Escaping the Expat Bubble
“So, your mom tells me you’re moving,” Tommy’s voice crackled over the staticky connection from Canada to Chicago. I hadn’t spoken to Tommy, my grandma’s brother’s son in over a decade, but having spent a number of years stationed in India while serving in the US Army back in the 80’s, he felt it necessary to put in his two cents. “India…that place is awful, especially Bombay. It was like hell on Earth, all chaos and people. Where are you staying again?”
“Bombay,” I answered. There was an awkward pause.
“Maybe it’s gotten better since the last time I was there,” he said, then changing tone in almost the same breath, “Why in god’s name do you want to go to India, girl?”
“Why India?” It was the question on everybody’s lips before I left, to which my answer was always, “Why not?” I couldn’t find the words to explain my logic (after all, who in their right mind would leave the clean, suburban sanity of timeliness and traffic regulations to come to a place where a wondering cow is just as likely to stop a rickshaw as a red light?), but I figured that in India I would be surrounded by a group of like-minded expats who understood the unexplainable answer to that question. Turns out I was wrong. “Why India?” Followed me halfway around the world, and was often preceded with the even more disconcerting question, “Wait, you actually wanted to move here?”
Most expats in India are like Tommy, here on account of their job and begrudging every minute. They live in the Expat Bubble™, almost afraid to leave the comforts of air conditioning and English. I recently talked to a guy who went on a three month paid leave from work. He could have done anything he wanted, but instead he holed up in his marble apartment, working his was through the Die Hard series, and ordering Domino’s pizza every night.
The first time I went to a house party with the group of expats who would later become my friends, Liz, my childhood friend who moved here nine months prior told me “We are going to Lotia tonight.” Unbeknownst to me, it was customary for this particular group of expats to refer to their apartments by building’s name and not by the names of the people who lived inside. Thinking she was referring to some posh club, like Zenzi Mills or Aurus where we’d gone the weekend before, I asked if they had food.
Lotia was an apartment block like any other, but it was also strangely like a club, an exclusive foreigners’ only club to which I hold a membership because of my accent, my skin color, and not because I necessarily belong. While other members live in nice apartments, Liz and I live in a crappy 1BHK that we share with 2 Indian men and a thousand cockroaches. Instead of calling it after the building’s name, we call it after the prison, Arthur Road. While other members can afford to drink at expensive bars, Liz and I subsist on Indian salaries and can afford to drink only if we sneak the alcohol in ourselves. While other members moved to India because they were told, Liz and I came to India despite what we were told.
That is what really sets us apart. We came here on purpose. We came here to step outside of ourselves. But things that inherently link us to the expat club, bar us from gaining access to the local scene. For one thing, I couldn’t look more out of place, slouching down the street with my short hair and dirty jeans, amid the dignified women in their eye popping saris. And let’s just say the local cuisine doesn’t agree with me…
So, while I frequently take refuge in places like the Bagel Shop, the quintessential expat oasis, I prefer to sit outside with the buzz of local traffic in one ear, and the din of air conditioner in the other, the dividing line where the first and third-world meet, in the limbo to which I belong.
— Published in DNA, June 27, 2009
Vegan Condoms
Vegans consider things the rest of us don't. They think about things like the food they eat and the clothes they wear, how their choices directly impact the health of our environment, and how to make that impact as minimal as possible.
Most people, including Caryn Thompson, owner of The O!Zone Condom Store in Boise, Idaho - a store that specializes in condom sales and safe sex education -would never would have considered the environmental impact of having sex. That is until a few years ago when she began receiving calls from horny vegans looking to get it on safely without abandoning their principles. Little known fact: your average brand name condom uses casein, a milk derivative, at some point in the manufacturing process, thus rendering them un-vegan.
Despite the admittedly small market, Thompson set out to find and carry a line of cruelty free condoms to supply her vegan customers. 5 years later, Thompson is the official American Importer of RFSU condoms (who were voted as having the "Best Textured Condom" by Congo Magazine in 2006), which she has had personally registered by the Vegan Action Foundation of America. "It's important to me to reach out to everyone," Thompson says, "As far as being vegan, it only matters to vegans.
Other people don't care, but I try to provide this for the people it does matter to."
However, it seems that more and more people are starting to care. As a testament to this small but growing market, RFSU is just one brand that has made the initiative to provide environmentally friendly condoms. Others registered vegan brands include Fusion, Glyde, and Condomi (not currently available in the US). By replacing the casein with cocoa powder or a vegetable oil derived from a plant in the thistle family, and not testing on animals, these condom makers were able to keep their product 100% vegan friendly and cruelty free.
The green movement is making its way into other areas of the sexual arena as well. Dildos, harnesses, whips, wrist restraints, gags, belts, and other bondage gear are becoming increasingly available in vegan alternative models, made with material like pleather or Lorica (a leather like substance that is both stronger and safer). "All our Vamp dildos are made from silicon and are vegan," explained Samuel, sex educator at Tulip the sex toy gallery with locations on the North side of Chicago. "Silicon is great because it is environmentally friendly, bacteria resistant, and minimizes infections, because nobody should be getting sick from sex" -- including mother earth. Tulip also carries a strap on harness by Joque made of neoprene, the same material as bathing suits, and a lube from Good Clean Love that is free of phthalates (industrial chemicals often used in plastic) and 95% organic. "One of the things we stress here at Tulip is to be mindful of what you are putting in and using on your body. The cleaner the product, the better it is for you."
Web-based companies are certainly at the forefront of the trend. One such website is veganerotic.com - "passion for the compassionate" -- run by Camilla Taylor, who's handcrafted vegan fetish gear, like the imposing 9-Talon Collar or Five Foot Chain Leash, sell both in the US and abroad. The site is replete with reviews from happy customers that claim "vegan or not, you can't find a better value for the price." Other websites include thesensualvegan.com (winner of the 2007 Veggie Awards, and 2006 Veg Wehby Awards, and will be up and running again in time for Valentines Day), inhertube.com, which specializes in sex toys made from recycled rubber, and veganessentials.com, which offers MOOM, the vegan hair removal system for sprucing
up before sealing the deal, and Herpa Rescue, the vegan herpes remedy for sprucing up after.
Vegan alternatives are still hard to come by on the mass market, and vegan condoms are still a long way from being offered next to the Trojans at Walgreens, but headway is being made, and someday soon vegans will be able to keep all our furry little friends in consideration without having to neglect theirs.
— Mindful Metropolis, 2010
Hangovers and Contacts
A few weeks ago I was leaving the theatre after watching Hangover (the satirical comedy following four gentlemen on a quest to remember the happenings of a drunken bachelor party gone wrong) when I heard a woman in front of me exclaim, "Well that was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen." She was obviously not a drinker. While the idea of waking up the morning after to find a live tiger hanging out in one's bathroom might be little far fetched, any serious drinker understands what it's like to wake up feeling like something has gotten drunk and died in your mouth, inviting one to utter the inevitable question, "What happened last night?" At times like this, I consult my contact case.
Best-case senario, your contacts are in the case and the case is securely closed.
This generally indicates a fairly easy night of drinking, as you were lucid enough to perform the basic motor skills required for untwisting and retwisting, and chances are you remember much of what happened. Worst-case scenario, your contacts have suctioned themselves to your bone-dry corneas because you've had them in for over twenty-four hours straight. Or worse yet, your eyes are neon red and burning because you spent a good half hour poking yourself in the eye trying to remove your contacts, when you'd actually been wearing glasses. If this is the case (especially the if the latter is true) then your night likely began with you dancing on a bar topless, and ended with things too inappropriate to mention in a respectable publication. It might be a good idea to brace yourself before retracing your steps.
Over the years, I have woken to find my contact case in all sorts of disarrayed conditions. Sometimes, two contacts end up on one side. Other times, the case is closed but the contacts are MIA. I find them shriveled up and stuck to my foot a week later.
About a week ago, I stumbled into the bathroom to find the contacts sitting perfectly on top of the case having never actually made it inside. And once, after a particularly successful party in college, I awoke in the morning to find that my contacts (which had miraculously made their way into a water glass in the bathroom before I passed out) had been drunk by some unlucky party-goer trying to quench his thirst the middle of the night. Each of these specific scenarios comes replete with their own sullied tales that I have recounted to me over black coffee and healthy dose of Advil.
For the record, I do not abdicate drinking to the point you can't remember. It is far more fun to drink responsibly, carefully calibrating your Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) throughout the night to maintain relative sobriety, which in the case of my 54kg frame means one cocktail every two and a half hours. But if the night gets away from you, as nights have want to do, and you awake to find yourself in a Hangover situation, remember to let your contacts be your guide.
— TimeOut Mumbai, 2009
Not For Tourists Guide to Chicago
Outside, it's a day typical of early June in Chicago -- windy, muggy, rainy, and sunny. It's the type of erratically changeable personality Chicagoans have come to expect from their weather and their city, but inside the Gold Star Bar in Wicker Park, the climate never changes. It always feels like night. Soft lights mount the two tones walls, exposing the peeling paint, and Christmas lights adorn the top of a heavy wooden bar year round. Local hipster characters dot the bar and surrounding tables,
drinking beer and playing games of pool in holey cotton t-shirts and ripped jeans, becoming part of the scenery themselves. Behind the bar, Ian, who has been working at Gold Star for the past fourteen years (and fit's the bill of a bon-a-fide local), fills metal ice buckets with bottles of PBR in preparation for tonight's event
-- a celebration for the release of the 2008 edition of 'Not for Tourists Guide to Chicago'.
Not For Tourists is a growing sedes of guides to major cities, including Boston, LA, New York, and of course, Chicago. Their philosophy is simple: people need to effectively utilize the cities they live in, commute into, or travel to. People need a working knowledge of their city's public transportation systems, government buildings, shops, restaurants, liquor stores and ATM's. The guide provides accessibly all this information even on the go. But what really sets this New York based company apart from any other Fordor's or Lonely Planet, is that it is the only guide book that is written entirely by locals. Every writer is required to be a resident of the city they write about. "It's more like a local's reference guide and not so much a travel guide," says Aaron, an NFT employee and strident believer. "I think anybody can use them."
The party gets underway, and soon the bar is filled with people from seemingly ever walk. Aided by Chicago's preferred brand of liquid courage, mohawked Pilsen hipsters mingle with manicured Gold Coast girls, while a Gap clad preppy shares a laugh with a large, bearded man in a loud Hawaiian shirt. The common draw? The promise of free drinks, and more importantly, a copy of the 2008 guide.
"Oh my God," a girl shrieks above the alternative music after receiving her book. "I loved my [2007] guide," she says clutching the new copy to her chest. "I am totally addicted!" -- a sentiment seemingly shared by all.
Published by Newcity Chicago, May 2008
Chef Joe Flamm
Flamm mixes studies, hard work for culinary career recipe
It was a slow night, the Wednesday two days before the Fourth of July, and the clean-lined, cozy dining room of Café 103 in Beverly was unusually quiet. Only three of the ten tables were occupied, one of them by Joseph Flamm, a Beverly resident who is taking his passion for cooking and turning it into a career in hopes of becoming the next hot chef on the Chicago culinary scene.
The 22-year old Marist High School alumni was sitting with an old friend, and the quiet murmur of conversation was broken only by Chef Thomas Eckert calling out orders from the back. “On fire — buffalo fried crab, hot sauce on the side,” Eckert called out. “On hold — sweet breads, three salads and two kampachis.”
Flamm looked up from his menu of contemporary American fare and concentrated as if Eckert were calling to him. “I like it when they do that,” he said with a faraway look in his eyes. “I can hear Chef do that sometimes before service gets busy.” Then, with a tinge of envy for Eckert, Flamm said, “I think his kitchen is bigger than ours.”
Flamm was referring to Table 52, the acclaimed Gold Coast eatery owned by Art Smith, Oprah’s former personal chef. That’s where Flamm works an average of 35-40 hours five or six days a week on top of a full load of classes at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago (CHIC) in pursuit of a degree in culinary arts.
Even though he claimed he only works “part-time” preparing gourmet Southern-style fare at the scorching, 575-plus degree wood-burning oven adjacent to Table 52’s intimate dining room, it’s obvious his love of food is a full-time affair. “Depending on how busy we are, I’m usually off two days a week, Monday and Wednesday,” Flamm said. “But that’s only because we’re closed Mondays.”
A typical day for Flamm begins before 8 a.m. when he rolls out of bed in time to catch the Metro into the city for a full day of classes, wearing a white chef’s coat emblazoned with the embroidered seal of CHIC’s “Le Cordon Blue” program; it ends around 1 a.m. when he stumbles home after a hectic seven-hour shift, wearing a navy blue chef’s coat with a multi-colored heart patch of Smith’s charity, Common Threads, smelling, according to his younger sister, “like beef and cheese.” If he’s not too tired, he’ll eat, throw his chef’s clothes in the wash, and sleep for five or six hours (on a good night) before getting up in the morning and doing it all again.
“It’s and addiction, the adrenaline rush. If you get slammed one night and just totally mess up and lose it, you think ‘I never want to see this place again,” Flame said. “But you’re back the next night determined to do better and faster.” He said that at times, his work-obsessed lifestyle can be very lonely, especially compared to how his friends live. “I’m riding the train home by myself at 1 a.m. on Friday or Saturday after a brutal shift, and I’m exhausted. My friends call me up to see what I’m doing. They’re all in college. They’ve been at the bars for for hours, and out of classes for nine, and I’ve been on my feet for fifteen.” His hectic schedule leaves little room for a social life, outside of grabbing an after-shift drink with the guys from work or catching up with a friend on a rare night off. “Sometimes I feel like I am missing out,” he said. But self-pity is not his style, and he quickly gets excited when he talks about cooking, the only thing he’s ever really loved doing.
While at Café 103, Flamm sipped white wine, letting his cool blue eyes follow the trajectory of the server as she brought dessert to one of the tables across the room. Although he appeared to be relaxed and enjoying the day off, it was clear he was still thinking about food and cooking. Flamm is single — despite his oozing charm, endearingly disheveled style and easy smile — and he’s not interested in a relationship anytime soon, unless “she only wants to go out Monday nights.” Setting the glass on the white linen tablecloth, he became introspective. “Work is my girlfriend,” he said only half joking. “I think about it even when I’m not there. It’s weird not being at work. I feel guilty, like I’m cheating or something.”
By then, Chef Eckert was making energetic rounds to make sure the diners were enjoying their meal. When Eckert reached Flamm’s table, the aspiring chef introduced himself, extending his hand. “The short rib dish was excellent,” he said. “I really enjoyed it.”
Eckert thanked him genuinely, and then furrowed his blonde brow. “You look familiar. Have we met before? I feel like I know you from somewhere.”
“I work at Table 52, Art Smith’s new place,” Flame replied.
“Yeah, that’s it!” Eckert said, his face opening into a grin. The two then talked chef and bonded over going to CHIC, being short-staffed, the slow week due to the holidays. Then Eckert excused himself and headed back to the kitchen.
As Flamm left Café 103, Eckert bid him goodbye. “You know,” Eckert said, “You should think about working here if you’re ever looking for a job closer to home.” Flamm gratefully declined, but not before he mulled the offer over.
“I know it’s ridiculous,” Flamm said, “but sometimes I think about getting a second job for those two a week I’m off. I just don’t know how my girlfriend would feel about it.”
— Published by the Beverly Review, August 20, 2008
A few years ago I bought a vintage motorcycle - a 1974 Honda CB360 - and rebuilt it from scratch. I wasn’t planning on rebuilding the bike when I bought it. In fact, my only goal was to cruise around and look cool, which I achieved!…briefly. Here’s the thing about vintage bikes that I wish someone had told me: they break often. Within my first week of ownership the bike refused to start and had to be towed to a nearby garage where I learned the second thing I wish someone had told me: they are expensive to fix. And when I picked it up from the shop a few days later to the tune of my rent for (what I would come to find was) routine maintenance, I learned my third lesson about motorcycles. Except this one I already knew: As a female in a male dominated space, I would be dismissed.
For reference, I’m a petite, blonde, Reese Witherspoon type who might be described on a spectrum somewhere between adorable and bratty depending on the beholder, but who’s rarely regarded with any serious authority. So when I told the guys the problem with the bike wasn’t fixed they essentially laughed in my face. Well, nothing gets me going quite so much as being underestimated. Before a piston could hit top dead center I was covered in oil, up to my elbows in bolts, and devouring every manual and handbook on combustion engines I could find. Pretty much everything I’ve done in my life has been like this - one part genuine curiosity to one part pure, unadulterated spite.
Going back to school for audio engineering was no different. I spent the better part of 10 years playing in and recording with rock bands around Chicago before deciding I needed to know what I was doing for real. To have authority. There wasn’t a defining moment to this decision, no big Eureka! moment where I discovered my life’s purpose in a blaze of glory. More like a series of small discoveries - like realizing I would have more clout in the band if I learned to play guitar (which I did), or that I didn’t know a single thing about the microphones I was singing into every night - little “huh”s and “hmmmms” that added up to an eventuality.
Did you know that women make up less than 3 percent of music producers? Neither did I, until I was already enrolled in classes but majoring in songwriting. I was out to dinner with my friend who is an established songwriter with a publishing deal and years of experience and she was complaining that every producer her label paired her with - all male - talked over her, disregarded her, and generally made her feel less than. I couldn’t believe that I was hearing this from someone so successful! And it stuck with me, this feeling of what-makes-you-think-you’re-better-than-someone-just-because-you-know-how-to-place-a mic-and-make-a-mix. It stuck with me so hard - a big “huh” moment - that next semester I changed my major to audio engineering and I haven’t looked back. Sure, the subject matter is dry and the math is math-y but I love it. Every day I learn something. Everyday I am challenged and empowered. And, it’s worth it to think that one day, I could be in the studio making someone like me feel like they count.
— Scholarship Essay, 2021
Bollywood to Blame
"Hello. Hello, ma'am. Ma'am. Hello, ma'am! HELLO!" the desperate voice chants from behind me. I out alone for an evening walk down to Bandra's sea facing promenade, Bandstand, and don't hear it until the sweaty figure has caught up with me. "Hello, ma'am," he says again, suddenly so close to me that I am visibly startled. I catch only a quick glimpse of the slight, dark skinned Indian man before he starts in. "I saw you walking and I really like you. Would you like to know me better?" He is panting so hard that I can hardly understand what he is saying, and, stupidly ask him to repeat himself. "Hello, ma'am. I saw you and I want to know you better. Can we have dinner together?"
"Oh my god, are you serious?" I ask suddenly realizing that this man has followed me in order to ask me out. "Absolutely not, no way!" The words shoot out of my mouth before I have chance to soften their edge. "What in god's name would make you think this is an appropriate thing to do?"
I am shocked by the disrespect spewing from my mouth, but even more shocked that the man tries again. "Hello, ma'am. Would you go together with me for dinner?" he says without missing a beat, completely unfazed.
"For the last time no, don't ask again, and stop following me!" With this I pick up into a jog, and thankfully he doesn't follow.
This is not the first time something like this has happened to me, or the other expat girls I know. Having a random man run you down in public to ask you out, or turning to see one snapping your photo with his phone is practically par for the course. But I don't get it. Is it my short hair? My fair skin (giving credence to those anti-feminist messages in the skin whitening cream ads)? Or maybe it has nothing to do with me.
I blame Bollywood.
I am not well versed in Bollywood, having only seen one and a half Bollywood films (half of something while waiting in line for my Visa at the Indian Consulate in Chicago, and all of Kambakht Ishq) but from what I have been told the story lines are more or less the same. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl wants nothing to do with boy and turns him down (repeatedly). Boy perseveres. Boy perseveres. Boy preservers. Boy gives up and goes to marry Denise Richards. Girl realizes she's in love with boy at the last minute, and Sylvester Stallone steps in to save the day. It is this sort of no-means-yes depiction that his infiltrated the psyche of young Indian men and given them the wrong impression. "No" is not the head wag; no means no!
Of course there are countless movies from Western cultures that depict perseverance as the way to win a girl's heart. There's Cinema Paradiso (Italian), The Notebook (American), and Jules et Jim (French) just to name a few. But these examples are balanced with plenty of opposition, the overwhelming message being that the less a guy pursues a girl the more she will want him to. So, to the guy that thinks running a girl down on the street and badgering her is the best way to score a date, I impart some advice from Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused: " You want her? Gotta play it cool, you know. You can't let her know how much you like her cause if she knows, she'll dump you like that. Believe me." Please, believe him.
— Published in the Hidustan Times, July 2009
A Day at the Beach:
Off the Beach and Into the Water
Ah, Lake Michigan; the refreshing East side of Chicago, sprawling aqua-marine as far as the eye can see. Though it is only the fifth largest lake in the world, it is the largest contained entirely in one country. Lake Michigan is certainly a great lake, tainted only by the Chicago River, and sewage run-offs, and the toxic waste being dumped into it by companies in Indiana, and E.Coli (sometimes). Lake Michigan is not only a fantastic local source of fresh, "clean," drinking water, but a source of endless entertainment (weather and contamination permitting). The torpid August air is thick, almost tangible, as if the world were drowned in lukewarm bathwater, and with the sandy shore clear of any bactria-riddled fish carcasses, today is the perfect day for a dip.
It's always the kids who charge in first, too young and stupid yet to realize they hate being cold. They splash and scream, having fun at the general expense of everyone else. But it isn't long before sun-bathers join them, abandoning their towels for the sweet relief from the heat. Soon, the water is writhing with people from all walks of life - siblings attempting to drown each other playfully, while mothers watch on, attempting their slow plunge toward ankle-deep water; and an old man nearby with a snorkel and flippers may be searching for the sunken treasure he will never find.
The water's edge is a verifiable breeding ground of brotherly love because no matter what your age, race, class, gender, or sexual orientation, everyone must take that first step, and that first step sucks no matter who you are. Today the water is the warmest it's been all summer, and still it's freezing cold. Seasoned vets know that getting is over all at once is the best, like pulling off a band-aid or receiving a refreshing slap in the face.
Wading is like death by increments. However, the water is lovely once the body becomes numb and loses all sensation. It feels so good that someone may want to swim on through a day, and in and out of weeks, to the point of muddled blue where the lake meets the sky, the ever-elusive horizon.
Of course, an angry teenaged lifeguard in a rowboat will stop people from going over chest deep.
Cast off; An Afternoon with the Boat Crew
May I take your order?" a severly farmer's-tanned waitress, named Jenny, asks a group of guys, completely unphased by the fact that they are all shirtless. After taking a moment to ponder the colorful menus, the guys order a list of bar food- burgers, chicken fingers, a buffalo chicken wrap- and a round of beers, which will come in really large cans that sweat away, like everybody else, in the hot, midday sun. When one of them asks for water, Jenny points to a yellow cooler and tells them that, "The water is self serve," before settling the aviators back on her face and heading to the server station where a gaggle of other red-shirt clad serves stand around, the back of their uniforms reading slogans like "Please Seat Yourself' and "How About Another One?" They goof around with one another, enjoying the quiet before the storm that is the afternoon lunch rush, wherein the thirty or so four-tops will be packed with thirsty patrons, while a chorus line of others circle like hungry sharks waiting to snag the next available table.
The tone of Castaways on this particular Saturday, and subsequently every other day, is very casual. Located on the top deck of the Boathouse (the unmistakably boat shaped building rising above the sand), tourists and locals flock to this restaurant to eat salads with plastic utensils and finger heaping mounds of seasoned fries, while the metal chairs gouge grid-marked indents into the back of their sun-burnt thights. Since most clothing is optional, people dine in swimsuits and flip-flops, giving this Phil Stefani Signature Restaurant a decidedly South Beach feel. "I feel like I'm on spring break everyday that I'm here," says a blonde bartender who hangs out with her co-workers listening to the band tune up across the way, waiting for the drinking crowd to arrive. "Once the band gets going things get pretty crazy on the north end of the beer garden," says a server named Dan who claims, like everyone else who works there, to have several stories of drunken debauchery. "Because people are drinking in the sun they tend to get drunk faster without realizing it. It sorta hits them all at once," says a spikey, dark-haired bartender who's seen his fair share of people puke this summer. But unlike the typical bar, the people here are usually "happy drunk." ''There are lots of people on vacation so they're here to have fun, not start fights."
Because it is practically the only place to get food or drinks, Castaways is the official watering hole of North Avenue Beach, drawing a crowd that's as diverse as the music piped over the speaker system, which ranges from techno to country and everything in between. "Yeah, I've been here before," says Kristen, a DePaul student who's enjoying a few more days of summer with her friends before heading back to school. "It's kinda overpriced, but it's the only place to eat around here. Unless you bring the food, and I don't cook." The girls sip Diet Cokes and talk brashly about the boys they are dating, making the polo-wearing family who "just drove in from the suburbs" look very uncomfortable. Jenny comes by to take their order, then heads to a table of hockey players, one of whom is an actual player on the Blackhawks. Once they are taken care of, a table of twenty-somethings takes a seat and she heads off in their direction. Over the buzz of conversation the cover band kicks off their set and the lunch rush has officially begun.
— Published by Newcity, August 28, 2008
Road to Romania
Miss Romania is named here in Chicago
Sunday night and the Copernicus Theater is full of Romanians who’ve come in droves to the Second Annual Miss Romania USA Pageant, “the premier event in the Romanian community.” Eleven girls line the stage, and each with a name that ends in ‘A’. Romania TV personality, Dan Negru, co-hosts with Chicago-based Romanian actress, Ligia Fluoresce, who wears a plunging red silk number and a permanent smile. The twosome speak Romanian despite a mixed crowd, but seem well received by the boisterous audience, mostly metro-sexual males in the mid-twenties. The catcall and cheer, rising frequently to refill their drinks at the bar in the lobby, as the girls compete in four categories — casual wear, swimwear, evening gowns, and talent (an awe-inspiring display including cheerleading, reading aloud, and hip-shaking sexy dances) — with the lofty dream of being crowned Miss Romania USA 2008.
“The pageant is a festival of beauty…a platform for growth and inspiration of young Romanian American women,” says the coordinating organization, who anticipate one million viewers tuning in to watch on Antenna 1, the Romanian cable network. It’s tough to pick a winner, and even tougher because the judges don’t speak Romanian. While they deliberate, 17-year old Romanian singer, Ruxie, gives a forty-five minute concert, with brutal Easter-European renditions of “Hotel California” and “Ain’t no Sunshine.” Luckily, the audience is too drunk to notice. Finally, in an underwhelming crowning ceremony, Adela Fuela is named Miss Romania USA 2008. Techno ensues.
— Published in Newcity, July 3, 2008
Train Tales
In June 1900, more than a century ago, the Armitage station on the Northwestern Elevated, currently known as the Brown Line, first opened it’s doors to commuters, and up until 2006, when construction as part of the Brown Line Capacity Expansion Project, not much about the original station had changed. Now, after two years of undergoing a massive re-facing, the Armitage station is nearly complete, and boasting a sleek, modern look. The crowning jewel of this facelift is a photographic instillation by Jonathan Gitelson titled “Chicago El Stories” displayed on the station’s back wall. A sprawling mosaic comprised of photographic glass tiles that display forty-two footnoted pictures of places around Chicago was inspired by interviews Gitelson conducted atop the old Armitage platform.
Gitleson, whose photography usually centers on “everyday phenomenon,” was commissioned by the CTA to create a work of public art after his pictures were spotted at a show at a Cultural Center exhibit. “I came up with this idea to do one portrait a day outside the station for a year.” This idea was turned down due to the number of liabilities of having peoples’ pictures displayed in public places, so he began thinking about how he could tell a person’s story without actually showing them. “The [second] proposal basically was: I wanted to interview people on the site that’s being torn down about their memories, or life, or whatever here in town. And then I’d go to the location where the story took place and take a picture of the setting, and then print part of the story…so you know it’s like part personal history, part city history.” The proposal was accepted, and he spent three months, from February to April 2007, on the platform asking commuters to spin a story about a place in Chicago that was important to them.
Sporting multiple layers, a hat and a beard to ward against the bitter cold, Gitleson - armed with a recorder, a sketch of the piece, and an official letter from the city (to prove he wasn’t thieving identities) - spent five or six days a week gathering interviews. Though Gitleson loves meeting and talking to new people, he explains, “It’s hard just going up to people and being like, ‘Hey my name is Jon. Tell me your story,’…At first I didn’t know how to ask the question right. I would say, ‘Tell me about a place you like in Chicago,’ and like the first fifty people I interviewed all said Millennium Park…So that was one thing, figuring out how to get people to open up.”
Another problem was timing interviews with only eight minutes between trains. “Basically, after a train passed, the first person up would be the person I’d have to get. Otherwise, if I waited a few minutes, someone would start telling me a story and then their train would come, and I had to get them to sign a release so they’d be running for the train and I would be running after with their release.” In the end, he conducted over 400 interviews, which were whittled to 100 from which the final forty-two were chosen.
Each interview had to be cut due to the limitations of physical space beneath the pictures, but Gitelson decided that wasn’t enough. “I thought people’s voices would be really important. Reading something and hearing something are very different. Sometimes you can just see someone from hearing their voice even if you’ve never met them.” So, he created a website (www.chicagostories.com) with the interviews in full. Clicking on a picture will play the story behind it. “The whole time there was this idea of having two components: public art public art in terms of physical public art, and public art in terms of online public art.” This innovative approach allows the work to reach a wider audience than just Brown Line commuters. “What I’m trying to do, in an ideal world, is have people either go through the station and then be interested in seeing the website, or have people see the website and be interested in going to the station,” but people can certainly take their time. Adrift in cyberspace or in person, “Chicago El Stories” should remain a vibrant landmark for at least the next hundred years.
— Published by Newcity, June 26, 2008
A Hotel Fit for a King
The newly opened Leela Kempinski Palace in Udaipur, the ‘Venice of the East,’ exudes luxury, mysticism, modernity, and tradition.
The first thing you will see when you pull up by boat to the levy at the the newly opened Leela Kempinski Palace in Udaipur, is the fiber optic dome - the only one of its kind in India - glistening like a hundred stars above Lake Pichola. You are caressed with a shower of rose pedals as you enter the hotel lobby, which is ornately decorated with crystal chandeliers and large portraits of the Maharajas of old. Every inch of the Leela exudes luxury fit for a king.
The Library Bar here is not your typical hotel bar. Once you cross the threshold you are transported directly into the study of a Maharaja. A colour palate of deep purples and Burgundy reds, coupled with dark wood and real silver, give the cozy space a royal air. The lights above the bar are modeled after elaborately bejeweled crowns, and a framed picture of three young Maharajas in traditional dress, hangs to the left of a fully stocked bar, reminding visitors they are in the presence of royalty.
Designed by the architect Bill Bensley, and interior designer, Jeffery Wilkes, the bar strives to bring local heritage to life within its mustard-yellow Jaisalmer stone walls. “I think it is as surprising as it is beautiful,” says Tamir Korbin, the general manager. “You come here for the mysticism.”
To capture that mysticism, the five-star spa resort has drawn inspiration from everything local, from the intricately embroidered fabric to the tarkashi work - a local art form used in designing the handcrafted dark wood furniture. The majority of items were handpicked by Wilke’s design team, while some come from the Nair family’s (the owners) private collection, and yet others have been donated by the family of the Maharana of Udaipur.
Thus, the Library Bar, replete with refinement and luxury, is a place to sip a cocktail or curl up with a good book, all the channeling the king within you.
— Published by Hotelier, September 2009