Take a glance at this photo of the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, India. With this still taken by Keith Pennington, it’s not too much to ask to envision yourself there. The market within the temple is colorful and vivacious, and bustling with activity. Founded during the Pandya times, the temple was completely rebuilt by the Nayakas. Most of the structures today in the temple date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. The temple is located in the heart of Madurai, a 2,500-year-old city. Attracting nearly 15,000 visitors a day. You can place a safe bet on this market being busy should you find time to visit.
New York’s Longest-Running Craft Beer Festival Takes Place This Month
For the past 15 years, the New York Craft Beer and Fine Food Festival (TAP New York) has been taking over Hunter Mountain in New York. On April 28 and 29, the event is back again with expectations to be the biggest festival to date.
TAP New York began as a small gathering of about 200 beer enthusiasts and a few breweries. Over the years, the occasion has grown enormously. Now, the entire Base Lodge of Hunter Mountain is needed to hold all of the attendees. Additionally, this month over 70 breweries will be representing more than 140 individual beers so you’ll be able to sample both old and new favorites.
According to TAP New York, “The resurgence of craft brewing, spawned in part by the creative brewers at Saranac and Boston Brewing, has lead to fuller bodied, flavorful brews featuring rich colors, bold flavors, and imaginative ingredients. New craft breweries are opening every year, and we’re both happy and proud to welcome them aboard.”
For those who like to nosh while drinking, this year’s food theme is Caribbean Food. Delicious cuisine and cooking demonstrations will be part of the programming. Also, a beer competition run by qualified judges will award the best breweries and individual craft beers in the state.
Tickets are $64 for Saturday, $52 for Sunday and $105 for the entire weekend. A designated driver pass is $20, regardless of date. To purchase, click here. If you would like to register your brewery for the event, click here.
What Is Art? I Don’t Know And Neither Does Damien Hirst
One of the perks of being a travel writer is you get to go to press viewings for upcoming exhibitions. While you don’t beat the crowds (hordes of journalists and hangers-on attend these things) you do get to see some great art for free. And if a show is disappointing, at least you didn’t have to pay for it.
I just went to the press viewing at the Tate Modern in London for “Damien Hirst,” a retrospective for one of Britain’s most famous contemporary artists. Hirst became hugely famous and wealthy in the 1990s as a leading figure in the Britart movement. His displays of preserved animals, dead flies, rows of pills and other studies of life and death polarized the artistic community. Critics either loved or hated his work and it became the center of that perennial and unanswerable question: “What is art?”
I have no idea what art is. I’ve heard lots of definitions, usually pontificated at me by some self-styled expert, and none of them have proved terribly convincing. For me, art is a visceral feeling, a reaction that I can’t entirely explain. To paraphrase the old line about pornography: I don’t know what art is, but I know it when I see it.
Sometimes.
Take one of Hirst’s most famous pieces, pictured above. This preserved shark is titled “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.” Is this art? To me it isn’t, since it didn’t give me any sort of gut reaction or make me see the world in a different way. If this is art, then every natural history museum is filled with art. And perhaps they are.
This one is called “Mother and Child Divided” and features a cow and calf cut in half. You can walk between the cases and see their insides. This was mildly interesting from a biological point of view, yet once again it felt more like natural history than art, until I saw how the journalists reacted to it. One photographer had brought his daughter along. The girl, about six years old, walked between the cases looking at the calf’s insides. She had that inscrutable expression children sometimes get when they react to something new.
I was wondering what was going on inside her head when a female photographer went up to her father and asked if she could take photos of the girl. The dad said yes and the photographer pulled out her camera. The girl immediately became stiff and put on her “smiling for a family photo” look.
“No, don’t look at me, look at the calf like you don’t know what to think of it,” the woman instructed. “Good! Now give me a cheeky grin.”
Snap snap snap, and the media had created their own reality.
The girl’s father was more ethical. He took a photo of me walking through the cow. I only realized what he was doing when the shutter clicked, so whatever expression I had on my face was the real one.
Is “Mother and Child Divided” art? Yeah, probably. While the piece itself didn’t teach me anything, the audience reaction sure did.
I bet that kid liked this next one. It’s called “Beautiful, childish, expressive, tasteless, not art, over simplistic, throw away, kid’s stuff, lacking integrity, rotating, nothing but visual candy, celebrating, inarguably beautiful painting (for over the sofa).”
This is one of Hirst’s Spin Paintings, made by splashing paint on a rotating canvas. It’s something I did in grade school and something Hirst has done a lot. Well, actually his assistants do most of them. Art? Maybe, but not Hirst’s art. In fact many of Hirst’s paintings, including most of his famous Spot Paintings, consisting of rows of colored dots, are done by his assistants and are only “Hirst paintings” because they come from his studio.
This one I found quite beautiful. It’s called “For the Love of God” and is a platinum cast of an eighteenth century human skull covered by 8,601 diamonds. The teeth are from the original skull. It’s on display for free in a darkened exhibit space in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Room. The spotlights make it glitter in every color of the rainbow. So is this death bling really art? Hell, yeah! Turning mortality into something beautiful, gaudy, and a wee bit obscene brings up all sorts of issues, and if you don’t want to think about them you can at least enjoy beauty for beauty’s sake.
A popular piece with the crowd was “A Thousand Years,” another study of life and death. A glass vitrine holds a white box in which maggots hatch, develop into flies and feed on a cow’s head and a pool of blood. Right above the head is an Insect-o-cutor that attracts some of the flies, who get zapped and fall into a writhing pile of their dead and dying brethren. Others survive to make more maggots. The whole cycle of life and death is contained in one view.
It reminded me of the day my son was born. When my wife went into labor at the hospital the nurses wheeled her away on a gurney, leaving me to pace in the hallway until they prepped the birthing room and summoned me to “assist” with the birth. Moments after they disappeared down the hallway, another group of nurses came into view wheeling another gurney. On it lay a decrepit old man obviously in the last hours of his life.
Whoa. Ummm. . .whoa.
If Hirst’s “A Thousand Years” is art, then so was that scene in the hallway. This is the impression I got again and again from this exhibition. Hirst isn’t teaching anything you can’t learn simply by walking through life with your eyes open, and anyone who has to pay £14 ($22) to learn these lessons in an art museum probably won’t come away any wiser, so what good is this stuff?
You still might want to check this out. The retrospective is huge with dozens of works that I didn’t cover here. Some are beautiful (a stained glass window made of butterfly wings), some fall flat (a row of brightly painted cooking pans) and most leave you wondering just what the hell art is and if anybody really knows. I’m pretty sure Damien Hirst is as much in the dark about that question as I am.
“Damien Hirst” runs from April 4 to September 9, 2012.
All images © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2012. Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates, except “Mother and Child Divided” 2007, Photographed by Tate.
Visiting The Favela Of Rocinha In Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
“There were five people killed in the past two days,” Patrick, tour guide from Be A Local, whispered to me. “Even though the cops are moving the gangs, they’re trying to get back in.”
It was sunny and 85 degrees Fahrenheit that afternoon in Rio de Janeiro. In the distance, I could see trekkers climbing Sugarloaf Mountain, hang gliders whizzing through the air and kayakers taking advantage of the calm waters and beautiful beaches. So, what was I doing spending the day wandering around one of the most notoriously dangerous places in the country, the favela of Rocinha?
The previous day, I had been hanging out with a local who had told me that she thought it was an interesting and eye-opening experience, and even she had done a favela tour. In Rio, colorful hillside favelas dot the landscape just as much as beaches and mountains. If you want to really get to know the whole personality of Rio de Janeiro, you should consider visiting one — with a tour, of course, as these places can be unsafe to enter alone.
This is what brought me to Rocinha, instead of the beach, on that beautiful day. For those who don’t know what a favela is, it’s basically a slum or shantytown. Rocinha is the biggest favela in Brazil, and one of the largest in the world. While a 2010 census found there to be about 70,000 occupants, many believe there are actually more than 150,000. The favela is so big it is actually considered a neighborhood with its own neighborhood association. While many of the houses do have basic amenities and the town has shopping and cultural opportunities, it is still not somewhere you want to hangout alone. Concrete buildings aren’t made of concrete because it looks nice; they’re made that way because it gives extra protection from bullets over brick homes. At the bottom of the hill, you will find sewage, garbage and crumbling homes due to poor foundation. The smell in the air flips between rotten eggs and sewage to sweet cakes and sizzling meats, as you stumble through narrow alleys and over uneven rock, decaying wood and twisted wires.
Usually, the way a favela works is the people who live in them do not pay taxes. However, since November of 2011, police forces have taken over the streets in an attempt to clean up the area. Now residents do pay taxes and the cable and electric that was once illegally installed in homes is accounted for. Furthermore, police have been able to move gangs that had been wreaking havoc over the favela, although there are still problems with these groups trying to invade. Still, I was surprised that with all the corruption, disease and drug dealings Rocinha is known for, there are facilities like clothing shops, medical facilities, dance schools, art galleries, bakeries and even a daycare center. The favela has a rich culture and many of the residents are friendly, especially the energetic children that dance and smile in the streets.
One reason for the improvement in quality of life is these people who would once beg for money now are being told they must earn it. Whether through baking, painting, dancing, or drumming – as you can see in my video above – many of these people are now working hard to make money. Moreover, a samba school, ballet school, and music school are also in the favela, allowing for youths to become involved in extracurricular activities. At the bottom of the hill, a sports complex offering boxing, martial arts, capoeira, football, volleyball, swimming, surfing and more is offered, free of charge, as long as the family’s children are enrolled in school. The city is planning to also install cable cars and funiculars, to help those who work in the city and children in school get home in an easier and safer way. Events in the favela like marathons, boxing matches, and dance competitions are also giving the area something positive to focus on.
While walking around the favela, it was clear there is a lot of room for improvement. However, it is also obvious there are people living there with a lot of potential who want to do something good with their lives. The area holds a lot of culture- and the best view of Rio in town- it just needs to remove the dirt and grime hiding its beauty. At least 20% of Rio de Janeiro’s population lives in favelas, and most of them are good people who just want to put a roof over their heads. Hopefully, the new favela pacification program can continue to help bring a higher quality of life to these people.
Eating Acai: A Delicious Cultural Experience In Brazil
“So, what are some things I should do when I arrive in Rio de Janeiro” I asked my airplane seat mate, Clarissa, a local of the city.
“Ipanema beach is my favorite, Sugarloaf Mountain has great views of the city and you must try açai!” she replied excitedly.
I looked at her skeptically. “Açai? We have that in New York, too. That’s not much of a cultural experience.”
Was I ever wrong!
In Brazil, açai cafes, fruit shops and natural food eateries are on every street corner. These serve everything you could imagine – açai juices, bowls of frozen açai with fruit and toppings, açai cheesecake and even açai syrup to use on ice cream. I became addicted to frozen açai with honey and banana slices (shown above).
Açai is an Amazon fruit that is a natural source of iron, healthy fats, B vitamins, calcium and many other nutrients. Depending where you are in Brazil will determine how and why you consume it. In the southeast of Brazil, in places like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, açai is popular among athletes. In fact, some of the locals I asked described it as being “trendy” to eat. Often served cold with guarana, strawberry or banana, the sweet treat gives sports enthusiasts a useful energy boost. Even those who aren’t into working out still enjoy açai as a snack or healthy dessert.If you head into the north of Brazil the way the fruit is eaten begins to change. This is where açai is cultivated, in a state called Pará. Here you can see many boats coming from the area’s Amazon Forest filled with baskets of the fruit in its pure form. The locals in this area eat it differently — served with fish, as a side dish, at its natural temperature. To me this sounded odd but I was explained that it is similar to how many other cultures eat beans as a side dish. They’re full of iron, protein and energy, which laborers in the area need to do physical work. Furthermore, because the area is very humid, people eat açai to pep them up when feeling sluggish from the climate.
Because açai berries are imported to the United States and other parts of the world, the only place you can really get fresh açai is in Brazil. In other words, eating açai in Brazil is very much a worthwhile cultural experience.