Tag: Media Addict
‘Eat, Pray, Love’: Eight Great Links
by Eva Holland | 08.16.10 | 1:10 PM ET
The long-awaited adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love” is in theaters at last, and it’s receiving no shortage of media attention. Here are a few worthy entry points.
Start with Jezebel’s brilliant “Eat, Pray, Love” bingo scorecard. If you decide to go see the flick—despite the advice of the underwhelmed World Hum Travel Movie Club—then be sure to bring one along. And if you’re still on the fence about the movie, this helpful “Should You See Eat, Pray, Love?” graphic may help.
The Daily Beast offers Eat, Pray, Love: A Man’s Guide—it’s a good read that focuses on the book rather than the movie—and the New York Post has a story on EPL-inspired guru devotees who’ve lost their shirts rather than finding enlightenment.
Our own Liz Sinclair wrote about her time as an extra on the “Eat, Pray, Love” set in Ubud earlier this year, while over at Jezebel again, Jessica Olien declares that Elizabeth Gilbert has ruined Bali. Finally, Pico Iyer compares the Bali that appears in the book with its big-screen cousin, and notes that “in the 26 years that I’ve been regularly returning to the island, rumors of its imminent demise have been as regular—and as long-lasting—as the full moon.” Indeed.
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The Red Eye: A Visual Diary
by Michael Yessis | 08.04.10 | 4:28 PM ET
Peanut stacking! A remote with a delete neighbor button! Clouds that look like a Henry Moore sculpture! Yup, more travel-related brilliance from Christoph Niemann.
Niemann previously mapped the hokey pokey, an omelet and Rumsfeld’s Iraq.
Niagara Falls Tourism: ‘Don’t Go To Toronto’
by Eva Holland | 07.21.10 | 1:50 PM ET
Yep, they went there. The Falls region has unveiled a new tourism campaign, contrasting an idyllic, natural environment—that’d be Niagara, apparently—with its next-door neighbor, Toronto. The big city is presented as a “crime-ridden, graffiti-laden, gridlocked urban prison,” to quote The Globe and Mail, and visitors are urged to “shake off the city” and visit Niagara instead. Toronto’s acting mayor called the campaign “an unnecessary cheap shot.”
This local TV news spot includes some footage of the ad in question—curiously, the Niagara depicted in it is entirely free of casinos, legions of tour buses, and gridlock all along the QEW.
Maureen Dowd: ‘A Girl’s Guide to Saudi Arabia’
by Eva Holland | 07.07.10 | 1:41 PM ET
In the latest issue of Vanity Fair, the longtime New York Times columnist heads to Saudi Arabia to explore the country’s slowly growing tourism scene from a woman’s perspective. The story’s not online, but this VF Daily preview described it as “one part travel romp and one part history lesson—with a healthy dash of moxie thrown in.”
It’s already stirring up criticism—the comments on the preview are uniformly negative, questioning everything from the story’s tone to its accuracy regarding legal restrictions on women in Saudi Arabia. Dowd spoke to NPR about the experience earlier this week. A slideshow from the trip is also available online.
‘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.
Mapped: Photos by Locals vs. Photos by Tourists
by Michael Yessis | 06.09.10 | 9:51 AM ET
A very cool set of maps on Flickr harnesses geotagging in an attempt to show which parts of cities tend to be photographed by tourists, and which areas of cities tend to be photographed by locals. The maps I looked at aren’t particularly surprising—in the San Francisco Bay Area, for instance, tourists can’t get enough of the Golden Gate Bridge (tourist shots are red in the image below), and they hardly ever photograph the East Bay (locals’ shots are in blue).
Nevertheless, it’s a simple, compelling way to share the information, and perhaps, as Jeff Pflueger mentioned in one of his travel photography columns, the kind of thing we can expect to see more of as travelers geotag their images. (Via The Morning News)
How to Make A Globe of Your Hometown
by Michael Yessis | 06.07.10 | 2:25 PM ET
Or state. Or country. Or whatever. Apparently localized globes were popular in the countries of the former USSR post-independence. English Russia remembers the phenomenon, and explains how to make a localized globe with a map and a photoshop plugin. This might be cooler than the Map Envelope. (Via Utne Reader)
Steve Coll: ‘In Journalism, There is no Substitute for Travel’
by Eva Holland | 06.04.10 | 12:50 PM ET
The writer is saying goodbye, temporarily at least, to his public policy blog over at the New Yorker. In his final post, he shares some lessons learned—including one about the importance of travel.
Here’s Coll:
In journalism, there is no substitute for travel. By far the most fun I had with this format came when I was on the road. Last summer I was in Africa and Indonesia. Taking half-assed digital pictures for Think Tank and writing diary entries redoubled the already uplifting experience of reporting from those places. If the new journalism arising from digital formats can compensate a person adequately for wandering the world in a taxi with an iPhone, I will happily surrender my nostalgia for newspapers, magazines, and books.
(Via The Daily Dish)
Anthony Bourdain on Food, Authenticity and Being Wrong
by Eva Holland | 06.02.10 | 5:45 PM ET
Slate has a lengthy, compelling interview with the writer and No Reservations host, centered around the ideas of “right” and “wrong” in cooking. Here’s Bourdain on food, tradition and authenticity:
There’s enormous respect and a romanticized reverence for what’s considered the “right” way—meaning, the classic way—and I think most chefs feel powerfully that one should know that before moving on. Like, “I’ve researched this, this is the way they were making it in 1700, goddamn it, and that’s the way it should be made.” Or: “This is the way they make laksa in Kuching and Borneo; that stuff I just had on Ninth Avenue is definitely not the same; ergo it’s wrong.” But, you know, what does “real” or “authentic” mean? The history of food is the history of migrating ingredients and occupation and foreign influences and accommodation.
We spoke recently with Andrew Potter, the author of “The Authenticity Hoax,” about similar themes.
Blogged: Bad Postcards
by Eva Holland | 05.28.10 | 11:51 AM ET
This Tumblr digs deep into the vault to find some so-bad-they’re-good postcards from the ’50s and ’60s. A must-see for the travel nostalgists among us. (Via Boing Boing)
What Kiss Cams Say About Cities
by Michael Yessis | 05.24.10 | 2:22 PM ET
I love this idea from a sportswriter I usually can’t stand: The Kiss Cam as a two-minute glimpse into a city’s soul. In this case, Bill Plaschke’s talking about the Kiss Cam at Staples Center in Los Angeles during Lakers’ games.
Nowhere, it seems, are the couples as animated, or the crowd as involved, or the message about the heart of Los Angeles any more clear. In a night filled with supermen, it is a brief, heartwarming reminder that the Lakers have been built upon the hopes and ideals of those who are real.
In a town where everything is supposedly disposable, no Kiss Cam moment is cheered louder than a smooch between an elderly couple. In a town that supposedly doesn’t trumpet family values, the second-loudest cheers occur for the forehead pecks of a parent on a child.
The third-most popular Kiss Cam moment? Hugh Hefner sitting in a luxury suite kissing three or four bunnies. C’mon, this is still Hollywood.
Which American City Spends the Most on Food and Drink?
by Eva Holland | 05.18.10 | 10:54 AM ET
That’d be Austin, TX, per this cool graphic posted at Flowing Data. As the chart’s creators note, that’s a lot of Torchy’s Tacos. (Via Andrew Sullivan)
The Atlantic Tackles the Future of the City
by Eva Holland | 05.17.10 | 10:29 AM ET
Blogger Conor Friedersdorf is curating the sprawling collection of links, quotations, by-the-numbers breakdowns of major world cities and first-person tales of urban life sent in from readers. It’s an impressive project. (Via Andrew Sullivan)
Route 66: The Multimedia Graduate Thesis Project
by Michael Yessis | 05.17.10 | 9:40 AM ET
A few years ago I wrote that we were experiencing a new Golden Age of the Road Trip because, among other reasons, new technologies were providing incredible ways to tell road trip stories:
Now instead of writing a book like Kerouac or marking those lines in felt-tip on a map, travelers can use video and flash and Google Maps and blogs and audio to interpret what they’ve seen on the road and bring it to life in unexpected ways. In the age of the Web, the road trip has arrived as an artistic statement.
Here’s one of those ways I never expected. Students at California State University East Bay are creating a virtual tour of Route 66 utilizing Wii, Google Earth and other technologies—all contained in a 1969 VW bug:
The project is scheduled to debut in June.
Growing Up on the Grand Trunk Road
by Eva Holland | 05.13.10 | 12:32 PM ET
NPR has a compelling series about the young Pakistani and Indian men and women who live alongside one of Asia’s most famous roads. The stories are supported by a great multimedia package—interactive maps, graphics, slideshows and more. It’s worth a good browse.
Frequent World Hum contributor Jeffrey Tayler cycled the Grand Trunk Road last year; here’s his five-part series about the experience.
Interview With Andrew Potter: Travel and the Search for Authenticity
by Michael Yessis | 05.13.10 | 12:28 PM ET
Michael Yessis asks the author of "The Authenticity Hoax" if authentic travel experiences exist -- and about the cost of our search for them
‘There is Nothing Quite as Hypnotic as a Travel Show that Suggests it’s Better to Stay Home’
by Michael Yessis | 05.10.10 | 12:57 PM ET
Alessandra Stanley finds a thread of fear and alarm in travel programs on television.
That fearfulness is perhaps fitting in an era of man-made economic decline and natural calamity—be it volcanic ash in Iceland or earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Tibet—and the more standard travel fare on television has rarely seemed so timorous. Nowadays even the Travel Channel is hidebound and xenophobic, focusing on beaches of Florida and California, and only occasionally venturing farther abroad than hotel chains in the Caribbean.
She has half a point: Shows like “Locked Up Abroad” exist and they can give even the most intrepid traveler shivers. But a word in defense of the Travel Channel: Did she even watch the current lineup? What about this or this or this—all of which aired in the last two weeks?
What Colors Represent in Different Cultures
by Michael Yessis | 05.03.10 | 10:54 AM ET
A mesmerizing graphic at Information is Beautiful highlights what colors mean in 10 different cultures. (via The Daily Dish)
So Long, Volcano-Gate 2010
by Eva Holland | 04.28.10 | 11:37 AM ET
As air travel gets back on track and the fallout from Iceland’s volcanic ash cloud winds down, Gadling offers this top-notch graphic to remember it all by. Oh, and if you’re still having trouble pronouncing Eyjafjallajökull? This Icelandic musician has a jingle for you. (Thanks for the tip, Pam.)
Video: ‘Waking Up in the Same Place Every Morning is Boring’
by Michael Yessis | 04.26.10 | 2:23 PM ET
That’s the tagline for a strange and compelling product that has gadget lovers buzzing. Winscape consists of a pair of virtual windows that can display scenes from around the world. The scenes change perspective as the viewer moves about. The Golden Gate Bridge stars in the promo video:
It’s another step forward for virtual travel.