What is in the middle; is nature so wild; are roads that bad?

In Santa Rosa I’ve accepted this strange concept, going south to go north, but I’ve learned another thing: the bus station was on the opposite side of a Multiplex (a movie theater with a lot of screens) and my bus was 2 hours late. Waiting and late buses are not always a bad thing!

You can enjoy almost an entire movie with Willie Smith as a genius (how does Aladdin end by the way? It is still paternalistic?) while you’re waiting for your late bus--

You have to go south to go north, and waiting is a good thing.

Yes, there was a giant mountain in the middle..it made totally sense to go south first.

MtCaz was also a place to learn things and put the new lessons in to practice.

I arrived with a lot of things to do. It is always like that--I mean not always but often… But I was really happy that one of the things that I had to do was actually just walking around. So waiting and taking wrong turns to reach places seemed like pretty good advice to me considering my plan. I pictured myself lost for days in the mountains around Corvallis. A great residency was about to begin!

My residency at Mt Caz was actually a residency squared, a residency inside another residency. I’m in the States because I’m doing a year-long residency teaching in an art school in Baltimore (MICA); part of the residency is to create a personal project, and the Mt Caz residency was perfect for that. I think now it is time to talk about my work--otherwise it will be hard to understand why I came to Corvallis for walking?

Maybe not yet, let’s talk about walking.

2.

I like walking because it’s natural (and I’m living a life where there is a lot of artifice); I like walking because is slow (and I’m living a life where everything is freakin fast); I like walking because my body is all in movement (and I’m usually sitting); and I like walking because you can listen a lot and discover stuff (and I’m living a life where I talk a lot). 

By the way, I’m not alone, a lot of people like to walk, especially in nature. Some people don’t like the idea, but when they are there, they like it. We have proof about it--during our walking project a participant said that they were in a very bad mood and then thanks to walking they were good (see? Science!).

My dream job is to be a ranger (and I’m almost 40 so it’s time to go there) and my passion is birds. So you can understand why I like walking so much. But right now I’m a game designer, or an artist, if you will, so I have to cover up my secret plan to become a ranger.

My ideal workstation

Mt Caz helped me with that: neither Albert nor Christina knew about my secret plans, so I suppose it made sense to them that I wanted to organize a prototype for a new conference format: a walking conference.

Conference are booooooring, I mean 90% of them are. I mean 80%. Actually sometimes they are great, but it’s really tricky because it’s almost all on the shoulders of the speakers; if they are great than the conference is good, if they are mediocre…then you have the feeling that someone is stealing time from your life or that you’re locked in a room and you want to escape.

- Intermission -

A good idea for an escape room? A supermarket with bulk goods, nuts, chocolate chips, cereals, pasta, rice, honey, sweet ginger, and organic fruit and vegetables. You have just one hour to leave the place.

Good luck!

- End Intermission -

And I have to say that the 10% interesting part of conferences is the people in the audience and the conversations that you have with them over a coffee or during a break. So, a walking conference: a new format where there are no speakers, or keynotes, or powerpoint presentations, but just people walking together and talking.

“A new format, ahahahah,” says Plato.

“Original, indeed,” says Socrates.

“We use to do that everyday back in the days. I founded a school about it: the Peripatetic school, where peripatetic means walking around,” says Aristotle.

“OK fellas, sometimes you need to apply some new flashy paint over ‘solid’ ideas in order to get people involved, you know? And by the way I don’t care about it, I want to become a ranger!”

Albert and Christina were not present during this dialogue (from Greek: in between knowledge), so they thought, cool! They are really positive people!

The date? The last day of my residency. The trail that we were walking? Unknown.

3.

Books!

At Mt Caz there are a lot of books: some of them belong to Mt Caz, others are just passing by, the majority are amazing. If your artistic practice is all about reading others people books, then come here. You will have a great time.

Among these books there were some about Corvallis and the surrounding areas, forests and trails. The names on the trails are funny and not particularly evocative, but we set our eyes on Dan’s Trail. 

The trail of Dan, Dan’s line, Dan and his walking path. I didn’t know anything about Dan but I wanted to know everything about his path. Also because there was a Lower and a Upper Dan’s Trail. And a Horse Dan’s Trail.

Finally I had an excuse to walk. And I walked. Dan was not there, but his trail was.

The high one? Too high.

The low one? Too low

The horse one? Just perfect, flat, even, equal, equine.

Wander Conference Trail (aka Dan’s)

There was one issue, maybe two (and then we discovered that there were three). Poison Oak, (if it’s three let it be), so we had to be aware of were we were walking, forbidden to leave Dan’s Trail.

I walked home also, it was good. I walked to a 7-Eleven, it was closed.

Naaa joking, 7 Eleven is always open.

I walked in a swamp and later I managed to see a sunset there, glorious. We walked on the street and the moon came out, glorious. We chanted at her and then we bought Ice Cream. We add balsamic vinegar and coarse salt to the Ice Cream.

We enjoyed ourselves. It was sweet and bitter.

4.

“You’ve charged my crystal,” Dylan said.

Best. Project. Ever

Dylan charging

5.

Last night at Terra Incognita.

clouds over Corvallis

I love bread.

I made a lot of bread at Mt Caz, I experimented with seeds, olive oil, chocolate, butter, peanut butter and different kinds of flour. The way it works is that you prepare everything at night, before going to bed, and in the morning you have the bread ready, perfect for my carb heavy breakfasts.

I decided to do a very festive bread: I thought that it would be nice, a farewell bread. A chocolate bread, with nuts and chocolate chips, perfect to have a nice evening delight with ice cream and microwaved banana.

Here is the recipe.

Oh no wait, Albert and Christina are not allowed to know the recipe, is a secret recipe that is sacredly handed down between artists-in-residence (or undercover wannabe rangers).

So if you want to know, it’s in an envelope, on the shelves of Terra Incognita.

Apparently is really good.

6.

Epilogue

On reading other accounts I’ve noted that right now Mt Caz tumblr (http://mtcaz.tumblr.com) has a description that says Ranger Clubhouse. I don’t remember if that description was there in May when first we started having conversations…

If so, then my subconscious is a scary place to go. Or maybe Albert and Christina know more than we believe, they know something about you also if you don’t say that to them.

Or maybe I’m the only one that can see that description on the top of the website? I don’t know, I feel like I’m already a ranger.