The real Mr Josephson

Today is the Fiftieth birthday of my father, Brian Josephson. A man of whom much could be said of character and values but it would pale in the knowing of the man such as this. He is also a private man who I seek not to publicise here other than say that I have not had fonder moments in my life than to call Dad within sight of the Pyramids and share a dream fufilled. But calling from a desert wonder is naught compared to his detective work.

It was Chistmas 2003, and I lay on the finest beaches around Tofo, 6 hours north of Maputo, Mozambique. The nearest landline is in another village and it only works on alternate days. Its remote enough that there was a guy is signing copies of "The Satanic Verses" in one of the bars. Among the beating sun and drums and waves on the most chilled christmas morning of my life a french man approached me and asked if I was indeed Arthur and that he had my father on his mobile. A work of cunning, Dad had called other hostels in the capital and networked his way to my tiny patch between the dunes in outlying coastal Mozambique. Should I one day join a rebel army in the mountains of some small central asian republic I am certain he will find a connection to my Afghan ammunitions man.

He has always been an exemplary pillar of strength, pragmatism, maturity and the definitive "Father" to both my sister and my self, and to many of our friends. His stability has helped given me the confidence to take the path I have travelled so far, and I only hope that my wanderings have inspired new ideas for the downward half... of the Hill he has just passed over! HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY DAD!

Older than Thou

As I have alluded the Holiday of Justice was a unique and wonderful.
I will not squeeze the chilled set of awesome experiences into a laundry
list of "done"s, but a couple of tales demand the telling. However, they
wont really encapsulate the most unique part of the holiday- the part
that has stayed and grown in me- the feeling of being in the incredible
and very different civilisational space that is Egypt. Reflecting on the
thoughts and feelings that flowed around me there I wrote this poem.

"Older than thou"

They seem to shout in sultry silence.
Eras have gone and the blood of their construction
Has passed with generations.
Ideologies now clash where the beating heart
Long silenced, once pulsed with the rythm of the Sun.

It is raw like summers glare, this new vision.
Seeks not to imitate the land of my forbears
But speaks in absolutes that comfort, guide and frighten.
Its sober tongue pleases my ear with melody
Though my heart and mind are not tuned for such a message

I wonder if they are waiting to be found
Or in finding, are they waiting for wonder?
Renunciation of sin or self? Of wandering or world?
These ancient walls too high for me to stand atop
And judge with even hands the kindness of the other.

To find only endings of stories long told
Is to forget the land of experience and origination.
Fed by an older Nile, it flows unrestrained
To the ancient shifting sands whose banks offer a canvass
Upon which we will paint the young minds of tomorrow.

Victory Riding

When the endless repetition of ordinary life becomes too much to bear,
when your pulse beats naught but for change there is only one known
cure... and camel Victory Riding around the last of the Ancient Wonders
of the World is a big part of it.

il nuovo papa

Several months ago I faced the bottom of several empty beer glasses and the fallen hopes of Manhattan on the election of the neo-conservative President. Yesterday in Italy we did away with such new fangle inventions and fell back on plain conservative. A new Pope is in town and may all liberal media be proven wrong. May he strive to bridge the gulf between religions and humankind. May he seek to raise common values and fundamental rights for all. May he help return quest for the spirit to western society beyond it's religious institution and may he fuel faith in other societies through knowledge and discovery rather than ritual and rhetoric. Big demands I know, but the resume says he was selected by God and is infallible, so it shouldn't be too much to ask.

Am back in beautiful Rotterdam and reading "Steppenwolf"by Herman Hesse. A year ago I read Siddhartha, a work that became more than a parallel to my journey- it formed a critical and definitive event. This speaker of the soul has once again unfolded a story that I now find written on the walls of some cavern deep within me. Here's an excerpt that trapped me entirely.

"Humor alone, that magnificent discovery of those who are cut short in their calling to highest endeavor, those who falling short of tragedy are yet as rich in gifts as in affliction, humor alone (perhaps the most inborn and brilliant achievement of the spirit) attains to the impossible and brings every aspect of human existence within the rays of its prism. To live in the world as though it were not the world, to respect the law and yet to stand above it, to have possessions as though "one possessed nothing," to renounce as though it were no renunciation, all these favorite and often formulated propositions of an exalted worldly wisdom, it is in the power of humor alone to make efficacious."

Tomorrow I will blog on my Misr experience.

Class be in

Look.. I'm in Italy ok.. So the whole big funky Egypt post is not coming yet. But this week sometime it will appear with all it's North African glory. Quickly surfing the net from Milan I've decided to open a door to a world of humor that perhaps few will walk through. Welcome to Achewood.

Achewood is a world that can't adequately be described. To call it a daily comic strip about cats who chillax ol' skool, way lyrical and contemplate the inner meaning of irony and tequila "quiet times" is to see but a shadow of the true underlying reality that is Achewood. Not everyone is ready for Achewood. It is a liminal event that will touch few- but those who get inside it will soon begin to mix your own experiences with Ray's and you will not be exactly sure what got you there in the first place.

Why now? Because a recent edition is perfect and marks an entry point that may knock that little bit hard enough to open your door to Achewood. For those who totally don't get it here is the same day's edition of Snoopy so you can realize what not laughing is truly like. PEACE.

Another year, Another dimension

I have survived innumerable opportunities for incident and disease to
survive for yet another year. I count victory over 24 of them so far and
am hoping for a fair few more. Am back in Rotterdam, the pearl of
Europe, after enjoying no small amount of medical treatment in Finland
and a visit to Sweden. I left Cairo feeling a bit dodgy and arrived to
Helsinki in a wheelchair- but nothing 1 liter of saline IV, loads of
penicillin and a few blood tests couldn't fix. Huge shout outs to the
inventor of air sickness bags, Ketofan and Gatorade- my best friends
during a 72 hour forced fast in which I visited a large percentage of
the bathrooms in Scandanavia.

Today is may be the anniversary of my birth, but less than a footnote to
the history that has unfolded on this date.
43 BC - Battle of Forum Gallorum. Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar's
assassin Decimus Junius Brutus in Mutina, defeats the forces of the
consul Pansa.
1912 - RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg on its maiden voyage - it finishes
sinking at about 2:20 am the next day.
Black Day - informal celebration day for single people in South Korea
1986 - 2.2 lb (1kg) hailstones fall on the Gopalganj district of
Bangladesh. These are the heaviest hailstones ever recorded.
Clearly, there is strong link between these events and my appearing, not
exactly sure what it is, but the day is still young.

Being 23 kicked ass. Best year of my life. Began in Africa and finished
revolving somewhere round Western Europe. Featured 14 countries,
incredible intelligent characters and rare and wonderful opportunities.
I discovered a lot about myself in the last year, largely through
expressing myself more fully, releasing that which exists inside and too
seldom finds a way out. The Best Job in the World has been tempering and
a test, an opportunity and reward- if I can ever give as much and learn
as much I will have lived a truly happy life. Twenty-three has been a
year that will define much of who I am and where I go in the next five
years. Twenty-four will be scarier, more challenging, more unknown, it
will be another unique step- one that both builds on the past but moves
in a new and unique direction. PEACE.

The Holiday of Justice

There is one guy from North-Eastern Belorussia who just left his country on a holiday for the first time of his life. He dined in Venice, Prague and Budapest, sun baked on small tropical islands in Micronesia, attended a coming of age ceremony in a Ghanian village, looked down upon the world atop Mount Aconcagua in the Andes and wrested a polar bear in the Artic- and won. Besides this rare and perhaps all too fictional character, I have just had the best Holiday in the World. A holiday so excellent that from this moment forth it shall be capitalised and described as "The Holiday of Justice".

Where was this finest of weeks spent I hear you think, jaws gaping at the prospect of such wonder? Why, the very place that victory holidays have been spent for Millenia; Misr... Aegypten... the ancient and ever glorious Egypt. Such a Holiday cannot be described in a single post, especially as I am now stealing a few minutes off from a busy agenda in Finland, but upon my return to R'dam next week I will recall many of the precious pearls of experience The Holiday did provide. For now I can only describe it as the feeding of the flame of life that burns within, the replenishment of a weary traveller, and the opener of eyes grown tired.

This unique combination of chillaxing, education, exposure to real cultural diversity, wonderful conversation, the finest foods and serene and life changing places standing amidst the very milestones of history, was made possible by one man. This man is, and forever shall be, my brother of the spirit. More than any other I know he truly lives in the world. A man who continually challenges me, teaches me, and keeps me rolling on the floor and laughing endlessly. A true Taoist, though he knows it not, I am happy to walk this path with him through many more wonderful places. Thomas Quincey Gara, I salute you.