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Earlier this month I had an essay appear in The Smart Set, a new online arts and culture magazine out of Drexel University in Philadelphia. My story, Le Musée du Fumeur, explores Paris’s “Museum of Smoking” on the eve of a law that will ban indoor smoking in the city. I write:
Wander through the 11th arrondissement of Paris toward the dead celebrities of Pere Lachaise Cemetery, and there’s a decent chance you’ll stumble across a small gallery called “Le Musée du Fumeur.” Unlike the hallowed halls of the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay, there is no tyranny of expectation in this tiny, smoking-themed museum. No smiling Mona Lisa or reclining Olympia dictates where the random tourist should focus his attention. Thus left to meander, the drop-in visitor may well overlook the more earnest exhibits here — such as Egyptian sheeshas or Chinese opium pipes — and note the small, red-circle-and-slash signs reminding guests that, in no uncertain terms, smoking is strictly forbidden in the Museum of Smoking.
…Not too long ago, public smoking bans were regarded as a uniquely American phenomenon — a puritanical gesture, held in ridicule by any self-respecting, Gauloise-puffing Frenchman. Over time, however, the public health burden of smoking-related illnesses has spurred a number of industrialized nations to follow the American example. When the initial steps of a public smoking ban took effect in Paris this February, French opinion polls reported that 70 percent of Parisians were in favor of the prohibition.
Apart from my own essay, the debut issue of The Smart Set features some great writing from the likes of Susan Orlean, Tony Perrottet, Michael Gorra, and Alain de Botton. Standout essays include a story by Alden Jones about the Semester at Sea program, Jesse Smith’s report from a Kentucky Creationism Museum, Orlean’s “A Lonely Heart in Bhutan,” and Jason Wilson’s dispatch from Sardinia.
Wilson, who edits The Smart Set (and whose name you might recognize as the series editor for The Best American Travel Writing) describes the new magazine as a competitor to the likes of Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, The Believer, and Virginia Quarterly Review — with an online readership similar to that of Slate.com and Salon.com. Subject matter includes culture and ideas, arts and sciences, business and global affairs — everything from literature to shopping, medicine to food, philosophy to sports. If the first issue is any indication, it will definitely have a strong travel emphasis — and even its non-travel essays appear to be written by well-traveled writers. In addition to personal and critical essays, the online magazine will also publish original reporting, memoir, short stories, photo essays, and occasionally video.
If The Smart Set sounds like a somewhat familiar name, that’s no accident — the online magazine is a revival of a magazine edited by H.L. Mencken over 80 years ago. As the pseudonymous “ombudsman” Owen Hatteras writes in the first issue,
The Smart Set: “The Magazine of Cleverness…The Aristocrat Among Magazines…The Only Magazine with an European Air,” [was] edited from 1914 to 1923 by George Jean Nathan and H.L. Mencken. It was a fine magazine, publishing the early work of such talents as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, and Theodore Dreiser. Even though crotchety old Mencken in later years would call the magazine “the most dreadful piece of printing in New York.”
But that was Mencken. As everyone knows, he was always a real bastard.
Fresh Tracks Travel is looking for a few intrepid travelers to be their next Adventure Ambassadors.
The lucky few who are selected will receive sponsorship for their travels in exchange for promoting Fresh Tracks.
An adventuresome spirit is required and according to the Fresh Tracks website, “You just have to show us you are seizing life by the scruff of the neck – and you are an inspiration to our readers.”
To apply, write a story of a past adventure as well as a description of a trip you would like to take. While they are willing to consider any ideas, preference will be given to those planning adventures in places the company currently operates (including Canada, Alaska, Australia, and New Zealand). People of any age are welcome to apply.
“You can be an adventurer at any age,” said Fresh Tracks CEO John Parker. “We are interested in those individuals who are planning to step outside their own comfort zones.”
Once selected, an Adventure Ambassador will enter into an agreement with Fresh Tracks and will receive some sponsorship as well as in-kind sponsorship. The website says, “In return you agree to put our name in lights and share your adventure with our clients in words and pictures.”
Above: Rolf hams it up with old pal Jen Leo at the Book Passage Travel Writers’ Conference in San Francisco.
Those who regularly follow Vagablogging will notice that new posts have slowed a bit in recent weeks, as most of the folks who blog here have been off on their own travels. I am no exception: Since late May I have been on the road constantly — mainly in Europe and North America. This summer my wanderings have largely revolved around the nonfiction writing classes I’ve been teaching in various locations: at the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia; at my annual stint at the Paris American Academy writing workshop; and at the Book Passage Writers’ Conference in San Francisco.
In spite of my time in the classroom, I’ve still managed to have some great side-trips — to Moscow in June, to Prague in July (with my parents, who were visiting Europe for the first time), and up with U.S. West Coast in August. Right now I’m back in my prairie farmhouse in north-central Kansas — but in a couple months I’ll be moving on to Brazil and Argentina for more vagabonding.
In the meantime, I’ll be catching up on blog posts and working on magazine deadlines. I’m still looking for a few more people to write for this blog in coming months, so be sure to drop me a line if you’re interested!
Not long ago, while reading a collection of Jack Kerouac’s journals, entitled Windblown World, I came across a startling entry from April 17th, 1948, which sounds a lot like a page from Chuck Palahniuk’s book (and, later, David Fincher’s movie) Fight Club. From an informal gathering of friends in New York, Kerouac reports the following:
Ginsberg went mad and begged me to hit him — which spells the end as far as I’m concerned, since it’s hard enough to keep sane without visiting the asylum every week. He wanted to know ‘what else’ I had to do in the world that didn’t include him, and he asked me to beat him up. I never was so horrified, mortified, and disgusted, not smugly disgusted but just riven by the spectacle of his mad meaningless eyes staring at me in a mockery of human sensibility. He claimed that I was turning away from the truth when I started to leave.
Unlike Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden converting Edward Norton’s character to recreational-therapeutic violence in Fight Club, Ginsberg never does convince Kerouac of the existential merits of hitting him — and in fact Kerouac writes off such behavior as nonsense. “I told him that I did have an unconscious desire to hit him,” Kerouac writes, but he would be glad later on that I did not. It seems to me that I did the most truthful thing there… [T]hese Ginsbergs, just coming of demonic age, assume that no one else has seen their visions of cataclysmic emotion, 90% false and 10% childish, and try to foist them on others.”
I’d have to say I agree with Kerouac. And though I enjoyed the gleeful energy of Fight Club, whenever I watch/read it, I can’t help but think the repressed male characters would be better served by a year or two out on the vagabonding road than stealing off to basement rooms to beat the crap out of each other.
Earlier this month, while passing through New York, I had an opportunity to speak about Vagabonding and long-term travel at the Google office in midtown Manhattan. Google has since posted a video of this presentation at YouTube, and it’s a nice encapsulation of my typical book-tour subject matter (including a high-school graduation picture of me in a mullet and Cosby-Show sweater, which at be found at 08:50).
In the interest of making this video easier to navigate (especially for those without an hour to spare), I’ve broken down the presentation by theme as follows:
00:00 – 01:10: Introduction by Alexander Newman
01:10 – 02:30: Rolf explains the concept of vagabonding
02:30 – 08:20: Rolf reads Chapter One of Vagabonding
08:20 – 18:12: Rolf shares slides of his own international travels
18:12 – 20:05: Q&A – Travel insurance and preparing for emergencies
20:05 – 21:55: Q&A – Overcoming the language barrier abroad
21:55 – 23:20: Q&A – Dealing with anti-Americanism abroad
23:20 – 26:55: Q&A – Is it even possible to avoid being a “tourist”?
26:55 – 29:00: Q&A – The ethics of traveling in poor countries
29:00 – 31:10: Q&A – The challenges of coming home
31:10 – 32:32: Q&A – Managing funds while on the road
32:32 – 33:55: Q&A – Using local economies for transportation, etc.
33:55 – 36:05: Q&A – How to be a travel writer
36:05 – 37:40: Q&A – Traveling solo
37:40 – 39:28: Q&A – Advice for women traveling solo
39:28 – 41:20: Q&A – Where in the world has Rolf not traveled?
41:20 – 43:08: Q&A – Protecting yourself against crime on the road
43:08 – 44:30: Q&A – How to avoid getting in the guidebook rut
44:30 – 46:05: Q&A – Attachment to specific people and places on the road
46:05 – 48:08: Q&A – Bad experiences on the road
48:08 – 51:10: Q&A – Making time for travel (vacations v. sabbaticals v. quitting)
51:10 – 52:50: Q&A – What to pack, packing light
52:50 – 54:40: Q&A – Staying motivated to travel; not getting jaded
54:40 – 56:20: Q&A – Dealing with the prospect of running out of money
56:20 – 56:35: Closing remarks and wrap-up
Feel free fast-forward to the topic that interests you most. For more information on my book, Vagabonding.net contains reviews, resources, and travel information.
Are you interested in writing for Vagablogging?
We’re looking for a few good folks to assist in keeping the blog updated with fresh content: everything from travel tools, gear, articles, blogs, memoirs, news, or anything else floating around the online travel world that fits the vagabonding style. Interested writers should be able to commit to writing one to three original, well-written blog posts per week. To get a better idea of the type of content we’re looking for, please have a look at our archives.
If you’re interested, please send us the following:
1) Your name, contact information, and brief note on why you’d be interested in contributing to the blog.
2) Two original, previously-unpublished sample posts written with the Vagablogging readership in mind.
Send this information in the body of an email (no attachments please) to both Rolf and myself: rolf at rolfpotts dot com, collective at vagabonding dot net.
This is an unpaid position. However, hard work does not go unnoticed, and your contribution will not only give you a regular venue to express your voice, but it will also act as a great way to make contacts and act as a stepping-off point into future opportunities in the travel writing world.
Dramatic life changes cause people to do dramatic things. Rosie Swale-Pope (no relation to author) took it to the extreme. When her husband died from prostate cancer, she decided to run around the world. Her plan was not some fleeting pipe-dream; she’s two-thirds of the way there.
She left early in October of 2003 at the age of 57 and has been journeying on her own two feet ever since. She has circled through Europe, Asia, Alaska, Canada, and is currently in Ohio. Her plan is to return to the start and finishing line at Tenby, her home in Wales.
Along the way, she has encountered everything from a “stark naked, gun wielding lunatic” in Siberia to the far more typical crowd of small-town schoolchildren waiting to celebrate her arrival with a “Welcome Rosie” banner in White Mountain, Alaska.
Adventure is nothing new to Rosie. In the early 1970s she, along with her husband and two young children, sailed around the world in a 30-foot catamaran. She has crossed Chile on horseback, run across the Sahara, and completed a 1,000 mile solo run across Iceland.
Her son James updates her website while she is on the road, receiving reports from her by satellite phone. On this website, she explains why running is her chosen method of world-exploration.
“Running can take you to places that do not exist if you travel in any other way. Maybe even more than walking, because you can get so exhausted, almost fail so every often, and are vulnerable and shaky. Sometimes when you are weakest, you can feel things the most strongly. This is when those you meet in the midst of their own difficult lives and situations, are not fearful of you. You treading gently through someone. else’s land; Part of the life going on all around you. Part of the people, places, sunrises, storms, terrors and joys; seeing, feeling, laughing, crying, in happiness or despair.”
As she explores the globe, Rosie is also raising funds for a variety of charities, including one that benefits prostate cancer research.
“Rosie’s around the world run adventure” is updated every Friday with reports from the road by Rosie as well as people who have encountered her along the way and their thoughts on her adventure.
“The sightseeing items which can be confidently guaranteed and conveniently and quickly delivered to tourists on arrival have these merchandisable qualities precisely because they are not native expressions of the country. They cannot be the real ritual or the real festival; that was never originally planned for tourists. Like the hula dances now staged for photographer-tourists in Hawaii, the widely appealing tourist attractions are apt to be those specially made for tourist consumption.”
–Daneil Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961)
The Andrus family is back! After spending a year visiting 31 countries on six continents, the family of two parents and four children (from pre-school to high-school age), are back home in Atlanta trying to readjust to American life and the steamy Atlanta climate.
After an exciting life of traveling the world and appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show in April, staying in one place can be a challenge. Readjustment has been more difficult than anticipated, though the family is looking at each difficulty as a new adventure.
The Andrus family blog Six in the World recounts the daily difficulties of returning home to a house where lightbulbs need changing and cars are virtually a necessity. It also chronicles Tom’s search for a new job upon returning home to learn that his employer of eight and a half years re-organized his job away.
Getting four children ready for a new school year is a challenge for any family. Throw in the difficulties of wrapping up one school year online (finishing classes and taking final exams for the older children) while preparing for the next one (paperwork, doctors and dentists to visit, and of course, back to school shopping), and the family’s life is all that more hectic.
Their blogs of readjustment are particularly fascinating because, while so many travelers post extended volumes on their departure plans (here is the Andrus family preparation), rarely do they recount the difficulties of readjustment back home.
It will be exciting to see what will be next for this amazing family!
There was an interesting article in the New York Times last week, about how little vacation Americans take. Fifty percent of us, author Walter Kirn says, won’t go anywhere during the peak summer travel season. But that’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is Kirn’s proposed reason why, and where that reason comes from.
Now, it’s just one kind of travel Kirn’s talking about here, and that’s the traditional family summer vacation; the kind that’s supposed to restore us, keep us healthy. You know, camping with the kids, stuff like that. That it’s disappearing isn’t a surprise, says Kirn – we recharge when we please with our yoga classes, our days spas, our lake houses (his, not mine, apparently). What’s more, the idea of mandated holiday time, that coveted perk of being from Europe, was an invention of the Nazis, says Kirn; who wonders, then, what’s all the fuss about?
Like I said, interesting. No doubt there’s some sound economic argument against European-style required vacation. And maybe there is something kind of ironic about forced time-off. Still, that all seems a little beside the point. If summer vacation is as bogus as Kirn says, fair enough. But what about the kind of travel we like to talk about here? If the American lifestyle – reason regardless – is choking out time for a little vagabonding, it’s not just camping trips with the kids that are out the window.
So, what do we do about that?
