Home
October 10, 2013 by admin · Leave a Comment
By Felicity C. Sundlun
It is one of the last days of my summer and I am taking a leisurely stroll through my neighborhood when I see it: a large rock, spray-painted in red (undoubtedly for extra oomph) with the phrase “Beware the locals”. Ahhh, the joys of a good turf war.
I have lived in the 20-mile stretch of Long Island known as The Hamptons since I was a wee babe. I’ve always liked it just fine – it is, of course, my home and, as such, has assumed a special place in my heart – but I’ve never felt the enormous swell of love for this place that some do. Nonetheless, come the month of June, I, like many residents, take up the cause of “Local Resource Protection” (to be honest, I just made that term up). And what do I mean by that? I mean that once the temperature in New York City reaches unbearable heights and the city dwellers start heading out east, I and every other self-proclaimed local go on the defensive.
Being on the defensive for me can mean anything from affecting a stony-faced appearance whenever one enters a public space (an even more stony-faced expression than I normally sport), assuming a more aggressive driving style – after all, that bicyclist is definitely not from here, and avoiding any and all beaches, restaurants, stores, and general areas that you would normally enjoy. For others, the months of June, July, and August represent the perfect time to buy a bumper sticker that proudly proclaims “MTK,” “EH,” “SH,” or any other such abbreviation of a local township. If that doesn’t make enough of a statement, why not buy a sticker that says, “City People Suck,” or, spray-paint a rock with a menacing phrase?
Where does this turmoil come from? Does it exist in order to keep the residents of a normally sleepy town entertained? Or is it representative of more serious issues that exist beneath the surface? While I’m sure the unrest is to a certain degree born of the classic “Us vs. Them” attitude that has been the inspiration for many a national, international, and transgalactic battle (see Cameron Crowe’s Avatar), in recent years, the source of the frustration has certainly been the effects of a swollen population with conflicting ideas over resource usage.
I’ve seen the once sleepy beaches of Amagansett, my home town, become home to crowds of drunken 20-somethings, their camps filled with loud music, beer, and the inevitable garbage that comes along with mass gatherings of drunken hooligans. According to The East Hampton Star, the newspaper of record, Kieran Brew, the chairman of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, counted 1,300 individuals who had chosen Indian Wells beach (a popular spot in Amagansett) as the place to party on July 4th. For these individuals, The Hamptons represent a playground, a land of sun, sand, and sea, where loud music and drunken antics are customary. What they seem to forget is that for people who call this place home, The Hamptons are a place where they live, work, and rear their families; it is not a 24-hour nightclub.
This summer, I lived and worked in Manhattan during the week and originally intended to spend most weekends at home. However, my intentions soon fell by the wayside. After all, in order to get home, I would have to endure a three-hour train ride, a train ride during which the majority of my fellow passengers spent drinking beer, wine, or even stronger concoctions. On more than one occasion the train bathroom was left in such a state that most were afraid to enter it. Police were occasionally called to quell the unruly crowds. Following the initial journey, the rest of my time at home was usually spent waiting in lines or in traffic.
For me, this summer was by far the worst. Although share houses are technically a violation of town code, the financial incentive for such a violation is too great for many homeowners to ignore. Additionally, the code seems rarely to be enforced – perhaps because of the tourism dollars that the Manhattan migrants bring with them.
Nonetheless, as the summer crowds swell, so does the frustration of local residents and so does the tension between those who live on Long Island and those who play on Long Island. Hamptons resident James Cuomo started a widely publicized Facebook group this summer called “Douche Spotter”; I’ve had my car (which has out-of-state license plates) ticketed when my friends’ cars have avoided such a fate, and on multiple occasions I’ve heard “GO HOME” shouted at perceived invaders.
On my last trip home on the train, I wound up conversing with a fellow passenger. She was on her way to a friend’s share house in Montauk, and when she learned that I in fact lived in the Hamptons, she assumed out loud that I “must love living there.” I told her that she probably enjoyed it more than I did.
Felicity C. Sundlun was born in Manhattan and raised in Amagansett, NY. She first met I AM founder, Tiffany Tzeng, at Phillips Exeter Academy where she wrote a fashion column for the school newspaper, The Exonian. She is currently a senior at the University of Southern California with a major in Communications and a minor in Consumer Behavior. Following graduation, she hopes to return to New York and pursue a career in Fashion Marketing. She enjoys brunch, miniature dachshunds, and dry humor.
Identity and Accents
October 10, 2013 by admin · Leave a Comment
By Lauren Davis
“Do you know Daniel Radcliffe?” “I bet you drink tea all the time.” “Have you met the queen?” Yes, these really are the comments and questions that a Brit faces in the U.S. My personal favorite came during a discussion of the Revolutionary War in a high school history class – right after I’d moved here from London; with a genuinely smug look on his face a boy turned to me and asked: “So, how does it feel to know that we beat you?”
Since moving to America five years ago, my accent has defined almost everything about me. It goes beyond just receiving amusing one-liners. During every interaction, every endeavor, and every friendship, I feel as though I represent the British perspective. And in turn, beyond my control, a variety of assumptions both good and bad are made about me every time I absent-mindedly include the extra syllables in the word “aluminium.”
In the U.S., I have been defined by, and have also actively defined myself by my Britishness in a way that I took for granted before I left England. However, over the past few years my brain has unwittingly and unwillingly corroded that accent – that external representation of a large part of my identity – as it adapted to my American surroundings. I’ve begun to slur my pronunciation, use new slang, and speak in a louder tone. I’ve also become more friendly, more outgoing and self-promoting, whereas I used to be much more quiet, reserved and humble – even pessimistic. The ultimate blow came this past summer, when I returned to London for an internship and a British co-worker mentioned in passing that she “just assumed I was American.” It sounds ridiculous, but it took all my strength not to curl up in a ball and sob with indignation. In my mind, I am still just as British as I’ve ever been. Her words were a jab that I felt, viscerally, for the rest of the day.
In many ways, I don’t have a problem that I’m changing into a slightly confused and confusing, transatlantic hybrid. I’ve always felt proud to be an American citizen, and am pleased to be genuinely embodying some of that national identity. I care about the country, its people, and its policies. But on the other hand, I am British. I just am. My Britishness is the stake I’ve driven into the ground that I can clutch onto as I proceed through waves of new experiences and people that threaten to throw me off course. Without it, I feel lost.
To be accused of no longer being British – or worse, to have my Britishness entirely unidentified, especially in England, my home – feels like someone yanking a rug from beneath my feet. My British accent, more than just a way of pronouncing “r”s or saying “trousers” instead of “pants,” represents for me the entirety of my British identity: the tastes, the TV shows, the music, the comedy, the landscapes, even the subway system or the grocery stores that shaped me as I grew up. Being British is fundamental to the way I put language together in a spoken or written form; how I organize thoughts and express them, even when my particular tonal pronunciations are not heard. By being British, I can subconsciously peg myself to a geographical location, and firmly feel grounded in a community and a culture no matter where I am. Being British provides a sense of comfort, a viewpoint for arguments, a perspective in cultural affairs, and an excuse for humor or sharing knowledge.
As I change and adapt, is it a bad thing that my accent becomes diluted, along with my sense of nationality? Is it a good thing? Am I growing and changing, becoming more interesting and worldly, or am I losing something basic and essential to who I am? Traveling back and forth between England and America, I struggle with these questions.
Identity is a strange concept, as it has an infinite number of facets: from what we wear, to what we eat, to where we were born, to how we speak or what sports we play. Each one of us, intentionally or not, crafts an identity out of a unique combination of things, some of which we can control and some we cannot – like the family and culture we are born into or our genetics. But we each have the freedom to place an emphasis on the facets that mean the most to us.
Ultimately, I’ve concluded that it doesn’t matter, in any real sense, whether I’m British or American, or some mixture of both. More important to me are the values I try to keep at my core and seek in others – like empathy, honesty, kindness, or bravery. That said, I will never escape the pangs of wrath and woe I feel when my Britishness is accused of having been polluted, or worse, goes unidentified. I’m trying to embrace the transatlantic crossbreed I’ve become. I may not fit into either country perfectly, but perhaps that actually reflects the kind of person I am – always a little on the outside, peering in, but also able to step in and offer my two cents worth when I feel like it.
Lauren Davis is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and a junior at Princeton University majoring in Philosophy and Neuroscience. When not writing, reading, or confusing herself with big questions about brains, she enjoys walking around Hyde Park in London, illustrating children’s stories, and riding in equestrian jumping competitions.
The Healing Powers of Essential Oils
October 10, 2013 by admin · Leave a Comment
By Tida Wei
As the world realizes the true value of loving oneself – both one’s mind and body – more of us become the beneficiaries of the movement towards a healthier lifestyle.
Guruji Sri Sri Poonamji is a true spiritual master and direct descendant of Baba Neem Karoli (also referred to as Maharaji) – the Guru who Steve Jobs traveled all the way to India to find. The first time I tried an essential oil creation of Guruji Sri Sri Poonamji I found myself in a state of floating bliss that I’d never experienced before from aromatherapies or any therapies before.
The fragrance of Vibrant Beauty – the oil that I had delicately rubbed against my wrists in a circular motion – seeped through my veins almost immediately, releasing a unique scent of flowers, barks, and a tinge of fragrance from herbs. It was a creation of Guruji that has now become a household item of her disciples. The oil can relieve stress and also heal fresh wounds and scars. All of Guruji’s oils are charged by Her collection of crystals and Her love and light energies. The frequencies of them are so pure and high that there are no other combinations of healing in the market.
Guruji’s love of essential oils started about 23 years ago after she met Her Guru, Baba Sevanandaji. After experiencing the healing properties of these oils, She realized they were more precious to her than diamonds. All of them were unique – whether it be rosemary, marigold, turmeric root, pine, or peppermint.
Having had the privilege to briefly study these oils with Guruji, I’ve come to learn that all of the essential oils are actually edible. However, learning all the properties of these oils, how to utilize them, and even which dropper to use will take many more years of training. One of my favorite oils is the pure damask rose oil. The oil is extracted from roses that are only picked at dawn, when dews are still gathering on their petals. This is because the roses’ essential oils evaporate as the sun touches them, and the quality and scent varies between the morning and afternoon flowers. The flowers also have higher vibratory frequencies than any other oil and will uplift you instantly, assuming that the oil is unadulterated and undiluted.
One of the most profound experiences I was blessed with involved a bottle of Silver Elixir, a drinking oil formulated by Guruji five years ago in India that uses flaxseed oil as a base. The flaxseeds were freshly harvested, with every extraction process monitored by Guruji to ensure that the oils were of their purest, unadulterated form. The first tablespoon of this elixir was so powerful I could feel it pulsating in my veins, uplifting each cell of my being into a lighter and brighter space. The flavors were wholesome and rich, and were followed by a crisp peppermint aftertaste. Soon after the first sip of this nourishing oil, my body began to heal itself from the inside out. It was a feeling of vitality that I’d never felt before.
One of the newest creations in this product line is the Pure Harmony, a drinking oil that will help rebuild your stomach lining, calm the body, rebalance your food ingestion, and tone down your cravings – all the while shifting your body and mind into a harmonious balance. The concoction has a nut oil base that is combined with various other essential oils – all of which Guruji has bought and monitored throughout the extraction processes. Another wondrous mixture is the Blood Purifying Oil – an oil created to condition the body, oxygenate your blood, and detoxify your body from the inside out. For those that battle skin problems, this will assist in unclogging all the blockages in your system – ultimately showing a more vibrant you.
Being able to work with Guruji and Her non-profit organization, Divine Bliss International, is one of the most profound experiences of my life, especially knowing that the movement is catching momentum and that the world was designed to heal itself. After all, why would the cosmic energies provide us with so many healing creations if they weren’t meant to be put to good use? As Guruji’s disciples learn more and more about Her divine creations, we realize how selfless Guruji is in creating so many products that can heal us from the inside out. Even though some people will always remain selfish when it comes to preserving the world, it is comforting to know that there are people like Guruji who will sacrifice a lot in order to understand how to make this world a better and healthier place to live.
Although the oils are currently only available in Singapore, the team will be traveling to the USA soon to spread the love.
Heal yourself, and the world will heal with you.
Tida Wetwijittrakan was born in Bangkok, Thailand, with a last name changed by her Taiwanese parents for a Thai citizenship. Before she moved to Singapore to finish her degree in Fashion Marketing, she was an intern at Salvatore Ferragamo in Thailand and helped choreograph fashion shows for her University. Moving on to interning at STYLE magazine under MediaCorp Singapore just next to Elle magazine’s department, she realized her passion for writing and connecting with people, and eventually joined a boutique catering company as a creative marketer. Her career in the food industry sparked her passion for photographing as well, and eventually, Tida became the Editor-in-Chief of the company’s online Food and Lifestyle publication, TASTE, where she does all the researching, copywriting, photographing, and editing single-handedly. With a mission to make the world a better place one person at a time, she spends most of her free time working for a non-profit organization – bringing self-realization to people through teachings of love and compassion through her Spiritual Master, Guruji Sri Sri Poonamji.
24 Hours at the Edinburgh Fringe
October 10, 2013 by admin · Leave a Comment
By Tara Isabella Burton
There are arts festivals, and then there is the Edinburgh Fringe. Gleefully chaotic, gargantuan in scale, and intensely gripping, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival runs for three weeks each August. Since 1947, the festival has been transforming Scotland’s ancient capital into the worldwide center of culture, as nearly every arts professional in the UK (and a good proportion worldwide) decamps north for the summer. The city’s population quadruples in size as actors, comics, musicians, journalists, and ordinary paying punters descend upon the labyrinthine streets of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Cafes, pop-up cocktail bars, and vintage clothing shops, overflow onto the street as stalls selling jewelry and antique silver are swarmed by stage managers desperate for last-minute props.
To some embittered locals, the Fringe Festival is a grudgingly suffered necessity: a boost to the city’s economy at the expense of its peace and quiet. But to the rest of us, the Fringe is more than simply a chance to see a show or two, it’s an opportunity to live in a world – however temporarily – in which the strange, the surreal, and the experimental, become mainstream. A world in which buskers from Lesotho advertise a concert played entirely on “found instruments” salvaged from the trash-heap, in which clowns on the Royal Mile vie with the world’s official “Most Tattooed Woman” for attention from passersby.
I’ve seen more of the Fringe than most. Reviewer for Broadway Baby by day, performer by night (my piece of immersive theatre, Midnight at the Rue Morgue: the Madness of Edgar Allan Poe, runs nightly at 22:40 at SpaceCabaret, a decadently dilapidated cabaret bar just moments from the Royal Mile), I’ve experienced the Fringe from both sides of the audience/actor divide. While no day at the Fringe can ever be considered “typical”, a twenty-four hour snapshot of life here might reveal more about the frenetic Fringe culture than any more anodyne description could do:
9:00 am: No rest for the weary. No sooner does the alarm go off than I make my way from my sublet to the flat shared by most members of my cast, crossing the Meadows and passing a fleet of buskers playing the Toreador theme from Carmen on a musical saw. Like most rented flats in Edinburgh during this period, it has far more inhabitants than beds: our actors have spread out over the living room floor, their sleeping bags strewn between wayward props and the many hundreds of play flyers we’ve already accrued. We rehearse a new scene for Midnight at the Rue Morgue in the living room.
11:00 am: It’s an old saying that “anybody who’s anybody” is at the Fringe Festival, and it’s far from off the mark. After learning that a filmmaker friend from my former home city of Tbilisi, Georgia, is in town making a documentary on Georgian theatre, I invite him out for a coffee and a late brunch. During the meal we “swap flyers” – the equivalent of a handshake in Edinburgh parlance. We talk about potential future projects and make arrangements to see one another’s shows.
2:00 pm: It’s time for my first scheduled review of the day. At the Fringe, show slots start at about 10 in the morning and finish around midnight. I make my way to the Royal India Buildings off George IV Bridge. The Royal India Buildings are an ornately decorated suite of nineteenth-century rooms converted for the Festival into “C Nova,” which is known for small-scale and often experimental productions. I, along with about four other visitors, am here to see Echolalia, a one-woman clown show about Asperger’s Syndrome. Such small audience numbers are hardly uncommon – rumor has it that the Fringe average is three – and most of the shows I see during my time in Edinburgh have fewer than ten in the audience. Nonetheless, the show is excellent and I mark five stars down in my notebook, secretly pleased to be the first to “discover” a Fringe highlight in this unobtrusive black box theatre. (Later, I learn, the show has blossomed into a full-on Fringe success, with audience numbers to boot).
4:00 pm: Small audience numbers may be common on the Fringe circuit, but they’re hardly good for the bottom line. Producing a Fringe show costs at least £2,000 (equivalent to roughly $4,000), sometimes significantly more, and the work of “shifting tickets” is often more onerous than actually performing. I, along with the rest of my cast, head to the Royal Mile: the nexus of all Fringe-related activities. Nearly every show bases its actors here to hand out flyers for the duration of the run, each show adopting a different gimmick to draw the crowd’s attention. On the way to our pitch I spot an enormous dragon puppet, a triad of squabbling campers in a tent, the cast of Fawlty Towers, and a duo of stone-still actors in full Regency dress (they’re advertising Mansfield Park). We spend the next hour flyering in costumes inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s characters, trying our best to steer away the numerous small children who toddle over with their families to collect a flyer from “the nice clown.” Better not to let them know that the clown in question is a serial killer inspired by Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart.
7:00 pm: It’s back to reviewing as I head to another venue for a show that differs wildly from this morning’s piece. The performance in question is a piece of new writing inspired by the conflict in Sierra Leone. As grim and harrowing as Echolalia was light and fantastical, A Concrete Jungle Full of Wild Cars is certainly flawed – it’s a young playwright’s debut – but it’s all the more compelling because of it. After all, Tom Stoppard and Alan Bennett debuted some of their early work at the Fringe, and it’s thrilling to think that writer Mariana Ives-Moiba might one day follow in their footsteps.
9:00 pm: Back to the Royal Mile for another bout of flyering. Because our venue is only steps from the Mile, our late-night flyering doubles as a warm-up session, with our drama games and exercises attracting crowds eager to “get in” on the act (one spectator starts to warm up with us). We recite Poe’s The Raven to a group of fifty passersby; they applaud fervently and ask for flyers. One American man even offers us money – albeit twenty pence. “You’re actors,” he says. “Don’t you all need money?”
10:40 pm: It’s show time. Our play is interactive and immersive, with the audience encouraged to wander about the space, follow characters that interest them, and rifle through props in order to look for clues to the stories being told. Such an approach has proved successful at the Fringe, where experimental theatre tends to be popular and audience members frequently respond well to the challenge. Tonight, though, one audience member is more responsive than usual. Edgar Allan Poe himself – a refugee from another Edinburgh play called Dead Famous – has turned up in character, and he proceeds to follow us around the set, reciting his famous lines along with the actors.
11:30 pm: After the show, we ask Poe to stay behind for a photograph with the excited cast. He agrees, but refuses to break character throughout, even when the anxious technical team tries to nudge us out of the space – we’re the last show of the night, and they want to go home. Our sound technician tries to figure out what on earth Poe is doing at our show. “It’s the Fringe,” he concedes at last, throwing up his hands in mock-despair.
12:30 am: We’ve cleared the stage of props and head back to the cast flat, still in costume, to deposit the tools of our trade. Afterwards I head back to my own sublet. Even at this hour the Meadows are full of people – buskers, lovers, and casts sharing a midnight cider on the lawns. I am tempted to stop for a while, to sit on the grass and look at the stars. I reconsider. I’ve got an early start tomorrow.
Tara Isabella Burton’s essays, reviews, and travel writing can be found at Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Statesman, Salon, Guernica, The Rumpus, Condé Nast Traveller, and many other places. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Arc, Shimmer, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, and more. She is the winner of The Spectator’s 2012 Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for travel writing and the author of the novel, A Thief in the Night, currently on submission. She is currently a Clarendon Scholar at Trinity College, Oxford, working on a doctorate in theology and fin de siecle French literature.