From the outside in it's a fairy tale of sparkling diamonds, the candles on the tables reflected in the mirrors and re-reflected in the floor to ceiling windows. From the inside out it's a grey, soggy, deserted street. Snow circles around and avoids this city, which makes most Vancouverites happy but makes me long for the crisp blues and whites of Eastern winters. It's only on the rare occasions when the rain ceases and the mountains ravish the eyes that I realize that the people who choose to live here aren't deranged after all, but infinitely patient. They wait in restaurants like this one, around tables of wood so highly polished that one can forget one is sitting at a corpse, like those shiny furs with the shiny eyes that women once wore around their necks, before PETA started placing full-page ads in the papers showing foxes silently screaming from leg-hold traps.
Outside the windows a man appears, and peers in at the fairy tale people. He unzips his fly and starts urinating, aiming the stream so that it makes a graceful arc from one end of the windows to the other. The chatter stops, and the diners' heads swivel as they follow the trajectory of the yellow arc. When he reaches the end of the windows the man packs it in and leaves. The people inside turn back to one another and the chatter starts up again, this time a little louder. Outside the rain continues to pour down, and soon the windows are clean once again.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
What I do instead of wasting time on Facebook
Instead of whiling away precious hours on Facebook, I put my internet time to educational use. Such as compiling a list and descriptions (none written by me alas) of some of the worst horror movies ever made.
Frankenhooker
A med student loses his fiancé in a freak lawnmower accident. He manages to save her head from being mowed, and decides to make her a new carcass using the body parts of prostitutes. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen an exploding hooker’s head knock a muscle-man in leopard print leggings unconscious.
The Killer Shrews
The main reason for the film's abysmal reputation is the legendary and quite obvious use of ordinary dogs in bathmats to play the part of giant shrews. I suppose this just has to be overlooked.
The Brain that Wouldn't Die
A scientist and his girl friend are out driving when his speeding causes a car crash. He escapes unharmed but she is decapitated. He saves her head, brings it to his house and keeps the head alive in a lasagna pan in his basement while he cruises town and tries to find her a body by checking out the local chicks. Mad scientist movies end up resorting to long shots of people in white lab coats talking in sterile sets. But this one has a woman's head in the lasagna pan, fighting with the doctor, yelling at the monster in the closet, and engaging the assistant in metaphysical questions usually not heard in such low-budget potboilers.
Nice dynamic that it's his fiancé that he wants to save...but she has become so bitter since becoming a disembodied head in a lasagna pan.
The Dentist
The first half of the movie is so concerned with the day-to-day running of a dental surgery you forget you're watching a horror film.
Galaxy of Terror
It was made by exploitation king Roger Corman on a budget so low it was found under a sofa cushion.
Leprachaun in the Hood
We didn’t like the Leprechaun’s rhymes in the previous four films. When they’re set to a hip hop beat, they’re worse. Hood also features Ice T's worst performance to date. And trust us when we say that's quite an achievement.
Redneck Zombies
The zombies are made from things the production team found in the kitchen cupboard; flour, cornflakes, that sort of thing.
Chopping Mall
It’s the complete absence of logic that we admire here. The robots are supposed to protect the mall but they cause so much destruction we’re pretty sure they’d have been handed their P45s the very next day. Or WD40s. Or whatever it is you give robots when you want to fire them. Also, they look a bit like metal bins on roller skates with red bicycle lights glued to their lids. In all fairness, that’s probably what they are.
The Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion Of The Crust
When marvelously named murderer Millard Findlemeyer is executed his ashes are sent to his mother, who happens to be a witch. She mixes the remains with gingerbread mix, resurrecting him. As a foul-mouthed biscuit.
Brain Damage
Brian finds a talking alien that looks like a big blue poo crossed with a dancing flower. At first, Brian's pleased. But that's because he doesn't know that he’s about to become addicted to the blue mouthwash the creature injects into his brain.
The blue mouthwash makes Brian go on hallucinatory killing sprees, allowing the monster to feed off the brains of Brian’s victims.
We're not sure, but we think it's based on a true story.
Troll 2
A suburban family does a house-swap with a rural family.
Unfortunately, the rural family live in a place called Nilbog. That’s goblin spelt backwards. Goblins live there. It’s their kingdom.
Why So bad?
Don’t be fooled by the vaguely understandable premise detailed above.
We’re not sure what it’s actually about, it’s possibly an attempt at a campaign against veganism. Seriously.
We think that because one of the plant-loving villains is defeated by a baloney sandwich. Also at one point, a kid pisses on a vegetarian meal to protect his family (leading to the immortal line “You don’t piss on hospitality!”). Oh, and a Nilbog nearly pukes at the mere mention of eggs.
You’ll find yourself rewinding it so many times (muttering “Did that actually just happen, or did someone spike my tea with acid again?”) that technically you’ll watch it twice the first time you see it.
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
There are layers and layers of awfulness in this movie, and it really is an unforgettable experience. The actors are all stoned out of their minds and extremely ugly. This wins the Dung Beetle Award of the year. Martians, upset that their children have become obsessed with TV shows from Earth which extoll the virtues of Santa Claus, start an expedition to Earth to kidnap the one and only Santa. While on Earth, they kidnap two lively children that lead the group of Martians to the North Pole and Santa. The Martians then take Santa and the two children back to Mars with them. Voldar, a particularly grumpy Martian, attempts to do away with the children and Santa before they get to Mars, but their leader Lomas stops him. When they arrive on Mars, Santa, with the help of the two Earth children and a rather simple-minded Martian lackey, overcomes the Martians by bringing fun, happiness and Christmas cheer to the children of Mars.
It's Alive
When the inhabitant of the cave, the Mezosaur, is revealed, there is a great sense of disappointment because the creature looks like something from Sesame Street.
Fire Maidens from Outer Space
A bunch of guys from Earth land on a planet, which has breathable atmosphere and plenty of sunlight despite being hundreds of millions of miles further from the sun than Earth. The planet is populated by the titular fire maidens who'll throw themselves at any passing astronaut (`by the law of Atlantis I am yours') and do much posing and running about on cardboard sets. Their leader Prasus claims to be descended from the last survivor of the city of Atlantis. He's an old goat who has clearly been putting it about a bit, since the fire maidens -- all 16 of them -- are meant to be his daughters. Prasus is portrayed as a bit of a drunk -- giving a rousing speech then collapsing into an alcoholic stupor -- a character trait possibly introduced to ease over some shameful overacting. The men are fairly contradictorily characters actually, spending much of the film eying up the women and making crass comments yet when it is suggested they could help repopulate the fire maiden's race one of them protests `wait a minute I'm a happily married man'. Social historians will have a field day analysing the film in terms of 1950's sexual politics, everyone else will be intrigued as to how Prasus has managed to father 16 daughters despite the notable absence of any mothers of the fire maidens from outer space.
Death Curse of Tartu
A lot of animals guest-star in this farce, and they seem to be more intelligent than the actors.
The Astounding She-Monster
Two aging gangsters and their gin-soaked moll kidnap a Beverly Hills socialite who looks like the cadaverous victim of a 1930's vampire movie. Through a series of misadventures, they end up in a remote geologist's cabin being stalked by an iridescent stripper from outer space. Every time the alien enters the cabin, they run outside and get in the jeep. Then she corners them on the road and they run into the woods. Then she finds them in the woods and they go back into the cabin. This sequence is repeated three or four times as characters are killed one by one. Imagine "Ten Little Indians" if it had been written by Sartre instead of Agatha Christie. The socialite gets lines like, "But, Dick, isn't radium in solid form a metal?" and my favorite, "I had no idea that a geologist used so many acids in his work."
The Wizard of Mars
Four astronauts crash land on Mars where they walk around for an hour's worth of running time before meeting the planet's wizard (John Carradine). Here's a really bad movie that somewhat keeps you interested because you're expecting something to happen but when nothing does happen you can't help but be really upset. Carradine doesn't show up until the final ten minutes and when he does it's only his head.
Teenagers from Outer Space
"Teenagers from Outer Space" is a very creative and light-headed bunch of nonsense, entirely put together by Tom Graeff, who also appears in a pointless supportive role as a journalist that pops up everywhere. The main characters are two alien "teenagers", both obviously in their mid twenties already. One of them is a good guy named Derek, and he desperately tries to prevent his unfriendly race from turning our planet earth into a breeding ground for intergalactic lobsters. The bad teenage-alien is a trigger happy racist who loves to blast the flesh off of friendly and helpful earth beings with his fancy laser weapon. Derek falls in love with the local high school sweetheart and prepares himself to fight his own species and keep the earth lobster-free.
Why would an intergalactic lobster be named Derek?
Two Thousand Maniacs
"Two Thousand Maniacs" is a wonderful Brigadoon-esque film about two groups of Yankees who become guests of honors for the southern town of Pleasant Valley's centennial. What these "guests" don't realize, though, is that they are going to be murdered in bizarre (and I mean, BIZARRE) fashions because of a war lost by the south 100 years ago.
The festivities include a woman being dismembered and barbecued, a man being quartered with four horses, and the infamous "barrel roll" sequence where a man is pushed down a hill in a barrel that has nails driven into its sides.
The movie altogether has a wacky, feel-good charm that keeps you smiling, and you'll surely be singing its theme song after the movie's over! I sure as hell was.
The Stuff
During a routine drilling, a bunch of workman hit upon a reservoir of really addictive pudding, which is immediately marketed as the best thing since ice cream to a bunch of suburbanites.
It's low in calories. Also, it turns people into mindless zombies.
The Stuff scores extra points for the scene in which lead kid Scott Bloom eats shaving foam instead of The Stuff, when his body snatcher style family are insisting he joins their pudding cult. It looks like method acting to us.
Slugs
The tagline sums it up – They Ooze, They Slime, They Kill.
Ignoring the fact that two of those things are the same thing, what the tagline fails to clarify is: Why?
The film doesn’t explain it either. But that’s fine, we weren’t that interested.
Frankenhooker
A med student loses his fiancé in a freak lawnmower accident. He manages to save her head from being mowed, and decides to make her a new carcass using the body parts of prostitutes. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen an exploding hooker’s head knock a muscle-man in leopard print leggings unconscious.
The Killer Shrews
The main reason for the film's abysmal reputation is the legendary and quite obvious use of ordinary dogs in bathmats to play the part of giant shrews. I suppose this just has to be overlooked.
The Brain that Wouldn't Die
A scientist and his girl friend are out driving when his speeding causes a car crash. He escapes unharmed but she is decapitated. He saves her head, brings it to his house and keeps the head alive in a lasagna pan in his basement while he cruises town and tries to find her a body by checking out the local chicks. Mad scientist movies end up resorting to long shots of people in white lab coats talking in sterile sets. But this one has a woman's head in the lasagna pan, fighting with the doctor, yelling at the monster in the closet, and engaging the assistant in metaphysical questions usually not heard in such low-budget potboilers.
Nice dynamic that it's his fiancé that he wants to save...but she has become so bitter since becoming a disembodied head in a lasagna pan.
The Dentist
The first half of the movie is so concerned with the day-to-day running of a dental surgery you forget you're watching a horror film.
Galaxy of Terror
It was made by exploitation king Roger Corman on a budget so low it was found under a sofa cushion.
Leprachaun in the Hood
We didn’t like the Leprechaun’s rhymes in the previous four films. When they’re set to a hip hop beat, they’re worse. Hood also features Ice T's worst performance to date. And trust us when we say that's quite an achievement.
Redneck Zombies
The zombies are made from things the production team found in the kitchen cupboard; flour, cornflakes, that sort of thing.
Chopping Mall
It’s the complete absence of logic that we admire here. The robots are supposed to protect the mall but they cause so much destruction we’re pretty sure they’d have been handed their P45s the very next day. Or WD40s. Or whatever it is you give robots when you want to fire them. Also, they look a bit like metal bins on roller skates with red bicycle lights glued to their lids. In all fairness, that’s probably what they are.
The Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion Of The Crust
When marvelously named murderer Millard Findlemeyer is executed his ashes are sent to his mother, who happens to be a witch. She mixes the remains with gingerbread mix, resurrecting him. As a foul-mouthed biscuit.
Brain Damage
Brian finds a talking alien that looks like a big blue poo crossed with a dancing flower. At first, Brian's pleased. But that's because he doesn't know that he’s about to become addicted to the blue mouthwash the creature injects into his brain.
The blue mouthwash makes Brian go on hallucinatory killing sprees, allowing the monster to feed off the brains of Brian’s victims.
We're not sure, but we think it's based on a true story.
Troll 2
A suburban family does a house-swap with a rural family.
Unfortunately, the rural family live in a place called Nilbog. That’s goblin spelt backwards. Goblins live there. It’s their kingdom.
Why So bad?
Don’t be fooled by the vaguely understandable premise detailed above.
We’re not sure what it’s actually about, it’s possibly an attempt at a campaign against veganism. Seriously.
We think that because one of the plant-loving villains is defeated by a baloney sandwich. Also at one point, a kid pisses on a vegetarian meal to protect his family (leading to the immortal line “You don’t piss on hospitality!”). Oh, and a Nilbog nearly pukes at the mere mention of eggs.
You’ll find yourself rewinding it so many times (muttering “Did that actually just happen, or did someone spike my tea with acid again?”) that technically you’ll watch it twice the first time you see it.
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
There are layers and layers of awfulness in this movie, and it really is an unforgettable experience. The actors are all stoned out of their minds and extremely ugly. This wins the Dung Beetle Award of the year. Martians, upset that their children have become obsessed with TV shows from Earth which extoll the virtues of Santa Claus, start an expedition to Earth to kidnap the one and only Santa. While on Earth, they kidnap two lively children that lead the group of Martians to the North Pole and Santa. The Martians then take Santa and the two children back to Mars with them. Voldar, a particularly grumpy Martian, attempts to do away with the children and Santa before they get to Mars, but their leader Lomas stops him. When they arrive on Mars, Santa, with the help of the two Earth children and a rather simple-minded Martian lackey, overcomes the Martians by bringing fun, happiness and Christmas cheer to the children of Mars.
It's Alive
When the inhabitant of the cave, the Mezosaur, is revealed, there is a great sense of disappointment because the creature looks like something from Sesame Street.
Fire Maidens from Outer Space
A bunch of guys from Earth land on a planet, which has breathable atmosphere and plenty of sunlight despite being hundreds of millions of miles further from the sun than Earth. The planet is populated by the titular fire maidens who'll throw themselves at any passing astronaut (`by the law of Atlantis I am yours') and do much posing and running about on cardboard sets. Their leader Prasus claims to be descended from the last survivor of the city of Atlantis. He's an old goat who has clearly been putting it about a bit, since the fire maidens -- all 16 of them -- are meant to be his daughters. Prasus is portrayed as a bit of a drunk -- giving a rousing speech then collapsing into an alcoholic stupor -- a character trait possibly introduced to ease over some shameful overacting. The men are fairly contradictorily characters actually, spending much of the film eying up the women and making crass comments yet when it is suggested they could help repopulate the fire maiden's race one of them protests `wait a minute I'm a happily married man'. Social historians will have a field day analysing the film in terms of 1950's sexual politics, everyone else will be intrigued as to how Prasus has managed to father 16 daughters despite the notable absence of any mothers of the fire maidens from outer space.
Death Curse of Tartu
A lot of animals guest-star in this farce, and they seem to be more intelligent than the actors.
The Astounding She-Monster
Two aging gangsters and their gin-soaked moll kidnap a Beverly Hills socialite who looks like the cadaverous victim of a 1930's vampire movie. Through a series of misadventures, they end up in a remote geologist's cabin being stalked by an iridescent stripper from outer space. Every time the alien enters the cabin, they run outside and get in the jeep. Then she corners them on the road and they run into the woods. Then she finds them in the woods and they go back into the cabin. This sequence is repeated three or four times as characters are killed one by one. Imagine "Ten Little Indians" if it had been written by Sartre instead of Agatha Christie. The socialite gets lines like, "But, Dick, isn't radium in solid form a metal?" and my favorite, "I had no idea that a geologist used so many acids in his work."
The Wizard of Mars
Four astronauts crash land on Mars where they walk around for an hour's worth of running time before meeting the planet's wizard (John Carradine). Here's a really bad movie that somewhat keeps you interested because you're expecting something to happen but when nothing does happen you can't help but be really upset. Carradine doesn't show up until the final ten minutes and when he does it's only his head.
Teenagers from Outer Space
"Teenagers from Outer Space" is a very creative and light-headed bunch of nonsense, entirely put together by Tom Graeff, who also appears in a pointless supportive role as a journalist that pops up everywhere. The main characters are two alien "teenagers", both obviously in their mid twenties already. One of them is a good guy named Derek, and he desperately tries to prevent his unfriendly race from turning our planet earth into a breeding ground for intergalactic lobsters. The bad teenage-alien is a trigger happy racist who loves to blast the flesh off of friendly and helpful earth beings with his fancy laser weapon. Derek falls in love with the local high school sweetheart and prepares himself to fight his own species and keep the earth lobster-free.
Why would an intergalactic lobster be named Derek?
Two Thousand Maniacs
"Two Thousand Maniacs" is a wonderful Brigadoon-esque film about two groups of Yankees who become guests of honors for the southern town of Pleasant Valley's centennial. What these "guests" don't realize, though, is that they are going to be murdered in bizarre (and I mean, BIZARRE) fashions because of a war lost by the south 100 years ago.
The festivities include a woman being dismembered and barbecued, a man being quartered with four horses, and the infamous "barrel roll" sequence where a man is pushed down a hill in a barrel that has nails driven into its sides.
The movie altogether has a wacky, feel-good charm that keeps you smiling, and you'll surely be singing its theme song after the movie's over! I sure as hell was.
The Stuff
During a routine drilling, a bunch of workman hit upon a reservoir of really addictive pudding, which is immediately marketed as the best thing since ice cream to a bunch of suburbanites.
It's low in calories. Also, it turns people into mindless zombies.
The Stuff scores extra points for the scene in which lead kid Scott Bloom eats shaving foam instead of The Stuff, when his body snatcher style family are insisting he joins their pudding cult. It looks like method acting to us.
Slugs
The tagline sums it up – They Ooze, They Slime, They Kill.
Ignoring the fact that two of those things are the same thing, what the tagline fails to clarify is: Why?
The film doesn’t explain it either. But that’s fine, we weren’t that interested.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Ithaca and the Blue Cliff Monastery
Last Thursday I set out, with some apprehension, for Ithaca and the Blue Cliff Monastery in New York state. My apprehension was due to the fact that I had the beginnings of a urinary tract infection (UTI). Although I had been trying to cure it with litres of cranberry juice, it was still intruding on Thursday morning. I remember a microbiology professor saying that his wife had once compared a UTI to peeing glass. So I was worried that a) I would need to find medical help at some point in the States, which would be both time-consuming and expensive; and b) due to all the debate about health care there now, I wondered if I would become a headline: Canadian travels 400 miles to get help for UTI in the United States. I bought another four litres of cranberry juice before leaving.
I was also apprehensive about camping for four nights. It had rained a lot lately and was starting to get cold. So I borrowed a thick mattress from a friend, took along two thermorests, a sleeping bag rated to -20 degress Celsius, my duvet, and flannel sheets. I briefly considered taking Charlotte, my fluffiest cat, but I hadn't gotten around to getting a passport for her. Camping being what it is, part of the purpose of stopping in Ithaca was to spend one comfortable night in a B&B before enduring four nights in a tent at the beginning of October.
I don't have much to report about the lovely town of Ithaca, home of the Moosewood restaurant, except that after reading the list of chargeable offences in the library I noted that what I had long thought of as a trivial bit of petty larceny can also be viewed as a delicate Parisian morsel of petit larceny.
On my way to the Blue Cliff Monastery I stopped in Roscoe (“Trout Town”) to have lunch at Buffalo Zach's café. There I drank the last cups of coffee (organic fair trade) I would have until the retreat ended, ate vegetarian delights and listened to the music of Louis Armstrong, surrounded by bearskin rugs, deer heads with Mona Lisa smiles, antlers of mostly unimpressive size and fluorescent light covers with images of Native Americans in full head gear. Part of the way through my meal a father and son entered the restaurant. They looked like they might have supplied much of the décor for the restaurant. Seeing them made me wonder why hunters bother with camouflage pants when they're wearing neon orange jackets.
When I arrived at the monastery I learned that 1100 people were going to be at the retreat, which almost made me turn around and head home except that I didn't want to drive for another seven hours. I was directed to a rather delightful setting in a grove of trees where Christmas lights had been strung to light up the path. A greeter offered to help me set up my tent. It was all very pleasant, but still, the thought of such large numbers was offputting. Thankfully, it never felt like there were that many people there. The whole experience was quite different from what I had expected. The meditation retreats I've been to before have mostly been done in continual silence, with much of the time devoted to sitting meditation. We sat for only an hour in the morning on this retreat. Part of Thich Naht Hanh's “thing” is to create a sangha, or community, and to engage in applied Buddhism, which means not just sitting on a cushion but learning how to relate to the world in a more non-reactive and compassionate way. So there was a lot of interaction: we were divided into groups, each one led by one of the monks or nuns. Our group was led by Brother Phatman (pronounced "Fatman", although he is anything but), a young ex-surfer from California who now lives in Plum Village in France and has a fabulous sense of humour. He told us that the monks and nuns are allowed to visit their families for two weeks every two years. He had just come back from spending time with his mother and sister in Hawaii. When his sister at one point accused him of ruining the day, rather than responding in some sort of enlightened manner he shot back, No, you're ruining it. And he told us that at the time he thought his sister was following a very weird spiritual path, but then he got sight of himself in the mirror with his shaved head and brown robes.
With our groups, we spent the next four days doing working meditation (in our case, the breakfast dishes), dharma sharing and deep listening, and occasionally breaking into song. I found the songs rather creepy and cult-like, but most of the rest of the retreat I enjoyed. I especially liked the mindfulness bell. When it sounds, everyone stops what they are doing and takes three deep breaths before resuming activity. Like hitting the pause button on the remote. I also liked the occasional announcements at mealtimes.
It's disconcerting in some ways to spend such a short, concentrated time with people. You just begin to get to know them and then you have to say goodbye. (Or, as one man in our group remarked to me, We're all just getting to know each other enough not to push each other's buttons.) On the last day everyone at the retreat headed to the meditation hall for the final dharma talk. It was a beautiful day, so a number of us stayed outside. I sat a little apart from everyone as I am wont to do. Someone was singing inside the meditation hall, except this time it wasn't creepy or cult-like but rather elegiac. It was the time of silence, so there were waves of people approaching the hall quietly. It felt like the point in the movie when all talk stops and the music starts up, when you suspect that the credits are about to roll but hope that they don't, for although there has been little plot and nothing to resolve you know that if it ends there you will be left hanging.
Things I learned on this trip:
1. You can stave off a UTI with cranberry juice, but I think this only works if you catch it in the earliest stages. Cranberry juice prevents the bacteria from adhering, which they need to do in order to reproduce. (This makes sense: few creatures are adept at having sex in mid-air, apart from members of the Cirque du Soleil.) If you don't get them before they've started to go forth and multiply, I think it's time for antibiotics.
2. My tent can withstand prolonged rainfall.
3. I can go for 96 hours without coffee. My closest friends would probably find it less surprising to hear that I had gone hunting than to learn that I had gone without coffee for this length of time.
4. Others (some at least) see me as a free spirit. This isn't an image I have of myself. I usually feel weighed down by worries about the job situation, the house, old age... With all that weight I sometimes forget that hitting the road has been a large part of my life and that I so enjoy the freedom of it. I could speak in Buddhist terms and say that we are all free spirits, that that is our true nature, and that all those things weighing us down are just illusions. But that will probably cause some of you to roll your eyes. So I will just say that maybe I need to change my perceptions about who I am. Why view something as trivial when you can see it as a delicate Parisian morsel instead?
I was also apprehensive about camping for four nights. It had rained a lot lately and was starting to get cold. So I borrowed a thick mattress from a friend, took along two thermorests, a sleeping bag rated to -20 degress Celsius, my duvet, and flannel sheets. I briefly considered taking Charlotte, my fluffiest cat, but I hadn't gotten around to getting a passport for her. Camping being what it is, part of the purpose of stopping in Ithaca was to spend one comfortable night in a B&B before enduring four nights in a tent at the beginning of October.
I don't have much to report about the lovely town of Ithaca, home of the Moosewood restaurant, except that after reading the list of chargeable offences in the library I noted that what I had long thought of as a trivial bit of petty larceny can also be viewed as a delicate Parisian morsel of petit larceny.
On my way to the Blue Cliff Monastery I stopped in Roscoe (“Trout Town”) to have lunch at Buffalo Zach's café. There I drank the last cups of coffee (organic fair trade) I would have until the retreat ended, ate vegetarian delights and listened to the music of Louis Armstrong, surrounded by bearskin rugs, deer heads with Mona Lisa smiles, antlers of mostly unimpressive size and fluorescent light covers with images of Native Americans in full head gear. Part of the way through my meal a father and son entered the restaurant. They looked like they might have supplied much of the décor for the restaurant. Seeing them made me wonder why hunters bother with camouflage pants when they're wearing neon orange jackets.
When I arrived at the monastery I learned that 1100 people were going to be at the retreat, which almost made me turn around and head home except that I didn't want to drive for another seven hours. I was directed to a rather delightful setting in a grove of trees where Christmas lights had been strung to light up the path. A greeter offered to help me set up my tent. It was all very pleasant, but still, the thought of such large numbers was offputting. Thankfully, it never felt like there were that many people there. The whole experience was quite different from what I had expected. The meditation retreats I've been to before have mostly been done in continual silence, with much of the time devoted to sitting meditation. We sat for only an hour in the morning on this retreat. Part of Thich Naht Hanh's “thing” is to create a sangha, or community, and to engage in applied Buddhism, which means not just sitting on a cushion but learning how to relate to the world in a more non-reactive and compassionate way. So there was a lot of interaction: we were divided into groups, each one led by one of the monks or nuns. Our group was led by Brother Phatman (pronounced "Fatman", although he is anything but), a young ex-surfer from California who now lives in Plum Village in France and has a fabulous sense of humour. He told us that the monks and nuns are allowed to visit their families for two weeks every two years. He had just come back from spending time with his mother and sister in Hawaii. When his sister at one point accused him of ruining the day, rather than responding in some sort of enlightened manner he shot back, No, you're ruining it. And he told us that at the time he thought his sister was following a very weird spiritual path, but then he got sight of himself in the mirror with his shaved head and brown robes.
With our groups, we spent the next four days doing working meditation (in our case, the breakfast dishes), dharma sharing and deep listening, and occasionally breaking into song. I found the songs rather creepy and cult-like, but most of the rest of the retreat I enjoyed. I especially liked the mindfulness bell. When it sounds, everyone stops what they are doing and takes three deep breaths before resuming activity. Like hitting the pause button on the remote. I also liked the occasional announcements at mealtimes.
Brothers and sisters, sorry to disrupt this wonderful meal, but would you please look at your feet. If you are wearing black crocs that aren't yours, please come to meditation hall as someone is looking for them.
Brothers and sisters, sorry to disrupt this wonderful meal, but would the Blueberry group please report to the kitchen, as you are supposed to be washing pots. Slight pause, during which there is some confusion in the dining tent. Oh, sorry to interrupt this wonderful meal again brothers and sisters, that is supposed to be the Elderberry group. Blueberry group, you may continue to enjoy this wonderful meal. Elderberry group, we need you in the kitchen.
Brothers and sisters, sorry to disrupt this wonderful meal, but if a wallet that is not yours has made its way into your pocket, please return it to the office.
It's disconcerting in some ways to spend such a short, concentrated time with people. You just begin to get to know them and then you have to say goodbye. (Or, as one man in our group remarked to me, We're all just getting to know each other enough not to push each other's buttons.) On the last day everyone at the retreat headed to the meditation hall for the final dharma talk. It was a beautiful day, so a number of us stayed outside. I sat a little apart from everyone as I am wont to do. Someone was singing inside the meditation hall, except this time it wasn't creepy or cult-like but rather elegiac. It was the time of silence, so there were waves of people approaching the hall quietly. It felt like the point in the movie when all talk stops and the music starts up, when you suspect that the credits are about to roll but hope that they don't, for although there has been little plot and nothing to resolve you know that if it ends there you will be left hanging.
Things I learned on this trip:
1. You can stave off a UTI with cranberry juice, but I think this only works if you catch it in the earliest stages. Cranberry juice prevents the bacteria from adhering, which they need to do in order to reproduce. (This makes sense: few creatures are adept at having sex in mid-air, apart from members of the Cirque du Soleil.) If you don't get them before they've started to go forth and multiply, I think it's time for antibiotics.
2. My tent can withstand prolonged rainfall.
3. I can go for 96 hours without coffee. My closest friends would probably find it less surprising to hear that I had gone hunting than to learn that I had gone without coffee for this length of time.
4. Others (some at least) see me as a free spirit. This isn't an image I have of myself. I usually feel weighed down by worries about the job situation, the house, old age... With all that weight I sometimes forget that hitting the road has been a large part of my life and that I so enjoy the freedom of it. I could speak in Buddhist terms and say that we are all free spirits, that that is our true nature, and that all those things weighing us down are just illusions. But that will probably cause some of you to roll your eyes. So I will just say that maybe I need to change my perceptions about who I am. Why view something as trivial when you can see it as a delicate Parisian morsel instead?
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