Pandemerbium

First Annual Blind Whisky Tasting

2011-03-01T11:57:00.000-08:00

Research for an article on Alberta Premium Whisky for Alberta Venture Magazine inspired an evening of sipping, deliberation, and description.
Creative writing teachers and comedians were present. Official “whisky experts” declined to attend. Whisky brands were revealed after the seventh glass was finished and judged.

Results below (condensed by lost scraps of paper, illegible handwriting and repeat remarks):

1. Jaimeson’s: Chrome bite, July and Butterscotch, Snap of Pine, Slow blooming firework, Vanilla, Light-smoke—The kitten’s tongue vs. the lion’s roar--What’s his face?, A nice breakfast drink possibly accompanied with grapefruit
2. Alberta Springs: Astringent, Making-out with a relative, A punch in the face and a pat on the back, Tart as tiger tears, “Hey how are ya’?”, Lacks subtlety, Sleazy to bitter in one-straight line
3. Aberlour: Sunrise with good ideas in your head, Clear scent, Remembering a grandfather, Lemon tones, Like old whats’er-face, A walk in the woods with an old friend
4. Alberta Premium: Rummy, Sweater-Smell, Odd but not fascinating, It gets in my nose, Mediochre, Direct
5. Glenfiddich: Subtle in and out, Smooth, Age and distinction, Farley Mowatt’s cologne, Subtle arc, Nice smell
6. Makers Mark: Walking in the shower and liking who you see, Cherry & water, Complex, Candle wax and burnt caramel, Lacks authenticity, Goes downhill with each sip,
7. Dalwinnie: Light and bright, Flowers from childhood, A burning log, Strong to taste with bitter under-tones, Afternoon delight in an old leather chair, Exceptional, Classic, Smooth, Inappropriately friendly, What Dad smells like, Early afternoon delight

Afterword: The graphic-novel descriptions state, “I like #5! Ermmmmm… change my mind #2! No wait, #4.” Number six is drawn on a boot.
Also, earlier detractors of Alberta Premium warmed to the whisky’s charms later in the evening, many drinks later, with ice.

Gettin' Primal in the Big City

2010-02-10T08:35:00.000-08:00

The New York Times did such a great article on the "Caveman Lifestyle" that I felt the need to head down there and spend a little time exploring the phenomenon itself. Luckily, I arrived just in time for a media-blitz: a Japanese camera crew, a few Norwegian reporters, and a Dutch reporter all came out to see them run half-naked in winter across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Emily Bodenberg (acting photographer for the day) and I also had the chance to check out cave-man John Durant's gorgeous Upper East-Side apartment. There, we chatted with Erwan LeCorre about the gash in his foot and his theories on comfort. John was also kind enough to show us his meat-locker.
Check out my slide-show on the cavemen, and await an upcoming piece on The World This Weekend.

DIY Wheat

2009-11-11T11:58:00.000-08:00

As grain farmers in Saskatchewan struggle through a late harvest, grain farmers on Vancouver Island are celebrating the success of their very first harvest.

Fifty families in and around the town of Duncan participated in a project to grow grains on a small scale. They celebrated their harvest by gathering at a local bakery called True Grain, where they had the opportunity to turn their grains of wheat into flower using the traditional stone mill.

The project is called Island Grains, and was started by Brock McLeod and Heather Walker.

Heather and Brock are new to farming (having just wrapped up their second season) and started growing grains after picking-up a book about small-scale wheat production at a second hand store. After one successful attempt, they decided to share their new knowledge, and build on it, by offering up a chunk of their land to anyone who was interested in trying to grow grains. They also set-up a series of workshops to help people through the process.

In the spirit of experimentation, Island Grains participants grew an array of heritage varieties with varying degrees of success, with different lessons learned. Plots of Red Fife—the first wheat to ever be grown with any success in Canada—grew well, but too tall and with heavy heads. The plants flopped over, and that made them difficult to harvest. Many participants enthusiastically planted an ancient grain called Emmer, which they got to taste at one of the Island Grain workshops. However, the seed variety turned out to be for winter, so plants grew into grasses, but never into full stalks.

One of the participants, Sandy McPherson, harvested a kilogram of Kamut from her plot.

“My husband and I were motivated by our desire to eat more locally,” McPherson says, “but we didn’t work too hard on growing our grains. Every now and then, we’d plan a bike ride to the plot so we could do some weeding.”

Next year, she says, they’ll grow Kamut on their own land, and also attempt Quinoa and Amaranth.

Sarah Simpson says her grain growing experience was anything but easy.

After not weeding for a month, she encountered weeds as tall as herself (5ft). She set to work destroying them, only to be told later by Brock that she’d, “weeded her plot to death.”

At the end of the season, Simpson harvested enough wheat for just one loaf of bread. Still, she says she had fun, and is going to try again next year.

Brock and Heather don’t know how much grain was produced on the collective plot, but if the yield resembled their plot of the same size, it would have produced some 500lbs of grain.

Note: One pound of grain produces, on average, two loaves of bread.

K-Dub

2009-06-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

When you’re growing up, your town is just your town. Maybe as a teenager you hate it, but you probably can’t name the specific reasons except for maybe all the people you’re sick and tired of, your parents among them who’re driving you crazy and the fact that there’s nothing really to do at all. I don’t know if I ever directed my teenage angst directly at Kitchener-Waterloo, but I knew I wanted to get out. And out I got, when I was only 16.

I came back of course, and after only 6 months. The really strange thing is that living in a town of 300 people instead of 300 thousand people made Kitchener seem unbearably small. In Germany, I passed a river and sheep on the way to school. In Kitchener, I walked passed an Italian food store, over a railway track, through the parking lot of my Dad’s office and past a hospital. Just before actually entering school I had to walk through the “smoke hole,” where drug-deals were planned and girls came by with strollers to show-off their new babies.

I knew I wanted to get out, but mainly it was to get away from my parents, and to escape the possibility of going to a university whose populations was known to be made up predominately of "nerds". Many of those nerds did not speak English and were very into math. Many of those nerds went on to make a lot of money, and some even engineered technology considered partially responsible for our current economic crisis.

I left for university, came home, left again... There were some stints where I came back and the town surprised me: I realized how great the independent cinema was, and made a few new friends.

But I’ve been caught off guard by recent longings for the place. I actually found myself feeling a little jealous of the old friends who never left.

Getting back here though, I am shocked by the abhorrent urban landscape. In parts it seems the city’s greatest attempts at architecture come with the effort to make nice strip malls. There’s an organic food shop set up at a intersection of four-lane roads with tractor-trailers rumbling past in order to attract customers coming on and off the highway. There are tables with umbrellas set up so that when the weather gets better, customers can eat their deli sandwiches while soaking up the sun and watching the parking lot.

Residential neighbourhoods in this part of town actually have a certain charm: the brick houses are modest with peaked roofs with big trees out front for shade. Its not uncommon though, that this pleasant view will be marred by an overweight man cutting his grass while topless. In Paris, the man would be fined for this.

There are also a whole slew of new golf courses lined by monster homes. Each 700 thousand dollar home looks different, each is hideous in its own way. There are few trees except for those on the golf course, there’s nowhere to shop or socialize, but plenty of two-car driveways making ample room for Mercedes convertibles and Land Rovers.

It’s safe to say that after seeing all this, my nostalgia has waned. Then a friend tells me, “Get thee to Schneider’s Bush, you can find morel mushrooms under the white pines this time of year.” So I hop on my bike and ride through sprawl that feels like it will never end. I cycle past houses on pieces of land where only cows grazed when I was a kid. I make a left-hand turn past more of these houses until they disappear and give way to a Christmas tree farm and I’m almost there. There is a lone stop sign at the end of the road where I can lock-up my bike and, I step into the woods.

Almost immediately I find a mushroom, but I realize I don’t know what a morel actually looks like, and this one just looks like one of the regular white ones that may or may not be poisonous, so I keep walking. For five minutes I can hear the nearby road and I half hope I’ll always hear that road—for fear of getting lost. The sound fades quickly though, and I march on. I stop to watch a beetle who seems to be making-love to a twig, then am urged on by the mosquitoes attacking my knees.

Soon I come to a clearing covered in tall grass sloping upwards. Except for the trees along the bottom, this place would make a perfect toboggan run. A rabbit darts under some brush. Maybe he was planning to do that anyway. Maybe he was startled the large intruder that’s stumbled out of the woods—by me.

When I reach the top I look at where I’ve come from, over what should be the city—but all I see are treetops. Where am I? Have I just walked through a magical wardrobe?

I decide to walk through another section of forest and find another, much larger clearing. The hum of traffic I’ve been living in has been replaced by a cricket symphony. A crow calls out from the far end of the field, and sweeter little birds chirp around me. I stand there for a while just to listen and feel the sun. The grass brushes around my legs and then the mosquitoes resume their attack. I move on.

This next patch of forest is different from the last. The pathways are not covered with a layer of dried pine needles. Instead I walk on hardened deep-brown mud criss-crossed with roots. It gives the impression an older forest—a deeper, darker and more mystical sort of place. The air is wet in here, and I wonder if maybe I might bump into someone at some point. But it’s pretty clear I’m alone: the only movement in this forest comes from scurrying animals or the odd bird.

Down another hill and around another corner my eye gets stuck on something bright green. I look harder and see that it’s a pond covered in moss and the sun is shining on it.

The next clearing is a farmer’s field—acres of land that used to be corn. I’m getting a bit worried now, because this isn’t what I was expecting. So I resume my former path, and try to get back to the first big clearing. I’m relieved to find it and let my legs go loose down the hill and back into the forest.

I don't hear the road here as I hoped I would. In fact, I come out to another spot that looks unfamiliar. Have I completely misjudged my path?

“Hello!” I call out, even though I know no one will answer. I briefly imagine the search party formed to find me, which they probably will quite quickly but if not, my greatest risk of death will be the mosquitoes. I hear my father’s voice chastising me for coming out here alone.

Then I see a house and rush towards it. There are two little gardens and to me the place is perfect. I walk right on the road then change my mind and go left—I see my bike 200 meters away.

Kitchener-Waterloo has been redeemed.

As I unlock my bike and put my sweatshirt in my bag, I hear a car come to a screeching halt behind me.

“Hey you!” The driver yells, “You know where the Alpine Trailer Park is?”

Oh-La-La: Meet Natasha Cloutier

2009-04-28T06:13:00.000-07:00

I discovered Radio Oh-La-La on Boingboing.net in the fall of 2006, and I'm not sure why I started listening, other than the fact that I love boing-boing. The podcast's creator is Natasha Cloutier, and since coming to Europe, I've been determined to meet her. I finally got the chance when I went to Amsterdam at the end of March. She's great, and she's definitely on to something. To me, she's proof that you shouldn't do what people tell you or try to make money--you should just find something you love and sink your teeth in. Have a listen, I've linked her blog in to the right...

There might be 50 thousand techno DJ’s in Holland, but there is only one Natasha Cloutier.

She spins regularly on Sunday night at a club called De Nieuwe Anita in central Amsterdam. Her audience is mostly Dutch, but the regulars, apparently, have come to learn some of the music she plays well enough to sing along.

You see, Natasha has converted Dutch-hipsters into lovers of French-rock. I’m convinced that if Natasha had stepped into one of my French immersion classrooms, she really could have turned things around for my poor, suffering teachers.

Those teachers made us listen to Roche Voisine. He grew up in Edmunston, New Brunswick, but made it big as a rock-star in the French-speaking world. Apparently he was a heart-throb in France, I was never convinced.

Some of today’s French teachers seem to agree with me about Natasha. When I met her she told me she’d been helping a teacher in California with the lyrics to LOVE by Nat King Cole:

L est pour la façon dont tu me regardes
O est le seul pour moi
V est très très extra-ordinaire
E est encore plus que quiconque que vous pouvez adorer

Nat King Cole, by the way, didn’t know French, but he learned it phonetically in order to sing.

Natasha does a lot of lyrical, and historical explaining of the songs featured in her podcast—Radio Oh La La, Franco a Go-Go. For example, it might not be common knowledge that “My Way,” by Frank Sinatra, was originally written in French. Paul Anka is credited as a co-composer of the song, because he essentially re-wrote Gilles Thibau’s original lyrics.

What makes Natasha’s podcasts so great is the fact that she really knows and connects to the music—and she’s a natural translator. Her enthusiasm helps her audience forge their own connections with the music.

On top of dj-ing gigs and podcasting, Natasha runs her own copy-writing and translating company. She speaks French, English, Dutch and Russian all fluently.

She told me that it took her ages to actually openly appreciate French-language music. She’s an only child—so on road-trips with her Francophone mum and Anglophone Dad—she was exposed to a mix of Stevie Wonder, The Beejees, Janice Joplin, Joe Dassin, and Jean-Pierre-Ferlin. For ages, she told me, she was actually embarrassed about loving French music, but she came out of the closest when she started attending a popular weekly gig of French music in Montreal called, “C’est Extra.”

Natasha grew up all over Quebec (her Dad was in the military) but having a parent on both sides of the bilingual divide never allowed her the luxury of fitting into either culture.

“During the first referendum (1980), both French and English kids threw stones at me.”

It’s the French side Natasha says she relates to, and she told me she’s not much into heading West from Quebec, because she always feels such a strong prejudiced from English-Canadians when they hear her last name.

This doesn’t make her any more accepting of French narrow-mindedness.

“For years,” she told me, “My step-mother refused to learn English, but still went to Florida every year and relied on my father to translate. It made me crazy.”

Natasha told me this politics, this linguistic and cultural prejudice definitely played a role in her move to Europe.

The Dutch, she told me, are terrified of anything French.

“They consider it exotic, and France is just a place to go on nice holidays,” she said.

Natasha’s got a strategy going to get over this hurdle, and it seems to be working: Get the novices on board, and just get people communicating.

A Way-Too-Long Entry: Transition Town Totnes

2009-04-23T05:08:00.001-07:00

ABOVE: Paul & Ivana Barclay's cob house.

I went to Totnes in January... so I am a bit behind in posting this. You can also listen to a documentary version of this story on Dispatches, March 23.

When you dream of the future, do you see Mad Max, The Jetsons, or something else entirely?

People in Totnes, England, spend a lot of time on that dream, and they see all kinds of things. Here are a few of the dreams I encountered on my trip to the town: vegetarian totalitarianism, alternative power for rock bands, shark attacks in English rivers, food shortages, water wars, and petroleum driven cars being preserved as monuments.

Three years ago, a guy named Rob Hopkins returned to Totnes, his hometown, in order to put his latest idea to the test. He had been living in Ireland and teaching a course on permaculture when someone handed him a copy of a film called, “The End of Suburbia.”

It’s an apocalyptic look at what happens to suburban life when there’s no more gas for the SUV, never mind the trucks and planes that ship food from other continents.

In his rural existence, growing all his own food, Rob figured he was safe from the fate of suburbanites.

“Then it dawned on me—I was living in suburbia, it just didn’t look the same! I had to drive from where I was to go to socialize, go to shops, to take my kids anywhere… it came as a big shock to my system.”

He took the film into class and made a project out of how to solve the problem of oil dependency. The result was the “Transition Town”—a concept that harnessed the creative energy of a community to create an “energy descent” roadmap.

When Rob made his return to Totnes a short time later, he started knocking on doors and talking to people he thought might be interested in the idea. He started hosting talks and film nights about peak oil and climate change, holding brainstorming sessions and workshops…

“When it started out, we had a few ideas,” Rob told me, “We put those out to people and they then went off and played around, added things, took things away, the model keeps being changed all the time. It’s something that learns from its successes and its failures all the time.”

So three years-in, there are some 300 people on board in the Totnes Transition Town project. They’ve established a local currency, a garden share project, a local food directory, and are working on a multitude of others.

A word that gets tossed around a lot in transition circles is “resilience.” Rob says it’s a word he prefers over sustainability.

“Sustainability implies that you can keep everything going as it is at the moment in a kind of globalized economic model,” he says, “You just run the car on hydrogen and you stick a solar panel on the top and everything else is just exactly the same.”

When it comes to big, global systems, problems are easy to ignore. By the time they’re obvious, they’re enormous, and seemingly out of control. Localized systems bring problems closer to home and down to scale.

In his book, Rob acknowledges the struggles and hardships that existed in before highways and shopping malls, but I can’t help but agree with him in the belief that there might be a lot to learn from that era.

He quotes a passage from Great Expectations that describes the outskirts of London around 1870:

Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like battery mounted with guns…

“At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of salad I can raise. So, sir," said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, “ If you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions."

Then he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet.

"I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades…”

Wemmick’s got a pride in his home that can’t be bought at Ikea, or secured by a low-interest mortgage (which we don’t need to worry about any more).

I encountered a similar kind of pride when I met Paul and Ivana Barclay, who are in the midst of building their family home in the town of Dartington—just next to Totnes.

Paul used to work in IT for a telephone company, and until he and Ivana decided to build this house… he’d never worked with his hands before.

The house, by the way, is made of cob—earth from a hole in the yard has been mixed with straw from a nearby field to make the walls. The roof is thatched, and stuffed with recycled sheep’s wool for insulation. Ninety percent of the materials used to build this house have been imported from no more than 10 kilometers away.

Ivana says that while the house may fall in-line with many ecologically-sound principles—that’s not their motivation for building it. She says she wanted a house that tied her family to their forefathers—and this is very much like the houses that would have been built in this part of England before energy sucking steam engines.

Paul told me that before starting, he was intimidated by the idea of building his own house.

“But this is doable for anyone,” he told me, “And I can’t wait to build another.”

Paul says the family should be able to move into the house by summertime.

Paul and Ivana don't even consider themselves a part of Transition Town Totnes, but by opening up their home to curious passers-by, and using local resources, skills and support for their personal project--they definitely are. They're work proves what's possible, and that dreams can actually come true.

A Lesson in Protest: How to Drive Away the Cops

2009-04-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

Engage them in conversation, flatter them, and don’t take yourself seriously.

That’s what this guy did. I happened upon him, just as he was telling her that she was beautiful.

He went on:

You’re not a police officer. You are a divine human being, really, that’s how I see you. And the whole problem with this situation is you’re hiding behind that uniform, and won’t even tell me your name. We can’t actually have a proper conversation and work all this out. Seriously, what do you think of all of this?

I didn’t hear her response, only his response to her response:

She thinks I’m going to get bored of this. NO WAY! She doesn’t know my wife and kids. If I get bored of this, then I have to go home to them and read stories until they fall asleep.

Now let’s talk about lies…

At this point he pulls out a ten-pound note, and starts telling a story about how he went to the Bank of England last week. He asked the cashier for the ten pounds stirling the note is said to be worth. Of course, they offered him £10 worth of change, but refused his demand for ten pounds of silver. Hence, the note is a lie.

The whole altercation, if you can call it that, lasted for a very short time. As the guy continued to talk, every few minutes the most senior police officer came along and gave the order for the wall of police officers to move back. Eventually they were against a wall. Then they disappeared altogether.

The Weed in Amsterdam

2009-03-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

So, I arrived in Amsterdam yesterday and overcame my disorientation in order to make it to the apartment where I've rented a room for a week. I was introduced to my house mate, who's name I don't know, but who I know some other things about. Let me tell you:

He is 33 years old, considers himself a kid, has an english degree and smokes dope; he's "from America"; he doesn't like to go out much so he's glad that I, as the new housemate am a girl so that he doesn't have to go out to meet one; he goes to bed at 4am every night and wakes up at 3pm; before he came here (one month ago) he was living with his parents in LA and collecting a government pension which was great because he made a lot of money and had a guesthouse and a pool but was just so sick of LA after 30 years; he's not running away--he's just DONE with LA; he really likes movies because he likes to travel, ya know? like, mentally; he thinks that horror movies have really gotten scarier because movie writers have gotten better at depicting evil, which is maybe a little extreme but maybe its important so that people know that evil like that really exists because, you know... its important to not be ignorant, that shit really happens, maybe not a lot but--once in a while. Oh yeah, and he has an English degree.

And that was what I learned about him in the first 15 minutes.

At 3am, my stomach woke me from the restless sleep due to the sound of his horror movies. I snuck into the kitchen and started rummaging. He stepped out of his room to inform me he was a bit out of it because he just took his sleeping medication. Which led to an explanation of his psychosis which might have been caused by crystal meth or all the acid he did when he was a teengager and... woah, he couldn't imagine that I had to get up at 7 the next morning and thought that maybe we could hang out when I got back from work but realistically he probably wouldn't want to go anywhere because, you know, he doesn't really like going out.

Taxes

2009-03-12T04:54:00.000-07:00

Again I might be lagging but... I've just decided that I'm sick of paying taxes.

This is new because normally I like the idea of some responsible, socially minded, democratically elected body taking my money and investing it in roads and health care and all that nice stuff. But I've just decided, its time to quit this tax-paying shit, and it was a business journalist who convinced me.

I was telling him that I got this job in the Hague (a short term posting as a judge with the International Criminal Court, ha ha), and he said, "I hope this doesn't offend you but... how much do they pay you?"

I replied that it was the same, roughly, as what the BBC pays per-day. I gave him the number, in pounds. The reaction was an immediate FOTH (Fly-Off The Handle).

"WHAT!! That's what they pay you? You're telling me they get away with that?? And, what, you're telling me you pay taxes on that???"

Um... yeah, taxes.

"Well you know where that tax money is going, don't you? Banks, yeah... their taking your pocket change to pay for some fat-cat's bonus."

This really wasn't the rant I was expecting, from someone who writes about money all day every day, who is, basically, paid by banks.

He has a point though, don't you think?

Then to top this off, I get the news today that the Canadian government is handing more cutbacks to the CBC, and that they're even debating the idea of putting advertising on CBC Radio. If CBC Radio had ads, even I wouldn't listen, and I've always listened, I work for them!

My mind wandered to the lock-out of 2006, and how CBC employees teamed up with local community radio stations and worked anyway, had a lot of fun, and did a better job than when they had managers breathing down their necks. The CBC's got a lot of fans, so why not directly sponsor these stations? (Although I hate the idea of funding-drives like NPR has.) The problem is, we'd all still have to pay taxes, pay for subsidies for the oil industry, pay for wars we don't want to fight, all the while watching the things we care about being clumsily hacked-away.

Finance a la Mrbs: 101

2009-02-08T17:48:00.000-08:00

If I know anything at all about finance, it must mean EVERYONE knows all about it. Because I lag when it comes to numbers (and apparently fashion). I remember something about derivatives in calculus, which I took twice: the first time I dropped out halfway through because I was sure that if I took it again, I'd get score 80% on the credit, when I was sitting at a grade of 72%. The second time I took it, I gave up halfway through, because I'd already gotten into the university of my choice, and couldn't be bothered to dedicate my brain to a subject I would never touch again. That is until, now... 15 years later.
I should've worked harder, and I should've suffered through first-year calculus at University along with many suffering friends, even though it would've brought my already weak GPA down further. (If I ever have kids, I'll tell them about having avoided that suffering, and how I shouldn't have.) Derivatives are important. They are the intersection between philosophy and math, and they've been used to make stupid amounts of money, enough money to save the world a few times, more money than there is. A derivative is a contract to buy something at a certain price in the future, no money down. I don't know if it has anything to do with grad 13 calculus. And I might be wrong on that. All I know is that it is a very tiny piece of a very large puzzle, and the only way I learn anything is by writing it down.
Apologies, if you learned nothing here.

Brick Lane

2009-01-12T07:58:00.000-08:00

This is an adaptation of a thing I wrote at my creative writing workshop at Eastside books on Brick Lane. I was pretty happy with it off the bat--maybe its better read aloud as it was with the first draft--but now I'm feeling like it needs a lot of work. Brick Lane on a Wednesday night is a world apart and twelve senses removed from the Sunday morning experience.

Brick Lane is proof that ugly can be good. People don't love Brick Lane despite its ugliness, but because of it. They love it because it is a million contradictions crammed into a few blocks. You've got beautiful old factories that were never built to be beautiful, but they've got these old windows with a million little panes, and detailing in the pollution stained brick walls. Stick a neon sign on top of one of those walls and there you have what makes the place: something old, ugly/beautiful mixed up with something new, ugly/beautiful. Neither object is worthy of remark on its own.
The people here hold the same appeal. For kids and artists this place is a playground. They dress with a precise lack of style: big hair, bulky down coats, skinny jeans and track bikes. Throw in a mustache, here or their. Make it look easy, but know that every overpriced thrift store's been combed to come up with that perfect ensemble. These kids will catch your eye like a fluorescent stripe on a ski-vest circa 1991, they steal the show. But its the other people here, the ones who are almost invisible but not quite, that make the show. They work in shops that acquire their goods by faxing shipment orders to places that haven't yet caught on to email. They're the reason the convenience store is stocked with cardamom seeds and cinnamon sticks.

Les Canards

2009-01-04T12:26:00.000-08:00

I fantasize about ducks, not so much those that paddle around in filthy municipal ponds back home, chasing chunks of bread thrown by bored children... They sort of disgust me, those ducks.

I'm more thinking foie gras, duck confit, magret. I'm addicted. Yet, with all that goodness and fat, eating them makes me ache with guilt sometimes. Its not guilt because I feel like I should go to the gym, but guilt because it can be too much of a good thing. Too much of things that are only mediocre make me feel that way too.

Oxford street in London makes me insane. I swore, after my first trip to Oxford street that I would never go back but somehow I find myself there regularly now. I've sort of gotten used to it, I wish that I hadn't.

Back to ducks. I imagine myself raising them, being followed around by ducklings on a daily basis. Somehow, the unglamorous task of raising them, having them shit on my boots, and then the gut-wrenching job of killing, plucking, dissecting them might make up for my indulgence. That is my fantasy.

Is this a mere canard?

ca⋅nard:

1. a false or baseless, usually derogatory story, report, or rumor.
2. Cookery. a duck intended or used for food.
3. Aeronautics. a. an airplane that has its horizontal stabilizer and elevators located forward of the wing. b. Also called canard wing. one of two small lifting wings located in front of the main wings.c.an early airplane having a pusher engine with the rudder and elevator assembly in front of the wings.

Colombo

2008-12-25T10:43:00.000-08:00

I'm bored to death of trite travel writing with descriptions of foreign traffic jams, toilets and cultural misunderstandings. But here I go....

The Mount Lavinia Hotel is a stark contrast to the world outside: trucks spewing fumes dodging eachother, tuk-tuks and daring pedestrians; limbless beggars and half-constructed buildings. It was built by one of Ceylon's English governors, for his local mistress. Bits of "The Bridge Over the River Kwai," were filmed here. It’s nothing, if not a nice place to rest your head after a long flight.

A train heading straight to the city leaves from just outside the hotel, taking it costs about 10 cents. Of course, we missed the train, and grabbed a cab. This was the first in a series of confrontational business transactions. Of course, once we got through that, we learned the cabby had four kids--two boys, two girls. He dropped us off at Majestic City, one of Colombo's biggest shopping malls. The smell of sweet-popcorn wafted through the air-conditioned atmosphere alongside club-volume techno-music. Teenagers and families alike strolled through. As a rule I hate shopping malls, but this one had its own special charm.

Our first tuk-tuk ride took us to Colombo's fort, and to a travel agent that didn't exist. So on foot, we searched the city for an umbrella and walked to the "World Trade Centre" to make some adjustments to our return flight. The agent we spoke with sat in front of a computer but sent our request to London via "telex," which is apparently the thing before email.

Our second tuk-tuk driver proved to us that traffic laws do exist in Colombo, and that they are enforced. The traffic ahead of us seemed never-ending, and if I'd had the chance, the balls, I would've skipped ahead of it too. I guess he thought he could get away with driving on the wrong side of the road, but I think his near-collision with a motorcycle cop was the first mistake. Eventually, the cops did manage to make him pull over. They peeked in the back and informed us, the passengers, "He dangerous."

After a long chat, the driver came back and drove us to the train station. He said something about going to court…

Long Overdue

2008-11-17T16:50:00.000-08:00

I haven't written anything in ages... in part it's because I've been pre-occupied with other things. In part, it's because it's been a long time since I've felt like I'm on vacation, and I guess that despite my lack of feeling settled, I'm living real life now. Maybe feeling unsettled is part of that. In any case, it is somehow easier for me to process events when they are new, when they are temporary. This posting I actually wrote in September, a night out with friends but on my own at the same time. If you manage to make it through, I can tell you what the next one will be about. In any case, the posting is long overdue:

Head.
What?
La tete.
Excuse me?
How do you say it in French, giving head?
Ah, I see, la pipe...

I'm standing in line at subway and it would be fabulous if my night were already over. I'm sure I wish that less than the guys standing behind the counter. I've just come from a children's psychiatric hospital. Well, it's not that anymore. Now there are adults living there and no doctors. The adults pay £80 per week.

A new crop of drunkards has walked into the restaurant--if you care to call Subway a restaurant. One of them tries to butt in front of me but the guy behind the counter knows I was there first, so ignores him and takes my order.

A WHOLE SIX INCHES!!!

That's the drunk guy.

ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN TAKE ALL THAT??

Wow, so charming. It's easy to ignore him, but his friend manages to be even more obnoxious. The friend walks behind me and touches my head. I politely ask him to not (fucking) touch me and he repeats my words in a mocking tone, because what else could a drunk guy with a limited vocabulary actually say?

At times like these I start to think laws that limit alcohol consumption (Thank you Boris, for your first law in London) are a good idea. Would religion help? Some might.

Now back to the mental hospital. I can't decide if I find it creepy or not. The railings and flooring are made of wood and the windows are big with nice curtains. It's not institutional, in the way modern hospitals are. There are still kid's books lying around though and thats a bit weird. One is about lions eating little boys or something, how can that be good for psychologically disturbed children? Still, if I weren't so intent on getting a "real home" this might be a good place to move into.

The bus home is filled with more drunk people. I had to wait ages at King's Cross to get it. There was a group of men wearing bright orange vests huddled around the entrance of the station and as I watched them, I wondered if their presence had anything to do with today's evacuation. I wasn't in the station, but outside. The sidewalk was jammed with people, some of them freaking out. One lady was shoved up against a news stand and loudly saying to no one, everyone, "One minute you're just standing there and another, there are so many people you can't move! What is going on here???"

I heard someone say something about a bomb scare.

But it was actually another evacuation that put me in the mental hospital.

Earlier in the evening, I was standing outside a pub, freezing and hungry while Bruno rolled a cigarette and Lili tried to convince a carpet layer that his views on immigration were misinformed. I ditched them to go home, so made my way down to Oxford Circus and the Central Line. When I got to the bottom of the escalator, sirens started blaring. I kept walking with the crowd for a moment and then everyone stopped suddenly, collective delayed-reaction. Then someone said, "There's an emergency, we have to evacuate."

Some people tried to go up the escalator that was the still rolling down. Then we all
started walking forward, through the maze of tube-station hallways.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... ALL PASSENGERS ARE NOW BEING ASKED TO EVACUATE DUE TO AN EMERGENCY.

I walked in the crowd and turned a corner and then another. I half expected a cloud of black smoke to be greeting me around each one. Then I heard someone say, There's a body on the tracks... But who knows if that was true?

I wondered if maybe that lame goodbye to Lili and Bruno would be the last anyone ever heard from me. Then I told myself to just calm down, the exit would be right around the next corner. It was. Then I went to the mental hospital.

The next posting will be about finance. It's as if I'm learning through osmosis, just by being here...

Job Hunting

2008-06-17T02:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had my first meeting at a London employment agency.
Considering how hard its been for me to get these people to open their doors for me, it makes my desire to work for the BBC look like the equivalent of aspiring to walk on the moon. In any case, I was finally allowed in to one of these places. They sat me down at a computer and asked, "Do you audio-type?" I said sure, I guess so, and I've always considered myself a pretty good typist.
"Don't curse yourself!" The lady replied.
Then, at that moment, I actually developed a sense of nervousness.
What if I really am a crap typist and have just been deluding myself all these years?
And if I fail these tests then... I really should just go home and desperately thank the CBC for allowing me to sit at their desks and bang out the notes I take while on the phone, be glad to not work at McDonald's or Marks & Spencer... (I am glad anyhow, every day.)
When I was finally brought back upstairs the interview process began. This is the part where they determine whether or not I have a personality, whether I bathe regularly, whether I pick my nose in public... I asked to see the test-scores.
The results? Well, lets just say there's hope for me yet. I wouldn't want to brag....

London Map

2008-05-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

As I cycle through London, this is what my mental map looks like:

A week of Luxury

2008-05-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

An Obituary

2008-05-01T03:41:00.000-07:00

Born in a Chinese factory, made with bits of plastic and silicone from around the world, my Nokia cell phone died quickly and painlessly at approximately 4:30 pm yesterday--April 30th, 2008.

I turned on my bike near Angel Tube Station in London, when the phone flew out of my pocket and directly under the wheel of a bus. A kind passer-by attempted CPR, but several important internal organs were crushed during the accident. There was no hope.

A public memorial service will be held in Abney Cemetary, Stoke Newington, at 2pm on May 2.

Turkish Viagra

2008-04-26T02:59:00.000-07:00

Some people (usually roasted chestnut vendors) claim that "Turkish Viagra" is found in chestnuts. Personally, I believe it is found in Turkish olive oil, maybe Turkish air, or maybe Turkish water. Wherever it comes from, it is plentiful in Istanbul.

Its impact first hit me upon arrival at Ataturk Airport. I approached security at the domestic gate, placing my carry-on bag on the x-ray conveyor-belt. A guard stood facing me, looking me in the eye and taking one step back with every step forward I took. I removed my coat. "Shoes please," he said. I removed my shoes. "Belt please," I removed my belt. "T-shirt."
I stopped.
He repeated, "T-shirt, please."
I looked at him, raising my eyebrows. He stared back, unsmiling.
His friends looked on from the other side of the gate. They remained composed for just a minute, then cracked up, laughing, saying something in Turkish. I walked through the metal-detector with my t-shirt on. Apparently I was not a security threat.

I am a frequent flyer but, I'd never met an airport security guard with such a comic approach to his job. I spent the next week driving along the winding roads of Turkey's South East coast and laughing about the encounter. I thought it was random, but a week on my own in Istanbul changed my mind.

There's not one particular story that serves to exemplify my Istanbul experience. There was a story on every corner, on every half-block.

I appreciate a sense of public life: the idea that people are not tucked away behind desks emailing each other (as my life so often tends to be) or at home in front of televisions. Istanbul has a larger than life public life, but as far as I can tell, it's entirely male-dominated. I was never served by a woman in a restaurant and never encountered a woman sitting outside a carpet shop sipping tea.

Bored young men are everywhere, standing around and looking for distraction. Tourists are perfect for this. They may say they're in the city to see the Hagia Sophia and get rubbed down at a hamam, but really they're without purpose. I'm the worst for this, as I am rarely inclined towards formal sightseeing. I tend towards wandering the streets and drinking coffee until the place feels familiar. So that's what I did in Istanbul, and everywhere I went I was welcomed with the opportunity to work on my meager Turkish vocabulary.

For my few words I barely paid for a meal (although I tried), and I even dodged offers of free hotel rooms. After two days, I was devising circuitous routes so as to avoid bumping into the men who I'd had conversations with the day before (conversations which I'd escaped by saying, "I've got to go but maybe I'll stop by and say hello tomorrow"). The conversations were standardized, and I'm sure, perfected in Italian, French, Spanish, Japanese…
That's not to say I didn't notice the finer points of Turkish sexual-dynamics. I learned to enjoy having doors held open for me, and considering my general clumsy-ness--I appreciated the sense of protection that comes with walking beside a man who's watching my back (or at least the road). Its conjures up an opposite memory: of a boyfriend who left me stranded with a flat tire on my bike in the middle of winter in downtown Toronto. Or for a subtler example: there was the band I interviewed in Istanbul. One of the musicians was American, but had grown up in Canada. The Turkish musician stuck firmly to the ladies-first mentality. The Canadian walked through doors in front of me and let them swing shut. We shared a cab, and before getting out he stopped for a second, looking back and asking, "Hey, you don't need any money for this do you?"

My Turkish adventure began much as it ended. I paid the clerk at my hotel 7 Lira 50 for the airport shuttle. I asked for a cup of tea and he led me to the dining room. There, he did not give me tea but gently brushed the hair out of my eyes, put his arm around me and tried to pull me close. I turned around and went outside to the bench to wait for the shuttle. He followed me and sat down beside me. "Next time you come to Istanbul, we go (hand motion for walking)? You will be my darling?"

NOTES FOR LAURA GREEN: I stained my new green shirt over breakfast on my first day in Kusadasi... you claimed you wanted to know these things. Upon meeting an archaeologist who I'd lined up an interview with, he offered me a glass of water. Can you guess what happened next? Of course you can. Not just spillage, but breakage. Immediate, breakage. When I left Istanbul, I accidentally stole the key to my hotel room. I'd been told there was only one. I also accidentally stole Clive Stafford Smith's scissors, and Billy's toothbrush (but neither of these cases of petty thievery occurred in Istanbul.) Also, I showed up early for my flight from Istanbul back to London. A whole day early, in fact.

Stoke-Newington. It's just like Turkey, only colder.

2008-04-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

It only took me a day to find my first "miracle-food" here in London, and I owe it all to Stoke-Newington.
That's the neighbourhood where I currently make my home.
And its the hood's Turkish influence that's bringing me the goodness.
So that first miracle-food, is a miracle first off, because it only costs £1.50. It's called "gozleme," and it's a flat bread stuffed with either spinach and feta, or spicy potatoes. I'm sure there are other varieties... but I haven't stumbled over them yet.
Anyhow, just one of these babies makes a great meal. Perfect for lunch. For a while I was going in the shop almost every day.
There are two women who run the show there. One of them sits on a little stool less than a foot high, flattens and stuffs the bread, then cooks it on what looks like an upside down wok. She wears a headscarf, never utters a word. The other woman takes the cash, she's the smiley chatty-one. The last time I went in there she started asking, "How have you been? Where have you been? Is everything alright?"
She actually hadn't said much to me up until that point, not much, other than telling me if I wanted a baklava, I'd have to buy a whole box. So I guess I was a bit surprised at her concern. Surprised, but touched.
I think I'm ready to take my relationship with the gozleme ladies to the next level. I have a phrase, for the quiet one. Please, don't take offence to my Turkish mis-spelling. Here it is:
Elé nezé saaluk.
Health to your hands.
I like that. Its beautiful. Why don't we have sayings like that in English? Or am I just so accustomed to them that I don't even notice?
My next miracle food was the hummus-kebab. It costs only £2, and doesn't necessitate the eating of any of the meat on the massive, rotating spit. I'll eat that at some point I'm sure... but the hummus-kebab keeps it light. The first time I ever ordered one, I realized that I'd forgotten my wallet. I told the guy behind the counter to put the sandwich on hold and was about to run off but then the boss yelled, "Stop! Just take it, it's no problem."
Of course, the next day I popped in and dropped of the £2.
The third miracle-food is my current favourite. Yet again, we're looking at £1.50. And the taste, ohhhhh, the tasty-goodness of the Lamashun, is unparalleled. Basically, it's lamb wrapped up in a flatbread with salad and garlic-sauce and hot sauce.
That noise, you ask? My stomach, growling.
So this is my taste of Turkey, but in the snowy-English spring.
I'll get the real thing on Sunday.