The Porpoise-Driven Life

We set out at noon under a blazing sun
To see if we could see a whale
We searched the waters with eager eyes,
Our fists clenched on the boat-rail

And Oh! Look there! Thar’ she blows!
Out of the sea curves a tail
From an enormous head, the length of a man
Erupts a spout of exhaling whale
We drifted alongside him rapt with awe
And we watched him sedately float
Not twenty feet from where we stood
On the starboard side of the boat

And while we savored the remembered image
Of leviathan by our side
We chanced upon a hundred dolphins
Who wanted to take us for a ride

They darted and leapt around our craft
Sheer joy in motion at sea
If there was just one way to live
That would be the way to be
Not a care to trouble, no place to go,
No promises to keep;
No miles to go except on a whim
Before another dive in the deep

We turned around and headed back to the shore
Under the soft glow of an afternoon sun
With memories that would shimmer and dance with us
Long after the day was done

Point and Counterpoint

Queenstown and Rotorua are two towns that encapsulate essential and contrasting themes in modern New Zealand.

Rotorua suggests a sense of aged Maori dignity. The Maoris themselves take great pride in introducing their culture to others. They talk about their legends of colonizing New Zealand from the east, crossing the Pacific Ocean in boats, a journey that must have drawn on immensely deep reserves of courage and sea-craft. They demonstrate their arts, music and craft, and delight in intimidating visitors with the haka, their traditional war dance.

And they tell the story of Tutanekai and Hinemoa. Tutanekai was strong and clever and Hinemoa loved him. But her tribe thought him unworthy. So she decided to leave her tribe and join him on his island in the middle of Lake Rotorua. Her tribe hid away all the canoes but that did not stop her. She tied gourds around her waist so that she could float on the water and still reach Tutanekai. When her tribe saw the strength of her determination they relented, and Tutanekai and Hinemoa founded a new tribe.

After an evening spent listening to these stories in a recreated Maori village I had an impression of a culture that looked back proudly across the centuries and drew great strength and self-assurance from its heritage.

Queenstown, on the other hand, suggests neither age nor dignity. Instead it radiates exuberance. The town is tiny, a fraction of Rotorua’s size, but it is crammed with people looking for adventure and other people seeking to sell it. It has restaurants that stay open till 3am, even 5am. It’s a town that is the size of a village but has an unmistakable big-city buzz.

And as different as they are from each other, it is hard to imagine New Zealand without either. The Maori are central to the country. Their ways infuse what it means to live in New Zealand much more than the aborigines seem to do in Australia, or American Indians in the US. But the New Zealand of today is also forward-looking, with a strong sense of possibilities. It has an unassuming self-confidence which is displayed for instance in the country’s decision to disband their air force as an unnecessary anachronism (who are they going to defend against – Western Samoa?). It’s the same sort of self-confidence that looks at you cockily from posters inviting you to quad-bike, heli-ski, jet-boat, sky-dive or otherwise get your adrenaline pumping in the mountains and valleys around Queenstown.

Together, they represent the contrasting threads that intertwine to make travel in New Zealand unforgettable.

Letter From Middle Earth

Eric is a cheerful man of about sixty. He works as a tour guide on a large farm in northeastern New Zealand. But it’s not the farm that’s the tourist attraction, nor the 11,000 sheep that live on it. The attraction sits in a corner of one particular paddock that was rented by New Line Cinema. It is the remains of the Hobbiton set.

Standing on top of Bag End, looking out across Bagshot Row towards the Party Tree, Eric recalls a group of professors from Oxford who visited the site recently. One of them remarked that Tolkien must have lived in New Zealand in a previous life; after all, the scene that stretches out before us is uncannily like the Shire that Tolkien described in the Lord of the Rings.

Eric is tickled by the fancies of Tolkien fans.

But a scant 5 hours earlier, in a different corner of the country, I had had the same thought as that Oxford Don who so amused Eric…

At Waitomo, about 200Km to the west, there is a small cave system. The caves are limestone, with stalactites and stalagmites that catch the light of an electric torch with such delicate grace that I can only try to imagine what they would look like in the flicker of a flame. And in the deeper recesses of the cave there is a colony of glow-worms.

We saw them from below as we glided in a boat along an underground river. Above our heads there was an immense black ceiling embroidered with a thousands of glittering lights. In the dark and silence under that cavernous ceiling it was easy to lose sense of distance and scale. I could easily imagine that what I was seeing was a rich star-field stretching across miles of sky. Or that I was seeing the Glittering Caves of Aglarond, which Gimli so excitedly explored in The Two Towers, the second part of Tolkien’s trilogy.

The night before I really had seen the most incredible star-field. We’d gone a few kilometers out of the town, to a spot where there was no light at all. It was a clear night, in a place hundreds of miles from any kind of smog or smoke. And up above there was a tapestry of stars so bright and so vivid that they looked painted onto a screen. That sounds like a strange comparison, but the truth is that that night sky was so rich and gluttonously dense with stars that it was beautiful to the point of being unnatural.

Across a broad swath of sky there was a band of powdery whiteness that I imagine must have been the Milky Way. It certainly was milky! It looked like someone had sprayed milk powder across a black canvas stretched out on a frame miles overhead. It gave me a thrill just to know that for the first time ever I was looking at a night sky I had never seen before, a totally new set of stars and constellations; for the first time I was looking up at the night sky in the Southern Hemisphere.

But although I was seeing this sky for the first time, I could still recognize it as the one that Tolkien had described so often. I’m not a complete fanboy, so I did not try to find all the same stars and constellations as the ones in the book. Nevertheless it was a sky that appeared so eerily close to the ground that it was not impossible to imagine Earendil gliding across it in his ship, a Silmaril shining on his brow to be seen on here on Middle-Earth.

Down here on Middle-Earth where men wander, and perhaps Hobbits do too.

Wonderful Things I Heard in New York

Laura Thomas is a star in the making. I saw her perform with her band on Saturday night. She had one of the best singing voices I've ever heard. Every song sounded terrific. She was as accomplished when she was throatily introspective, as when she opened her throat wide for a full-bodied rant, or when she took on a couple of Led Zeppelin covers to finish the set (Kashmir and Whole Lotta Love, in case you're wondering). At her very best she sounded a little like Joan Baez, a little like Morissette, and a lot like no one I had heard before.

And she was feisty. Always in control of the stage and the crowd, you knew that she could burst into pure bitchiness any second. It didn't hurt that she had a more-than-competent violinist(!), a guitarist with great tone, and a backup singer with terrific vocal range. Pity about the drummer.

By the time she had finished her set, both Brave and I were wide-eyed with admiration. We went off to look for his girlfriend Natasha.

As I was talking to her over the din at the bar, our conversation turned to the bigger events in life - parenthood, marriage, that sort of thing. She said something that sounded like "...when I got engaged..." and I just stared. That's an awkward thing to have heard but not be sure that you heard correctly. I gathered my courage and asked whether I had heard right - were she and Brave engaged? Yes, they were. A hug for her. Abuse for him for not having remembered to mention this little thing.

By then this was easily the best Saturday night I'd had in ages. Natasha is really terrific; I was thrilled that Brave had asked her to marry him. That's what I told her then, and I'm sticking with my story. (Just kidding, Natasha, I am really really glad that he asked you. And I have faith in your sense of humor; please don't blacklist me).

Cats. With a K. And a Z.

Here I am, sitting in my friend's apartment in Manhattan, when I see Trouble walking up to me. I stretch out a toe and scratch the side of his neck. He accepts the gesture with uncommon enthusiasm for a cat, arching his back with a scarcely audible purr. I've just made a new friend.

My friend Brave (one reason I'll call him that is because he is a young Indian man in America; the other reason I'll keep to myself) offered the explanation that Trouble is 'dog-like'. That's an unusual thing to say about a cat, but it soon becomes clear that Trouble is an unusual cat. He (the cat) is friendly, likes company and is extremely interactive with humans. I'm a dog-lover, and I can vouch for Trouble's dog-likeness.

Truth to tell, Trouble is the first cat I've actively liked. Usually I'll ignore cats, or maybe humor them with minimal attention. But I find myself seeking out Trouble's company. And he seems to like mine.

A little while later we go out to the East Village to sample some live music. I'm impressed by the venues. They are small, unpretentious annexes to bars, with room to seat about 50 people. But the music is excellent and so are the acoustics.

In 2003 Norah Jones played at The Living Room as a member of a band called the The Little Willies. Tonight the stage is occupied by Devin Doherty and his band. They perform against a backdrop of beige walls and ceiling, from which several giant maroon acoustic panels are suspended. I tap my foot to the country-rock music. The music is simple and well-crafted. I can't quite keep up with the lyrics but Devin's voice makes them sound thoughtful. The combination is wonderfully relaxing.

We take a short kebab break and then head to Arlene's Grocery. I have no idea why it's called that. It certainly doesn't look like a grocery store. What it does look like is a straightforward bar with a short staircase leading down into the performance area. Everything here is black. The walls are black. The ceiling is black. The Silver Spiders are on stage, dressed in black. They're a fun bunch. They look too old to still retain credible ambitions of breaking into the big time; but they enjoy their music, and it shows. They are loud, rude and very good to listen to as they serve straight-up guitar-rock.

We're now ready to call it a night, but first I have to eat a sandwich at Katz's deli. I can see the sign outside and I remember it from a Nokia commercial in which Gary Oldman gets a sandwich from Katz. It looked really good on TV and I want to know if it tastes as good as it looked.

I ask for a pastrami sandwich. Allan, the man preparing my order, passes me a slice of pastrami to keep me occupied while he carves away out of my sight under the counter-top. About a minute later he presents me a plate. Between two slices of bread he has placed about three inches of sliced beef. And then he's done it once more. I'm intimidated, but will not surrender without a fight. I brace myself for a titanic struggle between man and meat. As I walk away from the counter I see a jar out of the corner of my eye, labeled 'Tips for Allan'. By this time I've been in the US for a few hours, long enough to have been reminded that to overlook a tipping opportunity is to commit a mortal sin. I slip in a couple of dollars.

Then I sit down and attack the first sandwich with gusto. The first bite is astounding. This sandwich is great. Even better than it looked on TV!

A couple of bites later I've started to slow down. It takes real effort to work my way through the meat. An amused member of the staff encourages me to keep on going, I will win in the end. But I can only manage one sandwich and decide to get the other one bagged to take home.

The bagging is to be done by the aforementioned staff member / eating coach. With great deliberation he wraps my food in a paper towel and slips it into a brown paper bag. Then he holds it to his bosom and announces to me "I've wrapped it with love, like it was one of my own." I fear for his children and the fate that apparently awaits them - to be swaddled in paper for a stranger to take home and eat. I am also sufficiently irritated by this shameless plug for a tip to decide that in this instance I will sin mortally. No tip for the smart aleck. It doesn't require me to be particularly brave. I'll never have the courage to wrestle with the meat here again, so smart-mouth will not have a chance to poison me in revenge.

As we walk to the cashier, Brave points out something that perhaps I should have seen for myself. This is the place where Meg Ryan faked an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, which just happens to be my all-time favorite movie. Instantly, everything I see around me snaps into place, like a favorite childhood photograph.

The cashier rings up $13.45; I don't even consider leaving a tip...

...It's early in the morning (and still pitch-dark). I'm sprawled across a mattress in the living room of Brave's apartment. Something steps on my legs and walks over to peer at me. It's Trouble, delighted to share this quiet moment with me. I tickle his ear, he nips at my finger and we silently bid each other goodnight and go back to sleep.

So Long, Bombadillo

Vacillus pointed out that my last post felt incomplete. Very astute of him. I did not manage to communicate everything that I felt like communicating. The truth is, I was half asleep when I wrote last night. If I had watched a lesser film than Pan's Labyrinth, I would not have bothered to write at all.

So let me make another attempt to explain why I love fantasy. I'm going to try to explain with the help of Tom Bombadil, one of the most engaging literary characters I have ever met. Tolkien created Tom, but he never found his way into Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies.

At first, Tom Bombadil appears to have a perfect existence. He lives in a house on a hill with his beautiful wife. They simultaneously live in harmony with nature, and in control of it. Tom is above evil, and it cannot touch him. Yet his invincibility is what makes his story tragic.

All over Middle-Earth, the Dark Lord Sauron's agents sow terror through open conquest and secret murder. Yet Tom's idyll is unaffected. He lives in an oasis of peace. Which he cannot leave. Because just as evil cannot lay a finger on him, he cannot fight it either. All he can do is watch while all that is worth fighting for draws deeper and deepr under a shadow of forbidding evil. He has no choice to do otherwise; he is a prisoner of his own utopia. So his strength becomes his weakness. Eventually the Dark Lord is defeated, but that defeat changes the balance of forces in the world and leads to Tom himself fading away into legend.

In the end, all the reader is left with is a wistful image of pastoral bliss so intense that it's mortality was inevitable.

Tom is just one of the reasons why fantasy is special. One of these days, Vacillus, I'll introduce you to Lyra. Then you'll discover a new level of bittersweet.

Underneath Your Horns, You're Just Like Me

I've had two weekends of intensive movie-watching. Last weekend it was Apocalypto and Borat. This weekend it was Pan's Labyrinth and Brotherhood of the Wolf. So that's Mayan, English, Spanish and French language films, all in nine days. I admit that this makes me feel very superior and arty.

Though, to be honest, the only one of these films that can justifiably claim to be art is Pan's Labyrinth. The others are very good movies but in the end rather predictable. Okay, Borat is never predictable, but it does have a formula that isn't too hard to deduce. Pan, on the other hand is the sort of movie you just want to relax and experience, without trying to out-think the script or outsmart the director. So predictability never becomes an issue.

I especially loved the dark treatment of the fantasy elements of the movie. If you've only seen Hollywood executions of fantasy (think The Chronicles of Narnia), you could easily believe that fantasy literature is all about black & white characterizations and the predictable triumph of (good) elves over (evil) orcs. But as we fantasy geeks know, the real pleasure of reading great fantasy is that it tells complex, morally challenging stories. Behind the breathless heroics and magic spells, behind the strange races and exotic names, there are characters with deep passions and swirling conflicts. No matter how good they are, they sometimes do evil. Mythology is simple, but fantasy is not.

So it was a pleasure to see Guillermo del Toro's interpretation of Pan. He was as gnarly and sinister as a woodland god should be. From the moment he first entered the story, you had to wonder whether the little girl Ofelia was right to trust him. Him with his short temper, secretive ways and instructions to complete strange tasks. And his mis-shapen body. Many scholars believe that the devil's horns and hooves are references to Pan, an attempt by the early church to induce people to give up pagan beliefs.

Be that as it may, what is certain is that a good fantasy story is a rich mix of scary, sad, brave and occasionally funny. A lot like real people are in the real world. I guess that's what makes it so powerful as an art form.