it's a vain pursuit but it helps me to sleep
Dec. 2nd, 2016
09:10 pm - viva cuba libre
I went to Havana. It was sadder than I expected; it's pretty much a picturesque disaster area, where a block from the Prado (Havana's famous promenade) people live in half-collapsed buildings, and on the day I left, down the street from my AirBNB -- yes, that's right! -- people were excitedly queuing to buy tomatoes. Lifestyles seem to mostly range from grim stagnation to quiet desperation, unsullied by much in the way of aspiration or hope.
(I know, I know: "under capitalism, man exploits man, but under communism, it's the other way around!")
Anyway. Picturesque, like I said:
The Grand Theater at night.
Imperialismo Yankee!
Not atypical building, Havana Veija Sur.
The revolution is a town?
Desk set.
A well-documented door.
Facing the sea.
Continuously defend the revolution!
The classic cars are everywhere.
Not atypical building, Havana Centro.
Heroes of the revolution.
On the Sunday after Fidel's death, Plaza de la Revolucion was not exactly a hotbed of fervor.
Snapped furtively, but they didn't seem to really mean it.
Wanna bet?
Centro, again.
...Yeah, I got nothin'.
The beaches, as every Canadian knows, are lovely.
Spontaneous memorial.
Ready taxis.
Those were the days...
I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be here.
Not especially Cuban, except that it's holding up a ruin, but I like this shot a lot.
It's a very pretty city.
This felt a little Dr. Strange.
Centro.
Probably my favorite street art.
Havana Vieja cobblestones.
The vestigial Chinatown.
Bullet holes from a (non-Castro-related) student uprising / attempt to kill Batista in 1957.
Sep. 26th, 2016
06:32 am - A continent a week
Here, have some pictures from the UK and UAE:
Dawn runs in Hyde Park are the best thing about jet lag.
Though the swans are pretty cool too.
In Brixton, my old home.
The inspiration for Ballard's High-Rise.
They finally finished the King's Cross renovation, and it looks great.
View from our hosts' Abu Dhabi balcony.
This is apparently how I look to three-year-olds.
The beach was bilingual -- English and Russian.
Etihad Towers, through which Vin Diesel jumped that hypercar in Furious 7.
The taste of home. Sort of.
The emir's palace is quite palatial.
Bit of a cult of personality going on.
Jumeirah, a suburb of Dubai which was basically just sand when I was last there twelve years ago.
If there's a more cyberpunk suburb anywhere, I'm sure I don't know what it is.
Probably my best shot of the trip.
They don't call it the Empty Quarter for nothing.
Desert mountains.
Goin' out divin', and we're ... gonna see tu-u-u-urtles...
Hazy day.
The Gulf of Oman has lovely beaches.
A rather magnificent mosque.
Now back, and jet-lagged, obv. Full set here.
May. 29th, 2016
10:08 am - Fear and loathing in the Hôtel de Ville
Life advice: if anyone ever offers you an all-expenses-paid press junket to Paris, bite their hand off. Not just because it's an all-expenses-paid week in Paris, although that's obviously nice too; because the whole journalist-on-a-junket experience is so strange and surreal.
How so? Well: We guzzled champagne with Moët Hennessy's Chief Digital Officer at the French Open while projection-mapped art played on a jeroboam above us. We ate chocolate and drank wine beneath the rococo forty-foot-high painted ceilings of the Hôtel de Ville. We danced and drank rosé (are you beginning to see a theme here?) at an open-air bar on the banks of the Seine. We spent time with "France's Steve Jobs" Xavier Niel, the CEO of a major French bank, a cabinet minister, and the deputy mayor of Paris. The mayor herself blew us off at the last minute, alas.
They mostly clearly saw those encounters as unpleasant (the cabinet minister, one Axelle Lemaire, born in Canada, was outright scathing about "the American media" perspectives of France; unfortunate timing, given that the nation was half-paralyzed by strikes while we were here, and her government's approval rating is slipping towards single digits) but necessary, because apparently people have begun to view tech journalism -- tech journalism! -- as somehow important. This is *hilarious*, of course.
(The exception to that rule was Niel, who seemed like a pretty cool dude, and I think actually enjoyed hanging out with us at the legitimately awesome new engineering school he has built.)
We -- about twenty of us, half from Asia, half from America, chauffered / herded from place to place in three minivans --- had startup after startup after startup trotted before us to give their pitches, as if we were VCs. The French government is trying to make Paris a tech startup hub, in its own very French way, and is trying to get that message out.
It offers some pretty sweet deals; La French Tech Ticket offers startups €25K per founder, a one-year residency permit, logistical assistance, and free co-working space, in exchange for ... nothing. They take zero equity. Zero. They're so bought in to the cult of the startup that they're willing to pay that just to foster a startup ecosystem. I know, right?
(Niel the multibillionaire, being Niel the multibillionaire, clearly thinks the government approach is ridiculous half measures, and is building a massive complex near Bercy to host 1,000 startups -- yes, you read that correctly -- all of which he will presumably take an equity share in. Construction is already well underway.)
Fortunately we also had a bunch of spare time, not least because as the week progressed, more and more of us dropped out of the scheduled events. (I was one of three to attend the last one.) I went roaming around the city, dined at my favorite Italian restaurant ever, had dinner with 
phrawzty, went for some excellent runs (past la Tour and along the Seine; around the Tuileries; around the Jardins de Luxembourg), caught an old film noir flick on Rue Champollion, drank wine and played foozball with our conference host, went drinking with Scoble and a really cool guy who was on the original iPhone team, roamed La Défense a bit, watched the Champions League final in a crowded bar, etc., all of which was great, but most of which can be done whenever I come to Paris. The junket, though, that was some weirdness.
May. 17th, 2016
03:33 pm - grab bag
Hello, LJ! I've been busy. Have some pictures.
I accidentally an inspirational poster. Half Moon Bay.
Here come the bros. Dolores Park.
I have friends who would shop here. Sedona.
They don't call it the Grand Canyon for nothing, you know. South Rim.
Spot the Colorado River. South Rim.
Spot the Bright Angel Trail. South Rim.
Looking north. South Rim.
Yours truly. South Rim.
Cowboypocalyptic. Valle, Arizona.
Synaptic fantastic. San Francisco.
Taken (literally) on the run. Ocean Beach, San Francisco.
Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn. (I was there for all of 10 hours.)
Gulf and Tesla. Starlight, PA.
Not in my back yard. NIMBY, Oakland.
Hoopstress. NIMBY, Oakland.
Gearing up for Bay to Breakers. San Francisco.
(I tweaked a calf muscle gunning up Hayes Hill, and thus had to walk up all the uphills in Golden Gate Park, but fortunately there aren't too many of those; finished in 77 min. Walking more or less normally today, again, after hobbling through yesterday.)
Apr. 12th, 2016
02:05 pm - the ways and means to new orleans
Some photos from my weekend in the Big Easy:
Full set here.
Mar. 30th, 2016
11:07 pm - fully loaded, we got snacks and supplies
I am back! Did you miss me?
From my road trip, I mean, not my latest LJ-absence. 2100 miles across California, Nevada, and Arizona. But mostly California. O California, I love you so. I wish I felt more warmly towards the nation in which you are embedded...
Overnighted amid Reno's bargain-basement rococo sprawl.
South past Mono Lake...
...to an afternoon of skiing on Mammoth Mountain.
I don't know why I look so scowly here. I was having an excellent time.
Past looming Mount Tom...
...with a stop at the infamous Integratron...
...and the strange Salton Sea...
...to even more infamous Slab City, the "Last Free Place."
Which is gatewayed by folk-art semi-masterpiece Salvation Mountain:
The desert has always attracted religious visionaries.
Slab City itself is a curious place. I didn't make it to the alien crash site. But I did get to...
...East Jesus, its art museum.
And it was a Saturday, which meant: talent night at the local (only) bar / stage.
I woke and roved through the weirdnesses of the Imperial Valley...
...drove all the way into Arizona just to cross London Bridge. Yes, that London Bridge...
...and wound up overlooking Las Vegas.
Which can get pretty creepy off the Strip late at night.
Come the morn I made my way to Death Valley...
...and one of my favourite places, Zabriskie Point.
It is perhaps not completely apparent that I am in one of my favourite places.
Yes, this too was taken in Death Valley.
Which otherwise mostly lived up to its name...
...despite the speckling of wildflowers...
...even though I got rained on.
There was no rainbow, but the subsequent light was pretty glorious.
As was the sunset.
And the golden hour.
The next day I wandered by the aircraft boneyard / spaceport in Mojave. It was anticlimactic, but the nearby wind towers were quite striking...
...and after four years of drought, newly green California is shockingly beautiful.
Full photo album here.
Dec. 23rd, 2015
12:01 am - Obligatory occasional photo post
Life has been slipping past rapidly for the past couple of months, but a few moments were captured:
Beach mandala.
Hallowe'ening.
The Bay.
The Pacific.
Yours truly.
I seem to have written a new book.
More brooms, at the Dickens Fair.
Oct. 19th, 2015
09:48 am - Yosemite
I did Yosemite wrong the other time I went there, lo these many years ago. Yesterday I did it better:
(Last shot not actually in Yosemite but from a Vista Point on Highway 120 on the way out.)
Sep. 7th, 2015
11:01 am - black rock city 2015
I took fewer pictures this year, and the ones I took were generally not as good; one can attribute this either to the dust storms that ravaged Black Rock City (I counted five pretty significant ones during the course of the week) or to the fact that I was just too busy having a fantastic time.
Still, here's what I got:
Towards the gate.
Stop and smell the flower.
BE OK.
Flamethrowers are extremely numerous at Burning Man, but this was the most impressive one.
Everyone needs a Blunderwood.
Temple arches.
Giant dance-camp sphere.
Third in a trilogy.
Playa scars.
Soup and crackers.
Mazu lanterns.
Welcome to the freak show.
The Harlequin Man himself.
Out in the burbs.
Table dancer.
Shoulder surfer.
Triptych.
Watching the medusa.
Panda man.
Esplanade.
Dust rider.
Fractal radiance.
Comfort and joy.
The legendary El Pulpo Mecanico.
Infernal clown.
Jun. 1st, 2015
10:00 pm - Levantine pix
A few highlights:
Brief British stopover.
Grand mosque, Beirut.
Love, Beirut-style.
The Corniche, Beirut.
Downtown.
In the suburbs where Hezbollah reigns.
Somewhere over Syria. I think that conurbation might be Homs.
The road into Petra is kind of ridiculous.
I mean, really.
Its entrance is famously cinematic.
Guides wait for customers.
City carved from stone.
The monastery.
The road out.
Wadi Rum. My standard photo pose.
My not-so-standard photo pose.
Khaled, my Bedouin guide.
Random camels.
Wadi Rum is ridiculously gorgeous, in that stark bleak desert way.
"We've taken Aqaba."
Old city, Jerusalem.
Golden Dome and Western Wall.
Orthodox chillin'.
Muslims only beyond this point.
The Mount of Olives.
Apparently this is the real deal.
Don't forget the struggle.
Checkpoint 300.
Dead Sea blues.
Illicit photo of licit mummy.
Pyramid golf.
I don't even like camels. Um. Look, it's a long story, OK?
Last-day-in-the-country blues.
Full set here.
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