Daily Traveler: Itineraries Inspired by Oscar's Best Picture Nominees

Where to Vacation: Travel Inspired by the Best Picture Nominees

The Oscar nominees for Best Picture were announced this morning—and not only do they tell some pretty amazing stories, but they also showcase some pretty amazing locations. Take a cue from the silver screen and plan one of these cinematic getaways in D.C., Paris, Los Angeles, and more.

Re-Create Life in "The Bathtub" of Beasts of the Southern Wild
Destination: New Orleans, Louisiana
Beasts of the Southern Wild centers on a fictional Louisiana Bayou community that calls itself "The Bathtub." And if there's one thing that the denizens of the Bathtub like to do—for better or for worse—it's drink. Celebrate in their style by taking our New Orleans bar crawl: We have nearly 40 suggestions of where to imbibe, including Bar Tonique for Sazeracs, Tujague's for grashoppers, and Liuzza's Restaurant and Bar for good ol' cold beer. Just don't try visiting all of them in one night, or you'll be so drunk that you'll see visions of the mythical aurox coming to get you. Better get some food to go with all that liquor. Hushpuppy (Oscar-nominated Quvenzhané Wallis), the heroine of Beasts, is taught by her father to fish with her bare hands, but we suggest trying something that's seen a little more culinary attention, such as the Creole innovations at R'evolution and the tasting menu at the soon-to-open Square Root. If you'd prefer to get a little closer to the spirit of the bathtub, visit Isle de Jean Charles, a small fishing village southwest of New Orleans, where the film was shot.

Click through to see the rest of the slide show at the Condé Nast Traveler.


Photo by Matthew D White/Getty Images

The Daily Traveler: Wacky Travel Accessories

 

Whenever you travel, you have your essentials: your passport, your carry-on, your in-flight distraction of choice (iPad, Kindle, magazine). Then you have items that are…not so necessary, like these 10 odd travel gadgets and gizmos I wrote about for the Condé Nast Traveler website.

Portable Infrared Sauna
If your hotel doesn't have its own spa, but you can't live without your daily schvitz, just bring the sauna with you. The system deploys 600-watt, infrared heaters to make you work up a sweat—you just have to be cool with looking like you're resting in the world's least comfortable sleeping bag.  skymall.com, $400

Click through to read the rest at the Condé Nast Traveler.

DVD Review: Girls - The Complete First Season

Forget the Baggage. Just Watch 'Girls: The Complete First Season.'

“I don’t want to freak you out, but I think I might be the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice of a generation.”
– Hannah Horvath

 

Of all the shows that premiered in 2012, Lena Dunham’s Girls—a series about four 20-something friends trying to make their ways in New York City—debuted with the most baggage. Detractors had all sorts of complaints: The cast is too white. (Fair or not, it’s a criticism that didn’t hit the show’s similarly composed and obvious predecessor, Sex and the City, quite so doggedly.) The actors are too privileged. (Sure, but one could argue that Laurie Simmons is more famous for being Dunham’s mother and not the other way around, since Simmons isn’t exactly a household name.) Dunham herself doesn’t have quite the right body for the amount of nudity typically found on HBO shows. (Or is that to Girls’ credit?)

The thing is, these debates could—and did—rage on without having to watch a single episode. You can get all of the fuel for these attacks from the posters used in the show’s ad campaign.

If you could quiet the arguments around Girls for long enough to actually watch it, you could see the show’s content is not nearly as polarizing as the cultural discussion surrounding it. The series touches on themes of young adulthood that, if not universal, are pretty darn relatable: figuring out your place in the world, discovering the boundaries of your friendships, feeling simultaneously mature and childish. Of course, this all unfolds in a very specific, liberal-arts-educated, Brooklyn sort of way, which is why audiences may have felt excluded.

Still, Girls provides an honest snapshot of this ambiguous time of life, and it should be able to reach beyond its core demographic. Nothing illustrates this better than the show’s two central relationships, between wannabe writer Hannah Horvath (Dunham) and her type-A best friend Marnie (Allison Williams—yes, the daughter of Brian Williams), and between Hannah and her sort-of-boyfriend Adam (Adam Driver). Most girls have had a friendship like Hannah and Marnie’s, a bond so close it can’t help but alternate between giddy alone-in-the-apartment dance parties one moment and screaming, kick-you-out-of-the-apartment fights the next. And most girls have advised a friend to get rid of a boyfriend like Adam, the kind of person who could disappear for weeks at a time but return and focus on you so intently that you feel like you’re the only person in the world that matters to him.

It’s entertaining enough that Girls captures these kinds of post-adolescent relationships so perfectly and presents them in a way that makes you alternately squirm and feel moved. But Girls is also really, really funny. When the naïve Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet—yes daughter of David Mamet) accidentally takes drugs at a party (the “crackcident”), you might feel for her and relive some of your own wilder days, but when those drugs kick off a mile-a-minute monologue about how they inspired her to do better in her kickboxing class, you can’t help but laugh. And, when she busts out those kickboxing moves later in the episode, you might just die laughing. (Anyone who asserts that Mamet only got the part based on her familial connections probably hasn’t seen the seventh episode—she’s damn near perfect in it.) 

The way Girls expertly mixes humor and nostalgia and squeamish embarrassment has a lot in common with the previous work of another of the show’s executive producers: Judd Apatow. Just like you didn’t need to grow up in Chippewa, Michigan in the early ‘80s to understand the genius of Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks, you don’t have to go to a party in Bushwick to feel for the characters in Girls. The theme of putting yourself out there for either greater success or total rejection runs through both shows. 

Apatow shows up here and there on the extras included with the Girls Blu-Ray, in a conversation with Lena Dunham and also an extended commentary on one of the episodes. But he doesn’t need to stump for the show—Dunham is a pretty good advocate for herself. You can hear her fast just-shy-of-a-ramble opinion in the wealth of special features, which includes a roundtable discussion with the cast, Dunham’s interview on Fresh Air, and quick “inside the episode” segments where Dunham gives a brief explanation behind the inspiration for each one. (There’s even a booklet of her tweets. Example: “Right after HBO announcement I got stuck in the bar bathroom & had to phone for help.”)

Unfortunately, by the time some of these extras were made, all of the heated opinions surrounding the show had already hit the internet, and the extra interviews spends time directly and indirectly addressing the flurry of criticism. It’s better to do what some of the early critics of Girls did not: Just watch the show.

 

Click through to see the review on PopMatters.

PopMatters: The 75 Best Songs of 2012

I contributed a write-up to PopMatters' end-of-year music list.

The 75 Best Songs of 2012

No. 32
Stars - “Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It”

It’s surprising that on The North, on of Stars’ chilliest records, you’ll find one of the band’s warmest songs. While their thoughts about love usually come wrapped in nostalgia, wistfulness, and regret, on “Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It”, the band uses its signature synth-pop to sound a note of hope (and, fine, indulge in a little bit of defeatism about the song’s chances of radio airplay). “Hold On” makes you wish that people still made mix tapes for each other, because this would’ve been a good lead-off song—something that could melt the heart and make you dance at the same time.

Click through to read the rest of the list at PopMatters,

The Daily Traveler: Apocalypse Tourism

I suggested seven end-of-times destinations for a slideshow tied to theories about a Mayan-predicted apocaylpse.

Where to Go for the Apocalypse, In Case the World Ends Next Month

Go to the Source
The Mayans are the ones causing the end-of-the-world speculation, so learn all you can about Mayan culture to get some perspective on the situation. First order of business: a visit to some Mayan ruins. Why choose just one? Tour D'Afrique, Ltd. is running La Ruta Maya: The Doomsday Ride, a 1,429-mile bicycling trip that'll take you throughout the heart of Mayan country. The full, six-week cycling experience kicked off November 17, but you can join for sections of the route, which traverses Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. Along the way, you'll visit the Mayan ruins at Tikal, Copan, and Lamani. If you're not interested in all that exertion—the end of the world means you can let yourself go, after all—perhaps you'd prefer to make your Mayan adventure a side trip in an otherwise all-inclusive, screw-it-all-because-the-world-is-ending beach vacation. In that case, Best Day Tours runs trips to the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza, as well as Tulum and Xel-Ha from Mexico's Riviera Maya.

Live in Denial
Perhaps it'll make you feel better to think about other inaccurate apocalyptic predictions. William Miller, a figure who emerged during the Second Great Awakening in America, studied his "Book of Revelation" and decided that the Second Coming could be nailed to a specific date: October 22, 1844. When the day came and went with no sign of a prophecy fulfilled, it became known as the Great Disappointment. You can visit the William Miller House and Chapel, where he lived in Hampton, New York, close to the border of Vermont. The fact that they're both still standing, despite confident prognostications suggesting otherwise, should provide some comfort.

Head for the Hills
Book a flight to France: Some believe that the 200-person town of Bugarach will be spared when the apocalypse arrives. Why? You'd think its remoteness, being snuggled away in the Pyrénées, would insulate it from any harm. You'd be wrong. According to the Huffington Post, those who seek safety there believe that the aliens who will cause the end of times are storing their spaceships in the 1,230-meter-high Pic de Bugarach mountain, and they're planning to spare the locals when it's time to blast off. The mayor has even banned climbing the peak on December 21, fearing for the safety of apocalypse-minded tourists. The Guardian writes that Bugarach's infamy is because of "a prophecy/internet rumour, which no one has ever quite got to the bottom of," but it's as good a spot as any for bet-hedging.

Click through to read the rest of the slideshow at the Condé Nast Traveler.

Photo Courtesy Tour d'Afrique

Westchester/Hudson Valley Weddings 2013

This year was my first as executive editor of Westchester/Hudson Valley Weddings. From assigning stories on wedding trends to scouting real weddings, I was involved with every single page. The issue includes:

-a gorgeous wedding gown photo shoot with 11 different dresses, shot at Playland in Rye

-a feature on wedding venues on the Hudson River

-a photo spread comparing traditional and nontraditional bouquets (written by me)

-four twists on the idea of rustic farm tables by local event designers

-six different real weddings, done in different styles and seasons (two of which were written by me)

-mini-features on different wedding trends, including local minimoons, black and white bridesmaid dresses, and, my favorite, ombré-themed weddings

-a front-of-book covering beauty tips, inspiration ideas (written by me), advice about food, and style advice for women and men

-a final inspiration photo for the last page

The issue only comes out once a year, but I also scout weddings for our Wedding of the Month blog.