A steel drum band played under the tent at Cinema Paradiso last night, just downwind from trays of aloo pies and bake and shark. I grabbed a Carib beer and watched as the local Trinidadian community enjoyed its night.
"Where are you from?" a middle-aged woman asked a middle-aged man. (For the most part Cinema Paradiso is still, for some strange reason, shunned by the young.)
"India," the man said.
"My mother was from Hong Kong," the woman said testily. "But I'm from Trinidad."
"My father was from India, my mother from Trinidad," the man said in a conciliatory tone.
"So you're from Trinidad," the woman said, not relenting.
"Yes, I'm from Trinidad. You're right."
The evening film, Mas Man, was a documentary on the life and work of Peter Minshall, the carnival artist also known for creating Olympic opening ceremonies (Barcelona, Atlanta, Salt Lake City). When I went to Port-of-Spain for carnival in 1995, Minshall was criticized in the local papers by a local pastor for calling his band "Hallelujah." That year he draped his dancers in flowing white fabric.
In the theater I sat next to a tall, distinguished-looking Trinidadian now living in Miramar. He wore light-colored trousers and a white, loose-fitting shirt opened at the neck and displaying a thin gold chain. A delicate gold bracelet encircled his wrist.
He told me there were rumors that Minshall, who has not participated in carnival for several years, was coming back. In the meantime, Brian MacFarlane has taken his place for epic themes and breathtaking costumes.
"Without Minshall and MacFarlane," the man said, "carnival would just be beads and bikinis."
The nice thing about meeting people while traveling is that they not only enrich your trip, they also - when they finally take you up on your invitation - enliven your home.
Saturday afternoon I drove down to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Internatonal Airport and greeted Nandita, whom I had met once - in the fall of 2006 - and her partner Shrinkhla. Nandita had made my visit to Varanasi - or Benares, as she calls it - memorable, taking me and some other Americans on an early-morning boat ride down the Ganges, and then inviting us all to dinner at her parents' house later that evening.
She had visited the States a few times, but always the Northeast (where Shrinkhla was doing her residency) or the Midwest (where Shrinkhla now works as a pediatrician). In her office hangs a sketch of the Hemingway House that so intrigued Shrinkhla that she decided to find out where it was located and to visit it one day. They just set off for Key West an hour ago in their rental car.
But what a lovely weekend, receiving a small library of Indian literature from Nandita, catching up on news of her brother and his Varanasi art gallery, shopping at the Indian market on Andrews Ave., eating dosas at Udipi Cafe on University Drive (pronounced authentic by the two experts), driving around Miami on Palm Sunday afternoon (parts of which, like Fort Lauderdale - even the view of the New River from our balcony - reminded them of Goa), looking at Nandita's wonderful black-and-white photographs of old Indian movie houses, listening to her story of meeting the Dalai Lama.
Last night Nandita and Shrinkhla cooked us a delicious dinner of eggplant and cauliflower, the leftovers from which I'm going to have for lunch right now. Perhaps while reading the poems of Tagore.
I love unsung cities, immigrant neighborhoods, ethnic festivals.
So Friday I e-mailed several magazines proposing a story on Buffalo's Dyngus Day. I learned of the celebration only last year, when I met a woman from Buffalo at a conference, though I recognized the name from Poland, where the Monday after Easter is referred to as Smigus Dyngus, the day when, traditionally, boys chased girls and doused them with water.
Buffalo, with its large Polish population, has turned Dyngus into a kind of post-Lenten Mardi Gras, with parades, parties, dinners, tours and water pistol fights. I suggested a story about Buffalo's historic Polish community as told through the activities of its most colorful festival.
Saturday morning I found an e-mail from the editor of a major travel magazine:
"I'm sorry, Tom. Sounds like a cute item but hardly a feature for us. More like fodder for a newspaper column. May have been a while since you've seen the magazine—just designed—but you would know that we wouldn't devote a feature to an obscure festival that few readers would practically attend."
The e-mail had a familiar tone: testy and condescending. Though the grammar was interesting. I pondered for a while the phrase "practically attend." Did that mean showing up in sensible shoes?
I do see the magazine - "see" being an accurate description - and I knew my proposal was a long shot. But I keep hoping that travel editors will discover the value of the offbeat. (I did.) If you reject the obscure you end up relying on the obvious. You keep saying the same old things about the same old places, and you wind up with people who see rather than read your publication. Most travel magazines are not written for readers, or even for travelers, but for a particular type of unadventurous, unoriginal, and usually wealthy vacationer. They are the journalistic equivalent of Willie Sutton, going only where the money is.
One evening in Baltimore I turned on the TV and caught the local news. The sports person was in Sarasota, reporting from the Orioles' new spring training home, and everyone interviewed - players, coaches, fans - talked about what an improvement the new facility was over the old one in Fort Lauderdale. There seemed to be an unspoken feeling that, if only the team had moved a few years earlier, they could have won a few World Series.
It was odd being on the road and hearing my hometown dissed. But I couldn't really come to its defense.
A few years ago I visited Sarasota, and saw some similarities to Fort Lauderdale. Both are wealthy cities built on retirees. What differentiates them is what the money has wrought. In Fort Lauderdale it's hedonism (as befits a town made famous by Spring Break); in Sarasota it's culture. Fort Lauderdale sometimes claims to be the yachting capital of the world; Sarasota has its share of impressive boats, but it also has an opera house. (Fort Lauderdale long ago lost its orchestra.)
Every Saturday in downtown Sarasota there is a farmers' market, a subtropical no-brainer that Fort Lauderdale has never been able to pull off. Sarasota's main street has two bookstores - an excellent antiquarian shop and a popular bookstore cafe. (Las Olas has none.) The street also has a couple inexpensive Thai and Vietnamese restaurants, the kinds of places that here you have to have a car to find.
And, in addition to all that, the city now has baseball in spring.
Tea with Sally in Ellicott City (muffins and mutual complaints about editors).
The Reuben sandwich at Duesenberg's in Catonsville (with a side of homemade potato chips).
The Enoch Pratt Library and the tour of its Mencken Reading Room.
Dinner at Helmand in downtown Baltimore, the Afghan restaurant owned by Hamid Karzai's brother.
The Creative Writing Forum at The Community College of Baltimore County, run by the funny and gracious Evan Balkan.
All the people who came to my talk (and laughed at all the right places).
Evan's personal tour of Baltimore.
Seeing Hania's Franco-Polish godson Ian and his sister Mia (with the exception of that last chess match. Ian, I'll get you next time).
A delicious Chinese dinner - and interesting conversation - at the Bethesda home of my friend Mei.
Lunch with old friends Phil and Grace at the Mayflower Hotel.
Seeing men in bow ties.
Seeing people reading books on the metro.
Finding Second-Story Books is still in business. (Thank you, metro.)
Meeting a former freelancer of mine (Arin) for the first time, and finding her as bright and amusing in person as she was on the page.
Talking writing & books with Eric at Politics & Prose.
Seeing my name at newsstands peering out from the cover of The Wilson Quarterly.
Lunch with Matt, an old Sun-Sentinel friend now working at the Post.
Seeing the offices of The Travel Channel.
Learning a new phrase: power wall, describing the place in a Washington house reserved for photos of the owner standing with powerful people.
Cousin Michael arrived yesterday from Prescott, Arizona, with his 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. After taking them to their hotel I drove them to the beach. Alex and Gaby had never seen the ocean before.
But they knew exactly what to do. They ran up to the edge, and then ran back, again and again, as the foamy water chased their feet. They dug their hands in the sand and molded it in shapes. They picked up shells.
They had read no ocean how-to books; they had not asked facebook friends for seashore tips. It was all pure instinct, a natural and effortless and immemorial encounter.