The Books of John

I'm not a scrapbooker. Those big-ass ziq-zag scissors always intimidated me. I'm not a diarist either, nor do I capture every detail of my day on social media. As for my biographers, sadly, they'll find that over the years I've archived zero correspondence for them to work with.

My occasional scribblings on this site notwithstanding, I've come to believe that experiencing life is much more important than recording it. A photo of a long toeside turn on a snow/surf/skate board simply can't compare to the feeling of an actual long toeside turn on a snow/surf/skate board.

But wait! However! Nonetheless!

Trips are different. Every major trip I've taken in recent years has included a journal. I've never come close to filling a journal on a single trip, but I start with a fresh one each time anyway. That way, one or five or 10 years down the line, I can pull that book off the shelf and revisit a time and a place that, otherwise, would be limited to hazy generalities. 

The things I document when I'm on a trip, and how I choose to document them, are random at best. I've found, to my taste anyway, that the highest quality journals are the ones where quality was never a consideration. If quality was the goal I'd cut my word count by half, my rum intake by a quarter, and my "illustrations" entirely. But no. Fuck that. Instead I've decided to go all in on doodles and gibberish – as conceived and executed by a remedial first grader.

This past weekend I desperately needed a getaway. I pulled a few journals off the shelf and added some coffee and Wailers to the mix. I slowly settled in. As it turns out, a return to St. Elsewhere was exactly what I needed. 

It's been getting might snowy up in here!

Let's see what bases we've been covering lately... winter camping...ruminations on mountaintops... a dude who crafts skis. 

It's like I've lost my damn mind! 

To offset all the wintry whatnot, here is a picture of me and a lesser antillean bullfinch commiserating over a Cruzan rum under a palm tree.

June 2016, St. John, USVI

Here's to craftsmen

Oh I like craftsmen. Especially those who combine art and utility with a personal passion for some weird subset of something or another.

In the past I've written about a maker of musical ice instruments, a kayak builder who uses ancient methods, and I seem to remember some beautiful kooks who crafted an entire orchestra out of vegetables, although damn if I can find the link.

Today, we've got Mike Parris. He was a Carnegie Mellon robotics engineer working on Mars rovers (smarty pants!) when he decided it would be cooler to craft custom skis and snowboards for people instead. Today he runs Igneous Skis out of Jackson, Wyoming. They limit production to around 100 pairs a season which means these are some freaking beauties. 

A closer look at mountains and other things

It's easy to not see mountains.

I don't mean, like, "what did I just trip over?" and then you turn around surprised to find the Grand Tetons laying there.

I mean it's easy to not see mountains for what they are. For what they're made of. It's easy to overlook the kabillion bits and pieces that make up the panorama we typically see when we "see" mountains.

How come? Well, mountains are big broad bastards. Overwhelmingly so. Wrapping our head around them requires far-focus, a suspension of disbelief, and some serious peripheral chops. It seems that clearly establishing a sense of distance is key to understanding mountains at all. 

But unfortunately this sense of distance also creates, I don't know else to say it, a sense of distance.

I've spent thousands of hours in the mountains – boarding, biking, backpacking, catching brookies, and just generally dicking off. I'm wildly comfortable at elevation. I feel as one. But still, when I'm there I tend to look at a mountain range as if I'm looking at a photo of a mountain range. I take in the beauty, of course, but abstractly so. Like most, I tend to focus on the tallest peaks, the deepest valleys, and the farthest horizons: happily wallowing in the wallop of scale while I miss the rest.

What got me on this path? I spent last week in Utah which included some time in the Wasatch Mountains. Over the course of seven days, Big Cottonwood Canyon got 61 inches of snow. Of course this sort of weather system makes for damn fine snowboarding. It also makes for piss-poor visibility. 

As a result, there were no stunning vistas in the Wasatch Range last week. No panoramic photo ops from the chairlift. No mountain's majesty, purple or otherwise, in any direction. There was just snow and clouds and, down in the valley, fog.

And so that's how things went down – me in the mountains, slicing long soft turns through an empty grey. 

I have to say it took a while for my mind to recalibrate, for me to stop looking toward a non-existent horizon for perspective. Over time though, I gradually surrendered my need for the far-away for what was right in front of me: dark stabs of douglas fir, non-negotiable walls of stone, the gloved transfer of snow from mountain to mouth.

Once I noticed these smaller things, of course, I couldn't stop noticing them. Thanks to the weather's veil, my view had shifted from macro to micro. I found myself seeing, and maybe even coming close to understanding, some of the individual pieces that make up the usually inscrutable mountains.

Hoping to find a lesson here, or at least an obvious metaphor to jump to without a properly fleshed-out transition (as I do!), I'm left with this:

We're living in stormy times; an era of uncertain horizons. I feel it every day.

I'm saddened that the forecast for tomorrow, January 20th, 2017, calls for more of the same.

I know that eventually, inevitably, the sky will break. So I plan to keep looking outward with patience. But in the meantime, I'm going to appreciate what's right in front of me too. The kabillion bits and pieces of life are far too important to overlook while I'm busy scanning the horizon for something more.

On fewer but righter things

December 30th, 2016, Presque Isle, Wisconsin 

I spent the last few days alone in the woods.

I was camping on a rise of conifers in northern Wisconsin, a spot I discovered years ago while grouse hunting. It's an area I call the Cathedral. I borrowed the name from one of my favorite writers, Gordon MacQuarrie. He called a rise of conifers that he discovered in northern Wisconsin while grouse hunting the same.

If you're making your way by foot this time of year, snowshoes are required. As are a good amount of resolve and a layering system that allows for the quick ditching of clothes. Put simply, pulling a sled through heavily crusted snow is a bitch. The progress I made was largely thanks to increments and incentives of my own invention: Counting my steps in groups of 17, for example, seemed to speed things along, as did "Make it to that next birch tree, Johnny, and it's Snickers bars for everybody!"

Well, I made it to that next birch tree. And the one after that. And so on. Until finally it was time to turn off-trail and push through a rolling pincushion of sled-snagging maples. Eventually, they gave way to the rise of fir and balsam and pine. To borrow again from MacQuarrie, the Cathedral took me in.

Camp sets up quickly in the winter; meaning your tent, your situation, your supplies. For the first few hours, anyway, there's little time for dicking around. Stomp out a spot for the tent, get it up, get your gear inside. You do it as quickly as you can so you can move on to a more important matter: the business of fire. Although actually, the busy-ness of fire might be a more accurate description.

They say you should gather three times more wood than you think you'll need before striking a spark. I say that's cutting it close. I collected some dry birch and cedar bark from fallen trees on the trek in, so getting the fire started wasn't a concern. But man, keeping it fed! A new fire, especially in the winter, is a hungry fire.

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. 

But eventually. Eventually. You'll find yourself with a good bed of coals. You'll have dried your gloves. You'll have a pile of wood and a place to sit and a single bottle of Dogfish Head 90-minute IPA that you sledded in, weight be damned.

On the edge of the fire's glow, you'll see your tent protecting the barest of necessities: a tiny camp stove, tomorrow's breakfast, an embarrassment of goose down. You have tropicalia music that you'll play through your phone speaker at dawn like a transistor radio. You have a candle lantern and a bag of jerky and the solitude of the outdoors.

Everything you have with you has a purpose. Everything earned its spot on the sled. 

As we move into a new year, I'm hoping to carry that mindset forward. I don't need more things – I just need the right things. I don't need more undertakings, more accomplishments, more checks added to my list – I just need the right ones.

Taking a look over my shoulder, I've come to realize that I've been pulling an unnecessarily clumsy load. It's time to tip the sled and start over. It's time to think in terms of fewer, but righter, things.

Happy New Year everyone.

Happy holidays? Let's give it a try.

2016 was a full year. Much in the same way that a diaper might be described as full.

Over the past 12 months, I've lost faith in more people and more principles than I can count. I've come to learn that much of my country hates those that I love – because of how they worship, or who they screw, or the shade of their skin. I've watched the overriding principles of our nation grow mean and loud and dumb.

And yet.

On a daily basis, I find myself surrounded by kind people. People full of love and respect and, even still, full of hope. They've brought me into their fold, and I've brought them into mine. And together, even still, we're strong.

For the next week, anyway, that's what I'm going to focus on. The strength of my children, my family, my friends. The strength of the sun and the moon. The strength of what I know is inside my heart, even still.

Happy holidays.

Sea change: The photography of Sarah Lee

The earth is 71 percent water.

The human body is 60 percent water.

For the next several months, in my neck of the woods anyway, both of these things will be frozen solid. 

Before I get going here, let me just say that I'm a big fan of ice. Ice is one of the few things I like in my cocktail (other than the cocktail itself). I appreciate what ice has done for hockey. I enjoy cutting holes in ice and extracting fish. But goddamnit anyway. In the end, I prefer water when it's moving around. When it's pushing me this way and that. I prefer water when it's alive.

Case in point is the work of photographer Sarah Lee. She's born and based on the Big Island of Hawaii and her love of moving water comes through in every image. Her still photos are amazing. 

And the video at the top of this post? Yowza. It's a teaser for a short film she collaborated on called Kainos which, as far as I can tell, hasn't been released. But oh man I'd love to see it.

Earlier this year I wrote about freediving photographer Daan Verhoeven. His work, to me, carries serious weight. There's a stillness to what he does – an almost religious sense of gravity. It's stunning.

Sarah's work is stunning too, but in an entirely different way. It's an outright celebration of moving water – swirls of slivering beauty and brute force and the lucky ones that have found their place comfortably within it. 

Sarah was kind enough to let me share her images. Not only that, she signed off her note with "mahalo nui." Some people are just cool like that.

Check out more of her work, underwater and alongside it, on her site.

Going outside (get it?)

Ladies and gentlemen, I present our camp facilities.

Passed down from generation to generation.

But the tube socks get replaced every seven years whether they need it or not.

Let's dance. Yes?

I know what you've been thinking...

"Bring Limes" is okay I guess, but it could really use a few more Friedrich Nietzsche quotes.

Well, have I got just the thing for you!

“Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

So with no further ado, I present Matt Bray, this perfectly silly dancing guy that will make you happier than Nietzsche ever did, even during your angsty freshman year of college when all you did was quote him and Kierkegaard and Morrissey, like some goof-ass, when you could have been dancing instead.

Bruce Gold: Last of the surfing hippies

I love people that love something. I mean people who really really love something. Every day. For all their days. 

The age of the person shouldn't matter I suppose. Passion is passion. But, for me anyway, somehow age does matter. Which probably explains why I've done more than a few posts featuring old people who are still committed to doing their thing. This includes one of my favorite things that I've shared here: A skier named Snowflake who advocates loving something so much that you forget to go to the toilet. 

With all that said, here we are again. This time we're being invited into the life of Bruce Gold who surfs Jeffreys Bay in South Africa. What's most impressive about Bruce isn't just his passion for surfing, but the extreme life decisions he's made as a result of that passion. As Bruce puts it, "It's hard to be a hobo. But it has it's rewards."

The local traveler

Last week a friend told me about a little cafe.

It's the kind of place you always hope to find when you're traveling. A place to quietly start the day. A place to circle back around to in the evening for a sip and a bite as evening slides into night. It's one of those little neighborhood spots that, for whatever reason, don't seem to exist back home. 

Except this one does exist back home. Turns out it's a block and a half from my office. I walk past it almost every day, on my way to grab lunch at the place I always grab lunch. I've never once even poked my head in the door. And that's dumb.

When I'm traveling, I'm a head-poker-inner. I'm a how's-it-going? guy. I'm curious. I converse. I do whatever I can to connect to wherever I am. At home, though, it's a different mode. I'm a get-shit-done-er. I'm a furtive-glancer. I'm still a how's-it-going? guy, but the question is largely rhetorical.

The same evening as the cafe conversion, my wife and I went and saw a band. It was an early show and the follow-up event was Madison's Nerd Nite. As close as I could surmise from the description, it's a monthly gathering of Beer Geeks and, well, plain old Geek Geeks. An unholy union of Ballast Point and PowerPoint. 

After the band wrapped up, I was halfway out the door when I changed my mind and decided to stay for Nerd Night. It's the exact kind of thing I would seek out if I was in New York or Detroit or San Francisco. (Even though every night is nerd night in San Francisco. Heyo!!!). It's the exact kind of thing that happens right here at home all the time. But I forget to look.

I'm surrounded by museums and poetry slams and ukulele jams. Gallery wine tastings and film nights in the back of scuba shops.  I'm surrounded by a lot of cool shit! But I forget to look.

The traveler/explorer in me usually leads my mind (and my body) to far away places. But the fact is that I'm "here" much more than I'm "there." And there's a lot around here that I've been missing. This winter, I'm going to make a point of finding them. Of discovering the place I've lived in all these years. 

Trust me, until you've seen a PowerPoint slide that reads "TRANSCRIPTION CELLS ARE FUCKING AWESOME!!!" in 180 pt yellow type with a purple drop shadow, lighting up a bar full of people who are cheering and hanging out and happy, you don't know what you've been missing.

Nerd Nite is happening in cities all over the country. But there's lots of cool stuff wherever you are. Snoop around a bit and report back. I'll do the same.

Jim Whittaker on a life well lived

A life well lived indeed...

Jim Whittaker is the first American to summit Mt. Everest. He did it in 1963. As you'll quickly see, thanks to this pretty stunning archival footage, they had to do things a little differently back then. 

But it's Jim's take on nature, adventure, and existence that really rings the bell for me. He's lived a pretty awesome life. I'd say getting a sense of it might be worth 3 minutes and 42 seconds of yours.

Sorry, we're open!

U.P. Michigan border, November 21st, 2016

I haven't been writing much lately, for reasons both specific and global. For those who have asked, yes, thank you, I'm okay. And yes, Bring Limes is still open for business. Which is to say there's still a corner of my brain looking upward and outward. Despite the recent goings on, I'm still full of hope.

I realize hope, these days, could be construed as a deliberate act of obstinance or maybe even ignorance. In my case, though, it's neither. Optimism isn't a choice I've made (that would be giving my decision-making abilities way too much credit). Instead, for me anyway, hope is like a factory-installed airbag: it's just there when the trees get unnervingly close.

I do have to say, it's been deploying like a mofo lately.

In the days following the election, I wrote a lengthy piece which, I don't know, I just ended up losing interest in. Hitting "delete" on the whole wordpile was the highlight of my week. 

At the time, my Facebook newsfeed was, and still is, a weirdly sputtering gurgle of nervous energy, bold proclamations, and attempts at "perspective." I'll be honest, I can hardly stand to look at it. Of course I know I brought it on myself. Over time I shaped my social media stream into a recirculating flow of my own worldview: a gentle rivulet of rum recipes, island destinations, left-leaning bon mots, and general carpe diem feel-goodery. 

And then, over the course of a Tuesday evening, things changed. My feed shifted into just two types of posts:

1. Fellow liberals, with their shit understandably freaked, trying to recombobulate their entire sense of reality – while at the same time unfriending with abandon, staying strong for others, and planning their escape.
2. A barrage of links to every "Best Islands To Live On" article that's been written in the last decade. 

Obviously these two veins weren't a coincidence. For half the country, it was fight or flight time. And, as many were quick to point out, one-way flights are cheap. 

I'm guessing, though, that not too many of those flights ever got booked. Since then, many people I know have chosen to fight instead: against the racism, the sexism, the nationalism – all the ism's in the ism schism game. For others, there's been a gradual return to normal, or at least a jittery facsimile thereof. 

For others still, myself included, we're somewhere in between. Wondering what facsimile of normal we might be able to muster in these strange days. Figuring out how we can fight, while at the same time looking forward. And upward. And outward.

For me, at least, that's brought me back here. 

Sorry, we're open!

Let's keep our cheeks dry today

It's the bee girl.

I'm sorry, but if you're not down with the bee girl we just can't hang out together anymore.

5 reasons to give Mike Doughty a try.

You might know Mike Doughty as "the guy from Soul Coughing." Or, if you're like Mike Doughty (and me), you might know Soul Coughing as the band that Mike Doughty was in before he became Mike Doughty. 

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Soul Coughing. Their first album, Ruby Vroom, changed the way I listen to music. Take a slam poet, a sampler, an upright bass and a random crate of vinyl and throw them in a washing machine. Set the switches for heavy soil and hot rinse. Kick one of the legs out from under the machine and press start. When the door finally flies off, and it will, what spills out all over your floor is Ruby Vroom.

That album came out in 1994 which was a big one in music: Pavement and Green Day and Cake were born. Nirvana died. Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Aphex Twin, and Biggie released massive albums. Things were changing and, to me, Soul Coughing was a huge part of it. 

Mike Doughty was the band's singer and main songwriter. I was, and still am, a big fan of Soul Coughing. Mike Doughty, however, is not. He and I will have to disagree on that point. But put aside the sample-heavy sonics for a minute (which he was never on board with). Mike was still dropping lines this:

"Brooklyn like a sea in the asphalt stalks
Push out dead air from a parking garage
Where you stand with the keys and your cool hat of silence
Where you grip her love like a driver's license"

He writes awesome, awesome lyrics. Which brings us to Mike Doughty the solo artist. After the band exploded in 2000 (acrimony, drugs, etc.), Mike was dropped by the record label and he toured the country in a rental car with an acoustic guitar, selling CD-R copies of his first solo album Skittish. Eventually Dave Matthews signed him to his ATO label and released Haughy Melodic which is a wonderful record. Overall, Mike's released 17 solo studio albums, live albums, and EPs since 2000. He also wrote a memoir called The Book of Drugs about the years he spent under the influence of drugs and Soul Coughing, as well as the years he spent recovering from both.

His solo works features same killer lyrics I've come to love, but they're center stage now. His vocals, which have a piercing quality anyway, are up top in the mix: often syncopated and skittering. For songs that are mostly built around an acoustic guitar, he manages to pack plenty of funk in the trunk.

He's lived a rough life, Mike has. But he came out the other side with these wonderful songs. Here are five to get you started:

Can't find the perfect island? Make your own!

Happy Island, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, July 18th, 2013

A while ago I wrote about finding the perfect island to live on. One of the assumptions I made is that the perfect island actually needs to exist in order for you to live on it. Wrongo! 

In 2013 we spent some time on Union Island which is part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Union Island is an island that actually exists. But out in the Clinton harbor sits Happy Island which didn't exists until one guy, Janti, decided to build it. He started in 2002 with a pile of conch shells, a couple small palm trees, and a cooler full of beers that he'd sell to passing dinghies. Today, Happy Island is considered one of the classic Caribbean beach bars and a must-stop destination for anyone in the area. It's really a helluva story.

But it's the kind of story I assumed could only happen in a distant corner of a distant sea. The Caribbean consists of 28 different nations and more than 7,000 islands. I figure nobody's going to get too worked up about a guy building one more.

But surely, building my own island in North America would be frowned upon and/or wildly illegal. Then I came across this video and now I'm not so sure! Freedom Cove is a Wonka-esque island/compound/sustainable-living garden built by artists Catherine King and Wayne Adams in a cove on Vancouver Island. One main difference between Happy Island and Freedom Cove, besides latitude, is the fact that it's entirely afloat. I'm assuming there's some legal reasoning for that. I'll definitely need to look into it before I officially unveil my island nation of Limeland.

You can read more about Freedom Cove here. But start with this video!

Dear Left Side of My Brain

Apollos Hester is there to help us up

If you were like me in high school, you were kind of a shithead. Too worried about being cool, too afraid to let all the wonderful things inside you out, too busy maintaining facades.

Then there's this kid Apollos Hester. I saw the following interview a couple years ago. My friend Katie reposted it today and, yeah...

NPR Tiny Desk Concerts make me damn happy

If you're not familiar with NPR Tiny Desk concerts, you should get familiar! 

The premise is simple. NPR invites musicians to play in a cramped corner of their office. Fair enough, lots of places are doing that kind of thing these days. "Generating Content" as we call it in the biz. 

But whoever's in charge of selecting the musicians for the Tiny Desk Concerts is like a genius. I assume it's Bob Boilen who hosts "All Songs Considered," especially since the bands are playing at his desk, he's introducing the bands, he's shooting the video, and he's doing the edit. But the real star is whoever's running sound because, despite the setting and regardless of the nature of the band, the sound is consistently stellar.

I've discovered a lot of new bands here. And I've fallen in love with a few older bands all over again. I've you're looking for a musical rabbit hole to fall into, seriously kid, you gotta check out the Tiny Desk Concerts.

I included a few favorites below to getcha started.

They just released a session with Anderson Paak last week. I love me my Anderson Paak and this one is stellar, although NSFW. Good thing today is Sunday and you're not working today right? Right?

And here's an old favorite with Phoenix.  Thomas Mars looks like a shy 11-year-old who's been asked to sing for his grandparents after Thanksgiving dinner. Adorable! I want to adopt him. Since he's 39, I figure there won't be much paperwork required.

And finally... Madison's own Phox! Alright, technically Baraboo's own Phox! At a lake party late one night last summer, a friend and I stole some french vanilla custard from the freezer. We snuck down to the lake and poured a mason jar's worth of homemade black-plum-infused brandy right on top of the custard and shared a spoon slurping it down. The way that tasted? And the way that night felt? That's what Phox sounds like to me.