Destination: North America
Chicago: The City Built by Geniuses
by Michael Yessis | 07.15.10 | 11:34 AM ET
Inspired by Justin Kern’s beautiful photos of the “University of Chicogwarts,” Roger Ebert has written a terrific post on Chicago architecture and the tension between beauty and commerce.
I walk around Chicago, and look up at buildings of variety and charm. I walk into lobbies of untold beauty. I ascend in elevators fit for the gods. Then I walk outside again and see the street defaced by the cruel storefronts of bank branches and mall chains, scornful of beauty. Here I squat! they declare. I am Chase! I am Citibank! I am Payless Shoe Source! I don’t speak to my neighbors. I have no interest in pleasing those who walk by. I occupy square footage at the lowest possible cost. My fixtures can be moved out overnight. I am capital.
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Yahoo! Buzz‘‘Remote’ is a Word We Like to Misuse’
by Eva Holland | 07.15.10 | 9:49 AM ET
Dave Weigel is blogging this week from an island way out in the Aleutians. Here’s his introduction to Dutch Harbor, Alaska:
There is usually some diversity of companions on an airplane. Not on this one. The men have beards and gear and heavy boots; the women have all but one of these things. Your fellow travelers look like they’re heading to the same bar after work, possibly because they are. Another thing you notice is that most of them have shirts or jackets with “Alaska” written on them. This seems odd—you don’t head into Newark and bump into travelers with “New Jersey” jackets. Then you realize you’re being foolish, and that almost everyone you’re flying with works for some Alaska company, in construction or fishing or research, and that they’re wearing the raincoats they’ve been handed for free.
Could Neverland Ranch Become a California State Park?
by Eva Holland | 07.14.10 | 3:29 PM ET
Well, maybe. California assemblyman Mike Davis suggested the idea this week, but he also acknowledged one major stumbling block: “Given that we have an economic shortfall ... I suspect it would be difficult for the State Parks Department to purchase the property alone.”
We wondered last summer, shortly after Michael Jackson’s death, where his fans would congregate to remember him. Seems like Neverland Ranch remains the leading contender, whether it winds up in government hands or not. (Via Gawker)
Bourdain on Pekar and Cleveland
by Jim Benning | 07.13.10 | 12:19 PM ET
Anthony Bourdain offers an eloquent tribute to Harvey Pekar, who died yesterday—a writer “whose life and works will surely remain an enduring reference point of late 20th and early 21st century cultural history.”
More on Pekar:
He was famed as a “curmudgeon”, a “crank” and a “misanthrope” yet found beauty and heroism where few others even bothered to look. In a post-ironic and post-Seinfeldian universe he was the last romantic—his work sincere, heartfelt, alternately dead serious and wryly affectionate.
And on Cleveland:
“What went wrong here?” is an unpopular question with the type of city fathers and civic boosters for whom convention centers and pedestrian malls are the answers to all society’s ills but Harvey captured and chronicled every day what was—and will always be—beautiful about Cleveland: the still majestic gorgeousness of what once was—the uniquely quirky charm of what remains, the delightfully offbeat attitude of those who struggle to go on in a city they love and would never dream of leaving.
Pittsburgh’s Conflict Kitchen: Axis of Edible?
by Eva Holland | 07.09.10 | 1:24 PM ET
Over at Gadling, blogger Jeremy Kressmann has a cool find: A new Pittsburgh take-out restaurant that serves up food from those countries that America most often finds itself at odds with on the international scene. First up at Conflict Kitchen? Iranian kubideh. The restaurant’s theme will rotate every few months.
Awhile back, we talked to Rick Steves about travel—to Iran and other less-visited countries—as “a political act that broadens your perspective.” I guess we could call this eating as a political act?
A Foodie Road Trip Across… Small-Town Canada?
by Eva Holland | 07.08.10 | 2:46 PM ET
The Globe and Mail’s Ian Brown is on a road-tripping mission to explore the foodie scene beyond Canada’s “big three”—Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. He’s been blogging the trip as he goes, and his latest post finds him at a restaurant called Moose’s in North Bay, Ontario, home to 102 flavors of chicken wings. Here’s Brown’s introduction to North Bay:
You pull into North Bay, which is full of interesting people but does not present well, if you know what I mean, you see the Bull and Quench pub, ‘Home of the 1 lb burger’ - think about that - and Indra’s Curry House, next to the Heart and Stroke Foundation office.
You think: Maybe this is my last day on earth. Maybe this is where my heart explodes.
A Short History of Americans and Brown Sauce
by Eva Holland | 07.08.10 | 1:05 PM ET
Over at The Atlantic’s food channel, Andrew Coe looks into the origins of Chinese brown sauce and the undying American appetite for the stuff. Here’s Coe:
Color matters in Chinese food. You can tell the difference between, say, Sichuan and Cantonese restaurants by the palette of dishes at their tables. Sichuan dishes are often tinted by the red sheen of chili oil, while the many clear sauces of Cantonese cuisine allow the natural colors of meats and vegetables to stand out. But on the steam tables of the more than 40,000 Chinese-American restaurants that dot this land, the predominant color is brown, as in the ubiquitous beef with broccoli drenched in a brown sauce. According to the Chinese food maven Michael Gray, there’s an ancient epigram that describes what these steam tables offer: “100 dishes, all with the same taste.”
World Travel Watch: Violence in Guadalajara, Dengue Fever in Puerto Rico and More
by Larry Habegger | 07.07.10 | 11:48 AM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
‘Was Canada Too Boring for Queen Elizabeth II?’
by Eva Holland | 07.06.10 | 12:44 PM ET
Gawker goes there, digging up a series of straight-faced shots from the Queen’s just-wrapped visit to make the point. Of course, we know that Canada is the furthest thing from boring—and I’m betting the Queen would agree.
How High Was the Water, Mama?
by Tom Swick | 07.06.10 | 12:07 PM ET
After the flood, Nashville sings its way out of trouble
76-Second Travel Show: Authenticity and ‘The Wizarding World of Harry Potter’
by Robert Reid | 06.30.10 | 11:32 AM ET
Robert Reid ponders Andrew Potter's "The Authenticity Hoax" on a visit to Orlando's newest theme park
Oil Spill Update: Heartbreak on the Gulf Coast
by Michael Yessis | 06.28.10 | 1:28 PM ET
Two more moving pieces on travel and the oil spill in the Gulf: World Hum contributor and Lonely Planet’s U.S. Travel Editor Robert Reid writes about a “sobering and powerful” trip to the Florida panhandle last week, and Carl Hiaasen gets angry about the oil washing up on Florida’s shores. He writes:
It might be difficult for someone who was born and raised far from a beach or a bayou to visualize a place they cherish being poisoned and defaced on such a massive scale.
Or maybe not so difficult. Imagine if 120 million gallons of crude oil were flushed into the Minnesota headwaters of the Mississippi River, and for months the sludge was allowed to seep down through the veins of America’s midwest.
Now you begin to get the picture—the heartbreak, the helplessness.
Previously, Tom Swick wrote for World Hum about the situation in the Florida Keys.
An Ode to the 50 States, Gawker-Style
by Eva Holland | 06.25.10 | 12:47 PM ET
Gawker’s writers are celebrating America in their own snarky way, with an “attempt to defame each of America’s fifty states.” The latest target? Florida, “America’s jungle rotted phallus,” home of Teences the Driving Dog and the Bong-Smoking Baby.
76-Second Travel Show: A Tribute to the Gulf Coast
by Robert Reid | 06.23.10 | 5:28 PM ET
Robert Reid visits Florida's Gulf Coast beaches and contemplates an uncertain future
By the Numbers: America’s Most Dedicated Drivers
by Eva Holland | 06.23.10 | 4:32 PM ET
Bundle.com crunches the numbers on American gas spending, state by state and city by city. The result is a pretty interesting set of graphics on U.S. car use. The country’s busiest road-trippers? Oklahomans. Hawaiians, meantime, drive the least.
The study notes that, on average, Americans spend 72 minutes a day in their cars—in other words, “290 hours [annually] of drive-time radio, talking back to the GPS and wondering why, for the millionth time, people think it’s okay to drive 60 in the left lane.” (Via The Daily Dish)