All posts filed under: featured stories

Lucia Micarelli’s performance of “Kashmir”

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If you can, wait until night to watch this video. This is not just another classical music concert. A violinist plays barefoot, wild yet controlled just enough. Her sound on the violin is smooth, the kind of smoothness that you think would lead to overthinking and coddling the violin. But she is more free, and passionate and graceful. She also plays barefoot, a preference of hers. This is Lucia Micarelli’s performance of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” Pay attention to the build up, half crazed, to the moment at the 2:45 mark when the first note for Kashmir drops. The entire stadium’s soul feels elated. This is the kind of artistry you want to rhapsodize about. Micarelli is one of the young stars in current classical music. Born in Queens in 1983 to a Korean mother and an Italian father, Micarelli began studying violin, piano and dance when she was three years old. When she was six years old, she was a violin soloist with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. By age 11, she was studying at the …

Happy Valentine’s Day! Here are 7 movie scenes of love and romance (Spoilers)

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The English Patient (1996): “Cathedral paintings”   One of the most romantic scenes in cinema. Hana (Juliette Binoche), a vibrant and capable nurse who takes care of the titular patient played by Ralph Fiennes. One day, when she is playing the piano in the bombed out shell of a building, Kip (Naveen Andrews), a lieutenant and bomb defuser in the British army, runs to her and tells her to stop playing. There might be a bomb in the piano, he warns her, and sure enough, there is one just inches away from being detonated. “I’ll probably marry him,” she later tells her patient. “Really? That’s sudden,” he quips. She answers, “My mother always told me I would summon my husband by playing the piano.” Not long after came this scene, full of kindness and lightness, as Kip gives this gift to Hana of a little grace and beauty during wartime. Before Sunrise (1995): “The space in between”     Thoughts about love and relationships, dilemmas about ambition and family. Celine (Julie Delpy) feeling torn about …

Let’s eat! “A Bite of China,” bubble teas, and Ina Garten’s lemon bars

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Let’s eat! “A Bite of China” was originally posted in July. Here, I’m updating it with some writing on bubble teas and Ina Garten’s lemon bars. Enjoy! “A Bite Of China” There are moments in “A Bite of China” that stay with you long after you watch the show. A mother and daughter walking together at dawn, digging for mushrooms in the mountains of Yunnan. They easily push their sticks in the dirt to gently push up a priced mushroom that sells for thousands in city restaurants. Inside a ger in Inner Mongolia, in the early hours, a woman dips a ladle in milk to make breakfast for the family. The man will herd their sheep on the grassy plain. Fermented tofu nuggets are laid out on baskets on a balcony before they are hauled out to a busy city sidewalk and sold. The most simple yet amazing street food. More than technique and skill, “A Bite of China” is about taste and heritage, habit, livelihoods, the knowledge and skill that comes from working with …

A soapmaker’s journey

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The workshop of MoonDance Soaps & More is so fragrant from the soaps made inside, the fragrance wafts out well beyond the shop, out to the driveway. Inside the workshop, which is a converted garage, Rachel DuBois, founder and owner of the business, has finished a morning of mixing solutions and pouring. Now, it’s time to cut soaps and setting them aside to be “cured,” for the saponification process to complete. The natural soap-making process, which takes 4-6 weeks from start to finish, is how DuBois has made her soaps since founding the business in 1998, and it’s one she steadfastly adheres to. Her staff will help with making other products and packaging, but she is the only one who makes the soaps. “It’s a caustic process,” DuBois said, and added. “You have to be really respectful. My kids can’t come in here when I’m doing this.” The soaps are poured into big molds, then set aside to cool. While they’re cooling, the soaps have the color and thickness of what look like beeswax candles. …

New York in summer 2019

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New York in 2001 before the Twin Towers fell had weight, history, and was full of commerce and activity. New York during the Aughts was a place that kept becoming more sensual and spiritual. But New York by summer 2019 had been reduced to a tourist version of itself. Recollections from July 26-28, 2019. Day 1 The cab driver raced us down the highway toward Manhattan. On the right, high rises loomed. Great shiny monoliths. I pointed out the window and asked if that was Brooklyn. “No!” the cab driver exclaimed, “that’s Queens!” Queens. I couldn’t believe it. It was built up beyond recognition. The glass high rises went past as we flew down the highway. What has it been like living in Queens during all this? I remember apartment-hunting in Astoria. A coworker was from Queens. Working class to middle class. Queens was food and families to me. Back home, I was glued to my laptop most days as the sun beat down, oddly frozen. I had no energy and in hindsight, I felt …

At Elmo’s Diner, a story of humility and joy

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Cam was a familiar sight at Elmo’s Diner on Ninth Street. Most nights, he would come for dinner wearing a nice shirt, sit at one of his familiar spots at the counter, patiently wait to be served and banter with the staff in his characteristic gentle, easy manner. “Cam,” as he was known to Elmo’s staffers, was John Camden Hundley Jr. He died in 2016 at 83 years old. Cam ate at Elmo’s so often, around seven o’clock most nights, the staff at the busy restaurant out of habit would start looking out for his car at his usual parking spot. “Is Cam here yet?” people would start asking. He was supposed to call Elmo’s if he wasn’t going to come. His birthday was in the date book. Although Hundley died in 2016, his death still weighs on the staff, and memories of him are cherished and protected. People are reluctant to be interviewed, for fear the emotions would come to the surface and there would be tears. Chrissy Yuorick, who waited on him often, …

“The Dream of the Earth” by Thomas Berry

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When the Catholic priest Thomas Berry died in 2009, obituaries were not sure what to call him. “Cultural historian” was the preferred title. “Theologian” didn’t quite encompass his work, and he had preferred the term “geologian” instead. Born in Greensboro in 1914, Berry studied Asian languages and religions, Native American culture, founded the graduate program on religions at Fordham University, among other studies and work throughout his life — all in the search of a spirituality that combines religion and nature. In “The Great Work,” Berry wrote about his profound spiritual experience at a meadow when he was 11 years old. The experience was the basis for his spiritual development and intellectual thought for the rest of his life. “Whatever preserves and enhances this meadow in the natural cycles of its transformations is good, what is opposed to this meadow or negates it is not good,” he wrote. Berry’s writing is soft yet powerful. It flows, and is difficult to quote and pull from. You end up reading the whole book but not being able …

Halloween movies! Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein

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“Frankenstein” was the classic movie monster that has never really gotten a decent update. There have been many witches and vampires TV shows and movies over the years, as well as werewolves and zombies. (How long has “The Walking Dead” been running now?) But Frankenstein was the one that stayed like he was, as that 1930s era iconic persona. And Frankenstein has become a short hand in popular culture: “Misunderstood wretched monster created by science and the hubris of man,” is probably it. And he is kind of a funny character and relatable. He awkwardly roams through the countryside and he is very straightforward in how he tries to relate to people. In the second movie, he meets a hermit in the woods who finally treats him well, gives him shelter, food, wine. “Wine! Good!” he shouts. “It’s alive!” But it’s only when you get into the wrong state of mind and watch Frankenstein – or maybe the right state of mind – that you see more clearly why it’s so horrifying. Frankenstein, directed by …

Led Zeppelin in August

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A few years ago, I found I liked listening to Led Zeppelin in August. Today, I caught this feeling of listening to Led Zeppelin again as I drove around in the late afternoon after work. North Carolina’s August. That time when it’s like summer can’t take any more of itself. The active, joyful months of June and July are done, and the heat and humidity builds while the sunlight starts to slant. There is a feeling of falling and growing darkness. And rot and decay. For me, the work of summer is often not done by August, but I don’t have the natural impetus for it anymore. But from the best years that I remember, I wonder if August is when the beauty of summer, if you have risen up to it and worked for it, rewards you. Listening to Led Zeppelin’s lyricism in the heat of August is amazing. But that’s not really fair to a band, is it? Who says that a band can only be listened to during one month out of …