Landlore: Alternative Travel Lifestyles

Lesson - A Simple Question : When the question found me, my body had already been broken by a sleep-deprived week-long extravaganza of chaos at Burning Man, and with all my filters of perception completely blown. Then there, staring at me out from the photos of one dusty face after another, was a single question: " W hy D o Y ou D o W hat Y ou D o ? " [click images to enlarge] Simple. Powerful. Frakking important! Why had no one asked me this before? Why had I never even heard of the WDYDWYD? project before Burning Man? And the question itself? Oh, yes, I knew my answer... I knew it immediately. I had tried to think of a better answer, but I returned over and over to the very first one that my heart screamed at the moment I heard the question: " Because second chances aren't guaranteed. " Second chances are not guaranteed. Yes, I've been given second chances before--I'm alive because of a second chance--but they're not guaranteed. Ever since...

From Paris to Austin by LiLi Austin.. Déjà à Austin, y'a des Cactus. Genre Pleins de cactus. Je veux dire, le long des routes, le long des chemins, c'est assez surprenant pour une personne qui ne voit habituellement que des cactus dans des magasins spécialisés. Et puis il fait chaud, du moins septembre octobre, moi quand j'y étais il faisait chaud. Tellement chaud que je voulais des tongs, mais non. A austin il fait chaud, mais il n'y a pas de tongs. Ou alors pas pour les gens qui viennent et qui repartent. Ou alors les seules tongs qu'on trouvent sont jaunes avec une grosse fleur en plastique dessus, du genre immonde. Mais Austin c'est pas QUE ça. C'est une ville d'artistes, il y a des lieux ouverts toute la nuit Comme l'Epoch Coffee. (cherchez pas, ils ne servent pas de boissons alcoolisées, j'ai tenté mais non) C'est un café chaleureux, on a envie d'y rester des heures, convivial, presque familial, on a l'impression que to...

In the Garden of Cosmic Speculation I love math. I know, I know... put down the tomatoes. Before you ditch it, check out the history of mathematics and artists like MC Escher. You may just find yourself addicted to numbers as well. Me, I was raised on the artists Escher, Dali 'n Giger. The three of 'em did a fine job of distorting any chance I had of turning out "normal". Them'z good peeps. As a numberjunkie, the Garden of Cosmic Speculation has always held a certain hypnotic draw for me. Sadly, with its location in Scotland, and with its limited availability to the public, I've decided to scribble it off my list for now... and to pass the experience onto you , my dear reader. Let these photos and words tempt you into the garden... and bring me back your experience. Blackhole As you can tell by the photos, this is no normal garden. Fractal landscapes twist and lead the wanderer from one meditative area to another. Statues and scapings of singularities (li...

"Lefty" at the Guinness Warehouse Oh no, Dublin, we're not done with you just yet. It's time wrap up the final third part of this series... 'n what better way to do it than backwards? Maestro! Cue the music! Song of the Day: [ Free from Music Ninja ] Bedouin Soundclash - Brutal Hearts (Ft Coeur de Pirate) "Brutal Hearts (Ft Coeur de Pirate)" by Bedouin Soundclash Alan de la Graingers Grainger's Pub : See that softy on the left? That's Alan. Don't believe the smile. Alan will fuck you AND your whole crew up. No, seriously, we love this guy... 'n it's the one time we got him to smile during our stay in Ireland. More on how we got him to smile here in a second. First, we've gotta tell you a bit about the real Alan. I heard it from a peep who knew a peep that these two American girls wandered their way into Graingers while RyGuy 'n Gaea were soaking up some brews there. When Alan came over to the two girls, they both o...

The three-part entry on Dublin continues. Turning away from the dark alleys, let's center in on our favorite base of operations-- Paddy's Palace . But, to talk about Paddy's, it's important to mention the Lazy Piece of Sith who turned us onto the place--RyGuy. This is the peep who'd mapped out 'n planned a large part of our Dublin adventures. One o' the things that we'll be referring to as "his fault" is Paddy's Palace. Wouldn't have it any other way. Let's kick this off with a little music. Song of the Day : [ Free from XLR8R ] Telefon Tel Aviv - Lengthening Shadows "Lengthening Shadows" by Telefon Tel Aviv It's the Cost That Counts : No, seriously, at some point the pro-vs-con scale tips towards absurdity with the amount of amenities you get for your dollar value at some places. Paddy's is one o' those places. No curfew and a 24-hour check-in are big tipping points. Free noms when you wake up in the mor...

This is the first of three posts on Dublin, Ireland. For those who don't know, Dublin's where the Guinness comes from. In fact, the first photo of me in the About Me section is a shot of me drinking Guinness at a pub called "Graingers". Graingers and Guinness will be the third post in the series, with the Paddy's Palace hostel holding down the middle ground. Onward! Song of the Day: Jamie Woon - Wayfaring Stranger (Burial Remix) [ iTunes ] "Wayfaring Stranger (Burial Remix)" by Jamie Woon Closing Time : Even more so than Austin--dare I say, "even more so than NYC"?--Dublin truly is a 24-hour city. I spent many nights wandering the quays, hanging out at internet cafes and meandering from pub-to-pub. The night never ends in Dublin... at least not until the sun decides to break up the party. It's a fairly drunken party... and it's alotta fun. A Scuffle in the Paddywagon : On one such night out, I was innocently enjoying a cancer ...

" Indian Summer Firepit " by Kantiki Indian Summer : The colder it gets, the more my mind drifts towards Indian Summer in Monterey, California. Ya see, Indian Summer's the only warm place in Monterey... a city that never gets warm [ link ]. I'll grant Monterey one thing, it doesn't get "freezing" either... but what they call warm is what an equatorial creature such as myself calls "cold". That all gets thrown out the window at Indian Summer. Indian Summer is part restaurant, part bar, part club and part hookah den. What really sets them apart are the two brick fireplaces that they light every evening. In tandem with their warmers, these turn the patio into a natural gathering place for others who love warmth. People gather around the fireplaces... and conversation naturally follows around the tables surrounding the fireplaces. In a single evening, you can talk with soldiers from the base up the hill, with fishermen and with locals who are ...

The Song of the Day : " Getting Nowhere " by Magnetic Man + John Legend [ Free from Chubby Beavers ] The Guardian recently ran a photolog article [ link ] covering the ruins of Detroit--the City with a Hollow Heart. The automobile industry's boom was almost a century ago. Since then, it's history has been a record of loss and catastrophe. I've slept in empty factories and migrated with camps of other bums from one ruin to the next, so many of these are near to my heart.   Old Slumpy : That photo above is "Old Slumpy". I like to call it "The One that Got Away"... because it got away. I'd heard about it, but never got to see it... not before it was demolished in '07. The William Livingston House was designed by Albert Kahn when he was 23 (back in 1893). There's a picture of it in a much better state (as well as history) here on Flickr . Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces ...

Sayward at Quacks Crossing 2,500 miles with a U-Haul (from Daytona Beach, Florida to San Diego, California) is no small undertaking. Doing it in under 60-hours is what you'd call "impressive". Now, add to that a night resting up in Lafayette, Louisiana... 'n then add a nine-hour stopoff in Austin, Texas to hang out. If we're still talking about making the trip in under 60-hours, then that's what you'd call "legendary". Sayward 'n Mark made the trip look easy. As I said in my previous post , most of the travelers I know don't even set foot inside the States... so it was awesome when I got an email from a traveling friend called Sayward saying that she was going to be stopping off in Austin. W00t! With such a full day (and all the surrounding thoughts), I'm going to break up this post into three parts: An ATX Gathering , Life on Replay , A Game of Connect-the-Dots . All of them intertwine to tell a story thru time. An ATX Gathe...

"Moss, Shadow & Light" by Kantiki [ here on GoogleMaps ] There are more than 12,000 different types of moss. Not one of 'em is out to kill ya. That makes moss good peeps... 'n soothing to walk on. At least 10,000 of those types are found in Otterberg, Germany. Now that's a lie... but I'm sticking to it. Besides, it feels like there are that many different types in Otterberg. In terms of property ownership, the moss quite literally runs the city. If a house can power itself using spinach [ link ], then I think Otterberg should tap into their plentiful moss environment and wire the city that way. The moss wouldn't mind the attention... and the city could claim itself as the first moss-powered city. It'll happen. I can feel it. The legend says that moss only grows on the north side of a tree. It's cute... but it's wrong. Moss'll grow anywhere that there's water 'n shade. Otterberg is a city of shadows... and water is found a...

see more Epic Win FTW If you're anything like me, you owe this peep a dollar as well. This is the best sign I've ever come across... and I've seen (and made) a lot of 'em. Word has it that our dear hobo here was spotted in Vancouver. The comments on this photo over at Epic Win FTW make for a fun read as well. This is seriously some creative signmanship.