Waiting for a train
Alone amongst a billion
Just to pass by, not to ride
No where to go
But to my healing room.
Not the Darjeeling Limited
but moreorless the same
sweet lime or milk chai
your choice, 6 Rp
Moreorless.
Train rolls by
I jump a tuktuk
He drops me off
Somewhere wrong.
Watercolours & oil pastels, Trippunithura, Kerala, India, 2016 (thank you Dr. Veena)
Project: Upon turning 50 years old on August 16, 2020, Dave Olson (me, hello) is posting a photo (or maybe photos) a day / per year – starting with 1970 with intent of chronicling existence through various primary evidence sourced from studio portraits, class photos, ID / passport photos, or occasionally other “casual/group/random” shots when the above don’t exist in my archive (note: not “artificial intelligence,” really me, pulled from shoeboxes, journals, wallets and whatnot – diligently scanned and dated via glasses and haircuts, lightly annotated).
As the world stumbles, stay hydrated (p. 2) / coconuts, various locations (Kerala, Phitsanulok, Davie Village, Likkle Bay, Irie Cove, someone Indo, etc)
Happy Birthday to this fun-loving, shogi-playing, loud-talking, curry-making, sweet & kind (with great head of hair), retired civil engineer and new Grandfather.
65 today and hilarious and serious all at the same time / Celebrating with take-home South India Kerala curry & veggies from Spicy Spice resto (thanks Shabin Jabbar!) here in pleasant Okayama, Japan.
Anyhow, being a foreign son-in-law in Japan ain’t always easy (as I understand it) so feeling rather fortunate for this kindly and fun father-in-law.
For dessert, he gets to hold Ichiro 😉!
Delicious Kerala-style bento (though not in stainless steel tiffin ;)) Continue reading Diary: Otoosan’s (FiL) 65th Birthday
Danger is everywhere, not always warned so plainly.
Note: For the record, I took this photograph with a Lomo “sardine can” cork-covered camera with expired black-and-white film in India
Disappearing, invisibility, loneliness, depression, anxiety, being lost, trying to not be found, trying to find white space to invigorate… Sometimes these weave together, other times (perhaps) each remain exclusive.
Gord Downie, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and me all try to figure out the nuance in different ways atop Turkish street music, trains from Kerala and Moncton, and various ephemeral music snippets.
Note: Also available in audio-only via all normal podcast channels and elsewhere in this library.
The world is on fire (and somehow i’m still in the dark)
Info and Call for Help for Kerala, India Flooding (Aug. 2018)
Indeed, the world is in a delicate and dareisay angry condition of late – whales are sending messages, my home province of BC is literally on fire, Indonesia is quaking over and over, California is also aflame, Japan is melting and typhooning, Hawaii bracing, and so on and on and on and on…
While *everywhere* is suffering it seems, i call your attention of the plight of another special place for me: Kerala, India. This lovely state is where my life started again – sequestered in an Ayurvedic clinic under the care of lovely and smart Dr. Veena Hemesh, my brain and body started sparking again.
Now this region of creamsicles-coloured homes, endless moustaches, earnest engineers and intrepid houseboats finds itself flooded with thousands displaced and seeking food, water, safety.
As such, if you are able, consider making a donation by the official channels detailed below to help these decent folks recover from this calamity (i did).
I’ll share a few bits of creativity crafted in Cochin (Kochi) and area… the area is one of historical tolerance with long-standing Jewish, Chinese communities and a noted religious tolerance. Occupied in different eras by Portuguese, Dutch and British, the area provided soldiers to fight WW1 (despite not having a horse in the race as it were) and now produces more engineers and doctors than any other region in India (which keep in mind was an assortment of “Princely states” before British-exit/partition.
Tourists come here for houseboat adventures through backwaters and others (like me) come for Ayurveda treatment (Kerala is the heartland for this ancient medical tradition).
Either way, people are struggling and you might be able to help. Easiest way is via Tranferwise who even waive their fee if donation is of a certain amount.
If you do donate, please let me know and i’ll send you a postcard of personal thanks. Otherwise consider a share, a kind word, poems or annotations.
❤ dvo/UW
##
Gallery of creamsicle coloured houses near Kerala, Kochi
DETAILS for DONATIONS
Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund, (CMDRF) accepts voluntary contributions from Individuals, Organizations, Trusts, Companies and Institutions etc. All contributions towards CMDRF are exempt from Income Tax under section 80(G).
Donations now accepted through UPI mobile app like BHIM, paytm, Tez, Phonepe also.
(VPA : keralacmdrf@sbi) / Scan the QR Code to donate
For Bank Counter Payment
Beneficiary Name : Principal Secretary (Fin), Treasurer CMDRF
Bank Name : State Bank of India (SBI)
Account Number : 67319948232
Branch : City Branch, Thiruvananthapuram
IFSC : SBIN0070028
For offline Contribution: Cheque/Demand Draft can be drawn in the favour of Principal Secretary (Finance), Treasurer CMDRF, payable at Thiruvananthapuram. The same may be posted/mailed to the following address:
Principal Secretary (Finance)
Treasurer CMDRF
Secretariat
Thiruvananthapuram – 695 001
Kerala, INDIA
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Arriving in India via Cochin (Kochi), Kerala, bound for an extended stay in an Ayurvedic clinic in Tripunitura, i snapped impressions along the way, capturing the washes of colours and shapes of everyday life. Also a trek into Fort Kochi on Remembrance Day to pay respects at a cenotaph (documented in a B&W photo essay and a Remembrance day podcast and a peace ramble video)
Snapped with a Lomo La Sardina (sardine can) camera with expired 35mm film, presented “as-is” with no edits and limited context, for your amusement and my memory.
Continue reading Scenes of Life in Tripunitura & Kochi, Kerala (2016) – Lomo photos (colour)
On a concave hardwood slab
(carved in the 16th century
by the Portuguese or possibly Dutch)
I witnessed my own autopsy
Chipped out my draft obituary
on a petroglyph red canyon walls
– surely covered up soon enough
by flooding rivers and reservoirs
Guilt, grief, cold and sorrow
ride in the seats beside me
loss settles in, ticket punched
ready for the full night ride
in which sunrise lasts forever
evidence of absence of time
Roll past all the caskets
rotting for eternity –
there is “really nothing inside“
but exhume just to see
Vasco’s bones are dug up
and carried to his home
I’ll leave yours in the ground
and sit beside alone
with flowers and coffee
both black and soft
Then softly read you endless poems
by Whitman, Baudelaire and Keats
turn leaves like the Chinese fishing nets
seen on Kochi beach
Disappearing, invisibility, loneliness, depression, anxiety, being lost, trying to not be found, trying to find white space to invigorate… Sometimes these weave together, other times (perhaps) each remain exclusive.
Gord Downie, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and me all try to figure out the nuance in different ways atop Turkish street music, trains from Kerala and Moncton, and various ephemeral music snippets.
Prepare to vanish with: Disappearing for Invigoration – Postcard #78 (23MB, 16:25, 192k mp3, stereo)
Continue reading Disappearing for Invigoration – Postcard #78
From an olden church and (otherwise vacant) cenotaph at Fort Cochin, Kerala, India, Dave O – acknowledging an extended medical and death related hiatus – discusses the local history of colonization by Portuguese explorers, Dutch traders, then British Raj in the context of the colonization leading to exploitation, conscription and war with no meaning to local populace.
Plus the meaning of reparations and the conflict of peaceful resistance – evidenced my Mahatma Gandhi beach a stone’s throw away – contrasted with continued wars throughout the world, shadowed by disposable tourism, economic and racial caste systems.
Recorded Nov. 11, 2016, Released 11:11 Nov. 11, 2017
Gather Round for Remembrance Day with Vasco’s Bones – Postcard #63 (37:11, .mp3, 192k, 58MB, stereo)
Also of note:
Vasco da Gama’s bones, black knee-high socks, French generational losses, siege of Leningrad, Churchill’s mishaps, lost human potential of engineers, poets and lovers, MacArthur’s folly, Australia’s vulnerability, the emergence of regions over nation-states, Brexit for British Columbia + Cascadia, Catalonia and Scottish successions, work of raising a child, trappings of hubris, death by disease and guns, aggressive use of intelligence, forethought and diplomacy, and unfiltered view of sacrifice and life.
Cover art photo: By Dave Olson at Fort Cochin, taken by Lomo Sardine can camera with expired B&W film.
11:11, 11/11, in Cochin, India, Dave – wearing a handmade poppy on Mahatma Gandhi beach by Chinese fishing nets – riffs about sacrifices of soldiers, sailors, flyers, resistance fighters, parents. Plus discusses the importance of avoiding jingoism which leads to war and death and name-checks Henry David Thoreau, condemns greed, and encourages peace and diplomacy and compassion.
