WONDER WALL
Showcased in a new Sydney exhibit, the work of influential modern photographer Jeff Wall evokes powerful and surprising responses

Large and luminous, glowing from within their trademark light boxes, the photographs of Jeff Wall do not lend themselves to casual appreciation. The Canadian artist, who has described his subject matter as the “unswept corners of everyday life,” produces images that do not strike you so much as seep into you. His pictures—or reconstructed memories—seem to be uncomposed, chaotic, a little random. Spend enough time gazing into them, though, and unexpected reactions occur: Wall is a master at making the ordinary seem ethereal, even spooky. Starting this month, some of his major works go on display at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. The Destroyed Room alone is worth the trip. MAY 1

ILLUSTRATION BY PETER OUMANSKI

BRISTOL, ENGLAND—Looking up from her sudoku puzzle for the first time in a half hour, Paula Tunnicliffe fixes her gaze on a bearded man and a lithe woman who are twirling between battered barstools. The couple has attracted an audience, and as the man dips his partner, some murmur, “Ooh.”

A modest pub on a cobbled street in Bristol, The Old Duke seems more Duke of York than Duke Ellington. Every Monday, though, it hosts a jazz night, which always draws a crowd. And it’s not only those who can recall spinning 78s on their hi-fis—you’re as likely to see dreadlocks here as a blue rinse.

For Tunnicliffe, The Old Duke’s jazz nights have little to do with retro cool. Her husband of 44 years, Bob, is the trombone player in Cass Caswell’s Allstars, who have a monthly residency here. Tunnicliffe attends every show, as she has for years. The band is onstage now, dressed in smart white shirts, whipping up a swirl of Dixieland gaiety.

From her table, sipping white wine, Tunnicliffe watches the dancing man tilt his partner back in time to her husband’s music, and half smiles. Maybe she’s remembering the days when she and Bob could captivate an audience like this. Or maybe not. “I can’t dance at all, actually,” she says, “but I always wished I could.”

At the end of the set, Bob approaches his wife. His movements are uncertain, his expression a bit lost. “He’s losing his memory,” she says, passing him his coat. “He always remembers this place, though, and the band’s music. That’s why we keep coming back.”

TO SERVE AND PROTECT
Eat off these habitat-supporting dishes, and join the really clean plate club

There are those who like to give to charity quietly—dashing off a check, say, after a visit to an orphanage. But for those who like to support good works and raise awareness simultaneously, there may be no better way than to purchase, and serve dessert on, these artist-designed plates from Azuero. The set of six features artwork by Teresita Fernández, April Gornik, Mary Heilmann, Maya Lin, Richard Prince and Ed Ruscha, and the influences range from optical illusions to landscapes to pop art. Proceeds benefit the Azuero Earth Project, which works to build sustainable housing, 
manage waste and restore forests and animal habitats in Panama. No chocolate cake on earth could make that 
look sinful.

Artists for Azuero 2012 plates, $750 / newmuseumstore.org

]]> http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2013/05/01/goods-8/feed/ 0 http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2013/05/01/the-month-ahead-movie/ http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2013/05/01/the-month-ahead-movie/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 06:00:51 +0000 edward http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/?p=11870 RULE OF THREE
One’s a superhero tale, one’s a love story, and one shows yet again that comedies don’t need actual jokes. Each represents the third installment in a hit film franchise—but that’s about all they have in common.

ILLUSTRATION BY PETER OUMANSKI

LIMERICK, IRELAND—Kathleen Fox could have sworn she heard her late father in the voices of her newfound Irish relatives, who’d advised her that the pub in which they planned to hold their family reunion would likely be knees-up. “I remember my dad saying that with the same brogue,” Fox says, referring to the local vernacular for very crowded.

The pub, in Newcastle West in County Limerick, was indeed knees-up that night. And when everyone in it started to sing, Fox recalled her dad doing the same at weddings and other happy occasions.

Fox, whose parents left Ireland in the 1950s and settled in Erie, Pa., is planning another trip overseas in the coming months, making her one of 325,000 people of Irish descent slated to make homecomings this year for “The Gathering”—a campaign launched by the tourism board here to coincide with the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s 1963 visit to his family’s hometown in Wexford.

Ireland has a population of nearly 6.5 million, but there are about 70 million people worldwide of Irish ancestry. More than half live in the U.S., including Fox and her seven brothers and sisters.

“People in Ireland love to get together,” says campaign project director Jim Miley. “The Gathering gives us all a great excuse.” Not everyone is so enthusiastic, however: Irish-American actor Gabriel Byrne has publicly suggested that the visitors are simply being “shaken down” for a much-needed infusion of cash.

Fox doesn’t see it that way. Her Irish relatives, she says, insisted she stay in their homes. “It’s all about greeting people and enjoying life. That’s what our parents were like too. They’re here with us in spirit.”

- – - – -

COUP DE GRAS
The tale of the bus station, the tall stranger and the mysterious package

TIJUANA, MEXICO—While ants, grasshoppers and armadillos all have their place in Mexican cuisine, snails have been slow to move from the garden to the plate. So chef Ryan Steyn was taking a risk when he opened Bistrot l’Escargot in Tijuana in 2011. Today, he’s taking another one.

Steyn is at the bus station, awaiting a delivery from Guadalajara: a cooler of high-grade foie gras. He had a hard time finding a local source for the stuff, but thinks it’ll be easier getting people to eat it; after all, his escargot, with a little chipotle thrown in, has been a hit. “You’ve got to give people something their taste buds can understand,” he says.

A more immediate challenge: wresting the cooler away from the bus driver, who is suspicious about its traveling unattended in the luggage compartment of his vehicle. Finally, after a spirited debate, Steyn retrieves his prize and heads back to his bistro, which will have a new item on the menu tonight. —REBEKAH SAGER

PHOTO BY ANDERS HANSER/PREMIUM ROCKSHOT

NO, THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC
Discover the dancing queen within at ABBA the Museum

As a rule, warbling loudly in a museum doesn’t end well. Not so at ABBA the Museum, which opens this month in Stockholm. “This is the most interactive exhibition in the world,” says curator Ingmarie Halling, who used to do hair and makeup for the band. “When you walk in, you walk through the life of ABBA.”

Rather than displaying objects in cases, the museum places them in various reproduced settings: the dressing room, the summer house, the recording studio. In the last one, would-be Björns and Agnethas are invited to perform before a green screen, after which their sessions are digitally inserted into original footage, then made available for downloading from the museum’s website.

But the hands-on approach does have its limits—the one thing you’re not allowed to do in the faux studio is make use of its ’70s-era ashtrays. “This was a time when everybody smoked,” Halling explains. “It’s different now.” MAY 7

RICK HOEFLING HAS LOVED AIRPLANES all his life. While growing up in Elizabeth, N.J., he took a ride in a prop plane down the Hudson River that opened his eyes to the magic of flying; later, he studied engineering at Rutgers University, hoping to “do something with planes.” Today, as managing director of operations control at United Airlines’ Newark Liberty International Airport hub, Hoefling considers himself fortunate. 

“I love my job. I can’t believe they pay me to do what I do,” he says. “I know my team feels the same. It takes a unique person to want to take each challenge and deal with it before it becomes a problem for
our customers.” 

Hoefling’s boss describes him as a quarterback who ensures that United employees, federal agencies, vendors and partners from the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey come together in orchestrated harmony. That organization is vital for keeping things running smoothly at Newark, one of the world’s busiest airports, where more than 800 of United’s arrivals and departures come and go daily. 

The oldest commercial airport serving New York/New Jersey, Newark can present a variety of challenges. “We have two main runways that are so close we can’t have simultaneous use a lot of the time,” Hoefling says. “When our weather deteriorates, our airport capacity drops significantly, which is why we’ve invested in sophisticated weather radar and the right people to interpret that data so we can keep our flights moving around the weather.”

Hoefling has had many years to figure out how to unravel such complexities. Stefan Mayden, managing director of ramp service, hired him in 1985 to work on the ramp. Hoefling has worked in various capacities at the airport ever since. “From an operations perspective, there’s probably nobody who knows more about Newark than Rick does,” Mayden says. “He’s very engaged and obviously dedicated. If you ask anyone who the guy to go to in Newark is, they’ll tell you Rick Hoefling.”

May 22, 2013, marks the 25th anniversary of the opening of Newark’s Terminal C. Hoefling has seen a lot of changes in those years. “The airline had assumed operations and employees from two other airlines, creating a disconnected, patchwork operation,” he says. “Today, the airline operates in all three terminals with operations tightly linked. Before, we were just there. Now, we are Newark.”

Beyond simply growing, United has invested in the airport itself, building facilities to overcome operational challenges. “We built a sophisticated, professional operations tower with cutting-edge technology, where we have about 40 people—operations, line maintenance control, cargo, etc.—all centrally located so we can discuss operations face to face. If everyone is separate, it’s much more difficult to address issues as quickly as we do,” Hoefling says, adding that the airline has invested in a system called Sensis Aerobahn to provide “the kind of real-time airport surveillance data we needed.” 

But facilities are only one factor in his team’s success. “We educate employees to balance our business needs with the needs of our customers,” Hoefling says. “It’s not just about flying metal from point A to point B. In the end, the more we develop the capabilities of the hub to make the best decision, the better we are at running an outstanding operation.”

And as the hub grew, Hoefling grew along with it. “The most rewarding part of my job is tackling problems with the entire team,” he says. “When I started, I was the kind of person who would fix problems come hell or high water. But I learned I can’t fix it all by myself. We have a lot of people who are very wise. Fixing problems and delivering an exceptional product takes everyone’s talents and everyone’s input.”

PHOTO BY STANLEY DEBAS

WHEN DAYMOND JOHN WAS 8, his mother took him with her to flea markets, where he helped sell the skirts and blouses she designed and sewed to pay the bills. By age 10, he was running a snow-shoveling business with 20 employees in his Queens, N.Y., neighborhood. While other kids were running after ice cream trucks, John was busy amassing a fortune (albeit a very small one).

John’s self-confidence eventually gave rise to an enterprise that would make him genuinely rich: the hugely popular, hip-hop-inspired FUBU clothing line, which he started with three friends in 1992. After all, from the get-go, confidence was pretty much the only thing John had. He and his co-founders made FUBU’s early products themselves, primarily hats, and sold them on the street outside the New York Coliseum.

Now 44, John is a billionaire, author, motivational speaker and one of the “investors” on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” a reality show in which successful business execs advise would-be entrepreneurs hunting for capital. For John, though, seed money is far from being the most important element in a startup. “They can get cash anywhere,” he says. “It’s the advice they need.” And he has plenty of that to offer, much of it based on his experience as a self-made man—with a little of his mother’s common sense sprinkled in.

First lesson: No whining. A “Shark Tank” hopeful named Rachael Mann made the tactical error of complaining to John when a manufacturer couldn’t keep up with the demand for the body jewelry she co-designs with her sister, Mackenzie Burdick. “Stand up and be a CEO,” he barked. “Call the manufacturer and ask for discounts.” It worked. Her confidence grew every time she followed his advice, Mann says—including the directive that she and her sister write individual notes to customers explaining and apologizing for any delays.

For his part, John says he was simply passing along a version of something he’d learned from his mother, Margot. Being the family CEO required that she fix the problems she faced, rather than use them as an excuse for self-pity. When she got a bill she couldn’t pay, for instance, she’d drive her car along a bus route and pick up people for cash. John drove that route, too, when he needed money in his late teens. It gave him the idea of starting a commuter van service when he graduated from high school.

Second lesson: You’re ultimately responsible for everything your company produces. Mann eventually fired her manufacturer and hired a new one. “You can’t blame anyone else for problems in your business,” John told her. “Did you sit there in the factory and watch them make it?”

John learned to take responsibility for himself after his mother yanked him out of Catholic school. He had become rebellious—a reaction, he says, to his parents’ divorce. Told he had to pass one test to go on to the eighth grade, he had blown it off, filling in answers he knew were wrong (he identified the U.S. president as comedian Nipsey Russell). So his mother sent him straight to public school, which was a significant punishment, considering how overrun with gangs the local schools were at the time. John would get robbed “here and there,” he says.

At first he resented being put in that position, but he soon realized he was accountable for his own fate. And that understanding, ultimately, is what led him to co-found FUBU. He hired people to work for him as the company took off, but stuck to the principle of personal responsibility. “If anything happens, if the business goes down,” he’d tell himself, “it’s your fault.” John put FUBU on hold three times between 1989 and 1992 due to a lack of money, and each time he held no one accountable but himself, he says.

Third lesson: Perfect one idea before moving on to the next. In Mann’s case, when she called John to say she and her sister were ready to add a clothing line, he told her to slow down, to first make sure everything was running smoothly—from manufacturing to financing—in the body jewelry business. Once that happened, they would be primed to expand. And now they are. The sisters’ first few clothing pieces will debut this fall.

John knows how vital it is to have a sounding board. In FUBU’s early days, he spent hours brainstorming with Stephen Serota, who’d dated John’s mother for years and who became something of a second father to him. “Do you think we could try to build a business?” John would ask. “Do you think we should borrow some money?” Serota responded by outlining the options: John could get investors to establish a retail enterprise, or he could cut out the middlemen and sell his products directly.

Eventually, having decided on the latter approach, John started making the rounds of clothing stores to hawk his wares, picking up investors along the way. Even when John seemed uncertain about which path he should take in establishing his business, Serota never doubted he had what it took to succeed. “Daymond always had a quiet confidence,” he says. “It was part of his DNA.”

REYNA GOBEL is a New York–based health and finance writer who has always made a point of taking her mom’s advice.

United employees help bring holiday cheer each year to area children in need

IT WAS 25 YEARS AGO this month that Terminal C at Newark Liberty International Airport opened. With extensive investment over time, it’s become one of the nation’s most modern airport terminals, and it is the cornerstone of the most extensive network of air service in the New York/Newark area.

From Newark Liberty, just a stone’s throw (or a short, direct train ride) from New York City, United operates more than 400 daily departures carrying a total of roughly 35,000 travelers to points across the globe. And the 13,000-plus United employees in New York and New Jersey have worked harder, volunteered longer and invested more than those of any other airline to support and grow the region.

“Our airline has roots here,” says Toby Enqvist, vice president of United’s Newark operations. “And those roots didn’t just grow overnight; we’ve made it a priority to be a part of and give back to a community that has given so much to us.”

Lincoln Center, the Newark Museum, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS—from arts and cultural passions, to health and education, to sending children fighting illness on flights to see Santa Claus, United works to make the New York/Newark region greater every day.

As always, it’s about United’s people, like Newark-based Pharaoh Salomon, who joined other co-workers, families and friends in a project with the Greater Newark Conservancy to plant trees on an abandoned lot. 

“I was proud, even honored, to be part of something so beneficial to revitalizing the community where I live,” said Salomon, an environmental specialist senior staff representative. “It was great to see members of the United family rolling up their sleeves and giving back to the community we serve.”

ASK THE PILOT
With Captain Mike Bowers

Q: How has aviation changed since you started your career?

A: I’ve seen many changes since I first started flying out of Newark 30 years ago. Back then, Newark was a quiet, primarily domestic airport. Today, it’s one of the busiest international gateways.

Also, technology has improved dramatically. Aircraft today are safer, quieter and more fuel-efficient. We use satellite technology for GPS navigation and communication, enabling us to fly much more efficiently and reduce fuel consumption. Customers increasingly have in-flight entertainment systems and in-seat power. We are installing new in-flight Wi-Fi systems. Electronic ticketing and online services were unheard of when I first stepped into the cockpit. 

It’s amazing, all the changes that have improved air travel during my aviation career.

Do you have a question for Captain Bowers? Write him at askthepilot@united.com.

]]> http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2013/05/01/a-family-afar/feed/ 1 http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2013/05/01/saskaboom/ http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2013/05/01/saskaboom/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:35 +0000 edward http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/?p=11916

FROM THE AIR, Saskatoon looks like a postage stamp, a tiny patch of color on a vast brown envelope. The largest city in Saskatchewan, a province in Western Canada that covers some 250,000 square miles of prairie, Saskatoon has long represented the kind of nice-enough backwater settlement where the locals smile at you for no reason and the kids leave home at the earliest opportunity.

From the ground, too, Saskatoon seems a perfectly run-of-the-mill North American enclave. A river flows languidly through the city center. A couple of old-school movie theaters keep the locals entertained. There’s a casual bar called Flint that everybody seems to hit sooner or later. And if you need a new suit, you buy one from Atch & Co., owned by Saskatoon’s mayor, Don Atchison.

That’s how Saskatoon has been for as long as anyone can remember. But walk its streets today, and you catch glimpses of something new emerging. On Broadway, across from the beer-and-shot joint Bud’s, you’ll find Weczeria, a swanky French eatery where the wine list has featured a “Bordeaux-inspired” red at $175 a pop. Nearby is The James Hotel, a boutique establishment whose “luxurious and progressive” lounge is invariably jammed with patrons who appear to have been plucked out of Brooklyn.

The James opened in late 2011, roughly five years after the onset of what has been dubbed the “Saskaboom”—a period of double-digit growth that has left this blue-collar city with the feel, if not quite the look, of a miniature, chillier Dubai. Saskatoon is now the fastest-growing city in Canada, the type of place where Asian business execs snap up farmland and the local art center has Picassos on the walls. “High-net-worth people keep coming through here, looking for things to invest in,” says Grant Kook, president and CEO of the Golden Opportunities Fund, a local venture capital firm. It’s a comment that a decade ago might have been taken for sarcasm.

The reason for Saskatoon’s rapid rise in fortune can be summed up in two words: buried treasure. Saskatchewan has been pumping oil from the ground for more than five decades, but over the past five years production has spiked, thanks to new drilling technologies. Today, the province sells more oil to the U.S. than Kuwait does. Furthermore, it’s the world’s No. 1 producer of potash—a key fertilizer component that’s in ever-increasing demand in China and India—and No. 2 in uranium. As the commercial hub of the province, Saskatoon has benefited mightily from the increased exploitation of these resources, as evidenced by the glistening Porsche dealership that opened here last year.

It’s heady stuff in a city where traditionally the bigwigs were the ones toting hockey sticks and everyone else cheered them on. But there’s also a sense of bemusement—something reminiscent of the vaguely alarmed look in the eyes of a lottery winner beaming from behind a giant check. Sudden wealth has a way of shaking up a person’s values and sense of self; the same could hold true for a city. “Having to call ahead for a reservation,” says Saskatoon-born real estate developer Curtis Olson, trying to put his finger on the post-boom changes, “is not the sort of thing that a lot of people here are used to doing.”

One night during dinner service at the tapas spot Duck Duck Goose, a middle-aged woman from the working-class suburb of Martensville can be heard bemoaning the downside of the upswing. “A few years ago, housing [prices] doubled,” she says. “I remember when you used to be able to buy houses here with credit cards.” The woman’s daughter, a corkscrew-haired blonde in her early 20s, chimes in with a recollection of a recent night out at a new restaurant called The Hollows: “It was filled with hipsters, and I figured that we weren’t welcome there.”

Olson, who wears designer jeans, snazzy boots and well-tailored sports jackets, is familiar with such sentiments. “I like the change, but there are some people who don’t,” he says. “For them, there’s a feeling that the city is not theirs anymore. They’re seeing new faces, and the deck is being shuffled. There is some turbulence.”

WHILE PEOPLE HAVE INHABITED the Saskatoon area for more than 8,000 years, the modern city didn’t take shape until the 1880s. It was founded by a group of moral refugees—Methodists looking to escape booze-sodden Toronto. By the early 1900s, though, this temperance colony had transformed into “Hub City,” a focal point of agricultural trade and rowdy drinking sessions. This marked the first of Saskatoon’s many boom periods, which have invariably been followed by busts (there was a big one in the late 1990s, when oil prices went into free fall).

Through the ups and downs, Saskatoon’s identity stayed more or less the same. Reliance on agriculture diminished and the population grew, but the city remained a place that favored those who were able to make do with little, who squirreled away their nickels—a fact that is a source of pride as much as it is an economic reality. “There weren’t a lot of million-dollar houses five years ago,” says Paul Leier, co-owner of Cavalier Enterprises, the parent company of The James Hotel, “and there wasn’t a Porsche dealership either.” What Leier doesn’t say is that these improvements have brought with them a kind of economic relativity, one that sheds a harsh light on the gulf between the city’s haves and have-nots.

Dan Canfield, proprietor of the music shop Village Guitar & Amp, caters to well-heeled customers who enjoy making like Jimmy Page on the weekends. But things were very different when he first arrived from Toronto, back in 2004. “I would be driving around this depressed Saskatoon and wonder what the heck I was doing here,” he says. “A year later, I saw it getting busier. I sensed something happening. A year after that, you could smell the money in the air. I felt as though anybody with half a brain could come here and do something entrepreneurial.”

While Canfield certainly doesn’t mean his comment to be snide, it still points to a shift in attitudes here. After all, if anybody with half a brain can succeed in Saskatoon, people who fail to do so—those who, say, are being squeezed by rising real estate prices rather than enriched by them—must be deficient in some way. According to the Saskatoon Poverty Reduction Partnership, the city has one of the worst income gaps of any Canadian urban center.

Reminders of Saskatoon’s spiraling affluence are everywhere you turn. One elementary school pickup point often looks like a luxury car dealership. A cluster of chic condos is going up downtown. There’s a surging technological park, Innovation Place, filled with enterprises financed by locally sourced venture capital. In the Riversdale district, Curtis Olson has developed The Two Twenty, a “co-working facility” whose tenants (an architect, a software writer, a publisher, a guy who remixes music) pick up bottles of aged balsamic vinegar and artisanal jewelry at Lifestyles by Darrell Bell.

Conventional wisdom states that this kind of transformation is a good thing, a mark of true and lasting progress. After all, Riversdale, home to Olson’s hip commercial building, used to be so sketchy that cabbies would refuse to go there. “Drivers figured they would have problems here,” says a bearded barista in the coffee shop below the offices. “That’s changed.”

AS SASKATOON’S SKYLINE rises, so too does a sense of optimism. “We are such a young city, we’re going to go up,” says Christie Peters, a chef and co-owner of The Hollows (and former Vancouverite). “I still feel like we’re at the beginning of something. This is the best time.” Sitting in her restaurant, Peters says this as waiters scurry past bearing trays of oxtail ravioli and steelhead trout, bound for a long table loaded with businessmen enjoying a wine-fueled blowout on the company card.

A few days later, 800 Saskatoon socialites congregate at the city’s art complex, the Mendel Art Gallery, for an annual fundraiser. They’re being served samplers from The Hollows and wild-boar canapés from Weczeria. The affable owners of local distillery Lucky Bastard mix gin and tonics. Abstract images flicker on one of the walls as a Sonic Youth–style indie rock band rips it up onstage. The manager of Duck Duck Goose, a young, slender guy named Aman Saleh, watches from the edge of the dance floor. “Isn’t this great?” he asks.

It is great, undeniably, but there’s also an undercurrent of tension here. The Mendel, it turns out, has been at the center of a bitter dispute, one rooted in Saskatoon’s burst of good fortune.

A few years ago the Mendel board of trustees announced plans to expand and, in conjunction with the city council, decided to relocate the Mendel to ritzy River Landing, a $93 million project that would also include changing the name of the 49-year-old institution to the Art Gallery of Saskatchewan. Camille Mitchell, a granddaughter of gallery founder Fred Mendel, was furious. “By basically stealing the paintings of the Mendel Gallery and stripping the Mendel name,” she told a local newspaper, “[the board] has a great way to get more money in their pockets.”

Adding insult to Mitchell’s injury, in 2011 the city council voted to change the name again—to the Remai Art Gallery of Saskatchewan—as a gesture of gratitude to the Frank and Ellen Remai Foundation. A philanthropic venture bankrolled by property development dollars, the Remai Foundation is underwriting a large part of the Mendel’s move; it’s also given the gallery 405 Picasso linocuts valued at $20 million.

In helping lead a movement to save the existing gallery, Mitchell is doubtless on something of a quest to preserve her family honor, but her criticism of the project can be seen as part of a wider conflict, too. For all its recent gains, Saskatoon has also lost something—its identity, perhaps, maybe even its way—or at least this is the view of a small and hitherto silent minority. It took the Mendel controversy to bring things to a head, but the traditionalists finally squared off with the progressives, and the response of the majority of Saskatoon’s residents was resounding. They shrugged, sipped their designer coffee and got on with the business of doing all right for themselves.

As for whether Saskatoon has changed irrevocably, nobody knows. Eric Howe, an economist at the University of Saskatchewan, believes the city may rediscover itself sooner than anyone imagines—specifically, at any time between now and 2019. Howe is a believer in a kind of economic determinism: As surely as night follows day, the thinking goes, boom times will be followed by busts. “They always are,” Howe says. “They always are.”

MICHAEL KAPLAN is a writer in New York City. While in Saskatoon, he lingered in Village Guitar & Amp longer than was absolutely necessary.

PHOTO BY IZZY BERDAN

THE ESPRESSO AT CINQUECENTO, recently opened in Boston’s South End by the Aquitaine Group, isn’t just good. It’s remarkably good. Strong, clean and aromatic—and hot in a way that jolts your memory about temperature as a coffeemaking parameter—it’s topped by a tawny crema frothy enough to be mistaken for the crown on a cappuccino. This would be high praise for an artisan java joint. For a midpriced Roman-style trattoria, where the coffee is an after-dinner drink, it’s downright extraordinary.

For that, you can thank Cinquecento’s staff barista, who’s charged with ensuring the restaurant’s coffee service is more than mere afterthought. Order a cuppa with dessert at your typical eatery, and chances are your drink is coming from an industrial-sized dispenser or an automatic espresso maker. Here, it’s brewed to order by a trained specialist who serves it at your table like a caffeine-pushing sommelier.

Aquitaine culinary director Christopher Robins says the decision to upgrade the espresso service came about during a fact-finding trip to Rome, where a brainstorming session was fueled by a flawlessly brewed round. “We were making a list of all the things we liked about restaurants in Rome, and what we wanted to bring back to Boston. Excellent coffee was way up there.”

BIG LIGHTS, BIG HAIR
A new book on MTV—penned by four of the original veejays—offers an inside look at a revolutionary television channel

WHEN NINA BLACKWOOD SHOWED up at her new job on Aug. 1, 1981, she felt pretty relaxed about it. “All we knew,” she says, “is that we were doing some little music thing on cable.”

In a book out this month, Blackwood and the three surviving members of MTV’s original veejay team (J.J. Jackson died in 2004) recall the whirlwind of the “little music thing’s” inception. VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave is part social study, part trip down memory lane, collated by Rolling Stone veteran Gavin Edwards. “It’s an oral history,” says Blackwood, “a look at the early days of MTV through our eyes.”

It should come as no surprise that the veejays’ eyes were often, let’s say, a little bleary. Young and relatively inexperienced (Blackwood was just in her 20s when she joined the network), the quintet was hurled headlong into a rock ’n’ roll bacchanal that would have tested the restraint of a nun, and their book
contains plenty of anecdotes involving hair-raising excess.

Speaking of hair, Blackwood was no slouch in that department. Her moppy blond ’do, along with her adventurous fashion sense, earned her the title of “video vixen”—which may not have been entirely fair. “I’m actually shy,” she says. “I’m a wallflower, not the wild partying floozy I was portrayed to be. It was always a little difficult for me when, in the ladies’ room, someone would stick a piece of paper under the door for an autograph.”

Now in her 50s, Blackwood lives in Maine, where she hosts ’80s-themed radio shows. It’s a lifestyle that better suits her temperament, she says. Not that she has any regrets about her five years on MTV.
“It was the biggest thing I’ve done,” she says. “Living in New York, being the toast of the town, having this cool job and being flown all over the world—how do you top that?” MAY 7

I MISS MY MTV
The Rick Springfield era may be over, Nina Blackwood says, but that doesn’t mean the music has to die

It’s difficult to overstate the influence MTV has had on popular culture—everything from the way people dress to how movies are shot was transformed by the world’s first music video channel. “It went from being unknown to being an adjective,” says Nina Blackwood. “It amazes me that something so important has morphed into what it is today.”

Blackwood, it turns out, is not a fan of MTV’s shift to reality fare. “I’m not saying it should be stuck in the ’80s, but it should be on the cutting edge, not aiming at the lowest common denominator,” she says. “I don’t think the 24-hour music video channel would work these days, but at least keep it credible.”

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ALSO OUT THIS MONTH

MOVIES Black Rock, a Maine-based horror story that doesn’t involve negotiating I-95 traffic in July // The Great Gatsby, a Long Island–based drama that doesn’t involve negotiating L.I.E. traffic in July
BOOKS Waits/Corbijn ’77–’11, a photographic doorstop devoted to craggy growler Tom Waits // Share: The Cookbook That Celebrates Our Common Humanity, whose contributors include Nelson Mandela and Meryl Streep (really)
MUSIC Primal Scream’s More Light, on which Led Zeppelin screamer-in-chief Robert Plant twangs his vocal cords
TV Gloomy crime drama “The Killing” is resurrected by AMC

Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” whose setting was inspired by The Stanley Hotel (Warner Brothers/Getty photo)

OLD HAUNT
A venerable Colorado hotel that once hosted Stephen King gets shined up for its debut horror festival

“Everyone I’ve talked to about it says, ‘I can’t believe there hasn’t been a horror film festival here yet,’” says Jenny Bloom, who, as director of the inaugural Stanley Film Festival, is aiming to put that right. 

Opened in 1909 in Estes Park, Colo., The Stanley Hotel inspired the setting for Stephen King’s 1977 horror novel, The Shining. Stanley Kubrick’s subsequent film adaptation still plays on a loop on an in-house television channel here, and crews from “Ghost Hunters” intermittently prowl the grounds in search of at least half a dozen reputed spirits. That there hasn’t been a formal fright festival yet at The Stanley strains credibility.

Meanwhile, the hotel staff—busy outfitting screening venues and assembling a lineup that will include roughly 16 features, two shorts packages, several retrospectives and a student film competition—are predicting a horror film festival par excellence. It seems they’ve been hearing peculiar noises in the screening room; if all goes well, an aptly timed ghostly appearance could make the event a magnet for horror fans from around the world. Then again, there’s already a pretty impressive draw: the chance to stay in the infamous Room 217.

“Stephen King’s room is still open,” says Bloom. “I think we’ll do a giveaway for it. I want to make it special.” MAY 2–5

ILLUSTRATION BY JEFF QUINN

NOW, BE HONEST: Do you start conversations with “Did you see [friend’s] post on Facebook?” more often than “This reminds me of a book I read …”? If so, you’re not alone. In a recent study in the journal Memory & Cognition, Laura Mickes, a visiting researcher at the University of California–San Diego, showed that people remember social networking posts so much better than sentences from books it’s as if those looking at online posts have normal memory and those looking at books have amnesia. Subsequent analyses and studies showed that the memory boost doesn’t come from the posts’ length, unusual spelling or multitude of exclamation points, or because the posts remind subjects of people they know. A second experiment made the researchers think gossipiness, completeness of thought and lack of self-editing might be responsible. Should we tweet this later so you can remember it? Yeah, we probably should. —JACQUELINE DETWILER

A charcuterie spread at Cambridge, Mass., wine bar Belly (Michael Piazza photo)

AS THE CURED-MEATS CRAZE reaches fever pitch in Boston, popular watering holes like Belly, a wine bar in Cambridge’s hopping Kendall Square neighborhood, are beefing up their booze options for pairing with salumi platters. Bright beaujolais, tannic orange wines and bracing Spanish sherries have all made appearances, but Belly general manager Fanny Katz recommends “The Diener”: an amalgam of dry amontillado, raisin-y Lustau PX, and two kinds each of vermouth and bitters. Named for a sherry-loving regular, it pairs best with the house-made duck prosciutto.

THE DIENER
1½ oz. Lustau dry amontillado
¾ oz. Cocchi vermouth
¾ oz. Punt e Mes vermouth
¼ oz. Lustau PX (optional, but recommended)
2 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters
2 dashes Angostura orange bitters
1 piece orange peel

Combine the ingredients in an ice-filled mixing glass and stir until very cold. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Squeeze the orange peel to release its oil into the glass, then drop it in as garnish.

PHOTO BY SHUTTERSTOCK

NEW ENGLAND’S WINTERS can last well into May, but Charles Draghi, chef-owner of Piemontese restaurant Erbaluce in Boston’s Bay Village neighborhood, says he never resents watching the rest of the country binge blithely on asparagus and fiddleheads. His favorite cold-climate consolation prize: spring-dug parsnips, which spend all winter in the frozen soil and, in the process, undergo a semi-magical transformation. The starches convert to sugars, leaving the parsnips sweeter and more complex.

“The fibrousness breaks down, and they take on a honeyed hazelnut flavor and an earthiness reminiscent of white truffles,” says Draghi. “There’s a faint pheromonal quality, almost a perspiration scent.” (In a good way, he assures us.)

From the moment the ground thaws enough to rescue the root veggies from their frostbound cocoons in mid-April until they’re gone in early June, Draghi tosses them into dishes with springlike abandon. Look for them in everything from a fricassee-style base (with green onions) for freshwater eel to a creamy gelato with local maple syrup.

The recently debuted steakhouse Boston Chops (Andy Ryan photo)

WHEN BOSTON CHOPS co-owner Brian Piccini signed the lease for his new South End steakhouse last year, he inherited an architectural sensation. The original 1917 Classical Revival structure on Washington Street was grand enough, but it was the lavish multimillion-dollar overhaul in 2008 (for the launch of short-lived upscale restaurant Banq) that had design scribes swooning. Architecture journals extolled the “intrepid spirit” of the interior’s undulating curves and swoops. Wallpaper crowned it the year’s best restaurant design, noting that it “sets the senses swirling with its banyan tree–inspired aesthetic.”

That is, it used to—until Piccini and his partners spent $10,000 to rip out the renovation, right down to the last award-winning scrap of CNC-milled Baltic birch plywood. “The previous space was all about form,” Piccini says. “It looked beautiful, but in terms of operating a busy restaurant, it made zero functional sense.” The “flow” was off, as were the acoustics, he says. “It was basically an echo chamber, a loud space that was uncomfortable to hold a conversation in.”

The revamped space’s dramatically pared-down décor—a funky study in steel, leather and brick—not only pairs nicely with chef Christopher Coombs’ casual-modern steakhouse fare, but also fits in more convincingly with the South End’s prevailing aesthetic, which skews gritty rather than sleek.

What’s more, nothing beats a clean slate for exorcising ghosts of failed restaurants past. “I didn’t want any trace of the previous concepts lingering as a gloomy cloud,” admits Piccini. “Nobody returns to a restaurant that looks cool but tastes bad.”

BOSTON’S DINING SCENE is lousy with eateries giving perfunctory nods to the region’s history, yielding an endless buffet of pasty “chowdahs,” saccharine baked beans and ersatz, warmed-over clam bakes. By contrast, newcomer Puritan & Company forgoes the museum approach in favor of a modern take on foodstuffs that Bay Staters actually ate—swordfish, bluefish, johnnycakes, Parker House potato rolls and even Moxie, a beloved local brand of syrupy cola—in a modern space with exposed ducts and distressed-oak floors in Cambridge’s Inman Square. Every meal ends with a gratis square of cake as a tribute to the Puritan Cake Co., the restaurant’s early-1900s namesake, which once occupied the premises.

“Massachusetts cuisine is a style that doesn’t get the sort of respect it deserves,” says chef-owner Will Gilson, whose family has lived in the state for 13 generations. “I had to put something down on paper, so I called my food ‘urban farmhouse.’ But it’s really just the dishes and ingredients I grew up with, seen through a modern prism.”

Sure enough, the swordfish here gets cured as pastrami and plated with mustard gelato. The Moxie becomes a glaze slathered onto tender braised lamb belly. To accompany rare Wagyu steak, Gilson resurrects the veggies served in a traditional Yankee boiled dinner—rutabagas, potatoes, carrots—with a clever riff that might be called not-boiling-them-to-death. Then there’s hardtack, a simple type of biscuit named as much for its taste and texture as its nonperishability, which the Pilgrims brought along on their trans-Atlantic voyage. Suffice it to say, the hardtack crackers served with Gilson’s bluefish pâté represent a well-deserved update.

While it’s near impossible to find a chef these days who doesn’t pay lip service to locavorism, for Gilson it’s not a trend but instead another nod to his heritage. Herbs and greens for Puritan & Company come from the Herb Lyceum, his parents’ farm in nearby Groton, where Gilson was raised. Eighty percent of the beer list hails from New England, including a craft brown ale brewed in Portland, Maine, that features locally sourced honey, ginger, hops and barley.

Even the restaurant’s décor speaks to authentic New England: In place of tricorns and bayonets are 19th-century kitchen gadgets and a host stand created from a 1920s gas stove. “That’s actually the stove I used to cook on with my grandmother when I was 3, standing on top of a chair,” says Gilson. Most of the vintage items, in fact, were salvaged from his family’s home.

“I grew up in very much a New England household,” he says. “We made apple pies. We ate boiled dinners. We grew a lot of the food, and then we cooked it. In the end, I’m just trying to pay homage to the way some of us ate growing up.”

ILLUSTRATION BY PABLO LOBATO