Are Writers Better Behind Bars?

Arlo as the Chessboard Killer in the independent film "Checkmate"

Marina, California. On Friday The New York Times featured an essay entitled Why Writers Belong Behind Bars. It's a fascinating look at what makes some writers especially prolific and how forced imprisonment has often catalyzed the most productive years of writer's lives. The article then leads into the somewhat more light topic on techniques of modern writers to self-impose periods of isolation. An especially interesting aspect of the piece was how the modern era of the Internet causes a constant problem for serious writers in that it's a constant distraction. For all of the benefits it offers writers - connections with other authors and publishers, unlimited research potential, and a means to get their work out - it can also be an enormous hindrance to productivity as even the most disciplined of souls are tempted to check e-mails, chat on Facebook or simply catch the latest breaking news - via video no less! Some writers have taken extreme measures to combat this, even shutting off Internet access for large blocks of the day and altering computer equipment so the World Wide Web cannot be accessed. This is a challenge I understand all too well and think many of us out there - writers or not - can relate to. How do you reap the benefits of the information age without succumbing to its dark side charms? I think the writers profiled in the essay are a little braver than I - but it's definitely something to consider!

On another level, I found the piece to have personal relevance under my present circumstances. I'm by no means imprisoned, but my life here in Marina is a great deal more restricted than I've ever been accustomed to. In jest, my roommate Tali Manouki and I often refer to it as "The Manouki Prison". I'm just kind of sequestered in a no man's land of fog and abandoned military buildings, without a lot of immediate options for getting out and exploring the wider world. Unlike the Marquis de Sade barricaded in the Bastille, my present situation will change dramatically in a few months time. But in this period of temporary isolation, could I be better using my time and talents to churn out some big writing projects? I'd like to hope so. In addition to my travel writing work for Gogobot and the various natural history consultancies I currently have under my belt, I'm looking at a few major book projects. Check out these concepts I'm working on and, if you have a moment, I'd appreciate any feedback on your thoughts:

The California Project - is what I'm calling a currently unnamed effort to reflect on the duality of beauty and horror that is the modern State of California. It's part memoir, part essay on this great state that so many people both love and hate. Writing from the personal perspective of my four tumultuous years here, I want to look at both the golden allure of it's natural beauty and economic wealth as well as the corrupted and bankrupt underbelly of the State system that threatens to take this whole place to hell. I've had a unique set of experiences here - from international conservation efforts, oceanographic studies, acting and producing films in Hollywood, getting a sour taste for the broken legal system, and working with everyone from local non-profits and major universities. I've also had one-on-one close encounters with a whirlwind menagerie of hippies, dot com entrepreneurs, celebrities, scientists, politicians, filmmakers, struggling actors, meth addicts and surfers - the smorgasbord of all that epitomizes California, crammed into a few short years! Is this a story you'd be interested in hearing?

Broken Leashes and Fake Ice Cream - is one of numerous working titles I have for a collaborative effort on short surf travel tales. Written from the alter-ego nickname of LoBag Rex, along with my buddies Rabbit and Boca, we want to share the best, worst and funniest of our haphazard and totally unplanned adventures throughout Latin America over a 15 year time frame. It's meant to be a collection of short stories from the voice of three surfer adventurers, looking for good waves and good times in foreign lands. I can't wait to get started on this one - it's fun just talking about! What do you think?

OK, I gotta get back to my cell now...

Big Deal

 

Life along the Big Sur River Gorge

Big Sur, Calfornia. Few sensory pleasures compare to dipping into a cool mountain river on a scorching hot summer day. During my past four years in California, this has been my ultimate indulgence. To get away from the hustle and bustle of life for a day, bake in California's warm interior on a scenic hike or bike ride, and then spend the rest of the day drifting in pure bliss within crystal clear mountain waters - is a pleasure hard to put words to. A favorite spot in the past has been the Russian River of Sonoma Valley, but the Big Sur River in July does the job just fine. Recently, my buddy "Rabbit" Schaffer and I made our way to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park and did a few hours of hiking on the dramatic - but terribly exposed - Mount Manuel trail. After a few hours baking in the Big Sur July heat along windless canyons of the Ventana Wilderness, we made our way back to the Park, scrambled down into the Big Sur River gorge and rock-hopped upstream until we found a swimming hole to our liking. Crystal clear, these waters are important for steelhead and were all too recently a favorite haunt for California's now extinct grizzly bear population. For us, it was summertime at its best. A swim beneath waterfalls, followed by sipping a few rounds of Argentine mate upon massive boulders, and then more swimming. Before long, all of the biting flies, snakes, poison oak and scorching sun of the Ventana backcountry had been washed from our souls. Heaven must be a little like this.

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Big Sur River swimming hole

Arlo sipping mate in the Big Sur River Gorge

Rabbit runs down the Mount Manuel Trail

Rabbit sipping mate in the Big Sur River Gorge

Arlo & Rabbit relax in the Big Sur River - post excursion

Exploration as Art

A blind river fish from the Rio Bameno, Amazonian Ecuador.  Known as "wiami" to the local Huaorani.

Mountain View, California.  Beyond all else, exploration is my greatest passion. It is the process of discovery with risk. It provides the opportunity to experience what few others have and the potential to witness that which no one else has. It is both the hazy cloud of the unknown and the shining beacon of enlightenment. And to me it is worth any cost.

Unidentified mantis at the Bilsa Biological
Station.  Mache-Chindul Range,
Western Ecuador.

Exploration is an art. Like all forms of art, it is a means of self-expression, discovery and a reflection of reality. It is also the tool by which I paint the picture of my life. The means through which I tell stories in written word and film. It is an ever-changing landscape on a kaleidoscope of color, culture, geology, climate and biodiversity. It is a deep crevasse of self-awareness, the mechanism for finding one’s own place in this world and understanding the texture of our souls. Nothing shows you who you are quite like that which you are most not. Exploration places you in intimate proximity with your counterbalance. It entwines who you are with who you are not, with who you may be and most of all, who you appear not to be, but in fact share almost everything. In doing so, exploration catalyzes the creation of something new. This creation is artistic expression of life in its purest form.

The author, Arlo Hemphill, straddled with a killed peccary during a hunt with the Huaorani.  Amazonian Ecuador, 2003.

I am Wilderness

Pico Blanco, Ventana Wilderness, California.  July 2009.

Words describe my connection to wild places, my symbiosis with the wilderness.  I am wilderness.  My soul is those wild, lonely places - windswept mountain passes, the rocky crags, and wandering herds upon endless grasslands.  There is no difference between those things and what is found within me.  This is true too of the sea.  The vibrant blue of tropical waters.  I am but a damselfish in an ocean of coralline hues. The schools of great fish swim through my heart and onto the deserts of my mind - those Forgotten Lands, bone dry - but bright and welcoming.  Bring your own water, for I have none to give.  I am wilderness.

Drift Dreams

Drawaqa, Yasawa Group, Fiji.  This past July I had the pleasure of staying nearly alone on Drawaqa, a small island of the Yasawa Group, Fiji.  Most of my time there was spent diving and snorkeling, but I took a few hours to roam along vacant tropical beaches. I've long been a fan of drift seeds, but what I found during this beach outing was a treasure trove.   These seeds, which grow in tropical forests throughout the Pacific, drift on ocean currents and wash up on beaches from one side of the ocean to the other. The photo above is a collection of seeds taken during one beach walk.  The majority of seeds are Entada gigas - also known as mermaid purse.

"Postive News" on Bottom Trawling

TASMAN SEA: The NZ dep sea trawler West Bay does a fast turn after hauling its catch from international waters in the Tasman Sea. Greenpeace along with more than a thousand scientists are supporting the call for a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling, because of the vast amount of marine life that is destroyed by this fishing method.  © 2004-Greenpeace/Roger Grace

Mountain View, California.  As one of the most destructive forms of fishing, any proactive efforts to limit or eliminate bottom trawling are good news.  This fishing practice systematically scrapes along the seafloor with heavy gear, causing widespread ecological damage.  The long term impact on fishing itself is the reduction of fishery populations and loss of fisheries habitat.  This, however, pales in comparison to the damage it does to greater environment, including to millennia old cold water corals - the fiscal value of which are incalculable.

In this quarter’s Positive News,  a U.K.-based international newspaper with affiliates in New York, Hong Kong, Madrid and Argentina, I was interviewed on the international effort to ban deep sea bottom trawling on the high seas.  This auxillary article compliments the month’s feature story, which covers an announcement from the nation of Belize to ban bottom trawling in their national waters. Joining the ranks of Venezuela and Palau, both countries of which have taken similar measures, Belize put this legislation into effect on December 31, 2010.

My contribution covers some of numerous achievements made through an international campaign to promote a U.N. moratorium on high seas bottom trawling that was spearheaded by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.  I also touch on the momentum to build a network of marine protected areas on the high seas, which in concept would offer permanent protection to the seamounts and coldwater coral reefs currently threatened by trawling and other destructive fishing practices.

Read the full Positive News article: Towards and International Ban on Trawling by Sarah Wilkinson.

For more information on bottom trawling and high seas marine protected areas, check out the following sites:

• Deep Sea Conservation Coalition
• IUCN-WCPA High Seas Task Force
• Marine Conservation Biology Institute (MCBI)
• Pew Environment Group: Protecting the Deep Sea
• Greenpeace: The Pacific Commons

Sunsets of Big Sur

Sunset over the Pacific. Big Sur, California.

Big Sur, California.  For those who know me, you may be aware that the past few months have been a difficult time for me, amongst the hardest points on my life.  But before the recent drama began to unfold in force, the wilds of Big Sur were my frequent refuge of the soul.  This magnificent stretch of coastline, and its adjacent Ventana Wilderness, represents some of the most beautiful and untainted landscape in the continental United States.

Rabbit crosses a fallen redwood
in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Due to its close proximity to Monterey - with some hiking trails as short as a 15 minute car ride from downtown - this natural treasure has been my regular go to spot over the past two years for hiking, river swimming, natural history film and photography, writing, relaxation and reflection.  Luckily, fortune has also provided me with a good number of friends who find equal appreciation and fascination with this special place.  Most recently, I had visits from Rabbit Schaffer and Boca this past October and we took the opportunity to hit some trails, scramble up some river gorges and enjoy fantastic sunsets.

Here's a few photos from October.  I wish I was in Big Sur now.

McWay Falls, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

McWay Falls, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Rabbit crosses the fallen redwood, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Big Sur Sunset

Rabbit, Big Sur. October 2010

Arlo Hemphill, Big Sur. October 2010.

Shark Sucker

Beqa Lagoon, Fiji.  This past July I had the wonderful opportunity of traveling to Fiji and diving with the shark feeders of Beqa Lagoon.  To the people of Beqa, sharks are sacred spirits with whom they share a special relationship.  Divers visiting Fiji may accompany the islanders on a shark feeding for an up close and personal look at bull, silvertip, tawny nurse, blacktip reef, whitetip reef and tiger sharks.

The above picture is one of my favorite from the experience.  This is one of the Fijian divers ascending to the surface following the shark feeding.  The fish swarming around him are primarily remoras and rainbow runners, attracted to the remaining food in his feed bucket.   Ocean conditions were extremely excellent this day, offering top to bottom visibility at 100ft of water.  This is the kind of scene I can lurk in forever.  I never want to leave the blue on warm, clear days like this.

Big Sur Rattlesnake

Western Rattlesnake, Crotalus oreganus

Andrew Molera State Park, California. This past weekend I was out hiking near Big Sur with a group of friends from Monterey, and came across this western rattlesnake, Crotalus oreganus.  The poor guy was really upset to see us and not very cooperative in moving aside so we could pass. We were ascending the East Molera Trail in Andrew Molera State Park.  I encountered a second rattlesnake that afternoon on the Molera Ridge Trail.

Big Asilomar

Monterey, California.  Terrific storm systems have been moving through Monterey Country for the past couple of days, generating tons of rains, hail, lightening strikes and a really big swell.  The storm system, which is expected to persist for awhile, is believed to be a result of the strong El Niño event rocking our world this year.  Below is a little video footage from one our local surf breaks, Asilomar, maxing out at 35ft this morning.