My eyes dilate and I giggle with a combination of fear and anticipation. Here.

Haha this is making me homesick!

In my bedroom here in Honolulu I have a cedar panel with a crude Japanese-ish carving of a river. It's signed "Robel" and dated 1975. My mom gave it to me in my early teens along with a dogeared copy of "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones". She got it in her commune days, and I've always imagined a skinny bearded dude chopping and carving it somewhere in the foothills of the Cascades.

Anyway, Gary Snyder. He's been a hero to me for a long time, and this New Yorker profile from a couple of weeks ago is some deep Cascadian shit. It brought back memories for me of a childhood milieu that he was partially responsible for inspiring.

Parts of the profile veer incredibly close to self-parody, but over the years I have come to perceive that as a sign of greatness.

Peripetics by ZEITGUISED from NotForPaper on Vimeo.

I was sitting on the steps of an apartment building in Waikiki this afternoon, waiting to look at a dresser from Craigslist. A pretty thirty-something Filipina woman in nondescript Old Navy clothes walked up the stairs. When she reached me she stopped and gave me a strange, searching look. I hesitated, puzzled, and she continued walking into the building. As she walked away I noticed she was carrying a large bullwhip. Huh?

Also, this just slays me:

We went down to the Chinatown hipster bar for their 90s rap and soul night. The dancefloor was empty except for a group of confused Ecuadorian Navy crewmen in full dress whites. The DJ was playing "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life".

On the roof deck, DJ Harvey was posted up at the bar looking like a homeless guy. I hope he's in town to play records next weekend, I saw him a couple months ago and it was great.

I drank a dubious pisco sour and we listened to a lot of Biggie and Camp Lo records.

Later, we went across the street to a Vietnamese bar playing skull-splittingly loud karaoke. The bartender had an iron grip on the mic and was actually belting out a verse while uncapping our beers with the other hand.

I had a handshake grip contest with an elderly gentleman in camo fatigues and an aloha shirt. After that the waitress tried to convince my friend to marry her granddaughter in Saigon and told us about her nail parlor and her favorite bus routes.

Today at the bank I thought the auntie at the customer service desk was looking at me funny. After we finished our transaction, she paused for a moment then said, "You're on that TV show 'Lost', aren't you?"