The New Year is upon us. It comes in from the East like a tsunami, rushing in, charging in at 463 m/s, faster than the speed of sound. If people were to shout Happy New Year to each other around the globe, they would still be late celebrating in the last time zone.

I don’t know about where it’ll begin. All I know is that 10 hours before my midnight on the 31st of December, it will be New Year’s Eve in Cape Town. A countdown, hours turning into minutes, then minutes into seconds, and it’s there, and then it’s gone. As people stay behind and celebrate and kiss each other, and wish all kinds of things smart and not, and as thoughts turn towards the horizon and the absents are silently hugged, the New Year will press on, silent and swift but unleashing great noise and cheers, in its westbound journey.

It will leave the Cape and immediately plunge into the Atlantic Ocean, hugging the bottom for a while as no ships are in sight on this lonely night, passing the Walvis Ridge off the coast of Namibia, then coming up to the surface to greet a freighter around the Tropic of Capricorn, without stopping, and it’ll follow the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to the northwest. It will cross the Equator and the Ascension Fracture simultaneously just off the shores of Brazil, follow the continent to the Lesser Antilles, overfly the deep Porto Rico Trench, cross the Tropic of Cancer and eventually hit the continental shelf in Florida.

It will blaze across the Sunshine State, pass the Mississippi Basin, scale the flat Midwest, rip through the dryer landscapes of Kansas, hop over the mountains, leave red rocks behind to the south, find the newborn lushness of the Pacific Northwest, the delta of the Fraser River and finally, 600 minutes after it left Cape Town, the New Year will wash over Vancouver nested between the mountains and the sea.

There, at the top of a tower, as the wave passes by and prepares for the hop over the Pacific Ocean, and cheers erupt and champagne flows, it will be my turn to look back and hug and mentally curse and yet marvel at, the passage of time and the relativity of space.

Happy New Year to mankind! May we all become wiser fast, suffer less, and laugh, and love more.

[Posted at 23:59 Cape Town time, on December 31st, 2007]

« … When the bus drops us off at the rendez-vous point, a long hot day is getting old and Club Med 2’s silhouette thrones on a grandiose horizon background of oranges and reds. We are granted a stunning sunset on the South China Sea, a rare occurrence since the Vietnamese coast is generally oriented towards the East. Time slows down to a halt and minutes tick by as a few lonely pirogues glide effortlessly on a glassy ocean. Then the sun sinks below the surface of the world and darkness creeps in. We return to our bright onboard lights leaving behind us the simple poverty and warm smile of these people who seem to no longer even need hope… »

It was born in the streets of France. It’s strange. It’s cool. It’s dangerous. It’s extremely impressive. And even the new James Bond endorses it. Don’t think so? Think again. That opening chase scene in Casino Royale, somewhere high above an African construction site, is Hollywood’s consecration of the recent sport of parkour. Some call it an art, others a way of life. They might say free running, or tricking. It all points to one constant: pushing the envelope of what the human body can accomplish, not on some theoretical or experimental field, but on the street, in our daily urban environment, by ordinary people. Well, not quite ordinary. They are the best at what they do. Parkour bridges martial arts, gymnastics, capoeira, acrobatics, skateboarding, climbing and a touch of non-conformism in one sweet package. But in the end, there are no secrets. Years of practice and discipline are required to get to the impressive stage. Same as cooking.

Here are a couple of links to videos on YouTube - I no longer embed them here, it slows down the page too much. The resolution is bad, the editing less than perfect and it’s all very home made. But parkour is still in its infancy, less than 10 years old. And my point is: those guys can jump!

When one misses one, the only thing left to do is drinking hot apple cider while watching an amazing Christmas lights display twinkle in the fading dusk...

The place was Vancouver’s VanDusen Botanical Garden. The event, of course, was the 2007 Festival of Lights. The one being missed was safely asleep 16,000 km away in the opposite hemisphere.

It always amazes me when, despite the ugliness we showcase as a race, a small group of people manages to focus on beauty alone and turn it into profit. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Profiting from evil is just that, evil. Profiting from beauty is smart. Artists have, from immemorial times. I intend to do the same. As long as profit only serves the just cause of happiness...

Merry Christmas to you all, and paix sur la terre aux hommes de bonnes volonté.

Bunny? I wish you’d been there!

The Gipsy Kings are playing in the background, Tu quieres volver; the downtown lights shimmer through my windows, a rather wet evening is unfolding out there...

Christmas is on my doorstep. 2007 has gone by so fast it might have been a dream. So many good things have paved the way to this evening, as well as a few sad ones, that I can’t help smiling. Life at its best. It’s no special evening though, a simple Saturday night towards the end of December, way after that has happened and a bit before this now takes place.

Le vent nous portera. I didn’t expect it, but I’m on random... Je n’ai pas peur de la route.

Somewhere across the globe, it’s almost morning. Sleepy eyes will soon look for a smoking cup of coffee while I sip on my Greygoose very dry martini - two garlic-stuffed olives no less. It’s sometimes hard to grasp the time difference, especially when Skype can nullify it almost completely, linking two opposites and making us feel like we could touch each other.

Aznavour, La bohème. Are we still in our bohème years or are we looking back at them? Is a time always destined to become the good old days of some future date? Will we look back and melt or are we melting today?

Le rapace, Francois de Roubaix. Ok, this is not random, it’s my nostalgia playlist. Siempre hay que esperar. But in two weeks or so, I will be flying east, so far and so fast that I won’t be able to catch my breath until later. It will be the trip of a lifetime, in many ways. The beginning of the apotheoses, the end of a long intro. A loop closed, another opened. Blissful stress of living every minute a thousand times.

A short walk outside tonight lead me to the Seawall to take a picture of the giant Christmas decorations in a cluster of five trees right next to home, to show Marie, way down there, some artificial northern lights...

This is for my super sister, found par hasard on YouTube, reminder that we were once young in a wonderful land, each with our dreams and heroes, and if our classics have in time turned towards Tolkien and Besson, they were already very much alive and focused on the small screen. Some things change, some never do.

Poly a Venise

Well, not even a week after I left New York, Marie is on a plane too. It’s her turn to fly, she’s bridging the gap between North America and her South African roots.

The week in New York, as always, was a bliss. She’s blogged so well about it that I won’t even try to compete. Brooklyn has now definitely creeped its way into my heart and I left a small part of me there, in each restaurant we went to, on each sidewalk we followed, with every person we met.

In a month exactly, I’ll be stepping foot on African soil and a new barrier will be thrown down. The closest I’ve ever been to Africa was Tangier, from the cocoon of a ship. This time, it will be different. Abe will be present and ready, so will my glider, and I will be meeting with a angel. Wonderful things will come from that trip. Everlasting things.

For now, thanks to Flight Tracker, I am following Marie’s trip live, from the lonely warmth of my West End apartment, Vancouver BC. Right this minute, British Airways flight 174, a 747-400, the king of airplanes, is about to leave Canada and the continent behind and throw itself over the Atlantic, long dark night navigation during which, for only company, the flight deck crew will have that of other planes, far above or below in the North Atlantic skies, over white noise on the radio...

Then it will be London Heathrow, a long stop over, and the final flight to South Africa, overflying the African immensity by night, sadly. A lot is happening down there and my thoughts are divided between home and Cape Town these days.

There will be Christmas, pointless over oceans, and then peace. On the 15th of January I will be airborne too, landing two days later below the equator in the land of Nelson Mandela and Tolkien (Yes, didn’t you know, J.R.R Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. So was Marie.)

Many more posts about this nearing day might follow. For now, all I can say is this: 16,000 km (in a straight line) is nothing. Vancouver and Cape Town have never been so close. There is Skype, there’s hope, there’s faith and there’s undying love - of saucisson. Amen.

It all starts at YVR. The Vancouver International Airport is one of my favorites worldwide. Not that getting to it is so easy, though, but the completion of our new Canada Line skytrain will solve that issue. YVR is nested on the oriental side of Richmond, last island in the Fraser River delta. Approaches are done from or into the Straight of Georgia on the 08L-26R and 08R-26L parallel runways. On a clear day, the Greater Vancouver aerial scenery is grandiose, with the Vancouver Island, the North Shore mountains, the Cascades and Mt. Baker, the Gulf and San Juan Islands and the Seattle area all clearly visible.

And then there’s the terminal’s aquarium. Any place with an aquarium wins me instantly, I’m that weak. Fishies!

December 6th was a perfect autumn day. Deep blue sky, snow on the mountains, some low clouds over the water but nowhere else. The Cathay Pacific flight on its easternmost leg of the Hong Kong – New York run took off towards the west and climbed straight ahead for a while until turning around and heading east. Sadly, I had left my camera in my carry-on, out of reach, and missed the beautiful views of Vancouver gliding under the left wing. But I did manage to get it a little later and caught our stunning overflight of the Cascades.

On an almost almost empty plane, I had 5 seats to myself towards the back of the main cabin, on a front row with leg room. We were cruising at 39,000 feet with a tailwind, just below the speed of sound. The food was very decent, wine kept pouring, then coffee, and the 12 video channels kept me entertained and happy. Of course, being happy was easy. I was going to Brooklyn.

When we finally began our approach into New York’s JFK, I had the camera in hand and decided to experiment a little with low light and movement. Bare with me, the last pictures were taken at 1600 ISO with the heavy grain that implies and through an aircraft’s thick double window. But as the giant plane slowed itself down to its landing configuration, gradually losing speed while gaining wing surface, its back arched in the dark sky like a eagle aiming for its pray, wings wide open, tail low and eyes focused, I caught myself staring in awe at the city spread below and the million lives modestly unfolding as we went by. I steadied myself against the glass and shot continuously, attempting to render the contrast between our fleeting passage up there and the ocean of microscopic events that lay underneath.

One of them, though, would soon take on macroscopic proportions. It already has. Marie met me at the Arrivals gate and instantly, we were airborne again. No need for wings this time, but plenty of height and the best soaring...

That strong westerly wind is blowing again. It is upon me, strengthening and beginning to howl through every crack in my world, warm and cold at the same time, ever-changing and yet an old friend already. It will pick me up like a tornado carelessly lifts a roof, where I thought I was anchored, and will throw me about in a fury. But I know exactly where it will drop me and why, and I am the most willing victim there ever was. I am ready. My bags are packed, me eyes dreamy, my dreams alive and my life, bagged. A vicious circle which began a long time ago without my knowledge and now fulfills itself in plain view; the only circle, the one that in fact spirals from A to Z, from edge to heart, from chilled to boil, from if to of course. There will be a clash, once more, fireworks of inner sparks, metal armor against metal shield, as they get dropped and left behind - but the sparks will persist, bright colors exploding inside my head and yours, blending to pure white rather than black as decades of old paint layers are skinned from our souls, stripping them naked until they can finally touch and remember why all the patience. A million subtle nuances will instantly be added to each place and every moment, turning it all to gold and diamonds, and crystals and gems and flowers which, like us, will glow from the inside. Time will stretch to infinity and now will morph into a new entity, a shape-shifter completely focused on absorbing the essence of what we give it, feeding on us, voraciously.

That strong westerly wind is blowing again. At last.

« ... Mother Nature is granting us an exceptional sunset through convoluted clouds in the summer sky. There is a sense of peace lingering in the air tonight that both lifts and sinks my heart. Time is simply gliding over us, flowing without a ripple. Everything is calm and serene, the islands are placidly watching us sail away and a few sampans finally go back to where they came from… »

[Halong Bay, Vietnam - July 1994]