TECHNICIAN CRAIG HELMORE practically inherited his profession: His father worked in the U.S. as a business-jet mechanic for British Aerospace, and Helmore spent countless hours in maintenance hangars with his dad while growing up.

“Going to work with him and seeing what he did—it went from there,” Helmore recalls. “I’ve been around airplanes my whole life. Being an aviation mechanic seemed a natural fit.”

So natural, in fact, that he never really considered doing anything else. Helmore went from high school to Houston’s Rice Aviation, where he earned his airframe and powerplant (A&P) license, then moved directly on to Continental Airlines. That was 25 years ago; today, he works for the new United.

Though customers will probably never meet Helmore face-to-face—the mechanics they’re more likely to encounter are the line technicians who handle day-to-day maintenance and repair—his expertise surrounds them every time they step onto one of United’s 757 aircraft. Helmore specializes in interior work on the aircraft at United’s heavy-check base at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Heavy checks, also known as “C” checks, are among a series of inspections and overhaul stages that an aircraft goes through during its life at United.

“We have several different levels of checks, from fairly light, where we don’t take much apart, to heavy checks, where the airplane gets stripped and everything gets checked,” Helmore explains. “We replace what needs to be replaced, but we also check for other discrepancies and fix what is needed.”

Helmore says United is one of the few airlines that still do in-house component testing, which is scheduled according to the number of cycles or flight hours that an aircraft has flown. To conduct a “C” check, Helmore and the other interior mechanics work with A&P, sheet metal and avionics teams to take the 757s completely apart. They submit each component to airworthiness tests using a variety of instruments, including borescopes, X-ray machines, ultrasonic equipment and high- and low-frequency eddy currents. A full “C” check usually lasts about 30 days, Helmore says, depending upon what needs to be done.

The FAA mandates the inspections and maintenance that airlines must perform in order to operate safely. But Helmore notes that airlines can hold themselves to even stricter standards—and United does exactly that by requiring more stringent checks and procedures. And the obsession with safety doesn’t stop there.

“Throughout my career, we held to the standard that it needs to be the best that it can be,” Helmore says. “I’ve never heard of anyone wanting to take a shortcut or do less than the best. My co-workers are well skilled at what they do. Collectively, we have a lot of experience, and we have developed a mentality and an approach over the years that it has to be right. Nobody settles for the bare minimum.”

Helmore says the thoroughness of the checks United performs, along with the quality he and his co-workers adhere to, is aimed at gaining and keeping passenger confidence.

“If I were to bring someone in there on a very heavy check, they would be impressed at how detailed it gets,” he says. “I will not put a plane back into service that I wouldn’t want my mom, my family or anybody else flying on. It’s all about having a great product, one that we are proud to have our families and our customers riding on.”

Helmore’s family includes wife Tina, daughter Alicia and son Bradley (plus English bulldogs Chelsea and Bentley). And as for whether 13-year-old Bradley will follow in Dad’s and Granddad’s footsteps, Helmore says it’s too early to tell.

Joe Mimran, the man behind the colorful clothing line Joe Fresh
(Steve Alkok/Zuma Press/Corbis)

THERE ARE CONCERNS you don’t necessarily anticipate when opening a fashion boutique in the middle of a supermarket. Racks and mannequins will take regular hits from shopping carts, for example, and the dressing room queue must move quickly so customers’ ice cream doesn’t melt. Also, browns and tans can look drab next to the fruits and vegetables, so you’d best design in bright colors.

These were the challenges that fashion mogul Joe Mimran, of Club Monaco fame, faced when Canadian supermarket chain Loblaws approached him in 2006 about designing a clothing line for its stores. Mimran tackled the job admirably: avoiding mannequins entirely for the first few years, commissioning cart-proof stainless steel fixtures and crafting inexpensive, edgy basics in fanciful hues. From such inconspicuous beginnings, the clothing line—named Joe Fresh and including items like color-block dresses and bright orange neoprene bell jackets, all priced under $160—became a strong driver of Loblaws’ revenues through the recession. In five years, Joe Fresh spread from 40 grocery stores to more than 300, opened 17 stand-alone shops and became the fourth largest clothing retailer in Canada.

Now, after priming the Eastern Seaboard with a smattering of locations in New York City, the Hamptons and New Jersey, Joe Fresh has just opened its first U.S. flagship—on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, no less, alongside high-fashion-for-low-prices competitors H&M, Zara and Uniqlo. If the line’s peppy basics can garner the same sort of following that its international rivals have, Joe Fresh will have accomplished something entirely novel. “I joke that we’re going to Fifth Avenue from the frozen food aisle,” says Mimran. “It’s kind of a circuitous route.”

If anyone can manage that route, it’s Mimran. Exceptionally tan and immaculately tailored, Mimran was born in Morocco to a couturier mother and a father who owned a grocery store conglomerate. He knew from a young age that he wanted to work in fashion, and completed two bachelor’s degrees— the first in fine arts and sociology and the second in business—to ensure he’d prosper in his chosen field. Success came in 1985, when he launched Club Monaco simply because he couldn’t find a white shirt he liked. “I had been very influenced by the Japanese love of the white shirt,” says Mimran. “There was really nothing at the time here that fit the bill. Gap was still Generation Gap, and still selling Levi’s. There weren’t singular retail brands.” (In 1999, he sold Club Monaco to Ralph Lauren for $52.5 million.)

In Mimran lore, the white shirt story has taken on a mythological quality that illuminates the man’s branding genius. Like a particularly fashionable chess master, Mimran has a knack for spotting an opening in the clothing market and expertly resetting the board to make the unfilled niche not merely apparent but unavoidable. With Joe Fresh, Mimran’s coup appears to be recognizing that whimsical cuts and colors needed to be accessible on an entirely different level. “The variety of color, the pricing structure, the fact that [Joe Fresh] is not available everywhere but is convenient to pick up where it is available—it’s a, excuse the pun, fresh approach,” says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for market research firm NPD Group.

Still, there’s the question of whether the brand will have the same appeal outside its grocery store incubator, as well as whether it can hold up to the withering scrutiny of New York City’s fashion set. Can clothes manufactured to sell in Canadian supermarkets really compete with ultra-high-tech Japanese basics and H&M collaborations with Versace?

The cosmopolitan Mimran, who splits his time between Joe Fresh’s two hubs in New York City and Toronto, is bullish. He plans to amp up the line’s runway sensibility for the flagship while still pushing the bright colors and hypermodern aesthetic that have worked well for Joe Fresh in the past. “I think when you have the kind of success we have had, and you get the kind of response that we’ve gotten here in Canada, you look at it and say, ‘We should go out and give it a good fight outside our own borders,’” he says. “It looks like we’re well on our way to doing that.”

The rest of Hemispheres’ editorial staffers think that senior editor JACQUELINE DETWILER should really chill out with the orange pants already.

NORTHERN EXPOSURE

While retailers from the Great White North haven’t always been so successful south of the border (after poor sales in its U.S. National Tea Company supermarkets, Loblaws itself retreated in 1995), a few Canadian firms have managed to conquer the divide.

Lululemon
During its simultaneous drives into the U.S. and Australia in the mid-2000s, the Vancouver-based sportswear company tapped into a movie star-driven craze for haute yogawear, using a campaign called “Sweat Like a Celebrity.”

Roots
Though the outdoor outfitter had six U.S. locations in the ’90s, it wasn’t a significant presence stateside until it clothed the Canadian Olympic team in 1998. Soon after, everyone from Bill Clinton to Robin Williams was seen sporting Roots’ duds.

Tim Hortons
After decades of success in Canada, this coffee and doughnut shop merged with Wendy’s International in the U.S. market in 1995 (it has since gone independent, and public), which helped it spread to more than 600 locations in the Northeast.

A glass of Sake One’s Momokawa, a premium sake brewed in Oregon

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

THREE LIQUIDS USUALLY come to mind when most people think of Oregon: sublime coffee, craft-brewed beer and rain. High-end sake does not immediately make the cut—which is one reason it’s surprising that leading U.S. producer Sake One is located in the Oregon college town of Forest Grove. Turns out, however, that despite the lack of an indigenous industry, it’s not unreasonable to expect to make good sake in the Pacific Northwest. Apart from the area’s rich history of craft brewing, Oregon’s Coast Range filters close to 120 inches of rain each year through igneous rock, basalt flows and basaltic sandstone, leaving water with very little iron and magnesium. “The water here is soft and sweet—exactly what you want for brewing sake,” says Dewey Weddington, Sake One’s vice president of marketing.

Visitors to the brewery can take a tour and learn about making the rice wine—from polishing the grain to pasteurizing and bottling the finished product—and then retire to Sake One’s wood-paneled tasting room to sample sake flights paired with local cheeses, pears and buffalo jerky. For those less familiar with the Japanese brew, Sake One offers a line of fruit-infused versions (such as raspberry, plum and coconut-lemongrass) that may be more palatable to a country obsessed with fruit-infused vodkas. “They’re uncommon in Japan,” says Weddington. “When we offer them to our Japanese customers, they are surprised that such a thing even exists.” Looks like there’s another resource Oregonians have in spades: ingenuity.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PEDRO GUIMARAES

ON THE CLEAR, BRIGHT morning of November 1, 1755—All Saints’ Day—Lisbon was hit by a massive earthquake. At the time, the Portuguese capital was among the world’s most vibrant cities, packed with extravagant architecture, its coffers swollen with the wealth generated by its colonial adventures. The quake, along with subsequent tsunamis and fires, leveled about 85 percent of the city.

But something wonderful grew out of this. A citywide rebuilding effort produced what would become some of the finest examples of 18th-century architecture in Europe, and the tragedy imbued Lisboans with a fierce determination to hold on to what remained. To a degree rarely seen elsewhere, the city avoided the ravages of urban renewal. From the ancient alleys that survived the quake to the grand avenues that emerged from the rubble, Lisbon sometimes feels as though it has been preserved in amber.

There’s a word here, saudade, that has no English translation but describes the heightened passion aroused by absence. You get the sense that the emotion extends beyond the personal: Lisbon seems to be a city gripped by collective longing. This is not to say that Lisboans are ensnared in the past, or are unable to enjoy themselves. There’s remarkable energy, terrific food, music and—yes—wine.

Still, you can’t help feeling that even this bonhomie has its roots in melancholy. As the local poet Fernando Pessoa put it: “Since we do nothing in this confused world / That lasts … / Let us prefer the pleasure of the moment.”

DAY ONE | The story of Lisbon is written in its skyline. You see this from the balcony of your room at the Four Seasons Hotel Ritz (1): the blocky architecture of the Estado Novo dictatorship that ruled here for part of the 20th century; the exuberant avenues of the post-earthquake Baixa district; the old russet-roofed neighborhoods that tumble over the city’s seven hills; and, in the distance, the Tagus River, source of Portugal’s former status as a global power.

It’s fitting, then, that you should begin your stay here with a trip to Belém, a riverside district full of architecture erected to trumpet the power and prestige of the Portuguese navy, circa 1500. Ten minutes after hopping into a cab, you find yourself admiring this sprawling celebration of God and country, but also eyeing the façade of Pastéis de Belém (2). The bakery’s signature confection, pastel de nata, is madly delicious—you could say it’s a custard tart, but that would be like saying Beluga caviar is fish eggs. You eat five.

The highlight of Belém is Jerónimos Monastery (3), a looming 16th-century hermitage built in the Manueline style, a local twist on Gothic grandiosity that employs nautical motifs: ropes and martyrs, seaweed and stained glass. You step inside its chapel—the vaulted interior pitted with age, the air thick with the scent of damp mortar—before exploring the warren of cloisters, refectories and confessionals. The monastery leaves you feeling peaceful, even joyful—which, you imagine, is what its architects were aiming for.

Next, you cab it to a very different riverfront destination: Bica do Sapato (4), near the Santa Apolónia cruise terminal downtown. This restaurant, part-owned by John Malkovich, comes off like a pop art installation— a geometric assemblage of mod furniture and baubly lights. The food, too, pushes the boundaries of ingenuity (spider crab cream?). You try the roasted black sausage to start and a rustic rabbit pie for the main, washed down with a glass of Portuguese red. It’s like you’ve been fed by a farmer’s wife, albeit one deserving of a Michelin star or two. Smashing.

A short hike through the squiggle of the Alfama district leads to the fortresslike Lisbon Cathedral (5). In the cloister of this medieval monolith—beyond the vaulted ceilings and the enormous rose window—there’s an archaeological site, a hole in the ground revealing Roman steps and Moorish walls. The main body of the church echoes with the hushed appreciation of a hundred tourists, but back here you are alone, bathed in a yellowish light, a solitary pigeon fluttering among the ruins. You stand for a while, staring at these fragments of forgotten lives, before getting spooked and retreating.

You dine tonight at the Four Seasons’ Varanda (6), ordering lobster with seafood emulsion, shrimp on basmati rice and beef tenderloin. The shrimp are shipped in from Mozambique, where they are said to be particularly pure, and this fact sums up what’s special about the restaurant: an apparent effortlessness that masks extreme effort. Afterward, in bed, in that narcotic stretch between wakefulness and sleep, you move through gloomy passages, watched by ghosts and centaurs, which is more pleasant than it sounds.

]]> http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/three-perfect-days-lisbon/feed/ 0 http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/the-wild-bunch/ http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/the-wild-bunch/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 06:00:48 +0000 admin http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/?p=6637

ILLUSTRATIONS BY WESLEY ALLSBROOK

DRY RUN
Tobogganing down China’s biggest sand dune

At China’s Resonant Sand Gorge, where the Yellow River has carved 300-foot slopes into a great plateau of sand, I bought an elaborate-looking ticket and crept to the edge with a tea tray-size wooden sled tucked under my arm. I put it on the ground, lowered myself and took off instantly, hurtling toward the sparkling river below. Sand roared and crunched under the tin-bottomed sled, and a hot wind hit my face. I had no idea how to stop, but I didn’t have to. At the end of the exhilarating plunge, a large flat apron along the shore slowed me down and I ground, hatless, to a halt. I sat for a moment, and then, like a kid after the first snowfall of the season, went back up for another go. —Adrian Mourby

]]> http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/the-wild-bunch/feed/ 0 http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/unsinkable/ http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/unsinkable/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 06:00:46 +0000 admin http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/?p=6633

EIGHT YEARS AGO, Katie Hoff was swimming’s girl wonder. During the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Long Beach, Calif.—and one month after turning 15—she posted the fastest time in the world for the 400-meter individual medley that year. The performance earned her the distinction of being the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic Team, and reporters and photographers swarmed her as she left to take on the world in Athens. But at the 2004 Olympic Games, Hoff melted under the bright international spotlight. She was so overcome by nerves that she cramped up midway through her first race, fading to 17th place and getting sick on the deck afterward.

Her coach Paul Yetter knew that most young swimmers wouldn’t recover from such a public humiliation, but he also knew that Hoff was not most young swimmers. So before she boarded the flight home to Baltimore, he gave her a pep talk in the Olympic pool area: “We are going to go forward. I think you can be the best female swimmer on the planet.”

His hunch soon proved true. Hoff won both the 200-meter and 400-meter individual medleys at the 2005 and 2007 World Swimming Championships, and in December 2007 she smashed four American records within a 29-hour period (“Nobody does that,” Yetter says). She also broke the world record in the 400-meter individual medley twice. By the time she shipped out for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, she had been dubbed the “Phemale Phelps,” a reference to her North Baltimore Aquatic Club teammate Michael Phelps.

Hoff won a silver and two bronze medals in Beijing, but it wasn’t enough to make her Superwoman to Phelps’ Superman. The five-event schedule drained her. And then there was the psychological sting of missing gold by a mere .07 of a second in the 400-meter freestyle. Some say she’d have won if she’d touched the finish pad with her fingertips instead of her palm.

Looking for a fresh start, Hoff switched to Bob Bowman, Phelps’ famously tough coach; unfortunately, Hoff says today, “it wasn’t a good match.” Things only got worse as she came down with respiratory problems. Her confidence seeped away. In 2009 she failed to even qualify for the World Swimming Championships, a devastating blow. Swimming ceased to give her any joy. “I just didn’t want to be in the pool,” she says. “They were the dark days of despair.”

She wanted to quit, and she might have, had it not been for a key piece of advice. Her mother, Jeanne, didn’t think she should leave the sport on such a low note. “Don’t let this beat you,” she told Katie.

JEANNE RUARK HOFF knows all about the ups and downs of sports. An elite athlete herself, she played basketball at Stanford University from 1978 to 1983, setting a school record with a career average of 17.6 points per game. But while supportive of her daughter’s swimming, she never pushed her. “She wasn’t a swim mom,” as Katie Hoff puts it.

Indeed, all the drive to compete and win came from within Katie, whom Jeanne decided to home-school after watching her super-active daughter squirm through kindergarten classes. The arrangement came in handy when Hoff started winning state titles by age 10—the same year she announced she wanted to go to the Olympic Games. In 2003, when Hoff was 14, her family moved from Virginia to Towson, Md., so she could train with Yetter at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club.

Yetter had never seen an athlete with so much grit. She was a coach’s dream, studying the workouts and asking how fast she should swim each split. Hoff swam all four strokes flawlessly—freestyle, backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke—making her an ideal candidate for the individual medley. “She doesn’t have a weakness,” Yetter says.

Back then, to call Hoff type-A would have been an understatement. “At 14, Katie would press her goggles into her face 100 times to make sure they didn’t leak,” Yetter says. “She did it 98 times more than every other kid.” If she did 14 pull-ups instead of the required 15, she would feel guilty, her mother says. Even her arrival time for 7 a.m. practices turned into a competition. Yetter liked to get to the pool at 6:45 a.m., before his swimmers. Then Hoff started coming in at 6:40, pushing the coach’s arrival back to 6:35. When she started showing up at 6:30, Yetter realized where this was going. “OK, you win,” he thought. And win she did. That is, until she didn’t.

AFTER HER 2009 COLLAPSE, Hoff did some soul-searching and decided to continue swimming—not just to compete, but also to change her city, her coach and her attitude. In short, everything. She moved to California to train with a group of elite female swimmers at Fullerton Aquatics Sports Team. Outside the pool she made friends at Chapman University, where she studied public relations. Best of all, she loosened up. She learned to laugh, even as she pushed herself to shave fractions of a second off her times. “I am definitely not as OCD as I used to be,” she says. “I calmed down as I got older.”

The changes paid off in late 2010, when Hoff took first place in the 400-meter freestyle at the World Swimming Championships in Dubai. Yet she still wasn’t where she needed to be in order to make one last push for a third Olympic Games. So she moved to Florida at the beginning of this year to train again with Coach Yetter.

Today the 22-year-old Hoff has the same fire as the 14-year-old version of herself, but is more fun-loving, a trait Yetter believes will help her better handle the excruciating pressure of the Olympic Games. Her mother agrees: “She is trying to enjoy the process more. She has had real highs and incredible lows, but hopefully she’s now more in the middle.”

And as she prepares for the U.S. Olympic Team swim trials in Omaha next month, Hoff is beginning to show her old winning form. “To be honest, I’m not there yet,” she says, taking a breather between training sessions in Naples this January. “But I think I’m on the verge of a breakthrough.”

Hemispheres contributor CRISTINA ROUVALIS, a writer based in Pittsburgh, sinks like a stone.

ILLUSTRATION BY JEFFREY DECOSTER

AT THE SUNDANCE Film Festival last winter, Aziz Ansari, the veteran standup comedian who plays Tom Haverford on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” was in a tough spot. A crowd at the popular Bing Bar was waiting for the rapper-singer Drake. And waiting. Drake, as it turned out, was delayed three hours by a snowstorm. And it fell to Ansari to soothe the packed room.

Ansari, the 29-year-old son of a South Carolina gastroenterologist, knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. But he’s a pro, so he leaned into the headwind and did a few short bits. “You’re not going to believe this, but the rapper was late,” he began. “Unbelievable. I expected to find him in the green room at 11:15 eating carrots and hummus.” The scenesters were not having it. As the minutes ticked by, some started booing Ansari. Just then, the crew setting up for Drake hit the wrong knob and Ansari was sandblasted by an incredible screeching noise. “This is the best venue for standup comedy ever,” he deadpanned.

Enter Cuba Gooding Jr., who happened to be in the audience. He got up and suggested in fairly emphatic language that the crowd needed to pipe down and show some respect for Ansari. He added that black people needed to stick together. This brought a smile from Ansari, who is of Indian descent. He gave Gooding a back pat, to calm him a bit. “I’m not that upset, Cuba Gooding Jr.”

So there he was: Aziz Ansari, well-known funnyman and reputed good guy, acting all adult and classy in a room brimming with chaos. Throw in his swaggering, clueless midlevel-bureaucrat playa on “Parks and Recreation” and, well, how can you not love this guy?

HEMISPHERES: I was in the room for your set in front of the Drake audience at Sundance. You were remarkably composed.
ANSARI: I just kind of powered through. The people that listened, listened, and the people that didn’t, didn’t. Afterward, some were telling me I should have tried this or that. That’s like trying to give someone advice on jet-skiing in a volcano. You’re set up to fail. It doesn’t matter—you have to do it and be done.

HEMISPHERES: What do people not understand about the standup business?
ANSARI: I don’t think they realize how it’s kind of like a play. You write this one-hour piece, perform it around different cities, put out a special and then write a whole new play. Some people still think it’s like a guy just gets up there and starts talking off the top of his head.

HEMISPHERES: I love your character on “Parks and Rec.” How do you think of him?
ANSARI: In my head he’s a guy who wants to be an impresario like Russell Simmons or Sean Combs or someone like that, but he’s too afraid to move to a big city like New York or L.A., so he tries to make Pawnee his own little kingdom and does what he can to hold it down there.

HEMISPHERES: You made that move, though. You came to New York to go to school, ended up with a degree in marketing and then started doing comedy in 2001. Where did you first go up?
ANSARI: I went up at a new-talent night at this club called the Comedy Cellar. Obviously it was my first time doing it, so my material was horrible. But I was at least comfortable onstage.

HEMISPHERES: Early on, you worked at the Upright Citizens Brigade, which your co-star Amy Poehler helped start. Was that an important place for you?
ANSARI: Yes, definitely. In New York there are two types of venues for doing comedy. When I was coming up, there was the comedy-club route and then there were these smaller, alternative rooms that generally were run by performers. I did a lot of material and grew a lot as a performer working on stuff at the UCB Theatre. If you were a younger guy working the comedy clubs, there was more of an established hierarchy that was hard to break through. But at Upright Citizens Brigade, if they thought you were funny they’d bring you back.

HEMISPHERES: You’re from the South. How do you find living in New York?
ANSARI: I love it there. It’s my favorite place to live. I love everything about it.

HEMISPHERES: You were in Funny People, a serious movie about the comedy business. How was it working with Judd Apatow?
ANSARI: It was great. He had an idea for this character who would just destroy with audiences, but who all the other comedians despised because they thought he was the worst. I think it worked really well. Judd’s a tremendous, wise talent. Any chance you get to work with him, you steal all the wisdom that you can.

HEMISPHERES: Part of the reason that the movie worked is that that jerky comedian exists. Comedians don’t laugh easily at one another’s jokes.
ANSARI: Yeah, it’s tough. It’s tough to pitch a joke in a writers’ room on a TV show, too. You’re really putting yourself out there.

HEMISPHERES: Even if it’s good, you hear nothing but crickets. They’re trained not to laugh.
ANSARI: They just nod.

HEMISPHERES: What comedians or performers do you admire?
ANSARI: Louis C.K., obviously. I saw Chris Rock at the Comedy Cellar in New York a few weeks ago, and he’s still so good. He’s been doing it for so long and he’s still up there working on new material. You could already see the seeds of amazing, insightful comedy.

HEMISPHERES: You don’t traffic in stereotypes of Indian people. You’re not up there as “the Indian guy.”
ANSARI: People used to send me scripts where I would have to do an accent, but I feel like as soon as you start doing that, you’ll get only those kinds of roles. So I immediately put a blanket “no” on that stuff. To me, it’s more interesting to analyze something like that, rather than saying, “Blah, blah, blah … and then I slipped on curry,” or whatever the hacky Indian joke would be.

HEMISPHERES: Still, a lot of Indian-Americans are excited to see you prospering.
ANSARI: Yeah, I get people coming up to me all the time to say they’re glad I don’t do any Indian-voice jokes, and that my characters are funny because they’re funny, not because they’re caricatures. I think Indian people do respect that a lot.

HEMISPHERES: Lightning round. Never tell a joke about …
ANSARI: Something that doesn’t make you laugh. There’s a certain kind of joke people do because they know it will get a laugh from an audience, but in their heart they don’t think it’s funny.

HEMISPHERES: Favorite TV shows?
ANSARI: Adult Swim’s “Delocated” is really funny. The creator, John Glaser, used to be a writer on “Conan” and he wrote on “Human Giant.” He’s one of the very, very funny guys out there. I watch Louis’ show, I watch a little bit of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” And I really like “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men” as well.

HEMISPHERES: ”I can’t stand people who …”
ANSARI: I don’t appreciate any kind of rudeness in general, so I guess I’d say that. Rudeness or meanness.

HEMISPHERES: Isn’t that a handicap for a comedian?
ANSARI: I don’t think so. That’s what they write about “Parks and Recreation” all the time. They say it’s a very positive show. And my standup isn’t very mean.

HEMISPHERES: ”People would be surprised that I’m good at …”
ANSARI: Foosball. I’m really good at foosball.

HEMISPHERES: That doesn’t surprise me for some reason.
ANSARI: It’s a sad commentary on me that it’s not surprising I’m good at foosball.

DAVID CARR, a columnist and reporter for the New York Times, wishes Cuba Gooding Jr. would come to his defense more often.

ILLUSTRATION BY MARIO WAGNER

Researchers have long known that natural daylight is better for humans than the fluorescent bulbs most of us languish under for eight to 10 hours a day. Adding windows or simply improving artificial light in offices has been shown to increase productivity, boost morale and reduce the number of sick days, headaches and cases of eyestrain among workers. The effect is so strong that some companies, like aerospace engineering firm Lockheed Martin, believe they’ve won billions of dollars in additional contracts just by incorporating more natural light into their workspaces.

This got scientists at German applied-research group Fraunhofer wondering: If an office had a ceiling that mimicked a daytime sky, complete with gently drifting clouds, would workers be even happier? It seems they would. Here’s how Fraunhofer did it:

1. Daylight includes a balanced spectrum of all colors of light—among them blue wavelengths, which are scarce in both incandescent bulbs and energy-efficient fluorescents. In order to imitate the balance of natural light, Fraunhofer outfitted ceiling tiles with red, green, blue and white LEDs that together can produce 16 million different hues.

2. To have the panels look less like a billboard and more like a real sky, the scientists reduced the ceiling’s resolution (making it, basically, the opposite of an HDTV) by covering the LEDs with a layer of foil diffusers. Then they measured ambient outdoor light during different weather conditions and times, and programmed the virtual sky to match.

3. Finally, Fraunhofer added the pièce de résistance: light that changes. “We did a study where we had the light change slowly over the course of the day; every half hour; or every couple of minutes, like a sunny day with moving clouds,” says Oliver Stefani, Fraunhofer visual technologies manager. “Eighty percent of people preferred the sunny day.”

Besides making it one of the most recognizable bridges in the world, the iconic “international orange” color of the Golden Gate Bridge helps it stand out against the San Francisco Bay’s iconic weather: fog. To aid in that effort, and help ring in the bridge’s 75th birthday, its caretakers have decided for the first time ever to clean, reseal and repaint the full length of the two main cables, a process that will take six years. Bridge construction took only four— so what’s the holdup? “There are a number of factors,” says Mary Currie, the bridge’s public affairs director. “The fog, for one.” —SAM POLCER

PAPER SCULPTURE BY SHOTOPOP

]]> http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/dispatches-15/feed/ 1 http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/am-i-blu/ http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/am-i-blu/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 06:00:29 +0000 admin http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/?p=6625

ILLUSTRATION BY JUSTIN RENTERIA

BLU-RAY WAS SUPPOSED to be somebody. When it debuted in 2006, it was hailed as the next-generation optical disc format for an HD world, destined to supplant DVDs the way that DVDs sent VHS tapes into the slag heap of obsolescence (joining Betamax tapes, audio cassettes, eight-tracks and the Victor Talking Machine). Compact and relatively affordable, Blu-ray offered an unrivaled viewing experience. And yet today it founders—misunderstood and largely ignored by the public, and under intensifying siege by Netflix, Vudu and the like.

That’s a shame because, unlike the clumsy LaserDisc, whose extinction at the hands of the DVD was well warranted, Blu-ray is far superior to its competitors. And don’t just take my word for it. “Blu-ray really is the truest form for viewing a movie in your home, and lets you watch films in a way that perpetuates [a director's] vision,” Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone tells me. In addition to new films, “studios are continually remastering classics for Blu-ray,” he says, “because it is simply the best format out there.”

In fact, modern-day restorations on Blu-ray are often better than the theatrical versions, making them gold for film lovers. “As little as five to 10 years ago, you might see a fourth-generation print in theaters,” says Lee Kline, tech director at the Criterion Collection, which offers some of the best restored classics on Blu-ray, from Fellini’s 81/2 and Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven to the first Godzilla. “Now we’re able to go back to the original negative, and the detail available there is amazing.”

Of course, I’d take the HD streams of Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander on Hulu or David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago on Netflix over standard-def any day. But they can’t hold a candle to the richer colors, sharper detail and theater-quality audio on a Blu-ray disc. It boils down to the difference between squeezing a boatload of video and audio information for real-time delivery over the Internet and having that information available locally, on a disc next to your TV. Streamed and downloaded video needs to be compressed to transmit smoothly over even the fastest home Internet connections. After the file is unzipped onto your TV or computer, it still has less of the original sound and video information (about 2 to 20 megabits per second, or Mbps) than a Blu-ray, which has way more space—nine HD-video hours’ worth—on a single disc (allowing for about 25 to 40 Mbps). And because of this extra, localized capacity, Blu-ray’s version of a movie hews much closer to the original print and soundtrack.

Moreover, I don’t see better-than-Blu-ray streaming quality coming anytime soon. Yes, Cablevision, Charter and Comcast offer residential 100-Mbps downloading in a few select areas, but the global average is still just 2.7 Mbps, with the United States at around 6.1 Mbps and South Korea, the world’s fastest, at 16.7 Mbps. These are hardly speeds that can replicate Blu-ray quality. (Even with my Optimum Online download speed of 15 Mbps, the movies I stream are frequently interrupted by buffering.)

Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to get a lot of people to shell out $20 to $40 per disc for a superior viewing experience. Though about 74 million U.S. households own the HDTVs necessary to make the most of Blu-ray’s higher resolution, that’s only about half of the nation’s TV owners. Plus, few HDTV types are even buying Blu-ray. Consumer electronics companies apparently see the writing on the wall: Although Blu-ray players can be had for less than $100, the latest-generation models are shipping with Hulu, Netflix and Amazon built in. Around 44 percent of U.S. cellphone users now own a smartphone, offering further alternatives for streaming. Is it any surprise that Netflix’s streaming subscribers number 21.7 million versus 11.2 million for its DVD rental subscribers?

While it’s a sad state of affairs, there is an upside—I’ve found classics for as little as $7 in various Blu-ray clearance bins, and I’m going to keep collecting them until the format is officially retired. When that day will actually come, however, is still a matter of debate. Last year director Michael Mann predicted the format would be around for at least another six to eight years; analysts at the Enderle Group, a research firm focused on consumer technology, say it’ll be 15.

I’m not so sure that either is right. Despite the compact-disc death knell that’s been tolling for more than a decade, there are still better-than-MP3-quality CDs around—and who would have foreseen the resurgence of vinyl among millennials? So I’m holding out hope for Blu-ray. When it comes to quality versus convenience, sometimes better is still best.

Hemispheres tech columnist TOM SAMILJAN‘s parents didn’t let him watch TV on school nights. He’s spending his adult life making up for it.

SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS
Tired of people disparaging your camping equipment? Take shelter in a tony tent.

Time and progress have revealed an unsettling correlation regarding performance-oriented camping items: Generally speaking, the better a product is at repelling rain, maintaining warmth or saving space in your pack, the less likely you’ll want to be seen in public with it. The phenomenon is so ubiquitous that even the nattiest outdoorsmen think nothing of brewing coffee in unsightly thermoses while wearing neon green jackets in front of tents that look like spaceships. Thanks to the design-minded tent company FieldCandy, however, it doesn’t have to be this way. Employing freelance artists, FieldCandy creates beautiful tents—like the tweed number shown above—that are as water- and windproof as conventional high-performance versions, and wick away moisture with 100 percent cotton interiors. All of which just proves that even if you pitch a tent in the forest and no one is there to see it, it can still look nice. $707 / www.fieldcandy.com

]]> http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/splendor-in-the-grass/feed/ 0 http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/the-month-ahead-5/ http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/05/01/the-month-ahead-5/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 06:00:16 +0000 admin http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/?p=6623

POP SCIENCE
Rufus Wainwright brings his rarefied pipes to music’s most accessible genre

“I just wanted it to be something you could put on at a party that wouldn’t clear the room,” Rufus Wainwright says of the lush, hook-laden Out of the Game, his seventh studio album. “I’ve made a few of those. Not that they’re bad records, but they kind of required your undivided attention. This one I wanted to be more inviting.” To that end, the troubadour paired up with producer Mark Ronson, the pop wunderkind behind albums by Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and Adele, and led an ensemble including soul outfit The Dap-Kings, Sean Lennon and Wilco’s Nels Cline, whom Wainwright describes as “a real maestro—he was the big surprise for me.” Out of the Game has hints of doo-wop, R&B and even classical, but Wainwright credits the music of the ’70s as the record’s key influence. So which artist from that era would he most like to work with? “If Stevie Wonder had continued doing what he was doing then for the rest of his career, he would be the one,” he says. “But I’d probably have more luck hanging out with Stevie Nicks. She’s more up my alley.” OUT MAY 1

LOGGING ON
Woodcut meditates on the inner beauty of trees

Usually when you say something is “wooden,” unless you mean it’s literally made of wood you’re calling it stiff, lifeless, uninteresting. But for his new book, Woodcut, Connecticut artist Bryan Nash Gill has taken hunks of raw wood and transformed them into something extraordinary. His prints can resemble leaves, shells, countries, galaxies; they can be sobering, inspiring or vertiginous. Even more striking, as writer Verlyn Klinkenborg puts it in the introduction, is the commentary they provide on time—both arboreal and human. “Things would be very different if we absorbed time the way trees do,” he muses, “with such structural integrity, such an uncanny ability to preserve the year that’s just escaped but also to fold it away out of sight.” OUT NOW

MATERNAL WISDOM

With Mother’s Day coming up on May 13, we asked Anna Quindlen, Pulitzer-winning sage of midlife and motherhood and author of the brand-new memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, for a few tips for moms on their big day:

“You might not eat until lunch. Breakfast in bed is going to have lots of weird bits, including eggshells, and if the kids don’t burn the bacon they’ll take that themselves. So what? If you have perfectly cooked eggs Benedict, you’re probably in a hotel room.”

“If you have more than one child and someone forgets Mother’s Day, do nothing. Siblings handle this, as in: ‘Dude, you forgot it was Mother’s Day? Dude. Wow.’ You can just smile beatifically.”

“When you’re presented with your gift, never ask, ‘What is it?’ It’s a picture of a dragon, or a dinosaur, or Mommy and Daddy dancing at their wedding. Whatever it is, the correct response is ‘It’s beautiful!’ Believe me, as the mother of adults I can tell you that you’re going to be keeping your earrings in that clay whatchamacallit for the rest of your life.”

“Be ready for the future. Grown children are not quite as reverential about Mother’s Day as small ones are, in part because they don’t have a teacher supervising an art project (see above). But supermarket flowers are still flowers, and a phone call is always welcome, even if the background noise indicates that it’s coming from a bar on Wings-and-Beer Night.”

“Also, it is not cool to tell grown children what you would like for Mother’s Day: grandchildren. They’re smart enough to know this. After all, you raised them.”

WILD PITCHES
Two very unlikely movie adaptations hit the big screen May 18

BATTLESHIP
INSPIRATION: 45-year-old board game
PLOT: International naval fleet at Pearl Harbor attempts to repel an armada of alien invaders
STARS: Taylor Kitsch (fresh off John Carter, in which he played a Civil War veteran fighting aliens on Mars), Liam Neeson, Brooklyn Decker
PREDECESSORS: Clue, Jumanji TWIST: Both sides of the story are shown, so we know where all the ships are
NEXT UP: Adaptations of Monopoly, Ouija, Risk and Candy Land

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING
INSPIRATION: Pregnancy guide first published in 1984
PLOT: Five couples of varying temperaments prepare to deliver or adopt babies
STARS: Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, Matthew Morrison (“Glee”), Elizabeth Banks, Dennis Quaid, Chris Rock, Brooklyn Decker
PREDECESSORS: He’s Just Not That Into You, Think Like a Man 
TWIST: Chris Rock and Mr. Schuester appear in the same movie
NEXT UP: Nothing yet—but we suggest an adaptation of Basic Ab Workout for Dummies, starring Gerard Butler and, of course, Brooklyn Decker

INSIDE TRACK

Known today as an actor (Seabiscuit) and racing analyst, Gary Stevens in his jockey days notched 4,800-plus wins and a Hall of Fame berth. With the Kentucky Derby arriving May 5, we’re reminded that few in the horse racing world can walk the walk like this guy. But as for talking the talk—well, he was nice enough to give us a few insider phrases to drop.

Don’t get caught in a blind switch. “This is the kind of thing a trainer may warn a jockey about, meaning don’t go into an opening in the pack if you don’t see an exit. It’s basically a trap that older jockeys set for younger jockeys—and yes, I fell for it too, early on!”

He was walking the dog. “Say I was in a race out in front, going easy and well within the scope of the horse’s abilities, and someone asks me afterward, ‘How was the ride?’ I’d say, ‘Heck, I was just walking the dog.’”

That one’s a real morning glory. “This means a horse that’s been working out tremendously in the a.m. but wilts come afternoon race time. It’s the opposite of, say, Silver Charm, who didn’t impress in the morning at all” and yet won the Derby and the Preakness in 1997, with Stevens aboard.

QUOTED

“If everyone in the world became twice as good at playing baseball … Albert Pujols would still be a baseball superstar, not you. He would just be twice as good as he is now.” —From 10 1/2 Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said, a collection of unconventional graduation advice by Dartmouth College commencement speaker and economist Charles Wheelan. OUT MAY 7

THE DOCTOR IS OUT

Dr. Gregory House will make his grand exit with the May 21 series finale of Fox’s “House M.D.,” ending an eight-year run of cantankerously diagnosing bizarre afflictions. We asked Dr. John Sotos, a longtime medical consultant for “House,” about some of the show’s more extreme maladies.

MAP BY JEFF QUINN

CALIFORNIA

THE WOMAN WITH THE DOG is staring at me, and maybe so is the dog, although he keeps glancing sideways at the car and growling. I’ve pulled off California’s Route 154 just above Santa Barbara and stepped out of my 2012 Rolls-Royce Ghost to snap a few shots of the legendary winemaking valley of Santa Ynez. Through some bay laurels, the early afternoon light is gleaming off the Ghost’s sleek body, at the nose of which “The Spirit of Ecstasy,” a.k.a. the hood ornament, is perched as if to dive into the car’s imposing grille. The dog, it seems, is a little intimidated. Maybe the woman is too. And I think that’s very much the point.

Here, at a scrub-lined photo stop containing two dusty hatchbacks with surfboards sticking out the back, the Ghost is so utterly, ludicrously luxurious— stately silver carriage, self-righting Rolls-Royce logo wheel caps, lambswool floor mats, full-size umbrellas that spring from the front doors at the push of a button—that it’s impossible even to stand next to it without feeling as if a diadem has miraculously popped out of my forehead. Everyone I meet treats both me and the car with the kind of veneration normally reserved for the queen of England. They look away nervously. They stand up straighter. They use words like “shall” and “may,” and I find myself responding in kind. Looking straight ahead, I can almost feel the force of the woman with the dog trying to figure out how I amassed enough of a fortune to buy a $300,000 car. I wonder how long it will take her to decide that I am a Hilton.

Nosing back onto the freeway, I punch the gas. Though the Ghost’s many amenities give it a weight of nearly 3 tons, the engine provides more horsepower than a Ferrari California, which makes it capable of speeds of up to 155 mph (unsurprisingly, the Rolls-Royce company sidelines in jet engines). And like a royal who learned to walk with a book on her head, the Ghost carves the precipitous hairpin turns of the San Marcos Pass as gracefully as a much smaller vehicle, with nary a cashmere headliner thread out of place.

I shoot out of the mountains and through Santa Barbara, a ritzy Spanish-inflected beach town where scalloped clay roofs throw shadows over stone sidewalks, on my way to the Pacific Coast Highway. Here, the car draws fewer stares, at least until I pull into the drive-thru at In-N-Out for a burger to calm my nerves. As I approach the payment window, three employees crowd into the little glass box to gawk, and finally one speaks.

“Will you be eating this … in the car?” she asks with a horrified look.

Yes, but, worried myself about making a poor impression on the Ghost, I open the sunroof to expunge the smell of “animal-style” fries (cheese, fried onions, Thousand Island dressing and so forth) on my way down U.S. 1 through Malibu, with the glittering Pacific like a sheet of blue satin on my right.

In West Hollywood, I cruise up La Cienega to The Bazaar by José Andrés at the SLS Hotel—a postmodern tapas restaurant of critical note, even in a town saturated with the same. The red stairs to the entrance are dotted with movie producers and starlets and the sundry rich. And yet, when I pull up, the entire coterie pauses to stare at the Rolls. Four valets run to the car. “May we,” “May I,” they say, tripping over one another to open doors and offer elbows.

After the hubbub of dinner—tiny morsels of foie gras wrapped in cotton candy and served on sticks, Philly cheesesteak zeppelins filled with Kobe beef—I board the Ghost for one last trip, this time to someplace a little quieter: Terranea, a private estate-style hotel on the ocean. When I arrive, I can see through the lobby doors exactly the outdoor fireplace I’d like to sit in front of with a glass of syrah. But first, I must contend with the valet, who is already standing restive by the driver’s-side door. “Good evening, miss. Shall I just keep this out front where everyone can see it?” he asks.

“I think that’s for the best.”

To get this kind of respect in New York City, senior editor JACQUELINE DETWILER might actually have to buy a diadem.

2012 ROLLS-ROYCE GHOST EXTENDED WHEELBASE
The bells and whistles

Starting Price: $290,000

Engine: A 6.6-liter V-12 provides 563 hp and 575 lb-ft of torque to propel the enormous Ghost with ease.

Performance: The combination of big car and big acceleration (zero to 62 in 5.1 seconds) yields gas-guzzler fuel economy —13 mpg in the city, 20 on the highway—but you didn’t expect this kind of luxury to come cheap, did you?

Perks: A 16-speaker sound system, umbrellas in the doors and an extended wheelbase that delivers an extra 6.7 inches of legroom. Plus, the voice-activated Bluetooth-compatible computer also provides infrared night vision, helpful in avoiding animals.

MARINA RIBAS
Graphic designer

WHAT SHE’S WEARING:
Silk dress* from Farm, top by My Filosophy, Zara sandals, silver rings bought from a beach vendor

PERSONAL STYLE:
“I mix my life experiences into my wardrobe. I like many different references: tribal, romantic, Zen, rock, retro, hippie, chic. I love wearing ‘mined’ clothes, things inherited from my mother or garments made by my friends. I like the sense of reuse, find again, merge, customize a different outfit. I love the mix! I am Brazilian!”

*SWING TIME
Two skirts that capture the breezy spirit of Rio

Milly cotton skirt (at left), $275, Bergdorf Goodman; Rachel Zoe satin maxi skirt, $525, Bergdorf Goodman

PHOTOGRAPHS BY TIAGO PETRIK (PORTRAIT); CHRISTIAN GARIBALDI (SKIRTS)
STYLING BY WAYMAN BANNERMAN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEPHEN WHITESELL

FROM THE DECK of a large wooden outrigger with a sputtering motor, I carefully slide my kayak into the Pacific Ocean. Setting yourself adrift at midday, nearly smack on the equator, in a 13-foot-long plastic kayak more than 1,000 feet above the sea floor is, by any reckoning of seamanship, an act of profound foolishness. And yet, having bid my mother ship farewell, here I am, ripening like a hothouse tomato beneath the high-noon sun while trade winds buffet my 56-pound polyethylene tub. There is an island nearby, Kiritimati (or Christmas, a phonetic deduction from Gilbertese, the regional language, which pronounces “ti” as “s”), but even if I made the hourlong paddle to shore, landing would be impossible. A fringe of reef rings Kiritimati, its coral heads protruding like pitchforks through foaming 10-foot surf.

Attempting to pass this gauntlet would shred any vessel and its occupants. I try not to consider such a fate as I cast a lure bigger than my foot and wait with trepidation. Whatever swallows this, I presume, is going to be enormous.

I’ve come to Kiritimati with two kayakers. Allen Sansano, a 42-year-old microchip engineer who lives in San Jose, Calif., is trolling about a half-mile north in his yellow ‘yak, as the lingo goes. Sansano has paddled far-flung waters—British Columbia’s Nootka Sound, the Sea of Cortez off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula—hunting pelagic trophies. In 2007 in Prince William Sound, Alaska, he landed a 400-pound salmon shark on the foredeck of his kayak. It’s purportedly the largest fish ever caught from such a vessel. Casting a 6-ounce popper lure precariously close to the roiling Kiritimati breakers is David Elgas, 45, from Haleiwa, Hawaii, on Oahu’s North Shore. Elgas is a professional kayak guide whose company, Coastal Kayak Tours, offers excursions throughout the Hawaiian Islands. Elgas claims the world kayak fishing record for a giant barracuda. He caught the toothy 651/2-pound beast near surf-mauled Ka’ena Point, the rugged western cusp of Oahu.

Sansano and Elgas, who met in 2007 at a kayak fishing contest in Kona, Hawaii, and helped pioneer the sport, have come to Kiritimati to explore its kayak fishing potential. We are, in fact, the first kayak anglers ever to venture here. And though any big fish will do, our aim is to hook a giant trevally, a crafty hunter that has long attracted bucket-listers to Kiritimati. The trouble has been access: Because the reef is treacherous to navigate, it’s not always possible to angle from a boat. And many square miles of the interior lagoon—a cerulean labyrinth of sandbars and salt flats—are waist-deep and passable only by wading. But with drafts measured in mere inches, kayaks can penetrate deep into Kiritimati’s untapped trevally hot spots.

Giant trevally can exceed 5 feet in length and top 100 pounds, enough to capsize a newbie kayak angler like me. They are fierce fighters that battle a set hook savagely. Off Kiritimati, they’ll dive and dart through the bulbous coral heads until the line severs. “Once he’s hooked he’ll run into deep water or into the rocks,” Sansano warned. Earlier, Elgas suggested I pack a knife in my life vest. “To be able to cut yourself free in an emergency is good,” he said. I tap my left hand on the zippered pocket of the vest. Feeling the knife there is reassuring.

KIRITIMATI IS PART OF the Republic of Kiribati (pronounced kiribahss), a sovereign nation of 33 islands strewn like loose pearls over an expanse of the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Alaska. Just a three-hour flight from Honolulu, it is the largest coral atoll in the world, discovered, uninhabited, on Christmas Eve 1777 by Capt. James Cook. Its pincer-shaped landmass encloses a 120-square-mile lagoon enriched by tides that flush through a 3-mile-wide breach in the atoll’s rim. In 1975, the Kiribati government declared the entire island a wildlife sanctuary, chiefly because it’s a vital nesting and breeding habitat for at least 35 bird species. Today, aviary populations thrive here, despite U.S. and U.K. atmospheric nuclear testing conducted above Kiritimati in the late 1950s and early 1960s, which flash-blinded and subsequently killed millions of seabirds but left no residual radiation (the Geiger counter I brought confirms this). More birds nest on Kiritimati than on any other oceanic island—up to 6 million during mating season.

Of the 5,100 people who reside on Kiritimati, only a handful speak English. But the immigration official who flips through my passport looking for an empty page on which to plant her entry stamp is reasonably proficient. When I inform her that I’m a writer here on assignment, she says, “You need a special permit if you’re a journalist. Can you provide it?” I confess ignorance, so she offers a workaround. “It’s better just to say you are fishing or surfing. Are you fishing or surfing?” Um, fishing? “Welcome to Kiritimati,” she declares, waving me through. Watching this exchange is a burly 6-foot-tall fellow, a uniformed customs agent in a neatly pressed sky-blue shirt and navy knee-length shorts. He’s standing next to a hand-painted sign that states the liquor limit: one liter of spirits per arriving visitor. I’m carrying two. He sees both bottles in my hand luggage. When I tell him I plan to share, he smiles. “No problem, no problem.” Only then do I notice he’s barefoot.

The airport is a stifling clapboard and cinder block affair with a tin roof. Just outside, Ioran Kaiteie, our local guide, is waiting for us. He’s been leading anglers into Kiritimati’s lagoon and offshore for 15 years, but until now he’d never heard of kayak fishing. We pile into the back of an open-air flatbed truck with bench seats for the 45-minute drive to the Dive & Fishing Adventure Lodge, our modest accommodations (more clapboard and cinder block) for the next week.

Resourcefulness is survival on Kiritimati. Passing through sleepy settlements, I notice a church bell made from discarded scuba tanks. Scrap metal is lashed together with twine to fashion chicken coops and pigpens. There’s a rusted refrigerator lying in repose as a makeshift cupboard. In one village, a 40-foot cargo container has been repurposed as a police station, with a door and two windows cut into its whitewashed steel walls.

Many structures have rainwater cisterns. Though precipitation averages 35 inches annually, little is retained because the island sits on porous carbonatic rock with only a dusting of topsoil; thus, severe droughts are common. A handful of wells provides supplemental water, but it remains a carefully guarded commodity. Chewing gum is wildly popular on Kiritimati. Kaiteie, who is always chomping a wad, explains, “It keeps us from feeling thirsty so we don’t have to drink water.” Islanders subsist primarily on seafood, along with some local produce, like cucumbers, cabbage and breadfruit. Everything else is imported, usually on cargo ships that arrive every three or four months.

By far the largest industry on the island is the production of dried coconut pulp, called copra. Kiritimati is pancake-flat, suitable for cultivating sprawling palm plantations. While scouting by truck for kayak put-ins along the lagoon’s low-lying eastern margins, we skirt a dozen miles of coconut-laden palms arranged in orderly groves. But the topography also puts Kiritimati in the crosshairs. If climate-change predictions pan out, rising sea levels will inundate the island. Then again, this process could take centuries. Kaiteie, who has four young children, fears a different apocalypse. He remarks, “If a tsunami ever came, we’d all be lost. Everything. Gone.”

THE PHRASE IS “SLEIGH RIDE,” Elgas tells me, and it refers to what will occur if I hook, say, one of the big Pacific bluefin tuna that prowl Kiritimati. “The thrill is getting towed around by a monster fish,” he says. It’s also the peril. An adult bluefin (or any big-game species) can drag a kayaker around for hours—out to sea or, worse, into Kiritimati’s bone-crushing coral reef. While I ponder this, trolling the Cecile Peninsula, Kiritimati’s westernmost point, there’s a powerful tug on my line. I clutch the rod and, in a blink, my kayak spins 180 degrees and nearly barrel-rolls. Just then, the rod recoils toward my face and the line goes slack. A silhouette seems to hover about 30 feet below and then vanishes. A giant trevally? I can’t be certain. In the fog of war, things get hazy.

Nevertheless, having been coupled to that power even momentarily is enough to kindle a maniacal persistence. It’s the reason why, on our third day on Kiritimati, Elgas paddles offshore for seven hours, casting a thousand times like a man possessed, until lactic acid makes his forearms seize up. And it’s why, on that same afternoon, I slog a half-dozen miles into headwinds and swells, trolling a topwater lure. I have no particular strategy other than methodically scanning the horizon for bird piles. These occur when deep-water predators charge upward to chow on shoaling schools, forcing them to the surface, at which point seabirds swoop in for an easy feast. I paddle slowly, my lure trailing 50 yards behind, waiting for that heart-pounding “screamer”—the wail of a whirring reel when a hook-in-mouth heavyweight makes its dash for freedom. Alas, today my reel is silent.

The giant trevally has eluded us, and by our fourth day on Kiritimati we are forlorn. Since we had fished exclusively with lures, Kaiteie suggests we adopt native tactics and bait our hooks with milkfish from the lagoon, which he’ll stalk wading through the flats with a hand-pulled seine. As a pod of spinner dolphins cavorts nearby, we trail Kaiteie aboard our outrigger mother ship, three kayaks strapped to a platform over its starboard pontoon. He dices the milkfish into 1-inch chunks and tosses them overboard while sooty terns and frigate birds flutter above, sniffing a meal.

Within seconds, I spot about six giant trevallies in the translucent shallows. They are sleek, shiny platters. We had intended to launch the kayaks and angle a bit deeper into the lagoon, but the trevallies aren’t waiting. I plunge into thigh-deep water, a baited hook on my rod, and they are on us like feral dogs. Standing shoulder to shoulder, we cast into a frenzied pack. Sansano gets a bite, but his line snaps. And then a 40-pounder seizes my hook. Elgas shouts, “This is only a 35-pound rod! You need a 45-pound one. This one is going to break!” At first it runs hard, and then it reverses course toward the rocks. Fearing a sliced line, I scuffle over to the edge of the coral bed, wearing only flip-flops to protect my feet from the razor coral, and reel madly as my prey bolts and charges. Time is amorphous—perhaps 20 minutes pass—but the giant trevally eventually tires. I reel it in and hoist it into my arms. Kaiteie waddles over and pries the hook from its sturdy jaw. Someone takes a picture. The shank is bent. The trevally is still heaving from our duel when I dunk it below the surface and give it a gentle nudge to set it free.

I catch my breath, registering just a touch of disappointment at not landing it from my ‘yak. No matter, we decide. We found the lair. We’ll be back.

MICHAEL BEHAR, who lives in landlocked Colorado, had caught only one fish before this trip: a trout from a stocked kiddie pond, at the age of 11.

Pickled oysters with sorrel, tapioca pearls and sauerkraut liquid at Willows Inn

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

A COMMONSENSE RULE among restaurateurs is to always situate an eatery in a well-trafficked neighborhood. So if you decide to open a dining spot on a remote island serviced by a ferry that stops running in the early evening, well, you’d better have one heck of a restaurant. Fortunately for the owners of Willows Inn, located on tiny Lummi Island in the San Juan archipelago north of Seattle, that’s precisely what they have. Their restaurant is so good, in fact, that the New York Times deemed it among 10 that are actually worth flying to. (Even if you book a flight to Sea-Tac, though, it’s still a 90-mile drive, plus the ferry.)

Who is drawing customers to this eatery at the end of the world? A 26-year-old genius of a chef by the name of Blaine Wetzel, who—before moving home to Washington in 2010 to be closer to his girlfriend— spent two years working at Copenhagen’s acclaimed Noma. Inside Willows Inn’s recently upgraded kitchen, Wetzel explains what drew him to such an out-of-the-way operation: the close proximity of pristine natural ingredients and the complete freedom to do as he pleases with them. “This restaurant has its own farm and two commercial fishing boats,” he says. “When we want herbs, we forage for them. We get seaweed from the beach and pick our own lobster mushrooms when they’re in season. I haven’t seen a lot of setups like this.”

In the inn’s cozy 25-seat dining room, the tasting menu begins with a little wooden box. Opening it reveals a puff of fragrant smoke and a piece of locally caught salmon above a small fire. Later, there’s an oyster pickled in homemade sauerkraut, kale toast with roasted black truffles, impossibly creamy squid and a vegetable plate with a dreamy over-easy egg as a centerpiece. The menu peaks with grilled duck topped with grilled onion purée, then gracefully winds its way down to a delicious pine-flavored ice cream that tastes exactly like it sounds— but in the best possible way.

After dinner, Wetzel stands in the kitchen musing on what he has in store for future menus. He points beyond the window to a small hut with tendrils of smoke twisting from the chimney. “We’re experimenting with smoked duck wings,” he says. “They’re not perfect yet. Eventually we can add spices and try different cooking techniques, but for now the important question is whether they taste good.” He hesitates for a beat, then says, “I believe they do.”

RED RIGHT HAND
A one-time pie sidekick steals the spotlight

There’s a lot of talk about Washington strawberries, especially when they start appearing in steaming strawberry-rhubarb pies in bakery windows every spring. But one could argue that it’s the strawberry’s ubiquitous little cousin, rhubarb, that’s the real star of the show. The ruby-red locally grown vegetable pops up in dishes, both savory and sweet, all over the state in May: At Seattle’s venerable Italian spot Tulio Ristorante, chef Walter Pisano works the stalks into salads, purées them as an accompaniment to duck and uses them to amplify cheese platters. Across town, chef Jason Stoneburner at Bastille Café & Bar poaches them in honey, ginger and rosé to add a sweet note to crispy pork belly. As delicious as the savory dishes sound, however, for rhubarb lovers it’s hard to beat dessert at Tulio: a rhubarb crostata served with a scoop of rhubarb gelato. “Rhubarb on rhubarb!” Pisano exclaims. —M.K.

WHEN A GREAT HOTEL CLOSES—whether due to natural disaster, neglect or just changing tastes—a destination loses part of its identity. Luckily, the best hotels do not always go gentle into that good night. Many reopen their doors to reveal vast improvement, be it innovation in design or newfound dedication to service. That they’re back and better than ever is something that has everyone resting easier.

Take London’s St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel. Back in the 1960s, the sprawling Gothic masterpiece then known as the Midland Grand Hotel was slated for demolition. It survived, only to endure decades of disrepair—until 2002, that is, when a $240 million renovation began. Last year the hotel was reborn as the St. Pancras Renaissance, and it’s a master class in sensitive restoration: The lobby features original ironwork, and the grand staircase is as stunning as it was when the hotel opened in 1873. While guests can immerse themselves in the romance and history of the building, Londoners will be celebrating the hotel’s sheer dramatic beauty for a long time to come.

Sometimes, as with the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, a reopening can take on added significance. This iconic hotel next door to the Superdome was left in ruins by Hurricane Katrina; even today, images of its shattered façade serve as visual shorthand for post-Katrina devastation. But things are looking up. Following a six-year $275 million renovation, the hotel reopened last October and now stands as a potent symbol of the city’s comeback. From the art deco flourishes of its Empire Ballroom to the Spanish-influenced Louisiana seafood at Borgne, its brand-new John Besh restaurant, there’s a sense here that, rather than merely making the best of a bad situation, the hotel seized an opportunity.

The West Indies’ Four Seasons Resort Nevis is another top-tier establishment that’s suffered the destructive power of nature. After being walloped by Hurricane Omar in 2008, the resort shut down for two years. The subsequent $110 million renovation was completed last December, with improvements ranging from redesigned suites to new catch-and-cook dining experiences. The resort has also built a levee as a line of defense (albeit one that has been lovingly landscaped) against the encroaching sea.

When two cyclones hit Australia’s Queensland coast in quick succession last year, Hayman, a historic private-island resort on the Great Barrier Reef, bore the brunt. It reopened last August following a five-month renovation, with additions that include luxury oceanside villas and upgraded leisure facilities. The most remarkable aspect of the project is a lavish botanical garden containing 33,000 plants; the hope is that, along with holidaymakers, the new garden will appeal to the cockatoos and kookaburras that vanished in the cyclones’ wake.

For the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, the problem wasn’t so much the elements as the passage of time. Built in the 1920s, this Vancouver landmark once hosted such celebs as Katharine Hepburn and Elvis Presley. By the end of 2006, however, it could no longer simply bathe in the glow of its past. Accordingly, the Rosewood group shut it down and embarked on a four-year redesign with the aim of not only restoring the hotel, but also reinventing it. Last July the results were unveiled—a museum-quality art collection, terraced penthouse suites, a swish poolside bar and more—making the Rosewood once again worthy of the likes of the King, should he choose to return.

The restoration of the Historic Park Inn Hotel in Mason City, Iowa, was an even trickier proposition. Built in 1910, it is the last hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright—and you don’t mess with that man’s work lightly. The original hotel had closed in 1972, with the building gradually falling into disrepair (becoming, as one staffer puts it, “a hotel for pigeons”). Following a two-year $18 million revamp, the Park Inn opened for business in August last year, serving as both a boutique property and a living museum honoring America’s most celebrated architect.

WITH SUMMER APPROACHING and vacation planning under way for many, travel to the United Kingdom will be more convenient than ever for United customers. This month, United begins daily nonstop service to Manchester, England, from Washington Dulles International Airport, and beginning in June we will start flying to Dublin, Ireland, from Washington Dulles.

For those wanting a more tropical getaway, year-round daily service from Washington Dulles to Honolulu will begin in June. This new service to Hawaii means that United will have the only nonstop service between these two cities.

United, the largest carrier between the U.S. mainland and Hawaii, will connect the Aloha State with eight mainland cities, as well as Tokyo, Guam and Majuro, offering nonstop service in 23 city pairs.

From our Washington Dulles hub, United also offers more domestic and international service from the nation’s capital than any other airline.

Since our merger, the new United’s unmatched global route network and U.S. hub structure have allowed us to offer our customers more flights to more places they want to go. By adding these new international routes and long-haul domestic service to Hawaii, we continue to put the right aircraft in the right markets to serve our customers’ needs. The merger has also enabled us to add a number of new domestic routes by using a mix of mainline and regional aircraft more efficiently.

ASK THE PILOT
With Captain Mike Bowers

Q: When flying to a southern city like Houston, I’ve noticed that sometimes the plane takes off to the north instead of the south. Why not choose the more efficient path?

A: The primary factor in selecting a runway for takeoff or landing is wind direction. We normally attempt to take off into the wind, since wind flowing over the wing is what provides the lift required for a plane to become airborne. A headwind allows us to take off or land using less runway. For example, a typical takeoff speed is about 150 mph, but if there’s a 20 mph headwind, the plane only needs to accelerate to 130 mph to create that same 150 mph over the wing. It takes less time and runway distance to reach 130 mph than it would to reach 150 mph. Conversely, if a plane is taking off with a 20 mph tailwind, it needs a ground speed of 170 mph to achieve 150 mph over the wing. So we select the runway in order to minimize our ground speed, which enhances safety, even if it takes us a few miles out of our way.

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

PETAL POWER
Plant life imitates art in San Diego

Southern California weather might not warrant an outrageous celebration of the coming of spring, but that hasn’t stopped the San Diego Museum of Art from decorating its permanent collection — which includes pieces by Matisse, Dalí, Magritte, Durand, Cassatt and O’Keeffe — with flowers every April for the past 30 years. A few weeks before the museum’s Art Alive event, local florists are asked to interpret selected paintings either literally or figuratively, and one gets to create a two-story floral sculpture to be installed in the rotunda. And that’s not even the best part. “Oh my gosh,” says museum marketing director Devon Foster. “It smells incredible.”
APRIL 12-15

THE DOCTOR IS IN
A Big Easy legend gets a new sound

Back in 2010, a summit of sorts took place in New Orleans. It was between two men from different generations — one the most celebrated living Big Easy musician, the other a fast-rising star out of Nashville (by way of Akron, Ohio). The younger man came bearing a bold promise. If he were allowed to produce the legend’s next release, it would be, he said, “the best record you’ve made in a long time.”

Those men were Mac Rebennack, a.k.a. Dr. John, and Dan Auerbach, singer and guitarist of gut-bucket rock duo The Black Keys. The product of their cross-generational partnership, Locked Down, comes out April 3. It’s a fully assured, hard-rocking, big-sounding swamp beast slicked with an appropriate sheen of NOLA grease. And as promised, it’s as good as anything the Doctor has done in years. “For my money, Mac’s one of the greatest who ever was and ever will be,” Auerbach says. “I’m so honored to have had this opportunity.” Dr. John is more succinct: “It was way cool,” he says. “It was real hip.”

TRACK STARS
Three other worthy releases to look out for this month
Jack White
Since he dissolved The White Stripes (another lacerating indie rock duo), White has moved from Detroit to Nashville; founded his own record label; nurtured a number of side projects, including The Dead Weather; and cut his first solo album, Blunderbuss, out April 24.

M. Ward
The smoky-voiced singer and guitarist has put out a string of well-regarded albums over the years, but it was She & Him, his collaboration with actress Zooey Deschanel, that won him a mass audience. Said audience will be relieved to know that his new record, A Wasteland Companion, out April 10, features Deschanel on two tracks.

Alabama Shakes
There may be no better set of lungs in rock than those of Brittany Howard, lead singer of Southern-fried soul outfit Alabama Shakes. She’s been likened to Janis Joplin and Otis Redding, and her band’s Boys and Girls, out April 10, is one of 2012′s most hotly anticipated records.

A MAN OF HIS WORDS

Don’t be gulled by the title: The Story of English in 100 Words may sound like a mere Cliffs Notes-style gloss, but acclaimed British scholar David Crystal has plenty to say here. Playing off the radio series “A History of the World in 100 Objects,” his book limns the quirky history of English through 100 coinages. A few author favorites:

Fopdoodle: “At my book talks, everyone seems to fall in love with this 18th-century term for an upper-class twit (‘fop’ for dandy, ‘doodle’ for dunce). It went out of use long ago — but I suspect many feel there are enough fopdoodles around today to justify bringing it back.”

Gaggle: “One of the great things about English is our propensity to mess about with it. We’ve been coining collective nouns (as with a ‘gaggle,’ or group, of geese) since the 15th century and still play with them today. A ‘rash of dermatologists’ is a good one I’ve seen!”

Doobry: “I love words that absolutely everyone uses but usually are overlooked by dictionaries and aren’t posh or exotic enough for word books. ‘Doobry,’ like ‘whatsit’ or ‘whatchamacallit,’ is one of those great nonsense words you say when you have to say something.”

COOK ISLANDS
Chefs hone their knife, spear and slingshot skills on a wild new cooking show

Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern may be the kings of adventure eating, but adventure cooking? Soon that’ll be the domain of restaurateur Michael Psilakis and chefs Madison Cowan and Kayne Raymond. In the new BBC America series “No Kitchen Required,” they’re dropped into remote locations to hunt and gather ingredients and incorporate them into meals that are then judged by the local community. It’s a bit like “Iron Chef” — except the contestants on that show never had to pick off an iguana from a canoe using a slingshot. Cowan admits, however, that his most bizarre challenge was something he didn’t actually have to travel halfway around the world to do: catch a live chicken. “We were running around like chickens without heads ourselves,” he says. “But we had a good time.” PREMIERES APRIL 3

QUOTED

“In garbage, there are no half-truths, no spin, no politics. Conquerors may plunder the riches and therefore the historical record, but no one plunders trash.” From Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash, by Pulitzer-winning journalist Edward Humes. OUT APRIL 19

ILLUSTRATION BY NEIL WEBB

IT SEEMS WE CAN DO almost anything on our smartphones these days, as long as we stay within our network. When we go outside it — as anyone who’s tried updating a Facebook page in real time with photos from the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro knows — the roaming charges can pile up, making the decision to bring a phone along on our trip look less than savvy. Fortunately, there are plenty of money-saving solutions available to the international traveler. Here are some of the best for staying connected while on the move.

GET A GLOBAL ROAMING PLAN
Only Verizon and AT&T offer bulk international data packages, and for as little as $25 per month for 50 MB (which should cover the occasional weather or news check, but anything more will require a higher limit). By contrast, without a roaming plan you’ll wind up paying around $6 for each Facebook message you read while traveling. Even better, these plans can be activated and deactivated instantly.

TURN OFF DATA ROAMING AND TWEAK YOUR SETTINGS
With or without a data plan, make sure to switch off your phone’s auto-sync (Android) or push (iOS) email settings and disable data roaming before you leave, to avoid any surprises on your phone bill when you get back home. Because international plans have data limits, I turn on data roaming only when I need it. And if I absolutely have to check my webmail, I do it via the website on my smartphone’s browser rather than the built-in email client — I use much less data that way.

FIND A HOT SPOT
Most smartphones let you flip on the Wi-Fi when they’re in airplane mode (and yours should be, if you don’t want to get charged just for hearing your phone ring), which means you’ll get online access via hot spot. This is crucial for bandwidth-hogging activities like checking email, streaming video and making calls with Skype. To ensure access to as many hot spots as possible, I have subscriptions to Boingo Wireless ($8 per month, boingowireless.com) and FON ($49 one-time charge, fon.com). These services give me access to millions of paid hot spots — many of them in airports and hotels — across the globe for no additional charge. And when those aren’t available, I can always use single-serving paid Wi-Fi hot spots or check jwire.com for free ones.

BRING A HOT SPOT WITH YOU
If my trip is 10 days or shorter, I’ll rent a portable MiFi device from XCom Global (xcomglobal.com), which blasts out a mobile-broadband Wi-Fi hot spot with unlimited data for as little as $15 a day in more than 195 countries. With this nifty gadget in my pocket and my iPhone’s Wi-Fi turned on, I can use my smartphone as I would at home, whether I’m streaming the latest episode of “Parks and Recreation” dubbed in French or navigating my way to the Apple store in Tokyo’s Ginza district. As a bonus, the MiFi hot spot saves me from paying hotel Wi-Fi charges, since it can deliver 3G speeds to my laptop and iPad simultaneously.

RENT LOCALLY
When I need friends or co-workers in, say, London to be able to reach me easily, I’ll rent a local SIM card and insert it into any quad-band unlocked GSM phone (available for as little as $40 on cellhut.com). If you plan to check email or use Spotify, be sure to opt for the special prepaid supplementary data plan (usually about $3 to $4 per day); otherwise, you’ll burn up all your mobile credit in minutes. On the plus side: Outside the U.S., incoming calls to prepaid local mobiles are usually free.

Phones aren’t the only rental option, either. On a recent trip to Japan, I could have rented a local iPhone for about $80 a week, which sounded like a great deal until I found out that the unlimited data plan costs about $32 a day extra. Instead, I rented a high-speed WiMax MiFi with unlimited data for $80 a week from rentafonejapan.com, complete with delivery right to my hotel the day I arrived in Tokyo. It remains to be seen, however, whether they plan to expand delivery — to Kilimanjaro, for instance.

Hemispheres tech columnist TOM SAMILJAN once tried the most effective way of avoiding roaming charges: leaving his smartphone at home. It didn’t end well.