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.

I’m listening with interest at a back table in a busy coffee shop in Chinatown. My former student is talking passionately about a new screenplay idea that came from a dream he had about the end of the world. This is the tail end of Reading Break and I’ve been averaging two coffee shops a day. Talking about marking free-range film essays with my TA at Moka House. The intricacies of the long poem and editing a literary magazine at Union Station. Letter of reference exchange at Paradiso and generating ideas for eco videos at The Grindstone. Two screenplay and eco related meetings at The Habit and The Spiral. Discussing the past at Mirage Café, contemplating the future at Buon Amici’s, and here now at Bean Around the World in Chinatown, talking about the world’s end. Feels to me that things are just getting started and I think of Godard’s proclamation that “everything is still to happen.” Everybody I’m meeting up with is doing something and going somewhere and there is a vibration of unlimited possibility in the damp cold air. Still, winter has arrived, and despite the constant stimuli and caffeine, a seasonal shadow of darkness is moving in. The world (of Autumn) is ending/ended.

Everybody has soul. I really don’t like that word in connection with the Experience. I like the words “feeling” and “vibration”. 

I went up to campus to play myself in a video a student is producing for my Film on the Future class. I had told the class of 150 that anyone who could build a spaceship that could fly would get an A+. My final scene in his video is watching as the Fine Arts building fires its rockets and explodes into space. I rage off and punch a tree, muttering that I’ve never had to give an A+ before. Tonight I attended a fundraiser for the local cycling scene and watched a film about Gwendal Castellan who rode his bike from Patagonia to Inuvik in the Yukon. A solid adventure and reminded me of Werner Herzog’s statement that his film school would consist of walking from LA to Tierra Del Fuego. Went to see This Is It, and was reintroduced to Michael Jackson’s immensity as a performer. You could put his best ten minutes against anybody in history. Also caught Leonard Cohen’s Live in London and so thankful to share my Canadian identity with another one of Hobo’s patron saints. Went to Fiamo, (a friend’s Tuscan restaurant) for the first year anniversary party and enjoyed a generous sampling of Italian food and Argentine Malbec. Later stopped down the street to catch a set from Kuba at Darcy’s. I’ve been listening to The Fleet Foxes and they seem to resonate everything else I listen to and like. Jules turned me on to the ‘felicien’ music video for “Roll on Arte”, by our new friends, The Felice Brothers. Patti Smith’s version of Dylan’s, “Changing of the Guard”, and Jimi’s, “Are You Experienced”, are beyond anyone’s reproach. No shortage of inspiring stuff coming in and going out. Still, amidst all this listing of encounters and events and experiences, I’m feeling a bit listless and expectant. Like there’s something riding in with the next storm…

I had very strange feelings that I was here for something and I was going to get a chance to be heard. I got the guitar together ‘cause that was all I had.

Drove seven minutes up the road to Thuja Plicata, the grove of medieval red cedars where the salmon make their valiant run in Goldstream Park. Walked through the cedars and black cottonwoods to watch the mostly Chum salmon fight their way to their deaths in the creek’s rapids. Glaucous winged gulls, a pileated woodpecker and some American Toppers circumventing the struggle and the carnage. No eagles around which seemed unusual. Took the boardwalk down through the sword fern and salmonberries to the nature house where the count showed Chum at 7800, Coho at 178 and Chinook at 23. Better than some years, worse than others. Nice to be momentarily isolated from the influx of human industry and back in nature’s pocket where primal battles are being waged. Good to see that the run is respectable and people still bring their children out to witness their epic journey. I wander back up the trail and bask in the protection of the five hundred year old cedars and dimming winter light. The skeletons and struggling bodies of the salmon are a conscious marker of perseverance and sacrifice and a quick meditative reentry into the world of the real. From coffee shops to classrooms to celluloid and coho, chum, and chinook, most everyone is still alive and working their way upstream.