Author: Curiosity Roving

Curiosity Roving

The Grand Adventures of L Rose Goossen

V.9 : Mi Barrio Loco

in which the bliss detective probes a mystery

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Greetings and Salutations! 

And welcome to the ninth volume of Curiosity Roving. I thank you kindly for your attention. To my new subscribers, a special ¡hola! from me to you. I’ve recently surpassed the landmark number of 100 people who are now loosely following my happy trails; just a number, I know, but it is meaningful to me, so thank you for dropping your 0.943% in my little bucket today. If you’d like to get all caught up on exactly how I have chosen to exuberantly squander my time and money since June of 2019, and exactly what I’ve been learning from that, you have the option to review my archive: https://tinyletter.com/curiosity_roving/archive

In the time since my last letter, I have enjoyed my first Mexican holiday barbecue in the company of a town’s entire police force, honoured the birth of Christ by smuggling a surreptitious fruitcake into the nicest hospital I’ve ever seen, hustled the New Year adelante while dancing all night at a wicked street party where I found the people with the most alcohol and swiftly applied my social skills, passed the first day of the year held hostage by heavy and unseasonal rains that turned the surrounding dirt roads to thick mud, witnessed the wolf moon sporting a moon dog and endured the din of a small pack of small puppies as they howled at the same, survived my first close encounter with a real live scorpion that made an enigmatic cameo appearance on my bedroom ceiling only to, disturbingly, disappear, and settled in to another temporary home in another strange iteration of paradise, where the landlord is a retired rodeo clown, and the neighbour trains the dancing ponies.

welcome to the neighbourhood

I am writing to you today from San Francisco, Nayarit, Mexico, which is locally known as San Pancho. For anyone who has been reading since Volume Seven, this is an appropriate time to have a chuckle at how, in four months, I’ve only managed to go from one San Francisco to another. I’m only one wall away! It would seem that the patron saint of animals and I might have a bone to pick, if only I could remember where I buried that.

meet the neighbours

For now, circumstances have conspired to keep me here, and I am glad. There is a kind of magic in making oneself available, and it often results in being relieved of the necessity to make decisions. As my nautical antecedents and the Queens of the Stone Age might say, I can go with the flow. In the case of this particular tributary, I came to San Pancho at the invitation of my old friend and mentor Paco Despacio, the world’s naughtiest buttonsmith, who, upon my arrival, immediately suffered a dramatic medical crisis, and has been in a slow process of recovery ever since. So, I have stayed, and thus, the star of this letter is the idiosyncratic little pueblo that he wished to show me.

over the river and through the woods

San Pancho was a sleepy backwater town of subsistence farmers and fishermen until the 1970s, when el presidente Luis Echeverria decided to use it as the site of his holiday home. He took a special interest in the village, with a vision to develop it into a “model town” which would be complete and self-sufficient, and could be held as an shining example the world over. He introduced roads and electricity, built a hospital, a school, and a museum, and upgraded the infrastructure of the major industries. He christened the town’s main street Tercer Mundo, which means Third World, and all the side streets in honour of developing nations. Then he ruined the Mexican economy, left the country, and abandoned the project, which quickly collapsed. San Pancho ate the poison apple and went back to sleep.

familiar territory

The handsome prince arrived after thirty-odd years, in the form of some well-intentioned foreigners, and administered the magic kiss of creative initiatives. In 2006, the young American Nicole Swedlow hauled out her kitchen table and invited people to make arts and crafts on the sidewalk. She called the project Entreamigos, which means “between friends”, and after three years, it hatched into an abandoned dairy processing facility on San Pancho’s main street as a full-fledged community center. In 2011, Gilles Ste-Croix, the co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, passed by Entreamigos and created a production with the children of the town, and three years after that, the Circo de los Niños established itself in the old oil extraction facility next door. Nowadays, this complex of warehouses is also home to a gym and a multipurpose theatre space, and all of these community facilities offer daily classes, workshops, screenings, and concerts.

hallowed halls

Music is everywhere. All of the bars and restaurants employ performers, and a saunter down Tercer Mundo by twilight could land you deep in two-chord reggae loops accompanied by cajon and banana shaker, or hip-hop beats with electric violin and intergenerational breakdancing, or anything in between. I attended the local Nomad Festival on a Saturday night and a six-piece band from Guadelajara served stomping Balkan rhythms for party people until the wee small hours of the morning. On Sundays, the local taiko drummers rehearse in my backyard and sometimes, there’s a brass band on the beach.

special guests

And yes, there’s a beach, and yes, it is practically perfect in every way. San Pancho has mostly avoided major touristic development by virtue of being less accessible and subject to bigger surf than the adjacent towns, but there are some useful loungers and umbrellas provided by restaurants, hotels, and entrepreneurs, there are surfboards for rent, and there are roving salesmen hawking everything from spicy fried crickets to ten-minute massages to dreamcatchers woven with the Tree of Life. A number of these salespeople are Argentinian; they have driven all the way here and intend to continue north. One of them has written a book about the journey. Another carries a portable credit card machine that’s as big as a flip phone and pink. A third brings the empanadas at sunset.

boldly forward

The beach of San Pancho also serves as the nesting territory for a marine turtle population. The main plaza by the sand features one statue of Saint Francis and another honouring Frank D. Smith, the founder of the Marine Turtle Preservation Project, which has maintained a presence in the community for nearly thirty years, and revitalized a population that was once endangered by the human appetites for exotic delicacies and profits.

An environmental conscience can also be of use in curbing exploitative development; at the moment there are banners in the streets protesting a new condo construction, Punta Paraiso, and calling for a town that is conscious, active, and organized. As an ecological alternative to a glitzy time-share, you have the option to stay in the Project’s house through AirBnb, and experience close encounters of your own with their various reptile associates. A friend recently checked in to her room at Turtle HQ and found that she would be sharing it, temporarily, with a moderate-sized boa constrictor. Saint Francis would approve.

evening ritual

In summary, the marvellous thing about San Pancho is that it has integrated foreign influence in ways that transcend the global status quo of purely indulgent tourism, and developed a unique sense of authentic community that is accessible to residents and visitors alike. As Paco once told me, it is truly “a great place to be alive”. But don’t tell anyone else, okay?

Our sauce today features the man himself, broadcasting from a mechanical bed in Ixtapa.

the evolution of a buttonsmith

Ladies, he’s single. As my first Guest Specialist, Paco is going to tell you all about how he got here and why he loves it: www.curiosityroving.com/sauce

Reader, a new year begins, and with this, I invite you to step into beginner’s mind. Put aside your training. Go to a class and grapple with the fundamentals. Try a foreign language and trip on the tip of the tongue of your brain. Watch the inner animal as it runs, and softly giggle as it stumbles. Get some healthy distance from the ego-lust that fuels your so-called achievements. This life of full of surprises; who are you to anticipate them? Don’t spoil the fun. Breathe a deep and cleansing sigh of relief as you slowly remember that you know nothing. And then, start again.

Until next time, stay curious. — Rose

Appendix : Drop It Like It’s Hot

I love music, and my friends make music, and lately, I get to listen to it. Here’s what I’m spinnin’:

These deep dark house mixes from the sparklemaster: https://soundcloud.com/natemordo/tracks

This particular tune about the lost and found service of the soul : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l275Sic3Ous

This juicy collage of electronic and organic sounds : 

https://nowfeel.bandcamp.com/album/spectrum

These tales of the deep and desperate things that men might do, written by those who would know : https://thezerofilters.bandcamp.com/album/all-at-sea-2

These hyper clean and super horny big band bangerz : https://ghostmoneyallstars.bandcamp.com/album/evening-ride

Some squiggly trancemissions from a intergalactic Nphibian : https://technophobiarecords.bandcamp.com/album/nzen7-checking-trancemissions-is-this-music

This fierce feminist from Tepic : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSWA0WcAdke02TYkJaR0so44wIBv95miD

This face-melting ensemble from Guadelajara : https://soundcloud.com/xiranda-oficial/albums

Curiosity Roving

The Grand Adventures of L Rose Goossen

V.8 : Margaritaville

in which we go south of the border

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Greetings and Salutations! 

Welcome to the eighth volume of Curiosity Roving. I thank you kindly for your attention. For new subscribers, I extend a special welcome from me to you. You join this program already in progress, and if you would like to become familiar with the long and winding road that brought us to the present moment, I invite you to review my letter archive: https://tinyletter.com/curiosity_roving/archive

It’s now been six months since I quit my job and blew up my life, and I regret nothing. This odyssey has been and continues to be totally rewarding, educational, challenging, and fun. Thank you for taking the time to read these letters and join me for a joyride.

I spy with my little eye

I’m writing to you today from the western coast of Mexico, in the province of Nayarit. In the time since my last letter, I have been doing the crazy and doing it hard. I spontaneously jumped in a car and backtracked momentarily to the chilly north, for the best of reasons. I completed a daylong walking tour of Puerto Vallarta with a guide who is legally blind. I accepted an abundance challenge, learned to whistle the catchy theme song of the virgin of Guadalupe, and then pledged a pretty significant portion of my life savings to an upscale vacation conglomerate owned by the Corona family while quaffing frosty tequila and cooperatively lying about my age and occupation. I danced on stone-cobbled streets with my shoes full of sand beneath a big fat juicy moon. I fortuitously positioned myself in a house with no address just in time to save the life of a good friend who experienced a serious medical emergency. I cropped my hair down to twelve millimetres last week, and so far, not one person has mistaken me for a boy. Viva Mexico! After a great deal of research, I can competently distinguish between a good margarita and a subpar margarita. I can also emphatically confirm the factual existence of Montezuma’s famed revenge. That’s as diarrheal as it gets, folks!

You can groan if you want, but I’m giggling.

horse of a different feather

My brain is language soup. It’s been easy to program the Español into my daily meandering, but I’m in a strange situation in which my comprehension skills are far better than my speaking ability. Although I can understand a lot of what is said to me, I’m challenged to summon the words to respond or express myself. Sometimes I just throw up my hands and speak Italian. That generally gets the message across, but it feels like cheating.

Spanish is fantastic. I can barely make a real sentence, but after ten days of light immersion, I do understand that I can use the same word to say ‘hope’ and ‘wait’ (esperar), ditto ‘tall’ and ‘stop’ (alto), ditto ‘parents’ and ‘potatoes’ (papas). To me, all of this is hilarious.

“huevos divorciados” – also hilarious

The best crash course thus far was drinking a beer on the beach of Bucerias with Ricardo, 27, a construction worker from Guadalajara who is divorced with three children. He knew about three words of English, so I listened to his life story in Spanish for an hour or two, and he corrected some of my responses. He taught me the difference between the classical retornar and Mexican regresar. He taught me arrullo, and carried me like a baby for half a block. We laughed a lot, mostly at my mistakes. I accidentally said that I have nine boyfriends, and he asked if he could be the tenth. He didn’t mind that I said no. He taught me yo te cuido. He was polite and kind and respectful. Dear world, please be like Ricardo.

local colour in Bucerias

It’s my first time in this country, and the territory that I’m currently exploring is a good starter pack, a sort of Mexico Lite for fresh gringas. My ambitions are humble. A group of wealthy polo players recently passed through San Pancho for a tournament, and they informed me over vino and langostino that it is a bad time to go a-wandering in Mexico. They presented the possible scenario of a senseless kidnapping, and told me that I would be a perfect target, “because no one is going to ask for you”. A few days later, a local musician told me that they would say that, because they are rich. I suppose all of this is true. Overall, I feel much safer here than I did in American cities. 

view of Vallarta

This area is easy to love. Prior to arriving, my concept of Puerto Vallarta was defined by glassy-walled towers and colourful graphic images on tiny t-shirts that appeared on the backs of my elementary school classmates each year in January. I was delighted to find that the old town of Puerto Vallarta is a real town, with papelerias and hardware shops interspersed amongst the tourist swag. San Pancho is the local cultural hub, and the home of my favourite overall margarita situation. Bucerias has got the best beach for walking, and the best sunsets. There are adorable and friendly little doggies out for walkies every morning. The roads of all these places are cobblestoned in the very bumpiest of archaic traditions, and the hills will trip you up. They do not care that you’re on holiday.

mean streets

And sure enough, it’s the holiday season! The winter solstice! Feliz Navidad, amigos! I made my deadline! Somewhere, chestnuts are surely roasting upon open fires. Around here, the timeshares and resorts are flooded with snowbirds and their fledgling chicks. I do not have plans, and I do not need them. A wonderful feature of living abroad is that holidays become optional; I am not obligated to participate in local celebrations, and I am not expected to show up for the festivities “back home”. I create my own occasions for merriment, and overlook any socially sanctioned events that I can’t find a use for. Christmas is probably canceled over here, and between you and me, it seems like 2019 is already drunk. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but she should probably just go home.

taste, colour, and enchantment

Listen, reader: I’m going to be thirty in May. Would you like to come and celebrate with me somewhere in Mexico or Central America? If you’re still giving your time to my words, you’ve certainly earned an invitation to my party, and I’ll try to make it easy for you. Or, if May is too soon, let’s rendezvous in Argentina for the solar eclipse next December. If May is too late, why not join me in February for a weekend of yoga and dancing at my friends’ ashram in Belize? I mean it. You’re invited. RSVP at your convenience. Make of me your magic carpet, and ride, Sally, ride.

Our sauce today is a love note for an old friend. Rated PG-14.

www.curiosityroving.com/sauce

Take it easy, one and all. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Get loose with your nearest and dearest. Tell tall tales. Argue with your in-laws. Get offended, and cry into your eggnog while the herald angels carry on a-singing. Delight in this delicious mixture of the sacred and profane. And please, pour out some extra gravy for me.

Until next time, stay curious. — Rose

Appendix : Recipes for Readers

Everyone knows that the most important part of any holiday season is food, food and food, so I will take this opportunity to furnish you with three festive recipes, which I have collected and composed over the last year. This is what’s on the menu:

1) a vegan brownie from a Year of the Pig celebration for lush expats

2) a turkey sandwich that will transform your leftover bird bits into solid gold

3) some chocolate chip cookies from my mom’s house

find it here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ohR76piVZEVj2DsO5wxonBrjbcCKkfQcDgAstaxXfSo

Curiosity Roving

The Grand Adventures of L Rose Goossen

V.7 : Gilded Rollercoaster

in which I lay down the 101 on the 415

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Greetings and Salutations! 

Welcome to the seventh volume of Curiosity Roving. I thank you kindly for your attention. To all new subscribers, a special hi-hello-and-how-d’you-do. Thank you for joining me on this madcap mission to explore the world with maximum enthusiasm and verbosity. I hope you like words.

I’m writing to you today from an extremely comfortable nest in an iconic world city, which, ever since one fateful September weekend, has been steadily settling ever deeper into my heart. Reader, I’m in love, and it’s no secret. We need to talk about San Francisco.

romance ain’t dead yet

Let’s begin with the basic understanding that this city was born in chaos. The California Gold Rush began in 1848, and in the course of only two years, inflated the local population from one thousand people to twenty-five thousand. Planned expansion didn’t become apparent for another decade. The cable cars, ornate fairyland houses, narrow side streets, sprawling parks, and neighbourhoods of strong identity that still define the local landscape were mostly developed between 1860 and 1890.

bridge to treasure island

Then came the bridges, both of which opened in the mid-1930s, and connected the peninsula with two neighbouring edges of the coast. The Golden Gate Bridge is a famed symbol of America, particularly as seen from the Asian perspective, and the Bay Bridge, though less frequently flaunted on postcards and sitcom intro sequences, is more impressive in width and span. The bridges were major feats of engineering and they are beautiful, as both structures and metaphors. The necessity of crossing them lends a sense of poignance to any excursion in or out of the city. As much as they are implements of connection, they are also reminders of isolation; if the chilly water beneath them doesn’t inspire a romantic sense of distance from your intended destination, the rush-hour traffic probably will.

phantom ship

I love any city that has sharply defined neighbourhoods, and San Francisco is exemplary of that. The historic Chinatown was my first destination. Although its flavour is primarily Cantonese, the teeming wet markets and back alley hair salons cut close enough to my beloved Taiwan to soothe the achy homesickness. If you wander to the northeast corner of Chinatown, the crossing of a single street is enough to land you in North Beach. The transition is immediate and unmistakeable. One minute you’re knee-deep in bubble tea and mochi, and the next it’s all espresso and biscotti. The Financial District gleams with slick glass and brand names, but go up and over one little hill, and you’ll step into the abject seediness of the Tenderloin (and maybe something else if you’re not careful). Over to the west, Haight-Ashbury still upholds the old psychedelic totems of tie-dye and crystal, and neighbouring central districts of the Mission and the Castro, which are famed respectively for Latin heritage and gay culture, turn the entire geographic centre of this tasty metropolitan jelly donut into a glorious rainbow squish.

because Chinatown

Wandering downtown, you will find decorative tablets on every sidewalk corner to celebrate local history and the characters who have written it. Next to each of those, you will probably also find a small patch of graffiti, more recently applied, with a timely message to make you giggle or give you hope. Murals line the alleys and brush the sky, and quotations from past eras offer themselves from the most unexpected niches. One way or another, there seems to be an artist’s name on every street. The city speaks to anyone who will listen, and it speaks in poetry.

slanted streets, painted ladies

The weather of San Francisco has read the manual on seduction. Like a practiced lover, it is full of tricks to keep you guessing, wishing, hoping, and humble. Even a short excursion through the hills and microclimates has the potential to lead you from a shades-and-ice-cream kind of outing to the “why didn’t you bring a jacket?” kind. You will navigate the capricious whims of wind, water, fog, sun traps, and pressure zones, as the city subjects you to an artful display of its bountiful charms, gives you the twinkly eyes that brim with sweet promises, looses a seemingly delighted peal of laughter, and then dives under a damp grey blanket and leaves you shivering, lost, entirely lacking landmarks. You will never know what to wear. You will be irresistibly compelled to analyze the situation with total strangers. It will drive you wild.

palms and chimes

As for the social climate, it is famously tolerant, innovative, and cosmopolitan. Modern residents of San Francisco are mostly recent transplants, as a high percentage of true locals have been driven out by the rising cost of living. Wealth and privilege exploded in the area with the development of Silicon Valley and the tech boom, but homelessness is also on the rise. All the elements of society are highly visible, and co-exist pressed up against each other in an area of less than fifty square miles, so if you are not tolerant upon arrival, you will soon learn to be.

fog rolling in

I am a scrappy kind of girl, and when I was a child, my father would often have occasion to scrutinize the holes in my favourite clothing articles and tell me that I couldn’t leave the house looking as though nobody loves me. Similarly, there are cities of this world that show up dressed in rags, neglected by their populations, but San Francisco shines with all the doting care of its two million adoptive parents. The builders of this city were committed to maximizing the power of pretty, and it pleases me to see that after more than a century, every Victorian facade and bay window can still unabashedly show off its Sunday best. 

island in the sun

In my roving of the last two months, I have encountered a prevailing attitude among proud citizens that San Francisco does it better. Although this initially smacked of arrogance, I am now forced to conclude that they are not entirely wrong. Whether it’s a rooftop garden, a dive bar, a yoga studio, a chocolate shop, a tech headquarters, a billboard campaign, or a bayside boogie, everything on offer here is a great example of its type. Part of that is because there’s money in it, but wealth alone does not a great city make. I am charmed by all the evidence of investment and initiative that I see around me, whether it’s a brass commemoration from the nineteenth century or a fresh sticker on the bus stop.

we brake for giggles

The city is generous with reasons to smile. Shoutout to the guy rolling down Brannan Street with a blue and gold macaw riding shotgun, and the dude taking his pug for a run by riding a skateboard downhill with the leash in one hand and a smoking bundle of sage in the other. My praises for the loose flow of compliments exchanged like verbal currency on the street. And just so you know, the mass transit system addresses you alternately in the voice of a telemarketer and that of Stephen Hawking. The city was born in chaos, and it is still the same, and I love it.

We’ll end today with another friendly reminder that love is a choice. I joke that I’ve been happily stuck here, but really, I have chosen to spend my time getting acquainted with this particular patch of earth, because knowledge is a component of love, and I want a piece of this. I arrived here with only a handful of hazy memories, and now I can tell you where to find a post office, a secret beach, a restaurant you can’t afford, a stacked breakfast bagel, a decent hike, a golden grilled burrito, my favourite Mexican bakery, and much more. When I go, I will not leave my heart in San Francisco, but it will always be happy to return.

golden knowledge, golden sun

That’s all the news that fits! If you ever have the opportunity to visit the city by the bay, I hope that this enraptured preamble will provide you with a shortcut to swooning bedazzlement in the sparks and flashes that cobble the streets of my sainted sweetheart. Wherever these words may find you, please don’t forget to lean into all the love that surrounds you. Thank you for taking the time to accompany me on this loquacious stroll through some favourite fantasies.

golden sun, golden city

Our sauce du jour is rated G and you can find it in the same old place:

www.curiosityroving.com/sauce

Until next time, stay curious. — Rose

Curiosity Roving

The Grand Adventures of Rose Goossen

V.6 : California Dreaming

in which our hero goes for the gold

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Greetings and Salutations! 

And welcome to the sixth volume of Curiosity Roving. I thank you kindly for your attention. This newsletter is my monthly offering of humble content for the world at large, and it numbers among my favourite things in life. For new subscribers, a hearty welcome! Thank you for joining me on this wild goose chase. May it bring you joy.

I’m writing to you today from Los Angeles. I am further south than I have ever previously been on the American continents, and it is satisfying. Since my last letter, I have been living in a delicious golden haze that is best described as a California dream. This is expensive and unsustainable, but certainly temporary, and therefore, I have been inclined to indulge with maximum enthusiasm in decadent salads, bakery treats, splendid parties, and all manner of conveniences.

happy dance

Notable events of this last era include: a homesick haircut in a dingy Chinatown alleyway, attendance at Tourettes Without Regrets and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, happy reunions with people of the past and fresh encounters with new friends, my first saunter through a dark alleyway with my taser in my good hand, an evening introduction to Gyrotonics in the Odd Fellows Hall, a round of go-go pirate with Fleetmac Wood, a three-day trip down a beautiful coastal highway, the acquisition of a leather hat, the novel experience of cosmic unity, and many, many days and nights of dreaming on the dance floor.

Volume Six is light on geography, heavy on lifestyle. I’m composing a heartfelt love letter to a certain special city, and I might let you read it in V.7, but such delicate things take time, so, for now, I will introduce you to two of my unorthodox hobbies, both of which are essential practices in my current way of being and serve to constantly reaffirm my faith in humanity.

we should be friends

Hitchhiking is a quintessentially American and democratic phenomenon, the first instances of which were documented in the early 20th century. The practice consists of soliciting free rides from strangers by standing at the side of the road with an extended thumb. It has been common in North America for the last century among migrant workers, soldiers, adventurers, children, misfits, wayfarers, wanderers, and transients. The society of the hitchhiker is more reputable than that of the railroad tramp, and was endowed with a special glaze of poetry by the Beat Generation of the 1950s.

simply irresistible

I am an accomplished hitchhiker, and a purist. I do not make signs, I do not linger at gas stations or truck stops, I do not photograph licence plates or send safety update texts upon entering a new vehicle. I like to be at the side of the road, and to allow people to voluntarily stop for me. I exercise equal parts trust and savvy, and use the practice to facilitate my experience of a true present. I rarely wait longer than twenty minutes for a ride, but even so, I have spent innumerable cumulative hours on the gravel shoulder with my thumb out, tipping my hat to drivers as they communicate through gesture the various reasons why they cannot or will not pick me up, tempting fate and, if the wait proves truly interminable, perhaps performing circus tricks. I find it to be a charming pastime.

a happy detour

Hitchhiking brings me into contact with people with whom I would never otherwise have the opportunity to interact. In 1775, Samuel Johnson wrote that the true state of every nation is the state of common life, and hitching is an unparalleled opportunity to make a direct survey of the state of the world. The exercise transcends social strata; I can be in the eighteen-wheeler one day, and the Mercedes the next. Most of the people who pick me up do so because they fancy some company, and there is an instant intimacy that is permitted by the peculiarity of the encounter and the close, shared, safe space of a vehicle. In the role of temporary passenger, I gently receive incredible stories and dark secrets. I am taken on spontaneous adventures and into homes. And though the timid may tout the risks of a woman alone, I have crossed three continents by the power of my own dainty thumb, and I have never found myself in critical peril.

many a winding turn

I was indoctrinated into the cult of the hitchhiker by literature, while young, impressionable, and stuck in a small town. For those who may be interested in exploring this unique vein of crazy wisdom, I recommend Douglas Adams, Jack Kerouac, and Tom Robbins, particularly Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. I’ve also included an academic paper on the history of hitchhiking in today’s Appendix.

My second unconventional pastime is the surfing of couches, also known as Couchsurfing, with a capital letter, because it is a trademarked term. Couchsurfing is a social network that allows travellers to connect with local people and make use of whatever extra space they have available. It is the brainchild of Casey Fenton, a computer programmer from New Hampshire. In 1999, at the age of 21, he hacked into the database of the University of Iceland and randomly emailed 1500 students with a request to stay in their homes while visiting their country. He received about a hundred replies, and enjoyed free lodging with a local musician during his trip to Iceland. The company was formed as a non-profit organization in 2003, developed by volunteers, and launched in 2004.

hardly strictly couches

These days, Casey Fenton is a “Silicon Valley veteran” and Couchsurfing is a social app like many others, which makes use of location services to bring people who are in close geographical proximity into pleasant social contact. When I first started using the network in 2009, it was rather different. Smartphone culture had not yet taken over the world. Location services were not really existent. Couchsurfing was a social network, like Facebook, but much smaller and more deliberate. I used it heavily from 2009 until 2012, and everyone I met during that time was a wonderful weirdo.

Of course, things change. In 2011, the company made the switch from non-profit to for-profit. The functions of the website and the privacy policies went through waves of revision, and eventually the whole shebang shifted to app-based services. I had a few unsavoury experiences, checked out for about six years, and only recently reopened my account, my home, my heart, and my mind. I’m glad I did.

plenty of fun in this world

Like hitchhiking, Couchsurfing is an exercise in mutual trust. We introduce ourselves through profiles and photos, and then we make offers, requests, and agreements. Neither host nor surfer can ever be certain that the other is quite as they appear to be. Still, we trust, and incredible things become possible when we do.

Both of these practices have a significant practical function that supports my current way of life. In the vernacular of an entrepreneur, they keep my overhead manageable. However, the real value of these maverick diversions is not financial. It is human. I want to believe in basic goodness, and sometimes the simplest way to do that is to take myself way out on a limb, and, by the power of gravity, check if the trampoline is still there. So far, the world is a bouncy place, and ultimately, all of these small acts of human-scale trust add up to good practice for the larger, scarier goal of trusting that my little life and the trajectory of our species here on Planet Earth might be basically okay.

glory bound

Our sauce du jour is in the usual place. The law of equals and opposites counsels that there can be no joy without pain, no light without dark, no courage without fear, and no innocence without experience. People keep telling me that I’m living the dream, and I keep telling them that it’s “tricky”. Today, I shine a light into eight dark corners of what I mean when I say that. PG-13.

www.curiosityroving.com/sauce

I will leave you today with a friendly reminder, courtesy of palliative nurse Bronnie Ware. These are the five most common regrets of people who are faced with the prospect of imminent death:

1) I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself.

2) I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3) I wish I had kept in touch with my friends.

4) I wish I had had the courage to express my feelings.

5) I wish I had allowed myself to be happier.

Reader, seize the day. Write that love note, make that call, give that gift, eat that pastry, and then eat another one for me. Have a second cup of coffee, too. Say “mmmmm”. Learn that language, buy that ticket, call in sick. Hell, call in done. Chase that wild goose. Take your shirt off. Get yourself a four-dollar bottle of Chardonnay and revel in Dionysian splendour. And, when you do, please, tell me all about it.

Until next time, stay curious. — Rose

Appendix : Related Materials

A short history of hitchhiking by John T. Schlebecker, published in 1958:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hM4Qhp57HWNS2DH1ycy8dsI1xhlb6zQO

A photo gallery of more than 500 Couchsurfers that have been hosted by the generous people of the Tiny Big House in Oakland, California:

https://gallery.snapyourself.com/gallery/couchsurfers/home

The actual Couchsurfing website, for those who have a spare room or need one:

https://www.couchsurfing.com/

Curiosity Roving

The Grand Adventures of Rose Goossen

V.5 : Through the Fires

in which the protagonist is dusty, dirty, and decadent

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Greetings and Salutations! 

Welcome to the fifth volume of Curiosity Roving. I thank you kindly for your attention. To all new subscribers, congratulations! You have successfully navigated all the necessary links and confirmation emails and you will now receive my sprightly updates in the third week of every month, until you grow weary of them or until I do.

My velocity during this recent period can be calculated as exactly zero. I have been far, far away, but I have returned to the same village of tiny purple houses from which I wrote to you in August, because life is very good here. I’ve been busy with manual labour. Imagine hoses, gloves, sheds, ladders, wrenches, rust, hammers, rags, staples, silicone, dirt, mud, dust, sunshine, and grunts alternately of pain and determination, with rice and beans to keep me on my feet, afternoon Screwdrivers to keep me on my toes, and evenings spent moon-gazing in a hot tub while quaffing ice cream treats or the sweet grape-flavoured juice of the poets. There are few things in life that taste quite as good as dirty work when it’s paired with clean living, and I am loving it.

morning missions

It is wonderful, when traveling, to develop some familiarity with a place. It takes time. I stayed in this neighbourhood for about three months in 2010, but only on this second visit have I become sufficiently comfortable to refer to three major stations of the area by their abbreviated, colloquial nomenclature. I can now say with pride that I’ve been from T-Town to CJ to GP and back. I also once went to Talent and Merlin in the same day, passing through both Four Corners and Wonder en route. I know the way to Green Bridge, to Rogue River, and to Jumpoff Joe Creek. When making these local rounds, I keep an eager eagle eye pointed out my passenger side window to exchange winks with the cryptic side streets, such as Turnagain Drive, Enchanted Way, and, my personal favourite, Too Far South. Josephine County is pure charm, and I am happily under her spell.

roadside attractions

We’re about to go deep into the goodie bag, but first: when was the last time you walked into the shower with all your clothes on?

If you can’t remember, it’s been too long! Go out, do something very messy, cleanse thyself and thy vestments beneath a water spout, and then meet me back here. I’ll wait.

The bulk of this edition is dedicated to Burning Man, the event which occupied me between August 22nd and September 3rd. It is a phenomenal environment and it merits all the words I can muster.

home, home on the dust

Burning Man is a gathering of humans that takes place annually in late August or early September on a parched lakebed situated at the altitude of four thousand feet – that’s twelve hundred meters – in northwestern Nevada. The event began as a small arty party in 1986, and is now attended by approximately eighty thousand people from around the world. This temporary community erects a temporary metropolis, known as Black Rock City. The city measures seven square miles, or eleven kilometres square. It is bordered by a pentagonal trash fence and lined with ring roads in a radiant clock formation, at the centre of which is the sculpture of the “Man” for whom the event is named, and which is ceremoniously, explosively immolated come Saturday night. The city is navigable by foot, bicycle or slow-moving motor vehicle, and the conduct of its citizens is guided by ten basic principles that promote equal parts responsibility, creativity, and levity.

desert denizens, with bicycle

Although it is a festive scene, Burning Man disdains the title of ‘festival’. And indeed, there are features which set this event apart from its closest relatives. A prime example is the gift economy. The road to Black Rock City tends to be long and expensive, but once you arrive, you can put your wallet away. The only things for sale on site are coffee and ice. Everything else is provided free of charge by the participants. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Food, drink, shelter, services of grooming and healing, repairs, novelties, bacon, champagne, entertainment, education; whatever it may be, someone brought it to share with you and me and everybody. Unless you’re serving cold drinks or indulging a streak of cafe snobbery, there’s no reason to buy anything.

deity on demand

Another distinctive feature of Burning Man is the extremity of the living conditions, which necessitates a certain degree of preparation, or ruggedness, or simple discomfort. Black Rock City is a dry and dusty place. The alkaline properties of the dust cause metal to rust and skin to crack. It is blazing hot during the day and freezing before the dawn. When it rains, the entire joint becomes a sticky, impassable mud bath. In addition to the natural conditions, there are many opportunities to put oneself in harm’s way in the course of enjoying the man-made offerings at the event, and the back of the ticket reminds the general public to “play at your own risk”. Still, every year, people die in the desert. People also get arrested, injured, indicted, robbed, and raped, but none of this has been a significant part of my own experience at Burning Man, and I’m only including it so that you, too, can taste that special, life-affirming paprika of hypothetical danger.

i heard talking heads are playing at the trash fence

Any event that enjoys longevity is bound to go through growing pains and awkward phases. Burning Man was in its thirty-third year in 2019, which means that the first wave of participants has, for the most part, grown older and grown out of the core group. Key founder Larry Harvey passed away just last year, and a friend told me that in the demographic studies of recent Burns, approximately fifty percent of attendees are first-timers, whereas only ten percent have participated in the event more than five times. This suggests that, although there is an established community, the playing field is wide open for newcomers to reimagine the experience, and as the administration reportedly aspires to expand the city to accommodate an additional twenty thousand people in the near future, those ratios are likely to become even more dichotomous. 

headmaze and last rays

I keep an antenna tuned to the community of global Burners, and in recent years I’ve heard complaints that the event has been hijacked by the superwealthy, or has become exclusive, and that most people are just coming to look, rather than contribute. All of this is true, to some extent. There are a lot of spectators, because there is a lot of spectacle, and the superwealthy are largely responsible for financing the nuts and bolts of that spectacle. Even though you might not see an actual dollar bill for the whole week, there is evidence of big money all around. Hierarchy is paramount, and for career Burners, this can be a source of ambition that has the potential to lead to some truly amazing achievements. Burning Man may have been created as an outlet for outlaws and a vast gallery for visionary art, but it has now emerged as something a little more accessible and mundane: one of the greatest, flashiest, most advanced and professional weeklong parties to ever grace the planet Earth. 

here today

Here is a really nice video made by a big rich camp that shows you how the beautiful people are living out there: 

https://youtu.be/Q213Ow-1h3g

In sum, Black Rock City remains a temporary territory that is unique on this planet, and I feel privileged to have played my small role in the grand drama of it all once more.

gone tonight

Now, hear ye, hear ye: by the power of my charm and the strength of my conviction, I hereby declare that what I called Rhapsody in the last issue shall henceforth be known as Sauce. I know that this newsletter is a bit dry for some of you, and I am always happy to serve up a little extra juice. Sauce is also exempt from the word count that governs the format of this monthly missive. I write until it’s finished, and I cut only the egregious fat.

**Attention! The content of Curiosity Roving will always be PG and appropriate for all ages, but Sauce could feature racier material. **

It might be really long, it might make you blush, and the only way to find out is to read the dang thing. Actually, since I’ve had a little time on my hands, you also have the option to consume this one through your ears. It seems that my network connection here is too slow to run my website editor, so I’ll have route it through plain ol’ Google Drive, and be content with content, overlooking the limitations of presentation. I can do that.

after all, it’s just an ephemeral temple of tin

Today’s Sauce is my personalized bike tour of Black Rock City, obviously. Come along, chickadees, it’s fun here! I’ll show you around:

hear it: https://drive.google.com/open?id=17jsGwftc8S2psR10vTIeBDN1OeoJmwTD

read it: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vrQ6mPKD3w9JC-DRJj-GbKSx-rHL9L9d

And as extra extra snacks, I have two new videos with my stamp on ’em:

1) My singer/songwriter alter ego released a music video on September 18th. It was filmed in my little town of Gimli, Manitoba, which I told you all about in V.2.

https://vimeo.com/360847271

2) My first live video for The Music Nest features a private performance by the glorious songstress Bella White in the forest at Frog Fest, the rural Alberta music festival that I documented in V.3.

https://youtu.be/K9olyQGvP_0

In all seriousness now, it’s getting a bit too cold for my clothing around these parts, so I’m soon to be southbound. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and New Orleans are all on my dance card, and, come December, I expect to be singing Feliz Navidad rather than Merry Christmas. Please do send me to your friends, to your hallowed haunts, to your odd jobs, and to fledgling performers who need a video!

safety third

Thanks again for receiving this newsletter, the monthly generation of which brings me so much pleasure, and until next time, stay curious. — Rose

Appendix : BRC Vernacular

Any organization with a cult-like following inevitably develops its own language. Here are some basic terms for navigation and discussion of Black Rock City, surreptitiously collected from the mouths of my friends and acquaintances:

playa : (n.) : the hard-packed lakebed that hosts our fair city

 — often used in the sense of an adjective in connection with an object that is only used at Burning Man, for example: playa name, playa bike, playa hat, playa boyfriend, etc.

 — other derivatives: 

playafy (v.) : to customize an object and prepare it for the event OR to completely cover in the alkaline dust that infiltrates every crevice of every thing that a person brings to Burning Man

playafied (adj.) : decorated and customized or perhaps covered in dust

playafication (n.) : the process of fancying up your stuff or getting it totally covered in alkaline dust while at Burning Man

burner : (n.) : a person who attends Burning Man and lives wholeheartedly in accordance with the ethos of the event

virgin : (n.) : a person who has never been to Burning Man

home : (n.) : Burning Man

theme camp : (n.) : a group of humans operating under a collective name and offering a particular service or habitat that is sanctioned and placed on the city map by Burning Man administrators

t-stake : (n.) : a variety of metal stake, usually 5 – 10 feet in length, that is pounded forcibly into the hard ground and used to secure tents, art pieces, etc.

— see also: rebar, baling wire

rally : (v.) : to summon energy for a formidable task such as the noisy and effortful pounding of t-stakes, often but not exclusively at an unusual hour

art car : (n.) a vehicle that has been modified for Burning Man. These range in style from 18-wheeler mobile dance parties with fully stacked sound systems to cute l’il golf carts coated in neon fun fur to steampunk sculptures endowed with large flamethrowing appendages, and everything in between.

— see also: mutant vehicle

schwag : (n.) : small gifts, such as stickers, scarves, magnets, or mugs, that are emblazoned with the insignia of a particular Burner or Theme Camp and are meant to be distributed widely in random interactions throughout the duration of the event

plug n’ play : (adj.) : used to describe a theme camp that facilitates the experience of the superwealthy at Burning Man, a practice disdained by Burners committed to principles of self-reliance and radical inclusion

— see also: turnkey camp (n.)

sparkle pony : (n.) : a person, usually female, who has come to the event in order to dress well and be photographed, often but not exclusively for Instagram

default world : (n.) : the entire world outside of Burning Man

decompression : (n.) : the process of preparing oneself to reintegrate with the default world following a Burn event

— see also: afterparty

exodus: (n.) : the process of leaving Burning Man, which, at certain peak times, has the potential to become an undertaking of biblical cumbersomeness

pulse : (v.) : to move slightly forward at intervals of approximately one hour in the six-lane lineup that forms on the road out of Black Rock City

Curiosity Roving

The Grand Adventures of Rose Goossen

V.4 : Pines and Needles

in which we savour the flavour of the Pacific Northwest

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Greetings and Salutations! 

And welcome to the fourth volume of Curiosity Roving. I thank you kindly for your attention. For new subscribers, a special thanks and how d’you do. This newsletter is my humble attempt to give away all the goodness that I am enjoying in life. 

Today, I write to you from an adult-sized fairy garden at the foot of Hope Mountain in southern Oregon. Since my last note in late July, I have finally completed the transition to a fluid and rootless traveling lifestyle, a process that has been in progress since March. My possessions can now be contained in one smallish army surplus backpack. If we don’t count the twenty-odd bags that I use for organization, they number about one hundred objects. Yes, I counted, and frankly, Marie Kondo has got nothing on me.

where did you sleep last night?

With the transition in lifestyle have come parallel shifts in my attitude and my daily way of being. I simply love to travel, and I feel that I am at my best when I do so. The art of travel, for me, lies in a profound commitment to the uninterrupted experience of a true present. I feel awake, clear, and engaged with reality, such as it is, at almost all times. When I have fewer possessions and fewer commitments, I come into contact with a greater sense of freedom to exist within an uncomplicated sensation of enjoyment. I experience serendipity and the laws of attraction in galvanizing immediacy. It is comparable to a meditative state. I do not prescribe this way of life for everyone; I merely testify that it really, really works for me.

with child for scale

Let’s talk territory. Since my last letter, I have spent time in Washington and Oregon, on the west coast of the United States. The modern image of this part of the world is characterized by technology overlords, sporty outdoor activities, pop culture trendsetting, and legal marijuana. If we look back to the mid-19th century, we can trace the settlement of these two states to the land grants that were offered by the federal government, roughly concurrent with the California Gold Rush. The wild west has always been a land for opportunistic outlaws and takers of risk. I love to be here.

farm life

It is not my first time to visit this region, but it is the first time in a decade, and although Canada and America share some neighbourly commonalities such as the English language, the brunch special, and a number of chain stores, it feels as foreign as any other place. Everything that I expect to be French is Spanish, and I can’t talk about distances or temperatures with anybody. Last night my friend told me, “thirty two feet will kill you”, and I still don’t know how many meters I would fall to my death.

you bet it is

I have been startled by the emphatic presence of war in the American consciousness. Veterans and absent sons are common familial components. The Home Depot has parking spots designated for those wounded in action, and the neon at JD’s Sports Pub reminds us to never forget the events of 9/11. There are billboards on the freeway advertising the army’s education incentives. I attended the Seattle Seafair, a major summer festival with major military support, and I was astonished by the glamour of the war industry as it is presented to the American public. I bore witness to the Golden Knights and the Blue Angels as they executed pirouettes across the sky over Lake Washington, and I admit, I was dazzled. Then I eavesdropped on a father as he explained martial law to his children, and I asked the hazy skies why on Earth that should be necessary on such a beautiful day.

even the popsicles are in on it

Despite the fact that this place is somewhat dangerous and also expensive, I was motivated to visit the United States for three good reasons. First and foremost, I have some wonderful friends here, with whom I am enjoying happy reunions. Secondly, I haven’t been here in a decade, and it is interesting to create a temporal landmark that allows me to measure the ways in which I have changed, and the way the place has, as well. Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, I am curious to explore the ground-floor reality of this country that is so frequently under the international microscope, this global superpower whose every move is documented, magnified, and publicized into redundancy by the world media machine. I wish to to strip a few veils from this glossy enigma and reground my opinion of the United States in actual lived experience.

seek and ye shall

In the three weeks that I have been here, I have enjoyed brief contact with varied fascinating strata of American society. I have been to the forest, the city, the Old Curiosity Shop, the swimming hole, the secret speakeasy, the truck stop, the underground tour, the public piano, Portland’s Hollywood, the rooftop rave, the time-share sales breakfast buffet, the Vietnamese karaoke bar, the steakhouse jazz jam, the starlit funeral procession to a parking lot, and the annual convention of the National Button Society. Although my observations are only preliminary at this point, I am content to report that the people of the west coast remain as feisty, as clever, as effervescent and as nonchalant as their pioneer gene pool should have engineered them to be, and even if the nation is divided on many crucial issues, everyone here seems to agree that things are totally messed up, and that is a tidy sort of basic, foundational unity.

automobile of a button enthusiast

A exciting note on the business of generating words:

It it my intention to maintain the voice, spirit, and format of this newsletter as I have established it, which is to say that I am engineering this content to be relatable, unthreateningly informative, mildly journalistic, and appropriate for all ages. However, one thousand words is just not enough to serve you all that I wish to, so I have begun to wander in some other aisles of the language market, and today, I can offer a supplementary snack.

The working title of this side dish is Rhapsody. It’s totally new, so I don’t quite know what will become of it, but I know that it’s good, and I won’t hold out; you can have it right now. If and when you find the opportunity, I invite you to join me for this madcap adventure of a word painting in triptych, for which I have used a more immersive, aggressive, and visceral style of writing, and made some small allowances for PG-13 moments:

https://www.curiosityroving.com/sauce

This is a hidden page on my website. Add it to your bookmarks and label it “Adventure Time”. It is a divine pleasure for me to build and display these verbal sandcastles, and I thank you kindly for taking the time to admire them.

much more to come

I’ve spent the last week mostly generating lemon-themed installation pieces and costumes, because I’m soon off to Burning Man, which is a massive gathering of humans in the Nevada desert, and I’m camping with Black Rock Lemonade. I don’t have a single hot clue about what might happen after that, and I like it! I’ll update you around the autumnal equinox.

Until next time, stay curious. — Rose

Appendix : The Perfect Backpack

Having spent half of my adult life living in various backpacks, I am an expert in this particular kind of packing, and today I offer you my five cardinal rules for a good kit.

1. Leave space. If your bag is completely full, either it is too small, or you need to make some judicious decisions about what not to put in it. You never know when you might wish to acquire something delightful or of temporary usefulness, so it is wise to leave a small margin of possibility.

2. Minimal cosmetics. Cosmetics are heavy, messy, expensive, and overrated. I have a reusable 40 millilitre bottle that I periodically refill with simple soap or shampoo and use to wash my hair, body, socks, and underwear. I have toothpaste and sodium bicarbonate for my teeth, and tea tree oil for my armpits and my lesser flesh wounds. I wear capes and hats instead of sunscreen.

3. Everything in its place. My backpack has few pockets, so it contains many other bags which contain many other things. I know exactly where each of my one hundred objects should be found at all times. This makes it easy to fetch whatever I need, and it helps me to avoid forgetfulness.

4. Inconspicuousness. Although the backpacking subculture has a noble history, recent trends in that industry are angling away from rugged survivors and intrepid explorers, and more toward privileged young people enjoying their gap years. Call me a snob, but lately, I prefer to avoid that association. My bag is black and simple and does not extend above my shoulders. When looking at me, no one should see a target.

5. Only the best clothing. I have three dresses, two pairs of shorts, one pair of slacks, one pair of leggings, two t-shirts, one tank top, one vest, two sweaters, three pairs of socks, four pairs of underwear, two scarves, and a pirate costume. I get compliments on all of it and I never feel deprived. Each item has a particular texture, so I can find them by feel in the dark. If I happen to be in a cold place, I can wear my entire wardrobe at once; I will be warm, and my bag will be very light. Tiny pro tip: roll, don’t fold.

Curiosity Roving

The Grand Adventures of Rose Goossen

V.3 : Skies and Sounds

in which our hero makes the most of the best of the prairies

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Greetings and Salutations! 

And welcome to the third issue of Curiosity Roving. For new subscribers, a special howdy-do. This newsletter is an ongoing experiment in lived experience and the ways in which it can be represented by the written word. I will tell you stories, give you tips, and offer select brain foods, which you may or may not choose to consume. Thanks for joining the ride.

Since my last note, which might have reached you around the time of the summer solstice, I have traversed vast Canadian territory with the help of many other people who own motorized vehicles, mostly for the purpose of attending music festivals. One thousand words is hardly sufficient to communicate the bounty of the prairies in peak summertime, but I will do my best to compress my impressions without compromising their colours.

yep, that’s Saskatchewan

Let’s start with geography. A prairie is a variety of grassland, and locally, this terminology refers to the great flat plains in the southern central part of Canada, which is divided into the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The region comprises about two thousand square kilometres of resource-rich territory, currently occupied by field crops, oil sands, little towns, and big skies. It is some of the oldest land on our planet, with bedrock that was formed more 2.3 billion years ago in a geologic event known as ‘the big squeeze’. A great many dinosaurs still sleep beneath the windswept expanses of wheat, canola, and flax. It has served as a seabed several times throughout the Earth’s history, and if we look at the current trend of rising sea levels, it is reasonable to imagine that the prairie region could again be underwater someday.

yep, that’s Manitoba

Most people will tell you that the prairies are boring, but anyone who says this has not been looking up. The flatness of this land lends so much drama to the skies. We can observe the curvature of the earth reflected in the clouds as they bend toward the distant horizon. The angle of the sun at this northern latitude creates colours and shadows and all manner of gilded shapes that endure and shift for hours each morning and evening. It is not unusual to watch a thunderstorm approach, live through it, and then come out the other side and watch it go to rain on someone else’s parade, hopefully with a bit of a rainbow or two as a parting gift. In my opinion, it’s way better than Netflix.

I crossed the prairies twice this season. From my family’s home in Manitoba, I traveled west to Calgary to participate in a musical event called Frog Fest, and then I zipped right back for a funky sort of family reunion at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. These gatherings are important to me, so I go to some lengths – literally more than three thousand kilometres – in order to enjoy them.

and that’s definitely my turf

Music festivals are among the things that Canada does well. We have a short season during which it is comfortable to attend outdoor events, so we make good use of it. There is a special alchemy that happens when the timing of a performance, the movement of the light, the atmosphere of a community, and the feeling of a place are all just right. I usually find a way to make myself useful at a festival, and I learn a lot from the technicians, volunteers, dancers, performers, and staff.

This year’s Frog Fest was the tenth edition of the event. I have a special connection to this gathering and its organizers because I wound up at Year One in 2010 quite by chance and circumstance, and it’s been fun to watch the festival grow and improve since then. The beginnings were humble. There wasn’t much of a schedule; either bands were playing or they weren’t. There were no more than fifty people in attendance. I ran a trading post, told fortunes, distributed costumes, and played a trumpet. The stage didn’t yet have a roof or railings, but thankfully only one person succeeded in falling off of it.

home, home on the lilypad

Now, Frog Fest boasts two fully stacked stages, a shed packed with lampshades, giant eyeballs, and other art installations that are hauled out and into the forest every year, workshops in everything from aromatic mists to ecstatic dance, and a head count that runs up to three hundred. Most importantly, they have a community of people like me who make an effort to get there, because they know it’s going to be the best time. The acts and attendees generally hail from Calgary or Edmonton, but every year a few come from further-flung environs.

home, home on the range

The Winnipeg Folk Festival is a much larger organism which is now in its 46th year. The program is approximately half Canadian acts and half international influence. There are six stages active during the day, and two at night. It’s attended by more than seventy thousand people, supported by about three thousand volunteers. My parents have always worked at this event, so I think of it as my mothership, and it is a family affair. We used to do a lot of bonding at the face-painting station, but these days the tavern gets priority.

saturday night

The Folk Fest has also done a commendable job in keeping up with growth. They provide compostable cups and cutlery, they feed the volunteers three times a day, there are showers, water taps, and hammocks installed all over the site, and even with tens of thousands of people in attendance, it’s not that hard to find a secret corner when you need to. My family is not unique in our intergenerational approach to the weekend; grandparents, parents, and children are in evidence everywhere, and it is very sweet. The festival leadership is defined by a strong matriarchy, and successorship is one of their priorities, so it all stays in the family.

monday morn

Despite the differences in location, history, purpose, and scale, the essence of these two events is exactly the same. I love music festivals for the sense of community and playfulness that emerges when you have a group of people out in nature together, with nothing to do but discover music, enjoy each others’ company, and endure the elements.

Well, shoot, that’s my word count! I didn’t even get to tell you about hitchhiking, social credit, cultural engineering, my brief stint as a local buccaneer, all the roadside attractions and local slang, or how tempted I was to run off and marry the boy I fell in love with fifteen years ago. Oh well. Thanks again for your kind attention. I’ll be on my way to the Wild West by next week, so there is much more to come. I hope you’re enjoying these monthly updates, and I welcome your correspondence at any time, for any reason.

Until next time, stay curious. — Rose

Appendix : Musical Selections For Your Googling Pleasure

Bella White – whip-smart charmer with a voice somewhere between black coffee and buttercups

Tim Baker – Newfie songsmith serving equal parts pure love and total agony – try ‘Two Mirrors’

Mark Mills – one-man boy band, serenader of the silver fox and the lady in red

Rebirth Brass Band – Grammy-winning assembly of wind power from New Orleans

Hawksley Workman – beloved Canadian songwriter with a hyper-nostalgic new album

The Torchettes – three bonafide witches who will steal your soul and shove it down their leather pants

Begonia – hectic diva when she sings, perfect millennial comedian between songs

Larkin Poe – gritty blues, sister act, actual descendants of Edgar Allen

The Lone Bellow – three singers, two instruments, one microphone, and perfect balance, somehow

Curiosity Roving

The Grand Adventures of Rose Goossen

V.2 : Plainly Explained

in which our hero crosses an ocean and descends upon the flatlands

__________________________________

Greetings and Salutations! 

Happy Solstice, Earthlings! It’s the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. My pagan ancestors would have celebrated this day with feasting, bonfires, general revelry, and all manner of superstitious ritual. Right up my alley!

For new subscribers, welcome welcome. This is Curiosity Roving, and it will be delivered to your inbox (or perhaps your junk mail) once a month until you unsubscribe or until I meet with some strange twist of fate that renders me unable to compose and send these missives. My vision for this newsletter is to provide a polished and personal update for all those who would like to keep track of or live vicariously through me as I gallivant around the world. I will tell you stories, show you photos, and give you tips. It’s also possible that I will occasionally articulate some weirdo left-field voyageuse soapbox philosophy. I hope you will enjoy it.

take me with you!

I’m writing to you from my hometown on the Canadian prairies. I arrived here on June 12th, and I have enjoyed adapting to the slower pace of life in Gimli, Manitoba. I return here once every three years or so in order to visit my mother. When I landed, we drove north through the longest sunset in the history of the world. It was tangerine on one side and lavender on the other, azure at the top of the dome, with a straight flat cloud-coloured highway carved right down the middle. Arriving on the steps of my childhood home, I was shocked by the birdsong and the oxygen. After five years in an electric Asian capital, the spacious wholesomeness of this territory is literally a breath of fresh air.

Gimli is a small lakeside town with a population of about 3000 people. It began as a village for Icelandic settlers in 1875. They were inspired to emigrate by the eruption of the Askja volcano, which threatened the conditions of life in certain areas of Iceland. Approximately 300 people chose to undertake the risky sea voyage to the new world, where they were granted land along Lake Winnipeg by the Canadian government. Their village was named for a mythological place of beauty and protection. Gimli is still known as the capital of New Iceland, and hosts a festival every summer to celebrate Icelandic culture.

drama, drama, drama

It took some effort to get here. Since the first volume of this newsletter, I have made significant renovations in my life, mostly as it is reflected in my possessions. Nearly all of the instruments, clothing, books, and life support tools that were mine have now migrated to new homes. I owned a complete home studio for music production, and that has been reduced to a single Zoom H2 device. I even let go of the guitar that I carried around the world, which was effectively my wife from 2010 until 2015. It has been a season defined by judicious brutality, and although I still have one more round of tough selection to get through, I am lighter than I have been in many years, and it feels amazing.

I am also freshly funemployed! Taipei is a city for workaholics, and I assimilated. I was working even on my last day in town, but I have now quit all of my jobs save the freelance writing and editing work that I can do while traveling. It is such a strange and glorious luxury to face complete days without any obligations or appointments, and to make unpremeditated decisions about how to spend my time from one moment to the next. This is exactly what I had in mind.

I waited two years for this flower, but it bloomed

I come to Manitoba in order to be with my family, but there is also the important task of maintaining the tenuous threads of legitimacy that anchor me in the Canadian bureaucracy. That means my driver’s licence, my bank account, my credit card, and my passport. All of these things are useful and occasionally require my attention.

On Tuesday, I roamed the capital city of Winnipeg, and paid a visit to both of my financial institutions. These visits never fail to inspire feelings of trepidation. I’ve been working internationally and off the books for all of my adult life, I haven’t paid taxes since 2008, and the fact of my accumulated wealth is basically inexplicable. By inexplicable, I mean humble and harmless but probably a little bit illegal. I feel nervous just looking at a bank.

“homesick” after midnight

Thankfully, these experiences were pleasant. At my credit union, Athena was more interested in Taiwanese food than my source of income. I did my best to convince her to visit and to feast. And at the large national bank that controls my credit card, Sam posed a wide-eyed, grinning, open-ended question about “all the adventures” to be had in Taiwan. There was no one in line, and he had the most adorable hair wave and shiny earring, so I spent a few minutes explaining that alternate universe, detailing food culture, Chinese language, mountains, seas, opportunities in education, and the otherworldly safety. He wouldn’t let me talk about politics. 

So, curiosity in finance is alive and well! What a relief. May my novelty value always outshine the dark side of this fringe existence.

two exclamation points = this merits a paragraph

There’s a current phenomenon in the local vernacular of using the word ‘tap’ to denote the possibility of scanning a credit or debit card without inserting it into the machine. It’s a new upgrade around here, and any time someone uses a card to pay, there’s an exchange about how the machine does or doesn’t have ‘tap’. Therefore, Sam and Athena also got a look at my Easy Card, a reloadable chip card that can be used to pay for just about everything in Taiwan, all with ‘tap’. That’s the difference an ocean makes. Winnipeg has just rolled out their first reloadable chip card for bus fare, called the Peggo card, but the concept of expanding that to access taxis, public bicycles, coffee shops, and convenience stores is still a long shot for this glorified farm town.

I had forgotten how friendly and familiar Manitoba people can be. To the two denim-clad old-timers in the Tim Hortons who entertained me when my laptop wouldn’t connect to the WiFi, to the teacher on the beach who engaged me in a momentary debate with his students about whether or not a sandcastle outing counts as recess, to the man who took the opportunity to tell me he’d never had a Slurpee while we crossed the street together, to the mall employee who liked my T-shirt, and to the woman in the army surplus store who has Burning Man on her bucket list – I salute you. It’s such a pleasure to be here.

Until next time, stay curious. — Rose

Curiosity Roving

The Grand Adventures of Rose Goossen

V.1 : Endings Start

in which the protagonist sets the stage and her intentions

____________________________________________________________________________

Greetings and Salutations! 
 

Welcome to the first issue of Curiosity Roving. I thank you kindly for your attention. 

Introduction
 

I have set up this newsletter in response to the people who have expressed an interest in keeping track of me and my mischief as I gallivant around the world. It will be a more-or-less-monthly update which includes thoughts, stories, links to others with whom I’ve recently been in contact, and a selection of photos, like this one:

full steam ahead

This newsletter will also serve as a surrogate for social media activity. Three years ago, I made a commitment to use social media as a tool for promoting music. That went well. Then I acquired a real smartphone, and ever since, I have been amusedly observing my slide into tech-fuelled dopamine addiction. It was enjoyable while it lasted, but I’m ready to be more structured and intentional about my use of the Internet, and I’m ready to be rid of the impulse to check my phone every time I’m waiting to cross the street.

So! Volume One is a transitionary piece, a setting of the stage that is here, all the better to compare and contrast with the eventual there; a destination that is currently as unknown to the author as it is to the reader. How exciting!

Do you have a minute? If not, I invite you to save this for later. I proofread, and I value the concise, but I have created this newsletter partly as a venue in which I might exploit my penchant for verbosity. In deference to the 21st-century attention span, I’m aiming to keep it to about 1000 words per issue. You’re 300 deep right now.

Where Is Here?

I have spent the last five years on the island of Taiwan. I live in the city of Taipei, and I am often surprised by this fact. Prior to settling here, I never imagined that I would choose an environment in which the lowest common denominator is concrete, but Taipei is a special case. This city serves as the cultural and political capital for the island, and it is an urban paradise of convenience, safety, and comparative affluence.

me and my town – photo by Ayushmaan Walia

I live alone. I live in a downtown studio apartment of dubious legal status. My tiny refrigerator has been empty for at least a month, but I just rectified that unfortunate circumstance with a bottle of Pinot Grigio. Enough said.

I work primarily as a private tutor of English language. My students range across the spectrums of age and skill level, and each of them is a precious influence in my life. I also work as a musician, performing with bands and as a solo artist, in bars, restaurants, live houses, and at festivals. And, because Taipei is a hustle mecca, I do odd jobs that tread the borderline between education and entertainment, such as judging contests and making videos.

stage life – photo by Leo Yan

Taiwan is doing a lot of things right. The public transportation systems are comprehensive, affordable, and always on time. The trash and recycling process demands that every resident have awareness of their own waste, and take responsibility for its correct disposal. Taiwanese food is famously delicious, and this is a significant contributing factor to the terminally barren state of my fridge. 

Harmony is a core cultural value in Taiwan, as it is in many Asian societies. Confrontation is frowned upon. Safety is the norm. A cafe customer in Taipei can leave a smartphone on the table as a placeholder while visiting the restroom. Street crime is rare, and when it does happen, it’s usually a case of mental illness. Taiwan is also the safest place to be queer in Asia. On May 17th, the government made history with the decision to legalize same-sex marriage, and there are more than 200 couples registered to be married this Friday. Whoo-hoo!

my backyard, the gayest part of town

Despite its excellence, Taiwan is marginalized on the world stage due to China’s perception of the island as a renegade province which should be reunited with the mainland. There are currently only 17 nations which maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. There are no embassies here, because Taiwan is not recognized as a country. This sticky situation necessitates a diplomatic infrastructure built on crafty euphemisms. I renewed my passport at the “Trade Office of Canada”. My klezmer band was once employed by the “Israel Economic and Cultural Office”. Olympic athletes from Taiwan compete under the flag of “Chinese Taipei”. Political opinions on the island are sharply divided between “pro-China” and “pro-Taiwan”, and both groups stage weekly protests in my neighbourhood, complete with flags, slogans, hot tea, and the occasional firecracker.

peaceful protest
 

I am not a legal resident of Taiwan. I have a three-month visa exemption, and I travel internationally four times each year to maintain it. I do not vote, pay taxes, or have health insurance, neither here nor in the country of my citizenship. I describe my own status as ‘outlaw’.

I have achieved a limited but functional fluency in Mandarin Chinese. I rented an apartment and set up a bank account in Chinese. I can make jokes with shopkeepers and taxi drivers. After a couple of drinks, I can flirt. Once, I even read an angry note written by hand and posted in the stairwell by the second-floor tenants of my building. It’s a brilliant, beautiful language, and Taiwan is one of only three countries that continue to use the characters in their traditional form.

I was in love here, twice.

Now, I am myself, and it is good.

What Is There?

I often say that geography is destiny. Any time I decide to change location, I understand that I am volunteering for another round of metamorphosis. Having lived through five years of which the above paragraphs are more or less representative, I have surrendered to the call to cast off my moorings and go on another worldly walkabout. I am in the process of redistributing all of my possessions and creating a situation in which I will be light, untethered, and free. This is the second time in my life that I have done this, and that is why I now have the foresight to create a newsletter and bring you all along for the ride.

life’s a parade

My intention is to spend the next year or two on adventure through North, South, and Central America. I have a number of friends to visit in that region. I am interested to add some rudimentary Spanish to the jambalaya of languages that bubbles in my brain, and to situate myself in opportunistically close proximity to glorious wonderful sunshine-y music and dancing. 

However, this is not a plan, because the plan is to have no plans.

A friend recently told me that it is both cool and scary how I can choose to radically change my life in the blink of an eye. Yes, it is. I recognize that I am enjoying a privilege. I have more freedom than anyone I know, and I will expand on this topic in V.2. For now, let me say that with the recognition of my privilege comes the temptation to make use of it.

That’s all for today! Thank you for joining me in this inaugural issue of what I hope will, in time, become something quite nice. Below, I include some related content on the subject of Taiwan. 

Until next time, stay curious.   — Rose

Related Content

Nick Kembel writes on Taiwan’s destinations: https://www.nickkembel.com/category/taiwan/
He also literally wrote the book on Taiwan from a foreign perspective: https://www.amazon.com/Taiwan-Eyes-Foreigner-Nick-Kembel/dp/9866527239

Xander Synaptic specializes in abandoned theatres: https://synapticism.com/regions/taiwan/

Follow XiaoFei maps the island’s natural features: https://followxiaofei.com/

A CNN feature on local gluttony: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/40-taiwan-food/index.html
 

A lot more about my work on my web HQ: https://www.curiosityroving.com/