Having grown up just miles from the beach in Southern California, every once in a while it is necessary to visit the ocean (whichever one happens to be closest) to give a respectful hello to the expanse of beauty that is both concrete and abstract. After moving to Portland, Oregon after a hot NYC summer in 2008,  a trip to the Pacific Northwest coast was in order to greet the famous shores.

The coastline is the backdrop to many films and television shows, from 1980s classics like The Goonies (1985)  and Short Circuit (1986) both shot in Astoria, Oregon to The X-Files television series which was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia for the bulk of its nine seasons (plus a multitude of other things). Along with its diverse terrain–cliffs, forests, sand dunes–there is also a cool quiet magic that perfectly speaks to the strength and grandeur of the ocean. These are some shots I took while visiting Astoria and Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon.

Mia Ferm currently resides in Portland, Oregon where she is a collective member of Cinema Project. She is a writer, photographer, and videographer and holds an MA in Cinema Studies from NYU.

A Justin Timberlake song was playing from the rows of Ugandan maize. The awkward clash of cultures, the absurd juxtaposition of civilizations struck me as funny, and I let out a light, girlish laugh that echoed into the African void. The women were working in the fields, talking amongst themselves; and their voices spoke with force; their words cut easily through the thick, pineapple air. I repeated the strange syllables in my head:

“Chibumba murungi. Esansa. Burungi. Ecucholi.”

The tangy vocabulary made my mouth water; the foreign sounds made my mind spin. Despite my novice native status, I’d already picked up a bit of the language; so I recognized a few of the words. My brain began sifting through the cluttered chaos of its consciousness to find the correct connections: “Ecucholi means, means… maize. Burungi means, means, means… good.” Despite the short time I’d been there, I had already begun to recognize that my own vocabulary was becoming more and more of a foreign tongue, that my native language was evolving, that my small English lexicon was dying unto itself and transforming into something entirely new: “Orphan means, means, means… human. Life means, means… toil. To love means, means, means… to suffer.” Despite the small amount of time I’d spent there, I had already begun to recognize that vocabulary and humanity are similar: we both evolve; we both survive by killing off the irrelevant and breeding the necessary, the awkward and absurd.

I made my way over to the women. An acre of thick, muddy rice paddies separated us, so the progress I made was slow. Every step I took sunk deep into the earth; every move I made required a determined, conscious effort. I had to concentrate hard on my calves, my ankles, my feet and focus carefully on the movement of my steps, the mechanical rhythm of my body’s beat. About halfway there, a crawling sensation came over one of my feet, and looking down, I saw the microscopic movement of hookworms swimming their easy way into my bloodstream. Realizing I might have officially taken it all too far, I hesitated for a moment—not sure what I had done, not sure what I should do—but the moment of self-doubt passed, and my feet, once again, began to move. My body fell back into its rhythmic movement, once again, except this time, it did so without the resolute consciousness, the determined effort. To my own, innocent surprise, I found myself innately walking through the remaining stretch of mud and intuitively joining the Africans in their labor. The women kept their heads to the ground, their torsos to the earth; and I hummed along to the Justin Timberlake, keeping everything mostly to myself. We all spent the rest of the afternoon harvesting maize, sweating our sorrows away; and once dusk hit, I gathered the fruit of our fruitless labor into a basket, placed it upon my head, and naturally set off for home, just like they did.

When I got back to my hut, I put the basket down and let out a sigh of weak, feminine relief, grateful to be able to un-bear the heavy burden of the day, to be able to let go of our sweaty sorrows and lay them down at the foot of the cross of the mundane. I was expecting to feel a sense of physical relief once I let go of those sweaty sorrows, once I put down the maize; but to my own, innocent surprise, the relief never came. The heavy weight of the basket lingered. The oppressive pressure of those sweaty sorrows remained. The burden of the day lay trapped in a knot at the nape of my neck, and no matter how hard I tried to wish that knot away, it stayed. I attempted to fall asleep that night, but the knot sat there, silent and sinister, keeping me awake.

Every once in a while, now, a knot forms at the nape of my neck. It sits there, silently; it stays there, sinisterly; and to my own, mature surprise, it reminds me, sweetly, of maize and Justin Timberlake, of life, love, and the pursuit of Vocabulary, of parasites and bloodstreams, of sweating sorrows away, and of feminine burdens that do not die with the day.

Ms. Megan Michelle is a former Classics Major, a proud Preschool Teacher, a greatly-skilled Goatherdess, and a full-time Romantic who has always loved the Living Logos. Feel free to cyberspacingly stalk her here.

I have been an avid letter writer since a small child; I grew up with family that lived overseas, and I also had many pen-friends all over the world. From very early on I became accustomed to the excitement associated with receiving mail from abroad.

There is something truly special about hand-written notes, thoughts relayed straight from the heart, to the hand, to the paper. No room for editing or re-writes, genuine human to human contact… it’s permanent, and I think we’ve lost a lot of this warmth and effort in our tap-tap send culture.

Someone else who feels the same way about connecting with others through mail is Portuguese born, Slovenia based, self proclaimed computer geek, and lover of the written word, Paulo Magalhaes.  Whilst at University Paulo decided to take his off-line hobby online, and created a website that would enable people all over the globe to connect through sending postcards.

Postcrossing (www.postcrossing.com) is a site that allows people to “Send a Postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world.” It’s a pretty cool project and really simple to get involved; the idea is that if you send a postcard, you will receive at least one postcard back from a postcrosser elsewhere. First you have to register your address and set up a profile, say a little about yourself,  and state what type of postcards you’re interested in receiving (for example,  postcards of animals, city images, country landscapes or famous people.) Then you request an address. This address is connected to the postcrosser’s profile, and has an ID number attached to it. You then write your postcard, include the ID number, and once the person you have sent it to receives the card, they register the number and somebody else in the world gets your address, so that you too can receive a card.

The site has been running for over a year and so far has registered over three million postcards. There are many nifty Postcrossing stories on the site, like the Finnish and Australian couple who wrote to each other and ended up getting married, or the old man in his 60’s who has been enamoured with lighthouses since childhood, and now receives nothing but pictures of  the sea front buildings from all over the globe.

So far I’ve received two postcards, one from a 50 year old woman living a small village in Japan, who’s interested in architecture from around the world, and another from a 21 year old girl living in Poland, who loves music and small animals. Part of the fun is you never know who’s going to write to you next!

So why would you want to Postcross? As I’ve said there’s something exciting about receiving mail from another country, maybe from a place you’ve never been before, a far away country with customs and traditions that are different than your own, it’s also a great way to establish new friendships whilst learning about another way of life.

Leanda is a writer based in Toronto. For the past 13 years she has hosted & produced music radio shows, managed bands & worked in online music PR. She now runs a music site & also writes for music & culture magazine `Relevant BCN`. Read more of her writing here - http://www.bloggertronix.com

A few months ago I was on tour on the east coast and me and Chris were broke and hungry and kind of over it. After a long day of van trouble and dealing with mean bastards, we pulled into a chain grocery store parking lot, went inside and came out with the fixings for “Hotdog Tube.” There was nothing premeditated about this. I saw the bread, saw the hotdogs, and everything suddenly made sense.

Twenty minutes later we were lying on our backs in the dirty parking lot by our van, eating Hotdog Tube and drinking cans of Dr. Pepper and yelling at the stars in phony Cape Cod accents and everything was good.

Ingredients:
Pack of hotdogs (I use vegan SmartDogs. You can do whatever.)
Large roll of rustic Italian bread (a good crust is important)
The trinity of hotdog condiments: ketchup, mustard, relish.

Directions:
Tear bread in half. Hollow out bread guts and feed them to a dog (or snake, cat, vampire, etc.) Cook eight hotdogs (or don’t; it really doesn’t make a difference). While the hotdogs are cooking, squirt heavy amounts of mustard, relish, and ketchup into the tube and give the tube a good squeeze so they blend in together. This is very important; a dry Hotdog Tube is an awful thing.

Once the hotdogs are done, insert four of them into each half of the tube. Four may seem like a lot of hotdogs to eat in one sitting but once you start in on this monster you’re going to want the full ride.

Eat. Drink Dr. Pepper. Mellow out.

Feeds two.

BIO: Adam Gnade's (guh nah dee) work is released as a series of books and records that share characters and themes; the fiction writing continuing plot-lines left open by the self-described "talking songs" in an attempt to compile a vast, detailed, interconnected, personal history of contemporary American life. Check out recent writing here and songs here. Contact: adam@asthmatickitty.com

One of the best places I went last year was the small town (population 29,636) of Bowling Green, Ohio. I had two days off from tour and I spent it eating three meals a day at Squeaker’s Cafe, going through stacks of books in the library, and walking around town in the dusk by myself. Here’s what it looked like.

BIO: Adam Gnade's (guh nah dee) work is released as a series of books and records that share characters and themes; the fiction writing continuing plot-lines left open by the self-described "talking songs" in an attempt to compile a vast, detailed, interconnected, personal history of contemporary American life. Check out recent writing here and songs here. Contact: adam@asthmatickitty.com

Last night Thad and I crossed the border at San Ysidro and went into Mexico. The time before it was the bullfight and a heavy day. This time we walked past the lights and stripclubs and barkers on Revolución and went for the hills.

Along the ridge above town is a line of mansions and palaces, great steel and glass haciendas, alabaster bell towers and arches, big spires and stone walls looking down on the cardboard box shanties and ruined shacks.

We got where we wanted to go but it took a while. A good, hard walk. Tense moments along the dark turns where rattling jalopy cars barreled down on us and raced around the corners. Shaky parts of town like war-time Bosnia. Rubble, graffiti, and cars parts.

“You ever get that feeling like you’re suddenly in a bad place?” asked Thad. “Like you’ve gone from the place where it’s acceptable for you to be to a place where you’re not welcome? Where people might not be out for your best interests?”

“Sure, yeah. France especially. Anywhere me and Jamey went.”

“I don’t. I never have,” he said as the road up the hill wound around another bombed out, yellow-lit turn. “All through Bahrain and Guatemala, Europe, all those places, I never felt it. I never felt like my life was at stake.”

“Do you feel it here?”

“No, but I think a lot of people wouldn’t feel safe where we are. Do you?”

“Safe? Yeah, I feel good here.”

At the top of the ridge we saw both cities—both countries—sprawling out below us. San Diego, safe and sleeping, the dark patch of San Miguel Mountain to the east with its radio towers blinking red in the mist, the Coronado Bridge, the border, then Tijuana, all lights and traffic and neons.

On the way down the hill we finished the pint of tequila we brought and then stopped at a corner store and got some beer. It was late but the neighborhood was still up. Rangy dog gangs loping under the street lights. Hipster Mexican kids out on dates in the park.

We drank the beer on a park bench across from a baseball field and watched a family play slow-pitch softball.

Sitting on the bench we said the abstract and open-ended things you say when you’ve just done something big and real and physical. We talked about direction and purpose and whether to go with the money or follow your heart.

I wish the photos I took could show you what Tijuana looks like at night from a top the big hill. They don’t, but here they are…

BIO: Adam Gnade's (guh nah dee) work is released as a series of books and records that share characters and themes; the fiction writing continuing plot-lines left open by the self-described "talking songs" in an attempt to compile a vast, detailed, interconnected, personal history of contemporary American life. Check out recent writing here and songs here. Contact: adam@asthmatickitty.com

What made us leave the Plaza Monumental bullring in Tijuana, Mexico was the bull who wouldn’t die. He was a strong bull, the fourth of the day, and nothing the seven men in the arena did could knock him down.

He fought death like I hope I would fight death—with every fiber he had standing him back up, squaring his shoulders, and telling him, “Your life can’t end like this.”

But of course it can—and it did.

With seven men jabbing at him and dancing around him, he panicked as his knees buckled, and he died terrified, confused, and humiliated. The worst death of all.

When his big spirit finally gave out, they cut off his ear, raised it to the crowd and then dragged his body out of the arena behind a team of horses. The crowd was happy about this and when he was gone there was another bull to take his place.

There was nothing romantic or sporting or even manly in what I saw. It wasn’t a Hemingway story and it wasn’t beautiful or fun. What it was was an unfair fight, which is a fight I will never stand behind.

That’s what I saw at the bullfight on Sunday.

BIO: Adam Gnade's (guh nah dee) work is released as a series of books and records that share characters and themes; the fiction writing continuing plot-lines left open by the self-described "talking songs" in an attempt to compile a vast, detailed, interconnected, personal history of contemporary American life. Check out recent writing here and songs here. Contact: adam@asthmatickitty.com