Notes From All Over

dispatches NOTES FROM ALL OVER

SANTIAGO, CHILE

IN A HOUSE ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF SANTIAGO, the music kicks

New Tricks in, and for the next three minutes Carrie and José Fuentes dance the cueca, Chile’s national dance. They circle each other, tap their feet to the beat, twirl and wave their handkerchiefs A DANCER’S UNLIKELY RISE TO FAME. in choreographed unison. It’s hardly an unusual scene in this ILLUSTRATIONS BY GRAHAM ROUMIEU country, except for one thing: Carrie is a golden retriever. Two years ago, one of José and Carrie’s elaborate dance routines—a merengue—was featured on Don Francisco Presenta, a Univision variety show. That seemed to be the extent of their fame, but then, this past September, the video suddenly went viral on the web. Fuentes woke up one day to fi nd his inbox full of emails from media outlets all over the world, including Late Night with David Letterman (they did the show in late September). So how do you teach a retriever to merengue? Easy, says Fuentes, a videographer with a background in education. When he brought Carrie home six years ago, he wanted to test the limits of canine intelligence. In no time, using little more than positive reinforcement, he had her turning on lights, closing doors and doing some limited dance moves, such as hopping and turning circles on her hind legs. By the time Carrie was two,

Fuentes realized that while she could learn just about anything, he was running out of ideas. “I mentioned to my ex-wife that I didn’t know what else to teach Carrie,” he says. “Knowing how much I love to dance, she suggested I put all the movements Carrie already knew together into a routine.” It took them about two years to get it down cold. And what does his ex-wife, or his children or neighbors for that matter, think about a man spending so much time teaching a dog to dance? “We gradually built up to this, so no one was really surprised by it. It’s not like she just started dancing out of the blue; people were already used to seeing her do other tricks,” he says. “It was a natural progression.”—EMILY WILLIAMS CORNEJO

dispatches

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

CREATURE FEATURE The jerboa, which looks like a fi eld mouse fi tted with big ears and two rabbit feet, is in need of a cleaning. Inside a small room at Harvard University, a caretaker delicately runs a brush over its fur, sucking off any dirt with a specially fi ltered vacuum. Then he breaks out the Windex and Q-Tips and gets to work on the eyes.

The cute biped, which likely passed away sometime in the late 19th century, is just one of many stuffed creatures currently being spruced up at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History. The museum may be part of one of the world’s dominant educational institutions, but it still proudly wears the safari hat of a Victorian-era preserve. From its collection of impossibly delicate glass fl owers to the now-extinct Tasmanian tiger, the place emits a distinct Teddy Roosevelt vibe, harkening to a time when the only way to see the world’s animals was if they were stuffed and mounted.

Executive Director Elisabeth Werby says she doesn’t want it to stop there, though. The museum is gradually undergoing a renovation that, she says, “keeps the nineteenth century feel with up-to-date research and interpretation.” The Great Mammal Hall, where you can see the animal with the world’s largest brain (the sperm whale) right next to the animal with the world’s longest neck (the giraffe), reopened last year following a major renovation. This fall, the renovated Africa wing opened, and that little jerboa now fi nds himself dwarfed by a hippo. “That sense of scale is something you can’t get from movies, or even an IMAX screen,” says Werby.

The change most immediately striking to longtime devotees of the museum, however, is the surprisingly fresh smell. A couple of years ago, they fi nally got rid of the mothballs. After all these decades, it seems, the place had been preserved enough.

—BILLY BAKER HURON, OHIO One golden morning on his Seed sprawling family farm in Huron, Money Ohio, Lee Jones—dressed in bib overalls and a bright red bow tie—is bantering about one of his favorite clients, Chicago-based celebrity chef Charlie Trotter. “Charlie called us and said, ‘I am so over-mescluned. Everybody in the world is doing mesclun now. I want something new. I want something so sexy it’s going to blow everybody away,’” Jones says.

Jones’ specialty is growing sexy stuff. His family’s farm, the 225-acre Chef’s Garden, is where master chefs go for rare or specially bred produce—like feathery chives with purple seed pods clinging to them like raindrops, or pink asparagus as slender as a blade of grass.

The Jones family ran a conventional farm until the 1980s, when rising interest rates and a devastating hailstorm forced them to scrap their old business plan and reinvent themselves. They established a complex of research greenhouses to experiment with heirloom seeds and pitched their unconventional produce to anyone who would listen. Soon enough, they were getting calls from the likes of Trotter and Alain Ducasse, both of whom requested charentais—an extra-sweet French melon—in the same year. To successfully grow the fruit, Jones’ harvesters had to remove all but one blossom on each plant by hand, so each melon would capture the entire plant’s sugar. It was worth the effort: The farm charged $65 a melon.

These days, Chef’s Garden grows 600 varieties of herbs, edible fl owers and other strange and beautiful items, and Jones has lost none of his enthusiasm for the business. “We do a cucumber that’s the size of a No. 2 pencil, with a blossom on it the size of a quarter,” he says. “Imagine a cucumber sorbet fi nished with a tiny cucumber and a yellow blossom on the end. How sexy is that?” —LAURA PUTRE

dispatches

BUDAPEST

TRAIN SET “Ladies and gentleman, the eleven o’clock train bound for Széchenyi-hegy will depart from Track One in ten minutes,” says the announcer at the Huvosvolgy train station, in a voice that is authoritative, if curiously high-pitched. Inside a small hall, passengers purchase fares from a bespectacled ticket seller whose head barely rises above the counter. They’re then directed to their seats by two diminutive individuals in matching navy blue uniforms and caps.

For a few moments, visitors could be forgiven for wondering if they have wandered into some kind of Eastern Bloc Lilliput. In reality, they’re boarding the Gyermekvasut: Budapest’s Children’s Railway.

Located high in the hills of the Hungarian capital, the 60-year-old, seven-mile Gyermekvasut is the largest scenic train line in the world operated almost entirely by children. Kids from 10 to 14 do (almost) all the jobs their adult counterparts would: conducting, granting engineers permission to start the trains, selling tickets, and pulling switches and signals. (Adults drive the trains, which can reach speeds of 12 miles per hour.)

Children’s railways were once commonplace in the Soviet Union. Leaders saw them as a good way to introduce youngsters to the world of work. There were 52 when the U.S.S.R. collapsed in the early 1990s; just a handful are still in operation. Competition to work on Budapest’s line is fi erce. Hundreds apply every year, and candidates must take a four-month course and pass a series of exams before they can join the crew. Over the course of its 45-minute journey, the trolley-size train travels past a lookout tower named after Austro-Hungarian Queen Consort Erzsebet and the ruins of a medieval monastery. “This has got to be the best toy train set in the world,” muses Hungarian passenger Csilla Botos near the end of the line. “Especially since it’s real.”

—SAM MARGOLIS

AMSTERDAM Henric Pomes, owner of the Anne Frank Tree, is sitting behind the desk in his real estate Family Tree offi ce in Amsterdam. Back in August, he was here when he received a call from his neighbor telling him that the historic chestnut tree in his backyard had fallen down. Pomes thought it was a joke. “It wasn’t even that windy!” he says. Planted in the mid-19th century, the tree was mentioned three times in Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl as a symbol of hope when she and her family were hiding from the Nazis in the back annex of a house at Prinsengracht 267. Pomes bought the house behind it in 1999. The fact that Anne Frank’s tree was in his new backyard had no bearing on his decision to buy it, he says, adding, “Actually, I don’t think the previous owner was even aware of the tree’s story.”

Few were. The tree became world news only in 2007 after a study showed that it was rotting and needed to be cut down. Advocacy groups and neighbors raised a cry and demanded a second opinion. In early 2008, it was agreed that the tree could survive another few years with the aid of a supporting steel structure. By then it had its own website, a webcam and countless celebrity endorsers. Its chestnuts were listed on eBay.

Over the last few years, the otherwise publicity-shy Pomes took a more active role in the tree’s preservation, feeling he needed “to protect it from any careless decisions.” After it fell, it was placed in a storage facility, and he is currently making arrangements to distribute parts of it to four major Jewish museums around the world. If there is anything left, he may give it to a handful of artists. Meanwhile, on the jagged stump in Pomes’ backyard, a sprout has recently appeared. The story continues…–STEVE KORVER

DISCOVER

THE TAHITIAN PEARL

Its coat reflects the glittering lagoons of the atolls of French Polynesia; its shape and curves express the sensuality of the female form. Born from the South Seas, the Tahitian pearl has all the colors, the charms, the shapes and hues that you can dream of.

A symbol of purity and elegance, it captivates anyone who sets eyes on it. And it is easy to fall under its spell… but sometimes difficult to choose a favorite. To select your pearl, listen to your heart. And if you still have a doubt, criteria such as size, shape, surface, radiance or color will help you make your choice.

COLOR

Although they are commonly called black pearls, Tahitian pearls offer a wide range of colors. In their natural state they show a palette of infinite, unique shades : cherry, cream, peacock, green, blue, gray, white… Choice in this matter is above all a matter of personal taste !

SHAPE

Tahitian pearls exhibit a great number of shapes, usually divided in five categories : round/ semi-round, oval/button, drop, circled, semibaroque and baroque. While round pearls have long been buyers’ favorites, other categories attract more and more designers who draw their inspiration from the pearls’ original yet natural shapes, to create unique pieces of jewelry.

SURFACE QUALITY

The surface quality of a Tahitian pearl is appreciated by the naked eye. As any natural product, some pearls may show some surface imperfections.

THERE ARE FIVE PEARL CATEGORIES :

• TOP GEM category : Perfect quality, no defects • Category A : Tiny, almost invisible blemishes • Category B : Very light imperfections. • Category C : Marks on less than 2/3 of the surface • Catégorie D : Relatively important marks

SIZE

The pearl of Tahiti is generally between 8 and 14mm. Very exceptionally, some pearls exceed 18mm, and are considered extremely rare treasures.

RADIANCE

The radiance of a pearl is made of its luster and its orient. The luster, or shine, is determined by the degree of light reflection on the pearl’s surface. Beautiful luster means that light is totally reflected, resulting in a mirror effect. The weaker the luster, the duller the effect. The orient determines the iridescence of the pearl, which comes from the decomposition of light through the layers of nacre. Beautiful orient results in a soft rainbow effect, similar to what is seen on soap bubbles.

PEARL VALUATION

In general, the bigger the pearl’s diameter and the rounder its shape, the higher its value. This rule doesn’t always strictly apply.

The value of a large, lower quality pearl may be less than the value of a smaller, blemishfree pearl. However, the color and radiance criteria that are specific to the pearl of Tahiti remain the most decisive for experts.

TAKING CARE OF YOUR PEARL

Once removed from its shell, the Tahitian pearl requires tender loving care. The pearl of Tahiti is a gem that rehydrates on skin contact, so wearing it often is essential.

Any acid aggression can be fatal. Its main enemies are chlorinated water, perfume or hairspray… The Tahiti pearl should be wiped regularly with a soft cloth.