Interstellar Trail: Short Piece

Interstellar Trail

By Armando Ortiz

Buddhist teaching,

word and symbol,

Vajra standing

on paper still.

Diamond sutra

hemp on plaster,

hand moving faster

laying a path of ink.

Holy priest floating

riding on tiger clouds,

dismembering ego

promising redemption.

Horse of the Great Plateau

rumbling into war

chariot of fire

demolishing walls.

Flying creature

found in white clouds

on frozen blue sky

protects the spirit trail.

Ancient pilgrim

walking through desert

passing through gorges

finding knowledge in the sacred.

Old Tibetan libraries

under constant repair

after years of cultural warfare

on silent mountain valleys.

Ring the bell

of present chant,

the setting sun

washed in corral dye.

Sketched masterpieces

capture the moment

the violet sky turns onyx

revealing the source of clamor.

Palace of refuge

with dining hall

where longing gets quenched

in a banquet under Guanyin’s eye.

Master’s imagination

sketched on paper

for blind men to follow

the pattern of the shining

interstellar ember.

Sutras kept alive

on blueprint scrolls,

four sided walls repeating

the divine cycle that’s law.

Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely: Book Review

Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely: Review and Reflection

By Armando Ortiz

Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely is a quick reading novel that takes place in the late-1930's, and begins along Central Avenue in Los Angeles. There the private detective Philip Marlowe finds himself in front Florian’s, a hotel that’s lost its glitter and now is mostly a seedy gambling den. For one reason or another, he is in search of a missing person when he is swept up by a chance encounter with a man who is also looking for someone. This part of Los Angeles is now considered the historical Jazz corridor of the city, which back in the day, between the 1930’s through the 1950’s, was a place where African Americans were allowed to own businesses. Marlowe becomes a quasi-accomplice to a murder that happens in the building. The crime is eventually solved though to get through to the end one goes through a roller coaster ride of intrigue, action, racism, mystery and emotions. Chandler manages to capture Marlowe’s ebb and flow as a heavy drinker, and also gives the reader a glimpse into a city that was less populated, where its streets and traffic were barely beginning to have congestion. More important to the landscape, Marlowe swims in the midnight waters of the deep underground where gigolos, con-artists, gamblers, gangsters, former convicts and corrupt officials mingle in hidden dens, within canyon mansions or boats that are anchored a few miles from the coast.

Marlowe’s office is located in Hollywood, but he is constantly zipping to the beach, police stations around downtown L.A., and driving up desolate canyons that today are riddled with multi-million dollar mansions.  He describes places, like Central Ave where the majority are Hispanic, but that back then was a place where African-Americans made up the majority, but this was mainly due to laws that segregated them to a specific area of this urban oasis. Through his literary lens, Chandler gives the reader a context to the different waves of residents that the city has encountered throughout the years since its establishment, while at the same time showing us a glimpse of how crime was treated back in those days. According to the novel, if a white man killed a black man it would only be considered a misdemeanor, which in a very interesting way sheds light into the manner the media sees crime in Los Angeles.

Some of his descriptions are flawless. The beach which is at the edge of Bay City (Santa Monica, CA) is described in a very beautiful manner, making it at once the delicate bracelet of a Hollywood starlet, as seen from a boat that floats in the ocean from a mile away, but also as a place where the smells of tar intertwine with the coastal breeze. He makes you stand at the top of a hill, maybe somewhere along a ridge in Temescal Canyon allowing you to see what he saw. The once desolate canyons are now secluded enclaves for the rich with foreign people that continue to serve the residents there and make the daily commute from the forgotten pockets of L.A. that never make the evening news. In recent times it has been in the canyons of Los Angeles where dismembered body parts have been found, most recently in 2012.

Central Ave today.

The apartment buildings and its front gardens are similar to the ones I saw while growing up in Los Angeles and continue to see in some of the older areas that have yet to be touched by the bulldozers or replaced by mega-luxury apartments that are completely enclosed and exclusive. Art-deco structures built with walls that could hide a bed with a slight lift from one end, and iceboxes that were built into the wall of a kitchen, though no longer functioning makes one wonder what could be found in the more modern structures of today. Places like Central Ave that were slowly going through a transformation is where you now find people that are mostly of Hispanic heritage, walking along its much more rundown side streets and who drive up and down the avenue that’s lined with small ranch markets, discount stores, church congregations, shamans, tattoo parlors, seedy beauty salons and mechanic shops. African Americans, now are an old remnant of the past, having spread out to different parts of the city, just like the white folk that peppered those areas when Chandler was alive.  

Santa Monica.

Sage is a natural feature that is prominent in the story as it engulfs Marlowe when he visits the surrounding hillsides of the city. You know you are entering or have arrived at a more solitary place because the artificial lights and neon signs disappear, the sky becomes particularly darker, and again, the smell of sage hovers and blankets the uninhabited areas of future suburbs. The sounds and smells of the ocean also become accentuated by the more desolate areas of Bay City, making the reader appreciate what once was but that which continues to endure though maybe now you have to drive a bit father to encounter what he saw, like the city’s long arid coastline, and canyons that in spring give birth to many types of wildflowers, though more sparsely now than before.

Chandler left behind a literary gem that future travelers, residents and readers of Los Angeles will one day find themselves experiencing as he too explored the city and retold those meanderings through Marlowe’s narration. Reading his novel is like reading a series of vignettes that keep getting your attention, hooking you with his entrancing character descriptions and unique blend of metaphors and word play. His paragraphs seem to be complete scenes that say everything that must be told, but leave enough to have you reading more.  It lets you uncover facets of LA that you might not have been aware of by peeling away at some of the things that sometimes we ignore, like the fine mud pellets that are created by late-summer morning drizzle or like the humming birds that feed off of ruby bottlebrushes. It’s a good read and well worth the time for anyone wanting to read some good literature, but also for anyone that wants to be transported back to a time when the city was just beginning to become a major urban center.

Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities: Book Review

Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities: Review

By Armando Ortiz

In Italo Calvino’s novel Invincible Cities we find Marco Polo sharing with Kublai Khan, former king of China and of the Mongols, his recollections of the cities he came across within the realms of the Khan’s kingdom and those on its margins. Marco engages the supreme leader of the steppe peoples in conversation over games of chess, while strolling through private gardens, and discusses ideas and theories over lavish dinners. In many ways Calvino takes us through cities that could not only exist in the realm of the material but also within the minds of our collective unconscious. The conversations are brief and what we are mostly treated to are descriptions of magical places that seem to just be suspended in a universe of imagination and possibilities. His cities have shadows, and those shadows also make a symphonic cacophony of life that exists there, be it a simple howling wind, the hustle and bustle of nameless bazaars, the smell of burning oil lamps, and the crashing of water onto the rocky coast of a city. Animate and inanimate mirages combine to become places where you find crystal palaces, cities that function as desert oasis to wanderers and travelers alike. The sewer systems of a city, its catacombs and chandeliers also become places where beings gather to create and imagine, and those people in many ways become reflections of other realities.

At one point Marco Polo reflects on the cities that he has encountered and comes to realize that quite possibly he’s been describing different facets of his own hometown, Venice. We might very well be from a place that we think we know well, but when we dissect its different realities we come to realize that maybe what we thought was our city is actually a collection of invisible experiences known to no one else but ourselves. Our backyard isn’t everyone’s block and neighborhood, but in fact just a spec of amazing orbits that make up a larger whole. At one point Polo describes a city that exists suspended in midair and in another recollection, the images that reflect off the water make up the independent realities that those reflections have independent of its originators. It is a world of unlimited possibilities, and through his novel we come to discover we might very well be living in an imaginary city ourselves.

The possibilities presented in Calvino’s book are the limits to our imagination and to our capabilities. Though we might be invisible to others, we still dream and if you imagine it may come to be, and if you desire to explore you might very well realize that this whole earth has been your realm of exploration, like an endless excursion of what has been and what is becoming. We not only are the traveler but also the lord of the things that transpire. Though not the Khan, Marco has managed to captivate the lord’s imagination whose only desire is to bring peace to its inhabitants and become familiar with his kingdom. All kinds of characters make their appearance in the novel and the mythical lives of spirits and gods are discussed, and yet at the end of the novel all we have are two characters one who recounts and tells of his travels, and the other who listens entranced by the tales entering and conquering his mind. Calvino takes us on a journey of dreams that become real and so to our dream can become invisible cities where anything is possible.

Stansport Tent: Denali II Two Person Backpacking Tent

Stansport Backpacking Tent: Reflection and Review

By Armando Ortiz

Spring 2009, first camping trip with tent.

I bought my first camping tent back in 2009 at a surplus store in Moss Landing, California. It was in the back of a huge military storage container tucked in between other larger items, ammunition boxes and wool blankets, where I found the portable tent. It was blue and gray Stansport Denali II two person backpacking tent that I bought that day and since then this living space has given comfort and protected me from different weather conditions that have arisen in my travels. I’ve used the tent mostly to camp in California, along the coast, inside the redwood forest, up in the mountains, and have also used it at local music festivals.

Valley of the Rouge State Park

The tent has held up well, keeping its integrity despite a nick on the floor from grounds that have been covered in rocks, sticks and pine-cones. Nonetheless a good tarp or footprint has provided an extra layer of protection, but as any camper I’ve made sure to clear up areas I choose to hunker down on. The two aluminum poles continue to work fine along with the zippered doors. You can set up the tent in a couple of minutes and move it to a better spot if need be, before the stakes are hammered into the ground to give it better stability. Because it is so light, and can be moved around after the tent is pitched, as you break up camp it’s easy remove sand or debris that makes its way inside by simply picking it up and giving it a couple of good shakes.

I also discovered how versatile this tent can be, with the rainfly helping to keep my shoes and backpack water and dust free, while keeping things separate from inside and yet easily accessible, at arm’s length. The vestibule also has allowed me to redirect air flow into the tent more freely by letting me roll up different parts of the rainfly. The doors of the domed tent can also be rolled up, allowing for more air flow from any direction and yet a high level of privacy is maintained. It conveniently lets me roll my tent doors so that the mesh doors protect me from bugs, giving me a chance to nap in the day time.

Roasting corn.

During my camping trip to Southern Oregon and Northern California this past summer my seven year old tent withstood late spring rains at Valley of the Rouge State Park, kept me warm and cozy at Harris Beach State Park and MacKerricher State Park where the cold coastal winds bring in the summer fog to the camping areas and the temperature drops to the chilly upper 40s. It protected me from the clouds of mosquitoes that hovered over Standish-Hickey State Park and Hendy Woods State Park, turning a nuisance into an opportunity to relax and read a book while resting inside comfortably. Because it is backpacking tent, it is very light weight and is kept in the trunk of my car. Its portability makes it ready for any well planned trip or one that has been made at the spur of the moment. It continues to do its job, to protect me from the elements, and is still enduring the test of time. I continue to look forward to returning to the wilderness or of simply finding an excuse to go car camping. I know that this Stansport tent will hold up and continue to give me shelter.

Humboldt Redwoods State Park