Forgive me for running off to find the 1 thing I have to do

What has happened in my life since last I wrote? I'm not sure myself. My computer died in Guatemala. I mooched other people's for emailing and stayed too connected to the world for where I was at the time. The excavations were interesting and engaging but I still can't talk publicly about them until the findings from the season have been officially reported to the Guatemalan government (July). So without making any hard promises I'll pledge an effort to reach back in my brain at a later date and unpack the still packed, undigested gestalt that is San Bartolo, probably the most unique, intense, and mentally challenging experience I've ever had.

On to the next thing.




I've been in Boston for the past five weeks, after a five day re-acclimation in San Antonio. I've been occupying myself with fruitless and fruitful pursuits, in relatively equal measure, and I don't know where the time has gone.

Fruitful: BU summer math class (numbing), researching my senior thesis (coming along), formulating post-graduation plans (coming soon)

Fruitless: walking too much, chasing my shadow, smoke and mirrors

I've also been active musically, something I've missed in my constant motion during the last few years, and something which is neither fruitful nor fruitless, but just raw experience, which I suppose everything is when you strip it down. Last Monday I played with my friend Chris Corry's band Mentally Challenged. The show was with Total Abuse, my good Texas friends, and it felt like a strange culmination of my experiences in hardcore punk, which has structured my life in a significant way from high school through my first few years of college. I felt culturally at home for the first time in a while, and it was bittersweet, because I think it will be the last time I'm so intimately involved in a scene that has had such a powerful impact on my life.




But constant motion is my life now, like those babies in Brave New World who are conditioned from birth to move at high speeds so that they get motion sickness standing still. This past weekend I went to New York to hook up with Robedoor and Pocahaunted, Not Not Fun friends from my LA summer 06. Another nostalgic experience, memory of a past life.




In New York I also visited Jeff Koons on the roof of the MET and Olafur Eliasson at MoMA with my friends Rosa and Ryan. The MET was full of skyline, sunset, reflection, but mostly sunny yuppies gripping $8 Stellas. Olafur was full of light, and not much else. Two typical NY contemporary art encounters, well-packaged experiences that now exist as a few photos and an already fading point of light on the dark screen of my short-term memory. I'm just glad I was able to hustle my way into both exhibits for a grand total of $1 USD. And I got to spend a minute with my hero.

On to a new one.




So of course I'm not sitting still, even as I write this I'm looking at plane tickets. I take my "applied math" final on Thursday and on Saturday evening I fly from Boston to Surabaya, Indonesia, where I will attend 2 days of orientation before beginning a six-week volunteer English-teaching term in the town of Malang on the island Java. This will be my first time living in a predominately Muslim country so I am excited for this new sociocultural experience. My itinerary after August 4 is ambiguous, and time could find me in Bali, Bangkok, Angkor, Kunming, Hong Kong, Texas, all of these or some of them. Let me know if you're around any of them and maybe we will meet.

Shoot out to JAY BIL, from whom I stole the title of this post (click the link to see some things I missed about Beijing, yes I am Jaggermouth). I have a new online mixtape, sparse right now but I will try to get some field recordings I did in China up before I leave. And as always a continually updated photo set documenting my summer in this Year of the Rat.


"I'm certified."
-Kevin Garnett


I'm out.

-Josh