Come Out & Play

Anselm Kiefer at The White Cube

2012-01-27T04:08:00.000-08:00

The wings were never meant to carry something so heavy. But there they were, opening for us, in the center of the White Cube’s 9x9x9 room: Outstretched and captured in the seconds before they would lift their piping bones, flap fringed metal wings, and carry the books upon books of lead and steel books to some kind of heaven. But buried in a time known only by the artist, the feathers of this uncertain creature had changed. In the opaque sheen of metal, we nearly connoted their once swan whiteness. Yet their imagined featherweight frames had since malformed into a 16-foot long catch weight. Strained and struggling upward, the being that first transfixed us could not bear itself. And we could not bear it.

Bonfire Night

2011-11-06T09:09:00.000-08:00

The walk to the top of the reservoir was longer than I remembered. The eight of us fell into a natural two-by-two, led by Max’s overcoated frame and Leona’s sharp figure. Kids bolted across the empty streets like delinquent ghosts while fireworks blasted along dark lanes, behind rowhouses and overhead. For a while, the cold kept us from noticing the hills we climbed. The blood that flowed warmed and itched my ankles. Our steady march curved up, up towards Nunhead Cemetery, whose wrought-iron gates loomed like a lit-up fortress below the cracks and explosions above us. Our destination was not far now. Just a little more. We turned. A trail. Soft, leafy foot-thuds replaced the pavementy clicks of our boots. And the hole in the fence was right where we’d left it. Under and through. Under and through. Under and through, three more times. November drizzle slicked the soil for the steepest part of our journey. The ground was so close to our faces. The faint laughter of others crept through the early evening mist, and soon we found ourselves within it. We saw everything from the top: Nunhead’s village-like splendor faded into a fuzzy London skyline framed on top by weeping clouds and below by the Thames, black as onyx. Every sparkling rocket, every puny flame played a part in the show we watched from our perch in the Southeast. Up close, silhouettes of embering cigarettes that hung from the lips of bulky-shouldered boymen were as grand a display as the Battersea big lights, where synced fireworks blew up so high they lost their top-halves to the grip of fog. We stood with neighbors we did not know to watch the city flicker. A dozen mittened hands glowed like phantom limbs by the lights of the sparklers they twirled. Recognizable faces lit up only to disappear into shadows. Rosa’s dark cloak rippled in the wind that nipped at us from every direction. Drunk voices got lost in the whizz, bangs and pops. We’d worn coats with pockets big enough for our hands and the cold Carlsbergs that sweated against them. The night reeked of whisky, damp wool, coal and salted chips. Nearby, a family lit a paper lantern and waited for the fire to inflate the fragile cylinder. It grew from nothing and glowed before us. A small boy held onto the light, unsure of whether he should set the lantern free. It looked like a burning planet in his arms. Finally, quietly, and of his own accord, he relinquished it to the elements. We watched the yellow globe fly into its vanishing point, a final ornament within a city blanketed by fog, flame, ash and the haze of our own silent anthems.

The Parkville Luminary

2011-10-19T03:29:00.000-07:00

A piece I wrote for the audience of the Parkville Luminary, the local community paper in my hometown:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Ida Lake. If you don’t know who she is, you’ve probably seen her anyway. She’s been working the Parkville farmer’s market for decades. Six years ago, when I graduated high school, Ida was the first subject I interviewed as a “practicing” journalist. Ida was amiable and patient. In our hour-long interview at her market stall, she bequeathed years of her stories — each one like the perfectly ripe, juicy fruit around us. As I scribbled her every word into my pocket-sized reporter’s notebook, I remember thinking, “Hey, this is kind of fun.”

The interview ended. We exchanged goodbyes. Happily, I drove up Crooked Road, giving myself a pat-on-the-back for reporting well done. I could practically see my name in print. My first story in the Parkville Luminary. And I was being paid to write. My daydream was a little premature. When I sat down at my laptop to draft my first feature, my newbie glee disappeared. A blank screen and blinking cursor stood between me and my printed byline. Panic. There was no way I could write this. How do you even begin to tell the story of woman who’s worked the farmers market for more decades than you’ve been alive? For a moment, I considered quitting.

But my grandfather, the Prince of Parkville, had, more-or-less, gotten me the job. And if there was one thing the good-hearted tale-teller didn’t like, it was a quitter. Plus, the Luminary editor scared the daylights out of me.

So I struggled through every word, and filed it with my editor, Mark Vasto — a big, loud New Yorker, who somehow ended up in Parkville. I recoiled as he took his pen to my words. Thankfully he did. The story ran with my byline on top. I earned 10 honest bucks, and I was hooked. I continued to write through the summer. With each article, the words came more easily and Vasto scared me less. At the end of the summer, I went to journalism school, learned some, wrote some, worked some. And last year I moved to London to do, essentially, the same thing.

Throughout college I didn’t think much about Ida or The Luminary. When my grandpa asked if I’d read his latest column, I’d blush and lie — yes! Of course! I was interested in something else: bigger cities, bigger opportunities, bigger journalism. It wasn’t until I followed my instincts to London that I realized everything big starts small. And small ain’t so bad anyway. My summer at the Luminary taught me everything I know about being a journalist, or any kind of writer. It served as the foundation for what I think journalism should be. For me, it involved a lot of listening, paying attention and relinquishing my pride for a story — sometimes I had to look (or feel) stupid to figure out what was really there. Mostly, though, I was lucky to work for a guy with little tolerance for excuses.

When I failed to show up to cover a local children’s science workshop, I didn’t have to look at my phone to know who’d be calling. Mark Vasto, The Loud New Yorker, didn’t hesitate to weigh-in on my conscience about missing the scoop at the H.M.S Beagle. But in an elegant balance of personal anecdote and unabashed reproach, Vasto’s words stuck with me: When you say you’re gonna do something, do it. The 18-year-old, overachieving version of myself cried a little at this display of tough love. But it was only because I knew Vasto was right. The next day, I swallowed my pride, walked into the science shop and apologized. It didn’t matter that the “scoop” was kind of boring. I should have been there. Writing for a community paper like the Luminary helped me understand why the big and small stories matter. There’s an audience who wants to know. And nothing’s boring. That’s just a lazy excuse (and I’ve made them) for doing a crummy job. I’ve always wanted to be a good journalist, but the Luminary (and my scary editor) showed me how to try to live good journalism. I still battle the exhilarating whir of reporting against the ever-looming writerly doom, but now I know it always passes. Six years and 4,000 miles later, my experience at the Luminary rings clear and true. But it sounds less like bells, and more like the thick New York accent of my friend.

A study on ballet

2011-10-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

She lives in many forms, but her makeup is the same. If you’ve not watched her on the stage, you’ve seen her everywhere else. On Tuesdays in March a company full of versions of her danced across your screen. BBC’s Agony and the Ecstasy was meant to curb your Black Swan fears. Surely they aren’t all obsessive. You wanted to watch the show of a ballet dancer’s real life. Offstage, the dance was even more of an edited performance. The mirrors were there, but the filmmaker’s smoke clouded our sets.

She loves that mirror. From the far corner of the studio she catches a glimpse of her fine, long neck. Once breathy wisps of hair now stick in wet, perspired tendrils against her pale nape. She quickly turns. Rotating from the waist up, she looks back at herself, a lithe corkscrew. She moves her right arm through the positions to an arabesque. Her fingers carry her gaze. She no longer sees her reflection, but she knows exactly how she looks: Shoulders down. Tummy in. Lift up off the hip. Chest out. Look up, look up, look up. Don’t sag. Mind the left foot turnout.

She tries to ignore the rumours. Ballet isn’t dying, some critics write. It’s already dead. What about me? She wants to know. She’s alive.

In the studio, she struggles to keep sweat from dripping into her eyes. Look up, look up, look up. She would like a sip of water, but she has jumps to do. Perspiration has soaked through her black leotard. She cannot hide the sweat marks all ballerinas have in the witching hour of rehearsal — under her breasts, on her pubis, down her crack.

Tonight, though, her brow won’t shine with damp. The only signs of work will be the flecked beads of sweat caught-out by stage lights, her heaving chest, and a perfection she cannot see. For those who watch her on stage, she is effortless, beautiful. What a talent, they say.

How do they know? They raved about Black Swan and Natalie Portman’s performance of Nina Sayers, who dances herself to death. They’ve even preordered the DVD. There’s Miss Page too, of The Red Shoes. “Why do you want to dance?” she is asked. “Why do you want to live?” she replies. The heroines are part of a long line of crazy ballerinas on a fanatical and fruitless quest towards perfection. Each one is the same — possessed, fragile and tortured. This must be the ballerina’s life if the films say so.

And what of Sarah Lane? Natalie Portman’s Black Swan ballet double says she deserves more credit, yet the filmmakers and choreographer disregard her claims. No one can be a professional ballerina in two years, Lane argues. Few, though, in the dance world stand up for her. Our Black Swan fears are confirmed. In the media, Lane looks obsessed. Like Nina, she is starving for attention — for the role. We can’t help but make comparisons. She begins to look like the oversized, fading Black Swan posters that hang on the walls of the Underground and watch us from below dark, winged eyelashes. A hairline fracture interrupts the porcelain, powdered finish of her face. We don’t know who is cracking.

For a wordless art, it seems we have lots to say about those eating disorders and battered toes. Between the psycho ballet thrillers, such as Black Swan, and dance-inspired fashion, (ballet pumps and ready-to-wear tutus), we continue to objectify and exploit the stereotypes — the starving dancer, the perverted director, the egotistical choreographer — rather than celebrate ballet’s rigour and the dancers who are talented enough to actually make it their job.

Everyone wants to wear her tights and layers and leotards. Everyone wants her pointe shoes and none of the pain. On her way home tonight, when all she wants is to put on pajamas, she’ll look at the pink, ballet-inspired flats on the feet of a middle-aged woman.

She cannot shake the hours and years in front of mirrors that have reflected the image of herself dancing: Pointe shoes at 11. Principal dancer by 24. Retired by 29. Maybe, though, she’ll stay healthy enough to perform through her thirties. It is difficult to imagine another life.

She looks and smiles like she’s in love because she is. She sees and knows the perfection audiences would rather not see or know, because who would pay to watch the joy and worry and focus and fury and love and ache and time and pain and falling arches and tiny sips of water in her short life as a ballerina? Lately, all anyone wants is crazy.

Getting Back To Making

2011-09-27T04:23:00.000-07:00

Sometime, at the end of July, my appetite disappeared. And generally, from morning to night for that past two months, I’ve experienced very little hunger or real yearning for food — no pangs, shakes or headaches. Appetite: gone.

I guess that’s what grad school — and a thesis — does to a person.

In the filming, writing, designing and editing of my thesis, I lacked stomach-space for much else. I’d spent months eating but not tasting. Everything had the consistency of cardboard and was consumed more out of necessity and habit than enjoyment. I’d spent the week before the hand-in hooked to any caffeinated beverage available.

It was not until the hour after I turned in my masters thesis that I recognized the pain in my gut as something other than stress. Immediately, I knew that the dull drone, which flooded my stomach, veins and heart, functioned as more of a primal, carnal urge than the usual three-meals-a-day timer I had been ignoring. Tom asked how I wanted to celebrate the end of my academic year. I told him I needed a burger, and I wanted it Rare. For the record, I totally wimped out and ordered my swiss and mushroom burger Medium Rare, but it didn’t stop a quarter pound of grilled, ground chunk from jolting me out of a work/survival state. Maybe I was completely iron deficient, but by the end of that burger, I was nourished, and not just because I’d consumed more protein than I had in an entire week (I’m not proud of this). With the ever-looming deadline now gone (crossing ‘Thesis’ off of my to-do list was weird), the flavors of food — nutty Swiss, the vinegar bite of pickle, the tang of ketchup and the earthy tones of lots and lots of mushrooms — mattered once more. “Hey friends,” I wanted to say, “I didn’t know how much I missed you.”

And so I started eating again. I became slightly less pale and less caffeinated. That’s simple enough, right? Well, yeah. But there’s another thing. All this stressed-out thesis-writing made me miss out on everything surrounding my plate: the making, the preparing, the gathering, the sharing. Thesis/Grad school-state had prompted the desire to cosy up to my pots, pans and food processor to slide down the drain. Going to the grocery store — one of my truly favorite places anywhere — was depressing. I didn’t even remember when or where I had last seen my baking tray (turns out it was in the safe hands of my deli man). In the process of not caring about food at all, I stopped caring about what I love about food. All of that inexplicable, unpinpointable stuff. Like how the mixed up fragrance of my spice cabinet transports me to either my parents’ house or deep into the dead of winter depending on how close my nose drifts to the cumin. Or how, due to my finger-cutting track record, my heart races into my ears every time I slice through a tomato, inducing a lycopene-ated adrenaline rush.

Despite all of my thesis-related complaining, things weren't that bad. I like having stuff to do. I like being busy, and I like when the busy-ness is thinking-oriented. The shelves inside my head move, shuffle and order themselves. We run in our own world.

But with my year-long project technically “over,” I have been at a bit of a loss. Under a rock, as one friend and fellow coursemate put it. But how do you get going when the thing you’ve been working towards for so long is gone? The past couple weeks have been a challenge. I’m trying to live in the moment and trying to learn that while change is hard, my own head shelves can be filled in other ways. I took up knitting. I spent most of last week covering the London Design Festival. I have begun the tedious process of extending my visa. But one thing has been slow to reshape. Maybe because it’s so, well, unpinpointable. And that’s been my desire to make for others.

The best kind of unpinpointable stuff has nothing to do with tasting or smelling or slicing at all. It is the opportunity to feed not only myself but to feed another that invokes a slightly levitation-like pleasure. Think of it as transcendental foodmaking. I know I’m romanticizing the idea of cooking for someone else. I don’t have kids. I don’t deal with picky eaters (Actually, I am, out of everyone I know, the pickiest eater). And now that I’m finished with grad school and ~~applying for jobs~~ baking cookies, I’ve got time to put more thought and time into the thing that sustains me. I am, by no means, a domestic goddess. Nor do I want to be. But in order to start moving out of this post-thesis slump, I’ve had to get my kitchen in order. Which is why Sunday was so special.

Tom woke up before the sun rose to go to Brighton for a fifty-mile bike tour. I awoke three hours later with the house and day to myself, a daunting idea considering the schedule I’ve been keeping. I’d wasted the gorgeous day before on the couch, knitting and attempting to keep the overwhelming and nervous feeling of having not-much-to-do at bay. Gross. I didn’t want to repeat that. So I wandered over to Kensington to take in the last hours of the London Design Festival. But my interest in chairs began to dwindle. I felt the pull of something else: the intoxicating, yeasty, thick aroma of bread. I bought a loaf. A giant, crusty, fresh round of Gail’s potato rosemary bread. What to do next? That was easy. It was time to start making. And so I did. I reacquainted myself with the grocery store and I decided not to play it safe; Sunday welcomed two new recipes to my repertoire — a red wine chocolate cake, topped with a creamy mascarpone and a sticky lamb stew that has, unbelievably, gotten better with each day. When Tom got home, the house smelled good (I think he was a little surprised to see me off the couch). Aproned-up, pony-tailed and floury-faced, I practically levitated across the kitchen floor — mixing and stirring, shuffling the shelves in the pantry and in my head — happy to be back. Happy to have finally pinpointed what had been there all along.

Notes from Hydra. 6.

2011-07-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

The thing about last days is that you know they're inevitable. You see them ahead of time, on your calendar. You work tirelessly to beat the last day — to fill the days prior with all of the best and most wonderful stuff so that when the last day does come, it will be a celebration of a vacation or time well spent. But no matter how much I've loved every second of that well spent time, I find that last days are hard days. Sad and bittersweet.

On the eve of a last day, I go to bed imagining the perfect last day. I'll wake up early and do exactly what I've been meaning to do and all the things I've wanted to do again. But last days in a place never turn out like that. The tedium of packing and checking flights and cleaning and packing some more trickles its way into your morning. And afternoon. And evening. Every time I wake up to face a last day, I'm surprised by the power of these logistics. A last day is never what I think it should be.

You fight for that last walk or last bit of sun or that last bead of sweat because suddenly you panic. You're afraid that if this last day isn't perfect, you'll forget everything about the entire trip, and all of that time well spent won't matter.

As a music student, I became proficient at not listening to the advice of my piano and cello teachers: Just 30 minutes a day, and you'll be fine for that recital. My problem was never the 30 minutes a day. My problem was always the night before that recital, and the hours prior to performing — I panicked. However much I had practiced was not enough, and all of the doubt and worry I had worked so diligently to dispel through hours of meticulous phrasing, finger exercises and memorization engulfed me like a violent storm. On this last day, my confidence in the music transferred itself to my confidence in an impending on-stage failure. No amount of reassurance, breathing exercises or beta blockers could help me. Instead of listening to my my better judgment and taking a nap, I sat down at the piano, or I picked up my bow and proceeded in even more relentless hours of very, very panicked practice. When I'd practiced long enough to deaden the shakes from my hands and arms, I'd get up on stage and play (I'm never quite sure how I found my second wind). And usually (aside from a couple of very traumatic memory blocks), I played quite well. The thing was, when I was actually playing, I never worried about forgetting or failing miserably because I was always aware that the practice-everyday method worked. There was never a need to panic (except when I really hadn't practiced everyday, and these performances were always played like the grades of papers that are written the night before) because I knew that no amount of panicked practicing, no matter what I tried to quickly fix, would ever enable me to give a better performance. Last-minute practicing just made me more panicked.

This is what I've silently retold myself today, our last full day on Hydra. Normally I'm ready to go home after a long trip like this, but today I do not feel ready (and I don't think it's because I'm in the midst of my thesis — yet another example of the little-bit-everyday method). I went to bed with big hopes of taking a boat to a new beach, going on a long hike and spending every waking moment in the sun. We'd have a great lunch, take a nap, I'd write and press on with my obsessive reading of Freedom. There'd be drinks and dinner and yet another swim and star-watching on the roof. And. And. And.

This perfect last day didn't happen. Because we had to pack. And clean. And check flights. And pack some more. We did what you have to do on a last day. Instead, today has been a normal day on Hydra. We swam and read on Kamini beach, our favorite beach. And we read some more on the roof. We people-watched and drew and wrote. We continued to slice away at the melon-sized tomato in the fridge and we managed to (I think) fill our Paul Simon quota for a while (but honestly, who really tires of Graceland?). All this isn't to say I didn't spend an hour frantically taking pictures of every last shabbily beautiful, fading, chipped blue-painted door, alleyway or curve I could find (What? We haven't used all of the storage on our 15 gig camera card?!), but today I've done my best not to panic. Because if we had managed to do all the things I dreamt we'd do, the only thing I'd remember later would be a bad sunburn and sore feet. Today has been, like the rest of the days of this trip: a good day. An amazing one. And that's the way I'd like to remember it.

Notes from Hydra. 5.

2011-07-21T02:41:00.000-07:00

We wake earlier than usual, share a grapefruit on the roof and let the surprisingly cool morning propel us down the steps to the port that breathes with laughing, noisy locals. It is just after 7, and half the town — delivery men dollying 'fragile'-stamped crates; Michael the tan-bellied Los Angelesan painter; swim-suited mothers with big families to feed; a small legion of the island's stray cats — is waiting for the fish.

Some of the boats have been docked. Others are in the process of being tethered to the port. They look like quintessential toy-boats but life-size: comically rounded undersides lob happily among the water's translucent crabs and and fuzzy sea plants. Their wooden bodies bear well painted red stripes and more than one flapping Greek flag. I half-expect to see Popeye's tanned Greek cousin on board. Instead, a sturdy man the color of milky espresso emerges from the steering room of his boat and lugs with him the carcass of a fish that must weigh 100 pounds. He throws rough phrases and laughs to the fisherman on a boat further down, who has been metronomically hammering away at the bones of a 4-foot chunk of fish. I wonder how big it was when he dragged it in from the sea. The wooden hammer makes a surprisingly metallic clank! on the heavy backbone. It sounds impossible to crack. Finally, the iridescent set of scales loosens, and the fisherman pulls the skin back like a sock to reveal huge hunks of flesh the color of ruby grapefruit. The felines are licking their lips.

Hoping for a a nibble, a dozen cats inch their bottoms towards the silvery-blue skin that hypnotizes them in the sunlight. Except for us and a handful of other early-rising tourists, no one notices their quiet meows, their plea for a sea breakfast.

A man leading a pair of glossy-coated red setters strolls past several boats. He bids robust good mornings of Kalimera! and actually tips his panama hat to the shrunken grandmother who shuffles past. He reaches the boat where the fisherman continues to hammer away, he heels the dogs, shouts his order and engages the seller in a heavily animated story while he waits. A few cats take the eccentric man for an easy target, but with fish-in-bag-in-hand, he gives nothing away and continues his saunter west, towards Mari-Mara.

The boats don't stay for long. Soon after we've reached the port, we hear their battered engines rumble like congested chests, and with Popeye's breathren at the helms, we watch as the messy fleet put-puts away, into the Aegean.

Notes from Hydra. 4.

2011-07-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

Before they had begun their climb, the pair had agreed to reach the monastery together.

She had not expected such a steep ascent up the mountain. She was used to the stairs that were built into the city, but these rocky steps were twice as tall, and every time she mounted one, she had to press on her front knee to harness a momentum that allowed her to swing the rest of her body and her other leg up to the next level.

He had slowed down. Way down. And she still needed to catch up. Under the shade of his straw, Van Gogh-esque hat, sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging and drying up his contact lenses. He took the full liter of bottled water from his messenger bag and took a swig. The sun was getting lower. It would set soon. At least their walk back from the monastery would be cooler, easier.

There was little shade on the path. Nothing here looked as beautiful as it did when she viewed it from their rooftop. The red dirt that from afar, contrasted so vibrantly against the shining olive trees now made her sad and bored. Its rich, painterly quality was dust in her mouth. She could tell that he liked hearing the sounds of his shoes in the terrain — how they made that satisfying crunch — but each time he kicked his foot back, a light cloud of the red dirt spun into her face, making breathing on a very steep incline even more of a chore. She flicked away the pool of sweat that collected every five minutes between her chin and lower lip.

In her mind, she queued up a reel of desert movie montages. This was a real-life drought. She had spent months anticipating a week of hot and sun — two things she had missed in the nonsummer they were having back home. And on the plane, she resolved to say Yes! to his ideas. They would have adventures. They would be a team. In this Hades of an early evening, she resented that promise to herself. She knew she was being irrational, but she resented him. And agreeing to this climb. And this dirt path. And the stairs built into it. She had a sweat rash developing under her shirt. He had the better attitude and the water, which he offered to her when she reached the step he was on. She took a few sips and handed it back. They continued on in silence.

He knew she was not enjoying herself. He also knew that if this point was acknowledged, she'd deny it and press on. He regretted suggesting this climb. There were plenty of beaches they hadn't yet seen. Plenty of pretty wanders that could end with a dip. But he had wanted to make the trek up to this monastery for the view — 360 degrees of the island and sea. Instead of thinking about the small rage he knew was building within his girlfriend, he visualized the view to come. That would sustain the rest of the hike.

They were both so focused — she hating every moment and he imagining what lie at the end — that they missed seeing how the pointy leaves of the olive trees glimmer at dusk, and the ancient-looking Greek farmer who carefully picked the fruits. Buried deep in their own dark minds, they missed the wheezing hees and haws of the gangly donkey that excitedly trotted down the hill to greet them, and they missed the five minutes she ambled along with them, on her side of the fence. They missed a cluster of the world's tiniest kittens that peeked out from their hiding place in the brush and mewed sad, tired songs between suckles of the mother's milk. They didn't notice when they entered the shaded forest of tall evergreens — how cool it was and the novelty of smelling pine in summer. Too set on finishing, they forgot to look back — they missed the sun's generous glow over the very old city of white cottages with red-tiled roofs, the honks of big boats, the water's jewel-like quality. And as the sunset played out at their backs, they missed the fading signpost that pointed in the monastery's direction.

The day's light trickled and faded by the time they realized too many wrong turns had been made. She felt so far from the cottage and the afternoon and the sun. She felt far from her promise in the sky and far from him. It was all a fever dream lost in the red dust of their path. In the early dark, without a torch, their map was no use. There was little water left. She would never know why she came. He would not get his view.

Without a word, they turned back. But before their dark descent, they saw where they were. Lights of the city below them danced to a summer chorus of cicadas. Boats cast long, neon paintings across the rippling bay. New glowing splotches emerged from the island across the sea. And now, a breeze worked its way up the mountain, shaking the olive branches and wafting the faint fragrance of dandelions and pine towards their sweaty bodies like a kiss.

"I've been too focused on putting one foot in front of the other," he said to her.

On the ascent, she'd madly concocted many words to say about this journey, but they were gone now. She reached for his hand, and together they sat down in the red dirt.

Notes from Hydra. 3.

2011-07-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

Here, it's hot enough early enough that we naturally wake not long after dawn. Unlike the thick stillness that sets in just before siesta, mornings are more generous and waft a salty but consistently relieving breeze to our spot halfway up the mountain. Perfect timing for a couple hours of swimming. On the roof of the cottage, we eat a quick breakfast of fruit and Greek yogurt and then amble towards town, down the stone steps that are slippery and worn in the middle from who-knows how many years of similar ambling.

The beaches of Hydra dot the shoreline like abundant watering holes. If you walk long enough on the main dirt road that circles the island, you'll find them tucked away into quiet, rough nooks in the rocks. None of these are conventional beaches, and you must work to get to them.

Because Hydra is a 3x10 mile rock in the sea, there is no easy decline from mainland to sand. Most 'beaches' are rocky oases that require careful footing down steep switchbacks of ancient stairs. Sunbathers lounge on giant concrete slabs and lean against the rocks that build the island to read water-wilted paperbacks. If it's deep enough, they'll canonball in, easily transitioning from basking to bathing. Hydra is home to the most enchanting beaches I've visited (I'm no pro), but it's not without the boob-jobs (read: unnecessary enhancements). There are, of course, the hotel-owned beaches, which employ a superficial facade of fake sand (made of ground up beach pebbles) that effortlessly fades into silent, sapphire bays. Rows of chaises and resort-like bamboo umbrellas dot the scenery, and mansion-like, oily sailboats are docked oddly close to shore.

Kamini beach is beautiful and relatively quick walk from the cottage, but even at 10 in the morning, it fills up with big, loud Greek families that splash its flickering surface. Kamini's water glimmers like stained glass: Tucked into the rocky coast, the turquoise shoreline reveals a clear picture of life below the surface — yellow and black striped fish weave between slick, earth-toned rocks — and bleeds impressionistically into slightly ambitious cerulean waves that crash steadily into the bay's curved arms.

Vlychos is ten more minutes down the dusty dirt road, past several baseball-capped and touristy American joggers and over the half-hexagonal stone bridge. Boats arrive on the hour to deliver well tanned beachgoers to idle their days away. We pay six euro for two chaises, hang our goggles on a straw umbrella, and continue our habit of people-watching.

Deftly entering Hydra's waters seems to be a skill acquired from years of visits (Much like the Greek families who allow momentum to gracefully carry their bodies down the island's thousands of slippery, donkey-poo'd stairs). Because there is no sand, anyone who wants to swim must first traverse a few shallow feet of slick stones. Most of these stones are planted slolidly, but the rippling water elicits a trompe l'oeil of wobbles. A few very old, leathering women gracefully drift from slippery stone to slippery stone, but most people — even the most athletic — fall victim to the tricky shoreline.

A chubby kid sprints from chaise to water. His right foot splashes into the sea and slides off a rock. He falls face-first into a cool salt bath and struggles to stand again. A handsome, young couple with a collective 12-pack of visibly flexed abs, is no match for the challenging entry. Holding hands, they wobble together and wave their free arms for balance. He takes a careless step and they both fall in too early.

Tom says that he can't watch me enter or leave the water. He's afraid his laughter will make me mad. I slowly walk into the sea and grip each wet stone with the balls and heels of my feet. I'm suddenly conscious that I am now a participant in a naturally occurring slapstick comedy: frantically circling my arms; biting my lower lip; concentrating more on my balance than the idyllic nook of the clear saltwater I've been craving. I last a few seconds before my flexed thighs slip up and I splash in too early. With a sigh and a mouthful of salt, I resolve to half-crouch-half-crawl my way to deeper water. As Tom describes it, on these beaches, you relinquish all dignity when you enter the sea.

But my dog-paddle out to the farthest buoy, where I catch the humpbacked swells that drift in from boats' crests, is well worth my embarrassing foray in. Happily, I tread water and wait for just the right second to push myself up to catch the high points of these oversized ripples. The only thing better would be catching the crests, but the water here is too calm for big waves. Instead, like the yellow buoy, I bob in my black bandeau and forget about how I got here and how I'll leave.

Notes from Hydra. 2.

2011-07-18T03:24:00.001-07:00

A strip of cafes lines the Hydra port. The old buildings are set back from the water, and in the morning, while the fishermen bring in their catch, restaurant owners arrange long rows of tables and chairs that slope down the slight hill towards the water. For shade, the light but necessary canvas ceilingtops are rolled out over the makeshift patio. Tourists from all over and weekenders from Athens and families who've come to Hydra for generations fleck the cushions, lounging — their skin practically shimmering bronze against the white seats — and always making sure theirs is a view of the sea.

We pick a table and share an ocean-facing bench. Tom orders a freddo cappuccino that comes out looking like an icecream float — dark, icy and frothy. My medium espresso freddo is sugared well enough to curb the bite of the strong beans. I force myself to sip slowly. It would be easy to down the drink in one parched gulp. Mostly, we are quiet. We lounge. We do what you do on vacation: we take it in. And we people-watch.

Flocks of Grecian gods and goddesses flip-flop along the pavement. For a moment I allow myself to envy their noses — the product of thousands of years of heritage. Stray cats mew and weave through tables and customers. Kids sprint to a nearby pebble beach, their neon innertubes fly behind them.

Old local men with citrus-stained, leather-like skin play backgammon for hours. Each takes his turn at satisfactorily slamming down his piece, much to the blithe chagrin of his opponent. They laugh. They sip on hot espresso that steams from shot glasses. They stack their empties, and I wonder how they seem so calm. Perhaps with age and sun, caffeine works more like a sedative.

To our right, a pair of pale, ginger-headed guys lap up big, melty parfaits of chocolate ice cream so thick, even with the heat, you could still stand your spoon in the middle. They say nothing. It's as if they doze with their eyes open. By the looks of their bursting backpacks, they must be traveling. Hydra is simply their stopping-off point. They speak in hushed but harsh murmurs, and judging by the black cotton socks and tennis shoes, they are most likely German.

A large, very Greek, very American family takes up two tables in front of us: Dad, tanned and raven-haired, gazes wantonly towards the boats. Mom looks pissed. She crosses and uncrosses her jean-shorted legs and taps her fire-engine red manicure on the table. She has spawned a family of bored-looking mouth-breathers, but she herself purses her Miami Vice-pink lips. Is she trying not to scream? Her hair is dyed the color of sun-drenched straw. It also looks like the texture of sundrenched straw: fried and snappable. When a waitress approaches the table, the mother of the four sullen preteens and teens, snaps her order: "I want coffee." But she really says: "I want cww-aww-feee."

"Coffee," repeats the waitress.

"Yeeah. With sugah. Lotsa shugah."

"How many sugars?"

"A. lot."

"Would-a-you like milk?" the waitress asks. Her English and this American's are equally difficult to understand.

"I want cream. Cream and sugah."

"Cream?"

"Yeah cream. You got that? Don't you have cream?"

"You mean milk?"

"No. Cream. Like creamah. Like dairy creamah."

The waitress is confused. She sits down. They argue. The daughters — two, gorgeous, long-haired, long-legged girls who dress older than their short-shorts-donning non-hips will allow bury their heads in embarrassment.

"Just order milk, Mom," I hear one say. Finally, she does.

Tom and I wear dark sunglasses. We can get away with staring (or so we think). This scene is almost too painful to watch. Almost. The cww-aww-feee arrives, and the sub-par Marcy Walker lookalike (a la 1980s All My Children) downs it fast so her gaggle can make it to the boat by "5 'till." I comment on the expense of a trip to Greece for a family of six, and the fact that no one looks happy.

Since arriving, though, I continue to be inexplicably drawn to the man sitting on our left. Instead of the sea, he faces the cafe. He is old, but everyone can tell his has been a seasonable, graceful age: his Mediterranean tan radiates beneath a coral, linen shirt. His white hair and well kept beard connote a groomed Hemingway. A pair of fiercely blue, still-youthful eyes flicker across the lines inside his copy of Hegel et Marx: l'interminable debat. Nothing distracts from the text. He turns page after page, unfazed by the crowds and heat, but eventually his focus falters. He looks straight ahead and smiles the biggest, toothiest, happiest smile. A man, possibly in his late 30s, walks up to the table. "Mon enfant," says the elder of the two, reaching up his arms and tugging the younger man into an embrace. "Mon enfant. Tous es ici." The father happily smooches his grown son on either cheek. The son sits down. The waitress stops to say hello. They are French, and she is Greek, but immediately she understands: "Your son!" she says excitedly. "This is your son?"

"Yes," says the father. "Mon enfant. My son." The pair holds hands so tightly their fists shake. They fall into conversation. The book is forgotten. And it becomes clear why this father has chosen to face the cafe. The people and boats and port and endless sea — this view is for his son.

Notes from Hydra. 1.

2011-07-16T08:56:00.001-07:00

The trip to Hydra from Athens is two hours by fastboat. Stephanos, the housekeeper, is waiting for us when we arrive at the port. His skin — tanned the color of sunned wood — suggests he's lived here all his life. Immediately, we begin our walk towards Kiaffa Cottage — rolling our suitcases on hundreds-year-old cobblestones and past rows of cute, saddled donkeys (four-legged taxis that are the only mode of transportation on the island besides foot, bicycle or garbage truck) that doze standing-up in the 100-degree heat.

The island of Hydra emerges like a battered rock in the sea. And the terrain rises fast. For 20 minutes we climb up, up, up hundreds of winding, steep and narrow stony stairs with curves that reveal more and more white-plastered houses, shaded by vines that look like gnarled green lace, topped with identical red-tile-roofs. Brightly colored doors and windows pop from the white surfaces like Tempera paint on blank canvas.

The walk to Kiaffa Cottage shouldn't be long, but the shortcut is too steep with our suitcases in tow. Ten minutes in, Stephanos stops to buy bottled water (the water here is undrinkable and, according to Tom, it tastes like licking a rock). Already, we drip with mid-day sweat.

Stephanos, it turns out, was born in Bulgaria. He's lived here for 10 years. He doesn't speak English. Greek, Bulgarian, Russian and German are enough. He is a painter and sells pictures in a small shop by the port from 9 in the morning till 2 p.m. His sweat-stained safari hat and ruggedness remind us of our equally sweaty and safari hatted friend from Columbia. And we continue to follow him, past the grocer and past more white buildings. One is punctuated by an elegant pair of evergreen doors (leading to who knows where). We wonder how we will ever find our way back to town. "You cannot get lost here," Stephanos tells us. "Just walk down. Or walk up."

The outside of the cottage is unassuming. Just another white-plaster wall with a door. Stephanos unlocks the entrance, whose plain front is adorned only with a heavy, metal knocker that looks both menacing and cherubic. We walk into what I can only describe as a hybrid open-air foyer and front porch. Like the outside of the house, it is also painted white. There is an outdoor sofa built into one side, and the bare walls climb high. We can hear the donkeys that clatter up and down the cobbled stairs outside, but we don't see them (Nor they us).

In the ceiling-less entrance, a set of white stairs leads up to the roof, where there is room for another built-in bench and a canvas hammock-chair. Since arriving, I have tried to avoid phrases such as "breathtaking" or "speechless," but from the rooftop, with the Greek sun burning our backs, we are stunned by the view: a sea any painter would love to capture that meets boats and rock beaches. And the port that rises fast, from the umbrella'd restaurants below, to white houses built into the rocky island like haphazardly stacked porcelain teacups.

The inside of the cottage is exactly what you'd expect the wedding guests of Mama Mia to retire to after a long afternoon of hanging with Meryl. The 300-year old cottage is completely renovated, but vignettes of tactfully exposed stones and weathered rafters afford it an unavoidable charm and beauty. A wardrobe in the study (like all of the rooms, it is painted white, white white) opens up to an enviable record collection and player. A guitar and a mandolin lie dormant in the corners. The frenetic, caffeinated chirp of cicadas plays on repeat all morning and night. Their thousands of voices scatter about before sunset, but by 9 p.m. they sing that long, all-familiar locust-song in unison.

And there is a trapdoor. Open it up to reveal stairs that lead to an expansive lower level. The tile floor and dim light grants cool relief from days that reach 95 degrees by 8 a.m. The fireplace fills a large corner and elicits daydreams of returning in winter. Beneath the cicada song, we can almost hear the crackling, burning wood.

There is no air conditioning, but throughout the cottage, fans circulate the ancient, sea-breezed air. We sweat freely, happily.

Stephanos told us to close the doors and unscreened windows at night: "The cats might scare you." We follow his advice, and when we wake the next morning to the distant cock-a-doodle of roosters, we discover five felines who've nested into the outdoor couch. Tom mews to them, and they scramble to a secret cat-hole in the corner — away from us and into the shade.

Listened:

Sam Cooke on the record player

Saw, among other things:

Cloudless sunset

Ate, among other things:

Grilled octopus

In London? Or not? Come to this!

2011-07-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

As masters students in Design Writing Criticism, we’ve spent the past year exploring design writing. And design theory. And design history. That’s like, three design pies. Per person. Our brains are full. So before we embark on our separate major projects, we thought we deserved a little summer holiday.

We’re inviting you to pull up a chair and join us for an open conversation on food and design with some of our favourite foodies. We'll talk with author, photographer, designer and many-hat-wearer Jake Tilson about his new (beautiful!) cookbook on fish, In At The Deep End. We're also joined by Christian, Martin and Tom, the professional popcorn enthusiasts and business-dudes behind the brilliant and delicious Love Da Pop.

Sounds pretty tempting, right? The more the merrier. Come hungry for good conversation (and a free drink or two!). We’ll be cooking up some great discussions before you can say 'spatula.'

We’d love it if you could make it to our chat at LCC. But we understand if you’re busy. So we’re extending the conversation to you. Just follow us on Twitter at @MA_DWC to join the discussion. Find out what we've been up to. Ask Jake if fish still make him squirm. Duke it out with Love Da Pop over sweet versus salty. We'd like to think of it as a virtual drop-leaf table. So if you can make it to LCC, come say hello. Otherwise, we’ll see you in the Twitter dining room.

3:42 p.m. A Creation Myth

2011-05-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

A Black Hole in Medusa's Hair: A galaxy lies about 110 million light years away.

If a black hole could slowly reverse itself and regurgitate the swirling bits of cosmic dust and dirt into a sucking, cyclonic universal current, the world would be born and eventually so would we. The particles you couldn't see or know would fly together — circling with the force of storms that sink ships and the chancing purpose of a tornado that gently hurls a golden retriever from his master and safely plants him, 200 miles away, on sunny hunting grounds. At some point, the winds would die down, and the prehistoric atoms would dance like jumping beetles, crashing into one another until their atomic hearts exploded, and with their insides joined, they'd create something newer than themselves. These heart-wrenching explosions would continue until the living bits you could see only with the help of a microscope turned into living bits you could see with your naked eye, and soon they'd be living organisms that you could hold and feel the weight of. They'd turn into families and orders and phylums and kingdoms bigger than family trees; vaster than that black hole (if it had the foresight) had ever imagined. So when your mother tells you that you came to be by winning a baby running race in Heaven, you can look in the backyard at that 1000-year-old tree of particles — of space and time and black and history and prehistoric atoms — and know that something doesn't feel quite right.

Mastering the Art of the Vice

2011-05-16T01:07:00.000-07:00

Hey! Get on over to Not French Cooking to read the latest issue of the zine. It launched today and Mondays are for chumps anyway. Have fun and enjoy!

3:15 p.m.

2011-05-15T07:14:00.001-07:00

Turkey burgers and homemade baked potato chips

3:14 p.m.

2011-05-15T07:12:00.001-07:00

Salmon with mango, mint and cashew salad.

3:12 p.m. Snacktime

2011-05-15T07:09:00.000-07:00

Chewy granola bars with coconut, blueberries, macadamia nuts, strawberries, cherries and pecans

5:38 p.m.

2011-05-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

New name for Tuesday: Homemade Breakfast Bar Day!

10:58 p.m.

2011-05-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

This much baking only means one thing: there is a deadline to ignore.

Keylime Pie

Chocolate pudding pie

10:16 p.m.

2011-04-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

What could that be?

Something incredibly delicious?

A tart, perhaps?

Made by T?

Yup.

Pear, rosemary and almond tart deliciousness, made by guess who.

1:02 p.m.

2011-04-26T05:01:00.001-07:00

Post-dinner haze + Strawberry milkshakes.

T, Me and Bjorn.

Photo by Sam Taylor

9:58 p.m. Quiche-off Update!

2011-04-25T13:57:00.001-07:00

Truly the duchess and the duke of quiches.

On the left, the Lady Quiche: Crustless, and as dairy-free as they come, with roasted red onions, tomatoes and artichokes.

To the right, the Man Quiche: Very delightfully crusty, not-so-dairy-free (not at all), with cheddar, mushrooms, bacon and roasted red peppers.

Despite its omelet-like consistency, Lady Quiche wins on taste. Man Quiche takes the prize for best-looking. Everyone is happy.

7:29 p.m.

2011-04-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

T's homemade vanilla bean ice cream, refreshing bevs, a worthy start on Not French Cooking's next issue and a quiche cook-off. All in a day's work.

8:12 p.m. ATTACK OF THE CATBURY EGGS!

2011-04-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

Over at Not French Cooking, we made a little animation to celebrate Easter. Check it out!

5:45 p.m.

2011-04-20T09:40:00.001-07:00

I know a lot of amazing people, and for that I consider myself to be quite a lucky gal. I couldn't help but feel pretty extra-special this morning, when I received a package from my brother Paul containing this pair of smart lace-up Keds.

Earlier, I had been complaining about how I needed more comfortable summer shoes (no support over here, people!). I'm just lucky I've got a brother with great taste and even better timing. Thanks, Paul!

11:05 p.m.

2011-04-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

Behold, the Animal Kingdom.

8:02 p.m.

2011-04-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

Last week, I blabbed about Belvoir Fruit Farms Presse's. Until this afternoon, I had forgotten what happened post-gushfest. Today the evidence presented itself in the form of a very heavy, well-taped box in our front garden. At least our gin and tonics will be a little more lively.

I certainly don't plan on living by this rule, but perhaps some of the best surprises are the ones you buy under the influence and forget about.

10:43 p.m.

2011-04-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

Blue sky ice cream cones

10:34 p.m. Patternesque Landscapes

2011-04-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

It was raining. What's a girl to do? Picnic indoors.

2:04 p.m.

2011-04-10T06:03:00.000-07:00

Weekend wrap-up

Sun, quiet city, proving bread, canal flats, sweat, anarchitecture, picnics, letter-writing, lunch next to Ronnie Wood.

Shoreditch Hipsters On a Boat

2011-04-10T05:52:00.000-07:00

Gonna fly this boat to the moon somehow. Or, like, down the canal.

1:51 p.m.

2011-04-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

Nosh

I <3 Club Sandwich Night.

SUBMIT TO BODYTALK!

2011-04-06T01:42:00.000-07:00

Being the thoughtful, imaginative creatures that we are, the distinction between reality and fantasy is sometimes unclear.

We dream up perfect partners, convincing ourselves that they exist. We sabotage good relationships with insecurities; we mask failing ones with delusions of love. We design new us's, ready to adapt to anyone, anywhere; ready to erase whom we might have been.

No matter what, reality is exactly what we make it. We just have to believe.

In BODYTALK's next issue we want to explore how reality/fantasy function in our sexual, romantic, and/or bodily experiences.

How does what we think shape what we see, hear and feel?

How does our imagination save us? How does it betray us?

When do our fantasies become realities?

TELL US. SUBMIT TO THE FANTASY/REALITY ISSUE AT BODYTALKZINE@GMAIL.COM

VISIT BODYTALKZINE.ORG FOR MORE INFORMATION

Not French Cooking Launch!

2011-04-05T04:58:00.001-07:00

I make a zine called Not French Cooking. It comes out every few months (In fact, the next issue is under way). But the zine needed a home. It's here. And there is a blog. So read it a whole bunch, why don't you. And pass it on!

If you're interested in contributing to the blog or future issues of the zine, get in touch!

9:35 p.m. Earlier Today

2011-04-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

Still life with flowers, large bowl of fruit and very small bowl of fruit.

9:19 p.m.

2011-04-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

If you're in need of an alternative to tonic water (because we know that's kind of boring sometimes, right?), may I recommend Belvoir Fruit Farms Summer Cooler Pressé. Cucumber, mint and geranium. Perfect with Hendrick's. Wow, normally I don't gush like I am now, but seriously. It's like soft picnic blankets on perfectly manicured lawns.

9:06 p.m.

2011-04-04T13:06:00.001-07:00

Sometimes a Monday night needs a little bit of zest. And by zest, I mean lime, cumin and avocado. I've made these before, and as long as I can continue to find cilantro (it's tough 'round these parts!), I'll make them again. When the weather turns, they're one of my favorites.

Tacos, with cod, guacamole, mango-peach salsa, teriyaki-apple-pepper slaw and black beans, in a warm spelt tortilla.

5:04 p.m.

2011-04-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies: mix 6T buttr/c brn sug; +egg/extra yolk/t vanil; +c flour/.25t soda&salt/.5c choc. Roll9 balls; 18m@325F/160C.

4:49 p.m.

2011-04-03T08:48:00.000-07:00

The tree outside is blooming more brilliantly by the day. Peak out the kitchen window, and the neighbors' back gardens are spotted with fluttering pastel sheets hanging on unfettered lines. Clouds and rain push hard overhead, but the early April sun, uncompromising, beats hot onto the wood floors. The kitchen is clean. The bed is made. The coffee is sipped slowly. The hours are happy to meander. You are happy to let them.

On days like today — the early days of the fledgling, changing seasons — everything is freshly angled. The light is good. It's time to try something new. Anything. You want to. You have to.

So you bake bread because you've never waited for yeast to rise. You knead. Flour, punch, flatten, roll, flour, punch, flatten, roll, flour, punch flatten, roll.

The bread proves.

You slide the silver trays of young dough inside the oven, and the closing door clips at your anxious, wondering heart.

Your shampooed hair will soak up the aroma that billows from the hot oven that you impatiently, obsessively check. You think of how to describe the smell of bread baking, but your words aren't food words: warm, wholesome, Grandpa, sonorous fans, speckled robins' eggs, quiet shade, bleeding scraped knees, soft checkered cloths and earth. Inscrutable smells. Unreal.

The timer doesn't go, but the bread is ready. And when the rolls are cut they steam like the last whispers of winter's brutal dark evenings.

Dinner is not so far away, but you try one piece. The hard flakes of wild crust scrape at your gums. Strangely, it feels good. Real. Like scrubbed, cleaned surfaces. Inside, the bread is soft, and takes butter like a sponge. How different it is from the dough you kneaded on the countertop. Contained. Solid. Whole.

You take another bite, chew slowly, and watch from the kitchen window as the pale linens blow.

Carrot Oat Bread, from the Nordic Bakery Cookbook

4:09 p.m.

2011-04-03T08:08:00.000-07:00

25-MINUTE MAGIC!

Nordic Bakery Blueberry Tart

5:11 p.m. Big News!

2011-03-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

Last January, I discovered Fire & Knives, a British-based food quarterly, published and edited by the many-hat-wearing Tim Hayward. F&K explores the history and culture of food and features writers of all kinds with interesting, funny, smart things to say about food.

For more than a year, I filled a digital folder with ideas to send in for consideration.

A year later, I took a cooking class at Jamie Oliver's restaurant with Tim Hayward. We made mushroom risotto, and I gave him a copy of my zine, Not French Cooking, which he happened to like! A few months after that, I pitched and wrote the piece that is now on Page 74 of F&K no. 6. I don't like to do a lot of self-horn-tooting, but I am just a bit over-the-moon.

Speaking of tooting ! — "Fierce Poison" is a bit of a coming-out party for me, as a writer and food-eater:

"My days are consumed by thoughts of food and its power over me. I struggle to reconcile the physical pain and general bathroom grossness in order to enjoy what is delicious. Because I love food. Eating transcends my senses. With the citrus bite of a lime comes an acidic, shooting pain in my stomach; but also the associative smell of garlic and coriander and the fierce memory of discovering happiness in tacos al pastor at the counters of Mexican dives scattered through the rough neighborhoods of Kansas City."

If you have a chance, buy the current issue, or subscribe to Fire & Knives because it is a very fine publication (and certainly not because I'm in it!).

4:57 p.m.

2011-03-31T08:57:00.000-07:00

Consumed at a recent lunch: A delicious sandwich!

4:51 p.m. A Short Story

2011-03-31T08:51:00.001-07:00

The left armrest of Balcony Row B62 is nowhere to be found. The right armrest, barely affixed, dangles precariously from the seat. There must have been a mistake. Peter checks the scuffed placard against his ticket. There has been no mistake. Begrudgingly, he unfolds his seat cushion, whose springs release a wicked cackle that provokes glances from nearby patrons. Peter sits down, with his coat on.

Over the telephone, the opera house manager promised a good view. But on this evening, the only view to be had is the eczema-ridden spot of scalp, surrounded by an ever-thinning non-mass of violet-white hair, belonging to the ticket-carrying octogeniarian in the same seat, one row up. Her view, as far as Peter can surmise, is unobscured. Her arms rest, comfortably. She is also the tallest old person Peter has ever seen. He tries not to stare.

For one day’s pay, this is what he could afford: purple hair, baldspots and big heads, which jointly block an inconsequential sliver of a toy-sized stage. And she will be here any moment. Balcony Row B63 is hers to fill.

The house lights flick twice. 5 minutes. The audience manically settles and clucks. Its pitchy collective voice competes with the tuning pit orchestra. Still, the only sound louder than Peter’s thumping heart is the tocking second-hand of his grandfather’s wristwatch, on whose eggshell face he now focuses. April 14th.

They met two weeks before, on a blind date their friends encouraged. She had called. She suggested April 1st because it would be funny. Peter didn’t think it was funny. She said she was excited to meet him — she had heard so much — and she gave him the address of a restaurant in her neighborhood. The evening had gone surprisingly well, aside from an unbearable greeting in which Peter — who from childhood has suffered hand placement anxiety — first, did not return his date’s friendly wave upon entering the restaurant, and second unintentionally ignored her outstretched hand when she introduced herself.

Alice, she said. I’m Alice.

Peter had never enjoyed an affinity for sweets. Once a year, he would have a small carrot cake for his birthday. The dessert, though, was mostly to appease his friends. But when he saw Alice — smiling, pink-lipped, pony-tailed and willing to overlook his initial fumblings — Peter could not shake the uncontrollable urge to 1. Devour a strawberry ice cream cone, and 2. Mentally — and privately — collect the world’s longest list of sweet-tooth-related come-ons. She was refreshing, alive, beautiful. In a word: lovely.

Over dinner, he learned that Alice liked Frisbee and the smell of gasoline. She also loved the ballet.

As a fisheries wildlife specialist, Peter had done many things within the spectrum of boring to adventurous. He had, however, never been to the ballet. And at that moment, nothing in life sounded more exciting than going to the ballet with her. Later, with hands-in-pockets, Peter walked Alice home. At her door, he nervously asked if she’d like to go to a performance. She smiled. Yes of course. I know the manager. I’ll books us tickets.

“No,” Peter replied, “Let me. I’d love to.” It was a date. A second date. For a brief instant, just before Alice opened the door, Peter was conscious that he might actually be glowing.

Which is why the current situation is unacceptable. Discreetly, Peter whisks away the beads of sweat that form along his hairline. The curve of his nostril is warm and damp. He catches the faint stench of mildew the never seems to leave the fiber of his jacket. He considers ordering champagne. Quickly, he hops into seat B63 to check the view. It’s not good.

The lights dim. Her seat is empty. Peter wonders if she took one look and left.

But Alice is on her way. She’s almost there. And she is excited. In the middle of the second act, both armrests will fall off her chair. He’ll hold her hand. In the dark, they will steal glances like the teenagers at the multiplex on Friday nights. How strange, she’ll think, that this is the very opposite of perfect, when it is, in fact the most perfect she’s felt in five years.

Like Peter, Alice has done many things within the spectrum of boring to adventurous. But until this evening, she has never run so fast from the subway to make it before the curtain rises. And nothing in life has sounded more exciting than running to the ballet to be with him.

11:25 p.m.

2011-03-11T15:25:00.000-08:00

Super cool new disco carpet.

2:16 p.m.

2011-03-06T06:13:00.000-08:00

Bloody Mary's and delicious snackettes.

It has been a bigger week than I could have ever anticipated. So to celebrate the start to a new — and perhaps less insane one — here's to a happy Sunday.

Dessert

2011-03-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

Lots of people remember lots of things about my grandfather.

He told lots of stories. He told lots of jokes. He told lots of lies, but in a way, those lies were lots of truths. He did so many things that it was hard to keep track. Some people know his punchlines and tall tales. Most know those superbowl rings. Everyone knows his voice.

I’ve gone through most of my life running into and meeting people with stories to tell me about my grandfather. Friends and friends-of-friends and people I’d never ever know would meet him at Arrowhead Stadium. They’d run into him at the farmer’s market. Or they’d see him while he did one of his signature khaki-pantsed, no-sweat, post-heart attack cycle workouts at the gym. He was Bill and Griggs, Bill Grigsby and the Prince of Parkville, Mr. Kansas City and the Mountain Valley Spring Water Guy. Anyone who lives in Kansas City knows what Price Chopper sounds like.

I appreciated the sentiments from others, but I struggled to relate to their stories of chance meetings and memories of this man. I listened attentively, but these recollections were always about Bill Grigsby the broadcaster, the charmer, the media man. Though he could enchant us all with his stories about the business, he was most magical and enigmatic as the Bill Grigsby I knew. Bill Grigsby, my grandfather. My Papa.

How do you remember someone everyone remembers?

From the moment I was born, Bill Grigsby lovingly called me his "stinkpot," and as soon as I formed a decent sense of wit, I called it back at him. I’ve only ever been to one Chiefs game, but I knew he didn’t care that I didn’t care about football, or any sports, really. It was okay, because I knew the other things he liked: ice cream cones, and good cries, and blondes, in no particular order. He ordered chile relleno and adored Pink Martini. He possessed a true gift for pretending to know names. He wrote and sold a country music song called “He’s Got My Queen in His King-Sized Bed.”

He also loved whipped cream.

Not homemade — he couldn’t stand that stuff. Papa liked Redi-Whip, from a can. Real, fresh aerosol. Dollop was not part of his expansive, energetic vocabulary, especially when it came to cherry pie. The man could dump half a can on his slice, and more when celebrations were in order. Strangely, the airy, bubbly squirt became as recognizable as his voice — one so resonant it scared the dogs into the bedroom while beckoning you to listen. Papa unabashedly hosed his coffee with Redi-Whip and from time to time, he might have taken a hit straight from the can. I never considered him to have a fervent sweet tooth, but when any dessert of the pastry-crusted variety was served, you could predict how he’d take it: Whipped cream, with pie on the side.

I never questioned his taste. Although he was notoriously outspoken, my grandfather was not a man to overindulge. He rarely insisted on conventional payment for the work he did. For him, a thank-you was enough. Once in a while, he would open the trunk of his Oldsmobile to reveal a stash of stuff he had received in exchange for his time, his face, and his voice. My brother and I dug through extra-large Gates t-shirts, FBI hats and golf clubs to find our next Grandpa Grigsby treasure. At one point, I had collected more than 300 dollars worth of Jazzy Bucks.

Papa liked to share — success, good fortune and good stories. For someone who painted vivid flashbacks of hiding from the taxman in a closet with his mother during the Great Depression, I figured whipped cream sprayed in excess from an aerosol can was a little like warm gravy to a once-homeless pup: Well deserved.

Papa never dwelled in the past, but he made reminiscing a profession. We all knew about his morning radio show days with Jim Moore — we knew all of the plotlines set in Bucket Bottom Falls and his fantastical slew of made-up characters. We knew a rogue keg of Schlitz was the culprit behind his forever-busted fifth finger. We knew Japanese soldiers in the Second World War shot off his nipple, and we also knew this was a lie.

I knew these stories by heart. I took some of them for granted. I don’t think he’d blame me for doing so. For a while I did well — at the age of six I was his joke-telling protégé. But just as he had a knack for feigning knowledge of names, I began to hone a talent for pretending I hadn’t heard his stories many, many times before. Sometimes I grew impatient. But other times he’d catch us all by surprise with details. New truths, embellishments or falsities were presented with his tellings, making every retelling richer, sharper. I didn’t know what to believe. I learned that it didn’t matter.

I spoke to Papa by phone on the morning of his 89th birthday. It was 11:30 and he had slept-in. Nonnie half-joked about how long she’d been waiting to make his birthday breakfast — soft-boiled eggs — and now he wanted to have a shave.

I pictured him in striped blue pajamas, gangly legs and bare ankles, bracing himself over the bathroom sink that he’d filled with warm water. He patted the thin skin that had once stretched taut across his chin and cheeks but now drooped endearingly to reveal burst blood vessels, weariness and age. He no longer breathed quietly. Each inhale took something out of him. But despite waking up later and later, and an incomprehensible exhaustion he’d never before known, today was going to be a good day. For February, it was already warm and sunny. Everyone would be at Garozzo’s later for dinner. He’d have the veal and a glass of wine. There’d be no cherry pie or Redi-Whip at the Italian restaurant. Tiramisu was on the menu for tonight. He was happy that I’d called, and he wished me — his fellow Aquarian — a happy birthday too.

I wondered if, on this birthday Papa thought about other birthdays before. What did he remember of childhood birthdays? Was there ever a cake? A pie? Probably not. Even then, my grandfather was never a dweller. He was, though, a dreamer, and he always will be — that remarkably skinny kid standing in the middle of a rickety twin bed in Joplin, broadcasting imaginary sports games through imaginary microphones, wondering if he’d ever have the chance to have stories, and if he’d ever have the chance to share them; wondering when life would taste sweet, and if he’d ever have it all.

His voice echoes vibrantly across the line. 4,000 miles away, I hear its signature boom cut through the phone. I can see him through the phone. So clearly. Suddenly, I want him to have all of the tiramisu in the world. I want him to have all of the Redi-Whip I can find. I don’t want to say goodbye, but I hear water splashing. He is readying the shaving cream. He wants to get on with his day. The first day of his 89th year. His last year. One he will not finish.

I remind myself that Bill Grigsby is not a dweller, so I can’t be one either. I tell him I love him. He loves me too. And I hang up with his voice still ringing in my ear.

Seeing Voices: Inside BT Archives

2011-02-22T02:27:00.000-08:00

For those of you living in the London area, consider making the trek to the London College of Communication for a group exhibition that discovers and interprets BT Archives. Get in touch with me for information regarding the private view on 2 March!

Seeing Voices: Inside BT Archives

2 March – 11 March — London College of Communication, SE1 6SB

This event is free and open to all.

Look closely. Carefully nestled away and stacked high upon shelves, 150 years of history rustles and whispers, waiting to be discovered.

Seeing Voices: Inside BT Archives explores the archives that lay behind the company’s vault-like door in High Holborn, London.

Seeing Voices suggests that a telephone is more than an everyday object that connects us; the icon represents a vast social history of exchange. By unraveling histories through archival material, students of MA Design Writing Criticism at the London College of Communication capture historical moments from the boxes of BT. These snippets present everyday stories where the meaning and impact of telephony is not only visible, but also enchanting.

Though each story is distinct, the multi-media exhibition connects the seven projects through shared social dialogues about telecommunications: a campaign’s power; a wire’s beauty; the face of advertising; the origin of etiquette; the lost exhibition; the intimacy of long-distance; the fairies in your phone.

By going back to original source material, we find authenticity and raw stories to tell. We learn that narratives lie in every archive and every object. They can speak to us, and we can listen.

Seeing Voices: Inside BT Archives runs from 2 March– 11 March in the Well Gallery, London College of Communication.

Private view on Wednesday 2 March, from 6-9 p.m.

9:17 a.m. Account of a Greenhouse

2011-02-17T01:17:00.000-08:00

Box of Books

The glass box glowed. It glowed so brightly you could not see inside. What you could see was what came out of it: a swirl of lacing smoke and the ambient light that feathered into the black like slow fog fades into first blush. We walked closer. The canary luminescence and glass sparkled. We tripped across grotty stone steps that had been thrown into the ground as if a giant had plodded his sloppy fingers into cold dirt. The wind galloped. The nearer we came the less box-like it seemed. We knew, of course, that this wasn’t a glass box at all. The illuminated prism we approached was a greenhouse. It was full of books.

I pushed against the door to escape the wind. But glass doors to glass structures don’t swing open. They slide. Within, flimsy shelves protruded from the right and left sides. The greenhouse was small — no bigger than our front room. But it was warm. Inside, it smelled like outdoors. At a desk in the corner, a man in a thick sweater and scarf sat next to the wood burning stove. As it was a very small area and there was no one else inside, we exchanged hello’s and shuffled near the fire. It was 9:00 and no one had visited since before dinner. The Internet was down. A slow evening. But The Paris Review on display made for good company. Thrice we exchanged interests, taking turns swapping accomplishments, learning backgrounds, discovering commonalities. No music played. I was surprised the howling wind was not louder against the glass panes. I ventured if the space was unbearable in summer. Yes, the man said. On some days, it swelters. There were cushions near the front, stacked high. Upholstered in seersuckered summer — red-and-white striped canvas that conjured beach vacations and cold drinks. I imagined hazy glass in July’s late dusk, the earthy smell of perspiration lingering between visitors. Once crisp stock wilting below humid swells of air, its youthful sharpness would go limp to the touch. The clear door would remain open, allowing in a breeze far different than the one from which we sought to leave this very evening.

All while we spoke, I could not shake the peculiar feeling of being inside a glass case at night. The synthetic light inside glared and reflected on the walls. Our bodies looked to be outside, and the blustery evening came in close. Suddenly arriving upon a greenhouse bookshop seemed a perfectly natural occurrence. We browsed the shelves, and forgot to look up at the stars. From within, we disregarded exteriors. Time left. I bought a book. Our words weakened into repeated salutations and wishes for one another. We said goodbye, slid open the glass door to screaming wind and stumbled across the grey stone path.

Later from the window of the restaurant, we would watch the man walk outside and tie up his scarf. Just beyond the fading yellow glow he would light a cigarette, a burning ember flickering red near his lips, dartling at his fingers, moving near his hip. And then it was gone, smashed on the stone steps. We would watch as he walked back into the greenhouse, leaving us with only our own glimmering reflections.

5:42 p.m.

2011-02-05T09:42:00.001-08:00

Happy Hour!

The small but exciting beginnings of the bookshelf dry bar, replete with new tumblers, coasters, dishes and garnishes. Don't let the Bombay worry you. The Hendrick's will make an appearance next week.

Giant Concrete Animals

2011-02-04T04:35:00.000-08:00

The entrance to Penguin Park sits at the corner of Norton Avenue and Vivion Road, across the street from a small, unremarkable building that houses American Family Insurance, and another, slightly larger, but still unremarkable building that houses Planned Parenthood. Scattered through a haphazard collection of ordinary swingsets, seesaws and rusted monkeybars, are prodigious, concrete animals — static, smiling, Transformer-sized versions of childhood zoo favorites. This pocket of Kansas City was once a nice place to play and picnic. Now, though, Penguin Park and the area surrounding is not a recommendable destination for playgroups or field trips.

Once my mother me took Penguin Park. She thought it would be as oversizedly magical as it once was. I remember walking inside the bottom of the Penguin and looking up at its concrete, hollow insides. The soft ground smelled of damp and stale urine. I can conjure the memory now — that dark hole, with just a beam of light sweeping through the top and the realized stench of how I imagined the undersides of highway bridges to smell. But I wanted to climb to the top and slide down. Knowing I would cry and not stop if I wasn't allowed just one slide, my mother climbed up with me. I remember the ascent — the putrid air that slowly faded to something fresher as we neared the top. I don't, though, remember the slide down and out of the penguin.

Later, to no avail, I would try to convince my mother to let me swing on the swing whose corroding metal chain was held in the mouth of an enormous giraffe. And then I wanted to climb into the Kangaroo's pouch.

Penguin Park should compose the impossible material of those dreams that rapidly become traumatic, sweat-induced nightmares. Why does anyone want to climb a ladder inside a dark, concrete penguin?

I was catapulted back to the bird's belly when a suggestion was made to visit Crystal Palace Park. Among the regular playgrounds, walks and wintry vistas of the South London grounds is the Dinosaur Park. We didn't know anymore than this, and the thought of research never crossed our minds. On the train to Crystal Palace, I recalled a few years ago — when, one day in June, we found Dinosaur World in Beaver, Arkansas. At the entrance were turtles made of decaying plaster that chipped away to reveal broken skeletons of wire and mesh. We considered trespassing, but turned around and left.

These visions of empty marsupials and broken clay reptiles haunted the train ride and walk into Crystal Palace. I know a thing or two about parks that feature giant concrete animals as an attraction. I was skeptical.

The dinosaurs of Dinosaur Park aren't any less bizarre than the animals of my childhood. But the overall feeling of disquiet that comes from staring at a 3-story kangaroo for too long doesn't exist here. Crystal Palace Park is an active park. There are no creaking, lonesome swingsets. There is laughter. And ice cream cones if you want one. There are a lot of dads too, and save for the one who loudly barreled down a pathway with his daughter's wrist in one hand and a Carlings in the other, they are doing normal dad things: pushing strollers; jogging in grey sweatsuits; taking photos; relinquishing dignity for the small delights of their spawn.

Everyone likes the dinosaurs. I liked them too. Maybe it's because, unlike Penguin Park or Dinosaur World, the presentation is tactful. They are, of course, gargantuan, but the painted, iron beasts are well camoflauged under cute bridges and well kept, artificial marshes. Oddly, the scenes are not contrived. The dinosaurs are where they should be — on that island looking into the distance. Their swelled chests exude majestic, Jurassic pride. Despite their iron builds, they are clustered into graceful dino-cliques. They are lovely. They are not true depictions, but interpretations that incite points, laughter and a genuine appreciation for tasteful novelty (if there is such a thing). The dinosaurs enchant the grown-ups too, and everyone is relieved there are no slides coming out of the Brontosaurus.

3:35 p.m.

2011-02-03T07:27:00.001-08:00

Considering I've looked like this a lot lately:

Drawing by T!

I'm excited to go here this afternoon:

Image via Lydia Fulton

I'll let you know what happens.

The Size Issue

2011-02-01T13:47:00.000-08:00

It's been a long-time coming, but BodyTalk is finally here. Our fifth issue — The Size Issue — is out, and you should probably go enjoy it.

Open publication - Free publishing - More social issues

9:15 p.m.

2011-01-29T13:10:00.001-08:00

Someone recently had a birthday, and it wasn't me. A delicious chocolate torte was involved, made by the lovely staff at Frog on the Green. We haven't even made it half-way through the eating part. But it is delicious. Just. Delicious.

9:10 p.m.

2011-01-29T13:04:00.000-08:00

Dinners Lately:

Yum. T is responsible for all except for the dismal-looking salmon + salad thing.

12:03 a.m.

2011-01-26T15:16:00.000-08:00

It's summer, 1994. I’ve sunken into the lumpily cushioned, cloth backseat of our station wagon. The Chevy Caprice is a big brown boat of a car, and we’re in the middle of the 1-70 ocean, halfway to Telluride. I know this because for the past four hours, I’ve asked if we are there yet. In the front seat, my parents ignore me. Utilizing the few visual elements of a very bare highway, they quietly play I Spy and eat chocolate-covered coffee beans.

I look at my Swatch watch. Time is slow. At least 8,000 minutes must have been killed by now. Between sunlit, lens-flared dozes against the car window, I've amassed a small collection of meticulously crayoned coloring-book pages, child-size crosswords and scribbled notes in the margins of my the American Girl Molly doll books series. Since leaving our house on Canturbury in the dark early of this morning, we’ve listened to my cassette, The Best of Elvis, five times. We will play the tape until the sun goes down against a flat Kansas horizon in the August evening. We will play the tape until it screeches to a halt in the middle of "Hound Dog" — until we don't need the music to sing it all. We will play that tape until Elvis is a part of me and us and I-70 and our fading, feigning memories.

2011-01-23T11:58:00.001-08:00

Make sure to check out T's new website! It's sparkly and super lovely.

7:07 p.m.

2011-01-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

Account of a Letterpress Studio

We walked up stairs, and more stairs. We walked until the smell of hardwood floors was replaced by an inching increase in chemicals and inks. The landing was covered in brown cardboard boxes of all sizes. It was all a small landscape of geometric shrubbery, quaintly pushed and stacked against white, marked-up walls. Higher we climbed, until we faced a dark hallway, ridden with gangly, old, empty frames. In angled messes, they stretched from the walls and threatened to catch our cold ankles.

We entered a bright room. The foggy windows overlooked rooftops and lines of smoking chimneys. A stratosphere of handmade paper hung above our heads like cream clouds. The room was a room full of obstacles: Fraying posters, paints, a special pen for repairing paper. We treaded carefully, past the Francis Bacon.

There were letters. So many of them, in boxes and on desks; hanging on walls and printed on artworks. This was a forest so dense with letters, it was difficult to make out a single one. Cases of haphazardly labeled uppers and lowers were stacked to the ceilings. The wooden shapes grazed our arms like tree branches.

In the center of the forest was the press. Though I had seen many letters and words, and had thought of many ways I could use them today, only one idea ran through me: machine. It looked heavy compared to the paper sky, powerful enough to form phrases. Dirty and inked, its weight excited me. I wanted to touch its cool metal skin. I didn't, for we had to leave. And we treaded carefully back — through the pulp canopy and frame bridge, down and down, until once again, we smelled the wood floors.

8:46 p.m.

2011-01-18T12:30:00.001-08:00

For 2 weeks, I've thought about burgers. Everyday I found myself dreaming about a melty, cheesy, crunchy lettuce-y, delicious bread-y burger. I conjured the distinct onion fragrance that only wafts from a Winstead's steakburger; the outer crispiness of my dad's cheeseburgers; and the oh-so-delicious veggie burger that never fails at Foundry. I was overwhelmed with burger memories, hopes and dreams. I didn't know if I could live up to past experience.

Today my imaginings became reality — black bean burgers with all the fixings, including sauteed onions and mushrooms, and homemade fries.

The little sliders were plated and the condiments (tomato-onion chutney and wholegrain mustard) were tabled. So many times, the things I make are just-a-pinch to the right or left of great. But the creamy richness of black beans, the crisp kale, and the buttery goodness of red wine-doused onions and mushrooms left me scraping my plate with the last salty french fry. I done good.

8:00 p.m.

2011-01-17T12:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, so maybe it was just a little overdone, but a Midwest girl like me can't tell! Delicious seared tuna and crunchy salad a la T!

Apple Fame!

2011-01-06T12:32:00.000-08:00

It's kind-of a random thing to post, but the album cover I designed for Saharan Gazelle Boy has made it's international graphic debut on the Apple website!

Here's a doo-dad that was just written by the Pitch about it too. Also, big thanks to The Pitch. We've gotten so much love from you guys. We appreciate it!

Christmas

2010-12-25T22:03:00.000-08:00

Hope yours was merry and bright.

Everyday

2010-12-09T06:20:00.000-08:00

The following is a draft from a series of 500-word essays I am writing for my Design Writing Criticism course. If you have any critical feedback, please comment below or e-mail me. I would love to hear your suggestions or edits:

Last week I spent £12 on soy lattes. I may have a problem.

My excessive consumption wasn’t for lack of caffeine. A full container of instant coffee sits between teas of various strengths in my kitchen cupboard. The milk has not gone off. I’ve not run out of sugar. I own four coffee mugs.

Snuggled into my usual drafty corner of Café 67*, the buzz doesn’t matter. What I crave is everything that surrounds my soy flat white. Despite the isolation of laptops, headphones and newspapers, the patrons of Café 67 find silent companionship in our cozy neighborhood of brass-topped tables. Across the way an American accent competes with the soundtracked, ooh-ing magic of Darlene Love’s Winter Wonderland. With every drink ordered, the espresso machine screams in frenetic delight. I could go many days without caffeine. But days without the jovial, excited bliss of a room like this?

I blame it on college. In downtown Columbia, Missouri the most difficult exam-related question I encountered was where to study. The library was distractingly quiet. My house was just plain distracting. But at the intersection of 9th and Cherry a trifecta of coffee shops beckoned me with affordable lattes and decent music. I’d grown tired of smelling Lakota’s burnt coffee beans from my second story apartment. I dreaded the packs of Ugg-booted sorority sisters who “studied” at the Artisan. But the red Delonghi that glistened in the window of Kaldi’s drew me close. I walked in and never looked back.

I attended cuppings. I wrote about fern-shapped latte art in the city’s magazine. I became such a regular that formally ordering my drink was necessary only when I felt like talking to Dylan, the cute barista with the bird tattoo. Still, life at Kaldi’s wasn’t perfect. For its college-town location, there was a serious shortage of power outlets. The plush couches encouraged large amounts of inappropriate snuggling amongst college-aged, sexually-frustrated members of Christian youth groups. But encounters with abstaining co-eds were worth it for more reasons than a dry cappuccino: Kaldi’s was a hub for snippets of conversation and my own knowledge-harvesting in an nonacademic environment. The café sparked my love and addiction to the culture of coffee.

All good things must come to an end. I had to leave Columbia. The owner and I commiserated over chocolate-covered espresso beans. Everything will be fine, he assured me. “There will be others.”

When I moved to Kansas City, I rebounded. For proximity’s sake, I could walk down the hill to the townie cafe. Or, I could drive to the Roasterie for a Mac-using, frequent-smoke-break-taking, Facebook-checking Hipster fix. Every shop had something, but no shop had it all.

When I moved to London, I worried I’d be forced into a life of Twinings. Unable to quell my appetite for froth and free wifi, I embarked on a search for café culture in a supposedly tea-drinking country. There had to be a decent spot in my neighborhood. That’s when I walked into Café 67. I ordered my first drink — soy latte. Delicious. I felt guilty for admitting it was better than Kaldi’s. I stopped by again. And again. Two weeks later, the owner knew my order. Two months later, I am in my usual corner. Café 67 possesses the familiarity of far away but the sparkle of something new. My doctor would be shocked at my caffeine intake. But despite frequent bathroom breaks and late-afternoon shakes, I am happy here.

*Café 67 is actually called Number 67, but for the sake of clarity, I changed the name.

8:48 a.m.

2010-12-08T00:42:00.000-08:00

Many of my friends are not red meat-eaters, and I've posted my fair share of carnivorous dishes, but can we all take a moment to appreciate the incredible mashed potato crust that topped the cottage pie T made last night? A sight to behold.

9:36 p.m.

2010-12-05T10:45:00.001-08:00

An image of yesterday's batch. After the first attempt, I had to make more, this time with bigger, juicier apple bits and more topping. Mmmm.

This afternoon I took a deep breath and partook in a bit of culinary chemistry. I decided to pursue a recipe that had been on my mind for days and faced my biggest baking fear: conversions.

With the cold weather, temptation of comfort food, and an oh-so-deluxe food processor as an early Christmas present, I couldn't resist an attempt at tasting what might happen when flour, butter and sugar combine.

For me baking is the ultimate challenge. Even a recipe as simple as the one on the back of Tollhouse chocolate chips is loaded with obstacles. Baking powder instead of baking soda? Was that 3 cups of flour or 4? There is an obnoxious exactitude to baking; one that I never encounter when making dinner (usually because I steer clear from anything savory-pastry-related). If you pour too much wine in the pot, the stew will eventually soak it up. My fear of the oven, however, is absolute. And despite my bizarre affinity for my high school anatomy class, I've never been a science girl. This avoidance of chemistry, paired with the British Imperial system of measurement, makes baking all-the-more intimidating. Yet tonight, I couldn't get the idea of nutmeg out of my mind.

Enter eatmakeread's recipe for Spice Apple Muffins, and this afternoon turned into a proper gladiator-style challenge of Cups versus Grams.

Things started out okay. I bought the right ingredients. Butter melted. Apples roasted. T helped with the conversions. I precisely weighed dry ingredients on the plastic scale. I factored the meniscus into my liquid measurements. Soon the smell in the kitchen actually qualified as fragrant. Things looked like they might taste delicious, at least until I reached for what I thought to be the ground cinnamon, and instead dumped a teaspoon or two of ground cumin into the mixing bowl. Guh.

So as dinner's soup simmered on the stove, I began again on dessert. This time my measurements were hastier. I quickly weighed flour on the scale and swapped teaspoons for pinches. I might have even thrown in some dashes. Yeah, I'd say the second time around was more fun. More fly-by-the-seat. And when the muffins, topped with a crumbly coat of cinnamon and sugar, went into the oven, my once dismal hopes were elevated to realistic. Patiently I endured an invisible chemistry class, with the hope that my concoction might, might be tasty.

My thoughts raced back to several weeks prior, when after plugging through hours of an uninspired writing session, I surrendered to my own literary ineptitude and made cookies. The batter looked — and tasted — delicious. I had splurged on Green & Black's chocolate. If I couldn't write, I thought, maybe I could make a living feeding people. Visions of opening a bakery/cafe formed loose and fast. By the time the mix was ready, I was 10 years ahead of myself. In a daydreamy, batter-induced stupor, I doodled apron designs until it was time to check the oven. I was abhorred to discover that the beautifully shaped doughballs had melted into one ugly, flat, brown crisp that hardly resembled anything you'd dip in milk. Santa would have turned these cookies down.

Tonight, with the memory of failure still fresh in my nose, I worried. Despite quick checks on the oven confirming that the batter was indeed rising, I refused to trust any sensorial organ except taste. Butterflies abound, my stomach prepared itself for an impending failure. But I was wrong. The muffins were delicious. Somehow the ingredients — the nutmeg, crispy butter, brown sugar and apples — mixed exactly how they should, and I was rewarded with spiced apple muffins that served as more than tonight's dessert...or tomorrow's breakfast. They became a dozen small symbols signifying that I not only stand a chance at converting cups to weights, but also that I'm adjusting to life here. The days may darken at 4, and the oven temperature might be impossibly read in Celsius, but I now know that 1 cup of flour equals 125 grams, one egg is equal to one egg, and butter tastes good no matter where you are.

11:52 a.m.

2010-12-05T04:47:00.000-08:00

Sunnyside Up

8:32 p.m.

2010-12-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

They noticed on their walk home this afternoon that yesterday's snow had already melted. And instead of the flurries that had gracefully settled on their eyelashes, raindrops now pelted their exposed noses. He swung the plastic bagful of groceries. She held his gloved hand in hers. It had been a good day. A wake-up-at-noon day. They would make a dinner. They would share a bottle of wine. They'd light the candles in the nonworking fireplace and listen to Christmas music. The house would never be warm enough. Their feet would stay cold all night. But their cheeks would be radiant, and they'd be happy nonetheless.

1:03 p.m.

2010-12-03T04:57:00.000-08:00

I have been neglecting this blog, lazily uploading photos instead of spending anytime writing anything good. I will get back into it, I promise.

But for now, enjoy this December day, wherever you are, and peruse the blog of my friend Kiernan who has been making beautiful posts about the 4-month-long roadtrip he took across the United States. He also contributed a story to Mastering the Art of Thanksgiving!

Market

2010-12-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

Standing at the intersection of St. Martin’s Lane and Cecil Court, I steal glances inside a shop where tightly bunned heads, framed by amber-lit windows, gracefully bob up and down. Slender arms lengthen into arabesques. The lithe limbs belong to ballet dancers of all ages — nine-year-old girls in pink tights who’ve not yet lost their babyfat; and women in their 20s who roll onto their toes with the ease of a prima ballerina — and they’ve come to Freed of London to buy pointe shoes.

I duck inside, attempting to nimbly weave between agile bodies, maneuvering past Christmas-themed displays of black leotards and heeled character shoes. But no one notices the displays or me. They are looking at their feet.

Freed of London has handmade pointe shoes since 1929, and in 81 years, the methods have barely changed. Each shoe is constructed, uniquely, from the inside out. Each pair is made by one of 34 shoemakers. And each year, Freed of London sells more than 250,000 pointe shoes — more than any other manufacturer in the world. As official shoe providers to companies such as the American Ballet Theater and down the road at the Royal Ballet, Freed of London has a close relationship with the professional dancing world. But they aren’t only for the pros. If the shoe fits, any girl can own a pair.

Back inside the shop, all of these dancers want the shoes to fit. A clerk thumbs the wood block that surrounds a dancer’s foot. “Are you sure? You seem to be sliding down when you roll en pointe,” she says.

“No, no,” the dancer insists, furrowing a brow pulled taut by her slicked-back hair. “These definitely fit. They’ve got to.”

Because of the one-off shoemaking process and the who’s who-type list of dancers who wear them, Freeds are synonymous with beauty, and dancing in them is foreshadowing for the rest of your ballet career: If you can fit into Freeds, you have an ideal foot. Slide them on, and from the knee down you stand a chance at looking like Sarah Lamb in the Royal Ballet’s Giselle.

Still, it’s not just about pretty feet; pointe shoes are tools of a rigorous trade. At the height of ballet season, a principal dancer averages one pair per performance. So if a ballerina is lucky enough to find the perfect pointe shoes, they must be replaceable. All of Freed’s shoemakers bake a mark into the sole of every shoe, allowing dancers to identify what they need simply by looking.

When a ballerina leaps on stage, an unspoken partnership blossoms at her feet. The makers of Freeds — some of whom have made their mark for 40 years —are dedicated craftspeople that represent the role design plays in the performing arts. Theirs is a supporting part that exists in the basements of shops like the one on St. Martin’s Lane, where timeless methods are used to make the pink satin icon most girls dream about and few are lucky enough to roll up into.

2:35 p.m.

2010-11-30T06:31:00.000-08:00

First snow

Thanksgiving

2010-11-29T15:41:00.000-08:00

11:38 p.m.

2010-11-29T15:31:00.000-08:00

It was a weekend of pie.

Gingerbread Apple Upside-down cake: Joseph Beeman

Pie Enjoyer: Kathryn Zack Crawford

Cheddar-Apple Pie: Jess Bannerman

Pumpkin pie: Kate Nelischer

Chocolate Amaretto Pots: Richard Pring

Cherry pie: Tom Loughlin

11:32 p.m.

2010-11-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

Flower Market

Mastering the Art of Thanksgiving

2010-11-24T01:42:00.000-08:00

I am so pleased to announce that the Thanksgiving zine is finished! Have a read through Mastering the Art of Thanksgiving. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please pass the zine onto anyone. Post on Facebook, your blog or send it in an e-mail! The more the merrier.

Open publication - Free publishing - More thanksgiving

4:47 p.m.

2010-11-23T08:44:00.000-08:00

Bits

Wild Nothing 5:53 p.m.

2010-11-12T09:37:00.000-08:00

Last night was the Wild Nothing show, and I’m still living in the stage-lit, crowded, dream pop incandescence of what I heard. Wild Nothing transports you, sparking just a hint of heartbreaking nostalgia for those who grew up in the 80s, causing unexplained bouts of eyes-closed, wide-smiled, arm-flailed dancing, and instilling in anyone who kept a diary during adolescence the terrorizing desire to find it, unlock it and keep writing.

Jack Tatum’s the dude in charge (he writes and plays all of the music on Gemini), but for tours, he has formed a band of more dudes, all with earth-shattering jaw lines and a sartorial look so cohesive it just can’t be planned. Hailing from Virginia and areas nearby, the well denimed band aren’t stereotypically nice southern boys; they’re just nice. And no-nonsense. Rarely speaking to the crowd except to smile and say thank you, Tatum’s is a presence that radiates because of his quiet stage demeanor. He just wants to play the next song. And the audience wants to hear it. Despite Cargo’s unmemorable-ness*, the band projects an inclusive coziness. It’s not weird, I promise. It is precisely Wild Nothing’s bashfulness and sneaky smiles that makes you like them more. But don’t get me wrong; they are not wallflowers, and they don’t hold back.

With high ticket prices and supporting acts that are a struggle to get through, live shows can be more pain than pleasure. Wild Nothing makes up for any bad show you’ve been to lately. The band are as tight as Tatum’s album but don’t play to those exacts. Instead, their live sound is an imaginative extension of Gemini; an artwork in its own right. “The Witching Hour” took the driving force from Gemini and accelerated. Despite the cold he claims he’s getting, Tatum jumped effortlessly between ranges, hitting a surprise landing an octave higher than the recorded chorus of “Live in Dreams.” “My Angel Lonely” was still angsty and achey, but last night it was filled with the band’s collective push, forcing you to do more than listen.

At the live show, Gemini transcends its place as a sleepy bedroom album; it is infused with both kinetic energy and the feeling that time has stopped. I have no idea how long Wild Nothing played. No one, though, was ready for them to go. Thankfully, they said another sweet "thank you," and played an encore: "I hope this isn't too obvious," said Tatum (his only semi-joke of the night), before breaking into a short but strategically placed "Bored Games."

On the first week of many that has changed to winter, Wild Nothing envelopes you with a longing for summer days, but leaves you happily wrapped up enough to make it home on a cold November night.

*In terms of ambience, Cargo is a run-of-the-mill venue. Situated in a nook of East London, it can afford to sell bad food, sell cans of beer at 4 pounds a pop and play music way, way too loud because of most of the excellent acts that play in the backroom. Cargo isn’t a memorable place. I struggle to find words to describe its interior. It lacks personality. But the seating near the bar and in the lounges is ample, comfortable and leathered. Even on nights as moody as yesterday, the back garden, despite its size, is cozied-up with yellowy-glowy lighting and couples snuggled close together on benches, sipping indecipherable cocktails, striking matches, sharing cigarettes, wearing cute fuzzy fingerless gloves.

3:35 p.m.

2010-11-12T07:32:00.000-08:00

Lunchtime

2010-11-11T12:14:00.000-08:00

It's never too early for a little Christmas pining.

Showing

2010-11-11T05:22:00.001-08:00

Dollface, now exhibiting at the Museum of Childhood, is a study on the many ways of showing. The display of a dozen photographs of nine different dolls extends beyond the museum’s mostly unseen doll collection — portraits of the dolls, taken by Craig Deane, are the memories of childhood, the reflections of societal projection and the representatives of systemic ordering.

Of the 8000 dolls that are catalogued in the museum’s basement, Deane selected a handful to bring to life through large-scale portraiture. Looking out to the audience from metre-tall photographs, the dolls are now larger, living versions of themselves; breathtaking specimens of play and perception. By photographing the dolls from an upward angle, Deane seems to have captured the objects in real moments, suggesting that the role of child and toy, once hierarchical, is now an egalitarian one. Long separated from the children who played with them and now unearthed from the storage toy box, the little wax-faced and porcelain things become mysteriously fleshy and human-like, making innocent, surprised eye-contact that grazes the edge of sinister.

Concerned with how people represent themselves over time, the exhibition displays portraits of dolls that were made over 150 years. Though the photographs are not shown chronologically, the limited selection of portraits makes the historical transformation of Dollface obvious. Withdrawn, sad-eyed girls of the 1800s perk into all smiles and red lips by 1930.

The exhibition encourages comparisons and urges viewers to consider past and current relationships with life-like toys. An ebony-painted porcelain face called Cosmopolitan Doll, made in 1930, is the first portrait in the series. Paired next to an identically sized photo of a peach-colored doll, their features are strikingly similar. Despite the fact that they were made 20 years apart (one in Germany and the other in England), they have the same kewpie curled crown of molded hair and both, surprisingly, have brown eyes instead of blue. Encased within a round bubble of a face, they have the classic features of 20^th Century babydolls and foreshadow the remarkably unchanged face of American Girl dolls. The only difference is that Cosmpolitan Doll is painted dark brown and the other is clearly Caucasian. Both have unnaturally womanly red lips. Though painted a similar shade of red to the white doll’s, Cosmopolitan’s mouth is unfaithful to her actual lip line, suggesting the impossibility, even on porcelain, of a cupid’s bow as flawless as the one on the lips of the pale-faced twin to the right.

Deane writes that “cataloguing and storing objects is just as fascinating as the objects themselves.” Each photograph is titled by the doll’s museum reference number and store location. By including the reference number with the portrait, Deane toys with the idea of the unaffected organization of emotional attachment. Besides year and place, very little information is attached each doll, and with titles such as “T.186-1931BGML05172,” it is only natural to start making categorizations based on the information at hand.

By building a time-conscious narrative from the museum collection, Dollface shows a portion of the V&A toy box numerically as well as a social history of self-perception and projection through play. Although there is much to show, the exhibition lacks transparency regarding Deane’s choice of dolls. With an inexplicably limited selection of portraits, the exhibition lends itself to more questions than answers. If all except two portraits are white, what does that say about the museum’s overall collection? What dolls remain as history’s playthings? What — or whom— are we playing with?

12:36 p.m.

2010-11-11T04:32:00.000-08:00

Last night

T's homemade steak and Guinness pie with mash and veg

12:13 — Whines

2010-11-11T04:10:00.000-08:00

A tormented feeling has gotten under my skin. It’s has been scratching to surface for some time, and I’ve been in denial, going about my day as amiably as I can because if there is one thing I’ve noticed, people here don’t actually complain that much. I like to think of myself as a good-natured, positive person, but compared to those I spend the most time with, it sounds like I have much to complain about. Or, perhaps, I find every small thing to whine about when there is one major complaint that I don’t have the energy to address.

Public transport is humiliating.

There. I said it. I already feel a little better.

Maybe the cold weather and dark days are getting to me, or the influx of cough-infested air on the Central line, or the seats that smell as if they have been marinated in urine for years on the Southeastern trains from London Bridge. It’s all of these events and more. I know it. I just haven’t wanted to mention it until now because what is there to do?

I realize that some things are easy to problem-solve. If your occupation allows you to travel at non-peak times, leave for where you need to be after 10 a.m. and come home nowhere around the hours of 4:30 and 6:30. Carry hand-sanitizer. Don’t make eye-contact with anyone. It is easy to do all of above, and if you follow these the unwritten rules of the TFL, you dance with the possibility of a more pleasant journey. There are, however, many obstacles, biding their time to spring humiliation and general humbuggedness on the otherwise content and comfortable passenger.

Like today, for example. Aware of the time after finishing up a day of research in Central London, I stopped into a Starbucks to kill an hour by studying up on the history of cream of mushroom soup and sipping a latte (not a great combo; I tried not to think about both simultaneously) in order to avoid the nightmarish rush hour at Holborn Station. I didn’t wait long enough. Being on the tube was like revisiting a high school prom. The window-fogged gymnasium where I bumped and grinded my way through the Thong Song and Baby Got Back wasn’t that far from the sweaty Northern Line carriage, where I was uncomfortably sandwiched between two men.

Though its guide is a bit tongue-and-check, the BBC has a 9-point list of rules that pertain to just physical contact on the tube: “You may find yourself getting more intimate with complete strangers than you may ever have done before. There is no other helpful advice here other than to just hope it will end soon, and not to complain - no one else does.”

Have you ever been in a series of situations so uncomfortable that even thinking about an exit strategy makes you squirm? That’s my commute home at rush hour. There really is nothing you can do. The handrails were out of reach, and without anywhere to brace myself, I relinquished my balance to the crotch of the man behind me, pulling a standard bump-and-grind move that would have gotten me kicked out of Junior Assembly dances. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and was relieved to feel that that my impromptu Underground dance partner wasn’t excited about the situation either.

Don’t get me wrong. Transport at rush hour is a great place to go if you happen miss contact with humans. At half-5, show up at a random station, swipe your Oyster and hop into the silent, non-moving dance club of the underground. Ride as long as you like. I, however, have been accused by most loved ones of being too unaffectionate. Anti-touchy-feelies beware: Tube touching will make you gag, just a lil’.

Public transport is also a place to avoid if you are planning on being pretty, clean or pretty clean. I get what I deserve for taking a shower when I knowingly need to be somewhere on a rainy day. But I’m a midwestern winter girl. The cold is no match for my corn-fed bones. My hair can take a little drizzle. Still, really London? Signal failures and faulty tracks due to excessive rain? That’s your excuse for why my first train was canceled and the next one was delayed by 30 minutes? An abhorable rationale for why I looked like a drowned rat when I showed up to class on Monday. And that was even with a dependable umbrella in tow. Beginning in October, the rain inexplicably comes down parallel to the pavement. Your fight to stay dry is in vain. Additionally, general city grime is no match for the acne-inducing air kryptonite of the tube — the layer of pore-clogging film as thick as a hot wet towel takes hold of your face and never, ever lets go.

I know what you’re thinking: Surely there are other ways of getting around London. Why don’t you cycle? What’s wrong with walking? What about the bus? Dear reader, allow me answer your questions.

At the moment, I have a bike here. It’s resting comfortably against the wall in my living room, eagerly awaiting the day I decide to buy a helmet and take it for a spin. It won’t be a commute-worthy spin, though. You see, me and bikes, we have a history. Well, I have a history with bikes — of crashing and burning. I am incapable of turning tight corners and the wind on my face is far too distracting. The thought of falling off a bike in the middle of Picadilly Circus is a far greater fear and reality than its Tube-equivalent. I’ll ride my bike, but it’ll happen in Dulwich Park.

Of all modes of transport, walking is by far my favorite. I could happily walk briskly for miles. When I get on a treadmill, I don’t run for exercise; I speedwalk. And the day I broke 13:30/mile I celebrated by speed-walking an extra mile. I love it. But you and I both know that it isn’t the most convenient or fastest way to get somewhere, especially in heels. Enough said.

The bus? The bus!? YOU MUST BE CRAZY. Nothing is worse that jumping onto a bus in the middle of a downpour and hearing the driver announce that the route is changing — we are now headed in the opposite direction. I don’t wish humiliation on anyone; but girlfriend, you should be ashamed if you are one of three people on the bus in a queue of five other buses on Camberwell Road. Of all modes of transport, the bus is the biggest waste of time, money and oxygen.

The hard truth of the matter is that, for the foreseeable future, transport in London today might be the best it will be. Or at least, the idea of improving is daunting due to the volume of people who commute and immigrate to the city on an hourly basis.

In a statement released earlier this week, British MP’s expressed concern that London’s already dismally expensive and overcrowded transport system would continue its downward spiral. Currently, train tickets are unreserved. A passenger who buys a ticket for the 09:11 train is not guaranteed a seat, and sometimes it’s impossible to even fit into a carriage. According to the BBC, in the past decade, rail passenger numbers have risen by 40 percent. Though the Department of Transport aims to improve rail travel by investing 9 billion pounds over the next five years, passengers can count on an increase in rail fares and still not enough seats.

Which brings me to a point more serious than whining about my hair getting wet and unintentional groping by random men. Transport is humiliating because as a passenger, you have no control. It’s hard not to think of barnyard animals being herded through gates when you are a member of the hundreds-strong pack that shuffles along the platform and into train carriages, stuffing them to capacity. Sometimes your control is lost to the point that if you were to stop moving, you would still be carried with the crowd. Tube transport is a true test of your confidence in finding your internal “happy place.” We all want to get to where we’re going, and for the most part, passengers are quiet and polite non-complainers. They have found ways to read newspapers in the tightest of spaces, somehow turning pages with just one hand.

Transport for London (TFL) has been “making improvements” for the 2012 Olympics for years. If current rush hour is any indication, TFL has a long way to go. In the meantime, I’m still not riding my bike. Definitely not taking the bus. I’ll continue to use the tube and trains because despite high school flashbacks, it is the quickest way to Point B.

1:11 p.m.

2010-11-09T05:08:00.000-08:00

Lunch

Community

2010-11-07T14:38:00.000-08:00

I am a relentless book-buyer. The habit began in childhood, when after refusing to buy outfits from Gap Kids, my mom took me to Reading Reptile. Together, my brother and I wandered the bookshop, jaws agape, touching covers to our cheeks, catching starchy whiffs of thick paper stock, completely shocked that we were allowed to touch so many beautiful books.[i] We racked up a substantial but justifiable bill: “You will grow out of clothes,” my mother said. “But you won’t outgrow books.”

Number 13 was the first McSweeney’s book I bought.[ii] The intricate gold-embossing; the crisp smell of creamy paper; the muted complexities of a Chris Ware cartoon consumed me. In Number 13, I rediscovered a part of my childhood. Michael Beirut similarly writes: “It took me right back to the way the Sunday paper used to arrive on my childhood doorstep, and it conjured the same sense of excitement.” The issue was the complex embodiment of my twitterpated childhood, and future whispers of adulthood heart-slaughter that captured and united anyone who engaged in it.[iii]

McSweeney’s issues are quarterly evidence of an odd, nurturing community — one that understands the wonder of books not only as literary tomes but as beautiful objects that reveal more each time you look. By recruiting contributions of unwanted works to the first McSweeney’s Quarterly, the small publishing house named after a peculiar man from Dave Eggers’ childhood, has further developed its book-making family by aggregating a sub-community of McSweeney’s appreciators in tortoise-shell glasses, who ignore that print appears to be dying. Recently released, The Art of McSweeney’s, chooses to acknowledge this very sentiment: “We believe…that the attention paid to the book-as-object has a role in ensuring the survival of the words within that book’s covers,” writes Eggers, assuring the McSweeney’s cultish gaggle that the small wonder-that-could isn’t going anywhere.

The Art…is a covetable reference. At first glance, it’s no production feat,[iv] but the book is a clever, humorous conversation of how McSweeney’s came to fruition. It starts at the beginning, with Eggers’ first typed plea for submissions, gradually unraveling to tell its own irreverent fairytale as only McSweeney’s can, and that’s what makes the book special. Organized chronologically (every issue, plus projects in-between), the narration is made up of interviews and dialogues of every person involved with McSweeney’s in the form of one, effortless, enjoyable, more-ish conversation. New voices are introduced with every issue, coming and going as their names are called, bringing to life the thriving pack of book-as-object lovers.

There’s no such thing as a 20-year no-hitter; McSweeney’s isn’t all good stuff. In its effort to print and publish the wonderfully unwanted, editors have made the nerds a more exclusive, elitist group of well read hipsters, uninviting anyone else. But, it’s not necessarily a bad moment when McSweeney’s elevates a socks-and-sandals community to cool. Finally, at least, the pocket-protected writers and readers are on the same subscription list.

For a publishing company comprised of some of today’s great literary minds, it is refreshing to have an open-book that addresses the gated publishing world. Despite its coffee table presence, The Art… is not something to flick through. It reads, front-to-back like the best stories in any Quarterly Concern, enveloping you in language, story and construction; inviting you, for 265 pages plus poster, to be a part of the community.

[i] Reading Reptile, after all, was a children’s bookshop where I imagined that the books were made for me — that between Paul Mesner puppet shows and afternoon snacks, the shop would magically transform into my personal library.

[ii] I was in high school, and because Candide was a reading requirement, I chose the copy with the prettiest cover — a Chris Ware cover, commissioned by Penguin art director Paul Buckley.* At the time, I was also reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and wondering how I could conjure Eggers to help write my college application essays. The stars had aligned with the self-imposed fate of a nerdy, 17-year-old overachiever by the time I came across Number 13 in a bookshop.

[iii] Little did I know, but three years later, sweating inside a plane that was grounded for three hours, I would meet a person who worked for McSweeney’s, whom I would date and fall hopelessly in amorous infatuation with, only to have my heart shredded several weeks later. McSweeney’s would be happy to know that sparks didn’t fly because of a mutual adoration for the organization; fireworks cracked in true, hipster form — by way of music, porkpie hats, and rolled Nantucket-red trousers.

[iv] Within the book, however, there are countless references to experimental, sky’s-the-limit projects that define McSweeney’s: From the first color cover (“We had no clue how to manufacture something like this.”); to the lauded Number 13, edited by Chris Ware (I knew that the book would reach mailboxes of a thoughtful, literate readership and so it was my chance to stealthily make a good case for thoughtful, literate comics.”); to the design of Michael Chabon’s Maps and Legends (“I came up with about 283 lame-ass design ideas. I showed them to Dave…He ripped a piece of paper out of a notebook…and took out his pen…I didn’t really understand it to be honest. But you would be crazy not to trust Dave’s design sense.”), The Art… maintains a clear voice because of the sheer amount and diversity of voices that comprise its community. The heavy-hitters are all present, and so are the interns…and the printers in Iceland.

* In my junior year of college, I e-mailed Paul Buckley to ask him about the Penguin graphic novelist series, and he wrote beautifully in his e-mail back to me about community: “I undertook the graphic novelist series with designer Helen Yentus. My publisher and editors knew which books they wanted to do and we'd just sit on the floor of my office surrounded by massive amounts of comics and pair-up great literature with great writers. It was a hell of a lot of fun.”

And process:

“If you are on the stove working out a recipe and its not quite right, you know. Your sense of taste, your sense of smell tells you so. In design, your eyes, your gut tells you the same thing. Like anything its about balance and harmony, and if you lack that you'll never be a good chef or a good designer. I also know its done because my editor stops torturing me, and the author says "fine, if it must look like this, I give up - but please know I'm not thrilled".

7:42 p.m.

2010-11-07T11:34:00.000-08:00

Nothing exalts the arrival of a wintry day quite like stew.

(the tools)

T's lamb stew, topped with homemade croutons.

4:59 p.m.

2010-11-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

It is 4:30 in the afternoon, and dusk struck nearly an hour ago. Balancing a hot Styrofoam cup full of strong, black coffee in one hand, I walk slowly down Peckham Road, meandering with its curves until it’s time to turn down a silent street. The park to my left is too much of a temptation not to step into. I hop over the low metal fence and into a thick soup of leaves saturated with the hues of November. Last night’s constant rain has left them glimmering in this evening’s cold, rose-colored haze, but the water hasn’t logged their leathery bodies too much — their wrinkly, veiny skins envelope my tan lace-ups.

One hundred feet ahead, boys in t-shirts run up and down a soccer field, sweating and laughing with hot-red cheeks despite the chilled air that makes my fingertips tingle. I sip my coffee. For a few minutes I watch them play against a horizon of council houses and fast-moving clouds. One boy in a cherry-red tracksuit stands on the sidelines, kicking up his legs, clambering for the attention of his mates who ignore him. The faint sound of bells drifts from the left. An old woman walks slowly, wrapped in mauve, silk scarves and orthopedic shoes. She's accompanied by two, hobbling dogs. The three slowly wobble through the skeletal trees and back down to the road. It is time to finish my walk home when the Styrofoam coffee cup no longer warms my hands. By the time this is written 20 minutes later, a blanket of navy will overtake the light. I will make dinner in a dark flat, enjoying the novelty of days so short you hesitate to blink, and wondering when I won’t be fascinated by the leaves under my feet.

Gobble For Entries: Reminder!

2010-11-06T06:40:00.000-07:00

Don't forget!

The Thanksgiving Gobble for Entries is still on. You've got plenty of time to send over photos, stories, recipes, menus, illustrations, and general thoughts/surprises about the holiday. Yeah, yeah...it's the weekend, but have a three-minute brainstorm. I know you'll think of something!

E-mail me with questions: sarahhandelman@gmail.com

Deadline: November 17, 2010

11:57 a.m.

2010-11-06T04:51:00.000-07:00

Good morning.

and Goodnight.

Visual Writing

2010-11-05T13:13:00.000-07:00

What is visual writing?

This is a question with which my tutor, Anna Gerber is fascinated. Along with Britt Iverson, Anna has co-founded Visual Editions, a London-based press that is attempting to examine, experiment with and maybe even answer the question.

Visual Editions breathes new life into books that use visual writing as a storytelling technique. The press also works with writers (who already visual writers) to publish something new. Visual writing isn’t about pictures or illustrations. The way Anna and Britt see it, visual writing is another one of the tools in an author’s kit of writing techniques that is essential to the story of the book. In other words, neither visual writing nor the book would stand its own. Or, in some more other words, as a complete work, the book wouldn’t exist without visual writing. Or, for even more other words, check out what the New York Times had to say:

“…Their first book is a new edition of Laurence Sterne’s 1759 comic novel “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,” designed by A Practice for Everyday Life. It is filled with visual jokes: a closed door is illustrated by a folded page; beads of sweat by spots of varnish; and the famous “black page” in the original book is replaced by two pages on which the text is over-printed in black.

For Visual Editions’ second book, to be published next month, the American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer created a new story, “The Tree of Codes,” by cutting up the text of one of his favorite books, “The Street of Crocodiles,” by Bruno Schulz. Chunks of original text have been removed by die-cutting, leaving the remaining words to tell the story.”

The Tree of Codes is something you have never seen before. It’s an excited step that makes a print-will-live-forever sap like me even sappier. On a night like the 5th of November, I especially admire those who question the status quo. Print’s not dying. You’ll see. Just watch a video of reactions to the book —which looks normal by all outward appearances — and then check out what’s inside on the Visual Editions website. Whether you own a Kindle or continue to the bounded add to your bookshelves, visual writing deserves attention.

6:44 p.m.

2010-11-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

There are few metropolitan cities that possess a lack of gallery openings and parties. Even in my college town of just 100,000 people, one could count on attending an average of one reception every week. And if you could at least count on one in Columbia, Missouri, that surely makes London the capital of openings. If there is nothing to do on any particular night of the week, take a stroll down your British blogroll, and you will usually find more than enough to visit; if you’re lucky, the drinks might be free.

On Tuesday I attended an opening at the New Gallery. A combination of laziness and downpour made it difficult to leave my warm flat, but the gallery is nearby, and I decided to leave any expectations on Lulworth Road. The rain came down horizontally as it is wont to do, and I put up my umbrella, walking from my quiet road to the siren-ridden high street washed with the wet, soppy reflections of stoplights. “At least,” I thought, “It is an excuse to dress up for a gin and tonic.” I walked quickly, skimming the pale soles of my pointy suede lace-ups on the drenched, dark pavement like quills dipped in black ink. Underneath my grey wool trench and with leather shorts, I wore my grandmother’s vintage, nude-colored sweater, accented by a collar of luxurious mink.

I was thankful that the walk seemed shorter than the identical one I had taken earlier in the day. I walked over the Zebra crossing, put down my umbrella and ducked into the New Gallery, whose freshly painted, bright white walls illuminated the smoking, huddling clusters directly outside. Tall girls in Topshop camel coats and dyed-grey hair looked through oversized granny glasses at the primary-colored prints of Stuhlgang, a collective of art-school skater dudes who happen to be quite talented.

There were larger wall prints and smaller ones that would work best if bought in pairs or threes. I wandered, drinking a weak Hendrick’s and tonic in an obnoxiously large plastic glass, and was then quite shocked to discover that most prints were selling for less than 10 pounds. It was, actually, quite remarkable. These are good prints. But it goes to show that the guys in Stuhlgang (who, I think are in their final year at Camberwell), aren’t making art for money; they’re making things they like for themselves, their friends and appreciators who are searching for something they can afford and love at the same time. The Miami-colored pink and mint of Glasshouse, a print by Josh Checkley, captivated me. I wasn’t planning on buying something for 2B Lulworth, but after speaking to a few of the artists and to Josh, I loved the work even more because they were Just. So. Nice.

I still haven’t decided where to hang Glasshouse, but I am just a little elated that the price of a print I love also allows me to have it framed. I’ll let you know how it goes.

2:07 p.m.

2010-10-30T06:05:00.001-07:00

Halloween Treats!

A Morning at Deptford Market

2010-10-30T05:38:00.001-07:00

I like waking up at a reasonable time on weekends. Sleeping in just an hour longer than normal is all that's necessary to feel refreshed and relaxed for a Saturday — and energized to go on an adventure. This morning was spent at Deptford Market, a classic British market filled with endless wondercrap, hagglers and blustery blue skies. It is an exemplary place to people-watch, and when the chill gets under your skin, walk down the road to The Deptford Project, a cafe in a converted train car, for a flat white.

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5:42 p.m.

2010-10-29T09:39:00.001-07:00

Ah, the beauty of journalism and cocktails!

5:36 p.m.

2010-10-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

Dismal, but delicious lunch.

I am obsessed with kale chips. Besides salt + pepper, this batch had parmesan, cashew bits and pumpkin seeds.

Busy Week: Part Three

2010-10-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

I learned to cook when I first lived in London, and over the course of several visits, I have developed an appreciative palate for English mustard, sausage and Sunday roasts. Although I will never be a Marmite-convert, the goodness of plainly buttered toast is undeniable. Despite the rumors, British food is tasty. So is Indian food in Britain. And French food. And Italian. But Mexican food is not something that Britain does well. As someone whose summer survival diet was based on tacos al pastor and salsa, I am appalled at the consistent lack of decent Mexican restaurants and the presence of those with menus that, among bangers and mash, also include guacamole!? This is not Mexican food, people.

I think about food for most hours of the day, which allows for an infinite amount of time to fill my head with daydreams of salty margaritas, greasy corn tortillas and even refried beans. After discovering the most delicious dive-of-a-taqueria in Kansas City, I have been missing the kind of spicy that only comes in the most authentic of Mexican restaurants. Mindful of the fact that one of my course tutors is from Los Angeles and also happens to love Mexican food, I asked whereabouts one might get a close taste of cilantro — not coriander — around town. Anna suggested Taqueria. After reading many reviews — “it’s as close to Mexican as you’ll get” — I emerged from Notting Hill station with my friend Kate (despite growing up in Canada, Kate fell in love with Mexican food after living in California for five years. She’s been jonesing too). We meandered down Pembridge Road, missing the weekend crowd that veers left to enjoy the tourism of Portabello Road. At Westbourne Grove, we took a sharp left and followed the smell of corn, garlic and onions all the way to the charming front of Taqueria.

A photo Kate took.

Most wishes don’t come true, but when our lunches of shredded chicken and tacos al pastor came out, we had difficulty containing our relief and excitement. It wasn’t perfect — my corn tortillas could have been a little crispier and the pork was under-seasoned — but the grilled pineapple was perfect. We were pleasantly surprised by the refried beans, which instead of pinto were black, and the plate of avocado and lime was refreshing and crisp. In the spirit of never giving anything away (as they seem to do in this city), the restaurant does not serve complimentary tortilla chips. We ordered a salty bowl, but they left much to be desired. It was highly unlikely that the chips were homemade — they lacked the certain light, bubbly crispness of the real deal — but the crunch was enough to satisfy our appetites.

After basking in our post-lunch spread, we paid our (reasonable) bill and said goodbye, promising to return again soon. I don’t know about Kate, but despite being left with taste of spicy pineapple on my tongue and being the right amount of full, I was a little disappointed. No, you certainly can’t have it all. But surely the world’s most international and cosmopolitan city would know how to do Mexican food. I will go back because I am certain there isn’t anywhere else in the city of London that does tacos al pastor as well as Taqueria, but come December, I will be very happy to visit my Kansas City haunt, where I will eat salsa so hot it makes me choke and wash it down with a Mexican Coca-Cola.

Busy Week: Part Two

2010-10-24T09:24:00.000-07:00

We let our lunches digest for a bit, bid goodbye to the adult Disneyworld of Jamie Oliver and meandered up very adorable road (through the tiny alley shortcut) to my course director’s home, where afternoon class was held. Teal’s house, which she shares with her partner Roger, is a contrast of ideas:

-very old, but also new.

-modern but inviting.

-gallery-esque but way, way livable.

The architects of Studio Octopi and the occupants faced the major design challenge of bringing a very old building up to modern standards — standards which were set by its two very design-minded residents. They were also asked to take on the task of finding a manageable way of displaying Teal and Roger’s vast array of collections.

And later...

On Thursday something very special happened. And it wasn’t the small lecture I went to on zines, although despite the too-warm room, it was quite lively and informative. No — what happened on Thursday was similar to the feeling I got when I opened my A-Z and dotted my flat on Lulworth Road. I went to the No. 67 to work on Thursday morning, and before I even said a word the dude at the counter (who I later learned is named Hamish and co-runs the café) confirmed my drink order. Anyone who partakes in café culture knows how serious this is. I took it as a sign: I am in the right place. Now, it was suggested that I’m moving a little too fast with No. 67. That perhaps I should essentially “date around” the other cafes and workspaces of South London. Admittedly, I am pretty infatuated with this place — the coffee, the soup, the space, the light, the insanely good (Steely Dan, Mazzy Star and The Shirelles), music. But what’s wrong with having all of those needs fulfilled? I actually get work done and manage a fair amount of people-watching. I don’t feel like I’m settling. If I were writing this from anywhere else, I’m pretty sure I’d be settling. For now No. 67 remains my place of worship and perpetual bliss.

Busy Week: Part One

2010-10-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

You know how sometimes you can judge busy weeks by how tired you are or how much you eat at the end? As a self-caffeinator and mega-eater anyway, those are poor determinates. However, this week I did blow through my Oyster card balance. 21 pounds went to 80 pence in five days. What happened? A busy week happened, dummy!

It does cost slightly more to get to my college from where I live because it is the boofoo of South London. But still!

After an insanely long Monday of classes, I spent Tuesday doing lots of walking around and working. Simply waiting in line…err…queuing at the post office is an adventure in itself. Little kids rolled across the floor and ignored the agitated scolds of their hard-ass grandmothers. The lady in front of me stared blankly out the window while eating a fried chicken leg. I learned a few things about the post office: the pain of waiting to do anything isn’t any different than the states. But once you finally get up to the counter, an office worker talks through a thick piece of plexiglass, which makes hearing nearly impossible. I tried lip-reading for a while, but when that failed, I resorted to inching my ear closer to the little hole for sliding money and stamps. It looked quite odd, I’m sure, but it was worth it. Turns out if you give people your address, they send you fun stuff — an amazing care package had traveled 4000 miles to be opened by moi!

Later I waited 20 minutes for a train, got on it, got off early after finding out the stop I needed had been canceled, walked in a circle as I tried to walk back home, then found my A-Z and tried again. Things worked out because I managed to get to No. 67, my haven, in time for a late afternoon coffee and Internet-peruse before catching a bus home.

Do you like Jamie Oliver? I happen to be a kind-of-fan. I was thoroughly entertained by his Food Revolution show on ABC, and he makes me want to grow a vegetable garden. For the morning lecture, we met at Clapham Junction and walked over to Jamie’s restaurant, Recipease, where we drank lattes and a few others indulged in savory and sweet, breafasty, nibbly bits. The restaurant is straight out of Jamie’s shows and cookbooks. Rustic and traditional products in luscious colors adorn plain, wooden tables and furniture. Fridges are filled with fresh, premade meals in pretty packaging, and everyone — everyone — who works at Recipease has a twinkle in their eye. After slowly getting into some heavy design theory, Tim Hayward stopped by to chat, and we made our way over to a Jamie Oliver-twisted cooking class on mushroom risotto.

Before Wednesday, the only kind of risotto I had made was a box of gluten-free, organic risotto, which did the job but the gloopy consistency turned me off of making something like it again. However, we were in the clean, trusting hands of Jimmy, an instructor at Recipease and schooled by the Naked Chef himself. We were about to make Mushroom Risotto the Jamie Oliver way, or as Jimmy put it, we were about to become “one with the food.” We worked at our own stations and used minimal ingredients, which waited in cute bowls, ready to be dropped into the mix.

I won’t repeat the step-by-step guide to making mushroom risotto, but I will relay a few key points:

1. I had forgotten the power of butter. Last year I spent a lot of time with Julia Child, but when I started to eat less dairy, I dropped the golden goodness and used more olive oil. Cooking with butter again was a feast for the senses.

2. According to Jimmy, Jamie Oliver starts most of his savory recipes out with two simple ingredients — celery and onions — and allows them to sweat in a pot or pan. I’ve always used garlic and onions (probably explains why I have to chew peppermint gum), but I think I might try Jamie’s way more often. It gives the dish a fresher, cleaner flavor.

3. You can never use too much stock. Just pour it in. Let the risotto plump up. And pour in some more. And then probably some more.

4. Don’t underestimate breadcrumbs. Jimmy made the class an alternative risotto to try with extra parmesan, crushed cherry tomatoes and a lovely, toasty breadcrumb mix. The crunchy/creamy juxtaposition was so more-ish, he had us coming back for second and third samplings.

There is a trick to knowing whether your risotto is the perfect al dente. Take one piece on the back of your wooden spoon and press your finger against it. If the risotto breaks into four pieces, it’s perfect; ready to go. If it breaks into two pieces, it needs more time. If it smooshes, it’s beyond repair, and you’d better plate it anyhow. This really works. I promise. Even Tim Hayward was in disbelief when the trick worked. The risotto was earthy, rich and not gloopy at all. With a little parmesan on top, it hit the spot as we picked Hayward’s brain, discussed the future of being a writer (it's a scary world, but I’m trying to be positive), and even delved into themes of wabi-sabi.

Gobble For Entries!

2010-10-23T11:39:00.001-07:00

Hobby Lobby already smells like Christmas, but I’ve got pumpkin pie on my mind.

To commemorate my first Thanksgiving across the pond, I’m inviting you to contribute to a small publication about all things turkey, cranberry and gravy.

Send me your memories, stories, photos, illustrations, family t-shirt designs, recipes and childhood crafts.

What do you remember about your favorite Thanksgiving? What do you try to forget? After stuffing yourself full of stuffing, do you trudge outside to release family tension in a rousing game of tackle football? Share your recipe for perfect tofurkey!

In the spirit of breaking bread, your submissions will be compiled in a zine for all to share on Thanksgiving Day. Submit via e-mail, blog comments, Facebook, or my favorite: snail mail! Any originals that are posted overseas will be sent back after I’ve scanned and added them to the zine.

Contact me with questions, and get those ideas cooking! Deadline: November 17

2:21 p.m.

2010-10-21T06:17:00.000-07:00

The cover from Leonard Koren's Which "Aesthetics" Do You Mean? Ten Definitions.

Lately my master’s course has brought back to memory everything I ever loved about elementary school. Two weeks ago we went on a field trip to British Telecom’s dusty archives, just off High Holborn road, 8 stories up and 3.5 kilometers long. We even took a bus. It wasn’t yellow, but I think a double-decker suffices. Tomorrow we are taking another bus to a culinary school. We’ll make a meal — a mushroom risotto — with a hero of mine, Tim Hayward, who is a critic and writer for the Guardian and also publishes the most wonderful food zine called Fire and Knives. Then we’ll go to the home of my course director, Teal Triggs, where we’ll drink tea as we present our essays on Process and converse about our own authorial positions.

But more about that later. In the vain of all things Crayola Crayon and Elmer’s Glue, we had a show-and-tell of sorts in our Monday-morning session. Each of us brought in a design object to talk about and describe how it does or should fit into the Design Cannon. There was a clever, streamlined photo album. A vinyl record. A toy Routemaster Bus. The first graphic novel ever (!!!). A catalog of one-off graphics for one of the most influential ceramic factories in the world. A lipstick. I brought in my A-Z London Guide, the quintessential pocket-sized book of any map you need to get to anywhere you need to get in this silly, windy city. The A-Z (they call it A to Zed) is not subtle or surprising like the photo album that was presented; the garish cover is splashed with a red-and-blue logo that couldn’t get much bigger. The maps aren’t particularly beautiful. Street names wind around the illustrated roads in a way that suggests attractive kerning was sacrificed for curving. The A-Z, for most users, is highly functional but not exactly pretty to read. If I want pretty, I have my London Design Guide, but even that doesn’t make the impossible possible like the London A-Z. Published once a year, you can buy an updated A-Z and see every single street in London — before you get to that street, while you’re on it and afterwards. Other guides do their conventional job; they guide you on the course that gets you from Point of Interest A to Point of Interest B. The A-Z, although filled to the brim with detail, is a blank canvas for your journey across this confusing city.

“Go ahead, get lost,” it seems to suggest. “You might be surprised at what you find.”

I told my class that I didn’t think the A-Z fit my definition of aesthetics, and knowing this, I wasn’t sure how it should fit into the design canon. The A-Z definitely doesn’t outwardly possess the power — beauty or cultural — of a lipstick tube. A lipstick says everything with a twist, implied or physical; it’s there in your hand, on a blotted tissue, in a Thiebaud painting. The A-Z has been around for decades, but it simply is not a beautiful piece of design. Although it isn’t superficially attractive, it is part of a recognizable brand, and perhaps its shelf-presence is enough to fill that “aesthetic” need. Ian Horton, our tutor on Monday mornings, also said that using an A-Z opens up the theory of psychogeography — one determines one’s space through personal interactions. Making a little red dot at my address, 2B Lulworth Road, was a little like finding my house when I fly in from Chicago. It’s a bit of magical knowledge that you keep to yourself. My movements are based from that house, and now from that red dot. Suddenly, I am part of the landscape of my A-Z. While it’s not ideal to view confusing clusters of London from birdseye, the aesthetic qualities of London comes alive when you realize that what you are seeing, in front of you, not on the page, is real and tactile and maybe even beautiful.

After the morning session, I couldn’t get this idea of aesthetics out of my head. What did it mean, actually? I knew I had used the term in several different ways just in one class, and I also realized that I should visit an aesthetician to tame the wild beast that is my soon-to-be unibrow. Obviously, the aesthetics we spoke about in class and a professional eyebrow-tamer were different. It was the perfect excuse to snuggle up with a recently purchased book by Leonard Koren called Which “Aesthetics” Do You Mean? Ten Definitions. Now, before you think I just wasted a bunch of time trying to milk a creative set-up to have a snobby conversation on aesthetics, I really didn’t know when I would read Koren’s work until after we had this class. And I actually did snuggle up with it, under a duvet, with a glass of wine and maybe even a hunk of Green & Black’s chocolate, because that’s what I have to do when the Internet won’t be installed for another week.

Anyway, all 94 pages of Ten Definitions is an enlightening, challenging read. Koren is an accomplished design writer/consultant, and reading that he too is perplexed by “aesthetic/aesthetics” is refreshing (and also a little worrisome since the term may never be clear or easy to understand). The book is divided into sections — introduction, origin of the term, 10 definitions, usage in context, notes and captions, all working together in a real attempt to make the vague idea of aesthetics more tangible.

Koren knows his audience. He writes: “If you have this book in your hands, you are most likely a creator or culture worker, who on any number of occasions, has been seized by the desire to wrestle the terms ‘aesthetic’ and ‘aesthetics’ to the ground and strip them of their pretensions.”

He has also done a lot of research. Even in a book no more than 100 pages, Koren’s knowledge and his willingness to share it comes through in all 10 definitions and their usage. The definitions are short; the longest one, where “aesthetics” is defined as “philosophy of art” is nine pages. Interspersed throughout the book are intriguing artworks — photographs, illustrations and pieces of text — that provide visual context and are also explained in the Captions section. Besides listing 10 different definitions of “aesthetic” and “aesthetics,” Koren wants us (the reader) to understand how they can be used in conversation. His section entitled Notes is an explanation of how the book came to be, with every definition of aesthetics used multiple times. He understands that despite his balance of thoroughly simple definitions, it is crucial to see how different definitions work together. “Notes” does a bang-up job of showing us how.

Ten Definitions is highly informative, but what I found most encouraging was Koren’s voice. In buying this book, I knew I was setting myself up for one of two outcomes: Page after page would whiz above my head, leaving me even more perplexed by the aesthetic conundrum OR the writing might actually be modest, humble and creative enough to whisk me away, inspiring me to jump into aesthetics rather than anxiously walk around the cold pool. Koren is transparent about his process in writing this book, and his own curiosities of aesthetics. His credentials, sense of humility and writerly humor make him a trustworthy guide through a very vague world.

Ten Definitions is not a book you can read once and understand. Determined to comprehend these definitions of aesthetics in colloquial usage, I flipped back to the beginning and recited the sections aloud. Simply spending time with Koren’s curated imagery helps cement certain elements of every definition. In many situations, when the word “aesthetic” is used, it possesses several of meanings described by Koren, illuminating the fact that there is no clear route.

Much like the A-Z, there are many ways to reach one point. Though, at first glance, they might cover vastly different terrain, my garish-looking pocketbook and Koren’s volume which sits well on a shelf or table, are useful, encouraging guides to an inscrutable landscape.

DWC: Thoughts on Authorial Position

2010-10-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

So, what do you write about?

via ffffound

1:46 p.m.

2010-10-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it is because a most autumnal mix of elements have converged upon this mid-October weekend— chilled sunshine, cranberry colored leaves that fly into my wool scarf, dinners of root vegetables and lunches of squash soups — but I am finally, gradually, beginning to settle into my life here.

I am now a South London girl. I live on a quiet street called Lulworth Road in Nunhead, a place that until last week I had never heard of but am now starting to embrace.

My neighbors aren’t the cool kids I imagined; Carol lives in the flat below. She’s a 60s+, London good ol’ girl, who sounds and hacks like she’s accidentally left her head in the fireplace all her life. She owns a Staffordshire terrier puppy named Blue. Most mornings I hear their familial banter: Blue’s barks and Carol’s congestion. Carol also thinks chubbing-up is a synonym for locking the door. She hangs out with Phil, the Indonesian guy who lives next door. “There’s just one thing you need to know about me,” Phil said from behind his fence, his eyes redder than the most hardcore stoners I know. “When I play my music, I play my music.” I found out what Phil meant the next night when reggae pulsed so loud I had to go outside to make a phone call.

Nunhead took me by surprise. There’s nothing posh about it (not even nearby, lovely Dulwich can influence the area), and living here has forced me to quickly take my ideas and memories about London off the ornate pedestal in my mind. Don’t get me wrong; London is quite a special place, but “place” is relative. Columbia is quite special, and Kansas City is too.

I was spoiled this summer, living in a silent woods. The noise of Central and the grime are difficult to accept. After a week of no hot water, the boiler was finally repaired. I took a long-awaited shower, and afterwards, when I ran a swab around my inner ear, the wax came out black. My snot is black too. My lungs crave a tree-filled green, but my inhaler does the job for now.

Life outside of Central London, though, is quiet. The soundless route home from Nunhead Station is scattered with murmurs emerging from the off-license and the protective barks of pitbulls. I get nervous and walk with the four keys I use to open my door pointing outward. In weak moments, I think about buying a small bottle of aerosol hairspray because carrying mace is illegal. But I also know that if the streets were loud, I’d feel the same way. I remember being nervous in Columbia, and acknowledge that the night changes any walk home, not just my 5-minute journey to Lulworth Road. Things will get better, but at the moment I am envious of the 10-year olds who strut like they own the neighborhood and possess the street smarts of legendary mafia members.

The kitchen window frames a dark green vista, and at night, the train that runs to and from Nunhead silently snakes its way up and over the horizon. Connected train carriages a darker shade of black than the midnight sky encase amber rectangles of light that run every 15 minutes but never make a sound.

Besides my classes, everywhere I’d like to go is about a mile away, and on these rare, rainless days, I walk briskly down Queens Road, past the chicken shops, fishmongers and unisex salons, continuing toward Peckham High Street, where I walk by the post office I got lost three times trying to find, and then onto Camberwell, where I can order a soy latte at the South London Gallery and check my e-mail. Although Ragtag/Uprise will never be replicated, the café called No. 67 in South London Gallery is as close as I’ve gotten to finding a non-library venue for working. The food and coffee is comparable to my stateside favorites, and instead of watching a movie, I can walk through Tatiana Trouvé’s exhibition of subtle sculptures and architectural paintings.

The excellent people-watching affords me ample opportunities to be distracted, but on sunny afternoons I would much rather take a long time to get a little bit done than fashion a chair out of blankets in my seatless Nunhead flat. Things will come together. I should probably be a little more patient. And, you know, have a little faith.

A friend told me that no matter who or where you are, everyone goes through certain stages of culture shock. He said it was perfectly normal for me to feel as homesick as I do. “It will get better,” he assured me. As the days creep by (this week has whirred past) I am no less overwhelmed by my life here, but the uncertainty that has constantly run through my mind is slowly moving away from “What have I done?” to “What shall I do today?” I am happy to have a little enthusiasm on my side.

1:34 p.m.

2010-10-21T05:28:00.000-07:00

Observations about my neighborhood:

1. Here, you must watch your footsteps; not to avoid tripping, but to avoid stepping into the perplexing amount of dog poo that is left on the pavement. It mysteriously appears overnight and even after being kicked around (gross, I know), remains for days.

2a. I have never texted more in my life. Texts with my landlord. Texts with the internet-contract-signing dude. I don't hate texting any less.

2b. Despite the above-mentioned dramatic increase in texts, my abilities have not improved. Rather than steering clear of texting and driving, I try not to text and walk, especially into double-decker buses.

3. The light in my kitchen might be the most consistently pretty light I've ever experienced.