Engine 43 Stories

Photo courtesy of Heimo

The morning feels like yesterday, like last year, like next year. Together, facing a real-time screen, a screen full of bright minds, declarative sentences, short talks, long dreams, wide thinking. The mind is cycling, just saturated with ideas. The eyes see in different light, like some new color has brought the edges into focus. Swallowing reveals it’s been a roller coaster of emotions.

Participating in the TED Conference is intense, moving, invigorating. The four days provide a quick reminder of what a regular person you are, and how much you have not accomplished. But you are not alone, and you are not empty. You have been entrusted.

Charged with ideas, there is an urge, a responsibility to do something with them — that with each hand you can grab the nodes of a circuit, and with your heart and mind you can energize new change.

Photographs by Heimo Schmidt captured on TED2013 day one using a custom hybrid 8X10 field camera (metal front, standard wooden rear). Lens: Nikkor 240mm/f5.6. Exposure: f8 at 1/4 second. Polaroid cross-processing, with film that expired in 2003 and was improperly stored in hot places, such as Heimo’s van and garage. Heimo said of the film, “It seems to still work quite well. The results are the same as when I bought it.” Upon seeing the images, I began to believe in the concept of film stealing a subject’s soul. Asked about this, Heimo said, “In most cases yes, but for a small fee we can arrange for it to be sold back to you.”

This event was generously sponsored by David Albertson, Emily McManus, and the TED Editorial Team. Thanks to all twelve 2013 participants for your time and participation.

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Richard piled up the bird carcasses on his plate. James filled his with crunchy severed wings. This Thanksgiving we roasted an abundance of birds: turkey, goose, pheasant, partridge, cornish hen, squab, quail. These two men helped roast and carve. They chose flesh from close to the bone.

Margaret Visser describes the roast as “an echo of the ancient ritual of the impromptu meal at the scene of the hunt.” A modern-day roast begins with “firemaking outside the house — though not necessarily very far from it.” For many centuries, fish, birds, and especially whole beasts were roasted and “placed before the family as a result of male enterprise and triumph; and men, with their knives, have insisted on carving it up, and even cooking it before the expectant and admiring crowd.”

Visser argues that the ritual of the roast expresses “the unity of the group that consumes it” — and that the dining table “represents, as no other piece of furniture can, the family as a whole. If any member of the family should be absent, the empty place at the table is a mute reminder of the missing person.”

Wait, what was that? This year, the reminders weren’t mute at all. They were loud, heartbreakingly so, and for a while there, I didn’t know what to do about it. And then, after a little time, after a little conversation, food, and wine, the reminders transformed themselves into something providential. They brought more meaning to my memories — and, for that matter, to the present moment.

The engine house is saturated with over a hundred years of ghosts and memories. This Thanksgiving, new memories have been added: of James’ expert firewood-stacking strategy, of Richard’s carving-tool set and deft cuts, of his boys and James interacting by the hearth, roasting chestnuts, grapes, and sausages. These and many others join the memories of the people whom I miss.

Thank you, especially: Alexandra Rose, Anja, Brian, David, James, Janet, Lans, Lindsay, Stacy, Steve, Richard and Rosalind. And to Margaret Visser, whose book The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning provided the above citations.

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Claude Zellweger

Photo courtesy of Claude Zellweger

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Stephen Bronstein

Photo courtesy of Paolo Salvagione

With the scrape of a chair on the wood floor, the man rose — chest out, head slightly down, arms by his side. And then he began to sing. Conversation in the restaurant soon quieted. From the kitchen we squinted into the dining room.

I spent time cooking in an Italian restaurant in San Francisco that hosted many from the local Italian-American community. Service was in rapid-fire Italian, so I had no idea what was said, but learned to deduce. That night, I truly didn’t know what was happening.

Another man stood up and joined the song. Conversation had now fully ceased, revealing only the chimes of wine glasses and silverware — and, of course, the singing. Now a third, and then fourth man. I looked at Tony next to me and then back to the dining room. A fifth and sixth man joined as the dining room was silent save for the pure song. The service staff was frozen in place. The song grew until all the guests were singing.

After the song ended with cheers, I looked at Tony again. He looked at me with tears and said, “That was beautiful.” I went to respond — tasted salt and choked. I, too, had teared up.

This experience had highlighted a belief I had about a disconnect in our junior American culture — we have nothing like this. It’s true, singing “Happy Birthday” is close, but its often half-hearted execution lacks the depth of history and culture in comparison.

Recently, things changed for me. Artist and friend Paolo Salvagione recently released One for Each, his limited edition artists’ book. It’s the result of his being the 2012 Imprint Artist in Residence at the San Francisco Center for the Book. The edition was large in scope and execution. From the start, from the sidelines, I watched Paolo’s effort in the development of his edition. I watched the Center’s Mike Bartalos, Rhiannon Alpers, and staff join him in full support. And then soon after, writer Marc Weidenbaum added in a series of essays. Designer Brian Scott responded with type, and Heimo Schmidt with photos. An idea, a movement was put forth, and many united, creating something better than an individual alone could make.

This time I knew what was happening, and it was my chance to stand up, chest out, look into everyone’s eyes, and sing with them.

My contribution was to build — for the exhibit’s opening event — food and drink that directly related to the edition: five gifts for five layers of five senses. Inspiration from inspiration.

Gift one was based on layer one of the edition, Sight, which involved the use of 3D glasses to view images printed in red and cyan. We concocted a cocktail to represent this: a red negroni with ice as the cyan. Here is the recipe:

Three-Dimensional Cocktail

Ingredients:

• 1 oz. gin
• 1 oz. Campari
• 1 oz. vermouth rosso (red or sweet)
• 1 dash Regan’s Orange Bitters No. 6
• 3 oz. water
• blue food coloring

To prepare the glass:

1. Color the 3 oz. water with the blue food coloring.
2. Pour into glass and freeze until solid.

To prepare the cocktail:

1. Combine all the other ingredients in a mixer with ice cubes and stir for 30 seconds.
2. Remove prepared glass from freezer and strain mixture into the glass.
3. Serve immediately.

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Photo courtesy of Heimo

Thank you Alexandra Rose Franco, Jennifer Robin Berry, Paul Donald, and James Tucker. Kaku plates by WASARA compliments of Branch.

Jenifer is an artist, illustrator, educator, and a member of E43. We were honored to host and collaborate on her humorous spectacle: La Cuarentañera. Having recently disassembled the large cheese, I felt it necessary to process the absurdity with Jenifer to better understand what had happened.

Max: It was dark in the kitchen. I struggled to stack multiple bottles of just-opened Champagne and glasses into my arms before heading back into the crowd. Paolo appeared out of nowhere. “You must really love her,” he said. My mind couldn’t help but downshift into first gear. It played back the time you got your lip stuck in a coffee Thermos lid while driving — it had snapped on like a turtle. “Yes,” I said to Paolo, “she is family, and the one friend I have known the longest.” And this is why I agreed to host a “Cuarentañera.”

Jenifer: The Thermos incident was a dark day that has since become comedy gold. I’ve known you almost 20 years, and you are most assuredly family. I trust you with my life, and I also trust you to laugh at and tolerate my hapless ridiculousness. You understand that one of my key strategies for getting through difficult or awkward times is to apply my sense of humor to them. Hence, the Thermos incident, and the Cuarentañera. I was not at all looking forward to turning 40. Getting older can feel complicated and even a little dreary, on the bad days at least. As this milestone loomed ever-larger, my only two options were to either hide under a rock, or … meet it head-on. I decided to go full-force with the latter, with your and Carmen’s generous support. After all, clichéd but true: laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.

Max: Ha! The quinceañera, “one who is fifteen,” and the Philippine debut are both coming-of-age celebrations for young women: fifteen in Latin America, eighteen in the Philippines. In this case, your cuarentañera, “one who is forty,” was more of an absurdist take on the notion that she was now “of age.”

Jenifer: Well, coming-of-age rituals are basically about acknowledging the passage from childhood to adulthood. And absurdity is my middle name. Since I chose a less-than-normal version of adulthood, it seemed only natural to have some fun with notions of what this passage might look like for someone who’s still fumbling with growing up, to some degree. I also wanted to acknowledge the traditions of two cultures I’m fond of and part of, but to re-frame them to suit my preposterous purposes.

Max: Luckily, those cultures involve families that believe in large volumes of tasty food. In our neighborhood, we often can smell carnitas being fried at 9:00 in the morning for later in the day, and huge pickup trucks are regularly double-parked in the street with beds full of aluminum trays for delivery. These neighborhood parties are ongoing, with large families and extended community—your mother, your Tita Lety, and your family fit right in with the food they cooked and shared.

Jenifer: Well, any proper gathering should involve sharing a great meal, such as the abbondanza my family prepared, and often sharing a drink, such as the delightful Tequila Sunrises you served. Since the party theme colors were festive tropical shades of orange and pink, Tequila Sunrises fit the aesthetic!

Max: I will have to look up what abbondanza means. Speaking of orange and pink, what about your dress?!

Jenifer: Which one? There were four! When greeting guests at the beginning of the party, there was the Pepto-pink “terno,” a traditional Philippine gown. Then there was a monstrously awesome pink and orange organza ballgown. Then there was the orange inmate ensemble. And lastly, the vintage white and orange Hawaiian floral number.

But we’re jumping the gun a little. We should probably explain about The Presentation –  the dance performance portion of the evening’s antics — that some of these get-ups were for.

Max: I think the tear- and cheer-inducing slide show of your life paired with Britney Spears’ “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” was a good set-up for the impending dance. Basically, there were two acts and an intermission. Act One was a presentation by awkward teenagers, followed by a communion intermission, and Act Two was liberation in adulthood.

Jenifer: The Britney song choice and video montage was completely tongue-in-cheek: I was a little embarrassed that our guests actually found the slide show so touching! Anyway, the montage was what was played to warm up the crowd prior to The Presentation.

In keeping with the conventions of a quince/debut, I assembled a Corte de Honor—court of dancers—to rehearse and perform a medley of dances with me at the party. Happily, I had a large crew of enthusiastic dance-happy extroverts willing to be part of this: dear friends, fellow artists, former colleagues, and former students, as well as a new friend, a professional choreographer, who was willing to abet this goofy endeavor with real choreographic expertise.

The Presentation was essentially a cockamamie tale of my journey to adulthood in two acts. Naturally, this meant that Act One led with a semi-traditional “entrada” waltz by the Corte de Honor, during which I burst forth from a large cheddar cheese wedge on wheels. The Corte de Honor, all dressed in white, symbolized the dairy product that, collectively, had matured me into fine cheese. Following my cheese emergence, there was, logically, a very lively salsa number. After this, we all exited the dance floor and the Intermission Communion commenced.

Max: You have thought about this a little too much. You were very pretty, even when your dress hoops rose and revealed you on our lift.

Jenifer: You are too kind. And yes, I thought about this too much. It’s not every day a girl turns 40, after all. Plus, given my practice as an artist, I approached this as an art piece as much as a big party, so it needed to feel conceptually solid — if still completely bananas.

While the Corte de Honor made a costume change in back, three High Priestesses administered A Communion of Cuarenta to bring the whole congregation into the fold: the Eucharist took the form of Cheez Balls and pill cups of malt liquor poured from 40oz bottles, as well as a blessing, offered to a long line of all guests.

Act Two resumed with the Corte re-emerging in all-orange outfits inspired by the Dancing Inmates of Cebu Prison. Here I struggled with the chains and hardships of adulthood, before breaking free and ultimately being liberated by my fellow prisoners in a big number incorporating bhangra, Janet and Michael Jackson, zombies, and Xanadu.

Max: I am not quite sure what you are talking about. After the choreographed dance, mock formality gave way to straight-out weird, and then it was time for the cake. We presented a full sheet-sized ice cream cake with fluorescent orange and pink icing framing your head on a 15-year-old girl’s body. And then you ceremoniously cut into it and served yourself. Jenifer, now that you are old, how do you feel?

Jenifer: Well, since I got to pop out of a giant cheddar cheese, dance the dance of Filipino prisoner liberation, and share and eat a cake with my face on it while surrounded by dear friends and family on my fortieth birthday, I think I’m set until my cincuentañera — although, I should warn you, that next milestone party might get a little weird.

Forty’s not so bad, as it turns out: as with many things, the dread and anticipation of the thing is far worse than the thing itself. And anyway, youth may fade, but immaturity can last a lifetime.

Act I

Communion

Act II

Cake

Julio and I were honored to be invited by Albert and Dan McCabe to their four-day javelina hunt. The men of the hunt have known each other for many years, Dan and Sergio the longest at over a quarter century.

Photo courtesy of Albert McCabe

Nogales, Arizona, is a shared hunting ground. Border patrol collaborates with ICE, Homeland Security, and the National Guard. Together with their SUVs, heavy firepower, and technology they track immigrants who have crossed the border from Mexico. And in the same rugged, high desert land, hunters with their SUVs, heavy firepower, and technology hunt wild pigs called javelina. We are the among latter group of hunters.

Nogales is derived from “black walnuts” in Spanish. It was named for the walnut groves that used to grow between Nogales and Sonora, Mexico. Nogales sits along one of the heaviest corridors for immigration from Mexico. It’s alarming to be deep in harsh nature with extreme temperatures, both day and night, and to stumble upon a pile of abandoned clothes or maybe an empty beat-up one-gallon water jug. From our ridge we can see Sonora in the far distance.

It’s just past sunrise, 7:00am, and several javelina are spotted amid the trees of the ravine below. The wind is warm, slow, steady, and coming up toward us, buffering our scent. In hushed words, it is decided we will split up. Claudio and his teenage son, Alexandro, along with Julio go straight down, and Eddie and I go far right, down a finger, to hook around.

As we make our way, the sun moves fast. Long shadows are being compressed, and it’s getting warmer. Colors go from blue and orange to yellow. I concentrate on moving swiftly, quietly, but struggle with shortness of breath due to the altitude. As we close in, Eddie and I switch to hand signals. We step on large stones to reduce our sound. The one who spots the animals makes the call. This time it is Claudio. Binoculars in hand, I glass for Eddie, as he calls on the radio to Claudio for permission to take the shot.

I admire the honor and code of conduct of this tribe. There is no alpha male, only cooperation. Problem-solving is done as a group. Everyone contributes on projects. We collect firewood together. There is strong friendship and tradition. The group leaves things better than found: fixing fences, collecting litter. The experienced members are patient educators, explaining, for example, why the pigs are on the south side of the hills in the morning. (It’s in order to warm up.)

Boom! Eddie’s rifle shot is deafening, and through the binoculars, beyond the tree foliage, I can see a black javelina struggling — and its drops. A few seconds later, I am confused. The javelina appears to be back up and to struggle and to then drop again.

Boom! Claudio’s rifle echoes throughout the canyon. Eddie is tracking the other javelina escaping on the opposite hill just as one flies past us, and I open fire with my .357 pistol.

Boom! Alexandro echoes next as we move in. Eddie and I arrive and discover his single shot took down two javelina.

Alexandro’s pig is still alive. Code of conduct: if it’s your shot, it’s yours to finish. Alexandro, a young man under his father’s guidance, finishes off the javelina as it stares down Julio.

The team field dresses the pigs. They are for eating, just not for now. Code of conduct: you carry back your kill. Pigs are hauled up the hill and piled upon the roof of Dan’s truck. Julio notes the javalina meat is the same crimson as the wild board we used in Flora & Fauna.

Later that night, around the camp fire, I am moved again by the strong and positive male character. Fathers talk to sons, sharing some life lessons, some advice, something about their own fathers and how they didn’t tolerate bad behavior, sometimes with a smack or more. I think about the strong men in my life, almost all chefs: sensitive, civilized, caring. Gold wedding bands. They have a calibrated judgement to know when to call you over to watch and learn silently, how to break down wild rabbit while searching for shotgun shot, to learn by example. Or to tap your arm with a scorching sauté pan to get your attention back to where it should be.

Boom! Dan sets off fireworks that blow up before launching into the air. He cooks breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day. Dan is the engine. When we return from six hours of tough, exhausting hiking, Dan has a plan and some remaining energy, Dan takes care of us. Eggs are cooked perfect. Burgers are huge hockey pucks, stuffed with pepper jack cheese. Rib-eyes are marked and rested to ideal. He consistently shows by example how it should be done.

Upon our return to civilization, as we pass though a border patrol check point, I take in our condition. Blood has dried to black on clothes. Scratches with red halos mark our arms. Our ears still ring. Our hands are dirty, scented with sulfur. Our clothes and hair are peppered with thorns and perfumed with firewood and cigars. At that moment, I decide if I ever have daughters, I definitely will ask them to come and be members of the tribe.

Photo courtesy of Julio César Morales

Photo courtesy of Julio César Morales

Photo courtesy of Julio César Morales

Photo courtesy of Julio César Morales