I’m not sure when the last time was that I enjoyed a band so much. When MarchFourth Marching Band comes to town, it’s not just a band on a stage playing some songs. It’s a SHOW!

I just reviewed the MarchFourth album Magnificent Beast in the new issue of Perceptive Travel because it’s not really “world music” in the traditional sense, but it’s novel, which is what really gets our interest. Besides, if there’s a point of reference in this material it’s New Orleans—itself a musical gumbo of styles from many lands.

When I heard these guys were coming to Skipper’s Smoke House in my new home of Tampa, I simply had to get there. From the first note to the last, the sound was pumping and the fun never stopped. I’m not exaggerating when I say everyone seemed to be smiling the entire time the band was on stage. A permagrin crowd, with no chemical enhancement required.

The video posted here doesn’t give the band justice as it was just a point-and-shoot camera with no external mic, but it’s a nice little taste of what to expect. This is a big band: lots of drummers, sax players, trombones, trumpets, a bass guitar, and occasional electric guitar. Then there are three stilt dancers moving through the crowd, doing acrobatics, and breathing fire. Plus some burlesque dancers at one point. Half the band member have on pieces of discarded marching band uniforms, adding to the visual flair.

It’s worth noting that there are serious musicians behind all the fun. I was a music major in college and it’s obvious these guys (and gals) have had lots of training and formal practice. Talented band geeks turned rebels. When one of the horn players steps up to improvise a solo, you know it’s going to be a treat.

They’re on their way up to the northeast now after Atlanta, Charlotte, and Roanoke the next three nights, so check the tour dates to see if they’re headed your way. The band is from Portland, so if you’re out that way, sign up for their newsletter and catch them on their home turf. As for me, I’m hoping they play Jazzfest in New Orleans next time I go as that seems like the ultimate match.

If you want to induce nausea in me immediately, you will say two little words: women’s magazines.

I wrote for women’s magazines for several years, and, with a couple of exceptions, count them among the worst experiences of my professional life.  I have been known to describe the editorial process at these magazines as a “sorority gang-bang”. I have been asked to repeat that phrase at dinner parties, especially those that involve other writers, because mentioning the phrase “women’s magazines” in a gathering of experienced writers creates something of a group shudder, followed by group therapy, often followed by heavy group drinking.

I don’t know why women’s magazines are so hard to work for, although the movie Mean Girls provides a partial explanation.

And while literary writing is quite different than the sort of stories that most women’s magazines are publishing, I can’t help but think that there is some kind of a connection between paucity of women’s bylines at the upper echelons of literature and how horrible women in media can be to one another, especially in situations that involve differences of power and prestige and the exchange of money.

But I live in hope that the new world of media, run more by writers themselves than by career editors, will be a better place for good writing and ultimately a better place for writers. That hope is fueled by the launch of an exciting new travel magazine, Vela.

Vela is written by women, but is obviously not a “women’s magazine” in the shuddering nausea sense, and decidedly not the territory of  “the gang tattoo of a Ya-Ya Sisterhood more interested in swapping stories about rough breakups and first periods and facial scrubs than in serious (male) literary writing,” as founder Sarah Menkedick writes in the site’s manifesto.  (If you doubt this could possibly be true, read Eva Holland‘s excellent essay about working, and working hard, in the Yukon. )

As Sarah goes on to explain:

The point here is not that this is a women’s site, by women for women, somehow female, feminine, or feminist in style. The fact that all of the writers are women is almost, almost incidental: it would be completely incidental if the publishing world did not create a situation in which women’s voices represent only a small fraction of the conversation.

Brava!  I’m looking forward to reading more.

How does a popular wine country town just outside of San Francisco become America’s first “cittaslow” city?

Apparently, as Sonoma discovered, by just being itself.

Being slow is considered a bad thing in many parts of the world, but in Sonoma they embrace their slowness. As a result, they meet all the requirements set out by the Cittaslow International, a network of slow cities around the world.

Obtaining the cittaslow ((Italian for  “slow city”) designation isn’t easy.

To start with, it’s invite only.

And then, just because a city is invited to apply doesn’t mean it is a shoe-in.

Invited cities go through a rigorous application process to prove they embody Cittaslow values. Chief among these is the concept of the slow food movement, sustainable agricultural practices, conservation of and support for traditional artisan products, hospitality programs, historic preservation, and educational programs for all ages.

The next time you are in Sonoma, “sit a down” and relax.

Enjoy the sun.

Enjoy the wine.

Enjoy the town.

In fact, you can do all that with a Segway tour.

There’s no reason to hurry.

After all, you are now in a cittaslow city.

Aside:  The only other two cittaslow cities (Sebastopol and Fairfax)  in the USA are also in California.

Story and photos by David Lee Drotar

When humans go bear watching where the salmon are swimming in British Colombia, Canada, what do the animals think?

PAPA BEAR

It was early September and the sun was shining brightly on the calm, deep blue water when I saw the humans drop from the sky. You’d think an old grizzly bear like me could take a little nap under a Western red cedar tree in the remote British Columbian rainforest before starting my winter hibernation. But no…

A noisy machine that sounded like a swarm of honey bees in the distance woke me up. Even though my eyesight isn’t perfect, I could see that it had giant, puffy balloons on the bottom. It circled around the mountain, came soaring deftly through the notch like an eagle, splashed onto the fjord and finally taxied up to the shore.

Ten people spilled out of the machine onto these wobbly, wooden platforms that were floating on the water, and there were little buildings floating there, too, that they called the Great Bear Lodge. Imagine that. I knew right away this meant trouble.

The people were talking and laughing like no one was around, but I could hear every word they said. They came from Australia, England, India and the United States and wanted to see and learn about bears in nature. But get this: There was some dude who carried a notebook around and said he was going to write a travel story but never even asked us bears. Well, I just want to set the record straight.

I’m a divorced dad. I’d like to play a more active role with the child-rearing, but Mama Bear thinks I’m too rough and might eat the kids. OK, well, I did once, but only because there weren’t enough berries that year and I was really, really hungry. Now the ladies stay in groups and keep me away. Sometimes we hook up in the spring, but we just can’t live together anymore. You know how it is. I’ve heard the humans have similar habits.

Anyway, those humans think they’re so smart. A long time ago, a bunch of stinky males used to come into the forest and cut down trees and then trade them for little pieces of colored paper that were made from other trees. If they traded the trees to people in the United States, the paper was always green. Then the humans traded this paper for other things like food. It all seemed kind of dumb to me. Later on, my ex will tell you how us bears get our food and, even though it’s tough sometimes, it’s a hell of a lot simpler than cutting down trees. We require about 40,000 calories a day to maintain our body weight so we need lots of food. And not many people know this, but we keep growing until the day we die.

But getting back to the humans. In order to get the trees out of the forest, they needed trails, so they cut down even more trees to make clear areas. They called these paths “logging roads” because they moved the logs over them.

There’s an old logging road that runs along the Neekite River. It starts at the Great Bear Lodge and goes about ten kilometers (six miles) into the woods. Tom and Marg, the owners of the lodge, keep it clear. I like walking on it, too, when no one else is around, especially in the spring when I can rub my scent all over the trees and keep the other male bears away. Sometimes I even like to roll around in the mud.

Tom is actually a pretty clever guy for a human and has figured out how to live way out here and how to take care of the visitors that come to see me. He’s got a fancy piece of paper that says he earned a degree in electrical engineering. I don’t know exactly what that is, but there are wires and panels and tubes all over the place. These funny looking contraptions somehow get energy from the sun, wind and moving water and allow people inside the lodge to cook food and have light after the sun sets.

The humans are really fussy about what they eat. Tom and Marg had to hire a crew of young people to live there and cook special food three times a day for the visitors. Every day at the crack of dawn, Cindy gets up and makes whole wheat pancakes with flax seeds, broccoli and mushroom frittatas and other ridiculously nutritious stuff. Really now, couldn’t these spoiled guests just get up and eat some grubs like I do and be on their way? As if that weren’t enough, the lunches and dinners are even more lavish. Heather makes gourmet dinners like king crab legs and she even bakes cookies every day. There is one food, however, that humans and bears can agree on. We both like salmon.

MAMA BEAR

That no-good louse of a bear. Here I am with two rambunctious toddlers who can’t be left alone for one second or else they will wander off and be attacked by a wolf. And where is their father? Typical male, he struts all over the forest and never once lifts a claw to help with the kids or bring home any food. After I got pregnant with the twins he didn’t even stick around for their birth.

Truth be told, it was a pretty easy childbirth and I’m better off without him. I gained a lot of weight, but slept it off during my hibernation last winter. I was roused out of my deep slumber in February when I felt a little tickle down there. The little buggers practically slid out on their own. Still a bit groggy, I just curled up and let my babies nurse while I went back to sleep for two more months. No crying, no whimpering, just cuddling—what more could a Mama grizzly ask for? I’ll admit I can get a little ornery when things don’t go right, especially if a human gets in my way. But Kuruk and Miakoda have been a real joy. I wish they could have stayed that small forever.

When we woke up and left the den in April, however, my baby bears sprouted up like sedge grass in the estuary and it’s been go, go, go ever since. There’s so much to teach Kuruk and Mia and so little time. Here it is September already and the three of us have got to fatten up to make it through another winter. I worry that Kuruk is still a little immature and won’t be ready.

Mostly we hang out along the Neekite and Piper rivers so we can catch the juicy salmon when they’re swimming upstream. It’s really pretty down there by the water with the spruce trees on each side towering up to the sky. There are lots of smooth, rounded rocks in all different shapes and sizes, from about the size of my big toe up to sea gull size. The fish swim between the rocks and sometimes they even jump over them, splashing back down into the river.

That’s where we see the humans most often. They’re very lazy creatures. It’s only a few kilometers from the lodge, but they don’t walk down to the river when we’re fishing. Once in the morning and once in the early evening, they get into a big, metal box with windows on the sides and wheels on the bottom. The box bounces along the logging road and when it stops, the humans get out and move slowly into another box perched above the rushing water. This second box is made from wood and they call it a “blind” because they think we can’t see them. They’ll sit quietly in there for hours.

Continue to Page 2 – British Columbia Bear-watching

European castles usually follow a single architectural style and have a long, bloodied history.

Hearst Castle in California, on the other hand, is short on blood and history but makes up with it with outlandish and multiple design styles.

Set amidst 137 acres of floral gardens, cobblestoned paths, and sculpture rich terraces, the Hispano-Moresque style main house overlooks three Italian renaissance style guesthouses and a Greco-Roman style swimming pool.

Built as a summer retreat for William Randolph Hearst, the multi-millionaire publishing tycoon and movie producer, it is one of the most opulent and extravagant estates in the world.

Materials old and new were used to construct the buildings. Steel, iron, and cement provided a base for antique architectural elements acquired from European stately homes, monasteries, and churches.

The exterior of Casa Grande, the 130 room main house, features twin towers emblazed with 12^th century Spanish motifs, Moorish blue and gold tiles, and a 36-bell carillon from Belgium.

Inside, Spanish Baroque doorways blend with French Romanesque fireplaces and hand carved Spanish and Italian wooden ceiling panels. It’s a stately atmosphere that’s further enhanced (or perhaps, more accurately, overwhelmed) by gothic furniture, Persian carpets, Italian and Spanish icon religious paintings, Greek vases, and medieval tapestries.

By 1927, Hearst Castle had become the social and architectural focus of Southern California.  Society gossip columnist Heidi Hopper described a visit there like being in ‘never never land’.

The weekend guest list  – Winston Churchill, Gloria Swanson, Clark Gable, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Charles Lindbergh, Charlie Chaplin – read like a who’s who of the early twentieth century.

By day, the guests did pretty much as they liked, lounging by the pool, playing tennis, or riding out in search of the exotic zoo animals imported to the ranch by William Hearst.

But at night, one had to adhere to a set routine. Believing that it was dangerous for his high spirited and temperamental guests to wander at will during the dark hours, Hearst insisted that they all gathered in the Assembly room for drinks, the Refectory for dinner, and then the Theater for a screening of home movies.

Today, anyone can visit Hearst Castle. But they too must adhere to a set routine. No one is allowed to wander at will. Instead, they must take a tour if they want to get a glimpse into Hearst’s extraordinary castle.

(Disclosure: the writer was hosted by san luis obispo county visitors & conference bureau on her visit to Hearst Castle, staying at the FogCatcher Inn)