Like so many adventurers and travelers before me, I want to write a love letter to New York. Or write a poem, compose a song, make a film or music video, a short story, an essay, or I suppose a blog entry. I wonder if the words, poem, story, film, or video, sounded as awkward when they were first introduced as the word blog sounds now? I imagine a future where blog will be uttered with the same intention and respect as poem and song. In any case, I have recently returned from the Hobo Magazine mission to the enchanted city and I have fallen in love: in love with the people, the history, the mystery and the opportunity.

Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams, Lover of loneliness, and wandering, Of upcast eye and tender pondering! Thee must I praise above all other glories That smile on us to tell delightful stories. For what has made the sage or poet write But the fair paradise of Nature’s light? I Stood Tip-Toe Upon a Little Hill — John Keats

I meet up with Shawn and Jules at the new Standard Hotel and finally cast my gaze on Issue #11. And we hit the pavement running. Coucous and mint tea at the Café Mogador, dancing at Lit, breakfasts at Balthazar and The Standard Grill, Americanos at Café Gitane, steak at Bacaro, radishes at Prune. Friends, photographers, models, writers and artists at The Ace, The Standard, The Jane, and The Maritime. Supporters at McNally’s bookstore, and shops like Opening Ceremony and 45 rpm where clothes take on a whole new meaning.

Let them say that I walked in fair nature’s light, And that I was loyal to truth and to right. Cross the Green Mountain — Bob Dylan

Emailing from The Jane, visits to art galleries, scorched by the sun, drowning in the rain. Meeting some of our contributing photographers like Owen Black and Hugh Lippe, connecting with our favourite hotelier, Alex Calderwood, at the new Ace, where rock stars should hope to be treated so well. Lunch with former Forbes writer and blogger Devon, the daughter of one of my oldest and dearest friends at the Good Stuff Diner, and a message from Ms MM, my favourite eco-warrior as she prepares for a climate conference in Japan, add magic to the mix. My new friend Tommy at Tello’s Ristorante at 8th Ave. and 20th Street where I stop to get out of the rain on my way back to the hotel. I’m reading my Keats with a bar candle supplied by the lovely bartender Mary, when he inexplicably buys me oysters and clams and keeps my wine glass full as he regales me with stories of the Russian Bathhouse on 10th Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A, providing ideas to the director of an Al Pacino indie, his life running six other establishments in the Chelsea area. We make plans for me to come back and spend a day in the life. Beautiful.

My props for this visit are DVD’s of Jun Ichikawas’ Toni Takitani, and Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story. Transcendent and timeless cinematic poems that would be the inspiration for my film version of the odyssey. My only book is John Keats — The Complete Poems, which was motivated by seeing Jane Campion’s Bright Star. An elegant film and I am reminded that Keats died at 25. (What the hell!?) The music playing in my ears is a hybrid of “Oh No” by Andrew Byrd and “Cross the Green Mountain” by Bob Dylan to “Two Weeks” by Grizzly Bear, and the ever so ethereal “Gila” by Beach House. A soundscape as soothing and informative as the architecture and poetry that surrounds me. A ladybug lands on my hand as I bask in the sun on the steps of The Jane Hotel. I admire her comfort on my skin and accept her presence as the bearer of good luck she is known to represent. I love New York.

The imagination of a boy is healthy, and mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste… Appeared with Endymion when it was published in May 1818 — John Keats

All the leaves were gone and the sky was grey. Faces were illuminated by the bluish glow emanating from the televisions in the suburban windows. Rows of discarded and dying pumpkins lined the road as I drove through the island’s rain forest on the way to my office at the university. Manu Chao’s anthem song, “Clandestino”, sparked my soul and my thoughts wandered to Buenos Aires and the magical words of Borges who continues to teach me how to read and write, awake and dream. “What can I hold you with? I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, the moon of jagged suburbs.” These are the words and images that stir my imagination when the first of the winter rains begin to fall and the only sun to be found is resting in my ever-expanding library. I’ve been collecting books like firewood throughout the long hot summer and their pages will keep me warm and dry as the wet winds of the Pineapple Express change everything I think and do. 

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

This last week I lectured on Mirror by Andrei Tarkovsky, La Notte by Michelangelo Antonioni, Contempt by Jean-Luc Godard, The Matrix by The Wachowski’s and Children of Men by Alfonso Cuarón. All films that have left an indelible impression, and in some cases, their mark. I had a student film festival at Lucky Bar on Wednesday, wherein their collaborations with local indie bands summoned fifteen new music videos entering the public realm. I was also invited to lecture on the subject of creativity for a large Fine Arts class and in the spirit of the subject, decided to talk spontaneously, without a lot of conscious preparation, and tried to weave my way through the two hour exercise without mentioning the word, creativity, itself. How do you commodify or objectify something that is the very essence of who we are and everything we do? Art, thoughts, dreams, directions, excuses, breakfast, my words, what the students choose to hear; everything that has ever been done and seen, are all acts of creation and creativity. Can we ever truly define love, or beauty or inspiration, et al? Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and departed knowing that some will have agreed with my observations, and some will have left feeling cheated by my deliberations. I wouldn’t want or expect any other result. Talking about creativity is not dissimilar to talking about talking and disagreements are both inevitable and necessary.

What happened is not to be put into words, since words, after all, stand for a shared experience.

I’m writing this now on the other side of Georgia Strait at the Hobo office in Vancouver. The November rains beat an urgent pattern against the floor to ceiling windows that overlook the city skyline and sheltering mountains. Misty and dreamy and as beautiful as the legends have told. The core Hobo team gathered at The Cellar on Granville St. last night to appreciate and support the music of our good friend and Hobo collaborator, Kuba Oms. A packed house including some friends and contributors: Michael Belgue, Val Litwin, Jeff Petry, K-OS, and many others. Kuba laid the soul and rhythm down and created a brilliant hour of inspiring music and performance for both him and us. We continued on to sample Korean BBQ at Jang Mo Jibs on Robson St. where we talked about the fact that all we have accomplished has created a firestorm of things that now need to be addressed. Always arriving at designated end points to discover a new starting line, an endless corridor of revolving doors and open windows. The ongoing realization that creative plans and designs are never finished but only abandoned. The persistent rains plummeted from the night sky as we reentered the urban streets on our way back to headquarters. Issue #11 is arriving in the world as I write this now and I continue to dream of us all walking the historic boulevards of Buenos Aires with #12 under our arm, and Borges in our court.

I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.