Cool facts on recycling, taken from NPR.com's story "Beyond Recycling." Interesting stuff. Other notes: I'm planning a road trip to Portugal with some friends during the last half of Feria (April 10-14), a week-long cachondeo at least a large as Semana Santa, where nothing is sacred. I'm a fan of that pair. A week of saints, relics, giant Jesii, incense and KKK outfits followed by a week's rest and then a week of absolute debauchery. My how I love Spain. Also, I am finally learning how to cook. Last night I made "Wonderful Chicken Curry Salad" for myself and some friends (big success) and watched Across the Universe, which I really enjoyed. I'm very behind on the movie scene because movies don't get here until after they're out on DVD in the states, but in any case, I think Across the Universe is from the past year and it's a cool look at various aspects the 60s to the tune of Beatles songs. The songs are generally worked in smoothly, and there's a sweet scene with "I want you (she's so heavy)." Worth a watch, except for the end. The end is lame. Also, this is an old film, but everyone should see The Fountain, because it's one of the coolest movies I've seen all year--it's from 06 or '07 and very good.
Other things: I'll be living in Owen House co-op next year and am very very excited about that. It's 100+ year-old mansion with a bunch of people living, cooking, cleaning, and buying food together in a nice little socialist family. Guff.
It's taken me a long time to develop an interest in cooking, but now that I have, I'm loving it. Fun, easy, and very tasty hobby. I'm currently eating a salad with olive oil, balsamic, mandarins, and a bunch of veggies I bought fresh from the market and had left over from the last few meals I've made. I think that all together it can't cost more than 2 euros. If I had a restaurant, I would sell it for 27. Yes, it's that good. It's so good, in fact, that I'm going to go back to eating it right now and maybe try a more focused update tomorrow. Also, if anybody knows or is sleeping with someone who deals with graduating seniors at Michigan, please begin stating my case, because it turns out that you have to fill a handful of prerequisites in order to graduate from the cursed place, and, well, I didn't really do that. Can it be that I'm already a senior???
Recycling Facts
• Recycling a ton of paper saves 17 trees, two barrels of oil (enough to run the average car for 1,260 miles), 4,100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for six months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space and 60 pounds of air pollution.
• Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every three months.
• Recycling creates six times as many jobs as landfilling.
• Recycling glass instead of making it from silica sand reduces mining waste by 70 percent, water use by 50 percent and air pollution by 20 percent.
• Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for three hours.
• The energy saved each year by steel recycling is equal to the electrical power used by 18 million homes each year — or enough energy to last Los Angeles residents for eight years.
• If every U.S. household replaced just one roll of 1,000-sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissues with 100 percent recycled ones, it could save 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space and 155 million gallons of water.
Sources: Eco-Cycle, Environmental Defense Fund, Colorado Recycles, Steel Recycling Institute, Seventh Generation Co.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
New Morocco Photos and Malaga
I just got back from my friend's house in an amazing city called Malaga, which is about 2.5 hours away from Seville and surrounded by mountains and ocean (best of both worlds, though the city itself isn't nearly as beautiful as Sevilla). Now I've seen Semana Santa in 2 cities particularly famous for their Semana Santa riutals. For those wondering what exactly Semana Santa is, it's Holy Week, which, in Sevilla and Málaga is not merely a mark on the religious calendar but a cultural and (if you're of that persuasion) religious event of, literally, monumental proportions. In short, every church in Seville (there are more than 200) has it's own statue of the virgin or of Jesus, and in Seville, all of them are centuries old (some dating back from the 15th century, like the one that belongs to one of the churches where I live, in Triana, and is also one of the most famous). Think of a city more than a thousand years old absolutely filled with people in the streets from noon until 6 in the morning. As I said, these are religious and non-religious people, your old and young, rich and poor. Everyone, except for the people who don't dig Semana Santa. I should clarify, when I say "statue," what I really mean is HUGE, 1000 kilo things of painted wood and solid gold and silver thrones piled with mountains of flowers of white (if it's Mary) and red roses (if it's Jesus). Moving them through the streets requires at least 60 very large and strong men to walk under these monstrosities with special towels wrapped around their heads, all of the weight resting on the backs of their necks and spinal columns. The people dress in what I can't help but describe as colored KKK uniforms, pointy hats, robes, and everything. Really. It's very startling for any American or non-Spanish person familiar with the odious organization. And then, behind all of them, hundreds of people walk: the penitents. Some of them walk barefoot. Some of the paseos, as they are called (tronos [thrones], in Málaga), are with music, and others go without. This music comes up through the ground and down from the sky. It's everywhere and it pierces through your soul. In Málaga, I stood in a plaza with my friends to see two very famous tronos which come out simultaneously (by the way, you can't really understand what a cathedral is unless you've been to Europe). The entire plaza, all of the sudden, filled with singing, something you don't get in Seville (in Seville the music is provided almost entirely by wind instruments). The plaza is a square, and since there were two tronos, there were people involved in the centuries=old procession on all sides. Imagine standing there in a plaza filled with people, surrounded by tall buildings, all of which have balconies filled with people watching from above, erupting in harmonized voices all at once, perfectly, just like they used to to 500 years ago, but without the electric Ben & Jerry's sign behind you. This is a religious experience for those who don't believe as well as for those who do. It is something one must live to believe and understand. I don't presume to understand it, but I'm glad to have lived it. I'll write more later. 'Gotta go to work.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
New Photos
New photos on picasaweb.google.com/aaron8008 of Morocco. I'll put a more narrowed down batch on Flickr soon, but it was easier to get these ones up now. Semana Santa begins today. I go to work in 5 minutes. Should be good. Apparently Seville is going to explode with people in the streets any second. If not, more ice cream for me...
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
A Post!!!
Once I went to Barcelona and walked among tall buildings on lonely streets that saw only the sun reflected from the sky but never felt its real caress. In this place I walked by closed stores and open stores and wondered why the hell are there so many of these? In Barcelona I saw a man painted all brown--his skin and his clothes, even his army general glasses the same mud brown--he sat on a rock on Las Ramblas, painted and motionless like that with a lit cigar in his mouth, an army phone in his hand and a hat on the ground to receive whatever people were willing to put into it. I wondered how long he'd been sitting there and where he went at nights when he walked home, but I didn't want to break his concentration, so I kept on moving.
Earlier, in Morocco, I walked in a city all blue and white with 14 old doors that they used to close at night, locking themselves up in the safety of the cool night and keeping out the invading Spaniards. That was when invasion was still cool. This place, which goes by the name of Chefchaouen, prides itself on its wool, its hashish, and its mountain water. I tried all of them and I approve. I felt myself growing in the town of blue and white and sand. That charming and very strange town full of people who don't want to sell you anything but just want you to take a look, friend, amigo; where you are greeted on the street in three languages, but almost never in arabic or berber. Hello, hi. Hola, bonjour. Or that time when we found ourselves far from the center in a strange garage with a man named Mohammad, another fatter one he called his brother and a black garbage bag full of substance and the words "600 durham is the minimum" and feeling suddenly very small and noticing that voice in my head speaking very quickly. In Morocco, I learned how to listen to that voice.
Or there was that other time when, seeing a mountain, I decided to climb it. And on approaching the mountain I was myself approached by one who would be a multilingual 18-year-old Moroccan named Ílias who may be the only person who actually didn't want to sell us anything in Morocco. So we three (Andrew, Ílias and I) fell up the mountain pell-mell (I’ll put pictures up soonish) where Ílias rapped 50 Cent and some of his own material for us on top of Mount Sayta. We thumped our chests, clapped our hands and made sounds to accompany our hand-made Moroccan beat. We laughed, three guys from different worlds (Morocco, a place with lots of states, united, and Brazil). We did this on the top of a mountain where you could see the sun shining and shading different parts of the rolling landscape and all of the old walls that used to protect a city under siege but now stand as markers of old and new--Old Medina and new city.
In Morocco I learned how to deal with hash dealers and scammers, heard of aphrodisiac fireproof blankets and drugs that take you to another world, but I also learned how much a look from a stranger can mean, or a wave from a woman inside an autobus when you're traveling in a strange country and sitting in the parking lot excited and waiting for yours to come. It was silly really, but that forbidden wave sent us both laughing and I don't know about her but what I felt was an embrace. In Morocco, the contact you have with women is minimal, but when it happens, the intimacy is startling.
My how the times they’re a-changing! I’ve moved from my old jail and have a new room with new people, friends, a kitchen, a bike, a bed to share, liberty! It’s exactly what I’ve been lacking and I feel so alive! I’m taking advantage of all of those things.
There’s this thing about getting older, about feeling like I’ve wasted so much, of letting myself down, of sometimes feeling powerless to make it better, of getting better at ignoring that self-negation and defeatism, of taking control, of being a little bit afraid sometimes because I’m not too sure what to do with the control I have. There’s a newly acknowledged, intense fear of commitments of all kinds and the thought, "This explains some things." The bigger realization (which isn’t so much a realization as a thought from a now older-person’s perspective) that there’s so much shit I still can’t explain. I can’t forget about the excitement that I feel some days when I wake up, like today, with a fresh feeling and a thought of squeezing the day for all it's worth, of preparing for what’s coming, whatever that is. There’s compromising, forgetting to do things, getting used to failure and mistakes, refusing to believe that mistakes are a bad thing but still not being a fan of failure.
I’ve noticed a pattern lately, where I find myself sitting in the sun or maybe walking and being transported to those days when I had five years or seven years and sunshine hair and nothing but love and a life full of potential ahead of me…before I new what potential meant. Before I knew expectations and the only things I feared were monsters, losing my parents, and bad guys. That was before I knew that often the “good guys” are bad guys, that gray is a color of many shades, that monsters really do exist, and that losing yourself is just as scary and likely a possibility as losing the people you love. That was when I said I would never leave home because home had everything I needed. That was when I thought I knew what I needed and almost always knew what I wanted. When rain meant indoor recess. When weekends meant rollerblading and Free Time. That was when I thought that free time existed, and to the extent that it did, found it boring. That was before I knew the thrill of a crush and what it means to really want something (do I even now know what it means to really want something?) Before heartbreak. Before being in love and lust. Before starting over, before nostalgia and forgetting. That was when the world was so damn big and I was not a small boy but a big boy. That was when I used to go to Big Boy with dad to eat Slim Jim’s and try to color inside the lines. That was when I was a golden-eyed, sun-haired child and it was easy to impress people. When it was enough just to be a little boy or a tree or a flying ninja with special armor, and people let you do that, just be. But now it’s not all like that. Something’s changed, and I’m not sure when or how all of that happened, but I think with each day, I’m somehow becoming more okay with that fact, with the newness and learning of this adventure, where you’re not allowed restarts and have to think on your feet. Where there really aren’t answers and where, eventually, you realize that the answers aren’t the point, and so you take a deep breath, pick up your backpack, say bye to the people at work and walk to class. And like always, you look up at the sky while you're walking and smile, laughing silently at yourself and the world.
Earlier, in Morocco, I walked in a city all blue and white with 14 old doors that they used to close at night, locking themselves up in the safety of the cool night and keeping out the invading Spaniards. That was when invasion was still cool. This place, which goes by the name of Chefchaouen, prides itself on its wool, its hashish, and its mountain water. I tried all of them and I approve. I felt myself growing in the town of blue and white and sand. That charming and very strange town full of people who don't want to sell you anything but just want you to take a look, friend, amigo; where you are greeted on the street in three languages, but almost never in arabic or berber. Hello, hi. Hola, bonjour. Or that time when we found ourselves far from the center in a strange garage with a man named Mohammad, another fatter one he called his brother and a black garbage bag full of substance and the words "600 durham is the minimum" and feeling suddenly very small and noticing that voice in my head speaking very quickly. In Morocco, I learned how to listen to that voice.
Or there was that other time when, seeing a mountain, I decided to climb it. And on approaching the mountain I was myself approached by one who would be a multilingual 18-year-old Moroccan named Ílias who may be the only person who actually didn't want to sell us anything in Morocco. So we three (Andrew, Ílias and I) fell up the mountain pell-mell (I’ll put pictures up soonish) where Ílias rapped 50 Cent and some of his own material for us on top of Mount Sayta. We thumped our chests, clapped our hands and made sounds to accompany our hand-made Moroccan beat. We laughed, three guys from different worlds (Morocco, a place with lots of states, united, and Brazil). We did this on the top of a mountain where you could see the sun shining and shading different parts of the rolling landscape and all of the old walls that used to protect a city under siege but now stand as markers of old and new--Old Medina and new city.
In Morocco I learned how to deal with hash dealers and scammers, heard of aphrodisiac fireproof blankets and drugs that take you to another world, but I also learned how much a look from a stranger can mean, or a wave from a woman inside an autobus when you're traveling in a strange country and sitting in the parking lot excited and waiting for yours to come. It was silly really, but that forbidden wave sent us both laughing and I don't know about her but what I felt was an embrace. In Morocco, the contact you have with women is minimal, but when it happens, the intimacy is startling.
My how the times they’re a-changing! I’ve moved from my old jail and have a new room with new people, friends, a kitchen, a bike, a bed to share, liberty! It’s exactly what I’ve been lacking and I feel so alive! I’m taking advantage of all of those things.
There’s this thing about getting older, about feeling like I’ve wasted so much, of letting myself down, of sometimes feeling powerless to make it better, of getting better at ignoring that self-negation and defeatism, of taking control, of being a little bit afraid sometimes because I’m not too sure what to do with the control I have. There’s a newly acknowledged, intense fear of commitments of all kinds and the thought, "This explains some things." The bigger realization (which isn’t so much a realization as a thought from a now older-person’s perspective) that there’s so much shit I still can’t explain. I can’t forget about the excitement that I feel some days when I wake up, like today, with a fresh feeling and a thought of squeezing the day for all it's worth, of preparing for what’s coming, whatever that is. There’s compromising, forgetting to do things, getting used to failure and mistakes, refusing to believe that mistakes are a bad thing but still not being a fan of failure.
I’ve noticed a pattern lately, where I find myself sitting in the sun or maybe walking and being transported to those days when I had five years or seven years and sunshine hair and nothing but love and a life full of potential ahead of me…before I new what potential meant. Before I knew expectations and the only things I feared were monsters, losing my parents, and bad guys. That was before I knew that often the “good guys” are bad guys, that gray is a color of many shades, that monsters really do exist, and that losing yourself is just as scary and likely a possibility as losing the people you love. That was when I said I would never leave home because home had everything I needed. That was when I thought I knew what I needed and almost always knew what I wanted. When rain meant indoor recess. When weekends meant rollerblading and Free Time. That was when I thought that free time existed, and to the extent that it did, found it boring. That was before I knew the thrill of a crush and what it means to really want something (do I even now know what it means to really want something?) Before heartbreak. Before being in love and lust. Before starting over, before nostalgia and forgetting. That was when the world was so damn big and I was not a small boy but a big boy. That was when I used to go to Big Boy with dad to eat Slim Jim’s and try to color inside the lines. That was when I was a golden-eyed, sun-haired child and it was easy to impress people. When it was enough just to be a little boy or a tree or a flying ninja with special armor, and people let you do that, just be. But now it’s not all like that. Something’s changed, and I’m not sure when or how all of that happened, but I think with each day, I’m somehow becoming more okay with that fact, with the newness and learning of this adventure, where you’re not allowed restarts and have to think on your feet. Where there really aren’t answers and where, eventually, you realize that the answers aren’t the point, and so you take a deep breath, pick up your backpack, say bye to the people at work and walk to class. And like always, you look up at the sky while you're walking and smile, laughing silently at yourself and the world.
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