Urban Hunter Magazine Concept

uh. issue one. may 2014.

urban hunter

EMPOWERHOUSE: A community-based

zero-waste house

fresh thoughts for pursuant city-dwellers.

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Easiest languages to learn

getting there Achieving travel goals one step at a time

MSG the killer lurking in your kitchen

HOME OFFICE HACKS

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CINDY SHERMAN

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ELVIS PRESLEY

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SPRING COCKTAIL

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INDIAN ASHRAMS

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DEFEAT DREAD

A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Dearest Readers, Welcome to the maiden voyage of Urban Hunter. We strive to bring fresh perspectives to our pursuant readers.

This publication was designed for those of us who thrive best in a metropolitan environment, but are never satisfied with the status quo. We constantly search for the next thing. We climb the highest ladders and are always, always reaching. We are never satisfied.

In this (and every following) issue, you will find four main articles and six smaller columns, covering a smörgåsbord of topics relevant to both city-dwellers and those looking to escape for a little while. Our stories cover language, everyday poisons (this month’s issue tells you all you need to know about MSG), sustainability and conservation, and traveling out of your comfort zone.

We have a staff of extremely talented and varied columnists that bring all sorts of exciting qualities to our hunt—including mixology, life hacking, learning how to overcome every kind of fear or anxiety, and extensive, detailed knowledge on music, art, and the specifics of travel locations.

I can’t thank you enough for being a part of this wonderful journey. We’re looking forward to continually bringing you the freshest and the best.

Wishing you bright days and exciting moments,

uh. urban hunter

table of contents

04 Quick & Dirty Fixes: The Office 06

Conquering Your Fears: Defeating Dread

Pick Your Poison: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About MSG

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Oldies But Goodies: Elvis Presley

16 COVER STORY

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EmPowerhouse: A Community-Based Approach to Building Affordable, Net-Zero Waste Homes

26 Artist Profile: Cindy Sherman Achieving Your Travel Goals

28 One Step at a Time

Cocktail of the Month: Grapefruit Jasmine

36

Learning a Second Language

38

Your Guide to: Indian Ashrams

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If you find yourself becoming overly anxious, use the following steps to help you calm down and start to regain control.

1) Breathing is the short circuit for anxiety I know, you hear a lot about ‘deep breathing’ to help you relax and reduce anxiety, but bear with me.

Quicker, shallower breathing is the first trigger which catapults all the other anxious symptoms into action. So by controlling breathing you control all the other anxiety symptoms as well.If you purposely breathe out longer than you breathe in, your body has to calm right down (regardless of what tricks your imagination is playing on you).

Conquering Your Fears:

Defeating

Dread

If you start to feel fearful: > Stop > Focus on your breath > Take a breath in (to the quick count of 7 in your mind) > Then slowly breathe out (to the quick count of 11 in your mind) If you do this for a minute or so, you’ll be amazed how quickly you’ve calmed down. We call this ‘7/11 breathing’ but the numbers are up to you, just as long as the out-breath is longer than the inbreath.

2) Prepare for peaceful performance If you get anxious and fear upcoming events, you’ll notice that just thinking about that interview, speech, or whatever will start to cause physical responses – namely, anxiety.

So you might be thinking about next Wednesday’s dental appointment and find yourself breathing more quickly or your palms getting moist. This in turn primes your body to become even more anxious in the actual situation and so the vicious cycle continues. And note the

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Brené Brown’, Ph.D., LMSW, is an American scholar, author, and public speaker, who is currently a research professor at the University of Houston College of Social Work.

role of the imagination in priming your mind and body to feel fearful (see opening story).

But you’re going to find that breathing in a relaxed 7/11 way whilst imagining the upcoming situation ahead of time calms the association down, priming your mind to feel more relaxed naturally and automatically when the actual situation arrives.

So when you find yourself thinking about the future event, do 7/11 breathing.

One symptom of too much fear or anxiety is not being able to think clearly (Nasrudin stumbled into the nearest tomb!). This happens because the emotional part of the brain ‘swamps’ the thinking part so as to avoid, say, over-analysis getting in the way of running like Bejessus from a lion.

But in most modern situations we want to retain clear thought. And keeping your ‘thinking brain’ working actually calms you right down.

The next step helps you do that.

3) Use a different part of your brain When we become very anxious, it’s harder to think clearly. But if we force ourselves to use parts of ‘the thinking brain’, this will dilute the emotion and begin to calm you down.

The easiest way to do this is with numbers. You can scale your own fear from 1 to 10, 10 being the most terrified it’s possible to be and 1 being the ultimate relaxed state.

When you’re feeling anxious, ask yourself: “Okay what number on the scale am I right now? Am I a 7, or a 5?” Just doing this will lower anxiety because it kick-starts the thinking brain, diluting the emo-

tion and automatically making you calmer. Scaling (sometimes known as ‘grading’) your fear puts a ‘fence’ around it, making it more manageable, and forces you to think.

4) Get control of your imagination Fear and anxiety thrive when we imagine the worst.

We developed imagination to be able to project into the future so we can plan ahead. However, a side effect of being able to imagine possible positive futures is being able to imagine things going wrong.

Anxious, chronic worriers tend to misuse their imaginations to the extent that upcoming events feel like catastrophes waiting to happen. No wonder whole lives can be blighted by fear and anxiety.

Here’s what to do: > Sit down and do your 7/11 breathing. > Count yourself down from whatever number you deem yourself to be to a 2 or a 1. > Imagine seeing yourself in the situation you were dreading, but see yourself being calm, composed, cool, and comfortable and things going well.

y Photos b s r u Yuri Arc

Doing this starts to recondition your mind to feel calmer and more upbeat about upcoming events or

regular situations which were causing anxiety.

5) Use the AWARE technique Fear and anxiety can feel as if they ‘just happen to us’, but we have much more control than we realize.

AWARE is an acronym standing for: A: Accept the anxiety. Don’t try to fight it.

W: Watch the anxiety. Just watch it and when you notice it, scale your level of fear and start to breathe longer on the out-breath.

A: Stands for ‘Act normally’. Carry on talking or behaving as if nothing is different. This sends a powerful signal to your unconscious mind that its over-dramatic response is actually not needed because nothing that unusual is going on. Like fire fighters coming out and seeing that no emergency is happening and so going back to the fire station.

R: Repeat the above steps in your mind if necessary.

E: Expect the best. One of the greatest feelings in life is the realization that you can control fear much more than you thought possible.

Overcoming fear and anxiety will give you the ‘spare capacity’ in life to focus on what you really want to be and do. It takes effort, but imagine the rewards.

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scan, digitize and label each and every scrap of paper, no matter what we happen to find!

You’ll be able to assign each receipt a different category, export the data to your tax professional, and continue to make dynamic updates throughout the year. In the meantime, you’re office will have gone from a scrap-filled disaster zone to a clutter-free fortress in a matter of minutes.

So take a deep breath, grab the nearest stack of disorganized files, and see what Blue can do for you.

If you haven’t tried Shoeboxed yet, sign up today for afree 30-day trial and see what Magic Envelopes can do for you!

Choose Colors that Inspire Forget Feng Shui and all the rules you’ve ever heard about certain colors inspiring certain emotions (you know, red incites passion, green invokes calm, etc).

Instead, choose colors based on what you like. How radical is that?

If you dig yellow and find that the color makes you feel motivated and energized, forget the fact that Martha Stewart recommends orange for motivation. boxed Magic Envelope?

If you’re in a shared workspace Here’s what makes this one of our favorite organization ideas ever and painting the walls isn’t an op– using it requires absolutelyzero organizational skills.

When you use the Magic Envelope, all you’re doing is dumping paper – any kind of paper – into our big blue envelope and dropping it in the mail. You don’t even pay for postage!

With the Magic Envelope, there’s no need to organize receipts, separate bank statements by quarter, or spend hours scouring old tax returns.

You could put on a blindfold, toss whatever you find into the envelope, and end up more organized than ever before.

This is because Shoeboxed does all of the organizing for you. Once we receive your envelope, we’ll

QUICK & DIRTY FIXES:

is an English freelance writer who drinks far too much coffee, here to help you hack your way to a happier life.

Siobhan Harmer

There’s no point in implementing a new set of organization ideas into your workspace if doing so is complicated, time consuming and labor intensive.

Getting organized is all about making your life easier, increasing efficiency and creating a space that motivates you! It’s also about choosing methods and hacks that work for your personality type, personal tastes and business sensibilities. The greatest organization advice in the world doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work for your business.

With that being said, here are a few of our favorite quick and dirty organization ideas to help you maximize your workspace, whether it’s a home office, a cubicle farm or an employee-packed loft space.

Dump the Paper Have you heard of the Shoe-

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PHOTOS BY JESSICA JONes

THE OFFICE

tion, use a peg board to place images and inspiring shades within your line of vision. Take care to choose pictures, fabrics and knick knacks that make you feel more focused. But be choosy about the type of inspiration you’re bringing into your workspace. If you’re not careful, that “inspiring” picture of Brad Pitt in World War Z could turn into more of a distracting zombiefilled daydream.

Keep ‘em Separated It’s not just a cool ‘90s rock song from The Offspring – while your organization ideas should flow in perfect harmony, your workspace needs to be separated into different compartments. If you’re working with a lot of people, that might even mean separating work spaces into different departments altogether.

Begin the compartmentalization process by considering your workspace, which may very well consist of a desk and a computer. Ask yourself the following questions: 1. What do I actually need and use constantly throughout my workday?

2. What do I have on my desk that I hardly ever use?

3. What is on my desk right now

that may be distracting me from concentrating on the task at hand?

You probably don’t need a whole lot besides your computer. If you are still using a paper calendar, sticky notes, or – gasp – a rolodex, it may be time to go paperless (you didn’t think your desk was immune to the Magic Envelope, did you?).

Swap the scraps for digital versions of everything from your calendar to your business card collection.

There may be some items on your desk that you need but rarely use, such as scissors, staplers and other supplies. Create an area in your office that is specifically designated as the supply zone, and keep it separate from your designated work zone. The less clutter you have distracting you and the more streamlined your physical workspace is, the easier it will be to concentrate.

Cultivate Silence In addition to supplies and paper clutter, it’s easy to lose momentum due to auditory distractions. If you’vedecluttered your space and have nothing to catch your eye except the glowing screen of your Macbook, you may still become distracted by the dinging, buzzing and ringing of your various applications.

Turn. Everything. Off. No, really. Turn off ALL sound notifications, on all of your devices, throughout the entirety of your work session. When it comes to organization ideas, this may be one of the most scary and one of the most effective!

Don’t worry – you’re not going to miss a single email! You are, however, going to strategically check your email a few times per day.

You’re also going to take action every time you hungrily devour your notifications – if you’re not going to answer it, delete it, or archive it, then no peeking allowed! Checking just to check is an enormous time waster. n ur b a n hunt e r

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pick your poison :

MSG

BY Dr. Joseph Mercola In 1908, over a bowl of seaweed soup, Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda asked a question that would change the food industry forever: what gave dashi, a ubiquitous Japanese soup base, its meaty flavor? In Japanese cuisine, dashi, a fermented base made from boiled seaweed and dried fish, was widely used by chefs to add extra oomph to meals–pairing well with other savory, but meatless foods like vegetables and soy. For some reason that was generally accepted but inexplicable, dashi made these meatless foods meaty–and Ikeda was determined to find out why.

Ikeda was able to isolate the main substance of dashi–the seaweed Laminaria japonica. He then took the seaweed and ran it through a series of chemical experiments, using evaporation to isolate a specific compound within the seaweed. After days of evaporating and treating the seaweed, he saw the development of a crystalline form. When he tasted the crystals, he recognized the distinct savory taste that dashi lent to other foods, a taste that he deemed umami, from the Japanese umai (delicious.) It was a breakthrough that challenged a cor-

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nerstone of culinary thinking: instead of four tastes—sweet, salty, bitter and sour—there were now five. A new frontier of taste had been discovered, and Ikeda wasted no time monopolizing on his discovery.

He determined the molecular formula of the crystals: C5H9NO4, the same as glutamic acid, an amino acid designated as non-essential because the human body, as well as a large smattering of other plants and animals is able to produce it on its own. In the body, glutamic acid is often found as glutamate, a different compound that has one less hydrogen atom. Glutamate is one of the most abundant excitatory neurotransmitters in brain, playing a crucial role in memory and learning. The FDA estimates that the average adult consumes 13 grams of it a day from the protein in food. Nonmeat food sources like tomatoes and Parmesan cheese have high levels of glutamic acid.

In 1909, Ikeda began mass-producing Ajinomoto (meaning “essence of taste”), an additive that came out of his creation of the first method of industrially producing glutamate by way of fermented vegetable proteins. The

the dangers of monosodium glutamate ur b a n h unt e r

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resulting sodium salt form of glutamic acid (the acid with just a single sodium molecule) became famous for its ability to imbue a meaty flavor into dishes, or just naturally enhance the flavor of food. It was touted as a nutritional wonder, helping bland but nutritious food become delicious. A growing number of Japanese housewives used the product, and by the 1930s, recipes included Ajinomoto use in their directions.

The sodium salt of glutamic acid remains prevalent today–anyone who has eaten KFC or Doritos has

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ingested it; it’s just known by a different name: monosodium glutamate, or MSG. Panda-inspired bottles of Ajinomto’s glutamtic salt.

Photo via Flickr user Kinya Hanada.

Few letters have the power to stop conversation in its tracks more than MSG, one of the most infamous additives in the food industry. The three little letters carry so much negative weight that they’re often whispered sheepishly or, more often, decidedly preceded by the modifier “NO” that seems to make everyone breathe a collective sigh of relief when they go out to eat. Nobody wants MSG in their food—the protest goes—it causes headaches, stomachaches, dizziness and general malaise. It’s unhealthy and, maybe even worse, unsexy, used by lazy chefs as an excuse for flavor, not an enhancement.

On the other side of the spectrum lies umami: few foodie buzzwords pop off the lips with such entertaining ease. Enterprising young chefs like David Chang (of Momofuku fame) and Adam Fleischman, of the LA-based chain Umami Burger, have built their culinary careers on the basis of the fifth taste, revitalizing an interest in the meaty-depth of umami. It’s difficult to watch the Food Network or Travel Channel or any food-based program without hearing mention of the taste wunderkind, a host or chef cooing over the deep umami flavors of a Portobello mushroom.

Where MSG is scary, umami is exciting.

What few people understand is that the hated MSG and the adored umami are chemically related: umami is tasted by the very receptors that MSG targets. At a MAD Symposium in Denmark, a TED-like conference for the food industry, Chang spoke about MSG and umami: “For me, the way that I’m looking at umami, it’s the same way I look at MSG. It’s one in the same.”

But if chefs like Chang (neither inept nor lazy when it comes to flavor, as his Michelin stars would attest to) are down with MSG, why does the additive retain such a bad reputation?

After gaining a foothold in Japanese cooking columns, MSG spread throughout Asia, becoming especially popular in Chinese cooking for enhancing both stocks and vegetarian dishes. Everyone knows this connection, and probably associates MSG use in America most heavily with Chinese restaurants–thanks in large part to the absurdly racist name for MSG sensitivity “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.” But MSG’s foray into American cuisine came from more than Chinese dishes; MSG became popular in the United States during World War II thanks in large part to the country’s increasing military-industrial complex.

The military thought that they had found in MSG an answer to the flavorless rations allotted to soldiers, and when the war ended, the troops came home and

“One of the most infamous additives in the food industry” so did the industrialization of food production. From canned vegetables to frozen dinners, industrially created food was met with wonder in the United States.

That all changed in the 1960s, when trust in industrial food began to wane. In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a manifesto against pesticides that kicked off the environmental movement. As pesticides quickly fell from grace, faith in the industry of yesteryear–of the chemicals and additives born from the war—declined as well. In 1968, MSG’s death knell rang in the form of a letter written to the New England Journal of Medicine by Robert Ho Man Kwok, a Chinese-American doctor from Maryland. Kwok claimed that after eating at Chinese restaurants, he often came down with certain unpleasant symptoms, namely “numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back” and “general weakness and palpitation.”

After Kwok’s letter ran, the journal received a deluge of letters from other readers, all claiming to suffer from the same affliction, deemed “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” by editors. Some readers presented the same symptoms as Kwok, but most were extremely varied, ranging from cold sweats to extreme dizziness.

In response, the Journal offered up MSG as the likely culprit for their reader’s unpleasant symptoms.

Public interest spurred a number of scientific inquiries into the potential danger of MSG. According to food historian Ian Mosby’s exploration of MSG in “That Won-Ton Soup Headache” these inquiries went one of two ways: they either sought to prove the harmful short-term effects of MSG (and Chinese Restaurant Syndrome) or they looked to identify more long-term ur b a n hunt e r

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damage caused by the additive. was creative enough. We wanted to do it ourselves. By doing it ourselves, Initially, researchers had success we could create a flavor that was umami without the stigma of MSG. MSG, proving both the short-term and whether you like it or not, has been marketed so poorly, it sounds like this long-term dangers of MSG: mice horrible thing.” injected with the additive showed By harnessing natural glutamates for their burgers, Umami Burger signs of brain lesions, and humans fed avoids negative connotations associated with MSG. But the “natural” 3 grams of MSG per 200 ml of soup glutamates in an Umami Burger aren’t chemically any different from presented symptoms congruent with glutamtes in MSG. “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.”

Subsequent studies, however, provid“The short answer is that there is no difference: glutamate is glued mixed results: some confirmed findings tamate is glutamate,” says Richard Amasino, professor of biochemof brain lesions in animals or symptoms in istry at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It would be identical unhumans, but other studies were unable to less different things created a different rate of uptake.” replicate the results. Double-blind studies often showed little correlation between MSG Glutamtes that occur naturally in food come intertwined and adverse symptoms. Parties on both sides with different chemicals or fiber, which the body is naturally of the debate slung accusations at the other, inclined to regulate, explains Amy Cheng Vollmer, professor with the anti-MSG researchers claiming that of biology at Swarthmore College. MSG, however, comes studies were being funded by MSG producers, without the natural components of food that help the body and pro-MSG researchers accusing the other side regulate glutamic levels. It’s like taking an iron supplement of fear-mongering. versus obtaining iron from spinach or red meat: the iron From the FDA to the United Nations to various supplement creates an expressway between the iron and governments (Australia, Britain and Japan) the pubyour bloodstream that you wouldn’t find in natural iron lic bodies that have investigated MSG have deemed sources. it a safe food additive.

“The bottom line here is context is everything,” Vollmer adds.

The FDA states on their website: So does MSG deserve its bad rap? For the small “FDA considers the addition of MSG to foods to be section of the population that shows sensitivity to it, “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). Although many probably. But for the rest of America, maybe it’s time people identify themselves as sensitive to MSG, in stud- to reconsider exactly what we’re so afraid of when ies with such individuals given MSG or a placebo, scienit comes to MSG. tists have not been able to consistently trigger reactions.”

A widespread and silent killer

Scientific interest in its deleterious effects seems to be that’s worse for your health waning: one of the last studies to gain public attention was published in 2011. The authors of that study claimed to have than alcohol, nicotine and found a link between MSG and obesity, though those results many drugs is likely lurking in have been questioned. While the general scientific consensus seems to be that only in large doses and on an empty stomyour kitchen cabinets. ach can MSG temporarily affect a small subset of the population, MSG’s reputation is still maligned in the public eye.

“It” is monosodium glutamate (MSG)1, On the other hand, MSG’s glutamic cousin umami suffers no a flavor enhancer that’s known widely as public scorn: in 2010, umami was deemed one of the most delian addition to Chinese food, but that’s cious food trends to watch. When Adam Fleischman’s Umami Burgactually added to thousands of the er (a burger chain devoted to all things umami) opened a New York foods you and your family regularly eat, outpost, the wait for a meaty bite stretched on for three-hours. In adespecially if you are like most Ameridition to piling natural glutamates onto their burger to ensure the most cans and eat the majority of your food umami flavor, Umami Burger enhances the burger with their “umami as processed foods or in restaurants. dust,” a blend of dried mushrooms and seaweed, and umami sauce, MSG is one of the worst food adwhich includes soy and Marmite. Altogether, an original Umami Burger ditives on the market and is used contains 2,185 mg of glutamate. in canned soups, crackers, meats, “Most people don’t know the connection between umami and MSG. salad dressings, frozen dinners They know about it from the fifth taste, and the fifth taste was always called and much more. It’s found in umami and not MSG,” Fleischman explains. “We didn’t feel that using MSG

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your local supermarket and restaurants, in your child’s school cafeteria and, amazingly, even in baby food and infant formula.

MSG is more than just a seasoning like salt and pepper, it actually enhances the flavor of foods, making processed meats and frozen dinners taste fresher and smell better, salad dressings more tasty, and canned foods less tinny.

While MSG’s benefits to the food industry are quite clear, this food additive could be slowly and silently doing major damage to your health.

What Exactly is MSG? You may remember when the MSG powder called “Accent” first hit the U.S. market. Well, it was many decades prior to this, in 1908, that monosodium glutamate was invented. The inventor was Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese man who identified the natural flavor enhancing substance of seaweed.

Taking a hint from this substance, they were able to create the man-made additive MSG, and he and a partner went on to form Ajinomoto, which is now the world’s largest producer of MSG (and interestingly also a drug manufacturer). 2 Chemically speaking, MSG is approximately 78 percent free glutamic acid, 21 percent sodium, and up to 1 percent contaminants.3 It’s a misconception that MSG is a flavor or “meat tenderizer.” In reality, MSG has very little taste at all, yet when you eat MSG, you think the food you’re eating has more protein and tastes better. It does this by tricking your tongue, using a little-known fifth basic taste: umami.

Umami is the taste of glutamate, which is a savory flavor found in many Japanese foods, bacon and also in the toxic food additive MSG. It is because of umami that foods with MSG taste heartier, more robust and generally better to a lot of people than foods without it.

The ingredient didn’t become widespread in the United States until after World War II, when the U.S. military realized Japanese rations were much tastier than the U.S. versions because of MSG. In 1959, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration labeled MSG as “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS), and it has remained that way ever since. Yet, it was a telling sign when just 10 years later a condition known

as “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” entered the medical literature, describing the numerous side effects, from numbness to heart palpitations, that people experienced after eating MSG. Today that syndrome is more appropriately called “MSG Symptom Complex,” which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) identifies as “short-term reactions” to MSG. More on those “reactions” to come.

Why MSG is so Dangerous One of the best overviews of the very real dangers of MSG comes from Dr. Russell Blaylock, a boardcertified neurosurgeon and author of “Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills.” In it he explains that MSG is an excitotoxin, which means it overexcites your cells to the point of damage or death, causing brain damage to varying degrees -- and potentially even triggering or worsening learning disabilities, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease and more.

Part of the problem also is that free glutamic acid is the same neurotransmitter that your brain, nervous system, eyes, pancreas and other organs use to initiate certain processes in your body.4 Even the FDA states: “Studies have shown that the body uses glutamate, an amino acid, as a nerve impulse transmitter in the brain and that there are glutamate-responsive tissues in other parts of the body, as well.

Abnormal function of glutamate receptors has been linked with certain neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s chorea. Injections of glutamate in laboratory animals have resulted in damage to nerve cells in the brain.”5 Although the FDA continues to claim that consuming MSG in food does not cause these ill effects, many other experts say otherwise.

According to Dr. Blaylock, numerous glutamate receptors have been found both within your heart’s electrical conduction system and the heart muscle

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itself. This can be damaging to your heart, and may even explain the sudden deaths sometimes seen among young athletes.

He says: “When an excess of food-borne excitotoxins, such as MSG, hydrolyzed protein soy protein isolate and concentrate, natural flavoring, sodium caseinate and aspartate from aspartame, are consumed, these glutamate receptors are over-stimulated, producing cardiac arrhythmias.

When magnesium stores are low, as we see in athletes, the glutamate receptors are so sensitive that even low levels of these excitotoxins can result in cardiac arrhythmias and death.” 6 No one knows for sure just how many people may be “sensitive” to MSG, but studies from the 1970s suggested that 25 percent to 30 percent of the U.S. population was intolerant of MSG -- at levels then found in food. Since the use of MSG has expanded dramatically since that time, it’s been estimated that up to 40 percent of the population may be impacted.8 How to Determine if MSG is in Your Food Food manufacturers are not stupid, and they’ve caught on to the fact that people like you want to avoid eating this nasty food additive. As a result, do you think they responded by removing MSG from their products? Well, a few may have, but most of them just tried to “clean” their labels. In other words, they tried to hide the fact that MSG is an ingredient. How do they do this? By using names that you would never associate with MSG. You see, it’s required by the FDA that food manufacturers list the ingredient “monosodium glutamate” on food labels, but they do not have to label ingredients that contain free glutamic acid, even though it’s the main component of MSG. There are over 40 labeled ingredients that contain glutamic acid,9 but you’d never know it just from their names alone.

Further, in some foods glutamic acid is formed during processing and, again, food labels give you no way of knowing for sure.

Tips for Keeping MSG Out of Your Diet In general, if a food is processed you can assume it contains MSG (or one of its pseudo-ingredients). So if you stick to a whole, fresh foods diet, you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll avoid this toxin. The other place where you’ll need to watch out for MSG is in restaurants. You can ask your server which menu items are MSG-free, and request that no MSG be added to your meal, but of course the only place where you can be entirely sure of what’s added to your food is in your own kitchen. To be on the safe side, you should also know what ingredients to watch out for on pack-

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aged foods.

So if you do eat processed foods, please remember to be on the lookout for these many hidden names for MSG. Choosing to be MSG-Free Making a decision to avoid MSG in your diet as much as possible is a wise choice for nearly everyone.

Admittedly, it does take a bit more planning and time in the kitchen to prepare food at home, using fresh, locally grown ingredients. But knowing that your food is pure and free of toxic additives like MSG will make it well worth it. Plus, choosing whole foods will ultimately give you better flavor and more health value than any MSG-laden processed food you could buy at your supermarket. n

PHOTOS BY EISING STUDIO

other names for MSG natriumglutaminat umami, glutamate, free glutamic acid

wie jing

E621, E620-625 phong churot ajinomoto

vetsin boerewors

According to the FDA, MSG Symptom Complex can involve symptoms such as: Numbness Burning sensation Tingling Facial pressure Facial tightness Chest pain

Ingredients that ALWAYS contain MSG Autolyzed Yeast Calcium Caseinate Gelatin Glutamate Glutamic Acid Hydrolyzed Protein

Difficulty breathing Headache Nausea Rapid heartbeat Drowsiness Weakness

areas affected by msg Brain Allergic Response Vision Nervous System

Hearing Hypothalamus Thyroid Function

Blood Pressure Blood Vessels

Heart Rate

Lungs Endocrine System

Pancreas

Monosodium Glutamate Sodium Caseinate Textured Protein Yeast Extract Yeast Food Yeast Nutrient

Ingredients that OFTEN contain MSG (or create MSG during processing)

Flavors and Flavorings Seasonings Natural Flavors Natural Pork Flavoring Natural Beef Flavoring Natural Chicken Flavoring Soy Sauce Soy Protein Isolate Soy Protein Bouillon Stock Broth Malt Extract

Malt Flavoring Barley Malt Anything Enzyme Modified Carrageenan Maltodextrin Pectin Enzymes Protease Corn Starch Citric Acid Powdered Milk Anything Protein Fortified Anything Ultra-Pasteurized

Hypoglycemia Digestive System ur b a n hunt e r

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OLDIES BUT GOODIES:

Elvis

Presley a review of “Elvis Country” and “Elvis at Stax”

Robert Fontenot, jr. is a nationally published entertainment critic and journalist, and is a foremost expert on oldies music from the last 70 years.

Along with The Beatles, Elvis Presley has the widest reach of any 20th-century pop artist. Unlike the Beatles, the reach isn’t very deep.

While Beatles albums keep getting rediscovered by new generations, Presley has a handful of hits that remain common knowledge for casual music listeners, and not much else.

The problem with Presley’s discography is the dearth of entry points that are accessibleand intriguing; the best primers for his work are greatest-hits albums heavy on over-familiar songs, and unwieldy (though frequently remarkable) box sets.

Then there’s 1971’s Elvis Country (I’m 10,000 Years Old), recently reissued as a two-disc set with the similar but inferior Love Letters From Elvis. A record with no hits, and none of the flash or camp that the late-period, jumpsuit-clad Presley is known for, Elvis Country is the closest thing to a concept album in his canon.

With its famous cover showing a strangely magnetic (yet also lonelyseeming) 2-year-old Presley, the record is a wistful look back to the singer’s roots, surveying a variety

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of Nashville sounds—from ragged bluegrass to strings-laden countrypolitan ballads—that foreshadow the highly melancholic, romantically ravaged brooding that consumed Presley in the final years of his life.

Recorded during lengthy but loose sessions in June 1970 that also formed the basis of that year’s essential That’s The Way It Is as well as Love Letters, Elvis Country has an instantly appealing “live” sound that spotlights Presley’s charged chemistry with his ace backing band (which featured legendary session players like guitarist James Burton and pianist David Briggs).

Some cuts, like the Bill Monroe hit “Little Cabin On The Hill,” sound like laid-back jams serendipitously caught on tape. Presley favored slower, almost dirge-like material as he got older, but Elvis Country has plenty of kick, with Presley whipping up a mean strut on Lee Hazlewood’s “The Fool” and the Jerry Lee Lewis chestnut, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” his hardest-rocking song of the ’70s.

But the heart of Elvis Country lies with the ballads, all of which are lovelorn, “why’d she leave me?”

weepies that Presley sings with the conviction of a man whose own marriage was falling apart. (He separated and divorced wife Priscilla the following year.) The wounded sentiment unifies Elvis Country even as Presley draws from a wide range of material, including the Hank Cochran standard “Make The World Go Away,” the Anne Murray hit “Snowbird,” and “Funny How Time Slips Away,” a sophisticated depiction of a failed adult relationship by a then-obscure singer-songwriter named Willie Nelson. Rock’s greatest song interpreter, Presley makes it all sound like expressions of his personal, painfully brokenhearted worldview.

Presley recorded 35 songs at those June ’70 sessions, and what didn’t end up on That’s The Way It Is or Elvis Countryfell to Love Letters From Elvis. Not surprisingly, it sounds like a bunch of leftovers, and on the Elvis Country reissue it’s essentially a glorified extras disc.

But there are some songs that stand out, including a sweaty jam on “Got My Mojo Working/Keep Your Hands Off Of It” and the charming “It’s Ain’t No Big Thing (But It’s Growing).” Elvis Country is good enough

PHOTOS BY Michael Ochs / Getty Images

to stand on its own, but considering the darkness hovering just over the album’s horizon, every last scrap of inspiration should be savored.

The title “Elvis at Stax” is slightly misleading, suggesting Elvis Presley decided to set up shop at the famed Memphis recording studio so he could use their house band, or perhaps co-opt some of the Southern soul groove. That wasn’t the case.

Elvis chose the Stax studios to conduct several recording sessions in 1973 for a simple reason: it was close to his Memphis home. He rented out the studio twice, once in July and once in December, and brought in his crack backing band, recording enough material to fill out three CDs. This music was doled out over the years, accounting for five hit singles over three years (a B-side and a posthumous single also came from these sessions), along with three albums: 1973’s Raised On Rock, 1974’s Good Times, and 1975’s Promised Land. These albums were all strong, but aren’t often considered part of Presley’s core canon, possibly because this mid-’70s run of records were often packaged like product (certainly there’s not

a memorable album cover among them), possibly because, apart from “Promised Land,” there were no hit singles that could be called a true smash or part of his core canon. And that’s why Elvis at Stax is so valuable: taken as a whole, these 1973 sessions are revealed as his last great blast of creativity in the recording studio.

Essentially, he was working the same ground he began to plow on his 1968 comeback, but the aftershocks of Elvis Country are apparent, along with just the slightest hint of funky, organ-driven grooves.

In this context, the preponderance of alternate takes are not tedious, but rather show Elvis’ good humor and creativity as he tries out slightly different approaches on each take.

What impresses is Presley’s virtuosity and how he cannily constructed his performances to seem effortless: there’s sweat fueling these tight, punchy renditions, and heart behind his ballads, and you can hear him work it all out on the alternate takes, then reach full flight on the finished masters. None of this was readily evident on the three LPs of Stax material, but this triple-disc, alternate-laden box lays it out plain and it’s a joy to behold. n ur b a n hunt e r

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EM

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POWERHOUSE Habitat for Humanity’s community-based approach to net-zero waste housing.

by CHristine paxson

The design is meant to accommodate the future lifestyle goals of an urban couple with an annual income of about $50,000. This original model begins as a 1,000 sq. ft. one-bedroom home, with a 300 sq. ft. accessible roof-top outdoor space that can be expanded into two additional bedrooms and/or a family living space.

Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C. is partnering with Parsons The New School of Design, Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy, and Stevens Institute for Technology, in addition to D.C.’s Department of Housing and Community Development, to build carbon neutral duplex homes in the Deanwood neighborhood of Northeast D.C. as part of the 2011 Solar Decathlon.

DC Habitat will then sell these two units at below-market costs and affordable loan terms to low-income DC families who will call this model for sustainable housing home. We are calling this collaborative initiative Empowerhouse.

Empowerhouse will create a new design standard for sustainable housing – one that will be replicable around the world. The innovative approach we have chosen reflects commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration, civic engagement, and design innovation.

Established in 2002, the Solar Decathlon is a biennial event overseen by the U.S. Department of Energy, in which university teams from around the globe compete to design and build the most attractive and energyefficient solar-powered house. Entries will be exhibited at Potomac Park near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. from September 23 to October 2, 2011.

Instead, working with project partner Habitat for Humanity, the house was moved from

the National Mall to the Deanwood neighborhood east of the Anacostia River. Habitat and their volunteer builders fully realized the house designed by the students–adding a second story, and a second unit to make this a two-family home.

They’ve hung drywall, put in innovative, sustainable landscaping, and conducted extensive sustainability testing on the heating, cooling, and other systems to ensure its maximum energy efficiency. In fact, construction has been such a success, and the house is so cost effective both to build and to live in (not drawing any power from the grid also means no power bills for the eventual resident), that Habitat for Humanity is exploring using these methods to build other projects around the country, and Habitat D.C. is planning to build six more in the D.C. area.

The Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon is a competition that challenges 20 collegiate teams to design and build a cutting-edge sustainable house. Held every two years since 2002 on the National Mall in Washington, the competition draws throngs of visitors during its ten-day run. The houses though are typically then transported across the country or around the world and then back to the schools where they were built.

This time around we, the Empowerhouse team (comprising of students from Parsons The New School for Design, Milano School of ur b a n h unt e r

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International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, and the Stevens Institute of Technology) together with Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C., and the D.C. Department of Housing and Urban Development, are turning our demonstration house into a permanent, two-family home in Deanwood. Following our completion, Habitat for Humanity plans to sell both units as affordable housing to Deanwood community members.

Greater Deanwood is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Washington D.C. and has a rich history of community activism. Deanwood is notable for its small-town character, with wood-frame and brick homes that date from the early 20th century.

Deanwood and its surrounding neighborhoods are undergoing a powerful revitalization with economic development and environmental sustainability as key components of the resurgence. The Empowerhouse project will lend strength to continued efforts to make Deanwood a more sustainable community. The relationship built with Deanwood via the Solar Decathlon has resulted in the development of “outside the competition” projects, as the capacity to make a deeper impact in the community beyond the houses was realized. These initiatives are showcased here. We look forward to comments, questions, and feedback, and look forward to any requests for involvement.

Our House This house is the product of an interdisciplinary team of graduate and undergraduate students from a number of design disciplines— including architecture, interior design, lighting, fashion, product design, communication design, and design and technology— as well as engineering, management, and urban policy students. Since the project began, over 200 students, 20 faculty and administrators from our three schools have been a part of the team.

The Empowerhouse team worked in partnership with the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, Groundwork Anacostia, and Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C., a volunteer-led organization that works to build affordable, energy– and resource–efficient homes for people in need.

Community Connection After the competition Empowerhouse will be moved to the D.C. neighborhood of Deanwood, where it will become a home for a family selected by Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C. Deanwood is 10 miles from the National Mall. Keeping the house in the Distric of Columbia has reduced our carbon footprint by limiting shipping distance from the competition site.

NEIGHBORHOOD Greater Deanwood is a vibrant, historically African American community and one of the oldest neighborhoods in Northeast Washington D.C. with homes that

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date from the early 20th century. Deanwood is currently undergoing a powerful revitalization with economic development and environmental sustainability as key components of the resurgence.

Empowerhouse is intended to be a hub for community involvement, exchange and learning. Our team is using Empowerhouse as an educational tool for the greater Deanwood community. Open workshops and public policy advocacy are part of Empowerhouse’s aims to create change in Deanwood.

PUBLIC POLICY Empowerhouse will be placed in a neighborhood after the competition, requiring our team to follow not only Solar Decathlon rules and regulations, but also those of local DC zoning and building codes. Our Project meets the Enterprise Community Partners’ Green Communities Criteria. The team is looking at how aspects of this house exceeds certain standards required

by Enterprise and other local policies.

Active Systems Empowerhouse is a site net-zero energy home, efficiently producing as much electricity as it uses in a year. A 4.2 kW solar array produces all of the energy to heat and cool the home, power the lighting, and run the hot water heater and electric appliances, eliminating electricity bills for the Deanwood family.

Empowerhouse uses conventional, market available, components in a synergetic relationship, maximizing their efficiency.

living environment.

SENSORS AND CONTROLS To maximize efficiency, the lighting strategy integrates occupancy and daylight sensors. The webbased control system visualizes and displays energy consumption, informing the occupants about their use of active systems.

WIRELESS SWITCHES Many of the switches and sensors require no wiring or batteries; communicating information using available energy harvested at their location through mechanical operation, photosensitivity or ambient heat.

Passive House Standards In order to build a solar powered home that is also affordable, Empowerhouse is designed according to Passive House Standard, consuming 80% less primary energy than a conventional home. This allows us to minimize the size and cost of our mechanical system and solar array.

CONVENTIONAL HOUSE ENERGY REQUIREMENTS

SYNERGETIC SYSTEM The mechanical components work synergistically.

Fresh, preconditioned air flows from the ventilator directly into the air handler. The water heater recovers heat from the exhaust of the condensing dryer. As air passes through a transfer duct, excess heat is removed from the inverter. Cool, dehumidified air is exhausted from the water heater where it is pulled into the return and redistributed, reducing cooling loads.

Wireless switches control high efficiency light sources. A simple, scalable network of controls encourages the efficient operation of the house. As opposed to a typical “smart home” control system, which anticipates and encourages the homeowner’s needs, this system empowers a “smart homeowner” by providing real time energy monitoring and feedback, enabling the occupants to better understand their patterns of usage.

LIGHTING STRATEGY The stair loft brings light deep into the center of the home. Interior window trim is splayed to maximize views and daylight; and reduce glare, contrast, and the apparent thickness of the walls.

General artificial lighting is provided by low cost, high efficiency linear fluorescents and LED light sources that reflect off of the vertical and horizontal surfaces of the house, while focused activities are addressed with additional task lighting. These systems complement each other to create a rich and varied

The U.S. Energy Information Agency 2005 report on residential energy consumption shows that the average single family house in the United States uses 53 kBtu of primary energy per square foot, per year. This energy costs the homeowner in high utility bills (electrical, gas or oil) and costs the planet in CO2 emissions from electricity production using fossil fuels.

EMPOWERHOUSE ENERGY REQUIREMENT Empowerhouse requires less than 4.75 kBtu per square foot per year of Primary Energy annually. This reduces energy costs by over 80% a year, important savings for the family and the planet and making the use of solar panels affordable.

PHPP MODELING The Passive House Planning Package is used as the primary energy-modeling tool. The engineering team improved the use of the spreadsheet-based tool by interfacing it with Rhinoceros 3D modeling software through a tool called Grasshopper. This rapidly accelerates the iterative design process by allowing the team to test designs for thermal effects on envelope design, glazing size and orientation.

Incredible energy savings is the result of following the principles of Passive House. These include high levels of insulation, airtight construction, high-performance windows and doors, minimized thermal bridging, and windows and shading placed to control solar heat gain.

Passive House Principles SUPER INSULATION The exterior envelope is super insulated and composed of 12” deep, engineered wood I-joists sandwiched between two layers of wood sheathing. The cavity is filled with dense pack cellulose insulation. ur b a n hunt e r

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AIR TIGHT CONSTRUCTION Sheathing materials integrate air and moisture barriers. The use of a furred out interior wall to run service lines eliminates penetrations in this airtight envelope.

The exterior sheathing has a low rate of moisture vapor diffusion allowing panels to dry out. Careful sealing of all seams with special tape helps maintain air tightness.

OPTIMIZE PASSIVE SOLAR HEAT GAINS AND SHADING Large high-gain windows on the south side allow the winter sun to warm the home. Shading was optimized in order to allow maximum sunlight in the winter heating months and avoid overheating in the summer.

MINIMIZE THERMAL BRIDGES Strict and careful attention to framing and construction details minimizes thermal bridges so as not to allow energy flows to enter the house uncontrolled, which could negate the effects of extra insulation.

HIGH PERFORMANCE WINDOWS AND DOORS Windows are oriented and installed to take advantage of passive-solar heat gain. Our windows are air-tight, include thermal breaks, minimize air infiltration and exfiltration. Low-emissivity (low-e) coatings, microscopically thin, transparent layers of metal or metallic oxide deposited on the surface of the glass, further increase the R-value.

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Elements The form of Empowerhouse was designed for transportation and replicability, while the details were designed for ease of construction for volunteer labor.

Habitat for Humanity of Washington D.C. and other chapters nationwide will benefit from this approach.

Empowerhouse is a replicable model that aims to change the way affordable housing is built in America.

LIVING ‘DRY’ MODULE The bedroom, light loft, and living room are aligned on the west side of the home in the Dry Module. These spaces feel open and airy with many windows providing light from the West.

SERVICE ‘WET’ MODULE The mechanical room, bathroom and kitchen anchor the house in the east, in the Wet Module. Grouping these spaces allows a more compact mechanical system, and necessitates fewer connections to be made when bringing the two modules together.

CIRCULATION The front and rear doors align between the two modules, drawing people through the home and connecting them to the backyard.

THICK ENVELOPE The thick envelope that wraps the home is an easily constructible but unique system with engineered wood

I-joists that are sandwhiched between sheathing, creating a 12� cavity that is filled with blown in cellulose.

Materials were selected according to a series of criteria including: affordability, green certification, embodied energy, non-toxicity, livability, constructability, and overall environmental impact. Meeting these criteria ensures Empowerhouse is an affordable, buildable home, with healthy indoor air quality.

Low-embodied energy materials that are non-toxic and locally sourced were used whenever available & economically feasible.

PRODUCT DESIGN The ReBox is a modular Furniture system design that allows the user to reorganise their belongings around the house. A modular furniture system molded to suit the needs of an environmentally conscious household, individual units are able to stack, fit, and slide into multiple arrangements to allow horizontal and vertical storage.

The interaction between the user and the flexibility of the product is what makes the ReBox system so unique and versatile. In addition, the conscious selection of materials including the environmentally friendly glues for assembly, formaldehyde free products and efficient joinery reduce the environmental impact of the product by producing as less waste as possible and

also keeping labour costs to a minimal.

Integration The Front porch has historically been an integral part of American culture, and the tradition is still thriving today in Deanwood. Serving as a transitional space between the private family world and the public realm of the street, it is a place where neighbors can interact and build a strong community. Empowerhouse contributes to this important tradition and emphasizes the front porch in its design.

In order to enhance the experience of the porch, the home informs three faces: the front porch opens to the street, the private back porch looks toward the garden and a light loft faces the sky bringing natural light into the center of the home.

Empowerhouse goes beyond the challenge of designing an energy-independent home and fosters a whole-life approach to sustainability to include food, water and clothing.

HOMEGROWN Our house empowers the homeowner with the ability to grow their own produce. Planters are designed for growing fruits and vegetables, promoting a healthy diet, and saving the family the cost of buying produce.

WATER The house is equipped with a rain garden that col-

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PHOTOS by CARLY BERGER

lects and filters storm-water from the roof for use in the gardens. This system minimizes the amount of potable city water used for irrigation, as well as reducing the water that is drained into the public sewer system.

INTERIOR COMFORTS Interior design students selected sustainable, affordable furnishings and fittings with an eye toward the character of the neighborhood. A modular furniture system was developed and a prototype urban cargo bike is on display and will be provided to residents.

COMPOSTING A worm bin is an excellent way to compost in an urban environment. The result of the breakdown of organic matter by worms is used to enrich the soil and enhance plant growth. A super eco-friendly approach to waste control. We have a worm bin in the house now, composting our organic waste.

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DESIGN Empowerhouse students in the disciplines of Product Design, Design and Technology, and Fashion Design at Parsons have designed furnishings, clothing and other elements of the home that will create a healthy environment and contribute to the quality of life. Clothing was designed from highly sustainable materials using zero waste techniques and a prototype urban cargo bike is on display and will be provided to residents after the competition.

As in previous competitions, each dwelling was judged on 10 criteria, including comfort, market appeal and energy balance—the energy generated by each house versus how much it consumed. But this year, for the first time, the Solar Decathlon included affordability as one of its judging criteria..

This year’s teams (which did not include Germany)

were penalized if the cost of their abode exceeded $250,000.

For comparison, in 2010 the average price (pdf) of a new home in the U.S. was $272,900; five of the competing teams built homes that were less expensive than this national average. The structures were compact, but severalalso achieved “net-zero”—they produced as much electricity as they used, helping potential homeowners to save on energy bills.

For a team including students from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., and The New School in New York City, affordability was the top priority right from the start.

Their two-bedroom “Empowerhouse” [shown in the video below] was the least expensive home entered into the competition, ringing in at $229,890.

The home’s 4.2-kilowatt solar panelsare small, in order to reduce up-front costs, but the team’s faculty project manager, Chris Steffens, thinks the building will reach net-zero over the course of a year. Within the next few months, Empowerhouse

will become a home for a family in Deanwood, a neighborhood in Washington, D.C., thanks to Habitat for Humanity International—an organization that provides housing for people in need. The nonprofit is adopting the design for its new units in the District of Columbia area.

Whereas the Decathlon entries this year differed in their strategies to achieve energy independence on a budget, most of the teams emphasized that reducing consumption is an important part of making solar power affordable. Proper insulation, energy-efficient appliances and LED light bulbs can make a big difference, says Andrew Gong, a Caltech senior and lead electrical engineer for the SCIArc/Caltech team. “We can make all the solar panels we need, but it will be easier to achieve net-zero over the nation if we have that much less consumption.”

The 19 dwellings featured at this fifth Decathlon make it tempting to agree with Elisabeth Neigert, project manager for the SCI-Arc/ Caltech team, who does not see the failure of a solar company like Solyndra as a bad sign for the solar industry as a whole. “No one should be discouraged,” she says, “about the possibilities and the importance of solar power, and the impacts it’s going to have on daily life within the next decade.”

The 2011 Solar Decathlon came to a close on October 2nd, with our Empowerhouse model ranking 13th overall. The Empowerhouse team tied with Purdue University for first place in the Affordability Contest, a great win for DC Habitat and our partners. We are taking what we’ve learned from our work on this project to task as we design and build passive townhomes in our Ivy City development.

December 4, 2012, was a day full of celebration and accomplishment – as DC Habitat sponsors, educators, students and staff joined in the Deanwood community to witness the Empowerhouse dedication. More than one hundred people came together in support of the collaboration between Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C., Parsons The New School for Design, Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy, Stevens Institute for Technology, and D.C.’s Department of Housing and Community Development. The proudest of them all was new homeowner Lakiya Culley, who will move into the Empowerhouse in January with her three sons. n ur b a n hunt e r

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ARTIST PROFILE:

Cindy Sherman is an art critic for the New York Times and a lecturer on contemporary art. Smith studied at Grinnell College in Iowa.

Roberta Smith

Sherman is one of the world’s leading artists – for 30 years, she has starred in all her photographs – and yet the more we see of her, the less recognisable she is.

She’s a Hitchcock heroine, a busty Monroe, an abuse victim, a terrified centrefold, a corpse, a Caravaggio, a Botticelli, a mutilated hermaphrodite sex doll, a man in a balaclava, a surgically-enhanced Hamptons type, a cowgirl, a desperate clown, and we’ve barely started.

In front of me is an elegant woman with long, blond hair and soft features. She’s stylish – black jodhpurs, thick, white sweater, Chanel boots horizontally zipped at the top to make pockets, and a furry handbag that doubles as a great golden bear. She looks much kinder than in many of her photographs. She also looks petite – until you notice the big, strong arms: she used to box.

She will be 57 next week.

Sherman emerged fully formed

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on the New York art scene in the early 1980s with a series of untitled film stills. It was a brilliantly novel concept – grainy shots of movies that never existed, created with such panache and knowing that you felt they must do. She was a dream for cultural studies professors the world over. Few artists embraced their contradictions so easily. The feminists claimed her as theirs, as did the postmodernists, the post-structuralists, the posteverythings. But there was nothing clean or prescriptive about her art.

Sherman’s work has always been a vibrant mush of ideas.

She grew up in Long Island, New York, the youngest by far of five children. Nobody in the family thought her dressing up was strange. In fact, nobody commented on it. They were simply glad she had found something to occupy herself. Of course, there is more to her work than dressing up. While she resists dogmatic interpretation, she accepts that so much of it has been an examination of identity and gen-

der. Again, she says, it’s rooted in the confusions of her childhood, and the political evolution of the 1960s and 1970s.

As a teenager, she was obsessed with appearance. She can’t believe now that at 14 she was wearing girdles and projectile bras. “When I grew up, I was watching all these glamorous women with all their make-up and their pointy tits. I’d put on make-up every day of the year because I thought, ‘Well, you never know who’s going to knock on the door.’ I ironed my hair even though my hair was pretty straight.

And then I went through a period when I went to sleep with great big curlers. But you couldn’t get rollers that were big enough, so we’d wash out orange juice cans and even those big tomato juice cans, and wrap our hair around that to make it sort of curly, and I remember trying to sleep with these horrible curlers in my hair.”

But by the time she got to college, make-up was a no-no among selfrespecting liberated women. “I was

photos by cindy sherman

really ambivalent about it because I still liked it, but you did not wear make-up, you did not dye your hair, you didn’t wear a bra – we were all natural. Don’t shave or anything. In some of the really early work, you can see my hairy legs.” So even though it’s not autobiographical, the work is about her sense of self?

“I suppose. It was just something I was working out without being overtly political about it.”

She still has a complicated relationship with make-up. “I hardly wear it in the day now.” Because she spends much of her professional life overly made up? “No, I just feel that wearing make-up in daylight makes me look older. But at night, when the lights are low, I feel I can get away with it.”

At college she studied photography, and failed her first exam. She considered herself an artist whose medium was photography, but most people thought she was bonkers. The art world was not interested in photography, while her fellow photographers were not interested in art.

From the off at college, Sherman became her own subject. Her collection of eccentric outfits was growing, she was still into dressing up, and sometimes she would go out socially “in character”. “The boyfriend I had at the time had pointed out that you’re always putting on make-up – I would just go in my bedroom when I was depressed and I’d turn into characters – and he said, ‘You should be document-

ing this. It’s really interesting what you’re doing.’ It hadn’t occurred to me that I was doing anything unusual.” Sometimes, she directs others to take photos of her, but by and large she takes them by herself with the help of mirrors. All the photos are untitled – another way of distancing herself from the images.

She turns to the picture of herself as Marilyn Monroe. It’s a good likeness, I say. She laughs. “It’s all makeup.” Is the cleavage real? “No, that’s make-up and maybe some socks I put in my bra. Women used to do that – tissues and socks!”

She admits that the longer she goes on, the harder it is to produce genuinely new work. After working on a series of photographs, Sherman often feels that she never wants to take another photo. “It might be a few months of concentrated work and then I’m just like, forget it – I don’t ever want to go in the studio again, I don’t want to put on any more make-up again, I’m so sick of those wigs, so sick of it all.

I think a lot of artists are like that when they’re in the midst of doing something.”

But however much of a struggle it is, her art does continue to evolve.

In the new work, she is more exposed than she has ever been before. There are no prosthetics, no make-up, not much in the way of disguise. And yet, with her subtle digital manipulations, it is still hard to find the real Sherman in these pictures. And she wouldn’t have it any other way. n

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ACHIEVING YOUR TRAVEL GOALS one step at a time

Steve pavlina

“Whatever problems arise, you’ll solve them. Whatever challenges present themselves, you’ll overcome them. You cannot be stopped.”

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Are there some places you’d just love to visit? How long have you dreamed of doing so? Years perhaps?

When you see movies about visiting certain cities, or hear about people traveling there, does a certain part of your psyche salivate with desire? Do you have the thought, I really want to go there someday.

Do you realize that it’s absolutely possible to turn your travel dreams into reality? Those dreams aren’t mere fantasy. They’re the seeds of real experiences.

I’ll share with you some lessons I’ve learned during the past couple years as I worked to transform myself from a very infrequent traveler into the kind of person who regularly sets and achieves new travel goals.

I certainly wouldn’t label myself

an accomplished world traveler at this point. There are dedicated travel bloggers who post at length about all the places they’ve visited. But the unique transformation I have to share, and which I hope will be of value to you, is that I just went through this transition recently. It’s clear to me that I’ve passed my own personal tipping point, such that now I know I can maintain regular travel as part of my lifestyle.

I didn’t just take a trip — I transformed my whole lifestyle to make this a reality. So these lessons are still very fresh for me. I can still clearly relate to the vibe of being a person who had travel dreams that always seemed to be delayed for a distant someday, so I can draw a sharp contrast between these two different states of being.

When you make excuses and feed them as if they’re real, you’re using your power against yourself. Let’s review some of the excuses above and see just how nonsensical they are.

You can’t travel because you have kids? Lots of people have kids and still travel. They just don’t use their children as excuses. If you ask enough people, you’ll find someone who can watch the kids while you’re on the road.

You may enjoy having some away time from the kids, so you can come back to them fresh. Traveling without them will give you a chance to miss them. Also, notice that kids are portable.

You can take them with you if you want. Try it and see if it works for you. You can do this even while they’re still in the womb. So this excuse is just lame.

If you want to travel and you aren’t doing so because you have children, you’ll end up resenting them as a burden, and how is that going to serve them? Is that the kind of parent you wish to be? Do you want to teach your kids that they can’t have what they desire if they become parents?

You can’t travel because you don’t have enough money?

Last time I checked, money was earnable. Money is an important part of the travel game, and we’ll address that later, but just admit to yourself for now that it’s incredibly pathetic to hide behind a lack of money as an excuse for not traveling.

People were traveling long before money was invented. If you want it badly enough, you’ll do what it takes to get the monStop Making Excuses What are some of your most common excuses for not traveling?

Fill in the blank: I’d like to travel more, but I can’t travel right now because _____.

Here are some common excuses I’ve heard: I have kids.

I don’t have enough money.

I don’t have the time.

I can’t afford to take time off from work.

I have too much to do at home.

I haven’t finished X, Y, and Z yet.

I need to research about places to go first.

It’s too complicated.

I don’t know how.

My wife doesn’t want me to.

Any of those sound familiar? What are your favorite excuses for not traveling?

How about this very popular disguised excuse: I will get around to travelingsomeday – I just can’t get to it right now.

I encourage you to actually write out your own personal list of excuses. Now look at them, and acknowledge that the entire lot is B.S. ur urbbaann hunt hunteerr

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ey you need, and you probably need less than you think. In fact, clear travel goals are great motivation to earn more money.

You can’t travel because you don’t have the time… or you have too much to do? Yeah, right. You have so much to do that you have time to read my blog but not to make travel arrangements? You have the same amount of time as anyone else, including those people who are traveling all over the place.

It’s nonsense to say that you don’t have the time. A more accurate statement is that you haven’t made travel a high enough priority in your life. You’re putting too much lesser crap ahead of it, like watching TV or web surfing. Turn off your cable TV, and never look back. You do realize that at the same time you’re reading this article, you could be exploring another city — right this very moment. Someone else is doing that instead of you. They got there not by having more hours in the day, but by making different decisions and setting different priorities. This may sound ironic since I’m a blogger, but I don’t read other people’s blogs. I don’t have the time. If I tried to keep up with all the blogs that interest me, I wouldn’t have just spent 2 wonderful weeks in Paris.

Stop making time for stupid stuff, and you’ll have plenty of time for travel.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here? A common thread weaves through every excuse. The problem is always one of giving your power away, feeding energy to your excuses instead of your desires. And the solutions are the same in each case: Stop it! It’s a stupid thing to do to yourself.

All of your excuses are lame and pointless. None of them are valid. For each excuse you can name, lots of people with similar challenges are already traveling in spite of those challenges.

Honoring the Call to Travel I know that not everyone feels a call to get on the road and travel. And that’s fine. But for whatever reason, I’m one of the people who hears this call. I love being on the road… not every day, but often.

Are you one of those people? Do you feel a stirring in your soul to get out on the road and see more of the world? And does it scare you to think about it?

Fear is a pointer to desire.

If you hear this call too, it’s important to honor it.

Traveling is a part of you. It’s time to awaken to this calling and to make it a part of your life, not someday… but now.

It may not be easy to make it happen. You may have to overcome many challenges and undertake

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significant lifestyle adjustments. It may take some time to work through all those shifts, but you can make this happen. It’s all very doable, regardless of your current situation.

I travel because it stirs something in my soul. It feels so good to me. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve enjoyed the trips I’ve taken during the past couple years even more than I expected to. Paris was even more amazing than I thought it would be. The reality of travel seems to keep exceeding my expectations.

I often find that I don’t really understand certain desires until I begin to explore them. Before taking action I can’t fully fathom why they matter so much to me.

Those lessons unfold over time — only after I dive in and act. As a result of lots of trial and error, I know it’s important for me to listen to these desires and to give them outlets for expression, even before I fully grasp what they’re trying to express.

By giving myself permission to travel more, I’ve learned more about why it’s so important to me. Up until mid-2009, I’d never left the USA. I think that limited my perspective. I would occasionally see feedback on some of my articles about how “American” my perspective was. I had no idea what that meant. My blog has an international audience, with 50% of readers living outside the USA, but I wasn’t a particularly international person. Sure I studied other cultures in school, but that doesn’t come close to actually experiencing them firsthand.

I’ve gone far enough along this path to know that traveling will continue to be a significant part of my life henceforth. I couldn’t fathom going back to a lifestyle that lacked expansive travel experiences.

Even if you don’t fully understand why you wish to travel, I encourage you to begin honoring this call anyway. From the outside looking in, it may appear to be self-indulgent whimsy. But once you get on the road and start experiencing what it’s really like, I expect you’ll have a profound shift in your perspective, just as I’ve had.Give your travel calling the attention and the respect it deserves. It matters.

Place Your Travel Order When you’ve worked through the excuses and limiting beliefs and accepted your travel calling, the next step is to place your order with the universe.

Many people are really, really bad at this — as in pathetic. Let me save you a lot of time here and get you past all the fluff that will keep you stuck at home.

Do this: PICK YOUR NEXT DESTINATION! This means to pick one specific place to travel to, such as a city or an island. Make that your next goal.

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Pick your next destination based on where you most desire to visit next. Don’t base it on what you think you can get — that’s a misuse of power. Ask yourself: If I could hit the road tomorrow on a free trip that someone else was paying for, where would I most like to go?

In order to get moving on your travel goals, you need to pick a destination that inspires you. It has to be a real, genuine, heartfelt desire. If you don’t really want it, or if it’s just something you’re settling for but isn’t really your top choice, then it’s a phony, wimpyass goal, and you’re probably not going to put any real effort into it.

When you acknowledge the destination you really want, it’s probably going to scare you a bit. That’s good. That means it’s a stretch goal.

If your travel goal seems too easy and doesn’t stir up any fear or trepidation, chances are you’re wimping out and picking something because you think you can get it, but it’s not a deep, soulstirring desire. If you move forward and try to take action on that goal, you’ll most likely procrastinate and sabotage yourself, and even if you do make it happen, you’ll get there and may feel bored and listless.

Vague goals have very little power to manifest.

So don’t pick a country or a continent or some other vague B.S. like that. China isn’t a destination. Pick a real city. In my experience, picking a city is enough specificity though — once I’m there I’ll probably travel all around the city anyway, so just about anything within city limits can potentially be part of the experience.

Don’t be one of those dolts who says, “I want to travel more” or “I want to visit Asia.” You’ll stay home if you do that. Place a real order. What city? What island?

Banish Doubt and Create Certainty Once you’ve picked a destination, do NOT change your mind. Poke a pin in it on a paper map, and don’t move the pin till you’ve been there and back. Don’t consider other alternatives you might visit. Remove all doubt from your mind. You are going to go to this place.

And you’re going to start making it happen now… not someday. Someday is never. This is your reality. You’re a god here. If you want to visit this place, nothing can stop you from getting there. It’s a done deal.

Pause for a moment and let that sink in. This isn’t just

a dream or a fantasy. This is about to become your reality. Soon you will physically be in your chosen destination. Yes, you’re really going to be there. It’s going to happen. You are going to reach your destination.

Period. Whatever obstacles come up, you’ll surmount them. Whatever problems arise, you’ll solve them.

Whatever challenges present themselves, you’ll overcome them. You cannot be stopped.

Doubting that you’ll reach your destination is the same as deciding to stay home. Don’t do that unless your #1 destination is to stay home.

Until you snap yourself into 100% commitment, your trip probably isn’t going to happen. I’d bet against you.

But once you snap, it’s a done deal — after that you just know that it will be done.

Before your personal snapping point, various obstacles will seem like big deals. They’ll make you want to give up. That’s because you’re allowing some of your power to leak out and feed those obstacles.

Not having enough money seems like a real problem.

Not being able to get time off from work seems like another major problem.

But once you’ve snapped, these problems reveal themselves to be ridiculously minor challenges.

Stop allowing your power to be drained by excuses, and direct all your power forward towards your destination. Solving problems becomes child’s play after that. You’re much more powerful than any obstacle that stands in your way.

Obsess Over Your Destination Begin to obsess over your chosen destination. For now, it’s the only place you’re going to think about visiting. Ignore all other suggestions or alternatives; for now they’re irrelevant.

Concretize your goal. Bring it from the level of fantasy to the level of reality.

Use maps.google.com to look up your destination.

Study the layout of the city. Check out what’s there.

Start thinking about what you’ll see and do while you’re visiting. Use the street view to zoom in on some locations to see what it would be like to actually be there.

Know that soon you’ll be there seeing these places for yourself.

Another recommendation is to do an image search to find a nice photo of your destination, and make it ur b a n hunt e r

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your background pic on your laptop, iPad, cell phone, etc. This will help you think about it some more.

Make your intended destination a serious obsession.

Be very clear that you’re going to go there. If you catch yourself thinking of obstacles, again… give yourself a good smack across the jaw. Stop it! Think only of the successful achievement of your goal. You WILL go there. It’s a done deal.

The reason this obsession process is important is that it gradually moves your goal from the realm of fantasy into the realm of reality. When you learn more about your destination and begin to study it AFTER you’ve committed to it, the goal becomes significantly more solid. You start to accept that it really isn’t just a fantasy — you can and will actually go there and experience it for yourself. This is an important shift to make because it’s so easy to fall into the trap of wishful thinking when it comes to travel goals. Wishing isn’t enough to make it real. Keep obsessing over your destination till you’re actually there.

Brace Yourself for the Social Shifts You’ll probably find that your obsession starts to polarize the people around you. I’ve been through this process, so I’m used to how it plays out, but I caution you to prepare for the inevitable social ripples your newly emerging travel vibe may unleash.

PHOTOS BY Vincent Laforet

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Some people in your life will be turned off by your new obsession. There’s no need to explain or justify your choices to anyone else. Let it be enough that you want them, and let other people have their reactions.

Pick the destinations that inspire you, and don’t worry if the other people in your life don’t get why you want to go there. These are your desires. That’s enough.

Nobody else needs to agree with you. If people react negatively to your choices, feel free to indulge in some eye rolling, but don’t change your mind.

On the other hand, when you start obsessing over the destinations that truly excite you, you won’t turn everyone off. You’re also going to light up and inspire others who share similar desires. I’ve received some nice positive feedback from others who found my destinations inspiring too, whether or not they’ve already been there.

You’ll also discover that as you embrace your own travel vibe, you’ll awaken similar vibes in others. I’ve been seeing a lot of this lately, where my own travel adventures are stirring up some excitement in others.

Integrate a Travel Vibe In Your Lifestyle In the long run, if you want to travel a lot more than you’re traveling right now — as opposed to just taking very occasional trips now and then — it’s important to transform your lifestyle into one that’s structured to support your travel goals. You don’t want to remain stuck in a lifestyle that’s at odds with frequent travel.

Recognize that if you want to travel a lot, and your current lifestyle structure doesn’t support it, then you’ve got some transformational work to do. If you’re tempted to blame your lifestyle elements or use them as excuses for not traveling, don’t do that. We all make stupid choices at times. And sometimes it’s not such a bad thing to smack ourselves when we come to terms

that brings in the money, or the money just shows up through some other channel, often in ways I didn’t expect. These days I even make a game of it by asking the universe to pay for my trips in creative ways. It’s fun to see how that unfolds. This pattern keeps popping up in my life. Whenever I set stretch goals and commit to them before I can see how they’ll work out, the universe backs me up. If money is needed to achieve the goal (or even if I don’t need more money but playfully request it anyway), the money just shows up.

If this sounds like a completely alien experience to you, then stop feeding your power to excuses. Try doing the opposite to test how it works for you. Commit to doing something that really inspires you, even when you can’t see how it’s going to work out.

with the ridiculously lame consequences of those choices.

FIgure out a lifestyle structure — especially involving your career and finances — that will support the kind of traveling you’d like to do. You can start by saying no to anything that conflicts with the lifestyle you wish to create. If you desire to travel for about 12 weeks out of each year, then does it make any sense to accept a job where you get only 2 weeks of vacation time each year? Of course not.

The good news is that once you acknowledge the stupidity of some of your past choices, you can start to release them and make some better choices for the road ahead. You can choose a new career/financial path that fully supports your travel desires. You can attract new relationships that are compatible with frequent travel.

You’re not stuck. You’re way more powerful than any situation you find yourself in. Don’t act like a baby. If you want to travel more, than snap yourself into a real commitment. You’re going to undertake all the lifestyle transformations necessary to make that a reality. It’s a done deal.

What About the Money?

Let your travel goals inspire your financial goals. It’s not particularly motivating to earn more money just for the sake of having a bigger number in your bank account. But if you translate those financial goals into visiting more cities every year and having cool adventures, then your financial goals will be much more meaningful.

Whenever I set big goals that require more money than I have on hand, the money shows up pretty quickly. Either I get inspired by a new idea or project

Who Are You? Look within and take note of what you see. How many weeks out of the next 52 weeks would you ideally like to be traveling away from home? For me I’d say that 16-18 weeks feels about right on average, but the exact amount of time I’m on the road isn’t as important as other factors like the specific destinations and the new experiences I invite.

What kind of person are you when it comes to achieving your travel desires — or any other desires for that matter? It’s not up to me to tell you who you are on the inside. Only you can determine that. You’re the one who must determine whether or not you’ve been living up to your own ethical and moral code.

When I make excuses for not living up to my potential, I give my power away, and I don’t feel quite myself. When I remember that this is my reality and that I’m not some powerless weakling who has to accept the whims of fate, I reclaim my natural creative powers.

Then I can change whatever I desire to change, and my life zooms off in a new direction of my choosing.

Obviously these concepts go far beyond mere travel goals. Your travel goals are part of your personal training program to fully embrace your power. They’re going to continue dangling in front of you for the rest of your life, teasing, coaxing, and daring you to pursue them.

When you’re ready to snap, you’ll snap. And the universe will back you up — you’ll see. Your challenge is to snap before you’re able to see the avalanche of support that awaits you on the other side. There’s very little support on the pre-snap side; all the good stuff is post-snap.

Just keep constant in your mind that you are working toward achieving your travel goals, and that you will accomplish them, no matter what. And you shall. n ur b a n hunt e r

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Cocktail of the Month:

Grapefruit Jasmine Talmadg e Lowe

If you are interested in developing your own grapefruit cocktails, you will want to explore fruit flavor pairing suggestions.

Some cocktails call for grapefruit soda. You can find some excellent options at almost any store, especially an organic market, yet Squirt is a reliable option.

Grapefruit-flavored liquors are very rare and almost unheard of with the exception of vodka. There are a few brands that produce grapefruit vodkas and, while the cocktail list is a very short one, this is a great flavored vodka to use in non-flavored vodka cocktails like the Sea Breeze, where the tart citrus could compliment the drink.

PRO TIPS

Talmadge Lowe, founder of Pharmacie L.A., has been formulating new cocktails and redefining the classics for 15 years.

What you’ll need: • 1 1/2 oz. gin • 1 oz. Cointreau or tripple sec • 3/4 oz. Campari • 1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice • 1 half of grapefruit squeezed • Ice (crushed or cubed) Tools: a shaker, strainer Serve: up in a cocktail glass Garnish: lemon or grapefruit twist Combine: all ingredients and shake hard with ice. strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a twist and enjoy.

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Need a delicious summer cocktail to serve up at your next get-together? Try out this old school citrus cocktail recipe, perfect for a summer soiree, or just another Tuesday afternoon.

WAYS WITH GRAPEFRUIT

Grapefruit can be found in many cocktails and it is an excellent citrus that adds a touch of sour to drinks.

A wide collection of mixed drinks shows off the versatility of this favorite fruit.

More often than not, grapefruivvt is used as a juice, though some use the fresh fruit and some call specifically for ruby red or pink grapefruit or their juice. It is easy to make fresh grapefruit juice if you have a large citrus or electric juicer.

Do you ever wonder why your cocktails don’t taste like the pro’s drinks? Sometimes it is the little things that can make the difference between a great cocktail, a mediocre one and one that gets spit into the sink. If you pay attention to the world’s best bartenders you will notice that there are a few steps they take when making almost any cocktail that add that “WOW” factor to the drink. If you were to follow these five easy steps every time you shake or stir your favorite drinks you will soon find that the quality of your cocktails is improving.

1.Upgrade Your Liquor Cabinet There is a significant difference between the distilled spirits on the top shelf and the bottom shelf of the liquor store. Your drinks will reflect the quality of their ingredients and, because liquor is typically the strongest ingredient in a drink, it is important to spend a little extra money on quality. A Martini made with a 5 dollar bottle of gin is going to be disappointing compared to one made with a 40 dollar bottle of gin. That doesn’t mean that you have to spend a fortune every time you go to the liquor store. There are very good mid-range brands avail-

photos by Jesse Narducci

able that are perfect for “everyday” mixing that cost around $20-30 a bottle. This simple upgrade will start your cocktails off on the right foot.

2. Use Fresh Ingredients Whenever possible choose fresh instead of canned or bottled ingredients for your cocktails. This primarily refers to fruit juices but can also be applied to other mixers such as using a soda siphon as opposed to buying bottled soda water or club soda and making your own simple syrup, sour mix or grenadine.

With fruits the answer can be as simple as squeezing lemons, limes and oranges with a hand juicer or getting an electric juicer to make fresh apple, cranberry, pear or any other type of fresh fruit juice. Many of the bottled mixers will include unwanted additives that take away from the freshness of the cocktail.

3. Match the temperature of the Drink and Glass This seems like a simple, possibly unnecessary, step to mixing drinks but it makes a world of difference. When you are serving cold drinks, chilling the glass before pouring will keep the drink colder longer and the experience of drinking is better from beginning to end. This can be as simple as placing a glass in the freezer for a minute or pouring cold water or ice in the glass while you shake and dumping it out before the pour. The same theory applies to warm drinks. If you are making a Hot Toddy, warm up the glass beforehand by pouring hot water inside

while you’re preparing the ingredients. Nothing ruins a drink worse than getting to the bottom and a cold drink is warm or a warm drink is cold and this simple step can stop that.

4. Use Garnishes When Appropriate Not every cocktail needs to be garnished but those that do call for a lemon, lime, orange or whatever depend on that addition for flavor and balance. Garnishes also complete the drink’s presentation. For instance, a Gin and Tonic without the lime is missing that essential, subtle citrus and a Martini without the olives lacks the soft brine flavor that infuses the drink.

Garnishes are important and even if their absence doesn’t ruin the finished drink, it certainly is not enhancing it like it was designed to do.

5. Measure Everything The importance of measuring cocktail ingredients cannot be stressed enough if your desire is to create great tasting drinks consistently. Many people skip this step because it’s time consuming or because they like the show of a free pour. Granted, many bartenders who work in busy establishments rarely touch a jigger, but they also pour a lot of drinks and know the timing needed to pour a shot. Measuring ensures that you are creating the cocktail in the way it was meant to be and an over or under pour of a single ingredient can throw off the delicate balance of a drink. Also, if you are drinking and mixing, your perception of measuring can be thrown off. n

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Learning a Second Language

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well.

Students who study foreign languages tend to score better on standardised tests than their monolingual peers, particularly in the categories of maths, reading, and vocabulary. build multitasking skills

by anne merritt Striving for excellence can sometimes feel like a neverending treadmill of disappointment. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to eat your vegetables, spend time with loved ones, and get all the work done—much less, spend time on extracurriculars like learning a second language.

It has become increasingly clear over the last few years that having at least functional bilingualism can be extremely valuable in all areas of life—not just in the workplace or in international affairs.

Why learn a foreign language?

Learning a foreign language is more than just a boost to your CV or handy for travelling. It will make you smarter, more decisive and even better at English.

Physiological studies have found that speaking two or more languages is a great asset to the cognitive process. The brains of bilingual people operate differently than single language speakers, and these differences offer several mental benefits.

Below are seven cognitive advantages to learning a foreign language. Many of these attributes are only apparent in people who speak multiple languages regularly – if you haven’t spoken a foreign tongue since your A levels, your brain might not be reaping these bilingual benefits. However, people who begin language study in their adult lives can still achieve the same levels of fluency as a young learner, and still reap the same mental benefits, too. become smarter Speaking a foreign language improves the functionality of your brain by challenging it to recognise, negotiate meaning, and communicate in different language systems. This skill boosts your ability to negotiate meaning in other problem-solving tasks as

Multilingual people, especially children, are skilled at switching between two systems of speech, writing, and structure. According to a study from the Pennsylvania State University, this “juggling” skill makes them good multitaskers, because they can easily switch between different structures.

In one study, participants used a driving simulator while doing separate, distracting tasks at the same time. The research found that people who spoke more than one language made fewer errors in their driving. stave off Alzheimer’s & dementia Several studies have been conducted on this topic, and the results are consistent.

For monolingual adults, the mean age for the first signs of dementia is 71.4. For adults who speak two or more languages, the mean age for those first signs is 75.5.

Studies considered factors such as education level, income level, gender, and physical health, but the results were consistent. improve memory Educators often liken the brain to a muscle, because it functions better with exercise. Learning a language involves memorising rules and vocabulary, which helps strengthen that mental “muscle.”

This exercise improves overall memory, which means that multiple language speakers are better at remembering lists or sequences. Studies show that bilinguals are better at retaining shopping lists, names, and directions become more perceptive A study from Spain’s University of Pompeu Fabra revealed that multilingual people are better at observing their surroundings. They are more adept at focusing on relevant information and editing out the irrelevant. They’re also better at spotting misleading information. Is it any surprise that Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot are skilled polyglots? ur b a n h unt e r

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improve decision-making skills According to a study from the University of Chicago, bilinguals tend to make more rational decisions.

Any language contains nuance and subtle implications in its vocabulary, and these biases can subconsciously influence your judgment. Bilinguals are more confident with their choices after thinking it over in the second language and seeing whether their initial conclusions still stand up.

“speaking two or more languages is a great asset to the cognitive process” improve your English Learning a foreign language draws your focus to the mechanics of language: grammar, conjugations, and sentence structure. This makes you more aware of language, and the ways it can be structured and manipulated. These skills can make you a more effective communicator and a sharper editor and writer.

Language speakers also develop a better ear for listening, since they’re skilled at distinguishing meaning from discreet sounds.

What motivates us to learn foreign languages?

Linguists have studied motivation and language learning for decades. We can broadly categorise mo-

tivation into two types: integrative and instrumental.

Here’s a quick look at what those terms actually mean.

Integrative motivation The desire to communicate with a partner and honour their culture can accelerate language learning. Of course, this doesn’t apply to romantic relationships exclusively. Cross-cultural friendships can fuel one’s integrative motivation. An in-law or distant relative with no English ability can also motivate language learning, out of love or simply as a gesture of respect.

Integrative motivation also applies to relationships with cultures, not just individuals. Learners from multilingual nations can be integratively motivated to learn their national languages as a way of connecting with their countrymen: English and French in Canada; German, French and Italian in Switzerland; Hindi and regional languages in India.

Individuals with family roots in another culture can also be integratively motivated. An American with Irish roots learning Gaelic, or a British-born Iranian learning Persian, are motivated to engage with a culture that is personally meaningful to them.

Instrumental motivation Learners who study a foreign language in order to achieve another goal are instrumentally motivated. In these cases, language competence isn’t the goal in itself, but rather the vehicle to achieving a separate professional or personal accomplishment.

For many students, language learning is pursued only in school, as an academic requirement. Though they made enjoy the learning process and become engaged in the target culture, the primary motivation in this case is an instrumental one: to gain academic credit and move forward in school.

For university students and professionals, language learning is often motivated by career. Many adults study foreign languages to fortify their CVs and qualify for work in target industries or companies. In this case, the goal is often based on a credential, such as certificates, university credit, or proficiency exam scores. Again, the motivation here is to land a job or promotion. Language learning is a step in achieving that goal.

While studies find a high correlation between integrative motivation and language proficiency, this doesn’t mean that instrumental motivation isn’t important. The structural nature of this type of study can help discipline language students. Formal deadlines, test dates, and target grades can help focus a language learner.

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Instrumental motivation in itself is not problematic.

However, a learner with zero cultural curiosity for the target language, or even prejudices about the target culture, will likely struggle with language learning. No matter how big the pay raise at the end of that proficiency test, the learning process will be more difficult than for those with integrative motivation.

that you can download and start memorizing right away.

Memrise Memrise is a language learning program that extends beyond vocabulary and language to things like history and science, but at its core it’s a flashcard-style

Five Best Language Learning Tools Learning a new language is difficult, which is why there’s a huge market for tools and apps to help you do it. Some of them are really helpful and help you get up to speed quickly, others are a money sink. This week we’re looking at five of the best, based on your nominations.

ANKI

PHOTOS BY JONAS LARSEN

Anki, Japanese for “memorizing,” is a flashcard program that’s been around for years (as early as 2006, although it could very well have been initially developed before that). Because it’s a flashcard style program, its focus is on memorization. It’ll display you a word, phrase, image, or even play a sound, and then leave it to you to make the connection, repeat it, interpret it, and commit it to memory. Anki is great for languages, but it’s also useful for studying equations, diagrams, names and faces, and more—its strength is in the fact that you can load it up with custom card sets depending on what it is you want to memorize.

There are tons of shared decks available in the app

program that’s augmented with memory tricks, images, and other useful tools to make learning a new language easier. Its focus is largely on memorization, but it’s also designed to help you have fun learning the language you’re trying to pick up. Memrise gamifies the process a bit, awarding you points and reputation as you learn, and the opportunity to compete against other users while you learn and complete activities. If you’re interested in seeing what you can learn before you sign up, you can browse some of their courses before you give it a try.

Memrise is free, web-based, and has iOS and Android apps so you can take your lessons on the go.

Those of you who praised Memrise pointed out that it’s free, fun, and even though it too has a focus on memorization and repetition, the courses are numerous and there are some really great ones to sign up for that will help you pick up a new language quickly.

However, since the courses are largely crowdsourced, you have to make sure you find a great one.

Duolingo Duolingo takes a different approach to learning a new language than just memorizing words and phrases. Duolingo allows you to essentially learn a new ur b a n h unt e r

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language while translating sites on the web. Duolingo has language learning programs and lessons for its users, and as you take the lessons, you’ll find yourself translating the web as you browse—effectively learning to read and speak the language you’re interested in by looking at and hearing what native speakers are writing and saying. Duolingo has courses in a handful of languages right now, which is a bit smaller than some of the other contenders, but the courses in those languages are incredibly complete. The courses are structured in a way like games as well—you earn skill points as you complete lessons, and if you make mistakes you lose “lives.” If you lose too many, you’ll have to re-take the lesson.

One of the coolest features about Duolingo is that it checks your progress as you go forward. It learns from where you make mistakes and which types of questions you have trouble with, and goes from there. It’s completely free, available on the web, Android, and iOS, and it’s earned a lot of praise.

Pimsleur Method The Pimsleur Method is an audio-based method that focuses on participation in speaking and sound exercises than strict memorization and flashcards. The method definitely has reading and vocabulary exercises, but it also focuses on speaking exercises and learning to speak a language aloud as well as learning to read one. Each exercise is about 30 minutes, where you speak phrases in the target language and your own language, and as new phrases and words Navigating in a foreign country can be incredibly difficult if you don’t know the language—just one of many reasons to pick up at least a functional understanding of the language of any country you may choose to visit.

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are introduced, your memory is reinforced with older ones. Pimsleur is available in over 50 languages, has a massively long track record (going back to the 1960s), and has been used by individuals and large organizations to train people in new languages.

service also harnesses the power of social media to help you learn your target language as well. You learn from native speakers, are graded by other students who are fluent in the language you want to learn, and you can give back as much as you get.

Livemocha

Some languages are far easier to learn than others, due to the way that we were taught the English language, and the sounds that we are accustomed to making while speaking. The easiest languages to learn from scratch are as follows:

Livemocha is an extremely comprehensive language learning community and program, packed with native speakers (over 12 million people from close to 200 countries) and offering instruction in over 38 languages. It’s relatively new, having launched in 2007, and much of its content is completely free. The approach is almost entirely web based, with live classes, conversations with native speakers, tutorial videos, and more all available right at your computer. You can even get private tutoring through Livemocha. Part of Livemocha’s charm is that it encourages you to use the internet in the language you want to learn. The

Afrikaans Like English, Afrikaans is in the West Germanic language family. Unlike English, its structure won’t make your head spin. A great feature of Afrikaans, especially for grammar-phobes, is its logical and non-inflective structure. Unlike English, there is no verb conjugation (swim, swam, swum). Unlike Romance languages, there is no gender (un homme, une femme in French).

“ Some languages are far easier to learn than others, due to the way that we were taught the English language, and the sounds that we are accustomed to making while speaking. “ Another feature of Afrikaans is its vocabulary, which shares many Germanic-derived root words that are familiar to English speakers. Vocabulary-building is as easy as pointing to an object and asking, “Wat is dit in Afrikaans?”

French We can thank William the Conqueror for excellent, colour, identity, and about 8000 other French-derived English words left over from the Norman occupation.

Linguists estimate that French has influenced up to a third of the modern English language, from the language of the courts in the 11th century to modern terms like je ne sais quoi, après-ski, and bourgeois.

For language learners, English has more in common lexically with French than any other Romance language. This means that French vocabulary is more familiar, recognisable, and easy to comprehend.

Advanced French learners may struggle with its gendered nouns and 17 verb forms, but for conversational learning, it’s relatively facile. ur b a n h unt e r

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Spanish For language learners, a great feature of Spanish is its shallow orthographic depth – that is, in most cases, words are written as pronounced.

This means that reading and writing in Spanish is a straightforward task. Pronunciation is also fairly easy for native English speakers, with only ten vowel and diphthong sounds (English has 20), and no unfamiliar phonemes except for the fun-to-pronounce letter ñ.

cases and a less complicated grammatical system, many linguistic scholars consider Dutch to be the easiest language for English speakers.

Norwegian This North Germanic language has consistent pronunciation and, for English speakers, some pretty breezy grammar.

Grammatically speaking, Spanish has fewer irregularities that other Romance languages. Spanish is also an attractive second language for English speakers because of its international status.

Norwegian and English have very similar syntax and word order. Verbs are an especially simple feature, with no conjugation according to number or person.

The rules of conjugation are particularly straightforward, with a simple –e suffix for past tense, and –s for passive verbs.

Spanish is an official language on three continents, and with growing economies in Latin and South America, it’s a valuable professional skill. In a Telegraph survey, 37 per cent of employers rated Spanish as a useful language to know.

Norwegian has the logical system of a tonal “pitch accent” to stress either the first or second syllable in matching words, as in English’s “desert” and “dessert”.

The one drawback to studying Norwegian is finding opportunities to use it.

Dutch

In Norway’s top-ranking education system, English is taught nationwide, starting at the primary school level, and most Norwegians are near-fluent.

Another West Germanic cousin of the English language, Dutch is both structurally and syntactically familiar for English speakers.

In terms of pronunciation and vocabulary, it parallels English in many ways, such as groen (green) or de oude man (the old man). In addition to familiar Germanic root words, the Dutch language adopted many loan words from French, with familiar words like drogeren (drug) and blok (block).

Though some vowel sounds may be new for English speakers, Dutch pronunciation follows the English model of syllable stress, so pronouncing Dutch words is somewhat intuitive.

Dutch is similar to German, but because it has no

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Portuguese Portuguese is grammatically similar to other Romance languages. One attractively simple feature is its interrogative form, which is expressed by intonation alone, not through rearranging phrases. We’re leaving now can become a question just by raising one’s voice at the end (“We’re leaving now?”) which is a natural linguistic habit of English speakers anyway.

In Brazilian Portuguese, questions can also be posed through one catchall question tag: não é?

Though the nasal vowel sounds of Portuguese may be difficult to pronounce at first, its rhythmic tone is easy

for English ears to follow.

Also, with Brazil’s economy now ranked 6th in the world, Portuguese language skills are an increasingly valuable asset for professionals.

Swedish Another Germanic language, Swedish shares many cognate words with English, such as konferens (conference), midnatt (midnight), and telefon (telephone).

The syntax is also familiar to English speakers, with a Subject-Verb-Object structure, and verb conjugations which follow the same patterns and rules as in English grammar. What’s more, Swedish verbs are uninflected and normally constant, which makes for wonderfully simple conjugation. “I speak/ You speak/ He speaks” would translate into Swedish as jag pratar / du pratar/ han pratar.

In terms of pronunciation, Swedish is a famously sing-songy language. Once a learner can master the four extra vowels (like ö or å) and the uniquely Scandinavian “sje,” Swedish can be a melodic language that is easy to listen to and fairly easy to reproduce.

Italian The most romantic of Romance language, Italian has a Latin-rooted vocabulary which allows for many Italian/English cognates, including foresta (forest), calendario (calendar), and ambizioso (ambitious).

Like Spanish, the shallow orthographic depth of Italian makes it a highly readable language, especially since the Italian alphabet, at 21 letters, is actually simpler than English.

Uniquely Italian phonemes like –ace or –ghi are regular and quite easy for English speakers to master.

What’s more, Italian sentence structure is highly rhythmic, with most words ending in vowels.This adds a musicality to the spoken language which makes it fairly simple to understand, and undeniably fun to produce.

Esperanto Esperanto advocate Leo Tolstoy claimed to have learned it in four hours. Most linguists class it among the easiest languages to learn, especially for IndoEuropean language speakers.

Though not an official language in any one country, Esperanto has been recognised by the French Academy of Sciences and UNESCO, and now has an estimated 2 million speakers worldwide. Created in the late 19th century, this nationally and politically neutral language was constructed for easy acquisition.

What makes this man-made language so simple to learn? The spelling system is regular and phonetic, and the rules of grammar are simple and designed without irregularities.

Words are constructed building-block style out of regularised prefixes, roots, and suffixes.Words compound logically, as we see in birdokanto (birdsong), akvobirdo (waterfowl), akvomelono (watermelon).

Frisian This language is native to Friesland in the Netherlands, and is spoken by fewer than half a million people.

Still, it is English’s closest sibling, uniquely connected in the tiny linguistic category of North Sea Germanic languages. The two parted ways, so to speak, when Old English and Old Frisian started evolving independently around the 8th century. n ur b a n hunt e r

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Rick Steves writes European travel books and hosts travel shows on TV and radio. www.ricksteves.com

YOUR GUIDE TO :

Indian Ashrams If you are planning a trip to India to learn yoga and meditation or to deepen your personal yoga practice you might find quite difficult to find the right ashram or yoga retreat for you. With so many all around India, this can be quite a challenging task. This Guide to Ashrams in India is based on the ashrams that I have visited. Of course there are many other ashrams, but this guide will be a good starting point to plan your trip.

Ramana Maharshi Ashram, Tiruvannamalai. Every single person that I have talked to and that have been in Tiruvannamalai before have exactly the same feeling about it, Tiruvannamalai is one of the most powerful spiritual places in India. Sitting at the foothills of the sacred Mountain Arunachala, which Hindus believe is Lord Shiva Himself, surrounded by many small ashrams and temples and home of the great sage Ramana Maharshi, Tiruvannamalai has everything that a seeker needs.

Practicing meditation in one of the meditation halls at the Ramana Maharshi Ashram was hallucinating. I think from all the time that I have been in India my best meditation sessions happened in this ashram. If I could return to only one place in India then Tiruvannamalai would be that place.

Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama, Rishikesh. If you are more interested in the Raja Yoga path and want

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to improve your meditation practice or learn meditation directly from the teachings of the Himalayan Masters then this ashram is ideal for you. The daily schedule includes two hatha yoga classes a day and two one hour group meditation sessions. The ashram was founded by Swami Veda Bharati, disciple of Swami Rama, who starting March 2013 is entering a five year vow of silence. The ashram offer ongoing meditation and yoga classes for visitors, silent retreats and a Yoga and Meditation Teacher Training Course.

Sadhana Mandir Trust (Swami Rama’s ashram), Rishikesh.

A beautiful and very peaceful ashram right next to the river Ganges in Rishikesh. Ideal if you want to stay away from the crowds in Rishikesh to be able to experience some peace and tranquility and to focus on your meditation or yoga practice. You can also join one of the meditation retreats and

self transformation programs. It is about 20 minutes walk from the Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama.

Sivananda Vedanta Ashrams founded by Swami Vishudevananda.

The Sivananda Ashrams are ideal to immerse yourself in a real Indian ashram lifestyle with an integral approach to yoga including the four main paths (Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga) but with great emphasis on hatha yoga and bhakti yoga. The daily schedule includes two intensive hatha yoga classes per day.

The Sivananda Ashrams are one of the most popular among foreigners and locals. They offer a yoga vacation program for people who want to stay at the ashram for at least three days and are willing to adhere to the daily schedule. They also offer one month intense yoga teacher training courses.

Amma’s ashram, Amritapuri.

At this ashram you can not only meet one of the most popular gurus of India, Amma “the hugging saint”, but also receive her “darshan” a loving hug that can change people’s life. The ashram is so big that it has residential buildings with many floors and capacity for about 3,000 visitors per day that come specially to receive Amma’s Darshan. There’s a positive and joyful atmosphere, and it’s a great place to meet fellow seekers when Amma is at the ashram. The daily schedule starts at 5am and ends around 10:30pm but it is not mandatory to join any of the daily activities.

The Yogoda Satsanga Sakha Ashram, Dwarahat. For those who are followers of Paramahansa Yogananda and the Kriya Yoga path this ashram should definitely be in your list. The ashram is small and simple

with not many daily activities but the location is beautiful with astonishing landscapes. It is perfect to use as a base for a day pilgrimage to Mahavatar Babaji’s cave near Kukuchina, which is just 50 minutes drive from the ashram. Unfortunately you are allowed to stay for maximum 10 days at the ashram and only for Self Realization Fellowship or Yogoda Satanga Society members.

Parmarth Niketan Ashram, Rishikesh. If you are looking for a place in Rishikesh to practice a bit of yoga but at the same time you want to have the freedom to explore the area to find other ashrams or yoga teachers then this ashram is a good option. It is easy to reach and it is located in one of the main areas in Rishikesh, Ram Jhula, just next to the holy river Ganges. They offer several yoga courses each year.

Bihar School of Yoga, Munger. If you are looking for a really intense, challenging and transformative experience then the Four Months Yogic Studies Course is a good option. Real mental training through seva (selfless service).

It doesn’t matter if you are a total beginner or an advance yogi, anybody can join and benefit from this course. The ashram was founded

by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, disciple of Swami Sivananda and it

is famous for its great collection of yoga books.

Santosh Puri Ashram, Haridwar. A vibrant small ashram next to the river Ganges. There is a very special atmosphere created by the daily morning and evening mantra chanting and fire rituals guided by Mataji, a loving lady guru originally from Germany. There are no strict rules yet everybody is always happy to attend all the daily activities. The daily schedule also includes hatha yoga and yoga philosophy classes.

Atma Darsham Yogashram, Bangalore. If you happen to be in Bangalore then this ashram might be a good option. It is a center of the Bihar School of Yoga ran by young karma sannyasis. The ashram is small and beautiful although the area is very noisy. It is mainly dedicated to spread the teachings of Swami Satyananda to the people of the area but they also offer accommodation and tailored programs for guests.

Arsha Yoga Gayathri, Cochin.

If you are looking for a small peaceful place with not many visitors and the opportunity to practice yoga next to a paradise beach then this is the right place, however you’ll need to stick to the strict daily schedule which is similar to the Sivananda’s ashram schedule. n

ur b a n hunt e r Photos: Linus Källman, Andindito Mukherjee, Kevin Frayer

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