I figured I should update our car page (twenty-five vehicles so far), so I washed and took a couple more pictures of the Manta Montage which is now here in Mexico safe and sound. I really wasn't sure that it would make it across the border, but it was surprisingly hassle-free.
PS. It doesn't have a dark stripe, that's just a shadow!
I thought I ought to first post some pictures of my new neodymium magnet implants. For those that don't know anything about these, you can click here to read the original BME article on it. Short version; the goal is to insert magnets into your sensory matrix, giving you what is in effect, magnetic vision — literally the ability to “see” EM and other magnetic fields. I'm “experiment number three” on this I guess, and below are the two sets that were done on me:
Below are the procedural photos. Pictures taken by Rachel, with the procedure itself of course by Steve Haworth assisted by Miss Cookie. The implants themselves are designed and fabricated by Jesse Jarrell.
 Implants soaking in a Technicare antimicrobial solution. |
 The incision being made on my right hand. Getting your hands worked on sucks. |
 Starting to open a pocket for the larger implant. |
 My skin is thick and the tissue is very tight, making it difficult. |
 Finishing up creating the pocket for the implant. |
 With the implant in, suturing it closed. |
 And, hand number one is done. I don't really want to continue at this point! |
 …but I do, and we make small incisions on my left hand for the singles. |
 Sliding the first one into place; no spatula is required because they're so tiny. |
 Suturing the first incision on hand number two closed. |
 These tiny little things are very tricky to insert! |
 And, with five implants total inserted, we're all done. |
Just got back from our long road trip from Nogales to Topolobampo and then via ferry to La Paz. I'll write about it in more detail later, but at the border they had to call Mexico City to get special authorization to write “OTROS/OTROS/OTROS” on my car details, ha…
I'm not sure this little guy looks very happy about getting his ears pierced. This is by Body Piercing by Depine in Jaragua do Sul in Brasil…
Tomorrow morning I hop a plane to Phoenix where I'll briefly hook up with Steve and Jesse and hopefully get my magnet implanted. Then Rachel and I drive south through Mexico's mainland and take a ferry to La Paz; I'll take pictures documenting that for anyone considering the same drive… I made a few mix CDs for us to listen to on the drive (that's part of the fun of roadtrips, right?);
Set One: All (Rebel Yell), Antipop Consortium (Ping Pong), The Bees (A Minha Menina), The Beta Band (Won), The Bomboras (Land of the One Percenters), The Brian Jonestown Massacre (Maybe Tomorrow, Mansion In The Sky, The Godspell According To A.A. Newcombe), Cagney And Lacee (By The Way, Greyhound Goin' Somewhere), Chuck D (Wake up the sleeping giant), Dick Dale (Ginza Ska – Pike), El Vez (Arm Of Obregon), Fred Lane (White Woman), Fugitives (Set The People Free, White Hip Hop Youth, Young Black Male), Genesis (Harold the Barrel), The Get Up Kids (Close To Me), Goat Horn (Threatening Force), Guided By Voices (I am a Scientist), Hillbilly Hellcats (Hillbilly Cats On Speed), The Jesus and Mary Chain (Happy When it Rains, Down on Me), John Cameron Mitchell (Wig In A Box), Ladytron (the way that I found you, Seventeen), Lush (Hypocrite), The Maledictus Sound (Attention!), Mercury Rev (Opus 40), The Mountain Goats (Color in Your Cheeks), NoFX (Electricity), Pansy Division (James Bondage, Denny), Phoenix (If I Ever Feel Better, Too Young – Zoot Woman Remix), The Pixies (Cecilia Ann, Here Comes Your Man), The Pogues (Hell's Ditch, Fiesta), Rheostatics (Claire), RjD2 (Final Frontier, Ghostwriter), Royksopp (Eple, Royksopp's night out, Poor Leno – Instanbul Forever Take), Spiritualized (Do it all over again, The twelve steps), Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited (Korta Rides Again), Sunstorm (Automatic), Supersuckers (Sweet 'n' Sour Jesus), Swingin' Neck Breakers (Good, Good Lovin'), Tenpole Tudor (Swords Of A Thousand Men), They Might Be Giants (I Palindrome I), Tinypixel (Sloop John B), Ween (Bananas And Blow, Falling Out) Set Two: Antony (Bird Guhl, Hope There's Someone), Carmen Quinones (It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World), Coldcut (Autumn Leaves), deardarkhead (Never Coming Down), Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions (Drop), Impossible Shapes (Putrefaction), Iron and Wine (Faded from the Winter), Kings of Convenience (Winning a battle, losing the war), Lupine Howl (Voodoo Raygun), Mercury Rev (Little Rhymes, In the Wilderness), Mojave 3 (Return to sender, Anyday will be fine, Prayer for the damned, Some Kinda Angel, This Road I'm Travelling), Monster Movie (Shortwave), My Bloody Valentine (When You Sleep), My Morning Jacket (Bermuda Highway), Neil Halstead (Hi-Lo and Inbetween, Dreamed I Saw Soldiers), Papa M (Sorrow Reigns, The Lass of Roch Royal, Glad You're Here With Me), Sly and the Family Stone (Time), Spaceman 3 (Che), Stina Nordenstam (I See You Again), Sunstorm (Desert Song), Swearing at motorists (Creature of Habits), The Brian Jonestown Massacre (All Things Great & Small), The Reindeer Section (Budapest), The Sixth Great Lake (27 Forever, 300 Miles), This Mortal Coil (You And Your Sister)
I think I have this year “all tripped out” with journeys to Europe (France and Spain in July and the UK in I think October), Venezuela (July), and Patagonia (December) already scheduled, but next year I really want to take the ferry from the Shetland Islands to the Faroe Islands to Iceland. Rachel doesn't really like the cold very much, but I absolutely love the North Atlantic (not that I don't like pretty much anything on the ocean). I saw some links recently to the Faroe Islands which got me thinking about it again; it reminds me a lot of parts of Eastern Canada.
The photos below of the Faroe Islands link to the source site where you can find more.
I love the idea of living in a place like this, having a big garden that grows most of my food, maybe some pigs and goats, a wind and solar system that supplies all the power I need, and being able to live a life where I take less from the world than I give and live with some sense of serenity — which is not currently the case for me, nor for most people in the “modernized” nations. The thing that sucks is that we certainly have the technology already to create a society where humans improve the world rather than slowly eating it and shitting out poison in place of the beauty we consume.
The systems already exist to allow every person to generate their own power and clean their own water without pulling out any more than the water table will allow. The systems already exist that allow us to transport ourselves without polluting. The systems already exist that allow us to produce healthful and delicious food locally and without chemicals or hormones. The systems already exist to end disease, hunger, and poverty… Want to know why they're not being used?
Because they're distributed, and we live in a capitalist system that by its very design moves assets upwards and collects them in the hands of a small number of people — and these two models can not live together with any harmony as long as the average person is a sheep.
Most of the solutions that can save our species — which as I said, already exist — are small scale. For example, rather than monstrous centralized power generation systems, every house can generate its own power and other needs, feeding back what it doesn't need into the grid to balance loads. The “problem” with these systems is that they don't allow for centralization, which in turn does not allow for centralization of profit. Systems like this distribute profits, and instead of distilling assets to a small number of centralized entities, keep them local and split between many people. Thus the most powerful people and corporations on the world are threatened by them and fight against them.
Welcome to the power of advertising, which can make otherwise reasonable people commit suicide and embrace slavery.
