It was sometime in early 2011. I was having a chat with a couple of friends centered on a quote from the Tom Cruise starrer ‘Knight and Day’. Not exactly the kind of movie to throw up quotes worthy of discussion or much thought. But surprisingly, it did have one particularly special quote– moving, thought-provoking, enigmatic and slightly frightening if I may say so. “Someday. That's a dangerous word. It's really just a code for 'never'. … [Read more...]
Visit Detroit Today: Summer in The D
Explore Detroit this summer and submerge yourself in the traditions that articulate America’s great comeback city. Detroit offers plenty of summer activities combining cars, culture, gaming, music and sports. Watch as hydroplane boats race down the Detroit River at speeds over 200 mph to compete for the oldest trophy in the history of motor sports, the American Power Boat Association (APBA) Gold Cup. Vintage race boats, a hot rod show, live … [Read more...]
Constant Motion: Ghana, West Africa
Part One: The Edge I walk out the gates that creak in the colour orange. I don’t know if its the rust binding the brackets or if its the ever present sand that causes the creak, or causes the colour I hear it in. My sandals land over the rocks that have emerged from the worn down path. It’s not the sun, but the air, that causes me to sweat. Drips instantly begin to build along my shoulder blades, and the nape of my neck. Soon, my hair will … [Read more...]
Unique Martinique: A Napoleonic Retreat
John M. Edwards, a future inductee into The Napoleon Society, storms Martinique in search of his own Josephine. A huge fan of Napoleon Bonaparte, the hero of post-Revolutionary France, I left the U.K. Crown Colony of Montserrat in the days before their volcano blew up for the fatal shores of Martinique via a scary Island Air prop plane. Landing with a jarring whump, my galpal and I, along with the burdensome baggage of my Sistah Sah, then … [Read more...]
How to Make Sense out of Scoring “Sense” in the Caribbean
Greetings from General Montgomery! ON a vacation island retreat, a young John M. Edwards rollies with a real live Rastafarian - and lives to regret it. “BOY! BOY!” I looked over at the sculpted resort hedge, shivering in the breeze like a wet Chia Pet and illuminated by a Tikki torch, and stepped uncertainly off the porch. I felt like a young adult waking up from a Frank W. Dixon Hardy Boys mystery. “Boy! Boy! Come here!” I walked … [Read more...]
Experiencing the Life of Anne
Have you ever had that feeling of complete darkness? Not from something unpleasant happening to you, but for a moment you step into someone else’s shoes and see their life from their perspective, or at least try too. This is the feeling that you get when entering a place like the Anne Frank House. It is a feeling that is hard to even prepare yourself for, and a feeling that you don’t get from anything else. I visited the Anne Frank House on my … [Read more...]
Go Hike to Nowhere
The hike to the Bridge to Nowhere is one of the more popular hikes in southern California. That’s for a good reason. This is a don’t miss hike if you live close to or in Base Camp L.A. The bridge was constructed in 1936 as part of a road project intended to connect the San Gabriel Valley to Wrightwood. The road was washed out in a 1938 storm, as parts of the trail often are, and the project was terminated leaving a bridge in the middle … [Read more...]
The Thai That Binds, Eine Kleine Nacht Market
An American backpacker cannot decide whether street food or budget restaurants offer the best (read: safest) fetish of freshness until he visits one of Thailand’s signature Floating Night Markets... As someone used to eating Thai food in New York City, with restaurants with babytalk names like “Yum Yum” and “Tastee Thai,” I was blown away when I tasted real Siamese fare for the first time in Bangkok’s Banglamphu district, an area filled with … [Read more...]
Sheiks on the Plane, International Airspace
John M. Edwards flies into the wild blue yonder from London Heathrow to New York JFK, wedged in between two suspicious-looking suspected terrorists supposedly from the United Arab Emirates. . “Goddammit, there are snakes on the plane!” I couldn’t help but laugh at the drunken comment attributed to Samuel Jackson several aisles behind, followed by the lame “Don’t call me Shirley” from Airplane. While my two outlandishly dressed seatmates … [Read more...]
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Cambodia- What to Expect
Freshly off a sweltering, barely-running bus, I’m poised at the entrance to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, or as it’s known to most visitors, S21. This was a former schoolhouse turned torture prison from 1975-79 during the Khmer Rouge’s notoriously brutal, merciless, yet hasty, reign of Cambodia. I hand over the small entrance fee, and am instantly clouted by the deceptively pleasant grounds. Aromas of freshly planted flowers punctuate the insane … [Read more...]
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