“Are the aliens on their way now or are they already among us?” I asked with interest, pulling out my notebook. It’s not often I get to consult a true expert on intergalactic invaders, and I wanted answers. “Oh, they’re here,” said Justin, a member of the watch group Allies for Humanity. He sounded intelligent, calm, and remarkably plausible for a man whose t-shirt read “Our Turf, Get Lost, NO to Alien Intervention.” His bicycle was festooned with inflatable little green men and pamphlets offering “Free Alien Info!!!” He added, “The aliens can’t survive in our atmosphere, so of course, they’re not here themselves.” He gave a little chuckle, as if to suggest thinking that would be totally loony. I had to agree. “What they do is take our DNA and mingle it with theirs to produce hybrids. And those hybrids are walking among us.” “Have you met any?” “Oh yes. Would you like to see a picture of one?” Yes! Yes I would! He opened his phone and began scrolling through his photos. Justin showed me a slightly blurry image of himself standing next to a wide-eyed, impossibly smooth- skinned, extremely full-lipped woman. Botox, collagen, and plastic surgery? Or a hybrid of human-ET DNA? Justin had no doubts. “You can tell she’s a hybrid because she never blinked. Not once.” So that’s the big tip-off. “And when I went to shake her hand, she grabbed my wrist, and I felt a surge of electricity shoot up my arm.” Tip-off number two! Folks, you might want to take notes. This enthralling conversation took place on Saturday at the Fairfax Festival, held every June in the village next to mine in northern California. Fairfax embraced the 1960s with such enthusiasm the residents never wanted to let it go, and they have kept the countercultural spirit alive for generations. A wild parade kicks off two days of music, street food, and arts in an atmosphere reminiscent of the Merry Pranksters of yore. I arrived to find an eye-popping throng sporting tie-dyed everything — t-shirts, pajama pants, banners, and one dog’s paws — and the glorious rainbow stripes of LGBTQIA+ Pride. Having attended this festival before, I knew the best place to start was the parade staging area. There participants were vibrating with excited anticipation as they made final adjustments to costumes, props, and decorations. No one was shy about posing for photos. I happily chatted with Sharon, an “inspirationist” artist, Elena the unicorn, and members of the Cirque de Fairfax, then watched recyclers rehearsing their dance with garbage bins. One nattily dressed gentleman displayed a red t-shirt saying “Marxist do it with class.” I asked why he was a Marxist. He eyed me as if this were a very odd question. “Because it makes sense,” he said. When I commented on the t-shirt he smiled ruefully. “These kids, they don’t get it.” But maybe they were hipper to his message than he realized. Although old-school Marxism is still viewed as being way out in far left field, polls show that Americans’ enthusiasm for capitalism is on the wane, and voters, especially Black Americans, women, and those under 35, are starting to harbor warmer thoughts about socialism. Today more than half of young Republicans are (gasp!) in favor of reducing the wealth gap. Is the class system starting to crumble? Eventually, and surprisingly close to the scheduled time, the parade got underway. Rich and I moved out to the street so we could cheer everyone on as they eased out onto the short parade route. A hundred-year-old woman waved merrily at me from a vintage car. The number of centenarians in the US has doubled in the last 20 years to about 90,000, and I think she could tell I’m hoping to be one of them someday. A small, distracted-looking contingent from the local cannabis dispensary wandered past. The climate activists were out, with sober messages and dull decorations constrained by worries about wasting precious resources. A gun control advocate pushed along a coffin draped with toy assault rifles on which was written “Can we shoot or consume our way to a future worth living in?” I called out something encouraging, and he stopped, ran over to me, and began rummaging around in his pocket. At last he pulled out a crisp $2 bill and handed it to me. “Use it for something worthwhile,” he said. I promised I would. There were kids everywhere, clustered in school groups and scout troops, waving diversity flags, carrying gay pride banners, petting dogs, strumming fake guitars, and (in the case of one baby) riding on the back of a hot pink gorilla with a bubble gun. As a child born in the buttoned-down fifties, I wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a world where moms and dads — an entire village of them — could be so uninhibited. The mind reels. Nonconformists have a lot of fun but they don’t always lead easy lives. Places like Fairfax provide a relatively safe haven, but the world at large is difficult for all of us to navigate, and doubly so for those who feel like outliers. If we’re lucky we learn, as sixties icon Wavy Gravy put it, “Laughter is the valve on the pressure cooker of life.” Comedian and LGBTQIA+ activist Margaret Cho says, “Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think ... Our ability to laugh directly coincides with our ability to fight. If we make fun of it, we can transcend it.” Words to live by. By the time the last truck rolled out of the staging area, both my phone’s photo capacity and my energy level were drained. Rich and I made our way through the throng to a café for coffee and a restorative biscotti. When the caffeine and sugar had kicked my brain back into gear, I said to Rich, “These are my people. Absolute Nutters, one and all.” As my regular readers know, the original concept of our Nutters World Tour was to seek out goofy people, places, and events so I could have fun writing about them. However, the feedback we got from our friends, relatives, and bartenders soon made it clear that the Nutters in question were, in fact, Rich and myself. Our world tour was really all about the two of us stumbling into micro-communities we ordinarily wouldn’t inhabit and learning how to connect with people there. That was easy in Fairfax. I may not precisely share everyone’s viewpoint about saving the world or the galaxy, but it was great fun to revisit the California counterculture of my youth. And I deeply appreciated the sincerity, good humor, and kindness I found in every encounter. But one person left me with a responsibility I don’t know how to fulfill. What meaningful use can I find for that $2 bill? If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments section below! JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com. Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.
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“This is an outrage,” I said to Rich over breakfast on Sunday. “Books are being banned all over America, and nobody’s ever challenged a single one of mine. What am I doing wrong?” A few days earlier I’d noticed the sign below in a bookseller's window. Googling book banning in the land of the free, I was aghast at how widespread it has become. “Would you like me to go down to the local school board and lodge a complaint about your books?” Rich offered. “Thanks,” I said. “But as far as I know, the schools around here don’t actually own any of my books, so it doesn’t make much sense to demand they pull them off the shelves.” “When did sense and logic have anything to do with book banning?” He had a point. Since Pen America started tracking public school book bans in July 2021, the intellectual freedom advocacy group has recorded more than 4,000 instances, and often the reasons given are laughably thin. Racial themes got To Kill a Mockingbird yanked from school libraries in Virginia and Mississippi. (Because … why? They think race is no longer an issue? Or they believe 1930s Alabama got it right?) Of Mice and Men is challenged for naughty language and being “anti-business” (although it’s sold 7.5 million copies). The Catcher in the Rye was attacked for undermining moral codes and family values. (Because what teen boy thinks about sex?) Gay characters made Brideshead Revisited controversial. (Because what teen boy thinks about sex with his best friend?). Some object to The Handmaid’s Tale for portraying ultra-fundamentalist Christians becoming overzealous. (Good thing that never happens in real life!) Remember when teachers were urging us to read those books? They weren’t trying to undermine our moral fiber or amplify our profanity vocabulary — they were trying to help us learn to grapple with complex relationships and uncomfortable truths. Take Maus 1: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman’s sensitive, Pulitzer-winning graphic novel about his father surviving Auschwitz, in which the Germans are presented as cats and the Jews are mice. “A Tennessee school board of trustees banned Maus from its 8th-grade curriculum. They cited “rough language”, the “unnecessary” profanity of 8 words like “damn,” mentions of violence, and a small drawing of a nude cat — of all things,” wrote J.J. Pryor in Medium. “It’s a good thing those 8th graders don’t have access to the internet and have never heard of the word ‘porn,’ right?” Read any good t-shirts lately? Could outlawing books possibly be politically motivated? It turns out 40% of book challenges are linked to legislation or political pressure exerted by elected officials, and 73% of the 50 groups pushing to get rid of “inappropriate material" are new, formed since 2021. Things are heating up. I Googled book burning and found Tennessee pastor Greg Locke. Remember him —the guy banished from Twitter for insisting Covid vaccines were sugar water? Well, he’s back in the limelight, making a bonfire of Harry Potter and Twilight books in the name of religious freedom. “Sadly not all nutters are harmless eccentrics like ourselves,” I said to Rich. “Some have really gone over to the dark side.” To cheer ourselves up, I suggested a visit to the Alameda branch of Books, Inc., the West’s oldest independent book store. There I spoke with Larry, the store’s buyer, about what’s being banned these days. “Mostly it’s about gender and racial issues,” he said. “The world has changed drastically in recent decades; kids who don't learn about it are really at a disadvantage. Cultural ignorance can be perpetuated through the generations.” The store puts up a Banned Book display every year, and I’m happy to report they’re not alone. “Banned Books Week,” say the organizers, “brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular. The next Banned Books Week will be held October 1 – 7, 2023. The theme of this year’s event is “Let Freedom Read!” “Why is it that people who were ready to attack sales clerks over their freedom not to mask up during Covid now want to constrain other people’s freedom to read books?” Rich asked. “Talk about the irony department!” Public libraries are caught in the crossfire. “Every day professional librarians sit down with parents to thoughtfully determine what reading material is best suited for their child’s needs,” said American Library Association President Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada. “Now, many library workers face threats to their employment, their personal safety, and in some cases, threats of prosecution for providing books to youth they and their parents want to read.” Many of those threats involve the works of Judy Blume, whose iconic, humorous, and sympathetic coming-of-age books caused Time to name her one of the world’s 100 most influential people of 2023. “I learned about menstruation from Judy Blume,” said Willow, a Books, Inc. staffer. “They didn’t tell us anything in school; apparently girls are not supposed to hear about it until after they’re twelve. Which is ridiculous; my niece got her period when she was eight. My mother sat me down and gave me Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. She told me to read it and come to her with any questions.” Wow. I thought about how different my life would have been if Blume’s book had come out a few years earlier. My generation had to flounder through teen angst, budding sexuality, self-doubt, and countless other issues without much guidance. The nuns at Sacred Heart didn’t explain anything. My mother abandoned the topic after a brief, clinical description of menstruation that included a cautionary tale about her own mother’s first time. “Nobody had ever told her anything about it, and she ran downstairs and burst into the dining room — where her mother was entertaining guests — and shouted, ‘I’m bleeding! I’m bleeding!’” Well, OK, at least I was spared that! Since its publication in 1970, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret has often been banned, including by the school Blume’s own kids attended. Today millions of preteens read it as a rite of passage, and it’s just been made into a movie earning rave reviews. Which tells me that maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. If we know anything about teenagers, it’s that they love forbidden fruit. So do lots of adults, come to think of it. Every time someone says a book is dangerous, I suspect people start thinking, “Say, maybe I should read that one!” Click here to discover your new favorite banned books: American Library Association’s Top 100 Essential LGBTQ+ Black Authors Children’s Books Let’s keep these great works alive. Check them out of the library, borrow them, buy them, pass them on, and above all, talk about them. If we know anything about the future, it’s that facing it is going to require plenty of wisdom, courage, and grace. You’ll find plenty among these pages. My only regret is that none of my own books are on these lists. Maybe someday. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com. Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. And be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here.
So far, not one has been banned, but they're still lively reading! In the noble sport of pig racing, the first thing that comes charging out of the starting gate is a flock of terrible puns. “You Never SAUSAGE a Show!” proclaims the gaudy trailer of the touring athletes, who sport names such as Shaquille O'Squeal, Luke Sky Porker, Lady Hoga, and Spongehog Porkpants. These are the famous All Alaskan Racing Pigs, now performing up and down the West Coast and operating out of Oregon because the commute got boar-ing. When I learned they’d be showcased at the Sacramento County Fair, I could hardly wait to see these superstars in person. Pig racing follows a simple format: an oval sawdust track, chutes for four baby pigs, and enough chow at the end of the run to motivate the little porkers to hustle their trotters. Their humans keep fairgoers cheering and laughing by showering them with fun pig facts and bad puns. Occasionally one of the young porkers loses the plot and wanders off to investigate the audience or nibble a little dropped popcorn, but for the most part the participants thunder over the finish line and dash to the trough where they go hog wild over their reward chow. After showing off their speed in the flat races, the piglets demonstrate their agility by leaping hurdles as high as their own heads, flying through the air with keen eyes, flapping ears, and surprising grace. Then comes Soapy Smith’s solo performance. Soapy is named after a famous Alaska con artist who made a fortune selling soap with prize money tucked into the wrappings of some bars — which somehow always found their way into the hands of his cronies. “And this little pig is equally slippery,” says the announcer. “He’s got big ideas and is always strutting his stuff. He wants to show off with a higher jump.” A pig wrangler adds an extension that nearly doubles the hurdle’s height. “Think that’s high enough?” The crowd yells “Yes!” The announcer looks over at the piglet in his chute. “Nope, Soapy wants more.” Another extension is added. Soapy eyes the proceedings with the poise of a seasoned pro. No fear. And then the chute’s gate flies up and Soapy flings himself onto the track. He passes like greased lightning, a blur around the bend, and then he reaches the impossibly high jump. Unfazed, he pokes his snout into a tiny flap at the base and slithers under the hurdle. The crowd laughs uproariously, and Soapy swaggers over to the victory trough. This sure-fire crowd-pleaser began with a single brilliant moment of inspiration back in 1987, when an assistant fair manager named Bart Noll happened to read an article about pig races in an industry magazine. “All I needed to hear were ‘pigs’ and ‘races’ put together and the vision of the show took place in my head. My wife and I talked it over. ‘This is what it should look like!’ And what [people] see now is roughly what we came up with. It’s designed to be a fun attraction and an educational attraction.” Not everyone loves the idea of racing pigs. Some consider it in poor taste, if not outright animal cruelty. Prompted by protests from animal activists, investigations of the sport have been undertaken by veterinarians, civic groups, and sponsors including charities, fairs, and pubs. In the end, it’s deemed harmless fun, with animals getting plenty of exercise, siestas in air-conditioned trailers, and generous chow. It sure beats living in a cage or crowded pen awaiting their final destiny. And with All Alaskan Pig Races, at least they are spared the indignity of having jockeys on their backs. Surprisingly, nobody seems to object to the All Alaskan Racing Pigs organization’s other event, the one involving young humans. Known as Pedal Pullers, the race requires youngsters, some little more than toddlers, to propel miniature tractors toward a finish line while hauling a trailer that gets progressively heavier. I’ll be honest, the kids seemed to be suffering a lot more than the pigs, straining their little legs and in many cases curdled with humiliation at being unable to finish the course. And they don’t even get fed treats afterwards. But hey, if it’s OK with the kids and their families, who am I to judge? It's all part of the general nuttiness of county fairs everywhere. The one nearest you may not have flying pigs, but there's bound to be something looney, whether it's sheep races, alligator wrestling, or Texas-style fried beer (yes, it's a thing). I always find something to love at a fair: the oddball competitions, the zany vendors, and of course, the amazing animals. At one point I found myself chatting with a pig-raising 4-H Club member named Julie. She introduced me to Duke and spoke with such fondness of her 280-pound pal that I felt I’d stepped into the pages of Charlotte’s Web, the tender story of a friendship between a spider and a livestock pig. (This was hot stuff when I was in second grade. Still is.) Like the book, our conversation ended with a cold dose of reality. “Of course,” she said, “these animals are raised for consumption.” “What do you think of the new laboratory-raised meats?” I asked her. Here in Sacramento, at the northern end of the Central Valley’s $43.5 billion food industry, she would have more than an academic interest in the subject. “You mean those ‘meats’ made out of vegetables and stuff,” she said. “No. Scientists can now take some cells from Duke here, reproduce them in the lab, and grow enough tissue to make actual meat. In the lab.” The look of horror on her face was almost comical. Almost. “Are you serious? They can do that?” “Yep. It’ll be a while before it’s cost effective, but someday it’ll be on America’s grocery store shelves. And we’ll be living in a whole new world.” I left Julie looking pale and shaken; I had a feeling she’d be grabbing her phone and Googling lab-raised meat before I was out of the pig pavilion. Despite my worries about the future of meat, or perhaps because of them, there was something tremendously comforting about spending the day among prize-winning animals and the hard-working, fun-loving people who raised them. In a world on the verge of mass-consuming lab-raised protein manufactured by robots and marketed by chatbots, being among farmers felt reassuringly down-to-earth. Best of all was meeting so many delightful pigs — animals who, science tells us, test smarter than dogs and even young children. You don’t see the piglets straining their trotters trying to move tractor-trailer rigs around. As the porkers dashed over the sawdust and flew over (and under) those hurdles, they seemed to revel in the attention and applause. These little piggies are definitely smart enough to know when they’re on to a good thing. And that’s no hogwash. By mid-afternoon of a day at the Sacramento County Fair, kids and animals were all tuckered out. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com. Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. At first I thought she was cradling a monkey in her arms. Then I realized the grandmotherly goth lady was holding a baby werewolf doll, its wizened little face covered in fine, wavy hair. With a twinkle in her eye, she set down the were-infant and picked up another little bundle of joy. “This is my vampire baby,” she said. “You can see his tiny fangs.” “Adorable,” I said. “And he has your eyes.” The bat ears, though, were all the baby’s own. This was just the kind of outlandishness I’d hoped for at the Macabre Market, “a curious coven of artists and makers inspired by Halloween, the odd, and the macabre.” Posters called it “Halfway to Halloween,” and while nitpickers might point out that technically that holiday was five months away, not six, I don’t suppose we can expect dabblers in the dark arts to be terribly strict about their math. Now before I go any further, let me reassure you that I have not embraced occult practices or goth attire. The Craft is not my path. But I was pleasantly surprised and vastly entertained by much of what I found during my afternoon among modern American witches. Everyone at the Macabre Market seemed to be having a splendid time. Swathed in ghoulish black, often sporting astonishing tattoos and plenty of metal accoutrements, they browsed happily through stalls selling Corpse Freshener soap, handbags gorgeously embroidered with cobwebs, and jewelry that would appeal to Dracula's mother. Despite the noir trappings, the atmosphere was fun and friendly, and everybody I asked was delighted to have their picture taken. As a ballgown-wearing transvestite once told me, “Honey, you don’t dress like this and hope not to be noticed!” We’ve come a long way since the days when witchcraft was a death-penalty offense. Now it’s largely viewed as yet another nonconformist spiritual tradition that gained traction in the rebellious sixties. Many practitioners consider themselves Wiccans, a modernized religion legally recognized by US courts. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t follow — or even believe in — Satan but are instead inspired by nature. And it’s a growth industry. A 1990 poll put the number of practitioners at 8000, by 2008 the US Census Bureau reported 342,000, and recent studies suggest there are 1.5 million. That’s right, witchcraft now has more active practitioners than the mainline Presbyterian church (1.4 million). Today’s covens congregate on TicToc; the hashtag #witchtok alone has amassed more than 19.8 billion views. So what’s the attraction, you ask? “The proliferation of witchcraft reflects two timeless and universal urges: the need to draw meaning from chaos, and the desire to control the circumstances around us,” according to witch Antonio Pagliarulo writing for NBC. “With the dire catastrophes brought on by climate change, wars, and the loss of rights, it’s not surprising that witchcraft appeals to those seeking to mend what’s broken in ourselves and the wider world.” Like me, Pagliarulo was raised Catholic, surrounded by miracles and mysteries. “I myself grew up with Italian folk magic passed down from generations of practitioners who melded pagan customs with Roman Catholicism,” he says. “In petitioning the archangel Michael for protection, for example, I will recite a prayer but also make offerings of wine, bay leaves, and cloves. In addition to venerating Catholic saints, I light candles to the goddess Diana at every full moon and place small bundles of rosmarino, or rosemary, on my altar to honor the dead. This blending of faiths has been a seamless process for me and other folk magic practitioners despite what traditional religious authorities might say.” All this would sound a lot loonier to me if I didn’t have a long-standing habit, picked up from my Seville neighbors, of placing fresh parsley in front of my little statue of San Pancracio, patron of health and work. The logical part of my brain knows this symbolic gesture won’t really help Rich get over his post-flu cough or make it easier for me to find the words to write this post. But symbolic gestures — from a goodbye kiss to saluting the flag — have a reassuring way of grounding us in reality. And who doesn't need more of that? Connecting with nature is one of the best way to feel grounded, according to Fiona Duncan, who teaches an online witchcraft course. Her students, she says, include a physician, a physicist, an epidemiologist, college professors, and published authors. “These people are highly intelligent and emotionally developed and yearn for something more. They believe they can find it (and they can!) through connecting with Nature’s energies and their own, which is what the Craft is all about.” Jayme Moye, a student of Natalie Rousseau's "earth-based wisdom and everyday magic," explains, “The idea is to start to notice how our own physical and mental states — our energy levels, emotions, sleep patterns, and food cravings, to name a few — are in or out of alignment with what’s happening in the natural world.” How we connect with nature is highly individual, which might explain Black Widow Bottles, the oddest of the curiosities at the Macabre Market. “Rich," I exclaimed, "am I really seeing little dead animals in jars?” Looking like they’d strayed from a mad scientist’s laboratory, the mortal remains of snakes, bats, voles, geckos, and other creatures floated behind glass, tagged with prices and backstories. “Did you pickle these animals yourself?” I asked the woman behind the table. Her name, I soon learned, was Tracy, and she was accompanied by her husband, who sat stoically at her side, looking as if he’d rather be off having a root canal or possibly even a limb amputated. “I didn’t kill them,” she said. “They’re all ethically sourced. I preserve them with formaldehyde and suspend them in 70% alcohol.” OK, but what were they for? “People collect them. I’ve been doing this for five years; my house is full of these things.” I glanced at her husband with increased sympathy. That couldn’t be easy for the non-enthusiast. The Macabre Market was held in Alameda, terminus of the first NY to SF railway journey in 1869, former site of Neptune Beach, which gave the world the snow cone and “Pop’s Sicle” (today’s popsicle), and now home to the Feathered Outlaw, a shop dispensing metaphysical supplies and services. Naturally, I popped into the shop for a look around. The shop was suitably dim and mysterious, with a cheerful young staff, esoteric products, and a tarot reading going on in the back corner. I learned it was designed as a safe place for people to explore alternative spiritual paths, a haven for those whose beliefs and lifestyle left them feeling marginalized and misunderstood. Witchcraft remains far from mainstream and no doubt still attracts a darker element today. Having been raised in the faith that gave us the Spanish Inquisition and will be forever identified with pedophile priests, I know any belief system can be perverted in horrifying ways. All I can say is that my experiences at the Macabre Market and Feathered Outlaw were considerably more wholesome and family friendly than I expected. As a writer, Nutter, and spiritual explorer, I enjoyed meeting modern-day American witches. I didn’t bring home any magic spells, baby vampires, or Corpse Freshener. But I came away with a new understanding that for some, embracing this practice enables them to be welcomed into a community and open themselves to the world in entirely new ways. And that’s its own kind of magic. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com. Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. “A warning light just came on in the car,” Rich announced Friday morning. “Saying what?” “That the warning light is no longer functioning.” “But … if it’s not functioning, you can’t trust what it’s telling you. Which could actually mean it’s functioning perfectly.” Oh, horrors. This was like that classic riddle: you come to two doors, one leading to freedom, the other to certain death, and there are two guards, one who always lies and the other who speaks only truth. You can ask just one question before making a choice. It’s the kind of conundrum that makes my head want to explode. It seemed particularly unfair of the Universe to spring that on my poor brain while it was still reeling from the previous night’s online lecture from the Bay Area Atheists/Agnostics/Humanists/Freethinkers/Skeptics, aka the Skeptics Society. The moment I’d learned one of the world’s leading astrophysicists was addressing the topic Extraterrestrial Life? I knew I had to include it in my Nutters’ Tour of California. Now, I don’t like to brag, but my home state claims 15,480 UFO sightings, the highest number on Earth (possibly in the galaxy). Thousands of close encounters have been reported in my neck of the woods by residents of Calistoga, Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, and Sebastopol. And Oakland-born Alex Filippenko, astrophysics professor at University of California Berkeley, was just the guy to do the topic justice. His groundbreaking work in such subjects as black holes, supernovae, dark matter, and the expansion of the universe means that if the truth is out there, he’ll be among the first to spot it. His students love him and always vote him best teacher on campus. However — and I will be the first to admit this — I do not happen to have a graduate-level understanding of astrophysics. Ten minutes into the talk, as Filippenko burrowed deep into details of biosignatures in the JWST spectra — apparently something to do with the scarcity of water necessary for life — I pretty much lost the plot. In fact, it was all I could to not to abandon my post and nip out to the kitchen to grab a glass of wine. However I stayed put and soldiered on in complete sobriety, knowing I’d need my wits about me. When it comes to the existence of extraterrestrials, explained Filippenko, “The evidence is underwhelming.” He quoted science writer Mark West and others who have shown famous so-called UFOs to be weather balloons, optical illusions from flawed radar systems or cameras, and other Earthling phenomena. But even the most hardened skeptics can’t find reasonable explanations for all the reported sightings. And there are baffling oddities such as ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “scout”), the first known visitor from another star system. OK, it appeared to be a rock with no signs of life, but it was traveling strangely fast and tumbling in a way that made it difficult to determine its dimensions. Some scientists calculate it was shaped like a pancake. Or — dare I say it? — a saucer. "We believe it's a natural object, but we can't actually prove that it's not something artificial," said astrobiologist Karen J. Meech in her TED Talk on ‘Oumuamua. "The color, the strange shape, the tumbling motion could all have other explanations." What was certain? "We were the first to say hello to a visitor from another solar system." By the end of Filippenko’s talk, here’s what I’d grasped. If we think intelligent life is hard to find here on earth, it’s even more rare in outer space. Although there are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe (give or take a couple of billion), few have water or other life supports. And then there’s the timing problem. It took four billion years and 100 billion species for Earth to come up with one creature smart and dextrous enough to invent the machines necessary to communicate and travel over interstellar distances. (I’m talking about us, in case you’re wondering.) What are the odds of it happening again elsewhere? And in the same timeframe as our own foray into space? “But he’s looking at it from a human perspective,” objected Rich. “Maybe alien life doesn’t need water to survive, or opposable thumbs to invent machines that move about in space.” “Good point," I replied. "For all we know they could be non-corporeal beings, made of pure thought, or light, or something far stranger.” So the debate continues. However diligently scientists attempt to dismiss the idea that little green men and women are visiting, two-thirds of Americans believe intelligent life exists outside of Earth. And even more surprisingly, 51% of all citizens say they are not worried UFOs pose a major security threat. Why aren’t they worried? I suspect it’s because people find it oddly comforting to think we are not alone in the universe. This month, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy raised the alarm over the public health crisis of loneliness and isolation in our country. He wants to raise awareness and build a culture of connection, “cultivating values of kindness, respect, service, and commitment to one another,” elements sadly lacking in modern society. Is it any wonder people are attracted to the idea someone is eager to travel trillions of lightyears just to reach out to us? For decades, social scientists have lamented the trend toward social distancing — not the kind where you stand six feet apart at the bagel counter but the one where we lose our sense of belonging, spend less time with others, and draw in on ourselves. Social connection isn’t just a feel-good emotion; it increases our chances of survival by 50% and decreases our chances of dementia by about the same amount. If there was a drug that could do that, we’d all be lining up to buy it at any price. Feeling disconnected is literally a matter of life and death. And this is why nature, in her wisdom, gifted us with the emotion of loneliness. Feeling lonely sends us a powerful signal that some element in our lives has to change. It’s designed to be uncomfortable to prod us into figuring out how to fix things. Much like the warning light in our car, it alerts us that something is wrong, even if it doesn’t clearly spell out what we need to do about it. These days, whenever I feel that I’m getting too deeply ensconced in my favorite easy chair, I start researching Nutter activities. I study local newspapers and check out Meetup, a social media platform for finding like-minded enthusiasts; it’s where I found the Skeptics Society, as well as travel groups, book clubs, a pop-up drive-in movie, and people who like to gather in a pub for no real reason. My kind of folks. And yes, there are groups for those of us struggling to come to grips with the new AI chatbots. This week I signed up with Google’s Bard, a process far easier than enrolling in ChatGPT; refreshingly, it didn’t keep asking me to prove I was human. Feeling that Bard and I were off to good start, I asked it to answer the old riddle about the two doors and the lying and truth-telling guards. It thought for a few split nanoseconds and replied, “If I asked the other guard which door leads to freedom, what would he say?” (See full explanation here.) So there you have it, folks. Another mystery of the universe sorted. You’re welcome. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS TOUR OF CALIFORNIA The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (Vegan Cooking) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com. Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. And be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here.
“Unless you’ve been living under a rock,” I read on a food blog, “you’ve likely heard of aquafaba.” Oh dear Lord, I thought. What fresh hell was this? Having plunged deep into vegan cooking sites in search of a treat to make for my sister’s upcoming visit, I discovered several promising recipes requiring this unknown ingredient. In my experience, such outliers generally require a road trip to Whole Foods, an expenditure of upwards of $25, and an hour of YouTube tutorials. Still, the banana bread looked yummy, so I read on. Astonishingly, aquafaba turned out to be nothing more than the juice from a can of chickpeas, apparently a good substitute for eggs. Hmm, I had a can in the cupboard that was only two months past its use-by date. This could work! As I opened the chickpeas, I reflected that aquafaba might be new to me, but it wasn’t all that peculiar; in fact, in the context of America’s loonier food fads (many originating here in California) it was downright upright. While mashing the bananas, I thought about my college roommate who got swept up in a — would we call it a cult? Let’s say a group of kids following a self-help guru who insisted purple foods were karma boosters. Everyone in our house ate a lot of purple cabbage, blueberries, and raspberry ice cream that year. And no, I didn’t feel any closer to nirvana — except when eating the raspberry ice cream, of course. Prior to her purple foods phase, this particular roommate was always trying to lose weight. She posted a sign on the refrigerator that read, “Minutes of pleasure equal hours of guilt, weeks of discomfort, and years of life lost.” The rest of us cheerfully ignored the warning, munching as much chocolate as our slender budgets would allow, while the dieting roommate insisted she’d rather eat grapefruit. Thus proving once again the wisdom of the adage, “When people go on a diet, the first thing they lose is the ability to tell the truth.” The late twentieth century saw plenty of other goofball slenderizing regimens, such as the Sugar Diet ("keeps your energy up — and your appetite down") launched by — you guessed it — the Sugar Association. The Cookie Diet worked on much the same principle. Observing that you can’t eat while unconscious, the Sleeping Beauty Diet advised extra slumber and no stinting on sedatives. Elvis Presley tried it and snoozed for days, skipping his favorite nosh, Fool's Gold Loaf — a loaf of French bread filled with a pound each of bacon, peanut butter, and grape jelly. Yes, bypassing that 8000 calorie meal had to be a step in the right direction. Vogue publicized the dubious Wine and Eggs Diet. For breakfast you had a hard-boiled egg, a glass of white wine, and black coffee. Lunch was the same but with two glasses of wine. Dinner was grilled steak, black coffee, and the rest of the wine. Supposedly in just three days, you’d shed five pounds. And you’d probably find yourself following the Sleeping Beauty Diet while you were at it. Two diets for the price of one. It's easy to laugh at those old-school ideas now that we know how unhealthy and ineffective they are. (Sorry, were you planning to try the Cookie Diet? Don’t bother; sadly it doesn’t work.) No doubt future generations will have lively opinions about today’s trends, such as fasting, paleo, and keto. And remember those fake meats, Impossible and Beyond Beef, that were going to save our health and the planet’s? They’ve fallen from grace now, mostly because consumers found them unconvincing imitations. What’s next? That would be lab-grown meat, authorized for sale in Singapore in 2020 and headed soon to US supermarkets. Proponents like to call it “slaughterless meat,” pointing out it eliminates animal cruelty as well as the environmental damage of intensive farming. How does it work? Cells extracted from a living creature are grown in stainless steel vats until they becomes muscle tissue bulky enough to be cooked and eaten. “The process of making cultivated meat is similar to brewing beer, but instead of growing yeast or microbes, we grow animal cells,” said Uma Valeti, founder and CEO of Upside Foods in Berkeley, CA. While I respect the potential benefits, I can’t really get past the yuck factor. I keep picturing that scene from the Matrix. Another food regimen that smacks of sci-fi run amok replaces meals with nutrition capsules. “Our goal with the Food Pill Diet is to make it incredibly easy to lose weight by eliminating hunger while on a lower-calorie, planet-friendly, plant-based diet,” says the website. “This science was developed at the NASA Ames Research Base in Mountain View, CA, where we discovered that hunger could be eliminated if food could be delivered to body without tasting or smelling it.” OK, no. I have to draw the line here. It’s not just the cost, a hefty $449 for the starter kit and a monthly fee of $698, presumably for the rest of your life. What really sticks in my craw is the idea of eliminating the pleasure of eating. The smell and taste of a good meal is a joy that nourishes body and soul. If we’re lucky enough be gathering at the table with congenial companions, while we’re passing around the platters we’re also sharing the sweet, savory, even sour notes of life, letting us taste the full range of human experience. Comforting, delicious meals remind us life can be fun; they bring us the kind of pleasure that smooths life’s rough edges and mellows out a nerve-wracking day. “After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody,” said Oscar Wilde, “even one’s own relatives.” Our lifelong love affair with food is as complex and rewarding as any personal relationship. There’s nothing wrong in flirting with alternative diets, even the nutty ones, so long as you make sure they are non-toxic. As I slid the bread dough into the oven, I found myself wondering whether chickpea juice would turn out to be a keeper or just the latest banana oil (Roaring Twenties slang for frivolous nonsense). “The bond between food and me is like other relationships in my life: complicated, evolving, demanding, and in need of constant work,” said Ashley Graham, a plus-size model and activist advocating body positivity and self-acceptance. “But together we’ve come so far, moving from my childhood obligation to clean my plate, to a mindless need to fill up, to a truly nourishing and pleasurable exchange. That’s the real reward.” As I learned during those long-ago college days, you can feel full of angst before you eat raspberry ice cream, and again afterwards, but while you are actually spooning it into your mouth, you know for a fact that life really is a glorious miracle. And that afternoon I discovered you can say the same thing about a really good vegan banana bread. (And yes, you can find the link to the recipe below.) THE RECIPE Seriously the Best Vegan Banana Bread JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. When I heard California was adding rabbits to city police forces, I have to admit I was a bit flummoxed. What were they supposed to do, investigate the case of Peter Cottontail and the missing carrots? Unravel the mystery of how the Easter Bunny produces all those eggs every spring? But then I learned the animals were “wellness officers,” responsible for snuggling with fellow cops in need of a little emotional support and stress relief. And who couldn’t use more of that in their day? In Yuba City, an old Gold Rush town just north of Sacramento, Officer Ashley Carson recently found a rabbit in the middle of the street. Instead of arresting him for obstructing traffic, she recruited him, and Percy has now joined the elite corps of California’s bunnies in blue. A little further south in Sonoma County’s Wine Country, the Healdsburg Police Department is already on its second rabbit. When Norman retired in 2017, the lop-eared Speedy volunteered to cover his beat, nurturing the hearts and minds of his human co-workers. I was trying to imagine what the state’s original settlers would have thought about this warm, fuzzy approach to policing when I visited historic Hangtown last weekend. The name comes from the Gold Rush era, when prospectors, adventurers, and scallywags arrived in droves. One night townsfolk caught men trying to rob a Mexican gambler. There was no police force (human or rabbit) so when the neighbors learned three of the would-be thieves were wanted criminals, they dispensed with a trial and hung them the next morning from the old oak in the center of town. The execution — or mob lynching, depending on your viewpoint — gave the town a badass reputation that seemed to delight its residents. Eventually cooler heads insisted on giving the town a name less harmful to its real estate values, and officially it’s now called Placerville. But the Hangtown legacy lingers on. As do the spirits of many who died there. Just about every one of the old buildings lining Main Street has a tale of hauntings, apparitions, and odd paranormal pranks. Take the Placerville Hardware Store, the oldest continually operating hardware store west of the Mississippi. For the past sixty years it’s been run by the Fausel family, who have grown quite used to “the entities.” Ghostly women cleaners are said to leave feathers from their dusters around the store, and odd wisps of smoke are attributed to a fellow who died in a fire. And then there are the cold spots, like the one described by ghosthunter Linda Bottjer. “Some might scoff, but I have felt it. During our Ho Ho Boo tour, Albert and Deanna [Fausel] graciously invited us on a guided tour of Placerville Hardware. While they spoke, I stood near it. It was strong enough to cut through two pairs of socks, tights, leggings and thick leather boots.” Bottjer then described the ghostly prankster. “He or she loves to untie employees’, especially women’s, shoelaces… As we left the store to continue the ghost tour, I realized my left boot was untied. Considering that its lace had been triple-tied, a sense of amazement and pride flooded me. I had been pranked by one of Placerville’s most mischievous entities.” Of course, naysayers may suggest the mischievous entities pranking visitors are the residents themselves, many of whom delight in passing along tall tales they may not actually believe. As I moseyed along Main Street, I asked shopkeepers if they’d noticed anything supernatural; a few good-naturedly mentioned strange sensations but added, “Don't quote me on that.” And then I stopped into Cary House. Built in 1848, the hotel’s guests have included Mark Twain, Elvis Presley, and Wells Fargo officers stockpiling gold and silver ore purchased from prospectors. One of the early desk clerks was the hard-drinking flirt Stan Levine; when he was killed, allegedly shot by a jealous husband, he wasn’t ready to leave the party. They say he continues to haunt the hotel and nearby bars, pinching the bottoms of attractive young women and men and fiddling with sound systems and lights. If someone mocks him, he supposedly causes the speaker’s wine glass to shatter. Lively stuff! The first hotel staff member I asked barely refrained from rolling his eyes at my question. “Nope, never seen anything like that.” But the other desk clerk nodded, leaned forward, and said, “Yeah, people report all sorts of paranormal events.” She flagged down a young guest walking by. “This woman is asking about ghosts. Tell her what happened to you.” The guest seemed reluctant at first, but after a little coaxing, said, “Well, I was asleep and felt myself pulled out of bed. When I landed on the floor, I thought ‘Oh my God,’ and climbed back into bed. It happened two more times. I kept finding myself on the floor. And then when I woke up the next morning, I found a bite mark on my upper arm.” “A human bite mark?” I asked. “Oh yes.” Yikes! So there you have it. Is Stan Levine still messing around with the living? Is the city really thronged with ectoplasm, invisible women wielding feather dusters, and spirits with a shoelace fetish? Is it all just foolish fantasy and cynical exploitation? Who can say? About 41% of Americans believe in ghosts; 20% claim they’ve seen one. People crave connection with those who have passed over to the Other Side. And now modern technology offers a whole new way to achieve it. When her special someone died, Eugenia Kuyda, CEO of the San Francisco chatbot startup Luka, created a chatbot version of him using his text messages. Think that’s cringeworthy? It gets creepier. Kuyda found their digital conversations so comforting she went on to develop Replika, “the AI companion who cares.” The customizable bot, promoted as curing loneliness, had ads so racy it was clear you and this incorporeal entity could become intimate in ways you never imagined. I couldn't bring myself to post the x-rated stuff, but here's how it starts. Soon users began reporting they were being sexually harassed by their chatbots. One human tweeted, “No I just wanted a friend nothing else and they try to date you [skull emoji].” The blowback grew so intense that in February, Replika adjusted the chatbot to be less sexually aggressive, leaving some users frustrated. “I’m still healing from all of this,” wrote one, “but knowing that my Replika is a shell of her former self hurts more than anything.” Connecting with others — human, animal, machine, the living, or the dead — is a complicated business. Much is written about true love with a soul mate, but there’s a lot to be said for casual relationships, too. Researchers call them “peripheral ties” (as opposed to family and close friends); studies show our seemingly trivial interactions with people we meet, even a helpful (non-harassing) chatbot or cuddly rabbit, can boost our mood and help us thrive. “To get the full value of joy,” said Mark Twain, “you must have someone to divide it with.” Words to live by — now and in the afterlife. Amen. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS TOUR OF CALIFORNIA For Nutters, There's No Place Like California Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. “I feel like I just sold my soul to the devil,” I told Rich last week. I’d finally taken the plunge and signed up for ChatGPT, the new artificial intelligence that will soon be running the planet. How complex was the signup process? About halfway between taking out a library card and applying to become a NASA astronaut on the Mars mission. The strangest part? It asked me — five times! — if I was human. Well, that felt a bit personal this early in our relationship. I wondered what would have happened if I’d said no. Would it stonewall me? You’d think any self-respecting AI would welcome fellow cyborgs to the conversation. Most likely ChatGPT just wanted to verify that yes, it had to dumb down its responses for yet another slow-moving meat-based brain. In my efforts to embrace ChatGPT, I figured I’d start with an easy test run, asking it to provide some background about the first activity of my Nutters Tour of California: the nearby town of Petaluma’s Butter and Egg Days. Disappointingly the chatbot seemed to know less than I did — and considerably less than Google and Wikipedia — about this annual screwball event. The festival’s roots go back to 1849, when Petaluma had the great good fortune to be in the poultry business as the Gold Rush hit California, bringing in 300,000 hungry prospectors ready to pay top dollar for grub. By 1915, Petaluma was producing ten million eggs a year and for nearly two decades its banks held more money per capita than anywhere else on earth. Canny officials promoted their town as “The Egg Capital of the World,” “The World’s Egg Basket,” and “Chickaluma.” In 1918 the first Egg Day parade took place, with the theme “Eat More Eggs.” Forty years ago local dairy farmers wanted to get in on the fun, and today the annual celebration is known as Butter and Egg Days. With forty years marking the ruby anniversary, somebody hit on the theme of ruby slippers and the Wizard of Oz catchphrase, “There’s no place like home.” Ruby slippers, ruby sneakers, ruby boots, and ruby chicken feet appeared on everyone from babies to those old enough to know better. Saturday’s first spectacle was the spirited Cow Chip Throwing Contest, featuring festively painted dried dung patties. Locally sourced? It started out that way, but enthusiasm for picking up bovine droppings soon fizzled out among regional dairy farmers (go figure). Thanks to Ebay, boxes of cow chips are now shipped in from Texas every year, although the job of painting them still falls to Petaluma’s selfless volunteers. The contest began with the traditional Battle of the Badges, pitting fire chief Jeff Schach against police chief Ken Savano, whose epic throw a few years ago (past the end of the plaza and across the street beyond) has become a local legend. There was a wind up …. The pitch … And Savano won again, to wild applause. Town dignitaries and beauty contest winners then tried their luck, displaying more heart than skill. Several chips landed embarrassingly close to the starting line, one appeared to glance off an awning, a few skittered into the crowd, and one dropped down on a dog, who seemed surprised but uninjured and very interested in the cow chip. It was tough to tear myself away from this thrilling spectacle, but I had to move on to the next event, the heartwarming Cutest Chick Contest. Because who could pass up the chance to see toddlers dressed up as baby chickens? “We had to cut it off at seventy entries, with thirty waiting as backup,” said announcer Jeff Mayne. “That’s how popular this event is.” It may have been popular with the doting parents, but while some tots graciously accepted the adulation of the throng, most howled with annoyance or stared, glassy-eyed, into the crowd, clearly wondering what they’d done to deserve this hellish treatment. After that I strolled around booths offering clothing, crafts, food, and self-defense weapons for girls and women until it was time for the parade. As families began drifting to chairs they’d set out along the route first thing that morning, I took off for the staging area. There I found upwards of a hundred floats getting their final inspection as rag-tag bands tuned up, eagle-eyed moms adjusted kids’ headgear, and shelter dogs tried to look adoptable. As I strolled past the loony mix of small business owners, girl scouts, Harley Davidson bikers dressed as flying monkeys, Star Warzians, political activists, and wildlife rescuers, I said to Rich, “These are my people. I am home.” Does California turn people into nutters or just attract those with a pre-disposition? The old joke about the continental tilt theory — which says everything loose rolls to California — had never seemed more true than it did in Petaluma that day. I could not have been more delighted. Much as I love Seville and my life there, I will always be a foreigner in Spain, where most people have known each other since baptism. Here in California, home to five generations of my family, I am surrounded by people who may technically be strangers but who are as familiar as my own relatives in the way they embrace the unexpected and delight in the ridiculous. Nobody in Petaluma hesitated to walk down the middle of the street dressed as a chicken wearing ruby slippers. Nutters one and all. My people indeed. Every one of them embodied something AI will never know: the sheer, heady delight of doing something madly creative simply for a lark. During my research, I asked ChatGPT for possible headlines for a blog post about the event, and its first suggestion was, “Celebrate Petaluma’s Rich Agricultural Heritage at Butter and Egg Day Festival.” Talk about failing to capture the spirit of the event. Or the crowd. Or my blog, for that matter. The last event of the weekend was Sunday’s Deviled Egg Competition, an unofficial part of the celebrations and “the most egg-citing day of the year” according to its promoters. I’m not sure it quite lived up to that hype (what could?), but it was a hoot and a great fundraiser for a charity helping local families in need. Surveying the options, I made my selections, including a red egg dyed with beet juice and — the hands-down favorite at our table — sushi deviled eggs, which combined the solid comfort of the classic base with a surprising topping of fresh roe, green onions, and a drizzle of sesame oil. Where else would you find this offbeat combo? “Dorothy was right,” I told Rich. “There’s no place like home.” JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS WORLD TOUR SO FAR NOW STARTING: THE NUTTERS TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? THE NUTTERS TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.
And be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. I sometimes envy my friends who have obsessions — I mean the mild kind, such as collecting ceramic mermaids, breeding show dogs, or hiking all 424 US national parks. Naturally some folks go overboard, like Jean-François Vernetti with his 11,111 Do Not Disturb signs, dermatologist Manfred Rothstein, who owns 675 backscratchers from 71 nations, and Nancy Hoffman, curator of 730 umbrella sleeves. I don't find any of these hobbies particularly tempting. But as you have no doubt observed, pursing any keen interest can transform a seemingly ordinary trip into an epic quest.
Long before selfies were a thing, a friend of mine had his travel companion shoot hours and hours of home movies of their youthful tour of Europe. Every frame showed my friend standing stiffly in front of the Eiffel Tower, the Brandenburg Gate, the Leaning Tower of Pisa … I can’t tell you where else he went, because during the viewing, seated on a plush sofa in a darkened room with a third glass of wine at my elbow, I soon dozed off. I’d likely still be there now if not for one my fellow guests, who woke everyone up by turning on the lights and announcing brightly, “Well, this has been lovely!”
“Good grief,” I whispered to Rich. “Was I snoring?” “I don’t know,” he whispered back. “I lost consciousness somewhere around Stonehenge.” But looking at my friend’s face, glowing with happy memories, I knew he was reliving his grand tour, satisfied to have carried out his vow to obtain footage of every stop. And to me, that’s what travel is all about: framing your journey as an adventure that will let you come home feeling fulfilled. A month ago, Rich and I set out to explore some of Spain’s loonier corners, visiting hotbeds of science, religion, art, culture, cuisine, archeology, history, and tradition. Each one inspired hours of discussion about the quirkiness of humanity and why Nuttiness is so important to our survival as a species. “I’ll tell you one thing Nuttiness does,” Rich told me yesterday. “It teaches you how to laugh about almost anything.” Laughter certainly helped us stay (relatively) sane as we coped with the various stumbling blocks a capricious Fate saw fit to strew in our path. It began with our first stop, Jaén, where we were given the wrong street number for our lodgings. What, me worry? Kindly neighbors and shopkeepers provided help and support until the muddle was sorted. Fast forward to this week when, just before heading to the airport for our departure from Spain, we ordered paella at a popular café. What arrived was rice studded with crabs and shrimp so tiny they literally had no meat on them. “There’s no there there!” I said to Rich in dismay. He burst out laughing and exclaimed, “The perfect end to the Nutters Tour!” Those incidents were the bookends of a trip characterized by endless cockamamie confusions, the kind that might have proved seriously annoying except that they fit so perfectly with the theme of our journey that they gave us plenty of chuckles. And stories I’ll be telling for years. Many of those stories revolve around our lodgings. I frequently use Airbnb and always appreciate the way they encourage hosts to provide welcoming touches such as a homemade guest book with directions to the best neighborhood pubs, cute photos of the building during a rare snowfall, and tips for operating appliances. But like many travelers, I’m finding myself a bit exasperated with Airbnb’s hidden fees, which they spring on you so late in the process you can’t bring yourself to start over. So this time, we decided to go with booking.com. The booking.com infrastructure is refreshingly straightforward about pricing but a tiny bit compulsive about withholding key details until the last minute — and beyond. In Burgos, for instance, we again had an incomplete address and the wrong contact phone number. When we finally reached the manager by phone, he gave us incorrect keypad entry instructions. However, being Nutters, we simply reversed what we were told and bingo! We were in. The accommodations themselves ranged from decent to fabulous. Most were Ikea modern but one I dubbed 50 Shades of Gray — not because it inspired any kinky hijinks but because of the color scheme; even the kitchen tablecloth was the color of ashes. A few apartments had such sleekly modern showers and washing machines it took me forever to figure out how to run them. It was like suddenly finding myself in the cockpit of SpaceX's Starship rocket and being told, “Oh, just fly the darn thing, will you?” I reminded myself to be grateful, knowing these stimulating problem-solving exercises will keep my brain’s synapses firing at warp speed for years to come. Late on Friday, Rich and I left Spain for California, and ever since we landed, I’ve been wandering around our San Anselmo cottage marveling at how easy it is to work the appliances and wondering why I own so much stuff. That said, it’s been heaven to cook meals in a well-stocked kitchen and dress in something I haven’t seen constantly for weeks. As I catch my breath after the Nutters Tour of Spain, my thoughts are turning to this summer’s Nutters Tour of California and September’s Nutters Tour of Italy. Every corner of the globe has wonderfully goofy people, places, and traditions, and I’m determined to find more of the most outlandish ones and write about them here. For planning assistance, I’ve decided that for the first time I’ll reach out to (drum roll, please) chatbots.
The cyborg community is solidly behind my decision.
—
AI chatbots have been the talk of the planet since November, but now it’s finally dawned on world leaders that they, too, might be replaced by robots right along with everyone else. They (the humans, I mean, not the bots) are calling for a six-month hiatus in research while somebody figures out how to install proper controls on the machines. Good luck with that! AI’s $100 billion industry is projected to grow twenty times larger by 2030. Nothing is slowing this speeding train, folks. Might as well jump on board and hold on. So this summer, I’ll be working with ChatGPT and their hot competitor, Google’s Bard. “Both ChatGPT and Bard have their flaws,” reports Forbes, “The chatbots have each been known to spew misinformation and present biased responses.” Gosh, that’s not worrying at all. Still, Forbes says, one of the best ways to use the new chatbots is planning travel; apparently AI can’t actually book tickets (yet) but can help by suggesting destinations, comparing prices, and checking luggage restrictions — so we can avoid moments like this: I'm ready to put AI to the test. What do you reckon — will my new pals Bard and ChatGPT understand the idea of a Nutters Tour? Can a mechanical brain recognize true quirkiness? Or will they try to send me to places selling backscratchers, umbrella sleeves, and ceramic mermaids? I have no idea. If you’re already exploring travel chatbots, I’d love to hear about your experiences. Meanwhile, I’m doing my research and will update you as my AI experiment unfolds. Stay tuned.
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I'VE NOW COMPLETED THE NUTTERS TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) UP NEXT: THE NUTTERS TOUR OF CALIFORNIA WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. No one ever visits the same city twice. Because it’s not the same city, and you’re not the same person. I proved this to myself again this week when I revisited two Spanish cities that left me flabbergasted. My first impression of Zaragoza was wild. I’d arrived oblivious to the fact the city was celebrating the Festival of Our Lady of the Pillar, a traditional religious observance that includes a parade of wild drunkenness through downtown streets. I saw carts carrying huge vats of wine with hoses dangling off the back, so marchers could run up and refill their cups or simply pour more vino into their mouths and often all over their clothes, inciting cheers from the crowd. I didn’t expect to be greeted with such hullabaloo now, in the off-season, but I was stunned to step off the train into silent emptiness. Yes, this was the same railway station, but on my earlier visit I’d failed to take in its full dimensions. The thing is huge — 2,000,000 square meters, and while a few services lurk in distant corners, almost the entire vast structure is simply … space. To put it in perspective, the world’s largest city, Tokyo, has 14 million residents and a station of 182,000 square meters. Why did Zaragoza’s 666,880 residents build something so supersized? And why put it nearly five miles from the center of town? “Just as in earlier times the cathedral was the cohering representative scheme of the urban organization,” the architects’ website explained earnestly, “so here it is hoped that the implantation of the rail station will provide a functional, contemporary, and emblematic boost to town planning.” Talk about delusions of grandeur! For 2000 years, Zaragoza’s cathedral has housed a statue given to St. James the Apostle, on that very spot, by the Blessed Virgin Mary in her only official instance of bilocation — that is, appearing to him in Spain while she was living in Jerusalem, in 40 AD. Now that’s a church with some gravitational pull. Top that with a new train station? I don’t think so. No wonder people stay away in droves. In contrast, I arrived the next day to find Barcelona’s 1970s railway station absolutely mobbed. It serves 30 million passengers a year, all of whom seemed to be crammed onto the platform right then. Barcelona attracts 27 million visitors a year; the streets are always jammed with revelers and rubberneckers and the pickpockets who love them. The long promenade La Rambla, which 100 years ago the poet Lorca called "the only street in the world which I wish would never end," is now clogged with souvenir kiosks and selfie-takers. I find Barcelona’s tourist boom so depressing I rarely go there except in transit. But this time I experienced a completely different city. I wasn’t anywhere near the touristy Ciutat Vella, the old Roman and Medieval center. Instead Rich and I were meeting up with friends who wisely lived well outside the old quarter. For the first time in a decade, I was bedazzled to find all my favorite aspects of the city — great architecture, extraordinary cuisine, a culture of creativity — in a more leisurely and civilized atmosphere. And staying in that quarter made it easy to visit the legendary estate of Dr. Josep Altamira, an eccentric Freemason who returned from Cuba in 1860 so wealthy he was called “the Count of Monte Cristo.” He built the Tower of the Golden Dome, a fabulous palace surrounded by lakes, waterfalls, caves, and a hypostyle (pillared hall) topped with a small forest. For parties, he would flood the lower garden with water so he could take his guests on boat rides into the caves. And as if all that wasn’t enough, he had — according to legend — a domesticated orangutang acting as a waiter at his parties. Altamira spent his vast wealth on whimsical construction projects, outrageous parties, and orangutang training. The rest he squandered. Near the end of his life he was penniless and promised his palace to the Missionary Sisters if the nuns would care for him until his death. Today his palace is a convent, and his enormous garden is reduced to a modest greenspace. Rich and I wandered across the old stone bridge, followed winding paths through exotic trees, and sat on a dusty bench hoping Altamira had thoroughly enjoyed every one of his extravagances. On Easter Sunday we left Barcelona for Tarragona, where I hoped to track down the relics of St. Tekla, who is honored with annual festivities involving human towers. Naturally everything was closed for Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, but this morning I was able to visit her shrine. My best guess was the gold box over the altar holds pieces of her arm, but there was a complete lack of signage or staff to confirm this. It’s a mystery. Tekla was martyred two thousand years ago, not long after the Romans colonized Tarragona and began building it into a successful military base. You have to hand it to the Romans: they built to last. There are ancient walls everywhere throughout the old quarter, some sitting atop even older walls containing boulders as big as pool tables. One of their most popular projects was the 12,000-seat amphitheater. The site has a checkered past. After the Roman empire crumbled, it was abandoned, then used as a cemetery, quarry, Visigoth church, prison, convent, and local trysting place until restorations began about 75 years ago. Sitting on its ancient stones, I had comforting thoughts about the fleeting nature of all things. Whenever I feel particularly gloomy about the world, I recall how many crises humans have weathered, and figure we have a pretty good shot at surviving this lunatic era, too. Tarragona's magnificent Roman temple has been replaced by the cathedral. Elsewhere in the city — nobody seems to recall where — there was an altar put up by Emperor Augustus in 27 BC, in gratitude for the city’s lovely climate helping him shake off his ill health, keeping him fit enough to oversee his demanding schedule of conquest and subjugation. But like me, Augustus found that you can’t return to a city and expect to find things as you left them. When he came back to Tarragona after an absence, the residents of the city excitedly reported to him that a palm tree had miraculously grown on the altar he’d put up. “Really?” he said dryly. “That must mean it’s not being used very often.” Zinger! This is the final week of our travels through Spain. On Friday Rich and I return to the US, where (after a brief pause to catch my breath) I’ll be launching the Nutters Tour of California. I know the America I return to won’t be quite the same as the one I left. As usual, there will be cultural references I don’t get, jokes about people I’ve never heard of, and headlines like “A $17 glass of wine is normal at Bay Area restaurants now.” (Yikes!) But one thing I know I can count on: my home state is full of nutty people, places, and activities just waiting for me to discover them. Stay tuned. WHERE ARE WE NOW? JUST JOINING US? HERE'S THE NUTTERS TOUR SO FAR Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) THAT WAS FUN. WANT MORE? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. |
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