february 2008 issue no. 44
F O R
B A L T I M O R E ’ S
C U R I O U S
Three from the Heart Rafael Alvarez on hometown love Deborah Rudacille on the chemistry of affection Mat Edelson on fathers and sons
The Critics Have Spoken: Music, Books, Film, and More in Our New Arts Section
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Offices Alexander & Tom Benexx Community Analytics Computer Career Institute at Johns Hopkins University DAP Design Purchase Link Emerging Technology Center Francis Cauffman Notemarks LLC RPI Consultants Safe Harbors Travel
Warren Brown, CakeLove’s owner and baker extraordinaire and host of the Food Network’s Sugar Rush.
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f e a t u r e s february 2008 issue no. 44
46
keynote: heartbreaker interview by david dudley
bestselling author and philosopher harry g. frankfurt looks at the human capacity to care and discovers that the “purest” love is the kind we feel toward ourselves.
46
50
a love letter to baltimore by rafael alvarez
if three decades of crime scenes and obituaries don’t test your love, what does? a reporter recalls his longtime affair with the hometown he left behind.
56 50
by deborah rudacille
neuroscientists compare the highs and lows of romantic pursuit to the mind-altering effects of addictive drugs. but can brain chemistry build a better relationship?
60
56
lovestruck
charlie & me by mat edelson
a son finds out how hard it is to be his father’s caretaker and suspects it may be impossible to be his friend.
this month online at www.urbanitebaltimore.com: interview: grace hartigan talks about poet frank o’hara video: illustrators okan arabacioglu and brian payne pair up for an artistic collaboration
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on the cover: illustration by okan arabacioglu and brian payne
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Exclusively at
307 E. Joppa Road, Towson, MD 21286 410.494.0080
NelsonColeman.com
departments february 2008 issue no. 44
19
what you’re saying
23
what you’re seeing
25
what you’re writing
29
corkboard
31
have you heard
37
baltimore observed
great scott
a hero
cravings: a cool drink, a slow drag, and homesickness
this month: african cinema, brazilian capoeira, and american crafts
the sauna of mother russia. plus: pampering your pooch, clearing clutter, and cool cakes in canton
how green is your machine? biodiesel’s early adopters struggle to stay sustainable
43
by greg hanscom
41
in the jungle up the amazon to baltimore’s peruvian namesake by evan l. balkan
43
light of day big plans for billie holiday’s childhood home by charles cohen
45
international incident the sun sets on the foreign desk by richard o’mara
64 63
poetry
"walking" by frank o’hara
64
space
smooth operator an old telephone building teaches a lesson in green by scott carlson
67
eat/drink
southern comfort a restaurateur’s recipe for greenmount’s revival
67
by mary k. zajac
73
reviewed: three… and mari luna mexican grill
75
wine & spirits: there’s no accounting for taste … or scent
77
art/culture downbeat
is the bso’s push for new audiences neglecting their core listeners? by steve wigler
plus: a feminist icon hits the stage, madison smartt bell hits the road, slum life from rio to west baltimore, and more
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eye to eye urbanite’s creative director alex castro looks at baltimore as a living canvas w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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urbanite february 08
Issue 44 February 2008 Publisher Tracy Ward Durkin Tracy@urbanitebaltimore.com Creative Director Alex Castro General Manager Jean Meconi Jean@urbanitebaltimore.com Executive Editor David Dudley David@urbanitebaltimore.com Managing Editor Marianne Amoss Marianne@urbanitebaltimore.com Senior Editor Greg Hanscom Greg@urbanitebaltimore.com Copy Editor Angela Davids Editorial Assistant Lionel Foster Lionel@urbanitebaltimore.com Contributing Editors Karen Houppert, Susan McCallum-Smith Editorial Intern Harrison Brazier Design/Production Manager Lisa Macfarlane Lisa@urbanitebaltimore.com Traffic/Production Coordinator Bellee Gossett Bellee@urbanitebaltimore.com Designer Jason Okutake Staff Photographers La Kaye Mbah, Jason Okutake Production Interns April Osmanof, Stephanie Spinks Web Coordinator/Videographer Chris Rebbert Senior Account Executives Janet Brown Janet@urbanitebaltimore.com Susan R. Levy Susan@urbanitebaltimore.com Marcella Rosati Marcella@urbanitebaltimore.com Account Executives Michele Holcombe Michele@urbanitebaltimore.com Bill Sierra Bill@urbanitebaltimore.com Sales/Accounting Assistant Iris Goldstein Iris@urbanitebaltimore.com Marketing Kathleen Dragovich Kathleen@urbanitebaltimore.com Marketing/Administrative Assistant La Kaye Mbah Administrative Assistant Lindsay Hanson Founder Laurel Harris Durenberger Advertising/Editorial/Business Offices P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211 Phone: 410-243-2050; Fax: 410-243-2115 www.urbanitebaltimore.com Editorial inquiries: Send queries to editor@urbanitebaltimore.com (no phone calls, please). The magazine is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork. Urbanite does not necessarily support the opinions of its authors. To subscribe or obtain assistance with a current subscription, call 410-243-2050. Subscription price: $18 per year. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission by Urbanite is prohibited. Copyright 2008, Urbanite LLC. All rights reserved. Urbanite (ISSN 1556-8105) is a free publication distributed widely in the Baltimore metropolitan area. If you know of a location that urbanites frequent and would recommend placing the magazine there, please contact us at 410243-2050. Postmaster: Send address changes to Urbanite Subscriptions, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211.
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urbanite february 08
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Victor Vasarely, “Capella II”, oil painting
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©2008 Closet Factory. All rights reserved.
Join us for AIRS 7th
Annual Oscar Night® Baltimore event to raise awareness and resources for affordable housing and services for individuals and families with disabilities.
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til the Fi 5:30 p.m. un Ticket: $150 r Cocktail Hou inner D et Seated Gourm of Youth n o ti Preven Program onomelessness H n Silent Auctio ual th the 80 Ann Screening of y Awards ® Academ Bar Dancing One Martini el et K ve DJ Open Bar Li
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urbanite february 08
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contributors
editor’s note
photo by Okan Arabacioglu
Okan Arabacioglu Freelance artist Okan Arabacioglu graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2005 with a bachelor of fine arts degree in illustration. Arabacioglu has contributed artwork to Nike, as well as City Paper, Rolling Stone, and the Boston Globe, among other publications. He has illustrated several articles for Urbanite, including the July 2007 article “The Baltimore Ten,” the magazine’s take on some of the city’s most important civic gatherings. Arabacioglu collaborated with fellow MICA graduate Brian Payne to illustrate this month’s feature articles (beginning on p. 50). More of Arabacioglu’s work can be viewed at www.okan-art.com.
photo by Erik Balkan
Evan L. Balkan Evan L. Balkan is the coordinator for the English Department at the Community College of Baltimore County– Catonsville and holds degrees from Towson, George Mason, and Johns Hopkins universities. His fiction and nonfiction, mostly about travel and outdoor recreation, have appeared in publications throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, England, and Australia. He is the author of 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Baltimore and Vanished! Explorers Forever Lost, as well as the forthcoming Best of Tent Camping: Maryland. He lives in Lutherville with his wife, Shelly, and daughters, Amelia and Molly. His article on traveling through the Amazon to find Peru’s Baltimore can be found on page 41.
photo by Chloe Elswick
Alex Fine Gaithersburg native Alex Fine earned a bachelor of fine arts in illustration from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2004. His likenesses of actors, musicians, and politicians have appeared in City Paper, JazzTimes, The Stranger, Phawker.com, Northern Virginia Magazine, and Philadelphia Weekly, where he is a regular contributor. A number of his latest subjects are captured in Name that Republican: A Field Guide to the Rogues and Rascals of the GOP, a collection of fifty trading cards available now at Atomic Books in Hampden. This month, Fine illustrates critic Steve Wigler’s assessment of the BSO’s new direction in our new “Art/Culture” department (p. 77).
photo by Sarah Fazio
Deborah Rudacille Since graduating from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University in 1998, science writer Deborah Rudacille has published two books (The Scalpel and the Butterfly and The Riddle of Gender) and is currently working on a history of Baltimore steelworkers, Roots of Steel. She supports romantic love in principle, if not practice, and promotes the civil union of art and science. Her article about biochemical matchmaking appears on page 56.
Love in: The aftermath of Arabacioglu and Payne's artisticpartnership
One of the most successful marketing campaigns in history celebrated
its thirtieth anniversary this past summer. It was June 1977 when the first “I Love New York” television ads were aired. The idea was to prop up the state’s tourist industry, but the campaign, branded with graphic designer Milton Glaser’s famed red-heart logo, became associated specifically with New York City. The year 1977 was a bold time to be advancing the notion of loving New York: This was not the gilded Bloomberg-era metropolis of recent memory. The Son of Sam was running amok; the Bronx was burning; the garbage workers were on strike. The city was dirty, dangerous, and bankrupt. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the ad caught on. People seemed to say that, even if they couldn’t stand the actual New York, they were willing to admit the possibility of loving the idea of it, and Glaser’s heart logo went on to spawn a slew of variations. You can (heart) your border collie and (heart) your Camaro. And you can (heart) city life itself, or at least tell everyone that you do. The local nonprofit Live Baltimore has long touted Baltimore residency by selling sunny yellow bumper stickers and other merchandise to declare your allegiance not just to the city, but also to the life therein. The heart icon here is a useful thing, suggesting as it does that the word “love” is somehow inadequate to convey the ambiguities of this relationship. Baltimore in 2008 isn’t as dire a municipality as NYC circa 1977, but still, no love could—or should—unconditionally embrace all that comprises life here. The other meanings are implied: I (put up with) city life; I (sometimes choose to ignore the unpleasant realities of) city life; I (will try to love) city life (even if I sometimes wonder why). Urbanite’s pursuit of love led us in many directions. We sought out the wisdom of a bona-fide philosopher—retired Princeton professor Harry G. Frankfurt, of On Bullshit fame— for some insight into reason, will, and the power of wholeheartedness (“Heartbreaker,” p. 46). And we let a trio of writers loose on humankind’s most mystifying emotion. Mat Edelson’s primary-caregiver odyssey with his aging father (“Charlie & Me,” p. 60) explores the highstakes endgame of the parent-child relationship with heartbreaking candor. Science writer Deborah Rudacille weighs the latest research into the neurobiology of coupling (“Lovestruck,” p. 56). And Rafael Alvarez, longtime Sun scribe and a man who truly does (heart) city life, contributes a long-distance hymn to his native turf (“A Love Letter to Baltimore,” p. 50). These last two writers, I learned after the pieces were already in progress, were once married to each other, one of those apt but accidental personal interconnections for which Baltimore is rightfully notorious. The issue’s other pairing was a more deliberate one: illustrators Okan Arabacioglu and Brian Payne, friends and former roommates from their college days at MICA. The images they collectively conjured for this issue’s features and cover were created via an artistic partnership, with Payne lending colors and background textures to Arabacioglu’s sketches. (The two will also share billing in a show at Metro Gallery that begins on April 4.) The challenge, Arabacioglu says, was tailoring their respective styles to each other, a give-and-take that is paralleled in many a human relationship. As the above photograph shows, this creative process was not a tidy one. There was spillage. But, as with most affairs of the heart, the final results, we hope, justify the mess. —David Dudley w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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Staging my own wardrobe malfunction at the office holiday party? That’s when I knew pop had taken control of my life.
Marisa is living proof that pop music can make you do crazy things. If you or someone you know is dealing with a pop addiction, there is hope. WTMD 89.7. STOP THE POP INSANITY.
what you’re saying
Developing Story A few weeks ago I heard the good news about the Census Building (“AfterSchool Special,” January). I will keep my fingers crossed, but this time it seems for real. I remember when the last group of developers told us to expect renters by December 2005. Although I think teacher apartments are a little repetitive since they already exist three blocks away, at least people will be on the streets around there and this forgotten corner of Charles Village will finally see the light.
photo by Jason Okutake
—Adam Meister is the director of Tech Balt (www.baltimore2008.com). He lives in Reservoir Hill.
Portrait of the Artist I would like to thank Urbanite’s creative director, Alex Castro, for his piece on artist Larry Scott (“Eye to Eye,” January). Mr. Castro’s short but precise retrospective of the artist’s life and works highlights just how significant of a loss Larry’s death was to Baltimore and the art community. He will undoubtedly be known as one of the most versatile and prolific artists of our time. His extraordinary vitality and creativity was unparalleled, and Mr. Castro’s selected profile of the work “Three Men with Hats and Reaching Hands on Green” truly exemplifies the complexities of Larry’s genius. Larry will retain a place in an extremely select group of American Masters. —Chioma Anah is an art therapist living in Mount Washington.
Rite or Wrong? In “Rites of the City” (January), Lionel Foster uses the recent ring ceremony at Baltimore City College High School as a depressing lead-in to his larger idea. I am an eleventh-grader at Baltimore City College High School, and I was in the audience when Foster made his keynote address at the ring ceremony. While his article raises a valid point, I’d like to dispute a few of his conclusions. First, Foster says “parents and other family members are encouraged to attend [the ceremony]” and then is saddened by the small turnout. In fact, we were instructed by the faculty to encourage our parents not to come, as there wouldn’t be room. Secondly, Foster mentions the outburst of a woman in the audience. It is unfair to judge the students on
one woman’s outburst. Yes, we cheered, but it was hardly a standing ovation, and it occurred because we have a sense of humor. Third, Foster notes that his speech received a “mixed reaction.” I don’t see how this is indicative of our lack of tradition. Foster ignores the huge applause that followed a humorous video, a choral performance, class president John David Merrill’s speech, and others. Even if Foster were correct in his assumptions, does this prove that City students don’t care for their rings or for tradition? No. Hundreds of students paid hundreds of dollars for a ring that, in my opinion, isn’t gorgeous. We waited in lines; we sacrificed our lunches; we gathered 109 of our closest friends to sign our sheets; and most of us wear the ring every single day. Baltimore’s schools face many obstacles, but using minor issues that occurred during this ring ceremony to represent the lack of respect for tradition in Baltimore is a mistake. —Maia Gottlieb is co-editor of the newly reinvigorated Baltimore City College newspaper, The Collegian.
Go Back to School The November issue on the city schools invoked a dissonance I notice every time I drive north on Calvert Street and cross North Avenue. The “what’s wrong with this picture” is that the grand and stately former Poly High School is now the administration building for the school system. This building should be returned to use as a school. The administration could rehab a block or two of vacant rowhouses for its offices. This
would be a more fitting persona and could help the administration and schools work more effectively together. —Christy Bergland is an artist and art therapist who lives in Roland Park.
Corrections The story "After-School Special" (January) incorrectly identified Bernard Kapiloff as sole owner of the Census Building before its sale in 2002. The Howard Street property was owned by the Dab Howard Limited Partnership, in which Kapiloff was a partner. During the company's ownership of the building, no legal action was taken by the city of Baltimore regarding the condition of the building. A picture caption with that story also misidentified the man on the far left of the photograph on page 35: It was Philip Gibbs of Hamel Builders, not Tom Wahl. Urbanite regrets the errors.
We want to hear what you’re saying. E-mail us at mail@urbanitebaltimore.com or send your letter to Mail, Urbanite, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211. Please include your name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. You can also comment on our website (www.urbanitebaltimore.com/forum).
w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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urbanite february 08
update tal work on the new route, and will apply for federal funding for the trail in March. “This is the alignment we’ll pursue,” he says. Louise Cornell, a member of the Mount Washington Green Space Preservation Committee, says her group will continue to oppose the plan. —Greg Hanscom
photo by Gail Burton
In November 2007, Urbanite contributor Donna M. Owens wrote about Baltimore’s new single-stream recycling program . In December, to prepare for the new system, the city sold yellow recycling bins to city residents for $5 and $6 (for 18-gallon and 25-gallon bins, respectively). Available at five locations around the city on two days, the ten thousand bins quickly sold out; at press time, a new shipment of bins was available at the Department of Public Works site at 111 Kane Street. Remember: Residents interested in recycling do not have to use the city’s bins; any containers, besides plastic bags, can be used, as long as they are clearly marked “recycle.” For more information about recycling or purchasing a city recycling bin, call 311 or go to www.cleanergreenerbaltimore. org.
A debate over the Jones Falls bike trail (“Disputed Ground,” December 2007) ended with the Mount Washington Improvement Association board of directors voting overwhelmingly on December 18 to endorse a new route through the neighborhood. The board’s approval of a slightly different route last spring raised the ire of some residents, who voiced concerns that the path would cause traffic problems in a residential area and harm a patch of woods behind the Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital. The PS-2007 Urbanite 12-10.qxd
12/10/07
alternative route traverses an existing park, which pleases many critics, but it still cuts through a residential area and the woods en route to Mount Washington’s business district. “The board worked really hard to listen to [the community’s] ideas,” says Cindy Freeman, one of eighteen board members who supported the new alternative. (One board member voted against the proposal.) City Planning Department Director Doug McCoach says he intends to proceed with engineering and environmen-
1:23 PM
Open House
—Marianne Amoss
Page 1
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Joi de Vie Events
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what you’re seeing
A Hero by Stanley J. Jaworski
This image is from a three-alarm fire in Baltimore City that occurred on July 24, 2007, at the Gateway Church of Christ at 1563 North Fulton Avenue in West Baltimore. The firefighter climbing the aerial ladder in the picture is going to the roof of the rowhouse attached to the right side of the church to keep the fire from spreading. The white color in the background is from the steam as the firefighters sprayed water on the fire. The church ended up being a complete loss, but the firefighters were able to keep the fire from spreading to the house next door. —S.J.J.
Starting in the April 2008 issue, the “What You’re Seeing” department will no longer use monthly themes; rather, this will be the place for photography that captures the true spirit of Baltimore. Urbanite staffers will choose our favorites to publish in the magazine and on our website. Along with your photograph, please include a brief description of the image and your contact information. Go to www.urbanitebaltimore.com/ wyseeing for more information on how to submit your photograph. Photos can be e-mailed to wyseeing@urbanitebaltimore.com.
PLEASE NOTE: By sending us a photograph, you are giving us full permission to publish the image in its entirety. This permission extends to the models and/or subjects in the photograph. It is essential that all people in the photograph be aware that the image may be published. Please read the limited license agreement on our website, www.urbanitebaltimore.com/wyseeing.
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w hh aa tt yy oo uu ’’ rr ee w w rr ii tt ii nn gg w
photo by La Kaye Mbah
Cravings I just started smoking again. The doctor told me today that I “What You’re Writing” is the place for creative nonfiction from our readers. Each month, we pick a topic. Use the topic as a springboard into your own life and send us a true story inspired by that month’s theme. Only nonfiction submissions that include contact information can be considered. We reserve the right to edit heavily for space and clarity, but we will give you the opportunity to review the edits. You may submit under “name withheld” to keep your essay anonymous, but you do need to let us know how to contact you. If you’ve already changed the names of the people involved, please let us know. Due to libel and invasion-of-privacy issues, we reserve the right to print the piece under your initials. Submissions should be typed (and if you cannot type, please print clearly). Only one submission per topic, please. Send your essay to Urbanite, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211 or e-mail your story to WhatYoureWriting@urbanitebaltimore.com. Please keep submissions under four hundred words; longer submissions may not be read due to time constraints. Because of the number of essays we receive, we cannot respond individually to each writer. Please do not send originals; submissions cannot be returned.
have a lump in my breast, and as I held my hand over the mass, suddenly all I knew was that a cigarette would taste good. I could feel the remembered heat coming in, going out. I needed that. I walked to the end of my street of single-family brick homes, two blocks inside the city line. I walked into the 7-Eleven, right up to the counter, an open square near the front of the store, and asked for a pack of Marlboro Lights, the only brand I’ve ever smoked, a white suburban kid’s type. If I were anyone but a creature of habit, I would have picked Newports, which everyone around here smokes, or Camels, which my ex used to inhale. But I couldn’t think. As I walked back up my street, I sucked on that long, thin cigarette and felt my breast, fingering the lump as a lover would. After years of not smoking, this new inhalation made me dizzy, and I had to stop on my front porch, an unattractive slab of concrete with a black iron rail, and hold my head in both hands. Then I could unlock the front door and then the inner door that led to the stairs of my onebedroom apartment. Now, I thought, I see the world as it really is. It swirls around me, and only when I stop do I notice that everything is spinning.
Topic
—Terri Solomon is a poet and a high school English teacher who lives in Lauraville. She has since stopped smoking.
Deadline
Guns Mar 7, 2008 Keeping Score Apr 4, 2008 Theft May 2, 2008
Publication May 2008 Jun 2008 Jul 2008
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Poetry Readings
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To the Trade Flooring Showroom Full-Service Workroom • Binding Serging • Taping • Sewing
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urbanite february 08
what you’re writing
sagging front porch, its second step warped and gray from rain; the porch with my bike roped to the white railing, the bike that my brother Ray and I built from parts we stole from the Nonantum junkyard, a place breeding useful things. I crave that porch, a crucible of memory, and beside it, the hornet’s nest in the hedge that I cut in half with Mr. Taylor’s clipper, opening up a Pandora’s buzz of bees that bit me on the top of my head as I ran down to the Murphys’ house to hide, all my friends mocking me on Albemarle Road, a few miles west of Boston proper. I crave my old room, the splotched mud-brown wallpaper that got peeled halfway off when I was 10 years old by my mom in an attempt at home improvement—only to be left that way when she discovered that heating the house in Boston’s winter was more important. I crave my uncle George, dead now of a bad ticker, who was a bomber in WWII and a bomber at parties with a stiff drink in his hand—the first storyteller I ever loved. My giant uncle Johnny, a chef in downtown Boston, who made me feel like the mayor. I crave the voice of my aunt Cathy, who I called, in a lilting double trochee, “Aunty Coopie.” She was the main librarian in our hometown, and she led me for the first time up those worn stairs in the library to the third floor where worlds waited in books. When I was a kid, the loneliest moment of the week was Sunday morning at 5 a.m., delivering stacked, cinder-block Boston Globes on a wobbly bike while the fluorescent-orange strap of the delivery bag dug into my shoulder, winter bleak, riding down streets filled with dark cars and homes and nothing, streets without faces and voices and color, black and white like newspaper print. Life, as an adult, can become just that, and so, I crave those words of my dad, standing on the porch in December in his T-shirt, Pall Mall in hand, reminding me once again: “Life ain’t about things, Eddie.”
The sun arrived outside the window, along with my mother, stepdaughters, and sister. It was time to induce labor, but my unborn child objected. His heart rate dropped at every attempt. Nonetheless, the contractions started, but my cervix was not ready for his rite of passage. Around noon, the nurse ordered me a food tray. Then the unexpected happened; I was peeing without trying. “Cancel the food tray! Her water broke,” she said. I responded, “Nothing to eat … nothing to drink?” Into the night, I begged for water, right along with a hammer and a knife. I wanted a C-section, but my cervix was steadily opening to allow this basketball in my stomach to dribble down the hallway. My screams were abated with a needle in my spine—a magic dose of medicine to lessen the pain. A day had passed, and I was dying of thirst. I thought I’d never see my son; my kidneys would fail and my heart would stop beating from exhaustion. My tears were fountains that I couldn’t drink from; watermarks stained my cheeks. I was delusional. The room was crowded: Many student nurses, my husband, family, and angels were coming in and out of the room. My doctor, with my family, was staring between my legs. They championed me to push, push, push! Thirty-four hours had passed. Finally they saw the head—they all cheered in anticipation of the fact that soon I’d hold my son in my arms. But it was the idea of seeing his feet that gave me the strength to push him out into the doctor’s hands. My son’s tiny, fragile body was not the first thing I wanted to hold. I figured we’d have a lot of time to get acquainted. I just wanted a glass of water.
As I drive home on Friday after the first
full week of school, I feel it. I feel the clinging cloud in the back of my mind, thoughts of never-ending essays and tests that I know won’t leave my head until June. The day is humid, like every other. “Mucky” would be the best way to describe it—a typical September day in Baltimore, where walking feels like swimming. But today is different: I drive home relieved because I know it’s going to rain. The sky is a glossy gray. The dark afternoon brings an absolute calm and an alien light that you can only get before a storm. A drizzle would be anticlimactic; I want it to pour. Thunder, lighting—I want it all. I want the summer rain. The rain that washes away the humidity and leaves only the warm clean air that is so fresh it makes you pay attention to your breathing, not wasting a breath on a sneeze or a sigh. Most of all, I want the smell that relaxes everything. When I get home, I go upstairs and open my windows in anticipation of the cleansing air. Everything wants it to rain; the grass stands high as if pulling toward the clouds, and the bushy green branches seem to float in the thick air. The sky inhales, waiting for its release, so I take my cue, sit down, and breathe deeply. ■
—Harrison Macks lives in Baltimore County and attends the Park School of Baltimore.
photo by La Kaye Mbah
I crave where I grew up, that old
—Latonia Valincia is a graduate student at the University of Baltimore and a speech instructor at Baltimore City Community College. She lives in Baltimore City with her son Doral, whom she calls “the greatest human being I’ve ever met.”
—Ed McCarthy is a husband, dad, teacher, coach, and part-time writer. He hails from Boston, which he will always consider home.
It was midnight
and they would induce labor in the morning. My husband dozed off next to me—a six-foot-plus frame sprawled across a small chair. I lay there wiggling around a hospital bed looking for comfort.
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At McDaniel College you will develop new t a s t e s , both in and out of the classroom. You will learn to s m e l l the difference between fact and fiction, and to form opinions in grounded logic. You will f e e l the challenge of academic rigor, as well as the comfort of belonging to an authentic community where students come first. You will begin to h e a r your inner voice—and trust it. At McDaniel College you will discover your future through numerous research, travel, and internship opportunities. Come s e e for yourself.
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d i f f e r e n c e
CORK CORKBOARD Scrooged
Through Apr. 19
When he died in 2000 at the age of 99, artist and writer Carl Barks had drawn and painted Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, and the characters of his invented town Duckburg for sixty-five years. Geppi’s Entertainment Museum presents original watercolors, oil paintings, and comic book art from Barks’ long career.
Geppi’s Entertainment Museum 301 W. Camden St. $10 adults, $9 seniors, children 4 and under free 410-625-7060 www.geppismuseum.com
Traveling African Film Festival
Feb. 2–3
The Baltimore Museum of Art presents two days of contemporary short-format and feature-length films from Africa. Films to be screened include the political commentary/sci-fi film Les Saignantes, in which two young women wend their way through Cameroon’s crooked political system while trying to dispose of the body of a dead secretary general, as well as seven other offerings from the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Guinea, and Zimbabwe. All films have English subtitles.
Baltimore Museum of Art 10 Art Museum Dr. Free tickets available each day on a firstcome, first-served basis 443-573-1700 www.artbma.org
Sacred Body: In Response to Religion
Feb. 16, 7 p.m.
Baltimore-based Full Circle Dance Company presents a program of performances exploring the divisive and unifying tendencies of religion. Among the works are Ohio choreographer Travis Gatling’s Supplications, which demonstrates how the gestures of prayer transcend cultures, and FCDC director Donna Jacobs’ Worthy, a visual narrative about African American faith, slavery, and freedom, set to live gospel music.
Baltimore Museum of Art 10 Art Museum Dr. $15 general admission 410-235-9003 www.fullcircledance.org
The American Craft Show
Feb. 22–24
The work of seven hundred leading craft artists will be on display and for sale during the American Craft Show, the biggest juried, indoor craft show in the country. This year’s offerings include jewelry, furniture, clothing, home décor, and more. Among the show’s new features are Craft4Kids (collections designed with children in mind) and Green Craft (items made from recycled, found, or ecofriendly materials).
Baltimore Convention Center 1 W. Pratt St. $14, $20 for two-day pass 800-836-3470 www.craftcouncil.org/baltimore
Great Tastes Food and Wine Expo
Feb. 23
With more than 150 exhibits and interactive seminars, the second annual Great Tastes food and wine expo will have something for seasoned cooks and culinary neophytes alike, from kitchen appliances to tips for preparing desserts like a pro. More than fifty local restaurants, caterers, and food manufacturers will have samples on hand, and celebrity chefs like Michael Midgley from season two of Bravo’s Top Chef and local favorite Christopher Paternotte of Vin restaurant will provide demonstrations.
Tremont Grand Hotel 225 N. Charles St. $45 admission and wine tasting, $20 admission only, varied fees for classes 800-830-3976 ext. 108 www.greattastesshow.com
Capoeira Roda
Feb. 24, 2–6 p.m.
To the uninitiated, the graceful movements and driving rhythms of Brazilian capoeira may make it seem like a harmless form of dance. That’s exactly what its original practitioners wanted their captors to believe. In reality, capoeira was a way for African slaves in colonial Brazil to hone their combat techniques. Guests can watch or join capoeiristas from the International Capoeira Angola Foundation during this free event.
Creative Alliance at the Patterson 3134 Eastern Ave. 410-276-1651 www.creativealliance.org
Photo credits from top to bottom: photo by Andy Hershberger; still from Julu Factory, directed by Balufu Bakupa-Kanginda; photo by Erica Feriozzi; courtesy of the American Craft Show in Baltimore; no credit; photo by Mari Gardner
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have you heard
compiled by lionel foster
Confections of an Erstwhile Lawyer
photo by Josh Cogan
CakeLove (2400 Boston St.; 410-522-1825): It’s more than a bakery, it’s a dream. And we’re not just talking about the triple-decker Strawberries & Cream layer cakes, or “My Downfall,” a seductive collusion of dark chocolate and vanilla buttercream sold at this Washington, D.C.-based bakery, coming this month to the Can Company in Canton. We’re talking about the dream that every suit-bound professional has of someday leaving the desk behind to chase a personal passion. That’s what CakeLove’s founder, 37-year-old Warren Brown, did in 2002, when he left his job as a government lawyer and started baking cakes from
scratch on D.C.’s U Street. Today, Brown does bustling business in D.C., Silver Spring, and Arlington, Va., and he has his own show on the Food Network called Sugar Rush. He also makes time to volunteer with the middle-school-student entrepreneurs of Kid Power-D.C. as they run CookieTime!, their own small baking business. Grab a cupcake and coffee at the new shop or order a custom cake online at www. cakelove.com. —Greg Hanscom
London Calling With its pedestrian-friendly squares, cobblestones, and monuments, Mount Vernon could be mistaken for an old European city—exactly the aesthetic that clothing retailer London’s Boutique (318 N. Charles St.; 410-244-1288) seems to be banking on. Open since July 2007, London’s offers items from eight popular designer labels, including French Connection, BCBG (“bon chic, bon genre,” Parisian slang for “good style, good attitude”), and Buffalo Jeans. Most of the selection caters to women, but you’ll also find
a few pants, shirts, and hoodies for men and kids. If not for the register and price tags, the store’s sales floor could pass for a model’s walk-in closet. Don’t be surprised, then, if you see an exceptionally well-dressed family using Charles Street as a catwalk. Open Mon–Sat 11 a.m.–6 p.m. —Harrison Brazier
From Russia with Love
photo by Jason Okutake
The raison d’être behind Zina Berer’s eponymous full-service salon in Canton could not be simpler. “Everyone is my friend,” she says. “I want to make everyone happy. I can’t help it—I’m Russian.” It’s how she explains the variety of methods available for pampering oneself at Zina’s Day Spa & Salon in Canton Square (2832 O’Donnell St.; 410-342-2077). A team of stylists, aestheticians, and massage therapists offers hairstyling, body treatments, massages, facials, makeup application, waxing services, manicures, pedicures, and a banya, a traditional Russian bath, during which you and a friend are invited to gently strike each other with whisks of birch branch-
b #47250 ”x 2.625” 4c
mportant s ad will 90 days the date ed in the sclosure.
es. (It’s said to do wonders for circulation.) Upstairs, thirteen treatment rooms and a party room accommodate bridal parties or groups of friends looking to luxuriate together. There’s even a cozy lounge for refreshments between services, where the dress code allows for robes and towels. “Whatever you need, we can do,” says Berer. Open Mon 9 a.m.–6 p.m., Tues and Fri 9 a.m.–8 p.m., Wed and Thurs 9 a.m.–9 p.m., Sat 8 a.m.–6 p.m., and Sun by appointment only. Go to www.zinasdayspa.com. —Shannon Dunn
Have you heard of something new and interesting happening in your neighborhood? E-mail your news to editorial assistant Lionel Foster at Lionel@urbanitebaltimore.com, and you may see it in a future issue.
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Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. © 2007 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. #47250 4/07-7/07
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have you heard Modest Masterpiece screenprint and etching by Jacob Fossum
For some, the idea of owning original art is as abstract as a Jackson Pollock: Sure, it’s big and beautiful, but who can afford it? Paperwork Gallery , located in the Midtown Yoga building in Mount Vernon (107 E. Preston St.), aims to remedy that with its exhibits of high-quality, affordable works on paper. Opened in December by visual artists Cara Ober and Dana Reifler, Paperwork features art made by both emerging and established Baltimore artists. (Disclosure: Ober is an occasional Urbanite contributor;
Reifler is a participant in the 2008 Urbanite Project.) Exhibit catalogs are available for all shows, and additional works from represented artists are available. Catalogs can be purchased at www.blurb.com or at the gallery. The opening for Paperwork’s new show featuring Elena Volkova’s photography is Feb. 8, 7 p.m.–9 p.m. Open Fri 4 p.m.–7 p.m. and by appointment. Go to paperworkgallery.blogspot.com. —Marianne Amoss
Pet Project If dogs could talk, no doubt they’d tell us there’s nothing better than rolling in stink. Bath time? Not even. I’m hiding behind the couch. Here’s something that might change a doggy mind or two: handcrafted canine shampoo and botanical conditioner from Baltimore’s own Mundo Botanica. Owner Sevi Kay started making cosmetics for dogs when her German Shepherd, Mundo, had a bad reaction to a chemical carpet freshener. She launched her online business in 1997, and one thing led to another: “I had customers say, ‘I love this stuff. I’m going to buy
some for me,’” she says. So in 2000, Kay started making skincare and cosmetics for people under the name Sevi Organics . She crafts her haircare, skincare, makeup, and perfume by hand with organic and vegan ingredients, and unlike the big cosmetics companies, she’s proud to tell you everything that’s in them. Shop online at www.cybercanine.com and www.sevicosmetics.com. —G.H.
Restoring Hope We’ve all been there: Every few years some lifealtering event like moving or tying the knot forces us to take stock of our worldly goods and shake our heads in dismay at what pack rats we’ve become. Now there’s help from Habitat for Humanity of Frederick County: ReStore (1109 E. Patrick St., Frederick; 301-662-2988), which celebrated its grand opening last month. ReStore accepts furniture, working appliances, bathtubs, and building materials. Donations are tax-deductible and the proceeds from sales
architecture
1208 Light Street Baltimore, Maryland
help build homes for families in need. David Ozag, executive director of Habitat Frederick, expects the store to produce enough funds to build an additional two homes per year. Open Tues–Fri 12 p.m.–6 p.m., Sat 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Go to www.habitat.org/cd/env/ restore.aspx to learn more about ReStores across the country, including locations in Anne Arundel, Prince George’s, and Montgomery counties. —Lionel Foster
interior design
CL Design Studio LLC 410-244-0360
planning
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THINK Jews only support Jewish causes? AIDS outreach, domestic violence education and prevention, Meals on Wheels, tutoring and mentoring in Baltimore City Public Schools are just a few of the hundreds of community-wide programs The Associated supports.
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ASSOCIATED
ARE YOU?
THE
The Baltimore Community is Associated.
Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore
Make a difference. 410.727.4828 | associated.org
photo by Jason Okutake
baltimore observed
Fuel for thought: Members of the Baltimore Biodiesel Co-op were surprised to learn that their oil was coming from an unknown—and perhaps unsustainable—source.
sustainable city
How Green Is Your Machine? Watching the Great Crisco Debacle of 2007 unfold was, to use a variation on the old cliché, like watching a car wreck in slow motion. The first to go was Jenae Gates’ Volkswagen Golf. “The fuel line has gelled so much that no fuel was getting to the fuel filter, let alone the injectors,” Gates’ husband, Evan Guilfoyle, reported to a Yahoo discussion group. He added, “My Jeep Liberty … has also been sputtering at highway speeds over 55 m.p.h.” It was 2:43 p.m. on October 30. At 3:00, Mike Tegtmeyer reported lost power and sputtering in his VW Jetta. Gus Dopke reported similar symptoms in his Dodge Ram at 5:01. Joe Sugarman checked in at 5:46: “I’ve also had some problems with my Mercedes 300DT. Thought it was the fuel filters, changed them, but the sluggishness—especially up hills—has continued. Also my car wouldn’t start these last two mornings—and it ALWAYS starts.” At 6:45, Rich Dean wrote that his VW Beetle “conked out yesterday … It is at the Autobahn on York Road (Towed at $130) as we speak being looked at.” By the end of the following day, there were two more cars in the pile-up. Susan Smith’s Jetta
was sputtering, and Ben Robinson’s had quit running completely: “I had it towed to the VW dealer … turns out the tandem pumps were clogged, and the service guy attributed it to the use of biodiesel.” Biodiesel—fuel brewed from vegetable oil or animal fat—has taken off in recent years, in large
This year, biodiesel production in the United States will top 400 million gallons. But, as the Baltimore biodiesel users would learn, the popularity has created a conundrum. part because it offers an eco-friendly way to stay on the road, with minimal initial investment: It works in most standard diesel engines. Compared to cars that burn traditional diesel (“dino diesel” in biodiesel parlance), biodiesel vehicles cough up considerably fewer greenhouse gases and cancer-causing nasties. “Number two diesel [made from petroleum] is probably one of the most toxic fuels on the face
of the planet,” says Davis Bookhart, director of the Sustainability Initiative at Johns Hopkins University. “If diesel was introduced today as a new product, the EPA would not approve it. It would not pass any health and safety regulations.” Plus, using biodiesel allows you to quit the foreign oil habit and all the baggage that comes with it. Through much of the 1990s, only the hardestcore eco-freaks burned biodiesel, brewing it in their garages from salvaged restaurant fryer oil. By the early 2000s, small biodiesel plants were popping up, creating fuel from virgin veggie oil, and scattered gas stations began carrying it. A parade of “veggie vans,” “greasecars,” and biodiesel-powered school buses circled the country. Celebrity endorsers like Willie Nelson told Americans that burning biodiesel was a patriotic way to support family farmers. Cities like Berkeley and Boulder began using biodiesel in their maintenance trucks, buses, and street sweepers. Legislatures—including Maryland’s—mandated that state fleets begin burning biodiesel. The U.S. Postal Service and the National Park Service started using a biodiesel blend, and Congress tossed in a dollar-agallon subsidy. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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Be stronger than your excuses. At the MAC, you don’t need to be in shape before you come in— that’s our job: to get you well and feeling good. No one expects perfection. All we expect is that you show up. Once you do,
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urbanite february 08
photo by Jason Okutake
baltimore observed
It’s a gas: Biodiesel co-op board member Mark Eckley tanks up.
This year, biodiesel production in the United States will top 400 million gallons, up from 25 million gallons in 2004, according to the American Biodiesel Board, a trade group started by soybean producers. But, as the Baltimore biodiesel users would learn, the popularity has created a conundrum. Theories abounded about what could be causing the troubles with the cars, all of which belonged to members of the Baltimore Biodiesel Cooperative, founded in 2006 to help the city’s biodiesel aficionados find a reliable, and relatively affordable, source of fuel. Some suspected there was water in the co-op’s 500-gallon tank, which sits outside the Mill Valley Garden Center and Farmers’ Market in Remington. Others suggested there might be some sort of sediment in the tank. Another theory held that the culprit was the recent cold snap: Biodiesel made from soybean oil becomes cloudy at around 35 degrees Fahrenheit; at 32 degrees it turns to, well, Crisco. A mad flurry of phone calls and e-mails ensued. Co-op board member Mark Eckley, a microscopist at the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, called the group’s supplier to see if other users had run into similar problems. He was told that tracking the fuel to its source could take weeks, but he did acquire a specification sheet showing that the fuel had begun to cloud up at 52 degrees—far warmer than it should have. Something was amiss. That something became painfully apparent on November 8, when an inspection of the tank revealed,
in the words of one co-op member, “a two-ton stick of butter.” The co-op was learning the hard way that the business of biodiesel is changing. Until recently, most biodiesel was made from soybeans grown in the United States. But this summer, the price of soybeans shot up, and biodiesel producers began looking abroad for new “feed” crops—in particular, palm oil from South America, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Horror stories emerged about farmers burning rainforest to make way for palm plantations. Palm oil, it happens, coagulates at around 50 degrees. “It took a while to settle in, but it finally dawned on us that we had something that probably wasn’t soy,” says Bookhart, the co-op’s president. “It might have come from South America. It might have come from one of those burnt rainforests.” On the evening of November 15, co-op board member John Shepley headed to Mill Valley, toting a small tank equipped with a heating element. Shepley, an engineer by training who now grows plants for green roofs, heated forty gallons of biodiesel to about 150 degrees, then poured it into the tank. His plan was to melt the massive clot inside, then pump out the oil. But after three hours, the scheme had melted only about a third of the tank’s contents. It was time for extreme measures, and the man for the job was the co-op’s vice president and unofficial “tech guru,” Ilya Goldberg, a researcher who works with Eckley at the National Institute on Aging. “I’m going down to the co-op tomorrow morning to unleash a ghynormous can of woop-ass of medieval proportions on that beeyo****,” Goldberg announced in an e-mail the following afternoon. He rented a pair of diesel-powered “salamander” heaters and fired them, point-blank, at the tank. That evening, he had good news: “Over a million BTUhours and 15 gallons of diesel later, the salamanders melted 150 gal. of Agent X.” The co-op’s landlord hauled the fuel away to his farm, where it will sit until spring. When all was said and done, the Crisco clogged close to a dozen cars, precipitating hundreds of dollars in mechanics’ fees. Remarkably, the co-op seems to have lost only a handful of its seventy-odd members because of the incident. Volunteers re-opened the filling station at Mill Valley in late November, selling a “winter blend” of biodiesel and kerosene, which stays liquid at much colder temperatures. By late December, Eckley reported that sales were close to pre-debacle levels. If the Great Crisco Debacle holds a lesson, it is something like this: With
biodiesel, as with organic food, you miss the point if it’s done on an industrial scale and shipped all over the planet. Now, many in the movement are returning to their roots, to fuel that is brewed locally, on a small scale. Except for homebrewing, the approach has not yet worked in Baltimore. “It’s very difficult to convince banks and financial institutions to invest,” says homebrewer Sebastian Sassi, who looked into building a plant that could process about two million gallons of biodiesel annually. The biggest barrier, he says, is the high price of feedstock such as soybean oil. But there’s a way around this, according to Rob Del Bueno, an Atlanta entrepreneur and musician. Del Bueno (surf-rock fans know him as “Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard” from the band Man or Astro-Man?) says there is an economic “sweet spot” for small-scale biodiesel manufacturing. He gets his feedstock free: His nonprofit Refuel Biodiesel collects waste oil from restaurants and cafeterias, then creates biodiesel in a custom-made manufacturing plant housed in an industrial shipping container. He makes about 250,000 gallons a year and distributes it from a mobile fueling station housed in another shipping container. Refuel Biodiesel has started manufacturing the mini processing plants and is considering turning the business into a franchise. On the national level, an outfit called the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance—co-founded by Willie Nelson’s wife, Annie—is trying to teach people about the difference between eco-friendly and not-so-friendly biodiesel. Actor Woody Harrelson narrates a new film on the subject called Revolution Green, and the alliance is working on a certification program to stamp biodiesel as locally and responsibly grown. “Willie and Daryl Hannah and Woody Harrelson did a good job of promoting biodiesel,” Nelson says. “But people didn’t recognize that there was a difference.” The Baltimore Biodiesel Co-op, meanwhile, has tracked the soybean oil in its winter blend, now selling for $4.30 a gallon, to an outfit in Cincinnati. Southern Ohio isn’t exactly “local,” but it’s better than the alternatives, says Bookhart. Down the road, he predicts that we’ll all be driving electric cars, but biodiesel can provide a relatively green way to get there. In 2007, the co-op sold 10,000 gallons of biodiesel. “That’s 10,000 gallons of regular diesel we’ve displaced,” says Bookhart. “It’s a drop in the bucket, but our co-op is making a real calculable difference.” ■ —Greg Hanscom
w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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urbanite february 08
photo by Evan L. Balkan
baltimore observed
Downtown Baltimore, Peru: The city’s Amazonian twin feels a little different from the Baltimore we know.
encounter
In the Jungle I’m traveling upriver in a canopied longboat, a swift current slapping the sides. Silver butterflies cling to muddy riverbanks. I’m on the Tambopata River, in the Peruvian Amazon, heading toward the lodge where I’ll stay for the next three nights. I’ve come to Peru to scratch at my life list: places I’ve decided I must see, including the Incan wonderland at Machu Picchu and the Amazon jungle. Roberto, the boat captain, stops at a checkpoint. We’re entering the Tambopata National Reserve, and we must register. We debark to hand over our passports. And there, on a map nailed to a post, I spot Baltimore, just upriver. Where the hell am I? I look around. Massive tarantulas lope around my feet, wolf spiders larger than my hand perch immovable on gargantuan lupuna trees, and Technicolor butterflies flutter around while spider monkeys swing from branch to branch in a riotous race. A spiraling pattern of jaguar and capybara prints decorates the mud. It’s as if someone took Druid Hill Park, melted a box of crayons over it, put the woods on steroids, and loosed some residents from the zoo. I trace my finger along the map. There’s Bolivia, downriver to the west, and there’s Brazil, up through the jungle to the north. Baltimore is the
last place on the map—there’s just a giant green swath beyond. This has happened to me before. Years ago, while in Cork, Ireland, I noticed on a map that some sixty miles to the southwest sat Baltimore, population approximately two hundred. It’s where the first Lord Baltimore took his title, the burg that gave us our name. It was a quaint place. Most prominent in my memories of the town is the Baltimore Beacon, a phallic white brick monument looming over the Atlantic coast. I snapped a requisite photo and then beat it to bustling Galway. I tell Roberto that I live in a place called Baltimore. He raises one eyebrow. I ask him if he’ll take me. The other eyebrow rises. “Which one?” he asks. “There’s more than one?” “Baltimore is a community of ten families along the river,” he explains. “There is nothing to see.” “Can we go anyway?” He agrees. Still, his barely perceptible nod suggests I’m up for a letdown. “I’ll take you to the Ramirezes’,” he says. “They are the founding family.” I appreciate it; it’s been a daylong ordeal for me just to get this far. From BWI, I flew to Lima, then to the Andean city of Cusco. From there, I took another plane to Puerto Maldonado, a jungle town on the Madre de Dios River with a rough edge—there’s a palpable feeling that something terribly wrong
could happen any moment. Finally, I took an hourlong bone-jarring van ride along the Madre de Dios until the Tambopata forked to the southwest, where I climbed on the boat for the four-hour journey upriver. The approach to Baltimore is a cautious one. As Roberto guides the boat around half-submerged trees and intermittent sandbars, he explains that in the early 1900s, an American from Baltimore, Maryland, set up a trading post where the village now sits, to cater to Europeans working the rubber plantations. This intrepid Baltimorean (no one seems to remember his name) blasted the river bottom in three places, taming dangerous rapids that had previously claimed the lives of scores of workers. Those lost rapids became known as “Baltimorios,” and as homage to the man who had restrained them, the new settlement there was named after his hometown. Eventually, this same man oversaw the operations that sent crates of rubber back to his American Baltimore for processing. Roberto stops at a towering mud cliff where the riverbank has collapsed into the water. There’s a precipitous climb up to the Ramirez homestead. Yellow-rumped caciques squawk, competing with the incessant whistling of poisonous dart frogs, and tinamous—birds that have been on earth for ten million years—eye me warily as I drag myself over the cliff. In spite of Roberto’s cautions, I hope this slice of Baltimore will be a spectacle, a gleaming gem that would make its namesake proud. Instead, it’s a diminutive collection of three thatch-roofed huts. No one is home. I slink around the property, surreptitiously peeking inside screened windows and testing rickety wooden steps. Inside, I see only simple furnishings: thin mattresses, basins of water, and jagged mirrors hanging from hooks. It’s nice, in a harsh, rustic, “great-place-to-visit-but-wouldn’t-want-tolive-there” type of way. I hope to speak to Mr. Ramirez, tell him I’ve come from the “real” Baltimore, bringing good tidings. But I’m completely alone. And in three minutes, I’ve exhausted the sights. As I did in Ireland a decade earlier, I snap some requisite photos and leave, picking my way down the muddy cliff toward the waiting boat. Roberto looks slightly amused. “What do you think?” he asks. “It’s nice.” “The people love it,” he says. There are other homesteads carved out of the jungle and along the river, each its own provincial entity but part of the patchwork of Baltimore, like so many city neighborhoods back home. “You want to see another?” he asks. “This is the nicest one.” Nah—it won’t do me much good. The jungle only hides more mysteries. Besides, it shouldn’t be as easy as setting foot in a place and expecting it to give up all its secrets in a moment. My Baltimore is the same way, after all. What’s hidden from plain sight is often the most charming. “Anyone can love a perfect place,” Charm City novelist Laura Lippman once said. “Loving Baltimore takes some resilience.” ■ —Evan L. Balkan
w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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urbanite february 08
1/2/08 8:22:32 AM
photo by Mitro Hood
baltimore observed
Lady sings the blues: Robert Goetz wants to turn Billie Holiday’s childhood home into a base of operations for an international touring jazz band and an annual jazz festival.
preservation
Light of Day The only thing distinctive about the 200 block of South Durham Street is how mundane it is. Just around the corner is Butchers Hill, a neighborhood of brawny grandeur. Durham, meanwhile, slopes sloppily like a forgotten freight ramp under slacked telephone wires toward the dull gleam from the harbor. You’d never guess that one of Baltimore’s most famous residents, jazz singer Billie Holiday, once lived in this nondescript alley. Her recently renovated childhood home, sandwiched between look-alike brick alley houses, offers no clues. A woman sitting on a stoop across the street snaps that she’s never even heard of Holiday. But a local fan wants to pull this house out of its obscurity, and in the process, boost Baltimore’s standing in jazz history. Last year, Robert Goetz, former owner of Chambers music club, formed a nonprofit called the Billie Holiday House Inc. The organization does not want to turn the house into a museum. “That is the kiss of death,” says Goetz, pointing to the ill-fated City Life, Civil War, and Fells Point Maritime museums. Instead, his group wants to create a monument to Holiday and use the house as a base of operations for an annual jazz festival and, eventually, an international touring jazz band. “We’re trying to educate future generations about the only original American music,” he says. Take away the Holiday House’s 501(c)(3) status and Goetz would be just another guy in a bar with a world-changing idea whose lifespan is as long as the bar tab. But, as he points out,
other towns have successfully built on their historic connections to jazz. “Look, Washington has the Duke Ellington Festival, Wilmington has the Clifford Brown Festival, which is huge—it’s very well supported,” says Goetz over a bowl of mussel chowder at Bertha’s in Fells Point. “Why can’t we do the Billie Holiday Festival?” Holiday was born in Philadelphia in 1915, but her mother, 18-year-old Sadie Fagan, soon brought her to Baltimore, where she spent the youth that became part of her dark mythology. Her father, Clarence Holiday, was a jazz guitarist who never stuck around long. Holiday’s mother eventually followed him to New York City, leaving her daughter in the
“We’re trying to educate future generations about the only original American music,” says Goetz. care of Lucy Hill, the mother of a boyfriend who owned the house on Durham Street. According to the biography Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon, a young Holiday turned tricks, hung out with pimps, and sung in “good time houses” around town. In her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday recalled a childhood marred by sexual abuse, rape, and a yearning to be with her mother. She found solace and inspiration at a nearby brothel, where she would duck in after running errands to listen to Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on a phonograph. “I spent many a wonderful hour there listening to Pops and Bessie,” she wrote. “I remember Pops’ recording of ‘West End Blues’ and how it used to gas me. It was the first time I ever heard anybody sing without using any words.”
Some time between 1927 and 1929, Hill sent Holiday to live with her mother in New York City, where she sang her way into history. She succumbed to drug addiction and died while under arrest in a hospital at the age of 44. During her career, Holiday occasionally returned to Baltimore to sing, but today there are few physical reminders of her connection to her childhood home. One of the few is a statue that has stood on Pennsylvania Avenue since 1985, created by James Reid, who now sits on the Holiday House’s small board of directors. It depicts a pained singer in the throes of her music. Reid says he is in the process of adding three relief sculptures to the statue that were deemed too controversial by a city administrator in the 1980s: an infant, in recognition of the Holiday standard “God Bless The Child;” a black man being hanged, a reference to Holiday’s signature song “Strange Fruit;” and a crow, a symbol of the Jim Crow laws, devouring a gardenia, the flower Holiday wore in her hair. Harsh stuff, sure, but that was the substance of Holiday’s life and work, says Reid. “She exemplifies Albert Camus’ [belief] that an artist must serve suffering as well as beauty.” As for Holiday’s childhood home on Durham Street, “I like the fact it’s a downand-out alley house,” Reid says. “It speaks of the possibilities coming from lowly beginnings.” The house currently belongs to Beah Zander, a landlord who bought and rehabbed it two years ago. She knew nothing about the Holiday connection until she received a call from Goetz last year. A jazz fan, Zander says she immediately felt a custodial responsibility. “Knowing that she lived there makes her more alive,” she says. “It makes her three-dimensional.” She would like to sell the house, currently a rental, to Goetz as soon as his foundation raises sufficient funds. (The Fells Point Preservation Society has agreed to help collect donations.) The house project gained a sense of spiritual obligation in October, when jazz singer Ruby Glover, the creator of the Billie Holiday Vocal Competition, died suddenly at age 77 while performing at the Patterson Theater. Glover was on the Holiday House board, and Goetz says he talked to her about the project several times a week. “The loss is just unfathomable,” he says. “She was so connected to the community, loving jazz and promoting jazz. You can never replace her.” As he watched local jazz players turn out en masse for Glover’s wake, he resolved even more to draw them together. “All these jazz musicians in town shouldn’t wait until someone dies to do something,” he says. And in an oddly poetic way, this tiny Baltimore alley house—where, on the day a reporter’s knock went unanswered, a young girl walked merrily past on an errand to the corner store—does seem like it could be the impetus of something big. The first challenge, says Goetz, will be to raise a million dollars to buy the house and launch the jazz festival and other projects. “It may work or it may not work,” he says. “I’m not worried about not succeeding. I’m worried about bringing this to people’s attention.” ■ —Charles Cohen w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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urbanite february 08
baltimore observed
media
The last of the Baltimore Sun’s storied foreign news bureaus went dark in Moscow in December. Erika Niedowski, the correspondent there for nearly three years, switched off the lights in the office near the Kremlin that had been occupied by Sun correspondents for half a century. The Sun did not publish Ms. Niedowski’s final report from the Russian capital, filed as she “locked the door and closed a chapter on a kind of journalism this paper has been doing since 1887: the kind where foreign places like Russia and China and the Middle East are made familiar and, if we correspondents do our jobs right, what goes on in them germane.” Instead, the story was e-mailed to her colleagues on December 18, the day before Niedowski began her journey back to the United States—to work for another newspaper. The Sun has lost 25 percent of its news staff since its purchase by the Chicago Tribune Corporation in 2000, according to William Salganik, president of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. The impact of that shrinkage has been particularly evident in international coverage: In 1990, the Sun had seven foreign bureaus (London, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, and Mexico City). By 2007, only Johannesburg, Jerusalem, and Moscow remained active. This December they were all history. “We don’t expect to have any permanently based reporters overseas,” says Robert Blau, the Sun’s current managing editor. If the news of the closing bureaus failed to trigger widespread weeping or rending of garments throughout Baltimore, it certainly left mightily disappointed those who valued the Sun’s windows upon the world, each one helmed by a correspondent who knew his or her territory and readership. Scott Shane, a former chief of the Sun’s Moscow bureau who is now with the New York Times, calls the disappearance of his old office “a disturbing sign of an era that has seen steady shrinking in the presence of American correspondents around the world.” It’s a phenomenon that has afflicted newspapers nationwide, but it hits particularly hard here. The Sun was global before global was chic: Bonn, Berlin, Rome, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro. All were cities with a resident Sun correspondent at one time or another. Starting with the establishment of the London Bureau in 1924, many high-caliber reporters—“the quick and the smart”—moved through those offices, such as Russell Baker, William Manchester, and Price Day (the last man to interview Mahatma Gandhi). Staffing these sought-after posts was a major investment: Traditionally, Sun correspondents went overseas well-drilled in the languages, culture, and political dynamics of the countries where they were to spend several years of their lives. (Language study for China and Russia sometimes lasted half a year.) But the bureaus distinguished
the Sun from like-sized papers and enabled it to “punch above its weight,” as the saying goes. “The bureaus enriched the community as well as the newspaper,” says Robert Ruby, the Sun’s last foreign editor. “If you valued knowledge, and valued learning, then the bureaus were a form of wealth.” During my near two decades working as a Sun correspondent and foreign editor, I never wore a trench coat, never drank whiskey before noon. I found my work satisfying, sometimes even thrilling, only occasionally dangerous, and most of all, unexpected. One is either stopping at the Ritz in Paris or staggering though the fetid darkness of a Somalian famine, dozing in the lavender shade of bougainvillea in a Mexican plaza or huddling in a church in El Salvador while disagreeable people are shooting at it. Like many colleagues, I developed connections from overseas with folks back in Baltimore. Shane recalls that, during his visits home, he met with eager readers of his reporting “in many pockets of Baltimore—Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Soviet Jewish immigrants.” While based in Rio de Janeiro about thirty years ago, I recall Baltimoreans wandering now and then into my office off the cruise liners, some displaying attitudes quite proprietary; they were never rude, just confident in their right to be there. I always thought they had that right, too. In 2005, Jeff Price, Sun foreign editor from 1991 to 2001, sent a stinging e-mail to Timothy Franklin, the paper’s editor, denouncing the impending closing of the London and Beijing bureaus as “more proof that the bottom line rather than news value or readership interest is what drives these decisions.” He alluded to what has become ironclad truth in the media business: Smaller, regional papers simply can no longer afford offices abroad. Blau thinks the paper can cover events overseas by what he described as “the enterprise model”— that is, by seeking relevant international stories and dispatching reporters to work them. “We’ll go anywhere, and have gone,” Blau says. “We’ve racked up a very nice body of work.” The Sun has lately sent reporters to France, China, and Australia (in the company of Cal Ripken), several times to Iraq, to Southeast Asia to write about the crab industry, and to other destinations. But for the most part, major international events without an immediate local angle would be covered by other Tribune correspondents or wire services. The Washington Post, which fields twenty foreign correspondents, suggested the future of
courtesy of the Baltimore Sun Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
International Incident
overseas coverage in an internal memo, “The World in 2008,” which seeks applicants for positions on its foreign staff. The Post wants reporters “who can live and work for extended periods out of a suitcase, who will organize their planning, reporting and writing around nothing more than a laptop, air card and cell phone. We seek reporters who will be comfortable traveling at least two and sometimes three weeks out of every four. We need skilled jugglers who can move seamlessly from one story to another.” It’s a job description that sounds more like a virtual correspondent on a video game than an actual working journalist abroad, and I suspect these plans would assure at least one predictable outcome: ever-younger reporters, long on stamina, short on experience. The likely consequence of that? Shallow reporting, and maybe a few nervous breakdowns. The world is a dangerous place: trite but true, and perhaps more so now than during the Cold War. Today there are more actors involved, more enemies in the field. Also, we’re too tightly linked economically with the rest of the planet to ignore what lies beyond our borders. By shutting its windows on the world, the Sun has deprived its readers of a daily report fashioned by correspondents who had this city and its people in mind when they sat down to write. But I don’t believe the American foreign correspondent will button his collar and walk away into the fog: There are still media outlets that understand the necessity of foreign reportage, editors smart enough to employ the Erika Niedowskis of the world. Unfortunately, Baltimore’s newspaper is no longer among them. ■ —Richard O’Mara w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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Heartbreaker Moral philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt on
how love really does make the world go around I nte r v i e w P h ot ograph
F
b y by
or one odd week in 2005, the top spot in the New York Times bestseller list was held by a slim sixty-seven-page hardcover not much bigger than a cell phone. It was called On Bullshit, and it briefly made its author, a retired Princeton philosophy professor named Harry G. Frankfurt, something of a celebrity. The book—a droll treatise on truth, lies, and the insidious stuff in between—was in fact an essay originally published in 1986 that had gained a cult following in the intervening years. “My publisher told me, ‘A lot of people are interested in that essay. Why don’t we bring it out as a little book?’ And I said, ‘How can it be a book? It’s like twentyfive pages long.’ He said, ‘Well, we can do a lot with margins.’ So they did. And it sold half a million copies.” The media attention brought an unexpected measure of latecareer fame for Frankfurt, whose immediate pre-Bullshit work covered less profane territory. In 2004, he published The Reasons of Love, an elegant dissection of a phenomenon that (like bullshit) is both omnipresent and misunderstood. Frankfurt argues that the act of caring and the pursuit of love is a fundamental human need—something that, like reason itself, is essential for a meaningful existence. “Love is the originating source of terminal value,” he writes. “If we loved nothing, then nothing would possess for us any inherent worth.” And the most “pure” form of this caring, he says, is not the love of others but the love of oneself. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Frankfurt moved to Baltimore in 1935, grew up in the Forest Park area, and graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1949; he earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Hopkins in 1954. Now 78, he has been retired from teaching since 2003. He lives with wife Joan Gilbert in a restored 19th-century home near the university campus in Princeton, New Jersey.
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urbanite february 08
D a v id
Dud le y
Marshall
Clarke
Q
Human beings have been writing about love for millennia— what made you think that there was something new to say?
A
The book started out as a couple of lectures I did in London and Berlin. I was interested in the foundations of rationality, and my theme was that at the basis of rationality is something like love—our concern or caring about things that are of great importance to us and that we kind of latch on to. I tried to explain what I meant by love—not to explain what love is, but just to define the concept I was going to employ. So I didn’t start out to analyze love, but whatever analysis I did provide I did as a sort of necessary task I had to perform in order to establish my good faith.
Q
One of the conclusions you come to in The Reasons of Love is that “love makes it possible for us to engage wholeheartedly in ac tivity that is meaningful.”
A
I got into wholeheartedness because I did a lot of work on the will and its tribulations. Of which, to me, the most salient was ambivalence—when you don’t know what your will is, or you’re divided against yourself. You don’t know which way to go and your will is in conflict, pulling you in all directions.
Q
But this wholeheartedness does not necessarily mean you are a good person, or that you are disposed to act in a more moral
keynote
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urbanite february 08
fashion. As you write, “ The function of love is not to make people good.” Can you illustrate this?
A
Well, taking the bull by the horns, my favorite example is Hitler. I think we all agree he was a bad man. But he had a completely wellintegrated set of motives and preferences that enabled him to operate without any doubt or hesitation or self-denial. And his wholeheartedness made for, I’m sorry to say, a “good” life.
Q A
At least from his perspective.
From his perspective. What he was doing led to all kinds of things that were, from his point of view, extremely satisfying. I mean, his life didn’t end very well, but along the way I think he had a pretty good time.
Q A Q
And there doesn’t seem to be much you can do about this. Saint Augustine was right—this capacity for love is a divine gift, and you either are or aren’t predisposed to wholeheartedness.
A
That’s right. I do think that the Augustinian conception of divine grace, which is bestowed for no good reason on some and not on others, is pretty much what the human experience is. It’s the way the cards fall. Some people have the luck of being able to be wholehearted. Other people just aren’t born with that capacity or that potential.
Q
Speaking of divine grace, your take on the aphorism “God is love” is striking: “If God is love, then the universe has no point, except just to be.”
A
I never thought of it that way.
Because God loves everything. And if God loves everything, there are no purposes, no preferences, no goals. If God’s love is infinite in the way that it’s often described, then what God wants is simply a universe that has in it everything that it’s possible for Him to love.
So I think morality doesn’t have much to do with it.
Q
In the book you discuss this notion of “radical ambivalence,” which you identify as being a great impediment to achieving wholeheartedness. To me, ambivalence doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing—you’re always weighing things and trying not to be too invested in one version of events. I associate it with just being intellectually restless.
A
That’s not what I mean by ambivalence. Intellectual curiosity or restlessness, or intellectual dissatisfaction with a partial solution— that’s all to the good. And you can be wholeheartedly devoted to that. By ambivalence I mean not being sure of what you want—having conflicting desires and being unable to decide which one of them represents the real you, which one you really want to throw yourself into and pursue wholeheartedly.
Q
Another surprising distinction that you draw is between selfindulgence and self-love, which you call “ the deepest and most essential achievement of a serious and successful life.”
A
I went with it in a paradoxical direction, because I claim that self-love is the purest kind of love. That was a bit of a joke, but I mean it. I guess using the words in that way is a little provocative.
Q
But self-love does not necessarily equate to being satisfied with your life. How can you explain this paradox?
A
Q
Well, you can hate your life for many reasons. You can hate it because it was unsuccessful. You may have become crippled, or you’ve become diseased. Your loved ones might die. But that doesn’t affect the wholeheartedness by which you cared about certain things. In fact, your wholeheartedness might lead you into this unhappiness, if you care wholeheartedly about something you couldn’t get, or it was taken away from you. Hating your life is different from hating yourself.
Is that the same love that’s meaningful for human beings, or is that a different thing entirely?
A
I claim that self-love
It’s a different thing entirely. is the purest kind of First of all, there’s another concept in here. A fully omnipotent being is not love. That was a bit distinct from anything other than himof a joke, but I mean self, because everything else is totally subject to his will. That makes it part it. I guess using the of him. So all God can love is Himself. words in that way is There is nothing else; all reality is part of God. There’s no object other than a little provocative. Himself to which He can be devoted or care about. And certainly no particular purpose, except to create everything possible.
Q
Part of the challenge, I imagine, in dealing with love at this kind of intellectual level is that the words involved are so freighted with these touchy-feely implications. Your use of the language of love is quite detached, more in the realm of pure idea.
A
You’re right, and I think that by doing that, I probably missed something that’s very important in the concept of love as it’s generally employed, and which shouldn’t be missed. The concept as I developed it is pretty cold; I say there are no emotions that are essential for this phenomenon. But of course, as most people think of love, emotions are a part of it.
Q
Is there some self-help way to apply some of these principles to other people’s lives?
A
No. I don’t think so. I’m not interested in offering people advice or writing self-help books. I think of it strictly as an analytical enterprise. That’s what I do as a philosopher. If reading the book helps people understand their lives better, fine. I hope it does. continued on page 87
w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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For thirty years, he lived, l oved, and wrote about his homet own. And then h e left.
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urbanite february 08
A Love Letter to
Baltimore rafael alvarez
There was always a buzz.
If you’re lucky, you know wh at I’m talking about: a carb onation of the blood that bubbles wi th intrigue, recklessness, an d lust. Insane, clandestine. Irresistible. My affair with the city of Ba ltimore became out-in-theopen, I don’t care who knows abou t it LOVE in the autumn of 1977, when, at the tender age of 19, I be gan writing about my hom etown for publication. In the decades since, as AC /DC so gently put it, “I’ve be en around the world … I’ve se en a million girls.” Yet to th is day, a halfstep slower and thirty year s wiser, my obsession with and devotion to the Jewel of the Patapsco remains the longest intimat e relationship of my life. My beloved— Crabtown in all its shame an d glory—is the hard-headed, kind -hearted lover with whom I am in a constant state of reconciliat ion. It’s the romance that ha s survived all others. ’Til death, my sad and gorg eous baby, do us part.
It began in the Belair-Edison parlo
r of a loud-mouthed longshoreman named Gilbert Lu kowski. Around Labor Day of 1977 , I signed off the Mayaguez, a World War II-era container ship ca ptured by the Khmer Roug e after the fall of Saigon two years earli er, and returned to school. I had just
I l l u s t rat I on
b y
o k an
ar ab aC I o g l u
an D
b r I an
Pay n e
w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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Three years ago, after a couple of years on ships finished my second summer working as a wiper in and a couple more writing for The Wire, I landed in the engine room, sailing from Dundalk to Puerto Rico Los Angeles to write for network television. I’ve been to New Orleans and back, making enough money to I tell people that I still here ever since. (Don’t ask me how; I’m not sure I pay for my sophomore year at Loyola College. At sea, know. It doesn’t seem like my life, but apparently it I vowed to make good on a dream I’d carried since live in Baltimore, and, is.) the third grade: I was going to be a writer. I wanted it My business card says “Mr. Baltimore in Exile.” fiercely and reckoned that it was mixed up with chaslike everything else in I tell people that I still live in Baltimore, and, like eving something extraordinary and writing about it until erything else in my life, it’s almost true. The fib is a your fingers bled. my life, it’s almost true. salve; I feel like I’m cutting out on the girl who loves At Loyola, I spied a skinny tabloid that called itself me for who I am to make-out with some delusional the City Squeeze, called up the editors, and said I was a tart who sees me as the next rung on the ladder. writer. This wasn’t a lie but it was not quite the truth. Stay away from a lover long enough and they They told me to come down to the Johns Hopkins Newswill shrink from your embrace and say: “I’m sorry. Letter office, where the Squeeze was put out under the I’ve changed.” university’s nose. I was eager to write anything, and But in our memories, little changes. anything was what they wanted. And they wanted it On a whim in 1979, I walked the streets of Manright away. hattan until I had polled one hundred people with Enter Gilbert Lukowski, brother of Jerome Luthe same question: What do you think of when you kowski, my father’s best friend from the Baker-Whiteley think of Baltimore? Most answered “the Orioles,” tugboats. Seafarers like “Romey”—who went crabbing who would go to the World Series that year. The next in wooden boats with one oar between two men, drank most common answer was steamed crabs, followed National beer before noon when it was still brewed on by William Donald Schaefer and a football team forDillon Street, and told stories you couldn’t find at the ever to be known as the Baltimore Colts. library—were matchmakers for me and the city before I now wonder how Gotham pedestrians would I knew how to write my name. Gilbert was an official in answer the Baltimore question today. I bet most of the stevedores’ union. In the fall of 1977, just as I was them would say Hairspray—the Broadway and Hollooking for something to write about, the International lywood versions furthest removed from the John Longshoremen’s Association went on strike, refusing to Waters’ original. (When people in L.A. ask, “What’s talk to the media. Baltimore really like?” I tell them that all of Waters’ “Call up Gilbert,” said Pop. “He’ll give you a story, movies are really documentaries.) Instead of being Ralphie.” known for products—steel and blue crabs and facAnd he did. Banging it out after my night shift in tories manufacturing Noxzema and bottle-caps and the circulation department of the Sun, I scooped the raincoats—Baltimore is now a product, a place that city’s three dailies and took the published City Squeeze seems to try harder than it used to just to be itself. story to Richard Basoco, then head of the Sun’s personWhen I yearn for the Baltimore that only exists nel department. I said that if I was going to be a clerk perfectly in my imagination, I remind myself that on Calvert Street, I ought to be a clerk in the newsroom. the ever-widening calaboose of thugs is balanced by just enough do-gooders— Basoco agreed and soon I was compiling horse race results from tracks around Brendan Walsh and Willa Bickham of Viva House come to mind, among a Delmarva in the sports department. small army of lesser-known heroes—to keep the city from expiring. From there it was on to the City Desk, where I remained for the next As a young reporter, I wrote the weepy sidebar to nearly every front-page twenty-three years, covering everything you can imagine (library closings, wahomicide in town, back in the days when the slaughter of a 14-year-old for his ter main breaks in February) and some things even I couldn’t conjure, like the jacket or his shoes or just because was still news in Baltimore. quadruple execution and subsequent funeral for a pair of pot-dealing sisters I will never forget the autumn of 1986 tragedy of Trudy Ann Levin, the and their husbands, four open caskets in a single room. Friends School student from Cedarcroft Road lured to the 25th Street railroad I always felt like a ghoul on those assignments and have not missed the extracks by a monster named Featherstone. Trudy’s mother trusted me and we perience. But ever since, while paying respects as a proper mourner, I remembecame friendly during the trial and conviction. ber every funeral home parking lot I once haunted with a notebook and a pen. I called Mrs. Levin a few years ago to see if she wanted to talk, but couldn’t The slow, ugly death of newspapers and their place in American life was think of a good reason to persuade her that we should. part of the reason I quit the Sun in early 2001. The Tribune Company had just Who hasn’t had that phone call with someone who was once an intimate? swallowed the Times Mirror Company, which fifteen years before had bought From bodies in alleys to the tides at Fort Smallwood, the current of narthe Baltimore Sun from its founders, the A.S. Abell Company. People were berative reminds me of a line sung by Muddy Waters, whom I interviewed in the ing paid to leave. basement of the Congress Hotel in 1978, back when Scott Cunningham ran the Every now and then, you know beyond thought which way to go, and my Marble Bar as a juke joint: road led to the door. I was 42 and had spent more than half my life going to “Brooks run into the ocean, you know, ocean run into the sea ...” work at 501 North Calvert Street. Now I wanted to tell stories outside the nar Five years later, Sun features editor Steve Parks sent me to Chicago to row margins of newsprint and the geographic boundaries of my personal Holy cover Muddy’s funeral, a coup that would be unthinkable under the paper’s Land. I took the money and went back to sea—I worked as an ordinary seaman current ownership. aboard Seafarers International Union-crewed ships. The pay was low, but I had great health coverage, and time to write. Just before quitting the paper, I wrote Gilbert Lukowski’s obituary. “Nobody gives a damn about the past,” he once told me, staring at his dead of 1983 and 1984, I covered Ocean City, which, mother’s shuttered saloon on Thames Street with tears in his eyes. “But I think as everyone knows, becomes Baltimore-by-the-sea each year between Memoabout it every day.” rial Day and Labor Day. There was even a restaurant back then called “Pinti’s Highlandtown Inn,” where Eleanor Pinti Frazier made homemade meatballs and tomato sauce. In Ocean City, I wrote about a semi-recluse named Watterson “Mack” the heart grow fonder or the eye stray farther? Miller, a hotel janitor, heroic ocean swimmer, and one-time heir to the LouisRecently, for the first time in my life, Baltimore has become the taken-forville Courier newspaper fortune who drank his way to sobriety and sanctuary granted spouse, the weathered rock that isn’t going anywhere.
Over the summers
Does absence make
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urbanite february 08
No phone calls, please
At sea: A newspaper “rack card” from the early 1980s promotes Alvarez’s Ocean City posting ( left); a Baltimore Harbor tugboat (center), where his father worked as an engineer; the 1976 portrait from his seaman’s I.D. card ( right)
in a derelict ice-cream truck on the fishing docks. I still have an old saloon chair from his shack, and when I sit in it, I feel like a character in a story bigger than one I am capable of writing. When the more brutal truths of life in Baltimore broke my heart, I’d follow elephants down Pratt Street when Ringling Bros. came to town, treating a couple of the more seductive trapeze girls to coffee and rice pudding at the Sip & Bite. I followed a New Orleans-style funeral march through Fells Point when blues communicant Larry Benicewicz flew musicians up from the Crescent City to honor longtime Cat’s Eye Pub bartender and Abe Lincoln look-alike H. Jefferson Knapp. “I seen it on TV,” said an elderly Polish woman, peeking out her storm door at the second line. “But I never seen it on Wolfe Street.” The most fantastic spectacle I had the privilege to document in Baltimore—God help me, it was cooler than Pope John Paul II saying Mass at Camden Yards—was the funeral of Willie “Pistol” Brown. Pistol was an arabber and the son of an arabber, the men who have sold fruit and vegetables through the streets since the founding of Baltimore Town. When he passed in July of 2000, his flag-draped coffin was pulled by pony from the alley stables on Lemmon Street to a funeral home on Wabash Avenue, a grand workingman’s parade followed by compatriots leading their own carts, family members in limousines, and photographers on foot. One drop at a time—a spot of blood on the apron of a butcher at Victor’s Meats in Roland Park, a salty tear in the eye of a grown man watching Mayflower vans roll toward Indianapolis—I amassed an ocean of “write-ups.” That’s what my Polish grandmother, Anna Potter Jones of Dillon Street, called newspaper stories: write-ups. Like the one I did in 1992 on her life as a waterfront cannery worker. Thus comes love: Anna Jones spoke Polish growing up in Canton during the First World War and dropped out of grade school to help raise her siblings when her mother died. She had a way with the local patois that I inevitably conjure for characters in my fiction and screenplays, not cartoons like the beehive pretenders at Hon Fest but real people who live with the water of Bodkin Creek in their veins. We called her “Booshie,” a mangled pronunciation of “Babcia” (Polish for grandmother). Her favorite expressions included: “Don’t let ’em cheat ya,” when she’d give us money for snowballs; “I’ll be goddamned,” when something surprised or angered her; and—when us kids were getting on her nerves— “Stop agitatin’.” And she was root-beer-coming-out-of-your-nose funny, telling stories about neighborhood “rum pots,” and how you could tell if local punks were using heroin. If a punk—or “hoodle,” as the old ladies called them—was sweating profusely, it was proof that he was “on that goddamn dope.” Over raisin bread and coffee, she’d remember long days making slipcovers as a member of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Different colored thread affected the respiratory systems of the workers. “If you were working with red,” she’d say, “it would come out red in your hanky when you blew your nose.”
You don’t forget that kind of stuff when you’re 6 years old. And if you have any sense of drama, you don’t forget it when you’re wrestling a blank page.
Last year,
I dedicated First and Forever, my neighborhood history of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, to my Catholic grandmothers. My father’s mother, Frances Prato Alvarez, died when I was at sea in 1976, just a year or two before I realized that while good stories can be found all over the map, the best ones are stirring something on the stove with a wooden spoon. It is said that as long as there is someone alive to remember us, we never die. And if we are remembered with love, we are immortal. No one keeps this fiction alive better than writers betrothed to a specific place on the map. In my time on the obit desk, I packed off a diversity of Baltimore luminaries, from Dr. Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins, an early autism researcher known as the father of child psychiatry, to one of my elderly neighbors when I was a newlywed living at Ellwood Avenue and Monument Street. My neighbor’s name was Clare and she would bake a cake for any occasion: births, deaths, new neighbors, and anniversaries. The short headline below her name in the deaths column simply said: Baker of Cakes. This is the love of which I speak: nourishment that is timeless in a way that the scandal du jour cannot be; the verity of eggs, butter, and flour whipped up in a wallpapered kitchen to make someone feel better about a friend they will never see again. Last year, I wrote dialogue for an audio exhibit about old Lombard Street, once the great shtetl of Baltimore, for the Jewish Museum of Maryland. As a 5-year-old in 1963, holding my Italian grandmother’s hand, I watched one of the last kosher butchers of Lombard Street cut the head off a chicken. It was still warm in the white paper when we brought it home to Macon Street. Years later, I filed a story on the razing of the buildings where tens of thousands of chickens were dispatched to Olam Habah. Do I love Lombard Street? Yes, even though it doesn’t exist anymore in a way that I really care about. Do I love it because I can still get a lean corned beef sandwich amidst the ghosts of Seymour Attman and his father Harry? Of course. Seymour was the greatest. But mostly I love it, and the enduring city around it, because my grandparents took me there when I was a kid. When those chicken houses fell to the wrecking ball, I was close to tears. Those tears were not shed for brick and mortar. Believe me when I tell you that I will be writing my way home for the rest of my life. ■ —Fiction writer and former Baltimore Sun reporter Rafael Alvarez contributed the story “How Leini Landed in America” to the May 2004 Urbanite. His new column, “Storyteller," appears every Friday in the Baltimore Examiner.
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Lovest ruck by
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from shakespeare to beyoncé, the great poets of the West have often compared romantic love to insanity. “My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,” Shakespeare wrote in his sonnets. Beyoncé was more succinct: “Your love’s got me looking so crazy right now.” Those who think that our tendency to equate romance with mental illness is a culturally specific quirk should think again, says biological anthropologist Helen Fisher. “When you read world poetry, the love poems are just about all alike,” she says. Human beings suffered the same symptoms in 6th century Persia and 18th century England as they do today in Jakarta or New Jersey—sleeplessness coupled with intense energy, loss of appetite, obsessive thinking, violent mood swings. It is a loss of control so disorienting and overwhelming that it feels like madness. The reason is simple, Fisher says. “Romantic love is a drive, as powerful as hunger and thirst and the will to live.” Unlike simple emotions, which tend to be fleeting, “drives come from a very primitive part of the brain associated with craving,” she says, and the symptoms of romantic love are created by the same brain chemicals active in the same brain regions as those involved in addiction. She has pictures of the brain in love to prove it. Since 1996, Fisher and colleagues at Rutgers University have scanned the brains of college students who have recently fallen in love. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides a visual representation of biochemical activity in the ten million or so neurons in the human brain. Different parts of the brain serve different functions, and each region produces, stores, and distributes neurotransmitters of different types that zip from neuron to neuron across tiny gaps called synapses. The various networks created by these biochemical interactions create thought, memory, sensations, motivations—in short, all that makes us more than inert hunks of flesh. Increased neural activity requires oxygen, increasing blood flow to the targeted region; it’s this “hemodynamic effect” that researchers track on the scans. The brains of Fisher’s lovestruck subjects showed increased activity in two major areas. The most surprising was the caudate nucleus, a large C-shaped region deep in the center of the brain, part of what is commonly called “the reptilian brain” because of its evolutionary history. The caudate is known to be important in memory and learning, and it glowed bright yellow and orange whenever Fisher’s subjects gazed at a photograph of their beloved. The more passionately these individuals professed their love in a questionnaire they filled out prior to the brain scan (thus scoring higher on the Passionate Love Scale), the more activity the researchers noticed in the caudate. The magnetic resonance imaging also revealed significant activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a small grape-like structure that manufactures large numbers of dopamine-making cells. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that creates energy, focused attention, concentration, and feelings of elation. Pleasurable activities like eating and sex increase the production of dopamine, as does the anticipation of any kind of reward. A good number of the dopamine-drenched cells produced in the VTA migrate to the caudate nucleus, where they become active players in the brain’s reward/motivation system. Certain drugs—cocaine, amphetamines, and nicotine—also target the VTA, spurring dopamine cell production. The activation of this network in her subjects is what led Fisher to theorize that romantic love is not merely a heightened emotion or set of emotions but a drive—a neural state that energizes and directs behavior to satisfy a biological need, in this case bonding with a preferred mating w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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partner. The drive to love is both distinct from, and far more powerful and persistent than, the sex drive, Fisher says. This is particularly true when love is unrequited. “If you want to go to bed with somebody and they say ‘no, thank you,’ you don’t kill yourself,” she points out. But a significant number of those rejected by their preferred love object do harm themselves and/or their would-be lovers. Abnormally high levels of dopamine activity have previously been linked to psychosis and schizophrenia. Moreover, the dopamine “high” is inevitably followed by a “low,” which creates the withdrawal symptoms of rejected lovers, who will—like drug addicts craving a fix—seemingly run any risk to achieve the “reward” that will once again provide a dopamine boost. “You can really lose control,” Fisher says. “Do stupid things, say stupid things. Go stupid places. Make stupid decisions.” But people in love can also, she points out, “make brilliant decisions that they wouldn’t have the courage to make otherwise.” Not everyone buys the notion that Fisher’s research has definitively identified the biochemical basis of love. For one thing, fMRI isn’t able to identify which neurotransmitters are creating the increased activity visible on the scans, according to Wayne Drevets, chief investigator among a group of scientists who use neuroimaging to study mood and anxiety disorders at the National Institute of Mental Health in Rockville. “It can say where hemodynamic activity changes,” he points out, “but it cannot determine what neurotransmitter systems are involved.” Then too, while the increased caudate response in Fisher’s subjects is clear, lots of different types of mental activities have been shown to activate the caudate in brain mapping studies. “So while I would agree that systems that process reward and stress signals are likely to be involved in romantic love,” Drevets says, “the fMRI data have limitations in their ability to prove this.” That said, other studies have replicated Fisher’s results, notably a 2000 British study that showed similarly enhanced activity in the same brain regions among an older (ages 21 to 37) group of subjects who had just fallen passionately in love. Also, psychotherapists who treat both addicts and those suffering reversals of love agree that there is an eerie similarity between the feelings and behavior of people rejected in love and those in the grip of addiction. Rejected lovers “are consumed, paralyzed, sometimes suicidal or homicidal,” says therapist Jeff Rubin, who for more than two decades treated troubled individuals and feuding couples at his Cross Keys office. “It does
correlate a lot with the end phase of addiction, when the person is realizing that they are in trouble, that they’ve hit a wall, and there is no future.” If one accepts that much human behavior has a biochemical basis, the correlation between romantic love and addiction seems intuitively correct, though it will take more research to prove it. Fisher, meanwhile, has moved on to a question that her previous studies left hanging: Why do our brains get turned on by one person but not another? Reams of data have shown that individuals tend to fall in love with people with similar socioeconomic profiles, and with the same general level of intelligence and education, she points out. “But when scientists look at personality types, they find no pattern at all to mate choice.” She’s not the only one interested in this puzzle—the online dating service Match.com is funding her research to determine if there is any way to establish a biochemical basis for attraction. Two and a half years into that quest, Fisher believes that she has some preliminary answers. Genetics research and studies of people taking drugs that alter brain chemistry have shown that four chemical messengers—dopamine, serotonin, estrogen, and testosterone—play an important role in mood and personality. “Estimates suggest that 50 percent of the variance in personality is chemical,” Fisher says. “And there is a great deal of literature indicating a constellation of personality traits associated with high levels of various neurotransmitters and hormones.” While each person is under the influence of all four of the chemical messengers she is studying, the ratio varies in each individual, creating certain distinct personality types, she says, and that has implications for mate choice. Partnering with the folks at Match.com, she set up a new dating site, Chemistry.com, featuring a questionnaire that seeks to determine whether the test-taker is an Explorer (high dopamine type), Builder (high serotonin
type), Negotiator (high estrogen type), or a Director (high testosterone type). “Nobody is going to have all the traits associated with one style, but they do tend to appear together in a constellation,” she says. Every few weeks, Fisher evaluates the raw data from the Chemistry.com survey. The results have been illuminating with regard to “first attraction,” she says. Explorers (novelty-seeking, risk-taking, impulsive, and creative) and Builders (calm, social, loyal, persistent) are male and female in nearly equal numbers continued on page 89 w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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Charlie & Me B y i l l u s t rat i o n
I could feel his body tremble
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as I held him, and it felt oh so strange. I had never held him before. Nor, truth be told, had he really held me. At least not since I was out of diapers (and maybe, as I had never asked my mother or him, not even then). For well over a week Mom and I had waited by his bedside. Somehow, at age 73, he had survived the nine-hour surgery, the one his first assigned cardiac surgeon had refused to perform, telling me—quote—Son, there are some things that are worse than death. Of that brutal operation, the one that wrapped seven inches of fraying aorta in a protective mesh that looked uncannily like a safety net into which a high-wire specialist could tumble and yet not die, my father would have no memory. He would not recall his body swollen to the bursting point with fluids, his head the size of a pumpkin, or that I cried at the sight of that handsome face so grotesquely distorted. He would also forget his painful struggles against the repeated intubations that cut off his commanding voice, his thick fingers attempting to communicate in sign language the fog that was filling his mind—h-e-d h-u-r-t … w-a-t-r … t-u-b-e o-u-t n-o-w. It was as though the anesthesia washing slowly from his body was pulling his thoughts away as well. But what was happening at this moment he would not forget, never. Nor would I. The surgery had literally shut his body down. His heart, lungs, even kidneys had been taken off-line, their jobs temporarily turned over to machines. The body doesn’t take kindly to this division of labor and tends to kick like a mule when it’s given the job back. The colon is especially stubborn; after more than 144 hours, Dad’s was still on hiatus. If it didn’t wake up soon, surgery loomed. Suffice to say, the alarm went off. Suddenly. Violently. One minute Charlie was in bed, the next he was trying to do a ten-foot dash to the bathroom in a hospital Johnny, moaning IhavetogoIhavetogoIhavetogo!! I jumped, Mom jumped, he jumped, 200-plus pounds suddenly thrust upon short legs that had atrophied far quicker than any of us realized. My dad’s mind had just written a check his body couldn’t cash, and as he sagged off the bed and into my arms, and the horror and shame crumpled his always proud face as his body let go its burden, I rocked him gently, the two of us at once both lost and found. And I whispered in his ear the only thing
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I could think of to say. It’s okay, Dad, it’s okay, Dad, I’ve got you, it’s okay.
More than one male friend of mine
has said their own childhood ended the instant they first held their firstborn in their arms, a moment freighted with a single weighty word: responsibility. But underneath that awesome burden is (hopefully) choice, a conscious desire to create a life out of a shared love, to prove that one plus one can equal a joyful three, math be damned. Parenthood, in its ideal form, is an act of heroic volunteerism. But parenting your parent? In the case of my father, I was one pissed-off draftee. I get the feeling I’m not alone. It’s tough enough caregiving a parent you both love and like, who operates on the same wavelength as you, shares a part of your soul, and is cognizant of the burden of caregiving because, dammit, they did it themselves. For you. But what about that old-school dad, the one who parented by providing cash, not comfort, and now expects you, his caregiver, to pick up the pieces by listening to orders instead of requests? A person who once told you, straightfaced and sober in a bar—the only time you ever asked him out for a drink— “What makes you think fathers and sons are supposed to be friends?” We yiddishe-folk have a word for taking care of someone like this: Oy. Now let’s get something straight right here. Lots of people grow up in truly abusive situations—drugs, alcohol, violence—with parents who should never have been allowed to procreate. Not me. Never saw any of that. My old man did the best he could, considering the emotional IQ ran pretty low in his family. My Polish grandfather believed children were only good for one thing: labor. Charlie went to school, worked at the family’s 24-hour newsstand from 4 to past midnight, studied (OK, crashed out) on the subway back to the Bronx, and would’ve likely slept through high school if his friend Sammy hadn’t thrown pebbles at his window to wake him at sunrise. Nor was Grandma Jane exactly touchy-feely. Once, Dad’s parents lost sight of him in a big park. They left, figuring some boys in the park would find their son and bring him home. Luckily, some did. continued on page 90
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At the corner of Boston and Conkling Streets
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DDG is an international architecture, planning and graphics firm specializing in award winning retail, entertainment, graphics, planning, town centers, residential and mixed-use projects. Development Design Group, Inc. 3700 O’Donnell Street, Baltimore, MD 21224 USA tel | 410 962 0505 fax | 410 783 0816 www.ddg-usa.com | web
poetry WALKING by Frank o’hara
I get a cinder in my eye it streams into the sunlight the air pushes it aside and I drop my hot dog into one of the Seagram Building’s fountains it is all watery and clear and windy the shape of the toe as it describes the pain of the ball of the foot, walking walking on asphalt the strange embrace of the ankle’s lock on the pavement squared like mausoleums but cheerful
Born in Baltimore in 1926, Frank O’Hara was a poet, art curator, and founding member of the New York School, a group of artists and writers active in the 1950s and ’60s. The author of seven books of poetry, plus several more posthumous collections, O’Hara was known for his direct, conversational style. While on vacation at Fire Island, New York, in 1966, O’Hara was hit by a dune buggy and killed. This month, Knopf publishes Selected Poems, the first major anthology of O’Hara’s poetry to be published in thirty years.
moved over and stamped on slapped by winds the country is no good for us there’s nothing to bump into or fall apart glassily there’s not enough poured concrete and brassy reflections the wind now takes me to The Narrows and I see it rising there New York greater than the Rocky Mountains
courtesy of Blue Juice Designs
“Walking” from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF FRANK O’HARA by Frank O’Hara, edited by Donald Allen, copyright © 1971 by Maureen Granville-Smith, Administratrix of the Estate of Frank O’Hara. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
Web extra: Painter Grace Hartigan talks about Frank O’Hara at www.urbanite baltimore.com.
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Smooth
PERATOR b y
A condo developer adds some green highlights to an old telephoneswitching warehouse in Charles Village
The light fantastic: High ceilings and big windows reect the Telephone Building’s industrial roots.
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ustin Shelby is certain that green design and sustainable materials will be part of every renovation in the future. He’s just not sure whether buyers realize it yet—that is, whether using recycled and toxinfree materials will help him close sales in a slow real estate market. Shelby, the founder of Baltimore development company UrbanEx, may soon find out whether sustainable green leads to capital green. His latest project—a renovation of a 1936 telephone-switching warehouse in Charles Village into sleek, modern condominiums—incorporates a number of environmentally friendly products in its design: bamboo and cork flooring, toxin-free paints, cabinets made from discarded rubber trees, and more. (The building was first converted to living spaces about thirty years ago, Shelby says; the renovations merely update and clean up what was already there.) All this is highlighted in the sales pitch on the project’s website. “It’s easy being green,” the site proclaims, pointing out that the mere act of reusing an old building’s “embodied energy”—all of the raw materials and fuel that went into stacking the bricks, forging the steel, and pouring the concrete more than seventy years ago—is itself a sustainable choice. In the long term, this may or may not be true: Renovating a poorly insulated old structure, for example, is not necessarily greener than building an efficient new one. But that’s deep thinking in sustainability, and Shelby, by his own admission, is just an eager beginner. Accordingly, most of his building’s green features involve mainstream, easily available products and appliances; he’s not installing complex solar systems, adding wall insulation, or going for waterless toilets. “A lot of people are instantly claiming to be an expert on green construction,” he says. “I thought that if I get into this now and start learning about the materials … over the course of many years I’d become an expert.” Still, even this modest greening has helped market the newly completed building. He credits a few sales to the eco-design elements in the Telephone Building and another UrbanEx project he is working on, called Ten14 North Charles. And Shelby says that a number of prospective buyers who came to look at the condos were drawn specifically by the green marketing message on the website. Even though these features get a lot of play in the Telephone Building pitch, the project’s most attractive assets are perhaps its more traditional ones. For starters, the building is in a great location, in the midst of bustling redevelopment in Charles Village. Second, the condominium units—which range from studios to two-bedroom units—are unusually large and open, testament to the building’s industrial roots. The main living room boasts soaring ceilings and eight-foot-tall windows. The wall colors are usually muted greens, grays, and blues, and the décor is contemporary: penny-round and clear-glass tiles, granite (or, for an extra charge, recycled paperstone) countertops, stainless-steel appliances, minimalist ventless electric fireplaces.
Despite the modern décor, Shelby is playing up a number of historical elements from the old telephone-switching facility. During a tour of the building on a December morning, Shelby was trying out a clever idea for displaying the unit numbers: rotaryphone dials, with the unit numbers at the center of the circle. Just inside the front door is a granite-tile floor with a herringbone pattern and a border that has a “T” motif. (It’s a classic tile pattern, but Shelby insists, half-joking, that it stands for “telephone.”) Shelby paid a specialist to acid-clean the tile and then regrout it. He’s also preserving the building’s original doors, complete with their wavy industrial wired glass. The basement of the building, where the telephone lines once entered, is now 6,500 square feet of open space. Shelby plans to reserve some of that space for storage cages for the residents and a workout room. But the majority will be left open for the residents to decide how to use it. Shelby is a relative newcomer to the real estate game: He spent most of his career in product development for Black & Decker and 180s, the sportsapparel company. He left that career in 2005, when it started to feel like a treadmill. “You basically kill yourself to get something out there, and eighteen months later you’re looking for the next thing,” he says. He first started dabbling in real estate with the development of Federal Hill Fitness in 2001, and says that he finds the design and marketing aspects of real estate development similar to those of product development. But there’s a substantial difference when the process is over: “The end result is lasting,”
he says. “You have a responsibility to the community. If you make something, it’s going to be there and the community is going to hold you accountable for it. I love that challenge.” He may get some challenges in Charles Village. Dana Petersen Moore, the president of the Charles Village Civic Association, says that while she is generally in favor of a project that transforms rental units into ownership properties, she is concerned about these new residents adding to parking pressure in the area. She also says that neither Shelby nor anyone else associated with the project approached her about the development. (Shelby says that immediate neighbors of the building have expressed gratitude to him over exterior improvements, including the replacement of landscaping rocks with plants.) Shelby also faces a real estate market that’s been hard on upscale condominiums lately. But he says that by focusing on urban properties at mid-level prices (the Telephone Building condos are listed between $150,000 and $340,000), he thinks he’s setting himself up in a market with a solid future—in part because of sustainability issues. As energy costs rise and incomes are stretched, he believes more people will seek out smaller accommodations that are easy to heat and cool, and that are within walking distance to everything they need. That’s city living, he says, and that’s green living. “It’s not just some trendy thing.” ■ —Scott Carlson is a senior reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education, where he writes about campus architecture and sustainability. This is his first piece for Urbanite.
Good connection: Developer Justin Shelby mixed original features with such sleek modern amenities as electric fireplaces.
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eat/drink Good for the soul: Waverly restaurateur Casey Jenkins brings some homestyle sustenance to Greenmount Avenue (p. 69).
69 Southern Comfort
On feeding a neighborhood by Ma r y K. Za ja c
71 Recipe
Casey Jenkins’ Oven-Roasted Ribs
Three... and Mari Luna Mexican Grill
photo by Jason Okutake
73 Reviewed 75
Wine & Spirits Hugel’s Gewürztraminer 2004
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photo by Michael Northrup
Man with a plan: Chef-owner Casey Jenkins in his Waverly eatery
Southern Comfort Intrepid restaurateur Casey Jenkins thinks there’s no such thing as a bad neighborhood for good food By Mary K. Zajac
Greenmount Avenue south of 33rd Street seems an unlikely location for fine dining. Blue police surveillance-camera lights sparkle in the gray winter afternoon. When I park near an adult bookstore, a woman buried beneath layers of sweatshirts asks me to donate a quarter to the pocketful of change she is collecting to get something to eat. The weekly Waverly farmers’ market is only a block away, the venerable Thai Restaurant is going strong at its spot just north of 33rd, and nearby Pete’s Grille at 31st remains a local breakfast institution. But there’s little else, it seems, that might draw intrepid diners to this part of town. Casey Jenkins hopes that is about to change. Jenkins opened his Darker Than Blue Cafe late last summer with the notion that Waverly was ready
for something better than takeout. “People are tired of Baltimore chicken in a box,” he says. He aims to give Greenmount something different—glowing white tablecloths, vintage jazz and R&B, and heaping plates of what he calls “modern American,” or Southern-style comfort food. At lunchtime on a Monday afternoon, Jenkins touches up paint on the deep red walls of his thirtysix-seat dining room. Outside, buses lumber by; inside, only quiet chatter interrupts the deep thud of Charles Mingus’ bass. Two men share sandwiches at one of the dozen or so tables, while a young man with a beard that skirts the perimeter of his chin nurses a glass of sweet iced tea, alternately scribbling in his notebook and checking his phone. Jenkins jokes with the scribbler (who turns out to be local artist Matthew Rice, whose oil painting hangs in the restaurant), puts his paintbrush away, and beckons me to follow him into the kitchen, where he tosses shrimp and thin slices of chicken onto the grill for his unique surf-and-turf version of a chicken cheesesteak. Right now, Jenkins does much of the work himself: He mans the grill and makes the salmon cakes and fried chicken according to recipes inspired by the stepmother who helped raise him in White Plains, New York. He bustles between the kitchen and the dining room, extending a hand in introduction, asking if the food is all right, apologizing that the corned beef isn’t shaved thin because he hasn’t been able to purchase a meat slicer yet. He takes me to see the apartment above the restaurant that he hopes to convert into a bar and club with live jazz. (Music is a big part of the Jenkins formula: He borrowed the restaurant’s name from a Curtis Mayfield song.) Jenkins is eyeing another storefront down the street for an upscale carry-out aimed at busy Charles Village professionals. The man has plans. A veteran of both the U.S. Marines and the Culinary Institute of America, he fell in love with Baltimore when he first visited a buddy here nearly ten years ago. He’s cooked in tony Manhattan restaurants like Aquavit but insists, “I’m not a foie gras or a pate au choux guy.” His menu reflects that: cubed sweet potatoes so meltingly tender they nearly dissolve in your mouth, sticky baby back ribs that require a stack of napkins, classic macaroni and cheese (but no sign yet of the sardines and grits his South Carolina-born father urges him to serve). “There’s nothing overwhelming about my food,” he says. “I make things I recognize, things other people recognize.” He cringes a bit when he hears the term “soul food” applied to his cooking: The term “pigeonholes every African American [cook],” he says. “But if you’re going to say it, I’m going to make the best damn chicken and ribs.” For a culinary entrepreneur who proclaimed he planned to “rewrite the book on Baltimore restaurants” when he arrived in town, Jenkins is starting off w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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with a more modest goal: being a good neighbor. He welcomes beat cops and fellow Greenmount business owners in for coffee, provides turkey bacon and chicken sausage on his brunch buffet for his Muslim neighbors, and doles out oversized portions of hospitality along with the food he grew up on. “I go up and introduce myself to everyone,” Jenkins says. “I want people to come in every day to talk to me and eat my food.” It’s gestures like this that not only make better business, but also help create neighborhood stability. Sociologists talk about sit-down restaurants as a critical indicator of a community’s social capital: They bring in people from outside the block, anchor residents to the neighborhood, and increase sidewalk traffic at night after stores close. Unlike carryouts or fast-food franchises, a sit-down restaurant means slowing down, lingering over a meal. It requires thought and a little planning. It’s a date. And one good restaurant in the community often seems to breed another. If you’ve lived in Baltimore long enough, you’ve seen neighborhoods transformed by restaurants. Think of hardscrabble Hampden before Cafe Hon, which helped usher in the collection of funky boutiques that call 36th Street home. Or look at Canton and South Baltimore, whose ongoing revitalization is at least partially fueled by a critical mass of wine bars and cafes drawing ever more young professionals. (Baltimore has also seen the flip side of this phenomenon—witness the dispiriting exodus of eateries from the Hollins Market area in the 1990s.) In the Baltimore of 2008, walking to good restaurants may be a greater community enticement than the ability to walk to work. Jenkins wants to be a part of this, and in some ways, he’s the perfect person to be a catalyst on Greenmount. He doesn’t remember the era of movie dates at the now-defunct Boulevard Theatre, or the summertime crowds that trekked through the neighborhood for baseball games at Memorial Stadium. For him, Greenmount is a clean slate, new territory to conquer. And for all his enthusiasm, he’s not naive about the challenges he faces. “I thought like everyone else thought—it’s Greenmount,” he says. “But people only know the bad things.” The strip, he believes, is ripe for rebirth. And it doesn’t take much time for Jenkins to convince you he’s right. “Everyone’s saying I’m either a complete genius or a complete fool,” he says, only half joking. “I’m hoping to be that spark. Somebody has to be.” ■ —Mary K. Zajac wrote about Dogwood Deli’s nonprofit kitchen training program in the December 2007 Urbanite.
photo by Michael Northrup
Casey Jenkins’ Oven-Roasted Pork Ribs
Stick to your ribs: Jenkins’ formula for baby-backs involves a long braise in a slow oven and lots of sweet sauce.
Ribs
Barbecue Sauce
1½ cups onion, diced
2½ to 3 lbs baby back ribs 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 5¾ oz barbecue dry rub (Jenkins uses a mixture of black pepper, blackened redfish seasoning, Old Bay, cumin, kosher salt, and thyme)
Brush ribs with vinegar and sprinkle with dry rub. Refrigerate overnight. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Place ribs in a shallow roasting pan, using more than one pan if necessary. Add ½ cup water to pan. Bake for 4 to 5 hours, or until meat is very tender. Remove ribs from oven. Baste ribs with barbecue sauce. Return to oven and cook for 30 minutes more.
cup celery, diced ½ cup margarine cup brown sugar 1 tablespoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons dry mustard 2 teaspoons chili powder ½ cup tomato paste ½ cup water 2 cups ketchup 1 cup apple cider vinegar ¼ cup plus 1½ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce ¼ cup plus 1½ teaspoons honey
In a medium saucepan, saute onion and celery in margarine until soft but not browned. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
Serve ribs with extra sauce on the side. Let cool before brushing on ribs. Yield: 2 cups sauce w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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photo by La Kaye Mbah
The notion of eating a few appetizers instead of one big serving has become so ubiquitous of late that we Americans have relinquished the Mediterranean moniker tapas for our own descriptor: small plates. The latest in the throng to minimize portions is Three… (yes, it comes with ellipses). Located on the northeast corner of Patterson Park, the place has little local competition in the neighborhood, and a willing clientele that keeps it packed on a Saturday night. (The no-reservations policy can mean long waits.) Originally named for its triumvirate of owners (Michael Harmel, Richard Karoll, and chef Jack Starr), the departure of Starr in June, just weeks after the restaurant opened, leaves the handle available for any interpretation you like. A three-ring circus comes to mind: If you don’t like what’s going on in one spot, you can shift your attention to the next attraction. The dishes that work, such as the slices of seared venison nestled against a scoop of creamy mashed potatoes in a swirl of butter rum sauce (a smattering of port-marinated cherries adds just the right sharp sweetness),
allow you to quickly forget, say, the limp cauliflower fritters, with their nondescript sourcream-based dipping goo. Peter Livolsi, Pazo’s original chef, has taken the Starr spot in the kitchen, and he deftly balances the fussy (yellowfin tuna involtini wrapped with pine nuts, raisins, and capers) with the simple (roasted fingerling potatoes on a bed of arugula). He’s also added a dessert menu: chocolate pot de crème, rice pudding brulée and a passionfruit Napoleon. All these small servings (a solicitous waiter suggested ordering four or five each) can create some confusion between kitchen and table. For those who prefer to avoid the pileup of plates or are otherwise dedicated to heartier eating, there are some actual entrees: short ribs, roasted chicken, and a few sandwiches. But in this case, good things—at least the most interesting ones— definitely come in small packages. (Dinner Mon–Sat, closed Sun. 2901 E. Baltimore St.; 410-327-3333.)
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—Martha Thomas
And then there were two: Three... co-owners Michael Harmel (left) and Richard Karoll
Mari Luna Mexican Grill with plump shellfish, and tweaked with toasty cumin. There’s deluxe fare among the entrees—braised lamb shanks, an upscaled mango-topped salmon Veracruz—but even the humble taco platter is a treat: fresh corn tortillas stuffed with earthy braised lamb, achiote-tinged chopped pork, or a heart-stopping potato-and-cheese combination. Fire-eaters might gripe about a timid hand with the chiles here—the food may have been detuned a bit for Pikesville palates—and there’s a wealth of new and not-so-new LatinAmerican eateries in East Baltimore and elsewhere that can offer cheaper glimpses into various regional cuisines. But the melding of grown-up Mexican cooking with kid-friendly environs and cold pitchers of sangria is a formidable formula. Little wonder that the Luna family is preparing to expand this spring with a larger outpost down the street. (Lunch and dinner Tues–Sun. 102 Reisterstown Rd., Pikesville; 410-486-9910; www.mariluna.com.) —David Dudley
photo by La Kaye Mbah
The point at which a cute but obscure neighborhood eatery acquires its liquor license is a crucial one—a crossroads on the passage into a world of bigger bills, more crowds, and higher culinary expectations. For Mari Luna, a clever Mexican place amid the strip malls of Reisterstown Road, the end of the Corona-sixpack-stashed-underneath-the-table era is at hand. It’s about time. This rehabbed roadside fast-foodery, four years old and fiercely loved by locals, is ready for wider renown. Mari Luna’s menu rambles across Central and South America, with stops for Peruvian chicken and Cuban sandwiches and side trips to the Old World for Spanish gazpacho and paella. But owner/patriarch Jaime Luna, a former executive chef at Babalu Grill (wife Mari is the restaurant’s namesake), hails from the coastal state of Baja, and in his hands Mexican standbys get a new life: Ceviche—a lime-soaked heap of squid, shrimp, scallops, and tilapia chunks—is almost velvety, the seafood gently “cooked” by the chile-spiked citrus marinade. His shrimp soup is a rich and subtle bisque, cream-laden, studded
Fajita sunrise: Pikesville’s Mari Luna is ready for its close-up.
w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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Speaking in Tongues By Clinton Macsherry
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The language wine enthusiasts use has been lampooned for decades. The caption to a 1944 cartoon James Thurber penned for the New Yorker remains a classic—“It’s a naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you’ll be amused by its presumption.” Such descriptions are indeed ripe for caricature, as are those that pinpoint scents and flavors with a precision that strains credulity. You can’t simply call a crisp white “citrusy,” not when you can conjure up “kaffir lime.” The descriptor “cat pee” (or more politely, “boxwood”) crops up a lot in noncommercial tasting notes for New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Most of us, I’ll venture, have never heard of an olallieberry, much less sniffed one in our Zinfandel. This kind of stuff sets the dials popping on a lot of B.S.meters. Rightly so, perhaps. But it’s also the case that palates have different sensitivities—some subject to external variables, others fixed by anatomy. “We live in different taste worlds,” Yale researcher Linda Bartoshuk told the Boston Globe in 2002. Bartoshuk helped popularize the term “supertaster” to classify those people (25 percent of the population, by some estimates) who can taste flavors the rest of us can’t, for better and for worse. It’s pretty simple, really: Supertasters have more taste buds. Tongues don’t get the final say, however. They differentiate between sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory tastes, but our olfactories make much finer distinctions. They can distinguish ten thousand scents, and they amplify taste into flavor. Smell is a lot more complicated than taste, but according to some researchers most of us can be trained—or
train ourselves—to be “supersmellers.” At least when it isn’t allergy season. On a spring afternoon in Washington, D.C., some (gulp) twenty-five years ago, a girlfriend I’d been seeing for a brief time prepared us a picnic. A classically trained cook, she’d already introduced me not only to new dishes but to new ways of appreciating food. With wine, she was finding me a harder sell. Our picnic involved deviled crab salad and some gorgeous mushrooms. From a small cooler, she pulled out a bottle of something called Gewürztraminer. This strange word threw my hearing a little off-kilter. “I like it because it tastes like violence,” she said. Not exactly my thing, I thought, but you’ve got my attention. I took a sip. After a few seconds, she asked the source of the dumbfounded expression on my face … then rolled over on the grass laughing. “No, no, no,” she said, catching her breath. “I said it tastes like violets!” We didn’t go out much longer. And I’ve never quite come to terms with Gewürztraminer since— though tasters I respect immensely (including a supertaster) absolutely adore the stuff. Its fans point out that it goes great with spicy food and it has the stuffing to stand up to the notorious pairing challenges posed by Thanksgiving dinner (even sauerkraut, that quirk of the Mid-Atlantic harvest feast). You don’t need to be a supersmeller to “get” Gewürz. Blindfolded novices can readily pick out its distinctive, pungent aroma. Of course, that doesn’t mean you’re going to like it. The most highly regarded Gewürztraminers come from Alsace, the French region bordering (and at various times, part of) Germany. The grape is a mutant form of the Northern Italian Traminer, prefixed with the German word for “spicy” or “perfumed.” Hugel’s Gewürztraminer 2004 ($18, 13 percent alcohol) shines clear and brassy in the glass, and it pumps out fragrance like a sales clerk on the cosmetics floor. The heavy floral scent takes on notes of ripe peach, pineapple, honey, and nutmeg, with a hint of Good & Plenty. It’s full-bodied and technically dry, but with brown spice and canned fruit syrup flavors that suggest sweetness. Matchstick and toffee touches mark the long finish. Layered, complex, undeniably well made, this may be your kind of wine. Me, I’d have to say it’s, um, interesting. ■ w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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At MICA, one of the country’s leading colleges of art and design, the Division of Continuing Studies offers a wide array of courses, workshops, and special programs that nurture creativity and encourage personal exploration. Fine arts programs inspire adults to develop their artistic abilities and bring fresh ideas to life, from painting and drawing to jewelry-making and ceramics. Professional development programs keep design professionals at the forefront of industry trends in graphic design, illustration, new media, and more. The certificate in creative entrepreneurship, partnering with University of Baltimore, provides business tools for arts-based entrepreneurs. Contemplate…Create!, a collaboration with The Walters Art Museum and The Baltimore Museum of Art, offers access to the experts with guided museum tours and studio time with MICA instructors. View a full course listing at www.mica.edu Call 410.225.2219 to request a catalog
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Division of Continuing Studies Where life is a work in progress.
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Martha Thomas on The Yellow Wallpaper and Tobias and the Angel
Marianne Amoss on Violence Next Door
David Dudley on Madison Smartt Bell’s Charm City
Literary editor Susan McCallum-Smith crosses the color line
Can the BSO sell classical music without selling it short? by steve wigler
illustration by alex fine
A
little after 8 p.m. one night last November in Meyerhoff Hall, just when a conductor usually gives the downbeat that tells an orchestra to begin, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra music director Marin Alsop signaled instead for composer Aaron Jay Kernis to walk out on stage. Two Kernis pieces, “Lament and Prayer” and “Newly Drawn Sky,” filled the first half of a program that concluded with Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, and Alsop, now in the first season of her BSO tenure, engaged Kernis in a chat before the performance. The nostalgic rapture of “Newly Drawn Sky,” the audience learned, was inspired by memories of the changing colors at dusk on a summer day Kernis and his wife spent at the beach with their newly born twins. When the orchestra finished, Kernis was summoned to the stage by the kind of standing ovation that Beethoven might have received after a performance of the “Pastoral.” But Kernis’ reception was also a tribute to Alsop—and for more than her passionate and exciting take on the two pieces. Her conversation with Kernis had made it possible for 21st century listeners to respond enthusiastically to demanding and unfamiliar contemporary works—the sort of music today’s audiences are not supposed to like. And she had enabled a living composer to achieve what Beethoven himself, in his inscription to his Missa Solemnis, called the primary purpose of music: “To speak from the heart to the heart.” If the concert was a powerful demonstration of how conductor and orchestra can create a shared experience, it also raised questions and caveats about Alsop and the BSO’s future together. Was the ovation a response to Kernis’ music, or to Alsop’s deft salesmanship? w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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art/culture After all, when Beethoven wrote his words about the power of music to communicate from the heart to the heart, he was not thinking about the power of a charismatic intermediary to insert herself between the composer and his listener. Then there was Alsop’s performance of the Beethoven, which suffered from a rigidity of rhythm. Alsop often seems uncomfortable about employing rubato—the elasticity and flexibility of tempo that come from slight speeding-ups and slowing-downs, which can add interest and tension to a melodic line without distorting it. It’s often what we’re hearing when we describe a performance as “flowing,” and it’s essential to performing music from the 18th to the early 20th century. It’s also something that Alsop—not only in Beethoven’s “Pastoral,” but also in her performances of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Strauss—does not seem to understand. What worried me more than the performance was that nearly all of the two thousand people in the audience didn’t seem to hear any such deficiencies in the “Pastoral” and responded with yet another ovation. The ability of an audience to detect the difference between an inspired performance and one that is merely professional often depends upon having sufficiently savvy listeners. Those, however, are not the listeners about whom the BSO seems concerned; its current initiatives appear to be motivated by the belief that there simply aren’t enough of them to matter.
T
he BSO appointed Alsop to succeed Yuri Temirkanov as music director in 2005. She’s the first woman ever to occupy so prestigious a position at an American orchestra, a milestone that has seemed to generate more publicity for the BSO in the last few months than in all of its previous ninety-one years. But the attention isn’t all because of her: There’s enormous curiosity about the BSO’s effort to reinvent the American orchestra, an institution that has suffered from budget and leadership issues in many cities across the country. Only a handful of orchestras are rich enough to fend off the increasing deficits and apparently decreasing audiences that have threatened the BSO. When the first American orchestras were founded in the 19th century, audiences were by no means comprised chiefly of a wealthy social elite. The New York Philharmonic’s first concert, on December 7, 1842, was before a crowd of recent German immigrants (more than 40 percent of the players were German). It was an elite audience only in the sense that they took music seriously: They knew it and appreciated it. That model was dealt several successive blows throughout the 20th century—by recorded music, by radio, by movies, by television. At about the time the Vietnam War came to an end, precipitous declines in public school arts education helped reduce symphonic music (as well as many other live performing arts) to something like irrelevance. This led, eventually, to a huge excess capacity in classical music-making. The thinking at the cultural
front of the Cold War in the 1950s and ’60s was that American orchestras weren’t musically or institutionally stable enough to compete with the Soviet Union’s state-funded arts institutions. The result was a drive to build year-round, high-level professional orchestras. In 1966, for example, the Ford Foundation gave almost $81 million in grants—with the condition that orchestras, in turn, had to raise twice that amount in matching funds. This flood of money dramatically increased the number of concerts. Throughout the 1950s, the standard concert season was thirty weeks. In 1964, the New York Philharmonic signed a fifty-two-week contract and other orchestras followed suit: In 1970, there were six with fifty-two-week seasons; currently, there are eighteen—the BSO among them. But by the 1980s, orchestra expenses began to outstrip revenues. The number of concerts grew not to meet audience demand but to accommodate the financial needs of the players, now almost entirely dependent on their orchestras for income. Meanwhile, audiences aged, tickets prices escalated, and the time-bomb of reduced arts education finally exploded. There is now too much classicalmusic “product” for the market to consume. The BSO, for example, gives three to four performances
Letting audiences believe that such a performance can be called “a modernist perspective” on Beethoven is nothing less than a classical-music con: It’s taking advantage of people’s ignorance. of a program per week (except in the summer months). The greatest orchestras in Europe—in much larger cities like Vienna, Berlin, Amsterdam, and London—rarely give more than two. Beethoven’s hope to address his audience “from the heart to the heart” came from his belief in symphonic music as a force that could reconcile us to each other and to the world in which we live. By the end of the 20th century, the remorseless onslaught of popular culture had made the possibility of such a vision seem impossibly remote. It is thus not only understandable but also commendable that orchestras are trying to reach out to a generation of Americans who know little or nothing about classical music—and that Alsop and her staff are arguing for a different definition of the American orchestra than the one created in the middle of the 19th century. It’s a definition with a more populist, perhaps less elitist, bias. In such a cultural climate, the ability to make music may not be the most important attribute of a music director. As New York Times music critic Bernard Holland wrote more than a dozen years ago, “American music directors are administrators, hirers, firers, planners, glad-handers, money-raisers,
politicians and donor-strokers … [it’s] the conductor as C.E.O., professor, psychiatrist, public relations officer and [on the podium] a ballet dancer.” Alsop moves more like a boxer than a ballerina, but that’s otherwise an accurate accounting of her bona fides. She’s a skillful media player and is good at attending to the details of artistic administration. The dissension among BSO players created when Alsop was appointed seems to have dissipated, and the praise she has received for promoting the music of Kernis and of several other important American composers is richly deserved. And, like Leonard Bernstein, the former music director of the New York Philharmonic whom she describes as a mentor, she has an uncanny ability to package her ideas intriguingly. For example, her invitation to several composers—America’s John Adams, Scotland’s James MacMillan, England’s Thomas Adès, and Austria’s H.K. Gruber, all of whom she calls “modern Beethovens"—to participate as conductors in the BSO’s first Beethoven symphony cycle since the early years of David Zinman’s music directorship has caused a buzz on both sides of the Atlantic. The approach seems to be paying off at the gate: In contrast with Temirkanov’s last few seasons, most of Alsop’s concerts have been well-attended—frequently filling most of 2,443-seat Meyerhoff Hall and nearly all of the orchestra’s second home in Bethesda, the 1,976-seat Music Center at Strathmore. Some of that could be attributed to the BSO’s decision to lower ticket prices. Subscription packages this season make every seat available for $25—thanks to a $1 million grant from PNC Bank. The orchestra reports a 14 percent increase in the number of subscriptions purchased compared to last season, with three times the number of first-time subscribers. But how good is the product that is being heard in those $25 seats compared to that heard in the recent past? Comparison of the current season’s roster of guest soloists and conductors to that of any in the tenure of Zinman or Temirkanov provides a depressing answer. If engaging guest artists can be compared to shopping, in past years the orchestra’s guest roster looked as if it had been purchased in Bergdorf ’s and Saks, while this season’s roster looks like it comes from Wal-Mart—proof that you often get what you pay for. A few of the soloists, while wellknown, no longer play as well they did when they became celebrated; the names of some of the others are unfamiliar even to aficionados. And what will happen next season when, without underwriting for $25 seats, ticket prices return to their accustomed level? For that matter, it’s questionable how much the growth in subscriptions has actually increased attendance. Sun music critic Tim Smith has noted that while attendance at Alsop’s concerts has increased, attendance at those of guest conductors is as small as (and sometimes even smaller than) ever. And while many BSO innovations sound intriguing, some have proved tedious (or worse) in practice. The notion of Beethoven symphonies conducted by “modern Beethovens” is great in theory, w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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C A N TO N C R O S S I N G
art/culture but having to sit through a Beethoven Fourth or Seventh led with marginal competence by someone who, while perhaps a good composer, is a poor conductor is quite another thing. And letting audiences believe that such a performance can be called “a modernist perspective” on Beethoven is nothing less than a classical-music con: It’s taking advantage of people’s ignorance. Of course, superb soloists and conductors do not guarantee filled houses—something the last years of both Zinman and Temirkanov demonstrated. It can be argued that Baltimore does not need, does not want, and cannot afford an elite orchestra with international standing like the one created in the last twenty years. And perhaps there’s no way that such an institution could survive in the present climate without cutting corners and creating strategies to broaden its appeal. The era is long past when music directors like Chicago’s Fritz Reiner or Cleveland’s George Szell could create orchestras so good that attending their concerts became a matter of civic pride. Someone like Temirkanov—a great conductor who does not ingratiate himself with the audience or cozy up to a city’s corporate boards and richest citizens—is not likely to come our way again soon. But conductors with both enormous musical talent and popular charisma have been appealing to the public for more than a century. (Bernstein had both—and so did Zinman.) It’s possible that Alsop will grow into a better conductor and that her proselytizing efforts will result in both a broader and a more discerning audience. It’s also possible that a concept of public education that includes the arts—an idea that prevailed in this country until the 1960s—will return. A new vision of the civic orchestra could be created. Orchestras may need more flexible goals— reducing the number of symphonic concerts, for example, and using the musicians to give more and smaller outreach concerts. Maybe Alsop will mature enough to help accomplish this transformation; maybe the task will fall to her successor. That’s what one hopes for in the long term. In the short term, the BSO needs to engage better (if not necessarily more expensive) soloists. And it may need to extend the engagement of such great conductors as Günther Herbig, Libor Pešek, and Yan Pascal Tortelier, who can lead the orchestra in the core repertory with experience, skill, and insight that Alsop does not yet possess. Should the BSO receive another $1 million grant, it would be wise to spend it for such purposes. One thing seems certain: However successfully the BSO packages its product this season and in seasons to come, unless that package also contains some great musical performances, the orchestra as an institution may be neither worth reinventing, nor worth listening to. ■ —Steve Wigler spent twenty years as the music critic of several newspapers, including the Baltimore Sun. He now writes about music from his home in Baltimore.
theater SEEING THINGS The Yellow Wallpaper at Theatre Project, Feb 14–17 Tobias and the Angel at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Feb 28–Mar 2 Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, whose narrator is a Victorian-era woman confined to a bedchamber to deal with her depression, has become a classic in feminist literature—and an incriminating look at psychiatric practices of the 19th century. The Peabody Opera has dug up a never-produced adaptation written more than a decade ago by Judith Lane (librettist) and Catherine Reid (composer), who attended grad school at NYU together and lived across the hall from one another on the Upper West Side. “Back in Gilman’s day, when men got depressed they were told to go off on safari, but women were told to go to bed until they acted normal,” says Lane. “We both recognized a woman who was talented but squashed by the powerful figure of her husband.” In the 1892 novella, the narrator begins to see the wallpaper in her bedroom as the ghosts of trapped women. The opera’s production at the Theatre Project turns those walls into a chorus that gradually emerges in the flesh, representing aspects of the narrator’s self. If The Yellow Wallpaper is confined to a bedroom, British composer Jonathan Dove’s Tobias and the Angel was written for a sacred space; it will be performed in the nave of Mount Vernon’s Emmanuel Episcopal Church in late February. The Opera Vivente production is the North American premiere of the work, which is based
on the Old Testament Book of Tobit. (Regarded as apocryphal by Protestants and Jews, the book was probably written in the 2nd century B.C.) The opera follows Tobit’s son Tobias on a mission to collect money; he is accompanied by the angel Raphael in disguise, who helps him see the divine in all things. General director John Bowen describes this production as “a communal event,” involving the children’s chorus of the Handel Choir of Baltimore, student dancers from the Baltimore School for the Arts, and members of local chorales along with professional opera singers, including acclaimed countertenor David Walker as the angel Raphael. “The Apocrypha is equally claimed—or disclaimed—by both Judaism and Christianity,” Bowen says. “It’s very much an interfaith story.” —Martha Thomas
For tickets to The Yellow Wallpaper, call 410-752-8558 or go to www.theatreproject. org. Audience members can meet Lane and Reid at the Feb 14 and 15 performances. For tickets to Tobias and the Angel, call 410547-7997 or go to www.operavivente.org.
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art/culture film STREET SURVIVORS Violence Next Door: Growing Up in the Favela and the Hood at Creative Alliance, Feb 22 In a scene from the documentary Violence Next Door: Growing Up in the Favela and the Hood, the sound of shots being fired can be heard in the background as a young Brazilian man peers over a ledge. “The gunshots are [the bandits] practicing shooting … they shoot all night long,” he says. In another scene, a young man from Baltimore stands in front of a wall covered in posters depicting people who have been killed. “When we moved to West Baltimore, it was survival of the fittest,” he says. “You either kill or get killed.” Made under the direction of Baltimorebased community artist Mari Gardner, Violence Next Door seeks to portray the experience of growing up on the mean streets of Rio de Janeiro and Baltimore City. Gardner has spent much of her artistic career working with kids. As the 2006–2007 artist in residence at the American Visionary Art Museum, she worked with youth from the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services to create a large mosaic that spans two exterior walls of the museum. And after facilitating art and reading programs at nonprofit Banner
Neighborhoods for several years, she now runs an art and reading club for young people out of her Southeast Baltimore rowhouse. Two years ago, Gardner led a group of Brazilian youth in a film workshop in Recife, Brazil. The result was Favela Rhythms, a documentary on breakdancing and breaking down stereotypes. For Violence Next Door, Gardner chose to work in Rio because of its sister-state relationship with Maryland and the similarities she saw between Rio and Baltimore City. “The hood in Baltimore and the favelas in Rio are places you don’t go. They’re feared,” she says. “Young people [who grow up in these places] are feared in the same way.” In Rio, she worked with a group of ten to fifteen kids to teach them the craft of filmmaking and storytelling. She did the same in Baltimore, with a group of kids from the educational and training program On Our Shoulders and its director, Ray Cook. Gardner says that the youth she works with are bursting to tell their stories. “Kids are at such points of frustration, where they really want
to talk because they feel like they’re not being listened to.” By putting these kids’ stories out into the world, Gardner hopes to combat some of the negative stereotypes of people who live in these poor communities. “I’m really tired of seeing these people who are special and amazing being put down by people who don’t know what they’ve been through,” she says. “These young people want to make change. That’s what this film proves.” —Marianne Amoss
Following the 8 p.m. screening of the film will be a question-and-answer period with director Mari Gardner, Ray Cook and his group, and some of the Brazilian participants via satellite. Call 410-276-1651 for tickets.
books WALK HARD Charm City: A Walk Through Baltimore By Madison Smartt Bell Crown Journeys
Novelist and Goucher prof Madison Smartt Bell arrived in Baltimore in the mid-1980s, and like many a mid-life convert (he’s from Tennessee), he tends toward a cautious but ultimately heartfelt fealty to his adopted home. “If I had chosen a place to settle instead of drifted into one, it might have made sense to choose this place,” he allows, leaving his options open. Charm City: A Walk Through Baltimore, one of fifteen entries in the Crown Journeys series of writerly travel tomes, may tread familiar ground for bornand-bred readers, but Bell is a skillful and, yes, charming guide. Part travelogue, part bar crawl, the book sneaks enough local history, lore, and sharp social analysis in among the shout-outs to favored Indian lunch buffets and martialarts instructors that you barely notice that it’s a surprisingly authoritative pocket guide to three centuries of life on the Patapsco. Bell does not walk alone: On each of the four urban hikes that comprise the book’s chapters he gathers sidekicks and native guides to lend
color and expertise. The shortest is a brief ramble though the dales of Dickeyville with mystery novelist Laura Lippman; the longest traces the length of Charles Street with Jack Heyrman, Bell’s neighbor (and a great-great-great-grandson of Baltimore Basilica architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe). Only this last one drags slightly—it’s an uphill slog, heavily laden with history. Musings on fires, riots, and epochal municipal happenings coexist with the cheerful minutiae of the author’s daily life; the key sights and major players (Francis Scott Key and H.L. Mencken; Jim Rouse and Babs Mikulski) share stage time with local characters of more selective renown. In vintage Smalltimore style, the skein of friends and acquaintances that Bell encounters as he pops into pubs and wanders the streets is probably entangled with many a reader’s own social circles. Read closely: You might be in here too. —David Dudley
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These surprising photos of communities out of context include Hasidic Jews in Iowa and American slave descendants in the Caribbean. Runs through March 22. Following the debut of his award-winning novel, The Death of Vishnu, UMBC math professor Manil Suri reads from his mesmerizing new work about modern India. Leading experts in education advocacy, research and administration address issues that will shape society – and our children's lives – for years to come.
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art/culture
books TONE DEAF
© Lynda Barry, used courtesy of Darhansoff, Verrill, Feldman
by susan mccallum-smith
Song Yet Sung by James McBride (Riverhead) Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall (Feminist Press) The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well by Tod Wodicka (Pantheon) Dog Is My Co-Pilot: Great Writers on the World’s Oldest Friendship (Three Rivers Press)
I
n the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the character played by Sidney Poitier says to his father, “You think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man.” I’m reminded of this line whenever I sneak my peely-wally carcass over to the African American section of a bookstore because, being of Celtic descent, I’m so beyond white I’m practically blue. I’ll never understand shelving books by an author’s race (or sexual orientation). Although it may be a helpful marketing tool, it perpetuates a kind of artistic and cultural segregation, as if readers really give a damn about the skin tone (or the recreational proclivities) of the people who write the stories they love. I wonder where multiracial author James McBride (African American/Polish-Jewish; reportedly straight) would be filed. McBride, who wrote the best-selling memoir The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, has written a new novel that truly sings. Song Yet Sung follows the flight of runaway slave Liz Spocott over Maryland’s Eastern Shore during the 1850s, as she is pursued by a ragtag crew of bounty hunters and aided by the Underground Railroad. Hot on Liz’s heels is Patty Cannon, queen of the Trade; if there is any capturing or stealing of slaves to be done on the Eastern Shore, Patty does it. With her buckskin skirt and a pistol in her belt, she’s as saucy as a gypsy and as dangerous as a rattler—Calamity Jane gone feral. McBride’s watery Maryland is furnished with talking quilts and signaling skiffs. Every woodpile
and every pant-leg semaphores to those familiar with the secret code of the Underground Railroad. A heart-knocking suspense saturated with local history, Song Yet Sung is authentically told and anchored by a prophetess evocative of John the Baptist, foreseeing a savior to come. “I don’t need to go up north to be free,” Liz says, pointing at her heart. “I’m free here.” Liz Spocott will break your heart but Selina Boyce will mend it—she is the heroine of the underappreciated 1959 novel Brown Girl, Brownstones, written by Paule Marshall (African American of Caribbean descent; seems straight). Selina’s struggles to forge an authentically American identity in mid20th century Brooklyn are hindered by her mother, Silla, who is determined to become a property owner in order to compensate for the brutality of her former life on a Barbadian plantation. Silla is “the collective voice of all the Bajan women, the vehicle through which their former suffering found utterance.” She spends her time in the kitchen of her beloved brownstone railing to her friends about her daughter’s disobedience. “Look how I has gone and brought something into this world to whip me,” she says, as her daughter grows into an artist with a gift for dance. Yet when the white mother of one of Selina’s friends tells her, with blithe bigoted ignorance, “You don’t even act colored. I mean, you speak so well and have such poise,” Selina’s soar toward individuality is momentarily curtailed. Her mother’s words come back to haunt her, that “in this white-man world you got to take yuh mouth and make a gun.” Thankfully, Selina doesn’t sacrifice hope entirely to anger. Brown Girl, Brownstones is a classic that truly dances. The Uncommon Reader (2007) by Alan Bennett (white English; definitely gay) dances too, and its dance is a minuet. (My prejudices run to thin books these days, and this is a perfect snack-sized novella.) While chasing some unleashed corgis, Queen Elizabeth II stumbles across a traveling library. “Heavens!” Her Majesty exclaims, when told that “Ma’am
can borrow up to six books.” (That’s nothing. Ma’am could get thirty from the Enoch Pratt!) For politeness’ sake, the Queen borrows a book and coincidentally makes a friend, a ginger-haired kitchen boy who becomes, to the consternation of one’s Royal Household and one’s Government, one’s reading-enabler, keeping one steadily drugged on an infinite variety of subversive literary texts. Chaos ensues from the Queen’s addiction; she becomes unpredictable, opinionated, and liable to go off-script during walkabouts and banquets, having discovered the democratic freedom of the page. “It was anonymous; it was shared; it was common … Between these covers she could go unrecognized.” While the Queen escapes real life between the covers, Burt Hecker, a 60-something with a nose “like a beetle-ruined fruit about to drop” escapes into the subculture of medieval reenacting. All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well (2007) by Tod Wodicka (white American; none of my damn business), follows Burt’s attempt to find his missing son while touring Europe in the company of plainchant-singing Saint Hildegard von Bingen groupies and a Brazilian authority on medieval dermatology. Burt refuses to truck with anything OOP (out of period), trading coffee for mead and loafers for homespun sandals, because events beyond the 12th century are too awful to contemplate. He runs back through history from the tragedy that has caused his family to implode, struggling with “the fury, the hopelessness, the rotting present of a life lived perpetually out of period.” By the book’s end, however, Burt is forced to admit that he and his fellow reenactors often “took it too far. Far wasn’t far enough for some of us.” Some dog owners are accused of taking their love for their pets too far. Did you know that, according to a 1995 study, 79 percent of pet owners give their pets birthday gifts? (Guilty as charged.) That 57 percent would rather be stranded on a desert island with a dog than a human? (Perfectly understandable.) That 48 percent of women rely on their pets for most of their emotional sustenance? (No comment.) Dog Is My Co-Pilot: Great Writers on the World’s Oldest Friendship (2003) is a marvelous anthology culled from the magazine The Bark, a kind of New Yorker for dog lovers, and written by renowned authors of a multiplicity of hues and sexual preferences, including Alice Walker, Erica Jong, and George Singleton. In her essay “This Dog’s Life,” Anne Patchett mourns the assumption some people make that women who own dogs are simply sublimating. No doubt there are dog owners who want babies, she writes, but “I wonder if there aren’t other people who had a baby when all they really needed was a dog.” I read this anthology curled up on the sofa between my husband (white Scottish; straight) and my dog (ethnicity unknown, possibly hound/penguin; baffled), as essayist Pam Houston put it, “the meat in the sandwich between the two pieces of bread I love most in the world.” ■ w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 8
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Heartbreaker continued from page 49
Q
Are you interested in having a larger stage for your ideas, being a public philosopher rather than a pure academic?
A
Well, I try to devote myself to problems that I think are of general concern—they’re not just of concern to professional philosophers. There are problems like that, and I hate them. But I don’t think of the desirability of attracting wider attention, because I don’t think of myself as being in that business—the business of popular culture. I think of myself as a serious philosopher. But I do try to be clear. And that makes it possible for people to read what I write without having any special training. Of course, none of my other books have sold near the number of copies that the bullshit book has.
Q
One imagines philosophers getting together and having Socratic dialogues with each other. How much of it depends on intellectual interaction with others?
A
In my case, it’s pretty solitary. I get along with my colleagues, but we talk about baseball. My intellectual life is mainly in reading and thinking about things on my own.
Q
Are you reading just other works of philosophy, or do you read more broadly?
A
Actually, I very rarely read other philosophy books. It’s too difficult.
Q
How does one choose a career as a philosopher?
Q
Looking back on that period, can you theorize about why On Bullshit was so popular? Was it something about the times we live in that demanded an explanation for bullshit?
If God loves everything, there are no purposes, no preferences, no goals. A fully omnipotent being is not distinct from anything other than himself, because everything else is totally subject to his will. So all God can love is Himself.
A
I guess part of it was the title. It was sort of transgressive and juicy—here’s this Ivy League professor writing about a dirty topic. But there is a lot of bullshit around. There are so many people paid to talk now, and to keep talking, whether they have anything to say or not. The amount of bullshit being produced is really enormous. And people are sick of it, or at least puzzled by it.
Q
And you followed this up with a book called On Truth.
A
I did. It has not had the same sensational response. It’s like having a book about eating your vegetables.
Q
A
I can remember very clearly why I decided to go into philosophy. It was because I couldn’t make up my mind what I wanted to do, and I thought philosophy had such a broad range that you didn’t have to sacrifice any possible future interest.
Q
Did you know early in your education what you were going to do?
A
When I went to college I thought I was going to be a chemist. Then I took a chemistry course. I did very badly. After I gave up on being a chemist, I decided to be a lawyer. Even in my forties, I still thought of the possibility of going to law school. But I’m not sorry to be a philosophy professor. When I was an undergraduate, I asked one of my professors to recommend me to graduate schools. He said to me, “Are you sure you want to go into this? I’ve never earned more than $10,000 a year and I have to share my office.” But I got my Ph.D. just as the expansion of U.S. higher education was getting underway. Salaries kept going up. Teaching loads kept going down. Long vacations in the summer. It’s a good life.
your space
Q
How would you rate your own level of life satisfaction, based on the principles you write about?
It seems there are parallels here: love, truth, bullshit. These are pretty fundamental concepts.
A
A
—David Dudley is Urbanite's executive editor.
Well, I’m a philosopher. That’s my business.
refresh
Very high. I’m afraid I can’t find much to complain about. ■
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Lovestruck continued from page 59
courtesy of Andreas Bartels
and tend to choose partners “very much like themselves.” On the other hand, Negotiators (altruistic, nurturing, highly verbal, passionate, and intuitive) and Directors (analytical, logical, rulebased, tough-minded, and competitive) in overwhelming numbers choose each other. Unlike the first two categories, there are a great many more female Negotiators and a great many more male Directors, Fisher says. “But what we’re finding is that Negotiators go for Directors, whether they are male or female, and Directors go for Negotiators, whether they are male or female.” Bill Clinton, she points out, is a classic Negotiator, despite the fact that he is male. And Hillary? Well, even without seeing her test results it’s a pretty good bet that she’s a Director. More than three million people have hit on the site so far and hundreds of thousands have taken the test, “so we’re talking about huge numbers of subjects,” Fisher says, far more than most
With divorce rates being what they are, people want assurances that they are choosing wisely and that love will last, he says. But predicting the outcome of a love affair is a dicey business. “I ask every couple I see how they got together. With some it was love at first sight, which would relate to the chemistry angle, and with others love developed after friendship. But I don’t see any evidence that one kind lasts any longer than another. It all seems pretty random to me.” Biochemists interested in that question often point to a second set of hormones shown to correlate to long-term attachment—vasopressin and oxytocin, the so-called “cuddle chemicals.” During orgasm, levels of vasopressin rise dramatically in men just as oxytocin levels rise in women. Animal research has shown that vasopressin leads males to defend their space and jealously guard their mate from competitors. Similarly, oxytocin released during birth and breastfeeding promotes mothers’ bonding with their newborns, as well as with sexual partners during intercourse. As the
refresh studies of its kind. Her next step is to return to the lab to take blood, saliva, and urine samples from two hundred new subjects to ensure that the questionnaire accurately measures what it purports to measure—the individual’s biochemistry as expressed by personality type. If the correlation pans out, Chemistry.com will likely bill itself as the first ever truly “scientific” dating service. “There are too many factors in romantic love to say that you can ever match anybody perfectly,” Fisher admits. “But we are coming a lot farther in just being able to give people some choices in the ballpark.” For some romantics, this is just too much. They argue that quantifying attraction in this way is dehumanizing. “It really takes out the spiritual component of falling in love, which I find offensive,” says psychotherapist Rubin. “But I can see why it is attractive to people who want to make dating more efficient. We’re so into numbers now.”
heady dopamine high of early romance gives way to the more mellow influence of these two chemical messengers, jitteriness and craving give way to feelings of security, comfort, and calm—the hallmarks of long-term relationships. No doubt many folks would rather believe that Cupid shoots an arrow into lovers’ hearts than acknowledge that the highs and lows of romance are created by the same brain chemicals that compel people to dash out in the middle of the night to buy a pack of cigarettes. But Fisher maintains that just because you understand the biochemical basis of love doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy the experience. “Look, you can know every single ingredient in a chocolate cake,” she says, “but when you sit down to eat it you still get the rush.” ■
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Charlie & Me continued from page 61 So, Dad’s emotionally dense. Still, he never hit me. (Thank God: He was so strong that a pennyarcade brass arm-wrestling machine he pinned declared, “You belong in a zoo.”) Nor did he ever lay a hand on my mother. Or yell at her. He adored her. Worked fourteen hours a day in the newsstand for her. And when he lost her to cancer in 2003 after fifty-three years of marriage, suddenly he found himself alone and frightened. As was I, his only child.
self, intelligent but negligently educated formally, was more comfortable with the New York Daily News (“New York’s Picture Newspaper”) than some glossy high-falutin’ text, even if it was bylined by his boy. “You’re like your mother … smart,” was all he would say as he put one of my stories aside with nary a glance. I never heard what he was really saying—the way he truly felt about himself: “You’re not like your father. Dumb.” That I’ve finally learned to see through my father’s words to see the man, and accept the man, and, yes, love the man, and even—whoa!—enjoy being in his presence … well, we’re giving away the end of the tale here, yes? That day in the fall of 2000, when my father fell into my arms and I was thrust into being responsible for someone other than myself for the first time in my life … let’s just say that neither of us could have imagined the trip we were destined to take.
The continuous thread
War years: Charlie Edelson (right) as a merchant mariner during World War II
And why not? The most important woman in both of our lives was gone. Mom had been the buffer, a one-woman DMZ who had kept the testosteroned combatants far enough apart that some civil discourse could take place. “Don’t give up, Matty, he’s trying,” she would say on my increasingly infrequent trips home to New York over the last twenty years. I have no doubt she was giving my father the same message regarding me. The truth was Dad and I spoke a different language. We may have both voiced words of love, hope, and security, but we lacked a Rosetta stone to help us understand them. Publicly, he’d brag to anyone about his son, The Writer. But privately, it was all about the bucks. “How much did you make?” was often followed by, “Y’know, Matty, you’d make a good living as a salesman.” Dad never read my work; when I handed him my first book, he thumbed through the first few pages and tossed it from his passenger seat onto the dashboard. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’ll look at it later.” It never occurred to me that my father, my childhood hero, was intimidated by my written words. His own father was illiterate, and he him-
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—and the constant source of tension—in our relationship was our mutual inability to anticipate how the other would react in any given situation. Not to get too psychobabble-y, but when it came to my father, I had the motherlode of expectations about how he should act, this overblown notion of what it meant to be a man. It was the source of nearly all the disappointment and anger I felt toward him. When his accountant suggested he transfer his assets into Mom’s name weeks before undergoing the life-threatening aortic surgery, I expected him to comply. After all, he always made it a point to tell anyone in earshot, “I’d do anything for Clair.” Yet, his initial reaction? “Well, your mother could die before me.” Never mind that she wasn’t the one about to undergo the operation, he was. And when Mom did get sick with colon cancer in 2001, I expected my father to care for her, the same way she’d cared for him since 1996, when the aneurysm that led to his eventual surgery was discovered. Within weeks of her first chemo treatments, my father turned to me and said, “Your mother, she’s breaking my balls. She always wants things done for her.” After Mom’s death in 2003, Dad’s self-centered behavior only got worse. A social worker friend of mine calls it the “More-so’s” … as in, when people age and go through serious life traumas, their basic personality becomes more so. Dad’s already Charlie-centric worldview became cemented through fear, grief, and loneliness. Through that first year following her passing, as he went on about how distraught he was and how angry he was that she died before he did, I was amazed that he never once inquired about how I felt. When I finally asked him why that was so, he meekly replied, “I figured you felt just like me.” Forced to deal with everything from his finances to his declining health to his newly emergent love life, I tried to treat my father the way
I would want to be treated. I expected that he wanted to make the important decisions in his life, and it was my job to put him in the best possible position to do so. How wrong I was. To discover how a couple manages their household, divvies up life’s tasks, organically decides what, and when, and where … these are not things children know. Nor are they written down. (But they should be. Just two columns: This is where your mother called the shots … This is where your father played Big Daddy. That page alone could save thousands of hours of therapy for the kids once a parent is gone.) It turned out my father didn’t want to make any decisions at all. Opinions? He had plenty. Especially about the decisions he demanded others (i.e., me) make for him. But as for taking the initiative? As the sign on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn says, fuggedaboudit. Family friends would call me and say they’d just spoken to my father. It didn’t matter what the question—“When are you selling your house?” “Have you come up with a plan for losing weight?” “Have you decided to go for bypass surgery?” “How are you paying the livein help?”—the answer was invariably the same: “Ask Matthew, he’s handling it.” In fact, I took two years off from writing to handle it. From selling the house, to packing the house, to buying the condo in Florida, to moving him to Florida, to moving him back to his brother’s apartment in New York, to getting the cardiologist, to finding the rehab hospital, to finding the permanent live-in aide because he refused to handle certain hygienic issues, to ... Every day the goddamn phone was ringing with something he expected me to take care of from south of the goddamn Mason-Dixon line (“Mat, I didn’t get the
newspaper today. Did you pay the bill?”). Thousands of hours, thousands of miles, thousands of dollars. Thank you’s? Hardly. Would’ve been my way. Not his. Did he love me? Yes. Did he know how to express that? No.
And so my anger,
rage, and yes, at times hatred, grew. It was being fueled by my greatest
expectation of all: That my father, in all our dealings, would meet me halfway. Dealing with him was like doing some bizarre mental isometric exercise: I was pushing against a man who could not yield because he was set in stone. He would ask for help—with his weight, his understandable depression, his aches and pains— and I would provide it, only to watch him sabotage himself at every turn. After a 2005 bypass
my father, I was ashamed at what I had done, no matter how much of a “right” I had to do it. I was expecting my father, who never had more than a child’s ability to deal with his own emotions, to somehow “grow up” at age 80. Somehow, between his sobs, I finally got it. There was no compromise to be had. There was no halfway point at which we would ever meet. He could not change. But I could.
And so my anger, rage, and yes, at times hatred, grew. It was being fueled by my greatest expectation of all: That my father, in all our dealings, would meet me halfway.
led to a serious infection, I baby-sat him through twelve grueling weeks of rehab, where after three months of being confined to a hospital bed he’d worked his way back from barely being able to sit up to walking down the hall with a walker. I took him home that day, his promise to the doctor still fresh in my brain—“Yes, I’ll use the walker everywhere”—only to watch him toss it aside the moment he got in the apartment. “I don’t need it,” he said, grabbing at doorknobs to propel himself down the hall. My frustration exploded the day after his eightieth birthday. I’d flown down to surprise him in Florida on his birthday. When I walked into his apartment around 11 a.m., Gwen, his aide, said he was in his bedroom. I went in, kissed Dad on the forehead. He opened his eyes. “Hi,” I said. “Happy birthday.” He looked at me and said, “Hi. I’m having a bad day.” With that, he pointed to a small chair in the corner of the room, bade me to sit down, and went back to sleep. And that’s where he lay for the rest of the day, undressed, unmotivated, unappreciative, just completely ... un. The next day, when he was finally up and around, I lit into him. I started softly but forcefully, and with each deflection on his part (“Not today, I’m not up to it;” “I’m old, what do you want from me?”) I zoomed right past wanting understanding into straight-out venting. My voice soared; my words grew foul. And my father had a complete meltdown. Tears, trembling, and, most frightening of all, a complete lack of comprehension on his face. It shocked me into a memory of the time I found that the dog I had just adopted had peed all over my bed. I dragged the dog outside and started screaming at it. The look in its eyes as it cowered said, W-w-w-what have I done? I never yelled at that dog again. Now, with
I won’t lie and say I completely dropped any expectations I had for my father, but I did start seeing the world through his eyes. So many of our fights had occurred because I tried to explain things to him, make him understand why I was making certain decisions. My dad never wanted explanations. He just wanted people to agree with whatever came out of his mouth, no matter how outrageous. So that’s what I started doing. Agreeing. And a funny thing has happened. The more I’ve stepped away from my own ego, my own need to be right, the better my father and I have gotten along, and the more appreciative my father has become. (And whoever thought I’d live to see the day he’d end many a conversation with, “I love you, baby”?) I think on some level my dad knows all his talk is just that. I suppose a cynic might say that humoring my father is an act of manipulation. I choose to see it as a conspiracy of kindness, an unspoken acknowledgment between two men who need each other that time is short, so let’s dream big and go out laughing. And so when my father talks now about all the things he’d like to do—go to Israel, learn to walk better, marry his girlfriend—instead of my pointing out all the speed bumps in those roads— you can’t go to Israel when you can’t even make it across the apartment, you can’t walk well because you’re fifty pounds overweight and won’t shut your mouth, and your girlfriend has only visited you once in the past year—I just nod, smile, and say, “Wouldn’t that be great?” And you know what? It is. ■
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© 2007 Air Photo USA
eye to eye
Every man is an artist. —Joseph Beuys
Artist: All 2.6 million of us Greater Baltimore (detail)
Take a big step back—or up, rather—and there it is: terra firma, home, all she wrote. An unbelievably wonderful ground that we affect daily in so many ways, unthinking. Is absentmindedly picking the leaf less significant than building the bridge? The man in the felt suit, the person walking home with honey and fat, even the person selling pencils on the corner: everyone and more, influence this ongoing creation, sometimes imperceptibly, sometimes too noticeably. Is there some plan, some communal direction, or is there not? Regardless, this is the canvas of our lives. —Alex Castro
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