You Win, Mr. Eggers

Last week, the brilliant folks behind McSweeney's brought us San Francisco Panorama, a 112-page broadsheet with top-notch content, design, and promotion from such luminaries as Chabon, Spiegelman, Alcarón, King, Díaz, Chang, and others. Why? Because "the best chance for newspapers' survival is to do what the internet can't: namely, use and explore the large-paper format as thoroughly as possible."

Well, Mr. Eggers, you've convinced me of one thing: print media is dying for a reason.

Two weeks ago, I would have argued vehemently against such a statement. I was so excited for The Panorama that I started asking around for it in stores two days before it was due to be released. I love physical books. I love history. I love design. I love collecting. I love craftsmanship. I love Chabon's writing so much that I would literally marry him. I love a lot of things that come from The Mission. How could I not be stoked for this high quality, cutting edge, throwback, one-time-only, publishing event!

On the morning of December 8th it was in the low 30s, and I walked out of my way to swing by the hawker at 18th and Castro whose coming had been foretold by a custom googlemap. Fail. I went out at lunch to find one at the Ferry Building Farmers Market, figuring that the uncustomary cold had kept all the hipster hawkers in their beds. Fail. I tried the local independent bookstore instead: $16. Fail. I dropped by the Little Otsu mothership after work: out of stock, but we may have more copies tomorrow. Fail. In a last ditch attempt, I tried Otsu again this morning: we're sold out, but the pirate shop across the way should have some. Closed. FAIL!

So what exactly has The Panorama publishing event taught me? Print media can be almost impossible to get one's grubby little paws on, even when one is in the loop, motivated, and living near the epicenter of its creation. Distribution channels are inefficient or broken outright. Cost is prohibitive. Supply and demand don't match. Access to its ideas, art, design, and data is inherently limited. However wonderful The Panorama is, I still have not been able to read it. And that's not effective communication . . . or art.

Contrast this to a blog, or even a message board community. Eater keeps me up to date on restaurants and tiki bars opening in my neighborhood. Slickdeals tells me where I should be shopping. Daily Kos updates me on legislation while debates are raging and votes are counted. My Facebook network lets me know about protests, shows, music, news, and the like, all with a filter for personal relevance. All in all, the web -- both one and two point oh -- offers abundant information, open access, and customizable content. And I can get at all of this anywhere from the couch on my iPod Touch to an insert-cash-to-browse terminal at a hostel in Joburg.

Of course I don't think that print media has to be so over-hyped, over-priced, and artificially scarce. Leaflets, pamphlets, books, comics, subway ads, and even newspapers can be smart, egalitarian, relevant, and worthwhile. The value of having 150 of the country's leading talents devote five months to create a publication that only the most elite in-the-know of the in-the know crowd with cash burning a hole in their pockets can access, collect, and later sell to each other as a collector's item somewhat eludes me. If this is America's best effort to showcase and revive newspapers, we'll be moving towards a newspaperless society even more quickly than I could have imagined.

Tradition. Tradition!

So yesterday at the British Museum, my mind was blown by just how long the Egyptians had their empire(s) going, and how long they kept up the mummification and tomb building thing. Present day society is dwarfed by that kind of endeavor, I thought to myself. But then today, I visited Westminster Abbey, and it sank in that we ("Western Civilization") are also on an historic roll, and building pretty tombs to prove it. It's not too shabby to have 900 years of religious, political, and artistic leaders buried under a series of giant stone archways. But then don't get me started on America. Not quite sure which heroes or monuments we're building up for the next millenia's archaeologists to dig up (assuming we're not ringing in the end of humanity, of course).

Way up North

My day in Soweto with Em & Co. turned out great. Didn't make it to the shopping mall, but did hit the Apartheid Museum on the way out of Joburg (as Emily put it succinctly, that was one f-ed up system!), lunch at Wandies Place (I don't know what the South Africans do to their spinach, but it was consistently amazing), and stop briefly at Nelson Mandela's house. I'd love to hear his reflections on what it's like to be deified within your own lifetime, but I guess that's the kind of things that newly minted saints tend not to speak about. The history we saw in general was all just shockingly recent -- Mandela's house wasn't built until the mid 40s, the Museum was filled with video clips of surviving student organizers and resistance fighters of the 80s, and the heads of government now were also the movers and shakers (and prisoners) of the last chapter. In all, it seems like a true miracle that South Africa managed to get itself together without descending into a complete bloodbath with no possibility of return.

And now I'm in London! After an uneventful flight, other than watching a fun American Bollywood movie (Dostana) about two guys who pretend to be gay to get a fab apartment and fast track immigration (?!?!), I made an unsuccessful attempt to meet up with some folks from my Botswana tour group, and then headed into town. My hotel is literally right next to the British Museum, which is pretty cool. Had a good walk around the area, caught a bit of a free bank holiday concert in Leicester Square, picked up a ticket to Spring Awakening, showered, napped, and did the highlights tour of the Museum (Rosetta stone, Parthenon sculptures, friezes, and mummies). All in all, a good full day, though London is clearly a city to which I'll have to return.

Last Day in Africa

I arrived back in Joburg last night after being really really out of it for a week. What a great feeling! I'll catch up on my blog posts to fill in the gap at some point, but I do have to share one experience before it gets cold . . .

Yesterday morning I had one of the best experiences of my life -- flying over Victoria Falls in a microlight plane. Essentially just a giant wing with a propeller on the back and a couple of seats hanging below, riding in it is the closest I've ever come to the feeling of real flight. the experience was so beautiful that I felt a literal upwelling of emotion as we left the ground and soared over the Zambezi, with the morning mist rising off of it, hippos lounging in the water, and then the FALLS. Livingstone's remark that "scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight" no longer seems at all hyperbolic to me. We flew above rainbows in the mist. And through the cloud that rises from the falls; smelling the moist earth that also rises from the thundering water. It was truly magical.

Into the wild

Just a quick supply stop in Maun, Botswana. Tomorrow at 7, we head onto mokoros (dugout canoes) and into the Delta for two nights of camping in the middle of nowhere. This is where you wake up to lion tracks outside your tent, and need to be sure the pool is free from crocs and hippos before you take a dip. No coke, wine, or potato chips to be found.

So far, my tour has been awesome. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone, but I really love being part of a group. It's a warm sense of togetherness and collective endeavoring, even when we're just sitting on the truck in the morning dozing off after waking up at 5:30. Like all the G.A.P tours I've been on, the people are awesome. The 12 other people come from Canada (of course), France, Sweden, and South Africa/Malawi/England. One other American, but she's very chill and a good hearts player, so I've forgiven her for interrupting my foreign immersion. There are nurses, students, bankers, and those just traveling. One Swedish woman is chock full of stories from a lifetime of globetrotting, including a set of hysterical stories about taking Greyhound around the States for six months in 1980. She and her friend spent only 5 nights in a hotel the whole time, as random Swedes and college boys kept taking her in for weeks at a time.

Riding in the truck yesterday, I had the urge to spend some time living abroad. Not the usual thing that seems appealing to me. But the combination of getting comfortable down here in Southern Africa, glimpsing Emily and Justin's life here, and getting reminded of how giant the world is, and yet how concrete and accessible when you're wandering the streets of Maun, crowded with busses, produce hawkers, and donkeys eating old newspapers.

It's a small world, after all

Here I am in Windhoek. At a shopping mall. In an internet cafe. Surrounded by tweens playing networked first person shooter games with each other. Speaking English. It could almost be Jersey, though it doesn't feel quite American in some hard to identify way. . . OK, maybe not impossible to identify -- I'm pretty sure that Jersey doesn't have an early twentieth century church at the corner of Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe streets.

I had intended to explore "downtown" Windhoek for a couple of hours, but a torrential downpour began just after I stepped inside Hosea Kutako International. From the plane window, I'd seen two roads stretch razor-straight across the desert for as far as the eye can see from thirty thousand feet. The rain shower lasted just long enough for me to get through immigration and claim my baggage, making for a gorgeous rainbow over the hills on the ride into town.

Met a few members of the tour group so far, and they seem cool. They're all Canadian, and have promised to make fun of me a lot for being American, though they acknowledge that being from SF gives me a few brownie points. And they're already talking about going out tonight after our intro meeting. All in all, it feels like a good start to this phase.

Into the wild

The rest of Kruger was awesome. More lions on a night drive, rhinos, elephants, hippos, crocs, kudu, steenbok, water buck, bush buck, a couple kinds of vultures, four kinds of eagles, four types of hornbill, about a million impala, and on and on. Jac also turned out to be a great traveling companion -- I hope to write more about him later, but for now, I'll just say that he's an inspiring example of the personal sacrifice it takes to get to societal change. And there wasn't an ounce of resentment, regret, or ill will in him about it. To him, this is his country (his family came here in 1678), and he wants it to be the best it can possibly be -- and that means the reforms of the 90s and ongoing. He also recognizes it as creating a better country and life for his daughter, even though she's having trouble finding work, when pre 1994 she would have had an easy time of it. All in all, a good way to spend a couple days and get some insights into one man's view of the history here.

Now I'm off to Namibia, picking up my tour and heading to Botswana and Vic Falls. Be back in Joburg on the 23rd, and may or may not find email before then. . .

Up close and personal

An hour ago, I sat six feet from a lion. Driving through Kruger at sunset with my personal guide (more below), we spotted a lioness laying in the road at the top of the next hill. Pulling closer, she gave us a few good stares, but then looked away in disinterest. As we rolled up along side, it was clear that she was enjoying the heat rising from the road as the air temperature dropped. The sunlight lit her fur golden and here eyes a glowing orange. I was close enough to see the tufts of hair in her ears; to look straight into her mouth as she yawned and licked her lips. A truly awe inspiring sight. Between displays of her canines (felines?), she lay her head down on her paws, resting the tip of her chin on the pavement. 100% pet-able.

Other sightings today included a white rhino up close (which I'd missed out on at the rhino-heavy game park down south on Saturday), lots of elephants, including a baby, flashy birds, and some tiny ground ferrets that were super adorable.

As for my personal guide, he's an older Afrikaners named Jac ("Yuk"), who used to be the executive producer for the SABC evening news, and later director of programming for KZN province. In 1996, the entire white executive corps was asked to step aside for black leadership, and he turned to tour guiding. I got a fascinating account from him of South African history dating back to seventeenth century settlement in Cape Town, through a handful of Anglo, Boer, and Zulu wars (with a heavy emphasis on British misbehavior), the apartheid years, relaxation and violence in the 70s and 80s, and the process of reconciliation and nation building in the 90s. He speaks local languages well enough to recite the new national motto as written in click-heavy San (unity in diversity).

As awesome as he is, it's admittedly strange to be traveling one-on-one with someone I've never met before, and who is working while I'm vacationing -- in fact to facilitate my vacation. As soon as we got into Kruger, though, things felt much more relaxed. Hunting for game is a full time activity while driving slowly along the park roads, and he's very knowledgeable about which animaly is which, and what their mating, eating, and sleeping behavior is. Pretty handy.

Backing up a bit, it was awesome to spend last night with Em, Justin, baby Charlie, and Danny. Charlie is cuter even than the baby elephant I saw today. They live in the super trendy neighborhood of Melville, which is the first mixed-race middle/upper class neighborhood I've seen since I landed here. Very cute restaurant, with creative food -- the butternut squash, feta, and cashew risotto was quite good -- and a slick but comfortable vibe. Catching up with such old friends so far away from home gave me a sense of belonging here that zipping across the country in a car for the last week had not. I also really enjoyed feeling comfortable walking to dinner, and seeing a vibrant neighborhood without the strong lingering tension of apartheit in the eyes of everyone I passed.

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BTW, sorry for the sparsity of blog entries. ZA has some of the worst public internet availability that I've encountered on my travels. I've been diarying, though, so I'll fill in the gaps when I have a decent connection. . .

Africa's Bottom

My diary entry from last night. . .


Up not too late for another superb breakfast at The Glen, then on the road. Quick zip down Long St. and through colorful Bo-Kaap, with some nice views of Table Mountain in the clouds to cap off our time in Cape Town. Cutting from the N1 down to the N2 through Stellenbosch was quite pretty. Vinyards along rolling hills, with craggy mountain peaks sitting in the clouds just above. The university campus felt oddly like Stanford, and was a noticeably white island in the town.

Then the coast! What a coast! Part Napali Coast valleys, part 17 Mile Drive oceanfront, part Yosemite peaks, part Utah read earth. Overall, an amazing stretch of coast that didn't really feel like anywhere I've been, even though pieces looked familiar. The mountains on the other side of the whatever bay we were driving along were visible across a glittering ocean. Just stunning. I hope to return for the whales sometime.

Though daylight was running out, we headed south to Cape Alguhas, the southernmost tip of Africa. Winding through arid fields on rolling hills, with Lorax-style eucalyptus wind breaks throughout, we turned onto a dirt road next to the picturesque old lighthouse. 850 meters later, we were the two southernmost people on the continent. At almost twilight, we were the only people on the rocky shore looking towards Antarctica. The marker plaque points one way to the Atlantic, the other to the Indian. I'm not quite sure what the emotional tug of the point was, but when I climbed on top of the marker pedestal and threw my arms wide, it was an emotional expression, not a camera pose.

Then onward through the dark over a pass, with some worrying whiffs of skunk coming from our engine. A brief stop for prepared food at a supermarket so strongly Afrikaans that they answered me in that language even after I said hello in English. Surprisingly integrated staff, though.

A little bit of London

Having slept most of the way from SF to London (minus time for Grand Torino, which was fantastic, and a 10 minute dash between planes at JFK), I felt refreshed enough to venture into London during my 8 hour layover. Glad I did! The Tube was an easy hour ride from the terminal to Picadilly Circus. I wandered around SoHo for a few hours -- caught a cat nap on the lawn in front of St. Anne's, a 17th century church that has had some unkind facelifts over the years but retained some charm; scarfed some noodles at Wagamama, which I know I could have done in Cambridge, MA, but which still felt like a Londony thing to do somehow; got the most polite proposition from a prostitute that I've ever come across; discovered that diet coke UK-style is even more delicious than it is in the States (black cherry - mmm!) and caught the Tube back to Heathrow, where I'm now waiting for my connecting flight to Cape Town. Happily, Luis has arrived there a few days before me, so I'll have the insane luxury of being greeted at the airport by a familiar face in a very unfamiliar city.

It feels fantastic to be on the road again. I feel so energized and alive hopping on new subways, wandering aimlessly through new streets, being happily and completely occupied by the here-and-now sensations of life.

Concord Naval Weapons Station Up Close

Last Saturday, I hiked on the decommissioned Concord Naval Weapons Station. I've been working with a great coalition for the past year and a half to make sure that the redevelopment planned for the site is equitable, sustainable, and forward-looking. The land is still owned by the Navy, though, so it was no small feat for Save Mount Diablo,

one of our partner organizations, to get permission to lead hikes on the property. It was worth the effort.

Although I'd been looking forward to the excursion, I didn't realize how exciting it would be until I stepped out of the car and almost started skipping. To have spent so many months on maps, plans, meetings, ideas, and now to walk the hills felt both inspiring and grounding . . . literally. Gazing at the trees, lone native oaks and clustered experimental forests of imported eucalyptus - walking alongside unnaturally happy-looking cows - staring down abandoned railroad tracks - listening to the meadow larks - noticing wildflowers growing up through pavement cracks - feeling the sun's intensity as 8 a.m. became 11 - looking out to the delta, the East Bay hills, Mt. Diablo - tasting what it will be to inhabit this land 30 years from now.

The site is gigantic. Eight square miles sounds big on paper, but driving and walking through it really brought home the scale of the thing. The planned-for 30,000 residents will not feel crowded out there, even clustered on the one-third of the land closest to BART and existing neighborhoods.

It's not empty wilderness, but it is nature. The railroad tracks, empty munitions bunkers, decomposing roads, and standing fence posts drove home that this is an urban infill site, not the east side of the Sierra. And that was charming.