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Spectra Journalism • Diversity • Humanity
MAGAZINE MARCH 2013
perpetual youth
• mountain song 16 • the wild side 24 • In photos: Perpetual Youth 4
EDITOR’S NOTE Perpetual Youth Most days, I experience a schism of self: how does one reconcile wanting to grow up as quickly as possible with wanting to enjoy the last of one’s childhood? It’s strange to think that I’ve been living for almost two decades. It’s stranger to think that, at this age centuries ago, I would have anticipated living only up to my thirties; that midlife crisis would have already passed. It’s strangest, yet, to see people much older than myself, living more fearlessly and with greater intensity than I do. Indeed, youth shouldn’t be defined as an age range anymore. I believe that being youthful requires the inability to comprehend (or the trained ability to ignore) one’s own limitations. Being youthful means having boundless optimism for the future, yet being able to fully enjoy the present moment. That second part is important: live in the now. In this issue, you will find photographs and accounts from people who understand this concept and implement it well. Joe Miller captures high spirits and easy laughter borne of simple pleasures (4). I have been inspired by Jessica Toan’s story of unconditional love (14). Devin Graham’s unbridled love of adventure has caused me to re-evaluate my own propensity to dwell in my comfort zone (34). These contributors prove that youth is just a mindset. Certainly, children find it easier to live life free of cares and full of love; however, it is never too late to start doing so again.
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Photo by Joe Miller. Photostory on page 4.
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The World Spectra Project About the Cover
“At the beginning of my sophomore year, my class went on a trip to Northern California. I took the photo as our bus was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, and it was important to me that I captured the moment because everything about it evoked a sense of perpetual youth. I wanted to remember the feeling of freedom I got from traveling with my friends to San Francisco at fifteen.” - Baohien Ngo Baohien Ngo, currently a senior in high school, primarily shoots film. She is a mostly self-taught photographer based in Houston, Texas.
In This Issue 4 In Photos: Perpetual Youth by Joe Miller
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Mountain Song for Tibet by Devin Yü
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Adoption & Unconditional Love by Jessica Toan
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Listen Carefully by Bill Fairfield
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The Cleaning Ladies by Katrina Knighton
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The Wild Side by Linda Ge
Flash Flood in Zion by Dennis Stewart
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Recipe: Chicken Kabob with Rice by Laura Meinert
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Destined to be a Photographer by Cole Thompson
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Into the Quiet by Bob Stanley
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Wherever You Go by Julia Hunter-Blair
44 Last Look: Perpetual Youth by Sean Marc Lee
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PERPETUAL Photos by Joe Miller
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YOUTH
A self-portrait in Los Angeles capturing the spirit of “trying anything once,� the theme for the seventh week of a year-long project.
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Four camp staffers hang out on stage before the campers arrive for a dance party.
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Phil Gibson slacklines 20 feet above a river under Bakers Bridge, Durango, CO.
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Two girls watch the simple, yet exciting firework show in Durango, CO on the Fourth of July, 2011.
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Campers say goodbyes at a bonfire after spending two weeks together in Durango, Colorado.
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Joe Miller is a director and editor. His film “From the Eyes of Hope” won the “Best Documentary” award at the world’s largest youth film festival. He recently finished a film about human trafficking and micro-finance in Cambodia that was screened to over 10,000 people around the nation. Miller moved to Los Angeles in August and is currently working as an editor, independent filmmaker and intern at SmokeHouse Pictures.
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Adoption & Unconditional Love by Jessica Toan
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veryone has a story, and I believe stories are powerful because they are personal expressions of what is true. People say that you enter this world with nothing, and you leave with nothing. I suppose the saying is true. The day I was born, I was left at the hospital in South Korea. For whatever reason, my birth parents were unable or unwilling to take care of me, so I was left. There wasn’t anyone to hold me, take pictures, or tell me what my name would be. I had nothing, and no one promised to take care of me. But a few days later, I was graciously taken to an adoption agency called Eastern Social Welfare Society. Here men and women worked hard to care for many children. They spent their days seeing to our diaper changes and meals, but they also prayed over and dedicated themselves to our futures by finding us foster homes and permanent homes. By six months old, I was on my way from Korea to Southern California. The crazy part was that my new family didn’t know I was already on the way until they received a phone call just hours before the plane landed in the US. After a long flight, the founder of the adoption agency, who was bringing me to California, introduced me for the first time to my parents. This couple, who had never met me, gave me a home. They gave me their family name, and they promised to care for me. Often people have asked me if it was hard being adopted, knowing your birth family couldn’t care for me, or if it was hard being different from my parents. To be honest, the answer is no. Our family is not perfect, and we have had our arguments. But my parents have loved me as their own daughter, so I’ve never thought of myself in any other way. My childhood is filled with sweet memories of reading books with my mom, going camping and fishing with my father, and playing games with my whole family. 14
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But my favorite memories from growing up are simple ones like making eggs and blueberry pancakes with my dad on Saturday mornings or hearing my parents praying for me every day. I still remember this poem my mom stitched and hung in my room: Not flesh of my flesh Nor bone of my bone But still miraculously my own Never forget for a single minute You didn’t grow under my heart but in it I admit growing up is a difficult job for a child, and looking different from other families could make it harder. But our greatest challenge is to decide who we are and what kind of person we are going to be. The older I get, the easier it is to start taking things for granted. I’m not sure how you would define unconditional love or if you even think it’s possible, but I know that I have truly received unconditional love. I didn’t deserve or earn anything my parents have so freely given me, and yet my life is overflowing with the blessings and opportunities others have worked so hard for me to have. I am so thankful, and I’ve decided what kind of person I will be. I want to be like my parents. I want to bring unconditional love to those who don’t have it. Jessica Toan was born in South Korea, raised in Texas, and went to graduate school in California. She is a PhD graduate student in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UC Davis. Jessica enjoys volunteering at church and in community projects, and she hopes to teach and help the educational communities in poorer countries. She and her husband hope to be able to adopt a child in the future.
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the cleaning ladies I have a cleaning lady. Really I should say I have cleaning ladies. I have one main lady I call upon when I get fed up with looking at the mess that several people living under one roof can make. She and her girls come every few weeks. While I know how to clean my house as the cleaning ladies do, I choose to call on them because they are so thorough and it just seems so much easier to have them do the chores I dread. My main cleaning lady shows up with a gaggle of other women, most of whom speak only Spanish. I speak limited Spanish, so often I understand next to nothing of the conversations that fill my home as they busy about. Recently I had a fantastic thought about cleaning ladies. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could call upon a tribe of cleaning ladies to tidy my emotions and clean up my sadness related to Mom’s situation? Imagine a knock at the door of my soul followed by a flood of cheerful, methodic women entering my heart and mind. Speaking in tongues, but smiling at me all the while, they scatter throughout my person with their brooms, paper towels, and squirt bottles filled with magical fluids of hope and wisdom. They sweep up the sorrow that sometimes litters my days.
by Katrina Knighton They vacuum the cobwebs of regret - things I should have said or done, and things I wish I hadn’t. They dust and polish the surface of my heart so that all my love is available to share with my family and friends, and with Mom. They open the windows of my mind to allow the crisp breeze of understanding to blow through me, and to let the sun’s rays of hope warm my face. They wash away the tears and plant daisies in my inner child’s garden to remind me of happy times. They organize my thoughts and leave me notes reminding me to be kinder to myself and to others. They then pack up their supplies and, with beautiful reassuring smiles, they leave me to myself. I realize that, as with my real cleaning ladies, I know the work that needs to be done and how to do it. I am capable of doing the chores that my imaginary cleaning ladies would do. It just seems so much easier if I had a team of hardworking women to do it for me. Alas, I do not and the work is mine. I can do it and with some effort I will do it. I will get through this time. It still amazes me however - the emotional mess that one person living under her own roof can make.
Katrina and her husband, also her high school sweetheart, live with their two teenage daughters in Davis, California. Katrina works as a full time operating room nurse in Sacramento, and enjoys running and spending time with her family and friends. She grew up the youngest child and only girl in a family with five children. Her parents were hard working, ethical individuals who instilled in their children similar values and familial devotion. In 2000, Katrina’s mother began having difficulties with her speech. Over time, her progressive neurological symptoms worsened until she eventually moved into a nursing facility in 2007. Katrina spent a great deal of time with her mother until her death in 2009, but found ways to cope.
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Flash Flood in
Zion
“An adventure is often the result of a failure to plan.” John Camp, a.k.a. John Sandford, “Shock Wave,” 2011
Story and photos by Dennis Stewart
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went to Zion National Park in southern Utah in August to do a five-day trip with 10 other people, most of whom I have hiked with before. The plan when I signed up was to walk and wade through “The Narrows” of the Virgin River that flows through Navaho sandstone cliffs up to 3000 feet high and runs into the Colorado River after 170 miles.
The fellow organizing the trip and my friend of forty years, John, told me a couple of weeks before the trip that we were going to do both “The Narrows” and a canyon that had a portion called “The Subway” he had scouted from the downstream end during a previous trip. John’s wife, Deborah; his friend of many outings, Cindy; and Venus and Jason, a newly married young couple; had been with him then. John also told me that a fellow named Paul, whom I had hiked with in Death Valley, was coming out from Florida. We finally started down to the canyon about 11 a.m. We made a rappel and then came to the first part of “The Subway.” I was told the name derives from the way soft rock eroded away leaving the more resistant rock to overhang, sometimes to an almost tunnel-like aspect. I later discovered it widened into pools and narrowed into grotto-like caverns. At about 5 p.m. it started to rain. John and Paul were setting up the rigging to rappel over the first waterfall while others put on harnesses. The rain started coming down harder. I knew if we went down this waterfall we had to keep going and I didn’t know how long “The Subway” part was. I thought we should gather as a group and decide what to do; I wanted more information and a group consensus before I went any further. Ernie, a leader on many hikes, said, “I’m going to look for a place to go up.” Steve looked at Deborah, all harnessed and good to go, and asked, “Do you really want to do this?” She slowly shook her head. Steve told John and Paul we were going up. They undid the ropes and we all hurried upstream a hundred yards where Ernie pointed to a slope and a steep, 18
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muddy low crease in the slope. As we went up, a roaring rush of water perhaps twenty-five feet wide came down the opposite sandstone, stair-stepped cliff. A second burst of water shot out of that same side of the stream about 100 yards upstream. It was a massive discharge of brown water as if from a giant fire hose nozzle. The two waterfalls merged in front of us and the stream quickly rose. I would estimate that this all happened in two to five minutes. The volume of water increased several-fold over the next hour. We all would either have drowned, been ground to death by the rocks carried by the flash flood or smashed into the walls by the rapid torrent. It finally started to get dark. The rain continued. There were two hailstorms with small stones, then half-inch pieces covering the ground. Paul had discussed what to do with others where he was huddling and they had agreed we had to stay where we were for the night, hope the water receded and that we could get out the next day. We began to sort ourselves out to find places to spend the night. After dark, two men came down the flooded stream and talked to Steve. They decided to keep going downstream in the dark, right into “The Subway” part we had escaped. We never saw them again. The rain waxed and waned throughout the night with the waterfall across the creek pulsating in delayed reaction. We saw stars a few times during the night. Then they would dim and the rain would begin again. Finally, it started getting light. As soon as it was light several of us went down to the stream and found the water was much lower, perhaps with two times the flow as before the storm. Some people wanted to wait for the sun to warm them up before rappelling down into the water at the start of “The Subway.” The thought of getting in the cold water in wet clothes while still shivering was daunting. However, it was clouding up again and we decided we needed to get out of the canyon as soon as we could while the water was still low. After that we would be in a more open canyon and be able to scramble out of the way of another flash flood. We came to a place that involved going underwater in a big pool. Deborah, Jason and John climbed up the canyon wall and eventually came down with a 30-foot
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rappel, while the rest of us went on through that pool. As I went underwater ducking under an overhanging log, my pack caught on the log and I couldn’t get unhooked for a few moments. I started to panic, but I finally surfaced and swam until my feet touched the bottom. The group reunited and came out of the “The Subway” and saw the destruction left by the flood. The trail was almost completely washed out on both sides of the stream. Occasionally, we would find a bruised, dead trout or other fish twenty feet above the stream on a portion on the trail. Fresh, wet debris hung from bushes and trees. By the time we walked the mile or so across the mesa to the parking lot it was late afternoon. We had been walking, rappelling, swimming and scrambling since about seven that morning. John later told us that park rangers had been sent to both parking lots. The park authorities had been alerted by our motel manager who was alarmed when the house keeper told her none of our four rooms had been used the previous night. One of the other fifty people permitted to go into the canyon of “The Subway” for the day by authorities had turned back because he hurt his ankle. He called the park headquarters when his party didn’t return the night before. We later found out that all forty-nine people got out safely. Evidently, even the two that went off into the night after talking to Steve. The storm had dropped eleven inches of rain, sometimes at the rate of three inches an hour. The last major rain had been three years before. On the way to the Las Vegas airport we drove through a massive thunderstorm that had enough
rainfall to cause water to flow over the flat desert and fill all the low spots. I have never seen that much water in the desert. It was heading straight for Zion. Dennis Stewart was born below sea level in Imperial County, California near the Mexican border. He has degrees and credentials from UC Davis in production agriculture. He has farmed in Arizona, served in Venezuela and the Sacramento delta as a rural community organizer. He has taught agriculture, biological and social science and language arts in California public schools in grades 7 to 12. He lives in Davis with his wife Mary and his Border Collie, Ranger. Dennis can periodically be found riding a tractor mowing the lawn while Ranger waits impatiently in the pickup.
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Destined to be a Photographer by Cole Thompson
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hat do you want to be when you grow up? What child has not been asked that question a hundred times, and who over the years hasn’t had a variety of answers? Those answers were not prophecies or predictions, but merely answers that were reflective of this month’s favorite TV show or parental expectations. What we would actually become in life was more often due to luck or chance, rather than careful career-planning. I was 14 years old and living in Rochester, NY. One day I was hiking in the woods when I came upon a crumbling, deserted home that my friend told me had once belonged to George Eastman. I knew George Eastman was connected to Kodak and this piqued my interest enough that I checked out his biography from the school library. I started reading and could not put the book down. I was captivated by the wonder of photography and before I had finished the book (before I had taken a picture or had ever seen a print develop in the darkroom), I knew that I was destined to be a photographer. I had been infatuated with various things before: just a year earlier, I had fallen in love with architecture and I wanted to become an architect. But never before
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or since had I felt “destined” to become anything. Ever since that moment almost 45 years ago, I have never doubted that this is who I am. For the next ten years I learned everything I could about photography. I am self-taught and have never taken a class or workshop in my life. I read every book I could find on photography; I studied its history as well as its science. I studied cameras, techniques and processes. I learned about the different types of photography, from fine art to scientific. Because I didn’t know what direction I would eventually go in, I studied everything about everything. I spent countless hours looking at every image I could find created by the great masters of photography. Certain images fascinated me and caused a shiver to go down my spine: dark and contrast images with bright subjects. I found myself particularly drawn to images by Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Wynn Bullock. Later on, my work would go in this direction. I set up a darkroom, first commandeering the family bathroom with a Sears enlarging kit and then taking over the basement with an enlarger and proper darkroom equipment. Everything was an experiment and an adventure, and those were some of the happiest
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days of my life; experimenting, failing, succeeding— but always learning. At this point in my life I began to form the habit of hands-on learning by avoiding structured and formal education. Three men also contributed to my extracurricular education. Mr. Casey owned Casey’s Camera’s in Rochester, NY. I was a fourteen-year-old boy with few dollars to spend and an enormous thirst to learn. He tolerated my many visits, the endless hours looking at his cameras and all the associated questions. His example has inspired me to return the same gift of patience to others. Joe Boyle, an old-school photographer, worked in Hollywood shooting stills for the studios. Joe hired me to work in a department store camera department and later became a mentor. Joe could solve any problem with the most basic of materials and a lot of imagination. He truly was a follower of Rube Goldberg and the King of Kluge. He once taught me how to remove telephone lines from an image long before the days of digital and Photoshop. We mounted a piece of glass about a foot in front of the camera lens and then, looking through the camera, drew over the telephone lines with Vaseline
on the glass. The glass was out of focus and the Vaseline blurred out the telephone lines—a simple solution with simple materials. Joe taught me to look for the simple solution and to improvise. John Holland was a photography teacher at my high school. I had no interest in the basic photography classes that were offered, so John allowed me to have an open-study period, which I used to wander around campus and photograph. John encouraged me to focus on the creative over the technical. This was such a different approach than I had been pursuing that I thrived creatively and started the transition from photographer to artist. John taught me the importance of finding my creative vision. As high school came to an end, I needed to decide what I wanted to do for a living. I had assumed that I would pursue photography at the Rochester Institute of Photography, which had always been my dream. But as the time drew near to make such decisions, I started to have doubts, not of my love for photography or my destiny, but of my college major. I began to question if a formal photographic education would stifle some of the qualities I had developed through self-instruction: my independence and a disMARCH 2013
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“By seeking to please only myself, I am free to break the rules, flaunt convention and not care about achieving success on anyone’s terms but my own.� 22
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regard for the rules. A lack of peer pressure had served me well; I did not want to conform to herd mentality. I also worried that if I earned a living through photography, I would lose my passion for it. Ultimately, I decided that the best approach was to separate money from art. I could choose a career that would provide me with the material things that I needed while pursuing my art could be pursued separately allowing me to retain my passion for it. What I could not appreciate at age seventeen was how much time and energy family and career would require. I obtained a degree in business. For the next thirty years, I ran a business and raised five children. While I had hoped to pursue photography aside from career and family responsibilities, the truth was that I had little time to pick up a camera, except to document family life. However, I still thought of myself as a photographer. I never once stopped believing that it was my destiny. As the kids started leaving home and I had more time, I felt the time was right to pursue my destiny once again. At this time, digital was just coming into its own and so I had the wonderful opportunity to learn all over again. And even though the tools were completely different, the creative process was still the same. It was good to succumb to the passion again and to feel the satisfaction of creating something. I quickly regained my technical skills and I found myself growing creatively. I was winning competitions, exhibiting, publishing and increasingly selling my work. There was an assumed path that a rising star should take, which was to get into galleries, sell more work and sell it for more money. Some of the same old questions that haunted me when I was 17 started to haunt me again. Did I really want money to become the focal point of my art? Was that the inevitable end? Why was I creating? Would this take the fun out of it? Was there another way? It turns out that there was another way. I did not need to become a professional or take that path to be a photographer; in fact, for me the opposite was true. What I discovered was that the old world definition of an amateur was what I was looking for: one who is self taught, who creates out of love and who does not earn their living from their work. That was what I wanted
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to be! I did not want to create for money or for prizes or for recognition. I wanted to create for myself and not care what anyone else thought. After I made this discovery and changed my direction, I took down my traditional resume and replaced it with this one: My art has appeared in many exhibitions, publications and has received numerous awards. And yet my resume does not list those accomplishments, why? In the past I’ve considered those accolades as the evidence of my success, but I now think differently. My success is no longer measured by the length of my resume, but rather by how I feel about the art that I create. While I do enjoy exhibiting, seeing my work published and meeting people who appreciate my art, this is an extra benefit of creating, but this is not success itself. I believe that the best success is achieved internally, not externally. By seeking to please only myself, I am free to break the rules, flaunt convention and not care about achieving success on anyone’s terms but my own. In the process I have pleased myself, grown creatively and ironically have become even more successful…but on my terms. Through all of my experiences I have come to the conclusion that money and art do not mix well; too many compromises are required. I am happy with the decision that I made at age 17 and I’ve become happier with my decision some 45 years later. I always knew that I was destined to be a photographer, and I now fully understand what that means. Cole Thompson was born in Salina, Kansas. Cole began a lifelong fascination with black-and-white photography after reading the biography of George Eastman in 1968 while living in Rochester, NY. He believes his love for black-and-white photography comes from growing up in a black-and-white world, and considers his images extensions of his childhood world.
“I had little time to pick up a camera […] However, I still thought of myself as a photographer. I never once stopped believing that it was my destiny.” MARCH 2013
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Wherever You Go “Wherever you go, there you are.”
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have just spent a month in Turkey. I had never been there before, but I have had a certain longing to see it for myself for at least fifty years. Way back then, I heard glowing reports from some adventurous Scottish friends who had traveled throughout the whole country and had fallen in love with it. I’m sure it was rather different for them – it was very off the beaten track, and so very inexpensive that they almost felt guilty. But it is still, as it was for them, astonishingly beautiful, hospitable, and intriguing. The famous Turkish writer, Orhan Pamuk, in his marvelous book, “Istanbul Memories”, writes so movingly about his whole life spent in Istanbul and the often devastating change and decay that has happened to the oldest and most colorful parts of that huge city – now, with its millions, the third-largest after Tokyo and Mexico City. But the dreamy feeling I kept getting, as we drove long day after long day through the peaceful unspoiled countryside, with its mountains, its villages, its brilliant red poppies, its grey-green olive trees, its scarlet-flowered pomegranate orchards, is that this place just might manage to be unchanging, My good friend Karen invited me to go on this adventure with her. As well as the innumerable times that she and I, and earlier on with our children, have spent together in this country, we have been good travel companions in other countries. For me, whether it is in work, politics, sports, activism, building, study, volunteering, travel, I am always my most happy when I am part of a team, learning something that I want to know in the company of people with whom I am in tune. This Turkish adventure provided a great deal of that special joy. And now, two weeks after coming home, I am still in the honeymoon stage of my most recent love affair - with Turkey and its people. The modern and comfortable white van that picked up Karen and me at our hotel, the Erboy, early in the morning a day and a half after we had arrived in Istanbul, was our home for the next two weeks. It had plenty of room for our group of ten people - eight tourists, our guide Kemal and driver Ali – plus our bulging suitcases and the elaborate photographic equipment that everyone except me was carrying. We eight tourists were Australian, American and Scottish – very “Anglo” – and with about ten words of Turkish between
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“It is not so much to remember the facts and details of any special journey […] but to try and capture its essence.” us. We had all met briefly with Kemal the night before, on the cobbled-stoned street outside our hotel, had exchanged names and nationalities, and had begun to take it in that we were to be constant companions for the next two whole weeks. Tired, frazzled and a bit bewildered from our long flights, we looked at each other with curiosity and, indeed, some trepidation. We set off early in the morning on the road to Gallipoli, the first “important” site of our journey. We drove down the Aegean Coast and along the Mediterranean – to Troy, Assos, Pergamom, Ephesus, Aphrodisias, Pamukkale, Dalyan, Fethiye, Kas, Antalya, Konya – all the way to Cappadoccia. Magic names, magic places, and we visited and explored parts of them all. It was fascinating, dizzying and often overwhelming. After a day packed with so much information, it was easy to get some date wrong by at least a thousand years as you tried to stuff it into an overloaded memory bank. For me, though, there is something that I do and have done for a long time; it is not so much to remember the facts and details of any special journey, geographical or emotional, but to try and capture its essence. At certain special moments I tell myself to remember. And later, when life is being far from pleasant, when I cannot escape from some necessary but long and tedious task, when I have a dose of the flu, I bring up one of these from my mental photo album and remind myself that this is how life can be. One such time was a whole day on a small boat, going to the island of Kekova. Nothing to do except enjoy the sun and zephyr breezes, gaze at the lovely changing scenery, and eat a delicious picnic lunch. When we got close to the island the boat stopped for a couple of hours. Under the clear green water were Roman ruins, and the sturdy swimmers among us had a fine time snorkeling over them. I joined in on the fringe with my timid British dog-paddle. Very special was a lunch with a family at their farmhouse, all of us sitting cross-legged under the trees and around a big square rug with the delicious mezes spread before us. Three generations were there, the children all smiling and trying out their English.
In the fishing village of Dalyan we all went to the famous mud baths. We women were all wallowing happily around in this warm brown pool but finding it difficult to make the mud stick enough to fully impart its healthful benefits. Andrew, however, the sweetest of men and comfortably stout, managed to get absolutely coated with mud; beaming with delight, he looked rather like a happy hippopotamus. Quite soon, a kind of magic spell began to overtake our little group, and this lasted throughout the whole journey. Everyone was lively and curious, considerate and helpful, easy to be with. More than that, we really bonded - no other word for it - and during those two weeks of doing almost everything together except sleeping in the same bed, we developed a wonderful atmosphere of camaraderie, enjoyment, teasing and laughter. After the educational tour, my friend Karen and I stayed on in Istanbul by ourselves for eight more days. Our hotel was in the oldest and most central part of Istanbul, with its narrow winding streets, endless nearby places of historical interest, and innumerable and crowded small restaurants. And, of course, this was also the center of the bustling tourist industry. The first thing you couldn’t help but notice was how lively the streets were – at all times of the day and evening and night. These cobbled streets teemed with people of all ages, and almost everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I grew really to like and listen for the Call to Prayer from the minarets, especially the one in the evening. Sounds are hard to recreate later, and though I listened and listened I could not remember. I will have to make do with one of my regular favorite sounds in Davis – the lovely, mournful hoot of the train as it comes through the town in the middle of the night. Julia Hunter-Blair grew up in Scotland; in 1956, she emigrated to the United States. She crossed and re-crossed “the Pond” several times, living and working both in Britain and the U.S. She settled in Davis with her family in 1971. Her working life until she retired in 2005 was always with international students and scholars. She loves Davis, writing, and working on issues of peace and justice.
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Mountain Song for Tibet by Devin Y端 26
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A
t 4 in the morning, I woke up to my six roommates shuffling around the room, sleepily looking for their schoolbooks and clothes. I shifted under the thick covers, covering my face to block the dim light, too cold to get out of bed and too tired. Minutes later I realized I had school to attend. Dashing madly out of the bed, I threw on my clothes and grabbed my two textbooks. One roommate, a tall dark-skinned girl with short hair laughed and gave me a gentle smack across the head, telling me off for sleeping in. I rolled my eyes and pulled on a thick jacket;
the morning air could be chilly. We walked out of the room as a group, huddled together for warmth, the air a lot colder than we had expected. The sky was still a deep nighttime-blue and bright stars peppered the darkness, while the nearly full moon lit up the frost-covered plants in the courtyard and the shingled rooftops, creating a mystical effect. The classroom door creaked as a short, chubby-cheeked girl pushed it open, revealing rows of short desks lit by a dim light. In the front of the classroom, our teacher waited. He had deeply wrinkled dark skin and a goatee. He wore the terracotta-red and golden-yellow robes of a Tibetan Buddhist teacher. Desks scraped against the cement floor and papers rustled as we took our places, waiting for the lesson to begin. That day, we were studying Chinese characters and Tibetan Buddhist prayers. When the lesson started, my thoughts wandered to later in the day, when my sister, and all of the girls and I would finally climb to the top of the mountain behind the monastery. We had been practicing for weeks in preparation for that moment. Two months before, I had been at the San Francisco International Airport preparing myself for a daunting six-month trip to Tibet with my dad and sister. My dad had finished his PhD and with sparse job opportunities in California, we decided that a trip to Tibet – the subject of his PhD – was due. After traveling around Tibet and staying with my
Online-Exclusive Edition dad’s friends, the three of us traveled to Garang, a small village in Qinghai Province where my dad knew many of the nuns in the monastery. Also living in the monastery were about 10 girls, attending the girls’ school that the nuns provided within the village. For the first week that we were there, my sister and I kept to ourselves, too shy to join the other girls in their various adventures. However, after that first week, they felt like our best friends as we went on hiking trips up the tall mountains behind the monastery, explored the village, and stayed up late laughing about nothing in particular. During the early morning and afternoon, my new friends had school to attend; this gave my sister and I time to do our home-schoolwork. However, about three or four weeks into our stay, I was invited to sleep in the dorms where the girls slept and to attend school with them. I said a full-hearted yes. Every morning, we woke up around 4 and made our way to the classroom where we were taught Tibetan Buddhist chants, along with grammar and spelling. In the afternoons, we practiced mountain climbing, trekking up hills to build up our hiking skills. Our ultimate goal was to reach the very top of the tall mountain behind the monastery. The day we climbed the mountain thin grey clouds covered the sky and the crisp air gave me goose bumps. One of the girls had packed mung bean cakes and beef jerky in preparation for the rough climb. When we reached the top, two hours later, I surveyed the land and my heart thumped with exhilaration. Just outside of the monastery down below, I could see my dad with the nuns, waving at us and clapping at our accomplishment. Looking back, my trip to Tibet helped with my personal development. As a young child I had been outgoing, but as I got older I slowly began to be shyer around people I didn’t know. Being in Tibet helped me step outside of my comfort zone and confront my problems directly. Just as I had practiced climbing the small hills before attempting to climb the big mountain, in life I’ve learned to incorporate the concept of taking small but helpful steps towards a bigger goal. Devin Yü is a high school junior currently living in Göttigen, Germany. She is originally from Davis, California and has also lived in China multiple times. She enjoys writing, photography, painting and learning new languages, and someday she will travel the world.
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“They felt like our best friends as we went on hiking trips up the tall mountains behind the monastery, explored the village, and stayed up late laughing about nothing in particular.”
“The classroom door creaked as a short, chubby-cheeked girl pushed it open, revealing rows of short desks lit by a dim light. “
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“Our ultimate goal was to reach the very top of the tall mountain behind the monastery.”
“Also living in the monastery were about 10 girls, attending the girls’ school that the nuns provided within the village.”
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Listen Carefully by Bill Fairfield
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retha Franklin’s first hit was “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody”, which she sang in 1961. The original song was written in 1918, before electronics dominated the sounds of popular music and before drums and “heavy” bass were high in the mix. It was written when a singer’s voice was the primary instrument and there was no need for a thunderous backdrop. With today’s iPods and ear buds that provide clear digital bass-heavy sound directly to one’s eardrums at high volumes, the song might be re-titled “Rock-a Bye Your Hearing.” As in: gone, bye-bye forever. In the early days of rock ’n ’roll, the beat got louder and the drums became more prominent in the mix. In the ’50s and up until the late ’60s, speakers and amps would distort at high volume, providing an unintended built-in decibel limiter. Today, with digital sound and a plethora of high quality ear buds and headphones, it’s easy to crank it up to levels way beyond the decibel limits of safe hearing. There are many resources available on the internet regarding safe hearing levels, but many people don’t pay attention. It’s not until they experience permanent ringing in their ears (tinnitus) or become super-sensitive to even moderate sounds (hyperacusis), that they realize the fragility of hearing cells and the need for hearing protection. I live with both of these conditions, and hopefully you can learn from my mistakes. For some people, this can happen over time, and from repeated exposure to high decibels. For others, it can happen at one concert. I know someone who lost 75 percent of his hearing after attending a Sammy Hagar concert. He had stood directly in front of the speakers, without hearing protection, and will forever pay the price. Everyone is different, and some ears are more easily damaged, but nobody can escape the debilitating effects of repeated loud sound exposure. The hair cells of the inner ear are designed to hear the faintest natural sounds, like those of an animal approaching in the forest. These sensitive cells today are bombarded by unnatural electronic sounds, and bass-
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The IHC stands for inner hair cells, and ONC stands for outer hair cells. Photo A: Healthy inner ear hair cells, lined up in neat rows, almost like a corn field.
Photo B: Damage caused to hair cells by exposure to loud sounds. © 2000 National Academy of Sciences
heavy music is one of the worst offenders. When people develop tinnitus, they almost always hear a high-pitched, constant ring. Tinnitus is very seldom a low-toned sound. What you hear ringing is what you have lost. The sensitive high-hearing cells are wiped out by the tornado-like blast of loud sound waves, and since bass tones move the most air, these over-amped bass tones are leading the charge. Research shows that the “ring” is the result of the brain searching for signals from the destroyed high hearing cells. Thumping bass, no matter what musical style, is rolling like a tornado through their hair cells. In my case, playing live rock music for many years took its toll on my hearing. All the years of live gigs, from college parties to nightclubs, to concert halls and festivals, were part of the long road leading to permanently
loud tinnitus and the sensitivity of hyperacusis. The reality of “paying your dues” in the nightclubs is that the stages are smaller and the sound systems cannot mic everything to get various instruments’ sounds “out front” in the main PA. Consequently, you are close to the drums, electric bass, and stage monitors. Band members have to turn up their own amps loud enough to fill the room. At every gig, you experience three or more hours of 100-plus decibel sound levels. One hour of 95 decibels of sound is damaging, whether live or with earbuds, and sound intensity doubles with every 3-decibel increase. As you reach the bigger stages that have better stage monitors, improved amp mic-ing, and greater distance between musicians, you can separate yourself and your personal stage “mix”, though the bass tones coming off the rear of huge festival speakers are MARCH 2013
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still very loud and pervasive. I spent a lot of time on the right side of the stage, due to the size of my keyboard, so my left ear received all of the stage volume input, and my right ear received a lot of bass tones from the right side main speaker. Consequently, I live with mini-sirens in my ears all day. I can tune them out most of the day thanks to other incoming sounds and a dedicated non-focus on the ringing. When it is quiet, though, as it is now while I write this, the ringing is loud and clear. I performed as long as I could with a full band. It got to where I could not be on a loud stage, even with tightly-sealed earplugs. Loud sounds were becoming painful, and I had to cease performing amplified music. Most people do not think about hearing protection until serious damage has occurred, usually when they detect a permanent ring. Many people experience temporary ringing after a loud concert, and then the ringing goes away. Perhaps this happens a few times, and then one day it does not go away. It is never too late to wear ear protection, since people with damaged ears need to conserve all of their remaining hearing cells. Loud music is the primary culprit of noise-induced hearing loss, but people who use chainsaws, leaf blowers, hammers (and the like) often have hearing loss and tinnitus. There are “re-training” programs available to help folks try to “tune out” tinnitus if they cannot do it themselves. The goal is to train one’s brain to place the ringing in the background. There is no true cure for tinnitus. Unfortunately, tinnitus will become a reality to many of the iPod generation. To be safe, you should put a decibel limiter app on your phone or iPod, and you can get used to listening at lower levels. If you play amplified music, wear hearing protection, especially on loud stages. There are numerous decibel sound meter apps available for smartphones. I have learned to live with tinnitus and hyperacusis. My diet and the types of activities I do are all tied to keeping my ears healthy. I can never attend a loud indoor concert. Movie theaters are usually much too
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loud for me. With hyperacusis, acoustic sounds are essentially “hyped up.” Normal sounds, especially plates and glasses contacting each other, tire noises while driving on the highway, and even some shower heads are too loud. With outer hair cell damage, the incoming sound travels directly to the inner hair cells and is very jarring and painful. I still play music every day, I still write songs, and I hope to release a new CD in 2013. But I don’t play my acoustic piano as much as I used to, since the string vibrations can sometimes be irritating. I now favor the stringless electric piano where I can play fully yet control the volume at low levels. If I play the acoustic piano at more than soft levels, I wear ear plugs. For someone who loves New Orleans and Boogie Woogie piano, I have to install serious plugs to rock out on an acoustic piano. Whatever happens in life, you have to adjust and keep going. Let my experience be a reason for you to think about hearing protection. Enjoy the beauty and emotions inherent in music, but please enjoy it safely.
Bill (aka Billy) Fairfield is a longtime Davis-based keyboardist and songwriter. He graduated from UC Davis in 1981 with a degree in American Studies (emphasis on Musicology) and has performed locally and around the country since the late ’70s. After shows with Chuck Berry, to San Francisco’s New Wave era, to Santa Cruz’s Ska sounds, and various other musical journeys, he returned to Davis in 1983 to form the Spydels. The Spydels became a popular Davis and Sacramento club band, and then changed their name to Mumbo Gumbo in 1990. Mumbo Gumbo has released 9 CDs, and has won numerous regional “best band” awards. Bill had to cease performing live with Mumbo Gumbo in 1998 due to his hearing issues, but continues to manage the band. He is currently working on new solo material. www.billyfairfield.com Some good web resources for hearing protection include the website of the American Tinnitus Association (ata.org), Dangerous Decibels (dangerousdecibels.org), and Hearing and Educational Awareness for Rockers (hearnet.com).
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Š 2012 Dangerous Decibels (dangerousdecibels.org)
Close-up of an inner ear hair cell before and after loud sound exposure. The top photo shows the tiny hair bundle on top of a healthy inner ear hair cell. Compare it to the bottom photo of a sound-damaged hair bundle. The damaged, bent-over cells could eventually die completely, and disappear, as in the previous Photo B.
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The Wild Side Freefalling from a 400-foot pendulum canyon rope swing in the middle of the freezing tundra. Youtuber Devin Graham filmed the adrenaline-packed adventure, and shared his thoughts with us on living young, wild and free.
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He captures unimaginable feats. His videos have received millions of views on Youtube. Devin Graham shares his stories with Editor-in-Chief Linda Ge about the feeling of being alive and the meaning of perpetual youth. L. Ge: Your YouTube handle is an allusion to “Into The Wild,” the story of Christopher McCandless, who leaves the life he has known in order to pursue his dreams. He changes his name to Alexander Supertramp. How would you say the book (or movie) has inspired what you do, as a filmmaker? D. Graham: I want the same thing [as Alexander Supertramp]: to live my dreams, to go out and achieve all these dreams.
L. Ge: What’s the best piece of advice you could give to our readers about taking risks and stepping out of their comfort zones? How does one start living adventurously? D. Graham: I think what it comes down to is [that] you have to be willing to accept failure. I was, without question, the shyest kid in high school. In fact, I got made fun of like you could never imagine. I was so afraid to speak up...but it got me nowhere. I was so afraid of what people would think of me. Once I realized that was holding me back, I did a full 180-degree turn and decided to speak up. It has made all the difference, in a good way. One of my favorite quotes [which] I’ve heard recently was, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” I feel [that] anything great in my life has been due to [my] taking on what I was afraid of. [For example,] the people in my videos--such as [those in] the latest rope swing video--are almost all terrified of heights. But they take it on, because that’s how we get our “high” on life. That’s when we feel the most alive: taking on what we are afraid of.
I’ve run into so many people--even friends--who talk about what they really want to do with their lives. But they never take that step. So many people have the potential to do what they want in life, but--for whatever L. Ge: What’s been your best on-the-job experience? reason--never use that power within them. With my YouTube channel, I try to make the same kind D. Graham: I love going to amazing locations. I love of connections to show the world in a way no one has working with passionate people who are the best at ever seen before. The ideas of being free, doing what what they do. And I love hearing everyone’s stories of you love, exploring the world, using your talents to in- what makes them “them.” It’s been an awesome jourspire, and perhaps even make the world a better place. ney meeting the most diverse people in the world. Also, we make up a lot of the projects we do as we go. So one of the greatest experiences comes from the L. Ge: It’s been said that we struggle with insecurity be- sense of discovering something new that has never cause we compare others’ “highlight reels” with our own been done before, and then figuring out how we can “behind-the-scenes clips.” Given the nature of your videos, push each other to our limits. would you agree with this statement?
D. Graham: Yes, for sure. For me, what it comes down to is nothing happens if you don’t put yourself out there, and so you never move forward. I decided that I had to take the step into the water and be willing to face “rejection,” because the rewards far outweigh being rejected.
L. Ge: This issue’s theme is “Perpetual Youth.” What does that mean to you? D. Graham: To me, it means that you’re always living a youthful life. Find something you love, and do it. Don’t change your dreams [for others].
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Chicken (jujeh) Kabob with Rice (pollo or chellow) by Laura Meinert
This is a traditional meal that I used to enjoy with my family in Iran. Every Friday at noon, our entire family would meet at my grandmother’s home. She would spread the tablecloths on the floor so all of us, totaling to approximately 20 people, would sit around the meal (sofreh). We would pile up our plates with rice, and then we would uncover the lavash bread to get our chicken and tomato. We loved the “wet bread” which was the bread under the chicken, soaked with the chicken marinade. We also clamored for the tadiq, which is the crunchy tortilla part. We were never late to the sofreh since we did not want to miss out on getting our part of tadiq. Part of the fun was watching my dad “steal” my aunt’s tadiq. She would playfully shove him and a laughing, tickle fight would begin. After the meal, the grown-ups would take a nap, and the kids would play. This meal is easy to make and is also served in any Persian restaurant. Just the smell and taste of the food brings me back to my childhood and the warm, loving feeling of being part of my family.
Makes 4 servings. 2 large chicken breasts (cut into large cubes) 4 medium sized Roma tomatoes Lavash bread
Marinade:
Juice of 1 lime ¼ cup of butter, melted ½ teaspoon of salt ½ teaspoon of pepper 1 teaspoon of ground saffron dissolved in 2 tablespoons of hot water 1 large onion peeled and thinly sliced (A similar marinade is now dried and sold in spice bags that you combine with oil and water and pour over your chicken.)
1. In a large bowl or plastic bag, combine marinade with chicken pieces. Cover and marinate for at least 6 hours in the refrigerator. 2. Put chicken and marinade in a pyrex dish and cooks for approximately 25-30 minutes. (In Iran, we would skewer the chicken and tomatoes onto metal skewers and cook them over a coal BBQ.) 3. Add tomatoes to the pyrex dish half-way through the cooking time. 4. Once the chicken is done, put the cooked chicken and tomatoes onto the lavash bread. Place another lavash bread on top of the chicken to keep warm and serve. Garnish with lime or lemon, which can be squeezed on top of the chicken. 42
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Rice (chellow):
3 cups of long-grain Basmati rice 1. In a pot, wash 3 cups of rice 5 times in warm water. 2. Once cleaned, put rice with approximately 8 cups of water and add 2 tablespoons of salt. Boil briskly for 6-10 minutes. Bite a few grains of rice: if it feels firm and still chewy, then it is ready. Drain rice in a colander. 3. Place 2 tablespoons of oil on the bottom of the pan, and place one or two corn tortillas on the bottom of the pan so the bottom of the pan is covered. Place rice on the top of the tortillas in a pyramid shaped mound. Poke one or two holes in the rice pyramid with the handle of your spatula. 4. Take a small cup and fill ¼ cup of hot water and saffron and ¼ cup of oil-mix and pour over the rice mound. 5. Put lid on pot. Steam the rice for 45 minutes on very low heat. Before taking the rice off of the stove, turn the heat on high for about one minute, so the tortillas become golden and crunchy (tadiq). 6. Remove rice from heat. Gently take a spatula full of rice at a time and place the rice on a serving platter. 7. Detach the layer of tortilla crust from the bottom of the pan using a spatula. Arrange the tortilla around the mound of rice. 8. Serve with plain yogurt. Nushe-e jan! (Enjoy!)
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into the quiet by Bob Stanley Close the book slip socks again onto sticky feet and move back through the long day; unravel evening clean-up so food becomes unprepared drive the sleep-eyed afternoon in reverse dis-order business lunch take back clam chowder, make regional sales manager back out of restaurant rewind careful conversation with D on the drive – two hours talking except when silent erase all that
So at nine in the morning when the house was quiet children at schools Joyce on her own trail to work, hurtling forward I stop pen in hand slowly begin move forward again into the quiet of reflection in hope of finding where I need not rush need not wish I could move backwards as if I could stay right where I am.
Poet Laureate of Sacramento from 2009 to 2012, Bob Stanley has published two chapbooks and edited two anthologies including “Late Peaches” in 2012. With his son John Stanley, he recently released a CD of original tunes entitled “Songs from Random Lane.” Bob’s new poetry collection, “Miracle Shine,” is forthcoming from CW Press in 2013.
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last look
perpetual youth
Photos by Sean Marc Lee Sean Marc Lee was born and raised in San Francisco, California. With a background in cinema studies from the University of California, San Diego, he spent seven years in Los Angeles balancing post-production work in the entertainment industry and photography. He finally moved back to San Francisco early 2011, where he spent some time with his family before packing up and heading to Taipei, Taiwan where he currently resides.
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who we are The World Spectra Project is a not-for-profit organization based in Davis, CA, born of a desire to bring more understanding in the world. The staff, comprised entirely of students at Davis Senior High School and Da Vinci Charter Academy, work to publish three editions of The World Spectra Magazine per academic year. The World Spectra Project aims to bridge communities across cultural boundaries through collecting and publishing personal narratives. The staff actively solicits personal essays, articles, poems and photostories that inspire discussion from the surrounding community. The World Spectra Project particularly believes in the causes of sustainable education, entrepreneurship in third-world countries and empowerment of minority groups. For more information, please visit the official website (spectra.co.nr). Please be sure to ‘like’ the Facebook page for updates (facebook.com/theworldspectraproject).
Founder/Editor-in-Chief Linda Ge ‘13 Art Director Natalia Khodayari ‘14 Editors Amy Jiang ‘14 Isabelle Chen ‘13
2012-2013 Masthead CFO Margaret Lawson ‘14 Public Relations Emily Knighton ‘14 Elsa Young ‘14 Project Development Coordinator Selina Arias ‘14
CEO Shelby Ziccardi ‘14
Staff Ashley Han ‘15 Avery Krovetz ‘14 Eileen Han ‘14 Emily Kappes ‘14 Hannah Lomas ‘15 Mariah Farris ‘14 Marisa Ransdell ‘15 Megan Robinson ‘15 Project Committee Emily Kappes, Elsa Young
submit Spectra staff continually seek engaging narratives from people around the world. For an idea of what we publish, please peruse the content that appears in previous editions. Please visit the website for detailed guidelines. Spectra staff have the right to decline or modify all submissions. Story submissions and inquiries may be addressed to Linda Ge at spectra.mag@gmail.com.
special thanks to: Lili Floyd, Susan Kirby, Rody Boonchouy, Robert Hughes, Craig A. Simmermon, Jonathan Perlman, Sandy Holman, Michael Ziccardi, Nancy Yip, The Davis High Blue and White Foundation, Da Vinci Charter Academy Booster Club, Davis Media Access, The Avid Reader, The California Aggie, The New Tech Network, The UC Davis Hubert Humphrey Fellowship Program, all of our contributors and our wonderfully supportive community. Without them, none of this would be possible. MARCH 2013
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Thank you to our contributors from around the globe.
Spectra Magazine Da Vinci Charter Academy ATTN: Susan Kirby 1400 E. 8th Street Davis, CA 95616