molded onto a framework of intense curiosity which for almost a decade has stopped at nothing to find universal commonality no matter country or culture.  Cusco, Peru So is Alan a traveler? “I can’t really characterize myself as anything,” he says. “I can just say that I travel because that’s part of my life.” A part of his life that’s more consequence than choice he ...

He said he would do it--- and he did. He plunged his short sword into Emperor Calígula .  He rid the Mediterranean world of a tyrant. He executed the assassination and shed the blood of a beast till death. Cassius Chaerea. His name appears in my book two thousand years after the event. And there is no one around entirely like me to honor the one who was entirely the man Cassius Chaerea .  Caligula My family originated in America from Louisiana territory, vast French property sold by Napoleon for $3 million to the just formed USA.  In the few years before Pearl Harbor, the whole lot moved to California. They moved across an entire continent. Fathers and mothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles and great-grandparents. Families with surnames DeCuir, Bell and Porche transplanted themselves anew. They left New Orleans’ parishes for cities named Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Francisco. They succeeded. Aunts and mothers raised fa...

This narrative of what it's been like to have a virtually unchecked propensity to abuse drugs, to suffer bi-polar and schizoaffective disorders ---this is my story. I start at the beginnings. In the 5th grade, after class, I left the room by clamboring out an open window. A classmate reported this to the teacher and I was reprimanded. In the sixth grade, I trod bare-footed through a dirt field laden with sharp prickles which induced me to jump and skip. I did it deliberately and yelled in pain while traversing the whole lot. While sitting in a pew in a Catholic Church with other grammar school kids, I punched my jaw hard, repeatedly. Why did I act these ways? I don't know. All I know for certain is I was acting weird. Still, my grades in school were excellent and I was arguably the best little league pitcher in town. I published an issue of a class newspaper, and I was generally favored. I had friends and I was allowed by the nuns and priests to work at the coveted job of wa...

She finds art awake in moments when expression itself captures the eye of her camera. A model's unsolicited gesture, the landing of a flight of pigeons in an old world plaza, distilled...rendering signature portrayal of beauty each unique in its depiction. So it is with " Marianna Photography, " founded in 2011 by a thirty something Polish woman who earned two Master's Degrees in Software Engineering, one from Blekinge Tekniska  in Sweden; the other from Politechnika Wroclawska  in Poland. Marianna went on to work a year in international business but felt a deeply rooted part of herself missing. I ask about her greatest inspiration.  The answer speaks volumes.  Her choice to exchange a highly remunerative career for a niche in photographic art was influenced by Alan Watts, the philosopher and writer, who lived in the circa 1960s Waldo Point houseboat community in Sausalito, CA.   She supplies a link. It's by Watts and entitled "What would you do if...

If you’d like an effective way to budget your income, try the arithmetic method. It keeps track of how much money you’ve spent throughout the month, and what expenses you still need to pay. I use the arithmetic method because I’m on a fixed income and saving money to retire in Ecuador . That’s a personal top goal. Consequently other items take second place importance. I allocate minimal amounts in the secondary categories so as to save more. These amounts will be enough to cover the expense and no more. You can use this uncomplicated budgeting system to plan for funding whatever needs or wants you have in your life. It’s a manual system that monitors how you’re spending your money. It tells you in black and white if you’re staying within the budgeted amount for each category of expenditure. That’s why I like it. It tells me where I am. Knowing where I am means I can find wiggle room. Unexpected expenses this month hit savings for Ecuador hard. I will be able to deposit only ...

In the 50s and 60s Americans looked at Russia and China and saw a frightening threat to democracy. The 1963 Cuban Missile Crisis  for instance produced anxiety that exceeded common sense. The threat of nuclear missile exchange prompted school officials to order safety drills. Kids huddled under their desks with arms over heads. None of that would have spared those children from incineration. But it did teach fear of communism. Flag of the Communist Party of Vietnam I barely knew Vietnam existed in 1963. The bulk of Americans shared a same or similar ignorance, but top American officials for several years had been feeling threatened by a course of significance to France and Vietnam.  France had been losing its war to defeat a nationalist and a communist movement fighting for a liberated Vietnam. Excluding the nationalist aspect, American officials focused on the communist aspect. While the Viet Minh resisted French occupation of Vietnam for Vietnamese reasons, Ame...

After the defeat at Cannae, after the initial shock, Roman strength of will to win the war fired to ever greater depth. A reversal to Carthage occurred in Spain and it lifted the Roman mood. Although the win was not decisive, the Roman forces that had been fighting in Spain all this time defeated the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal. Hannibal met a rare setback in Campania. Syracuse was recaptured and Capua besieged. While Rome assaulted Capua, Hannibal did march on Rome, hoping to draw the legions away. But the soldiers pressed on and took the city back for Rome. Hasdrubal, determined to aid his brother Hannibal, marched his army from Spain over the Alps and into north Italy, camping south of the Metaurus River. If the armies of Hasdrubal and Hannibal were to combine, its force would have constituted a massive body of men at arms. Rome might have been defeated. Ancient history in the Mediterranean would surely have changed dramatically. Hasdrubal sent riders to Hannibal to ann...

If Carthage were to defeat Rome, it would have defeated Rome in the Second Punic War. Having recovered its strength after the First Punic War, and now with healthy respect for the Roman navy, Carthage was further expanding onto the Iberian Peninsula.  Rome was invading from the north. The trigger of open hostility again took form in the manner of an appeal. An independent Greek city in Carthaginian territory named Saguntum, allied with Rome, requested Roman help to counter a siege by Carthage. Rome agreed, and the war commenced in 219 BC when one of the most talented military leaders in history, Hannibal, launched an invasion of Italy via the Alps. With battle elephants and an army of more than 26,000, supplemented by Gauls, for 16 years Hannibal marched in Italy wreaking havoc on the countryside and defeating Roman army after Roman army. The Romans met their first setback at Ticinus on the north side of the Poe River. During the next engagement at the river Trebia , Hann...

The military struggle between Rome and Carthage that commenced in the First Punic War, circa 264 BC, was an inevitable clash of two expanding powers vying for dominance in the western Mediterranean.  I would not however consider the story of the Punic Wars a study of dead history. Its ramifications reflect, for one, in the Latin tongue rooted Romance languages spoken in Europe and South America today. Depiction of Roman legionary soldiers Our mode of thinking in the West, our world view originated, grew and took root in a long standing Roman world that valued even application of law, systematic order and strict organization. Carthage and Rome 2,300 years ago were giving birth to different types of babies in two different cradles of civilization.  One would be the cradle of civilization from which we would emerge. Carthage was a Phoenician sea-faring power that traded extensively. It was ruled by a collective of merchants. It was a multi-lingual culture, learning the...

If you like working with your hands to make things look good, you might like the topic.  If you like decorating interiors you might like the topic as fine furniture displayed in homes reflects taste, culture, wealth--- and is an essential to design. I’m well acquainted with furniture re-finishing. More than that---a good finisher requires an intimate knowledge of the trade to do work exceptionally well. Now as an aside, most writing gurus advise bloggers to write about what they know. Tagged! I’m doing that now! For 15 years I re-finished, finished and did antique furniture restoration. And I’m wondering.  How ought I to fashion the post into something useful and interesting to you readers? I’ve always thought furniture finishing had lessons to teach not only about the workings of the trade but about life and how to live. When spraying lacquer onto new kitchen cabinets, for instance, it’s important to maintain the gun at the same distance from the surface througho...