[+] Tuesday, June 19, 2001

blissmasters moroccan vacation
[ photos ]

after weeks of too many deadlines, too little software, and *way* too many reinstallations of my powerbook's system, they decided to let us out for a bit. so we got way out, to morocco.

with no plan and only the most essential supplies - namely a guide book, 1 barry white and 1 random moroccan cassette, a bright yellow bird shaped slide whistle, and a bag of candy. and it was brilliant.

marrakesh :: the city of red walls

cassablanca is not recommended by the guide, so we head straight to marrakesh. we ask for directions and next thing you know we're following a guy on a scooter through the streets of the medina. he led us to a moroccan feast which was clearly a tourist only affair, and way too expensive, but we were hungry and the place was amazing. bellydancers, a dancer with a platter of candles on her head, and ridiculously ornate walls - definately a nice intro to marrakesh. the decadent vibe was working for us, so we checked into the most outrageous hotel we could find.

awake from dreams of red clay walls, mosaics, and fluffy bathrobes. down the spiral staircase through our hotel room's lush sitting room to the sunlit courtyard. order coffee (which in morocco apparently translates to coffee, fresh squeezed juice, fresh pastries and homemade yogurt). the only reasonable response its to giggle and eat, then giggle some more.

next we look for a hotel at around half the price of Hotel L'Arabe. that brings us to riad malika. a little less over the top but still divine. after lounging a while we hit the markets. bargaining here is different than dakar. prices start high and don't come down much, and the vibe is generally more aggro. but gilles manages to buy a stack of cool headwraps, and hank a green hooded thing, making them the coolest kids in town.

wild goose chase

driving through the streets of marrakesh and failing to take note of bewildered expressions of the locals, we get in way deep, the streets get crazy narrow, until eventually we realize there's no way through. gilles and hank's superior driving skills in this claustrophic maze were very impressive. as in dakar, people's stern expressions immediately gave way to smiles when we waved and indicated that we were aware of our stupidity. the one benefit to extremely narrow streets is that all the shops automatically function as drive-thrus.

we wake up with plans to go on camel rides or some such adventurous thing, but no idea where or how. the owner/architect of the riad malika senses as much, and suggests we head to ouzoud. so they get us a booking and we're on our way.

life after death for the 7 headed evil genie

the long desert drive inspires sing alongs and a sorry collection of dirty jokes. at some point we took a break in some small town. the place we wanted to sit down for mint tea seemed to be reserved for local men over 60 only, so we hit the cyber-cafe instead. during the 5 minutes it took hank to check his email gilles had befriended some americans who reccomended we visit the nearby "natural bridge". sounded wierd, but potentially nice.

of course it turned out to be spectacular. pigeons and sparrows whirled around and shot back and forth under the bridge. a guide met us on the path. for a modest price he took us took us down into the canyon, pointed out mating scarabs, and how the negative space under the bridge formed a perfect map of africa, taught us a little berber, and then proceeded to tie gilles and my headwraps way to tight. his story about the origin of the birds was the cherry on top of this unexpected treat. apparently an evil virgin-stealin' 7 headed genie used to live in the cave, and when he came for the cheif's daughter the chief said enough was enough and had him offed. the mean genies heart was transformed into thousands of birds. nice!

ouzoud cascades

the bliss is in full force, so when we finally arrive at Ouzoud i'm no longer able to speak for giggling. the riad cascades was the best hotel of them all. we were joking that the way things were going the waterfall was probably right next to the hotel. and it was. huge, 4 chutes which fell onto a small plateau, which in turn poured into green pools below. there were 5 little blue pontoons for crossing the pools. very high tech stuff made of empty bottles and wood. powered by a guy who essentially pulls the pontoon across using a rope.

cassablanca -> rabat -> cassablanca

the rest of the trip was more chill on the bliss front. we dropped rivka off in cassablanca and headed for rabat. it took us a while to realize that rabat was populated almost entirely by prostitutes, and didn't have much else going on. but it was nothing a little gin and tonic, and a good sense of humor couldn't fix.

ready please mr. music

t w i n k l e p o p

ahhhhh, finally! twinklepop is ready for the world. t'was launched June 1st as a section of the devastatingly beautiful neumu.net. the launch features web music videos created by Josh Ulm (ioresearch.com), Krister Olson & Stellah Lai (tree-axis), Tom Hobbs and Jen Dugan (non-objective.com), and Jimmy Chen (typographic.com).

it took a really long time to come together, but it was worth it, 'cause it's even better than i imagined it would be. plus it found itself a perfect home. michael and emme's playful vision for neumu.net is totally in line with the spirit of twinklepop.

twinklepop will feature something new and fabulous each month. next up is Eun-Ha Paek (milkyelephant.com), with a track from Utah Carol's album Wonderwheel.

j o k o

joko.sn also launched as a private beta (yeah, june was a pretty "special" month). if you're keen to see it just drop me a note and i'll send you the login info. the coolest feature is the music section which features new artists each month. at the moment it's featuring the Ablaye M'Baye's latest album, and there's a little jukebox with 3 tracks from other local artists.

i have no idea how we managed to pull of joko.sn without a psychic, but thankfully we won't have to make one more tweak without the spiritiual guidance Youssou's psychic aunt. it's a load of my mind i'll tell you that much.

[+] Monday, June 18, 2001

the forming of the Association of BlissMasters

we (rivka, gilles, hank & i) kicked off the bliss by staying at Hank and Tom's. they don't live under the flight path, and the sewage system works, so it was brilliant. we drank some wierd italian stuff that happened to be laying around, learned to play set-back, watched some fucked up french music video where a women started giving birth in the car (her boyfriend was acting mid-wife) and she wound up popping about about a hundred slimey little babies. oh, and hank got some Dibi (fried meat) from his new local dibiterie, so Gilles and I got to test our intestinal resiliance before going to bed.

in the morning Hank made us french toast, after which we proceeded to lay around for half the day. being eternally thirsty for knowlegde however, we took a little time out from napping to do some research on Dan Gable (boy can that fella wrestle!). eventually the time came to go get rivka's legs waxed. so in true senegalese style we wandered down the corniche road together looking for a salon that might be equipt to deal with this situation. Hank's french almost resulted in us getting her legs amputated, but a little miming saved the day. her legs are now super smooth.

after further lounging about at Yoff we went to see a dance festival called Kay Fecc ("come dance" in Wolof). it was incredible. when the mosquitos started to get the better of us we went in search of food. we probably would have gone to Cote Sud (most excellent restaurant in our neighbourhood), but the boys noticed a neon sign that said "New Africa" and decided that was a sure thing, so we got the cab driver to wind through the streets until we found it. it turned out to be the best restaurant in Dakar. sensational bathrooms too, and I'm not just saying that cause they were sanitary, had toilet paper, and flushed. it had only been open a month, and the slightly delerious couple that ran the place were hilarious. we were the last to leave after grooving to the bizaare buit perfect tunes, reclining in the yellow chairs, and tasting some of catherine's banana flambe.

by the fourth day of our all-bliss weekend we're too blissed to even wake up. when we finally got up Gilles shaved his head, and we made nutella and mangoe crepes.

so with our french delegated freshly shaven, and our bellies full of crepey goodness there was only one clear path of action - go to Ngor, find a place to buy snorkles and a spear fishing gun, and head to the island. fish lovers, do not despair, by the time we'd finished lunch it was mostly too dark to see any fish, so there was no violence whotsoever. hank did terrorise some of the trash that was floating around, but that's to be expected. our new 5 year old friend Asan made sure everyone had all their gear, and escorted us back to the island.

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