The lives and travels of great explorers
I am on a ship that will transit through the Panama Canal tomorrow. For me this is a big moment: to be able to see one of the great engineering marvels of the world; to experience the incarnate will of one of my idols, President Theodore Roosevelt; and finally, to see the natural tropical beauty of the Canal Zone. All these things are on my mind as I write these words.
There are two foundational chowder recipes to be familiar with: fish chowder and clam chowder. We have already dealt with fish chowder in an earlier article, and will now talk about its sibling relation. The clam chowder I know best is the classic New England clam (or quahog) chowder; this recipe was adapted from one found in Jasper White’s 50 Chowders, a book I highly recommend for the serious enthusiast.
I grew up in southeastern Massachusetts. I’ve heard now that they have some hifalutin name for the area; they call it the “south coast.” Christ. What a lot of marketing nonsense. In the early 1980s nobody used “south coast” for anything. Anyone trying to would probably gotten smacked on principle alone. But that’s where I’m from, anyway.
“Platform businesses” have been all the rage for years now. The general idea of a platform business is that it provides an opportunity for a buyer and a seller to meet and perform a transaction. Airbnb, Fiverr, and Uber are examples of such businesses.
[To read the rest of the article, click here.]
I recently wrote an article that featured some great adventure travel equipment tips from Robert Young Pelton, the hard-core author of The World’s Most Dangerous Places. As I was thumbing though my old copy of this classic (my edition is one of the first, and dates to the mid-1990s), I realized that there is some very useful travel wisdom here.
Robert Young Pelton has done what the rest of us should aspire to do: he’s turned a love for travel and adventure into a career. He’s the author of The World’s Most Dangerous Places (which has gone through multiple editions), as well as a journalist, documentary producer, and television personality. His specialty was producing on-the-spot situation reports from worldwide conflict zones.
In the annals of American exploration, few names are as distinguished, and perhaps as little known, as that of Marshal Cândido Rondon. As an officer in the Brazilian Army in the late 19th and early 20th century, he revealed more of the Amazonian basin to the world than any single other figure. His incredible toughness, personal background, unorthodox philosophy, and leadership skills make him a unique and startling figure.
A reader is moving to a foreign country and needs advice on how “to best integrate” himself into the local culture. He has lived abroad before, but is looking for tips on what to expect, and what attitude to adopt.
What is the best way to approach this? What types of challenges will he face?
I have a lot of familiarity with the old mythologies. I love the old stories of the classical Greek and Roman myths. Even the old Norse mythology has its place, although it is so much darker. Darker, and more ominous.
Readers no doubt are familiar with Jack London. One of the great 20th century American novelists and short-story writers, he is justly famous for his harrowing tales of survival and courage, often set in exotic locales like the Klondike, the South Seas, and the abysses of urban squalor.
He lived a life that was as adventurous as one of the characters in his stories. Before becoming a full-time writer, he had knocked about as a vagrant, an oyster pirate, a seaman, a gold prospector, and most bitterly as an industrial slave-laborer.
Quintus Curtius 
You must be logged in to post a comment.