Never Sure, Always Convinced (France, Jordan, Mexico, USA) Mirage Travel Writing podcast

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
Chosen (Nepal) 55:56

לפני 10 weeks55:56

55:56

Today we have guest writer Lawrence Wrinkler, who takes us on a breathtaking journey through the Annapurna Circuit — a trek where gods and mortals meet. From lush jungles to frozen passes, 'Chosen' follows a ragtag band of travelers weaving through Himalayan villages, mysterious festivals, and brushes with danger and destiny. With a cast of Sherpas, sadhus, and Israelis chasing their own dreams, this is a tale of raw adventure, deep friendship, and encounters that seem carved out of myth. Amid avalanches, altitude sickness, and mysterious strangers, one thing becomes clear: sometimes, the mountain chooses you. Get ready to step into the heart of Nepal and beyond. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
Stranded! (South Korea, Persian Gulf) 42:13

לפני 19 weeks42:13

42:13

In this episode, two guest writers share their stories of being stranded abroad. In the first story, Jessica Holmes relates her trials in South Korea during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and in the second, Marcia Lewis, shares her story of sailing in the Persian Gulf during a time of geopolitical tension between the US and Iran. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

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Never Sure, Always Convinced (France, Jordan, Mexico, USA) 49:17

לפני 26 weeks49:17

49:17

This is a fevered dream about travel. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
Islands in the Stream (Türkiye, Syria) 47:13

לפני 32 weeks47:13

47:13

Imagine that you’re a psychologist, a therapist. Outside the window of your office is the Mediterranean landscape of Southern Turkey—hills with small trees. There are Roman ruins and mosques on the horizon. The year is 2017 and the war in Syria, 20 miles south, is at its height. I am your patient. I lay on your couch telling you a story in free association. What at first seems to be another narrative of beer, war, pussy becomes, at closer listening, a confession of addiction, curiousity, and solitude. Just an old fashioned love song, really. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
Triple XXX Paris 24:30

לפני 37 weeks24:30

24:30

I was going to start this episode with something personal to introduce myself, but perhaps it’s not an opportune time to introduce myself when the following story is about scoring hookers in Paris. I will say, if this subject offends you, don't listen. This episode is dedicated to the late, great, Henry Miller, who is no doubt now turning in his grave, this episode is dedicated to the early works of Joan Didion, and last but not least, to Ferdinand Bardamu, wherever you may be. Intro music by Warhammer 48k, episode music by Breaking, Babyteeth OST Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
The Goldigger (France, Germany) 38:50

לפני 41 weeks38:50

38:50

This is a confession to a breaking and entering in Germany. This is not an alibi but rather a justification for why I did it. This is a love story and a story of a golddigger. So come travel to France and Germany in an attempt to prove probate fraud. All music by Christopher Mathis from the album Woodlandsgaze . Outro by the South Hill Experiment, Baird, and Goldwash, entitled Chameleons. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

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Love in the Time of Inheritance 32:08

לפני 46 weeks32:08

32:08

In this episode, we rehabilitate a house in France, we get married (almost), and travel to Germany to bug my father-in-law's house. This begins a longer narrative (continued in future chapters) of battling a golddigger, a younger woman, who tried to extort money out of my girlfriend's father. So if you’re interested in German inheritance law, dementia, and relationships under duress, this episode's for you. This story is chapter 4 in the book Travel, Memory, meaning it makes more sense if you listen to the previous episode or episodes of season 2, if not it’s no problem, especially if you enjoy depressing love stories. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
Idle Days in the West 46:34

לפני 50 weeks46:34

46:34

In this episode, we go on a vertiginous tour through the Western World, guided by one night stands, aging parents, and a lone suicide bomber. From Cape Town, Sydney, Istanbul, Athens, Sevilla, Madrid, Paris, Mexico City, to Havana we look for love in all the wrong places, we search for grit in city centers a century too late, and like a debt collector we survey what the present owes the past. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
The Bangui Magnetic Anomaly 38:21

לפני 1 year38:21

38:21

The Bangui Magnetic Anomaly refers to a variation in the Earth's magnetic field centered at Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. I wrote a story with the same name in response to a friend's question—what is a day like in the life of an aid worker in Central Africa? The article was written, beer soaked and sunburnt on a back porch, under the cumulative effects of constant low-grade warfare. Magnetism refers to the desire to understand humanity. The anomaly was that it entailed conflict. In Bangui in 2014. I tucked into the correct latitudes, paid for experience with sanity, managed to hold out, albeit only for a year, and bore witness to the world. But the world was gazing back. And it knew what it saw. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

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Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and Why Write (Haiti, Palestine, California) 55:44

לפני 1 year55:44

55:44

I’m calling as I drive through Saxony Anhalt, in eastern Germany, because I’ve drank more coffee than water and need to talk. We've talked a lot about travel in the past, you know, in our 20s, always writing to one another with the question of where to live. From ever-changing locations, we would hand in our trip reports via email. I would attach crappy poems from Mexico, and you would send photos from a punk house in Florida, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Pacific Northwest. There was you in Asia fighting windmills. Pity we never hopped freight together. Then in our 30s, it was not where to go, but how to live. The questions about travel had answered themselves. But we never asked why we write, why we tell stories. Since I'm plowing the highway under a lead heavy sky and the cup of coffee is overflowing, why don't we start a conversation about why we write. And if I told you a random story, say about Haiti, Palestine, California, or France then maybe we could find an answer at the end. Intro and outro music the South Hill Experiment, Baird, Goldwash, Chameleons. Episode music Floral Shoppe by Macintosh Plus and Tastes Good by Paco Moreno Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
The View from the Tower of Babel (From Western Europe to North America) 51:42

לפני 1 year51:42

51:42

I once thought each culture had its neuroses, I now think each culture is a neurosis. Neurosis is defined as a particular atrophied behavior, the expression of which results from some sort of malady. Mental conditions that are not caused by organic disease, but involve symptoms of stress, such as obsessive behavior, but not a radical loss of touch with reality. You could easily replace the word neurosis in this definition with culture. The malady would be, for example, the orderliness of German society. The French taste for luxury. Or the American drive to be exceptional. There’s that tweet that made its rounds on the internet captures it well "Every French beach town has a little café called like the Nautilus and every American beach town has a little café called Scratchy Dick’s Big Slut Crab Fuck Shack". Or the meme of a map of Europe divided north and south that names the upper half as potato Europe and bottom half tomato Europe. These stereotypes are just that, generalizations and tendencies that become apparent when placed in opposition to one another. International travel allows for this juxtaposition. I grew up in middle America, in the northeast, lived in California, was born in the south. I've traveled and lived in Europe off and on for twenty years. What I’ve seen from the vantage point of international travel is that the view from the tower of babel is at best comedic. French gangsters wearing jogging suits deal grams out of fanny packs at the Barbès Metro Station in Paris. Overweight Germans drive high performance cars in a hurry so as to respect the Prussian value of punctuality. And it took me years to realize I am incredibly American. I will tell you why I am American. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
The Wheels on the Bus in California 19:37

לפני 1 year19:37

19:37

Multiple times a day, on a whim or by demand, I sing my son the song The Wheels on the Bus. He's just turned two and loves repetition. He watches my lips as I describe the movements of wheels, wipers, and the driver as the driver says move on back. All over an idealized town, this bus drives over a dozen times a day. At any time of the day, I can receive, via a social media group chat, stories from a good friend, a public bus driver in San Diego, California. Albert was precocious. His taste in punk, at the age of 16, was more studied. He smoked cigarettes like a veteran, while my head spun. He got a degree in history, later lived in a Civil War-era cottage in rural Missouri, then moved to southern California. When you're in your teens you make friends that last a lifetime, and within those groups there is usually one legend. Albert is that legend, the most sincere, he's never not been himself. Slow-moving, he has learned to accept the world. Which makes him an ideal bus driver. He drives through a country in decline, turns in his daily logs, then sends a message to a group chat, to our group of friends, five guys from Midwestern America. Here are the stories, they are diametrically opposed to the songs I sing to my son, and it makes me think about how great we were told things were as a child, and then how we spend the rest of our adult life driving through the absurdity, never to reconcile the two, other than in hope, fantasy, or delusion. Like Joan Didion once wrote, we all tell ourselves stories in order to live. And this is his story. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
There are no Places, Only Times (in the USA) 25:28

לפני 1 year25:28

25:28

Travel writing is always going on about place. And travelers are forever comparing and positioning themselves between home and away. But if you travel long enough, the home you think you know will vanish in time and as you touch down in your home country or hometown, you’ll suddenly realize there's often nowhere to return to. Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
Giving Things Away for Free Ain’t Easy (in eastern DR Congo) 1:05:36

לפני 1 year1:05:36

1:05:36

A blow by blow of a humanitarian aid distribution in eastern DR Congo The aid industry is selling you a lie but it’s one that’s necessary. The poignant photos on aid organization websites showing beneficiaries in Africa and Asia as grateful recipients of aid are misleading. The lie is necessary because you, the viewer might not know that Giving Things Away for Free Aint Easy and that fieldwork is full of sabotage, ingratitude, and treachery which doesn’t make for good public relations. It took me years to understand why fieldwork is full of sabotage, ingratitude, and treachery. I had to learn the hard way. A lie becomes necessary--although a photo is worth a thousand words, they wouldn’t be enough to correct the assumption that poor people, because they are often portrayed as powerless, live in a world without power structures. They don't. Intro Music by The South Hill Experiment, Baird, Goldwash— Chameleons, episode music by Thor drowning into forever Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

Mirage Travel Writing Podcast

1
Is This What it Means to Be a Foreigner in Palestine? 40:48

לפני 1 year40:48

40:48

In this episode we have a crash course in clanic values in Palestine when yours truly is robbed and the question of justice—formal justice or informal justice is forced upon me, the wayward traveler. Intro music by Sam Widaman, episode music by Bull of Heaven, He is Not Dead, but Sleepeth Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com…

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Mirage Travel Writing Podcast « » Never Sure, Always Convinced (France, Jordan, Mexico, USA)

Never Sure, Always Convinced (France, Jordan, Mexico, USA)

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Never Sure, Always Convinced (France, Jordan, Mexico, USA)