ii,iii ... arrived, a traveler screaming for bounds without acknowledgement, direction, filled with the traveler, now inextinguishable drive lost, finds themselves and awe, until feet surrounded by, weigh heavy and head assaulted by, teased and stomach spin for by the discomfort they can’t remember food, and so they the last time they must decide to taste, slept, or ate for that participate, and matter, and now flung venture, or anxiously back, near stumbling search on for the with exhaustion, edible familiar. with hunger pangs E.B. E.B. iv,v Table of...

For my Parents.

D. vi,vii Content, Liveness, p.19

Front... Two (2) Cultural Producers of the Amuse-Bouche, p.1 Sensual-Political, p.43 Preface, p.7 The Visitor, p.61 Text... The Millennial, p.85 Introduction, p.13 The Hungry Traveler Sensual and and Sensual- Performative Motility, p.107 T.o.C. T.o.C. viii,1 Back... Amuse-Bouche

Postface: The Filipino Club Sandwich, p.145

Glossary, p.151

Recipes, p.157

Appetizers, p.169

End...

T.o.C. 2,3 Sitting down to eat, you’re served an amuse-bouche. These one-bite/one-slurp treats set the meal into motion. The champagne bottle cracked against ship’s hull before departing. The amuse rings and teases, often flirting with unconventional preparations, Amuse-Bouche 4,5 ingredients, textures, and try. The amuse’s and combinations size is a clever tactic. that may not fit as Those hesitant to snuggly within the taste the whimsical rest of the chef’s bit before them menu. Such is the cannot flee safely occasion for a small, from such a readily but important gesture edible portion, fitting of thanks made with into mouth and onto an introduction that tongue with one easy woos. The maker's motion. Temperature, gratitude, given to texture, and taste the diner and their tantalize at the speed decision to take time of a quick, firm Amuse-Bouche 6,7 handshake. Preface

You’ve been hooked and now begins the slow reel-in. 8,9

The following is about making deci- sions, particularly within scenarios of confrontation. It’s a proposition that insists we decide, and find great pleasure from such act. This unresolved moment, ping-pong-ing around the head of our traveler, is the unexploded firework pill, shot high into the sky, with crackling pop, bursting outwards in all direc- tions, specks of neon colored Christmas tree lights flailing. It is with energy of movement, stillness, expansion, and retraction that I ground the following proposal towards finding comfort and confi- dence in engaging the sensory and sensual as means to learn. It is the conscious decision to embrace the body as a means for fostering an empathic exchange between one and another. And the venue for such act, as shared in our lengthy title, is the temporary departure from the home place. The following pages require rest breaks. It’s a lot—the most Preface 10,11

I’ve ever attempted to corral into contemporary cultural context of such confident act of sharing. If we this figure—back to our title—that consider the following like a menu, we begin to grasp how expectation, then these courses pull from many comfort, safety, and time influ- traditions. Maybe too many, result- ence the visitor’s trajectory. We ing from such a great enthusiasm in then move to an investigation of exploring relevant ideas contextu- the Millennial generation, defining alized from the communities of the new norms towards communication, aesthetic, political, performative, experience, and expediency. And sociological, anthropological, art finally, there’s the Hungry Traveler. historical, and pop cultural. It is the name I’ve given to such a We begin with the senses and proposal, readily accessible and our dependency on the retinal as applicable towards our time away. It primary definer of knowledge. The is an operational model for an epis- senses and sensual, performed and temology of the senses. received, become cherished recep- And that’s about it. We can take tors in building an awareness of the collective inhalation in, a big one, every day. Political pursuits of the and exhale out, a long one. Savor in sensual emerge in contemporary finishing and if so intrigued return, artistic practices with accessible re-read, and send grammatical examples of the sensory in action, edits. Don’t forget to take breaks under the auspices of performa- for coffee or a walk. I’ve borrowed tive artwork that happily bleeds from many within and beyond my into social rituals of meal-making community and have optimistically, and meal-sharing. We then turn to albeit messily, sought to embrace the tourist, the traveler, the visi- the uncomfortable in crafting a tor, choose your term. It is in the performative model for myself, you, Preface 12,13 and just maybe our grandparents. TEXT, It’s a proposal to be considered in head, on foot, and in stomach. With Introduction tired fingers and mind, I’d like to share some ideas about being deci- sive, about proposing possibilities to learn. Opening all bodily channels to the hoped for and unpredictable. Remember, these pages are a point to begin, to start, to depart. The reader’s context: at an out- door café, you sit with another. The cappuccinos are coming. It’s a late, warm afternoon. You’ve had a light lunch and are looking for- ward to dinner. The person across from you begins to propose some ideas. He is serious, informal, and playful, working to create a tempo- rary space for considering issues of movement, the body, the mind, and hunger. It’s all very conversational. He speaks, hungrily, with an appe- tite. You listen. 14,15 → To jettison from the known is to press hard against comforts and expectations. We are privi- leged visitors while traveling. Space is crossed and time is spent in the presence of other(ed) foods, persons, histories, and car models. In temporarily departing from the familiar home place, what are the variables influencing decisions made? In what form do they emerge? Crossing the antagonistic to the pleasurable, how do they tease the body? The mind? The emotional? Do they uphold the popu- larly believed? The authoritative? The conventional? And to what degree do they foster a visitor agency, or excited willingness to learn and experience over active and loud exchange? Do such dialogues best occur over the dinner table? At the take-out win- dow? More questions will be asked of you. We approach these ideas from the sensory and the sensual, which sweetly clang against Western conventions made cozy for us. The West/the Western with capital “W”s: Europe and North American social hegemonies on learning, sharing, experiencing, eating, arguing, and kissing; Said’s Occident; the subconsciously ingrained system I have leaned upon and will still find support and challenge from for the next set of twenty-six years. We approach these ideas from the sensory and sensual. The sensory: of the senses; of the olfactory, haptic, tasted, seen, and heard, especially the first proximal three; they snake into your body, setting Introduction 16,17 off alarms and/or falling into rhythm with yours or away—back to our title—become savored moments another’s nervous breaths; a guide, an interrupter, a for self-defined visitor subjectivities. For the visitor, slap in the face, shifting the ground you stumble on, there is a complicated, evolving, and shifting context shooting you across times and places. The sensual: that sways with positive affect, desires to experience, finding pleasure from the senses; putting a glass up to learn, and share. The barking pangs of the hun- the wall; a choreography in pursuit of that most tart gry visitor, influenced by the assault of overlapping bite of Key Lime pie, the stickiest sticky bun, or the sensorial reactions do not define moments to flee, unexpectedly intoxicating scent from a stranger’s neck but rather to pause, breathe, and consider. The sen- when you’ve gotten so close upon introductory hug. sory and sensual are brought into action, lessening Like a favorite song on repeat, the sensory and our dependence on the seen forming an infinitely sensual will be continually emphasized. They are diverse system of values that guide one’s footprints bodily mediators of the political. Between one and on pathways known and unknown, particularly another lay possibilities of communication over when we find ourselves away and hungry. meals and we have such great appetites. Our current endeavor side-steps norms entrenched within the fields of art, politics, the sensory, and most importantly, epistemology. Let us consider alternatives towards creating, shar- ing, and contesting knowledge that insist upon the body, the senses, and the sensual. Learning is an act that requires a hungry dependence on another. The loves, annoyances, histories, and spice preferences of the visited become topics to study, commemorate, argue, and pore over. Such wealth of potential while away! Vastly divergent and unpredictable opportuni- ties corralled towards fostering pleasurable meaning and connecting with another through similarities and differences. In taking time, even momentarily, the anxieties of indecision grappled with while 18,19 TEXT, Sensual & Performative Liveness 20,21 → It’s serious stuff, proposing the reconfiguration of our every day. Such an opener, leaning on the melodramatic, teases at what’s at stake in consider- ing our relationship to the sensory. Operating with potent effect on the physical, psychological, and emotional, most senses remain underestimated as experiencers and educators. The Western perspec- tive depends upon the seen as primary sense in which to construct knowledge and experience place. This retinal dependency is comfortably nestled in the framework of how we interact, move, and respond in the world. The seen facilitates the ana- lytical and objective. Across great space, we can bring into focus and define, positioning ourselves at a comfortable distance away from our objects of inquiry. The seen is embedded within language, fur- ther entrenching such sensorial hierarchy. “Seeing is believing.” “I see where you’re going with this.” “I’ll see you later.” See what I mean? It’s seductive and accessible, lubricating our approach to perform and document both the banal and the once-in-a- lifetime. Taking issue with such retinal dominance of the senses, the performance studies commu- nity contributes to exploring unique possibilities in making primary the sensory and the sensual. Sensory implies one’s relation to the physical senses and sensual, emphasizing our constant navigation between comfort and discomfort, gratification and frustration. Such qualities buzz during daily walks, S. & P. Liveness 22,23 infuse workplace energy, and commandeer growling optimism to evolve with the unpredictable, spend stomachs. The sensory and sensual become savored time and work in progress. epistemological mediators. Sensing, by physiological Such is our current case in proposing an alterna- definition insists upon the changing, proximate, and tive epistemology for the senses, one that confronts messy. Encouraging an active dependency on the the uncomfortable, anxious, and unfamiliar. Can senses is to enact a particular, delicate, and grace- we place into healthy suspicion our most developed ful mindfulness towards the body in internalizing sense? Not to abandon its wondrous necessity, but to the external and vice versa. Within a turbulent sea promote active engagement of lesser-acknowledged of signs and symbols, the senses, with loaded affect, sensory cousins. This proposal demands review and fling one in hard reality back to the physical, to the reflexivity, athleticism and practice. Difficult and odd, stomach, to smoothness of your partner’s skin. like putting on someone else’s shoes, but only tell- In proposing an alternative approach to a pre- ing of a deeply rooted hierarchy of the senses, made sumed sensory hierarchy, we can identify drastic familiar, like an old friend. So our work is to pause differences regarding time, the body, proximity, and shift. To push aside underestimation of the sen- participation, and expectation. Constantly activated, sory and forefront the sensual as working in concert these characteristics are columns, triumphantly sup- to share, contest, and produce knowledge. Imagine porting the sensory and sensual. They are critical the limitless and diverse opportunities for build- differentiators from a more comfortable, retinally- ing and sharing meaning, fostered from scent and spearheaded approach towards learning about place. taste as much as sight and sound. Such a proposal Two years ago I sat in the MFA auditorium and lis- put into practice position the sensory and sensual as tened with mouth open to a beautiful and powerful engagers of the social and political. lecture by Chilean artist, Alfredo Jaar. Throughout In growing number and diverse breadth, con- the lecture, titled “It is Difficult”, Jaar spoke of tributions within anthropological studies have uti- embracing the necessary difficulty in gracefully cul- lized the sensory as a critical vehicle in approach- tivating an artistic practice that sought to melt fixed ing, communicating, and learning from cultures. definitions. The unpredictability inherent to collabo- David Howes has written extensively on sensory ration and its demand for taking time was welcomed engagement within anthropology. Proliferating since with a calmed rigor. I fall into cahoots with such the 1960s, the “linguistic turn” asserts the domi- inspirational work ethic, attempting with patient nance of language within philosophical and social S. & P. Liveness 24,25 interpretation: language is the primary means in multi-directional interaction of the senses and sen- which to understand and structure human thought sory ideologies and should always be considered and endeavor.1 If language supports and systemizes in relationship to a society, individual, or work.4 with academic rigor, then the senses and sensory are Sensory interaction and affect become embodied positioned as an unregulated and unwieldy binary, tools for analysis and understanding. Imagine this consigned to the natural world. Under the presump- sensorially collaborative model taking the form of tion of opposing the analytically ordered, the sen- a knot. A textual model of understanding, like the sory becomes “innocent” or “savage”, symbolizing page you are reading now, is ordered, neat, and a “welcome retreat into untutored sensation, free segmented. Linear movement, word after word, from the sophistry of civilization”.2 Relegated to the builds meaning. Alternatively, the intersensorial knot natural, wild, and feminized, the sensory is deemed twists, curves, and overlaps, defining with an intri- secondary and subservient to a linguistically driven cate and shifting analysis, the often unpredictable, Western pursuit of knowledge. The senses’ place is that demands a unique relationship between the that of a retreat from the intensities and exhaustive senses, the individual, and the object/person/place trials of conceptual endeavor. Howes takes issue sensed. Comfort and expectation are disregarded with such demotion, instead implementing the sen- in exchange for the spending of time, unpack- sory as a far more accurate and embodied means to ing, defusing, and participating. Thinking in terms understand and engage with the complexities and of movement, the sensual knot model shifts, folds, paradoxes that define changing and diverse commu- quickens, and stalls. nities. The human sensorium is far from natural and The body drives and receives, actively imbued unwieldy, but rather a product of culture, reflect- with a curiosity. The complexity of such a model is ing ideas of class, politics, and beyond that vary not without its challenges, since the senses can work and change across local and global communities.3 as much in harmony as in conflict in order to con- Standing at the intersection of bodily perception and struct meaning. When considering a bodily aware- cultural and sociopolitical value systems, the senses ness of all six senses, the increase in sensory input become a critical tool to construct meaning from can be as destabilizing as it is liberating. Theatre varying populations. directors have employed scent to sensorially con- The senses operate in collaboration with trast with what is unfolding on stage for the eyes, one another. This “intersensoriality” is the therefore destabilizing the viewer with contradictory S. & P. Liveness 26,27 information.5 For the theatre-goer, how do their performance studies seek like-minded goal while expectations, comforts, and attempts at fostering emphasizing performative relationships between meaning embrace, reject, and engage when seeing bodies, actions, spaces, and proclamations. a table of bananas and smelling gasoline? Whether Conventionally found within the performing and in the gallery or at the drug store, to insist upon visual arts, these gestures are communicated in the sensory as a system for experiencing and learn- real time, live, unfiltered, and unedited.8 Whether ing is to grant embodied agency towards perception the context is theatre, performance art, dance, film, and reception. Intersensoriality becomes a mean- music, or projects embracing all of the aforemen- ingful tool in which to observe and unpack social tioned, the performance studies lens seeks to under- or aesthetic ideologies.6 Sensory anthropologist stand the ramifications of what is communicated Nadia Serematakis writes beautifully on the politi- over time. Whether shot by a .22 rifle or witnessing cal nature of the senses at work in churning through graceful and balletic spins, the performative is a the everyday sensed as means to excise buried and palpable, bodily engager. Peggy Phelan’s ontological forgotten cultural histories.7 The senses become a breakdown of performance art highlights the unique powerful tool in which to engage and learn of cul- body-to-body relationship between the viewer and ture and its political frontiers. Such methodology, the performer.9 Such corporeal linkage becomes embracing the intersensorial knot model, calls for a potent mediator towards empathic exchange, as the researcher/traveler/eater/photographer to retain the senses busily influence. The sensory and the a delicate awareness of the sensory in approach- performative work together. They unfold over time, ing a culture, site, or community. The sensory and collapse distance, and necessitate corporeality-as- sensual break from Western-grounded conventions communicator. To embrace the sensory from the to insist upon heterogeneity, organic change, and performative lens is to spotlight the inescapable and unpredictable movement. intimate: the senses are cerebral, psychological and emotional gauges, transitioning meaning from exte- The Performative and the Live... rior to interior, (performer) body to (audience) body. The performative-sensory model becomes a means If Howes insists upon the human sensorium as to understand, relate to, and learn from bodies mov- critical vehicle to engage with diverse and chang- ing in space. One need not imprison such notions to ing sociopolitical climates, perspectives within the studio, gallery, or theatre as its application seeps S. & P. Liveness 28,29 out into the everyday. What about the barbers, chefs, Intermodal performance that uses aes- and lawyers? How do their actions and choreogra- thetic concepts drawn from painting, phies communicate notions of comfort, daring, and sculpture, dance, music, theatre, and per- gumption? And how do the senses support and/or formative acts that do not subscribe to tra- complicate such associations and expectations? The ditional definitions of medium and genre. performative-sensory calls for a drastic re-orienta- The viewer’s potential is highlighted as a tion of perception in which the sensual is retrieved participant, articulating the place of the from under an unfortunate hierarchy of the seen. body and bodily functions. Live art is con- Performative artwork dances around quali- cerned with living, breathing organisms ties of agency, participation, and the body. These and their by-products.11 works capitalize on a unique context in which the artist and viewer share each other’s time and space. We have entered into an aesthetic realm of messy For the viewer/receiver, such context yields an infi- negotiation, unpredictability, and therefore a height- nite and unpredictable array of emotional, bodily, ened sensorial perception. For Di Benedetto, the and cerebral responses ranging from the repulsed, conditions of performance or live art’s very exis- seduced, confused, and impatient.10 While the aver- tence, its ontology, provoke and demand an energy age viewer will spend a few seconds in front of an between the performer and viewer. It is an energy artwork, the performative demands duration. A that vibrates between participation, reception, and contract is made between the viewer and the per- response, coated with patinas of the emotional, former—whether verbalized or not—and underly- psychological, and bodily. These are not ground- ing the experience are notions of control and power breaking qualities here; such relationship has as communicated through the body and across time. always existed with art and its admirers. I sit in a As the viewer and performer share space to foster an museum auditorium a year ago and listened as Bill exchange, the performative becomes a potent com- Drummond, (in)famous artist and pop-cultural municator for the political. icon, explains a monumentally affecting moment, The live witnessing of a performance artwork in which he stood in a gallery with walls patterned presents an ideal opportunity to reorient the view- with Andy Warhol’s cow wallpaper. The pure er’s understandings and comforts of the sensory and scale of it, the intense and overwhelming nature sensual. Stephen Di Benedetto describes live art as: as surrounder and gulper, was startling beyond S. & P. Liveness 30,31 expectation.12 So we have this moment between body becomes a reflexive, corporeal receiver to the young Bill and Warhol’s cows; a relationship of work. What are they doing? How would that feel? intense aggression, resulting from a phenomenologi- How do I feel? Why is this so boring? When will it cal assault, becoming a critical marker in one’s pro- end? My feet hurt from standing. What’s that smell? fessional trajectory. It’s an anecdote lending to the And so on. Performance encourages conversation inescapable energy between an artwork and viewer. through exposure and participation, asking for the With our current endeavor, such a relationship is sacred: time given. It is a temporary contractual scaled to the body and insists durationality. agreement, like our willingness to shift and wiggle Live work magnifies and teases at qualities and in the darkened movie theatre even if we really variables that require and challenge the viewer’s role should’ve peed before it started. For the viewer, the as co-participant within these performances, situa- senses are peaked as distance between the performer tions, and happenings. Di Benedetto continues: and the viewer is collapsed. What will happen is unknown, but as Di Benedetto insists, whatever that To understand each of these artistically may be should be engaged with from across our sen- mediated events, I must activate my aware- sorium. The viewer becomes an active ingester and ness of the performative sensorium. I must participant. Through senses, our body moves through adjust my expectations of what a per- the world, orchestrating our interaction with others formative event is so that I may take an and our environment, thus facilitating conversation, active role in the way I am attendant to the interaction, and survival.14 The viewer is always a event.13 participant, steered by a negotiation of the sensual. In understanding the complex changing, proximal, and Fully aware of the potential and unique privileges of durational scenario in which performative work plays a performance’s shared spatiotemporal qualities, Di out, we can begin to apply this approach towards the Benedetto demands a type of viewer agency, a full everyday. Invoking the sensory and sensual catalyzes activation and awareness of his senses as the primary a point for access and education. means of understanding and experiencing what is playing out before him. To sensorially and sensually Touch... embrace live work is, for the viewer, to put an onus on oneself and activate a willingness to engage. The Space collapses and the haptic becomes an intimate S. & P. Liveness 32,33 and intense communicator of the social and political. observational-objective. This sensory hegemony Jennifer Fisher analyzes several performance works disregards with tragic results, the validation and incorporating touch, countering insensitive Western implementation of the haptic and the other proximal constructs of the body and intimacy. Relegated to senses as intense and subjective communicators of the “touchy feely”, the haptic occupies a gendered the human condition. and sappy cultural space.15 Fisher analyzes perfor- Deeply associated with the haptic are notions mance works that function as tactile experiments in of death, desire, repulsion, and familiarity. When pain, pleasure, desire, healing, power, and knowl- sensed with the collapsing of space, any possibility of edge. Miranda Ukeles shakes hands with every gar- embodied detachment quickly dissolves. Across this bage man in Manhattan, Diane Borsato inconspicu- vast spectrum of emotional and psychological possi- ously touches 1,000 Vancouver pedestrians, the bility, to touch physically connects. One and another collective Gelitin constructs a temporary slide out of are positioned in a precarious and exciting state of the lubricated slippery bodies of obese participants. dependence, participation, and desire. Such potential, The senses fall into two categories: the distal and consigned to an unfortunate cultural and gendered the proximate. The distal senses of sight and sound safe zone, need be reclaimed at the individual. The are sensed comfortably across space. The proximal qualities of the proximal senses that have positioned of scent, taste, and touch, operate up close. It is them as secondary and subservient should instead through these categorizations that we can begin to be embraced and implemented as interrupters and understand sensory and sensual qualities and their destabilizers of dominant political values. Welcoming relationship to comfort and expectation. Buttery such qualities procuring anxiety and fear is to wel- popcorn to tongue or viscous, milky sunscreen to come with attentive awareness, embodiment as a sandy skin. The proximal senses remind of a cor- means to learn. Putting into practice such a mental- poreal awareness. The Western convention to vilify ity promotes an active reception of what is potentially “the touchy” and “the feely” is to ignore spatially profoundly affecting, sensed at the everyday. imbued climates of mistrust, excitement, and possi- bility.16 The haptic, relegated to the “touchy feely” is Rasic Taste... positioned as representative of a sincerity and inti- macy that is not celebrated for its political potential, Taste is an underestimated sensory marker that but is deemed secondary under the cold, distanced patrols what’s ingested. Flavor, taste, and scent work S. & P. Liveness 34,35 together to influence, with great bodily and psycho- triadic relationship between Greek theatre, Western logical sway, our hungry, drool-filled desires for the European epistemology, and the act of seeing.18 To edible. Hedonistic pleasure balances with taste’s see or gaze, distance is required and just as one faculty for keeping us alive. Framed within the composes through a camera for snapping the best performative-sensual, taste becomes intimate media- photograph, seeing equally reflects an exercise in tor of experience, collapsing the performer-viewer objective and analytical control. Distance is main- relationship with empathy of the sensual. Richard tained and meaning takes form: Schechner’s analysis of a non-Western system of performance emphasizes taste as means to foster The living heart of Greek tragedy was not meaning and intimate relationships. Schechner is plot as such but a particular kind of story- a believer in rasaesthetics, a model of performance telling… to sort winners from losers, the analysis that stems from rasa, an Indian sys- judges (and those judging the judges, the tem of theatrical performance that is defined and spectators) had to see clearly and base understood through flavor. Embracing the sensual their opinions on “objectivity.”19 within the theatrical context is not a new idea and it is in opposition to yet another Western cultural For classical Western theatre, objective meaning was construction. fixed and shared. There was the “right” and “wrong” In approaching the proposal for a rasaesthetic way to tell a story. Proper judgment was guided mentality, we begin by acknowledging the disparate with the eyes. In fantastic opposition to its Western cultural constructions of the theatrical experience. classical counterpart, rasaesthetics adopts the sen- The Western preference of the seen in theater can suous and flavorful in messy and relational ways. be traced and understood through two facets: ety- Rasa comes from the Natyasastra (NS for short), a mology and the retinal as constructor of meaning Sanskrit manual of performance and performance as defined through distance. The word “theatre” is theory from around the sixth century BCE. It is derived from “thea” and “thauma”, the latter two a sacred text, symbolically authored by the semi- defined respectively as “a sight” and “a wonder, or divine Bharata-muni and composed from a collec- a thing compelling the gaze”.17 Linguistic roots tive oral tradition. Contrasting Aristotle’s Poetics—a of the term assert a faithfulness to “strategies of viable Western counterpart that favors distanced, gazing” and “spectacularity”, revealing a strong analytical dramaturgical analysis­—the NS employs S. & P. Liveness 36,37 detailed descriptions of performance ranging from the rationally ordered, analytically dis- emotional expression conveyed by gestures and tanced panoptic.22 movements to role and character types, even com- mentary on theatre architecture and accompanying Immediacy over distance, savoring over judgment music.20 Rasaesthetics demands empathic exchange and the break between performer and audience is through the build up of the pleasurable sensual: collapsed through a mutual desire and enjoyment of flavor. Rasa also means juice, the fluid of flavor and Rasa is flavor, taste, the sensation one gets tasting’s medium.23 when food is perceived, brought within There is an intricate set of performative tactics reach, touched, taken into the mouth, that are at play within rasic performance that fosters chewed, mixed savored, and swallowed. a unique relationship that entices sensual imagina- The eyes and ears perceive the food on its tion between performer and viewer. way—the presentation of the dishes, the sizzling. At the same time, or very shortly Some definitions— after, the nose gets involved. The mouth ¹ Sthayi bhavas are internal emotions, made waters in anticipation.21 accessible by abhinaya. ² Abhinya is good, emotive acting. I roll these ideas around in my mind and then in ³ Rasa occurs when one experiences the sthayi mouth. The connections made are intimate and bhavas. incredibly satisfying. Sensual relationality and drool spilling onto T-shirt. Rasa entices, provokes, and I’ll pause for a moment so you can reread that. beckons. Schechner continues: An example— It is sensuous, proximate and experiential. ¹The sweetness of a ripe plum (sthayi bhava). It’s aromatic, filling space, joining the out- ²The experience of tasting the plum’s sweetness side to the inside. From the inside mean- (rasa). ing is made and therefore an aesthetic ³And the effective performative communication of founded on the rasa is fundamentally dif- that emotion (abhinaya). ferent than one founded on the “theatron”, I’ll pause again. S. & P. Liveness 38,39 emphasize the body, participate, and take time. Rasic performance is constructed, transmit- From the perspective of performance studies, the ted, and felt in all its flavorful relation, through the senses become a critical tool to access performa- gut.24 The ripe plum, bursting upon having teeth tive gestures as potent political communicators. sunken into it with sticky and fragrant flesh, juice The sensual’s relegation to secondary, subservient running all over. The rasaesthetic is driven with sen- status in Western society lends associations of the sual empathy, pleasure, and digestion. The senses sexualized, scandalized, and stereotyped. For one build upon one another, shifting and changing, to apply the non-retinal as an epistemological tenet defining a space activated by breathing bodies, fla- will prompt an engaging, difficult, but worthwhile vors imagined, and desires felt. Rasa and rasaesthet- trajectory. A diverse and overwhelmingly large num- ics have incredible potential in being implemented ber of communities continue to highlight the unique within Western performance communities as much benefits of the sensory and sensual as tools for expe- as for anyone seeking to foster a sensory mindful- riencing and learning. And while loosening faithful- ness. Taste is positioned as the fulcrum in which a ness to the academic, the sensual as framework is potent spectrum of sensuality sways and influences. readily adaptable towards perception, engagement, Do such qualities introduce discomfort and risk? and exchange at large. Absolutely. It is a risk dependent on the intimate and In toppling the sensory hierarchy in which the subjective. It is a risk lending one towards the pur- retinal validates is to put oneself in a position of suit of an athletic cultivation of the body as a sensi- active dependence on the unpredictable energy tive mediator between one and another, the sensor reverberating between bodies and places. How can and the sensed. the senses be applied as means for agency with the A sensory-sensual mindfulness demands we injection of curiosity and discussion? The consid- re-calibrate our perceptual comforts. It is acces- eration to analyze or meditate from the gut should sible, but not easy. In enacting such a proposal, one not be disregarded, but treated instead as a loaded actively refuses to adhere to Western epistemologi- means for the willing construction of a relationship cal conventions, thereby surrounding its imple- spanning delicate intimacy to aggressive loathing. mentation with the anxious, uncomfortable, and Or nothing at all! What’s important is that you’ve foreign. To acknowledge the sensory as an achiev- tried. It’s a willing step past cultural comforts that able framework demands one to welcome proximity, favor learning through distanced, “objective”, gazing. S. & P. Liveness 40,41 You’ve adopted a sensory mindfulness, putting your- ensued when the artist 14 Di Benedetto, Ibid., 131. began chasing viewers 15 Jennifer Fisher, “Tangible self in a continual, energetic state of physiological, around the courtyard Acts: Touch Performances,” emotional, and psychological openness in which trying to hug them. My in The Senses in mentor was hit in the back Performance, eds. Sally questions, gestures, and proposals are responded with a pickle. This was my Banes and André Lepecki to with an activated embodiment. Within such pro- parents’ introduction to (New York: Routledge, performance art and to 2007), 173. posal lies possibility in and for a sensual inquiry and this day, my Dad when 16 Fisher, “Tangible Acts: an inquiry of the sensual that is such a worthwhile thinking about it, still Touch Performances,” 173. endeavor. bursts into uncontrollable 17 Richard Schechner, laughter. “Rasaesthetics,” in The 11 Stephen Di Benedetto, Senses in Performance, “Guiding Somatic eds. Sally Banes and 1 David Howes. “Introduction: 9 See Peggy Phelan, “The Responses within André Lepecki (New York: Empire of the Senses,” in Ontology of Performance: Performative Structures: Routledge, 2007), quoting Empire of the Senses: The representation without Contemporary Live Art and Partridge 13. Sensual Cultural. reproduction,” in Sensorial Perception,” in 18 Schechner, “Rasaesthetics,” 2 David Howes. “Introduction: Unmarked: The Politics of The Senses in Performance, 13. Empire of the Senses,” 3. Performance (New York: eds. Sally Banes and 19 Schechner, Ibid., 13. 3 Howes, Ibid. Routledge, 1993). André Lepecki (New York: 20 Aristotle’s Poetics and the 4 Howes, Ibid., 9. 10 Every time I get into Routledge, 2007), 127. NS, while differing in 5 Sally Banes, “Olfactory the zone of explaining 12 “From Appropriation to several crucial ways, can Performances,” in The the performative, I am Infiltration: Accessing the still be considered parallel Senses in Performance, flung back to the opening Public through Tactical texts for comparative ed. Sally Banes and of a small group show I Media”, SMFA Graduate analysis. They both are André Lepecki (New York: was in at a friend’s cozy Colloquium featuring Bill considered seminal towards Routledge, 2007). LA gallery several years Drummond, Steve Lambert, their respected theatrical 6 Howes, Ibid., 9. ago. A visiting artist from Eva and Franco Mattes, histories and continue to 7 C. Nadia Serematakis, The Germany was doing a Superflex and Marisa be actively interpreted. Senses Still (Boulder: performance piece outside Olsen organized by Jordan Schechner, Ibid., 12. Westview Press, Inc., 1994). in which she sat in a small Tynes and Nate Harrison, 21 Schechner, Ibid. 8 The binary relationship Styrofoam hut and told April 4th, 2011 held at 22 Schechner, Ibid., 13. between a live and digitally an ambiguous narrative the Museum of Fine Arts, 23 Schechner, Ibid., 12. mediated act is not as as she dropped food Boston. 24 Schechner, Ibid., 16. clearly defined as it used over her head. The piece 13 Di Benedetto, “Guiding to be. See Philip Auslander, reached climax when she Somatic Responses within Liveness: Performance in burst from the house to Performative Structures: a Mediatized Culture, 2nd thoroughly douse herself Contemporary Live Art and ed. (New York: Routledge, in pickles, chocolate, Sensorial Perception,” 124; 2008). jam, and the like. Panic my italics. 42,43 TEXT, Two (2) Cultural Producers of the Sensual-Political 44,45 → Populations of artists have championed the non- retinal aesthetic experience to communicate, share and contest knowledge.25 These enthusiastic experi- mentations of smells, tastes, textures, and sounds continue to offer an effective blow towards the Western sensory hierarchy that guides and defines our relationship to the senses. Today, projects from Natalie Jermijenko and Conflict Kitchen employ performative-sensory tactics that are elaborate, par- ticipatory, and tantalizing. The “visual” in visual arts assuredly reminds us of the emphasis on eyes as primary mediators for aesthetic gestures. Jermijenko and Conflict Kitchen’s projects com- plicate such vernacular. An analysis of these artists’ contributions provides us with a diversity of con- ceptual interests that insist upon engagement of the sensual as primary means to communicate political realities. Jermijenko and Conflict Kitchen’s artistic practices enthusiastically flex popular definitions of performance to employ, conflate, and mix up materials and presentational tactics within and well beyond the art world. Qualities of liveness become a foundation in which to create and share aesthetic gestures exploring the politics of place and the polit- ical othered. Dinner parties and food stands reframe popular spaces for social rituals into forums for experimentation among tasty consumption. These projects, while borrowing familiar formats, deny predictability as taste buds mediate conceptions of 2 Cultural Producers... 46,47 place. Political realities are communicated by bodily Participants communicate with geese by controlling engaging the viewer-turned-taster. These artists robotic counterparts. Emergency parking zones are effectively puncture such assumption of the domi- re-imagined as micro-ecological climates. A freely nance of the seen as primary means in which to accessible database educates on labor conditions experience and learn. The sensory and sensual posi- and environmental impacts of popular consumer tions the viewer into a space of bodily mindfulness, products.27 Often utilizing public space as a plat- a potent yet underestimated space for education. form for promoting an alternative ecological mind- Today, cultural producers like Jermijenko and fulness, these works are necessarily participatory, Conflict Kitchen embrace collaboration both within where unexpected and profound sensory relation- and far beyond the conventional art communities. ships are fostered and intensified for the viewer. Jermijenko’s professional practice emerges as a won- derfully complicated amalgamation of the arts, sci- Jermijenko’s Cross(X)Species ence, engineering, and design. With a background Adventure Club... in all of the aforementioned fields, her practice takes the form of experiments and proposals that seek to The Cross(X)Species Adventure Club is a col- address the changing and contested state of eco- laborative and performative project under the logical sustainability within contemporary urban Environmental Health Clinic umbrella. The model space. Jermijenko is currently the Director of the of the dinner party is adopted to educate the taster Environmental Health Clinic, an organization that of ecological and political realities that challenge “develops and prescribes locally optimized and play- notions of species hierarchy and sustainable respon- ful strategies to effect remediation of environmental sibility. The Adventure Club is “an experience of systems, producing measurable and mediagenic the depth and complexity of our interconnections evidence and coordinating diverse projects to effec- with nonhumans, exploring the web that traces our tive material change.”26 The clinic is an experimen- gastronomic, economic and material interdepen- tal organization that emphasizes local resources to dency with butterflies, snails, geese, bats and other realize progressive ecological reform. The resulting intelligent and delicious creatures”.28 These din- projects are fascinating and creative materializations ner parties playfully instigate conversation on deep of the scientific, artistic, and practical that compli- political and philosophical issues about identity and cate presumed species and ecological hierarchies. relationships, while embracing tasty desire. For 2 Cultural Producers... 48,49 these works, Jermijenko teams up with molecular as a gelatinized semi-solid, taking the shape and gastronomist Mihir Desai to adopt the format of texture of an edible fishing lure.29 Commercial an extravagant, multiple course dinner party with lure molds were used and filled with the assumed, introductory workshop. These feasts are ongoing, tasty components of gin and tonic along with gel- nomadically moving to and from art institutions and lan and chitanase. The addition of these latter related organizations. Each dinner focuses on a dif- ingredients extended the potential eater beyond ferent theme and through a combination of lectures, the human. Gellan was used for the lure’s gummy courses, textures, smells, and conversation, pressing base and chitanase is an extract from chitin, the ecological issues are explored. Two recent dinners second most plentiful material in the world. Upon in Boston were titled Air Quality + the Qualities of being ingested (by human or fish), it binds to accu- Air and Water: Scarcity, Stress + Security. mulated metals (like mercury) and PCBs (a toxic The Oil Spill meal—taking place on August 21st, organic compound). In feeding a fish the Oil Spill 2010 in a gallery space at the Neuberger Museum of lure, the chitanase works to pass out harmful ele- Art affiliated with Purchase College, State University ments into harmless salt. Jermijenko considers the of New York—provocatively reflects Jermijenko’s lures as “targeted drug delivery” interventions that pursuits in utilizing the sensory and sensual as are fed to fish and then eventually eaten by humans. embodied affecters towards learning. The BP Oil The cocktail lures then result in positive and tasty Spill in the Gulf of Mexico became a starting point affect for both fish and humans. “We’re addressing for Jermijenko and Desai to explore interconnec- their health and we’re augmenting their nutritional tions between the human and nonhuman. The value and resources, which we depleted in the first menu utilized ingredients from animals and plants place with an urban design of hard edges and no that incorporated oil and involved wetland ecosys- shorelines.”30 The lures become, literally, a politi- tems. The evening began with a workshop in which cized and progressive ecological retaliation towards participants were introduced to the technical, con- the negative effects of development on the aquatic ceptual, and symbolic components of the dinner: ecosystem. The gin and tonic lures are tasty, playful, molecular gastronomy, biological nutrient cycling, and iridescent.31 Molecular gastronomic processes and the ecological effects of the oil spill. And then re-constitute a seemingly harmless and conven- the meal began with several courses with drink pair- tional cocktail, turning fluid into a gelatinized and ings. A gin and tonic cocktail was re-constituted alcoholic treat for an eater of the flesh or scaled 2 Cultural Producers... 50,51 variety. Jermijenko and Desai’s cocktail becomes which conversation, reception, and inquiry vibrate a memorable introduction and symbolic gesture from diner to artist to diner. Meaning in this sense of the Adventure Club’s prerogative to use food is facilitated by Jermijenko, but is constructed col- and the senses to foster and seduce one towards lectively over the course of the dinner party as eaters the realizable and poetic potential for interspecies digest literal proposals of environmental progress. sustainability. The senses work in concert with each other, spear- The Cross(X)Species Adventure Club dinners headed by taste, directed towards an education of implement an elaborate and enticing choreography the cross-species and ecologically interconnected. of play, participation, production, and presentation. Since the mid 1990s, molecular gastronomy The sensory and sensual become primary means to has become an institutionalized culinary prac- engage with a research-driven exploration of con- tice though we must remember that the chef’s job temporary ecological realities. In marrying the per- is always first and foremost to serve tasty food. formative, sensual, and political with the molecular Undeniably, throughout Oil Spill, the food vibrates gastronomic, these dinner parties present an aes- between attraction and repulsion, familiarity and thetic experience that pleases the eyes as much as strangeness. The cliché of us eating with our eyes the palate, fingers, and nose. Food is transformed reaches affirmative potency as elaborately plated and reconstituted at the molecular level to symboli- dishes tantalize with unexpected textures, colors, cally and literally gesture to the personal and cor- and scents. The Parmesan foam looks as fluffy and porate. Textures and materials are as diverse as they rich as a canned whip cream. Notions of desire and are familiar, conventional as they are experimental. curiosity are peaked via molecular gastronomic Such playful balance of knowns and unknowns cre- processes. The changing relationship between pro- ates a productively curious taster. Oil Spill presented duction, presentation, and taste keeps one guessing a call for progressive changes to improve interspe- and embracing the unpredictable with hungry, open, cies ecological relationships through experimen- and confused mouth. Expectations are abandoned tal, educational, and edible measures. One can get as provocative questions manifest as edible bites. caught up, overwhelmed, and enamored by the sheer How does cross-species interdependency alter, sup- complexity and luxury of these dinner parties, yet port or destabilize relationships of power and sur- one has to respect the scale in which they occur.32 vival? How can our expectations and comforts of There is an intimacy that allows for a context in taste be challenged in a way that topples presumed 2 Cultural Producers... 52,53 species hierarchies? What does pollution taste Rubin, Dawn Weleski, and John Peña and only like? What does an oil spill taste like? The gin and serves food from countries with which the United tonic lures poetically exemplify these ideas making States is in conflict.33 Every several months, Conflict unforeseen ecological connections between human Kitchen changes moniker and culinary geographic and fish deliciously clear through taste, consump- identity to offer a cultural variation on the sandwich, tion, digestion, and excretion. The diner eats a considered an accessible “everyman’s food”.34 As gellied lure-as-cocktail equally suitable for a scaled I type this, Conflict Kitchen is La Cochina Arepas, audience. Instead of being used to catch the fish, serving three different kinds Venezuelan stuffed the lure is made edible and contains ingredients corn cakes for five dollars each. The two previ- that when ingested remove hazardous materials ous iterations of the kitchen-take-out shop have for the fish and then for its eventually human eater. served Afghani bolani, which are savory turnovers This feedback cycle is understood and imagined and Iranian kubideh, a spice ground beef sandwich through a playful alcoholic kick from a progressive with basil, mint, and onion. Future iterations plan gummy worm. The diners, heightened through taste, to showcase dishes from Cuba and North Korea. A embody the fish. Eating the wiggly worm and hav- variety of tactics ranging from design, participation, ing the chitinase bind and remove internal hazard- and community events present a local hub facilitat- ous elements, yields physically and symbolically, a ing discourse with and education about “enemy” unique cross-species emphatic understanding. Such countries as proclaimed by current American for- intimate relationship operating on multiple levels eign policy. The participant’s approach, interaction, across diverse sensual formats ensures and demands and departure from the kitchen define a smalls- the fostering of an intimate relationship, communi- caled journey, guided by taste and appetite, into cating the political. the “enemy” den. A hand-held savory treat becomes entry point into learning about a contested other. Conflict Kitchen... Conflict Kitchen adopts multiple formats from the arts, educational platforms, and food services. Similar to Jermijenko’s dinner parties, taste Breaking from the professional expectations of a becomes a mediator of the political at Conflict take-out eatery, Conflict Kitchen utilizes both con- Kitchen, a take-out foodway in Pittsburgh, PA. The ventional and unconventional resources to spark kitchen/store-front is a project from artists Jon and maintain conversations with politically othered, 2 Cultural Producers... 54,55 “enemy” communities. A primary element of Conflict eatery. Through eye-catching design and a playful Kitchen—one that it shares with the Cross(X) cutout aesthetic, the façade is an enticing, politically Species Adventure Club—is the successful imple- charged beacon. The Conflict Kitchen is an atten- mentation of aesthetics and design. The graphic tion seeker and high visibility is achieved through identity of each shop utilizes attractive and minimal the smart and enticing balance of familiarity and patterns adorned with vivid colors. The design is unfamiliarity, played out through aesthetics and lan- beautiful, simplistic, and memorable, easily attract- guage. The clever combination of architecture, color, ing unsuspecting passers-by. Such bold aesthet- and design elements visually infiltrate public space ics predominantly come into play with the stand’s tantalizing one to investigate, taste, and learn. façade. The kitchen’s flat, wooden face is installed The passers-by have been enticed. Their hunger against the dull, everyday brick wall behind it. The pangs are calling, they have decided to approach, Cochina Arepas front is adorned with vibrant, geo- inquire, and order. The arepas are small, portable metric, warm-toned strips on a cool purple ground. and easy to eat. One can stay or go. A critical design Hovering off the wall, it is an amazing sight, allur- element, replacing the usual greasy, semi-clear ing the eyes and nose as roasting spices waft from paper is noticeably different from the assumed sand- the service window. The façade is a unique and wich wrapper. This wrapper works logistically in highly noticeable architectural intervention. About needing to present, hold, and transport the arepa, the size of a single story storefront, it has a central- while functioning as an important tool to contextu- ized service window, covered by an awning. Two alize the edible. The design motif is applied to the foldout high tables propped up by wooden supports wrapper, printed in color on double-sided, thick- pop out from the patterned wall. Text plays a criti- stock paper. On one side is the graphic identity of cal role, both formally and symbolically, with the the shop while on the other is a series of interviews kitchen’s name always spelled in the language of the taken from the community in question. Graphically “conflict” country. While secondary circular signs on laid out into neat, segmented and legible squares of each side of the service window contextualize the text, the eater reads the preferences of foreign oth- changing kitchen’s name in English, the prominence ers. Their opinions towards government, teas, films, of the foreign title is bold and arresting. Foreign and perceptions of the United States spark the con- alphabets like Arabic proudly proclaim and welcome tinuation of a dialogue. A throw-away paper vessel a Pittsburghian public to a not so familiar take-out is developed into beautiful and cherished takeaway 2 Cultural Producers... 56,57 poster reflecting humanized meditations from the for an intrigue made realizable through continued banal to the political. The wrapper becomes savored dialogue over screenings and chats. It is a produc- footnote to the sandwich. It is an informal and edu- tive and tantalizing cycle contingent on the sensory cational artifact, purveying the thoughts, feelings, and sensual as refreshed and renewed via public and frustrations of persons across the globe with foodway intervention. Through taste and additional whom you’ve just shared a meal. It asks the eater to opportunities for participation, the eater is cast into spend more time in their culinary investigation. It is a space promoting an investment in learning that aide to a potent and powerful symbolic act in tast- counters cultural and political othering. ing the “enemy”. And as is always the case with food Contrasting popular media representation and taste, the possibility for surprise and desire are of “enemy” countries, Conflict Kitchen chal- locked into the eater’s experience. lenges through the intimate and bodily. Food and As the many layers of Conflict Kitchen’s intent taste become points of access and relation for an are revealed by spending time with the take-out abstracted threat as defined by the American indus- food and at the site, it becomes clear that the space trial military complex. In the present polarized is much more than a design-savvy pop-up eatery. American political climate, fear and anxiety have In opposition to popular media’s short, sweet, and been normalized. Conflict Kitchen provides a plat- swayed depiction of these enemy countries, Conflict form fore fronting the edible to destabilize assump- Kitchen offers the opportunity to invest time as a tions eked on by pop-cultural representation and means to foster cross-cultural and politically infused mainstream news. The arepas, bolani, and kubideh relationships with another. There are numerous are tasty symbols from cultures declared as enemy outlets for a durational and sustained means of others. Conflict Kitchen offers these sandwiches as communication and education with these places, means to connect, relate, and identify. This ges- cultures, and communities. Meals and conversations ture rewards the hungry and curious with tasty and are facilitated over Skype. There are film screen- unique means to alternatively access a contested ings and the exchanges of YouTube playlists. These foreign place. At first, through smart and seductive are virtual gestures that forge relationships through design and presentation the participant is tantalized. conversation and highlight the edible offerings as And then desire and intrigue follow. What does the a means to relate by way of taste and sustenance. enemy eat? What does the enemy taste like? Flavor’s In turn the cultural differences become instigators geo-political tint resounds, bite after bite. Whether 2 Cultural Producers... 58,59 the eater loves or loathes the sandwiches they have fluoresces really well.” “Cross-Species Dining: been affected via the sensory and sensual to relate An Interview with Natalie to, identify with, and learn about a deeply politicized Jermijenko and Mihir Desai.” 32 These dinners are not site. They have entered into a Pittsburgh space in cheap. Oil Spill tickets were which the edible makes way to discover the human- 125 dollars per person. While this undeniably ity of another. creates a socioeconomic distinction for those able and not able to participate, Jermijenko addresses this in a captivating way through language. An 25 Time permitting I would Adventures,” www. element on the invitation have loved to include Tellez environmentalhealthclinic. page reads: “INVEST in and Sierra’s practices. I net/ooz/projects/xspecies. a biodiverse future”. urge you to look them 29 A primary component of Participation becomes an up: Javier Tellez’s Letters molecular gastronomic investment, cerebrally, to the Blind for Those cooking is the use of politically, and financially, Who Can See, 2007, in scientific processes to helping to craft, challenge, relationship to sight, transform ingredient and improve upon and Santiago Sierra’s materiality, often Jermijenko’s experiments. performances using paid producing new and 33 “Conflict Kitchen,” www. day laborers, particularly, unexpected textures conflictkitchen.org. The Wall of a Gallery Pulled such as a gummified gin 34 Erika Beras, “A Taste of Iran, Out, Inclined 60 Degrees and tonic. These tactics Whipped Up In The ‘Conflict from the Ground and present food for the diner Kitchen’,” NPR, www.npr. Sustained by 5 People, that are unusual, highly org/templates/story/story. 2000, in relationship to aestheticized, mysterious, php?storyId=128172025. smell. and whimsical. 26 “Natalie Jermijenko,” www. 30 “Cross-Species Dining: environmentalhealthclinic. An Interview with Natalie net/people/natalie- Jermijenko and Mihir Desai,” jeremijenko. www.ediblegeography.com/ 27 For a total list of projects cross-species-dining-an- under the Environmental interview-with-natalie- Health Clinic visit www. jermijenko-and-mihirdesai. environmentalhealthclinic. 31 “I don’t know how much net. the fish like gin and tonic, 28 “Cross(x)Species but people do, and tonic 60,61 TEXT, The Visitor 62,63 → In departing from the familiar, we place our- selves within an active negotiation of the comfort- able and the uncomfortable. Under the phenom- enological assault of the foreign and unknown, our excited anticipations smack thickly onto streets, on which we are lost and mystery foods steered clear of. Influencing the visitor is the symbolic, mediat- ing with awesome affect, the relationship with the visited. The tourist-as-visitor is an opportune, acces- sible, and relatable figure in which to explore the interrelationships between symbolic sway, comfort/ discomfort, and the fostering of agency. There is no better, popular context of departure from the familiar than the trip, an economically primed outlet for the temporary encounter of difference. For the visitor, the act of sightseeing becomes rep- resentative of the “totalizing tourist endeavor”.35 Dean MacCannell’s call for an ethics of sightsee- ing is a call for tourist agency in the face of the popular and seductive symbolic value entrenched within tourist attractions like the Eiffel Tower and Grand Canyon. These influencing symbolic values— revered and known often to a scale of the global— foster, entrench, and perpetuate expectations and comforts for the sightseer. An ethics of sightseeing sparks an awareness of the crushing weight of the symbolic as it influences our plans, reactions, and attempts at commemorating the other. How do we adhere to popular cultural and political mechanisms The Visitor 64,65 for experiencing foreign place? To what degree do attachments to place are not felt or realized until notions of comfort, defined from the home place, one has left. guide the making and sticking-to of itineraries? The home place has a warmth not necessarily And when the visitor’s hunger pangs strike, are they steeped in sentimentality, but quite capable of evok- capable of perceiving the totalizing influence of the ing the bitter or sweet nostalgic. We get homesick. I popular symbolic to reclaim tourist agency? These am homesick. Into my third year of Boston-living, questions lend towards an exploration of the com- I think about my home on a daily basis. It is not a plex psychological, emotional, and social variables at geographically specific site, but rather a muddled play for the tourist visitor. It is most definitely a role cocktail. Undergrad in LA’s west side, my fam- to be believed in, but also one to apply pressure to ily home on the edge of Orange County, my par- with the intent of shifting approaches in participa- ents, closest friends, the almost burning skin to tion, experience, and commemoration. sun, salt water scent and so many other bits known Be it a week or year, we temporarily depart from and unknown, forgotten and remembered. For a deeply embedded system of comfort and familiar- me, home becomes, in the most concrete sense, a ity. Where do we even begin in defining the home mixtape under constant edit, on shuffle and repeat. place? We are left among a lifetime’s web of subjec- Do I define it using geography? Sounds? Tastes? tive associations, assumptions, histories, and inti- Persons? Cars models? It’s a home to which I can- macies. Lucy Lippard speaks beautifully to a site’s not return because it doesn’t exist anymore. Yet I deep influence as an accumulator.36 Conceptions of still long for it daily. Not all of us have such privi- place gather slowly with molasses-like flow; desires, lege in positive associations of the home space. It is complications, and mythologies are both singularly a loaded notion, embedded with histories of gender, and collectively added to. The uniqueness of place labor, sex, and politics. It is a site of power, submis- is built up with changing communities of people, sion, argument, safety, danger, and love. For now, burger joints, and schools. To live in or within a I’ll veer my definition away from the domestic to place lends to the building up of time, hours, weeks, emphasize the familiar, known and comfortable.37 years, lifetimes. The resulting sense of familiarity is Lippard calls it the lure of the local resulting from intense and powerfully affecting, often hopelessly an accumulation of time. So when we do venture off, rooted within one’s bones. It clutches, staying with be it for pleasure, escape, or excited immersion into us when we depart, momentarily or forever. Often a foreign history, we depart from the familiar. We The Visitor 66,67 call the dog sitter and keep one light on. While away steady pressure of cultural and political authority as we send email updates, upload images, and write means to further entrench and validate an epistemo- postcards. Confidently running in sync with the logical foundation for Western institutions ranging trip are such sweet earwhisperings from home. The from the academic to the pop cultural. The Western safe and celebrated return then momentarily caps construction of the other then is necessarily contin- things off. We can celebrate, return to our routines gent on learning and communication as a political and begin preparation for the next departure. The force for oppression and marginalization. “No no, home’s influence, paramount and seductive, reminds let me speak for you. I know better,” the colonizer of a security at the physical and emotional. And it (occident) says to the colonized (orient). will wait patiently for your return. The postcolonial lens spawns from colonial his- Before outlining the trajectory and qualities of tories in which geographic domination forced a con- the sightseeing act, we must define notions of other- flict of disparate communities of the colonizer and ness and the symbolic, working together as a ful- colonized. Such sentiments continue today at more crum around which shifting notions of tourist com- subtle degrees. In the tourists search for otherness, fort and discomfort revolve. When we depart from place becomes the great encapsulator. Within other the home place, we subject ourselves, often with place are bodies, customs, food, and languages; it great excitement and expectation, towards encoun- is the “ultimate destination”, a symbolic shelter for tering another, re-framed as an other when under- all tourists.40 For the visitor, away and encountering stood from the political lens of postcolonialism. The the other, there exists a complicated power relation- postcolonial critique, spearheaded by Edward Said’s ship between the tourist and local, with inescap- Orientalism emphasizes how a Western assertion of able cultural, economic, and political associations. superiority positions the non-Western as different, Between the gap of the visitor and visited exists the inferior, backwards, and therefore othered.38 Such potential in either perpetuating problematic divi- claims of superiority span across notions of sex, the sions or rather, capitalizing on such privilege with body, and the progress of the nation-state to name a gratitude and enthusiasm to learn and experience a few.39 Whatever the forum for marginalization through conversation. of the non-Western, the other’s difference is mani- Existing between the space of one and another fest as means to maintain cultural, intellectual, and is the symbolic. For the Tourist, the symbolic is political domination. Orientalist belief implements a mediator towards otherness, and as such, is often The Visitor 68,69 apprehended to keep the visitor within the realm of cultural capital of learned globetrotters that desire the safe, expected, and comfortable. Resort grounds a “deeper” experience. The search for the “authen- bring in local community members to perform cul- tic” becomes judge and validator, a marker of an tural identity with an accompanying buffet. Tourist assumed cultural legitimacy. Todd Kliman beauti- bureaus helpfully facilitate the navigation of cultural fully complicates the trivial and unfortunate search landmarks. Guidebooks exist in growing num- for the “authentic” within the restaurant world.42 bers and editions to carve popular pathways. As Italian born, New York-based chef, Mario Carbone close as we would like to get to understanding and serves dishes of curved cavatelli with Jamaican ragu approaching another, be it with sightseeing or mar- and Jewish crostini. For Carbone, Tuscan cook- riage, the latter borrowing MacCannnell’s uncom- ing is utilizing local materials towards a craft that’s promising application, symbols exist between us. infused with the comforts and rigors of home. An We are subject to the influence, enragement, and authentic Italian meal for this chef then exists with seduction of what surrounds us. Six years ago, I the heartfelt, impassioned culinary improvisations stood before a sparkling Eiffel Tower and my asser- that use diverse, local ingredients from an equally tion that I must be a bonafide romantic, twenty-year diverse city. It is the enthusiastic embrace of the old study-abroad traveler materialized in my mind local as motivator and valued ingredient. To do and rushed to my bones, giving extra boost to tired away with the crusade for the authentic is to come footsteps. For the tourist, popular symbolic values to terms with the ubiquity of the symbolic. It can are globally applauded and asserted. The search for promote playful inquiry, stupefied awe, or uneasy “authenticity” promotes tourist desires to “bypass distrust. Across the expansive spectrum of affect the the symbolic and enter into a complete, open, fully symbolic is at work and understanding and identify- authentic relation with another.”41 ing its presence is the first step towards invoking an This search for authenticity is happily responded ethics of sightseeing. to by the tourism industry. Clever rhetoric is incor- For the sightseer, the symbolic facilitates expec- porated into guides, “not for tourists”. The “authen- tations met, pleasures satisfied, pictures taken, and tic” experience is the hopeless search for what’s dangers avoided. The sightseeing experience is behind the curtains. There’s the unfortunate and a totalizing endeavor. It does not discriminate in unnecessary terminological distinction between the terms of class, gender, age or profession and consis- “tourist” and the “traveler”, the later coated with the tently satisfies. All tourists are good at sightseeing. The Visitor 70,71 It warmly embraces and is tourism’s default.43 value at these attractions. There is a collective power Sightseeing results from the tourist’s desire to ethi- and affecting social value that is continually vali- cally connect with someone or something other as dated by the sheer number of visitors at a site.46 As an attraction.44 Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, Rebecca Solnit defines, footprints forge and main- Vatican City, Auschwitz, The Salton Sea. While the tain pathways, the best ways to traverse a landscape attempt in fostering such connection reaches a peak that follows the prior interpretations of another.47 moment upon the physical arrival before the attrac- Visiting Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, six tion, such moment is just one step among many years ago, I remember the line of visitors waiting to across the sightseer’s trajectory, spanning time and ceremonially rub the bronze foot of a sculpted fig- space. The sightseer’s path is circular. Simplified, ure. Worn down to a smooth, dulled polish, the foot we can divide it into three segments: home was adorned by millions of hands. The symbolic (departed from)—attraction—home (returned value of this sculpture and its performed ritual of to). Anticipation builds in preparation. Hotels are respect had weathered a pathway so deep, skin worn booked, itineraries are made, but always of most bronze. Symbolic meaning is made concrete with importance is the safe return home.45 Photos are an inexhaustible athleticism over centuries. Its value downloaded and shared, stories told, the dog picked and meaning are refreshed hourly with rituals per- up from the sitter. The arrival completes the trip. formed by visitors across cultures and ages. Mission successful. These hopes for such return Photography, social networking, travel litera- hum in the background while away, influencing a ture, film, pop-cultural manifestations and the travel standard for and of safety, expectation, and comfort. industry operate with power to support and define Sightseeing’s totalizing qualities result largely the attraction’s singular symbolic meaning. Consider from crafting a set of familiar footprints that the the Leaning Tower. Embedded in our collective tourist can readily follow. It is the gathering of imaginations is that god-forsaken pose. A gesture reconnaissance as means for navigation of the unfa- performed hundreds if not thousands of times a miliar. Guidebook suggestions, landmarks, blog day becomes physical manifestation of the tower’s posts or word of mouth recommendations become symbolic influence. I arrive via bus and follow the respected sources for and of preparation. I use the person in front of me, snaking through clustered footprint metaphor to help visualize how the tourist packs of vendors and visitors. Past a gate everything physically perpetuates and reinforces the symbolic opens up into a walled expanse of soft green grass The Visitor 72,73 surrounding two enormous architectural structures. stands in the presence of the attraction: One is a beautiful white church, the other behind it, a tower slanted at such familiar angle. I stand in Anticipation peaks. The first glimpse of the presence of one of the most photographed build- the objective, or in a group tour, the first ings in the world and it is overwhelming. The real person to see it, is conferred as a special thing! I will most definitely not contribute to the status. The pace quickens and arguments terabyte-sized .jpeg library of the photo, yet for a about directions become more intense. moment, I toy with the notion. The sightseer arrives The risks of misidentifying the objective before the presence of the attraction and meaning increase and they suddenly and dramati- is fostered (and photograph taken) as seductively cally decrease when everyone is certain influenced by the popular symbolic. What then is they have arrived. The need for verifica- the symbolic value of the Leaning Tower for the tion, the world from a knowledgeable tourist? Definition is co-constructed by the limitless guide or official plaque becomes intense. number of fellow visitors amassing “participatory” When all these matters are successfully photographs. The tower is an uncanny architectural dealt with the sightseeing event occurs.48 blunder that provides the visitor with a photographic opportunity to physically perform an act of sup- The arrival, like a first kiss, is a moment loaded with port. Like the Mona Lisa, such quantity of image anxious nervousness, excitement, and the hopes for reproduction provides the sightseer with the unique successful recognition. And not to worry because and privileged experience to stand before it, in all its with continual success, the attraction’s symbolic awesome glory and photographically contribute to a value garners immense collective support. A photo- global mythology. graphic army of tower-leaners dumping lighter fluid Attractions evoke a monumentality that sur- onto a fire, blazing on. At stake for the sightseer, passes scale, material, or age. The sightseeing under the influence of the symbolic, is forging a experience in total, from preparation to return, is meaningful relationship to visited place. The sight- abundant with expectations and desires fostered and seeing experience is the totalizing tourist endeavor supported by the symbolic relationship between the because it effectively negotiates the precarious dan- visitor and the place. The desire in forging a mean- gers of the unknown and unfamiliar. For Dean ingful connection is most potent when the tourist MacCannell, such trajectory is at an ethical loss, The Visitor 74,75 removing any sense of agency or opportunity for tourist landscape, not “Off”, but “On the Beaten the sightseer to construct meaning from his or her Track”, in which the readily observed can be co- own subjective passions and inquiries. The sightseer opted into forging meaningful, political, and spiritual then allows the symbolic to overpower and shape connections.50 It activates one’s participation, posi- their consciousness. They are made “mere ciphers tioning them as a co-writer to their traveling nar- from arrangements made for them.”49 The ethi- rative, rather than falling silent to an overwhelming cal sightseer perceives the benefits, the limits, and and affirming influence convincingly materialized the awesome effect of the symbolic. They respond when standing in the presence of attractions. accordingly, actively contributing to their traveling experience. Exemplifying a means of acknowledg- Hunger as Diversion, or a ing and reacting to the symbolic, MacCannell pro- Wrench-in-the-Gears... poses the relationship between landscape and place. Place hosts the attraction, in this case, the Leaning Piercing through the sway of the popular symbolic Tower. Landscape is what is overlooked, mere filler are the sightseers’ hunger pangs. Away from home, on the way from the Tower to the Bargello. It’s the food, taste, and flavor become points of confronta- blurring green and grey out of a bus window, seen tion between the visitor and the other. The foreign over headphone’d ears. The ethical sightseer is aware exterior is internalized through chewing, swallow- of such territorialization of space and acts accord- ing, gulping, ingesting. Swirling around the bodily ingly, seeking out meaningful connections and inti- act are galaxies of competing forces: the physical mate human bonds in spaces from the symbolically and the symbolic, the comfortable and the uncom- overloaded to the seemingly banal. MacCannell’s fortable, the desired and the repulsed. The hungry example proposes a sightseer that embraces an active visitor must try to gracefully negotiate these exag- perceptual balance between the popular and the gerated binaries while maintaining safety, danc- everyday, the globally celebrated and the happen- ing around expectation, and pursuing the edible stance observed, the expected and the unpredictable. pleasurable. What’s at stake in properly seeking It is a proposition for a sightseer phenomenology that nourishment is the energy and drive to keep going, is excitedly engaged and is reflexive towards self- to keep one on his or her feet. Hunger grows with defined and wandering sightseer interests. Lippard every step taken, every photograph snapped, and titles her book on reconsidering the contemporary every nap woken up from on the train. The visitor’s The Visitor 76,77 trajectory then can be understood as physiologi- hungry mouth. cally fixed along a spectrum between hunger and I float back to Paris, Earth, after realizing my fullness. Rocking back and forth between each end romantic prophecy, but must stop staring at twin- is the constant reminder of the body’s most basic kling lights because I’m hungry and alone. I head and essential operational demands. It is within and back to the hotel, but stop first at a crepe stand. You around the messy, liminal states of hunger and full- know the ones? They are small and octagonal in ness that there lies awesome potential in instilling structure: freestanding gateways to sweet or savory a tourist agency constructed upon a sincere and heaven. The crepe comfortably weighs my hand excited respect for healthy appetite. The symbolic down with freshly browned batter smelling of flour, continues from the Leaning Tower to the food sugar, and egg with just the right amount of burn. I stand in the parking lot. The hungry traveler brings bite into what’s become my go-to: the jambon, fro- with them their associations of the edible familiar mage and oeuf. I walk away from the stall in an towards the frighteningly lesser known. The results induced state of slower-motioned bliss. Was I going can stall participation or open a dialogue. The best somewhere? Isn’t it this where I was headed? Yes, I and worst outcomes can change lives and topple do believe it was. At this juncture, the unpredictable one’s worldview towards food, place, and the sen- amazingness of the crepe explodes past desires and sual. Obsessed love for or brutal aversion to vis- expectations, flinging me deeper into the Parisan ited foods also lend towards the construction of a popular symbolic. “Yes, you have to eat a crepe at relationship of distinction between the visitor and least three times a day,” I still say to friends, Paris- the visited. Such manifestation as argued by Pierre bound. “…and it’s such a good deal!” Bourdieu, can be entrenched within issues of class To consume the edible invokes the intimate and and social prestige.51 These are just are few variables personal, and is equally a collective and ideologi- that unmistakably affect the hungry visitor at the cally charged act. The physical butts up against the psychological as much as the bodily. As MacCannell symbolic and the eater is left in a privileged position beautifully argues, the symbolic sway of attractions to spend time reconciling the relationship between is intensely seductive, capable of removing any mor- the two. Of course the reason we’re here is the real- sel of sightseer subjectivity while away. It is then at ity that such memorable crepe-induced, basking- the food stall or dinner table that the symbolic can in-the-good-lord’s-warmth moments are peppered be identified and confronted with gaping maw of a among scenarios of fear, anxiety, indecision, and a The Visitor 78,79 most unfortunate unwillingness to try. Internalizing other fare. There is a powerful relationship between the exterior is plump with notions of anxiety and inclusion and exclusion, reflecting class divisions, unease.52 Our bodies are programmed, facilitated by that is facilitated in great part around the dinner taste, to avoid the ingestion of harmful substances table. The foodie trend reflects a community of and keep us breathing. Sensory reactions to bit- hungry individuals, actively seeking out the “authen- terness and rotting meat are physiological survival tic” and “exotic” as means to strengthen culinary alarms. Aversions to taste can be countered, as is and cultural capital.56 For the sightseer, distaste the case with the bitterness of coffee and heat of or a refusal to try the food of the visited becomes spice.53 The symbolic can intensify aversion such means for distinction across the social, economic, as with rotting meat and its relation to death and and political. Such apprehension emerges when corporeality. The eater then must reconcile a com- the visitor finds himself or herself hungry, needing plicated interrelationship of the bodily, symbolic, to engage with the edible other, while attempting and social. The surplus of food diversity thanks to to maintain comfort, safety, and expectation. The commercial industrialization of American foodways edible welcomes those most savored moments when has constructed a consumer space for the buyer expectation is broken. That first bite of the pigtail with negative environmental consequences. Michael blowing your face off, leaving you mumbling with Pollan speaks to such a scenario when the domi- eyes rolling back. While there are numerous avenues nance of industrial agriculture affects the climate of of exploring the edible other while home, they exist global availability for the food shopper, leaving them within a space of familiarity in which the exotic is in states of indecision and anxiety.54 comfortably mediated. Outside is a street where cars One’s taste preferences and willingness to try, still drive on the right. Inside, are menus in English as Pierre Bourdieu summarizes, reflect markers of and when cross-cultural linguistic flubs present an social distinction.55 Differences in taste become embarrassing possibility for the diner, numbers are points to access social and economic differences substituted: “I’ll have forty-three please.” Eating between one and another. Often members in society in and around the home place is not without its have the social and economic means to taste and complexities, anxieties, and constant physical and try more. They are imbued with more cultural capi- emotional negotiations. For the hungry tourist, tal, or symbolic knowledge and popular savvy over away from the home place, the relationship between those who don’t have the means or simply prefer eating and survival collide and magnify such a The Visitor 80,81 precarious yet exciting balance. Understanding how to me? I could care less because now, I can breathe. food and taste facilitate and maintain a relation- Comfort food is a sigh-inducing retreat and sen- ship of distinction between the visitor and the vis- sory manifestation of the sincere. It is weakness and ited should not be pushed away or left in the hands strength and Lippard’s edible of lure of the local. of the tourist institution. Rather such inevitable And then there’s discomfort food: the edible characteristics, mediated by the symbolic, can be unfamiliar, strange and suspect. It is balut, blood re-calibrated as a point for active insertion. The sausage, mayonnaise, Cracker Barrel. It is an edible awareness of difference becomes a point of access other that intimidates and disgusts. Food encoun- and willingness to try. The unfortunate alternative is tered by the traveler is constantly negotiated under for the visitor to teeter into the anxious and fearful, the symbolic influence of the personal and collective. suppressing the sensory hard at work. Our own intimate dislikes and likes are preferences For the traveler, eating becomes a complex bal- gauged by the sensory. They guide our trajectories ancing act between ingesting otherness and seeking with as equal influence as friendly, popular sugges- sustenance. While away, the home place, familiar tions from the many extensions within the tourist and known becomes a concrete reference and foun- industry. Such negotiation between the symbolic dation for the happenstance and unpredictable edi- and bodily uncomfortable readily exhausts and ble. The American notion of comfort food perfectly frustrates. Through guidebooks, recommended manifests the longed for edible manifestations from entertainment, and hotel suggestions, the tour- our respected sanctuaries. Macaroni and cheese, ist is informed how to successfully maintain a safe pho, chicken and rice, meatloaf. Comfort food is distance from the edible suspicious. Consider the refreshingly subjective and ontologically infused Hawaiian Luau in which the attraction melds with within and around the home place. Safe and nos- the eating experience. Expectation, comfort, and talgic, it wraps itself around the eater like a warm, safety are met in a popularized theatrical perfor- electric blanket. It brings us back. Confused and mance of local culture.57 A primary element within exhausted from the usual grad school frustrations, I the luau is the gargantuan buffet featuring cultur- go home to an almost empty fridge and fry an egg ally “authentic” offerings like roast pig, buried in over white rice. The yolk breaks, mixing in with the the earth, fresh tuna poke and the wonderfully odd, rice, sambal olek and fried coconut serundeng. All purple taro goo, poi. The luau diner is offered the is well. Does the dish bring me home or bring home edible unknown, under the auspices of a celebratory The Visitor 82,83 performance in which any notion of fear or antago- wandered. Self-defined sightseer subjectivities are nism through intercultural consumption is avoided now guided by inquiry, adventure, the intimate, thanks to the greater presence of more familiar, and the pleasurable. During stops for sustenance, comfortable treats strewn across extravagant spread. planned or unplanned, consumption conflates the Under these circumstances, within safe hotel physical with the symbolic. Wrapped up with such grounds, the poi’s presence symbolizes the “authen- an intimate and political act is the sensory and sen- tic” more so than an actual food to be tasted.58 The sual. The proximal, up-close and personal senses edible known is just one variable of many, supported of taste, touch, and smell infiltrate the visitor’s by popular mechanisms put into place for the visi- body. Eating and food are viable and paramount tor, assuring their comfort and safety. Unique to sources for instilling agency amongst steadfast and the edible are the messy ties to one’s body and the entrenched structures that facilitate safety and com- sensory, making its relationship to the visitor one of fort. To excitedly savor, not underestimate food as intimate and immediate desire. a point of access for the visitor is to emphasize the Sightseeing demands. On the move from one sensory and sensual as means to bodily locate the attraction to the next, waxing and waning hunger taster, exploring on tired feet. It is an acknowledge- pangs remind the visitor to stop, seek sustenance, ment of the pleasures of eating that destabilizes and keep going. MacCannell’s critique of the sym- fixed assumptions. bolic is not a call for its absence from the sightseer’s trajectory, but rather towards the fostering of an ethics of sightseeing, a new perceptual approach fully aware of popularly celebrated forces at work 35 Dean MacCannell, The practices. Such was what Ethics of Sightseeing I was explicitly subject that influence desires and craft subjectivities. With (Berkeley: University of to during a fellowship great ease, the sightseer runs risk of falling into California Press, 2011), 42. at Mildred’s Lane, an 36 Lucy R. Lippard, The Lure of experimental school and seductive rhythm with popular symbolic value, cel- the Local (New York: The residency located in rural ebrated by the tourist industry, cultural institutions, New Press, 1997). eastern Pennsylvania and 37 The politically saturated co-founded and directed by the government, and other visitors. Rather, such notion of the domestic artists J. Morgan Puett and awareness prompts the proud vocalization of sight- within the home space Mark Dion, online at www. seer desires for a meaningful exchange with another, is a powerful, inspiring, mildredslane.com. and thought provoking 38 Edward Said, Orientalism found in the heavily trafficked and infrequently model for artistic and life (New York: Vintage Books, The Visitor 84,85 1978). Critique of the Judgment 39 The lists of text are of Taste, trans. Richard countless in exploring Nice (Cambridge: Harvard TEXT, these ideas at large, but University Press, 1984). considering our task 52 Peggy Lupton, Food, the at hand in relation to Body, and the Self (London: The Millenial safety, encountering Sage, 1996). otherness while away, and 53 Debra A. Zellner, “How movement, I’d recommend Foods Get to be Liked: Zeynep Celik and Leila Some General Mechanisms Kinney’s ‘“Ethnography and Special Cases,” in The and Exhibitionism at the Hedonics of Taste, ed. Expositions Universelles,” in Robert C. Bolles (Hillsdale: Assemblage 13 (Dec 1990): Lawrence Erlbaum 34-59. Associates, 1991). 40 Dean MacCannell, The 54 Michael Pollan, The Ethics of Sigthseeing, 11. Omnivore’s Dilemma: A 41 MacCannell, Ibid., 10. Natural History of Four 42 Todd Kliman, “The Problem Meals (New York: Penguin, with Authenticity,” Lucky 2006). Peach, Volume 1, Summer 55 Bordieu, Distinction. 2011, 92. 56 Josée Johnston and Shyon 43 MacCannell, Ibid., 42. Baumann, Foodies: 44 MacCannell, Ibid., 7. Democracy and Distinction 45 MacCannell, Ibid., 64. in the Gourmet Foodscape 46 MacCannell, Ibid., 45. (New York: Routledge, 47 Taken to the extreme we 2010). can think of the pilgrimage 57 See Jane C. Desmond, in such light. Rebecca “Invoking ‘The Native’: Body Solnit, Wanderlust: A Politics in Contemporary History of Walking (New Hawaiian Tourist Shows,” York: Penguin Books, 2000), The Drama Review Vol. 41, 68. No. 4 (Winter 1997): 83-109. 48 MacCannell, Ibid., 74. 58 I did try the poi. It was 49 MacCannell, Ibid., 6. pretty weird, both in taste 50 Lucy Lippard, On the and texture. Beaten Track: Tourism, Art and Place (New York: The New Press, 1999); my italics. 51 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social 86,87 → Raised within an economic climate of comfort and normalized globalized interconnectivity, the members of the Millennial generation exist with privilege and access. The Millennial’s interests, habits, and desires tease at characteristics of the nomadic. Technological innovation and social con- nectivity have fused to everyday experience, pro- moting a contemporary figure that effortlessly navigates across virtual and physical landscapes. Time becomes an anxious variable as we are always under the pressure of seeking expedient, quick, and satisfying results. Movement is efficient and pro- ductivity drives. With great creative energy, the Millennial welcomes, adapts, communicates, and continues with persistence. These generationally specific characteristics are the subject of continu- ous definition and understanding, being put to pro- ductive economic use within corporate workplace sectors that are predominately run by bosses from the postwar Baby Boomer generation. This inter- generational workplace cohabitation has and contin- ues to result in both collaborative productivity and fatigued frustration. Yet such hopeful drive towards integration has amassed a substantial amount of focus and literature within the business industry and creative sector. The Millennials—driven, entitled and motivated—are shifting conventions towards interpersonal communication, social relationships, political mindfulness, and work ethic. Consequently, The Millenial 88,89 the qualities of the Millennial can be understood desires are clearly understood when exploring the in terms of proposed choreographies of a global relationship between them and their workplace motility. employers who are most often, Baby Boomers.63 Born after 1980, members of the Millennial If you, the reader, are a Millennial like me, you generation reflect drastic societal changes towards may begin to, or already have, rolled your eyes at time, representation, and exchange. Millennials are the thought of defining our complex generation creative, liberal, enthusiastic, and open to change.59 from the lens of business. Yes, the italics imply the It is the most ethnically diverse American genera- exaggerated melodramatic. It’s easy for us to cri- tion, the least religious, and on track to becoming tique and/or dismiss the corporate, particularly as the most educated. Millennials respect their elders momentously galvanized via Occupy. I momentarily and are optimistic towards their career trajectories, roll my eyes too, given my immediate context as while fully aware of recent economic realities.60 The a soon-to-be degree certified, three-year product Millennial exists with progressive and fluid con- of the institutionalized academic, philosophical, structions of identity, desires, expectations, and the and aesthetic.64 We don’t want to dismiss the Man pursuit of happiness. They are willing to change, (outdated, I know) and unfortunate to admit, we adapt, and adjust. With voiced frustrations from don’t all seek a pursuit of ethics, social justice, and generational others, the Millennial ego is celebrated meaningful conversation. Most of us want jobs. via the entrenched ubiquity of tech-mediated com- Independence and security. The conventional busi- munication. Millennials express and speak through ness institution remains and is still hungrily sought screens of varying size at the instantaneous. Texting out. The attempt to enunciate a definition of my is preferred to face-to-face conversation, reflecting generation from the perspective of a generational drastic alternatives in language and its relation- other is to locate meaning from the collision of ship to writing, grammar, and abbreviation.61 As difference. Diverse types of businesses, from the the Baby Boomer generation ages and (hopefully) creative to the financial, are undergoing intergen- retires, there is an urgency in understanding prom- erational transitions in both flying colors and hor- ising yet often frustrating Millennial characteristics rible disaster. The Boomer business perspective has so as to promote an intergenerationally productive sough to unpack Millennial generational qualities workplace.62 of productivity, expectation, and perceived notions Important Millennial characteristics, habits and of success. Such qualities when teased out help us The Millenial 90,91 to better understand a privileged population that of the content they interact with. They moves, produces, and travels. favor random access over hierarchy and In Fuse, Jim Finkelstein and Mary Gavin pres- linearity. And they effortlessly use tech- ent a “manual to building a team that’s electrified nology to bring bodies of knowledge, by cogenenerational collaboration”.65 From that modes of thought, and abstract ideas to sentence alone, printed in skinny, bright red caps life… their culture is the petri dish of true on the inner dust cover, one can expect writing innovation.66 that celebrates Millennial mentality while balancing Boomer conventions. It is an incredibly optimis- The Millennial is motivated, responding produc- tic text, formatted as an easy-to-read instructional tively to challenge and change with an arsenal of the guide that educates the reader on the economic and technological and creative. Their agency in the work everyday benefits of understanding and integrating place differs from the Boomer’s in its enthusiastic Millennial characteristics. Fuse is a helpful and pre- embrace of the unexpected. The Millennial exhibits cautionary text for both Millennial and Boomer. It is a rigorous work ethic that seeks out collaboration with this exploration that Finkelstein and Gavin seek and emphasizes output over methodology.67 The to promote intergenerational creative consensus. Millennial’s everyday relationship with technology is The failure to do so can result in misunderstand- both boon and curse. The Millennial has grown up ings, frustration, and a drop in economic productiv- wired in which electronic media is the primary means ity. Finkelstein and Gavin begin the text by clearly in which to communicate, produce, and learn.68 and effectively outlining Millennial professionalism, The Millennial is not without its slew of negative drastically different than that of the Boomer’s: connotations, often defined by observing Boomers. Criticisms include self-centeredness, seekers of [Millennials] are more psychological instant gratification, short sightedness, high-main- and emotional and less pragmatic than tenance, and an ignorance of cultural and social other generations at work. They do not mores.69 Millennials assume their perspectives perceive boundaries of time, space, age, and viewpoints are consistently valued and sought gender, race, ownership, or country of after. Self-assurance teeters into egocentrism, fueled origin. They create their own learning by social networking outlets. Notions of impa- experiences by being an integral part tience, abbreviation, and narcissism find a positive The Millenial 92,93 correlation with the Millennials’ relationship to professional identity. Millennials exemplify a signifi- technology. Reality TV and social networking sites, cant shift away from and disinterest towards career products of the Millennial generation, promote the longevity.73 Whether it’s staying within the same idea that any and all information is deemed worthy discipline or traversing professions at the whim of sharing; such egalitarian qualities lend too strong of changing desires, the Millennial is professional of a dismissal and disrespect for hierarchical struc- nomad. The average Millennial works six hours a ture.70 The Millennial will voice their opinions on day and has a job satisfaction rating of twenty per- topics beyond their job’s focus exuding the comfort- cent, sticking on average for two years.74 Finkelstein ably ingrained web 2.0 philosophy in which “we and Gavin stress the impact of this generational dif- are all equals here.”71 Finkelstein and Gavin poeti- ference as a critical call to evolve company identities cally assert that self-centeredness reaches a new, to reflect such realities. As Boomers retire, how will potent manifestation when, through our phones, companies keep Millennials challenged and inspired, we-as-blue dot, become literally the center of the thereby retaining a growing population of highly universe.72 While Boomers vent frustrations of the creative and valuable employees? Millennial’s ego-driven characteristics, Finkelstein Throughout Fuse, Finkelstein and Gavin go to and Gavin seek to commandeer such qualities lengths that are easily digestible, seeking to bridge towards productive co-generational collabora- intergenerational gaps towards evolving the contem- tion in pursuit of a company’s economic success. porary workplace. In Millennial Slackers? I Don’t Millennials are entitled, but retain incredible drive. Think So!, a subsection in the text, Finkelstein and They are fluent at a new technical language that Gavin give space for a Millennial to speak her mind. while perpetually celebrating the ego, is increasingly Such exposition supports the Fuse thesis as trans- becoming a strategic format for communication and lated into Millennial vernacular. This segment, a company identity. contribution from Melissa Meade, tellingly teases at The Millennial’s relationship to time and place the complicated and privileged nature of Millennial as manifested in workplace commitment is also a desire, expectation, and time: largely differentiating characteristic that poses a concern for corporation sustainability. Our par- The word “automobile” is too long. ent’s notion of the “career track” no longer main- Therefore, every day we get into our cars. tains its assumed place in the construction of one’s We get in the fast lane. We drive to work. The Millenial 94,95 We strive for the middle ground between have noted thus far. There is an informal playful- quality and quantity, as well as speed and ness that teeters on sarcasm. Time is not a variable accuracy. We jet everywhere. In case any- to be savored and spent slowly, but energetically one was wondering, no longer does the insisted upon, operating, always, with efficiency and word “jet” only refer to a blisteringly loud, expediency in mind. Technological multitasking turbo-fast aircraft. In our minds to “jet” allows for effortless communication and the proud implies rapid movement from destination digitized presentation of the Millennial-self to peers, to destination. coworkers, and Internet passers-by. Abbreviation is Some may find this strange, but we celebrated linguistically and practically. Shortcuts hardly ever imagine wasting a second of are sought out and the ends justify the (productive our day. Of course, the definition of ‘wast- workplace) means. Expedited movement is envi- ing time’ will forever be disputable. Some sioned with five hundred mile-per-hour speeds. To of our most “successful” days would be “jet” is a literal and privileged means of traversing (naturally) deemed such by how much we space as much as it is symbolic gesture in which squeeze into them, as well as the quality time is extracted to a pulp. Melissa the Millennial of all that content. Between the vibrations has a nice alliterative ring to it. This Millennial is of our iPhones playfully tweeting away at assertive, proud, assured, and entitled, yet play- the echo of our Bluetooth headsets, there’s fully informal about bold identity propositions. Fast never a dull moment en route to our daily movement—literally, virtually, and symbolically—is terminuses. Nor do we desire one. Go her constant. figure. We are a generation that is entirely The Millennial is a contemporary subject, comfortable with taking both risks and exposed to new and quickly changing modes of shortcuts to achieve success. The more communication. With the technological prolifera- intuitive, the better!75 tion of celebrated web-based avatars, the champi- oning of the ego has reached new plateaus, only I could keep going, but I’ll save the real estate. to be steadfastly entrenched by the contemporary, These first two paragraphs from the short essay everyday presence of portable screens that sync exemplify the Millennial condition. Meade’s lan- with personalized social networking platforms. This guage clearly summarizes the characteristics we convention is made comfortable and affordable The Millenial 96,97 and runs concurrently with assumed and champi- Nicolas Bourriaud is a French curator that has oned outlets to traverse physical space. For work gained international recognition for his theoretical or play, the reality of taking time to tour and visit and curatorial contributions towards contemporary has become utterly normalized. The Millennial is art since the 1990s. His texts include Relational confident and self-assured, operating with a drive Aesthetics, Postproduction and our essay of focus, to solve problems in new, creative, challenging, and The Radicant. Bourriaud, as a curator and critic efficient ways. The Millennial worker communicates, writes and curates in order to locate and explore his thinks, and reacts with a speed and adaptability that perception of the contemporary zeitgeist, the spirit is as refreshing as it is frightening. This generation, of our times. The connecting thread across his prac- unique to its predecessors, is defining a model for tice emphasizes the presence of the social within the relating to and learning from place that shifts, chal- production of artworks, as explored with partici- lenges, and evolves the pursuit of the pleasurable. pation (Relational Aesthetics), appropriation (Post Loquacious, driven, and curious, the Millennial Production) and travel (The Radicant). Not without travels fast and far with great appetite. his fair share of criticism, Bourriaud remains an important and intriguing figure within the expand- The Millennial Radicant... ing globalized art world.76 Bourriaud’s entrance into the canon of the globally meandering curator-celeb- The speed, accessibility, and privilege in which the rity is a variable to keep mind of when considering Millennial moves can be contextualized socio-politi- his theoretical proposals, particularly with his most cally with Nicolas Bourraiud’s aesthetic propositions recent text. of nomadic radicantity. This term speaks to a con- The Radicant introduces a theoretical argu- temporary subject within a globalized era of grow- ment outlining a new form of artistic identity that ing and changing connections made and marked responds to the current economic and political across space and time. For both MacCannell and complexities arising from globalization, travel, Bourriaud, movement becomes a prized medium. and communication.77 Bourriaud sets the stage in We have moved from the sightseer, seeking to foster defining, in his own terms, the new era in which meaningful connections before an attraction-place, we find ourselves, an era of altermodernity. It is a to the radicant, endowed with a privilege to commu- twenty-first century modernity, “born of global and nicate political realities across shifting terrains. decentralized negotiations, of multiple discussions The Millenial 98,99 among participants from different cultures, of the gesture was the attempt at achieving universal truth, confrontation of heterogeneous discourses”.78 a unidirectional movement towards. Today, within Here, Bourriaud is alluding to a globalized context our contemporary globalized climate of complex in which difference is the constant among shifting interconnectedness and precarious shifts in technol- spaces and territories, each with their own divergent ogy and the environment, the radicant becomes a identities and applications of power. Cultural pro- traveler, a nomad, a mark maker, and a communi- ducers that embrace the altermodern traverse space cator. This model, applied towards artistic practice, as radicants, a botanical term that defines rootless showcases fascinating projects that seek to visualize organisms, growing and adding roots as they prog- such realities and privileges of being able to traverse ress. As the radicant symbolically sets its roots in across and experience places at varying speeds. In motion, it becomes the product of a constant and highlighting such motility of interconnectedness, active negotiation of place, histories, and tradi- one cannot help but also consider those outside tions. While traveling, visiting, eating, and arguing, of such reach: diasporic populations, not given a what tenets of the visitor’s identity are susceptible choice. to change? What values are left behind and added It is through the act of translation that the to? And what qualities stubbornly remain enrooted? radicant encounters another along their trav- Radicant identity evolves from exchange versus els. Alternative to perpetually fostering the return imposition.79 This notion of a fluid and changing to and celebration of the root, the radicant is a self results from enthusiastic motility, or mindful nomad, moving through a changing and shift- movement. ing precarious global climate.81 Through the act of The radicant’s botanical counterpart is the translation, literally and symbolically, the radicant radical, which grows immobile roots that remain, nomad seeks the fostering of ethics that recognize deepen, and strengthen. The radical model becomes the other, rather than simply registering other- appropriate in defining the particular point, art ness.82 Translation denotes a particular type of historically, that Bourriaud reacts to: twentieth cen- agency on the part of the radicant to embrace with tury modernism’s universal narrative in which prun- active dependency the shifting identities encoun- ing, purifying, eliminating, subtracting, and refining tered on foot and/or in jet. Similar to MacCannell’s to first principles defined the pursuit of the avant critique against the search for the “authentic” garde.80 Under the modernist umbrella, the radical other, Bourriaud’s radicant insists upon the act of The Millenial 99,100 translation as a platform to identify, learn, and com- reflecting the qualities of movement across space municate. In other words: it’s never about looking and time that often destabilize, highlight, and com- past the other for something else, something satis- plicate economic and political boundaries. The radi- fying the visitor’s expectations, but rather engaging cant explores and prods with the desire to configure with the visited and coming to terms with the inevi- and re-configure comforts and expectations, made table yet negotiable sets of power relations. conventional by geographies and histories. Bourriaud’s treatise on the potential for aes- The immigrant, the exile, the tourist and thetic projects within the contemporary globalized the urban wanderer are the dominant context is grandiose and not without its problems, figures of contemporary culture… one but it is intriguing in its implication of and desire might say that the individual of these early for movement. It opens up the possibility for enthu- years of the twenty-first century resembles siastic exchange and proposes not the safe return those plants that… translates itself into home but taking home with you and exposing it the terms of space in which it moves. to another. It’s important to contextualize the text [The radicant] captures the contemporary given Bourriaud’s professional role as celebrated subject, caught between the need for a globe-trotting curator. Such autobiographic influ- connection with its environment and the ence is in fact an important addition for contextual- forces of uprooting, between globaliza- izing the radicant proposal. The preface to the essay tion and singularity, between identity and begins by quite literally tracking Bourraiud’s move- opening to the other. It defines the subject ment. It is a type of travel made possible from his as an object of negotiation.83 privileged career. “This book was written… in the places to which circumstances brought me: Paris, The energy of the radicant oscillates with vigorous Venice, Kiev, Madrid, Havana, New York, Moscow, movement. The home place is carried with them Turin and finally London”.84 These “circumstances” along their journeys, infusing their footprint with are particular to his profession, steeped with com- a desire to find connection and comfort among a fortable hotels, champagne-laden exhibitions, artist precariously altermodern context of shifting terri- studio visits, and water-bottled panel discussions at tories. Bourriaud showcases the work of a number prestigious cultural institutions. Enter the world of of contemporary radicants, their aesthetic gestures the curatorial celebrity. Identifying these important The Millenial 100,101 professional logistics is not meant as critique in confidence, creativity, and access, the possibilities the least bit but is intended to contextualize where and opportunities are numerous. In a context in Bourriaud is coming from, which is undoubtedly a which travel is a given, how do Millennials define position of professional, economic, and social privi- themselves as visitors? Do their qualities lend lege. Swooping down into contemporary art insti- towards the fostering of a radicantity in which time tutions across the globe, Bourriaud grants access is given between the visitor and the visited towards for the production and presentation of aesthetic translation and communication? Or, as MacCannell projects from a diverse community of cultural pro- outlines, is the Millennial visitor relegated towards ducers. I don’t think it’s fair to make assumptions the false construction of subjectivity, informed by on the degree to which Bourriaud and a substantial the seductive and popular symbolic? And where community of the globe trotting “art tribe”, to use does the home place fall within all this? Does home curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s phrase, “par- remain in the rearview mirror, like it does for me? ticipate” in the places they visit. Whether backpack- Or—as is the case with many of my peers—does ing from hostel to hostel or cruising from boat club school, work, and life continually whisk them away to boat club, the visitor has incredible privilege to and home is taken with them? The radicant mil- visit. To temporarily depart from home to play, learn, lennial’s relationship to time speeds past the slow eat, and dance. How does the visitor-curator move sensual. throughout, respond to, and commemorate visited For our Millennial traveler, navigation across place? The startling access in which Bourriaud space and time is embraced and pursued, made traverses space reflects a privilege and comfort- accessible by seamless technological mediation into able reality-turned convention for members of the the everyday. How do such qualities reflect and Millennial generation. define the Millennial visitor’s expectations, desires, So who then is the Millennial radicant? For my and motivations? Can characteristics of rigorous generation, personal or professional travel is a privi- work ethic, entitlement, and confidence be appre- lege both assumed and celebrated: semesters abroad, hended as means to catalyze visitor subjectivity in service trips, travel fellowships, volunteering, corpo- which personal desires are declared and actively rate jet-setting, or simply for leisure. These are reali- sought out? Bourriaud’s radicant proposal is a ties allowing for the constant traversing of space and response to new and precarious responsibilities and when added with Millennial sense of entitlement, possibilities for cultural aesthetic production at a The Millenial 102,103 point of privileged global interconnectivity at the Benjamins, “To Gnaw (Austin: Greenleaf Book with Gratitude,” Gnome Group Press, 2012), 24-5. physical and virtual. Artists have a unique privi- Magazine, Issue 1, Vol. 1 (Fall 76 For a thought-provoking lege given their professional identity to respond, 2011): 38–9. critique of Bourriaud’s 65 Finkelstein and Gavin, arguments pertaining to test, contest, and share across varying contexts Fuse: Making Sense of relational aesthetics, see and spaces. Such a call is readily realizable for the the New Cogenerational Claire Bishop, “Antagonism Workplace. and Relational Aesthetics,” Millennial. The generation exists with great energy 66 Finkelstein and Gavin, Ibid., October 110 (Fall 2004): to change and move. For this generation of diverse, 5. 51-79. tech-savvy communicators, confident and proud, 67 Finkelstein and Gavin, Ibid., 77 Nicolas Bourriaud, The 12. Radicant (New York: Lukas & there exists a wellspring of agency. A frenetic will- 68 Finkelstein and Gavin, Ibid. Sternberg, 2009). ingness to receive and respond when applied to the 69 Finkelstein and Gavin, Ibid., 78 Bourraiud, The Radicant, 43. 14. 79 Bourriaud, Ibid., 22. act of experiencing foreign place becomes a potent 70 Andrew McAfee, “Two 80 Bourriaud, Ibid., 44. tool for education and exchange. Common Mistakes of 81 The call for the radicant Millennials at Work,” Harvard is equally a prompt to Business Review, August 30, move past the Post- 2010. Modern climate which 71 McAfee, “Two Common emerged to contest 59 “The Millennials: Confident. Lyons, “New Generation, Mistakes of Millennials at the Modernist grand Connected. Open to Great Expectations: A Field Work.” narrative: “Postmodern Change,” www. Study of the Millennial 72 Finkelstein and Gavin, Ibid., multiculturalism has failed pewresearch.org/ Generation,” Journal of 160. to invent an alternative to pubs/1501/millennials-new- Business and Psychology 24 73 Eddy S.W. Ng, Linda modernist universalism, survey-generational- (2010): 1. Schweitzer and Sean T. for everywhere it has been personality-upbeat-open- 63 Born between 1946 and Lyons, “New Generation, applied it has recreated new-ideastechnology- 1964, the Baby Boomer Great Expectations: A Field cultural anchorages or ethic bound. moniker is inspired by a Study of the Millennial enrootedness... everyone is 60 “The Millennials: Confident. spike in fertility starting at Generation,” Journal of located, registered, nailed Connected. Open to the end of World War II and Business and Psychology 24 to a locus of enunciation.” Change.” ending as the birth control (2010): 9. Bourriaud, Ibid., 34. 61 Jim Finkelstein and Mary pill went on the market. 74 Jim Finkelstein and Mary 82 Bourriaud, Ibid., 132. Gavin, Fuse: Making Sense “The Millennials: Confident. Gavin, Ibid., 51. 83 Bourriaud, Ibid., 51. of the New Cogenerational Connected. Open to 75 Melissa Meade, “Millennial 84 Bourriaud, Ibid., 7. Workplace (Austin: Change.” Slackers? I Don’t Think So!,” Greenleaf Book Group 64 I’ve recently addressed the in Fuse: Making Sense of Press, 2012), 98. woes and benefits laden the New Cogenerational 62 Eddy S.W. Ng, Linda within the process of Workplace, by Jim Schweitzer and Sean T. MFA’ization. See Erik Finkelstein and Mary Gavin 104,105 TEXT, The Hungry Traveler and Sensual-Motility 106,107

At a faster pace, it seems more compelling and I guess that’s what they sold us on. × Counterfit “From Finish to Starting Line”

Go and marinate on that for a minute. × Outkast “SpottieOttieDopalicious”

→ I imagine these preceding chapters as tantalizing influencers. Working sequentially, one after another, they gain a hefty, but oddly comfortable medicine- ball weight. The Hungry Traveler is a proposal for chore- ography in pursuit of an education by means of the sensual. The context on which we focus is a familiar one: the visitor’s hunger pangs pound within the interior of the stomach, snaking their way upwards and onwards. Famishment, fussiness, and exhaus- tion intertwine provoking a temperament no one wants to be around. These pangs provoke move- ment: an externalization from an interior body-land- scape, resembling the energy inside my freshman dorm on “Thirsty Thursday”, teetering out of con- trol with swift, unexpected, and gross consequences. The Hungry Traveler relies and responds to the body with an attuned consciousness. Such mental- ity drafts choreography of the slow, thoughtful, and The Hungry Traveler... 108,109 inquisitive. The Hungry Traveler understands their squeeze to test and question. Considerations of the position as highly politicized, for such is always the political-theoretical outline Hungry Traveler goals case when engaging the shifting power relationships for fostering an agency, actively aware of another’s between the visitor and the visited. This relation- value systems and cultural comforts. Our epistemo- ship of distinction becomes positioned as a privi- logical proposal promotes the creation of knowl- leged opportunity to learn. The Hungry Traveler is edge over engaging with and respecting another grateful for this and moves with gratitude matching at visited food stalls and dinner tables. On foot his or her curiosity. Travels are fueled, experienced, and in belly, the Hungry Traveler embraces the and commemorated by the openness to shift and unexpected during eating and not eating, moving re-calibrate expectations. “Hungry” from “hun- and not moving. The edible manifestation of dif- ger”: from growing appetite. Taken at the literal or ference, so complicated in its sloppy embrace of symbolic, the Traveler’s hunger is one of energetic the psychological, emotional, and bodily is eagerly inexhaustibility. It hums in the background, peak- approached with thanks, openness, and sensually- ing and waning, always made aware of and gauged, driven inquiry. Almost at the end of this endeavor, put to use in ways that challenge, discomfort and ideally, we arrive not with answers, but more ques- educate. “Traveler” from “travel”: a verb of and for tions. Beginnings, not to an end, but a moment of movement and energy, stillness and rest. The term relief-filled pause and breath. We’ve begun a steady is no different, better or more authentic than “tour- tilt towards embracing the sensual and sensory as ist”. The only difference is one variable, the plan.85 primary means for experiencing and learning. These Let’s then continue with “traveler” to not emphasize are some critical tenets that wait for loving adoption an abandonment of planning, but rather, an intense by those away from the home place with a growing loosening. The Hungry Traveler welcomes the hap- appetite and you, the reader. Have you gotten up to penstance and unexpected with intrigue, curiosity, take a break yet? and healthy appetite. Remember Howes’ intersensorial knot? Moving Staking a Claim: The Political forward, let’s consider its pretzel’d form when and the Educational... outlining the key tenets of Hungry Traveler-ness. Arguments from the political, the sensual, the aes- Temporary immersion into the unfamiliar yields thetic, and the choreographic fold, overlap, and such wonderful opportunity to learn of a site’s The Hungry Traveler... 110,111 history, culture, and preferred garnishes. Such appe- the community and those outside. Such division car- tites are satisfied within the space of the museum ries with it uneven power relationships, negating any institution, landmark, and other popular tourist possibility for achieving liberalistic equality for all.87 destinations. The Hungry Traveler does not dismiss The conflation of the democratic with the liberal these venues but considers them as the more con- defines the democratic paradox. Mouffe’s ongoing ventional among an overwhelmingly diverse number theoretical project is to critique such a model, one of potential resources and silent repositories for the that seeks to represent popular beliefs through the fostering of an education. For the Hungry Traveler, notion of consensus in which rational deliberation the gesture of asking becomes the dominant and facilitates agreements reached. sacred medium of participation. It fosters a relation- What’s at stake with the liberal democratic ship between one and another built on respect and model’s insistence on maintaining consensus within intrigue. The desire to learn is instigated by pouring the political sphere is the means for the individual another a glass of beer. to foster citizenship. Striving for consensus assumes Chantal Mouffe’s theories on democracy are the possibility of eliminating uneven relationships inspiring and beneficial towards identifying a start- of power (the liberal). In opposition, Mouffe’s ing point of sorts for the Hungry Traveler. It is the democratic subject reacts positively to the inescap- always-humming, operational mentality for our able political presence of power and hegemony.88 visitor as they move, stop, and encounter. In The To listen and respect the endless variations of val- Democratic Paradox, Mouffe proposes a theoretical ues held by individuals is to grant them venues to alternative to the popular, yet problematic Western enact citizenship and therefore political agency. system of liberal democracy.86 For Mouffe, prob- Multiplying the institutions, discourses, and forms lems arise when contemporary democratic models of life that foster identification with democratic val- conflate the liberal and the democratic. Liberalism ues is the key towards the creation of democratic emphasizes human rights and individual liberty. citizens.89 Multiple platforms emerge in which one Democracy drives the concept of popular sover- can speak across a diverse spectrum of beliefs. For eignty, in which political representatives reflect the Mouffe, the political necessarily expresses dominant interests of their constituents. Inherent to the pres- power relations. A call for democracy should not ence of democratic rights is always a drawn frontier, aim for the elimination of power, but rather propose an ideological territorialization between those within the creation of forms that are more compatible with The Hungry Traveler... 112,113 diverse democratic values capable of fostering self- political, disregarding progress through consen- directed notions of citizenship. Agonistic pluralism sus. And whoever may rise to power is understood is Mouffe’s theoretical response to the paradoxical to be enacting a dominant and conditional politi- liberal democratic. cal system that expects contestation from others. Agonistic pluralism positively approaches, yet Agonistic pluralism welcomes the inevitable conflicts seeks to transform the “ineradicable” presence of and agreements from a heterogeneous population of antagonism within politics. The antagonistic is an subjects with self-defined political values. Mouffe’s abrasive friction sparking from ideological differ- theoretical proposal finds fuel through the inescap- ences. Doing away with false hopes for consensus, able nature of the democratic political and the fron- the collision between one and another and their tiers and forms of exclusion that it entails.92 differing values are crucial ingredients towards the Are you still with me? This is the foundation of fostering of a democratic system. For Mouffe, these the Hungry Traveler’s epistemology, and it actively necessary confrontations define the political. If the responds to the collision of edible, material, sensory, antagonistic relationship is one between two ene- and therefore political difference. The concept of mies seeking to wipe each other off the face of the agonistic pluralism is adopted and scaled down to Earth, then the agonistic relationship is not between the personal-driven-with-appetite. With great grati- enemies, but adversaries. The adversarial relation- tude, the Hungry Traveler capitalizes on their privi- ship seeks not for total annihilation of the other leged position to go, to tour, to visit, and to return. but rather the understanding that each party has One moves with thanks and openness, in which the a right to defend their ideas and that such defense inevitable power relations between visitor and visited is respected.90 Adversaries share a common politi- are not to be shooed away, but positioned as a site cal ground. Agonistic pluralism then depends on for education through exchange. Mouffe stresses cit- notions of citizenship created from the expression of izenship, MacCannell strives for an ethics of sight- passionate political differentiation.91 seeing, the Hungry Traveler demands the implemen- Such mentality brims with a dynamic energy tation of a visitor agency via sensual mindfulness. that shifts, changes, topples, and evolves. It wel- Across these examples are minor divergences and comes the passionate defense of difference from similarities that equally insist upon willingness and contesting belief systems. A space is created for drive in the face of popular conventions swaying the discussion and listening that reflects the agonistic body and mind. Between the visitor and visited lay The Hungry Traveler... 114,115 an expansive spectrum of power, difference, desire, the visitor can careen from the media-fixated cata- taboo, comfort, and expectation. For the Hungry strophic to the intimately empowering. Such mental- Traveler, such a spread lends towards a complex and ity becomes the framework for an education most worthwhile exploration of visited place; orientations, explicitly when, on foot and in mouth, the physical reorientations, and adjustments are made, embrac- smashes into the symbolic. ing an emergent trajectory in which another’s taste palate and cultural values, however they may dif- On Foot... fer from yours, are considered and given time to be understood. There is a diversity and unpredict- On foot, the Hungry Traveler moves at preferred ability at work capable of producing a meaningful pace, actively dependent on attractions, snacks, and exchange that is not defined under the influence of persons both sought out and unexpected. Senses the symbolic, but within an open and unexpected are piqued and the stomach leads. Like the sightseer, collaboration with another. the Hungry Traveler’s medium is movement. The Grant Kester’s notion of active listening is a Traveler's qualities of motion, however, are actually tactic utilized by contemporary artists working given the focus and time they deserve. The Hungry in what he describes as “dialogical aesthetics”, or Traveler’s preferred means of movement is not con- artistic practices defined by long term collaborative sidered a source of mobility, but motility. This latter projects in which the artist works with communi- implies reflexive embodiment. Navigation through ties to implement social change.93 In active listening, competing sensory signals calling for active, self- the artist embraces a necessary dependency on the defined responses that keep one going, asking, and community members so as to not speak and create tasting. It is a conscious decision to slow down. for, but with them, and it takes time. For the Hungry Rebecca Solnit goes to great historical and Traveler, listening becomes a point of fruitful inser- poetic length in Wanderlust to celebrate the under- tion, a means of receiving and engaging the vocal- estimated potential emanating at the scale and pace izations of difference. Mouffe’s theory of agonistic of the walker.94 The speed of walking shares the pluralism, adopted as an epistemological starting speed of thinking so that when the rhythms of the point for the Hungry Traveler, welcomes the identifi- mind and feet fall into sync there exist profound cation of the political as a point of energetic relation possibilities towards entering an intimate and medi- between the visitor and the visited. The potential for tative space of consideration among the passages The Hungry Traveler... 116,117 of thoughts.95 If our brains work at the speed of as “neither point of origin or destination”, but our walking feet, then it is during the walk that we rather a vast expanse of difference that screams open up rich possibilities in engagement via embod- and whispers.97 Every place is revalued and imbued ied, sensory reflexivity. Walking is to sense and with potentiality for accidental observations that think, assimilating the unknown into the known.96 amuse, inspire, or frighten. The Hungry Traveler’s The exterior is internalized at the slow, steady pace meaningful connections with place are unique, self- of the walker. It is a hyper-conscious, inquiry-led defined, and developed by spending time. The sen- observation, fueled by the sensory and sensual. sual lends to a bodily rhythm, vibrating outward to Speed, stillness, grace, and clumsiness are wel- inward, inward to outward. A choreographic mind- come qualities for Hungry Traveler motility. They fulness adopted towards rushed legs, fingers press- are physical manifestations, interludes, and disloca- ing camera shutter, and arms bringing fork-holding tions of the symbolic relationship between the visitor hand to mouth. This is a call for the athletic cultiva- and visited. Through motion, one can be swept up tion of the body as a receiver that is practiced, tested, in the subtle or jarring qualities of the visited. The and altered as one goes. The dancer and athlete choreography of the Hungry Traveler is at odds are inspirations in their pursuit of a bodily aware- with that of the sightseer. Considering the qualities ness that is continual, rigorous, and liberating.98 To of the sightseeing experience, appropriate adjec- shy away from such kinesthetic mindfulness is to tives include rushed, anxious, stiff, frenetic, and risk awkwardness, insincerity, and most tragically, excited. Resulting from an attraction-centric trajec- immobilization.99 These descriptors resulting from tory, sightseer movements define a truncated rela- aversion instigate a retreat towards the comforts of tionship to place, reaching an anxious apex stand- the sightseer in which there exists a choreography ing in the presence of the attraction. Satisfaction that is popularly performed, often literally, think- and commemoration instantaneously follow and ing back to the Tower–leaners. The marriage of it’s on to the next stop. Another box checked, leav- the sensory with the choreographic is not a call for ing a path of quick, staccato blips. In contrast, the anything profoundly new, but rather a perceptual Hungry Traveler’s choreography is fluid, organic, reevaluation. A gentle nag at what’s already hard at anxious still, but colored with an excited calm mov- work, the body as receptor of the sensual. Embodied ing at the pace of the walker. The Hungry Traveler’s mindfulness of such systems set into motion in most movement is that which traverses and defines place powerful force, the Hungry Traveler platform. The Hungry Traveler... 118,119 In our modern, globally interconnected era, the privilege to face and when re-calibrated towards walk is under assault from timesaving technologies the Hunger Traveler epistemology, the sensory that celebrate expediency and efficiency.100 We’re and sensual embrace the unknown as a point of back to Melissa the Millennial and her enthusiasm participation. to “jet”. A lifestyle is embraced that is at odds with At the intersection of consumption, nourishment, the scale and speed of the walker. The Hungry and the edible foreign, the visitor must respond to Traveler’s movement is physically, cerebrally, and their body’s needs. The proximal senses flare, insti- sensually demanding. Through practice, such quali- gating a space for learning through food provided ties of motility promote an agency capable of fos- by another. While eating, the symbolic and bodily tering meaningful relationships with place, defined rebound back and forth with a potential to inten- with an activated negotiation between the popular sify the visitor’s aversion towards inevitable edible symbolic and happenstance observed. What bet- hazards. In considering the possibilities of ingest- ter vehicle to attempt such pursuit then with heavy ing the unknown, a willingness to try can be sucked footsteps, attuned to the body’s appetite for rest, away like opening the airlock in space. The material reprieve, spontaneous jolts, and heel-kicks? These unfamiliar: ingredients, utensils, and cooking meth- are sensual acts leading the visitor towards the for- ods work with the symbolic unfamiliar: eating cus- eign edible, approached with growing appetite. toms, rituals, and manners. They mutually infuse an already foreign outer space with an anxiety, unease, Hunger Pangs... and predetermined stomachaches. Discomfort food interrupts with swift kick, sweeping the legs out For the Hungry Traveler, the dinner table or from under you. To eat within these spaces is to take–away window are valued points of connec- throw the body and psyche into an unknown space. tion between the visitor and the visited. Through Efforts to learn from the palate and across conversa- food, flavor, taste, and foodways the sweet sway of tion are guided by the sensory and sensual, capable the symbolic smacks into drooling mouth. We’re of flinging the visitor-taster across extreme sways back to our title. Time stops and the visitor must of pleasure or retreats from the repulsive. Sweat reconcile their desires and anxieties about consum- beads accumulating on foreheads and widened eyes, ing the unknown, internalizing the external other. darting anxiously. Whether a dish, scent or taste is It’s an incredible moment many of us have had the loved or loathed by the visitor is irrelevant towards The Hungry Traveler... 120,121 pursuing the Hungry Traveler mentality in which Knowledge is constructed with a mutual dependency efforts to learn coopt the edible. The body is con- on another, facilitated by objects eaten. sidered a vehicle for education through an action that nourishes and keeps us breathing. Whether one No Reservations... melts into states of infatuation or can’t quite bring themselves to taste, such vocalized reactions become Anthony Bourdain’s professional practice showcases points of participation within efforts to learn from with seductive accessibility, the Hungry Traveler the unavoidable edible distinctions between one and mentality put into motion. At the intersection of another. cooking, writing, and the absurdities of travel-ori- We should consider the act of being away from ented TV production, Bourdain blatantly addresses the home place as an ideal context in which to foster and challenges popular comforts in experiencing the sensory and sensual. In such setting of unknown the away place. Bourdain owns his work with a scents, textures, sounds, tastes, and sights, the visitor tone that is immediately recognizable and incredibly is flung into undulating states of sensory titillation. entertaining. He writes and reports in a way proudly The Hungry Traveler finds energy within the context colored by subjectivity as chef, pork-lover, best- of difference as means to cultivate sensorial engage- selling writer, TV personality, and seasoned traveler. ment. The sensory and sensual, with their inherent A provocative author, Bourdain’s work seeps with subjective constructions, define what’s comfortable an intoxicating tone, leaving one wildly entertained, and uncomfortable on a person-by-person basis and giggling, near drooling, angered, or confused. fuel the destabilization of the popular symbolic that Bourdain’s characteristic patina is strong and clear, MacCannell warns us about. The Hungry Traveler aiding his earnest efforts to share—from minute understands the context of eating away from the detail to the overarching ethical/political qualm— home place as necessarily tied to the unexpected the possibilities and desires hedonistically spawned and the uncomfortable. These plates, flavors, and at the dinner table. foodways are representative of unique characteristics The No Reservations show is a potent, entertain- that construct in substantial part the overwhelmingly ing, and accessible pop cultural artifact validating complicated identity of visited place. Rather than the inescapabl qualities of the political inherent for falling on dependent comfort of the eyes, the senses any visitor. Given our insistence on corralling these internalize difference with heavy, rewarding effect. ideas into an epistemological proposal, Bourdain’s The Hungry Traveler... 122,123 contributions function as tools for learning in how fore-fronting the sensual as a means to learn about they share, educate, and tempt the reader/viewer the social and political realities of a visited place. It into imagining, re-imaging, and acting upon their is through culinary customs and epicurean pursuits comforts and expectations in experiencing differ- that meaning is fostered through conversation of ence over a meal. differences and similarities, likes and dislikes. The “My name is Anthony Bourdain. I write. I travel. presence of the political varies from the subtle to the I eat. And I’m hungry for more.” This is the sole, direct. The latter most notably occurred with the confident proclamation that begins every episode of well-known Beirut episode, in which Bourdain and his Emmy-nominated food and travel show. Now in his crew found themselves unexpectedly in the mid- its seventh year, the premise of the show is incred- dle of a war. After filming only one meal, the con- ibly simple. Bourdain travels the world seeking to tents of the episode shifted from its original intent to understand, experience, and commemorate place highlight the intense, frustrating, and near-surreal through food. Take out windows, home spaces, reality of an American TV crew placed under resort isolated beaches, deserts, jungles, and three-star arrest, as the bomb strikes miles away transitioned Michelin restaurants become televised venues in into an everyday soundtrack. Though it is incred- which food, taste, flavor, and cooking lubricate con- ible outlier amongst the more conventional episodes, versation with the visited. Eating becomes a means the Beirut trip nonetheless highlights the critical for Bourdain to enthusiastically place himself in a relationship to food, place, safety, and home. As the state of continual dependency on the visited and episode ends, Bourdain, his TV crew, and American their cultural histories, social norms, political frus- refugees, line up in a Navy carrier cafeteria to eat trations, and proudest achievements. Often the view- tuna noodle casserole and macaroni and cheese. er’s introduction to the place in question is defined Bourdain relishes in the soothing and desperately- by Bourdain’s subjective desires (or lack thereof), needed effect of American comfort food. Relegated which are blatantly colored by the popular symbolic to the hells of cafeteria trays, these two dishes’ sym- and resulting assumptions. It’s always a little cheesy, bolic power surpassed expectations of taste, usher- but a significant gesture as Bourdain owns up to his ing the eaters into states of pure comfort, release, stereotypes; as the episode progresses, these bla- and thankfulness after the tiring, unexpected, and tant generalizations are destabilized and broken.101 harrowing. Bourdain enacts the Hungry Traveler mentality by The Dubai episode falls more in line with The Hungry Traveler... 124,125 standard No Reservation fare and is an excellent learns about the state of foreign workers, their frus- example insisting the fostering of a visitor agency trations, and everyday passions. The guide explains that is collaboratively constructed by multiple per- that these dishes are everyday, common-man fare. spectives encountered over questions asked and Simple, tasty edible manifestations of their respected foods tasted.102 Bourdain-as-visitor seeks audience home places: India, Pakistan, Thailand, and numer- with a visited community, not defined as static, sin- ous others. The flavors and ingredients, spicy and gular, and abstracted, but realistically representa- fresh become a means for learning through the tive of heterogeneous populations and histories sensual. that stand in different relation to hegemonies of the From the informal to the exorbitantly luxurious, social and political. As is standard with the episode Bourdain moves to Gordon Ramsay’s Verre, located format, Bourdain teams up with a local. This provi- within an Emiratean architectural superstructure. sional guide crafts a trajectory, utilizing meal-mak- His guest and second guide is an English banker, ing and/or meal-sharing to represent their personal representing in just about every means imaginable relationship to place. As much as Bourdain owns up an alternative perspective from the Asian popula- to his subjectivity in defining his experience, equally tions. Over exquisitely plated haute English dishes does the guide give suggestions to restaurants, street with wine parings, Bourdain continues the conver- stalls, bars, and more. While in Dubai, Bourdain sation of labor, economics, and politics with a polite shares meals with several locals, thereby crafting a antagonism that the banker reluctantly fields. The menu of visited place constructed by divergent iden- Verre meal is creamy, delicate, and luxurious. It is tities, each with their own unique social standings, meticulously plated. This dinner becomes a platform desires, and interests. The first is an Indian-born for a friendly debate on issues of class, economic businessman who brings Bourdain to establishments expansion, and currency. In apt Bourdain style, whose successes and popularity represent the Indian he presses the issues with earnest curiosity, while and Asian laborer communities that make up almost maintaining an informality and playfulness. The seventy-five percent of the city’s population. This banker, most certainly on edge as seen with almost- incredible statistic is telling of the unique and com- whispered responses and tense body language plicated political and economic identity of Dubai. becomes wonderful representation of a segment of Over Bangladeshi dishes of creamy lentils, mutton the Emeriti political identity. curry, fresh baked grouper, and flat bread, Bourdain The episode ends with an overflowing, lavish, The Hungry Traveler... 126,127 and drool-inducing feast at the family home of upon, shares, and constructs his own subjectivity, two Emeriti brothers, the third and final guides of which often topples his prior assumptions. This is the trip. Making up only five percent of the Dubai a Hungry Traveler agency that shifts, molds, and population, the Emeriti are wealthy minorities in adapts, welcoming contestation and divergent pas- their own country. Colorful plates of rice with saf- sions. These outcomes are proudly achieved with fron, dried berries, and pistachios are served with time spent over meals shared. The results are slow-cooked lamb that falls off the bone. Fried unpredictable, rewarding, educational, and always whole fish, different types of bread varying in thick- received with constant gratitude. ness, seasoned with fish sauce and olive oil are For Bourdain and the viewer, the social ritual of just a few of the dishes that complete an absurdly meal making and meal sharing become a savored beautiful spread in a visited home space. Such feast context in which learn from differences in taste. becomes the means to converse about the grow- Assumptions are declared and confronted as the ing and changing Emeriti identity. The two broth- edible prompts deep soul-shifting meaning from ers have opened their own restaurant after quitting the sensual. Through agreement and disagreement, their international corporate jobs. They speak with pleasure and aversion, the familiar and the unfamil- an accent, self-defined as having been influenced by iar, Bourdain’s global wanderings, driven by grow- American sitcoms from the 1980s. They are sincere ing appetite, are inclusive and actively dependent on and passionate about their country and have faith- diverse voices of the visited. These are means for ful respect and admiration for their ruler who has orientation through education, always stimulated by transformed Dubai over the past ten years into an the sensual. And what’s most beautiful and effective uncanny megalopolis. They are anxious dream- about his reporting is that Bourdain places agency ers. It is through the sincere and comfortable banter equally on the viewer as well. The difficult but over home-cooked food that Bourdain tastes and worthwhile attempt at reconciling perspectives that learns. The Dubai episode is helpful in understand- conflict as much as they agree is a call for the sub- ing Bourdain’s implementation of Hungry Traveler jective. The viewer is left to negotiate what has been qualities. His visit is co-authored by three incred- presented before them. Bourdain will not answer ibly distinct guides, each with their own, equally or resolve for you, but rather presents, televisually valid perspectives, ambitions, and relationships to with sincere, hilarious, and provoking narration, the the city. Through such diversity, Bourdain reflects unique, changing, and happenstance occurrences The Hungry Traveler... 128,129 tasted and documented awhile away. Through Eating well… is about submission. It’s humor, writing, entertainment, and unadulterated about giving up all vestiges of control, food porn, No Reservations walks a provocative line about entrusting your fate entirely to between a political proclamation for the sensory and someone else. It’s about turning off the sensual and instantly satisfying entertainment. Such mean, manipulative, calculating and a proposal communicates with great accessibility shrewd person inside you, and slipping the benefits, necessities, and challenges at play for heedlessly into a new experience as if it the Hungry Traveler. were a warm bath.103 The author of several books, both fiction and non-fiction, Bourdain’s literary oeuvre amasses to an I often talk about the “Grandma rule” for engaging manual of sorts, monumentally strength- travelers. You may not like Grandma’s ening the Hungry Traveler epistemology as seen in Thanksgiving turkey. It may be over- No Reservations. His non-fiction series of autobio- cooked and dry—and her stuffing salty graphical writings have focused on being under the and studded with rubbery pellets of gib- influence of constant travel. It is across these texts let you find unpalatable in the extreme. that we can corral moments from a wealth of similar You may not even like turkey at all. But expositions on the rewards and pleasures present it’s Grandma’s turkey. And you are in when giving into the visited by means of meal-shar- Grandmas house. So shut the fuck up and ing and meal-making. The dinner table becomes the eat it. And afterward say, “Thank you ultimate symbolic and literal pedestal for pleasurable Grandma, why yes, yes of course I’d love possibilities. Whether a sanitized, steel structure seconds.” 104 in the kitchen of Ferran Adria’s globally admired El Bulli or the ragged thatched mat surrounded by These are ethical issues for Bourdain and episte- seated veterans from the “American War”, these are mological issues for the Hungry Traveler. Bourdain prized platforms, mediating one’s unquenchable exemplifies a movement, or choreography of the quest to learn and experience through food. I’d like Hungry Traveler that seeks quick retreat from tour- to share two segments from his books that solidify, ist safe zones. An enthusiastic sprint away from the in a way only Bourdain can, foundational tenets for limiting, fixed, stale, and pre-determined comforts the Hungry Traveler: of the hotel or resort and into a bar of another. It’s The Hungry Traveler... 130,131 a place where the traveler’s agency is defined in plates of balut then what is it about such visceral inquiring from the visited about what to do and reaction that swerves your body so?105 The inevi- what to eat. It may cost you a beer or two, but table encounter of discomfort food—back to our what not better gesture of thanks and gratitude? title—does not warrant one jet out the door, but Throughout Bourdain’s written work, he aggres- rather promotes questions asked and tastes shared. sively persists in his unique and blatantly subjective Approaching such hesitations, anxieties, and fears fashion, of the benefits of being open and curi- welcome exchange and means to learn. Untightening ous, all while consistently seeking out the flavor- our grips and letting control slip and wiggle. Eating ful. These ideas that dramatically shift popular becomes a sacred, messy and absurdly sensual act conventions of the tourist’s footprint, move theory of relief.106 Through thankfulness and the privi- into practice for those interested in pursuing the lege of being able to visit, our searches for suste- enactment of the Hungry Traveler. Through his nance should embrace the ingredients and cooking professional endeavors Tony Bourdain teases at a methods that define such place. To do otherwise is potential for the viewer and reader. We are not there. a sad and unfortunate turn of events that bestow We aren’t on the receiving end of the volcanic bub- an embarrassing and unnecessary relationship of bling, diarrhea-inducing, other worldly-satisfying apprehension and fear instead of respect and curi- Szechuan hot pot. Bourdain is and such opportunity osity.107 Can we put “Grandma’s Rule” to practice, is thankfully and enthusiastically participated in. We implementing a courteous, cross-generational ges- on the other hand, are subject to a growing wealth ture of respect, reverence, and thanks to our hosts? of diverse stories, anecdotes, frustrations, and What may be the only variable matching the desires that tease at the possibilities in departing Hungry Traveler’s appetite for learning is relentless from the familiar with such large appetites. thanks. Thanks for traveling, for visiting, for eating. The Hungry Traveler respects and welcomes the For finding nourishment gained from the efforts of subjective suggestions of the visited. A swan dive another. And for all that alone, one should eat, hap- into sensual submission, actively negotiating control pily so. “That’s more food then they eat in a week,” and comforts. We’re not throwing our bodies into Indy forcefully whispers to Willie as they are offered traffic, while that very well be necessary in Hanoi, leaf-plates of unrecognizable brownish discomfort but rather embracing with sensual submission the food at a village in rural India. She reluctantly tries edible offerings of another. And if said offerings are upon Indy’s insistence, respecting such generous The Hungry Traveler... 132,133 gesture of hospitality. These undulating moments of salsa steps. The sensual is positioned as a primary control, desire, and comfort are actively co-authored means in which to receive and proclaim and our by the visited and the visitor. The sensory and sen- grips loosen with such sigh-inducing relief. It will sual provoke intimate experiences, shared across take time and we relish in such fact. It is a liberat- the table. Relationships are fostered from those with ing state of continually picking up where we have great appetites to learn and ask. We are placed in a left off, putting into patient practice the asking of position that hums with a latent energy, dying to be questions to another and to ourselves. We pause and expelled. And the venue for such release does not take in, as deep as we can, such welcome breath. need to be the exotic, the fermented shark carcass On my right hand: the lime scent, still on fingers stuffed with seal in an Eskimo igloo. It can very well from the fish tacos, has left bright slap of citrus with the restaurant down the street, or your roommate’s a hint of tortilla that helps me sink comfortably, still family home on the night of a cultural holiday. The with a proud posture. On my left: such soft sawdust Hungry Traveler proposes a framework for the visi- as I sand down the reading bench for the show. I tor away from the home place, but equally as appli- use my free hand to check my progress on the two cable towards the familiar, the next door, the every- by twelve of reddish fir with the most satisfying tex- day. In athletically cultivating a practice in which the ture. Over buzzing vacuum in the woodshop, I sway sensory and sensual primary means for engagement, in rhythm to hand-held power sander. one becomes a participating presence with great appetite. One becomes a Hungry Traveler.

Concluding with Pause and Breath... 85 MacCannell, Ibid., 67. Communication in Modern 86 Chantal Mouffe, The Art (Berkeley: University of Democratic Paradox (New California Press, 2004). Leading with the sensual, we burst forth. Re- York: Verso, 2005). 94 Solnit, Wanderlust: A 87 Mouffe, The Democratic History of Walking. After calibrating our footprints while away ushers the Paradox, 3–4. reading this text, I’ve rel- necessary confrontation towards the comforts, 88 Mouffe, Ibid., 99. ished in walking the city of 89 Mouffe, Ibid., 96. Boston. As Solnit quotes expectations, and desires we have held so close. 90 Mouffe, Ibid., 102. from Lefebvre, "to walk is The Hungry Traveler epistemology welcomes the 91 Mouffe, Ibid., 103. to speak the language of unwieldy energy of the body. We’re left in hopeless 92 Mouffe, Ibid., 105. the city"... or at least one 93 Grant Kester, Conversation that is scaled for feet, pursuit of an education of other bodies, tastes, and Pieces: Community and which Boston most happily The Hungry Traveler... 134,135 is. Walking is a medium to Mastroianni. ingest space, to take visual 102 Anthony Bourdain,“Dubai,” ethnographies of the famil- Anthony Bourdain: No TEXT, iar seen and happenstance Reservations, collection occurrences. My relation- 6, part 2, episode 3, DVD ship to the city is proudly released January 24, 2012 Bibliography defined on and by foot. (Travel Channel—Gaiam), I would not have it any DVD. other way. 103 Bourdain, Ibid., 194. Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a 95 Solnit, Ibid., 6. 104 Anthony Bourdain, Mediatized Culture. 2nd ed. New York: 96 Solnit, Ibid. Medium Raw: A Bloody Routledge, 2008. 97 I’ve returned to Valentine to the World MacCannell’s definition of of Food and the place in contrast to the People Who Cook (New Banes, Sally. “Olfactory Performances,” in The landscape. These land- York: HarpersCollins scapes become “points of Publishers), 259. Senses in Performance, eds. Sally Banes and repair” along the sightsee- 105 I really don’t mean to André Lepecki, 10–28. New York: Routledge, ing trip. MacCannell, Ibid., bag on balut, the Filipino 2007. 120. dish consisting of a 98 Yi-Fu Tuan, Passing boiled chicken embryo Strange and Wonderful: still inside the egg, but Benjamins, Erik. “To Gnaw With Gratitude.” Aesthetics, Nature, and I would have to define it Culture (Washington D.C.: as personal discomfort Gnome, Issue 1, Vol. 1 (Fall 2011): 38–9. Island Press, 1993), 36. food. 99 Tuan, Passing Strange and 106 Anthony Bourdain, A Wonderful: Aesthetics, Cook’s Tour: Global Beras, Erika. “A Taste Of Iran, Whipped Up In Nature, and Culture, 36. Adventures in Extreme The ‘Conflict Kitchen’.” NPR. Accessed January 100 Solnit, Ibid., 10. Cuisines (New York: 7, 2012. www.npr.org/templates/story/story. 101 There are too many Bloomsbury Publishing, examples to list, but one 2001), 143. php?storyId=128172025. favorite being the Rome 107 Bourdain, The Nasty episode where Bourdain’s Bits, 169. only prior conception Bishop, Claire. “Antagonism and Relational of the city is coated in Aesthetics,” October, 110 (Fall 2004): 51–79. 1960s Italian cinema. The episode, presented in black and white, show- Bourdain, Anthony. A Cook’s Tour: Global cases Bourdain as he Adventures in Extreme Cuisines. New York: plays up a persona of the likes of the classy Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001. and stylish Marcello 136,137 Bourdain, Anthony. “Dubai.” Disc 1. Anthony Desmond, Jane C. “Invoking the Native: Body Bourdain: No Reservations, Collection 6, Part 2. Politics in Contemporary Hawaiian Tourist DVD. Travel Channel—Gaiam, 2012. Shows,” The Drama Review, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Winter 1997): 83–109. Bourdain, Anthony. Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Di Benedetto, Stephen. “Guiding Somatic Who Cook. New York: HarperCollins Responses within Performative Structures: Publishers, 2010. Contemporary Live Art and Sensorial Perception,” in The Senses in Performance, Bourdain, Anthony. The Nasty Bits: Collected eds. Sally Banes and André Lepecki, 10–28. Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones. New York: Routledge, 2007. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006. Edible Geography. “Cross-Species Dining: An Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique Interview with Natalie Jeremijenko and of the Judgment of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. Mihir Desai.” Accessed January, 3, 2012. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. www.ediblegeography.com/cross-speciesdining- an-interview-with-natalie-jermijenko-and-mihir- Bourriaud, Nicolas. The Radicant. New York: Lukas desai. & Sternberg, 2009. The Environmental Health Clinic + Lab. “Cross(X) Çelik, Zeynep and Leila Kinney. “Ethnography Species Adventure Club.” Accessed January 3, and Exhibitionism at the Expositions 2012. www.environmentalhealthclinic.net/ Universelles,” Assemblages, 13 (Dec 1990): projects/xspecies. 34–59. The Environmental Health Clinic + Lab. Conflict Kitchen. Accessed January 7, 2012. “Natalie Jeremijenko.” Accessed January 3, www.conflictkitchen.org. 2012. www.environmentalhealthclinic.net/ people/natalie-jeremijenko. 138,139 Finkelstein, Jim and Mary Gavin. Fuse: Making McAfee, Andrew. “Two Common Mistakes of Sense of the New Cogenerational Workplace. Millennials at Work.” Harvard Business Review, Austin: Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2012. August 30, 2010. Accessed November 6, 2011. www.blogs.hbr.org.ezproxy.library.tufts.edu/hbr/ Fisher, Jennifer. “Tangible Acts: Touch mcafee/2010/08/two-common-mistakesof- Performances,” in The Senses in Performance, millenn.html. eds. Sally Banes and André Lepecki, 10–28. New York: Routledge, 2007. Lippard, Lucy R. On the Beaten Track: Tourism, Art and Place. New York: The New Press, 1999. Howes, David. “Introduction: Empire of the Senses,” in Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Lippard, Lucy R. The Lure of the Local: Senses of Culture Reader, ed. David Howes, 1–20. Place in a Multicentered Society. New York: The New York: Berg, 2005. New Press, 1997.

Johnston, Josée and Shyon Baumann. Foodies: Lupton, Peggy. Food, the Body, and the Self. Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet London: Sage, 1996. Foodscape. New York: Routledge, 2010. MacCannel, Dean. The Ethics of Sigthseeing. Kester, Grant. Conversation Pieces: Community and Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Communication in Modern Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Meade, Melissa. “Millennial Slackers? I Don’t Think So!,” in Fuse: Making Sense of the New Kliman, Todd. “The Problem of Authenticity.” Cogenerational Workplace by Jim Finkelstein Lucky Peach, Summer 2011. and Mary Gavin, 24-5. Austin: Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2012.

Mildred’s Lane. Accessed March 21, 2012. www.mildredslane.com. 140,141 Mouffe, Chantal. The Democratic Paradox. London: Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Verso, 2005. Books, 1978.

Ng, Eddy S. W., Schweitzer, Linda and Sean T. Serematakis, C. Nadia. The Senses Still. Boulder: Lyons. “New Generation, Great Expectations: A Westview Press., 1994. Field Study of the Millennial Generation,” Journal of Business and Psychology 24(2010): Schechner, Richard. “Rasaesthetics,” in The Senses 281–92. in Performance, eds. Sally Banes and André Lepecki, 10–28. New York: Routledge, 2007. Ooz. “Cross(x)Species Adventure Club.” Accessed January 12, 2012. www. Solnit, Rebecca. Wanderlust: A History of Walking. environmentalhealthclinic.net/ooz/projects/ New York: Penguin Books, 2000. xpecies. Tuan, Yi-Fu. Passing Strange and Wonderful: Pew Research Center. “The Millennials: Confident. Aesthetics, Nature, and Culture. Washington Connected. Open to Change.” Accessed D.C.: Island Press, 1993. November 6, 2011. http://pewresearch.org/ pubs/1501/millennials-new-surveygenerational Zellner, Debra A. “How Foods Get to be Liked: personality-upbeat-open-new-ideas-technology Some General Mechanisms and Special Cases,” bound. in The Hedonics of Taste, ed. Robert C. Bolles. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Phelan, Peggy. “The Ontology of Performance: 1991. representation without reproduction,” in Unmasked: The Politics of Performance, New York: Routledge, 1993.

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, New York: Penguin, 2006. 142,143 Postface; The Filipino Club Sandwich 144,145

As told by close friend, Ryan Sheffer.

A handful of years ago I spent three weeks in the Philippines and one of my favorite parts of the trip was the food. The food was amaz- ing. It was probably my first expe- rience with a really foreign food. Growing up I didn’t travel a lot. I hadn’t really tried—besides let’s say, real “Mexican”—anything but Asian food that you would get at Panda Express. But after about two and a half weeks, I started to really miss American food and miss my traditional dietary habits. So the last day I was there, we went to a mall for the day and had lunch there. All I had been telling everybody was, “oh my god, I just need to get something that I’m used to”. I kept telling people: “I want a Club Sandwich”. I feel when you’re apart from what you usu- ally eat, you realize things that you really like, things that you’ve Postface... 146,147 never really thought about before like some sort of spinach. There and you kind of took for granted. was an over-easy fried egg on And for me that was a club sand- top of this sort of sauce that was wich. So I showed up at the mall at almost like a chutney, but I don’t this lunch place, and it was labeled really know what it was. I bet you “American Diner”, or something to if I had the sandwich today I would that effect. We were attempting like it, but in that moment, I hated to get American Food back into it more than any food I’ve ever our lives and I saw they had a club tried because it was so frustrat- sandwich. I ordered the club sand- ingly... I don’t even think it had tur- wich and I had never been more key. I know it had meat in it. But my excited for a meal than that meal. memory is of some sort of—have I’m not very picky, but when I order you ever had Asian meatloaf?—It a club sandwich, I expect the three was more like that consistency, like pieces of bread. I want some tur- a deli meat. It was thick. It wasn’t key and some bacon, some lettuce, freaking turkey. It wasn’t bacon. It and some tomato, and mayonnaise. wasn’t lettuce. There was a green Anything else is whatever the spe- vegetable, there were some pickled cialty of the house is, let’s say. vegetables in the chutney sauce, Well I get this back. First of all, I and a fried egg. I was so unhappy. can tell just by seeing it, that it’s Unnecessarily unhappy too. It took not what I’m expecting. The only me a second to not let it ruin my thing about it that I recognize as a day, which is so ridiculous, but in club sandwich is that it has three that moment, that was the com- pieces of bread. It doesn’t have fort I wanted. It was the sand- lettuce in it. It has a green veg- wich I knew and loved and I didn’t etable I don’t recognize. It looked get it. And I was probably feeling Postface... 148,149 homesick and I was hoping that Glossary would be a way back to not feel- ing homesick. I ate most of it, but I know I didn’t finish it because I remember having this really ridicu- lous perspective that every bite was a chore. I was doing the sand- wich a service by eating it, which is so ridiculous, but the other end of that is that in the Philippines, if you went to their version of McDonalds called Jollibee, I remember instead of French fries there was spaghetti with your hamburger. It was kind of weird. 150,151 AGONISM BA´HN MÍ Opposition between Flaky and golden, torpedo- adversaries; respecting shaped baguette that the opposing beliefs of lovingly sandwiches another. cucumber slices, cilantro, pickled carrots, a ANTAGONISM mysterious mayonnaise, Opposition between and meat (I prefer beef); enemies; seeking the edible product of a elimination of the other. French-Vietnamese colonial history. And always ask for AMUSE-BOUCHE spicy. “The most important thing with an amuse bouche: It CORRAL should be a palate starter. A twanged slang for the Something light, but salty rounding up, of ideas, of or sour. Think of it as sheep, of questions; open eating candy. If you eat your right arm wide and three chocolate covered slowly, with confidence, cherries, you are probably and then with a quick move done and will not want to inwards, motion like your eat a Twix. But if you start getting them doggies with a sour patch kid, or along, getting them in. And something like this, then repeat. you can progress in you candy. An amuse should be COMFORT FOOD the same for a meal.” Such welcome edible —Jamie. manifestation of the home place that is so familiar, APPLE iPHONE 4S so satisfying, so warming, A first, widely celebrated so soothing; putting on move away from the pants made out of electric presence of and need blankets that buzz at for handheld cameras to the perfect temperature; commemorate and make beads of sweat form on five by seven prints from brow and upper lip. CVS if so inclined.

AUTHENTIC, THE Not important; non- existent; keep moving. 152,153 COOK BOOKS DURATION HOOSH LAG, THE These tomes do several Time spent, wasted, When you’re cleaning Six word qualifier: important things, so savored, missed, embraced, the kitchen and there is divergent, welcome, and worthy of adopting into longed for, witnessed, not enough room on the refreshing perspective an operational model for forgotten, sweated to; magnetic knife rack, the purveying. On one end the curious and hungry necessarily asking so much cleaver can be placed on of the spectrum we have to learn. Some tenets: from you. the butcher block—blade an hour-long critical offering accessible inwards—perhaps with a jar discussion in grad crit of instruction; making one EMERGENT of picked flowers or that the social and political hungry; celebrating Just let it happen; don’t bronze pepper grinder? as sparked by an artwork through printed text and worry about it; it will A hoosh expands beyond of a thrown away candy image one’s subjectivity come together; trust the a graceful mindfulness wrapper. And on the other of the culinary, cultural, process; try not to expect of one’s body hurling end, a family walks into and tasty; writing history; or predict and the results through space and into a MoMA and still doesn’t get never penultimate; happily will be so tasty. whisky-infused emphasis why this Pollock guy is so sharing the shelf with other on the greater-than-or- famous, I mean their kid diverse, contradictory and EPISTEMOLOGY equal-to-two; a marriage could do that, right? mutually appetizing book- Comfortable, steadfast of aesthetics and utility siblings; celebrating the rules, regulations, that requires patience LEANING TOWER OF PISA, THE limits of the retinal with conditions, frustrations, and practice, interspersed A unique place, emoting such luscious imagery that and invigorators to learn, between meals shared. such sway of photographic tantalize and provoke the always under healthy influence, we can’t help using of one’s hands. suspicion, therefore willing HUNGRY TRAVELER, THE but play out in our heads and ready for contestation, Why we have gathered here as we stand before DISCOMFORT FOOD upholding, reverence, and today. such familiarly angeled The edible unfamiliar. energy. structure, that god- The foreign, suspect and forsaken pose. mysterious that works to GLOBALIZATION such potent degree that The collapsing of space MEANDER one may not even need to and time thanks to forces A slow and relaxed swaying be in the same room with of the economic, political, of legs, moving in a the perpetrator to panic, social, technological, and comfortable and confident gag and sweat. Prompting pop-cultural. With such mosey; one wouldn’t a retreat to warmer, more privilege, access, and meander into a shootout, familiar pastures. consequence, many go, but they would be open to by luxury, force, desire, such unforeseen conflict. reluctance, love. 154,155 MILLENNIAL GENERATION, THE PROPOSAL Abusers and evolvers Asking one to find a of language through comfortable seat and Recipes slanged abbreviation; consider, for a moment seekers of the expedient among other moments, and efficient, fostered some ideas and questions; in great part by small roll them around your glowing screens of varying, mouth. How do they taste? pocketable sizes. RIJSTAFFEL, THE NOSE-TO-TAIL CUISINE Spicy rendang, krupuk, Respecting such privilege pickled acar, sate babi, to eat what we see fit and so many others. Small in fostering a culinary plates of the tastiest practice that embraces dishes to be shared with all parts, nose-to-tail. See rice, and if one finds Fergus Henderson’s sigh- themselves lucky enough, inducing contributions. a Beer Bintang. A feast 1 and choreography for WHAT A BAKED POTATO PERFORMATIVE the senses, let loose by Gestures made, such great appetites; the 2 understood, dismissed, and edible product of a Dutch- PORK BELLY felt live, between one and Indonesian colonial history. 3 another, or many others; MAGADIP a tint or lush coat worth applying. 4 GADO GADO POLITICAL, THE 5 The unavoidable friction CRISPY PIG’S TAILS created between differences in passionately 6 held beliefs and values. SPEKKOEK 156,157

1 WHAT A BAKED POTATO*

To serve four. We seem to have moved into the realm of comfort food, and they don’t 4 large jacket potatoes come more comforting than these hot 20 cloves of garlic, peeled potatoes. and left whole Enough duck fat to cover Bake the potatoes in a medium oven the garlic until soft to the squeeze. Meanwhile, Sea salt and black pepper put the garlic cloves into an oven- proof dish and cover with the duck fat. Cover the dish and put into a gentle to medium oven. Cook until the garlic is totally squishy, then remove from the oven and whizz the garlic and enough of the duck fat in a food processor to give a very loose paste.

Let the potatoes cool enough to handle, then cut them in half length- ways. Scoop out the flesh into a bowl and add the garlic and duck fat paste. Stir thoroughly. When they have combined forces, season and return to the hollow potato skins. Pop into a hot oven until golden brown.

Have you ever heard of such com- forting fare? Recipes... 158,159

2 PORK BELLY† 3 MAGADIP ‡

Make as much as you like. Season the belly with the salt and Aromatic Chicken from Madura. The Magadip has proved to be one sugar. Hit it with a couple of turns of Serves 6, with other dishes. of the most popular Indonesian 3 or more lbs. of skinless freshly ground black pepper. Let it sit chicken recipes in my repertoire. pork belly overnight, covered, in the fridge. 1/4 cup thin-sliced onion Toasting the dry spices for several 1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. salt per 2 tsps. salt minutes releases the essential oils and pound of pork Throw the seasoned belly in a roast- 1 cup water imparts a mouth-watering aromatic 1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. sugar per ing pan. Blast it in a 450°F degree 1 tbsp. coriander flavor to the chicken. The recipe pound of pork oven for 30 minutes. Scale the heat 1 tsp. pepper does not require garlic, hot chili or Black pepper back to 275°F and let it ride out for 1 tsp. ground cumin coconut milk, in itself making this an another hour or two, until it’s tender 1/4 tsp. ground clove unconventional chicken dish in the but not mushy. 1/4 tsp. nutmeg Indonesian galaxy. As an additional One 2-inch cinnamon stick attraction, it can be made in advance Let the belly cool to room tempera- 1/4 tsp. turmeric and kept in refrigerator for up to two ture. Wrap it up tight in plastic and 1 slice ginger (about 1 tsp.) days, or frozen until needed. Thaw put it in the fridge until it’s thor- One 3 1/2 pound chicken, at room temperature for two hours oughly chilled through—a few hours cut into frying pieces before re-heating. at least, and up to a couple of days. At that point, slice it into nice thick In a blender, make a smooth sauce of slabs, then either brown it in oil or the onion, salt and ½ cup of water. warm it through with a little stock or water in a covered pan. Deploy as Mix the coriander, pepper, cumin, needed. clove, nutmeg, cinnamon and turmeric together in a dry saucepan. Toast lightly over medium heat for about two minutes. Add the onion sauce and the balance of water (½ cup) to the saucepan, along with the ginger and the chicken pieces. Cook over medium heat for about forty- five minutes, or until the chicken is tender and about half the sauce has evaporated. Recipes... 160,161

4 GADO GADO § 4 CONT'D

Mixed Indonesian Salad from THE VEGETABLES—­ The migration of foods is always a Crush the kencur, chili and garlic in Java. 1 cup string beans, cut into fascinating subject to me, especially a mortar. Add the paste to a blender Serves 8, with other dishes. 2-in. pieces if the introduction has been from along with the sugar, salt, coconut 1 cup julienne-sliced carrots another continent during an early milk, shrimp paste, peanut butter and THE SAUCE— 2 cups shredded cabbage period of history when transporta- tamarind liquid. Blend into a sauce. 1 slice kencur (1/4 tsp.), soaked 1 cup fresh bean sprouts tion was by foot, canoe, sailing vessel, in 1 tbsp. water for fifteen 1 cup cooked and sliced oxcart or birds. Indonesia was a cross- Cook the sauce with the jeruk purut minutes (optional) potatoes roads for the Portuguese, Spanish, over medium/low heat for about ten 1 fresh hot red or green chili, 1 cup sliced cucumber English and Dutch moving to their minutes, or until it has thickened and sliced possessions in Asia during the period the color has darkened. Set aside, 1 clove garlic, sliced THE GARNISH— of great colonial expansion. Invasions, and keep warm. 1 tbsp. light or dark brown 1 Chinese soybean cake, fried both military and peaceful, came and sugar in oil until brown and cut went in the fluid rhythms of a Europe Blanch the string beans and carrots 1/2 tsp. salt into 9 cubes awakening to the commercial pos- separately for three minutes to soften 1 cup coconut milk 1 ripe tomato, sliced sibilities of the Orient. Conquests of them. Rinse under cold water, and 1/4 tsp. shrimp (sauce) paste 2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced a commercial, military or religious drain well. Set aside. 4 tbsps. smooth or crunchy 3 tablespoons crispy fried nature did not occur in isolation, and peanut butter onions when people emigrated, their tradi- Blanch the cabbage and bean sprouts 1 tsp. tamarind, dissolved into tions and foods came with them. It is separately for two minutes. Drain 1 tbsp. water logistically arguable that the invention well, and set aside. 1 piece of jeruk purut, or 1 of Gado Gado is a product of migra- square in. of lemon peel tion. Gado Gado is the preeminent Arrange the vegetables in layers in a Indonesian salad and universally large, round serving dish: cabbage admired. It combines the vegetables on the bottom, topped by a layer of of Europe, Asia and North America string beans, then carrots, potatoes, with the peanut from either Brazil or cucumber and bean sprouts on top. Africa, and it utilizes the seasonings Scatter the soybean cubes over the of Indonesia to amalgate them into a bean sprouts, and decorate the cir- celebration. The Gado Gado should cumference of the serving dish with be presented as an important salad alterative slices of egg and tomato. in a large round bowl in which all Pour the warm peanut sauce over the ingredients can be displayed to the salad, and sprinkle with crispy good advantage. It should be liberally onions. The Gado Gado is eaten at prepared and luxuriously served. room temperature. Recipes... 162,163

5 CRISPY PIG’S TAILS¶ 5 CONT'D

To serve four. On other pages I have sung the When the tails are cold and firm, mix praises of how the pig’s snout and together the mustard and eggs and 8 long pig’s tails belly both have that special lip-stick- have ready three bowls: flour, egg 2 onions, peeled and roughly ing quality of fat and flesh merg- and mustard, and breadcrumbs. Dust chopped ing, but this occurs in no part of the them with flour, roll them in the egg 2 carrots, peeled and roughly animal as wonderfully as on the tail. and mustard mix, and finally coat chopped Like an ice cream on a stick, a pig’s them in the breadcrumbs so that they 2 stalks of celery, chopped tail offers up all the above on a well- are well covered. (Do this just before A bundle of fresh herbs tied behaved set of bones. By the by, deal- you cook, otherwise the crumbs will together ing with any slightly hairy extremities go soggy.) 3 bay leaves of pig, I recommend a throwaway Bic 10 black peppercorns razor (hot towels and shaving cream Get a large ovenproof frying pan or 1 head of garlic, skin on not required). You must ask your roasting pan hot, add the butter, and Zest of 1 lemon butcher for long tails. when sizzling add the tails and roll 1/2 bottle of red wine them around (watch out, they can 1 quart chicken or light veal Place the tails in an ovenproof dish and will spit–be very careful). Place stock with the vegetables, herbs, bay leaves, in a hot 425°F oven for 10 minutes, 2 tablespoons prepared peppercorns, garlic, lemon zest, then turn them over, making sure English mustard and wine, and cover with the stock. there is enough butter, and roast for 4 eggs, whisked together Cover with aluminum foil, place in another 10 minutes, keeping an eye 3 1/2 cups flour, seasoned with a medium 350°F oven, and cook on them so they do not burn. salt and pepper for 3 hours, checking on the tails so 3 cups fresh fine white they do not cook too fast; when done Serve hot with watercress or red breadcrumbs you should be able to easily pinch mustard salad (smallish salad leaves A large know of unsalted through the flesh. Remove from the with reddish veins, a fiery kick, and a butter oven. Allow to cool in the stock, but slightly hairy nature). Some may like remove the tails before it turns to a spot of malt or red wine vinegar on jelly and drain away any excess liquid their tails. Encourage the use of fin- off them (you can refrigerate them at gers and much gnawing of the bone. this point). Recipes... 164,165

6 SPEKKOEK¤ 6 CONT'D

Spekkoek (“Bacon”) or Preheat oven to 300°F (recipe For Batters: Indonesian Spice Cake. calls for broiling; if uncomfortable Beat egg whites until stiff, divide Makes one 10-in. diameter cake with that, bake it). Use 10” remov- equally, and using spatula blend Make at least one or two days able spring form pan, for easier lightly into Dark Spice and Light ahead of consumption. unmolding. Spice layer batters.

BATTER— For Dark Spice Layer Batter: Place a thin layer of Dark Spice 20 eggs, separated into 10 Cream 10 egg yolks, 1 1/8 stick Layer batter (appr. 1/8 inch) in cake yolks & 10 yolks; 20 egg butter, and 4.5 oz. flour, into light pan. whites mixture in a bowl. 9 oz. flour Bake for appr. 20 minutes (depend- 9 oz. unsalted butter Mix in brown sugar. ing on your oven, it may take shorter (appr. 2 1/4 sticks) or longer for layer to bake—you want 11 oz. brown sugar Add all ingredients listed for Dark it firm but not dry). 11 oz. powdered white sugar Spice Layer. Brush some melted butter over baked DARK SPICE LAYER— layer, then place a layer of Light 4 tsp. cinnamon (heaping) For Light Spice Layer Batter: Spice Batter over it. 2 tsp. cloves, ground (heaping) Cream 10 egg yolks, 1 1/8 stick 2 tsp. mace, ground (heaping) butter, and 4.5 oz. flour, into light Bake for 15 minutes (or shorter/lon- 2 tsp. cardamom, ground mixture in another bowl. ger, depending on your oven). (heaping) 1/4 tsp. salt Mix in white powdered sugar. Brush melted butter over baked layer and place layer of Dark Spice Batter. LIGHT SPICE LAYER— Add all spices listed for Light Spice 2 pkgs. vanilla sugar Layer. Repeat above and alternate layers of (alternatively, 2 tsp. sugar Light and Dark Spice Batters. and 1 tsp. vanilla) 1/4 tsp. salt When final layer has baked, let cool.

+ Additional melted butter for Flavors improve with aging as spices glazing layers (appr. one settle into cake. stick). Cut into thin segments. Recipes... 166,167 Appetizers FOOTNOTES (Pertinent Previous * Fergus Henderson and Justin Piers Works) Gellatly, Beyond Nose to Tail (New York: Bloomsbury, USA, 2007).

† Lucky Peach, Issue 1: Ramen, Summer 2011

‡ Copeland Marks with Mintari Soeharjo, The Indonesian Kitchen (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1981). A Honey Hunger Pangs § Copeland Marks with Mintari Soeharjo, B Lekkerbekken The Indonesian Kitchen (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1981). C Backwards & Forwards ¶ Fergus Henderson, The Whole Beast: From Memory Nose to Tail Eating (New York: D HarperCollins Publishers, 2004). Untitled E ¤ A recipe from my uncle, Bart Benjamins, Capital T given to him by Jan Van der Plas in April F Tasting Station of 1997. for Dubbel Zoute Drop 168,169

A Honey Hunger Pangs

A-1 Apps... 170,171

A-3

A-2 Apps... B-3 172,173

B Lekkerbekken B-1

B-2 Apps... 174,175 C Backwards & Forwards From Memory C-1 C-2

B-4 C-3 Apps... D-3 176,177

D Untitled D-1 D-2 Apps... 178,179

E Capital T

E-1

1 Darling, of course she’s fucking with you. Since when does a Balinese man need to talk to his wife before making a business deal? She wants the whole parcel now, and she wants you to buy it for her.

2 She was my friend.

1 It’s the way of life here, trying to get the most money out of visitors. It’s a survival tactic. Where were we… ?

2 Either Wayan’s ripping me off, or she isn’t.

1 I understand the culture of poverty. I come from it. You’ve given Wayan more money that she’s ever seen in her life and it’s making her crazy.

2 See, I’m thinking oh, we’ve caught so many wonderful fish, let’s invite Wayan and Tutti over and grill them, and then I think no, I don’t trust her anymore…

1 You mustn’t get angry. If you get angry you’ll lose her and D-4 that would be a pity because she’s a marvelous person and she loves you.

2 But you said she’s fucking with me. You don’t fuck with people you love. Apps... 180,181 F Tasting Station for Dubbel Zoute Drop E-2

F-1 E-3 E-4 Apps... 182,183

F-3

F-2 Apps... 184,185

NOTES

A Honey Hunger Pangs, with C Backwards and Forwards E Capital T, Performance, F Tasting Station for Dubbel Benjamin Critton; one- from Memory, Single 2.5-hr. Duration, Anthony Zoute Drop, Wood, night footnote interven- Channel Video with Non- Greaney, Boston, MA, 2010. Hardware, E-mail tion and graphic redesign sync Sound, Both Looped, Transcripts, Photographs, of Dinner and Drink Menu, 2011. A two page segment from Sound, Floor Cushions, The Beehive Restaurant, the Eat, Pray, Love screen- Ceramic Dishes, Dutch Boston, MA, 2012. A silent video of an end- play was used as a starting Double Salt Black Licorice, lessly moving elevator point—loosely adopting the 2010. The Beehive’s dinner menu transports changing, but Actor’s Workshop model— was re-designed to include subtly repeating groups of to explore the frustrations, A mobile, folding structure footnotes that poetically students. A photographer memories, and generaliza- presents ephemera result- outlined an epistemologi- moves precariously up a tions of the Western tour- ing from a familial-driven cal proposal for the senses downwards-moving escala- ist as collectively defined inquiry into our varying and sensual. tor to photograph them. by three local actors, loves and loathes of the A looping and shuffled myself-as-director, and candy in question. Dishes B Lekkerbekken, with audio track presents short, audience members. of licorice prompt the Benjamin Critton; Acrylic spoken meditations from viewer to try, colliding their Paint on Wall, Xerox Prints, the cameraman, reflecting assumptions and palates to Wood, Limited Amount of the excitements and frus- both my family’s and popu- Dutch Double Salt Black trations of his job as the lar Dutch cultural norms. Licorice, 2011. official Loyola Marymount campus photographer. Large wall-painted text, prompts viewers to vocal- D Untitled, Archival Inkjet ize phonetically spelled Photographs, 20” x 30” Dutch words of tastiness. each, 2011. A limited number of licorice are available to try, while The chocolate covered they last. One can also take macadamia nut, a Hawaiian a printed takeaway citing tourist staple, is made into a Psychology text on how a friendly cartoon char- taste aversions can be acter that is inserted into reversed. photographs taken during a vacation to Hawaii. ix,x Thanks

My Peer Pressure and HAP family, so capable of applying such great pressure (and motivation). The thesis committee (the SMFA grad faculty contingent): Tony Schwensen and Barbara Gallucci. The thesis committee (the off-site, third member contingent): Jamie Bisonnette, particularly for such enthusiastic willingness and curiosity in helping the culinary and visual arts communities shake hands. Jeannie Simms, my graduate advisor. Ayesha Fuentes, the most incredible and uplifting editor/track-changer. Benjamin Critton, an absurdly talented and inspiring designer and collaborator. Harumi Elders, for her patience and choreography. The performing artists: Hannah Wendel, Liz Cappabianca, Dave Glista, and Ryan Gillis. Nicole Stromsoe, for singing with such sway. My first draft readers: Liz Schaldenbrand, Taylor Poulin, and Becca Wallach. Jordan Tynes, for inviting me co-produce the inspiring, relaxing, and tasty “My Dinner with Erik” Radio Context segment.

T. xi,xii Chris Ford, Joanna Tam, and Alaina Gurdak for Kyra Pearson, Wenshu Lee, and Phil Wander, fueling necessary and unnecessary thesis worries Communication Studies Department, Loyola over coffees. Marymount University, Los Angeles, California. Thomas Willis and Becca Wallach for their help Tufts University Tisch and Ginn Libraries. in assisting on shoot days. Harvard College Widener and Radcliffe Libraries. Sarah Gaw. Color Services, LLC, Needham, Massachusetts. Gabriel Solomon. Fort Point Framers, Boston, Massachusetts. Tim Hughes. Max, Scott, and Max at Café Fixe, Brookline, Nate Grossman and Publication Studio Boston. Massachusetts. Cindy Tsai and Eszter Sapi. Phở Sô 1 Boston, Field’s Corner, Dorchester, Alex Squire. Massachusetts. Many amazing and refreshingly diverse Museum The Bone Thugs-n-Harmony Pandora Station School ’11–’13 MFA grads. And so necessarily, my family in Los Angeles, of Carla Herrera-Prats. the blood and non-blood variety. Jane Gillooly. Claire Beckett. Chad Arnholt. Maria Molteni. Diana Delcambre. Ryan Sheffer. Sue Murad. Maggie Cavallo and Lucas Spivey. Phil Fryer and the SMFA Stockroom. Jonathan Takahashi. Tony Greaney. Ikumi Kaminishi and Eva Hoffman, Department of Art History, Tufts University. My mentor, Diane Meyer.

T. T. xiii,xiv Colophon

Just... by Erik Benjamins.

©2012 by the Author. All rights reserved.

1st Ed. (12) Published Spring, 2012. 2nd Ed. (Unlimited) Published Fall, 2012.

Design... Benjamin Critton Art Dept. Typefaces... Radikal, by Marius Lundgård; Life, by Francesco Simoncini.

Printing... Lulu.com Published by... Erik Benjamins. Information... ErikBenjamins.com

C. xv,xvi Initially published in conjunction with the Thesis Committee... Tony Schwensen, PhD, artwork... Just arrived, a traveler bounds without Graduate and Performance Department Faculty; direction, filled with inextinguishable drive and awe, Barbara Gallucci, Graduate and Sculpture until feet weigh heavy and head and stomach spin Department Faculty; Jamie Bisonnette, Co-owner for they can’t remember the last time they slept, or and Chef of Coppa and Toro Restaurants, Boston, ate for that matter, and now flung back, near stum- Massachusetts. bling with exhaustion, with hunger pangs screaming for acknowledgement, the traveler, now lost, finds Exhibited as part of... Peer Pressure themselves surrounded by, assaulted by, teased by Featuring... Alaina Gurdak, Anthony Montuori, the discomfort food, and so they must decide to taste, Christopher Ford, Erik Benjamins, Leah Craig, participate, and venture, or anxiously search on for Joanna Tam, Jordan Tynes, and Michael Gaughran. the edible familiar. MFA Thesis Exhibition. School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in by Erik Benjamins. affiliation with Tufts University. 6 – 22 April, 2012. Archival Inkjet Photographs, Sound, Scent, Howard Art Project, 1486 Dorchester Avenue, Acrylic Paint on Wall, Wood, Hardware, and Boston, Massachusetts, 02122. Limited Edition Publications.

2012.

Choreography... Harumi Elders. Performers... Hannah Wendel, Elizabeth Cappabianca, and Ryan Gillis. Vocal Composition & Performance... Nicole Stromsoe.

C. C.