Mr. K and His Kompositorium of Keys

 

I've always had problem with keys. Oh no, no, no it's not microphobia, no not metallophobia. Maybe subconsciously I've acquired nostophobia, but that's a far stretch of an explanation: I've been losing em, breaking em, accidentally dropping them into voids since, well, feels like it's been since the beginning of time. As a matter of fact, one of the few things I make sure to have within steps' reach whenever settling down at a new place, has got to be a reliable locksmith, along with a non-Starbucks Cafe, a print shop, and a Duane Reade (or the equivalent).

Greenwich Village is never a place to settle down; the concept of living in that time warped area simply sounds our of my reach. On a good, sunny Wednesday morning if you walk down 7th Ave, you'll see the pavement sparkle, and the slightly shivering branches in the April wind, still give you a chill sometimes yet already lost the fearsome bitterness of its vicious wintery slashes. And that's where, or maybe I should use WHEN, you'll find Mr. K's tiny storefront.

Mr. K's name has nothing to do with the letter one associates with post modernism authors or casino royalties, but it just seems proper to code him an alias with the letter that symbolizes the holy relic of his expertise. If it had been a rainy day, or when the weather is something urgh-some like, overcast, or cloudy with confusing winds, you'd probably walk right pass Mr. K's storefront: tiny, entirely old, with subtle colour and an indescribable aura that you couldn't care to notice in your busy life, but rather just sits there, waiting to be discovered at the right moment when you're feeling up for it. It's a lot like something between dimensions, not in the reality but neither is it imaginary. It's not there, until you found it. And Mr. K's storefront is just like that. On a sunny day it starts to glow, and when you're walking down 7th Ave, it's almost impossible not to be drown to it.

First thing you notice would still be the name of the store, which would make you wonder, how did those humble looking fonts carved on a plate with fading colour and chipping paints ever, EVER make you stop your oh-so-important footsteps. "Greenwich Locksmith" it says, severely mundane, absolutely couldn't strike you as something worth noticing or becoming a tourist attraction. But then you see it. It's right there under your nose: a chair, or maybe we can almost call it a shrine, composed, quite impossibly, entirely of keys! As a matter of fact, the only toothless part of the thing is its steel frame, which I think could have been constructed with keys too although it could seem overly deliberate and honestly, what's the point? No it doesn't look like a Marcel Duchamp. Yes you can sit on it; I did, and it feels like... it feels like... it feels like sitting on a proper chair. Well what do you expect?

But the craftsmanship you can tell from every inch of it, the details of every stroke of ingenious efforts, the space between the shapes which those keys, between Mr.K's fingers, morphed into, make the piece of furniture seem animated, as if it breathes through those key holes. Mr. K remember those keys, each one of them, although he only looks at them occasionally. There's always a story where every single one of those keys come from. As the sunlight gets reflected on those tiny pieces of metal, those stories are released once more, making the chair as though a creature, sitting still yet nevertheless alive... after all, what is there more to life than stories? Mr. K remembers those stories like stars flickering on the edges of the smooth shapes of the keys, cutting across the spine, lingering between the teeth, ever more clear with each turn and each twist,  There had been are quarreling young couples, veterans who couldn't recognize the oak three by their front porch, school children with tears on their cheeks and dimples on their faces, trying so hard to figure out where they had left their keys.

It's as if a silent record player, inside of which you know there are beautiful songs, but its mysteriousness makes it even more desirable, haunting, an object in a time warp, everlasting but never quite present. Mr. K mounted more keys on flats, with which he covered almost the entire storefront. He was finding new definitions for his very own pallets: the subtly different colours between each pieces of keys he picked out, which he arranged and rearranged till them twirl into remarkable shapes as if from a dream. Squint your eyes and you'll see: dozens of blazing sun glowing and freezing in time; ethereal creatures floating and morphing into an ocean of the strangest organism, and then as if exploding from a volcano, everything chaotic yet inexplicably beautiful.

I was dazzled by the moldering compositions of keys. Those thick, ravishing pictures are full of history, and stories; of course there are stories, piles and chunks of stories hidden between the layers and loops of keys as if well kept secrets, waiting and looking for opportunities to sparkle again.

There's no one but Mr. K to tell the nuances between those silver and gold, and bronze, and copper red spots, and green streaks seeping out through the gaps of age. It makes you wonder, makes you stop and contemplate when you feel the coldness of a key between your fingers. It makes you imagine what stories it might offer, whether a fine romance happened behind the apartment door it helped to keep secure, or a tale that can make your hairs stand, or a travelling soul who's reached uncharted waters and climbed the steepest cliffs. You can tell the depth of those colours if you stare at Mr. K's compositions long enough; they are voids into the black holes of the collective memories of an entire city, portals to parallel universes spinning all around you yet never been discovered.

Keys are what you use to keep, or to uncover secrets; it opens but also locks doors and passages to different worlds; one side of it intrudes and inquire, and the other defend and breathe; it's a tiny piece of metal on which you see the grove and edges of the essence of civilization. Its look? Mostly excruciatingly insignificant, but at times exquisitely detailed as if containing magical power. Mr. K is just the gate keeper, sitting behind the counter where he created a whole new dimension of secretes and stories, all of which between his fingertips. You'll probably find a story of your own somewhere in Mr. K's Kompositorium of keys. A clue: first unlock your heart.

Check Out Mr. K: Philip Mortillaro's Site   

The Swing Girl

 

When we are not travelling...

There’s this girl I know who swings. She stands on the plank, holding on to the chains that link the pendulum and an endless stretch to the unknown. He hair glows under the moonlit sky, her lips curves into a wistful smile, her eyes sparkle with lots of courage, and fear, and uncertainty of her prospects.

I can hear the chains squeak each time she swings by, suspended in time at one point, then fall with a speed accelerated with gravity. Her dress thrashes as the wind brushes upon her.

Beneath her, is profound darkness, abysmal, distant; you can hear the running water and its ferociously echo. Home is just steps away on the shore behind. It’s one of those things that you know it’s there but always out of reach; she’s too much in the action to really turn her head now. A familiar force pushes her up against the invisible obstacles every time she swings back to that shore. There’s mother’s embrace and friends’ fist bumps. “We’ll catch you whenever you decide to let go.” They say. They’ll be disappointed, surely, but they will catch her, surely. In front of her, a light shimmers through the darkness, from a path that leads on towards the future. She’s just one risk away from it, as long as she let go when she swings up towards the other side, she would let go, and leap, before gravity pulls her back down again.

Yet gravity pulls her back down again and she skims across the night sky, her feet rip apart the stillness of the atmosphere. She starts to try different things, picturing in her head, that the next time the force propels here upwards, it’d be the chance of flight. And on the grassy shore there’s serenity, optimistic plans, and lots of next steps.

There are spectators all around her, passing swiftly across the air. She’s suspended in an absolutely open space, yet simultaneously amidst a crowd of strange figures, with blank faces and movements as light as a feather, weightless, almost floating, almost transparent, surrounding her, omnipresent figures. And patterns made up with passages and words, chopped up and reassembled together, bustling about and filling her entire spectrum. She would hear voices, murmuring a familiar melody that she couldn’t seem to recall.

And she keeps on swinging.

At least the last time I saw her, she was still there, suspended between past and future, living her every moment pandering whether to let go of herself to the unknown, or to the deliciously dangerous temptation called, failure.

Both options take courage. And I heard one of the spectators say: “what a wonderful performance this has been!”

PABT 212

 

Have you ever found it frightening that once you have learnt someone's name, their existence becomes part of your memory and consciousness; have you ever regretted not striking up a conversation with some strangers you found interesting at a station, on a train sitting next to you, or minding their own business at a Starbucks yet all the while seeking an antidote for loneliness. Missed opportunities of, there's a Chinese word for it, Yuan Fen, as we hustle underneath this dome of azure.

There's an old man on platform 212 of Port Authority Bus Terminal, NYC, origin of coordinates that connects the forbidden paradise of spinning life in the big apple, and the suburban reality that people settle back in with their children and pet, their lawns that need to be mowed, well, last week, and a squeaky side door they have just put on the to do list for the next leisure Sunday brunch hour. The husband would take out the tool box as the wife prepare for scrabbled eggs, homemade, somewhat experimental, peanut butter pancake and cold slices of bananas on top of hot oatmeal.

The old man, whose name I'm still reluctant to find out, pays no attention to any of that details of everyday life, those tiresome, never ending chores for young couples who haven't gotten their feet on the ground, still fighting for survival with salaries that barely cover the rent, food, train tickets to go home once in a while to visit parents and siblings, whom they talk of with loving loathe and argue with in shame and pride; oh yeah, and occasional rush tickets to some Broadway plays, which they would call extravagant expenditure with a sophisticated purpose and a smart aura what can smooth out the self justification.

No, the old man never pays attention to any of that. He's probably in his 70s, or a young 80s; he's lived through two world wars and a couple of economy plunges thrown in here and there during his lifetime; and hunger, and despair of an entire nature; and now he's got a stable life, still healthy and without hardship thanks to his conscientiously done lifesaving. He usually wears a plaid shirt, the color of which is close to a crossover between pink and beige, and a pair of brown tennis shoes with a Loui Vuitton brand mark on the side, which he probably bought at Marshall's for their comfort and any other practical reasons rather than their semi snobbish last name connected to those rubber soles. He wears a pair of glasses with metal frames, round edged, slender and sensibly made at a least trendy but decent optician of traditional high quality. And jeans: blue, over-washed. He holds a dogeared pamphlet, in which numbers and letters are tightly woven together that looks like what you'd see inside of a beehive. Those are bus schedules with notes of up to date changes he jots down in the margin. He flips it through, cross examining its accuracy; sometimes when the platform is not too crowded, he would play crosswords and sudoku on the newspaper; he would fold the paper into a tight square he could keep in his palm; he would tap it with a pencil, trying to figure out the next letter or number to put down.

I usually see him in the middle of three winded queues stuffed in the small space of platform 212, on each side of which are half-vandalized schedule plates with outdated schedules. And at 3:02 pm, you can hear him, "NEXT WILL BE 165 LOCAL AT THREE O FIVE, UPFRONT GOING TO WESTWOOD. GO RIGHT UP FRONT IF YOU'RE GOING TO BOULEVARD EAST!" and he yells to the dispassionate crowd whose shoulders bend with invisible cocoons that they weaved themselves with misery and hot musky airs in the offices, in the streets with panhandlers and toddlers yelling and screaming for no particular reasons.
 
And then it's 3:08, after half of the crowd squeezed out of the lean space of the boxed platform like a tube of toothpaste, new commuters arrived and attached themselves to the rear. I'm now in the exact middle point of everything, hostile and stagnant, irritable crowd with mundane, but nevertheless life-and-death matters on their mind, not in the mood to talk, or chatting away loudly on their phone in Spanish or Korean, neither of which I can eavesdrop even if I wished to.
And still there's the old man's raspy voice, not too loud but you can hear each syllable clearly:
"NEXT BUS AT THREE TEN 166 EXPRESS AT DOOR 1. MOVE UPFRONT IF YOU'RE WAITING FRO BUS 166"

And now it's 3:16. If I'm very lucky, there will be only a handful of people outside of door 2 waiting for 168, and I would be able to lean on the glass wall with my au bon pain soup or deli store sushi before the hour long ride into Teaneck. The claustrophobic space can be existentially large when your mind starts to wander off to some other dimensions. "He's a little late today," I hear him talking to a passenger who looks like he's going to experience an anxiety attack, "usually 168 comes a few minutes before 3:15, and it takes off on the dot. Be patient." He mutters to himself with a smile that seems to have engraved between the lines on his face: "He's a little late today. Oh there it is!"

I see the bus pulling in with a humming sound. I follow the queue and one by one passengers start to push through the glass door and step into the bus, spacious enough for a person of normal size to turn and dash to their seat, yet doesn't allow you too much liberty to move around or start feeling the rhythms form your headphones.

The old man would greet each one of the passengers as they pass by him, whether there's a response, a nod back, or a blank stare, sometimes even resentful as if saying: mind your own business you old nuisance. But he never seems to be effected one way or another.

Usually I don't say a word to the old man except once in a while there's a "have a good one", or "how do you do", or just a smile as I push through the glass door that links the platform and the bus, both of which seem to like a pair of suspended space that don't exist in reality but rather, two metaphorical entities that carry me from one phase to another. And the old man, as if the only constant factor within that ever-evolving organism, remains nameless yet indispensable, to platform 212.

One time we got to talking, don't even ask why, or how the chattering started because I never knew... it was one of those situations that just felt right to strike up a conversation, to ask a question that has always been on my mind, on everyone's mind, we the regulars of platform 212. The old man, I found out, employed himself as a guide at the transit center. "I know most of the information on this route." he says, still smiling that engraved smile, "Not all the buses here, but these, the ones that goes on Boulevard East, I know them in the back of my head." he says. "And I like to be with people, and offer them help." he says. Sometimes he would linger by the ticketing booth and teach travelers how to use the self-service ticketing machines. I started complaining about how often they break down and give me a hard time. He smiles and keeps on talking what he does on platform 212.

Sometimes I'm there at a different time and the old man isn't there. He's as though a house elf of the platform 212, only appearing at the busiest hours. Have you ever felt a place empty where there's just one person missing? And that old man, is like an old tree that makes up an entire forest.

Maybe tomorrow I'll ask him, "sir, what's your name?"

II : LX - LXVI Things Don't Change That Much (Unless We Do)

Ramazani = Ramadan

I often find fasting as an observation of a certain religion excruciatingly obscure. During Ramadan, the 9th month of Islamic calendar (it varies every year but happens somewhere around November), devotees refrain from eating, drinking, or any other means of pleasure from dawn to sundown. And then, described by our poet, is followed by a pomp of celebration at night, at least in the house of Ali Pasha.

People practice fasting across cultures and religions, and for the most part, consists of an endurable length and is followed by excessive consumption of food and alcohol when the "fasting" is over. It's hands down ironic and hypocritical if you ask me. Isn't moderation the key to finding enlightenment of the soul and getting closer to the spiritual awakening? Fasting is truly for the purpose of remembering the suffering and cherishing what we are bestowed by the world. It should be rewarding, spiritually and mentally, the result of which shouldn't be cancelled by wanton zest.

Sometimes things don't change for the better. There are women whose eyes are covered under black veils although their spirits are of rainbow colours. I remember watching Persepolis, in which through the perspective of an Iranian girl, we see a whole world crumble because of war and rotten traditions. A world dominated by male and a tyrannic government. There are images from the not-so-distant-history that can make your heart ache. 

People make sacrifices in life. In some religions sacrifices are considered the accumulated points for one's afterlife, as though the fasting, for example,  they accomplished during their lifetime will become feasts when they enter Elysium.

Women are defaced, considered possessions, objects of the men in power. They were deprived of their voices, their freedom of making choices in life, their individuality, their power of saying no. It's such sorrow, and simultaneously quite moving to see Islamic women who have taken up so much weight on their shoulders because of a life destined for them since birth. For a long time they have been creatures of pleasure when men needed them, they have been servants and slaves of the houses, yet have never been asked for when opinions are needed to be heard. There isn't any equality, for nothing has been questioned. Everything seemed so common, everything in place and life goes on. Those enslaved women don't even know they deserved much, much more.   

Ali Pasha's feast comes night after night as he sent to Byron many a rarities to be enjoyed. There had been exotic beauties and local tunes strange to foreign ears.  The old man is feared by all because of his status, not because of his personal strength. Tyrants enjoy their oppressions when the oppressed are ignorant of their fate. The most tragic society is not one that is in chaos, but one that seems calm, and discrepancies between classes becomes a norm.

In God's words they rule! Those tyrants never change. In the past it had been different religions: east and west, here and there. They tell their people that they were sent by the gods, and are divinely employed to be the dictators. Today those tyrants got other jobs. They runs corporations with net worth of multiple billions. There's less blood and violence, and they've also got  

There are pictures from the battlefields: the young and the absent minded, answering their calls of duty, picking up riffles and kill for the glory of their armors. They then go back to their mothers no longer children, but monsters with unimaginable pasts, or worse, if the war was taken by pride rather than shame.

There are pictures from the war zones: the young and the innocent, their faces stained by blood and dirt; they lie in the trenches, trembling with fear, with love for their homeland and hatred towards the enemies. On the other side, the a similar group of youth, darlings to their own mothers and siblings. Their only differences are the shapes of their helmets and the patterns on their coats.

Those pictures are still their today on CNN and BBC...

My macbook pro, like the chieftain's tower, is a shield between reality and elements of tragedies that seem so far away. These are the trophies of peace and crowns of silicon accomplishments.

Yet we hear gunshots and bombings from merely miles away, and people are calling out in pain and living in fear. The danger and destruction are closer than ever: a world partially maniac, partially depressed.

Childe Harolds are everywhere, watching the barbarians destroying the beautiful, all at loss what to do. There's a always another cycle of awakening and redemption – the ray of hopefulness is saying: it's time to pick ourselves up. Things will never change, until we write our own history.

Site (Existencially) Specific Theatre, and Something About a Scotsman

Not sure if I had said it expressively here, but the whole point of tracking Childe Harold's journey was my attempt in making Lord Byron a character in my play coming up next spring, this tortured, nonetheless brilliant soul who had had such great influence on English literature. Having little dramatic writing experience myself, I see it as an advantage of not having restriction in creating new forms and styles.

Wouldn't it be interesting to make it into a site specific piece, of course, with the help of augmented reality achieved through internet? Of course, there's also the part where I had to look for models and seek mentors form people deep into the industry.

There aren't many theatrical works related to Byron or Childe Harold, but many a pieces about modernizing classical characters, individuals battling with individual growth, internal struggles, etc. I'm picking Macbeth as a model, a scope through which I'd like to try finding ways to bring my own characters into life. Through a chat with British artist Laura Hooper, I was able to find some insights into the new trends in theatre: it's going to be about the communication between performers and audience; it's going to be inventive, and stimulating to the senses. And a conversation with associate producer Hunter Chancellor, I found out the importance of social media as well as publicity in reviving classics in the public's eyes...

The scent of fog and old, faded ink; the chipped paint on furniture and half peeled wallpaper; the bittersweet, smoky voice of a lounge singer in warm, dim house light; a record player slowly turns and occasionally skip a beat…all swooped up together and even just the tiniest hint of it would sparkle my memories from that place: after a night of panting out of breathe, chasing ill-fated young Mrs. De Winter, vengeful Lady Macbeth who eventually went into frenzy, or Hecate whose haunting smile makes you forget that you’re barely a few feet away from 21st century civilization. I’ve been there twice, each time storm clouds hovered west Manhattan like a canopy, wind passing architectures that look like those out of a vintage photograph; wicked nights like that might bring nightmares, but we are such creatures that yearn to touch the fire. Mysteries and danger attracts us; those question marks had been tattooed in our destinies since Pandora opened that godforsaken box!

Sleep No More triggers multi-faceted sensations for the audience with all its mystery elements. For me, ultimately its best costume is the hotel itself: the structure of the space makes you believe that rooms pop up with their free will; the age of the building gets every brick in the wall infused with memories; the richness of the piece lies in not only its complexity, but also a dimension across time and space.

The recent rise of site-specific theatre (especially interactive ones) aims to break the last of the invisible wall between performers and audience: actors adjust acts as they interact with different crowds with different responses; audiences contribute to the play as they observe. Not a single night would be like any other: the uncertainty and improbability is addictive to many.

Site-specific theatre is attributed to anything performed at an adapted location that is not a standard theatre. Traditionally there are two major types:

1. Environmental theatre, the location is merely adding to the atmosphere of a pre-existing production (e.g. Murder On the Nile in a cruise ship, or Hamlet in a Danish Castle).
2. Promenade theatre, Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More falls in this category: audience members are integrated in the performance.

Londoner Laura Hooper had her personal take on the subject. A fan of site-specific theatre, she remembers her experience performing The Persians with the ocean as a backdrop:

 You can hear the surging waves as we tell the tragic stories of war…it was beautiful.

Laura and playwright Mark O’Neil’s MORA Productions brought Crumble, a one-woman play to NYC last year after its creation 6 years ago back in England. After many stages of evolution, Crumble now sets in main character Sylvie’s apartment and she performs from the kitchen. Sylvie, a traditional English housewife with a secluded life of self-pity and an abusive husband, lives off her fantasy as she invites all the imaginary celebrities to her dinner party. The audience members, as they enter the space, are greeted as Lady Gaga, John Travolta, etc.

 

Crumble can be adapted into different spaces. Its dynamics, setups and props change depending on the locations and how the audience react.” She laughed recalling “One time in Ireland, the guy who was John Travolta acted as if he was in love with Sylvie, and his wife, Marilyn Monroe, pretended to get jealous and smacked him.

When asked how the cultural differences come into play, she responded with a bit surprise in her tone:

I feared that the character wouldn’t translate well. She’s so very British. But the only challenge turned out to be recognizing the celebrities. One Japanese girl was bewildered when I greeted her Pamela Anderson (Baywatch).

Laura shared with me her thoughts comparing Crumble and Sleep No More:

Punchdrunk is amazing and experimental but for me Sleep No More is live art, not a play that you can control the storytelling. It’s hard to follow a character’s journey because you lose track and everyone gets a different story.

Site specific theatre is, of course, one extreme of the spectrum while on the other end, theatre reaches out to the audience in a more vicarious and omniscient way. Hunter Chancellor, although still a senior in college, has had an impressive bio of working on shows with high profiles. Being the associate producer of Alan Cumming's modern take of Macbeth, he's currently working with the prestigious Broadway producer Ken Davenport (whose Producer's Perspective have always been a great example of how theatre businesspeople can use social media to reach out to a larger audience). He shared with me a few thoughts being a start-up blogger:

I started my own blog Associate Producer's Perspective, writing about my own experiences and hoping to get responses.

It's interesting and weird to get comments from people, sometimes they can be nasty, but most of the time helpful and instructive even. There are some people emailing me back with ideas and information on the topic I was writing about. It's funny how most people don't expect me to give them responses. People look forward to the conversation made possible through a public blog, yet when they actually get the attention, they're usually taken by surprise.

 

I then go on and asked about whether he's using social media as a character or a voice representing himself and the show.

It's a rather new experience for me as I usually prefer to talk to people face to face. Having a voice online definitely help to promote ideas. Having giveaways also help. I had a giveaway of Macbeth's final dress rehearsal, which got me almost 500 followers. People love freebies.

It's always great when you can strike up a dialogues with your readers and make connections with people you don't really know through the internet.

That is certainly something we can only expect in the age of internet. How far can we really push with social media? Theatre, this extremely physical form of art, how can its marriage with internet, this elusive technology with unattainable shape, achieve accomplishments we've never imagined before? Hunter shared with me an example that quite surprised me:

Situation Interactive did a campaign for Next to Normal when it was on Broadway and first starting up. Tom Kitt, and the original creators of the musical transformed the play into twitter format. SO the media representative started tweeting pieces of the show every day and eventually, the entire play is on the internet, composed of pieces of 140 characters. That campaign got them a gazillion of followers. And that was when social media, and twitter was first becoming hot.

 

You can see the adaptation of the play here, and a NYT report from then here.

It gives one a lot of hope realizing what you can do with social media and the positive impact it has on theatre, There isn't any boundary of time and space, or the limitation of formality in virtual reality: you can set up, or specify any situation or backdrop of your story and then start to travel, and put together characters. That's the direction I'm trying to push my project towards, as I have told Mr. Chancellor, and a new found land for the industry as well. I'm assured of it.

II : LIV - LIX Musing on Cosmopolis: A Romantic Tale

It's truly a bliss to experience a cosmopolis: the grandness of its architecture, the at-ease attitude of its people. the saturated richness of its culture – not just a singular one, but a multitude of cultures mixing and merging, clashing and harmonizing. I was grateful to have grown up in one (Shanghai), and was happy to live in another (New York City). There's an indescribable fortune of freedom in a cosmopolis although you might get slapped in the face everyday with the pressure of mundane human life, and the limited personal space that makes you claustrophobic, or the never-ending competition in pursuit of "making it" ahead of your peers and adversaries... there's a thrill in all this, and can only be appreciated by those who truly understand the joy in challenges.

And nevertheless, there are the ever so colourful faces of people, with beautiful, dazzling patterns covering themselves, making combinations of strange sounds as they communicate amongst themselves. You'll never be able to understand those conversations, but there's a sense of peace in this co-existence.

Albania circa 1809, was a cosmopolis.

 

Mountains and rivers, the usual protection and transportation contribute to the safety and prosperity of a city – those are the endorsement from mother nature. When Harold first noticed this magical place, it had been the minarets. Before science conquered most of the world, a religious building is usually the tallest in any city state, with the bell tower overlooking the entire city, and all the while showing respect to whatever gods said city is honoring. He first saw the reflection of the setting sun on the ornamented towers, heard the somewhat illegible war songs brought to him by the wind in the valley. It's all very calm and welcoming, the kind that would make you imagine the kingdom of the elves in Lord of the Rings.  

Think about Troy, before the godforsaken horse; think about Mumbai, a wonderful mess with miraculous order as people suffer and flourish; think about New York City, again, her beggars with decaying limbs on the streets, and billionaires whose snap of fingers might mean an entire industry crumbling down. All are born equal, yet live in incomparable states as if they're in parallel universes with transparent walls in between: both looking at each others' lives without interfering. "Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons", to this date, and they're now dressed up as taxi drivers, maintenance workers, illegal immigrants, exchange students, business travellers, monks, street merchants and artists, all starving in one way or another.   

Of course, how much they can spend on lunch is not the only factor to differ them, for the kaleidoscopic spectrum of a cosmopolis comes from its diversity in ethnicity, culture, art, craftsmanship, language, fashion... sometimes the only thing that people in a cosmopolis have in common is the desire for fortune and power, and they only thing that link them all is war.

When diversity becomes a common expectation, you stop noticing it and enter a state of numbness. However, the tragic side of the story is that, although sharing space, ethnic groups don't necessarily become friends. Romeo and Juliet still would have died if they had lived in a cosmopolis. One thing to keep in mind is religion. Islamic culture is indubitably a positive factor in the Albanian cosmopolis with the belief of a universal brotherhood. It's condescending to women, but avoids many conflicts between ethnic groups. In New York the dominant party consists of Atheists and Agnostics, with modernized devotees of various sorts – all are tolerant of practices of different religions; blue and white mosques, gothic cathedrals and gold capped temples decorating the streets, offering a bizarre kind of beauty.  

It's quite a transcendental experience listening to the night prayers in a Muslim city, even from the vicarious ones I've gotten from movies. Religious are easy answers to unreachable mysteries of the universe, yet also products of human vulnerability. Believe it or not, religions make you feel connected with people who share the same thoughts, wherever they might be. And God, is simply a symbolic we name we gave to all those answers, omnipotent by creation, and non-existent by nature. 

Dita e Veres, Sweet Day of Summer

In the fall of 1809, Lord Byron spent some time in Albania with the notorious tyrant Ali Pasha, and enjoyed many delicatessens thanks to the host’s overwhelming hospitality to a British Lord. The next spring, he spent March and April in Turkey, when Constantinople flourished with pride. The warm weather of Southern Europe makes the countries there enter summer time much earlier than we do here, when April winds are still roaring, bleak cold night and occasional beautiful sunny sky. On March 14th each year, Many Muslim countries celebrate the first day of the year on March 1st according to Julian calendar, but in some area, best known in Albania, people celebrate Dita e Veres (Summer’s Day) on March 14th. There are myths saying that it never rains on that day, which marks the following 6 months of sunlight.

Personally I would probably visit Albania one day just for the festivities that day, and knock on wood lest I jinx the never-raining-on-Summers-Day myth For the Dita e Vere celebration, imagine a feast of exotic sounds and vibrant colours that you could lose yourself, drown yourself into. Think about the most extravagant fair you’ve ever been to and expand that to the entire country.

Nobody works, or go to school on Dita e Veres. Dionysus would love it there that day. Thousands of people pour into the streets of Tirana, which would be teamed with an explosion of colourful garlands from daybreak to, probably eternity. You know those street fairs you go to where you buy rubbish and nuisances yet never regretting? Indeed you’re taking in all the joy and memories. If you happened to be in Albania on Dita e Veres one of those days, I expect pictures with you carrying yellow mimosa flowers, wearing them in your hair.

And the food, of course there’s the food! My Middle Eastern friends had always took pride in their heavenly offerings of pastries, those golden coloured, exquisitely crafted little miracles that you feel too astounded to take a first bite when presented.

Pagan holiday celebrations are like that, because for them it’s paying homage to life and the gods of nature. One of the best discoveries of life and nature is, of course, non other than coffee. You’ll be able to get the aromatic Turkish coffee from booths on Dita e Veres, dark and thick and nothing like the commercialized invention you get from Starbucks, poured in your cups from copper pots. There will be akullore, a type of traditional Albanian ice cream. However, if you can only try one thing, that’d have to be ballokume.

Ballokume is probably Albania’s favourite elbasanase (dessert), with plain and simple ingredients consisting, you know, the basic elements involved with making cookies, flour, sugar, butter, milk and egg, all the good stuff that generates happy dopamine. One special perk is that ballokume is made of corn meal instead of wheat flour, good news for those who are gluten intolerant. It’s traditionally prepared on Dita e Veres, an Albanian equivalent to the Chinese moon cake on mid-autumn festival, or the American roast turkey on Thanksgiving.

Ingredients:

• 1lb. corn flour: the leading player that distinguishes ballokume from common cookies
• Wheat flour: maybe add a little but not a critical role 
• 1lb. sugar: sugar is life; it’s the source of energy and happiness and the nemesis of weight-loss maniacs 
• 6.5 oz. butter: another nemesis for the same reason, but I prefer to call butter a symbol of transformation and exaltation, the final step that started with the flow, (milk), to the essence (cream) of life, to a golden monument of excellence.
• 32 fl. oz. milk: under most circumstances, the first thing a human being tastes after being born is mother’s milk. That says something about our intimate relationship with that opaque coloured liquid and why we still see it an essential part of our omnivorous diet after weaning.
• 12 eggs: the victim of modern health researchers. While understandable that excessive consumption might lead to discomfort, I doubt eggs are the only contributor to our higher cholesterol average.
• Lots of love and spirit of festivities. It all counts on your attitude whether your final products are a delicious batch of treasures, or a try of poisonous blobs.

Preparations:

• Prepare the dough in a large bowl, preferable copper. Warming up is recommended for better results.
• Preheat the over to 170 Celcius, or 334 Fahrenheit 
• Mix butter and sugar in the copper bowl. Cream the mixture until it’s frothy and smooth. 
• Keep stirring and add eggs one at a time to the mixture. 
• Add cornmeal slowly; try to find the rhythm in the work.
• After you’re done with the dough, let it sit for about 20 minutes before actually making cookies. 
• One trick to consider lest aversive result is to test the dough before mass production: take one ball of the dough and set it in the oven. Add more flour if the dough starts to perform excessive stretching. 
• Now that you’re confident with the cookie dough, start placing small balls onto a baking sheet. Brush butter, splash some flour on top, etc., the usual procedures. 
• Finally, let the oven do its job and you’ll see the ballokume turn gold, and that’s when you take it out. 
• Make sure you taste it first before serving the rest of the hungry bunch. 

 

This year's Dita e Veres has already past, but the good news is, it seems that New York City has finally reached its loveliest time of the year. It's high time we celebrated Summer's Day right here right now in the spirit of Pagan Festivities. There's always time for cookies and sweets, keep reminding yourselves that, my fellow Sandy survivors.