I'm off tomorrow to a ten day silent vipassana meditation retreat in east Texas. Getting away from Mardi Gras madness. No cell, no computer, no reading, no writing, in complete silence and ten hours of meditation, beginning at 4:00am. Should really help me unhook from my habits and clean my channels, including eating only very healthy vegan food. I'll tell you all about it in my next installment.

I just watched the film "Magic Trip" which was a re-editing of the original 40 hour home movie of Ken Kesey's legendary trip on the psychedelic bus "Further" to visit the 1964 World's Fair in Queens. I had more questions than answers. It seemed like a big show - a media event. The presence of the camera's made everything artificial and un-natural and they seemed to drop the project as soon as they arrived home. This rendition of the film, taken from the editing that was done by Kesey ten year... read more

Well, I tried to expand my boundaries today and it turned out to be a very humbling, even humiliating, experience. I had been approached by a local porn producer (nothing big - just those on-line sites) twice to come do a shoot with them. I wrote the first time that, as exciting as it seemed in theory, in real life I would be too shy in front of a camera. On the second approach, I guess I was feeling more self-confident and adventuresome and so I said yes. I was to do a solo jack off and a gr... read more

The forms of Mardi Gras may work for some people but it all seems wrong headed to me. I think there is something about spiritual abandon that is important - e.g. Rumi, Hafiz, and the Sufi and Hindu holy people, but Mardi Gras is not that. I don't see Mardi Gras in this crass Christian way of "lets all sin and act crazy before Lent, when we can act repentant. That supports all that old paradigm sin and forgiveness duality. It just keeps people spiritually immature. Conventional Mardi Gras (ju... read more

I just accepted the offer of the seller of a condo in this 1868 home on a park here in New Orleans. Yeee Haw! I think I have a new home on Coliseum Square in the Lower Garden District.

"All mankind is one volume. When one man dies, one chapter is torn out of the book and translated into a better language. And every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators. Some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. But God's hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to another.”

Its time for me to reflect a bit on the rollercoaster two months of hard work on putting together a performance of my play, "Oedipus: Category Five" I wrote it easily and quickly with the help of the muse, using four translations of the original Sophocles play and then augmenting it with references to the US and New Orleanian political and psychological situation right after Katrina and in the current ecological disaster. I wanted to do something as a commemoration of the five year anniversar... read more

People started gathering at 6:30 this morning outside my house for a parade which begins at 10. I am so totally NOT into this. I have been trying to join in, to feel the "spirit," to move gracefully and playfully in the crowds but I have not been very successful. I remember my first year here for the Mardi Gras of 2004 - it was novel and sort of interesting being like an anthropologist and observing the people - but it gets old fast. Drunk people are pretty much the same whether you are at a ... read more

Its going to be hard leaving Baltimore. This city has been very good to me. I have made some wonderful friends here. Last night was my going away party and the gathered group was phenomenal. But going back to New Orleans does feel like going home. It is a completion of the full circle of the Katrina exodus. I did things in Baltimore I could never do in NOLA and these experiences will be foundational as I set up the school and my projects down there.

My "July abroad" this year is to Berlin. I have rented an apartment and have connected with old and new friends with whom I will visit. I look forward to great culture, naked in the parks, long stroll and beer (and bear) gardens.