And a very dif­fer­ent poem, triggered by the museums in the Balt­ics… Les­sons from the war i reas­ons to die: jewish, intel­lec­tual, queer refuses to bow to author­ity. whoever’s call­ing the shots, i’m a goner ii forget forced marches: my lame leg would get me shot…

I had meant to give Zack a chance to read this before making it public, but it looks like he won’t be con­tact­ing me and I don’t have e‑mail for him… whatever, I think it’s a good poem… I’ve always liked half-rhyme and asson­ance, and I think I’m get­ting close to…

Hey all… Am at Ars Elec­tron­ica Con­fer­ence, having a ball. Finally had time to update journal but have back-dated it all… Those who wish to read all about it can now view: The full details of the dark­wave fest­ival with pic­tures The descrip­tion of Tallinn (sigh…)…

My cousin Difa is exactly what you’d ima­gine a small Jewish grand­moth­erly type to be. She’s half my height and round as can be. When I arrive, she has pastry ready filled with sweet cheese and apricot jam, ready to put in the oven. Her hands are covered in flour. With…

If you’re gonna get sick while trav­el­ling, where better to do it than the house of a Rus­sian Jewish mother who hap­pens to be your second cousin. I have had roll­mops and beet­root salad foist upon me like there’s no tomor­row, I’m cur­rently sip­ping hot black­cur­rant tea…

Gor­geous, ancient, tiny Tallinn. First stop after the bus sta­tion is the centre of town, where, dir­ectly under the ancient town hall, the only sur­viv­ing Gothic town hall in North­ern Europe, is a stun­ningly romantic café called Tristan ja Isolde. Back to the stone…

Note: the links are mostly to pic­tures I took at the fest­ival… Black horned moon. The symbol of the fest­ival is a com­plex of runic let­ters topped with a cres­cent moon and a leap­ing stag. The site is Kernave, Lithuania, in the middle of the forest. My first…

*That* was superb. Too tired to give you the full detail now, but Lithuanian folk music, mid­night drum­ming ritual with impro­vised har­mon­ies from most of the women there includ­ing me, dawn ritual by the river with Lithuanian folk sing­ers doing tra­di­tional songs to the…

Went out last night with other people from the hostel to a fant­astic club called Nobody Writes to the Col­onel which played hiphop upstairs and chill funk down­stairs which was dec­or­ated like Austin Powers’ den with big yellow dais­ies and red furry ovals on the walls.…

Went to the museum of the occu­pa­tion of Latvia today. Very con­front­ing. Latvia has been occu­pied by both Ger­many and Russia con­tinu­ously from 1939, first one, then the other, then back to the Red Army. In the pro­cess, a third of all Latvi­ans were killed. All of the…

So I picked up a flyer at the goth club (good band play­ing from Sweden, by the way. In Grey, if any­one’s inter­ested). The flyer is for an event in Lithuania that sounds AMAZING. I tran­scribe: :::::::::::::::::::::::Black Horned Moon:::::::::::::::::::::::…

It’s just dough, spin­ach, cheese and garlic, but the first bite into a piroski trans­ports me instantly back to child­hood. Even just the dough: there’s some­thing in it that tastes like no other dough. My mother used to make meat piroski too, hot and juicy. Riga is a…

I’m in Riga, Latvia (and strangely, have free net access, wire­less, in a spiffy modern caf when Bar­celona could­n’t provide this… what’s going on???). Will post more about the city and the other stuff later… BUT! i have received my first flash mob invite and can’t…