There is, it is reported, a connection between this world and another, parallel, world and this connection is located right in the heart of Washington, DC. This may explain the nature of some of the legislation that is introduced for consideration here. In any event, this tunnel is the link that binds us to the anti-world and is what makes it possible for travel and exchange to exist between these two separated worlds. The existence of a duel experience has been written about and talked about for some time. This is the first documented photograph of it, however. At least, to my knowledge.

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You can now fly somewhere on IcelandAir and stop over in Iceland for a few hours in order to go for a dip in the Blue Lagoon, which is one of the stranger places I've been to on the planet Earth. You can't really swim there. The water is too hot and too alkaline. So, people just sort of stroll around these huge pools of milky blue water and steam. It’s very other-worldly. The person in the green hooded jacket is a life guard, I guess. His job is to keep an eye on things there on the moon. So, the busses pull up, disgorging passengers on their way, say, to Edinburgh or Hamburg or Paris and they waddle around for an hour or so in the hot water, shower, get back on the bus and continue on their way. It's odd to think that the only place they see in Iceland is this place. But, if you can only see one place, this, I suppose, would be the place to see.

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Sometimes a fence is not about what is being kept out, but what is being kept in. And sometimes a fence is about nothing at all.

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A few more friends of mine.

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There appears to be an issue of clarity here. There are informational signs leading the viewer to the left, but the signs are difficult to read from a moving automobile. It appears, in addition, that some of the signage has either been removed or stolen which would indicate a certain decline, perhaps, in the general area. There would seem to be a lot going on here, but there's no one around to participate. This is the neighborhood I live in.

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This is what dawn looked like after an intense thunderstorm. If you turn it upside down, it looks like a lava flow in Hawaii. I've never seen clouds look like this before. Maybe this is what they'll look like in the 21st century.

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Almost without warning, there is a lot of activity in the flowering department where I live. Things are, as it is said, bursting out all over. The birds seem to like it as much as I do. After the lull of winter, the chirping is almost overwhelming. Our 8 month old cat runs from window to window looking stunned. It's happening in my 'hood. Spring is here.

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Like the Museum of Modern Art, but with fewer tchatchkas. The Moscone Center in San Francisco.

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Like the beach, but less active. A picture of a spa at an abandoned motel.

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Like Punk Rock, but more visual. A picture of my tumor.

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The Convention Center in Washington, DC is still coming down, bit by bit.

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Soon, even the signs for the Lady's Room will be gone!

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He had always been a conservative man. Conservative in every way. In how he felt. In his outlook. He was conservative in dress: white, starched shirts, Brooks Brothers suits in black, necktie in a muted color. He was conservative in speech: never raised his voice; his words carefully chosen, his arguements reasonably delivered. He was moderate in every activity, and, perhaps because of this, left little impression on those whose lives he passed through. He neither drank too much nor ate too hungrily. He selected each specific part of life carefully, from the woman he married to the job he had held for close to thirty years. He was always certain, throughout his whole life, that he would some day get his due, his reward for not causing any difficulties for anyone. Even as his chest tightened and his breathing became more labored, even as he felt himself dropping to the floor, he continued to believe that there would been greater heights for him to rise to, more places to demonstrate his worth. There was, he had to admit to now, one thing that he had always hungered for, dreamt of, and aspired secretly to. It seemed unfair now that this one weakness would not be fed. His felt a wave of despair and regret. He had always wanted to drive a red car.

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I never really developed a taste for Coke. Or Pepsi. Or any of that stuff. Unless I'm on a beach in the Dutch Antilles or the Virgin Islands and there's rum and ice in the glass along with the Coke (or Pepsi). The rum seems to help the Coke (or Pepsi) go down somehow. The lime that usually is in the mix as well, makes me feel that I'm getting my daily jolt of vitamin C. Plus, I get a buzz off of the tartness. So, under these circumstances, I have to admit that a Coke (or Pepsi) is mighty fine, indeed. Now, curiously, I've noticed that Coke (or Pepsi) vending machines seem to always be located outside of Fire Stations here in the States. I don't know why. I guess fire fighters must get thirsty after being subjected to all of that heat and those flames. Who wouldn't? But, doesn't it seem a little harsh to expect them to pay for the sodas? Shouldn't they be free? As a token Thank You for their brave efforts. Or, maybe the machines are there as decoration that somehow fits in with the idea of liquid and fire and reward. Maybe it's performance art. Probably not. But, maybe.

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Ladies and Gentlemen: Presenting The Doors of Berlin. A city rich in history and tears. A city split apart and super glued back together again .A city of mystery and intrigue, where the anxious observe those who suffer from amnesia. A Capitol anew. A city of art and design and music that plays late into the night. A city of inspiration and despair. A place where it is possible to routinely have nightmares about trains. A city of doors and windows.

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I can't help but wonder who the "Authorized Personnel" can be. This is Washington, D.C., the center of any known universe, and there are plenty, mucho, many, lots, even Tons of Authorized Personnel here. They're running the show and will waste no time showing you exactly how Authorized they are. Believe me, they're plenty authorized. And, furthermore, they intend to stay that way. The perks for being Authorized are not inconsiderable. You've got your black Ford SUV with the smoked windows and a siren to get the riffraff out of your way when you want to go to lunch. You've got your High Powered meetings to discuss this and that with the folks who may, or most certainly will, be giving you money soon. You've got your private plane to get you around beyond the Beltway. And, of course, you've got your access. You can walk in any darn alleyway you darn well please. That is, if you walk at all.

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Some friends from a few years ago. I still see a few of them from time to time, but mostly we have all moved on to different things and different places. It's still nice to catch up every so often though.

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Ya know? It doesn't really matter what the view is of the Chrysler Building that you get, it is always one heck of a fine building. It looks great on the outside. It looks great on the inside. It is quite literally the truth: They Don't Make Them Like That Anymore.

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It was such a beautiful day. She felt happy as she strolled down the street. It was a Saturday and air was fresh and the sun was shinning and she felt good. She was thinking of her son. He would have been 10 this month if he had lived. She would have had a 10 year son. But it was not meant to be. He was born early after a difficult pregnancy. He had congenital heart problems. He had only lived for a few hours after he was born. She was devastated. Her marriage fell apart and her husband left and then divorced her. That all seemed like a long time ago now and she only gave it a passing thought as she walked. It was such a beautiful day. Yes, he would have been 10 this month if he had lived.

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A good friend of mine wants to move somewhere where no body will get into his "business". He has lived in a small town for 25 years and things went south with his personal life and everyone in town seemed to know what was going on and my friend didn't like it. So he thought that he would buy enough land somewhere where he could be far away from everyone and no one would be into his "business". But, he found out that he didn't have that much money to buy that much land, because you'd need a Whole Lotta Land to be far enough away from your neighbors that they wouldn't be curious as to what you were up to and what you were doing. So, I suggested that if he really wanted to go somewhere where no body, and I mean No Body, would give a f**k what he was doing, or who he was, or where he was going, or what his dreams and aspirations were, or what his accomplishments were in his past or could be possible in his future, if he really wanted to be completely anonymous, then, he should move to New York City. Cause that is one place among several--LA, Chicago, London, well, maybe not London because he's a Yank, but, you know, any Big City in the US--were no one would pay you the least bit of attention. And he could go about his business and no one would be that interested in it, or who he was, or who he slept with, or what he did in his spare time, or any of that stuff. I don't think he'll do it. It would be a big change. And he's already had a few of those. And besides, being anonymous just isn't for everyone. You have to work at it, just like anything else.

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Well, it's official: we're returning to the Big Island for three weeks in August. Nicki and I were last there is 1990 or so. Our friend, Dennis, who had a condo in Kona, was still alive then. We swam with the turtles on Disappearing Sands Beach. We drove to Hilo so that Dennis' mate, Jim, could have dialysis. We drove the ring road, saw fantastic artwork, saw the lava flow, and had a great time. This time we'll be staying on the east side, south of Hilo, near a black sand beach. We might have guests. That would be nice. We had lots of guests when we were in Kawai'i in 2000. It was fun because there were more people to cook fantastic meals. Hawaii shouldn’t really be a part of America. It doesn't feel or smell, or look like anything else in America. I guess by that criteria, Nevada shouldn’t be a part of America. But Hawaii is also a long, long way from America. Mentally it is as far away as it is possible to get. It's another world entirely. You should come and stay with us. We'd show you around. Or you could show us around. We could hang out and swim with the turtles.

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It's true that I like to travel in the "developed" world. I like places that have a sense of the familiar. Places where there is not a war being fought and where I might be mistaken for being on the wrong side. I like destinations that are a little bit "off" but are still recognizable as being part of the 21st century. Where, if you like, you can order a meal in a restaurant and sit, eat, and watch the world go by. Where it's not dangerous to wander around at any time of the day or night, or not dangerous to leave the city for surrounding country side. I don't mind if English is not spoken as I can mime what I need pretty good. I don't mind dealing with "odd" currency. I figure that the undeveloped world is still undeveloped because people like me don't go there and mess it up. The places I like to go to are already messed up. The water that is swum in is just a little polluted with human and other kinds of waste. Where the air is just a little unhealthy to breathe because of car exhaust. Where fossil fuels are being burned up at an astonishing clip. Where the details of daily living are uniformly understood and where you can go and no one will give you a second look and think that your presence is odd or unusual in any way. Where you can be somewhere different but still recognizable or feel the same but be very different in a familiar sort of way. Those are the places I like to go to. Where I’m an outsider in familiar territory.

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He liked the feeling of being on the road. He liked the freedom he experienced as he steered the car from place to place. He liked, most of all, the dullness of travel: how everything tended to look like everything else; how the hours passed by as the miles passed beneath him. He had never really ever felt rooted to any particular place or time and for that reason no place had ever really felt like a home to him. All the places were interchangeable in their ugliness and decay and smell. That's why he could never stop driving. He was pulled to a place that he had never seen or felt before, just as he was pushed away from the place where he was at any given moment. His destination was a place he'd never arrive at, so the experience of travel became what he had to settle for. He accepted that a long time ago, and kept on driving.

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Miles took this shot and I think it's very interesting. It's got a good light/dark thing happening and I like how the light flag poles play against the building windows in the background. He took some of the grafitti shots in Iceland as well. He's a good kid with a good eye. What more can you ask for?

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I think that this says it all. At least it says enough.

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The old convention center is coming down bit by bit. Apparently, it takes as long to take a building down as it did to put it up in the first place. They used explosives to blow part of it down before Christmas 2004 and they're still, after Easter 2004, taking the rest of it down. It was big. It was Ugly. The new one, a few blocks away, is bigger. And not so Ugly. The old one is almost gone now. Daylight shines through a lot of it. They have machines to grind up the concrete parts. Other machines process the metal pieces. The site will become a parking lot until they can figure out what to put up in its place. Before the site was a convention center, it used to be housing, but no one really lived there for quite a while. So, a parking lot, in some strange way, sounds like a step in a positive direction.

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There is a magic land where the street lights are as tall as the sky. Where the sky is always blue and dotted with perfect white clouds, and where trees grow everywhere, even on rooftops. A land where colors are brilliant and pure. A place where no body ever has to go hungry and no one is really very in need of anything. Not food. Not clothing. Not medicines for those rare instances when they are sick. A place where people are kind to each other and look after each other and where no one can remember the last time there was war. The streets are clean here. And people do not carry guns. I'm looking to find this place. I've been looking a long time. There are lots of others looking too. Let me know if you find it and I'll help spread the word.

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Waiting at the Airport, the bags began a conversation with each other, discovering in the process how much they all had in common.

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Waiting time is mostly dead time. Dream time. Listening to the voices that speak to you from inside your head time. It is in anticipation that the train will eventually come and take you someplace else. You can stand and wait or sit down and wait. If you sit down, etiquette requires that you sit as far from another person as possible, unless the only open seats are between two people, in which case you have to decide if it is worth filling that space and having some stranger seated on either side of you and if that is going to be OK or not while you wait. In other words, you have to make a judgment call on the fly. You have to quickly assess the people that you will be sitting next to as to whether they look a) sane, b) hygienic, c) non-violent and d) not a religious nut. The light is the subway system is not good, so everyone looks a little off anyway. A little jaundiced. The air is bad, too. And, it's noisy during busy periods. And, when the train finally comes, you’ll have a whole new set of challenges and a whole new set of strangers to contend with. But, it beats walking.

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It happens every year. Every year, usually in April, Washington is overrun with folks who come here from all over in order to stomp around the tidal basin and take a peek at the cherry blossoms. A lovely gift from Japan, the cherry trees. Especially considering the fire storms we ignited over there. But, those were different times. That was then, this is now. The out-of-towners come with their children and, in some cases, their dogs. There are no hotel rooms to be had. The cabbies are happy people for a change. The visitors trod over the tidal basin area and they compact the earth into the density of concrete. Some years we get a wind storm and all of the flower blow away. It's all part of the cherry blossom game. Or a freeze. Sometimes we get an April ice storm or snow storm ever. Those situations do not make for happy cherry blossom viewing. But none of that happened this year. This year was Perfect Year No. 26. The temperature was moderate all week, the weather cooperative, the skies, blue and still, the security alerts yellowish, the blossoms delicate and a delight to the eye. No bombings or threat of bombings. Nothing but peace and beauty. As it should, no doubt, be.

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The streets of downtown Washington DC are often populated by what I call The Visitors. They're not the tourists that flock here for Spring Break and Summer Holiday. No, they're a different kind of Visitor. One guy that I've seen a lot of recently creeps around the edges of things. He will walk in the street, hugging carefully to the curb. If there is a car parked, he will carefully walk against the car, hugging close to it. Sometimes I will see him walking on the sidewalk, but he presses against the sides of the buildings as he goes. If there is a break in the building walls, say for an alley way, he will follow the building wall into the alley and continue on his journey through the alley, hugging the sides of things as he goes. I guess he feels too naked out in the open. Too exposed. Too fragile. I guess he needs the strength of architecture to help him on his way.

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Then there's the guy who used to hang out in front of our building about mid-day. He would walk around in an agitated manner, with his right hand, somewhat closed, pressed against his right ear as if he were holding a cell phone to his ear. And he would talk VERY LOUDLY. Usually nonsense stuff: "What? Bring me some GUM! Chewing GUM! What! No, the BONES I told you. The F****ing BONES!" He wouldn't make eye contact with anyone else on the sidewalk. He's just paced back and forth in front of the building talking real loudly into the air. But one day I heard him say this: "No! I told you already. They won't let me back in there. They said that I talk TOO LOUD!" And after that he was gone and I didn't see him around anymore.

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Sunsets in New York are different, I think, than sunsets in Reykjavic. That doesn't mean that they're better or worse, just different. The color of light is different. The "feel" is different. In Iceland, they're slower. In New York, like everything else in New York, they're faster. But, being faster, they're more intense. In both places, sunset is the divide between the day and what comes afterward. In New York, I think, that means something maybe a little bit different than it does in Iceland. The kind of sunset you have in Reykjavic, I think, must depend on the season because the meaning of sunset is so radically different in July than it is in December. In New York, sunset is sunset. Enough awready!

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Hyattsville, Maryland may be one of the last places in American where you can see such a robust display of chachkas in the window of a commercial establishment. It's one of the reasons I think Hyattsville is so special. I don't even know, really, what kind of business this is. A Dry Cleaner? A Hair Saloon? Who cares? What makes this place so appealing is are the plants (real) and the animals (ceramic and plastic) that live in the window, looking not at each other, but out, at us who pass by. I particularly like the plastic doily that some of the more special, and regal, animals get to stand on. This type of stylish display is quickly fading in our land I'm afraid. Enjoy it while it's still here. Enjoy it while you still can.

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The Madonna in Riverdale, Maryland.

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I had this dream: I was driving home. It felt like I had been driving for a long, long time. Maybe years. I'm not sure. Anyway, I was tired and it was dark, the sun just beginning to come up and I was making the last few turns to my home. I was tired, but I was excited because I was finally coming home after a long trip. As I drove, I could picture in my mind what my home would look like and as I was envisioning it I knew that what I was seeing in my mind's eye was not what my home really looked like at all. What I was imaging was grander, with more trees and lush plantings. What I imagined was a walkway of crushed gravel and many windows looking out into a sunny garden shaded by mature trees in full flower. When I made the last turn to my home, to my surprise, my home had morphed into what I had imagined. It was more beautiful than anything I had ever seen before. I knew I was dreaming and I didn't want to wake up.

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