Superman

December – January 2007/2008 ISSN 1750-3272 www.avantoure.com $5.00 | £2.50 | €3.50

JACKPOT

The Death of Superman ADRENALINE RAINBOW

Travelling Faster than a Bullet

To the Glory of Men and Gods Everyone a Star Taking Life as an Obstacle Course Macho Men: What's the allure?

…

14

avantoure | calendar

15

avantoure | calendar

4

6 AVANTOURE TEAM LETTER

38

by Mark Macias A case of Siegel vs. Time Warner Inc that might cause Superman’s death.

8 OUR CONTRIBUTORS 12 CALENDAR

42

JACKPOT 16

22

To the Glory of Men and Gods

by Andrei Polonsky A history of Olympus and triumph over physical constraints

28

A Real-life Superman

by Denae D’Arcy An interview with Ben Saunders, an explorer who undertakes solo expeditions to North Pole.

TROPHIES 34

A Memo to Q…

by Noah Davis A list of essential gadgets for a digital era.

Avantourist Accessories A themed collection of ‘superhero’ objects.

Thus spoke Nietzsche…

by Dmitriy Blazhenov Frederic Nietzsche and his superhuman theory.

The Death of Superman

ANTHOLOGY OF TEMPTATION 48

Macho Men: What's the allure?

by Mark Macias

52

Come Fly with Me A visualized romantic thriller.

SCHOOL OF TRICKERY 68

Taking Life as an Obstacle Course

by Alexei Iakovlev A look at a new worldwide movement – parkour.

ADRENALINE RAINBOW 74

Travelling Faster than a Bullet

by Mark Macias MiG flying in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.

80

Exploring the Depths of a Killer Volcano

by Denae D’Arcy Viewing the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica.

86

Dune Bashing in Dubai

by Lucy Rohr

HOMO LUDENS 90

Video Games

by Noah Davis A review of top eight video games that you must not miss.

96

Everyone a Star

by Rania Haditirto A look at the internet that revolutionizing notions of celebrity and fame.

100 BEHIND THE SCENES

avantoure | contents

5

Dune Bashing in Dubai

86

Taking Life as an Obstacle Course

68

Video Games – Project Gotham Racing 4

A Real-life Superman

28

90 avantoure | contents

6

PERPETUAL CHALLENGE Our existence is a perpetual challenge: if you do not want to be a slave of fear, of circumstances, of time, of pain – you must strive.

Every one of us inwardly yearns for Olympus.

But to win the game and be crowned a Superhuman you must transcend your limits and triumph over physical and mental constraints. On your way to Olympus you must learn to endure pain and create your own path through an over-determined world.

And when you finally reach your Olympus, cry out like Frederick Nietzsche:

So that was life, was it? Well, then! Again please!

Long live restless spirits and heroic exploits!

PS. We have recently distributed a questionnaire to all Avantoure readers. If you have not yet had time to fill it in, please do so. Your replies will help us enormously!

Thank you!

Serafima Bogomolova Publisher

avantoure | editor note

8

Ivan Listo Our Art Director Ivan is a keen traveller who indulges in beautifully designed things. He believes that the essence of any design is communication. By scrutinizing the world he finds new ways of communicating through typography and graphic design. The ethos of his work is very much about understated elegance and simple chic.

Lucy Rohr Originally from Sydney, Lucy moved to London three years ago for the city's laid back lifestyle and weather. Undeterred when she found neither, she turned her hand to further study and the search for the ultimate London coffee experience. An incurable fantasist, she currently works as a shadow writer for Britney Spears. For avantoure Lucy zigzagged Dubai desert for Dune Bashing in Dubai article.

Noah Davis Noah is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, who writes for Penthouse, Time Out New York, PopMatters.com and Mediabisto.com.

In his spare time he enjoys giving running tours of the city, playing basketball with local kids and searching for the next great idea for a story. In this issue of avantoure Noah rated video games and collected a list of cool gadgets that you can’t do without.

Nina Iskandaryan Head of Curriculum at the Caucasus Media Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, Nina supervises and teaches English and Russian courses, and freelances as an interpreter and translator. For this issue she has translated To the Glory of Men and Gods and Taking Life as an Obstacle Course from Russian.

Scotty Gerber Scotty Gerber is a commercial pilot who loves to fly aerobatic and antique airplanes. He was happy to fly his 1946 Piper Cub plane for our Come Fly with Me photo session. Scott shares this airplane with several friends and flies it in a local air show every year.

He also co-owns an Extra 300 aerobatic plane (on the bio picture) and flies it in aerobatic competitions in the US and Britain.

Mark Macias Mark is a television producer living in Manhattan, who loves to travel the world. Before moving to New York, he worked as a reporter for The Arizona Republic and State Press Magazine in Arizona.

For our current issue of avantoure Mark wrote Faster than a Bullet, Macho Men: What's the allure? and The Death of Superman.

avantoure | contributors

9

Andrei Polonsky Our Contributing Feature Editor in Moscow, Andrei is a gambler, a hedonist and a risk-taker on extraordinary geographical and metaphysical journeys. He is the author of hundreds of articles, a series of poetry books and essays on Russian history – a descendant of Russian aristocrats and a true intellectual.

Rania Haditirto Since moving to New York to pursue her career as a modern dancer, Rania has worked at Elle, WNET Channel Thirteen, and as a freelance photographer. She loves outdoor sports and travel, and plays bass in a rock band. Rania is our Contributing Feature Editor, and wrote Everyone a Star for this issue.

Denae D’Arcy A travel journalist who lives in London, Denae has been on assignments to Portugal, Germany, Denmark, Italy, France, South Africa and the United States. She previously worked as a news reporter for CNN, CBS, ABC and The Weather Channel. For avantoure Denae has written Exploring the Depths of a Killer Volcano and A Real-life Superman. www.blondacrossthepond.blogspot.com

David Matthew Walters David is a native New Yorker. Since the age of 21, when he first enrolled as a frequent flyer, David has been on many trips from his Brooklyn studio: New Delhi, San Juan, Malaga, Los Angeles and many other places in between.

Doing the photo session for December – January issue of avantoure in Long Island helped him to put things in perspective. This time, instead of him traveling to the location, the location traveled to him. www.dmwphoto.com

Cinzia Cecere After studying media and illustration at the London College of Communications, Cinzia returned to live and work in Italy.

She passionately believes that dreams come true if you wish hard enough. She created the illustrations for our accessories pages.

Henry Thompson After studies at Oxford and postgraduate research in Moscow, Henry taught Russian and French at Winchester College and worked as a translator with the Human Rights Division of UNHCR in Geneva. He is currently involved with Downside Up, an Anglo-Russian charity which looks after 600 children with Down's Syndrome in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia. For this issue of avantoure Henry has translated Thus Spoke Nietzsche article…

avantoure | contributors

10

AVANTOURE Life is a game

Editorial

December – January 2007/2008

editor@avantoure.com

Publisher and Founder

Advertising

Serafima Bogomolova

ads@avantoure.com

CEO and Co-Founder

Marketing and Sponsorship

Ilkka Huotelin

publisher@avantoure.com

Contributing Feature Editor, New York

Subscriptions

Rania Haditirto

subscriptions@avantoure.com

Contributing Feature Editor, London

Cover

Denae D’Arcy

Illustration by Ivan Listo

Contributing Feature Editors, Moscow

Published by Avantoure UK Ltd. (Reg. No 5670709), Cregmalin, Mount Ararat

Andrei Polonsky and Alexei Yakovlev

Road, Richmond, Surrey TW10 6PA UK Tel: +44(0)208 940 71 57 info@avantoure.com

Copy Editor Daniel Richardson

www.avantoure.com

Art Direct

ISSN 1750-3272

Ivan Listo

Digital format supported by Zinio Systems Inc., 139 Townsend Street, Suite 300

Multimedia Design

San Francisco, California 94107 Te: +1415-494-2700 www.zinio.com

Kirill Petrov (www.pkdesign.spb.ru) Photographer David Matthew Walters (www.dmwphoto.com)

AVANTOURE magazine is published 6 times a year. Reproduction in whole or in part is not permitted without the written authorisation of the publisher. Editorial opinions expressed in

Illustrations

this magazine are not necessarily those of the publisher.

Cinzia Cecere

AVANTOURE magazine does not accept responsibility for the advertising content.

The publisher and the authors do not accept any liability whatsoever in respect of any action

Contributing Writers Denae D’Arcy, Mark M. Macias, Andrey Polonsky, Lucy Rohr, Alexei Iakovlev, Rania Haditirto, Dmitry Blazenov, Noah Davis.

Translation from Russian into English Nina Iskandaryan and Henry Thompson Financial controller John M. Cade

avantoure | company info

taken by readers on the recommendations set out in this magazine.

calendar

12

December 14, London – UK

CHRISTMAS FOLKLORE WALK Enjoy the spirit of Christmas in Hyde Park, exploring the history of English Christmas folklore and learning how Royal Parks have entertained Londoners during winters past on a free guided walk. The meeting point is revealed once the booking is conďŹ rmed. Be sure to dress warmly. www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde_park/event.cfm?id=853

avantoure | calendar

13

December 26 and on January 1, Bahamas

JUKANOO Celebrate New Year’s with a Junkanoo in the Bahamas. The festival has a real Afro-Caribbean flavour, with a parade of floats and costumed revelers grooving to the rhythm of goatskin drums, whistles and bells. The event takes place on Bay Street on Nassau Island from 2am to 8am. www.bahamasnet.com/w.unkhome.html

January 5, Queensland – Australia

SUMMADAYZE Rather than joining a gym as your New Year’s resolution, dance your Christmas calories away at Summadayze on Queensland’s Gold Coast The event takes place in Doug Jennings Park from noon to midnight, and combines the best elements of Melbourne’s legendary Summadayze and Sydney’s renowned Field Day dance parties. www.futureentertainment.com.au/Events/ summadayze2008/sd_homepage_2008_ webpage.html

avantoure | calendar

calendar

14

February 1 and 14, Bulgaria

TRIFON ZAREZAN St Trifon is the patron saint of wine and this festival dates back to the time of the ancient Thracians. Wine-makers day salute St Trifon with a ritualistic pruning of the vines ceremony; the man deemed to have grown the most grapes that year is crowned King and he and his subjects must get drunk to ensure a plentiful harvest next year. The festival takes place on February 1 or 14, depending on the locality. www.worldeventsguide.com/event.ehtml?o=2919

avantoure | calendar

15

February 2, Arizona – USA

TASTE OF THE NFL Get a taste of American Football at this foodie event in Arizona. Each year during the championship game festivities, groups buy tickets to dine with other National Football League fans. The event pairs an outstanding chef from each NFL city with a player or former player to produce a feast, so guests can taste the best from restaurants from Jacksonville to New York City, while collecting player’s autographs.

The feast runs from 7pm to 11.30pm, with entertainment until late. www.tasteofthenfl.com

February 1, Kansas – USA

SUPERBULL As its name suggests, Superbull is an event where riders compete to master a 2000 pound bull.

The top bull-riders in the US travel to Kansas City’s American Royal Center to compete for cash prizes and a gleaming belt buckle, by staying on the bull for a full eight seconds. Judges award marks based on the rider’s display of skill against the bull’s resistance. www.americanroyal.com

avantoure | calendar

16

thus spoke Nietzsche…

by Dmitriy Blazhenov translated by Henry Thompson

An insurmountable barrier separates the master race from the race of slaves. The laws of Manu even forbid a Chandala to drink water from the same well as his master: he must make do with a muddy puddle, with scraps from the rich man’s table. Indians completely understood this, while Europeans forgot it. The master is obsessed with the quest for knowledge and power; he transforms and shapes his existence in accordance with his own understanding of it.

The slave has just one role: unquestioning obedience.

Two races exist on Earth. The first are almost animals, fit to be kept in a zoo. And the others? No, and no again. Of course, they are not the bosses of today – civil servants, industrialists, society buffoons – but true aristocrats of the spirit who know the meaning of the circular movement of time. They are beyond our comprehension, even my comprehension…

This is no longer the realm of philosophy, but of prophecy.

I don’t want to debate the matter – that would be absurd; I am called to prophesy about the Superman…

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

avantoure | jackpot

17

In the winter of 1882, a prematurely aged man sat in a dingy room in a Ligurian boarding house, rocking to and fro as he gazed through thick spectacles at a manuscript. He had spent the last ten days writing it, hardly leaving his room except to dine. Only work distracted him from the stabbing pain in his head, which denied him sleep, despite doses of morphine, veronal or tincture of hemp…

At dinner, this eccentric retired professor sat with his landlady and fellow-lodgers, a Jewish family from Hamburg. He assured them that soon his books would be famed throughout the civilised world. The Jewish watchmaker had read some Spinoza, so he smiled condescendingly; his daughters giggled at the bombastic old man with long, bushy moustaches like Frederick the Great.

Yet it was Friedrich Nietzsche who would be proved right after he was dead. His name would indeed become famous, and his ideas influential in a way that might have thrilled or appalled him. Like Machiavelli, his name has become synonymous with amorality and tyranny – yet others herald him as one of the greatest philosophers or libertarians of all time…

So who was Nietzsche?

He was born into a Protestant pastor’s family in the Saxon town of Röcken on October 15, 1844. Since this coincided with the name-day of Prussia’s king Friedrich Wilhelm IV, he was christened accordingly. The pastor had served at court before illness compelled him to rusticate, and his son was the repository of all his hopes. Though the pastor died five years later, his widow Franziska succeeded in giving her firstborn son a fitting education. She appreciated his sensitive, restless spirit, though she never shared his intellectual interests. He displayed literary and musical talent, composing poetry, sonatas and chorales and writing his autobiography by the age of twelve.

At the same age, he began to have the

Not one of his contemporaries understood Zarathustra – the magnum opus that reflected his entire inner world and existential credo. Yet only a few decades later it would be seen as the seminal expression of the zeitgeist of the twentieth century, and form the philosophical foundation-stone of Nazi tyranny. migraine headaches which were to torment him all his life.

Immersed in high culture and his own imagination, Nietzsche always felt alienated from his peers. They cared nothing for Homer or Aeschylus, or dreams of heroic exploits, only for news or gossip. One episode from his schooldays encapsulates Nietzsche’s attitude to the quotidian view, and his own exceptionality. When his classmates scoffed at the story of the ancient Roman hero Gaius Mucius Scaevola – refusing to believe that anyone would have the courage to thrust his hand into a fire – Nietzsche took a burning coal from the stove and laid it on the palm of his hand to prove them wrong.

For Nietzsche, the burning question was: “Ist die Veredlung möglich?” – Is it possible to make people noble?

After finishing school in 1864 he attended lectures on philology and theology in Bonn, where he lost his faith in Christianity. Thereafter he concentrated on classical philology and moved to the University of Leipzig, where he fell under the spell of Schopenhauer and had a series of articles on Diogenes Laertius published

in the Rheinische Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift.

In 1867, Nietzsche volunteered for a Prussian artillery regiment – a quixotic decision that was almost immediately frustrated by a riding accident that left him unfit for military service. Thanks to his professor at Leipzig, Nietzsche was offered a professorship of classical philology at Basel University, before even obtaining a doctorate or teaching certificate.

Everyone predicted a brilliant future for him and students flocked to his lectures. Yet Nietzsche could not resist a final attempt to win martial glory.

Although he had renounced his Prussian citizenship after moving to Basel (and remained stateless for the rest of his life), he still managed to serve as a medical orderly during the Franco-Prussian War – if only for a week – witnessed blood and suffering, and himself nearly died of dysentery and diphtheria. Some biographers believe that he also caught syphilis – perhaps the cause of his later insanity.

Yet Nietzsche was convinced of the healing, transforming nature of war.

“Love peace as a means leading

avantoure | jackpot

18

avantoure | jackpot

19

towards new wars. Moreover, a short peace is better than a long one. They say that a good cause hallows any war. But I tell you that a good war hallows any cause. You ask me ‘What is virtue?’

Virtue is bravery.” So Nietzsche wrote in his first major work, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music (1872), which he dedicated to Richard Wagner. Its theme was the dichotomy between the rational Apollonian basis of European culture and Dionysian revelry, and a great devastation to come…

While Wagner greeted it with enthusiasm, Nietzsche’s colleagues and students were irritated or baffled by its pathos and arrogant tone; one professor wrote a critique which made the book notorious in philological circles. In response Nietzsche snapped: “Philology is the aborted foetus of the goddess Philosophy, conceived with a cretin.

The goal of Science is to annihilate the world. Science has demolished Art.” Reflecting on The Birth of Tragedy, he formulated the existential paradox, “The stronger man’s will to live, the more terrible is his fear of death.”

His circle of friends and interlocutors shrank as he came into conflict with his professional milieu: once he had quarrelled with someone he never sought reconciliation. Eventually he even fell out with Wagner and his wife

Cosima, who had defended Nietzsche against all others.

In Human, All-too-Human (published in 1878), Nietzsche berated everything that was dear to them – Schopenhauer, German Romanticism and national mythology – and Wagner replied with sarcastic ridicule. Some discern a personal motive for this rupture – namely that Nietzsche fell for Cosima, who condescendingly regarded him as a mere eulogist of her husband’s genius – while Wagner himself disparaged Nietzsche’s attempts at musical composition, telling him to stick to philology…

In 1882, Nietzsche fell in love with Lou von Salomé, a St Petersburg-born beauty who also captivated his friend and fellow philosopher, Paul Rée. Each promised her his hand but she rejected them both, instead proposing a ménage à trois, exclusively for “the study of the natural sciences and of philosophical investigations.” Mad with jealousy, Nietzsche again proposed and was again rejected. His sister, Elizabeth, was appalled by von Salomé’s “complete amorality” and did her best to end their relationship.

Afterwards, Nietzsche was to say: “If I’d been God, I would have created Lou von Salomé differently.” As his thwarted efforts to pursue a military career had given rise to a fervent passion for war, so his rejection by von Salomé inspired Nietzsche to embrace sexual chauvinism, in the infamous words of his alter-ego Zarathustra: “When you go to a woman, don’t forget your whip.”

How different this was from Nietzsche’s own weakness and frailty…

Each personal defeat was accompanied by crippling illness. In one year alone he suffered 118 attacks of migraine, semi-blindness or violent stomach attacks. If this wasn’t enough, there was the example of his father, who died in his early thirties, completely insane. As Nietzsche wrote to one of his few constant correspondents, Franz Overbeck: “A decade of illness, more than a decade, and not just the sort of illness to which doctors and medicines owe their existence. Does anybody really know what has made me ill, what has kept me for years near to death and craving for death? I don’t think so. With the exception of Richard Wagner, no one has yet come to meet me with a scintilla

His name would indeed become famous, and his ideas influential in a way that might have thrilled or appalled him. Like Machiavelli, his name has become synonymous with amorality and tyranny – yet others herald him as one of the greatest philosophers or libertarians of all time… avantoure | jackpot

20

Immersed in high culture and his own imagination, Nietzsche always felt alienated from his peers. They cared nothing for Homer or Aeschylus, or dreams of heroic exploits, only for news or gossip.

of passion or suffering, in order to find a common language with me; thus even as a boy I was alone, and at forty-four I’m still alone. This terrible decade that now lies behind me has given me ample opportunity to taste what it is like to be so very much alone, so isolated; to taste the solitude of the sufferer who lacks even the wherewithal to resist or defend himself.”

Since 1879 – when he quit his chair at Basel – Nietzsche had been a wanderer, eking out a peripatetic existence from Swiss boarding houses to Italian ones, from one friend’s house to another’s, from his younger sister (who learnt by heart every word he had written without understanding any of his ideas), to his mother (who loved him as he was but still didn’t understand him).

In these years he wrote his greatest books, each of which alienated him more and more. “I have inhaled the spirit of Europe – now I want to mount a counterattack.” The four parts of Thus Spoke Zarathustra were published between 1883 and 1885. The first was dashed off after fleeing from his family and von Salomé, in a near-suicidal frenzy. The final part was published at his own expense, in an edition of only forty copies, of which he gave seven away, having no one else to give one to…

Not one of his contemporaries understood Zarathustra – the magnum

avantoure | jackpot

opus that reflected his entire inner world and existential credo. Yet only a few decades later it would be seen as the seminal expression of the zeitgeist of the twentieth century, and form the philosophical foundation-stone of Nazi tyranny.

In an idealized premonition of Hitler’s harangues about the Übermensch, Zarathustra addresses a crowd in a market-place, waiting for a rope-dancer to appear: I will teach you about the Superman. Man is something that must be overcome. What have you done towards this? All creatures always create something higher than themselves. And you – do you want to ebb amidst this flow? What is an ape, compared to Man? – shameful, piteous, misshapen. And Man, compared to Superman, is every

21

bit as shameful, as piteous, as misshapen. You have come a long way from worm to Man, but you still have too much of the worm about you. Once upon a time you were apes – and see how much of the ape you have still within you…

The Superman is the meaning of the Earth. Just let your will say it, and Superman will be the meaning of the Earth. In truth, Man is a muddy stream.

It is necessary to be the sea in order to absorb the muddy stream and yet remain clean. Behold, I am teaching you about the Superman – he is that sea, in which your great contempt is drowning.

Not your sins, but your arrogance cries out to the heavens: the nothingness of your sins cries out to the heavens! But where is the lightning that will lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness with which you must be inoculated?

Behold, I am teaching you about the Superman: he is that lightning, he is that madness!

While Zarathustra spoke thus, someone shouted from the crowd: “We have heard a lot about the rope-dancer – let us see him!”

And everyone began to laugh at Zarathustra…

The years that followed were the most terrible in Nietzsche’s life. He had said all that he needed to say, but no one wanted to listen to him. His writings became an anguished cry, verging on insanity. “In a state of rapture I observe the miracles that blossom under the sun’s burning rays: tigers, palm trees, rattlesnakes… In actual fact even evil has its future, and the hottest southern climes are not yet open to mankind…

One day huge dragons will appear on earth… Your soul is so far from understanding greatness that the Superman with his kindness will frighten you…”

In Beyond Good and Evil he paraphrased the Apostle Paul: “Nothing is true, everything is permitted”. In Ecce Homo he asked rhetorically, “Why is Friedrich Nietzsche so wise? Why is

Friedrich Nietzsche so clever? Why has Friedrich Nietzsche written such good books?” But his few readers only shrugged or laughed...

New Year 1889 found Nietzsche in Turin, where he visited the library to read books that he couldn’t afford, and spent evenings improvising on the piano in his boarding house. On January 3, he went out for a walk and saw a coachman brutally beating an old horse on the verge of collapse. Nietzsche tried to intervene – and at that moment suffered an apoplectic stroke.

In the days that followed his friends received strange postcards. Nietzsche compared himself to a satyr, to the sun at midnight, to an androgynous deity from ancient cults. To Cosima Wagner he wrote: “Cosima, I love you. Friedrich Nietzsche.” To his pupil Peter Gast: “To my maestro Pietro. Sing me a new song. The world is bright and the heavens rejoice. Crucified.” Nietzsche spent the next decade moving from one clinic to another. He never fully recovered his sanity, but never lost touch with music, improvising on the piano through long nights, making strange, disturbing sounds…

According to Nietzsche, the process of thinking, of philosophical questioning, is characteristic of people only when they are ill, or suffer, or are conscious of being close to death. Life is transient, existence a perpetual challenge. This is true for all creatures – human or beast, irrespective of good or evil. If you don’t want to be a slave – of fate, of circumstances, of time, of pain or joy – you need to strive. Though stumbling and falling, you must move ahead…

And at the final moment of your earthly existence you should cry out, as he did: “So that was life, was it? Well, then!

Again, please!”

COMMENT REC TO A FRIEND

avantoure | jackpot

22

To the

ME

by Andrei Polonsky

translated by Nina Iskandarian

avantoure | jackpot

23

e glory of

MEN&GODS In August 2008, the 29th Olympic Games of modern times will open in Beijing.

The great tradition born in ancient Greece and revived in the 1890s by Pierre de Coubertin has long transcended the Old World. Beijing will see athletes from countries where Apollo and Artemis were unknown, sharing the desire to test the limits of human vigour, surpass their rivals and be acclaimed as Olympic champions.

The modern world has ancient Greek paganism to thank for the idea of

a sports competition. While in our society, top sportsmen and women are headline news and the focus of paparazzi, the fame of Greek athletes was even more colossal: they were regarded as semi-divine and favourites of the gods. Almighty Zeus looked after them; Pallas Athena mused over their fates. Dionysus invited them to share his goblet, nymphs lusted after them, and even Aphrodite eyed them with a playful smile‌ Legend attributes the Olympics’

foundation to Heracles (Hercules), who built the Olympic stadium and other buildings as an honour to his father Zeus, after completing his twelve labours. Their setting was Elis, at the foot of the Mount Olympus, whose summit was the abode of the gods, the Greeks believed. Starting in 776 BC, the Games were staged every five years, on the first full moon after the summer solstice. They could not be cancelled for either war or calamity, being a central reference point of Greek history and

avantoure | jackpot

24

While in our society, top sportsmen and women are headline news and the focus of paparazzi, the fame of Greek athletes was even more colossal: they were regarded as semi-divine and favourites of the gods.

culture. Everyone wanted to see the heroes esteemed by the gods, or perhaps try their own luck in the competitions.

The Olympics were held in a sacred enclosure called the Altis, watched over by a Temple of Zeus, god of thunder, where a ritual sacrifice marked the onset and end of the Games. The Greeks conceived them as Man’s gift to the gods, and it was with childish pride that men displayed their skills in front of the Immortals.

Unlike today, not only physical prowess was tested; competitions between musicians and poets ran alongside the sports events.

Any free male citizen of any Greek city-state could participate; all he had to do was swear to his Hellenic origin and moral purity, and confirm he had

avantoure | jackpot

been in training for ten months (firsttime competitors had to undergo a preliminary test, and train for thirty days in Olympia supervised by local trainers).

Applications to participate went to the judges, elected from the citizens of Elis, who could reject any applicant considered unworthy of the gods presiding over Olympia.

The six-day event attracted people from all over the Hellenic world – not only to watch the games and listen to poets and musicians, but to trade, negotiate or dissolve treaties, and debate politics and philosophy. Tents and cabins were erected in the grove between the temple and the stadium, which could hold 40,000 spectators. Rich people and invited guests from other city-states stayed in villas that probably cost a fortune to rent, like flats with balconies

overlooking centre court at Wimbledon nowadays.

In this strictly male world (women were banned from the stalls as well as the arena), Greeks could stumble on friendship, love, patronage, shame or even exile. At no other time or place would a citizen find himself so close to the gods or to the Fates spinning the web of his destiny, as he would in the Altis grove in an Olympic year…

Following an inaugural sacrifice in the Temple of Zeus, the purple-robed judges proceeded to the stadium (a word derived from stadion, a Greek unit of length). There, a herald called out the names of the competing athletes – who stood there stark naked, oiled, and dusted with sand.

Each athlete and judge had to swear an oath to be honest and not succumb

25

to bribery. There was a special guard to watch out for any cheating or other breach of the rules, and dishonest athletes were beaten with rods and disgraced throughout Greece.

To determine their order, everyone drew lots in the form of a token, before competing in groups of two, three or four – the winners then competed against each other. Such a knockout system has been called “Olympic” ever since…

The opening event was the stadion, a race one stadion (400 metres) long.

This basic unit was multiplied for longer races called the dolichos, involving six, ten or even twelve laps. More than once, the winner would finish this race alone, and it once happened that a Spartan called Ladas dropped dead on the spot after winning. The Greeks believed that he had been thus gifted by the gods and met a truly heroic end.

Starting from the 65th Olympic Games in 520 BC, the races would end with the hoplitodromos, in which athletes ran carrying shields, wearing bronze helmets and greaves. This event is immortalized in The Iliad (XXIII, 754783), where Homer describes not only the race but the technique using one’s arms as well as legs. In Roman times athletes no longer wore greaves or helmets, but simply ran holding shields.

Next came wrestling, the favourite sport in Greek gymnasiums. Wrestlers approached each other with arms raised, warily anticipating a clench a hurl.

Painful holds were allowed, such as twisting a thumb. Once downed, a wrestler could continue fighting until his shoulders touched the ground three times, in which case the match was lost.

Wrestling was followed by the pentathlon, which in ancient times consisted of the jump, racing, discus throwing, javelin throwing and wrestling.

For the long jump, athletes used pearshaped lead or stone weights, which they swung and dropped at the last moment, to give themselves extra impetus. The long jump was up to 50

avantoure | jackpot

26

Greek feet (15 metres) long; the ancient world record is attributed to Phayllus of Crotona, who is said to have leapt 55 feet...

Discus throwing was another ancient sport mentioned by Homer.

The discus was a heavy metal plate; one found on Egina Island was 7.7 inches in diameter and weighed about four pounds. Athletes competed to see who could throw the farthest, and also in precision, throwing discs a fixed distance. The record for discus throwing, 95 feet, was also set by Phayllus.

An allied event was javelin throwing (akontismos), learnt by every youth in the gymnasium as a military skill.

At the Olympics, javelins were thrown at targets, not people.

Gymnastics usually finished with the pankration, a hybrid of wrestling and boxing. Athletes fought using their fists, wrapped in leather straps; when one fell down, wrestling began. Few men survived such fights unharmed; noses, ears and teeth were most frequently damaged.

The Games were crowned with the hippodrome, chariot and horse races.

Chariot races were divided into two classes: quadriga, where the chariots were pulled by four horses, and biga, where they were pulled by two. Only rich Greeks could afford Olympic horses and rigs, so regardless of the skill of the

avantoure | jackpot

charioteer the prize would go to the horses’ owner. Kings, oligarchs and even courtesans would sometimes send their horses to the Olympic races...

An Olympic champion (called an olympionic) instantly became an idol throughout Hellas, especially in his own city-state. The champion was led by judges to the Temple of Zeus where the awards ceremony was held for the god to see. A kotinos, or wreath of olive leaves entwined with white ribbon, was placed on his head, and hymns to Heracles were sung. Then there was a feast in his honour, hosted by the community of Elis, which joined in with gusto – sharing a celebration with the victor was the spectator’s privilege.

The champion’s return to his home town occasioned another, still more grandiose festival. All free citizens would come out to greet him as he arrived in a chariot pulled by four white horses, and led them to the temple to lay a wreath on the altar of the local deity.

He was henceforth exempt from taxes and duties; had a seat of honour at festivities; and was glorified by poets and a statue of himself in the town.

Champions’ statues were also placed in the sacred Altis of Olympia, where there were several hundred still standing at the end of the Roman era. The most esteemed were so-called iconic statues, ones that actually resembled the athlete.

According to Pliny, only three Olympic champions were so honoured...

The Olympics’ decline mirrored that of ancient Greece. As Rome became all powerful, its own gods, rituals and festivities prevailed throughout Europe and Asia Minor. The final nail in the coffin followed the advent of Christianity as the state religion, which condemned the Olympics as a vestige of paganism.

In 394 AD, the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I banned assemblies in Elis as sinful and depraved, and that was the end of Olympic competitions for the next sixteen hundred years...

Yet the Greek admiration for human prowess and physical beauty could not be forgotten. With the European Renaissance, one work of Greek art after another inspired artists, aristocrats and scholars, and a whole new ethos of beauty, striving and perfectionism.

With his anatomical studies and designs for flying machines, Leonardo Da Vinci epitomized the urge to understand, exalt and expand the limits of human capability. The history of humanity is one of triumphing over physical constraints. Every one of us inwardly yearns for Olympus, to be superhuman, if not a god…

COMMENT REC TO A FRIEND

Greeks could stumble on friendship, love, patronage, shame or even exile. At no other time or place would a citizen find himself so close to the gods or to the Fates spinning the web of his destiny, as he would in the Altis grove in an Olympic year‌

27

avantoure | jackpot

a real–life

Superman

28

by Denae D'Arcy

avantoure | jackpot

The rain was bucketing down as I stepped out of Parsons Green underground station in southwest London. It wasn’t cold so I didn’t mind walking to my interview; I was pumped-up about meeting a guy who spends weeks alone in some of the most inhospitable places on earth.

Arriving early, I took a chance and rang the bell. The door was opened by a guy with a shy smile, who suggested that we met at Starbucks down the road in a few minutes.

Only after I’d agreed did I remember to ask, “By the way are you Ben Saunders?”

29

That’s the thing about this superhero of our times – he seems like Clark Kent when you meet him. This ordinarylooking guy has hiked and skied and explored the toughest, coldest terrains – in some cases without a back-up crew, and on one trip not speaking to his mum for three months! A young guy with such ambition, determination and strict discipline is rare. I am curious to find out what makes him tick…

In a cozy corner of Starbucks, I ask Ben about his determination to explore.

“As a kid I was always inspired by adventure. I’m from Devon and loved the outdoors,” he replies. Ben really got into discovery when he was working for John Ridgway in the Scottish Highlands.

Ridgway is an explorer who, with Chay Blyth, was the first to row across the North Atlantic in 1966 – a three-month

journey from Boston to Ireland. He later opened an adventure school where Ben worked, learning from the man he calls his “larger than life super hero.” The school’s principles were: Self-reliance, Positive Thinking, and Leave People and Places better than you find them.

Ben still applies these principles to his expeditions. He has spent hours researching the psychological side to adventure, since sports psychologists who help train Olympic athletes are only used to conditioning them for brief spurts of energy rather than the prolonged effort and endurance Ben requires. So what is the source of his energy and determination?

“People ask me if I’m addicted to adrenalin but I don’t think so,” Ben says, staring into his coffee cup. “Ninety-nine percent of the expedition is drudgery

and one percent is adrenalin.” Then he looks up and smiles broadly. “Challenge – now that excites me. I guess I see myself as more of an athlete than an adrenalin seeker.”

Ben certainly trains like one: he’s currently dieting and training sixteen hours a week for next year’s trip. He doesn’t spend money on partying and says the only time he sees the inside of a pub is when he’s running past it during training. Ben is preparing for SOUTH: the first return journey to the South Pole on foot, and the longest unsupported polar journey in history. He has already undertaken two training expeditions to Greenland in recent years, and departs for Antarctica in October 2008.

Ben’s expeditions are pricey; he has to raise about a million pounds for his upcoming trip. He plans to walk from

avantoure | jackpot

“Most days I wanted to give up. Part of me looked for a reason. I would fall over and be upset that I wasn’t hurt. I started hatching a plan about burning my tent down.” (He laughs)

avantoure | jackpot

Most days I wanted to give up

30

Canada to the North Pole and try for the Speed Record. The current record is 37 days but that was achieved using dogs. Ben is going to go it alone.

Supporters can help by buying ‘miles’ for the journey via his website.

To survive in the wilderness, he needs custom designed kit. Friends suggest he seek sponsorship from North Face, but Ben only trusts products of proven worth. “Having the right gear is crucial. Without my equipment I’d be dead out there. In Russia I was walking on ice for almost nine hours a day. So many things are out of your control and you have to stay focused mentally and physically.”

Since 2001, his travels have taken him to the North Pole three times and Greenland twice. His first expedition in 2001 with Pen Hadow was an attempt to reach the North Pole without re-supply from the coast of Russia. In 2003 he set out alone to ski the last degree of latitude to the North Pole (and back again) – a training exercise before the 2004 Serco Trans-Arctic Expedition in an attempt to make the first solo and unsupported ski crossing of the Arctic Ocean from Russia to Canada via the North Pole.

When I asked Ben if he had days when the urge to quit almost overcame him, he replied: “Most days I wanted to give up. Part of me looked for a reason.

I would fall over and be upset that I wasn’t hurt. I started hatching a plan about burning my tent down. (He laughs.)

When I’m out there, I’m trudging along for nine hours. I’m on a downward spiral physically. Mentally I have to ask myself, how badly do you want this?”

Despite the gruelling pace and environment, Ben would rather go on expeditions alone. “Travelling with someone is a high pressure situation.

You are living in a small space together and for 59 days you can’t get away from each other. If they are clipping their toenails while you are trying to eat, it can be maddening.

You have more freedom when you travel

31

avantoure | jackpot

Ben is “super” in another way.

He wants to promote his love for the outdoors by helping disadvantaged kids. Between expeditions and flying all over the world to do motivational speaking, he is working on a project with his brother (a school teacher) to offer students a chance to experience outdoor sports.

avantoure | jackpot

Ben is “super” in another way

32

alone and if there are two of you there is more to go wrong.” That doesn’t mean he doesn’t rely on a crew of guys, who make sure that search and rescue teams are following his progress.

I’m curious how Ben spends his free time after a day of skiing and pulling a sledge of supplies – but it turns out that he’s busy at night, too. “During my 2004 expedition in Russia I spent time melting snow, cooking dinner, writing in my diary and uploading short updates on my blog.” Ben took music on his 2004 trip, but “Nothing too slow. No Cold Play. Friends sent music to me like 80s Cheese, Top Gun, rap, techno…there’s stuff that worked out there I wouldn’t listen to now.”

Ben is able to update fans on his journey by blogging, and remembers a time school kids got involved when he was trudging through Russia. “I was walking along and noticed polar bear prints in the snow. I was carrying fuel so I could melt snow each night for drinking water. Well, what do polar bears do for water? I posted the question on my blog that night and teachers and school kids answered. I learned that polar bears actually get the liquid they need from meat.”

Ben is “super” in another way.

He wants to promote his love for the outdoors by helping disadvantaged kids.

Between expeditions and flying all over the world to do motivational speaking, he is working on a project with his brother (a school teacher) to offer students a chance to experience outdoor sports. He would like to raise enough money to allow kids who have never seen the country side a chance to ski, scuba dive and appreciate the environment as he does. “The more expeditions I go on, the more ambitious I think I become. I am more aware of my potential through all of this.”

COMMENT REC TO A FRIEND

www.xellent.com

34

… a memo to

For all the awesomeness of the gadgets designed for James Bond by Q, they weren’t all that useful. When did I last wish I had missiles on the front of my car? Ditto for laser pens, jet-packs and all the other stuff Q spent his days – and taxpayers’ money – developing. That said, having a toy your friend envies makes life worth living. So Avantoure have selected six essential gadgets for those more interested in a seat in the boardroom than destroying Spectre…

by Noah Davis

avantoure | trophies

35

iPhone Sure, it’s been more hyped than almost any gadget ever, but have you used the thing? It’s incredible. It makes a Treo look like your four-year-old cousin’s phone that calls his mom and 911. Email? Check. iPod? Check.

Youtube? Check. Other stuff we don’t even know how to use? Check. When

you’re listening to music and someone calls, the tune fades out and is silent while you talk on the phone and a disembodied voice comes through the headphones. He’ll never know you were jamming to Neil Diamond.

That alone justifies the price, which at $399 won’t set you back much more

than a Blackberry that boasts half the functionality and zero of the chick magnetism. Hey Apple, we have your new marketing slogan – The iPhone: Way better than a puppy. www.apple.com/iphone

Gigantic Swiss Army knife At this point, you’re wired, connected, and ready to take on anything that comes your way. What’s left? How about a Swiss Army knife with 85 tools?

Perfect. This knife, which features every tool available on other models, can conquer any problem your other gadgets can’t. It won’t make phone calls, but we bet there’s something on it that could repair a broken iPhone. Even its price ($999.00) works out at barely $10 per tool. And, at over three pounds, it doubles as the world’s most useful paperweight. www.swissarmy.com

IOGEAR Wireless USB Something for all you Dell lovers out there: a four-port wireless USB hub from IOGear. It’s perfect for those hot summer days when you want to work on your computer while lying in the hammock outside. With it, you can connect to printers, scanners, cameras, game controllers, flash drives, external hard drives and other USB devices, and beam information back and forth at up

to 480 Mbps. Because it’s built to work with Windows computers, you’ll have to download drivers and struggle with the set up, but it’s worth the effort. Now your home office is a thing of the past; you can work outdoors or from a couch in the living room... www.iogear.com

avantoure | trophies

36

Kenwood Smart Interface Getting lost sucks – it’s a waste of time, you feel dumb, your mates are annoyed, and when you finally arrive, everyone’s irritable. Now this needn’t happen, thanks to the Smart Interface from Kenwood, a device that looks like a pen

but is really a state of the art navigation tool. Simply point it at your desired destination on a map and wait as directions are beamed directly to you.

It’s like having a personal navigator in your pocket. Kenwood launched the pen

at the Tokyo Motor Show earlier this year, so it won’t be available for some time, but you might want to order now.

If you can find the store, that is. www.kenwood.com

VholdR wearable camcorder If you do harbor some Bond-ish boldness, you’ll want to record your exploits. After all, imagine abseiling down a cliff or leaping from a helicopter, and nobody believing that you did it!

The VholdR is wearable, leaving your hands free for steering, fending off rocks or fondling Halle Berry. Its size (3.7 inches) and weight (4.8 oz) make it easy to stow in a backpack. Clips upload to Youtube with one click, so your friends can watch your exploits before you return. It’s even armored, so it won’t be destroyed if you crash land. Your face is a different story… www.vholdr.com

avantoure | trophies

37

Leopard We know this reads like an extended plug for Steve Jobs, but you’re going to need a computer to go with that phone, and Apple makes the most elegant, simple and useful ones around.

You’ll love how your iPhone meshes with its computer counterpart without any need to download drivers, read manuals, or tax your brainpower. It just works flawlessly. Leopard, their latest operating system, takes the intuitiveness of previous incarnations to the next level. You can group similar applications together or separate them as you see fit. It’s totally customizable so your computer will work for you, not the other way around. Leopard’s still great with graphics and movies, so start creating. Besides, would you rather have the error-fest that is Windows Vista? We thought not… www.apple.com

USB Desk Vacuum What with constant emailing and unending piles of work, your desk can get dirty – but no fear, this desk vacuum provides a perfect solution. Only eight inches high, it plugs into a USB port and sucks up crumbs, dust and other small particles. It has a moveable handle, so feels just like a real vacuum cleaner, but more fun to use. The 45-inch cord provides ample room to clean all over your cubicle or corner office. It won’t help clear your mind – that’s up to the rest of the gadgets – but at least your workspace will be pristine, leaving you to focus on being brilliant. You can’t ask for much more for $19.99.

avantoure | trophies

38

The Death of

Superman Clark Kent was never a rich man. He may have been Superman, but when it came to his job at the Daily Planet, Clark was really an ordinary guy with a working man’s salary. As a street reporter, Clark Kent was probably making no more than $45,000 dollars a year, even though living expenses in the large city of Metropolis were much higher.

by Mark Macias

No wonder Lois Lane never wanted to date Clark Kent – he couldn’t even afford to buy her a decent dinner.

But 76 years after Superman was born on paper, the comic hero’s assets are worth an estimated $1 billion dollars. Not bad for a man who was raised on a rural farm. And with so much money and influence at stake, the battle over who owns that empire is about to go to court.

In January 2008, the US courts are expected to hear the case of Siegel vs.

Time Warner Inc. It will be a high profile lawsuit that even Clark Kent would want to cover – and a typical David versus Goliath story. An elderly woman versus the media giant, Time Warner Inc. – whose portfolio includes CNN, AOL, Time and People magazines. And that elderly woman happens to be Joanne Siegel – the real-life model for Lois Lane.

In the early 1930s, Joanne was

avantoure | trophies

a teenager, smitten by a creative boy named Jerry Siegel. From his powerful imagination arose the comic hero, Superman, an extraterrestrial superhero who would combat the evils of this world. Jerry envisaged this hero with the letter S splashed across his chest, in a skin-tight costume, with a scarlet cape.

Jerry asked his friend, Joe Shuster, to draw Superman and his evasive love, Lois Lane. Joanne agreed to pose for that sketch in Joe’s apartment, spread herself across a blanket on the floor and imagined Superman carrying her in his muscular arms. She married Jerry thirty years later.

Today, Joanne is 89 years old, and fondly remembers living in Cleveland, Ohio. “Jerry and Joe didn’t have much life experience,” she told Portfolio Magazine. “They lived in a dream world. They thought that life was like

39

avantoure | trophies

40

the movies, and everything would turn out okay in the end.”

It took many years for the dream of Superman to become a reality.

Shuster and Siegel took their comic strip to dozens of publishers, but no one was interested in their imaginary superhero.

It was shortly after the Depression and few companies had the money to splurge on an anonymous, fictitious character invented by a boy.

But in 1938, their luck turned.

Detective Comics (which would later become DC Comics) paid the young duo $130 for their first comic book issue of Superman. But when Siegel and Shuster pushed for profit sharing a few years later, Detective Comics dumped them. In 1968, Siegel gave up on his life with Superman, and quit the comic strip to take a job as a typist. Seven years later, DC Comics agreed to pay Siegel and Shuster $20,000 dollars a year, plus health insurance. After the movie, Superman, grossed $275 million dollars in 1981, DC Comics increased their benefits to a mere $30,000 a year.

Today, Joanne Siegel gets $135,000 a year plus insurance, having inherited her husband’s benefits after Jerry died in 1996. Her attorney, Marc Toberoff, thinks that’s a pittance, and that the Siegel family deserves a larger share of the Superman empire. Many legal pundits believe Time Warner Inc. has plenty to worry about.

Toberoff has taken on studios before and won. In 2005, he sued Warner Brothers over the release of The Dukes of Hazzard, and won a settlement for $17.5 million dollars, six weeks before it premiered. He also spotted the potential value of the 1970s’ TV drama, Fantasy Island, and urged its creator, Gene Levitt, to check his old contract. When Toberoff studied it, he found that Levitt owned the rights to any future productions involving the theme of Fantasy Island – so if Sony Pictures goes ahead with its movie

avantoure | trophies

41

version, both men could walk away with millions of dollars.

Toberoff is hoping he can do the same thing for Joanne Siegel and her daughter. He wants them to get half of all Superman profits related to merchandising, future movies and TV shows. Superman is already a worldwide brand that includes TV, DVDs, movies, books, posters, comic strips, toys and other merchandise.

If that’s not enough to fight over, Time Warner Inc. is about to start filming a sequel to last year’s blockbuster, Superman Returns.

He plans to argue in court that the Siegel family terminated the grants to the Superman and Superboy copyrights that Siegel gave away in 1938 and 1948, by filing for termination after his death.

US copyright law gives creators or their heirs a five-year window to reclaim the rights to the artists’ creations.

Therefore, the Siegel family is entitled to $50 million dollars since 1999, when the copyright was terminated, and also expects the family to get a share of future profits, which industry watchers conservatively estimate as hundreds of millions of dollars. Toberoff also maintains that the Siegels deserve profits from the TV series Smallville, based on the Superboy copyright that the family also reclaimed.

If the lawsuit against Time Warner Inc. is successful, the heirs of Superman’s co-creator, Joe Shuster, will most likely make their own claims. The media corporation has hired three law firms to defend its interests, who claim that the Siegel family is over- estimating Superman’s worth (despite the company refusing to reveal its earnings from merchandising), and accuse them of reneging on an earlier settlement over the rights to the comic hero.

Another plank in their strategy is to argue that the Superman Jerry Siegel created has evolved over time, thanks to the input of other people.

For example, the original Superman didn’t have X-ray vision, but was gifted with it later. And if that doesn’t work, they have another fallback – claiming that the legal paperwork for the termination rights may have been filed incorrectly, which could result in the entire lawsuit being invalid.

Whoever wins, children and adults around the planet will be watching the outcome closely. Legal scholars say this lawsuit has the potential to do something that no other human could do. It could kill Superman for good.

Superman always knew that his Achilles heel was Kryptonite, but Clark Kent probably never imagined that his life would end over a lawsuit involving the rights to his inheritance.

avantoure | trophies

42

OFF THE BEATEN PATH As homage to the brave pioneers that first hit the ski slopes, the Zweydingers team has created classic wooden skis, handcrafted with precision and excellence. www.zweydingers.com

TREKKING TIME The icontrol watch transmits signals to your ipod, so you can control which music you listen to while timing your laps, or just checking the time.

Ironman Sleek i Control Price: $125 www.timex.com

avantoure | trophies

LET IT SNOW

43

This colorful two-in-one garment will keep you warm and stylish all day on the slopes. The soft toned jacket liner slips into its brighter hardshell for a complete and utterly warm jacket.

Docholiday Liner and Shell Price: $450 www.powderhornworld.com

NICE AND TOASTY Keep warm with a bit of color and style

by Paul Smith!

Paul Smith Crazy Socks Price: $30 www.eluxury.com

BOOTS TO LAST A LIFETIME Charles Van Gorkum spends forty hours custom-making one pair of hiking boots. He uses only the best materials: oil-tanned leather, brass rivets, a steel shank and leather covered insoles on a handmade sole. The boots are well worth the wait.

Van Gorkum Custom Boots Price: $1600 (depending on size) www.hikingbootshandcrafted.com

avantoure | trophies

PUZZLING

44

Crack this mystical orb by following the encrypted clues and you will have solved what experts consider one of the most difficult puzzles ever.

ISIS Price: $199.95 www.sharperimage.com

SUNGLASSES THAT ROCK Take a call or listen to music while wearing nothing but sunglasses! Motorola and Oakley’s O ROKR is Bluetooth stereo eyewear for a hands-free lifestyle.

Motorola O ROKR Contact dealers for price www.motorola.com

GLOBALLY AWARE This silkscreen acrylic globe is brilliant and finely detailed – a must for any bachelor pad.

Modern Globe Price: $99

www.redenvelope.com

avantoure | trophies

SAVING THE DAY

45

Bring back your love of comic book heroes.

X-Men poster Price: $6.99 www.allposters.com

STRANGE POWER This universal “hybrid� charger is powerful enough to charge all your handheld electronic products. The Solio absorbs power from the sun or wall sockets and stores it, so you can charge wherever you please.

Solio300 Price: $105 www.flight001.com

avantoure | trophies

46

FIESTA TIME Tequila Tezon is made from handharvested agave in Jaliscoco, Mexico. Crystal clear, silky, with a taste of honey, vanilla and spice that lingers on your tongue. Ole! Tequila Tezon Price: $60 Available at liquor stores

ZOOM‌ Weave through the streets on this classic Italian scooter and you’ll be a heart-throb on wheels. Features a 250W/24V electric motor.

Pocket Mod Vapor Razor Bike Price: $289.95 www.sharperimage.com

avantoure | trophies

47

ROUGH AROUND THE EDGES These boots, crafted out of fine Italian leather, were made in collaboration with British motorcycle company Triumph.

They suit rugged, daring chic types.

Paul Smith Thunder Boot Price: $575 www.eluxury.com

MIND GAMES This beautifully finished Sudoku board will allow you to puzzle your mind in style. The set includes a 12-inch wooden playing board, puzzle pieces and “thinking” pieces.

Wooden Sudoku Game Price: $35 www.redenvelope.com

THE LEGEND LIVES ON… Zorro is the perfect hero: masculine and stylish, he protects us from tyrants and evil-doers.

The Mark of Zorro, Zorro’s Fighting Legion and Don Q – Son of Zorro Price: $14.99 each www.allposters.com

avantoure | trophies

48

Macho M What’s

by Mark Macias

avantoure | anthology of temptation

Objectively, it’s hard to see why Tony Soprano was loved by the world. His character on the Sopranos was crude, crass and coarse. He swore like a sailor and treated women like servants; ate with his mouth open and hung out with middle-aged slobs in suburban New Jersey. Sure, he lived in an ostentatious house and strutted around his backyard in white undershirts, but he needed a therapist to help him get through the dark nights. Yet, despite all these flaws, women and men alike fell in love with his macho character. They came to root for Tony, even though he was rough around the edges and physically repulsive.

It wasn’t long ago that women squealed as they watched pretty boys like Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio peel off their shirts, and girls’ bedrooms were plastered with posters of bronzed, waxed men with perfectly coifed hair. Studio executives knew that a handsome young man who exuded chivalry and charisma was the best guarantee of a healthy bottom line. Tony Soprano might be charismatic, but chivalrous? Fugeddit!

It’s hard to imagine how women would have reacted if a shirtless Tony had shared the big screen with Tom. They’d have squealed alright, but most likely in disgust as the 300-pound, flabby mobster exposed his matted chest …

So what’s behind this sudden change in masculine attractiveness?

Are women reverting to primeval stereotypes, or have they simply dropped their standards to the lowest common denominator?

New York Times columnist Anita Gates makes a living observing society and the roles people play. She believes that TV executives are partly to blame for this sudden infatuation. More and more comedies depict men as crude, sex-obsessed, self-absorbed and immature. Popular American TV series like the King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, and the classic Friends all have a character remarkably similar to Tony Soprano – egocentrically self-assured, gregarious, emotionally shallow, and sexually driven.

“Anyone who watches television regularly could get the impression that one of the two sexes on this planet is not only dimwitted and uncouth but darned proud of it,” Gates wrote in a New York Times critique. “Maybe this glorification of the dumb started with the research. Men, as any pollster can tell you, do watch football – a contest in which, its fans point out, the best men really do win and it’s all about sheer ability, not politics or personality, at least during the game itself … So what do the programming experts decide?

Rather than developing or buying series

Men the allure?

49

avantoure | anthology of temptation

50

Twenty-eight-yearold Jennifer Myers remembers the first guy she fell in love with at the tender age of sixteen. He treated her like crap – calling only when he was drunk and horny, never showing any courtesy.

anthology of of temptation temptation avantoure ||anthology

that might appeal to those fascinations with ability, victory versus defeat or good versus evil, they give us shows about men watching football and wrestling. And doing little else. Now little boys across America want to grow up to be just like them.”

Think back to your teens.

Remember those guys who wore those coveted sports jackets and strutted down hallways boasting of their sexual conquests while they gave high-fives to their shorter underclassmen. They didn’t care what people thought – no way! Girls have always loved macho bad guys, at least until they got their hearts broken...

Twenty-eight-year-old Jennifer Myers remembers the first guy she fell in love with at the tender age of sixteen.

He treated her like crap – calling only

when he was drunk and horny, never showing any courtesy. She had to open her own door when she slipped into his red Pontiac Firebird. He was a “shallow eighteen-year-old prick” who only cared about his own sexual urges, yet she couldn’t get enough of him.

“I don’t know where that guy is now, but I would imagine him working in a place like Wall Street. He had so much testosterone it’s hard to imagine him working anywhere else but some competitive field where men eat other men for lunch,” she says. As a single woman living in Manhattan, Meyers hasn’t dated a man like that since college – but would she fall for him today?

“That’s a hard question,” she said, before posing herself another. “Would I want to be with a guy today who treated me like crap and didn’t care what people thought? No. Would I want to be with that macho man who bossed people around and didn’t take shit from anyone? Yes, every woman wants to feel like a man will fight for her honor, regardless of what political correctness teaches us.”

Meyers believes that most women are drawn to men who exhibit confidence and strength, who seem like a knight in shining armor. He might be emotionally unavailable beneath that armor, but most women have a conviction that they can change a man and make him better. “I loved Tony Soprano. He was so vulnerable underneath that tough guy fixture …

He said what he wanted, even if it offended others. He might have killed people for revenge, but his family always knew they were safe and protected. And that home, it was a mansion. What woman wouldn’t want to live in a house like that? What woman wouldn’t want to feel protected?”

Maybe that’s why Tony didn’t die in the finale of the series. It ended with him dining with his family, ordering food from a waitress. He didn’t bother to wait for his daughter, who was running to the table even as he ordered cholesterol-

51

busting French Fries. He lived for the moment, oblivious to medical advice or another man who seemed to be watching his every move. Then the television went black. Every viewer watching that night wondered if their cable had conked out at the climatic moment, and yearned to know if Tony finally met his fate, or evaded death once again.

It was a cruel joke on Soprano fans, but perhaps the show’s creators knew the world wasn’t ready to see Tony’s life end. He was like a cowboy from a black-and-white Western, riding off into the sunset with a dame clinging to his waist. Such macho men have always fascinated us – Tony Soprano is only the latest example.

He had so much testosterone it’s hard to imagine him working anywhere else but some competitive field where men eat other men for lunch.

avantoure | anthology of temptation

fly

come with me

Art directed by Rania Haditirto Styling by Anett Gabriel Makeup by Sonja Roberts Hair by Tyler Laswell (Contact NY agency)

Models Aga with MC2 Model Management Tobias with Q Model Management Our special thanks to the pilot, Scott Gerber, who has kindly provided his plane and Mike, who lent us his Buick for the photo session.

Photography by David Matthew Walters www.dmwphoto.com

on her leather jacket by Mango pencil skirt by Lyell patent leather wedges by Chloe tights by Wolford driving gloves by La Crasia

on her leather jacket by Mango pencil skirt by Lyell patent leather wedges by Chloe tights by Wolford driving gloves by La Crasia

avantoure | anthology of temptation

55

on her jumpsuit by Veronique Branquinho striped cotton turtle neck by Topshop vintage leather double buckle belt from Dulcinee NYC ankle boots by Pierre Hardy leather driving gloves by La Crasia vintage Italian leather clutch from Dulcinee tights by Topshop goggles by stylist’s own

avantoure | anthology of temptation

56

on her jumpsuit by Veronique Branquinho striped cotton turtle neck by Topshop vintage leather belt from Dulcinee wool cape by stylist’s own leather metallic gloves by La Crasia goggles by stylist’s own

avantoure | anthology of temptation

57

avantoure | anthology of temptation

58

avantoure | anthology of temptation

59

on her jumpsuit by Veronique Branquinho striped cotton turtle neck by Topshop vintage leather belt from Dulcinee wool cape by stylist’s own leather metallic gloves by La Crasia goggles by stylist’s own leather gloves by La Crasia phone by Nokia, model N81

avantoure | anthology of temptation

60

avantoure | anthology of temptation

61

avantoure | anthology of temptation

62

on her trench coat by BCBG Max Azria beige silk blouse by Lyell high waisted jeans by Lyell silk buttery scarf by Gucci vintage leather coffer from Dulcinee vintage Ferragamo boots from Dulcinee shades by Dior leather gloves by La Crasia

avantoure | anthology of temptation

63

on him pinstriped suit by H&M shirt by Topshop Man satin tie by Topshop

avantoure | anthology of temptation

64

avantoure | anthology of temptation

65

on her beige silk dress by BCBG Max Azria black padded feather jacket by BCBG Max Azria leather clutch from Dulcinee NYC leather snake pumps by Proenza Schouler tights by Wolford gold necklace with heart charms by Bing Bang on him suit by H&M shirt by Topshop Man tie by Topshop leather boots by Topshop

avantoure | anthology of temptation

Subscrib

6 issues of av

Copyright Avantoure UK Ltd./All rights reserved 2007/ www.avantoure.com/ info@avantoure.com

be online NOW!

vantoure magazine

for just ÂŁ11.50!

68

Taking Life

by Alexei Iakovlev translated by Nina Iskandarian

avantoure | school of trickery

69

as

an Obstacle Course It is not a sport or a spiritual practice; not a pastime for bored urban youth, nor a form of military training – though many people think it’s all of these. We are talking about parkour – an activity that’s become a way of life for many people. The concept is encapsulated in the name, which derives from the French word for “obstacle course”, parcours. Until the middle of the last century it was simply an element of French military and firefighter training, but now parkour is a worldwide movement.

For traceurs (as devotees are called), parkour is a way of life and a philosophy. It is a practical,

satisfyingly valid response to the existential dilemmas of our age and our urban environment. Humans have always strived to expand the limits of the possible. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries this urge was epitomized by technological progress and ever growing cities that represented opportunity. Automated manufacturing, sophisticated infrastructures and access to cornucopia of goods and services made urbanization seem like the solution to human happiness.

Yet walk down the street of any metropolis and you’ll realize that it’s just the opposite. Cities are colossal machines that reduce their inhabitants

to insignificant cogs; to survive, one must run an endless obstacle course.

This challenge – or affront – to human nature tends to produce two responses: submission to the daily grind alleviated by voyeuristic immersion in the lives of celebrities, or flight from the cities to an imagined utopia of leafy suburbs or bucolic villages.

It took a simple genius to formulate a response that reconciled our urge for striving and freedom with the constraints of urban life. David Belle was born in 1973, into a French family of limited means. As a child, his maternal grandfather Gilbert Kitten, a retired sergeant of the sapeurs-pompiers

avantoure | school of trickery

70

Parkour is not about sport, or politics, but a way of creating your own routes through an over-determined environment. It means perceiving the world, understanding your body and coexisting with the city. It is an expression of will and freedom to act; an emotional outburst, profoundly romantic.

(firefighters), told him stories about real-life heroes. His father Raymond had served as a soldier in Indochina and then as a firefighter in Paris, where his colleagues dubbed him “a force of nature”. No wonder David felt compelled to emulate their physical courage and prowess…

Young David became skilled in athletics, gymnastics, climbing and martial arts. At fifteen he quit school to devote himself to training his body and spirit, understanding that one

avantoure | school of trickery

depended on the other. Yet he was only attracted to sport per insofar that he could use those skills to save a life, or move without falling into a trap.

Running, jumping, climbing all kinds of heights, balance, the ability to overcome obstacles…David was obsessed with those things. He wanted to be free of obstacles, limits and fears, to walk wherever he pleased.

Meanwhile, he moved to Lisses, a suburb of Paris, where he met the people who would become his

associates for the next eight years, calling themselves the Yamakasi.

During military service, David obtained a First Aid certificate but an injured wrist prevented him from joining the firefighters. Having recovered from this, he joined the Marine Infantry at Vannes, where he became the regiment’s champion rope-climber (as his father had been) and won the Essonne obstacle course.

Yet David felt that a regimented life in the army was not for him. His love

71

Parkour embodies the notion of reaching any location without physical limitations or equipment.

of adventure and freedom were too strong, and jobs as a warehouse worker, security guard and furniture salesman left him unfulfilled. After a trip to India to get a black belt in Gong Fu, he realized that parkour was his life’s mission.

With a few friends, he shot footage of his abilities, and showed one to a team from Stade 2 TV. They were so impressed that they made a report about him, which brought parkour worldwide fame. Ever since, David and other traceurs have

been filmed for music videos, adverts, presentations and cinema – yet all he cares about is pushing the limits of human ability by constant selfperfection. Since founding PAWA – the Parkour Worldwide Association – he has traveled the globe, displaying his skills, sharing his experience and looking for new obstacles to overcome.

Parkour embodies the notion of reaching any location without physical limitations or equipment. If humanity has long imagined cities where cars move vertically as well as horizontally, vertical pedestrians already exist.

Fences, walls, stairs and roofs are sidewalks for a skilled traceur; whatever obstacles lie between A to B are merely sports apparatus.

The stunts they perform are better seen than heard, and even then it’s sometimes hard to believe your eyes.

Hopping from rooftop to rooftop like squirrels; climbing up and down the sheer faces of buildings like Spiderman; vaulting walls and fences as easily as you climb stairs, or running into openings that look too narrow to squeeze into...

All these stunts are the results of hard training. Parkour involves an enormous effort; beside exceptional fitness, endurance of pain and capacity to avoid trauma, it requires utter concentration and self-control.

avantoure | school of trickery

72

A traceur’s body is their tool for realizing dreams and desires. Their training involves mind exercises, many taken from Oriental martial arts and meditative practices. Safety and responsibility are taken seriously; movements should never be performed without prior training, involving many repetitions of basic exercises and careful thought about the order of movements.

Although minor injuries are inevitable in parkour, series injuries are uncommon and usually happen only when the traceur is careless or foolish. Yet this is enough to make others wonder if parkour is a danger for children or society as a whole.

Traceurs would argue that this reflects society’s neuroses and conformity to the spatial constraints of cities. People are so conditioned to follow existing paths and routes that anyone who acts in defiance of them is seen as posing a threat or, at best, as an irrelevance.

You have no foot pedals or skateboard beneath your feet, no handlebars or seat for reassurance – only your pumping heart and straining sinews.

Parkour is not about sport, or politics, but a way of creating your own routes through an over-determined environment. It means perceiving the world, understanding your body and coexisting with the city. It is an expression of will and freedom to act; an emotional outburst, profoundly romantic.

The city reveals its magic to you as you flash past astonished drivers and pedestrians, crossing high fences in bounds. You have no foot pedals or skateboard beneath your feet, no handlebars or seat for reassurance – only your pumping heart and straining sinews. They won’t let you down. You are powerful – and free.

True parkour will never become a sport. Sport is about money, competition, envy, doping, slander; it no longer reconciles people. Should parkour become a sport, it will never be the same again.

avantoure | school of trickery

73

avantoure | school of trickery

74

Photographs are courtesy of Incredible Adventures www.incredible-adventures.com

ER

T FAS

LET BUL

LING VEL TRA NA THA

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

75

GREG CLAXTON STILL REMEMBERS THE FIRST TIME HE DONNED A FLIGHT SUIT AND CLIMBED INTO THE COCKPIT OF A RUSSIAN MIG 29 FIGHTER JET. “IT WAS A FUN-FEAR, BOTH FUN AND FEARFUL,” HE RECALLS.

by Mark Macias

“At the beginning, you don’t know what to expect. Once you get past that, you start to settle down, until you take off.

Then you’re flying vertical, nose straight up, you hear the engine die down, and you free fall back to earth. It’s a roller coaster ride without the track.”

It’s hard for Claxton to describe the awe and elation he felt as he zoomed through the stratosphere and saw the earth’s curvature. It’s a view many would-be astronauts spend their careers striving for, yet never get to see. “If you are used to driving a standard four-door car, and then jump into a Porsche or Lamborghini, even that isn’t close to describing what it’s like to go straight up at 60,000 feet per minute. And the flight is smooth as silk. Unlike a roller coaster, where you can hear it go click, click you don’t have that with a military aircraft because you’re gliding through space.

It’s like running a sharp knife through butter.”

To put the power of these jets into perspective, a MiG 31 is capable of flying at Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound), the equivalent of over 1500 miles per hour at ground level – faster than a high-velocity bullet. With accelerations of that magnitude, G-force or gravity force

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

76

Photographs are courtesy of Incredible Adventures www.incredible-adventures.com

5 OR 4 T 30 DING BOU EN ND A PIT, DEP SPE ERS E COCK FLIGHT H E O TOM CUS TES IN T AGE. TH ATION T K R U MIN EIR PAC ACCELE 2 AND E. H L C CH ON T VES FUL ING MA OF SPA L E H INVO REAC HE EDG T EDS SPE DES ON TU ALTI

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

77

kicks in, and you feel your body weight increase dramatically. At G-force 6, an average 200-pound male feels like he has four guys sitting on his lap…

The selected few capable of flying these high-tech war machines spend years mastering the instruments in the cockpit, and aerial manoeuvres. But Claxton is neither a fighter pilot nor Russian – he’s an American who works in Sarasota, Florida, for the world’s ultimate travel agency for adrenaline junkies. Incredible-Adventures (www. incredible-adventures.com) have a deal with the Russians that lets them put ordinary men and women inside the cockpit of a MiG for as little as $21,000. In the last fourteen years, over 2500 clients have experienced this amazing thrill without a single accident. Their clientele was originally mainly from the United States but now half their business comes from Europe, as the weakening dollar has made trips cheaper for Europeans.

There are several packages, to suit different sized wallets. One of the most popular is “The Top Gunski”, a five-day trip starting and ending in Moscow, with a tour of the Russian capital, accommodation in luxury hotels, and translators and staff at your beck and call – all for $21,000 (bodyguards are an optional extra). The actual flying takes place at the Sokol Aircraft Building Plant outside the city of Nizhny Novgorod,

which supplies military jets to the Russian government and aircraft parts to over thirty countries. Its test pilots are some of the best Top Guns in the world.

Customers spend about 30 or 45 minutes in the cockpit, depending on their package. The flight involves full acceleration to speeds reaching Mach 2 and altitudes on the edge of space. Jets fly the equivalent of 2.5 times the height of Mount Everest, an altitude that the US Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics classifies as “near space” and pilots refer to as the “thirteen mile high club”.

Riders can look up and see outer space, or down at planet Earth.

Mike Saemisch, from Utah, says his vocabulary isn’t large enough to describe the thrill of flying in a MiG 29. “We flew inverted, chased a Russian AWACS plane into the clouds, did four point rolls, and I flew an ILS [as close to the ground as possible] approach on the various flights.” He even got to take the joystick, because the MiGs have dual controls to allow pilots to demonstrate manoeuvres, and passengers to repeat them. So he was able to try his hand at loops, rolls, Split-S, Immelmans, Crazy Cubans, Hammerheads and the famous Russian Tailslide.

Every client must sign a waiver before being allowed to embark on a trip; undergo an extensive physical examination to ensure they are

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

78

capable of handling the G-forces and acceleration; and complete a medical history questionnaire, which is reviewed by a doctor at the airbase. Any person over the age of forty is also required to present evidence of a recent EKG/ECG. The main concern is the strength of your heart; high blood pressure, heart trouble, kidney stones or gallstones could disqualify you from the trip.

David Lubin passed the physical and boarded the MiG 25 while his wife, Shannon, watched anxiously.

His justification was simple. “As a child, I was always fascinated with speed and jet planes. As an engineering student,

IG 25 HE M OK T KI TO SSING A NOVS LOGI EDS SURP ENT TO E AL .

AT SP .4 (EQUIV ROUND) EG H2 MAC PH ON TH M 1,600 Photographs are courtesy of Incredible Adventures www.incredible-adventures.com

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

I designed turbo jet engines. As an adult, I dreamed of the day that I could break the sound barrier, pull six G’s, and fly to the edge of the atmosphere.”

He flew with Vladimir Loginovski, a veteran with over 3000 hours of fighter piloting under his belt. Loginovski took the MiG 25 at speeds surpassing Mach 2.4 (equivalent to 1,600 mph on the ground). “The power of the 50,000 pounds of thrust by these two afterburning turbojets was breathtaking as we passed through the sound barrier in what seemed like seconds,” Lugin recalls. “The flight experience, from the dress-up, briefing and ejection training

to the take-off, flight and landing was an adventure that will stay with me forever.

It was more than I ever imagined.”

Even if you don’t have $20,000 to spare, it’s still possible to experience some of the adrenaline from these adventures for as little as $3450. You don’t actually leave the ground, but Incredible-Adventures maintain that you’ll feel all of the rush of flying a jet on one of the base’s flight simulators. You can try all the crazy manoeuvres you want, without the slightest risk.

79

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

80

The Arenal Volcano is about 90 km north-west of the Costa Rican capital, San JosĂŠ. One of the most active volcanoes on Earth, it is a relatively youngster in volcanic terms, being only 4000 years old.

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

81

Exploring the depths of a

killer volcano

by Denae D’Arcy

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

82

The last sizable eruption was on September 5 2003, when hot ash and lava cascaded down the mountainside.

Fortunately the vegetation was dense and wet enough to extinguish it, and no one was injured, nor property damaged.

My adventure-sports profile includes cage-diving with Great White sharks, jumping out of planes, and riding in a jet boat down the Ohio River at 90mph.

Once I took a jaunt in a helicopter, and the pilot shouted: “Oh no!” When I asked nervously if anything was wrong, he replied, “Yeah, I forgot to put my clothes in the drier.” You could say that I straddle the border separating adrenalin junkies from the merely terrified. So when I got an assignment to explore a live volcano, my adventurous side leapt for joy and my yellow streak cringed…

I started with Imaginative Traveller (www.imaginative-traveller.com), a company which offers holidays with a

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

shot of adrenalin. One of their packages includes a close-up tour of the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica, which sounded just the ticket. Visits to several national parks and the colonial town of Granada, on the shore of Lake Nicaragua, also feature on the itinerary.

The Arenal Volcano is about 90 km north-west of the Costa Rican capital, San José. One of the most active volcanoes on Earth, it is a relatively youngster in volcanic terms, being only 4000 years old. Thirty years after it was first explored by an expedition in 1937, the volcano erupted following an earthquake, submerging the town of Arenal in lava. Miraculously, only

87 people died, but fifteen square kilometres of land were devastated.

Since then, the volcano has generated small but fierce eruptions every five to ten minutes. The last sizable eruption was on September 5 2003, when hot ash and lava cascaded down the mountainside. Fortunately the vegetation was dense and wet enough to extinguish it, and no one was injured, nor property damaged.

Arenal is what vulcanologists call a stratovolcano, a tall cone made up of layers of solidified lava flows, volcanic ash and other debris, the strata that give rise to the name. Like Mount Fuji in Japan, Arenal is growing in size; with

83

every eruption, lava runs down the inside and outside of the cone, adding another layer. The eruptions look most spectacular at night, when burning ash and lava shoot into the air, brighter than the stars.

Being an active volcano, you can’t push your luck too far. Tour companies must constantly weigh the risks on the basis of seismological data and advice from professional vulcanologists. If the experts warn against it, guides aren’t going to ignore them just because their tourists fancy getting nearer the crater.

Whichever vantage points they lead you to offer the best view with a reasonable safety margin…

You can see continuous eruptions from the from lava beds at the foot of the volcano, sometimes accompanied by pyroclastic avalanches of superheated

The eruptions look most spectacular at night, when burning ash and lava shoot into the air, brighter than the stars.

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

84

Arenal is what volcanologists call a stratovolcano, a tall cone made up of layers of solidified lava flows, volcanic ash and other debris, the strata that give rise to the name.

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

gases, rocks and ashes travelling at 80 kilometres an hour, erupting from vents at the top of the volcano and from its upper western slopes. Participants can feel the heat coming off of the mountain and witness the changes in the volcano from hour to hour. It is most active midday, when the summit is often veiled in clouds. One tourist recorded that the ashes and column of smoke was visible from the Mirador Lodge in the Monteverde Cloud Forest, 16 kilometres away.

Imaginative Traveller is not the only company offering volcano-watching tours. Volcano Discovery (www. volcanodiscovery.net) does a 14-day trip to Costa Rica that includes visits to several volcanoes (for 2400 euros, including accommodation, some meals and transportation).

If you’re in Costa Rica anyway, it’s cheaper to sign up for tours offered by local operators like Arenal Canopy Tours, who explore the region by 4WD, including a spin around nearby lava beds. Their tours start at only $50 (excluding transportation and lodging) and offer the chance to see sloths, toucans, hawks, deer, moneys, poisonous frogs and other reptiles, as well as the craters left by the 1937 eruption. Off-road tours can be wet and muddy, warn guides. An easier option is a one-day tour in an air-conditioned bus to the Poas Volcano (nearer to San José), offered by Costa Rica Fun Adventures (www.crfunadventures.com) for only $79, including a full breakfast.

85

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

86

Dune avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

87

e Bashing

by Lucy Rohr

The Arabian Gulf city state that foreigners associate with seven-star hotels bristling with helipads is not the first place that springs to mind on hearing the phrase adventure sport. But together with the neighbouring emirates of Abu Dhabi and Doha, Dubai is promoting itself as an adrenalin hot-spot, where visitors can go dune bashing – an activity likened to shooting rapids on dry land.

Although it was bored expatriates who first tried it in Dubai, the discovery

that cars with a high ground-clearance can cross sand dunes as surfers ride waves originated in Egypt’s Western Desert in the 1920s and 1930s, when explorers such as László Almassy (the hero of the film The English Patient) and Ralph Bagnold (founder of the Long Range Desert Group) developed the techniques of desert driving.

Today, dune bashing is the unofficial national sport of the United Arab Emirates. In Dubai, dune bashers head

for the Hatta Hills, 35 minutes’ drive from the capital, where a gigantic dune called Al-Haman – the “Big Red” – rears 90 metres (300 feet) above the desert.

Here you’ll see dozens of “bashers” zigzagging like crazed beetles across the mountainous dunes, stretching far into Saudi Arabia.

Before entering the dunes drivers let air out of the tyres, to maximise vehicles’ traction on the soft sand.

Ascending a dune requires experience

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

88

and skill; experts recognize the harderpacked ridges that provide a smooth ascent (indicated by camel droppings or footprints), while novices end up floundering in soft sand halfway up the dune. It’s funny to see others in that predicament but embarrassing to be stuck oneself.

At the top, the driver halts for passengers to savour the acrid aroma of wind-blown sand and feel a frisson of terror as they stare down the dune’s slip-face, which looks nearly vertical.

Passengers brace themselves, gripping the safety bars as the driver cries “Yallah!” and sets the car plunging down the slope…

Tyres barely touch the sand as the Land Cruiser charges downhill spraying sand in its wake. “It’s the whitewater rafting experience of the desert”, enthuses a guide. As Arab pop music pounds from the tape-player, the driver tackles wall after wall of sand. “Do you think we should?” he jokes, as he brings the car to the knife edge of another precipice before stamping on the accelerator…

After several hours of this, vehicles stop for a leg stretch, a photo op and the possibility to indulge in yet another activity: sand boarding.

The sensation of being strapped to a fibreglass board, whizzing down a dune at 50 miles an hour, is amazing

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

– especially at sunset, when the dunes turn crimson. Just remember to keep your mouth shut or you’ll be eating sand…

Sand boarding has a small but devoted following in the Emirates, responsible for establishing their own festival, the Hugo Energise International Sandboarding Championship, held in January most years. Sand boards are similar to snowboards but with a modified base of Formica or Laminex.

Another popular activity is dune buggying, where riders charge around on buggies resembling beefed-up Mini Mokes. Custom built for Dubai’s deserts, their roll-cage, bucket seats

and harnesses offer some protection from spills, which are nearly inevitable for novice drivers. Buggying is a wilder, more hands on experience than dune bashing in a 4WD. The buggy’s size makes it ideal for mastering simple jumps, and the four splayed wheels maximize stability.

The best end to a day’s dune bashing is dinner at a Bedouin desert camp, with barbequed lamb washed down with cold beer, a belly dancer for entertainment and apple-flavoured sheesha to smoke while reclining on a divan, nursing one’s sore muscles…

89

PRACTICALITIES Emirates (www.emirates.com) flies to Dubai daily.

December and January are the best times to visit, when the temperature is in the mid-20˚s; even so, factor 30 sun-cream is required. Dune bashing, sand boarding and safaris are organized by Alpha Tours (www.citysmartae.com), while Desert Dangers (www.desertrangers.com) can arrange dune buggying. Dune bashing trips start at around 30 GBP (including sand boarding and a barbeque; dune buggying costs 50 GBP for half a day in your own buggy, or less to share. If you end up in a caravan of vehicles, try to get a seat in the lead car – the view ahead is better, and not affected by dust churned up by other cars. Be sure that your insurance policy covers you for off-road adventuring.

avantoure | adrenaline rainbow

90

Video Games

by Noah Davis

There’s a scene in Danny Boyle’s film The Beach where the slowly-going-loopy Leonardo DiCaprio perceives reality as a video game, running through the forest, avoiding tigers and racking up points.

Like the rest of the movie, the scene doesn’t quite work, but it offers a view of the ultimate video game. Isn’t this what we gamers want? To be totally involved with our surroundings, to be part of the game … that sounds perfect.

Well, except for the going insane part.

Technology isn’t there yet, but it’s getting

close. Duck Hunt gave way to 007’s Golden Eye that in turn became Halo 3 and Bioshock, both of which are real enough to terrify when played alone late at night (even during the day).

California Games became Tony Hawk and ultimately Skate, a game that offers even the most hopelessly unbalanced button-mashers hope of pulling an ollie in real life. We might never reach the verisimilitude of Leo’s beach run – though I suspect we will – but the games below come pretty damn close.

BIOSHOCK www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/ BioShock (a title from the boutique shop Irrational, now part of the 2K franchise) trades the reality of Halo for the cartoony landscape of the underground city, Rapture. The brainchild of Andrew Ryan, it’s a town full of genetically altered humanoids striving to kill you.

There’s some of Boyle’s zombie epic Twenty Eight Days here, as you struggle

avantoure | homo ludens

to both survive and understand the disaster. While some argue the less than realistic graphics detract from the feeling of menace, the game certainly creates a bond between player and the character they control. He may look like somebody from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but when he dies, you feel a sense of loss just the same.

91

HALO 3 www.halo3.com In 2001, Master Chief exploded on to the video game scene in Halo: Combat Evolved. The xBox-only title sold million of copies on the strength of its advanced gameplay, intriguing plot, and infinitely replayable online multi-player platform. Halo 3, released earlier this year of xBox360, finishes the trilogy. The plot follows Master Chief as he returns

to Earth to prevent the destruction of the universe by the Prophet of Truth (whatever). The brilliance of Halo isn’t in its plot; it’s the multi-player that sets it apart. Battle your friends or thousands of players from all over the globe. Best of all, Halo automatically saves your replays, so you can relive that time you fragged an opponent back to Alpha Centuri.

GUITAR HERO III www.guitarherogame.com/gh3/ There’s a rock star buried in all of us, struggling to spring free and rip through a guitar solo in front of 60,000 screaming fans. Guitar Hero III offers us this opportunity. With songs from Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, Metallica, the Rolling Stones and others, the wailing solos waiting to be played.

III is Neversoft’s first crack at designing the game, and they succeed admirably.

A virtual Slash is waiting for you to guide him through Welcome to the Jungle. So don your ripped jeans, rock star shades and your axe, and start jamming. Who cares if your kid brother is the only witness?

avantoure | homo ludens

92

SKATE http://uk.gamespot.com/xbox360/ sports/skate/index.html The Tony Hawk series is fun because of its absurdity. Nosegrind the telephone wire, kickflip into a halfpipe, and pull a 1080 Benihana? – sure thing.

But have you ever tried to do this? I can hardly stand on a skateboard, much less ollie the Red Wall. skate scores for precisely this reason. It’s grounded in real world physics, so the tricks you pull appear as though they are ripped from an X Games highlight reel, not a skate competition on the moon.

The controls are just as intuitive.

Instead of the button-mashing, thumb destroying exercise of the Hawk franchise, skate forces players to mimic the tricks on the control pad. To make your avatar ollie, you slide your finger across the directional pad, simulating the weight transfer required in real life. With motion this lifelike, Etnies might knock down your door with a sponsorship offer.

THE SETTLERS: RISE OF AN EMPIRE www.thesettlers.com Part Warcraft, part Sim City, The Settlers: Rise of an Empire, puts you in charge of a city struggling to survive and grow.

You control everything from the collection of resources and construction of buildings to the defence of your bustling metropolis and the conquering of neighboring townships.

As with any urban planner, you’re forced to make decisions about where to spend your precious manpower. Is waging a war worth the expense, or are you doing it simply to feel powerful? Should you focus on erecting a town hall or a refinery? What does your citizenry need? Answer these questions and you’ll find your town expand and conquer.

Then perhaps you should consider turning off the computer and running for political office.

avantoure | homo ludens

93

ROCK BAND www.rockband.com Being a guitar god is fun and all, but wouldn’t you rather have a whole band?

Rock Band, the latest from Harmonix, the shop that brought you the original Guitar Hero, offers that possibility.

You and three friends join forces to be

a singer, a lead guitarist, a bass player, and a drummer, playing in unison to reproduce some of the greatest tracks in modern memory. It’s like having the greatest karaoke bar in the world in the comfort of your living room – and far less embarrassing.

LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS www.zelda.com The latest edition of the much-loved Nintendo franchise is arguably the finest yet. As always, Twilight Princess features lush landscapes, deep characters, and a satisfyingly complicated plot. You’ll lose yourself in the depths of Hyrule, battling demons and rescuing the princess. But the real strength of Twilight Princess is the magic of the Wii. While no game shop has utilized the system’s unique controller system, Twilight comes close. Swinging Link’s sword is as simple as a quick wrist flick. (Sadly, the resulting strike doesn’t mimic the motion of your controller’s flight path.) Targeting and shooting an arrow is a combination of Wii remote and its accompanying nunchuck. Twilight Princess provides a look into the future of the gaming console, and a bright future it is. Now if only that princess could stay out of trouble.

avantoure | homo ludens

94

PROJECT GOTHAM RACING 4 www.bizarrecreations.com/games/pgr4/ I crash cars – a lot. My friends don’t let me drive, for fear we’ll end up wrapped around a telephone pole.

That’s fine with me, I’ll take Project Gotham Racing any day. The fourth edition of the famous xBox title features some of the hottest cars on the planet and the toughest tracks to date, plus motorcycles, a whole new set of vehicles to slam into walls. The basics remain the same from previous versions, with a focus on sliding around turns and controlling your speed, rather than flooring the accelerator and never letting up. Will it make me a better driver? Doubtful, but it’s more fun than battling the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at rush hour.

avantoure | homo ludens

95

avantoure | homo ludens

96

Star

everyone a

by Rania Haditirto

When Time magazine printed its “person of the year issue” for 2006, the cover bore a framed, mirror-like rectangle which reflected its reader’s face. The tribute once paid to Martin Luther King and Mikhail Gorbachev was now extended to you. “It’s a about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia, and the million channel people’s network You Tube and the online metropolis Myspace” enthused Time, celebrating the contributions of millions of people to the Internet.

Time’s acknowledgement was a belated recognition of what was already impossible to ignore: that the Internet is “democratizing” entertainment, news, literature, movies, music and much more. It has been likened to a Viennese coffee house, where everyone gets up and shares their talents. Rapid developments in technology have turned the Internet into an empty canvas that anyone can paint on, with an instant, unlimited audience. This is revolutionizing notions of celebrity and fame, handing the tools for self-promotion to everyone, so that everyone can become a star…

Blogs, or Weblogs, are a popular alternative source for news, information and personal expression. We can review books, films or restaurants for anyone to read. Digital photography has made artists and directors out of everyone

avantoure | homo ludens

who wishes to post on Flicker. The “Web 2.0 revolution” refers to a whole generation of web-based communities – from Myspace to Wikipedia – that have given millions of people an unprecedented voice.

This democratization of media is akin to the Protestant Reformation that swept Europe with the help of Gutenberg’s printing press. Web 2.0 should be celebrated like the building of public libraries in the Victorian era, or the way television enabled viewers to watch a man walk on the Moon. And, like other revolutionary advances in communications, it has changed our notion of self.

Celebrity obsession and the desire of ordinary citizens to appear on television or the Internet seem to be inextricably linked. Each new form of media adopted by society has created

new types of fame. Before movie-going became popular, actors were not credited for the films they appeared in and often worked as stage hands, helping to design sets or clean studios. Only once audiences started growing and became curious about the faces they saw on screen did producers began making films as “star vehicles”. With the development of the radio came pop stars; with television, the sitcom or soap star, and with photography, the rise of the paparazzi.

In The Frenzy of Renown, Leo Braudy argues that “as each new medium of fame appears, the human image it conveys is intensified and the number of individuals celebrated expands.” Yet this very intensification and expansionism makes fame more fleeting and devalues it. Each year, the achievements required to obtain celebrity status dwindle. Appearing on a reality TV show or in a You Tube video

97

avantoure | homo ludens

98

can be enough. The perfect symbol of this is Paris Hilton, who became famous purely for a “leaked” sex video spread around the world on the Internet.

While not everyone will become as famous as Paris Hilton, everyone can post their intimate videos on the web… and they do. In our media saturated society, people have become comfortable participating in it. In his book Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It, anthropologist Thomas De Zengotita notes the differences in people’s behavior on television compared to forty or fifty years ago.

When television was in its infancy, people interviewed or filmed tended to seem stiff and uncomfortable – even prominent figures awkwardly leant into the microphone and acted very formally. But today, he asserts, “Every man on the street, every girl on the subway platform, interviewed about the snowstorm or transit strike – they are total pros, looking directly at the interviewer, [making] fluid, colloquial comments pitched just right for the viewer.”

De Zengotita believes that celebrity obsession has made spectators restless, that attention has become a scarce commodity in an increasingly mediated society. The more we value the spotlight, the more likely we are to desire it for ourselves. As proof of this, you need only consider how the Internet has affected notions of privacy.

Surveys reveal a clear generational divide between the over thirties who manifest an attachment to privacy, and the under thirties, who hardly value it all. Rather than shying away from an exposed life, they embrace it. Some argue that privacy is only an illusion in an era when surveillance cameras monitor urban areas and credit card numbers are memorized with each swipe. In any case, younger Internet users feel empowered by putting on a show for anonymous watchers.

They have “adopted the skills that

avantoure | homo ludens

On social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook, Xanga, Friendster, LinkedIn, LiveJournal and Bebo, users can create their own publicity, posting their favorite pictures, listing their interests and picking the right song to play when their page comes up. These sites have been instrumental in promoting musicians, authors, artists, and reunions of old friends.

99

celebrities learn in order not to go crazy: enjoying attention instead of fighting it – and doing their own publicity before someone else does it for them.”

On social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook, Xanga, Friendster, LinkedIn, LiveJournal and Bebo, users can create their own publicity, posting their favorite pictures, listing their interests and picking the right song to play when their page comes up.

These sites have been instrumental in promoting musicians, authors, artists, and reunions of old friends.

Teenagers use them as online diaries or scrapbooks, whereas earlier generations would have confined them to private diaries.

An article in The Nation suggests that those born between 1970 and 2000 have become more narcissistic due to “greater geographical mobility, a breakdown of traditional communities, and the self focus that blossomed in the 1970s.” When polled in 1950, only twelve percent of twelve- to fourteenyear-olds agreed with the statement “I am an important person”, but by the late 1980s this figure had risen to eighty

percent – reflecting the rise of the socalled Generation Me. Its author cautions that we should not be too quick to see the Internet as an instrument of “democracy” and a vehicle for progress. While the web facilitates activism with tools like instant publishing and interactivity, “we confuse increased visibility with real change.” It can be used to organize or act as a support group or think tank, but more often merely serves to promote personal vanity or vapidity.

Reality television is ostensibly similar to the Internet as a “democratized” form of entertainment, insofar that people with no experience of acting or modeling can audition for a TV show – and might even get a part.

Celebrity status is thus theoretically attainable to anyone, and few seem to mind that the price is so often humiliation. Over the past sixty years, we have gone from playing practical jokes on unsuspecting victims in Candid Camera to making contestants complicit in their own suffering, in shows like Big Brother and Get Me out of Here – I’m a Celebrity!

As one Big Brother contestant put it, what people want is “to be noticed, to be wanted, to be loved, to walk into a place and have people care about what you are doing, even if it’s what you had for lunch that day.” De Zengotita agrees; the need for recognition is as basic a need as food so the “force behind the virtual revolution is primordial.”

Narcissism may be fueling our need to appear on TV shows or make our thoughts accessible to millions on the Internet – but perhaps it’s a good thing. If we are all celebrities, perhaps we will take more responsibility for our actions, no longer having elsewhere to look. In their book Blog!, David Kline and Dan Bursten predict that people expressing themselves on the Internet will become a valuable asset as blogs become nexuses for new ideas, and cross-fertilizations of video, blogging and podcasting. Perhaps we will find even more ways to expose ourselves to the world through a variety of media – but maybe people be too busy making their own podcasts to watch ours…

avantoure | homo ludens

100

From left to right: Annett Gabriel – Stylist, Rania Haditirto, Sonja Roberts – Make-up Artist

behind the

scenes left, Jonathan-photographer’s assistant, right, Aga-model

David Matthew Walters – Photographer

avantoure | behind the scenes

left, Sonja Roberts -make-up artist, right, Tyler Laswell Hair Stylist

101

Scott, pilot

Dan, Photographer’s Assistant

Mike, Buick owner