Chazzy Patel's Blog, page 3

Walking Around Literary San Francisco

Since early days of the Gold Rush, San Francisco's given rise to an extraordinary cast of literary game-changers, poets, and writers. Some authors were created here; many made decisions to relocate to the famous free-thinking city. Some were just passing thru and took a liking to the place, but regardless of how long they remained or where they came from, they all left their marks in one way or another all over this city.          A few left the kind of marks you can enjoy walking around this city. I'll show you how to pay homage to writers - Robert Louis Stevenson to Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac to Dave Eggers to name a few that have inspired many with their tales.           Start your walk off on Bush Street (close Stockton Street)! On 608 Bush Street, wedged among a laundromat and a barber shop, you are going to notice a building with an arched entryway flanked by glass lamps. The aesthetic flourishes might seem somewhat out of place since the construction's rather unglamorous surroundings, but look a bit closer, and you will realize the place actually has a rather distinguished history: a plaque mounted on one side of this archway notes that Robert Louis Stevenson lived here from 1879-1880.         The Scottish author of Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde spent approximately a year at Bay Area while, very scandalously, waiting for the married American with whom he had fallen in love while she divorced her husband.     Stevenson was an avid traveler, and spent just a year by the Bay, though he undoubtedly entrenched himself within the wild city life while he was here, he frequently wrote during his time within the metropolis. He became a great fan of Emperor Norton, and made frequent visits to Portsmouth Square while in the center China Town.            Usually referred to as "China Town's living room," the square is today a gathering place for this neighborhood's residents: every day of the week you will find old men on benches playing card and board-games (they are good!), and categories of people practicing a spiritual and bodily exercise known as Falun Gong. You'll also find a massive monument! A tall stone pillar appropriately topped with a ship and its sails at full wind.           Clustered together right across the intersection of Broadway and Columbus, you'll discover a trio of testaments to the more recent literary history of San Francisco. Make your way into City Lights Bookstore, arguably among the most famous bookstores in the U.S., for a rapid immersion into the Beat era of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.              Right alongside City Lights, you will come across a colorful alley dedicated to Ferlinghetti's good friend Jack Kerouac. On Broadway, nearly kitty corner from City Lights, a massive black-and-white mural of Kerouac and his Denver friend Neal Cassady pulls passer-byers into the Beat Museum.          Part store, part shrine, this place has been carrying on the progressive spirit of the Beat generation since 2003: a gem location to score hard to find titles by not just Kerouac and Ginsberg but also great reads from Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Bukowski, and William S. Burroughs to name just a few. It's also the permanent home of the 1949 Hudson that Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund, as Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, drove cross-country in the 2012 Big Screen adaptation of On the Road.            Ferlinghetti, an author of one of the most popular books of poetry A Coney Island of the Mind, founded City Lights in 1953. What started off as the nation's first all-paperback bookstore has evolved over the years into much more. Today, City Lights can be just a treasure trove of hard to find titles, translations from all over the world, politically progressive literature, and the kind of novels which were once banned in classrooms and inspired a few of my adventures. Additionally, it is a publishing house that generates great works of non-fiction, fiction, and poetry to this day.        City Lights gained notoriety in 1957 when Ferlinghetti was tried for obscenity after publishing Allen Ginsberg's seminal Howl and Other Poems. When the court ruled in Ferlinghetti's favor, it opened the doorway for American publications of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover, along with also other books once deemed too inappropriate for release in America.          The shop part of the Beat Museum is free to browse, and for $8 ($5 for students), you're able to get entry to the museum itself. Inside you will discover an enormous selection of memorabilia, original manuscripts and first editions, personal letters, and more from prominent figures of the Beat era.Just over the alleyway from City Lights, Vesuvio Café is another remnant of the area's Beat Era. The bar was a regular hangout for Kerouac and his contemporaries; today it's still a favorite of locals and tourists alike. Grab a table, order up a "Bohemian Coffee" spiked with brandy and Amaretto, thumb thru your dog-eared copy of On the Road or Big Sur, and you'll fit right in.      At the corner of Montgomery and Merchant Streets, you will discover one of San Francisco's most popular buildings: the iconic Trans America Pyramid. Today, the tower's a feature in the city's skyline, but there was a time when a more leveled famous building stood on the site thats the pyramid now occupies. Built throughout California's Gold Rush days, the Montgomery Block building was the state's very first earthquake- fire proof structure (a quality that would serve the building well through the town's devastating 1906 earthquake and fire). Once the biggest building west of the Mississippi, living and office space was provided on the Montgomery Block until its demolition in 1959 to many writers, artists, and attorneys. Writers who lived, worked, or visited here over the years comprise of Stevenson, Ambrose Bierce, Jack London, and Mark Twain.        The Montgomery Block looms especially large in Twain's legend: it was while in the building's basement sauna that Twain met a fire fighter named Tom Sawyer, taking a liking and filing it away for future use.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry turned out pretty well for this word wizard.       From the Trans-America Pyramid, Walkabout five minutes down Columbus Ave. approaching Broadway. Maintain your eyes close to the ground, and you may observe a plaque commemorating two other famous San Franciscans: Bummer and Lazarus, a couple of stray dogs who captured the heart of the city in the 1860s. Think about this if you end up wondering how popular a couple of stray mutts might rise to fame: Mark Twain wrote his obituary when Bummer died in 1865. Though the Montgomery Block building is gone, a plaque in the lobby of the Transamerica Pyramid commemorates the literary value of the site. Just off to the side of the pyramid, a Privately Owned Public Open Space is full of redwood trees and provides a forested escape in the middle of the city's bustling Financial District. Pack a small picnic!On a wall of what's now the Wells Fargo Bank building at 490 Brannan Street (near 3rd Street), a plaque marks the birthplace of Jack London, author of White Fang and The Call of the Wild.       Fans of more recent contemporary literature will not want to leave San Francisco without stopping in the Mission. Dave Eggers, the wildly popular writer of A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius, lives in Northern California, and has setup his foundation headquarters in 2002 at 826 Valencia St. The nonprofit offers tutoring to local schoolchildren and has expanded to half of a dozen other cities throughout the country. To help fund the tutor programs, the business has created a full service "Pirate Store" at its eponymous address.  And what does a store sell you may ask? Consider this notice posted at the front of the shop: "If you can find a wider selection of higher-quality eye patches for more occasions in the Mission, we'll personally find and replace your missing eye free of charge." San Francisco maybe a city of stories and writers like no other in America, but remember, the greatest bay area story is your own. Therefore take a cue from Twain, Kerouac, and the others; move around and live it!

A Beach for Anxieties - Playa Norte

                 You haven’t come to Isla Mujeres to learn more about the intoxicated passengers in a golf cart or see the ancient temple of Ixcel (patron Mayan goddess). You’ve not been brought back by a yearning to try the local delicacy of coconut leave enveloped Oaxaca cheese and fresh fish. Your friends that are more complex in time-mandated desires would believe it a waste not to experience these treats Isla Mujeres has to offer.          But on the slow drifting tide on Playa Norte, there are sandy recliners and hammocks under mini straw palapas on the beach with your name on marked in the sand. The water is refreshing and warm. To a small bungalow constructed near the reef, you look out from your balcony; adoring the sight of fractures and parched pink paint along the walls beaten from an angry sea. It speaks of week after week of craved heat. Almost for your life that is entire, it feels you've been craving a particular sun that is situated at this very spot and nowhere else.          The surroundings in the north does feel benign on some days when the sun doesn't come out to play. You're always fending off something: the wind, rainy mornings, or the flu. Through the long fall and cold holiday season, you've been swaddling yourself in layers of garments. Even into the late month of May.   Some debate whether someone could find their body pleasing to one's own eyes. A few eat for relaxation rather than nutritional value. You consistently need huge servings of apple pies or scones to go with your hot beverages.         But deep within you, you feel like you are a creature primarily made for hot, lazy afternoons, bright lit, hot sweaty nights. Where you, a homo-sapien, were designed to live!          But by smart, great effort and somewhat determined reasoning, we humans have been sustaining ourselves in mostly strange places which are faithfully wet, windswept, icy and dreary for most of the year and just erratically, carelessly anything else we care for in our heads some days. We’ve made good lives for ourselves up there in the north. But some places we ponder at what price.            Sunny isn’t simply ‘nice.' It's genuinely needed for existence. It's an agent of ethical featured footage: of kindness, courage, the present moment's gratitude, confidence… Productive deposition seems impressive when the world looks bountiful through eyes lit by the sun.             If you have a comfortable living, competition loses its advantages. There is no place in wanting to read into anything when it's so hot, and the light breeze becomes your savior. One is only in the moment. These are remedial perceptions. You will need the benefits of the south, the sun, and Playa Norte if the means of the north are also dominant and established in your life.            You've come to sit on Playa Norte not because you are indolent or light-minded as others will have you believe. But precisely since you have grown to live by behavior – so severe, hardworking, disconnected from your body, over-cerebral and careful.          It is a seriously noble search for intelligence and stability that led you below to a small beach in the Caribbean Sea - Playa Norte – for the world of sun treatment, black glasses, hammocks and vividly colored drinks from a place you will fight internally to leave at sunset.  If you find yourself on Playa Norte, please leave a message in the sand for me :)

High Season is now available at Book Bar Denver!

          Very excited to announce the first local independent bookshop to shelve High Season: The Learnings of Mohammad Wang in Colorado. It is now available at Book Bar! A bookshop for wine lovers. A wine bar for book shoppers. And a fabulous cafe, too. BookBar is an independent bookstore in the Tennyson Street arts district of Denver, Colorado. It is also a popular destination for Denver's first Friday Art Walk.If you find yourself in Denver, CO in the need of a charming place to enjoy a book, chat, drink, tasty treats or all of the above, please stop by the Book Bar today!And don't forget to grab a copy of High Season: The Learnings of Mohammad Wang during your bookshop adventures!Thank you for being a great supporter for local and independent authors.Book Bar Denver4280 Tennyson Street Denver, CO 80212 303-284-0194

Book Release Party Video: High Season

I would like to thank everyone for attending the book Launch party on May 5th. It was wonderful to see everyone and hope you are enjoying your copies.Leila and Vince Mann - Thanks for all your love and support for this event, making this video and in life general. You are guys are loved beyond measure :)If you haven't grabbed a copy of High Season: The Learnings of Mohammad Wang, please add it to your summer reading list today!Your Next Summer Read!

Some words on Dreams and Storytelling

How did High Season: The Learnings of Mohammad Wang come to be?          It sort of began with a short, simple dream last year on an island in Mexico that confusingly lingered, an annoying medical professional, two manuscripts I had forgotten I had penned and Victoria's Little Romantics (characters in Book one High Season).          I am learning its been the same for many in my writing workshops andNano Writing Month when communicating about inspirations in between breaks. Not the parts about Mexico, two mystery novels, a shrink and friend's school-kids... but dreams and telling a story. Imagine it’s been a sensational night inside your skull.You were in a hotel room at a crossroad in life looking at a picture of a big hat; the tide was coming in with furious winds. Someone threw a gigantic pencil at your head; you were now in the back of a large car with an attractive lady repeating 'Do you have the Disney soundtrack?!?The Colonel wants Lion King for the battle!' on the way to see the base commander in your Dress-blue uniform and a Teddy Ruxpin holding a massive blunt. Then you had to climb past a big wall but kept being annoyingly tickled by a giant orange squirrel with tiny hands. You kick at him as you climb to the top and then you wake up!It felt hugely significant, but if you go downstairs and make an effort to inform your breakfast companions about the amazing things that went throughout your sleeping brain, the outcomes are a little sobering. You keep saying that it felt ‘exciting,' that 'it felt so strange but real' and that it's 'indeed amazing and brilliant what goes on up there,' but some dispiritingly blank stares meet your attempts to get others to consider the particularities of your rollercoaster night. Half way through the narration, someone pipes up to say 'the cereal is running low. Pop to store later, will you mate?' Another individual mentions 'it might rain later. Take an umbrella, and the weed jar is running low'. Then the doorbell rings.         It’s a poignant impasse, but not an uncommon one. It’s tempting to ponder the problem has to do with dreams themselves because they are so strange, exclusive and particular to us. However, the issue isn’t restricted to dreams: it’s a general dilemma when we attempt to explain how our holiday had gone down for example. Which can equally hit us well on what we feel about our ideas or our youthful struggles about how society ought to run in our day to day. Assessing our lives is similar to a very intensely-felt dream we can’t quite get others to listen to correctly.A small reason is dramatically down to a collective lack of preparation, an insufficient awareness that what we’re trying spit out will require a high degree of practice and trying to do this is really quite hard for many including me at time.     We naively suppose that if we feel something to be brilliant or important, it'll necessarily and immediately hit others as being so as well and return the same. And that eagerness and authenticity could be enough.        This very charming, though ultimately lonely, egocentricity can be best found inninos, or as I've poetically dubbed them Victoria's Little Romantics in High Season.        They are on the list of worst storytellers I have encountered from my new experiences, and partially because they have a touchingly weak hold on very distressing new thoughts exploding in their minds. Thoughts that other individuals are apt to be in different areas from us internally and are highly unlikely to comprehend, feel and see as we do unless we go to considerable lengths to express, arrange and methodically package up the contents of our heads for them. Writing helps a great deal in this new department.       These are a few of the rules for storytelling I have recently adopted:First, we all should know when it's to be shared in the company of humans as to when thoughts merely need to be left to marinade in our own brains. Hear the story as your listener, and comprehend a narrative five times before taking it to the breakfast table.Second, keeping a narrative summary requires far more effort than letting it enlarge. The philosopher in tights and a wig named Pascal once touchingly apologized for the length of a letter to a buddy he'd written immediately in a rapid emotional response. As he admitted: ‘I’m sorry I didn’t have time to allow it to be briefer.’ Size doesn't matter with words. It can be tough, but clarity will achieve more.Third, we need to simplify. The downfall of virtually all anecdotes is a collection of incidental detail untethered to the underlying logic of the story. If one is describing how it felt tosee one’s lost love in a dream, it's inconsequential (and a waste of somebody else’s somewhat short and valuable life) to say what time one left the house to 'play pool with the lads' twisted into the story. Or what the weather happened to be like that day if it has nothing to dowith the dream and story's logic.If we feel about what occurred and not merely what happened, that immensely counts towards a valuable storytelling experience and avoid requests to fetch cereal, milk, and ganja.     Most of what comes out of our mouths, is more or less, socialized in a sense it's not quite fit for the consumption of the planet just yet inside our heads. Plus a legacy of our surroundings sentimentally places the bar of successful communicating way too low. People who grow up not able to discuss dreams are particularlyalive to the catastrophe of being misunderstood as well as the threat to their personal achievements in storytelling.        The contents of our minds, and our dreams, are never actually too strange or tedious for other people to understand: it’s simply that our culture hasn’t yet taken seriously enough in the bracing challenges of narrating the actual substance of our complex individual day and nighttime madness.Keep dreaming and I am looking forward to the NANO Writing Month this November! If you would like to get those dreams out of your skull, please check it out athttp://nanowrimo.org/

Some Words on Things Final

For her, it began much as it'll for many: a curiously constant itch in the rear of the head, a distress on the left side, a lump fingered in the shower. It became impossible to dismiss as temporary anymore. Then came the trip to the physician, the motivating words from loved ones. Once tears ended with hugs and breakdowns were eased, It still– despite all of the small signs and changes – continued to surprise all of us. In our minds, it was an appalling clerical blunder; an error from evil. Some bow at the same time. A few swear to fight what science today insists can never be vanquished; most veer painfully from hope to despair. But not Annabelle, she had plans. - The Coin Compass by Chazzy PatelThe dying have grand things and ideas to share with all of us when said in the simplest straightforward vocabulary. Their tone becomes like those of prophets; they have gone ahead on the timeline to tell us the truths we don’t possess; the bravery to face ourselves right now. Men and women, none of whom have more than a few weeks or days left to live, talk together with the clarity, the dearth of pretension, the absolute sincerity of the damned.The dying are the great appreciators of this world: they savor the minutes the sun playfully hangs, the laughter of a child, and another deep breath. They know what spoilt ingrates we all are. They were like us of course. They understand they wasted decades and from their beds, they make an effort to tell us of their follies, warn us of our own, and give us as much love as possible.It's the time for confessions and the entries of weakness. This is not any occasion for pride. It's possible to admit all the many things that went wrong, cowardice the evasions, animosity, and betrayals that are the concealed mortar of every life.The things the perishing cherish most have no link with what is deemed essential by the competitive world. Youth is consistently mentioned.  When there were just nightmares that could be comforted away by a loving hand; a time when death had no existence yet. Now the nightmares have colonized. This is worse than any ghost or zombie a youthful imagination might have dreamt up. The coin flips.We may want to weep for them and needless to say, as it should be for us. Death refashions aspiration and encourages us to attach new value to things we barely would have thought of to for of any sort.We'll leave hardly any hints ourselves with our own existence. For being thus, our monuments are small compared to time, but all the more actual and heartbreaking. We can count ourselves fortunate for living on in the hearts of a few for half a decade or so.Every age ought to be in search of effective ways to keep death in your mind. Once we'd look at skulls or martyrs, hourglasses or withered blossoms. The task of art will be to give us access to encounters it is otherwise difficult to get hold of and to leave their moral vivid to our imaginations that are distracted by pain. The images are desperately gloomy but not always depressing. As opposed to attempting to beat us with all the reminiscence of death, they stand on the side of living; giving us new conviction to make sure the coming days aren't squandered like so many others have been before us.It no longer matters how much we squabbled over and what our stresses may now be about. With death in mind, we are set free from things that shouldn’t constrain us in the first place: our fears, incorrect preoccupations, and values that were bogus.Sadly, we’re likely to forget the wisdom within weeks or months. We’ll be back to overlooking the sun and the appeal of the wind, often losing important outlook.These are the sort of ungrateful thoughts we all have – which is why we continuously want the resources of art to renew our connection with the painful but deeply necessary truths.I still miss you.

Catcher in the Rye: Book Review

Let me simply say this novel opens to a lot of discussion and controversy. It was also a key in my real life runaway story. Thank you Mr. Sweet of Preston Manor High School!It's a book that still sits on many schools 'Banned Books list'(something I wish to achieve my book), yet that's what makes it such an intriguing read and some inspiration into my own character development with fictional writings of my new novelHigh Season: The Learnings of Mohammad Wang.The Catcher in the Rye definitely would not be everyone's cup of tea, yet I still find it dangerous and a very compelling novel with gallons of harsh truths, poured in along with some humor and comparing minutes of melancholy with a boy named Holden.I believe many teens would have the capacity to relate to a variety of topics within the novel despite being composed in 1951. It's timeless! This quick read is a contemporary classic among the 'coming of age' genre.  The key character, 17-year old Holden Caulfield is certainly intriguing, and it is fascinating to get in the head of the unexpected, rebellious protagonist.The book commences with Holden addressing you, the reader, and he starts to retell the events over a three-day interval from 'last December'. His story begins at Pencey Prep, a prestigious boarding school filled with what he calls "phonies."What strikes me the most is how Mr. Salinger created a brash atmosphere from the very start of the novel with Holden depicted as insolent, piss-off and frankly, utterly clueless about his future.The whole story is virtually one long flashback of this three day period with occasional references to his now. One thing that makes The Catcher in the Rye different from other novels that are similar, I believe, is the pretty frequent utilization of profanity and RAW adult behavior. Mr. Salinger's need to twist words to force the reader to turn the page  - be warned if you're not a fan of vulgarity! Same goes for my novel.The heavy use of colloquialism is successful in making the reader relate to the characters better and make the characters appear more realistic. But if you are under sixteen, I'd certainly not advocate the novel to you personally! It's not merely the language used that makesThe Catcher in the Ryeunsuitable for younger readers, but also the topics discussed that center around the idea of morality.J.D. Salinger's novel is a wake-up call to all adolescents and in a strange way, is an inspiring book because it sends out the message that we should all remain hopeful and faithful to ourselves. Teenagers can connect to it because of its own complex themes of identity, rebellion, and freedom but I'd recommend you read it before you have to start adulting; otherwise, you may get the urge to smack Holden for his activities when reading the novel!If you are interested in reading something different, please check out my new novel onamazon.

The Natural Truth About Drugs

It’s simple too true to have a rather negative view of drugs: the media is, of course, going to love talking about police raids on street gangs, children falling precariously to overdoses on bath salt and rehabilitation centers ad campaigns after the evening news. It's obvious: things may go horrifically wrong around certain ones. But our extreme consciousness of the problems is of making a narrow view of the topic at risk. Medications are at-best, responsible tools when used correctly, noble and significant, and we want more of these in our own lives.It goes without saying: things can go wrong around drugs. But our extreme consciousness of the negatives is in danger of producing a misleadingly narrow view of the topic. Drugs are – at best – noble, dignified, serious and significant, and we want more of them in our own lives.But there are more active, productive and exciting paths by which we must need our thoughts to be transformed. We are in need of comprehending the probability of medications at the moment. The job of a drug is just to change feeling with one dream in virtually any favorable course in compassion. Therefore we want medicines to assist us self-analytic, be more optimistic, less vulnerable to frustration, more politically understanding and better at hearing other folks, notably companions when they will have valid grievances against us.But in all honesty, there are a lot more profitable, enjoyable and positive directions in which we should desire our minds to be transformed. We’re only at the start of realizing the potential of these drugs. The epidemic has gone unnoticed while in plain sight. The task of a drug is simply to change the mood in virtually any positive path in sympathy with one’s greatest dreams and thoughts. So we need drugs to help us self-analysis, be more hopeful, less susceptible to irritability, more tolerant and better at listening to others, especially partners when they have legitimate grievances against us.Luckily, there are far more items which are drugs than we typically assume to be in our world. We must try and drift away from the notion of narcotics as pills that you are given by someone at a celebration when you’re 16 that made you feel so high, a little ill, maybe even killed you for a few seconds but undoubtedly, made you seem trendy with your friends and shocked your parents to calling for professional help.The word ‘drug’ happens to be sitting on essentially, a very significant and prominent thought. Generations of the benign and positive states of mind enhanced through using physical resources. The following should be included in any accurate record of drugs we have available:Juicing epidemicJava energizes, however in the proper dose, only fresh squashed orange juice (using a bit of lemon) fleetingly fortifies the will-power and produces within a increased abilities to confront tricky endeavors. Less noticed on the narcotics list, pomegranate juice has a comforting, relaxing impactwhich assists one to be pricklyaround slights and perceived insults.Starry Night dealer who cut offhis own earThis physical item, entitled Starry Night from the 20th-century Passionate drug dealer Vincent Van Gogh, is a medication that dangles on a wall and is meant to create a heightened state of awareness at which pain of quick difficulties is diminished with a euphoric acknowledgment of the grandness of character in one'schest area. Dangerous!Amsterdam CheeseIt’s moderate, savory taste and 'containing feel' acts fast to bring about an atmosphere of repleteness. Amsterdam is a stress reducer that is quick and craving. Like warm buttered toast and chocolate, cheese is an envy-suppressing medication. In it blue variety fix, you can crumble this   crack on your salad.Ludwig's 7th Symphony2nd Movement - Allegretto:This musical drug causes a heightened state of tenderness towards strangers, and also a mood of generosity towardsone’s loved ones and understanding one's stupidity when it comes to relationships. In severe cases, ithas been known to create sexualimpulses and noise complaints.So a key job with all drugs will be to get good at figuring out what we really need to optimize our functions. The exact effects of these substances will vary from one individual to the next – What might be an important corrective for one human could be profoundly unhelpful for another. In ingenious societies than our own, we would have drug advisers who could do a complete audit of our personal natures and come up with what sort of medicines may be most suitable for our specified characters with lengthy menus. Amsterdam cheese and Beethoven on the late evening on a transatlantic flight can prove to be tricky for some addicts.In the past, ambitious societies organized their consumption into rituals, and have looked quite seriously at the matter.A wildly popular drug – tea – was employed from the 13th century onwards in Buddhist gang ceremonies in Japan. The drug was used to promote focus, attention and a feeling of a secure connection to other human beings. You may have to sit down in a particular manner; wait patiently to be served your drugs in a tiny cup while staring at a pine tree dancing ever so slightly in a breeze outside.The Ancient Greeks were also quite interested in drugs. Theirs– known as the Dionysian Mysteries – was constructed around the highly organized usage of red wine as a portion of a religious festival. Participants would drink and dance in search of a sense of collective belonging, as decreed by the God Dionysus.By making what might descend into a religious festival into binge drinking, the Greeks directed the massive power of booze towards the most favorable states of mind. Instead of being a motive for messing up a wedding speech, or getting into an argument with one’s partner, wine became an occasion for cultivating devotion and trust between citizens in the city.Our moods play a huge role in our own lives, and yet we tend to be Helter-Skelter in the way we identify and deal with them. At present, we play aroundwith moods with instruments that are hugely clumsy and dangerous – with drugs that we hardly comprehend and that can have a devastating impact on our well-being. We must extend our awareness of what a drug is and enable Amsterdam cheese and Ludwig into the mix with a pomegranate smoothie, and only then have a system which intelligently administers these drugs we really we need to flourish in life.We’re still at the dawn of studying the way to take drugs properly: we’re likely to be far more clever drug takers in the foreseeable future.Happy 4/20!

Mexico's Ghost Island: Bermeja

If and when it existed, a-100 km northwest of the Yucatan Peninsula, an isle known as theIsla de Bermejais supposed to sit surrounded by turquoise water and a complete paradise. The existence of the mysterious island was established on documented maps made between 1535 to 1775. After which its puzzle encircled the island after an expedition in look for the paradise returned without any trace. And its vanished out of geographic and historical records.In 1857, Bermeja reappeared on a chart and from then till 1946, the mysterious island was contained in the publications released by the authorities of Mexico.However, the mysterious atmosphere around the 'ghost island' never let up. In 1997 authorities chose to learn more about the region (formally) to see what was going on about Bermeja. Where the isla was likely to be positioned contributing to even more puzzles and questions.  Nothing was found by this established investigation. 'The island simply vanished!' my friend Misael pointed out one evening on Isla Mujeres in 2015.Some consider the cause of the place not existing is largely the U.S. In the year 2000, when the marine aspects of the U.S, as well as Mexico, were delimited, the island of Bermeja was nowhere to be observed to support its existence.A comprehensive investigation conducted a few years later by an Independent College in Mexico supported the absence of the Isla de Bermeja.In the 1970s, Bermeja Island functioned as a mark for Mexico to establish its 200-nautical mile economic zone. About 20 years after, the island vanished without a trace. Together with the Bermeja went important files including a treaty regarding leading oil reserves within the island’s area. The disappearance of these records instantly gave rise to conspiracy theories that the CIA had something related to the vanishing of Bermeja, ensuring that the US would get the petroleum.The original theory has it that the CIA actually blew up Bermeja as a way to enlarge the U.S’s economic zone.After this unsuccessful hunt for the island, heaps of conspiracy theories and rumors had a common theme: PETROLEUM. What increases the enigma is the fact that it occurs at this point in history when a few US oil companies started to drill holes close to the boundary with Mexico in search of black gold.Senator José-Angel Conchello, a Mexican politician, reported that the Bermeja had been evaporated voluntarily by gringos in black suits (I made up black suit part.). They blew it up! Following this statement, Senator Jose Angel Conchello perished in a mysterious car crash.Is Bermeja real or not?The significance of the presence of Bermeja is highly interesting because if it does exist, it would be a variable that will help establish the bounds of exploitation rights of oil in the so-called Doughnut Holes situated in the Gulf of Mexico under corporate oil companies.And that could be a lot of fun.

Badass All-female Biker Gangs in India

For a democratic state that has had its gender inequities issues become a global dilemma, India has seen some small change in a more empowered position for women in parts of its culture.A tiny hint that women are enjoying new and increased independence is the proliferation of female biker gangs! During the past four years, women’s involvement in biker gangs has more than doubled. A growing number of women are choosing to ride bikes as motorists over four wheels — not simply as passengers on a motorcycle being driven by a man. The reasons are as varied as the girls themselves (Doctors, housewives, lawyers, business owners), but many find the experience nothing short of empowering. “It’s a sign of independence and authorization for me,” my new roadside friends said over newspaper wrapped samosas in tin-hut eatery in 2012.She learned to ride when she was only 18 in Mumbai, while in college without her parents knowing. Like others who take to motorbikes, she points out that there’s nothing about riding a motorcycle that would preclude a female from doing this. “Riding a bike doesn't require any extra strength or testosterone power, ” She shrugged. Another biker, pointed out. She learned to ride at age 13.Some women have said one factor which has discouraged girls from joining mix-sex gangs is the fact that there’s a feeling of pressure to perform well on a motorcycle with male riders. And until recently, there clearly was little in the way of mentorship for women who desired to be bikers.What they can agree on is that getting behind two wheels brings the kind of power and assurance that lots of Indian girls can only dream of growing up. Riding a motorbike in a nation where girls are frequently told to stay within four walls, forced to obey outdated philosophies or are followed by male members of the family when out, on the pretext of their security - might seem like a far-fetched notion. "But this is still India." I heard from many female motorcyclists.There has been an abrupt increase in some women taking up this activity; one traditionally related to macho men is now an immediate and honorable consequence of advancement in Indian society.In 2012, the tremors started after death and the brutal gang rape of a female medical student in New Delhi. Protesters of both genders took to the streets, and women found their voices, demanding reforms in how they're treated and the freedoms they have been denied all these years. Life for Indian women was never going to be the same again! And it hasn't.That’s not to say progression has been rapid and will take time. The sight of a woman on a motorbike isn't as common in India as it should be – but the female riders I've met don't consider themselves to be undertaking anything fantastic or unnatural.To their peers and myself, however, they symbolize the few brave Indian women prepared to maneuver their way two-wheels around the patriarchy with confidence, refusing to be cowed by the pervasive story that women are 'not good enough, can't drive, not safe and alone on the road.'In fact, to many of these young ladies riding a motorbike just gives women the simplest freedom, plus a strategy to travel without needing to depend on anybody else.Despite India's turtle pace at substantial legislation on more women's rights, this trend is rapidly catching on. The nation's largest annual cycling festival which began in 2013, India Bike Week, has found the involvement of girls riders shoot right up in the four years.While the variety of girls riders in 2013 and 2014 stayed close to 1,000, girls, in 2015, 2,500 female riders participated  - more than doubling the previous amounts.That's all changing now and in popular trend! All sorts of women-only biker gangs have emerged in the last couple of years, and they boast hip names such as the Lady Bikers, Lady Riders, Hop on Gurls, Biking Queens, REgals and Bikerni (the term for a female biker in Hindi).As with absolutely any action women undertaken on the sub-continent, despite being told it’s ‘not for them’ by society, these female bikers and new gangs feel ready to take on the world by busting the myth of feminine fragility and female dependence on the opposite gender for protection and freedom.It supplies a chain reaction leading to unique liberation and empowerment for both sexes on the road.