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Home Articles Experimental Neurology Journal: BrainStorm's NurOwn™ Stem Cell Technology Shows Promise for Treating...
Experimental Neurology Journal: BrainStorm's NurOwn™ Stem Cell Technology Shows Promise for Treating Huntington's Disease
BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc. (OTCBB: BCLI), a leading developer of adult stem cell technologies and therapeutics, announced today that the prestigious Experimental Neurology Journal, published an article indicating that preclinical studies using cells that underwent treatment with Brainstorm's NurOwn™ technology show promise in an animal model of Huntington's disease. The article was published by leading scientists including Professor Melamed and Professor Offen of the Tel Aviv University.
In these studies, bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells secreting neurotrophic factors (MSC-NTF), from patients with Huntington's disease, were transplanted into the animal model of this disease and showed therapeutic improvement.
"The findings from this study demonstrate that stem cells derived from patients with a neurodegenerative disease, which are processed using BrainStorm's NurOwn™ technology, may alleviate neurotoxic signs, in a similar way to cells derived from healthy donors. This is an important development for the company, as it confirms that autologous transplantation may be beneficial for such additional therapeutic indications," said Dr. Adrian Harel, BrainStorm's CEO.
"These findings provide support once again that BrainStorm's MSC-NTF secreting cells have the potential to become a platform that in the future will provide treatment for various neuro-degenerative diseases," says Chaim Lebovits, President of BrainStorm. "This study follows previously published pre-clinical studies that demonstrated improvement in animal models of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and neural damage such as optic nerve transection and sciatic nerve injury. Therefore, BrainStorm will consider focusing on a new indication in the near future, in addition to the ongoing Clinical Trials in ALS."
BrainStrom is currently conducting a Phase I/II Human Clinical Trial for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) also known as Lou Gehrig's disease at the Hadassah Medical center. Initial results from the clinical trial (which is designed mainly to test the safety of the treatment), that were announced last week, have shown that the Brainstorm's NurOwn™ therapy is safe and does not show any significant treatment-related adverse events and have also shown certain signs of beneficial clinical effects.
To read the Article entitled 'Mesenchymal stem cells induced to secrete neurotrophic factors attenuate quinolinic acid toxicity: A potential therapy for Huntington's disease' by Sadan et al. please go to:
About BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, Inc.
BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc. is a biotech company developing adult stem cell therapeutic products, derived from autologous (self) bone marrow cells, for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. The company, through its wholly owned subsidiary Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics Ltd., holds rights to develop and commercialize the technology through an exclusive, worldwide licensing agreement with Ramot at Tel Aviv University Ltd., the technology transfer company of Tel-Aviv University. The technology is currently in a Phase I/II clinical trials for ALS in Israel.
SOURCE: BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc.
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L'aéroport d'Imperatriz aussi appelé Aéroport Imperatriz-Prefeito Renato Moreira  est l'aéroport de la ville d'Imperatriz au Brésil. Il est nommé d'après un ancien maire de la ville d'Imperatriz.

Il est exploité par Infraero.

Historique
Imperatriz a une longue tradition de services de transport aérien, qui a commencé à la fin des années 1930 avec Syndicato Condor (hydravions). À la fin de la seconde Guerre Mondiale, un premier aéroport a été opérationnel. L'aéroport actuel a été ouvert en 1981.

Situation

Statistiques

Compagnies aériennes et destinations

Accidents et incidents

 : deux VOTEC Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante (enregistrements PT-GJZ et PT-GKL) sont entrés en collision en vol. PT-GJZ était en vol depuis São Luís vers Imperatriz ; les 18 passagers et membres d'équipage sont tous morts. PT-GKL était en train de voler de Belém-Val de Cans à Imperatriz, et son pilote a été en mesure de faire un atterrissage d'urgence sur le fleuve Tocantins. Un seul passager, sur les 17 que comptait l'avion, est mort.

Situation
L'aéroport est situé à 4km du centre-ville de la ville d'Imperatriz.

Voir aussi

 Liste des aéroports du Brésil

Références

Liens externes

Imperatriz

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Captain has Elite boxing, Exceptional Muay Thai, Elite wrestling and holds a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
2019-04-16- received MB Light 160 Weight Loss from manager.
2019-03-15- Captain Gonza celebrated his birthday - 27 today!
2018-12-31- received MB Light 160 Weight Loss from manager.
2018-12-20- Captain Gonza celebrated his birthday - 26 today!
2018-11-25- received Property of HXF from manager.
2018-09-26- Captain Gonza celebrated his birthday - 25 today!


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Archive for the 'Budget' Category
8 Reasons I'm No Longer A Backpacker
Published March 22, 2012	Budget , Independent , Offbeat , Sola 16 Comments
Tags: backpacker, Budget, getting older, sola
1. I am embarrassed by my backpack.
It's big and heavy. There are buckles and pouches and straps; they bunch my clothing and create sweat stains. I can't make sudden turns without risking collision with pedestrians.
The physical backpack is a quintessential signifier of a backpacker. It says "everything I need I can carry on my person, without the help of doormen or rolley luggage wheels." This idea is central to the identity of a backpacker and one to which I once felt a certain pride: "Train station steps? No problem."
But something has changed. The backpack has become unwieldy and cumbersome. It probably doesn't help that mine permanently smells like a Venezuelan waterfall (NOT as romantic as it sounds). I'm embarrassed by the sheer bulk of it, the way it reduces me to a sweaty blundering bumbler. It's like a walk of shame every time I arrive somewhere—eyes lowered, head down, rushing to wherever I'm staying in order to dump the evidence and try to pass as a non-backpacker as quickly as possible.
The problem is, proper luggage is proper expensive. So until my income matches my new travel status, I'll be lumbering down foreign sidewalks with sweat dripping down my back. (But at least I can make it up those stairs.)
2. I don't like staying in hostels.
I'm all for meeting people and being social. But at the end of the day, all I really want to do is sit in my underpants and putter on the computer. And while I suppose I could do that in a hostel dorm, I don't think it's exactly the message I want to be sending (see #5).
As I've gotten older, I find I really need my own space when I travel—somewhere to relax and zone out, where I can sleep without earplugs and an eye mask. In Rome, I recently forewent the cheapo Termini hostels in favor of a bed-and-breakfast in a hipster neighborhood 30 minutes outside of center. The extra nightly cost: 25 Euros; amount which I enjoyed myself more than previous visits, on a scale of 1-10: 8.
3. I'm willing to spend more for comfort.
It used to be like a competition I had with myself—what's the absolute cheapest I can do a trip? Pretty fucking cheap, in turns out. I managed to travel Western Europe for six weeks on 36 Euros a day. But guess what? It was the most miserable trip of my life.
Looking back, if I'd waited till I had a little more money, I could have traveled with more comfort—getting a sleeper cars on night trains, for instance, or eating something other than falafel. I would have enjoyed myself a lot more.
Moreover, I've learned that cheaper does not always mean more authentic. Some of my richest travel experiences have been those I've had to spend a little more for—on transit to remote regions, for instance, or on lodging in places where a backpacker ghetto doesn't exist.
So, the $5, 8-hour bus to Siem Reap or the $10, 4-hour minibus that stops at a café with a western toilet? It's a no-brainer now.
4. The "hostel conversation" makes me want to rip my eyeballs out.
Some destinations don't have the mid-range bed-and-breakfast type accommodations I now favor; Tirana, Albania is one of them. So instead of staying at one of those cement-block high-rises cast in uplit neon, I bit the bullet and stayed at a hostel.
It was a nice hostel, with a patio and an herb garden and a daily breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and Nescafe. Every morning I'd wander downstairs, braless in my stretch pants, and fix myself plate. Invariably this scene would play out:
Someone walked in.
"Good morning," I mumbled, waiting for the hot water to boil.
"So," the cheerful backpacker said, "where are from?"
"The US."
"How long have you been here?"
"Coupla days."
"How long are you traveling?"
Shrug.
"How long are you staying here? What's your itinerary?"
Shrug. "I'm just kinda here." Then I walked out to the patio with my plate and mug.
It's not like I was trying to be rude, though I'm sure it came across that way. But when you have the same conversation every morning for two weeks, it starts to wear on you.
I used to be enraptured by the hostel conversation, excited to be meeting so many different people from so many different countries. But it slowly became a kind of script—sizing up, determined someone's stats. I realized that while I may be meeting different people from different places, we were all having the same conversation.
5. I'm not attracted to backpackers.
Ok, to be honest, I've never done much hooking up on the road. "A Guide To Hostel Sex" might still be one of Matador's most popular articles, but the very premise has always struck me as utterly unappealing—the bunk beds, the moldy bathrooms, the condoms of questionable expiry. And there has never been anything attractive to me about a grown man in flip-flops and a tank top.
But there's a new element that's recently come into play: all the backpackers I see don't look like grown men. They look like children. Sunburnt, drunk children.
Aside from being fresh out of their parents' houses and relatively inexperienced in dating, I wonder what the hell I'd say to them. "So, you a Facebook account in middle school—what was that like?" "You were how old when 9/11 happened?" "Biggie is not old school!"
Wait, Biggie is old school. If you're nineteen.
6. I want to do boring things.
Go to the shooting range and fire M-16s? Get shit-housed tubing in Vang Vieng? Rave at a full moon party on Koh Phangan?
Ugh. I'd rather sit at a café and stare at the street. Maybe read the local newspaper. Really, I could do that for hours. Which does not mean that I'm more cultured or intellectual than a backpacker, as much as I may want it to. It just means that I'm old and boring.
7. I'm less concerned if something's "touristy."
You know what place I like? Hoi An. It's an old Vietnamese port town with crumbling French colonial buildings and tailor shops and bomb cao lau. And shittons of tourists on bicycles.
In previous years, the mere presence of other Westerners would have made me deem Hoi An as touristy and thus not the "real" Vietnam. And maybe it isn't. But I like its mellow atmosphere. I've let myself like it.
In recent years, I've found myself caring a lot less about whether a place is touristy or authentic, or whether I'm a traveler or a tourist. In a lot of ways, I'm less self-conscious about being a foreigner in a place; I feel less of a need to define a place, or my position in that place.
I'm an outsider. And I'm okay with it. Now give me my cafe sua da and let me soak in the Hoi An vibe.
8. Backpackers make me smile.
I used to feel competitive with other backpackers (see the "sizing up" above). Why would some of the girls looks so effortlessly boho-chic while I was heat-rashy and varicosed? Why did some of them have cooler itineraries and longer trip dates? Why did they all speak better Spanish than me?
Living in a well-touristed city now, I see a lot of backpackers. They walk in droves along the riverside, long legs and smooth skin. Sometimes they walk slowly, and that's annoying. Sometimes they're really loud and drunk, and that's even more annoying. But mostly I don't even see them—they exist on a different plane and fade into the static of city life.
But every now and then I do see them—eating at the next table, buying bootleg DVDs at the market, lumbering lost with their big backpacks and asking me, "Hey, do you know where the Nomad Guesthouse is?"
And the thing is, they don't annoy me in those moments. I look at them and it's the same feeling I'd have when I'd go to the old punk club Gilman in Berkeley and see a group of teenage girls, huddled together and giggling. It's a kind of tenderness I feel, like I'm looking at a younger version of myself. I see all the same immaturity and naïvity and excitement, and I know it so well it makes me smile.
But I also know that it's not me anymore. That time is gone for me—it's been passed down to these other, younger kids, with glowing skin and slim legs. I didn't even notice it happening.
But I hope they enjoy it.
Adventures in Lao Transit: Ban Natane to Savannakhet
Published May 8, 2011	Budget , Dirty Tricks , Independent , Laos , Offbeat , Places , Sola , Southeast Asia , Transit 3 Comments
Tags: ban natane, Budget, independent travel, laos, savannakhet, southeast asia, Transit
One hand tractor, a boat, two sawng thaew and a local bus so packed I had to crouch in the stairwell amid the rice sacks for 87km—I've had my Lao transit experience.
Tell other travelers you're headed to Laos, and you'll hear two things: "The people are so friendly, so nice!" and "Ugh, I was on this 12-hour chicken bus…"
Picturesque breakdown
Lao transit is infamous for being some of the ricketiest, breaking-down-ist in the SE Asia, maybe the world. Travelers hang weary heads over bottles of Beer Lao, swap war stories: the number of people standing in the aisle, the amount of livestock on board, the various strange cargo, number of break-downs and length of time to go 370km (12 hours is actually purty good). Instead of garnering scene cred, it seems more like commiserating, deriving solace from a shared trauma.
Given that context, my mission from remote Ban Natane to bustling metropolis Savannakhet was smooth, seamless, enjoyable even. An at a cool 10 hours, it could be said that I lucked the fuck out.
I awoke in Batane to a breakfast of fish soup, sticky rice and Nescafe. One of the men from the Baci ceremony a few nights prior came up the wooden ladder, chatted with Pauline's supervisor. They nodded, glanced over at me. "Okay," the supervisor said, "you go with him."
With my transport clearly mapped out for me, I gathered my bags, said my good-byes. I left Ban Natane in a spray of brown water, thrown up from the wheels of another hand tractor. I'd gotten a little better at riding, crouched down, clutched the railing, teeth chattering with every dip and tree root. It's a little like the squat toilet—it takes time, practice, to hone your particular method.
A half hour later, we arrived at the "dock"—a dirt slope where wooden boats lay half-submerged in the still river water. A small local group of men gathered, ranging from middle-aged to elderly, all with the lean muscles and chiseled features of people who've done hard labor their whole lives.
They commenced to scooping out water from one of the boats with a halved gasoline canister, assembling the engine and oars. Now, if you take the tourist boat, they allow a maximum of three passengers with two boatmen. But this was not the boat of life vests and Tevas (which would have been useful); this was the local boat, whose main purpose wasn't to transport people but goods.
We piled six people, about a dozen parcels and one motorbike on that baby and cruised into the cave.
This is how we roll/paddle
Suffice to say, we bottomed out a half dozen times. Hopping out, pushing the boat, scooping water out, the crunching sound of rock—through a particular patch of rocks, the men had to unload the boat entirely, then reload it. They wouldn't let me help. I stood in the damp cool and watched a sixty-some year-old man carry my backpack.
As they stood ankles in the water and moved boxes, one of the men lit a cigarette. In the light of his headlamp, I thought the dance of the smoke was about the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It was all still magical, majestic to me—the cave, the village, the way of life. But this was these men's reality. They moved with efficiency, knowing the cave like I know the rhythm of the stoplights and crosswalks and trains. They seemed neither annoyed nor frustrated with the archaic and cumbersome method of transport. They had the expression of commuters. Except they smoked and laughed more.
On the other side of the cave, I bowed and said my thank-yous. I rode two largely uneventful sawng thaew—one back to Ban Na Hin, another to the Highway 13 crossroads. The sky thundered and the plastic bags of produce whipped and whistled in the wind.
It began to rain as I climbed off, hoisted my bag over my shoulder and dashed for an awning. I'd been told that buses to Savannakhet pass through the junction "all the time"—though what that meant in rural Lao speak, I wasn't sure. I stood in a place that seemed like it wanted to be a bus stop, amid the fruit and sticky rice vendors, crouched down against the rain.
An old Korean bus rattled by, slowed to a stop. The tout leaned out the doorway, waved his arm at me as I jogged through the puddles. "Savannakhet?" I asked. "Yes, yes," he nodded and ushered me in before I could think twice.
I took one step into the stairwell and stopped.
For the last 100km, managed to score a seat in the back. Catch: I had to climb over the piles of luggage to get there.
That's because I couldn't move any further. The crowd of people, luggage, cardboard boxes and rice sacks was so thick I had to wedge myself into the corner the bus door vacated when it closed, the leaky seal splashing a refreshing mist of Lao rain on my face.
Two grim-faced Westerners stood out in the crowd: a boy sitting on a blue plastic cooler, a girl standing behind him, trying to clutch anything she could. When a lumbering cow in the road made the driver screech and swerve, the girl lurched forward, toppling into several people and inspiring a chorus of "ooh"s.
"Twelve hours of this shit," the boy told me later at a side-of-the-road piss stop (which I actually prefer to the squalid squat toilets you have to pay to us). "They told us when we got on in Vientiane that there'd be seats open at the next stop."
They had twelve more hours to go, and were thoroughly spent on the authentic local experience.
We shared a what-the-hell-are-you-gonna-do laugh and crammed back on, men pulled zippers and stubbing out cigarettes. When the door closed, I wedged myself back into my corner, where I had just enough room to shift my weight from time to time. And sometimes, that's all you can ask for.
Blessing of String and Sticky Rice: Day One in Ban Natane
Published May 7, 2011	Budget , Culture Shock , Dirty Tricks , Independent , Laos , Offbeat , Places , Sola , Southeast Asia 1 Comment
Tags: ban natane, blogsherpa, culture shock, homestay, independent travel, kong lo cave, laos, southeast asia
The man held my open palm in his. In it, he placed a small clump of sticky rice and pork. He raised his right hand to his face, murmured blessings in a language I didn't understand. He waved a piece of string, then tied it around my wrist.
"He wishes you good health, good luck," Pauline translated.
I smiled, bowed. Outside the open-air room, lightning stuttered the night sky white.
Sometimes you end up some weird-ass places traveling. Not that they're weird, so much as it's weird that you're there, that you ended up there—that the gods of circumstance conspired, whispering in their thunderous perch above grey rock, to bring you there. And it was like that in Ban Natane.
To say Ban Natane is off the beaten path is an understatement. Cut off from the rest of world by impassable roads, the only way to reach it and its neighboring four villages is through the Kong Lo Cave. Which is how I got there.
I met Pauline trolling the town of Ban Na Hin for travel companions. The boat ride through the cave costs 100,000 kip, so I was on the lookout for people to split the ride with. Pauline sat on the computer in front of her guesthouse. As it turned out, she was a French anthropology student doing her Masters research on Ban Natane and its neighbors; she was meeting her local supervisor and translator the next day and headed back to the village for another 10-day stay. "If you'd like to come with us," she made that characteristic French popping noise, "it's no problem."
On the sawng thaew ride to the cave's entrance, she filled me in the details. A French NGO was sponsoring the development of eco-tourism in the Ban Natane area. To date, all homestays and eco-tourism in the area have focused on the Ban Kong Lo side of the cave—you take a boat ride through, come back and sleep on the more developed side of the cave.
"No one stays on this side," she told me, "because tourists don't know the villages are there." Since the only viable way to reach the villages is through the cave, Ban Natane and its neighbors have remained quite isolated, not reaping the rewards/wealth of tourism. "In all of last year," Pauline told me, "only 20 tourists came to Ban Natane."
The eco-tourism project was focused on developing facilities for homestays and training locals to act as guides into the caves and waterfalls that surround the region. Pauline's project focused on documenting the traditional agricultural way of life, interviewing locals about the history and their feelings about tourism, and then studying the impact.
So the Kon Lo cave became, not my destination, but the passageway into another world. Which actually what it felt like—a limestone cavern like a mouth, dripping with stalagmites, the squeal and swoop of bats, where mist floated off the cool water like thin ghosts. It felt like moving through some deeply internal part of the earth, through its innards or petrified organs.
We emerged on the other side. Where most people turn around, we began walking down a dirt road. My cheap flip flops had finally busted, so I walked the 2km barefoot. In the distance, the sky grumbled. We arrived in Ban Natane just as the afternoon storm erupted.
My homestay was with one of the wealthier families in town. They owned the town's only shop (and thus had packets of Nescafe in abundance), goods that had all been transported on skinny wooden boats through the cave, as they had been for generations. Even the TV. "TV only arrived here three months ago," Pauline told me. "So the children," she gestured towards the little ones gathered rapt around the glowing screen, "they are like this."
The storm cleared and she showed me around the village. Everything enthralled me—I am, as previously admitted, a total city kid, so the presence alone of ducks, pigs, chickens and goats was thrilling, let alone the sarongs and hoes and looms beneath the stilted houses.
We shared dinner with the family that night, as we would for all our meals during my 2-day stay. As isolated as it is, the food was all local, not by trend as it is in the Bay Area, but by necessity—foraged snails, fish, frogs. "Frog season has just started," Pauline translated from her Lao supervisor, "so we will eat a lot of frog." (Sure enough, I had it 4 meals in a row.)
Walking that night, we three were called over to a large house. I could tell it was a wealthy person's home because it had a ground floor, constructed of brick—like the TVs, this was new, Pauline told me, as traditional homes were all stilted and wooden. "It means you need more space, and have the money to build it." She paused. "So modernity is already coming."
Men sat on the floor around a type of altar, banana-leaf adorned in white flowers. It wasn't a mystical vibe—they sat in polo shirts and slacks, chatting casually. A large silver bowl of pig parts, a leg and half a head, lay beside baskets of sticky rice.
We were motioned to sit, a village-made scarf thrown over our left shoulders. The man in charge began talking—"a blessing," Pauline whispered. He held another man's open palm, put a clump of food and a plastic cup of lao lao in it, chanted, tied the string. Then everyone commenced to bless each other.
"It's a ceremony called baci," Pauline translated. "They're having it for special visitors—the district chief came today." People took photos with digital cameras; I assumed those to be the wealthy and important visitors.
We were soon called into the mix. I wound up with a bangle of string around my right wrist and an even fuller tummy. The storms continued in the sky outside. Old men smiled as they blessed me, as they blessed each other.
And I had one of those moments when your life feels like a dream, some foreign place you don't quite understand how you ended up in. Yes, I rode an old wooden boat through a cave and walked down a dirt road—but how I really got to Ban Natane or that ceremony, I suspected, had little to do with that. It didn't make sense, to my Western mind, why I'd be so welcomed, so embraced here.
And so blessed.
Travel Tips: Getting to Ban Natane
It's actually pretty simple, even if you don't have an anthropologist as your guide. Take your day bag, sturdy plastic sandals, a good flashlight and some snacks with you on your boat ride. It'll still cost 100,000 kip, even if you only take it one way. So it goes.
Get off at the snack stands. Only buy the snacks if you're desperate; since they have to be transported through the cave, they're fuck-all expensive. Anyway, there'll be a blue sign that haphazardly explains the homestays:
From the snack stands, there's two dirt roads. Facing the sign, Ban Natane is down the road to your left. Straight ahead, across the bridge, is another closer village, though from what I understand, there's less facilities for homestays. If you arrive in Ban Natane and say "homestay," you'll get hooked up. Or just show up and look like a Westerner, and they'll know what to do with you.
Bringing a Lao phrasebook would be goddamn useful. There may be some people floating around who speak a few scraps of English; there's rumored to be an English teacher at the school in the village, though she was out of town when I was there. If you can manage to communicate, there's bikes you can rent or a couple good treks to go on, if it's the dry season. Next month, an NGO will be holding a tour guide training course for locals, so I imagine there will be much more in the way of communication and tour options shortly.
Bananas and Plastic Bows: Sawng Thaew to Kong Lo Cave
Published May 6, 2011	Budget , Dirty Tricks , Independent , Laos , Offbeat , Places , Sola , Southeast Asia , Transit 1 Comment
Tags: ba na hin, blogsherpa, kong lo cave, laos, southeast asia, swang thaew, Transit
Goat on the roof. Friendly driver.
Salt-and-pepper hair beneath a worn military cap, high cheekbones and pursed lips. He squeezes the bananas I'm clutching through their plastic bag, says something in Lao.
I smile, shake my head. He repeats; I repeat. He nods.
I can't tell if he approves of the bananas or not.
When I climbed on the sawng thaew in Ban Na Hin, the old man slid over, made room for me between the empty gasoline barrels and bags of cabbage. We rumbled around the market. Old women climbed on with pink bags, still-alive fish flopping inside, while the driver kept climbing on the roof, adding to the goods secured atop: sacks of rice, a goat and my dusty red backpack.
The old man nudged me. "Kong Lo?" I nodded. He nodded. But where else would I have been going?
We headed out down the two-lane highway, lined with construction lots and signs for a Ford Motors Center. The main industry in Ban Na Hin isn't tourism—as evidenced by the single-room tourism office surrounded by grass-chewing cows—but the nearby hydro-electric plant. The handful of guesthouses that run the length of the town's main road are an afterthought, and the English spoken is minimal.
Despite this, Ban Na Hin is still the closest town to the Kon Lo Cave, a 7.5km limestone tunnel that's purported to be creepy as shit and mildly reminiscent of the Greek underworld. But, 40-some winding kilometers from a main highway and serviced only by local buses and sawng thaew (pick-up trucks with two benches in the truckbed), what would be a top tourist attraction in any other country remains fairly off-the-beaten-path in Laos. Which, as much as the cave itself, is what lured me out here—after Vientiane and Luang Prabang, I was tourism-weary and in the mood for adventure.
So I don't mind as it takes two hours to go the 45km to Kon Lo. Past rock that jutted from the earth like jagged teeth, past slash-and-burn fields were the land looked as though it were gasping—we stop at every village, delivering groceries, dropping off canisters of gasoline. I watch the landscape, the farms, the clouds that ito the rock like scraps of cloth that had been ripped off. And I people-watch.
And now, slyly, I study the old man beside me. He has soft yellow skin the texture of crushed silk. I notice on his sleeve, he has small plastic bows haphazardly safety-pinned on. Beside his army-green cap, I imagine them as military decorations, badges from a make-believe army. I imagine them as gifts from grandchildren, secured to his shirt and forgotten about.
I pull out my notebook, to jot down the image between the bumps that stutter my handwriting across the page. He leans over, looks at the notebook, watches me write. He nods as though he understands.
I can't tell if he approves or not.
I smile, point to the plastic bow on his sleeve. He laughs. I give a thumbs-up.
He tugs his sleeve, begins to unfasten one of the pins. He takes my sleeve, pins the bow. I touch it, smile. He laughs. I laugh.
(A little later on the ride, I discover what the bows are: a bunch of teenagers lining the road come up to the sawng thaew and, through the poles, pin bows to our shirts. They smile and sing, holding out a collection for something.)
The sawng thaew thins of its passengers and produce as we rumble along. A tank of a woman with a soft, laughing face pushes her way out, waves at me. We stretch our legs in the luxurious space.
The old man waves his arm at the driver, stands to a hunch beneath the truck bed's dome. I tap him as he begins to shuffle off.
I open my plastic bag and hand him a banana.
He smiles. I laugh, he laughs.
I think he approves.
He steps off the back of the truck, place his hands together and bows his head. I repeat.
Travel Tips: Getting to Kong Lo Cave
While researching Kong Lo Cave, the number one concern I encountered was over transport. The LP doesn't have much info and it seems as though the lack of direct buses deters a lot of people from visiting.
Here's the deal: Kong Lo and the nearby Ban Na Hin (nearest town, with guesthouses and an ATM) lie along Highway 8, which moves east from Highway 13. All buses between Vientiane/Paksan and Tha Khaek/Savanaket run down Highway 13, so the route you will often read recommended is to take one of these buses running along the 13, ask to get off at the junction, then take a sawng thaew to Ban Na Hin, where you can then take another sawng thaew to Kon Lo Cave or the nearby town, Ban Kong Lo, where it's possible to homestay.
Another friendly fellow
I think it's the transfers that deter people. It;s actually a lot less dodgy than it sounds. There's enough of a trickle of backpackers that the bus drivers know where you're headed—there's not much else out here for tourists. Sawng thaew run from the junction to Ban Na Hin every 30-or-so minutes during the daytime, and there are supposedly a few direct sawng thaew to Ban Kong Lo every day, though it probably wouldn't be worth waiting for those.
From Vientiane, there's only one VIP bus to Tha Khaek a day at an inconvenient 1pm—journey takes about 6-7 hours, so you'd potentially be looking at doing the transfer after dark. Local buses, though, run every half hour beginning at 6am. They cost 60,000 kip, regardless of whether you get off at the junction or the final destination.
There's also local buses to Lak Soa, the biggest town along Highway 8. The advantage of this bus is that you negate the feared transfer at the junction. These buses leave Vientiane every 2 hours, beginning also at 6am, and cost 75,000. This is the bus I took, and I recommend it: it was early enough in the day that the lack of AC was bearable, and even with a break-down, I still arrive in Ban Na Hin at 1pm.
I've also been told that there's one daily bus directly from Vientiane to Ban Kong Lo that leaves between 9-10am. However, if there's not enough people, the bus will be canceled, so it's probably best not to risk it.
From Ban Na Hin, though, there's only three official sawng thaew per day to Kong Lo—more evidence of the undeveloped tourist facilities. The first leaves the town bus station at 10-ish, the others at 1 and 3-ish. But in reality, they seem to leave more often than that. Otherwise, you're looking at arranging private transport, about 100,000 kip versus the 25,000 for the bus.
Coming from the South, it appears as though your best bets would be to take a sawng thaew from Tha Khaek, which is well-connected to Savannakhet and Pakse, or one of the buses coming up the 13 and doing the transfer. I did meet some grumpy Brits who had gotten on the wrong bus and had the journey take a day and a half—"All this for a bloody cave."
Which brings me to my biggest recommendation: treat the whole thing as journey-is-the-destination adventure. Don't focus on just Getting To The Cave—everyone I met who did this seemed fairly annoyed, or at least had to qualify it with "worth the trek." I was armed with snacks and in the mindset of "well, let's see where this leads," and I had a grand ole' time.
Take Me To The Jungle, And Don't Ever Take Me Back
Published February 24, 2011	Budget , Independent , Offbeat , Places , Sola , Southeast Asia , Vietnam 1 Comment
Tags: blogsherpa, Budget, independent travel, jungle beach, vietnam
Okay, so outdated pop culture references aside, hear me and hear me well: Jungle Beach is the stuff of backpacker folklore.
A rustic, simple homestay: a cluster of bamboo cabanas on a sandy lot, shaded by the whispering palms of trees; hammocks and hand-made lounge chairs; a communal dining room where guests gather twice a day for meals; thatched sun umbrellas stuck into the sand of a postcard beach.
Sometimes a place feels so special that you don't really want to write about—as though writing about it would sully it, or giving it words—trying to give it words—would cheapen it, lessen it, and you want to keep it a private, precious thing.
I arrived at Jungle Beach a little heart-heavy (see previous post), a bit of melancholy sprung up, as though something tapped into a murmuring, gargling reserve of oil beneath the surface of me and wasn't shooting out like a geyser, but rather seeping through, leaking out into the sunlight.
In any case, I crawled off the overnight bus a stop early, 40km outside Nha Trang—5:30 am on a dusty strip of highway that consituted the town Doc Let. I took a motorbike the next 20-some km, sleep-blurred and thirty-mouthed, to Jungle Beach. I arrived, and I didn't ever want to leave.
It wasn't the kind of place that immediately bowls you over. "This is nice," I thought, as I curled up under a thin blanket, inside a soft blue mosquito net. But the place grew on me—or I grew into it.
Hours and days passed in some sort of other time zone. Wake up with the sun. Jog on the beach or do yoga on a mat in the shade. Eat breakfast. Do some writing, some reading. Lay on the beach. One of the workers comes out and says it's lunchtime. Rise off my feet, sit at the communal table, pass bowls of meat and veggies and rice and sweet chili sauce. Have another coffee. Go back to the beach. Not even read, really, just lay there—lay there thinking, or not thinking, just watching the waves and feeling my own kind of waves inside, welling up, rising and receeding, as though I were standing on the banks of a monumental sadness, whose bounds I didn't know, just the pull of its gravity. Cry sometimes, about nothing in particular.
Three pm, and someone comes out with a little plastic plate of fruit, pineapple or pomello or watermelon. Eat it with a toothpick, get a coconut, drink it and scrape it clean with a spoon. Go wade in the water, hopping waves or letting them pummel me, or floating on my back and watching the great white clouds walk across the sky. Shower, check my email, write. Gather for dinner and spend hours afterwards chatting with the other travelers—mostly couples, mostly German for some reason, but really cool people, different ages but all open and friendly. Feel like it's midnight when it's only 9, say good night and curl up under a thin blanket, inside a soft blue mosquito net. Repeat as necessary.
The place was built by a dude named Sylvio, who walks around shirtless and smoking, a tough old guy (see character study in upcoming post). He bought the land nearly 10 years ago, and built the place slowly, each cabana by hand, and it's become the stuff of backpacker folklore.
One of the most impressive parts of Jungle Beach is the staff. The staff to guest ratio was almost 1:1, a friendly, laid-back Vietnamese staff that didn't pander to the guests and fawn over them, but was attentive—in short, that actually seemed to really care that we had a good time. Ten years of working in the service industry, and I've decided that that's all people really want—to feel taken care of, to feel like you actually give a shit. It's a rare thing, and it doesn't necessarily come with heafy price tags and swanky surroundings. It comes, to be completely and utterly trite, from the heart.
I spent four days and three nights doing virtually nothing at Jungle Beach. And as my depature neared, I found myself desperately not wanting to leave. I discovered, without having known it, that I really needed that time—to decompress, to clear out some space, to get ready for the project I'm about to embark on. And yet I didn't feel rejuvenated, in a sense; I felt simply like I didn't want to leave.
But what would another day have done? What would another week or year done? Will I ever actually work through all this whatever-it-is I carry in me? Will I ever be done? No, no, it was time to go.
But I can't ever remember feeling so sad to leave a place. I looked around—it all seemed so precious. I actually almost cried. What the hell is all this? Am I going crazy? Am I becoming soft in my old age?
I got in the taxi and we bumped off, leaving the buildings and the thatched roofs and the gate and the barking dogs in a billow of dust behind us.
Tirana, Tirana, The One I've Been Waiting For
Published October 8, 2010	Albania , Budget , Eastern Europe , Independent , Music , Offbeat , Places , Sola , Subculture , Tirana 8 Comments
Tags: albania, blogsherpa, eastern europe, tirana
If Tirana were a boy, it'd be the boy I've been waiting to meet.
You rumble across the border, furious windshield wiper and donkeys in the dirt road, hills dripping lush green. You dash from the taxi to the minibus, puddle-footed and soaking-hooded, grab the last seat as a man climbs into the trunk compartment.
You rattle like this through the rainstorm, through a landscape of sheeps and shacks, the smooth round dome of abandoned bunkers, half-built buildings with sleeping bulldozers stuck in the mud, the carcasses of stipped-down cars piled in empty lots. The minibus driver turns on some kind of Albanian butt rock, and you silently thank him for knowing the exact right soundtrack for your entrance into the country.
I'd meant to travel around a bit in Albania, see a UNESCO town or two, climb in a bunker, poke around some old Ottoman castle. Which still all sounds awesome. But four hours in Tirana, and I knew I wouldn't be going anywhere.
There's only one other city I've walked into and felt this feeling, this long "yeeeesss" coming from some place between my ribs, near my gut, a forgotten organ of intuition. Some places just fit, and you just fit them, and Tirana is one of them.
It's got a certain electric insanity, that infectious energy, without being a total free-for-all. It's just dirty enough, has just enough street dogs and decrepit buildings, just enough business men, the click of just enough three-inch heels, attached to smooth legs and slim skirts. It's like meeting a boy with just enough of "the dark side," as Luke would say—not a total depraved junkie, but not squeaky clean and wholesome either: a chipped tooth and an ancient wound.
So I walked Tirana's streets, its run-down markets and posh cafes, past Mercedes Benzes negoitating potholes, 10-years-old smoking cigarettes, old women roasting chestnuts, old men selling gum and lighters, gypsies sitting cross-legged with outstetched palms, the blare of the horns and the hum of the engines and the swoon of the city.
Within a few hours of staggering into the frenetic swarm of this city, I'd fallen in with the artsy, alternative crowd, finding myself at a rock show in a tiny, smokey bar in an otherwise-shuttered mall. The next night was K'tu Ka Art, a weekly show featuring local live music acts. It felt a lot like being at a small show at home, until I had it explained to me.
Apparently, bands in Albania work like this: they play cover songs. God-awful, Top 40, English-language cover songs. A band will book at a certain bar for a year. And every Friday and Saturday, people will go to same bar and hear the same band play the same cover songs.
"Bloody boring as hell," Ghenti surmised, an indie-rocker dude in a Sonic Youth shirt and a Kurt Cobain sweater. He'd moved to Brighton when he was 16, but came back to Albania every year for a few weeks. So last year he started organizing weekly showcases of local bands, who played their own songs, singing in Albanian.
It's a small group of people, maybe 30 or so, that are into that scene right now, into something different from the imported cool. And after two nights, I seem to know all of them. Yesterday, I walked around town and kept bumping into people I knew. It's a funny feeling of belonging, of fitting into a place you just met. ("I feel like I've known you for years.")
Tirana's also an insanely safe and insanely cheap city. I can't manage to spend more than $40 a day, and I can't manage to feel uncomfortable walking its streets, even at 2am. ("Heaven must have sent you from above…") The people are startlingly friendly, and I haven't received any street harrassment—just a lot of stares for being the one tattooed girl in the whole city (more on that in another post).
The only drawback of the city, I told Robo, is that I smoke too much. It's too easy and too cheap ($1.50 for a pack). It was the K'tu Ka Art afterparty, in a basement bar playing a soundtrack of "Vogue," "Highway to Hell," and "I Love Rock N Roll."
"No, I think it's a good thing," Robo replied, yelling over the music.
"Oh yeah? Why's that?"
"It means you're having fun."
"Yeah, I'll try telling my mom that," I smiled, leaning in to the flicker of his lighter.
He leaned back, regarded me there: sitting at the bar, happy as could be with my can of Coke, singing along to cheesy hits with Tirana's tiny clan of rock n roll kids.
He patted me on the shoulder. "You should be an advertisement for 'Come to Albania.'"
I threw my head back and laughed.
Grottaglie Or Bust!: Fame Fest '10
Published September 27, 2010	Abandoned Places , Budget , Grottaglie , Independent , Italy , Offbeat , Places , Sola , Sola , Street Art , Subculture , Western Europe 1 Comment
Tags: blogsherpa, fame fest, grottaglie, italy, puglia, sola, south of naples, street art
Siesta-dazed and still covered in little bits of glitter, I'm holed up in my hotel room in Grottaglie. Laptop on my lap, balcony door open a crack, listening to the moan of the fan, I don't know where to start.
I could spend the next two months writing about this weekend, here in this random little Puglian town, wedged between plastic-tarp-covered vineyards and industrial, cloud-coughing skylines. It's at times like these when you realize just how insufficient your own words are—how close they can sometimes come to capturing this thing, this thing you're always circling and chasing, but that ultimately always goes "fluttering through your nets," as Virginia Woolf said.
This weekend has been a little of everything I love in travel: discovering killer art, adventuring around abandoned buildings and ancient caves, eating great food, meeting awesome people. I came here for the opening of Fame Festival, a DIY street art event put on by the one-man-powerhouse/party Angelo Milano, that is slowly transforming the forgotten little town of Grottaglie. I'd been following the build-up on various art blogs, and it seemed like a pretty damn good excuse to go on an adventure.
There's about 100 different angles to write about this from, and I'm sure I'll be torturing everyone with posts for months on end. So instead of giving the 3000-word play-by-play (you're welcome), I'll give you the highlights. And some pictures.
Fame Festival
"Success, celebrity" in English, "hunger, starvation" in Italian, Fame Festival is the blood, sweat and glitter (more on that later) of one dude, Angelo Milano. Three years ago, he started inviting international artists to his little hometown for short residencies. The artists produced prints at his studio, Studio Cromie, produced ceramics using the town's ancient ceramics studios, and threw up street art pieces all over the city. The festival has grown, gained a fair amount of notoriety, and a small crew of artists/collectors/enthusiasts/fanatics make the mission down to Grottaglie for a complete and total adventure.
Angelo welcomes you with all the enthusiasm and graciousness in the world, arranging hotel rooms and rides from the airport. On the evening of the preview, he takes the gang load of visitors back to his grandmother's house, where his dad shakes your hand and his mom cooks a huge traditional Italian dinner. The opening party is complete with DJs, Puglian wine and a diverse mix of locals and art lovers; you then trek across town to Studio Cromie, where Angelo goes ape shit on the dance "floor," dumping about 8 bags of glitter on everyone and generally having about as much fun as humanly possible.
You see everyone stagger around town with glitter stuck in their hair the next day. You're given, on preview night, a map of the city marked with all the street art pieces, and you wander around, ticking off the 60+ list and snapping photos. It's like a treasure hunt.
Coolest part: adventuring around an abandoned monastery filled with art.
The town itself is awesome. Not in a knock-your-socks off way, but in a slow, subtle way that sneaks up on you. It's got an old town, complete with winding roads and a couple UNESCO sites, as well as a new part, devoid of billboards and with only one corporate chain. The whole town siestas from 12-4. You can get dinner at a restaurant for 6 euros. Old women say, "Ciao, bella." Teenagers hang out in cafes til 2am.
The city's surrounded by ancient caves that were inhabited until just a few decades ago, when the Italian government kicked everyone out. You can go and poke around in them, see the remnants of old cooking areas, frescos peeling off the walls.
The Peeps, and The Adventure
So what kind of wingnuts travel all the way to bumfuck Puglia for an art festival? Awesome ones. I met so many fresh people, one of those this-is-why-I-travel experiences that you know is going to linger with you for a long time.
There's also the adventure aspect. No guidebooks mention Grottaglie. The bus from Naples dropped me off on the side of the road; luckily I'd had the wherewithal to print out a Google map the night before. You traipse around the random town that epitomizes off-the-beaten-path, and it reminds you, again, why you travel.
I'm no expert on street art, but I got to meet a lot of people who were. And it's clear that we're on the brink of something, something bigger than just the art world. Street art is a kind of dialouge with a city, and it's changing cities. Street art as architecture, urban development, tourism—there's a lot to discuss.
But right now, legs crossed on this hideous hotel bedspread, I'm feeling incredibly tired and incredibly grateful. I gave myself an extra day here, to hang out with the wifi and sleep, before I take off for Dubrovnik tomorrow. But even if I were going home tonight, it would have all been worth it. Fame Fest was one of the best parties I've ever gone to, and one of the best adventures a traveler could hope for.
Travel Tip: Magazine Blanket (AKA: Stickin It to the Man)
Published June 1, 2010	Budget , Tips , Transit 10 Comments
Tags: Transit, travel tips
Oh yeah, American Airlines? You wanna play dirty?
You've already taken away my peanuts and charged me for a checked bag—think you're gonna bleed me a little more by cranking the air conditioning to Venezuelan-overnight-bus levels and charging $8 for one of those shitty blue blankets?
Well, I'm not skerd. I'll make a hobo blanket out of magazines.
You've obviously underestimated my industrious frugality and lack of shame. Maybe next I'll bring a can of beans and a hot plate, and make my own in-flight meal.
Wind and Dust and Real Wild West
Published March 19, 2010	Budget , California , Found/Salvaged Art , Independent , Offbeat , Places , Southern California , Subculture , USA 9 Comments
Tags: blogsherpa, california, independent travel, joshua tree, mojave desert, offbeat, road trip, slab city, Southern California, USA, weird art
Two days in the desert—driving, hot wind roaring, through the pebbles and boulders, palm groves and dusty towns, the strange angles of the Joshua trees, arching up towards something, a sky as pale as eyes. It's not hard to imagine infinity in the desert, that's it's all still at the bottom of some great prehistoric sea, that the sky were the lid of the sea and we were all swimming through it, rattling highway through it—the wind, waves; the dust, sand; the crunch under your sneakers some kind of ancient asking.
I arched over the hills, my tired car chugging, and arrived in Joshua Tree, went teeth-chattering down an unpaved road that dead-ended at open lot of strange, scavenged art. I'd read about the Noah Purifoy Foundation on Trazzler, and it immediately rose to the top on my list of things to do .
An LA artist that moved to the desert for more space and peace, Noah Purifoy erected whimsical sculptures out of found and salvaged materials—toilets, old vacuum cleaners, scrapped tin. During the 60s he'd directed the Watts Towers Art Center, and you can definitely see the influence of Simon Rodia—though Purifoy's creations are more folksy, more political, less abstract. In fact, one of the most powerful pieces in the wind-swept lot was a piece made from materials found after the Watts Riots. To take a tragic, violent event, to sift through its remains and piece them together to create something new, something beautiful—this seems to be what Noah Purifoy was all about.
Admission to the Noah Purifoy Foundation is free; there's a couple pamphlets at the entrance that guide you through your wanderings. There were only a couple other people there, and I hadn't read about the place anywhere else. Except that, the next day, I saw on Twitter that it'd been featured in the New York Times. So much for having the edge.
Then it was off into the park itself. You hear a lot about the strange spiritual power of Joshua Tree, and I gotta say, they aren't exaggerating. The terrain was other-worldly, to say the least. The tumble of boulders looked as though they'd been piled up by a toddler's hand. The arms of the Joshua trees twisted and reached, fists full of beige spring flowers. The shrubs had a slight purplish haze, like an old woman's hair, and the air was full with a charged silence, the sound of wind.
I of course made a beeline to the site of Gram Parson's impromptu cremation, something of a pilgrimage site for fans and aficionados of the bizarre. I drove out to Cap Rock and walked slowly around the massive formation, searching for the tributes and messages written on the rock that would signal the spot. And you know, I have to say, sitting there, the whole thing seemed much less odd. Well, the bit about stealing the body and having it actually burned on the spot is still a bit far-fetched, but being there—listening to the wind and watching the lizards dart—it seemed less like some kind of opiate-inspired fit of fancifulness, and more like an honest yearning to become a part of the place. It felt like somewhere, very far beneath the surface of it all, those plutonic intrusions that caused the rock formations were still boiling, still shooting up through the crust of the earth, and it didn't seem so strange to want to become a part of it—to become smoke, twisting; dust, dancing; and at last the wind.
Across the desolation lay a supreme indifference, the casualness of night and another day, and yet the secret intimacy of those hills, their silent consoling wonder, made death a thing of no great importance. You could die, but the desert would hide the secret of your death, it would remain after you, to cover your memory with ageless wind and heat and cold.
John Fante, "Ask the Dust"
The next day it was off find the Wild West. I'd been stoked about Pioneertown, for nothing more than the kitsch factor. An old movie and TV set from the 40s, my trip to Pioneertown seemed ill-fated from the beginning. The Pionnertown Motel suddenly "closed indefinitely" the week before I left, and Harriet and Pappy's Palace, billed as the best honky tonk west of the Mississippi, was closed the night I wanted to go boogie down. So I headed out in the morning and I have to say, if it would have been monumentally disappointing if Ice Cube hadn't been there, in a poncho and a sombrero hat, filming a new video.
I headed back on the highway, through squat, peopleless towns of gas stations and boarded-up buildings. Did you know they grow dates in the California desert? I didn't. Or that a date milkshake is god-damn delicious?
I made it to Niland, a windy little town with a couple shops, a no-name gas station and a stretch of trailers. There were two big sights there that inspired me to go 2 1/2 hours out of my way: Salvation Mountain and Slab City—the real, modern-day Wild West. It's fitting that most people know about these places, if at all, from the movie and book Into The Wild, because they capture the kind of not-for-profit weirdness that can only take place in California.
Salvation Mountain is Leonard Knight's neon, latex-paint monument to God. Really. Radioactively bright, the art installation is covered in biblical passages, odes to God, and topped with a cross. The old dude came out to the desert in 1985, shortly after he was saved by Jesus, and began building the tribute, fueled by some kind of insane passion and other-realm vision.
Leonard was there that day, as he is most. Weathered, red-skinned and still mostly coherent, Leonard showed a small group of us around, spouting his message of God's love and keeping it simple. He had a 10th grade education, he told us, and was one of the dumbest creatures on Earth, but because he'd repented, God had enabled him to build Salvation Mountain. He didn't do it for money, he didn't do it for fame—he did it spread the message.
His paint-stained pants were hitched up high, one of the legs tucked into his sock. The Velcro straps of his stained sneakers flapped, and he'd missed a button on his shirt. Three long hairs grew out of the top of his nose; he had a cold sore and one long thumb nail. He looked like a man that had become the desert, was the desert. He gave us each a handful of postcards and asked us to distribute them. He wanted nothing in return, just for us to spread the word. He repeated "keep it simple" like a mantra.
A quarter-mile down the road was the legendary RV squatter encampment of Slab City—"the last free place," the sign read. Pebbly and stark and covered with trailers, Slab City is a piece of land no one wants. The government bulldozed a military base that was there in the mid-40s, leaving nothing but concrete slabs, covering the ground like graves. Word got out in the squatter community, and it became a wintering place for "snow birds." There's no water, no bathrooms—nothing, again, but wind and dust.
There were a number of "yard sales"—tables and blankets were random stuff was displayed, on sale for passer-throughs like myself. I pulled over to one and chatted with the people there, a desert-skinned man with a scabby elbow on a bicycle, and a sun-visored woman with obese ankles and a gap where a tooth once was. I asked them about life in Slab City, about the community and why they were there.
"There's no rules here," they told me. "No one bothers you, and you can do whatever you want." They let the statement linger, and I didn't ask what "whatever" was. As long as you were sociable with your neighbors and didn't steal, anything went.
They told me how they easily lived on $200 a month in government assistance and food stamps, how people helped each other without payment or reward, how there were weekly live music shows and how the cops wouldn't come out there (since Slabbers provide all the income for the nearby town Niland, they claimed). They talked about local goings-on, about drunk neighbors who'd stabbed each other and a dog that had recently died, a new church that had opened and was going to start giving out food on Sundays. Last year a trailer had burned; there was nothing to do but watch it blaze in the night.
"By April 1," the guy told me, "everyone will be gone."
"Where do they go?"
He shrugged. "Oregon. Canada. There's not many free places left, places like this."
He looked around the shrubs and dirt, squinted under the heavy sun—a place that had etched itself onto his skin, his sharp blue eyes. This was no OK Corral; this was the realeast Wild West I'd ever seen.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
'Medium' Exclusives
Film Review 25th October 2018 1st November 2018
by Amelia Harvey
A chronicle of the years leading up to Queen's legendary appearance at 1985's Live Aid concert.
The long-awaited biopic of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) has finally arrived, after eight years of development, despite a worrying change of director (Bryan Singer replaced by an uncredited Dexter Fletcher for the last 16 days of shooting).
Rami Malek (Mr Robot) delivers an uncanny portrayal of the late Mercury; every movement, every word, every mannerism evoking the iconic rock star perfectly. It's the kind of portrayal that would save even the weakest Queen biopic, and it would be a crime for it to not be acknowledged come awards season.
We're introduced to Freddie in 1970, when he was still known as Farrokh Balusara, working in baggage at London's Heathrow Airport. After watching a smalltime university gig of a band called Smile, Freddie meets lead guitarist Brian May (doppelganger Gwilym Lee), bass guitarist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello), and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), then convinces them he should be their lead vocalist. And that, in essence, is how the world-conquering rock band Queen was formed.
Queen's subsequent rise to global fame is told through vignettes that are jolting and badly edited together, often arriving without context or connection. The various 'lightbulb moments' scattered throughout the film make it seem like Queen had an easy ride to the top, with barely any controversy or doors being rudely slammed in their faces. It also fails to show how innovative they were when they arrived on the scene, and why their songs are still being played almost 50 years later.
There's a lot of buildup to the titular song "Bohemian Rhapsody" being written, and the record executive who originally turned it down, but very little of the effect it had on music history. Huge chunks of Queen's growth is rushed past or skipped, often jumping from performance to performance and haircut to haircut. If you don't come to the film with a working knowledge of the band's meteoric rise, chances are you'll feel buffeted by the film's choppy timeline.
There are also two overlong montages that border on Spinal Tap (1984) sketches in their cheesiness, and the footage of the band on stage are the least interesting and most indulgent moments. Bohemian Rhapsody offers brief insights into how hits like "We Will Rock You" and "Another One Bites the Dust" came to be (proving ever member of the band had input in their hits), but it ignores triumph's like their work on Flash Gordon (1980), Freddie's dabblings with opera, and their collaborations with David Bowie.
Screenwriter Anthony McCarten (The Theory of Everything) structures Freddie's life as if all roads led to their 1984 performance on Live Aid, and it doesn't quite work. Luckily, while there was early concern Mercury's sexuality was going to be brushed over, this isn't true. The film certainly plays things relatively safe because of the 12A rating (Freddie's explicit parties are glossed over, disappointing those who know what went on), but his battle with AIDS is handled respectfully. The main love of Freddie's life, aside from his army of cats, was Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), and their relationship gets the screen time it deserves.
The Live Aid sequence, which the movie dedicates significant time to in the third act, thrillingly captures a high point in not just Queen's musical career but for live rock in general. This is where you really can see how much Rami Malek studied Freddie's movements and style of performance. If you're not a fan of the band's music, it may seem incredibly long and self-indulgent, but it's also where cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (Drive) and editor John Ottman (X-Men: Days of Future Past) are firing on all cylinders. You can really feel the band's electricity and understand why Freddie Mercury is one of the greatest performers who ever lived. Some might argue you can watch the real thing on YouTube, but seeing this lavish reconstruction on the big screen almost makes you want to stand up and applaud at the end.
director: Bryan Singer.
writer: Anthony McCarten (story by Anthony McCarten & Peter Morgan).
starring: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, Allen Leech & Mike Myers.
2010s, 2018, AIDAN GILLEN, ALLEN LEECH, BEN HARDY, BRYAN SINGER, GENRE: BIOGRAPHICAL DRAMA, GWILYM LEE, JOSEPH MAZZELLO, LUCY BOYNTON, MIKE MYERS, RAMI MALEK, TOM HOLLANDER
Amelia Harvey
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Philippe Major
Email: PhilippeMajor@royallepage.ca
- Listings -
- Useful Tips -
Buyers: First Time
Buyers: Savvy House Hunters
Sellers: First Time
Sellers: Price it to Sell
Sellers: Marketing
10 Ways to Conquer Clutter
- Sold Listings -
- CONTACT ME -
Who is Philippe Major???
"...Once you begin searching for a house with your agent, it's not the time to talk about his past, but rather your future."
2 things to consider when searching for the right agent;
1. Is he competent?
2. What kind of person is he?
Rare are agents who will talk about themselves on their website. You will usually find a paragraph in the "About Me" section, that will look very similar from one agent to the next. This doesn't help you at all, to know who you're about to work with.
I chose to include lots of information about myself, in order to help you select an agent with whom you can relate to...
Philippe the Real Estate Agent (This is the important one)...
Growing in the business of Real Estate, Philippe is extremely fortunate to have both parents as Successful Realtors, Mentors and Teachers. His mother Claire Arsenault was licensed in 1989 and his father Paul Major in 1995. In 2006, Philippe became a licensed Realtor and joined the family business with Royal LePage Performance Realty where they thrived to the top 3% in Canada for Royal LePage Agents. After 3 years of professional training, Philippe branched off on his own and remains with not only Ottawa's Biggest Real Estate Company but the most successful Brokerage that is Performance Realty.
Born in 1978 and raised in Orléans, Philippe thrives to excel in all parts of the City of Ottawa by serving his clients for Buying or Selling a property.
Philippe's success throughout his life is parallel to the quality of service he demonstrates in his new passion… Helping Others in their Real Estate Needs.
Thank you for your trust and your referrals.
Philippe the student...
College Bourget: President of his grade in Secondaire 1, in High School, Philippe learned to be a leader to over 300 students. He graduated from the prestigious bording school after 5 years of disciplinary studies with Maths being his most successful subject.
4 years off: Philippe learned about life away from school and into various job, in various countries.
Cité Collégiale: Philippe completed a 2-year Travel and Tourism Diploma where his passion for Travelling was confirmed.
Ottawa University: Philippe enrolled in a 3 year Degree in Social Sciences, concentration in Leisure Studies.
Université Libre de Bruxelles: This is where Philippe completed his 3rd and last year of his degree. His skills of Time management were successfully enhanced by multi-tasking: Eating Frites, chocolate, waffles, oysters, studiing… and a Belgian beer, all at the same time!
Philippe the Lifeguard...
Lac Philippe: 6 summers were spent under the sun at "His" beach, in the famous Gatineau Park. This is where he discovered his passion for helping other and putting his public relations skills into practice. In his last few years, Philippe was head-guard of Parent Beach, making keys decisions for the public's safety.
City of Ottawa –Swimming Instructor-: Over 7 years were spent at various pools such as the Orleans SportsPlex, Lowertown Pool and Champagne Bath. Philippe started off as a simple pool lifeguard, then worked his way up to an Instructor for Kids, then adults, until settling with private lessons. There too, his last few years were spent as a Head-guard.
Ocean Lifeguard: This is where Philippe lived his dream… His first summer was spent in the peaceful Outer Banks of North Carolina. He finally exercised all the lifesaving skills he had been learning in the past all the while being under the sun listening to the waves 50 hours a week. This was definitely Philippe's element! His second summer was spent on the famous beaches of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Even though there wasn't much action in the water, Philippe learnt to deal with older lifeguards doing this as a career.
Rideau Canal Skate Patroller: 4 winters were spent skating up and down the longest outdoor skating rink in the world. Surprisingly, this is where Philippe had to treat the most injuries.
Philippe the athlete...
His "Lifeguard of the year" mention for the Province of Quebec in 2000, is justified by Philippe's speed on his feet. As soon as he was introduced to Lifeguard Competitions, his life took an interesting turn. These competitions are a series of events such as: running bare-foot on sand, swimming in the waves, paddle boarding, etc… Philippe's specialty was the short sprints, more specifically in an event called Beach flags. This is where he received his life's biggest achievements, yet:
3 World Championships: Australia, USA and Italy.
2 times Canadian Champion.
3 times Quebec Champion.
2 times Ontario Champion.
7th place in USA.
3rd place South -East coast of USA.
4th place Sunshine Coast, Australia.
Philippe the traveler...
Overall, Philippe travelled 29 countries, 25 of them alone. Because it takes money to travel, and money was not always there, Philippe opted for the mentality of "Spend little, cover more territory". Couch surfing was not unusual for him, staying at locals house for free. Philippe once used this mean of accommodation for 45 consecutive days while travelling in Eastern Europe, before finally paying for a hostel.
Philippe has had the travelling bug since 1999 and it's not about to go away any time soon. His long-term objective throughout his career in Real Estate is to take 1 month off every year, not only to sharpen the saw, but to continue to explore the vast and complex planet we live on.
Philippe the hermit...
You might not find many Real Estate Agents who lived in the woods by themselves for 3 months… Now you have and Philippe is not ashamed to talk about it. After a 30 day glacier traverse in BC, Philippe settled in the woods, on ground level. After building himself the bare essentials, he decided to stay put, reading and writing on his hammock… for 90 days, (with trips to the village once in a while). Philippe's solo experience would have been longer if it wasn't for the Black bear who ravaged all of Philippe's belongings one day, leaving him with nothing left but a reason to go back to Ottawa University…
In 2008, Philippe also embarked on a short trip to James Bay, to camp on an Island in minus 10 degrees celcius for 2 weeks. Though this time he wasn't alone, Torpedo, Philippe's loyal Golden Lab was there as well!
Philippe the volunteer...
During the whole month of February 2010, Philippe was selected as a Volunteer Team Leader with Event Services for the Cross-Country, Biathlon and Ski Jump events located at the Whistler Olympic Park.
Philippe's duties were to manage a group of 6-12 volunteers within an assigned area of the venue, ensuring that their performance was in accordance with agreed procedures and appropriate levels of service. He provided support, information and encouragements to Volunteers while monitoring spectator movements and solving related problems.
During the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, 30 000 volunteers made this event successful. All of whom had a solid roof over their head at night… All but one…Philippe paid 10$ a night to stay in a tent for this entire time.
Philippe the Travel Agent...
One of Philippe's biggest professional achievements so far is to Promote Canadian Tourism live on Kuwaiti TV or in front of 30 Travel Agent in the Boardroom of the Canadian Embassy of Kuwait. Being a Travel Agent with Algonquin Travel and Business Travel International (BTI) in the past surprisingly had nothing to do with leading Philippe to bigger and better things in the Travel Business! Because of his solo expedition in BC, Philippe was invited by the Canadian Ambassador of Kuwait as a Special Guest to do a 30 min presentation about his unusual experience in the West Canadian Rockies. This opportunity of a lifetime led to 30 days of endless adventures throughout Middle-East.
Royal LePage Performance Realty, Brokerage (Independently owned and operated)
107 - 250 CENTRUM BLVD
Ottawa, ON K1E 3J1


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Epepeotes fimbriatus is a species of flat-faced longhorns beetle belonging to the family Cerambycidae, subfamily Lamiinae.

Description
Epepeotes fimbriatus reaches about  in length.

Distribution
This species can be found in Indonesia (Moluccas).

References
 Biolib
 Global Names

fimbriatus
Beetles described in 1792