Crossroads Dispatches

Gandhi's Birthday is U.N. International Day of Non-Violence...go Burmese monks!

make tea, not war communi-tea

Right Head: Oh, stop bitching and let's go and have tea.
Left Head: Oh, all right, all right, all right. We'll kill him first, and then have tea and biscuits.
Middle Head: Yes.
Right Head: Euurgh, not biscuits.
Left Head: All right, not biscuits, but let's kill him anyway!
All Heads: RIGHT! - from film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail

When Lucy steps through the fur coats in the English country wardrobe and right into a completely new world in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, it is no surprise that the first being she meets, a bushy red faun named Mr. Tumnus, immediately invites her to tea: "Daughter of Eve from the far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe, how would it be if you came and had tea with me?"

This is not the stuffy tea with just the right curd and just the right Devonshire cream of high flying society, but the welcome tea. (Anything goes. It's a gift.) Tea for two. Tea for three. In Walden; Or Life in the Woods, Thoreau wrote: "I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude , two for friendship, three for society." 

"[I]n the East tea is a dietary staple for one and all, and a sign of hospitality even in the humblest of surroundings. Chinese tea houses, India's roadside tea  stalls, Afghan chaikhanas, and the little cafes of Turkey and Egypt are democratic and lively - the opposite of tea rooms in Europe." -   The Little Book of Tea, Sangmanee, Kitti Cha et al

Sometimes I have a fleeting vision of a petite mobile tea with collapsable stools that one carts around the street like the ice cream vendors in the Mission. I pull up to any street corner for instant comradeship. Instant poetry. (You see poetry and tea just fit together.)

The old maxim, "Make Music Not War" is sprinkled generously throughout souvenir T-shirts in the French Quarter shoppes, New Orleans. I cherish that philosophy as a way of life. Maybe less so as simply a slogan.

I have a strong hunch had I'd ever gone busking with my friend between the guitar, the mobile tea cart, and a cheerful placard gently coaxing soul-baring, "Tell us your dream. We'll tell you ours" we'd have prevented civil wars, if not worldwide war.

In April of 2006 I started to drink tea and toast at dawn in the garden. An old habit I'd picked up in Sri Lanka, a land where we drink a warm milk tea (in lucky days maybe with trifle from those little clay pots) and convive at the drop of a hat. My writing blossomed along with that spring. (Please! Don't use this post as any evidence....I've not been up before the crack of 10 o'clock in many moons. I'm anticipating these teas will get my groove back.)

"While other social gatherings might make some people nervous, a tea party should be relaxed. The host or hostess or tea-master is Zen calm. Tea is peaceful. Is it possible that the tea party brings out our truer nature? Do we open ourselves up, let go of conflicts and problems, and experience our lives as part of a larger whole?

The tea party is an opportunity for metamorphosis." - Tea Celebrations, Alexandra Stoddard

Tea is only the symbol. Look closely and it's exceedingly simple. Dried leaves plucked from the Camellia sinensis bush, add boiling spring water, sip. Look deeper and it's twined together with peace, tranquility, inspiration, fantasy, conviviality, hospitality, poetry, soul, companionship, alchemy and immortality.  Look closely and it's exceedingly simple. Toss out the tea leaves if you wish, but consider the rest as a recipe for what we've always supposed was the elusive and exotically far-off: eternal now and unity.

Art Make Tea Not War stencil from the Worchester Stencils Photo Essay (yay street art!) (Thanks! Aha, at this photo essay learned that Buenos Aires started the stencil movement: Some might call it the birthplace of the political street stencil.); Tablee Aux Cinq Jeunes Filles (or Tea Party), by Franck L.

PARTICIPATING (or HOSTING) "Greetings and Gleanings" COMMUNI-TEAS" Schedules & WhatNot:

yet another way to Demo, to Launch, to Lunch, to Flock, to Frolic

I want to jump in the fray around Demo this week with a pre-announcement. Since everyone's asking what I'm baking these days, here's a peek inside the oven:

Imagine walking right into a set, a living theater of sorts, a pop-up teahouse and brasserie evoking the artistic foment and intimacy of the Parisian salon.

A laidback running showcase for eclectic installations of provocative and live social art, aesthetic and green designs, Web 2.0 demos (including a boutique digital screening room, etc.)

A convivial spa of conversation catalyzing fertile verges.

A community space for people to commune with people of every stripe. (Devoted but not pushy about transforming "the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.")

Each production comes once around for less than a season, never to be repeated again, to instanteously pop up in another incarnation somewhere else in the Bay Area (initially).

This time, the swirling philosophers and literati of a Vienna coffehouse with Art Nouveau vibe

(exit stage left)

Now, the Silk Road beckons saffron and cinnabar colored plush pillows spice-laden opium den  (sans opium)

(exit stage right)

Now, what does your fantasy fancy?...

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players" - Shakespeare, As You Like It

I haven't seen anything quite like it I can point you to. But something about Colette's in Paris reminds. Something about New Frontier on Main at this year's Sundance Film Festival reminds: 

"New Frontier on Main is Sundance's newest venue, showcasing moving-image [video] installations, live performances, microcinema screenings, new media technology, and the Rabbit Hole, a DJ lounge cafe." (more in this great article, "Sundance's New Frontier preserves artistic integrity", Variety, January 17, 2007)

"I've always loved DEMO-style conferences (like the one going on in Palm Desert today) where entrepreneurs show off their creations for the first time to an audience of their peers, the press, and investors." - Jason Calacanis, "Taking the payola out of DEMO-ing: The TechCrunch 20 Conference (or, I'm back in the conference business baby!)

This doesn't replace any expos or conferences, but I'm yearning for gatherings more sassy than a conference, and I'm willing to bet others are too.

I applaud the launchpad that Mike and Jason are giving visionaries to demo their dreams based on merit, not who's able pony up fees:

"It is a well known secret that if you are willing to pay the $15,000+ fee, your startup will really need to suck to be turned down." - Mike Arrington, "The TechCrunch20 Conference"

I don't have my model entirely cranked out, yet. But, claro que si, it's about the artists, innovators, entrepreneurs pushing the edges.

p.s. Comment, blog, email, text, or call 408 513 7324 if you are interested in participating in anyway.

dancers? investors? musicians? VJs/DJs? sponsors? videographers? filmmakers? accountants?  real estate gurus? conceptual artists? chefs? burners? producers? set designers? experimental theater folks? etc. etc?

(I'm notoriously behind on email, but I will get back with you.)

Handcrafted Yuletide Artisan Show This Weekend

One of my closest friends, Ruby Dosen, and the most inspiration "We" artist I know is hosting a Yuletide Artisan gift show this weekend with seven female artisans. 

If you live in the Bay Area, please stop by, browse and meet Ruby. I'll be there Friday night myself.

Click on the flyer (right) for details. Address:15066 Los Gatos-Almaden Road #200, Los Gatos, CA (map)  

"The Center for Bold Creations will be open December 8 from 6-9 PM on Friday and 11-5 Saturday and Sunday, December 9 and10th.

Stop by and complete your holiday shopping with one of a kind scarves, beautiful  jewelry, unique children's clothing, limited edition scented ornaments, exquisite glassworks, one of a kind ceramics, photograms and other unique gift items."

p.s. My policy on disclosures: Should I ever be paid commissions by any artists I would certainly let you know.  

Best Writing Advice I've Heard In A Long Time

"And one really difficult part is that there's a tendency toward censorship - that some thoughts seem too embarrassing, too raw, too naked, too irrelevant, too goofy, too personal, too revealing, too damaging to one's own self-image, too cranky, too individualistic, too specialized, or too much copulating with your mother or something, so that you don't want to put them down. That's a real problem with everybody, including myself. The pudeur, modesty, shyness -- like I failed to write down a dream the other day. Fortunately, I remembered it - I saw Peter Orlovsky catch me smoking, and he's very much antismoking. We were living together, and in the dream he was so dismayed that he vomited up his liver, and I realized that I was really violating something sacrosanct and rooted, physiologically rooted in him, in something real. And I got so scared of the domestic situation that I didn't write the dream down. But it was actually one of the more interesting dream-poem possibilities that I'd had in the last month.

But in the moment of writing, there'll be all sorts of images that rise, "thinks," separate "thinks" that will be unappetizing, and I think that's the most important part. The parts that embarrass you the most are usually the most interesting poetically, are usually the most naked of all, the rawest, the goofiest, and strangest and most eccentric and at the same time, most representative, most universal, because most individual, most particular, most specific, vomiting out a piece of liver, specific situation, smoking. Actually, I thought that was really just my scene, but really it's universal, it's an archetype,as much as anything's an archetype. And that was something I learned from Jack Kerouac,which was that spontaneous writing could be embarrassing,or could seem to be embarrassing. So the cure for that is to write things down which you'll not publish and which you won't show people. To write secretly, to write for nobody's eye, nobody's ear but your own, so you can actually be free to say what you want. In other words, it means abandoning being a poet, abandoning any careerism, abandoning even the idea of writing any poetry, really abandoning, giving up as hopeless -- abandoning the possibility of really expressing yourself to the nations of the world. Abandoning the idea of being a prophet with honor and dignity, and abandoning the glory of poetry and just settling down in the muck of your own mind. And the way that's practiced is that you take the writing out a week later and look at it. It's no longer embarrassing, by that time it seems funny. The blood has dried, sort of. So you really have to make a resolution just to write for yourself, in the sense of no bullshit to impress others, not writing poetry to impress yourself, but just writing what your self is saying." -- Allen Ginsberg, transcript of lecture "First Thought, Best Thought" given for a Spiritual Poetics course, July 29, 1979 (excerpted from Big Sky Mind: Buddhism and the Beat Generation)

Maybe that's not the best ad copy writing advice, but it's decent advice if you're writing a timeless classic that impacts and touches humanity. And if your life is your art.

I wrote that last post without the luxury of tucking pages away in the desk drawer for a week's waiting to let the embarrassment evaporate. The blood's too fresh, as it always is blogging on the real live web, so I still held back.

The family relations thing is more blatent, yet you don't have to read between the lines in my last post to figure out I didn't have enough money to buy an airline ticket to LA myself.

"Maybe you could do a celebrity blog?" my Mom offers as I pick up the Business 2.0 issue off the magazine pile at my sister's home. Mike Arrington is on the front cover of "Blogging for Dollars."

"I don't really see myself doing that," I reply. Normally this would be my cue to roll my eyes and ignore her, but I've changed too much. I actually am not being snarky at all in response.

"You know it wasn't too long ago that Perez Hilton had just four dollars to his name. That's not his real name, you know."

"Well, I have about three myself after that Starbucks latte at the airport."

I bet Mario Lavandeira (aka Perez Hilton) revealed he'd just enough money for a venti pumpkin spice latte after he was already quote successful unquote. A cakewalk then.

I usually don't talk about the fact that I tend to live on the edge. All kind of edges, but particularly the edge of this minute. This moment. Because I think it is too particular, too specific, too personal, too naked, too damaging to one's own self-image, too strange, too revealing, too too too..you name it.

I can even manage to convince myself it'd just freak people out and they'd be unnecessarily anxious for me. Mostly I fear that they'd think the past has anything to do with the present and hold that static vision for me.

"But you don't have a functioning car," says a new friend recently.

"You must underestimate me. Don't get hung up on temporary situations, within a year I'll be able to afford my own Bentley Azure," I write back.

'Nesting' this past Thanksgiving weekend, I viewed more hours of TV than I have in six months. It occurred to me that it is all to easy to hide in consumption, in passitivity, but one always bares something of one self in the act of creation. You put yourself out there when you blog or you post to YouTube, versus snuggling with the mustard throw on the recliner watching The Apprentice.

That's ultimately why I value art and creating and social media. 

"Actually I think I've lined up a job at a local cafe for the holidays."

Now I wait for my Mom's eyes to roll since my announcement is out of character. (Not too mention not going to cover my bills.)

She hesitates for a minute, "I never remember my dreams," she starts. "I mean, I never remember them even when I wake up. But the other night I had a dream and so now it's blurry, but there was this cafe and it's a place that sells tea..."

I tell her about the salon de the (teahouse) I imagine and that's coming to fruition.

So I shall tell you (in time, over time) with the goofy, quirky, trippy, embarrassing parts intact as they happen because they are such as they are: real and anyhow blood-shows-you-are-at-least-alive and not a stilllife portrait of the once living and true.

p.s. My current mantra and motto: The answer to how is yes. (Hell yes.)

Update: On the Perez Hilton quote successful unquote comment, I'm extremely successful according to Bob Dylan: "A person is a success if they get up in the morning and gets to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do." Anyhow, all I know for sure is I am unabashedly content, dare I say nearly blissful, of late.

images Photo from the Allen Ginsberg Trust. Allen working on Howl in San Francisco, circa June, 1956. Allen Ginsberg's signal poem "Howl," overcame censorship, now one of the most widely read poems of the century." Actually, the date can't be 1956 as he read it in 1955. Many of the greatest works of art from Tropic of Cancer to Madame Bovary were censored in their time, yet self-censorship kills far more art than anything else.

Fertile Verges, Belle Epoques and Salons

"Salons are an example of what the historian Daniel Boorstin would have called "the Fertile Verge" - "a place of encounter between something and something else." Boorstin (and here I am wholly indebted to Virginia Postrel) pinpointed such "verges" as being nothing short of the secret to American creativity.

Postrel sums up what Boorstin was saying as follows:

"A verge is not a sharp border but a frontier region: where the forest meets the prairie or the mountains meet the flatlands, where ecosystems or ideas mingle . Verges between land and sea, between civilization and wilderness, between black and white, between immigrants and natives...between state and national governments, between city and countryside - all mark the American experience." - Jeremy Geelan (oh, I tweaked one teeny word, exchanging salons for Web 2.0, in above snippet)

The next salon is an afternoon tea nestled in a Belle Epoque evoking tearoom in downtown San Jose kitty-corner from the upcoming Central Place, part of the future urban revival of San Jose (imagine highrise penthouses, tree-lined promenades, shops, outdoor cafes, public art, galleries).

"There are few hours more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea." - Henry James

Why Monday? Galleries, restaurants, fashion boutiques, chocolatiers, jewelers, jazz clubs are often closed and thereby these artists are free to salon Monday evenings, and the intent of a salon is to hand-select an "eclectic combustible crowd of people that aren't "supposed" to go together like the fusion chefs mix ingredients into culinary taste explosions." What happens next is unpredictable: renaissances, movements, improvisations, belle epoques perhaps.

"Occurring at the midpoint of the Third Republic, the Belle Époque was considered a golden time of beauty, innovation, and peace between France and its European neighbors. New inventions made life easier at all social levels, the cultural scene thrived, cabaret, cancan, and the cinema were born, and art took new forms with Impressionism and Art Nouveau. Art and architecture in the style of this era in other nations is also sometimes called "Belle Époque" style." - Wikipedia entry

Gwendolyn: You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far. - Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest

Let's go too far: Let's verge to beauty, innovation, peace. Details: Date: Monday, September 18th, 4 to 7:30 pm Location: Chic Chateau, 96 S. 3rd Street, San Jose, CA (corner of San Fernando and 3rd) Map Please request an invitation if you are to grace us with your charm, wit and artful verging banter. Limited to an intimate prime number 23. RSVP required. Yes, by all means, your confidants, collaborators, muses, lovers, and aseres (Afrocaribbean/Cuban slang for soul sibling) are warmly invited too. Cost: $15 includes exquisite teas, delectable old-world inspired treats served by owner Luvi Navarro whom left high-tech corporate HR to share her trio of passions with us at her new boutique: fashion, tea, and home decor. (Includes all tax & gratuities.) p.s. Look for upcoming salon at the gorgeous "live in the moment, live in the season" Tanglewood Restaurant, Santana Row, San Jose.

Wordplay: (I love etymology)

verge (n.)

"edge, rim," 1459, from M.Fr. verge "rod or wand of office," hence "scope, territory dominated," from L. virga "shoot, rod stick," of unknown origin. Earliest attested sense in Eng. is now-obsolete meaning "male member, penis" ( c.1400). Modern sense is from the notion of within the verge (1509, also as Anglo-Fr. dedeinz la verge), i.e. "subject to the Lord High Steward's authority" (as symbolized by the rod of office), originally a 12-mile radius round the king's court. Sense shifted to "the outermost edge of an expanse or area." Meaning "point at which something happens" (as in on the verge of) is first attested 1602. "A very curious sense development." [Weekley]

verge (v.)

"tend, incline," 1610, from L. vergere "to bend, turn, tend toward, incline," from PIE *werg- "to turn," from base *wer- "to turn, bend" (see versus). Much influenced by verge (n.) in its verbal form meaning "to be adjacent to" (1787).

image Closeup of the Chic Chateau tearoom.

Whisked to 1740s Paris: Next Salon Sept 6th, Gervais Restaurant

"For more than a century, pilgrims from all over the world seeking romance and passion have made their way to the City of Light. The seductive lure of Paris has long been irrestible to lovers, artists, epicureans, and connoisseurs of the good life..." - film historian and author John Baxter's memoir, We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light

Inspired by 1740s Parisian salons, join us at Gervais Restaurant in downtown Saratoga village (right next door to the yummy Saratoga Chocolates!) on Wednesday, September 6th. Enjoy a Paris-styled menu, engaging renaissance-sparking conversation in a cozy sidewalk patio reserved for 20 of us, and a private reception for the evocative paintings of a French-born painter and friend of mine, Gilbert Marosi.

Parisian journalist and video-blogger Jean-Baptiste Su lives in Silicon Valley covering the high-tech world for La Tribune, France's Wall Street Journal equivalent, shares his passion for food with his newest creative baby, the Gervais, along with his chef-partner Vietnamese-born Vanessa Van Trang. They are totally in tune with bridging and mixing the ingredients of the food, arts, social media and technology worlds. And they totally get the European-styled slow scintillating foreplay of conversation.

We're still dreaming up a 1740s salon-inspired menu...but expect delectable temptations in range of $25 (excluding alcoholic beverages).

Please request an invite if you are attuned to slow food, slow conversation, inspiring living and a Silicon Valley renaissance. We are limiting to 20 to assure camaraderie and intimacy.

More details forthcoming, but I know this is enough information to follow your heart's desire. Again Wed, Sept 6th, we'll start gathering the salon at 6 pm. The patio is ours for the evening. Please, yes, your partners, significant others, mistresses and lovers (well, perhaps use your discretion!) are most certainly warmly invited.

"The [Paris] salons of the 1740s [composed of writers, artists, nobility] were, as has been well put, "un lieu de brassage social intense (places of intense social ferment)." - Madame de Pompadour: Mistress of France

Oh, the rest of the backcover of Baxter's "We'll Always Have Paris" is too lusciously tempting to leave out, especially if you, like I, wish to be whisked to Paris at the very least in spirit, if not flesh:

"...a delightfully salacious tour of the sultry Parisian corners most guidebooks ignore: from the literary cafes of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and de Beauvoir to the brothels where Dietrich and Duke Ellington held court, where Salvador Dali sated his fantasies, and Edward VII kept a sumptuous champagne bath for his favorite girls." 

Au revoir,
Evelyne (nom de plume for the next salon)

images Three Graces, Arms Akimbo, and Rome by my friend, Gilbert Marosi

Excavating the Creative Contours of Your Customer

I assume you've read the Anthropologie piece. I assume you read that founder and chairman Richard Hayne's training as an anthropologist was put to use when he spent nearly two years on a "cultural odyssey" to make sure his next post-Urban Outfitters venture was on target.

That the headquarters staff keeps their pulse directly on the customer, not focus groups, on cultural events, not trends research reports. That they say fieldwork is never ever done.

"If you really want to understand your customer, you have to spend a portion of your time excavating the creative edge of the culture that defines her. For Anthropologie president Glen Senk, that means lurking around upscale neighborhoods, looking for blue plastic New York Times delivery bags and calculating the ratio of Starbucks to convenience stores. (Fast Company)"

On August 24, and August 25 I'll be leading two separate afternoon expeditions. Highly individualized excavating-the-creative-edge-of-your-customer safaris into the upscale European-boutique-inspired Santana Row shoppes in San Jose, California. One to five curious adventurers per trip. Absolutely no guarantees of safely returning back to civilization with the same eyes, same senses, same palate:

"In my experience, retailers spend most of their time looking at things from the company's perspective or the marketer's perspective," [Glen Senk, CEO of Anthropologie] he says. "They talk about trends and brand but rarely about the customer in a meaningful way. We're customer experts. Our focus is on always doing what's right for a specific customer we know very well."

The catch: I'm doing this research myself anyway. We'll start the afternoon by having lunch at the one restaurant I've been waiting with intense anticipation to open: Tanglewood Restaurant. (If you have to write a press release, that one's a beauty. It's actually a story. And it's no accident we start the dig at Tanglewood.) So that means you guys and gals split my lunch check, that's it. You must be into slow food and exploration into the unknown: what you don't know you don't know. You must be an independent owner (or marketing representative/agent of), designer, artist, artisan, creator or somehow convince me this would be of benefit to your business if none of those vaguely applies. High-tech companies especially Web 2.0 consumer-oriented would gain insights. This isn't about retail. It's about customer. RSVP: c r o s s r o a d s d i s p a t c h e s +at+ gmail +dot+ com and I'll send details.

Silicon Valley Salon: Ferragosta, Celebrating the Fertility and Slow Modernness of August

"It's unhealthy to eat alone," Fiorella says. She welcomes guests to the table with an innate sense of hospitality. Another plate or three or four, what's the bother? At a summer dinner, Marco looks down at the row of plates and says, "It's good to have at least twenty at dinner," and he's right. - Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun

Diane Michlig and I invite you to a midsummer night's Italian holiday feast and conversational salon at Diane's intimate garden patio within Legends Fine Crafts Gallery, downtown Menlo Park, Tuesday, August 15th 6 p.m. Guests of honor include artist-couple Stephen and Jacqueline Osborn (current works will be on display).

If you are passionate about digging deeply into the locali soil and being engaged in a fertile Silicon Valley renaissance and cross-pollinating among the agriculture/gastronomic, arts plus technology communities, please request an invite at c r o s s r o a d s d i s p a t c h e s -at- gmail -dot- com. Your significant other is certainly warmly invited (after all, lovers and muses inspired much of the Renaissance beginning with Dante and Beatrice). Limited to first 20 guests.

Ferragosta, August 15th, is an Italian holiday originating from 18 BC "when the Roman Emperor Augustus declared that all of the month of August would be dedicated to the Feriae Augusti, a series of festivals and celebrations that paid homage to "Diana, the Goddess whose task it was to oversee the woods, the phases of the Moon, and Maternity" and "celebrate Vortumnus, God of the Seasons and therefore of the ripening of crops, Conso, the God of the Harvest, and Opeconsiva, who personified the abundant harvest. In short, the Feriae were a celebration of fertility and maternity."

These long summer Mediterranean days often has me dreaming that the defacto capital of Silicon Valley, San Jose, is poised and sitting on the cusp of where Florence was perhaps in the year 1492, and given enough passione and clarity dreams manifest into the world as marble Davids, and concrete Googles (this Friday San Jose Mercury News thought the same possibility too):

"Both in country and in town, according to humanist precepts, Lorenzo [de' Medici, ruler of the Florentine city-state during the Italian Renaissance] established a convention whereby there was no pecking-order in the seating at meals: those first to arrive either took the 'highest' seats, or simply sat where they chose. In addition to scholars, translators and philosophers whom he subsidized and encouraged, he also gathered around him such cultivated men as the book-dealer and chronicler of his times Vespasiano da Bisticci, the musician Antonio Squarcialupi, the painters Botticelli and Ghirlandaio, the sculptor Bertoldo, now a relatively old man who was the last surviving pupil of Donatello; and, towards the end of Lorenzo's life, the difficult, fiery, teenaged prodigy, Michelangelo. He provided a forum for all these artists and art lovers and under his aegis they flourished." - Il Gigante: Michelangelo, Florence and the David, by Anton Gil

Shopping list: Ripe fruits in the farmer's markets including lusty heirloom tomatoes (pineapple, brandywine, etc), figs, white peaches and fresh basil, Bravo Farms cheese, Bay Bread roasted garlic loaf, Spenger balsamic vinegars, Saratoga Chocolates, variety of iced and hot peach black and oolong teas...basta?...

Ferragosta, at first, baffled us as a holiday until we began to understand it as a state of mind. We, gradually, have entered this state of mind ourselves. Simply put, ferragosta, August 15, marks the ascension of the corporeal body and soul of the Virgin Mary into heaven...But the day itself is only a marker in the month, for the broader meaning of the word is August holidays and a period of intense laissez-faire. - Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun

images Stephen Osborn's La Morra, Jacqueline Osborn's Beach Hut and Afternoon Affair.

Bonus: The coalition of Silicon Valley CEOs and cultural organizations, 1stACT.org, includes in its reading list Carl Honore's In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed (2004) saying:

Canadian born, London-based journalist, Honore, goes in search of balance and illustrates how changing the pace of life is changing the face of commerce. This book is a useful augmentation to reading on creative economies and particularly adds to thinking about cultivating your distinct advantage within a community whether it’s a village of hundreds or city of millions.

p.s. The Slow Food movement began in Italy. If anyone has talents to share -- whether its playing a mandolin, or concocting the cocktail art of a Bella Bellini, please do share and let us know.

How to Be An Eco-Epicurean

My heart is set on living.  - Edna St. Vincent Millay

"I'm doing the spa at his Tuscan inn, L'Andana. He's talking about doing little, er,  I don't  know what he would like to call them, but delicacies of some sort tied to local ingredients. We've got rosemary, citrus and olive oil and all the obvious things in Tuscany. And he wants to do little gourmet bits and pieces to match the treatments we'll be using. For instance, he's doing a soy-milk panna cotta with seasonal fruits for clients who have a facial, and a lavendar tart for those having a hot-stone massage - and he's doing infusions of rosemary, thyme, wild fennel and lemon balm." - regarding chef Alain Ducasse, interview with luxury spa designer Susan Harmsworth, "Spa Mastermind", Food & Wine, August 2006

We're all used to gorging on ten-course meals here at this blog. Yet, last night my dinner consisted of an orange, about a dozen almonds, a 1/2 inch chunk of dark chocolate with tiny bits of ginger washed down with pomegrante green tea. 

So I'm thinking a lot like chef Alain Ducasse. I'm thinking tantalizing artful appetizers. I'm thinking delicacies tied to local ingredients.

I'm thinking epicurean blog. I'm thinking Italian Zen (with infusions of innate divine spark absorbing, enveloping, our essential humanness).

I'm thinking evoking a feel here that mixes up farmer's market, public gallery, (and once I'm through with my current neo-Luddite phase) and Demo combining the triumverate of my passions: how food connects us to  land, people and place; how art enlivens us; how applied technology can enrich us. All featuring things and experiences made by people and companies I know myself and like.

I hear you whispering: Evelyn, er, epicurean? Asked what spa trends she foresaw, spa designer diva Susan Harmsworth replied: "We'll probably see more destination spas where there's no TV, no telephone, no electricity...[That's definitely me. I call it backpacking, though.] We might even see places where people have to build their own fires - something that addresses  the need for grounding, because we're so technologied out."

According to the dictionary, ecipurean equates to wanton hedonism. Ah, poor totally misunderstood Epicurus. This snippet sets things right:

"Epicurus, in the fourth century B.C., was the original advocate of a pleasurable  lifestyle, and though his name has been misappropriated ever since  - there are several luxurious restaurants called The Epicurean - he himself preferred moderation  when it came to the appetites. He drank water rather than wine and was happy with a dinner  of bread and olives. His priorities for a rich and contented life were friendship, freedom, the pleasures of an examined life, and enough food and shelter to keep body and soul together.

I would agree with the old Greek that you can't be off in a stupor, drunken, overfed,  or otherwise, and still thrill to the sensation of all your cells dancing. Neither does an armchair, or a plate of ravioli, have to be overstuffed for you to feel you have got your money's worth. The more present and awake you are to your experience, the more likely the experience will be one of genuine pleasure.

No, the message of this book is that if you can be present to it, life is already enhanced enough as it is." - Roger Housden, "Seven Sins for a Life Worth Living"

p.s. If you live in the Bay Area, I'll be at Montalvo Arts Center "Tastes of Tuscany" luncheon Wednesday (tomorrow). Say ciao if you're there!

Bonus: After a nearly twenty-year career (ah, yes, I'm revealing age) in high-tech, I'm not nearly the neo-Luddite I wish I were. I'm salivating over the "cuisine mode" on the 7.1 megapixel Olympus Stylus 710 that boosts the color saturation and contrast in food. Yum yum.

Foodie photo-lush blogs recommended in this August's Food & Wine's awesome "How to be an eco-Epicurean" issue include chezpim.typepad.com (by a former Silicon Valley executive whom humbly deflects the limelight to share her own drool-worthy foodie blog favs), thefoodsection.com, shewhoeats.blogspot.com, and 101cookbooks.com. And tips for stunning food shots.

images Flickr photos include figs by xerones and lavender by wanderingnome