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In 2004 I went to Cancun, Mexico, and while I can't say it was my favourite destination, it was nice to visit just the same (despite drunk college boys). Great diving & snorkelling, and a lot of beautiful sites, both natural and man-made, like the cenotes and the Mayan ruins, respectively. Among others, I visited the Great Pyramid of...Yucatan - Chichen Itza. A lot of the surrounding area was gated off, and thus couldn't be fully explored. That, the surplus of tourbus tourists, and the fact that I was completely impressed with the Mayan architecture led to a facetious joke: Angkor Wat kicks Chichen Itza's ass. Of course you can't denigrate the constructions of ancient history, and the dedication of the people who built them without computers and machinery; however, I would still rate it behind Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the giant field of 3000+ Paya (temples) in Bagan, Myanmar.
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Last year (2005), I spent the Christmas season in VietNam. I had previously referred to it as "the one I missed" since I'd visited the rest of mainland Southeast Asia during my Formosan Years. Though I'd never been there, I still saw it, in a way as, "returning home". To Southeast Asia at least. Very nurturing. I think it is my new favourite destination. I wish I'd gone years ago. I'd almost said 'i wasted too much time in Thailand'. The quality was unbelievable. The countryside and jungle were nice as they always are, but I do enjoy going back to a nice room. In Thailand, I can get a room for 4 or 5 bucks, but that's about all it's worth - just a bed and a shelf, and a share-bathroom down the hall. In VietNam I was only paying a few bucks more for a king-size bed, A/C, TV, stocked fridge, and hot water shower in a spacious French villa furnished in Chinese motif. I loved leaning out over my balconies, smoking cheroots, eating dragonfruit, and admiring the towns below. Here are pictures from the VietNam, December, 2005 trip.
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"I wish I'd gone years ago was a phrase repeated last October after I returned from a great scuba-diving vacation in Malaysia (and Thailand). During the trip I undertook my first trials with underwater photography. I'm hooked now. I may even take an extended vacation next year (2007) to return to Malaysia to complete a DiveMaster course. Here are pictures from Ko Tao and the Malayan Perhentian Islands and Ko Phi Phi.
So I finished my post-grad in pharmaceutical technology, and I've been working for a small pharma(ceutical company) in Toronto (Markham actually) for nearly 2 years now. Ups & downs, to both extremes. But enjoyable for the most part, and I'm content. My official position is Research and Development Associate, which abbreviates to rad-ass, and I basically function as a Scientific Linguist in many respects. To the chagrin of some of my classmates from the pharm program who scoffed at the Arts portion of my university degree, it was precisely that Linguistics booster that got my the position (thank you very much).
I've been splitting my time between music and writing. What began as an anthology collection of my journals in Southeast Asia changed direction when I noticed one day that a journal-travelogue-cum-surreal-fiction had melded itself into a corpus of over 120 pages, many of which I don't recall writing. It is currently going by the working title of Becoming Khmer, and is what my writing page has been promising is "coming soon" under the moniker "Khmer Collusions." That's all changed now. And given copyright, I don't think it's likely to show up on the website, at least not in full form. The people who have read an excerpt I sent out mainly had good things to say, so that is encouraging. What isn't though, is having to go over it again and again during editing, and doing all the fact-checking and continuity sequence; also, some of the subject matter is a bit...touchy...no pun intended...to the point that writing this book has occasionally been rather draining emotionally. It's almost done though, and then the task of seeking out a publisher will challenge me.
Becoming Khmer is the tale of Gone and Pill wandering through the country experiencing the old adage of Adventure and Romance as well as the horrors that be. It continues directly from my journals from Laos, which could now be considered a practice in this form of surreal writing. While still linear, the straight line has definitely become more warped; the descriptions have become more refined; the biology more eminent; and the reptiles have ebbed to make way for a strong entomological presence. Such is life.
And the other half of the creative outlet is the music. The Music. While the book has gone through a few periods of uninspired writer's block recently, I'm quite inspired with the music I've been doing lately; I've acquired a lot of effects pedals and have really tapered my taken on a signature tone, as well as experimenting with all kinds of sounds and effects. I've been recording with Chris in Self-Medication, an ethereal acoustic-electronic project. It's quite listenable, and very beautiful stuff. I've also recorded the bed tracks for some older punk-ish tracks from my Morning Glory days, and I'm at the stage of finishing up vocals and mixing. I did this not so much to get those older songs in a recorded state, but as a practice exercise to learn some music software I've been using to record. This is in efforts towards recording my own album some day soon, more effects-laden electronic-acoustic stuff, like Self-Medication, but less poppy, more "technical" or "musical", and much much darker. Don't know when I'll begin this recording, but I've promised my self that I must finish up the other two music projects, as well as completing the book, before doing any new recordings.
Well, that's that. Keep it surreal. And don't forget your memories.
john w. duncan
Toronto
Winter, 2005
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