not-so-high-voltage ~ london thru my own lens

i was never quite able to define what i thought was the 'quintessential london man'. on second thoughts, who cares...

photograph: local inhabitant, covent garden, london, summer 2006

high voltage ~ london thru my own lens

i was never quite able to define what i thought was the 'quintessential london woman'. it’s probably not even a good idea to try. with certainty, it’ll get me into trouble anyway, so why bother.

photograph: graffiti wall art, camden town, london, summer 2005

hell ~ london thru my own lens

i hate the tube. i always break into a cold sweat. i count seconds and yards in piston-tube-like dank darkness with only inches separating the metal housing of the speeding train and the concreted piping, exhaling only when i see the lights of the next station. bolt points into the light and fresh air.

call it an underground, the subway, a metro, or mass rapid transport systems, i measure a city’s progress by its ability to transport its masses quickly, quietly, efficiently and of course, safely.

singapore, tokyo, frankfurt all mitigate my urban commuter’s underground phobia by well-lit tunnels with emergency signage and clear escape routes. i am comforted by walking tracks all along these impermeable arteries. they assuage my insanity and diminish my exaggerated fears.

but what of those great cities in an advanced state of subterranean decay: new york, london ~ do i use a taxi or travel by bus?

drawn by the salacious innocence of roxy hart and her susceptibility, i am lured by temptacious promises of discovery. i stay underground and delay my search for a way out.

photographs: inside a tube station, london, summer 2005

envy ~ london thru my own lens

the immortal ghost, the silver ghost, the silver wraith , the silver shadow, the silver cloud, the silver spirit, the silver seraph, the phantom are not comic book super or anti-heroes. they are objects of desire. the rolls royce is not for everyone.

my understanding of a truly aspirational brand is vaguely related to a possessive desire to own something well outside the current elasticity of my purse strings, but reasonably within the realm of acquisition.

i interpret the luxe marketer’s message to me as neither belonging to the current consumer group, nor to a direct aspirational audience, but allow myself to be convinced that i am indeed, part of the larger, yet exclusive target audience. a nice idea that puts me closer to my roller than the far more amorphous 'exposure' group.

i’ll certainly want to think of myself as light years away from 'those' who see this creation as simply as an expensive car, or just a wraith, shadow, seraph, ghost or phantom.

i wonder why rolls royce never thought of a model called the grand delusion.

photograph: self portrait outside a roller showroom, mayfair, london, summer 2005

nescafé no es café; a cuppa coorg may be

i couldn’t, for the life of me, imagine why the tiny district of coorg in southern india has been likened to the scotland of india. i saw no men wearing kilts; didn’t hear the haunting echo of a lonely piper against a backdrop of craggy countryside pebbled by the stones of ancient castles; nor was i regaled with myths about monsters of the loch.

most significantly, i saw no evidence of the peaty soils that yield a fine a single malt***.

thru the ages, men have embarked on a futile search for an elixir of life. women, being more practical and less delusionary, haven’t wasted their time. but since my gender necessarily requires me to be off in pursuit of such, let me assert that a fine a single malt will always complement water and coffee on my elixir list.

just over 4,000 square kilometers, the district of coorg is only seven times the size of singapore. it finds tranquility in the lush western ghats of the southwest indian state of karnataka, kissing its better known neighbor, kerala. 

the rich soils, watered by the river cauvery and its veins, together with the shade of the offspring of ancient forests combine to produce one of the finest mild coffees, the world’s most traded commodity after oil.

coorg also produces exceptional pepper, cardamom and honey. here, where men are known for their martial bent and the women for their independence and beauty, success and achievement blend with a fair share of just getting by, off the generosity of the land. it is a place of magic.

being in a great coffee growing region does not alone make good coffee grow. foreplay impacts the final climax. a good planter must know the land and manage the interventions of the elements like you know your lover and his/her needs. great coffee is as much about the people who farm, manage and curate it, as it is about the complex processes of a growing cycle. it is a veritable labor of love.

i will continue my life-journey: opening with a 16 year-old lagavulin single malt; augment my entrée with a pure mineral water sourced from a spring titillated by thermal vapors; and drown in a coorg coffee, which like a woman, must be dark, hot, strong and steamy.

in age of instant gratification, there still is no such thing as instant coffee.

*** i did not tarry a moment to look closer. and there are indeed similarities between scotland and coorg: this wee piece will illustrate more.

photographs: coorg, karnataka, southern india, october 2008