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When we last left Henry Flagler’s story, he had just become a full partner in John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Despite the fledgling company’s youth, Standard Oil was on top of the industry within 5 years of its founding. Producing more than 10,000 barrels of refined oil per day, the business made Flagler a millionaire many times over. At just 42 years old, Henry Flagler had reached the peak of the business world. Despite his extraordinary success, Flagler was not a man to rest on his laurels and in 1876 a chance visit to Florida changed the course of his career forever.

Flagler first traveled to Florida not on business, but on doctor’s orders. His wife, Mary, was stricken with tuberculosis and the couple’s physician hoped a winter in warmer climes would help her ailing lungs. Tragically, the mild weather did nothing to ease Mary’s recovery and she died soon after. Flagler’s first visit to Florida, though marred by death, did not deter him from returning many times and when he remarried in 1881, he insisted that he and his new wife honeymoon in St. Augustine. During his stay in St. Augustine, Flagler was charmed by the quaint seaside town, but found its hotel accommodations and transportation options to be outdated and woefully insufficient. But in the little town’s deficiencies, Flagler saw a business opportunity. While still on his honeymoon, he attempted to buy a recently built hotel called the Villa Zorayda. The owner refused to sell but Flagler would later credit this failed deal with motivating his interest in the development of St. Augustine and, ultimately, of Florida itself.

After returning home to New York, Flagler’s desire to go back to Florida and leave his mark upon its Atlantic coast became the driving force of his life. Although he agreed to remain on the board of directors at Standard Oil, Flagler stepped away from his day-to-day executive responsibilities in favor if his interests in Florida. In 1885, Henry Flagler returned to Florida and never really left. His business pursuits kept him there year round and he soon became one of the state’s greatest patrons. Flagler first set up shop in St. Augustine, the city he had fallen in love with years before, with intentions of building a grand, 540-room hotel named for Spanish explorer, Juan Ponce de León. The hotel, inspired by Spanish Renaissance architecture, became Flagler’s passion project and he spent lavishly to make it a reality. As the new hotel’s construction approached completion, Flagler turned his attention to the town’s need for a reliable, modern transportation system that could accommodate future guests. He quickly bought up several short, local rail lines and combined them into what would eventually become the Florida East Railway.

The rail was such an immediate, smashing success that it encouraged Flagler to draw up plans for similar hotels spanning Florida’s Atlantic Coast. He called his vision “a new American Riviera.” Flagler knew that with the right combination of access and marketing, Florida’s coast would grow into the premier luxury destination of the East Coast elite. By the early 1890s, Flagler was working feverishly to achieve his vision, expanding his Floridian holdings with a missionary-like zeal. He began construction of a railroad bridge over the St. John’s River, which ultimately opened up the entire southern half of the state and drew his dream of a developed Florida ever closer.

Next time we will wrap up Flagler’s story with the almost accidental founding of Miami and (finally!) the construction of the over-seas railway!

If you are coming to Key West inspired by Ernest Hemingway, then you should look into getting the Hemingway Retreat at the Suite Dreams Inn in Key West. The Inn is run by a wonderful couple Andy and Jaime Laba. There are six gorgeous suites and they are impeccably clean, convenient and original. The Hemingway Suite was perfect for all we needed. A great living room in the style of Hemingway and with large kitchen and dining area along with plenty of room to sleep 6. One of the great aspects of suite was the private heated pool with mini waterfall. Perfect for relaxing and reading Hemingway or resting in Key West. And even better for writing in the spirit of Ernest Hemingway! This is the Ideal Key West Vacation Suite!

The Suite Dreams in is on Von Phister Street, close to the beach and close to Duvall street. contact Jaime Laba today at (305) 292-4713

Arrive approximately 7:00pm at apartment/hotel. Clearly people live in this building full-time (“I’ve lived here five years and never taken the elevator,” one resident confessed), but we pickup our key from a “concierge” in another building; the one across the pedestrian bridge from the Sunrise Suites, our temporary home. The apartment smells like a hotel. A distinctly Floridian odor of sun-baked mildew.

As we head out for dinner, we weave through a parking lot full of white vans decorated with competitive messages and symbols. Each one ends up looking the same. The relay-race from Miami to Key West supports the Florida Special Olympics and hosts hundreds. Many of the runners at the Sunrise Suites wear tall striped socks and mill aimlessly. In addition to the literary conference going on, the tours, cruises and themed retreats, a 199 mile race stops here. Key West is full to the brim with visitors who want to have a good time.

On nearly every downtown corner, large groups of strapping young lads built like Hemingway roam like big cats, and I wonder, is everyone here to do something? Has anyone come to Key West to relax, or is it the kind of place fun looks tiring? The “rummies” look a wee bored, cigars fashioned listlessly in their lips. And fun-havers everywhere, stepping over obstacles, have their eyes fixed upon the next bar. Occasionally I witness a tourist stop to sniff out a particularly gorgeous scent in the air (which is where Key West gets truly interesting): ocean air, roasting meat, cigars rolled in the Cuban tradition. These are the real charms of Duval Street. The lights and shops are only a glint in her vast sparkling eyes.  

Sitting in a beer garden atop the ancient Vyšehrad courtyards, my host, Radka took a swig of pilsner and began, “A friend once asked me, ‘What are the Czech people like?’ And I said, ‘Czechs, we just don’t bother.” She laughed before elaborating. “We work hard, but all we want is a home and a happy life. We don’t think bigger than that, usually.”

But Radka thinks bigger than that. She’s restless and wants to see the world, which marks another change in a country that has seen so many: a growing generation of dreamers. She is learning Arabic in an effort to learn more about a culture that she believes is grossly misunderstood, and I had to agree.

We peered down at central Prague from across the Vltava River. Punk-rock hippes and young families mingled together on the grass along the cliffside. It was nearly sunset, and night and dreams, like the vivid fantasies of Kafka, would soon arrive.

A bronze statue of Franz Kafka sitting on the shoulders of a headless, limbless man stands in the city of Prague. It represents a dream that he had, which is described in one of his earliest short stories, “Description of a Struggle,” published in 1909, six years before The Metamorphosis.

Critics often dismiss Kafka’s “Struggle” as one of his lesser works – unpolished and adolescent. But Prague went through many stages as well before the city reached its bright, shiny state. From the first settlements in the Paleolithic era to the iron fist of the Soviet Union, Prague has survived many dynasties, dukes, and kings. Now it is a lovely tourist sight, but that was certainly not always the case. Perhaps this is why the “Struggle” statue so well represents both Prague and Kafka.

In 1924, Kafka died at the age of 40 from a combination of tuberculosis and starvation at a sanatorium in Vienna, but his body was returned to his true home in Prague, where it remains inside the New Jewish Cemetery, with so many others.

Prague, though, lives on. And Kafka’s “Struggle” is now intrinsically a part of it. He sits on the headless man’s shoulders, witnessing the changing world.

Radka and I left the beautiful Vyšehrad and returned to her apartment 20 minutes from the center. There the buildings shot up from the flat ground in identical cubes with small windows and dull paint – the remnants of communism. Shops and restaurants were rare, not like the vibrant neighborhoods of other cities I’d seen. But inside the apartment, Radka whipped up a delicious regional stew and opened a bottle of Moravian wine. Stories and laughter followed. We weren’t bothered.

I am very excited to announce Key West Fridays at Literary Traveler. We are taking a trip to Key West in January. To celebrate that fact we are launching a new tradition of Key West Fridays.  We are going to share ideas and thoughts and the great stories of Key West to help get you excited about visiting Key West.

Why Key West? In the spirit of Key West - Why not? One of the first literary trips we took involved a long drive to Key West. It was one of the experiences that inspired us to start the website. Key West just has a unique blend of natural beatuy, spirit and literary history that few places possess. And this January, the editors of Literary Traveler will be traveling on a tour with Ann Kirkland of Classical Pursuits to Key West to discuss great books, shoot video and have fun.

Key West is one of the islands that make up the Florida Keys, a tropical coral archipelago known for its beautiful geology and fossil life. It has a fascinating history of politics and immigration, literature and innovation, arts and language. And we hope to bring it to you on Key West Fridays.

There are few writers who can so seamlessly marry information with a strongly absurdest sense of humor. Bill Bryson is one of those rare authors. Unlike the dry, factual essayists we read in school, Bryson’s books are not only sidesplittingly funny, but also deeply authoritative and observant.

As you might be able to tell, we have been reading Bryson for years, and admiring his singular style and voice. From the first book we picked up on the Appalachian Trail, the 1998 A Walk in the Woods to his wildly popular A Short History of Nearly Everything.

In 2010, while traveling across the Atlantic on the Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, Literary Traveler got to meet the famous writer. Bill was taking the cruise as a special guest for their Liners & Literature series. During this time, he had a few duties: relax, enjoy himself, and speak to the other passengers about his impressive career, his thoughts on Britain, and his unique views on writing and reading.

“Everybody likes books that are about them,” he observed during our interview. “My book about growing up in Iowa seemed to really resonate with Americans. The other book that did very well in America was A Walk in the Woods… but the book that sold in Britain was Notes on a Small Island. I suppose it’s natural that people are most attracted to something about them.”

He also revealed the genesis of his writing career. “My dad had a great collection of hardback books from the 1930s and 40s, and he had a lot of books by PG Wodehouse. He had books by people like James Thurgood, Robert Benchley, and S.J. Perelman—four really, really funny writers. I picked up these books when I was thirteen and fell in love with the idea of being able to use language as a way of making people laugh.”

To learn more about Bill Bryson, take a few minutes to watch our full interview with the author, shot on board the Queen Mary 2. Covering everything from baseball to the Brits, it’s the perfect way to get to know one of the most beloved humor writers living today. See the clip at Literary Traveler TV here.

Courtesy of Cunard

Last summer, your editors at Literary Traveler were lucky enough to cross the Atlantic on the majestic and elegant Queen Mary 2. The week-long Transatlantic cruise offered most everything we overworked writers need—excellent food, plenty of rest and relaxation, and of course, a bit of literary stimulation.

The trip we attended on the grand old liner wasn’t your average cruise. Literary Traveler was invited to attend one of their Cunard Insights enrichment programs, the 2010 Literature and Liners trip, alongside influential authors like Kate Atkinson, John Berendt, Bill Bryson, and Joanne Harris. During our stay, we were able to attend Q&As with the authors, panel discussions, and book signings.

In order to better document the journey, we also brought our camera. To learn more about the Queen Mary 2—including details about its history, the various amenities available onboard, and the surprising attractions that draws thousands of passengers each year—take a look at our video on YouTube. And stay tuned for further details about the author discussions with Bill Bryson and Joanne Harris.

Andrew Wyeth’s art is quiet. In contrast to many of his contemporaries, whose works scream out for attention through bright colors and bold shapes (Rothko and Mondrian), or seduce with lush layers of paint and incomprehensible abstractions (Pollock and de Kooning), Wyeth’s paintings are subtle. They whisper their intention to the viewer. Muted colors and barren landscapes mark Wyeth’s most recognizable works, but all of his paintings share a common sense of stark intimacy.

I’m not the only one who feels this way about Wyeth’s art. Earlier this month, the house in Maine depicted in his most famous work, Christiana’s World (above), was named a national landmark. “It’s now affirmation that it’s an American icon,” said Christropher Brownawell, executive director of the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, in an interview with the Associated Press. On July 1, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, announced that The Olson House, along with 14 other locations, is now officially recognized by the U.S. Government.

The news shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with American art. Though he didn’t fit into any of the major artistic movements of the 1940s, Wyeth was an exceedingly popular artist; something about his pieces felt recognizable in that post-depression era. I like to think it’s because his scenes are so touching and instill an immediate familiarity in the viewer: we can’t help but feel as though we’ve been there. His style may not have been as flashy as that of his contemporaries, but Wyeth’s work has long been recognized as different, respected in its own right. Quietly, it captured the era.

Painted in 1948, Christina’s World was titled after the woman who inspired the image, Wyeth’s neighbor, Christina Olson. But while the painting is ostensibly about her, Wyeth did not use Olson as a primary model. Instead, he called upon his wife to pose for the scene, recreating the moment he looked out the window and saw his neighbor, who suffered from polio, making her slow crawl across the yard. Looking at this painting, I believe I can see the love he had for his wife, and the sad respect he had for his subject. The landscape is bleak and muted, but there is a tenderness in the way Wyeth depicts Olson. I feel instinctively, as many have before me, that this piece captures something essentially human, something even bigger than the scene, more important than the farmhouse.

Though I’ve seen the painting in person—it hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York—I haven’t yet visited the location in Cushing, Maine. But somehow, I feel as though I have been there, as though the moment he depicted is not in a place or a time, but happening constantly. It’s an ineffable thing, but one I’m not quite ready to mar with a visit to the actual location. But despite my personal reluctance, I’m happy to know that no matter what, the Olson House will be there when I’m ready to see it.

Image courtesy of Andy Goldsworthy

I was introduced to the art of Andy Goldsworthy when I was eight years old. I was staying at a friend’s house overnight for a giggly, girly sleepover that we expected to last all night. After my friend fell asleep earlier than anticipated, I began looking through the books on her parent’s coffee table. I was a little bit restless and slightly homesick, but quickly forgot such pressing issues and focused on the pages in front of me, which were covered with familiar items arranged in entirely unfamiliar ways. I may not have remembered the artist’s name, but I can recall those images vividly. The book was unlike the science books my parents owned, unlike the big encyclopedias we had lying around. Even as a kid, I could tell the photos in it were something special.

I find it unsurprising that my first foray into contemporary art came by way of coffee table, especially considering Goldsworthy’s massive popularity. The Boston Globe’s Sebastian Smee recently called him “one of the most popular artists alive,” and wrote about the very same glossy pages I once poured over in the quiet hours of the night. “Goldsworthy’s works are known to art lovers — and millions who would never willingly go by that description — largely through his handsome books, which reproduce sumptuous photographs of his installations in picturesque natural settings. You find these books on the coffee tables of bankers, lawyers, journalists, farmers, and teachers all over the world. They are ridiculously seductive, disarmingly emotional.”

Seductive is the right word for Goldsworthy’s work. While beautiful, it also carries a touch of the uncanny. According to Freud, the uncanny is that which we can recognize, yet still feel is slightly off. Many translators have given a literal interpretation of the German word as “unhomely,” and though they don’t carry the connotations of Freud’s recognition, Goldsworthy’s installations are often un-homey. They exist in situations we can easily recognize—beach, woods, lake—but reveal patterns and a sense of artistry that does not truly belong in nature. While the artist’s interference is visible in every piece, it always feels slightly disguised by the natural materials and simple shapes. Undeniably lovely, Goldsworthy’s works also contain elements that are at once eerie and dramatic.

While I’ve admired his pieces for years, I have never had the chance to see them in person until this spring, when the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, opened their new exhibit Snow. Featuring a small cross-section of Goldsworthy’s work, including a collection of the aforementioned photographs, two large snowball drawings, and the video, the collection serves as an introduction to the upcoming large-scale Sculpture Park installation. The massive granite structure, aptly-titled Snow House, is still in its beginning stages, but the deCordova Museum hopes to have it on view by winter 2013.

Though we have some time before we can see the permanent structure, it sounds as though Snow House will be worth the wait for Goldsworthy’s fans. The piece will be interactive and continually changing, much like the natural phenomena that inspire his work. “Andy’s going to create in our sculpture park — sort of dug into the hillside — a granite-lined chamber, big enough to walk into,” Capasso described in an interview with WBUR, “and every winter when it snows our staff and various community groups will create a nine-foot diameter snowball inside this piece of architecture.”

The deCordova is still seeking help funding the project. Interested parties can donate to the artistic cause online or by calling Catalina Rojo, the museum’s Development Coordinator.

On Monday, the Museum of Fine Arts announced plans to make restitution to the heir of a Jewish art dealer killed in the Holocaust after determining that a 17th century Dutch painting housed in the permanent collection at the Boston museum was seized by Nazis in World War II.  The image in question is an oil portrait of a wealthy couple seated in their living room, created in the late 1600s by Eglon van der Neer. Though the MFA Boston acquired it for $7,500 back in 1941 from a New York art dealer, the painting is now valued at nearly $550,000.

Though stories like this always carry a tinge of sadness and unease—considering the bloody history of such a simple object—it seems like the MFA handled the circumstances in best way it could: with complete transparency. Unlike several other institutions, including the Leopold Museum in Vienna and the MoMA in New York, the MFA Boston was proactive in making the truth known. According to an article in The Boston Globe, the MFA Boston published an image of the painting online back in 2000, along with six other pieces, asking for additional information about the work and divulging their own questions about its history. With a little help from Google, a heir of the original owner, Walter Westfeld, found the piece and began working with the MFA Boston’s curator to discover exactly where the 29-by-27-inch canvas came from.

With the help of Westfeld’s relatives, the MFA Boston has been able to piece together certain bits of information to form a (somewhat) complete picture. As it turns out, the van deer Neer was most likely seized from Westfeld before he was taken off to Auschwitz. Back in 1941, when they first acquired the piece, the MFA Boston was told only that it was “brought to this country by a refugee some time ago.” However, in 1943, the museum became aware of the possibility that it was not what it originally seemed. A French dealer named Robert Lebel contacted the museum and explained that he had sold it to Westfeld a few years prior, and that the rightful owner (Walter Westfeld) was seized shortly thereafter, along with all of his possessions. Though there is no way to be completely certain that Westfeld didn’t sell it of his own volition, museum officials concluded that it was extremely unlikely.

Anyone who reads this recognizes the inherent sadness in the painting’s violent past, but it is important to remember how much it means to the family that the MFA Boston was willing to be open and honest about its collection—and open and honest with its pocketbook. The descendants of Walter Westfeld (now known as Westfields) have had a difficult time locating Walter’s original possessions. In recent years, they have tried everything from suing the German government for restitution to appealing to American lawyers for aid. Though there really isn’t a “happy ending,” it seems that everything is finally as it should be. The art will continue to educate generations of viewers, and the Westfeld family will finally have some small form of justice granted to them.

“We feel very good and very thankful for how the museum dealt with us,’’ Fred Westfield told The Boston Globe. “We had a lot of help from some of the people at the museum over the years, once we started to claim that the painting really did belong to us.’’

For as long as I can remember, autumn has always been my favorite season. I love Halloween, the lengthening evenings, and the way dead leaves crunch underfoot. I love the colors of New England fall, all blazing reds and oranges and the clear blue of the October sky. I love back-to-school shopping and donning wool scarves. But what I love most is the smell.

Fall air smells like nothing else in the world. Somehow, the fallen and decaying leaves and the growing cold conspire to turn the atmosphere into something wonderful. Something that smells not of death, but of rebirth.

In my opinion, the best place to experience the scents of fall is in an apple orchard. Apple picking has become something of a fall tradition for me. Every year as September draws to a close, I throw on my jacket and head to Shelburne Farm in Stow, Massachusetts.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of introducing my boyfriend to Shelburne Farm. The orchard seemed seeped in the spirit of Autumn as we wandered among the manicured rows, stopping occasionally to pluck some imperfect specimen from the branches (several of which we ate immediately, in a violation of orchard rules). We climbed into the trees on the spindly ladders, pulling down fruit that ranged from under-ripe and sour to sweet and crisp. For $17, we went home with a giant bag of Macintoshs, Cortlands, and Royals, which Garrett promptly baked into pies and crumbles. We also picked up some cider donuts at the Farm Stand, where they doled them out in half-dozens, piping hot out of the fryer. Before we left, we even made a quick pit stop to visit the sheep at the small but smelly petting zoo.

We went home happy and full. It was one of those perfect New England days–and a wonderful way to ring in the new season. It never truly feels like fall until I’ve bagged that first batch of local apples.

So that’s my fall ritual, but I’d love to hear: What’s yours?

Like my fellow Literary Traveler blogger Ashley, I’ve been on a rather tight budget this summer.  This does not jive well with my near-constant need to get out of the city, to always be going, going, gone.  Fortunately, I’ve found a way around my limitations: camping.

I’m no stranger to roughing it–I did once complete several weeks of Outward Bound–but I hadn’t done a lot of camping in the past couple of years, so my recent trip to Maine was something of a shock.  Camping was dirtier, messier, scarier, and harder than I remembered.  But also so much more fun.

And Maine is the perfect place to get away from it all.  From the mountains in the West to the island-riddled coast in the East, the entire state is filled with incredible views, pristine lakes, remote villages, and all the rural charm you could ever want.  We stayed at the Augusta West Kampground on Annabessacook Lake, an oddly-shaped body of water, delightfully rich in water lilies, located somewhere in the middle of Maine.  Our first afternoon was spent on the water, canoeing from island to minuscule island, poking through the debris left behind by former visitors.  I felt like an anthropologist, uncovering the remains of a forgotten culture–though in truth I discovered nothing more exciting than charred fire pits and empty beer cans.

On the second day–and our final day of the weekend getaway–we drove out to New Hampshire and climbed Mount Pine.  The White Mountain National Forest is an amazing place for both experts and amateur hikers.  Though I probably fall into the later category, I felt an absurd sense of pride as we reached the summit, just moments before the fog rolled in.  I watched as the thick, sullen clouds descended over the peaks, shrouding them–and us–from view.

Fortunately for me, my camping days are not over yet.  This week, I’m dragging my boyfriend out to Western Massachusetts, where my younger sister goes to school.  I’m looking forward to several days of hiking, hot dogs, beer, bonfires, and maybe some early-fall swimming.  Stay tuned for details.

I went to a college that I often compared to a boarding school, but boarding school graduates compared it to summer camp.  We were coddled, gently incubated to adulthood in a single-path Ohio village.  Our dining hall had a “continuous feed” policy.  Our health center offered support groups for socially isolated students.  Our professors regularly granted extensions for existential crises.  It was a place apart, with the remote location, Gothic architecture, and demographically limited population you’d expect in a period piece, a horror movie, or a combination of the two.

Given that my college experience combined the odd and the infantilizing so frequently, when my study-abroad materials raised the possibility of “culture shock,” I considered it an overstated concern and a welcome diversion.  Junior year was the perfect time to go abroad – I had just begun to internalize the limitations of my campus, to reduce my worldview to a population excessively concerned with the social capital of obscure indie rock bands, or their ability to express the inherent inadequacy of language in a fourteen-line poem.

To prepare myself intellectually for my abroad experience, I took a course on 18^th century travel narratives.  We covered the requisite Boswell, Johnson, and Smollet, but also the landscape-mirroring-emotion letters of Mary Wollstonecraft.  In retrospect, I wish I’d devoted more attention to descriptions of more dramatic culture clashes – Passage to India, Wide Sargasso Sea—or the science-fiction narratives on my brother’s bookshelf.

Psychologists, literary scholars, and international studies counselors throw around the terms “defamiliarisation,” intercultural awareness,” and “negotiation phase,” but they are all talking about the newcomer’s confrontation with a novel environment.  The first shock of a “foreign” sensory experience – the dense scent of Bombay’s airport, the preemptory “sorry” in a crowded Dublin street, the first mouthful of French headcheese – has the makings of a vivid, and entirely individualized, description.  The writer’s vocabulary is drawn from the language and experience of the host culture.  Here’s an illustrative passage from Fred D’Aguiar’s “A Son in Shadow,” where a Guyanan bride encounters English weather:

The first morning I opened the door that autumn and shouted “Fire!” when I saw all the smoke, thinking the whole street was on fire, all the streets, London burning, and slammed the door and ran into his arms and his laughter, and he took me out into it in my nightdress, he in his pajamas, and all the time I followed him, not ashamed to be seen outside in my thin, flimsy nylon (if anyone could see through that blanket) because he was in his pajamas, the blue, striped ones, and his voice, his sweet drone, told me it was fine, this smoke without fire was fine, “This is fog.”

Travel literature produces these salient encounters – Sloane Crosley’s description of an encounter with Portuguese circus clowns in her latest essay collection is the first that comes to mind.  Specificity is not a handicap, either — Bill Bryson has made a career of highlighting the finer points of contrast between England and the United States.  Still, given the globalization of culture, the increased accessibility of international travel, and the propensity of memoirists to dash abroad, I am concerned that, just as expatriate communities live in their native tongue, just as the Grand Tour followed an itinerary, so today’s traveler/readers are losing their ability to cast off established frames of reference.  In other words, I fear that the contemporary writer has been limited to seeking food in Italy, prayer in India, and love in Indonesia.

If our planet has become overly familiar, then science fiction is an ideal platform, a means of approaching our world as alien.  The man-from-Mars trope is classic, but the graphic novel Black Hole, and, sigh, yes, even the Twilight series, lends a sparkle of originality to the well-worn terrain of lust in the American Northwest.

Of course, I may be underestimating today’s authors, just as I underestimated the unmooring I felt during my second month in Ireland.  Plenty of writers – Tolstoy foremost among them – have made the familiar strange without resorting to science fiction, surrealism, or writer-seeks-self narratives.  If you’re interested in estrangement of familiar, I recommend Cortazar’s Autonauts of the Cosmoroute, Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates, or a viewing of PBS’s “Culture Shock” segment on Huckleberry Finn.

Do you enjoy reading descriptions of culture shock?  Do you think that a glut of travel narratives compromises a writer’s ability to be original?  What was your most shocking moment abroad?  I’ll be writing more on this next week, so let me know.

Times, they are a-changin’.  At least, things are changing pretty rapidly for the characters of Mad Men, AMC’s hit drama about advertising executives. For those not in the know, the show, follows Don Draper and his lovely but seriously repressed wife (now ex-wife) Betty as they struggle to figure out where they belong in the ever-changing world of 1960s America.

Here at Literary Traveler we have quite a few Mad Men fans, and we suspect our readers have been similarly captivated by the critically-acclaimed series, which is on its fourth season.  The newest season begins on Sunday July 25th, at 10/9 central and I, for one, know exactly where I will be that night when ten p.m. rolls around.

It might seem strange that a blog devoted to literature and travel is covering a television series, but Mad Men is so rich with literary allusions – and is set in a time of such social and political turmoil – that we would be remiss to completely ignore it (plus, have I mentioned we’re fans?)  Last season, we saw Don leave Sterling Cooper to start his own firm, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the beginnings of Betty’s new marriage.  We also watched as the characters confronted the Civil Rights Movement and several began to experiment with drugs and the counterculture movement that has come to define our view of the 1960s. It was, in a word, epic.

To get ready for Mad Men season four, please be sure to check out our series by author Paul Millward.  First, read Flower Children of the 60′s & Ken Kesey, Father of LSD and Hippies before heading to Mad Men, Creating a Perfect World on the Avenue of Dreams. Both are essential reading for any true Mad Men fan.

And don’t forget to tune in Sunday to see where the Mad Men new season takes us!

I had no quarrel with my roommates during our cross-country drive to Montana.  It was all novelty – blues bars in Chicago, the world’s largest hockey stick in Minnesota, fields of sunflowers turning their faces to the West in North Dakota, a Rastafarian family at a natural hot springs in Oregon, pitching a tent in the parking lot of a senior citizen’s center.  But when we finally arrived to our rented house, it occurred to me that they were doing everything wrong, especially in the kitchen.  Bowls go on the shelf below plates.  Cups go to the left cabinet.  Bread belongs in the refrigerator – the cupboard is for snacks!  But Dan wanted the bowls ON the plates, the garbage can beside hallway, canned goods in the cup cabinet.   We gaped at each other’s fundamental lack of understanding and, despite our conscious compromises, absentmindedly placed our kitchen supplies in the kitchens of our childhoods.

My subconscious refusal to shelve cups alongside plates is not just passive-aggressive behavior – it’s a reflection of my cognitive map. According to Melissa Holbrook Pierson’s The Place You Love Is Gone, your brain forms a cognitive map when you first view a place, and, given the novelty and sensory intensity of a child’s early experiences, memories from your first six years of “home” have a fundamental impact on your inner map.  Pierson cites the Oliver-Sacks-esque case of A. Kirschman, a native of Germany’s Oberstein an der Nahe who was distressed by his perception that, in every place outside of his hometown, the sun set in the east, rather than the west.

Pierson beautifully reiterates the persistence and logistical impossibility of the human desire to rebuild our idyllic past; she also has a great deal to say about the psychological and biological basis of our bonds to a hometown, and the problematic notions of “wilderness” and “progress” in the American landscape.  But her book is rooted in the past, as she insists all individuals are, fundamentally.

I don’t deny my roots, nor my compulsive reiteration of my inner geography.  And, though I’m working on getting an interview with BU’s Center for Memory and the Brain, I don’t know enough about neuroscience to make this statement.  But metaphorically, at least, I insist on the brain’s ability to form integrated, adaptable maps through travel.  You know where I’m going with this.  Travel reintroduces novel experience, expands our sense of possibility, etc., etc.  Our sense of physical orientation, of the feng shui of home, is probably already set, but our sense of how the world can, should, or does work can always be modified.

Each time I leave my latest “home,” I expand my sense of possibility.  Some possibilities are ugly.  It is possible for a father to pimp out his twelve year old daughter for rent.  It is possible to speak five languages and still be mocked for your ignorance.  But it is also possible to base a career on German stick-fighting, to actively protect rainforest habitats, to dip one’s fries in peanut butter.  (Not to scale, admittedly, but a revelation, nonetheless). Two underpaid Irish metal workers I met in Amsterdam managed to budget an international excursion every two months; mummified corpses and a perpetuity tax in Guanajuato revealed a new face in the business of death; a former Israeli soldier wore high heels on our hike through Patagonia.  The world is strange.

Childhood is a time when it is easy to believe in the world’s raw potential, that anything is possible.  As a species, we are running out of physical frontiers –even Antarctica comes equipped with a gift shop – but psychological exploration, our ability to draw new cognitive maps, is infinite.  Adulthood is the time to make that potential kinetic, to broaden your knowledge of what is, what can be made.

The answer may not lie in physical wilderness.  Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately; as Pierson notes, “the woods” are shrinking, and even back-to-the-land literary movement is overpopulated.  So ignore the woods, ignore the example of Huckleberry Finn, who “lights out for the territory” that his creator knows will be “civ’lized” soon after he arrives.  You can’t go home again, so venture to the neighbor’s place instead.  Rezone your interior map.  You can bring a snack from your past – made the right way, of course – but, by all means, leave the kitchen.

I’ve always thought that one of the most wonderful things about traveling is how it pushes us to new experiences, to try things we never could have predicted we would do.  As cliche as it may sound, travel does broaden one’s horizons; it opens the mind to new traditions, new cultures, new people.

In our newest feature article, author Kelly Jean Egan journeys to South America, where she does something she had never done before: ayahuasca.  Ayahuasca (which literally means “rope of the dead” or “vine of the soul”) is a drug popular with writers and thrill-seekers.  Traditionally, it is taken to clear the mind and purge the body.  Peru has become the center of ayahuasca tourism – in which people from other cultures take part in the ritual ingestion of the plant-based drug – and this is where Egan goes to try the trip.

Though you will have to read our article to find out how it all ends for Egan, the idea of drug tourism is actually a rather interesting one.  Here in the United States, drugs are something of a fascination – yet they are depicted in movies and books as at once both dangerous and glamorous (think Scarface).  However, in many cultures, drugs play an important part in religious rituals.  For some, smoking peyote or ingesting ayahuasca is not a rebellious act – it’s a spiritual one.  We’re not going to claim that drugs are good, but to engage in an ancient ritual, and to expand one’s horizons while traveling – well that can be good, even if it is through means illegal in our home countries.

And on a far lesser note, I was speaking yesterday with my brother, who had just returned from a trip to Sweden.  While all of his stories were interesting, I was particularly surprised to hear this: “I had the best rum of my life.  It was illegal.”  Curious as to why one type of liquor would be illegal, I pursued the topic a little.  It turns out that U.S. citizens are currently barred from drinking Cuban liquor – even while abroad in countries where trade embargo does not apply.  My baby brother had broken the law!  And according to his account, he loved it.

As demonstrated by my sibling’s experience and by Kelly Jean Egan’s trip, travel can sometimes lead us into unexpected places, both within the outer world and within.  It can take us into jungles and up to the top of the world, but it can also help us delve into the innermost parts of our own minds.  To learn more about ayahuasca tourism, please check out Egan’s piece: Peruvian Amazon Ayahuasca’s Influence on Great Writers.

As I drove to work the other day, I was attracted to a story on National Public Radio (NPR) about a man who runs with bulls.

I listened to this story and pondered, does this man actually run with bulls? Who would do such a thing? After my shift ended and I found myself still contemplating the insanity of this concept, I Googled ‘running with bulls’. To my surprise I came across an array of Google results, and more specifically, came across the location where this story was set.

Running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain is a highly popular event that is part of the San Fermin festival, the most renowned festival in Spain, which honors Saint Fermin, the co-patron of Navarre. This festival occurs every year beginning July 7^th – 14^th.

In this event, players run with 6 bulls and 9 steer. The bovine competitors run from their “off-site corrals” to the bullring where they will be slaughtered. Side streets are blocked off and barricades are used to make a direct route for the bulls. Many injuries occur but from the description I heard on NPR,  the event can also be euphoric, exciting – a real once-in-a-lifetime experience.

With this being said, I thought what an interesting idea for this week’s travel blog. Do you need a little, or a lot of excitement in your life? Do you do outlandish and outrageous events similar to this one and feel like this would be an amazing experience? If so, I have found a reasonably priced ticket to Spain through Expedia, this flight is around $1600, but please hurry because the festival ends on the 14^th and you may miss your chance to run with the bulls in Pamplona.

If you are looking for a hotel deal, I found a great deal at a beautiful, modern facility: Suites Mirasierra Pamplona. This hotel looks beautiful and clean and offers is close to the city’s center. I found the deal through hotelscombined.com for about $116/night.

Happy 4th of July. I hope everyone is enjoying their Independence Day. Stay tuned for next week’s ‘Travel Deals to Satisfy Your Wandering Mind.’

“It is not a bad symbol of that long wandering, I thought again – the human hand that has been fin and scaly reptile foot and furry paw.  If a stone should fall (I cocked an eye at the leaning shelf above my head and waited, fatalistically) let the bones lie here with my message, for those who might decipher it, if they come down late among us from the stars.

Perhaps there is no meaning at all, the thought went inside me, save that of the journey itself, so far as man can see.  It has altered with the chances of life, and the chances brought us here; but it was a good journey – long, perhaps – but a good journey under a pleasant sun.  Do not look for the purpose.  Think of the way we came and be a little proud.  Think of this hand – the utter pain of its first venture on the pebbly shore.

Or consider its later wanderings.”

An excerpt from anthropologist/essayist Loren Eiseley’s “The Slit” in The Immense Journey.

Eiseley’s statement is a long way from the motivational poster’s “Success is a journey, not a destination,” but I hear a similar optimism for those of us who are still not “there,” there being wherever we thought we ought to be, socially, financially, intellectually – whatever criteria we choose to measure own inadequacies.  Eiseley had the advantage of a thousand years’ perspective, and, if I may, a tenure-track teaching position, which is a comfortable place from which to pontificate, but that does not exempt him from the anxiety of eventual death – he “waited, fatalistically”—nor the consideration that “perhaps there is no meaning at all.”

The last time I felt that way, I freaked out and moved to Mexico.  I was twenty at the time, and I was just beginning to face the possibility that my emotional reactions to the “utter pain” of my undergraduate existence had less to do with teenage angst and more to do with duller, broader words like “anxiety” or “dysthymia.”  In an effort to get away from some recriminating self-talk – “Why didn’t you get that internship?”  “What did you do to drive him away?”  “When will you pull yourself together?” – I got out of my country, and, more importantly, my language.

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Today, in honor the holiday and the long weekend, I’ve decided to forgo Friday links and instead focus on one of my favorite American authors: Mark Twain.

For a lot of people, “summer reading” means one of two things. Either they’re referring to the mandatory “great books” assigned by High school English teachers or they’re talking about the light, “trashy,” less-than-literary novels commonly termed “beach reads.”  But when I hear the term “summer books,” I think about something else entirely.

For me, a summer book is one that I return to over and over, one that breathes heat out of its pages and soothes with its particular brand of fantasy.  These books feel carefree – reading a summer classic is about as satisfying as climbing a tree, or diving into a swimming hole.

My all-time favorite summer book is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, though Huck Finn comes in at a close second.  These novels perfectly capture the mischievousness of childhood, the excitement and the continual yearning for freedom.  They speak to a part of me that still sometimes secretly longs to run away from home and join a circus, or a band of traveling musicians, or just float lazily down a river, ignoring all of my other responsibilities.  With his sharp wit and ability to capture the local color perfectly, Twain transports me back to a different time, one that only appears simpler at first glance.

Another reason I love Twain has less to do with his characters and more to do with the setting.  Twain is an American Author.  He is quite possibly the quintessential American Author.  Not only does he write in that hilarious, rambling, biting-yet-kind voice that feels so American, he also manages to inject each of his novels all the beauty of our country while remaining authentic.  He does not sugar-coat his books; childhood is not a perfect place, free of tension.  Tom and Huck may not be aware of the great injustices of the world at the beginning of their journeys, but as they grow and progress, they come to see our world for what it really is.

This July 4th, do America proud and pick up a book by one of our many great authors.  If Twain isn’t your cup of tea, how about some Faulkner?  Or Melville?  (May I suggest Benito Cereno?)  Or, if you don’t have that much time, check out one of our articles on Mark Twain, which include A Revealing Interview with Terrell Dempsy, Author of Searching for Jim: Slavery in Sam Clemens’s World, Mark Twain in Unionville, Nevada, and Finding Mark Twain’s Hannibal.   You can also search for other American authors at LiteraryTraveler.com.

Happy reading!