An interview with Time Magazine reporter and author Pico Iyer
From a very young age Pico Iyer has had a close personal relationship with one of the worlds great spiritual and political leaders. In 1960 his father a professor of philosophy and a student of world religions was among first westerns to seek an audience with the Dalai Lama. Traveling from his home in England Iyer’s father journeyed back to his native India to meet the Dalai Lama then around the age of 24. In their conversations the Tibetan Buddhist ruler in exile and Iyer’s father discussed ancient mystic wisdom that had been unavailable to the outside world for centuries. And with the exchange of a single simple gift, they also established a connection between the Dalai Lama and Iyer that now spans almost 50 years.
“At the end of his conversation with the Dalai Lama in 1960 he said ‘I have this little three year-old boy back in England and he was already quite interested in the story of your dramatic flight from Tibet into India’,” Iyer said. “And so the Dalai Lama, with his great gift for the perfect gesture found a photo of himself when he was 5 years old and sent it to me. And so from the time I was three I had this photo of this little boy, 5 years old, already ruling 6 million people. I didn’t understand who or what the Dalai Lama was. But I could make a contact with this little boy sitting in this place. And I could see all the responsibility he had. So in that sense I grew up with the image of the Dalai Lama and stories of the Dalai Lama from the time I was a little boy.”
From the gift of that photograph to their first meeting years later Iyer and the Dalai Lama have been become good friends. And through the course of his career as a journalist Iyer has cultivated a deep insight to the philosophy that has guided the Dalai Lama toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict between China and Tibet. In his new book The Open Road: The Global Journey of the 14th Dalai Lama Iyer shares his view of the spiritual and political path we all take to find peace in our lives and the world in which we live.
An interview with adventure filmmaker Dominic Gill
I don’t know about you. But I’ve got a hard time getting motivated, especially when it comes to doing something hard, something that might take a lot of time, cost a bit of money or might even be a little scary. Life’s journey can be tough enough just trying to get by making it from day to the next. But every once in a while, someone comes along that prompts you to action. They get you psyched up and excited because you can see they’re going places and the next thing you know it you get swept up in the momentum and just like your own life’s journey heads in a whole new direction. You follow that person right a new road of adventure. Last fall I met a guy just like that.
Now before get the wrong idea, I didn’t get on the back of that bicycle. I can tell you that had I me this guy riding down the coast of California I would have climbed aboard in a second. Dominic Gill was one a one of a few dozen movie producers I met during the 2009 Banff Film Festival. His documentary called Take A Seat follows his two-year journey by tandem bicycle over 20,000 mile of open road. Asking total strangers to pedal behind him on what his calls the stoker seat his travels brought a fresh sense of adventure into hearts and minds of everyone he met or who tagged along for the ride. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been more than a month since the last podcast. Thanks to everyone for all the emails and Facebook messages asking for the next edition. After an action packed first season of production, the realities of life came crashing down like a devastating wave. The recession of 2009 made times a bit tough. Simply put the project was placed indefinite hold while I scrambled together a few odd writing jobs through the end of December and all of January. I had to work to make enough cash to pay our property tax bill. I’m happy to say that I recently wrote a fat check to city of Madison and now the project is back on track.
Bryan Smith
I’ve learned a lot through that first season. With the collapse of traditional media, as newspapers and magazine continue to fold up under the weight of an antiquated model of communication, I’ve discovered that this form of storytelling, sharing music, art and adventure online is the wave of the future. With many creative souls out there building new high quality content for Internet there’s no shortage of great stories to tell. If you’ve been following along on the blog and on Facebook, you’ll know that I’ve been more than a little busy still traveling and finding new subjects to share with you. And in the process I’ve become thoroughly inspired by the work of many others who are pushing the boundaries of creative expression as they explore the heights and depths of the human spirit.
You’ve heard me mention my friend Fitz Cahall. He’s the creator of my favorite podcast The Dirtbag Diaries. Fitz has new project that recently posted the Internet, a series of short films that depict the lives of adventurers chasing their passion through course of a year, a season.
I connected with Fitz toward the end of last year during the Banff Mountain Film Festival. There I saw the premiere edition of the 22 part film series The Season. It’s an exciting yet, moderately paced thoughtful contemplation on what motivates ordinary people who do exceptional things in the outdoors. At the Banff Centre for mountain culture, in Alberta Canada, I also met Fitz’s partner co-producer and director of the SeasonBryan Smith.
Produced exclusively for distribution online, the Season brings Internet adventure storytelling to a new level. Directed by Bryan Smith this new film series illustrates the narrative behind the lives of people like each of us who aspire to lead a rich live in adventure. Read the rest of this entry »
Mountaineer Peter Athans Photograph by Robert Mackinlay
We’ve explored much of the modern world. Today very little is left to tempt the imagination. We’ve succeeded in climbing the highest mountains. We’ve traveled to the depths of the ocean. There’s not much of our planet that we haven’t seen. It would seem then now that what remains of adventure, at least on earth, isn’t to discover where human beings have yet to go but instead where we’ve been.
A new film by produced in cooperation PBS and National Geographic takes a look at the discovery and exploration of an ancient civilization. The new film The Secrets of Shangri-La: Quest for Secret Caves premiered at the 2009 Banff Mountain Film Festival. In this edition of The Joy Trip Project producer and professional mountain guide Peter Athans takes us on an amazing journey to reveal the great mysteries of a long-ago culture once forgotten. Read the rest of this entry »
An intermittent wireless connection drove me from my room to the lobby for better service. Otherwise accommodations in Lloyd Hall at Canada’s Banff Centre were incredible. Nestled in a valley surrounded by the snow-covered Rockies of Alberta, you’d be hard pressed to find much fault with the home of the 34th annual Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival.
This video appears on the Huffington Post accompanied by a story written by Sam Stein. In it monkey wrench prankster Andy Bichlbaum poses as an official of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at a meeting of the National Press Club. Claiming the Chamber had reconsidered its views on climate change Bichlbaum compelled a room full of reporters to ask tough questions about why the corporate interests of the country continue to resist legislation that might reverse negative human impact on the environment.
It was all an elaborate hoax. The idea was to embarrass the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to do what many believe is the right thing: stop lobbying against The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. This bill proposed by Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer aims to curb industrial pollution while creating green collar jobs in the production of renewable energy. Apparently Bichlbaum wanted to point out that the Chamber of Commerce is one of the bill’s leading opponents.
Andy Bichlbaum at the Telluride Mountain Film Festival
For more than 30 years documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has revealed many of the great mysteries of our uniquely American culture. Like an archaeologist he uncovers layers of time to show us through his films the artifacts of our not so distant past that shed light on the course events that has brought us to where we are today.
In his latest film, The National Parks: America’s Best which airs on PBS stations nationwide on September 27th Burns demonstrates that the preservation and protection of our wild and scenic places embody the most cherished ideals our American heritage and the legacy of our future.
In this podcast edition of the Joy Trip Project Burns shares the story behind this inspiring new documentary film. Read the rest of this entry »
Out here on the Midwestern prairies of Wisconsin were surrounded by acres of farmland. This time of year as we ride road bikes along the creamy smooth highways of Dane County. From one township to the next it’s vast fields of tall green corn plants as far as the eye can see.
Photo by Michael Leland
photo by Jim Richardson National Geographic
Averaging between 14 and 17 mile per hour, we whiz past one corn field after the next. With ours heads tucked in the draft stream keeping pace with the summer training schedule the last thing anyone’s thinking about is the soil beneath our spinning tires.
It’s not just dirt you know. Earlier this summer during the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride Colorado I met a guy, a scientist who succeeded in changing how I’ll think about soil forever.
Ming Tsai is the chef and owner of Blue Ginger Restaurant in Wellesley Massachusetts. He’s also the national spokesman for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network and works with the Obesity Center at Harvard University. You might have seen him on his PBS cooking show Simply Ming. Tsai understands better than most that it’s harder than ever for working families and individuals to prepare healthy meals.
Tsai was the master of ceremonies during a day-long symposium on food during the Mountain Film Festival earlier this summer in Telluride, Colorado. In this interview he discusses some of our most basic issues that people in the United States face when making food choices at home, in school and at their local restaurants.
If we slow down long enough to think about our food we just might come to realize there’s more to it than filling that nagging void in our bellies. We’re so pressed for time that we fail to think about the nutritional value of what we eat. Racing through the drive-thru window of fast food restaurants we pack faces with hamburgers and tacos loaded with fat, salt and empty carbohydrates. And worse than that, we really have no idea where this food came from, how it’s prepared or whether or not the people who made it are treated well and paid a living wage. And it’s not just the folks that flip those burgers and pack those tacos. There’s a complete food chain people who planted and picked the tomatoes, the lettuce and the cucumbers that become our pickles. What about them?
Josh Viertel is the president of Slow Food USA. It’s his job to help all of us slow down and make better food choices.
“As I see it, my job is to help Slow Food basically change the food system so that everyone can eat food that’s good for them, that’s good for land that’s good for the people who produce it and pick it,” he said.
Josh Viertel was one of several presenters at the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado. This year the conversation was all about food and how we eat. Viertel suggests that every meal best served slowly.
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