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Notes From All Over A lonely
dispatches NOTES FROM ALL OVER
At Large Devon, England ONE WINTER MORNING, a hiker in the southwest of England following the peaceful River Tamar came upon a tree stump bearing huge toothmarks, as A GIANT BEAVER IS ON THE LOOSE IN GREAT BRITAIN. though someone with an adz had scooped the wood out of it. Farther along the path, he found a stand of ILLUSTRATIONS BY GRAHAM ROUMIEU trees with chunks of bark stripped away. “I thought it was a crazed lumberjack,” the hiker, a local man, says. “It looked mechanical.” After some investigation, it was discovered that the “lumberjack” was a 95-pound male beaver, which is strange for two reasons. First, although the toothy rodents were once hunted in England for their meat, soft undercoat and scent glands, they disappeared from the isles more than 400 years ago. Second, that’s one big beaver. So how did it end up here, on the Tamar? And how did it become the size of a St. Bernard? Enter an environmentalist named Derek Gow, one of just a handful of licensed owners of European beaver in England. For years, Gow had kept three of them in a fi eld enclosed by an electric fence, but as Dewsnap soon learned, after a rainstorm shorted out the fence in the fall of 2008, all three of them escaped. Within days Gow had caught two, but the third beaver—the behemoth—remained at large, so to speak. The big beaver’s escape created an overnight sensation throughout the hinterlands of Devon. Residents were worried that he was dangerous, that he’d lay waste to groves of trees. Gow has tracked the beaver as he’s traveled to the River Tavy, near Tavistock, 15 miles from his original base. “He’s tough, but he’s harmless,” says Gow. “Just doing what beavers do: living off wild herbs and grasses. I’ll get him. Don’t you worry about that.” —ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG HALL
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Istanbul
CRAZY HEART On the mezzanine fl oor of an upscale shopping mall in Istanbul, a number of objects displayed atop boxy white platforms are tugging at the emotions of passersby. There’s a pair of pink fuzzy handcuff s, an old Nokia cell phone, and an unopened bottle of Pommery champagne. On the surface, they are seemingly random artifacts of contemporary life. A closer inspection reveals something powerful linking them: They are all the unwanted souvenirs of love gone bad. The champagne, for example, as we’re told by an accompanying text, was meant to be opened on a one-year anniversary. Instead, its contents have gone fl at—much like the relationship it was meant to celebrate.
The Museum of Broken Relationships is a traveling exhibit of the detritus that remains when lovers part ways. For the donors—an assortment of lonely hearts from all corners of the world—these items are too painful to keep, but they’re too valuable to just toss into the garbage.
“When they give us their objects and their stories, they kind of let it go,” says Croatian artist Olinka Vistica, who founded the museum with her exboyfriend Drazen Grubisic, who’s also an artist. “And because they are exhibited with other peoples’ stories, they feel like, ‘Okay, I’m not alone.’ There’s also a positive feeling from knowing other people are going to get well through your story.
Like a lover’s wandering eye, the Museum of Broken Relationships will travel: This spring it stops in Bloomington, Indiana, and St. Louis.
—JORDAN HELLER Kiruna, Sweden The 24,000 residents of Moving Day Kiruna—the northernmost city in Sweden and home to both a booming iron ore industry and the annually rebuilt Ice Hotel— are a pretty laid back sort. In fact, they’ve always called themselves the “No-Problem People,” which may seem a little ironic, because they actually have a pretty darn big problem: The earth beneath the village is crisscrossed by mineshafts that have recently become unstable. The townspeople are still calmly going about their business, though—much of which now involves picking up and moving the town three miles.
Scientists from the national mining company, Luossavaara-Kirunavaara AB (LKAB), fi rst discovered there was a problem in 2004, when they informed Vice Mayor Hans Swedell that cracks were forming in a mineshaft some 2,000 feet beneath the town. “They said that the ground could collapse very soon,” Swedell says. For local offi cials, it wasn’t much of a decision: They had to move Kiruna.
This is no minor undertaking: Railroads, streets, water, sewage, electricity, power, telecommunications, schools and hospitals are being relaid and rebuilt, while most of the homes, including classic Falu red cottages, will be uprooted whole and trucked to new locations. Larger buildings, such as the iconic NeoGothic wooden church, Kiruna Kyrka, and the city hall, will have to be transported in pieces.
“There are only a few of the larger buildings that actually will be moved,” says Anders Enquist, a technical director with WSP Construction Design, which has been contracted to assist. Others will simply be rebuilt from scratch. LKAB is picking up the tab, which is said to be more than $1 billion. (The Ice Hotel will likely move as well.)
The residents are taking it in stride. Most are miners, and they have reaped the economic benefi ts of the iron ore for generations. “This is no problem,” says Swedell. “We’re the No-Problem People, haven’t you
Pittsburgh
CODE OF HONOR It sounds a little like rain, the endless clatter of keystrokes coming from a conference room at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center. Inside, 16 game developers stare at their computer screens, trying to create the next Tetris or Space Invaders— and to do it in just 48 hours. Soda, coff ee and fruit are within easy reach.
These game-design afi cionados—most of them male and college-age and older—are among the 4,333 developers assembled in a slew of locations from Denmark to India for the second annual Global Game Jam, an event organized by the International Game Developers Association during which designers, programmers and artists team up to build new video games in caff einated marathon sessions. This year, 929 games are being created, an increase of almost 250 percent over last year. (Among the favorites: Mr. Mask, Punk Skunk and Kawaii Maximum Overkill, all of which can be downloaded for free at globalgamejam.org.)
With blockbusters like Halo 3 costing an estimated $30 million to produce, publishers aren’t keen on taking big risks, so the Game Jam fi lls an important role as a breeding ground for new ideas. “No toy company is paying you to do what you do, so you’re not beholden to other people,” explains 30-year-old Rob Gordon, game designer for Ship Sweepers of Spain. “It’s just you and your teammates.”
Though operating on just an hour of sleep, 22-yearold Tedo Salim is avidly tweaking the code for One Ninja. “At, like, two or three a.m., you get that feeling in your stomach when your body thinks you should be sleeping,” he says, “yet you still just code away!”
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—CARREN JAO
Hyde Park, New York Hundreds of avid supporters are packed into viewing galleries above the test Captain Cook kitchens at The Culinary Institute of America. As AC/DC’s “Back in Black” blares from the loudspeakers, 12 competing chefs toil below. The atmosphere is tense but jubilant, with sections of the crowd chanting the names of the competitors. Suddenly, Top Chef Season 3 winner Hung Huynh enters the gallery, and spectators swarm him with camera phones. This isn’t Top Chef or The Iron Chef or any sort of TV show, but the qualifying round of the contest that inspired them both: the Bocuse d’Or World Culinary Competition, the Olympic Games of upscale cookery, which will take place next January in Lyon, France. The judges are a panel of gastronomic luminaries including Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller and Jerome Bocuse (scion of the contest’s namesake), and they sit before an electrifi ed throng of white-jacketed culinary students and laymen foodies, some of whom are pounding ladles against pots in displays of competitive exuberance. Here’s how it works: The 12 fi nalists have fi ve and a half hours to prepare a salmon and a lamb dish with accompanying garnishes. The judges scrutinize each chef for technique and temperament. In the end, James Kent of Manhattan’s Eleven Madison Park wins the day with his bacon-wrapped lamb saddle with piquillo peppers and Provençal herbs. Although the onlookers don’t actually get to sample the dish, it’s a feast for the eyes. “Taste, of course, is very important,” says Kent, wiping his hands on an apron afterward. “But the platters must be visually stunning to be able to compete and win in Lyon.” One result of his victory is that he will train under Keller and Boulud. It’s a long road to France. “I know we have a hard slog ahead of us,” he says. “But with the right training regimen, and enough supporters, I’ll reach the podium in Lyon.”—MATT BERKMAN
Kledonia, Epirus
DISCOVER THE BEAUTY
Touring Greece is a unique journey full of adventures and knowledge. A road where the quintessence of adventure lies within the exploration, where the evergreen vista of imposing mountains blends harmonically with the vast, deep blue seas, to portray the versatile mosaic, Greece. Challenges vary. Ascending on green mountains, exploring the sublime caves, sailing the historic greek seas with their friendly harbours and the indigo beaches, descending frozen rivers… Even greater knowledge is gained through encountering regional fauna and visiting precious biotopes and national eco-parks, as well as traditional settlements that conceal a long-lived history and a profound continuation of old greek morals and customs. Vivid colours and breathtaking images accompany every journey, whilst sounds and fragrances conveying Greece, stay in the memory for ever…. How can one resist the magic of a crimson sun-setting sky, when the sun dives into the emerald sea of the mysterious hazy atmosphere that dominates at sunrise on a steep frozen greek mountain peak? The scent of pine-trees, olives and oaks, the upstanding flying of seagulls, the gurgle of ice-cold water from the wellsprings of a mountain village and the odor of home-made, traditional pies stimulate all senses. Touring Greece from North to South, milestones are set by emotion-stirring locations, thrilling landscapes and ecosystems, rending the entire trip unforgettable. Modern Greece invites travelers to challenge themselves and experience all it has to offer with a single goal in mind: tour around each and every site and fall in love with its unmatched natural beauty.
Mani area Alfeios river
Parga
Ministry of Culture and Tourism l Greek National Tourism Organization www.visitgreece.gr
