Pitching to Curve

In addition to pestering the Chronicle, I also pitched an article on Alice Springs, Australia, to Curve magazine. Curve is a lesbian publication, and Alice Springs is, for some reason, a lesbian magnet, so I think it’s a good fit. We’ll see. I haven’t heard back yet, but that might be good news. The last time I pitched to Curve, I got a rejection back within the hour, so I’m going to hope they take their time on this one.

Keeping up the Barrage

Undaunted, I’m sending more stuff the Chronicle’s way. You know how they say you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take? Well, then I’m just going to keep booting articles at the Chronicle. Eventually, one will get by.

I just sent a long article on Australia, specifically on the Indian Pacific Train. Let’s hope my timing’s better on this one.

Shanghai Surprise

I got an email from the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle rejecting an article I’d submitted about Shanghai. Two things lessened the sting, though. The first was that it was a very nice note. I’m used to not hearing anything from editors at all, so to get a note that is not just polite, but in fact mildly encouraging, seemed remarkable.

The other thing that made it easier to take is that I knew it was coming. Just a few days after I sent the article to the Chronicle, the paper ran another piece about Shanghai. When I saw that, I knew they wouldn’t feature the city again any time soon. So the printed article was effectively a rejection notice, even though it was of course intended in no such way—I doubt the editor had even seen my article yet.

Volcation

I wish I could say I thought of the word “volcation,” meaning, “A trip extended by Eyjafjallajokull.” But I didn’t; I read it somewhere.

I am reminded of the word because Pipi and I actually met someone over the weekend who was on a volcation. At the Pyramid Brewery in Berkeley, we met a man who’d been killing time in the Bay Area for almost a week because he had been completely unable to get a flight home to Sweden. He didn’t seem to be too upset about the delay, but he told us he was hopeful that he would be able to catch a flight Sunday. I don’t know if he did or not, but it looks like as long as his flight didn’t stop in Iceland, he’s probably home by now.

I hope our Swedish friend made it, and that there aren’t too many other stranded travelers still flipping through guidebooks, trying to find more things to do in northern California.

If you are still stuck here, though, I recommend skipping the Pyramid tour. Pyramid makes good beer, but the tour consists of peering into a series of empty stainless steel tanks while struggling to hear the waifish tour guide over the roar of several hundred bottles a minute rattling off the assembly line. If you really want to learn about American beer, your volcation time would be better spent at a barstool on a self-directed course of education.

It’s Not Just You

Nobody knows how to pronounce the name of that volcano in Iceland.

No Need to Panic

Cost Plus sells a cookie called Arnott’s year-round. These cookies are, to my Yankee tongue, indistinguishable from Tim Tams, and because Arnott’s is the name of the Australian company that makes Tim Tams, I think they are the same, just branded differently for some reason.

So if your local grocery store is sold out of Tim Tams for the year, and you live near a Cost Plus, you’re going to be okay. If you don’t, though, you’ll need to stock up now. Tim Tams freeze well.

Or so I hear.

The Big T—Time is Running Out

No, not taxes. Tim Tams.

Every year, between November and March, Pepperidge Farms imports Tim Tam chocolate cookies from Australia and sells them in grocery stores all over the United States. Yesterday, I saw a stack of them at my local Lucky being sold at clearance rates, reminding me that the Tim Tam window has closed for this year. Get yours quickly! (And cheaply—yesterday’s were going for just $2.99. Allegedly.)

The Cal Neva Closes

Here’s a news item that made me a little wistful: The Cal Neva Casino, in Stateline, NV has closed.

All the articles I’ve read about it say the closure was inevitable because the place was so run-down and its time had so clearly passed. That may be so, but to me, the place had its charms and I’m a little sad to see it go.

The Cal Neva was once owned by Frank Sinatra, and served as a hangout for the Rat Pack and associates (including, allegedly, J.F.K and Marilyn Monroe). The place coasted on that reputation for a long while, but all that was a bit before my time, so I can’t say it was any lingering ring-a-ding-dinging that attracted me to the place. Nor was I pulled off the highway by the architecture, a mix of ski-chalet A-frame and faux Native American kitsch that passed from “retro” into the territory of “somewhat embarrassing” decades ago.

No, the Cal Neva’s charms were, for me, subtle and twofold. The first thing I loved was that the building lay right on the state line separating California from Nevada. Just outside the gaming area was a large room with a fireplace and a silver-and-gold stripe running along the floor and up the wall, straight through the fireplace. This line represented the border between the two states, and just about everyone who visited got a photo of themselves straddling it. (I was traveling alone the last time I went, so my picture just shows my two sneakers on either side of the line—but I know it’s me.)

Geographical quirks aside, I also loved the fact that the casino had real old-fashioned slot machines, the kind where you pump in real coins and pull the handle to set the reels spinning. Every other slot machine I’ve seen recently (which is admittedly not many) has been credit, not cash based, and most seem to be activated by tapping a button, not pulling a lever. I guess I’m old-fashioned about such things because I love the tactile sensation of jingling a tumbler full of coins in one mitt and shaking the bandit’s hand with the other.

After my first such session, during which I managed to make several handfuls of nickels last all evening, I looked at my grimy hands and realized for the first time how literal the phrase “filthy lucre” can be. So I fully understand, and on some level approve of the trend towards electronic funds. But I still love pawing through buckets of coins. Once I did find a real treasure—a minor one, but a treasure to me nonetheless. Looking through the rolls of nickels I’d purchased (no, I’m not exactly a high roller), I found a buffalo nickel. It was so worn I can’t be sure of the date, but I know it can’t have been minted any later than 1938, because that’s the last year they made that kind of nickel. I had a few in my collection already, coins I’d either purchased or been given, but this was the first and so far the only time I’d ever found one in change.

So there you have it—two highly personal and idiosyncratic reasons that I will miss the Cal Neva casino. Will I get over this loss? Yes, pretty quickly, I’m sure. I’m not even up at Lake Tahoe very often. But the next time I am there, the experience will be a little bit tidier—and a little bit less colorful.

The Iron and Silk Road

Several years ago, I took a train from Beijing to Moscow. It took about two weeks, although I did make a few stops along the way. If I’d gone express, it would have taken just about exactly one week.

People always ask me if I found seven days of train travel boring, and the answer is that I really didn’t until the very last day. I’m not sure if that’s because the trip really was one day too long, or if I just didn’t allow myself to get antsy until I was within sight of the finish. In any case, I can safely say that for me, the idea of taking a week to travel from the heart of the Middle Kingdom to the edge of Europe is pretty reasonable.

Which is why I have mixed feelings about this article, announcing China’s plan to build a high-speed train that would cover the distance between London and Beijing in about two days. I can see that this would be an amazing feat of technology, and would really make life easier for people who can’t afford to fly and who don’t have the luxury of two weeks to spend on a round-trip.

But two days? That’s just too fast. Imagine sleeping through all of Siberia, or blinking and missing Poland. You’d get almost all of the disorientation and jet lag of air travel, and little of the scenery gazing and platform pierogi breaks of train travel.

(And if you think I’m indignant, imagine how horrified an actual ancient Silk Road trader would be. They’re probably already upset that the trip can now be done in a week, without even a stop to barter for fresh camels in Samarkand.)

They Loved It, But They’re Not in Love With It

Sometimes when I submit a piece to an editor, I get a nice personal rejection. Sometimes it’s more of a form letter. Sometimes I don’t hear anything. And sometimes, like yesterday, the news is delivered with all the subtlety of an eighth-grader trying to break up with someone.

A couple of weeks ago, I sent an article to the Chronicle about Shanghai. On Sunday, I opened up the travel section, and it was all about Shanghai. I wasn’t in it, though. Probably this is just bad timing on my part. Or maybe they’re just not that into me. Either way—ouch.

One Thing Down

I did get one article sent off. Not the Australian train article, although I did do enough of what I call “un-writing” (and which most people call “cutting hundreds of unnecessary words”) that I think I got that one back on track. So to speak.

No, what I sent away for publication is an updated service piece on Shanghai. I sent it once before to the San Francisco Chronicle, and never heard a peep about it. Normally, no response means “no,” and pressing the issue will only annoy the editor. But there’s been a regime change since I submitted it last, so Shanghai will be new to the current editor. Let’s hope he’s more of a fan of urban travel than the last guy was.

I Think I Can…

The Broken Hill story would be a good companion piece to a story I’m working on about the Indian Pacific train, but I seem to be stuck on that one. Does this ever happen to any of you? The more I work on the train piece, the more it just gets longer without getting any better.

Sometimes when a project isn’t going anywhere for me, I give it a rest. Usually that helps. That’s what I’ve done here. Having not thought about the train story consciously for a few weeks, I feel ready to sneak up on it and do some real writing (and probably a fair amount of un-writing) on it now. I’ll let you know when I finally get it ready for publication. (I say this mostly for my own benefit—I’ve said I’m going to finish it, so now I have to!

Oh, I Should Have Mentioned…

…That the honorably-mentioned story in question is an essay I wrote about the fading mining town of Broken Hill, Australia. This is a story that started life as a blog post written soon after my visit, which then got cleaned up and polished into something I was happier with. Now I’m emboldened to try to get the essay published.

Finishing Just off the Podium

In this Olympic season, I’m pleased to announce a minor award of my own: I earned an honorable mention in the 2010 Solas Awards travel writing contest.

Certainly it would have been nice to be one of the top three in a category, but we can’t all be Apolo Ono. Somebody has to be Turkish figure skater Tuğba Karademir, happy just to be there and to have not taken a pratfall on the big stage.

And, unlike the Olympics, the Solas Awards happen every year. I’m going to start training now for 2011.

Possible Use for Twitter

They say that Twitter is very good for complaining. We’ll soon see. I’m unleashing the power of Twitter on Comcast, who have so far been unresponsive to every form of direct communication I can think of short of semaphore. Perhaps a little public shame can get them to call me back.

Blurb.com

I’ve been meaning for a while now to mention a pretty cool website called Blurb.com. It’s a way to self-publish books, and to sell them as well. If I wanted to, I could technically claim to have had a book published, because I used the site to create a book about my trip to Australia last year that is officially for sale on the Blurb site.

Had I really intended to sell any of these books, I would have done a lot of things differently, including making the book shorter and smaller in size. The format I picked is the most expensive. This choice drove the price of the book up so far that I don’t realistically expect anyone to purchase it.

Still, the idea is great. It’s possible to create and sell very affordable books without putting any money down. Posting your book file on the site is free, meaning you avoid all of the costs usually associated with vanity publishing.

The way it works is that whenever anyone orders a copy of the book, the site prints one up and sends it directly to that person, meaning an author also avoids a lot of the logistical problems associated with self-publishing, like basements and car trunks full of inventory.

In my particular case, I also expect to avoid typical author hassles like keeping track of earnings, because I don’t think there are going to be any. If anyone should order the book, though, the site would send me my profit directly. Best of all, I get to determine how big that profit is. The site sets a base price, and I, as the author, get to say how many dollars extra I want them to tack on—I get to keep that.

Believe it or not, I actually set a very modest profit margin for myself. I just made the mistake of picking an expensive layout with a high base price. But I don’t really regret it, because I’m very happy with the coffee-table quality scrapbook I now have of my adventure.

City of Thieves

Coincidentally, I am not just snacking my way through Russian memories at the moment. I’m also currently reading an excellent book about the country: City of Thieves, by David Benioff.

This novel takes place in St. Petersburg during WWII, when the Germans were laying siege to the city. It’s a dramatic story, but the book is also very funny in a deeply dark sort of way. I’m really enjoying it, all the more because the author is a college classmate of mine. (I don’t think we ever even met. I just feel possessive of classmates who’ve done well for themselves and I feel the need to give them a shout-out.)

Dining-Room Chair Travel

It’s well documented that you can travel vicariously through travel literature, but who else is with me on virtually traveling the world by snacking?

Pipi and I recently found a great place for this. It’s a strange little store called the Euromix Deli on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland. Although there are some western European products, most of the inventory is eastern European, and most of that is Russian. Recently Pipi picked up a mix of chocolate candies that reminded me of what a weird, wonderful place Russia is. They’re not great chocolates—Russians apparently like hazelnut (and wax) a lot more than I do, but I’m really enjoying the eccentric wrappers.

A Twit, Maybe?

What do you call one who uses Twitter? Someone who doesn’t know the answer to that question probably doesn’t have any business using the service, but I’m not letting that stop me. I have belatedly entered the Twitterverse, and you can follow me at http://twitter.com/nicoleclausing. (You don’t need to be a Twitter member yourself; you can always just go that URL on any computer for updates.)

I don’t post very often—to be honest, I haven’t really taken to Twitter yet, and at my age, Tweetspeak will probably always be a second language. But I invite you to follow my fledgling efforts anyway. I promise, no tweets about what I had for lunch, no deliberate misspellings, and, if I should ever owe anyone an apology for anything, you won’t see it there.

Last Warning

Comcast has one more day to get back to me, and then I’m going all Twitter on them.