Hammock Review:

Lima

One of my morning routines in Lima was taking a stroll on the path overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

I collected beautiful views, peaceful moments, and relaxing thoughts. But I didn’t collect butterflies.

You can’t collect butterflies there.

It is prohibited.

Mariposa is Spanish for butterfly.

Like the Shakira song. A love song. Feeling butterflies in the stomach. A feeling we all know when we are younger. That “Teenage Love” gets harder and harder to feel as we get older and older. While Maury Yeston claims love “gets harder […] to say,” I think its that Teenage Love that gets harder to feel. At least for me.

But the butterflies in the stomach—that’s what we all want to feel. Or at least most of us. At least me. But it gets harder and harder to feel them.

As Shakira says:

Mariposas vuelan a destiempo

[Butterflies flies unharmoniously]

Like my words about hammocks, “Wherever, Whenever,” “the winds decides” [donde el viento lo decida], but in this case: right now here in Lima.

Where we can’t collect mariposas.

But we can’t collect them anywhere.

Or at least shouldn’t.

If you have more than one quarterback than you don’t have any.

If you have more than one species of mariposas flying around in your stomach, you don’t have any.

You have old loves.

That never leave.

But they are not mariposas. At least not live ones, flying around in the stomach. The live ones that fly around in the stomach only come one at a time.

So, the sign is right: collecting mariposas is prohibited.

That’s okay. I wasn’t in Lima to collect butterflies.

I was there to collect hammocks.

Well, not collect hammocks themselves. But hammock experiences. Hammock knowledge.

And as a Hammock Reviewer, that’s what I did.

And as a Hammock Reviewer, what I’m doing now is passing that knowledge along to you. To provide some context for the Hammock Knowledge gathered in Lima, we first must prep you with some general Hammock Findings which you may find interesting (if you are drunk). For as we now know, the twentieth-century common neuroscience knowledge of the left side of the brain being for logic and the right side existing for creativity is a load of horseshit—and must be replaced.

With the twenty-first-century Hammock science.

Which relies on research of Hammock Reviewer reviewed brains (so generously donated to this study) along with the age-old idiom “in one ear and out the other,” for as on one hand (and one side of the brain), Hammock Reviewers invoke our kidlike nature, taking in the world, with all of its knowledge and commas, like a sponge; and then, on the other hand (and the other side of the brain), we often forget (aided by age and alcohol and alliterative awesomeness) that knowledge before the semicolon and let it drip through the crevices in the hammock back into the ground so the flowers can grow.

This beautiful flower, a gorgeous purple dahlia, like the great re-enactment actors of old, is re-enacting the beauty of another flower that may have grown as a result of my forgotten knowledge.

While the naysayers will derogatorily admit–or even announce–that there is only (where we should say “at least”) a correlative relationship* to me forgetting details about food in Lima and this flower growing, or appearing here on this internet garden of a page, it seems suspicious to argue against causation when the knowledge that poured out of my mind, through the hammock, and into the ground was nutrient-rich, food-based knowledge so ripe for floral growth that every topsoil company on the Other Internet would be bending over backwards if they could get their hands on it, package it, and sell it to you whenever it is springtime in your neck of the Other Internet.

But they cannot package up, seal, and deliver the food-based knowledge I gained in Lima.

Neither can they perform a similar profit-motivated preservation process with the alcohol-based knowledge I gained.

Because neither can I.

Because I myself I forget most of it.

The Hammock Reviewer has forgotten more Hammock Knowledge than I’ll ever know.

That is where the humble compliment “[so and so] has forgotten more about [such and such] subject than I’ll ever know” should have originated.

In The Beautiful Hammock Future, such a humble compliment will make even more sense and be even more powerful, for it will be widely recognized that not only is the speaker complimenting the subject, but they are also humbly potentially complimenting themselves, for they very well might have forgotten that they recently knew–but forgot–so such Hammock Knowledge that would put them on par with the forgotten knowledge of the Hammock Reviewer they are intending to compliment.

The unintended, inadvertent compliments we give ourselves are indeed the best.

As we began this Hammock Review, this Hammock Research in Lima, it was not our intention to discover, through the Hammock Knowledge-finding process and the bending backward of time from The Beautiful Hammock Future to the less beautiful past in phenomena that likely involves an interdisciplinary combination of astrophysics and science fiction, that society itself has forgotten that the original version of the saying “[so and so] has forgotten more about [such and such] subject than I’ll ever know” actually indeed was “The Hammock Reviewer has forgotten more Hammock Knowledge than I’ll ever know.”

Sometimes inadvertent discoveries, like the great accidental insulin discoveries of old that allowed those with diabetes to enjoy more years of Sweet Livin’, are the best and most influential discoveries.

Oh yes, like “A Postcard from a Volcano,” society has stumbled on that old knowledge again and realized its potency, here in this potent Review.

Through a similar process of postal service-usage, poetics, and pondery (aided by the always effervescent alliteration), I have recalled in this moment that my experiences with food and alcohol in Lima were also principally princely potent.

And good.

Really good.

Like a dream.

A foodie’s dream.

Lima is a foodie’s dream.

It’ll take you there.

Yes, in the Madonna benedictional sense.

Peruvian cuisine is globally renowned for its wonderful, interesting, and diverse delegates among the membership rolls of its culinary club. Not only do you have the Andean traditions mixing with the Spanish, but you also have the Chinese/Peruvian fusion of Chifa, resulting from the influx of Chinese immigration in the 1800s, along with the Japanese/Peruvian fusion of Nikkei, resulting from the influx of Japanese immigrants at the very beginnings of the 1900s. Foodies could certainly burn the midnight oil discussing Peruvian cuisine, and they certainly do on the Other Internet, the internet that never sleeps, but I am not a foodie, and this internet, the Sweeter of internets, does sleep.

Often on a hammock.

So naturally, like a foodie reviews and dissects the ins and outs of food, we review and deliciously dissect the ins and outs of hammocks. Of course one can–and should–enjoy hammocks without being an accomplished Hammock Reviewer, just as one can–and should–-enjoy food, even if they are not an accomplished or unaccomplished foodie. So I certainly do enjoy food to its fullest, which (both the gratitude and gluttony thereof) is part of Hammock Livin’, but us Hammock Reviewers have often spent so much of our intellectual and educational time and energy on hammocks that the bandwidth of our expertise is so full of hammock data that it cannot quickly transmit the food-based food facts that foodies find fascinating, follow, funnel forward, and transfuse the hunger and life for, like the great blood transfusions of old (and new) that allow people to stay alive longer so that they may share some quality time with loved ones reading Hammock Reviews on the holidays.

So we will not go on and on about Peruvian cuisine in detail. Though we will kindly conclude by saying it is good.

Damn good.

Chief among the good is ceviche.

Ceviche is damn good. Or rather, I suppose–in the spirit of Hammock Review accuracy–it would be more accurate to say: damn good ceviche is damn good.

Lima has plenty of damn good ceviche.

Ceviche is essentially cold seafood.

Never heated, but still not raw.

Huh?

The maceration process–not to be confused with the maturation process of a caterpillar to a butterfly, like the great Kafka Metaphormorphises of old–is where citruses cook the fish. The seafood is cubed, like the great cubing of binomials of old, and soaked in citrus, like the great Helen Frankenthaler painting techniques of old, or the great yeast activation processes of even older, allowing bread to rise up, not completely unlike the ceviche rises in taste or the caterpillar rises in butterfly flying position to take flight.

Huh?

Essentially, ceviche is transformative, changing the status of your taste buds from whatever they were probably doing previously (nothing) to what they are currently doing, partaking in some awesome ceviche. From inactive to active, from caterpillar to butterfly, from chair to hammock, from raw to cooked, from sickly salmonella prospects to safely savory promise.

Without heat!

Just by soaking in the citrus!

Like the great magician magic of old, this ceviche-cooking process is real-life kind of magic that only the magical relaxation-inducing abilities of a hammock can compare to.

And rock us to sleep into a dream.

And while a foodie’s dream does accurately describe ceviche, as does Madonna’s wet similized dreams referenced above, it is even more accurate to call ceviche a Hammock Reviewer’s dream. It has all of the qualities necessary for feeding the fuel that the Hammock Reviewer needs for their fire to burn, like the great Marshall Mathers seminal albums of old. For ceviche sophisticatedly walks the tightrope of mixing gluttony necessary for high-level Hammock Reviewing without the heaviness often inherent in acts of gluttony, which are usually incongruent with the weather patterns most common in The Hammock Belt. In other words, in hot, humid weather, participating in the old standard bearers that non-Hammock Belt gluttony offers up— often including copious charcuterized amounts of salami and cheeses—is not really ideal when, like the great famous felines of old almost endlessly lapping milk, you are lapping lots of leisure on the beach with the bright sun beating down on you. And while the Hammock Reviewer is not overly concerned with the vanity of the great abs of old, the salami and cheese diet does not lend oneself to easily access identifiable abs in their abdomen, like the great Bonsai Bobby abs of old–and new, let alone the havoc it wreaks on the digestive system, like the great opioids of old, which may not have had as great of a mind-opening effect on mystery-solving, as the great fictional detectives of old might like you to believe.

Conversely, ceviche is like a new paragraph, or like the great idioms of old say: a new chapter, in the great gluttonous goals we will see enacted in a more gentle way in The Beautiful Hammock Future, where gluttony be lighter on the body, soul, and the ecosystem, not only because ceviche takes less energy to produce, but because we are not weighing down our bodies as much, we will then put less pressure on our hammocks, and the trees that hold them, furthering the great goals of old pursued by the great Loraxes of old; yes continuing their great work of old well into the future, The Beautiful Hammock Future.

And in The Beautiful Hammock Future, where light gluttony shines like the great lights of old and new (the stars and the sun–and the younger stars) there is a ceviche chef around the corner of every hammock. And where in The Beautiful Hammock Future there is a hammock on every street, there is a ceviche chef around every corner. And therefore, logic would hold as we employ the interdisciplinary science of logic and geometry, if there is a ceviche chef around every corner, there is a ceviche chef on every side of a square, which are traditionally known by civil engineers as blocks. And so in The Beautiful Hammock Future, not only is there a ceviche chef on every block, as the common expression would currently go, but rather there are (at least) four ceviche chefs on every block, as the common expression will evolve and multiply to in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

Oh how beautiful it will be, The Beautiful Hammock Future, where hammocks hang from nearly every tree and the bears and the bees prosper in a wonderfully healthy environment. For the knowledge of pollutants, like plastics, are lost in The Beautiful Hammock Future. Well, not all of the knowledge of plastics. The knowledge of plastics for needed things, like life-saving medical devices and other helpful things, will remain. But the knowledge of unhelpful plastics, like the unnecessary oil-using and trash dumping-filling plastic bottles and plastic silverware, will be gone and be replaced with more environmentally-friendly items like Sweet Livin’ bottles and silver silverware.

Knowledge is good. There is no bad knowledge to have in our collective societal library. It’s how we check it out and use it as humans. The Graduate laid out, in the simplest and most succinct terms, the feisty future of plastics for us (not to mention the future rise of cougars), and we have used plastics abundantly and erratically ever since.

And since some knowledge is something we as humans cannot handle to use appropriately, The Beautiful Hammock Future will filter out which knowledge we remember (the knowledge we use well) and which knowledge we forget (the knowledge we use poorly).

As we stumbled upon and strolled into a plastic exhibit in Lima highlighting the perils of plastic on our planet, I was reminded of how far away we are from The Beautiful Hammock Future.

I took the last sip from my plastic water bottle–the sip of shame–and put it in my pocket. For I will not claim to be perfect with my part-time environmentalism which I would love to improve through a self-employed promotion to a full-time basis.

We should leave less footprints of pollutants and more footprints of sweetness and positivity, and we will in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

Here, at this event, they offered a bunch of periling and sad statistics, facts, and information—both visually like this above picture as well as through talks—about the problems the overabundance of plastics are causing in our environment.

I forgot most of those statistics and most of that knowledge, but it was mostly scary things like we consume the equivalent to a credit card worth of micro-plastics every month.

Or maybe it was every week.

Or every day.

I can’t really remember the exact scale. But it was bad.

Appalling, really.

And scary.

Credit card spending with our health.

With our environment.

With my finances.

For this whole trip was paid for on my credit card.

I’m fine with that.

I can eat a credit card worth of debt.

But I probably shouldn’t be eating a credit card worth of micro-plastics.

Whether in a day.

A week.

A month.

Or a year.

Or even a decade, probably.

And I shouldn’t be putting plastics in the environment, the environment that will flourish so much more when we treat it better in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

Which, again, is not the present.

In the present at least, there were many positive examples of people transforming plastics into art, like the great caterpillars of old cocooning into beautiful butterflies and soaring into the sky.

In The Beautiful Hammock Future, sealife will soar above the pollutants, like the great Bone Thugs melodies of old flying above the haters, simply by swimming in their natural habitat as toxicity will be tossed aside from reality and into the realms of fiction in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

In The Beautiful Hammock Future, plastic problems with be replaced with hammock promise and prosperity.

But in the imperfect present, while ceviche and plastics–art and otherwise–may be easily found in Lima, hammocks are not.

Hammocks were not even really a topic of conversation in Lima, as they will be everywhere in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

Machu Picchu was.

Which was a natural segue to Hammock discussion. Not that an experienced Hammock Reviewer needs a natural transition to The Beautiful Hammock Future.

But Machu Picchu is a more beautiful segue that we normally provide to Hammock Discussion.

So beautiful it is, that like the great crafty hide-and-seek communists of old that were able to hide under every bed (citation: Hoover, J. Edgar), there was a similar question that popped up from every bed and around every corner:

“How you been to Machu Picchu?”

I have not.

Naturally, because as a Hammock Reviewer I love beautiful things like the Beautiful Hammock Future, I would love to go to Machu Picchu. While I am not overly obsessed with many tourist traps, Machu Picchu does not appear to be a “trap” but rather a tourist hotspot that is actually awesome. I would love to go there sometime. There was simply not enough time on this trip, with the busy schedule of Lima-based hammock-based research and all.

But there was time to talk about it. And talk with many people who had been there–and the gateway to there and many Sweet Livin’ adventures: Cusco.

People raved and raved about Cusco, locals and foreigners alike. It’s not just that Cusco is the gateway to Machu Picchu, but it is also the gateway to many other cool places, like Rainbow Valley and Humantay Lake. And many other cool places and things.

Like hammocks.

Cusco, a cool city in its own right from what I’ve heard, has a lot of hammocks.

If you want hammocks, I was told time after time: go to Cusco.

That is Hammock Knowledge that has entered my brain–and not yet exited it.

You may have been wondering which side of the brain knowledge enters and which side it exits, along with the same question of which ear something goes in and which ear it goes out. Well, we must humbly admit that our research has not yet gone far or in-depth enough to determine such things. We will get there someday, though. We will get that knowledge (which will be common knowledge, free for all, in The Beautiful Hammock Future, of course.

And we will get to Cusco, someday.

But we will not stay stuck in lamenting, like the Great Lamentations of Old from the great Testaments of Old; instead we will look positively beyond our limitations, at the bright side of things.

Because just as Lima has access to eating just about any type of Peruvian cuisine from anywhere in the country, so too does it have access to shopping for art and artisanry from across the country.

Like the Cusco Market.

Where hammocks handsomely hang.

*with an (r) score so close to 1 it would give Karl Pearson’s cadaver a first-rate hardon.