FEBRUARY GLOBAL NEWSLETTER

Sailing across the globe is easier than ever for both ideas and people, but some folk do not embark by choice. We encourage you to support the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, which provides much-needed assistance (from food and medical care to legal aid and simple fellowship) to these stranded members of the human family. Our own extended family has recently lost three of its best-read members. George Whitman, an American who launched the Parisian literary institution Shakespeare & Co., passed away at home on 14 December, above the family bookstore where he gave room and board to mendicant writers. The next day, it was Christopher Hitchens's turn to reach the end of his journey from England to America. Hitchens roamed the pages of The Nation and The Atlantic, as well as those of the less-celebrated Foreign Affairs, whose tradition of vigorous and rigorous debate through article and counter-article recalls a kind of symphony of the intellect. While Foreign Affairs sometimes entertains the violent resolution of international conflict, such thinking proved both disgusting and inspiring to another of the recently departed, Christopher Logue, whose daring, decades-long endeavour to modernise the Iliad now must remain unfinished. Should you prefer to read epics with primary sources, make your way to the National Library of Australia for the journal kept by then Lieutenant James Cook during his voyage on the Endeavour – proof that a single bark with an enquiring mind at the helm is just as memorable as a thousand ships.

PLAY
Escape gravity for a tantalizing second and float in the crisp winter air until you are grabbed at the wrist by a topsy-turvy instructor at Trapeze School New York. Forget about Icarus; stare down your fear of heights and notice how different the familiar skyline looks with your first knee hang catch. Not only will this peculiar workout strengthen your core and legs, devotees swear it will also help you develop your 'air awareness', meaning the ability to move gracefully and powerfully through space in tune with your body. No previous flying experience required.

READ
When W. G. Sebald emigrated to Britain, it did not ease the burden of the Holocaust on the young German: indeed, he would never cease to wrestle with it. His reputation has since crossed the oceans thanks to the translation of his novels into English, which he supervised meticulously. Across the Land and the Water, a collection of poems translated by Iain Galbraith to mark the tenth anniversary of Sebald's death, may have escaped the poet's exacting scrutiny but ranks alongside the better-known pieces in his repertoire. His melancholy verse moves swiftly through themes of remembrance, exile and decay, with a consolatory tincture of wit.

EAT
Le Petit Verdot is a tiny rustic tavern that seems out of place so near the très chic Le Bon Marché in Paris. Hide Ishizuka left Hokkaido in search of a culinary education, cooked at high-end, high-concept restaurants all over France, and finally started his own. The result is unusual combinations of traditional preparations – say, broiled shelved snails on a bed of wild mushroom duxelle. 'Petit Verdot' may sound like petit verre d'eau ('small glass of water') but refers to the grape variety, and the extraordinary wine list spans the entire spectrum from the affordable to the extravagant. As for the service, performed by the owner himself, it completely belies Paris's reputation for surly waiters.

VISIT
To navigate the cruellest months in the city that never sleeps, stop by the Goorin Brothers Hat Shop in the West Village, right next door to our soon-to-be Bleecker Street store: keeping a figuratively cool head is no more important than maintaining one that is actually warm. Once safely and stylishly outfitted, and if your vagabond shoes are longing to stray a little further, let them take you to the Danziger Projects gallery in Chelsea to view the otherworldly portraits of the Queen by self-described 'light artist' Chris Levine. Levine is a Canadian working in Britain; these stereoscopic works have now made their maiden voyage back across the Atlantic.

CINEMA
The 70mm film cameras of yesteryear still have a place in today's digital world: see this edition of Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978). A young Chicago couple running from the law ride the migrant labourers' train down to a Texas farm where the girl marries the ailing landlord for his estate. But this is Malick, so plot and character are of less import than their milieu, which receives the camera's full attention: an ear of wheat, a locust, a fire. What could have been a gritty social-message motion picture becomes a picture about motion itself (of the human body, the seasons, the Earth) and takes on a cosmic significance on par with Malick's other favourite of ours, The Tree of Life.

LEARN FROM SMART WOMEN
Lucy McRae is a body architect. She has just completed a short film for us, inspired by the sensory physiology of Hermann von Helmholtz. The modest pre-production schedule required designing and building an 'Aesop hair grooming machine' (not for sale, or at least not yet), as well as brewing 1260 bags of Rooibos tea in giant industrial containers. An old church in Amsterdam – which the London-born McRae, who grew up in Melbourne, now calls home – was transformed into a mad scientist's lair of sorts, referring perhaps quite accurately to our own laboratory. As with all McRae's work, this film creates a grotesquely beautiful alternate world, offering us possible futures for the human form.

DRINK
Produced in the immediate vicinity of Jerez, in Andalusia, sherry is blessed with a versatility no other fortified wine can match, in styles numerous enough to suit any climate, hour or mood. No summer aperitif is crisper than a dry, yeasty fino. Edgar Allan Poe knew that a cask of amontillado, which has the colour of an autumn leaf, is alluring enough to drive a man to his death. But a rich and nutty oloroso, our favourite, will restore warmth and comfort after a winter walk. One feels DeQuincey might have taken to it in lieu of laudanum, cradling a glass by the fireside, 'whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without'.

SLEEP
Barely an hour from the excesses of Cancun, a quiet untrammelled stretch of the Yucatán Peninsula is the transitory home of the Papaya Playa Project. The invitation to this boutique camp of sorts is only temporary, as it is set to pack up its mosquito nets and close permanently on May 5. The rates are accommodating and democratic beginning with $56.00 a night jungle cabanas (although these do include bunk mates, earthen floors and a shared bathroom). This holistic approach to relaxing relies on an ample supply of sun, fresh-caught fish, white sand and DJs and recording artists playing under a full moon. The Papaya Playa spa apparently intends to apply Mayan shaman secrets – something that may not be altogether reassuring if your familiarity with Mayan rituals is informed by Mel Gibson's Apocalypto.

'From age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.' Aldous Huxley