Notes From All Over

dispatches NOTES FROM ALL OVER

WARMINSTER, PENNSYLVANIA IF THERE’S ONE THING the guests of the posh Ross Mill Farm Hogging the resort in Bucks County have in common, it’s this: They’re all pigs. Owners Susan Armstrong-Magidson and her

Blankets husband, Richard, have spent the last two decades rescuing and placing potbellied pigs—more than 1,000 of them in all—at what she claims is the only place in the world that

ONE SPA WALLOWS IN LUXURY. emphasizes the care and well-being of the pet potbelly. ILLUSTRATIONS BY GRAHAM ROUMIEU When Armstrong-Magidson bought Ross Mill Farm in the 1980s, it was a bucolic, swine-free escape from her marketing career in New York City. But in 1992, she and her husband gave up city life to pursue what had become their unusual calling. Now she has short-term regulars—like, on a recent visit, the unfortunately named Pork Chop—who check in when their owners are on vacation, and long-term residents she hopes to fi nd homes for through her Pig Placement Network. As many as 150 pigs can stay at one time either indoors or outdoors, depending on how they were raised. (Outdoor pigs are paired because they “like to have a friend,” she says.)

In between feeding, trawling for belly scratches and napping on heaps of soft blankets, the pigs can avail themselves of the farm’s spa for massages, pedicures and facials. “We put on quiet, relaxing music, and we have essential oils,” says Armstrong-Magidson. “We massage the oil in to loosen dirt on their backs. They love it.” The nonprofi t farm also offers behavior modifi cation therapies and a diet program for its more piggish long-term boarders.

Though they can get quite big, Armstrong-Magidson says, potbellies make great pets. They’re undemanding, easily trained and often completely devoted. This makes the rules of the relationship simple. “If you respect the pig,” she says, “the pig will respect you.”—BLYTHE COPELAND

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KEYSTONE, SOUTH DAKOTA

ROCK STAR Don “Nick” Clifford, the last living carver of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in Keystone, South Dakota, arrives at work around 8 a.m. and takes his seat in the gift shop. There the 90-yearold remains for the next 12 hours, until every last visitor’s question is answered and every autograph is signed. It would be a long day even for a young man—which he was when he started working here back in 1938.

Clifford was one of the last men hired to help create the Rushmore sculpture, which turns 70 this October. A Keystone native, he was 17 when he started on the mountain, though he had been trying to land a job there since he was 15. His break came when the son of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor behind Rushmore, decided to organize some of the workers into a baseball team. Clifford, an ace pitcher and outfi elder, signed on as a ringer for the Mount Rushmore Memorial Drillers. Then he pestered his teammates until they fi nally hired him.

Clifford started out being paid 50 cents an hour cutting logs for Borglum’s studio and cranking the winches in the winch house to raise and lower cables. He was promoted to driller, which earned him an extra dollar a day. He worked there for three years. “We knew that it was important when we were working on it,” he says, “but we had no idea how important.”

Sitting in the gift shop, Clifford shares his tales, which he wrote about in his memoir, Mount Rushmore Q and A. So what Q does he get the most? “They always ask, ‘Was it scary?’ I always tell them it wasn’t scary for me, but we did have men who couldn’t stand the height,” he says. “After one day of work they’d never come back.”

—JEANETTE HURT OKLAHOMA CITY Wave upon wave of torch-wielding Lips Service skeletons are marching through the darkened streets of Oklahoma City, their glow visible from a mile away. Sinister music blares from speakers mounted on small wagons pulled along by members of the playfully macabre procession. Following close behind is their leader, a lanky, suited fi gure with a wild shock of gray hair, rolling along inside a giant clear plastic ball, waving and grinning wickedly at the awestruck bystanders.

That man is 49-year-old Wayne Coyne, lead singer of the world-renowned rock band The Flaming Lips, and his highly regimented Armageddon procession is just one of dozens of entries in The Oklahoma Gazette’s annual “Ghouls Gone Wild Halloween Parade” in downtown Oklahoma City.

Coyne has been leading his “March of 1,000 Flaming Skeletons” since the inaugural parade in 2007, and in that time it’s become both a pilgrimage site for Flaming Lips fanatics from across the country and a glorious display of local pride by a band that got its start in the Sooner State. Since they formed in O.K.C. in 1983, the Lips, in all their exuberant weirdness, have helped soften their state’s no-nonsense cowboy reputation. The state, for its part, has responded with affection. “The Lips have been one of Oklahoma’s greatest artistic ambassadors,” says Nathan Poppe, clutching his torch; it’s his third parade. “They’ve traveled the world, collected all these pieces of weirdness from everywhere they’ve been, and decided to plant it all here.”—JOSHUA BOYDSTON

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BERLIN

WALL BALL Strolling through Mauer Park, a stretch of green space built in the footprint of the Berlin Wall, there are many things you expect to see: graffi ti artists practicing their trade on a remaining stretch of Communist-era concrete, for instance, or tourists quietly contemplating the weight of history. What you don’t expect is a mob of thousands of karaoke enthusiasts cheering and singing along to Ronan Keating’s “When You Say Nothing At All.”

And yet, there they are. Welcome to the Bearpit, a stone amphitheater set along a once-dangerous strip of the wall that now hosts the city’s massively popular Sunday afternoon karaoke party. Every week, up to 2,000 people of all ages come together here to perform rowdy renditions of everything from Elvis Presley to Puccini.

When Chris from Stuttgart fi nishes his take on the Keating tune, the MC, an Irish expat who goes by the name of Joe Hatchiban, whose mobile karaoke rig consists of a laptop and two speakers transported via bicycle, takes the mic. “Beautiful,” he opines, over the raucous applause. “Sung from the heart!”

In early 2009, Lennon started bringing karaoke to the people, biking around the city and setting up his equipment at different monuments. One day, a curious crowd formed in Mauer Park, and his act was on its way to becoming a Berlin institution. “It beats working in a call center,” Lennon says, waving a donation tin among the revelers. “And it’s a lot of fun.”

Lauren, an Australian, is sitting on one of the Bearpit’s granite seats. “It was moving to see the wall for the fi rst time, and kind of weird to see this huge celebration next to it,” she says. “It shows how the people and the city have

moved on.”—STUART BRAUN

CLERMONT-FERRAND, FRANCE In a discount supermarket in central France, a machine about the size of an industrial Pump It Up refrigerator with protruding pumps and tubes draws a crowd of puzzled shoppers. Standing before it, a middle-aged woman fi lls a plastic jug with a dark liquid. Numbers climb on a digital display. A bar code prints on a sticker. The onlookers whisper. Then they nod approvingly when they realize what it is they’re seeing. It’s a wine dispenser. The machine is called “La Cuve,” which harks back to the old days of France when people lugged empty bottles to purchase wine from a cuve à vin, or wine vat. It’s the brainchild of Astrid Terzian, a businesswoman who a few years back enlisted the help of automotive engineers to devise a way to provide cheap, tasty wine with a smaller carbon footprint. Eliminating the cost of bottling allows her to sell for less, she explains. Customers fi ll up reusable bottles for as little as $2 per liter.

“It’s an everyday wine,” Terzian says, noting that her target consumer is not looking for an exquisite vintage to store in a cellar. “People who buy this wine drink it immediately.”

In 2010, eight stores across France bought or rented one of these 500- or 1,000-liter vending pumps, which dispense red, white and rosé wines from multiple regions. Terzian is now in talks with investors interested in bringing La Cuve to Russia, Israel and the U.S.—the latter arguably the global epicenter of bulk buying.

As for the woman fi lling up her jug at the supermarket, it’s her fi rst time using La Cuve, but she’s sold. Apart from the convenience and low cost, she says, it’s easy to use. “Like a gasoline pump,” she says, grinning.—DEBORAH JIAN LEE