Dome Diving on Cape Cod

There’s nothing like breaking and entering.

Before you cast any judgment, hear me out. Imagine discovering a place seemingly untouched by other human beings for an indeterminate length of time. You spot it from the road, overgrown by the trees around it. An allure lingers despite its abandon.  Normal people might see it and think, “Cool,” then drive on. Then again, Joe and I are as far removed from ‘normal’ as possible.

The locale in question is a geodesic dome built in the early 1950s by Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller—-architect, designer, futurist. From the road, it doesn’t look like much. Guarded by a motel and a wall of trees,  it dwells in stolid silence. How could we resist getting a closer look?

We tried the obvious ingresses first. Doors, windows, side entrances—-all locked. Joe pointed out that someone had cut through a screen that led into the basement storage area of the building. Next to a pile of discarded wood was a low window that led into the basement. The opening was just large enough for a person to squeeze through. So we slid in.

If you’ve ever snuck into an abandoned building, you’re familiar with the initial rush. It’s a colloidal mixture of adrenaline, fear, and wonder. There were objects old and new laying around. Kitchen stoves, ladders, a lawnmower, a restaurant sign, lamps—-artifacts from a past era. Eerie and fascinating at the same time.

On our way out, we left a couple entrances open for future explorers. Although we did our fair share of looking around, we left everything as it was. Well, almost:

Lesson learned: If you want an adventure, you have to go look for it. Clandestine domes don’t go exploring themselves, you know. And if you’re lucky enough (like I am), you have a partner in crime to do it with you.

My friend and former colleague Katie Klocksin previously came across this dome and produced a stellar radio story about it. Give it a listen. I highly recommend it for a historical perspective on the dome itself.

Keep Austin Weird

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Now, there’s a slogan I can get behind. I like to think of Austin as the black sheep in the Texas family. Ironically, it’s where weirdos (like me) feel like they can fit right in. Heralded for its progressive, neo-hippie, counter-culture vibe, Austin is a good place to be yourself–or just about anybody else.

Last week, I flew to Austin for the beginning of SXSW. I was only in the city for two days in order to attend the Integrated Media Association Conference (iMA 2013). Fortunately, I was able to wander around a bit to explore the city.

First, let’s hash through what Austin is known for:

• Being the live music capitol of the world
• Its diverse assortment of Tex-Mex food
• Loosen-your-belt, lick-your-fingers BBQ

I will confirm that Austin is all of those things and more. You will never be found wanting for live music with venues left and right. Whether your musical cravings are for lo-fi acoustic performances or bare-your-soul rock n’ roll, there’s a space for that in Austin. (Heck, even the airport books live music for the listening pleasure of departing and arriving passengers!) As for Tex Mex, you not only can have tacos for lunch and dinner but also for breakfast. Gems like Arturo’s will provide your taco fix as soon as you wake up in case you can’t wait until lunchtime. For belly-bursting BBQ, you might want to avoid the two-hour line at Franklin‘s and head to Lambert’s instead. No doubt about it–Austin is a great place to be a carnivore. (For more recommendations, check out Foursquare’s Best of Austin list.)

Given my short stay, I don’t have as comprehensive of a view of Austin as I’d like. Then again, it’s simply another excuse to go back.

Things I’d like to do next time:

• Bats under Congress Bridge
• Stay for the rest of SXSW
• Austin brewery tour
• Rent a car and drive outside of the city

Creative Ebb, Creative Flow

A few years ago, a good friend of mine gifted me my first Moleskine notebook on New Year’s Eve. Since then, I’ve always kept one close at hand, no matter where I go. As someone who constantly consumes information, my brain is oftentimes an unreliable palette on which to store information. These tiny notebooks have come to the rescue many times over, helping me preserve otherwise ethereal ideas.

That first year, I found myself constantly jotting down song lyrics in my notebook. (In fact, almost all of Daydream at Midnight was borne of my first Moleskine’s pages!) At the time, I’d jumped headfirst into the world of poetry, so the words of Dickens, Auden, Frost, and Whitman looped in my head as if they were songs themselves. My own song lyrics flowed as freely on paper as these authors’ lines of poetry did in my head. It’s times like these, when the flow has been reduced to a sputter, that I look back on that first year with considerable envy. My notebooks, once a diving board from which I leapt into my most creative projects, now feel more like a wade pool of scribbles, sketches, quotations, excerpts, tallies, and trivia.

Within the course of any creative life, one confronts (perhaps multiple times) the paranoia of having run dry. My habit of notebook toting persists, yet I’m not producing at the same rate that I used to. Ideas for songs, radio stories, letters, and blog posts lay in dormant lackadaisy. It’s enough to drive me into creative hypochondria–checking my creative pulse every so often to see if it’s still ticking. And if it is, I ask, where’s the creative beef, yo? (Or eggplants, for creative vegetarians.) In large part, I think this blog survives because when all other outlets are blocked, I can always, always, always write.

I have to remind myself, however, that I’ve gone through these motions before. My creative atmosphere always conjures the inverse of the proverbial “calm before the storm.” For me, I’m first disoriented by a whirlwind of ideas and information before inspiration comes to parts the clouds. Only time will tell when or whether I’ll find my answers. Meanwhile, these are two TED Talks that never fail to reassure me that another burst of inspiration is always within reach.

David Kelley on Creative Confidence:

“[Dr. Albert Bandura] called that confidence ‘self-efficacy,’ the sense that you can change the world and that you can attain what you set out to do.”

Elizabeth Gilbert on the Creative Process:

“Don’t be afraid. Don’t be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed,…then “Ole!” And if not, do your dance anyhow and “Ole!” to you, nonetheless. I believe this and I feel that we must teach it. “Ole!” to you… just for having the sheer…stubbornness to keep showing up.”

Perhaps creative frustration is a sign that you’re on the right track. Sometimes, the simple desire — the need, even — to create is the initial state of being one needs to achieve before something great happens. Why else would Monet continue to paint despite being practically blind? Perhaps the same reason why Beethoven never stopped composing despite his loss of hearing and Proust never stopped writing even when tragically ill. They simply couldn’t help it. The need to express the inner self is inherent in any conscious being, a kind of twitch that can’t even be mitigated by physical handicap or a life-threatening malady. In a very dark yet essential way, that’s comforting.

I have to remind myself that my best work still lies ahead of me and that creativity will ebb and flow. For now, it’s a matter of showing up. “Ole!” There’s still work to be done yet.

Tigueraje

When I think of the island, I think of coconut oil. Not the cheap, processed kind that you can buy on the mainland, no. Raw, viscous, caramelized-by-the-sun coconut oil. The kind you can sip to stimulate digestion, cook with your dinner, and slather onto your skin before a good tanning session. The kind that crystallizes and melts at temperatures inconveniently close to each other. In a way, this mercurial, multi-purpose commodity is an appropriate analogy for the Dominican Republic itself. The island comes in many forms: foamy ocean surf that cuddles your ankles, glasses clinking in garrulity, feet shuffling on a dance floor, a murky puddle after a torrential storm, or sometimes even a bitter spoonful of perspective.

On the one hand, it’s got everything you would want out of a vacation spot. There are pristine beaches where sunburned tourists can willfully lose track of time. You can go on an exotic excursion to “authentic” Dominican hermitages, where local families eagerly greet you (in English, Russian, Spanish, and French) and parade handmade goods in front of you like a live infomercial (“Special discount especially for you, only today!”). Presidente beer and Mama Juana (a fermented mixture of red wine, honey, Dominican rum, and local herbs) flow freely and limitlessly like the Caribbean Sea. Spas, zip lines, hover boats, year-round golf courses, snorkeling, and many, many other forms of…man-made paradise.

By no means is this place flawless—at least no more than any other place in the world. It all depends on how you choose to see it, as long as you allow yourself to really see it. Drive two miles outside of any hotel, and you’ll find unpaved streets, roofless houses, and too many homeless kids. Since access to electricity is controlled by the government, and the government so often drops the ball, some houses resort to car batteries for regular power. Immigration within the island and emigration out of the island are both huge problems. (The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, its western neighbor, which, last I heard, wasn’t doing so great.)

It’s the third world, after all. Hotel resort-villes make it easy to forget that sometimes.

You can’t help but feel at least a little conflicted. These days, the country’s economy depends on services for its main gross income—services like tourism. So you buy the hand-made jewels, the homemade coconut oil, the locally-grown-and-churned chocolate in hopes that maybe you’re helping. Or, perhaps that’s the just First World citizen’s delusion. (I hope it’s not.)

An American kid raises his hand and asks our tour guide, “Excuse me, sir, who is the president of the Dominican Republic?” This otherwise innocuous question wouldn’t connote so many things back in the States, but it triggers so many follow-up questions in my head. Just because there’s a president, it doesn’t mean that there’s an effective government. Even if there’s a government, it doesn’t mean it ensures fairness or justice, the former international studies major in me whispers. Elections are rigged; promises are broken; taxes are raised; money is laundered.

The amiable tour guide answers, “Danilo Medina, senor,” and quickly changes the topic to baseball.

And that’s another thing: Dominicans love—I mean, love—their baseball. The only thing they love more than baseball are their baseball players, who are demigods in the eyes of their people. No one questions the fact that some of the best American baseball players come from the D.R. Once you cross over to the major leagues, everyone back home claims to have grown up with you and played catch with you in grade school. The Albert Pujol’s and David Ortiz’s of the world aren’t just players on a team; they’re mascots for a country looking for something to be proud of, something to help them forget how hard life can get. The same reason why we tourists come to tan on the beach.

Detroit Rock Lost City

If you’ve ever seen post-apocalyptic movies like Resident Evil or I Am Legend, you can picture exactly what downtown Detroit looks like, without ever having been there.

Windowless, abandoned buildings spy on you as you make your way across empty streets. Trash peppers the sidewalks, and there is barely a living soul in sight. It’s quiet. Too quiet. The one resounding question in your head is, “What the hell happened here?”

Unlike in science fiction stories, there were no zombies, epidemics, or nuclear explosions responsible for the city’s undoing—simply an outdated economy. Detroit was once an industrial hub, a Midwest confluence of rail lines that made it possible for trains to transport goods across the country. The automobile industry thrived—that is, until more and more manufacturing jobs went overseas. Americans fell for European and Japanese cars, soon after abandoning Detroit’s Motor City like a pathetic part-time lover.

It’s hard to believe that Motown (an abbreviation of “Motor Town” that eventually became synonymous with the musical genre) could have ever been born in such a dejected environment. These days, silence permeates the air. In a way, the correlation between zombies and Detroit isn’t so inaccurate; the city’s not quite dead, but it’s not exactly alive either.

I’m riding a bike that I rented for $10 a day from my hostel. At this point, I haven’t heard anything about Detroit’s crime rates or economic drought. All I know is that it’s sunny outside and I want to see whether I can bike to Canada, which is located miles across the water. The only car on the street stops next to me while I’m snapping a photo, and a guy wearing a sideways Tigers cap in the passenger seat yells his phone number at me repeatedly, telling me to call him. I’m neither flattered nor amused.

Sadly, I can’t bike to Canada. I realize that I don’t have my passport with me and give up my dreams of integrating myself into the Canadian public health system (a girl can dream!). Instead, I opt to stake out in front of the water to look longingly across the river. If I can’t go to Canada, I can at least stare at it until it feels uncomfortable.

While I’m trying to enjoy the view, a police car pulls up next to me. Two eyes, a nose, and then an entire face appear above the slowly descending tinted window. “You be careful out here,” the officer says, with ominous cadence. The window rolls back up with a laggard hum, and pebbles crunch beneath the rubber tires as the car rolls away. Odd, I think to myself.

Slightly disturbed by the encounter, I decide to bike back to the hostel, where I’m then warned about the crime rate. Suddenly, the empty streets, fenced-off buildings, and barred windows make perfect sense. Thankfully, nothing had happened to me while I was out. Paranoia successfully peaked.

On my day of departure, I wait for the double-decker bus that will eventually ship me back to Chicago and out of these post-apocalyptic ruins. I’m at the Rosa Parks Bus Terminal, newly constructed and surprisingly vacant. My phone is about to die, so I search for an outlet to charge it. After finding one, I sit down on the floor next to my backpack and charging phone. A security guard is standing five feet to my left, so I figure that I’m in a (somewhat) strategically safe position. A woman looks over, approaches me, and iterates (with much sass), “You better put yo’ shit away, girl. They gon’ rob you.” The security guard, who overhears the woman talking to me, glances over at me and gives a conciliatory nod. I stuff everything into my backpack and clutch it against my chest until my bus arrives.

Despite its abandon and otherwise uninspired cityscapes, the poetry of Detroit lies in the optimism of its remaining inhabitants. While most people have opted out of downtown and chased jobs into the suburbs, some hardliners remain true to their city. They hope that Detroit can revive, redevelop and repurpose its downtown area to emulate its heyday. Others stick around because they have nowhere else to go. One wonders, is this level of commitment semblance of sanctimony or proof of parsimony?

Admittedly, my habit of hyperbole might get me into some trouble with Detroit’s tourism department. In Detroit’s defense, I’ve heard that it’s a great place to live if you know where to go and what to do (though, apparently, I neither found these places nor did those things). The optimist in me hopes that Detroit gets back on its feet (or wheels) somehow. Until then, I simply don’t see myself frequenting a town that so quickly triggers the most primal of my survival instincts.

Age of Exploration: Adventure is Out There!

It is with deep pride and pleasure that I present to you my sophomore album, Age of Exploration. Ta-da!

This album is about places, transit, and adventure. My biggest hope is that it will inspire you to explore the world around you as well as the one within you. Dare to step out of your comfort zone, try something new, meet interesting people! Surprise yourself. Then, tell me all about it!

The entire album will be available FREE for streaming on SoundCloud until 11:59pm Pacific. You can also purchase your digital copies online. There are no physical copies of the album YET, but I will work on getting those out to you soon! (As most of you know by now, I recently relocated to Chicago, IL, so I’m still getting settled in!)

If you’re interested in the Age of Exploration Travel Guide, which includes extra album artwork, song lyrics, and full album credits, send me an e-mail at lily@lilybeemusic.com with “Travel Guide” in the subject line. These items will eventually be available in the album’s physical version.

Adventure is out there! Go find it, and listen to this album along the way. Let the journeys begin.

Big, big love to you,

Lily Bee

P.S. I LOVE live reactions. Feel free to e-mail or tweet me as you listen to it. I want to know what you think, whether you love it or hate it!

Also, if you’re going to tweet about the album, use the hashtag #AgeofExploration and tag me @dangerbui!

Slow News Days

I recently watched Paul Salopek’s talk from the MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference: The Story and the Algorithm. He’s a peculiar fellow with plenty of idiosyncrasies to boot. Soft spoken and hoarse, he paced around the stage while reading from a stack of stapled papers to an audience that strained to hear him. He was a stark contrast to the bombasters who preceded him, yet it was all so appropriate for the topic at hand: slow journalism.

Taking inspiration from the slow food movement, Salopek advocates the slowing down of our tendencies to overshare our lives. We have so many ways to tell stories these days that we inflate news feeds with minutia–from photos of our food to passive-aggressive tweets about things that irk us. We have so many outlets that we have begun abusing the media that make it possible to share our lives in meaningful ways.

Don’t get me wrong. I completely acknowledge the value of being able to instantaneously share my newfound obsession with the BBC series Dr. Who at the exact moment that I realized that I loved the show. (I immediately received reactions via tweet and text message from the same friends who have been trying to convert me into a fan for the past two years.) The 21st century is an amazing and important time for technology. Like Salopek, though, I fear that our hyperconnectivity with others attenuates the connection we have with ourselves.

Salopek chooses to endorse his slow news movement by walking (yes, walking) across various continents while inviting his audience to follow along online as he documents this journey. He calls it a “collective walk into the future.” It’s undeniably experimental, and I’m still dubious as to whether or not it is going to make a big enough impact to affect a large-scale change in technology. However, it’s worth thinking about. I realize that I’m guilty of inflating the importance of everyday trifles, so I welcome this shift in thinking.

I’m not about to start any cross-continent treks, so don’t get your hopes up. What I’m going to try is a social media diet. No Twitter, no FourSquare, no Instagram, no Facebook for a few days. These instantaneous methods of sharing take away from being in the moment itself, and they take away from the time we have with the people we share these moments with. I’m invoking the days of old in which photo uploads happened AFTER the fact and blog posts (or dare I say it–xanga entries) were fully thought-out reactions to life instead of impulsive comments that we push out the proverbial (though technologically advanced) door.

Technology provides so many ways to tell stories, construct our identities, and share our lives with each other. Let’s not diminish our attention spans, shorten our tempers, and cheapen the process of learning about ourselves along the way.

Giant Onion

Chicago derives its name from the French adaptation of a Native American word. It either means “big, tall, and strong” or “giant onion.”

Unlike other big cities I’ve been to, Chicago isn’t so rooted in a history that it can’t be shaped, and it’s not so modern that its identity is still inchoate. Chicago is a city of plasticity. It is what you make of it, and ever since I arrived, it has let me do so.

My stream of tweets, check-in’s, and photo uploads will never suffice as representations of what this city is to me. Though my enthusiasm for Chicago has definitely come through to a lot of my friends and family, what is happening internally is far more profound than any Instagram capture can convey. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss words altogether for the sake of landscapes or skylines (or in the case of the 21st century, food porn).

When I moved to D.C., it was incredibly uncomfortable. Exorbitantly shy and habitually hermitic, I resisted adapting for as long as I could (until I found music). This time around, it feels different, and I realized why: I am comfortable in my own skin. Instead of resisting my shyness, I realize that it’s a part of me, and that’s totally okay. I don’t need to be out every night around loud music and inebriated crowds to feel like I’m alive. I know that I’m alive.

Here, I am filled with wonder and surrounded by newness. Whether by wandering around the city or striking up a conversation with a stranger, I am connecting and connected to everything–including myself. In my work, I am lucky to have mentors who are not only passionate about their work but also stellar human beings outside of their work. I cannot go a day without learning something new. I go to bed every night reluctant fall asleep (lest I miss something) and wake up out of pure excitement to start the day.

There can only be one explanation for this: I’m in love–with my work, with this city, with life itself. What better place is there to be than right here, right now, in this moment, exactly where I am?

Seven Days at Sea: A Father’s Day Story

The story behind “Thuyền” (meaning “boat” in Vietnamese), a song on the new album Age of Exploration.

My dad recently came to Chicago with me to help me move. When he first emigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam in the 1970s, he ended up in Chicago. He was around the same age as I am now. I asked him whether I could interview him for a story. This is what resulted.

This next album is about exploring the world around you as well as the world within you. This interview helped me do both things.

CARMA: What Goes Around Comes Around (In Space)

A radio story for the new Lily Bee Music Podcast

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Music and sound clips from this episode:

Hoagy Carmichael – “Stardust”

Bill Nye the Science Guy (PBS) – Outer Space

ACME School – radio waves

Helpful links:

How Radio Astronomy Works

Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) and CARMA Official Site

“Star Sailor” – original song from far too long ago in my YouTube history: