Translated from the French by Russell Scheidelman–

“There is, in the time that follows a copious meal, a period of arrested activity full of sweet intelligence and quiet energy, where remaining without doing anything gives us the sentiment of the fullness of life, while the least effort would be insupportable. The anxieties weighing down on us at the start of the meal have disappeared; and if we think of them now, it’s with a smile, as of some past troubles that are long gone… Each of the guests has obtained a share in that ‘royalty of the banquet’ which was first introduced among the ancients, and which for an hour or so is conferred on all those who stay to take part in the experience. Each performs it differently, in a solitary manner, as can be seen upon entering a salon in which one has hastened to come before the coffee is served–because then one can no longer be sure of not disturbing, or of not being disturbed by, the others.

A moment of reflection

Regard them lounging about the several corners of the room, whether in the places they had claimed from the beginning, and–having no need to get up–are no longer willing to abandon, or occupying their places by habit, or accordingly as the calculations of refinement or prudence–when moving to a better spot might derange them at the very moment such derangement would be most disagreeable–have chosen for them to occupy. Each accords to a special pleasure, as to a docile slave, the care of being caressed by it, of being rendered more sensible and able to perceive it more intimately.

One guest is extended in the attitude of those who summon the presence of their favorite pets, with his well-loved pipe commodiously lodged in the corner of his mouth. What is merely flame and smoke for the others is for him a delicious caress of the throat and gullet, coming in with each mellow inhalation and mingling with the newly absorbed flavors of food and drink. While exhaling, he gently contracts his breast, which makes the soft chords of his well-being tingle. A small glass of cognac is beside him, on a small table whose proximity enables him to add this new and poignant sensation to his throat and gullet, without causing any disturbance to his calm repose.

Repose

Another guest, extended in a similar attitude before a grand bay window which looks out upon the sea, seems to derive all his pleasure through the windows of his eyes, before which pass all the colors of the seascape momentarily rekindled by the sun–the water’s green and blue hues, the white of canvas sails, the black of ships’ hulls, the gray of vapors volatilizing from their smokestacks–affording to his eyes all the passive pleasures they are capable of enjoying. But such visual pleasures tend to propagate additional pleasures in the other senses as well. In a meditation as profound as his neighbor’s with the pipe, this other drawing room monarch imagines he feels the wind that fills the sails and that wrinkles the sea’s surface; everywhere the play of light mingles with the agitating effects of the wind. He believes he hears the cry of the seagulls flying above the jetty and to taste the salted sea air. Then, without moving to get up or being otherwise overcome by fatigue, he lowers his eyelids over his eyes, like those translucent shades which continue to admit light while blocking the outside view. What he sees now is the light alone, which has succeeded in penetrating the membrane of his eyelids while leaving the spectacle of things behind. This light is delicately rose, white, and gold, without his knowing if it’s the color of the atmosphere or the color of his eyelids, similar to the sound we hear when we hold a seashell close to our ear–a sound so vague that we don’t know if it comes to us from the seashell or from our ear.

Another guest has moved his chair closer to the piano, where a young man seated on the piano stool–a person for whom the exercise of his talent is easy enough that it doesn’t fatigue him, or perhaps is necessary just to dissipate the fatigue that would result from not playing at all, or exciting enough to subdue it–plays an enchanting melody. The one who has brought his chair forward has done so perhaps in a manner that didn’t require getting up completely, by drawing the chair after him; if the piano is still too far away, he listens from where he’s settled himself. From whatever distance, it’s the melody which he charges–he the listener–with his well-being and with giving him the delicious movement he experiences without disturbing his repose. The melody carries him along, rapid and sinuous, making him pass and re-pass the same routes a hundred times over, or propelling him quite far off with a pleasure that’s always new. Sometimes he accompanies it with his voice, enjoying the sensation of it passing along his throat, and enabling him to quit the role of a simple auditor, signaling his despotism and enhancing his well-being without in any way disturbing his (or his neighbors’) repose.

Simple Pleasures...

If in such a moment a vehicle is heard stopping at the front door and some newcomers are seen through the windows waiting to be let in, one would be surprised by the speed in which these lucid sleepers take flight from the room; and similar to how some wild hares, interrupted while eating, will carry off their dinner to some nearby spot and continue with the repast, so each guest will abscond with some implement of his pleasures–the pipe, the cognac, a newspaper–, preferring a single violent disruption of his reverie if it will spare him from others and if it’s the price he must pay to definitively purchase his repose–a real repose, where one is not obliged to offer one’s chair, to get up to re-conduct someone, to remain seated in a relatively rigid position, to speak, to respond, and be deprived of one’s yawns, grimaces, and acts of stretching oneself or rubbing one’s eyes, which are the spontaneous manifestations of a necessary prolongation of well-being, and seem to consummate the pleasure caused by a sensation which detaches itself from the center of repose, as the last evanescent circles radiating on the water’s calm surface from where a pebble has lately fallen.”

by Russell Scheidelman—

In the great Animal Kingdom, those perpetual stay-at-homes who like to drag their homes along with them whenever they feel a bit footloose–like the turtle, the snail, and the hermit crab–seem to be onto something that we humans could learn from. Why leave the comfort and familiarity of your prefabricated Home Sweet Home when you can take it all with you? Among our play-catch-up species, thanks to the invention and reinvention of the wheel, some of us are doing just that.

Of course, being of diverse interests and life-styles, the humans who try emulating their home-lugging cousins do so in diverse ways. Those folks who most thoroughly wed habitat to mobility, I think, do so in ether a residential bus or in a so-called recreational vehicle (RV) that’s called a motorhome. Among the others, their moving shelters run the gamut from the small ‘teardrop’ trailer which offers the barest of necessities and allows only a foot or two of head-room for sleeping passengers, to the grand palatial mobile home which is designed to be grandly occupied only while at rest. This article focuses on just five different approaches to the humans-as-turtle phenomenon, ones I was able to track down and examine in the Seattle area where I am presently grounded in my brownstone apartment.

1. The Box Turtle

It was gratifying for a car-less city-dweller like me to have my first interviewee show up at our assigned meeting-place by driving up in the very house we were going to discuss. It was one of those big white cube motorhomes that enjoyed great popularity in the 1980s and 90s, when gas was still selling for less than a latte per gallon. In the way economic forces counterbalance one another and tend towards equilibrium, the much higher costs of operating such behemoths nowadays have fomented a massive fire sale which has steadily eroded their value, especially on the used market. The big white cubes–yesterday’s icons of shameless consumer excess–have lately become white elephants, and as a result, when comparing the costs of living full-time in such landless domiciles with the land-based alternatives, some folks are beginning to view the former as a more affordable ‘deal.’

Such considerations were among the selling points for Lonn Hagerty, the sharply dressed owner/operator/resident of the land yacht presently under discussion. But those, in fact, carried far less weight with him than some other factors. As a freelance techie and artist, he was by the radical change in life-style and opportunities for telecommuting and travel that such a tradeoff would entail. He was not disappointed.

Besides our afternoon conversation, I was able to glean valuable information for this article from the blog he’s been keeping since he first adopted the nomadic life-style in 2007. (See www.lonnatic.com.) There he explains more fully his personal odyssey from Winnebago to ‘boondocker’ (a particular kind of RV dweller); describes his on-the-road adventures in the company of his two African Grey parrots, Daisy & Boo; provides helpful practical tips to other RV users; and shares his own evolving philosophic take on life, art, dandyism, materialism and the modern motorhome experience.

Lonn & his chariot...

That experience, in the eyes of many, might have the appearance of a fairly self-contained one, and certainly, as a ‘boondocker’–i.e., an RV resident with means to stay unplugged from the main power grid and water supply systems (and hence can live away from urban areas when he wants to) –Lonn used his newfound life-style to satisfy an ingrained streak of independence. However, he soon discovered that owning a motorhome automatically enrolls one in a widespread community and fill-fledged subculture with their own set of rites, customs, values, and even vocabulary and which are underpinned by a vast network of parks, campsites, clubs, dedicated retail outlets, Web sites and a whole publishing industry.

It wasn’t long, then, before he joined what is perhaps the foremost motorhomers association, the Escapees RV Club (whose members are referred to as ‘SKPs’ and whose name must serve as a fodder for jokes in the neighborhood of prisons and mental hospitals). Originally formed in 1978 with a view of maxing out with just a couple hundred members, its membership rolls today have hemorrhaged to nearly 100,000–with Lonn being member #99041. In a body so vast and spread out, it is natural that it should be divided into subunits, in this case “chapters” embracing geographical areas (of original residency) and so-called “Birds of a Feather” groups (BOFs) based on shared interests and characteristics. (Traveling solo, Lonn joined up with the “Solos” BOF.) The SKP club operates 20-odd parks of its own for members to stay in, plus it contracts with over 1000 commercial parks around the country which offer discounts to its members. The organization also puts out a bimonthly magazine, sponsors annual events (called “Escapades”). Provides a mail-forwarding service in cooperation with the US Postal Service, and even offers to help interested members establish legal residency at a permanent Texas address for voting, taxation, and other mundane purposes. During his trips along the West Coast and throughout the Southwest, as chronicled in his blog, Lonn often made use of SKP-sponsored materials (maps, guidebooks, etc.) or stayed at SKP-affiliated sites. With membership dues costing $60 per year (after an initial $10 enrollment fee), it’s a worthy investment, if you ask me.

By hovering between the two modes of camping and hanging out with fellow motorhomers on the one hand, and boondocking with just his two birds as companions on the other, Lonn seems to have hit two extremes of living not normally available to most land-tethered city dwellers. His interactions with the strangers he meets at parks, campsites, and roadside diners are certainly on a more intense level than strangers crossing paths in most urban settings are apt to enjoy. He attributes this not only to the shared interests and concerns that would naturally give RV owners something to talk about, but also to the fact that lots of them are retired senior citizens with a more nuanced and less rushed sense of living, and, of course, they usually have something they want to say. As a result, conversational powwows with newfound acquaintances often take place on the road, where the peace pipe is more likely to be replaced by the hot tub.

When he’s by himself (whatever the external setting for his 23-foot rig might be), he oil paints, works at his computer or on the RV, plays with the birds, reads, or goes for long walks or bike rides to explore the local sights. He says he’s thinking of getting a small trailer for use as an auxiliary painting studio–because his parrots don’t like the smells of paint supplies. When he goes shopping, if it’s not for needed supplies, it’s to the thrift stores in search of vintage clothing. The storage bins of his 1995 Four Winds (Class C) RV are filled with hats, shoes, suits, shirts, ties, and various men’s wardrobe accessories. It’s the only materialistic indulgence he’s allowed himself in his cramped but adequate living quarters.

In compensation, he enjoys the expanse of his new living room–as far as the horizon, he likes to point out. It’s a living room he has the freedom to shift as the mood takes him. If gas prices get too high, then such living room shifts may occur more slowly and/or sporadically, but gas prices and other materialistic concerns can no longer dictate his life the way they used to. He’s simplified his needs, streamlined his habits, and taken himself off the grids that the rest of us can’t seem to do without. In the game of life that we all must play, he’s staked out an extreme but increasingly attractive position: he’s a boondocker.

2. The Snapping Turtle

While the turtle’s attachment to its sheltering shell is a close and permanent one, the second mobile living space reviewed here has a far more tangential relationship to its owner. When Tammy Williams decided to purchase a 1955 Hanson trailer a couple years ago, it did not have the effect of launching her on a whole new way of life (as with Lonn and his motorhome). It did not affect her income career as a lawyer, her singing career with the swing band Tammy & the Bachelors, or the kind of life-style choices she had been making all along. On the contrary, the acquisition fell right in line with her penchant for collecting, and provided an additional means of storing and displaying her collectibles.

The trailer’s design is a classic example of the “canned ham” style, so-called because of its aluminum siding and distinctive ovoid shape. This trailer style was popular from the 1930s through the 1960s and reflects the whimsical streamlined values of Mid-Century Modernism. Pretty much all of the vintage items she’s collected, running from the 1961 house where she lives to her tiniest salt and pepper shakers, show an abiding–even relentless–taste for such values.

Over the years, Tammy has directed and overseen remodeling, repainting, and home decorating efforts designed to bring out or echo the architectural charms of her one-story, space-age era house in Ballard. Whenever possible, she’d used period materials and décor items, but she’s not been afraid to substitute newer elements (which sometimes had to be custom-made) when these would contribute to the desired effect. She’s also extended the quirky iconography into her backyard area by having a period wet bar installed on a specially constructed deck, and surrounding it with matching outdoor furniture. The 6 by 9 foot trailer has functioned as yet another extension of such influences, both in its role as a guest room (for guests who can fit comfortably on the six foot hideaway bed), as a ready made shelter for use on camping trips (which she takes about 3 or 4 times per year), and as a showcase for her collectibles at collectors events.

Tammy is very thematic in the way she has organized the collectibles which ornament her house. The method to her madness is to assign a certain motif to a particular room, and then to decorate the room accordingly. For example, one room is devoted to flamingos, which peer out from framed prints on the walls, march gracefully across fabrics and upholstery, and cut figures as ceramic figurines on side tables and shelves. An ‘Egyptian room’ presses all the ‘Egypt” buttons and even contains a full size replica of a mummy’s sarcophagus. A ‘black panther room’ teems with you-know-what. For the trailer, which she quickly recognized as an added room to the house, she chose a similarly iconic and richly commodified theme: poodles.

Taking advantage of the canned ham’s dual role as not only a space to be occupied but  also as a collectible object in its own right, she began the task of turning it into a poodle palace by radically altering its external appearance. Not content with its rather faded and blasé original paint job, she had it replaced by a splashy 3-toned color scheme: black on the bottom, silver on the top, with a zigzag streak of pink in the middle. (Tammy confesses to “hating” pink, but claims she had to use it because of the popular ‘pink poodle’ archetype.) In addition, she commissioned a custom decal of a stylized black poodle which was affixed to the trailer (against the silver area) and captioned by a name in large black Gothic lettering which the poodle wagon would henceforth be christened with: ‘Fifi.” The combination name-gender-look now had the alchemistic effect of lending ‘Fifi’ a curly-furred persona, a personality designed to win smiles.

Even from the time of her conception, Fifi has had her fans.

Tammy likes to tell the story of when she first proposed the paint color scheme to the man she was hoping to hire for the job, a rather gruff-looking worker dude at an RV dealership in Fife (WA), where she found him. When she had finished describing her plans, the seasoned maintenance and restoration expert–who had been giving her a sidelong glance as she spoke–looked her fully in the face and announced:

“If you really want the rig painted the way you just said lady, that’s gonna be fucking adorable.”

She cried: “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“I’m sorry for using the f-word.”

“No, you said adorable. I can’t believe you used that word!’

She also got him to paint the two propane tanks pink–an idea he initially resisted but eventually bought into. (“He drank the pink Kool-aid,” Tammy says.)

'Fifi' showing off!

For the trailer’s interior, Tammy soon realized she had to scale back her original plans to display all her poodle memorabilia there on a permanent basis if she ever wanted to use it to take out on camping trips. For that reason, she limited her decorating efforts to affixing some vintage poodle plaques to the walls (with Velcro), having the windows trimmed with lacy pink curtains, and installing a lamp fixture with a vintage pink lampshade. She also laid in a small flat-screened TV for the benefit of Fifi’s modern-day occupants. It is only when she goes to collectors events that she intends to pull out all the stops and unleash the full litter of frou-frou paraphernalia that is otherwise kept bubble-wrapped in Fifi’s storage cabinets.

Mirroring Lonn’s RV experience, Tammy found that trailer ownership provided instant membership in a highly networked order of similarly equipped individuals, and that this far-reaching ‘club’ has subdivisions based on narrow sets of tastes and circumstances. It was not too long before she joined a web-based group of vintage trailer owners assembled under the banner “Sisters on the Fly.” This group, originally started in 1999 by a pair of sisters taken to going on fly-fishing trips, today has more than 1000 members around the country who like to meet up at events called “Cowgirl Caravans” and to display their themed and branded rigs on the web site’s “Trailers” gallery. (See www.sistersonthefly.com.) There you’ll find photos of mostly Western-themed trailers with cute to hokey nicknames conferred by their owners. (Fifi is number 1022.)

Another group devoted to towed-living that she came across was the “Tin Can Tourists” (TCT) club. Originally founded in Tampa, Florida in 1919, this organization of “auto campers” with vintage trailers and “motor coaches” got really huge in the 1930s, only to taper off and disappear completely by the late Seventies. In 1998, however, a Michigan couple renewed the charter; and since then both memberships and attendance at TCT-sponsored gatherings, where the group’s official song “The More We Get Together” is apt to be sung, have increased by leaps and bounds. Among the designated campsites around the country where such gatherings are held, one takes place in mid-August near Bellingham, WA, only 100 miles north of Seattle. Tammy lent me a coffee table-style book with lots of photos that were taken at these rallies. It’s called Teardrops and Tiny Trailers by Douglas Heister (Gibbs Smith publisher, 2008), and the trailers and cars pictured there are both eye-popping and to-die-for. Yet Fifi has never participated in any of these swanky camp-outs.

Although Tammy has pointed out to me that owning and maintaining a vintage trailer is a lot cheaper than owning and maintaining a vintage car (with the silvery Airstream being the high-priced exception), such a rig–no matter how reasonably priced it may be–still requires an accessory vehicle to haul it around; and among vintage trailer buffs, the ideal is to tow one’s rig with a car of similar age and style. Tammy is painfully aware that her 21^st Century Kia fails that standard and offers a rude mismatch for Fifi. To remedy that shortcoming, she recently acquired a 1957bFord Ranchero, currently located in California, where an auto-savvy relative of hers is working on its restoration. Only when the restored Ranchero is at hand to serve as a decent escort–that is, when all the aesthetic stars are in aligned–will she be ready to enter Fifi among the lists at TCT and other prestigious trailer gatherings. Then, we can hope, Fifi will spectacularly fulfill her mission as roving ambassadress of the Space-Age-era mother ship, with all of its themed compartments, back in Ballard. Then Tammy can duly feel proud and at home among her fellow collectors as the light up the wilderness with Modernism.

3. The painted Turtle

The same era that produced Mid-Century Modernism also saw the rise of a popular primitivist style based on traditional Polynesian art forms. This style was called “Tiki” (aka “Polynesian Pop” or “Poly Pop”). Seattle artist Dawn Frasier became a fan of this style at the start of the ‘Tiki revival’ that took place in the early Nineties. Applying it to both her commercial work as well as to her personal projects, she soon became a specialist and eventually an expert on Poly Pop style. One such project–the subject of this third section of my pinpointed 5-part survey–is a 1964 Volkswagen van that she’s refurbished as a rolling Tiki wagon.

As with Tammy’s trailer, the van project is part of a larger stylistic makeover of the house and grounds where Dawn lives–known collectively as the “Bamboo Grove.” But whereas much of the former’s activity has involved acquiring and skillfully arranging the placement of collectibles, Dawn–being a designer, architect, and artisan in her own right–has accomplished much of the Bamboo Grove’s transformation through her own handiwork. In fact she sold much of her collection of Tiki objects a few years ago and no longer considers herself a ‘collector.’ When I think of all the diverse skills she’s applied to the making of her West Seattle dream home, which she regards as her magnum opus (or maybe ‘magma opus’) would be a better phrase), I am inclined to call her a creator-of-all-trades– a “Tiki Renaissance Woman.”

Evidence of her artistry and craftsmanship abound at the Bamboo Grove. To cite just a couple of the projects she’s been working on in her backyard area–and which alone must single out her property from all the others on her block and far beyond–there’s the nifty pool she dug and poured concrete into that’s shaped like a small lake, in the middle of which rises a miniature woman-made island with a functional volcano at its center. The pool is surrounded by tropical foliage (which she planted) and Tiki statuary (which she carved). The whole scene can be viewed from her lanai-style deck she recently added to the second story of her house; and here again, she did all the carpentry work herself and applied decorative Tiki-themed shields of her own fabrication. I could go on…

The Bamboo Grove is actually the second home in succession over the last decade that she’s turned into a Polynesian paradise. It was during her stay at the previous residence that she acquired the VW van; and just like everything else she took into her evolving artificial universe, the van was immediately suited up and fitted out to reflect the ideals and atmosphere of its new surroundings. Over the course of one weekend she painted its exterior in tropical Poly Pop colors, repanelled the interior (to which she added bamboo strips, matting, and some original Tiki paintings), and covered the floor with thin slabs of slate, mimicking the floors of various Mid-Century Modernist restaurants and hotels she had visited. Decked out in this manner, the van now allowed her to leave home without really leaving it, an advantage of great value to someone whose very success at refashioning her home in her own aesthetic image was having the further effect of turning her into a homebody.

With its newfound capacity to export Dawn’s domestic milieu, the van could now be put to good use for all kinds of tasks, three of which stand out:

(1)   To haul the mostly free or cheap supplies destined for her various art projects. Dawn usually starts the day in front of her computer, scanning for ‘free’ offerings on Craig’s List or Freecycle. She considers the whole process of finding, choosing, and acquiring such materials an integral part of her art work. When tasks are viewed in this way, about 80% of her waking moments can be said to be spent on “art.”

(2)   To go on on camping trips, preferably near the ocean.

(3)   To participate in Art Car events. ‘Art Cars’ are the products of a modern folk art movement in which ordinary people and professional artists alike change the appearance of their motorized vehicles to make some unique artistic statement–and then drive them around for all to see. Dawn’s Tiki van would be driven in Art Car processions and entered in Art Car contests (though, from what I understand, any attempt to judge Art Cars along aesthetic lines, rating some above others, really goes against the grain of the movement’s underlying democratic principles). After winning a prize (as usually happened), the van would be given a fresh artistic overhaul in order to qualify for the next year’s competition. She says that it’s presently in its sixth metamorphosis.

Dawn, like Tammy, has an affectionate nickname for her vehicle: Jahmbi.” (But less affectionate, I guess, because I heard her only utter it a couple times in the course of our hour-long interview, while Tammy mad frequent reference to ‘Fifi’ when discussing her trailer.) The name “Jahmbi” is taken from “Combi,” which is the Americanized spelling for “Kombi,” which in turn is an abbreviated form of the German tongue-twister “Kombinations-kraftwagen.” Literally translated, that means ‘combined-use vehicle.’ It was the term used by Volkswagen for its second line of vehicles, the first line being its familiar-shaped ‘bugs.’ Dawn’s ‘Combi’ is of the iconic split-window variety which Volkswagen made from 1950 to 1967, and which was adopted by countercultural types in the Sixties and became known as the ‘hippie van.’ In their most radicalized form, these were hand-painted with psychedelic swirls and Day-Glo colors, and serves as precedents for today’s Art Cars. It is noteworthy, then, that the history of Art Cars comes full circle in Dawn’s Tiki-laden van.

'Jahmbi' on the road

When Dawn relocated to her West Seattle “Bamboo Grove” space five years ago, it was the van that did most of the moving. Then, two years ago, she got a truck which took over most of the hauling duties. In the mean time, the annual Art Car procession–which used to precede the Solstice Parade in Seattle’s Fremont district–shut down for some reason, thus dampening Dawn’s enthusiasm for taking part in local Art Car events. As a last straw of sorts, the van axle broke about a year ago, leaving it incapacitated in the carport, where it sits as an ancillary Tiki shrine to this day. A replacement axle has been located, and it’s only a matter of time before she gets that one or finds another for fixing the van. Of course, she plans to do the job herself–as befits a Tiki Renaissance Woman.

4. The Green Turtle

Part of a turtle’s natural defense system (besides its shell) is the ability to blend in with its natural surroundings and to look like something other than a turtle. Not so with the subject of this present section. It’s a house on wheels that looks every bit like what we Americans normally associate with the word “house” –i.e., a 4-sided wooden structure with windows and a peaked roof–propped up on wheels. But at just 117 square feet of living space, this house is small enough to allow for easy hauling. There’s an official name for this diminutive gabled roadster. Hold onto your hats: It’s a “Tiny House”!

As far as I know, there are only two such structures in the Seattle area right now. One was towed here recently from Portland, Oregon, and sits somewhere in Ballard. The other is parked in the Shoreline area, where I interviewed the owner, builder, and newly installed occupant, Zoey Platt.

Like Lonn with the motorhome, Zoey face a major life-style challenge when she made up her mind a couple years ago to build and occupy a Tiny House. Up until that time she had been living in a 4-bedroom house which she shared with other people; when she went camping, it was usually in the RV she owned (and with the certainty that such close-quarters living was only temporary). On the other hand, as part of her job for a publishing company aimed at RV owners, she moderated and online forum where full-time motorhomers would share their concerns; and from this she gained an insider’s knowledge of just what it was like to lead the life of a terrestrial astronaut.

I’d like to add here that she shares with Dawn Frazier a history of involvement with the Art Car movement, even once driving a car she had covered with maps and spinning globes; and she’s been a frequent visitor to the Burning Man Festival, the annual desert art jamboree which attracts hordes of Art Cars and where many of the campsites exhibit an idiosyncratic flair. So I can’t help feeling that her previous experience with quirky-looking vehicles and campsite structures might have given the Tiny House a leg up in her aesthetic hierarchy.

On a more serious level, she maintains that her concern for the environment and her desire to help the human race find a better way to sustain its presence on this planet figured prominently in her decision to give this downsized version of the American Dream a test run.

From Dee Williams, a Tiny House inhabitant for the last five years (in Olympia, WA) whose exploration of tight space living has been publicized both locally and nationally; Zoey not only drew advice and inspiration but also got plugged into the California company that designs and build the miniscule houses. It’s called the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, and you can visit its web site at www.tumbleweedhouses.com. Following Dee’s example, and in order to save money, Zoey chose to purchase one of the company’s design plans (the ‘Lusby’) and to do the construction work herself. That meant learning various skills as she went along, hitting up friends with building trade skills for advice and active assistance from time to time, making frequent trips to stores specializing in salvage materials and cheap building supplies, and finding and collecting free stuff for her project, often by means of Craigslist. The whole of her operation has been chronicled on a blog she’s been keeping at www.togetherweareone.com.

Zoey & 'Larry'

As with Dawn, Zoey puts great stock in the finding and acquisition of free and cheap materials (often used or surplus or about to be thrown out), and she’s been quite successful at it. An early and important coup was the 1966 Komfort Travel Trailer she got–for free (!)– Off of Craigslist. Zoey informed me that trailers are frequent casualties in the moist Northwest climate because once they develop any kind of leak, they’re goners. That was the case with her ‘canned ham’ donation, but she didn’t want it in its original form anyway, so she stripped it down to its base with the two axles and four wheels, which could now be used to carry her Tiny House. From the leftover debris she managed to rescue some valuable treasures, including a functioning oven and stove, along with some sinks, all of which have been assimilated into the gabled bungalow,

Shopping in this way (via Craigslist) has bought her into contact with lots of people who were happy to contribute some cast-off pieces of their own lives to a project that was meant to revolutionize hers. She’s also attempted to revolutionize the process, by finding new homes for her own cast-off remnants rather than consigning them to a landfill. Such noncommercial and somewhat serendipitous exchanges of goods and services have given the house project a more personable quality than if she had purchased her supplies at Lowe’s or Home Depot, or if she had hired professionals to do the labor. Zoey is highly attuned to these personalized aspects of her new home. When she looks around it, she is reminded of the various lives and personal histories that have left their mark there.

It is only fitting, then, that she has dedicated her new house to the spirit of her late father, who passed away right around the time she decided to embark on this new kind of space mission. His portrait hangs in the middle of the home’s main room, which is also its kitchen. (There is a bathroom and shower in back, and two lofts overhead serve as a bedroom and storage space respectively). In honor of his memory, she calls her Tiny House “Larry.”

Thanks to Larry’s underlying trailer framework and tires, he is legally classified as a “restored travel trailer,” which exempts him from many of the regulatory burdens inflicted on similarly sized stand-alone domiciles. A clear indicator of this unusual status is the Washington State license plate affixed to the front of the house near the place one might normally expect a mailbox. (But for privacy reasons, I guess, Zoey deliberately stood in front of me when I took the accompanying photo.) Due to Larry’s peculiar legal status, Zoey has been able to keep him parked in a friend’s backyard. She plans to live there for at least a year, sharing water and (to some extent) electricity use with her neighborly hosts. She also hopes that, by means of solar panels, rechargeable batteries, and the substitution of antique and other mechanical devices for modern electric ones, she can eventually take Larry off the grid.

All this provides good practice for her ultimate goal, which is to relocate Larry to some unimproved property she owns near Hood Canal, about a two-hour drive west of Seattle. There she’ll have to ‘boondock’ on a full-time basis. On the other hand, she also mentions the possibility of taking Larry back East for job purposes. Or perhaps she’ll be tempted to join one of the Tiny House “villages” that are reportedly sprouting up around the country.

Untethered to the land, to the grid, to a mortgage, or to the dead weight of too much stuff, Zoey and her tiny space capsule will soon be set for adventure in the Great Unknown.

5. The Green Tortoise

Like the slow but relentless and single-minded tortoise that won the foot race in Aesop’s fable against the faster but more scatterbrained hare, the persons interviewed here so far all seemed to have some overarching goal they were working towards, and their respective living-space vehicles were deliberately acquired to further this broad purpose. Although Colin Butler, the guy I interviewed for this final section of my long report, claims to have dreamed since childhood of the kind of vehicle- based life-style he has lately been living, it seems more like a stroke of luck–rather than the result of careful planning and foresight–that enabled him to do so. I chose the title for this section on account of the type of vehicle he lives in and because of the way he sometimes uses it. What better name than the “Green Tortoise” for a Seventies-era former Greyhound bus?

I don’t want to leave the wrong impression here. I’m not saying he lacks focus nor has no goals. Quite the contrary! He has many, and they’re all intertwined together in subservience to movement, change, travel–the guiding principles of his life.

His lineage reflects this nomadic turbulence. His dad did air traffic control work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a job which took him to airports all over the country, and the family sometimes went along with him. His mom’s side of the family had helped fill the ranks of the US Navy. Colin moved around a lot, whether inside or outside the familial setting, primarily in the far-flung frontier states west of the Rocky Mountains.

It was in Alaska about a year and a half ago that he came across the deal that would realize his childhood fantasy. He was married at the time, and his wife–a singer whose particular style epitomized “Alaskan folk funk” –was getting ready to go on tour in the Lower 48. This was vat the peak of that ‘fire sale’ in response to high gas prices that I had mentioned earlier; gas-guzzling mastodons were being unloaded left and right. As it happened, a family with four kids was getting rid of its specially remodeled 1970 Vista Cruiser, which had initially operated as a Greyhound bus. To meet the family’s needs, all of the passenger seats had been removed and the bus converted to a home space with three bedrooms, a ‘galley’ kitchen, and a bathroom big enough to contain a tub with shower. It has hardwood floors and beautiful wood paneling throughout. Despite some wear and tear, the bus was still in great shape and the engine ran just fine. The asking price: $10,000.

He went for it, of course.

With the bus now employed to provide transport and housing, the concert tour proceeded down the West Coast, and went without a hitch. Colin drove, provided roady support, and did both sound and lights at the gigs. Once returned to Alaska, he used his engineering expertise to refit one of the bedrooms as a recording studio for his musically prolific spouse, but for reasons unknown to this writer and probably irrelevant to this narrative, the marriage fell apart not long afterward.

In the aftermath, Colin relocated with his streamlined digs to the Seattle area, where he had lived on previous occasions and had various connections. He soon became involved in the indigenous circus and burlesque scenes that he found there. Capitalizing on his recent experience with his ex-wife’s successful road tour, he let it be known that both he and his rig would be available for touring purposes with musicians associated with either of those two scenes. As a result, he and his bus–now christened “The Millennium Tortoise” –have provided touring services for the following acts: “God’s Favorite Beefcake,” a cabaret-style combo with members drawn from the circus troupe “Circus Contraption;” “Orkestar Zirkonium,” a 15-piece marching band with a circus music repertoire; and “Viva Oz Vegas,” a combination circus and burlesque extravaganza.

'The Millennium Tortoise'

To make these trips, often of several weeks duration, he had to take time off from his regular job, where he does highly technical work on electrical systems designed for aircraft, but this was not a problem because he has an arrangement with his employers to allow for such long leaves of absence. From the tour work itself he didn’t stand to make much money, but that was not his intention. He says he does it as a personal contribution to promoting the neo-Vaudevillian art forms exemplified by the circus and burlesque.

I remember how burlesque began its modern revival at the end of the Nineties, tagging along behind the Swing scene, which in turn follow3ed up Lounge as conscious alternatives to the rock and hip-hop styles of fashion and music that dominated America’s youth culture. Lounge petered out, Swing degenerated into a gym exercise, and burlesque was simply not an art form that appealed to me. So it was interesting to hear from Colin how burlesque has developed since that period to the point of having distinct regional styles. The LA branch, he says, emphasizes glamour. The Big Apple variety is hard-edged and raunchy. By contrast, Seattle’s burlesque tends to be playful and comedic. There is also a sub-genre that he claims has been around as long as burlesque itself, but which I’ve never heard of. It’s called “boylesque,” and is what the name implies. The Seattle brand is particularly comedic and prone to gender-bending.

Colin himself has been studying to be a boylesque performer, and recently graduated from a six-week program with the newly formed Academy of Burlesque. In the act he’s put together, he starts out in a sailor’s suit and adopts a Russian persona, calling himself “Captain Jackaloff, the Russian seaman.” I haven’t seen his performance, but the sailor motif and the gender-shifting stunts that I imagine must go along with it–and indeed, the whole stylized transformation that constitutes a striptease act–seems fitting for someone so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of transition and travel.

That spirit also comes out in the nautical elements that he’s used to decorate his tour bus home. At the same time, the long wood-paneled corridor that runs beside the three bedrooms might easily be mistaken for a train’s.

Bus-train-ship, occupied by a guy who works on aircraft by day and does boylesque and drag acts by night, and who takes time off to ferry circus bands around the country in his carnie-mobile: so many elements in one life all pointing in the same direction. Yet a lot of them came together circumstantially rather than by conscious planning, almost naturally, as with our shell-backed cousins in the Animal Kingdom.

The shell-backs constitute some of the world’s most ancient species. Their design template–allowing them to carry their homes along with them–has proven to be an adaptation winner. In the new ‘space race’ that preoccupies an ever-shrinking planet, some of us humans are beginning to pay close attention.

by Armando Nex—

As darkness slowly descended over the City of Roses, and the chill night air brought a touch of mist and fog, my colleague and I decided it was now safe to leave the confines of our hotel and set out into the night. Donning my top hat, frock coat, white gloves and scarf and my chum similarly attired we grabbed our walking sticks and set briskly off into the bleak evening. Our destination was eastward over the Burnside Bridge across the inky Willamette River to the ironically named Melody Ballroom. The Melody Ballroom, built in 1925, was the site of Portland’s 9^th annual Vampires Masquerade Ball.

Welcoming Smiles

The Vampires Masquerade Ball, hosted by Lady Raven, has been a part of the Portland scene since 2002. It was created as an especially elegant and unique event to appeal to the local “creatures of the night” as well as newcomers. It is not specifically an event for Vampires but rather an occasion for those who like to dress up in costumes, period attire, or anything but normal street clothes. Think dark, romantic and dangerous sophistication.

A Charming Attendee

Passing through a gauntlet of Victorian, Edwardian, Steam Punk, Gothic, and Vampiric guests, we entered the portals of the aged structure and presented our tickets to the fanged receptionist and slowly made our way into the Grand Ballroom.

The scarlet-walled Grand Ballroom, featured: thirty foot ceilings, crystal chandeliers, cove lighting and neo-classical cornices, molding and pilasters, spread over 6,000 square feet to accommodate the expected 1,000 attendees. A fog machine and filtered red lighting added to the supernatural effect.

At one end of the Ballroom stood a large stage where burlesque, dance, and music performances took place including a DJ area, while at the other was a large V-shaped bar serving specialty drinks with three or four stations, including a well-patronized, self-serve Absinthe area.

At the Absinthe Bar

While there were a few tables, covered with red tablecloths scattered about the edges of the floor, including several stand-up tables, most of the floor was given up to expressionistic, siren-like dancing. Making ones way through a crowd of bustles, feathered headdresses, and long coats was not always easy.

The DJs with fanciful names such as: Ghoulunatic, Ronabell, and Wednesday, were periodically paused in their dark spinnings by the musician Adam Hurst and the artistic dance performers: Bhriga GypsiKelt, Immortalia, Dyhana Aesthetic and the revealing (literally) Vienna La Rouge.

It was entertainment almost as fascinating as the patrons gyrating sinuously on the dance floor.

Proof I have a reflection

Heading downstairs to the secretive “Lower Ballroom” I was astounded to find a large spread of canapés including assorted cheeses, savory meats, pastries, fresh strawberries and a chocolate fountain and an adjacent secondary bar (no Absinthe there). Unfortunately I had not correctly read my invitation and had dined previous to my arrival at the Ball, although the chocolate was tempting. It was a puzzle though to think of these particular guests actually eating coarse foodstuffs.

I was also deeply mystified by the photography area. I did not think the undead  could be photographed, as they cast no reflection. Turning to one side to reassure myself, I looked into a nearby mirror and could not see my own reflection. It was almost too much! Had I quietly slipped over to the other side?  I suddenly realized it was a window… to the vendor area. Following a labyrinthine path I made my way there.

I believe it was the corset she was selling!

The sales area, containing the wares of thirty different vendors, including stylish hats, jewelry, millinery, corsets, potions, dolls, posters, masks, leather, and costumes, was notable not only for the peculiar wares offered but by the attractiveness of the entrepreneurs. I’m sure it was just a coincidence. Of course I don’t usually run into many vendors wearing a corset.

Some of the sales staff are up to haggling on the prices but don’t count on it. Many of the products are hand-made involving hours of work with lace, stitching, etc. Many of the jewelry pieces were well-crafted, iconic, metal shapes. There were also feathered hair pieces and little mini-hats for the ladies, known as “Fascinators”. Often they were…

I toyed with the idea of buying a vial of aphrodisiac, or was it some bodily substance (?), but decided I already had enough problems to deal with and moved on.

Missed opportunity?

Back on the main floor we ran into William Hicks, iconoclast and owner of one of the best vintage clothing stores in the Pacific Northwest, Hollywood Vintage. He was quite flamboyantly dressed in the style of Louis XIV complete with powdered wig. He was quite knowledgeable about the history of the Ball, and about the history of Portland as well.

As we all chatted and drank exotic beverages midnight fell upon us and the music of the cello wafted across the room inviting all to waltz. The movement on the floor was hypnotic… or so I was told as I was in the next room trying to pluck a rose from a arrangement for my lapel.

Oh well. I finally found an empty seat and plopped down in a chair. My walking stick didn’t really keep my feet from killing me from five hours of standing and walking.

Hours flew past and it was soon time to leave the premises. In keeping with the spirit of the event we labored to return to our abode before sunrise. A few elderly gentleman of the street inquired of where we had been… but I doubt they really wanted to know. We bid bonne nuit…

Beau Brummell & King Louis XIV

http://vampireballpdx.com/

http://www.themelodyballroom.org/about/grandballroom

http://www.facebook.com/#!/vampireballpdx?sk=photos

The Last Dance

by R.B. Niolu—

In the calendar of the Catholic Church the period between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday is called “Ordinary Time.” A period associated with no particular strong religious celebrations and a time to clean out your wine cellar, liquid spirits and excess food stores for the coming season of deprivation, Lent. In Louisiana, this has come to mean it is a period to cut loose and spend your time and money; to sing, dance and drink in the streets and generally act the idiot. Tourists (like myself) usually fill most of these roles admirably. In some quarters a King and Queen of fools are chosen from the locals. From what I’ve seen a lot of people have the credentials, just not the connections, for these “high” posts.

Staring out the window in Seattle at the ceaseless, chilling rain and gloom, I decided to cast my lot with the mentally off-balanced and head with a traveling companion for the warmer, more humid climes of New Orleans. The ostensible “purpose” of this trip would be to partake of the cocktails and cuisine of the Big Easy…

Day 1, Friday:

I get up at an absurdly early hour with about 100 lbs of luggage and have a friend drive me to the airport. It is cold and damp and I am wearing my knee high boots (for a costume) because I can’t fit them into my luggage. At the airport I cough up $25, excluding tip, for my extra bag at the curb, and lug the rest of my stuff to the TSA checkpoint. After a struggle I get my boots off for the screening process. The security people admire my footwear, but fortunately they are not confiscated. After a stop in Minneapolis, where it’s colder than my freezer, we make it to the fabulous New Orleans airport, appropriately named after Louis Armstrong. Unfortunately the Jet-way gets stuck on the way to the plane and we’re delayed 20 minutes in disembarking.

Hotel Villa Convento

After checking into the Hotel Villa Convento on Ursulines, a charming former Creole townhouse built in 1833, we head off to Decatur Street for food and drink. Our first stop is Coop’s, a rough and tumble place, similar to Seattle’s Comet, with a healthy amount of fried food, including fried oysters and of course, gumbo. We fill our bellies, wet our whistles and wander on over to Frenchmen’s Street.

We hope to run into our good friend Monty Banks who’s playing piano at the Three Muses, one of the innumerable jazz clubs in the city. He’s been an active musician since moving from Seattle in the immediate post-Katrina aftermath. We find him there playing a succession of New Orleans Mardi Gras favorites with his high rolling band whilst I sip a Pimm’s Cup and munch on one of the tapas offered. We say “hi” and linger awhile, then later it’s off to the Pravda bar for an Irish Coffee where we eventually call it a night.

Day 2, Saturday:

Brandy Crusta

Seeing as how the bakery, Croissant D’Or Patisserie, is across the street, the day is started with quiche and coffee. Afterwards a long walk down Royal to Canal Street follows, where we catch the tail end of the “Krewe of Tuck” parade (after Robin Hood’s “Friar Tuck”). I catch a few beads and some kind of plastic cup and we continue on to the Regency Père Marquette Hotel and a bar on Common Street known as “Bar Uncommon” with its renowned and affable bartender, Chris McMillian. After some effort he produces a sterling Brandy Crusta and a bowl of gumbo for me and a Whiskey Sour for my friend along with his usual description of the origins and lore of the various cocktails. It’s raining outside so we spend a great deal of time there before we move on to the Bombay Club to once again see our friend Monty Banks tickling the ivories. While there I munch on their fish and chips and admire the various portraits of former British monarchs from the “Raj” era. After another great period of time it’s off to the bar at Arnaud’s.

Chris Hannah is the expert bartender at Arnaud’s “French 75” bar, so named after a drink and a WW-I French artillery piece. Always dapper in his white jacket and bow tie, Chris whips out a couple of delicate cocktails, a Milk Punch and a Sazerac. As it is Saturday before Mardi Gras, most of these bartenders are just swamped and try to remain focused on the drink orders pouring in. Unlike the quick and sugary “Hurricanes” and “Hand Grenades” on Bourbon Street, real New Orleanian drinks take a little time and finesse to make. Chris Hannah thinks the real New Orleans drinks are: the Sazerac, Vieux Carre, Ramos gin fizz, absinthe Suisse and La Louisiane. I cannot drink them all at once (and don’t) so I gently bid adieu and head to my favorite “dark” bar, “Pravda!”

“Pravda!” is a Russian themed semi-Goth, semi-steam punk bar run by Chicago native Michaelle Nolan. She is a small, smart, no-nonsense woman who is quite knowledgeable on both absinthe and vodka, the two specialties of the bar (although other booze is available). She will also offer you advice on how to shape your life up, so it’s worth paying some attention, which I try to do. The patrons tend to be from the more artistic side of the city and dress accordingly.

Naturally we decide on absinthe and try to find the “green fairy” within. While there we inquire after the Krewe Du Noir parade Sunday, one of the many, smaller foot parades that wander through the French Quarter. (Unfortunately we would be unable to pull ourselves together in time to make it the next day.) Generally Pravda has 15 or more types of absinthe, but this being Mardi Gras, Michaelle is down to about 3. Absinthe is basically alcoholic licorice, and if you drink enough of it you will experience weirdness. However the same could be said of bourbon. Absinthe is supposed to contain “Thujone”, an extract of wormwood, which was once reputed to be hallucinogenic and in high amounts can cause seizures. It would likely take a barrel of absinthe, though, to get this effect.

After Pravda it’s off again to Frenchmen’s Street to once again listen to music at the Spotted Cat, Apple Barrel and the Three Muses before we end our day. Lots of music in and out of the clubs and people going in and out of these joints and walking in the streets; two more nights until Mardi Gras.

Day 3, Sunday:

After the usual breakfast at the Croissant D’Or we walk around through the French Quarter, including Jackson Square and eventually end up in the bar at Muriel’s where, of course, my friend orders Turtle Soup. Not those precious Sea Turtles nor the Galapagos Tortoises but rather a variety of the snapping sort that lives along the Mississippi. This generally comes with a large dollop of sherry in it, which is not forgotten. Personally I find it a bit rich, and have yet another bowl of gumbo. This is followed by a trip to the revolving Carousel Bar (resembling a circus merry-go-round) at the Hotel Monteleone where we each order a “Vieux Carré” This drink was apparently invented at the Carousel Bar in 1938. As the bar spinned round at four circuits per hour, we planned our next move and left at the 6^th revolution.

In a city noted for its French, Creole, Cajun, and some Italian cuisine it was probably a mistake to dine at the only German restaurant in town, Jäger Haus. I do have a few German relatives though, so I thought I’d give it a try. Everything was cold, and overcooked, ugh! Later I had a stomach ache when my food and drink clashed with the other cultures in my belly. Oddly enough, afterwards, we watched a parade dedicated to the god of excess, Bacchus.

Krewe of Bacchus float

The Bacchus parade moved quite slowly and had frequent stops. A tank, and the mayor on horseback were featured at the start of a long postponed parade. I stayed until I grew tired and had to beg off. It was probably nine at night and another parade was scheduled after that. One thinks, sitting in their home in the Pacific Northwest and other parts of the country, that it’s necessary to expose oneself to get beads in New Orleans. Not true. I can tell you that just by looking at a parade, or walking down a street, especially if wearing a decent hat or costume during Mardi Gras, you are more likely to be pelted in the head by beads, doubloons, cups, and small stuffed animals by enthusiastic throwers. Towards the end of Mardi Gras you will find beads, broken and unbroken, litter the streets, along with the to-go cups for your liquor (one can walk the streets with alcohol) and other assorted holiday trash.

Strolling down the avenue Conti later, in my long coat and top hat, I was stopped by a white-faced jester, outside of Broussard’s, an elite restaurant in the French Quarter, and invited in by the Baccardi Company to sample their wares in some promotional gimmick. Obviously Captain Morgan, a feature in New Orleans, faces increasing competition. Leaving with my booty, an inflatable cup holder, I strolled over to the Bombay Club across the street to pay my respects to Monty once again, and to have a drink that was a bit more tolerable.

Monty Banks at Work

At the Bombay Club, a quite tipsy customer was tipping heavily to have Monty Banks play all of the cheesy Mardi Gras and local tunes he could almost remember. After each tune, he would doze off, breathing loudly, until the next song when another request would belch forth. Monty was ever the diplomat and proceeded as best he could… Leaving this sublime situation we set forth again for Pravda to top the evening with a nightcap, and perhaps a bit of conversation with the eccentrics there. A few absinthes later it was time to leave, after all it was well after midnight (wink, wink). A bit of greasy food before sleep began to sound enticing, so it was off to the “Clover Grill.”

The Clover Grill, a NOLA (New Orleans, LA) institution since 1939, serves greasy spoon/diner type food 24/7. Across the street from the notorious “Café Laffite in Exile,” the Grill is a popular place during Mardi Gras, and one often has to wait in line just to get in. Too many beverages during this festive time of year can require an extra layer of grub to protect one’s stomach lining and this place can and does fill the bill.

Of course the next morning I felt I was going to physically explode from the previous day’s activity.

Day 4, Monday- Lundi Gras:

For a change we start the day at CC’s (Community Coffee), a local coffee chain in Louisiana. The line was too long at our usual spot. This was followed by a long trek across the city to Meyer the Hatter, a center of haberdashery in NOLA. My friend was desperately in need of a Panama hat, and this seemed the likely place. After a long period of trying hats on and bickering, a hat was selected and we moved on. I stop at Royal Mail and inquire about shipping. If you bring a lot of costumes/outfits somewhere and buy/give a lot of souvenirs, it is probably easier to ship some of your stuff ahead, and avoid the 100 lbs of luggage.  From there we wander on to “Tujague’s.”

Monsieur Tujague

Tujague’s is reputedly the second oldest bar/restaurant in NOLA, founded in 1856. On the wall of the stand-up bar is a picture of the founder, replete in his linen suit and straw planter’s hat. On my unsettled stomach I had a Mimosa and a bowl of gumbo and watched the crazy, aged tourists scream, shout and stumble about the bar. After Mardi Gras it would be quite a different (re: quieter) scene. Tujague’s brisket has a positive reputation, but not too oddly, I ate another bowl of gumbo.

Soon it was time to look for cheap souvenirs for my Seattleite friends. A good place to look is Frenchmen’s Market. It is much like Seattle’s Pike Place Market but it has even more tchotchkes, trinkets, and general crap. Unfortunately I couldn’t bring myself to buy anything. I felt my wallet would bite me if I brought myself to open it there. My perspicacious friend uses this time wisely to enjoy a Pimm’s Cup at the café Napoleon House.

After a bit of rest, I changed into my sport coat and Mardi Gras hat and we headed to Broussard’s, this time for a dinner and not any Bacardi rum. Broussard’s, founded in 1920, has a faint Napoleonic theme and is considered one of the five or six “Grande Dames” of New Orleans cuisine. I enjoyed their house cocktail, a “Smile”, Oysters Bienville, house salad, and Pompano-Napoleon fish. Later, bloated, I pondered the check and thought about the frequency of “Lucky Dog” stands (see a “Confederacy of Dunces”) around the city.

In the Marigny

Leaving Broussard’s, I burped my way down some darker back streets to Pravda, for a bit of tonic water, afore a visit once again to Frenchmen’s to check out the wild street scene and the Café Blue Nile…

The area around Frenchmen’s street, the “Marigny” district, is often quite boisterous in the days leading up to Mardi Gras and although not in the French Quarter, per se, is an important part of the celebration and has a shade more of authenticity.

Day 5, Tuesday- Mardi Gras:

The big day arrives. Naturally my usual breakfast place is closed, along with all the antique shops and anything selling delicate items, so I head off to CC’s coffee house. Normally eating breakfast is no big deal but on this day I’m dressed as Napoleon and tromping about in my big cavalry boots. It would be odd but my traveling companion is dressed like a Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, and people on the street are attired like Marie Antoinette, Louis XIV, plastic soldiers, boxes of grits or beignet mix, chickens, crows, Lady Gaga, the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, Isis, middle-east dictators, etc. Yes, just another day at the office.

Muffuletta

Walking along we come upon the St. Anne’s foot parade of well-costumed locals following an oompah band. It parades down Royal street, which runs parallel to the unsavory Bourbon street, and pauses/ends (temporarily) on Canal Street down which all the great motorized parades end. There the parades of Zulu and Rex pass that day and are amongst the most spectacular. Onward we wander and come upon the Krewe of Julu parade founded by a Klezmer group (the music was great) until that peters out. By then my feet are killing me from all that walking and we head off to Frank’s for a Muffuletta. The Muffuletta is similar to a fat submarine sandwich with olives, garlic, salami, provolone, etc. between a very large, round, sliced bun of Sicilian bread. One whole sandwich feeds from 4 to 6 people. I had a quarter section. The Central Grocery nearby claims to have invented it, but the one at Frank’s is pretty good. Sitting out on their deck was great until pelting rain, just like home, drove us indoors.

Michaelle & Absinthe at Pravda

As we were down the street from Pravda, we stopped by for a Mardi Gras absinthe to “cleanse our palettes”. Then it was off to Frenchmen’s again, the less frat-boy part of New Orleans, to dance in the streets. It was chaos. The streets were jammed and music played, live and recorded, from every place imaginable. They should block the street, but they allow cars to creep through the multitudes, much to everyone’s periodic anxiety.

Seeking a bit of a rest, we stopped by Mojito’s Rum Bar and Grill where we ran into, this time by accident, our good pal Monty. He was getting off work, so we all decided to meander down to Bourbon Street and watch the happenings at midnight. On our way we stopped at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Bar at the far end of Bourbon Street, the self-proclaimed oldest bar in America, a dark, dingy, but friendly place with a piano bar in the back, but didn’t stay long. Then it was off to the Pirate’s Alley on the back side of the St Louis Cathedral (since 1720) where we chatted with the owners, drank Irish Coffees (aren’t the Irish pirates?) and finally returned to Bourbon Street where we plopped ourselves on barstools inside a European jazz pub called Fritzel’s. Fortunately a band happened to be playing to drown out the noise outside.

Mardi Gras Revelers

As midnight approached, we were able to see outside on the street the impending “end” of Mardi Gras, 2011. Bourbon Street is sleazy but it is the center of the post parade Mardi Gras frenzy. The street is jammed end to end and side to side with crazy revelers. Unlike Seattle, where the police bunched together away from the crowd,  during a past dysfunctional Mardi Gras in 2001, in New Orleans there are police on every intersection along Bourbon Street, along the parade route and scattered throughout the city during this time. They interact with the population, smoke, drink coffee, eat snacks and generally leave celebrators alone unless there’s trouble. When there is trouble you are whisked away, like a bad dog, put in a paddy wagon and are gone until the party’s over.

The “Police Parade” begins on Canal Street, towards the west and proceeds east. It is preceded by religious zealots waving signs telling the masses the end is near and it is time to repent. I think they want to fool us into thinking they own the street (ha, ha). They are followed a bit later by rows of mounted police, motorcycle police, city police, state troopers, police cars, and finally several sanitation and waste vehicles. People wave and throw beads after them and then continue partying until eventually the streets are hosed down, cleaned and the outside part of Mardi Gras is over and “Lent,” the time of doing without, begins.

We ended the night at the famous “Café Du Monde,” sipping Au Laits and eating beignets covered with mounds of powdered sugar.

Beignets & Au Laits

Day 6, Ash Wednesday:

This is the Mardi Gras reveler day of atonement. Usually it takes the form of a hangover, bloodshot eyes, and an upset stomach. I wish I could say it was different for me… After breakfast I head down Royal Street. Once again the shops are all open and the streets are being scrubbed down. I stop at a souvenir shop, Roux Royale, and buy a number of food-oriented items for the folks back home, and then continue on to the Carousel Bar. For a change it is almost empty and seats are easily procured. I drink a Mimosa and gently spin in a counter-clockwise direction. Then it’s time for some chores. I buy a few items at Walgreens (famous for being looted, post Katrina), and a few pieces at a jewelry store on Royal Street.

Back at the hotel, I pack a large box with my laundry, souvenirs, boots, and costumes. I lug it to the Royal Mail postal station. It weighs 39 lbs. Ugh! After that it’s lunch at the “Desire” restaurant in the Royal Sonesta Hotel (gumbo again) where the oyster shucker is constantly telling a gabbing patron: “I know what you’re talking about,” which is doubtful. A stroll follows our lunch along the Mississippi on the “Moon Walk” named after a former Mayor and father of the current one. There we find the redoubtable Monty is playing his clarinet and his girlfriend Monica nearby is selling her “Lucky Charms” pendants. I buy one, chat a bit and then it’s off to Tujague’s one last time for an “Old Fashioned” cocktail.

In Tujague’s we meet the 2010 chief of the Krewe of Okeanos, King Okeanos LXI otherwise known as “King Bob.”  He regales us with tales of past Carnival seasons and remembers the days of throwing glass beads to the crowds. Now that he’s no longer royalty in 2011, it’s anodized aluminum doubloons which are a bit easier on the throwing arm. As we had arranged to meet Monty later, we say farewell and meet him outside the Balcony Music Club on Decatur.

Zydeco Music & Dancing at Mulate's

Monty, being a musician (saxophone, clarinet, accordion and piano) decides to take us on a musical history tour of New Orleans. This tour includes: Congo Square in Louis Armstrong Park where slaves once gathered on their “day off,” Sundays, to dance and exchange goods; the J&M Recording Studio, where early R&B, Rock and Soul were first recorded (now a laundromat!); and a rough area of uptown where Louis Armstrong grew up (now mostly a few abandoned buildings). This was followed by dinner at “Mulate’s” a Cajun restaurant featuring frog legs, alligator meat and Zydeco music and dancing.

This night ended at Snug Harbor on Frenchmen’s where the “Uptown Jazz Orchestra” under Delfeayo Marsalis performed (I confess we watched it on closed circuit TV in the bar) and later at the Blue Nile where an interesting group consisting of keyboards and drums called “Mumbles” performed. As we all were burnt out, the evening ended shortly thereafter, around midnight; early for us.

Day 7, Thursday:

This being the last full day I’d spend in New Orleans, and it being relatively sunny, after breakfast at Croissant D’Or, I decided to wear my pinfeather suit and Panama hat and dine with friends at the classic “Galatoire’s” for lunch. Galatoire’s has been around since 1897 and was a favorite haunt of Tennessee Williams who liked to sit near the front window. Bourbon Street must have been nicer then… In “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche and Stella dine at Galatoire’s. I however am going to lunch with neither.

Galatoire's

Galatoire’s is pleasant and filled with light and mirrors and much of the staff is surrealistically ancient. Dining on shrimp, duck soup, salad, Seafood Creole, and key lime pie one can feel rather gluttonous. On the other hand how often does one go on vacation?  Unfortunately there won’t be any overtime at work to compensate me for this.

Strolling afterwards we head to the St. Charles streetcar, running again after Mardi Gras, and sit out on the verandah of the Columns Hotel, sipping Mint Juleps and iced tea, pondering the nature of nature. A sad state of affairs… We decide to pay a last visit to our old haunts before we must leave, including a visit to Bar Uncommon, the French 75 bar, and Pravda. (By this time I’ve switched to only iced tea!) At the latter we down a number of tiny Pierogi dumplings. So tiny in fact that later we end the night at the Clover Grill with fries and a Club sandwich.

Day 8, Friday:

This being our last day in the “Crescent City” (so called because of the shape of the Mississippi there), we buy croissants at the D’Or and head down to the Carousel Bar for a last spin. Then it’s off to stand in line for lunch at the famous Acme Oyster House (where one thinks Wile E. Coyote might dine). Inside I have often sat in front of the oyster shuckers listening to them expound on the issues of the day, but today I sit at a long table near a right-wing loon expounding on the non-issues of the day to his family. I stop up my ears and concentrate on the pile of oysters, po’ boy sandwich, and the Bloody Mary before me.

We finally leave town around 3:30 PM and head to the airport for our long flight back to soggy Seattle. It will take 9 hours due to flight delays and cancellations. This will leave us with the impression that New Orleans is a lot further away than it is. Actually, psychologically, it is…

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

Sazerac
Ramos Gin Fizz
Vieux Carré
Absinthe Suisse
La Louisiane
Pimm’s Cup
Goody Cocktail
Mint Julep
Milk Punch

Try and space out your drinks and always have a little water on the side.

http://www.museumoftheamericancocktail.org/

http://southernfood.org/okra/

also related:

http://www.oxygenee.com/absinthe-america/neworleans.html

Additionally every summer there is a “Tales of the Cocktail” festival in New Orleans:

http://www.talesofthecocktail.com/

It’s been two weeks in this rural retreat and I’m sad,
The peace and the calm and the quiet are driving me mad,
All that we do here is good for the body and soul,
But I miss the distraction and action and don’t feel quite whole,
I guess I was made for the city.

All the fresh air and the exercise I’ll ever need,
But no TV and I forgot to bring something to read,
Studying the flora and fauna is all very well,
The food is organic; I’m healthy but still feel like hell,
I guess I was made for the city.

Back here in Gotham it’s hectic and full of alarm,
Look, a transvestite! You won’t find that back on the farm,
It’s noisy and dirty at times but life can be fun,
Yes, one can go back to nature, but I’m not the one,
I guess I was made for the city.

The mannequins that decorated The Chart were so realistic that the first time Jenna went there, she offered to buy one of them another gin and tonic. Having had several gin and tonics herself, Jenna failed to identify the object in the mannequin’s hand as a scented candle.  The Chart was a private bar run by a woman who designed wedding cakes for celebrities. For this reason, the bar’s interior was painted to look like an elaborate cake, all pastel yellows and blues, with stripes and bows that appeared to have been made with a pastry bag the size of a car. Jenna sometimes rested her hands on the bows, and felt disappointed when they didn’t melt.

The clientele were similarly delicate and ornate. Having seen them outside The Chart, Jenna knew that when getting dressed, they considered the appearance of wherever they were going to spend the evening. Patrons of The Chart were only required to dress “formally,” but most opted for pastel leisure suits, tiered dresses, layers of ribbons and plastic jewels. To be on the dance floor when it was crowded was like being in a dessert case in which all the pastries were drunk and making out. The music was so loud that nobody attempted much communication beyond complimenting each other’s outfits. Jenna regularly received such compliments.

Jenna could spend hours getting dressed. She frequently spent entire Sundays shopping, but rarely bought anything, because she only shopped in vintage stores and only bought men’s clothing. In six full days of shopping, she would usually find one thing she liked. The best thing she had ever found was a wool coat from World War II, which had once belonged to a very small naval officer. The buyers i the antique shop where she found it had somehow overlooked a sixty-year-old blood stain on the lining near the shoulder.

Once Jenna was putting laundry away and dropped a vest next to a tie that was on the floor. It was as if the shades of red and blue in the tie had been contained in a balloon that was punctured when the vest touched it.  She bent over the fabric until her neck hurt, staring. She felt like she used to when she was a kid, leaning back in her chair until she was balanced on only two of its legs. Sometimes when she got an outfit just right, it felt like that.

She built a railing all the way around her bedroom and hung every article of clothing she owned from it, organized by color. She liked to lay in bed and follow the gradation of color around and around. Sometimes it looked perfect, but sometimes the spectrum looked wrong and she would stare for a long time, then move something. Usually she moved it back.

She could tell when she liked girls because when they were asleep in her bed, they seemed to fit into her storage system. It had nothing to do with their appearances. Jenna knew this because once she went out with a girl she met at The Chart whose hair was exactly the same shade of reddish brown as the wool coat hanging above her side of the bed, but to Jenna she looked like a fire hose spraying bleach onto every garment she owned. Most of them made her feel this way.

Once Jenna was coming home from a cocktail party late at night and invited one of the prostitutes who worked on the street over to her apartment. The woman wasn’t old, but her skin looked like an older woman’s. She had enormous breasts that seemed to rest on top of,  rather than inside her shiny blue robin’s egg-blue dress.

“What are you, like fifteen?” the woman said as she ran her hand down the front of Jenna’s silk vest. Her name was Andrea. When she set her bag on the bedside table it gaped open, exposing the handle of a gun. Andrea thought Jenna’s heartbeat was accelerating from excitement, and this assumption was only false for a moment. Jenna thought Andrea’s soft, hairless body smelled like the mall, and that she looked good in her bed. Sometimes, somebody did.

An hour later, alone in her apartment, Jenna stood in front of the mirror, naked except for the naval officer’s jacket. She felt attractive in it, she wondered if Andrea thought she looked good, as she had said, or if it was weird for her to find a woman’s body under the guy’s clothes. She took off the jacket and spread it on the bed. There was something so orderly about it, the rows of gold buttons on the dark blue fabric, the embroidered stars on the sleeves. But she didn’t like these as much as the bloody lining. Or perhaps she liked them because of it. The sight of the blood of a man who no longer existed, as an irregular blotch, soaked into the neat seams of the jacket’s lining made her feel like she was on a swing—that feeling in her stomach as she dropped toward the ground.

Jenna was wearing the jacket the night she saw a woman pour human ashes into a bowl of punch at The Chart. Outside the bathrooms, there were a couple of secluded rooms with armchairs, candy and fruit punch on tables. The rooms were designed for sitting and talking, though the noise from the dance floor made conversation nearly impossible. The woman didn’t see Jenna fixing her tie in the bathroom. The woman had an empty bottle of champagne in one hand and a carved brass urn in the other. She had to set down the champagne bottle to steady herself. She seemed not to realize it was empty. Squinting, she opened the urn and poured all of its contents into the punch bowl. The bowl was large enough so that the ashes looked like fruit juice sediment when they collected o the bottom. The woman put the urn back into her purse and made her way down the hall.

“Uh, hey!” Jenna yelled after her. “Hey!”

The woman didn’t hear her and quickly disappeared on the dance floor. Jenna stood in the dim red light of the bathroom for a moment before approaching the punch bowl. The punch looked the same as it had before, except for one floating white speck. Jenna fished it out with a ladle. Its porous surface looked like a meteorite. Something tickled Jenna’s face and she noticed sweat was running out of her hair. She refilled her glass with the ladle and took a sip.

By Landau Curee and Mo Ho—

What follows is a perfectly fabulous night out in New York City. The three places below can be enjoyed separately, but our suggestion is live it up and throw caution to the wind. With a little planning, you can easily hit these hot spots in one big night, a night to be remembered. If you have the time and energy for all three, you should start with dinner at 21 Club.

21 Club

I always say that if you have two perfect meals at a restaurant, you’ve found something special. During my trip back East, I added another place to my favorites list. The 21 Club in New York City lives up to its long and interesting reputation.

21 CLUB: 21 West 52nd Street. 212-582-7200

The club dates back to the 1920s when two students started a speakeasy during Prohibition. I wouldn’t call it a speakeasy now, but it certainly clings to its reputable past. Now it seems to be more of a very fine restaurant with an equally fine bar. The food is fabulous and you’ll pay a fabulous price for it. It’s not cheap. Dinner and drinks can go well north of $100 per person. I always say that it’s not what it costs, but what it’s worth that determines the value of an experience. It’s worth the price.

I you get the chance to visit this wonderful restaurant, I highly recommend the “Speakeasy” Steak Tartare. It’s the best steak tartare I have ever had anywhere. It’s creamy and spicy and the chef certainly knows how to put this dish together. If this is your sort of thing, you will enjoy it.

There are also many other wonderful items on the menu. If they have the Lump Crab Salad, you should try it. It was more crab than salad. I would also describe it as a lettuce cup full of large crab claws with a hint of curry. Delicious! Also, the Dover Sole, if in season, is amazing. They serve it the way fish should be served. It was tender and juicy with just a hint of butter and lemon. It’s immediately obvious that they begin with only the best ingredients and when they do that, you don’t need a lot of sauce or garlic to cover up the taste of the fish. This was wonderful.

I thought the wines were a little overpriced, but the cocktails are some of the best you can get. They served them to almost every president since FDR. As you enjoy your cocktail, you can almost picture Salvador Dali sipping a drink in a dimly lit corner. He did. Others who have frequented the place over the ears are: Humphrey Bogart, Ernest Hemingway, Jackie Gleason, Joe DiMaggio and Aristotle Onassis.

Ask about the history of this place and one of the seasoned servers will tell you more than you can guess. It could not have been easy to keep this place going through Prohibition and the 80+ years to follow. With very skilled “lookouts” and creative carpenters, the 21 Club managed to avoid raids, shakedowns and tax collectors. False walls, secret rooms, chutes and slides all kept this wonderful place in business over the years so that you can still enjoy it today.

Make sure you get there a little early. If you have time, sit in the bar or one of the large soft leather club chairs in the waiting area. I also recommend that you visit the gentleman’s washroom. It has an intriguing mural on the wall and an attendant who sings a little song in the other room to get things started. Make sure you have a few dollars for a tip. By the time he turns the water on, puts soap in your hands and then gives you a cloth towel, you’ll want to tip him. Perfect high society and perfectly wonderful.

You’ll also want to walk around the lower dining room. The drinking plaques on the walls set the mood. You’ll also see the large collection of sports memorabilia hanging from the ceiling. This and the collection of jockeys outside are the way you know you’re at the right place. It’s worth doing a little research before you go. It really is a part of history, not just for New York, but for the whole country. Next time, I am going to try their famous burger, the 21 Burger, You can read more about it and the rest of the menu on their website: www.21club.com.  —L.C.

Birdland

BIRDLAND: 315 West 44th Street. 212-581-3080

This was my second visit to Birdland, the jazz club Charlie Parker made famous and of course his namesake. It’s a great venue with some very skillful bartenders. The food is solid, the kind of solid that helps soak up extra alcohol! But you are really there for the music and drinks. It’s difficult to get a bad seat, but still worth showing up for the better ones. My first show still echoes in my head. We enjoyed the Chico O’Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Big Band. They really have a “way to go” and are regulars there. If you can see this show, you’ll be feeling it for days after the music stopped. They bang out the kind of bongos you grooved to while jammin’ the Doobies’ “Takin’ It to the Streets” and Joe Cocker’s “Feelin’ Alright.”

My favorite drink to order is the Michter’s Rye Manhattan, although you may have to discuss this with the server. Twice now I’ve created confusion by ordering this drink. The first time they gave me a “dry Manhattan” and I saw the bartender shaking his head. They quickly fixed the drink. It’s loud and many of the servers don’t seem to know what Michter’s is, even though it is clearly on display on the top shelf of the bar. No worries. If your order makes it to the bar properly, you’ll get a good solid drink to go with the solid food.

For music lovers, but not necessarily jazz maniacs, this is a great place. You are typically going to hear some great music, easy to listen to and not the hardcore Coltrainish confusion that turns me off. I apologize to the jazz addicts who like that stuff, but I need a beat I can follow. I also want to hear something new. I guess I’m still waiting to hear a new Sir Mix-A-Lot—pure genius. I still can’t believe I’ll never hear another new Nirvana song—pure genius.

On the night I visited, I saw a jazz harpist from Columbia play some of the best fast beat, feel-good jazz I have ever heard. He played it on a half-sized harp and would have made the greatest jazz guitarists envy his cord stroking—pure genius. His name is Edmar Castaneda and you can hear and buy his music on his web page: www.edmarcastaneda.com. He really lit the place up. The entire audience was standing and screaming when he finished. The shows last a little less than two hours and the show times are set in stone and start right on time. Tickets to Birdland are worth buying in advance, but still get there early for the best seats. My secret tip is to go to the second show and show up thirty to forty minutes early to enjoy a Michter’s Rye Manhattan. As they say, “You’ll dig it the most ‘cause you got a way to go, baby.” —L.C.

Campbell Apartment

After your wonderful speakeasy dinner, followed by a couple hours of swinging jazz, you’ll definitely want to stop by the Campbell Apartment (www.hospitalityholdings.com) for a drink. Weary from a long train ride or just in the mood to escape from the crowds at Grand Central Station, patrons follow the arrow on the sign that reads, “Cocktails from another era.” You will not be disappointed.

CAMPBELL APARTMENT: 15 Vanderbilt Avenue*

The Campbell Apartment is a small, salon-style  cocktail lounge offering a menu that includes Depression Punch, Robber Baron and Kentucky Ginger. These are great twists on the classics. My drinking partner savored the Kentucky Ginger, a mixture of bourbon, ginger cognac, and muddled rosemary. That one was a bit too sweet for me, so Paris, the bald bartender, was quick to mix me up a Mint Julep that was light on the sugar. Mmmm, refreshing. The only thing missing was the silver cup.

The Campbell Apartment features a large stone fireplace at one end, a wooden beamed ceiling painted in the Florentine style and stained glass windows behind a nondescript bar. Seating is a mixture of small banquettes and club chairs. The place is typically crowded on a Friday night. The wooden ceiling, although beautiful, did nothing to deaden the din of conversations. Sit up in the small balcony if it’s open for a more private setting with a view of the action.

The Campbell Apartment was originally used by Mr. John W. Campbell, a prominent N.Y. businessman in the 1920’s as both his office and a place to entertain. Guests of the Campbell’s were entertained by live piano and organ music. Although the piano and organ have disappeared, the rest of the mood remains. Sipping my Mint Julep, I could easily imagine the swank atmosphere that must have reigned at one of Mr. and Mrs. Campbell’s many soirees. This is a great place to put a cap on the night and plan the next adventure. .” —M.H.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

*It’s a little tricky to find the Campbell Apartment. It is actually part of Grand Central Station. Start at the main entrance on Vanderbilt about halfway between 42^nd and 43^rd, and then look for the sign that says, “The Campbell Apartment, cocktails from another era.” Under these words, you will see an arrow pointing you in the right direction. As you face Grand Central Station at this entrance, the sign will be on a wall on the far right as you enter the building.

by R.B. Niolu—

On a typical November night in Seattle, I decided with a group of friends to venture forth in the howling wind and rain to the storied and decorous institution that has long defined finer living in Seattle, the Canlis Restaurant. We pulled up to the front of the establishment, left our vehicle in the hands of the valet and walked past the doorman into the foyer of the restaurant.

Built under the aegis of famed restaurateur Peter Canlis, the Canlis restaurant, perched on a bluff overlooking Lake Union since 1950, has a Frank Lloyd Wright appearance with large windows and a cantilevered architectural style. It has long been Seattle’s premier location for anniversaries, business meetings, prom nights, impromptu birthdays, and impress-your-companion dates. The interior of the building reflects the tastes of the Pacific Northwest with an outdoorsy REI ruggedness with cedar beams and stone-faced walls, especially in the bar/lounge area where my associates and I convened.

As we pulled up to the bar and plopped our posteriors on the bar stools, in the background the lilting tunes of pianist Walt Wagner filled the room. Billy Joel? Cole Porter? At that moment he was playing his rendition of “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley which took a moment to puzzle out.

Barman James MacWilliams

Perusing the bar menus we were greeted by the “Head Barman” James MacWilliams. Formerly serving at Kurrent, on Capitol Hill, he has been part of the Canlis staff since August of 2008, when the restaurant revamped much of their bar and lounge service and selection for the 21st Century.

Mr. MacWilliams believes in infusing his own fruits and creating syrups, liqueurs and bitters for his elegantly made drinks. Above the bar sit sealed crystal carafes filled with cherries, pears, berries and other fresh ingredients soaking in various types of spirits for additions to exquisitely crafted beverages. Even the ice itself is handcrafted: water filtered several times, then frozen, thawed and frozen again using cryovac techniques to remove gases (a two-day affair). All this being on the cutting edge of the new bartender/mixologist movement to bring back old-style, “lost” ingredients (e.g., absinthe) and yet move forward into an era of fresh, natural and organic products… now in the bar!

Meanwhile, back on the bar stool, I chose the “Queen Ane Avenue” concoction, inspired by the Cafe Royal Cocktail Book of 1937. Itcontained a smooth blending of bourbon, calvados, passion fruit and orgeat. The taste and scent were sublime and took me back to my early years in France wandering through orchards (and being chased out by farmers). Many more of these and I would not be able to discern the difference in space and time.

One of my companions selected the “McCracken Pike Manhattan”, using the Woodford Reserve special bourbon, a splash of green walnut wine, East Coast bitters and a Quatres épices cherry. A flavorful liquid texture with traces of the arabesques was how I could best describe it and a pleasant antidote for a chilly outdoors.

I should mention at this point that while my three companions also enjoyed their own delightful mixtures, including a gin and sweet fruit-based combination, and the 12 year old scotch (Macallan), vermouth, and orange “Wagner Remix,” inspired by the pianist’s inclinations, we did partake of the bar’s and famed restaurant’s food offerings. These came in the form of a palte of olives, cashews, and gaufrettes, followed by smoked black cod and marbled potatoes with crème fraiche, and a few plates of “Truffle Fries” … delicious.

There followed another assortment of delicate drinks to tease our palates. All of which I tasted. Of course there was another Manhattan ordered and my Queen Anne Avenue was also tried while I moved on to the “Suisette,” a cognac, sweet vermouth, absinthe, egg, lemon and crème de violette concoction. The absinthe, being of an obscure variety, and the evening, being of a festive nature, began to faintly remind me of a night recently spent in the humid environs of New Orleans. A touch of la Fée Verte was in the air as I gazed glazed across the dining room through the plate glass at the shimmering city below.

The conversation rambled on about loves found and lost, paths not taken and the key ingredients to a good classic cocktail: fresh ingredients, high quality spirits, and carefully measured blending along with long-tested experience. Two of my companions followed the graceful and genial host on a tour of the well-designed place, including the wine cellar, private eating areas, kitchen, and award-winning woman’s restroom, while I plotted my nightcap with a remaining compadre.

As they returned I settled upon the “Dark Xocoatl,” not to be confused with the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. However there actually was a link, Xocoatl being the Aztec name for a chocolate drink served to the Emperor, and this drink making you feel quite imperial… The Aztecs drank it cold, which suited my cocktail of bourbon infused with cocoa (en sous vide), Grand Marnier, Batavia-Arracj from Indonesia, cream and sea salt. Truly it was heavenly and I did not bother to recall the drinks of others… An oversight I will likely regret.

As the evening wore away it was soon time to return to the dismal outside world. We donned our hats, coats, scarves and other weapons against the elements and paid our adieus. We wished the Maestro of the bar a good night and repaired to the door. There we were met, magically, by our waiting automobiles. With a nod, and otherwise, to the valet we sped off into the night.

Truly a great Seattle icon has been restored to its luster as a paramount location to experience… and I need to do more study in the oases of our metropolis.

by Landau Curee—

It’s no secret that I love France. How could you not love France? Please understand, I am not talking about the people or the politics. I am referring to the lifestyle. It has the best food, the best wine, and the laid back attitude that encourages people to live and enjoy life. Paris is amazing. From the large tree-lined streets, to the wonderful parks, not to mention the restaurants, wine and coffee. Oh man the coffee! It’s like falling into a warm cup of cream and this is before you add the cream. My absolute favorite words to utter in France are “grand crème.” Walk into any café before 11AM in Paris and utter these words and you will be treated to a little slice of heaven. If you do it your first morning after the long flight and the time change, it might bring tears to your eyes. I could move to the City of Lights in a heartbeat and be content for many years to come.

I am sure there are plenty of other countries that have their own fans, but I don’t know anyone who would willingly refer to himself as an official over-the-top fan of a different country. I am sure these people exist. I just don’t know them. I do, however, know at least four bona fide Francophiles. In my opinion, you have to be willing to refer to yourself out loud and in front of others as a Francophile to be bona fide. This doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate the wonderful things other countries off. I love Rome, London, Munich, Salzburg, Amsterdam, and even New York. But I love them mainly for specific reasons. I go to Rome for the amazing history, the pasta and the Brunello di Montalcino. I love Amsterdam for the people-watching among other things. I love Munich for the beer. I love Salzburg for the romance. You get the idea.

Out of all the big cities in the world, Paris is the one place I could really live. I don’t care that my mastery of the French language falls somewhere between appalling and non-existent. I don’t care that sometimes the people are rude to tourists. I mean come on, have you never asked a New Yorker what time it is during rush hour? It’s like asking your brother if you can borrow a hundred dollars when you still owe him for the last five times he lent it to you. Paris and New York are both large cities and the people act accordingly. The point is, I don’t go to Paris or France to cuddle up to the natives. I go there to enjoy life.

I love the way Paris makes me feel. I love going to all of the touristy places. I love finding new places. I could spend months there and not even scratch the surface. I have visited paris and France more often than any other place in the world and I feel like there are so many things I still need to see.

When time is short, it is very difficult to see as many new things as you might want to see, especially when the things you have already seen keep bringing you back. For example, the last two times I was in Paris, I was fortunate to be able to enjoy a very small, but historic night club called Lapin Agile on Montmarte. Montmarte is an area of Paris that literally consists of a large hill. The word itself could be translated as “Hill of the Martyr.” Lapin Agile, literally translated, would be called the Nimble Rabbit or maybe the Agile Rabbit. The evening I am about to describe to you is such a perfectly wonderful evening that I now plan to climb this hill to visit the rabbit on every future trip to Paris.

Sacré-Cœur

The late afternoon begins by walking up to Sacré-Cœur. You can see this church from almost everywhere in Paris. It is perched on the tip of Montmarte overlooking the City of Lights. On the party side of Montmarte, there is a train that takes you up the hill to the base of the church. You can visit the inside of this famous church in about 30 minutes, a little more or less depending on how much you are into this kind of thing. It is worth a stop. After visiting the church, walk around the top of Montmarte until you find a cozy little restaurant run by a family or better yet, a couple of brothers. Look for something where a French family would take their mother on her birthday. Avoid every single touristy restaurant in the middle of the square. If you are not sure, check out the bathroom before you decide to eat. If it looks like you wouldn’t want the person cooking your meal to wash his hands there, then excuse yourself and move on. It is very unlikely that the kitchen is far from the bathroom, or more importantly, far from the cook. Another sign is the menu. If it has pizza or hamburgers, run like hell. You can get that at home and chances are, it will be much better. Find a small restaurant with a cozy atmosphere and a French Menu and if the people do not speak English, you will almost certainly have a great meal. After the meal, take your map where you have carefully marked the location of Lapin Agile and follow it past Sacré-Cœur down the other side of Montmarte. The hill is steep and in a couple of blocks you will stumble across a vineyard.

André Gill: Lapin à Gill

Yes, I said “vineyard.” Right in the smack dab middle of Paris. This vineyard has a long tradition as does the neighborhood. The local residents pick the grapes and make a batch of wine every year. At the appropriate time, they gather together and drink it. I have no idea if this wine is any good and my suspicion is that it is not the same quality as some of the finer French wines, but this is the type of shit that makes Paris great. At this point, you will probably be thinking about the wine and the great meal you just had. Look up and across the street. On a small building on the corner, you will see the painting of a very nimble looking rabbit jumping out of a frying pan. He is holding a bottle of wine and sporting a very stylish sash, bow tie and hat. Welcome to Lapin Agile.

I might get a little teary here. This is one of the most quintessential French things you can do. A little warning first. If you do not speak French, please do not let it interfere with your enjoyment of the place. They do not speak English and they are surely going to enjoy themselves so it is only fair you do the same. Check out the show times and then walk in like you are doing it a favor. There is a desk at the front and you should just wait there. If there is no one there, it’s because they are busy putting on the show. Here is where the panic can set in. If the person who helps you does not speak English, just hand him or her some money and nod like you understand what they are saying. If you have arrived near an appropriate time, they will be asking you if you are there for the show and telling you how much it costs. There is absolutely no need to panic or speak one word of French. Of course, if you know a little French that always helps.

The show might seem a little expensive until you realize what it is. The last time I was there, it was 20 Euros to get in, but that was the price of the show plus a drink. After paying, you will be shown into a large, dark, square room. If you get there as the show is going, you might feel like you just stepped onto the stage. This is because you did. The locals put on this show on every night and they literally come and go through the same entrance, then perform just inside the doorway. The seating is around the outside of the room on a bench fixed to the walls and usually there are a few tables off to the side. Remember it is dark so just find a seat and sit down to enjoy yourself. It is likely that the person showing you in will ask you something in French you may not understand. When this happens, just smile and say “cognac” or “wine.” I think there is a third choice, but I have never been able to understand the person. I suggest you order the cognac and don’t complain if you do not like your drink. You are there for the show and if you did a good job at dinner, you won’t care much about the drink at this point. By the way, the large, soft, round object floating in your cognac is some sort of raisin. It’s traditional. It’s supposed to be there. Enjoy the show.

Pablo Picasso: Au Lapin Agile

At this point, you can settle down for a real French experience. The room you are sitting in has welcomed some of the more famous people in the world and has a long history. It is possible you are sitting in the same spot Picasso sat as he frequented the place and more than likely made the rounds! On a side note, if you are at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, look for Picasso’s painting titles Au Lapin Agile. It’s not in his most recognized and later cubist style. It shows a couple sitting and drinking at the very place we are discussing. Apparently, Picasso painted this and gave it to the current owner. Picasso painted their clothes in bright colors because the painting was intended to be hung in the club and the lighting is almost always dark and mysterious. He may have wanted the clothing to stand out so you could see them in the dim smoky light. I have never seen anything in the club that indicates that this might be typical of this particular club’s attire. The couple in the painting remind me of the couple in Degas’ L’Absinthe. The difference is that these two are at the beginning of their night while Degas’ absinthe drinkers should have gone to bed hours ago. Perhaps this is closer to the experience you are looking for, but unfortunately, they don’t serve absinthe. At least they have never served it to me. I believe the man in the background is supposed to be the owner at that time which makes me think that Picasso may have been trying to settle his bar tab by giving him this painting.

“Beacoup de memoirs!” This is how a local restaurant owner described Lapin Agile to me. As you sit there listening to the music, you almost feel the haunting of the place. Many memories. Many People. The club’s beginnings date back to the mid-1800s. It was originally called the Cabaret of Murderers. Around 1875, the name changed to Gill’s Rabbit or Lapin à Gill. André Gill painted the famous Rabbit that is now depicted on the building. It is likely that people began to refer to the club as Gill’s rabbit and later this became Lapin Agile.

Edgar Degas: L'Absinthe

By 1900, the club had already been well known and frequented by locals. It was in 1905 when Picasso painted At the Lapin Agile referred to above. At this time, the place also entertained many questionable characters aside from artists. It had a bit of a rough reputation. No worries. Now it is mostly nostalgic countrymen and women, along with tourists who have been lucky enough to discover the place.

The show is not really a cabaret as much as a local sing along. The locals come in and sing everything from their own songs to songs you would have learned as a kid if you were French. They often encourage the audience to sing with them but they understand if you do not know the words or even the tune. I typically just kind of hum along or pretend to mouth the words when they look my way. Since the place is dimly lit, no one seems to notice I am not actually singing. Although this can backfire. There were a couple times they actually encouraged the group to sing more actively. Since I had no idea how the tune goes or the words this was a little awkward, but just ignore this and enjoy yourself. I have heard it described as being invited to the friend of a friend’s living room where you sit around and sing songs. I like this. It’s as good a description as you can get. I would add that it might be the coolest friend of a friend you have ever met.

Steve Martin wrote a play called Picasso at the Lapin Agile. In the play, Picasso and Einstein discuss “the science of art and the art of science.” The play takes place in 1904 which would have been the time Picasso and other artists frequented the place. I am pretty sure that Einstein has not been there, but the concept of this play is really what the place is all about. It’s what Paris is all about.

As you leave the club, you may feel the temptation to ponder the meaning of relevant events in your life. If this happens, walk up to Sacré-Cœur and stand on the steps overlooking the City of Lights. If you are with someone special, look around. You might notice others enjoying this very special night and remind yourself, c’est la vie.

Judy Williams, I feel your pain.

I don’t know you, but I’ve been reading about you in that book that came out 2 years ago, “Wreck Beach” by Carellin Brooks. So I know what you must be thinking.

After so many years—decades—of controversy over the fate of a meandering strip of rock and sand along Vancouver’s most westerly fringe (a series of beaches, really, collectively known as “Wreck Beach”), and after fending off waves of developers & road engineers & parks officials & prudish politicians & amateur pornographers & the usual horny gawkers all in your long-standing struggle to preserve it as a place where nudists can congregate openly and do their thing without having to drive long distances from their homes in the city, now comes along this cheap little upstart blogzine from Seattle blurting out provocative phrases like “debauchery beach” which feed prurient stereotypes and tarnish the bland and innocuous image you’ve been trying to promote and deem so vital to maintaining your precarious and ever-waning record of success.

“Precarious”? Surely you’d agree with that. But “waning”? I use that word with dreary conviction. Because I’ve seen the new towers—poking their topmost floors above the tree-lined ridge which formerly screened Wreck Beach from the prying assault of telescopic lenses. Thanks to your efforts as a founding member and leader of the Wreck Beach Preservation Society, the towers didn’t rise even higher. But the compromise height at which they were capped still allows voyeuristic residents to get an eyeful during low tide, and the so-called “Secret Beach” near the far end of the jetty has lost all pretense to privacy.

More towers are planned; the University of British Columbia (UBC) has a burgeoning student population in need of housing. And pressure to open up Wreck Beach to a wider public—presently held at bay through lack of road access—keeps building along with Vancouver’s populace.

The book amply treats the history of these conflicts over the fate of Wreck Beach; and you emerge, Judy, as its tireless champion and savior. The book’s mere 92 pages contain much else besides, including a detailed map showing trail routes and outhouse locations and even a glossary of Wreck Beach jargon to enable us ‘textiles’ to understand what you and your cohorts are talking about. (“Textiles: what nudists call clothed people.”)

Actually, since first going to Wreck Beach in the mid-Nineties and making return summer visits over the years that followed, I’ve managed to at least partially shed my dyed-in-the-shorts ‘textile’ status and advance to what might be called ‘permanent bucktail.’ (“Bucktail: First-time nudist, so called because of the white flash of their never-seen-sun bottom.”) How I achieve this dermatological feat is through the miracle of Panama hats, Hawaiian shirts, beach umbrellas, and plenty of sunscreen. Why I care to remain in this limbo status on one of the world’s great clothing-optional shorelines derives from my membership in that red-haired, fair-skinned tribe which sunburns so easily. But, as Wreck Beach has revealed to some of us perennial palefaces, there is more to life than goth clubs.

Author Brooks reports that when the regional parks authority, after acquiring Wreck Beach from the neighboring university in 1989, officially declared the area ‘clothing optional,’ there was a degree of consternation among nudist Wreck Beach regulars. Perhaps you and your friends would have preferred the beach to be officially declared off-limits to textiles instead, Judy. But then folks like myself, without prior firsthand exposure (so to speak) to public nudism, would remain stupidly ignorant and susceptible to arguments claiming that public lands should not be reserved for such elite and exotic activities. As it is, a lot of textiles who dare to show their faces on today’s Wreck Beach may well show their bucktails there tomorrow.

As you know so well, the variously clothed and unclothed visitors who make up the Wreck Beach ‘scene,’ especially on warm and sunny weekends, are a lively, fun-loving crowd. They really know how to enjoy the many amenities this idyllic wonderland has to offer—the sand, the surf, the forest trails, the mountainous vistas, the lingering sunsets, the acoustic guitars, the drum circles, the jazz jams, the yoga exercises, the exhibitionist frisbee sessions, the volleyball in the raw, the skimboarding, the pizza slices, the Peruvian sandwiches, the savory sweets, the Jello shooters… Ah, the Jello shooters: those multilayered liqueur bombs for the tongue. On top of the cocktails I used to buy from other roving vendors (before starting the sensible habit of bringing my own supply), and in between tokes of BC bud mixed with shavings of Moroccan black hash, courtesy of the local corps of naked pharmacists, the shooters would lend an extra little nudge to my headlong free fall into Paradise.

Try as you might, Judy, but any attempt to depict this decadent carnival as a strict repository of ‘family values’ is bound to invite hoots of derision. True, families go there and build elaborate sandcastles with the kids. But my favorite example of Wreck Beach ‘family values’ occurred this past summer when an enterprising beer vendor, in hopes of attracting some extra business from the breeder types, laced his sales pitch with the tempting offer “Children under 7 drink for free!” Now that’s the kind of free market ‘family values’ I can appreciate!

Author Brooks provides a more realistic view of the Wreck Beach experience, even to the extent of hyper-realism. In her first couple chapters, she takes the reader on an almost too-literal guided tour, describing in vivid detail the walk down the stair-trail, the first sights encountered on the ‘main beach’ proper, the feelings aroused at the sight of various objects and strangers, etc. I can imagine some newbies carrying the book down with them and attempting to fulfill the author’s impressionistic prophecies. They could follow her along to the ‘gay side’ and watch for fuzzy guys to pop up out of the reeds, jack-in-the-box style, like the book describes. If they continue on to the later chapters, they could cover the history section by viewing the floating log boom whose protection accidentally brought about the formation and shaping of Wreck Beach during the last century (Let’s hear it for the logging industry!); they could accompany the author on a visit to the so-called ‘condos,’ year-round sanctuaries built from logs and rocks and maintained by proprietary regulars; they could join her in surveying the eroding cliffs which have figured in a lot of Wreck Beach plans and controversies; they might even come across some of the cops specifically named in the book—who patrol the beach from time to time and cause the liquor vendors and drug dealers to temporarily go underground—and warily salute them; and in the course of their excursion Judy Williams herself might turn up, who perhaps could provide updates on the latest news and perceived threats from the textiles.

Personally, I could never take such a literary walking tour of Wreck Beach. It’s not so much that I require my own experiences to be ‘original,’ ‘firsthand,’ or ‘unfiltered.’ Even more to the point, I simply find it impossible to read anything when I go there. Try as I might, I can never seem to get beyond the first couple sentences by dint of all the dazzling distractions all around me. But I’ve seen others on Wreck Beach burying their noses in books and periodicals. Does that mean they’re really reading?

If you, Dear Reader, deem yourself capable of such feats and decide to bring reading material (your laptop?) on a trek down to Wreck Beach when the day is warm and the sky is blue, and if you should happen to meet a blanch-blonde grandma wearing nothing but a pair of sunglasses and some car keys dangling from her earlobes, please don’t show her this article. Because the next time I go visit that sandy secular Paradise on the far west side of Vancouver, I don’t want her to kick my bucktail.