Greeneland

 As the moon lay heavy on the thick, lapping banks of the Ben Hai, I walked slowly yet purposefully.  The day had brought great promise for the journey that lay ahead, but I thought it prudent to cross check our path before heading out at sunrise, despite my young guide's protests.  I also had an errand of a personal nature that needed tending to, which I had not shared with my mates, and so had slipped unannounced leaving them with Ngoc Minh back at the flat.  I checked the hour on the worn pocket watch, its origin dating back to the early 1900's.  I'd purchased it earlier that afternoon in the staggering heat of the noon-day sun from an old man in the Quang Tri Province who swore on the spirits of his ancestors as to the purity of the precious metal with which it had been crafted.  His solemn face and steady voice betrayed his withered skin which was leathered and drawn from years spent working in the paddies as a youth.  I'd taken amusement from the time we spent bantering on the price.  We ultimately settled on a reasonable fee, which included my belt from our unexpected detour through Kanpur several weeks prior and a toast to his longevity over small but potent cups of ruou de, ironically my preferred brand of rice wine from the Mekong.

  I turned the corner only to come face to snout with a Siamese crocodile who seemed mildly put out by my disturbance of his rest.  His midnight repreive had clearly followed his evening feast of a freshly slaughtered piglet, the vestiges of its carcass still fresh and lying near.  My continued good fortune dictated that he'd likely stolen it from one of the street vendors, as was evidenced by both the remaining clean, linear butcher marks and by his lack of aggression towards my interruption, as his hunting instincts had not been aroused or indulged; I locked eyes with him, some twisted part of me hoping that he would attack, taking into account the unique patterns on his hide and my unexpected, new-found need for a belt.  Sadly he's critically endangered so luck was with him.  He lazily looked away and I walked on, not giving him any birth and winking at him as I passed.  At the corner of the last riverside shack, I turned, making my way up the alley and into the courtyard of the Midtown District, where I came upon my destination.

  The night tumbled into the courtyard where the small inn was housed.  Dim, red lights promoting the sale of Bia hoi beer shone weakly from inside one small window, like a sad beacon.  A clever smile crept across my face at the sight of it.  I picked up the pace in order to shorten the distance between me and my objective.  A young boy, about the age of eight approached me out of nowhere as he announced his despairing need of my spare change, his broken English well-practiced.  Without breaking stride, I silently pulled out a crisp $100 bill and softly padded it into the palm of his hand.  Patting his cheek as I walked away, i found the mix of dirt and shock on his face endearing.  Up ahead my end-goal awaited me...her familiar smile and silhouette breaking through the night and reminding me that all was well with the world.  Perhaps tomorrow I'll look into that belt....

E.M.M.

Revival

What could be better than a sunny English day and a chance to relive some of the halcyon years of after the war?  Throw in some brilliant bits of machinery and some women and its a day.  Just inspiration everywhere from bonnet straps on Jags and Morgans to the pipes of a Maserati under power.  Would kill for some of the tweeds that the older set held on to.  The Goodwood Revival.

 

 

 

 

 

old friends

helmet & tie required

                                                  

silver dream racer

A North Woods Sky

We are sitting next to the large purple buddleia.  It's dusky smell making itself known when allowed by the stiffening breeze coming off Sturgeon Bay. Behind us I hear the drunken drone of bumble bees as they gorge themselves amidst a towering bed of foxgloves.  Further still is the clatter of crockery in the kitchen and the tinkle of patinaed and crumbling temple bells,  from both another continent and time.  Strange how the smallest of things from our travels stick with us while larger accumulations and people come and go.

In the green waters below the smallish limestone cliff, the children move through the water.   A summers sun has left them walnut hued.  Dark hair slicked and shining lends them the appearance of otters at play.  I squint across the water at the point where I think the sun will set and grab my Manhattan from the greenest of grass.

A visit to a northern latitude seemed essential.  In the death throes of August the heat had taken on a predatory menace.   Scorching the dew in the morning and suffocating the night sky.  Friends had withdrawn into bunker mode and the streets appeared deserted at mid day.  The South seemed a ghost town.  Once again our beautiful cuffs gave way to knit short sleeves

Up here, on a narrow peninsula that probes outward into a great lake there is a crispness to the landscape.  Birch trees shimmer in their silver way and a crackling fire pit is a worthy companion. The landscapes colours give a new inspiration of greys and purples, the deepest of blues, and cremes.  We have drinks each night and do nothing more demanding than wait for the sun to lower itself into the water.  By day I glass the same water with a pair of Swarovskis.  Looking for tall ships to appear from the horizon as if transposed from Botany Bay. Late afternoons are spent in a wooden boat looking for light houses and hidden coves.

Days of idleness and reading are interspersed with visits to local watering holes (mostly the fishing hole where we drink Leinies and wear out CCR on the jukebox).  A trip to Palmer Johnson finds us salivating over the shipyard and planning delivery of our Imperial Black Global Exploration yacht build.

As darkness settles and the wind picks up a lightweight cashmere is thrown on from our guys in Como.   We lay on our backs and catch the flares of the summers last meteors.  Watching as they move briefly and brilliantly against the slow tracking of  satellites.  There is little light pollution here and the sky is teaming with stars.   Stories of very different times and different travels are traded.  On this jut of land and against the dark twinkling of the sky we are a small group with a strange collection of accents and citizenships.  Nomads around a fire already feverishly dreaming the next place.

Angling South

  Usually June and July see us overseas with a lazy, late afternoon realization that it is the fourth.  Shrug, nod in the general direction of where you think the United States are and then it's back to a cold Hairouin and roti.

This month sees us landlocked and moving between coasts.  Harboring an Iago like itch for trouble we move erratically down towards The Gulf.  Fabric swatches and uncracked moleskines sit idle in the way back under a drift of sand pocked bags and rod cases.  I suppose I'm in search of inspiration, some bbq, and at least the chance to throw a rod at some fish.  But if you must know, and as the humidity peaks, there is a declining trajectory of ambition at hand.

We are in Alabama and interests are piqued by the Garden & Gun  piece on the quail trail.  Open fields come into view and the soil turns sandy.  The once orderly rows of a pecan copse are blurred by the movement of chokebush and kudzu.

We make ourselves lost on idle clay roads and are reminded of how visceral and green the landscape is. It's a Flannery O'connor story of lush growth, dark scents, and the scripted decreptitude of wonderful old houses.  You could get lost here.

none of my material is green enough.  Everything has me in the mood for eye searing chartreuse pins over a subtle Prince of Wales blue.  Must send for swatches to meet me en route.

 I have shirts (our 170's really do travel well) but am tie-less.  I borrow an Hermes that is probably older than me,  blue with cornflowers bursting upwards towards the neck.  This evening its to be a fete- of a friend of a friend.  No movie theatres, no Starbucks, not even a bowling alley out by the highway anymore.  A house party seems just about right as the day draws on and the g & t cools me. I rest my eyes and lean back in the glider as the dog lays in an orange wedge of afternoon sun.

The obvious abounds.  Every cliche is in place and I can see why transplanted northerners, interior decorators, and Atlantans make their intermittent claims here before moving on to a place less challenging.  Of course it's the anniversary of "To Kill A Mockingbird".  As the Chattahoochee creeps through its dammed waters behind us I'm ready for someone to cue Atticus.

I am holding a Sazerac and have already ditched the tie.  I thank the skeletal, heavily perspiring older gentlemen tending bar and note the tie of his bow and the starch of his shirt.  I have seen him off and on over the years at such get togethers and he always looks the part.  I note that he still pours with a heavy hand.

The afterthought of an air conditioner simply cannot keep up with the smash of bodies and a veranda door is opened.  The sweet, sickly heaviness of gardenias fills the room and serves as a foil to the faint bitterness of bats somewhere in the eaves.  I am told that the ballroom above our heads is collapsing and is off limits.  I look in the off center gilded and fogged mirror.   The leaded chandelier above seems suddenly menacing.

The crowd is a definition.  There are knots of elderly people moving about a massive pecan refractory table piled with the usual Southern goods.  Wavering hands clutch crystal high ball glasses against chipped Spode.  The period clothing would make even the most jaded Williamsburg denizen envious. 

Middle aged couples talk of the oil down on the Gulf as their children chase fireflies and are attacked by no see ums out by the roses.  Coltish tanned girls from Oxford and Tuscaloosa are drawn together (as all Southern women are) by a good story.  I see B.R. and he tells me of how they are renovating his uncles old place outside of Acapulco.  Although saddened that it has been discovered again he is looking forward to the seasons villa parties.  A guy in his twenties hands me a glass of something local, then adds a friends bitters.  It tastes like spar varnish with an overtone of rosemary. I thank him and then field questions about Tony Howard.  I think that someone must think we hung around short midwicket and deep fine leg together...

still no greens.

Tomorrow the road leads to the sea....

Wishing every month of the year could be June

The ferry leaves the dock with a slow, groaning inertia.  Engines idle hungrily under the diesel thump as air conditioners and fans are pushed to high.   Cars packed like those in a cannery settle in for the short ride.  We limbo sideways out the door, trying not to door whack the elderly couple in their golden sedan.  A woman behind us grips her wheel, hair fanning out from the a.c.'s wake.  From a once red F150 we hear Tommy James and the Shondells Crystal Blue Persuasion.  My seven year old grabs my hand and we move through the salt air and up onto  the observation deck.  Our stomachs are full of fried clams and grape Nehi's.  It's summer in the Outer Banks.

This is June, probably the finest month of the year.  Everything seems so possible.  The breadth of summer just streaming out before you into an unknowable distance.  This is the month of childhood and one that still settles expectantly on even the oldest of travel companions. 

 thinking of another batch

Eventually we head South and end up in Wrightsville.  The scene of so much of a misspent youth.  The swells are kneeish at best and nothing is happening.  The beach breaks are still crummy and the break near the pier is too policed.  Figure Eight is rejoining the sea. We grab Carolina dogs at the Trolley Stop and eavesdrop on the same conversations that we surely had while perched on our beater Wagoneers. Inevitably there is talk of a party across Masonboro inlet.  Someone will swim across, someone will barely make it to the barnacle encrusted buoy after misjudging currents, someones friends will pluck them from the sea in an overloaded Grady White. 

These talks never end.  My son is finishing his dog and we seem fitting bookends to the most summery of discussions.

Despite our better judgment we are working on pulling together something a bit more comprehensive than our sporadic offerings.  This seems like work but we have listened to what you want.  We'll keep everyone posted as ideas emerge and designs materialize. 

I'm still thoroughly against any kind of seasonal collection.  The goal as always is an 8 week pulse of something new and worth acquiring.  What is seasonal anymore?  For the price of a Varig ticket we can all go from Vilebrequins and oxfords to off piste in Portillo, wearing the most technical of Chouinard's gear.  I've left puzzled customs officers in Bridgetown as they sweated through a suitcase full of tweeds and sweaters, packed for a Hogmanay house party.  I suppose it's all relative.

  All I can promise is that no 640 gram shooting jackets will be seen in July.  Swim trunks in the midst of winter are something else entirely...

Cheers

E.M.M.

A White Lincoln, A Lemon Meringue Pie, and a room at the 4 seasons

I have been in Houston less than an hour and already am lip searingly deep into a bowl of crawfish.  I also have a white Lincoln sitting in the parking lot.

  Jimmy G's isn't much to look at.... It could easily be mistaken for the restaurant of a midwestern Sheraton.  Walk in, sit at the bar and order something achingly cold, you'll want/need it.  Lean over the stainless counter and see if there is anything crawling out of the coolers.


I've had two helpings of crawfish.  I can't feel my lips, my hair is damp, my shirt is a bit of a mess (Hoback), the boiled shrimp- while good-are only a temporary abatement of the heat.  I pay up and continue to use a lemon wedge to clean my fingers.  A Coke for the road merely spreads the pain around all of my taste buds.

Outside the dark restaurant, the air is surprisingly crisp for Houston. Taking gulps of air against my swollen tongue I stride toward the Lincoln.  Not sure why the rental place gave me this.  It looks to have been absconded from their Boca kiosk.  I decide to embrace it...

An hour later and I'm somewhere off  59.  I look beside me at the two teetering, messy lemon meringues I have purloined from the fridge over at Hinze's.  They look as if constructed by a mental patient.  There is also about 4 pounds of brisket in the back seat.  If I had purchased a stained and wrinkled paper bag of crackling and decided to start smoking again I might be in the running for the most unhealthy car in Texas.  There's also a 6 pack of  Shiner on the floorboard.

Turning the crawfish scented wheel I push the massive flat hood towards the first of many Texas farm roads.  I dig in deeper still as Townes Van Zandt eases from the speakers- Talking about "bad news from Houston". I roll the windows down and press the accelerator.  As expected the car drifts and buffets on the blacktop.  A Hispanic family in a pockmarked and faded blue Scout pull to the shoulder and wave me by.  The road becomes broken, and then dusty.  I am close.

  I look at the pies and feel a bit like Boss Hog as the dust behind me plumes out and up into the wind.  Before I even hit the turnoff, and the first in a succession of cattle guards, I feel that I could do this forever.  The sky is blue, cloudy, and then threatening. The landscape is greening, and the live oaks and mesquites have that parched, biblical look even as they show the colours of early summer..  I'm listening to Townes full time now and try to keep up with the fast talking of "Mr Gold and Mr.  Mud".

By the time I hit the bunk house the Lincoln is grey with dust and one of the meringue's foamy peaks has broken loose from its moorings. As I pull into the yard GP and one of his hands, "Jefe", look up from the tractor they are working on. I open the door and at once the dogs are on me.  Ranch dogs of all types seem to spill towards the car- no doubt drawn by the pull of crawfish, brisket, and the unmistakable scent of fresh blood...


Hours later and around a fire hoop we finish the last of the wine from GP's home country of Argentina.  We have looked at his cattle, shot over & unders, talked about his wife's trip to Dallas, and re-lived many days spent on and around grand rivers.  I finish off the last of my five spice quail and settle back next to a blue eyed dog.  Segovia streams from the open window and we open the Scotch as Jefe tells about their recurring problem with Boar.

Sleep comes so damn easy.....