Travels to Ecuador and Japan

As I have probably noted in this space before, I am not a big fan of traveling.  This annoys my wife, by the way, but I can’t help it—I just don’t like traveling all that much.  Given the choice between a month long all-expense paid journey around the world or a month at home reading books with nothing else to do, I’d probably stay home.  (Just probably—maybe, I would go—and if my wife’s expenses were also covered and she heard about the offer, then the probability that I would go would certainly increase.)

But, I do travel vicariously.  And recently, I have been to two places:

1. Andes  Night /Nocturno  Ecuador, by Robert Gibson Z

First off, both the title and the author’s name are a problem.  What is the title of this book?  Those four words are listed scattered  over the front cover, are listed in that order without the slash on the spine, and are listed in that order with the slash in the copyright notice.  Second, is the author’s last name Gibson Z or just Z?

But, to the book itself—I am not sure if I technically read this or not.  The book is almost entirely pictures—photographs—of (not surprisingly given the title) the Andes at night.  The pictures are gorgeous.  Some really nice photography here.  There is a page of really goofy pseudo-poetic prose at the outset (maybe it actually is poetic if you can read the original Spanish page, but I just read the English translation page (since I can’t read Spanish, and not, as the Reader might have suspected, due to some misbegotten obsession with reading original Spanish works in translation)).  There is also some really odd prose at the end about constellations and the moon.  But, nobody gets this book for the prose.  The pictures are nice.  I enjoyed looking through them—indeed, I have looked through this book many times since I got it two weeks ago.

However, I am certain my enjoyment of this book is only partly due to the enjoyment from looking at the pictures.  The book was a gift from a student who graduated in December—she is from Ecuador and she sent the book to me via a friend and current Mount Holyoke Student who was returning to college this semester.  I suspect most of my enjoyment in looking at the book is the association with my former student.

The pictures are nice.  Several of them have a tent, presumably the photographer’s, out in the middle of nowhere.  I would enjoy camping to in the middle of nowhere.  So, I take back what I said above.  Given the possibility of having a tent and a stack of books in a remote part of the Andes, I would love that trip.

2. I also traveled vicariously to Japan.  Chris Claremont sent Wolverine there in a book cleverly entitled Wolverine.  The recent Marvel movie about Wolverine was based on this book (as long as you us the word “based” to mean “in both the book and the movie Wolverine goes to Japan and there are characters in Japan with the same names in both the book and the movie”).  Wolverine does not make me want to visit Japan.

As for the book—it’s OK.  I am not a big fan of Wolverine, the character.  He has a great tag line “I am the best there is at what I do but what I do isn’t very nice.”  His attitude is funny.  But his superpowers are just too much.  He automatically heals—but the rapidity with which he heals seems to vary depending on the needs of the plot.  He has an indestructible skeleton, so it is impossible to dismember him.  And then there are the retractable claws which can cut through anything like a hot knife going through butter.  In other words, this guy is pretty much an indestructible fighting machine which can easily carve up anything.  So, how do you put a character like that into any dangerous situation?—only by having him a) forget how to use his claws or b) have his healing powers slow down enough so that he can be knocked out—but then you have the problem of what to do with him when he is knocked out.  OK, so he is a comic book hero and the whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Maybe I just haven't read enough Wolverine comic books to find the charm in the character—but that is why I read this book—it is widely regarded as one of the best of Wolverine and it was just OK.  But, I am now puzzled about why I don’t like the character more—then again, the whole set of X-Men never interested me nearly as much as the rest of the Marvel pantheon—and again, I am not sure why.  Something else about which to ponder. 

But back to travel.  Why isn’t the song of the voice inside me set to the rhythm of the wheel?  Is this a failing?  Should I want to travel more?

An even bigger oddity:  in the next six months I am traveling to New York City, Chicago, Palo Alto, Belgium, and Annapolis for assorted things.  And that doesn't include any vacation plans with my family.