“In Patagonia, the isolation makes it easy to exaggerate the person you are: the drinker drinks; the devout prays; the lonely grows lonelier, sometimes fatally.” Bruce Chatwin, mystagogue of punchy travel writing, had a life-long interest in this remote end-of-the-world peninsular landmass. His fascination started as a young public school pom. Chatwin’s grandmother had a curiosities cabinet containing a leathery chunk of “brontosaurus hide”, allegedly from Argentina. Though an apocryphal story, this artifact aroused a firey fascination with the remote South American peninsula, climaxing in Charwin’s seminal work, In Patagonia. The experience of hiking Patagonia El Chalten, a frontier town tethered to the edge of Los Glaciares National Park, is the best access point for trekking in Argentine Patagonia. While the A-frame houses cling to the earth like their similarly-shaped geological parents, the Andes range; modern conveniences, like wifi, international cellular service, and a diverse array of eateries, dilute some of the heaviness that makes the drinker want to drink and the restless wish to wander. It is the type of environment where one feels inclined to keep on moving. Incidentally, I haven’t tacked on more mileage in one month than my time in Patagonia. Part of that was the […]
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This area is not unlike St. John’s Wood, that is, the quant leafy location on the iconic Abbey Road Beatle’s album cover. Taken opposite the Boston Common during a BLM protest, the sizable police and military contingent cordoned off a commercial area in the Downtown Crossing neighborhood. To my back is the Boston Common, a location initially used for colonial livestock fodder. St. John’s Wood is also renowned for its sweeping green spaces, including, but not limited to, Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill. Of course, Beacon Hill, also to my back, is a historical neighborhood where many of Boston’s power brokers live and circulate (the state capital building, the Massachusetts seat of power, sits atop the hill like a golden bulwark). Similarly, Primrose Hill is the watering hole for London’s minted elites. Rihanna sold her stucco villa on St. John’s Park in September for a cool £32 million. At 6,332 square feet, that’s about $7,000 per square foot, admittedly more expensive than anywhere in Boston. As the global pandemic ebbs, it will be interesting to see where the real estate tides will take humanity, but what is increasingly certain is that the rapidly changing climate will have some cascading […]
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The Temezcal has become an increasingly fashionable “spiritual”, “cleansing”, and “restorative” practice, even among some of America’s well-heeled elites. The metaphor of a grown man sliding through a brick and mortar uterus notwithstanding, a Temezcal, that is, a Mesoamerican steambath ceremony evokes thoughts of Plato’s Cave Allegory and evangelical “spiritual rebirth” dunking ceremonies. That said, this particular moment of “rebirth” was a bit marred by what preceded it. At the beginning of the ceremony, rocks were stoked in a nearby fire and brought into the dark and dank interior. Some unintelligible chanting ensued while water was added to the hot rocks at the center of the “house of heat”. For the cynic in me, witnessing white “new age” sweat lodge acolytes was a bit much without any additional irregularities. As steam started to envelop this womb-like space, I noticed an illuminated rectangle piercing the ethereal space like an apparition. At first glance, I wasn’t sure what it was. But as my mind started eliminating the possibilities, it became unambiguous: it was an iPad in a waterproof case. My uncontrollable laughter reverberated through space like a fart in a yoga studio, that is, it cut through the silly solemnity of what […]
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This is my friend Donatella and her beautiful and absorbingly congenial daughter Analisa. Donatella helps manage the wine cooperative in Dorgali that is responsible for the production and distribution of one of their increasingly popular wine exports: Cannoneau. The Cannoneau grape, which you might also know as Grenache, has become trendy in recent years, due to its noted association with long life. In short, the preponderance of grey hairs in this area of Sardinia has been attributed—dubiously, I’d say—to the high level of polyphenols in Cannoneau. And as health trends go in the US, as soon as something is coined a superfood or associated with longevity, it becomes a fad item that becomes, in some ways, a stand-in for all of the other important variables that make it a “health” food. The seniority of Sardinians is obviously more than just a matter of drinking large volumes of Cannoneau, though it apparently has not done any discernible harm. Interestingly, in a recent Lancet study (and in the American medical community more broadly), researchers claim that NO amount of alcohol is safe for consumption. Sardinians drink two glasses of wine per day on average, and while Sardinians alcohol consumption is well above the […]
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This is Erykah Badu at the Byron Bay Blues Fest several years back. I must say, out of all the performances I had the good fortune of seeing, hers was THE one that was brimming with a vibration indicative of unrestrained artistry. Not to say that some of the other performances weren’t impressive—and dance-party worthy—but hers, like an expertly made wine, left much more on the pallet than some of the more saccharine performances that you are inevitably subjected to at the bigger music festivals. The Provocative Artistic Mind Ms. Badu, from my point of view, is the type of artist that clearly does not fit into the parameters of the more “manageable” big-box musicians. She has also said some pretty provocative things that have not endeared her to some people, and I get that, but she has demonstrated a gadfly-like candor throughout her artistic career that is not common among what today we would call artists. Many creatives today will say the “safe” thing, that is, they are managed and very carefully coached to say and do just the right thing for the sake of sales numbers, merchandising, corporate interests, etc. One of the reasons I suspect—at […]
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As a child of the 80s, I have indelible almost-peed-in-my-pants memories of Eddie Murphy on the stage in Delirious and Raw, but also as an actor, unparalleled impressionist, sketch comedian and unfortunate one-time Rick James musical collaborator (“Party All the Time!”). In Coming to America, a movie starring Murphy, a congenial and high-minded African prince named Akeem travels to America to find a wife that in his words will, “arouse my intellect, as well as my loins”. Akeem decides that Queens, NY is the most suitable location to find his bride-to-be. One of Akeem’s first stops in the neighborhood is the My-T Sharp Barbershop. When Akeem opens the door the black proprietor—played by Murphy—is incredulous that Saul—played by Murphy too—an old Jewish customer, would suggest that Rocky Marciano be considered the best heavyweight boxer of the ages: “Oh, there they go, there they go. Every time I talk about boxing, a white man pulls Rocky Marciano out of his ass. That’s their one, that’s their one. “Rocky Marciano, Rocky Marciano!” Let me tell you something, Rocky Marciano was good, but compared to Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano ain’t shit!” Fight against the smallness of systemic racial injustice Marciano did, in […]
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Who would have thought it would take a global pandemic to reveal the whereabouts of Tupac Shakur. For those children of the 90s, one would have expected a remote island in the Caribbean, but as it turns out, Tupac has been hiding in plain sight in Lexington, Kentucky.
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It is more than just a race, it’s a coming together of a community for a common purpose, and that is, the celebration of the human spirit in its pluckiest of forms! This part of the country is known for its work ethic...
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Humans are about as savvy at assessing risk as they are at predicting the weather. And while we have models that have the predictive capacity to inform better public policy for events like pandemics and natural disasters, politicians get more credit for handling preventable crises...
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The COVID-19 outbreak was described this week by several talking heads, and the President himself, as a war on an invisible enemy, and just like a conventional war, pitched battles and entrenched interests are starting to take form. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis finally issued a stay-at-home order...
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