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eleven degrees north: December 2009

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Thursday, December 17, 2009. Some places stick with you long after you leave them, but not many literally stick. You Manila does. Bum around the metro for a few days and you’ll be picking the city out of your fingernails and rubbing it from your eyes, coughing back up all the black poison air you’ve swallowed. A few dozen years, many pounds and a significant amount of personal grooming might differentiate me from the grubby old white men looking for a young Filipina to wrap themselves around, but to many...

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eleven degrees north: August 2010

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Saturday, August 28, 2010. Drawing a circle in the sand. Wednesday, August 18, 2010. 269 is the new 267. Tomorrow I’ll be heading to Cavite, near Manila, to help with the Initial Orientation for Peace Corps Philippines Batch 269. Although I chose to apply to be a resource volunteer for their arrival, I’m actually a bit apprehensive about the whole thing for a few reasons. Thursday, August 12, 2010. It sounds almost like a new era in American philanthropy. A century and more ago, Andrew Carnegie and J...

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eleven degrees north: March 2009

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Saturday, March 28, 2009. I had my first real vacation this month. My girlfriend Lillian flew out from. California to Manila to meet me and we spent a couple days in the big. City, which is big indeed, and crowded - I've read that Metro Manila,. The area comprised of Manila proper and the surrounding cities, has. The highest population density in the world - and dirty and horribly. Polluted. I've never been to a place where the pollution has really. And other Indian and Middle Eastern food, spiced up as ...

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eleven degrees north: September 2010

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Sunday, September 26, 2010. Encounters from outside the bubble. This is Manuel. He lives on a beached boat in El Nido, Palawan, because his sister’s husband doesn’t want him in their house. Anybody could see that Manuel is a little, well, cracked: he rambled on (in surprisingly good English) about the history of the United States, asserting several times with misplaced pride that “I am an American. Raul Fabiantes. I’ve mentioned him before. He’s the Cuyonon who loves having his name propagated arou...

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eleven degrees north: May 2010

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Monday, May 24, 2010. 8221; Paho yells, his outsized four-year old’s head lolling as he runs away from me, feigning fear of the giant. When I was still new at site, Paho’s fear was real: he thought my curly hair was a bird’s nest, and any creature wearing a nest on its head was no friend of his. I spin him around in a circle), baliskad. Flip him upside-down), taas-taas. Toss him into the air, almost but not quite letting go at the zenith) and baboy-baboy. 8221; meaning “Uncle Turtle.” Tha...8220;brother,...

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eleven degrees north: MTA Entertainment Circuit, Act Two: Il y a tout ce que vous voulez sur Flushing Avenue

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Thursday, September 19, 2013. MTA Entertainment Circuit, Act Two: Il y a tout ce que vous voulez sur Flushing Avenue. If I had to pick the song least likely to be heard in Queens’ Godforsaken Wasteland—“Maspeth” in the local vernacular—Joe Dassin’s “Champs-Elysees” would be a good bet. It’s a song about beauty and love. Clearly it doesn’t fit the context. And the fact that the literal translation of “potato” ( pomme de terre. Is “apple of the earth,” he’s pretty impressive. Here another day to pick up ab...

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eleven degrees north: September 2009

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009. Moving forward by inches. Sometimes, though, failures line up so impeccably that you can’t help but wonder at the fantastic order of the universe. Does the world not want me to get to my destination? Why can’t just one part of this trip go smoothly? I’m not getting my change, am I. Let me tell you about my boat. So we went on like that for awhile, all the other clerks laughing at the comedy unfolding, until finally she got it and called the shipping line for me to confirm tha...

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eleven degrees north: June 2010

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Friday, June 25, 2010. The light bends untrue. When does a photograph stop being a photograph? The spread of Photoshop and other photo-editing software means that any photo can be tucked and tweaked into something the lens never saw. For me it’s really an issue of honesty and integrity – if a photo has been significantly manipulated, I believe the photographer should disclose that fact. Photographers have also always been able to post-process pictures through darkroom techniques – but in my head th...

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eleven degrees north: October 2009

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009. A few of the faces. Friday, October 23, 2009. Pictures of robots, and other household essentials. At a conference earlier this year I met the director of another children’s center up in Luzon. He had a bit of experience with Peace Corps volunteers and something about them puzzled him. “Ryan,” he said, “let me ask you a question. Why do Peace Corps volunteers. Have their backpacks with them? From Peace Corps that I’ve been savoring in small doses. 488 in American coins. There is...