Denny's Disasters

The Onion (America's Finest News Source) has provided another pitch-perfect indictment of American life decrying casual dining and cable news; see Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals for America After Visiting Denny's. Courtesy warning: This video includes a few words not suitable for broadcasting over your cubicle wall.

American food has on occasion been praised for its mass appeal, but our odd predilection to combine comestibles with propellants deservedly invites derision from the French and, yes, even the English. Perhaps casual dining restaurants, those indistinguishable iterations of Applebee's, Olive Garden, and TGI Friday's, best capture the American urge to standardize, homogenize, and mediocritize the culinary experience. Among these Denny's stands proud as the forerunners who blanketed America with their version of the neighborhood/all-night roadhouse diner. They might be described as a sanitized edition of an American institution, but they scrubbed out all the charm and let their cleaning skills lapse. However, they are cheap and always open, plus senior citizens get their own discounted menu.

For those Britons who have never been into this restaurant, please conjure up some crude American stereotypes: fluorescent lighting, plastic booths, badly positioned smoking section, food retaining the shape of its container, apathetic waitstaff. Now subtract flavor and fun. The dishes don't require many ingredients, but they still taste like cardboard. Denny's is a place visited out of necessity -- when everything else is closed, because it's affordable, because I had a coupon. It's stationed at the bottom rung of American society, which means either customers are too ignorant to want something better or just unable to start climbing higher.

Been to Bintan

The Passengers spent this weekend relaxing on the island of Bintan. Actually, we whiled away two days in a cabana upon Singapore’s tourism beachhead in Indonesia. The island is a favorite getaway spot for urbanites looking for a tropical round of golf or quiet beaches away from the maritime parking lot that mars the sea view from East Coast Park. The ferry only takes an hour to cross the Singapore Strait and deposit weekenders among idyllic scenery and tropical breezes. Visitors frolic in a nearly closed, isolated system. When booking our getaway, the ferry website asked to know our resort. Then, upon disembarking from the ferry, we were loaded onto a shuttle bus at the terminal and whisked off to our resort. When it came time to leave, the resort completed our ferry check-in and handed us boarding passes before we caught the bus back to the terminal.

In conclusion, I submit photographic proof that we accomplished our plans for some serious sloth. We didn’t leave the comfort of the charming, thatched Mayang Sari resort, despite the availability of other inter-resort shuttle buses, so I will not pretend that our experience remotely approached the everyday life of Indonesians. I do hope that the stream of visitors benefits everyone on Bintan.

The main building and reception area.

Our own chalet, complete with front porch and high, breezy ceilings.

Expansive sands and warm, gentle waters.

Until next time, Bintan.

A Sign of the Times

At least one ship has cargo to deliver today. An overview of the world's busiest container port.

Borrowing a journalistic device from the Brian Lehrer Show, I present today’s “Uncommon Economic Indicator,” signs of the global downturn in pictures and events, rather than cold numbers. Most of the activity I have seen in Singapore seems oblivious to the larger economic climate, and the economy has stayed healthy in a few ways. Several important banks operating here stayed well away from the complex financial instruments that have threatened to topple American and European giants. The proliferation of cranes across the skyline demonstrates a confidence in continued demand for commercial and residential real estate. The construction shown above, outside my building's sky terrace, certainly has been running at a blistering pace.

However, from these same windows and in the background of the same image (detail, above) can be seen this revealing marker of the worldwide drop in trade. The waters around Singapore have filled up with a massive flotilla of unladen cargo ships. Notice the lack of shipping containers piled on their decks. Demand for goods in almost every market has plummeted so these ships have nowhere to go. Instead they wait in deep-water anchorage. The view above looks off to the southeast, and the pile-up beyond the port and past Sentosa appears below. This online map shows the larger parking-lot conditions in real time. The effects of stagnation remain unknown, but the prognoses suggest that Singapore cannot defy gravity endlessly.

Another view (below) looking southeast, but from a higher floor.

Instructions

For the first (and possibly only) time, hello, Passenger H here. Today I will mostly be discussing that which brings Britain and Asia together, tea. Now I will concede that unlike the gorgeous photos Passenger J has been posting my photo looks like smeared peas, however it actually shows the wrapper from a tea bag (green tea obviously). Due to my photographic limitations I will have to transcribe the text below:

JASMINE GREEN TEA
Selected Premium Leaf
Preparation
1. Put a POKKA Jasmine Green Tea bag in a cup.
2. Fill cup with 150cc of hot Water.
3. Jiggle tea bag a few times and let it rest in cup for 30 seconds.
4. Jiggle tea bag again, then remove it from cup.
5. Now enjoy a cup of really good POKKA Jasmine Green Tea.
A Quality Product of Japan

Italics mine.
Jiggle twice, cup once. (Passenger J’s commentary)

Summer in the City

The Guardian just published a new travel feature on New York City with ten destinations to help visitors enjoy the summer weather and escape the oppression of warm asphalt and sun-baked dumpsters. The suggestions should encourage both NYC residents and those who need another reason/excuse to visit. I now want to visit Wave Hill Gardens, especially now that I finally have friends living in the Bronx. I would like to add a few endorsements and addenda to fill out the Guardian's well-conceived recommendations. The numbering below corresponds to the newspaper's list.

1. Water Taxi Beach: I am glad this summer institution is expanding, but the original Queen's location with its view of the Midtown skyline will be hard to beat. Speaking of beats, to make the most of a foray into this outer borough, go dancing in the afternoon sunshine at PS 1's Warm Up. The avant garde outpost of MoMA deploys its Young Architects Program to transform its courtyard into a recreational space where families and hipsters and locals enjoy world-class DJ's every Saturday throughout the summer. If dancing doesn't suit you, try the nearby Noguchi Museum and its gardens (above).


5. Rooftop Bars: I commend the Guardian for promoting a low-key, inexpensive alternative over the more outrageous rooftop bars of the city. I will add a this recent guide courtesy of New York magazine. I support all trips to Koreatown for a laid-back venue, and Bookmarks, atop the Library Hotel, offers an urbane spot to watch the flicker of city lights. I will take that crowd above the painfully hip choking the Meatpacking District any day. The Metropolitan Museum also has a roof (above) overlooking Central Park with drinks available.


7. The Cloisters: I am very proud that the Metropolitan Museum's medieval annex in Fort Tryon Park garnered a mention, not least because they have kept me in beer for now three years running. Garden Days at the Cloisters happen this weekend (6, 7 June) for all who appreciate the museum's stunning displays of plants and historical botany. I recommend the Cloisters to all who will listen, but I further advise everyone to expand your visit into a mini-break from Manhattan with lunch or brunch on the patio of New Leaf Café, also in Fort Tryon Park.

8. Brooklyn Botanic Garden: The New York Botanical Garden gets my pick over the smaller, more crowded BBG. Still, this garden makes for a nice day out, especially when combined with the fascinating and charming Brooklyn Museum (see McKim, Mead, and White façade atop the post, from Josh and Josh) and the idles of Prospect Park. King's County (i. e. Brooklyn) has built for itself a number of cultural institutions that would be nationally renown if it wasn't for those pesky, august bulwarks elsewhere in the city. For a look into Brooklyn's effortless appeal to families who somewho maintain adult lifestyles, visit the museum on a Target First Saturday.

And those are a few of my suggestions for how to take the New York Summer to 11. Don't worry, my nostalgia should pass quickly. The Passengers are spending this weekend stretched out on the Indonesian beaches of Bintan.

Wanna go halves on a teen pregnancy?

The Gruen Transfer on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) may be the cleverest act of media jujitsu executed by state-supported television in decades. I know this post wanders features neither Anglo or American culture nor life in Singapore, but the show's format and mission are seriously interesting and simultaneously entertaining. Essentially the television program deconstructs the mechanics of advertising using, in large part, the talents and words of top Australian marketing firms. The same people who came up with the hilarious Big Ad and beer catapults turn out to be really engaging behind-the-scenes characters.

Teaching the public about the methods ad men use to sell products to their audiences constitutes an unassailable public mission for a broadcasting corporation supported by license fees. The real twist comes from the choice to include, or maybe even co-opt, the advertising firms themselves in presenting the revelations. Reality programming has demonstrated that few people can resist the opportunity to appear on television, but it's the weekly Pitch that keeps the show entertaining rather than preachy and makes ad firms clammer for inclusion. The Pitch features two major ad firms in a head-to-head showdown to see who can sell ice to Eskimos and convince Australians to keep cane toads for pets, i. e. selling the unsellable. The results capture the Australian spirit of self deprecation while gently dismantling the insiduous displays that interrupt commercial broadcasting. It's almost like an extended case for state-supported, commercial-free media.

Unsurprisingly, good programming will always serve as the best argument for continuing the BBC-inspired license fee model of state media. I have embedded above and below a couple highlights from the first season of the Pitch.

Singapore Botanic Gardens

Another exciting weekend in Singapore, on Saturday the Passengers took time to explore the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Its idyllic like an English garden with winding paths and interesting overgrowth, beloved by families, joggers, and those with picnic baskets. The twist starts with the realization that all the plants normally inside a hothouse in Britain are here outside in the tropical air. The National Orchid Garden is the crown jewel of the park. It’s one of the preeminent breeders and cultivators of orchids in the world, probably because many varieties of orchids love Singapore’s natural climate. Here are some highlights, but I am afraid that all photographers when visiting a botanic garden are unable to control the insistent shutterbug perched on their left shoulder. I did try to narrow down the selections.

This variety of Goldendianae below is widely used along the Orchid Garden paths.

Of course, one of the joy of orchids stems from the endless parade of totally outrageous looking varieties. Alien aesthics or evolutionary diversity?

The day's favorite orchid appeared in the VIP Orchid Garden where dignitaries, often in commemoration of a garden tour, have been honored with hybrid orchids in their names: Nelson Mandela, Princess Masako of Japan. Below is the aptly titled Dendrobium Margaret Thatcher.