Thoughts and observations while in Crete.

I've been in Crete (Kphth), Greece for the last 5 days. Currently I'm hunched over bed in discomfort. Reason being is I've deviated a bit from my fruitarian/raw vegan diet since I've been out here. This is not due to a lack of good fruit and produce. Infact there's oranges, mandarin, and trees bearing a fruit something like lychee minus the tough shell and pit which as times is prone to break off onto the flesh of the fruit and make them tough to clean.
There's really no reason other then human envy that I've eaten a few things here which disagree with me like a variation on gyros with only French fries and humus. The culprit of my current discomfort is a seemingly harmless plate of spaghetti. While I hunch over in fetil position there's excess fruit that rots freely by the sides of the trees all over Chania. Even in paradise one could be prone to make wrong decisions.
Admittedly this isn't the most welcoming intro to a review on one's vacation. I just could not resist the medium for confession these blog sites provide. Being up all night with digestive pain tends to make one self reflect a bit even the cost of creating a desirable mood.
I've been going out every night since I've been in Chania with my cousins. Starting the evenings at bars and moving our way to the clubs later in the night (usually between 1-4 am). I can't say I'm sold entirely on that way of life which is standard for many of the youth of Chania. People walking up and down the Chania bay wanting to be seen, greeting, and getting to show off their outfits. There's the same level of superficialness at play in clubs in the US and I've come to understand that personality type/social phenomenon and don't spite it as much as my anarchist/crust punk cousin from northern Greece Mixali I've been hanging out with (last night we went to the Chania squat which was very impressive. It's housed in the old colonial palace of the former King of Kphth. The building is Large with a lobby that has tables on either side filled with news letters and zines. The facility also houses a large children's playroom and performance theater. I had thought the non punk rock fashion anarchist was a thing of the past but was happily surprised). I can actually sympathize with that aspect of our collective personality. While the club scene might not be for me being here has made me realize that removing yourself from society entirely it becomes easy to take on narrow and critical view of people to justify one's alone time. You also miss out on the motivation that comes from those around you.
More so then anything this has made an impression on me; in Europe people still haven't fallen into the trap of social networks and constant text messaging. There's a quality of directness that's lost in the US do to unwritten social laws of conduct. A generation weened on sheepish political correctness in the disguise of progress. Greece is far from a hub of ideological development and it's simply a land filled with humans that have had their own social conditioning, that deal with their own cultural issues (this is of course a country which now has a Fascist party doing well in the polls) so I'm under no illusion that "they've got it right".
Kphth is a beautiful island, filled with attractive people, a deep history that is evident all around you, and a natural beauty that makes life itself an adventure. Though so far what I've taken away is a admiration for the humanism still left in this part of the world.

new tatters

vacation and focus

Every year Caitlin's family goes on a week long vacation to Michigan. I've been fortunate enough to go the last two years and looked forward to just being able to decompress get away from all my distractions and reset my focus. The internet runs janky if at all and cell phone service comes in and out at best. Without the allure of facebook or watching rap battles on youtube I was left with endless hours of reading ( "Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into The 3.5-billion-year History Of The Human Body" by Neil Shubin)

, sketching, laying in hamocks, going for long walks, breathing in fresh air, stargazing, and
 even getting in to watch Stepbrothers with her family the evening before we left. Avoiding my phone, youtube, facebook and only checking Daily.com every so often to catch up on space news was as you can tell extremely freeing. I'd liken the experience to learning to avoid a friend who's taken up too much of your time with nothing much to show for it. Sure they're great to hang out with once in awhile but the relationship becomes ultimately draining and you haven't grown and infact may have even pedal backwards in your life's larger pursuits in exchange for short-term entrainment/indulgence. Instead my day were filled drawing meditatively unclouded by thoughts of rap battle arguments (i belong to a facebook battle rap debate group which i've allowed to consume hours of my time) or the petite quarrels that manifest themselves due to differences between something like dietary choice (this happends quite often since i have many friends in the paleo/atkins community and i myself am i fruitarian)

 If only the simplicity which afford such unfragmented thought were easier to obtain. On one of our walks in the woods we ran across two baby racoons. It was difficult to ignore their intelligence when one of them noticed us while his or her brother was busy rummaging for food. Noticing their sibling was oblivious to us it placed it's paw on it's sibling and for the next few minutes we both starred and inspected each other at a distance. I'm sure that they were much more frightened of us then anything else. With due reason, life as any cub/baby in the wild is a life of dealing with numerous predetors and the racoon babies were only right to be cautious. After a few minutes they worked up the courage to scamper off at a moderate rate; while they didn't trust us they didn't all together think we were out to get them.

 All in all if anything the trip taught me many of the things I enjoy I could be doing now with better time management. Also the differences in quality of rural life vs city life never have become more apparent to me. Outside the price of fruit and produce one pays living outside a major city in the United States there wasn't much else I could vouch for in terms of living in a city. People's fascination with the city reflects a remnant of our hunter/gather past. A modified pact mentality that comes off as progressive because groups gather around issues/music/art vs. religion and politics. The amount of real physical and psychological stress on the body living in a overpopulated city creates by most goes unnoticed because they've lived in a city so long they don't know anything else. They arn't privileged enough to breath clean air or to be surrounded by silence. To not have to listen to a neighbor's quarrel, to be able to take a long quiet stroll without being surrounded by a population who's sweep it under the rug mentality has covered the city in trash. The country is not without it's issues. Close by our cottage there was a barn that it's owner had downed with a confederate flag (of course i've heard the arguments on that the confederate flag represents "freedom" to some, but so did the swastika to many Germans who called the early 40s the good ol' days. Though in my own apartment complex I'm judged by it's mostly Indian population who doesn't so much as nod when I say hello or good morning. If this trip motivated me in any way it's to leave the city and peruse a cleaner more productive life.

twiddle dee - a still life by a serial killer (the ambassador)

oil on masonite 2x2 feet