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Posts Tagged ‘Shallcross’

  1. The Museum of America

    February 21, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    Where do you think is the best place to view and explore the different cultures that make up a country, group, religion, or even town? For me, one of the best places to go is an art museum.

    Where else can you see French culture hanging on the wall next to African style, British fashion, and Italian masterpieces? I’ve been to my fair share of art museums, among which include the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art (affectionately called MoMA) in New York, the Louvre in Paris, the Musei Vaticani (the museum of the Vatican which is filled to the brim with art), and a plethora of others in Philadelphia, Alexandria VA, Italy, London, and just about every place I’ve traveled to. All around the world, there are art museums and galleries everywhere. In America, there’s a gallery on just about every corner, at least in small towns like mine.

    To me, an art museum or gallery is a fitting metaphor for America. In these places, there are displays of tons of different cultures, and each is celebrated in their own exhibits. Walking through a museum, you can find classic oil paintings from the French Revolution in one room, Pollocks covering the entire walls of a huge open room adjacent to it, and modern art hanging from the ceilings of the hallway leading to the  Van Goghs and Da Vincis in the exhibition next door.

    America is like this. Different cultures can be seen everywhere. The U.S. can be like the museum, housing every culture, or piece of art, you can imagine. And each of these cultures, just like a masterpiece in a museum, is celebrated. I don’t believe people in America need to lose their cultures in the midst of the growing “American” culture they are surrounded by in their every day lives. There are plenty of organizations, like art preservation staff in museums, whose main purpose is the preservation of culture, from

    Art of America http://www.etsy.com/market/art_american_flag

    Art of America
    http://www.etsy.com/market/art_american_flag

    groups on college campuses to societies in local towns. Each work of art identifies largely with a museum, like the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, yet it also closely identifies with the specific exhibit it inhabits, the Italian paintings section of the Denon Wing. Many Americans are the same way. They identify as Americans, but also work to preserve their heritage, whether that’s by joining organizations like the National Italian American Foundation or just cooking authentic foods and teaching their grandchildren some Polish.

    America is definitely a multicultural country, built on the coming of immigrants over the past several centuries. Over this time, the museum of America has gained a wide range of exhibits hailing from all around the world. But most Americans today can’t be sorted into just one exhibit. Many Americans identify with multiple cultures. I’m American, but I’m also Italian, Polish, English, and a little German and Scottish. Where would I be placed in the museum of America? Well, there are works of art that are in similar predicaments. Do you put the bold, colorful new piece by an Italian artist in the Italian paintings exhibit or the modern art collection?

    Should there be a specific exhibit for “Americans” in our metaphorical museum? Sure, why not? Personally, I choose to identify with all of my cultural heritages, and I’m sure others do, too. So, why not have a traveling exhibit while we’re at it? This way, as pieces of art, Americans can identify with several different exhibits, not just one “American” one. Maybe some people will choose to stick with one exhibit, perhaps like those who they themselves or their parents came directly from another country. But then again, they may embrace the new American culture around them and become a traveling exhibit because isn’t that what America essentially is? An intermingling of cultures for us to see and explore?

    When it comes to describing America’s multiculturalism, I think of an art museum. Maybe it’s because of my love for art, but the metaphor works well. So the next time you go on a tour of America, or maybe just of your town or school, try to make a mental floor plan of what you see. Can you spot the different cultures that make up the “American” culture? Can you tell when you’ve walked from the German exhibit to the Irish one? Map it out, it could be pretty interesting.

    Category Civic Issues | Tags: ,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  2. Forrest Fenn’s Treasure

    February 19, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    If you knew for sure that there was a chest full of ancient valuables worth upwards of three million dollars just lying around the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and there were nine clues given in a poem to lead you directly to it, would you go look for it?

    Forrest Fenn's Treasure http://dalneitzel.com/

    Forrest Fenn’s Treasure
    http://dalneitzel.com/

    What if it looked like this? —————————————————————–>

    Yep, that’s the treasure a man named Forrest Fenn left in the mountains, tempting everyone and anyone to go out a find. Why, do you ask? Well, it’s a pretty great story.

    It all started when he was 9 years old, walking a newly plowed field, and coming upon an arrowhead lying in the dirt. Thrilled to think that the arrowhead had awaited thousands of years for him to pick it up right at that moment, his passion for hunting for treasure was ignited. Over the next few decades, Mr. Fenn traveled the world and collected as many treasures he could find, from relics in Pompeii to rare gold coins, jewelry to gold nuggets. He and his wife even opened an art gallery in Sante Fe, which came to be a huge success.

    His good fortune took a turn for the worse, however, when in 1988, Mr. Fenn was diagnosed with cancer and about to lose a kidney. His doctors told him he only had a 20% chance of living another three years.

    Deciding to continue his reputation of being anything but ordinary, Mr. Fenn  collected all of his most prized possessions, reported by the Huffington Post to be “265 gold coins, hundreds of gold nuggets, some weighting more than a troy pound each, prehistoric gold fetishes, a 2000 year old necklace made of carved quartz crystals and other semi-precious stones, hundreds of rubies, diamonds, emeralds, two Ceylon sapphires, and two ancient Chinese carved jade figures.” Having packed all these relics into an old, ornate, bronze chest (pictured above), he drove out into the mountains above Santa Fe to a spot he claims is extremely special to him, and left the 42 lb chest lying there for anyone to find.

    It’s not even buried treasure. It’s just lying there!

    Now, Mr. Fenn didn’t expect everyone to just go searching blindly for his treasure. He published a book aptly titled “The Thrill of the Chase” which included a poem, found on the right of Mr. Fenn’s webpage here, with nine clues that are supposed to lead you straight to the prized chest.

    So, has anybody found the chest yet?

    Nobody knows! It could still be there, or maybe somebody found it and hasn’t made the discovery public. The only way to find out, is to go looking for it yourself!

    Having overpowered the odds and beaten his cancer into remission, Forrest Fenn has no regret for hiding away his treasure and continues to hold his silence about the exact location. Currently spending his time happily and peacefully excavating the site of an old pueblo residence in Santa Fe, Mr. Fenn is still searching for treasure, and enjoys watching everyone else hunt for his! In a short documentary (here), Mr. Fenn says he wishes that whoever finds the chest, even if that’s 2000 years from now, that they will donate it to the Smithsonian for everyone to see. What a great story that would make.

    With new clues hidden in his brand new book “Too Far to Walk,” will somebody finally find the treasure?

    Will it be you?

     

     

    Sources:

    http://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/

    http://dalneitzel.com/

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margie-goldsmith/3-million-treasure-still-_b_3024459.html

    This Youtube documentary

    Category Passion, The Thrill of the Hunt | Tags: ,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  3. Qin Shi Huang – The Secret Tomb

    February 7, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/archaeology/emperor-qin/

    http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/archaeology/emperor-qin/

    Everybody knows the terracotta warriors. The clay statues found in an ancient tomb in China, protecting their emperor in death. The statues seem like common knowledge to most people. But did you know that the emperor’s tomb itself has never been opened?

    Found in 1974 by a group of farmers digging wells into a hillside near Xi’an, China, archaeologists, scientists, and the general public were all intrigued to see what was inside the famed mausoleum of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Reportedly “city-size”, the underground groupings of caverns have only been partially excavated since the burial site’s discovery in 1974. Besides the famed rows upon rows of estimated 8,000 terracotta soldiers and horse-drawn carriages, terracotta dancers and musicians have been found in experimentally-dug pits around the burial mound. With recent technologies, archaeologists and scientists have used a type of radar sensing device that is able to analyze the ground below. A cavern with “stair-like” walls has been analyzed with this device, and it is speculated that this chamber was built for the emperor’s soul.

    The expectations of everything about the tomb are largely based off of the writings of the court historian Siam Qian during the dynasty following Qin, the Han Dynasty. Descriptions of the first emperor of China’s burial chamber speak of a huge space that was highly decorated. A portion of a translation of his text states, “The tomb was filled with models of palaces, pavilions, and offices as well as fine vessels.” Further descriptions include ceilings that depict the night sky with pearls as stars lining the ceiling.

    So why hasn’t this burial chamber been excavated yet? What are they waiting for? Well, for one, another description of the tomb describes a river of the toxic mercury flowing around his tomb. The ancient Chinese believed that mercury to helped bestow immortality on the dead. Emperor Qin Shi Huang even used to take mercury pills in order to lengthen his life, but people speculate that his consuming mercury could have been the reason for his fairly early death at the age of 39.

    As you can imagine, opening the tomb for excavation could have a very adverse effect on both the people directly working with the tomb and the environment around it. Soil testing shows a relatively high amount of mercury content in the area around the burial site, giving a level of credibility to Siam Qian’s writings.

    Another big reason the Chinese government hasn’t given the “ok” for excavating the burial chamber is the prospects of future improved excavation and preservation methods. What if they open the chamber now, and in 30 years they look back and wish the government had waited for another few years for some spectacular new device or system that wasn’t out until then. This is like King Tut’s tomb; we have so much more technology that we could have analyzed so much more today than the original researchers.

    So how long will Qin Shi Huang’s burial chamber be a lost treasure of history to us? What do you think; should curiosity overcome potential science and quench our thirst for the mysteries of the emperor’s tomb, or is patience for future technologies a virtue that will prevail?

     

    You can read more on Qin Shi Huang’s tomb at the sources for the previous information here and here.

    Category Passion, The Thrill of the Hunt | Tags: ,,,,, | 2 Comments

  4. Oak Island Treasure – The Money Pit

    January 31, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    Have you ever found yourself fascinated with a story of adventure? A story of mystery? One that spans years and years and even has taken the lives of people who have previously tried to look for that treasure, to solve that mystery?  These adventures, these real life treasure hunts are so exciting to me, and so I’ll devote my new set of passion posts to searching for these famous tales of buried treasures and mysterious clues. I’m not sure what I’ll find, but I do love a good real life mystery.

    The other day, I stumbled upon the inspiration for this series of passion posts: The Oak Island Treasure. A small island in Nova Scotia, Oak Island is home to a mystery over two centuries old. In 1795, a teenage boy named Daniel McGinnis was exploring Oak Island when he spotted a circular depression in the ground by a tree. Having heard old rumors of pirates in the area, he returned the site with two friends and they began digging. Now, this is a mystery, and a really old one at that, so keep in mind that different sources report different findings. According to one source, upon reaching 10 feet deep, the boys hit a layer of oak logs laid in the earth. Other sources report that it was in fact a layer of slate. Nonetheless, people seem to agree that there was some sort of layer of items slowing down the boys’ dig.

    After removing the logs, I’m sure the boys were excited, first thinking that their intuition of something being buried there had been true and, second, that the treasure or whatever it was was right below this obstacle. But they were wrong. As they kept digging, the boys hit another layer of some obstacle, whether logs or slate. Once past, nothing again. Ten more feet, down 30, and the boys hit some sort of clay layer. Realizing that they were in way over their heads, quite literally, the trio gave up.

    Diagram of Money Pit http://www.nothingaboutpotatoes.co.uk/pics/Things007-money-pit.jpg

    Diagram of Money Pit
    http://www.nothingaboutpotatoes.co.uk/pics/Things007-money-pit.jpg

    Years later, they returned, this time with professional help, with the goal of finally excavating the treasure they envisioned their since they were young. There was still no success. To this day, the cumulative efforts of over two centuries of treasure hunters still have not recovered the “Oak Island Treasure”.

    Years and years of excavating the “Money Pit” have resulted in some astonishing discoveries. Every ten feet, a new layer of some sort of obstacle is unearthed. The treasure hunters have reported finding oak logs, clay, slate, charcoal, and coconut fibers. One of the things I find most interesting is a set of “booby traps” that were set up by the pit’s creators. At around 100 feet down, and again later on, a tunnel was dug from the nearby beach to the pit, where, once struck, the pit would flood by up to sea level. Among other things, some of the most substantial claims of findings over the years have been slates with unknown etchings and even human remains.

    The most ironic part, though, is that nobody even knows what they are searching for. So far, treasure hunters have reached around 200 feet down, and yet, the search continues. What could be down there? Who, prior to 1795, designed and had the tools and ingenuity to create such a pit? Maybe one day we’ll find out…

     

    Oak Island Treasure Information:

    http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/topics/oakisland/story.html

    Category The Thrill of the Hunt | Tags: ,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  5. Fondue Anyone?

    January 31, 2014 by Melissa Shallcross

    America, the “melting-pot” of culture.

    Let’s travel back in time and see how the land of the free came to get its nickname. It all started after Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. The first waves of daring steps onto the new land were the feet of the British, Spanish, and French, all seeking to create colonies on the new, unknown land. In the early 1600s, a flood of immigrants came from Britain, seeking religious freedom in America. Settlements grew and grew as more people from a mix of countries got up, packed their bags, and sailed over to the Americas, leaving their homes in search of something a new beginning seemed to promise them. In the 1600s and 1700s, our country began to take a solid shape as an independent land. Throughout this time and onward, however, even after laws and bans forbidding the act, slaves from Africa were being imported and sold across the states, adding another layer of culture into our growing pot pie of people. Then we add a layer of Germans after massive crop failures and a touch of Irish culture during the potato famine, all during the 1840s. 1848 brings discoveries of gold in the west, attracting Chinese immigrants, while the end of the Mexican-American welcomes Mexicans into the U.S.  That covers a lot of the cultures that defined the early years of our country, but immigration doesn’t stop there, not by a long shot. Let’s jump ahead a few decades to the late 1800s. 1882: Ellis Island opens. Within the next century, 16 million immigrants would be admitted through Ellis Island alone.

    16 million. Irish, British, German, Polish, Italian; I’m sure there has been at least one person from almost every country in the world that has passed through Ellis Island to this day.

    Here’s a question for you. What are you? Sounds like a weird question. What I mean is what is your heritage? Where does your family come from? This is always a fun question to answer. Oh, I’m Polish, Italian, English… but what I get out of this answer, this listing of grandparents’ bloodlines, is that I am American. I’m not from Italy. I’ve never set foot in Poland. I was born and raised in Pennsylvania. How come I identify as all these different cultures? In America, my grandparents’ generation seems to be the last pure bloodline connecting to other countries. For me, at least, all of my grandparents’ parents were immigrants directly from other countries. Over the past century, our country has gone from a colorful, mess of a cultural stew to a kind of chili. It’s getting harder to distinguish one foreign culture with another because several generations of mixed marriages have produced this similar cultural sense, as the only people who are directly related to a country are the new immigrants who still come here every day.

    So what does it mean to be American? Is this old “melting pot” metaphor still  relevant? How about the relatively new idea of the American salad bowl where everyone is distinct, but still come together to form one country?

    While researching into this idea, I stumbled upon this article. What Timothy Taylor argues in the Star Tribune is that America is

    America Fondue http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/213593491.html

    America Fondue
    http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/213593491.html

    neither a melting pot of cheese nor a crunchy, full salad from a buffet line. Rather, he sees America as chocolate fondue. People from different countries come to America and represent their culture, whether as a pineapple, a strawberry, a marshmallow, pretzel, or any other deliciously dippable snack. He argues that each person keeps their culture, but when they come to the U.S., they are effectively covered in America. They delve into the “American culture”, but still are the snack they were before, just with more flavor, or more experience in cultures.

    This is an interesting and unique argument. I stick with my thoughts about Americans of recent generations identifying less with their lineage and more with the resultant mix of “American culture”, but I also like this idea of chocolate fondue (and not just because I love chocolate). I feel that this is a good way to describe direct immigrants and probably their children as well, but as the generations continue, this chocolate fondue turns back into that classic melting pot of culture, still delectable, just in a different way.

    So what do you think? Is America the classic melting pot, a salad buffet, or more like a chocolate fondue?

     

    Immigration information:

    http://www.history.com/topics/united-states-immigration-to-1965

    http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/timeline.html

    Category Civic Issues | Tags: ,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  6. Face Off

    November 8, 2013 by Melissa Shallcross

    And the winner is………..!

    #1 Face Off

    ...

    Wilson, Megan. “Face Off Recap: Mother Earth Goddess.” The Nerdy Bomb. 11 Sept. 2013. Web. 8 Nov. 2013.

    Syfy’s Face Off seems like it was made just for me. For those of you who don’t know me too well, I’m really into art, whether that’s me doing it or seeing others create something awesome. Face Off is a reality series where contestants are makeup artists creating characters that fit a challenging theme. Of course there’s the classic Halloween episode each season, where the competitors are put in their natural environment, but the rest of the season is full of every challenge you can imagine. Sometimes, they have to re-imagine classic storybook characters or make a completely new character given a topic, such as a character that could walk out of a certain style of painting or a monster that could have been responsible for a mock crime scene scattered with feathers and claws.

    The creativity and ingenuity you see in each episode is just amazing! One of my favorite parts of the show is seeing all the techniques they use to make the characters. From sculpting to applying and even fabricating costumes and props, there’s always something that makes me just go “wow, I’ve never thought of doing it like that!” As with every good competition show, every competitor is doing their best to make it out on top, winning “top look” for their piece and keeping away from elimination. What’s unique, though, is that even though there’s a competitive edge to the show, the competitors are always there to lend a helping hand to each other when a mold is hard to open or someone gets hurt and loses time going to get stitches (yes, they tend to get hurt a bit on the show with all the rushing around and all).

    One of the main twists of the show this season is that they brought back veterans from past seasons and pitted them against newbies. It was absolutely amazing the creativity and skill they packed into one season! I had so many favorites in season 5!!! Check out the show’s site and episode 11’s photo gallery, maybe you’ll get as addicted to the show as I am!!!

    Category Passion | Tags: ,,,,,, | 3 Comments

  7. Penn State Class of 2014 Gift

    October 31, 2013 by Melissa Shallcross

    Many of us students at Penn State received several emails over the past few weeks asking for suggestions for what the Penn State Class of 2014 should give as their senior class gift. From October 14-18, seniors, classified as anybody graduating in May, August, or December of 2014, had their chance to vote from three out of over 150 suggestions that students, as well as faculty and staff, suggested. Chosen by the 2014 Senior Class Gift Committee as the top three were The Heritage Tree Endowment, a contribution to Penn State’s Center for Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), and a donation to the HUB Green Roof Terrace. This information, and descriptions of each of these choices, are found here.

    The article I first found that discusses the result of the senior class voting can be found here. This article, written for the Daily Collegian, the local Penn State newspaper, has a strong opinion that the class’s decision did not live up to its potential. The winner of the vote was the donation to the HUB Green Roof Terrace. The author of this article is not explicitly named, but he supports his opinion throughout the article.

    HUB

    HUB Green Roof Terrace
    “HUB Expansion’s Photos.” Facebook.com. 6 May 2013. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.

    The author starts his use of rhetoric with the title, “Senior Class Gift Misses Chance to Leave a Legacy.” First, this title sounds confident, putting out his opinion loud and clear. By beginning with this strong, opinionated statement, he catches the attention of the readers, either because they are curious about to hear his opinion or because they disagree with it in some way. He then begins his article with an interesting line: “The sunlight in our eyes, streaming onto a beautiful rooftop terrace has blinded us to what is truly important — the well-being of our fellow students.” Besides being a creative sentence with an obvious message he builds ethos, showing that he’s a fellow student.

    CAPS Show You CARE

    CAPS Show You CARE
    “Show You Care.” Studentaffairs.psu.edu. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.

    Next, he utilizes logos as he asks the reader how much they have truly stopped to appreciate all the past senior class gifts that have contributed to the campus that most people seem to take for granted. He then supports his opinion about the gift, continuing his use of logos and some pathos, as he explains how much contributing to CAPS would have truly helped students who need the support instead of donating money to help the construction of the terrace, which he mentioned was already in the blueprint. So, instead of making a difference in the well-being of the students here, the class has donated that money toward “another place on campus to sit alone with headphones on and drown out your surroundings while you kill time before your next class.”

    Overall, through the effective use of rhetoric, this article represents civic engagement. The author uses his opinions and supporting examples to argue that the class of 2014 could have chosen a more beneficial gift for the Penn State community. By arguing this, he is effectively asking future classes not to do something similar, but to choose a more serviceable gift that will better help future Penn Staters for generations to come.

     

     

    Category RCL | Tags: ,,,,, | 4 Comments

  8. Psych

    October 31, 2013 by Melissa Shallcross

    This one jumped up to my top ten on the first season…….

    #2 Psych

    ...

    Clark, Miss. “Psych (Or Find the Pineapple).” The Blue Castle. WordPress.com, 26 Aug. 2009. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.

    Well, I feel like since the first episode, this show has been destined to become a classic. And I think anyone who has never heard of the show must not have a TV. It’s so hilarious! Just like how I described Monk and Castle, Psych is a comedic crime drama with a twist. Instead of having OCD or being an author, Shawn Spencer, played by James Roday, is a psychic. Ok, so he’s not really a psychic, but he fakes it. He can observe obscure details that most people miss because of the sort of every day training his father, an ex-cop, gave him as he grew up. So, after using his “psychic abilities” to help catch a murderer in a case with the Santa Barbara Police Department, Shawn decides to open up a consulting business called “Psych” with his best friend Burton Guster (Gus), played by Dule Hill.

    So, this show is just downright amusing at every level! Between the ridiculous mannerisms of both Shawn and Gus, the hilariously fitting references to classic literature and history in general, the way all the characters interact, and the plots of each episode, I can’t think of any show more amusing to so wide a variety of people. And now, they’re even coming out with Psych the Musical, a two-hour special episode in December where the characters actually sing and perform the episode as a musical. The trailer looks so funny! Check it out here!

    So, I think it’s pretty obvious that I love this show, so no wonder it’s ranked number two on my top ten! Any Psych-O’s out there?

    Category Passion | Tags: ,,,,, | 2 Comments

  9. Robin Hood

    October 24, 2013 by Melissa Shallcross

    Let’s see what made it to the top 3!…….

    #3 Robin Hood

    TV Show Review: BBC’s Robin Hood Episode 1.1 “Will You Tolerate This?”

    “TV Show Review: BBC’s Robin Hood Episode 1.1 ‘Will You Tolerate This?'” The Warden’s Walk. WordPress.com, 30 Jun. 2011. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

    Now, out of all of my top 10 favorite shows, I would expect this one to be the most unheard of. Robin Hood is a BBC television series that only lasted 3 seasons, but I never understood why since it was so good!! Everybody knows the legend of Robin Hood. Well, in this series, it follows Robin and his “merry men” (as they are always called in the old tales), a band of outcasts, as they live in Sherwood Forest and help out the townspeople being oppressed by the Sheriff of Nottingham. As you can imagine, there’s tons of action, whether that’s Robin’s gang fighting their way out of a tricky situation in Nottingham or flashbacks of Robin fighting in the Holy Land, where he came back from after years of fighting alongside the King of England.

    There’s also the classic love story intertwined within the plot, mainly between Robin and Marian, the former sheriff’s daughter. The struggle they go through to hide their love from the current sheriff keeps the plot even more interesting. Not only does she love Robin, but she also lives in the castle and keeps him and his gang informed on the goings on in the castle.

    Between the action, love story, clever plots, and amusing characters in each episode, Robin Hood kept me addicted to Netflix for a whole summer! There’s just something about the story of Robin Hood that I’ve always loved, so finding this series years ago put me in heaven. I even got my friend addicted to it, and later on we crossed off “Watch the final episode of Robin Hood together” off our bucket list, which was a very sad day… It was easy to tell that they were trying to wrap up the series quickly, so the end wasn’t my favorite, but I won’t give that away!

    Is there a TV series that you discovered out of the blue and was relatively unknown but ended up loving?

    Category Passion | Tags: ,,,,, | 1 Comment

  10. Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations

    October 18, 2013 by Melissa Shallcross

    Oh wow, only four left on the list!……

    #4 Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations

    Glick, Danielle. "Best Quotes from 'No Reservations' Crew with Anthony Bourdain at SXSW."

    Glick, Danielle. “Best Quotes from ‘No Reservations’ Crew with Anthony Bourdain at SXSW.” DGdesign. 13 Mar. 2012. Web. 18 Oct. 2013.

    I guess you can say that this show speaks to the travel bug in me! As a Travel Channel show, No Reservations goes a lot farther than just filming at the classic vacation destinations like Paris and Rome, etc. Anthony Bourdain, the host of the show, truly gets himself immersed in the culture of different places, from the food to traditions and recreation. The show plays out like a sort of journal; Bourdain logs everything with his video crew in some unique place every episode.

    From night life bar scenes to pig roasts, lobster bakes, and sushi bars, Bourdain either introduces to the audience some authentic or creative dish typical of the region he is in, or goes through a new experience as his guide around the area introduces him to something he’s never stumbled upon before. As I previously mentioned, this show isn’t just about food and travel. Bourdain navigates through the culture as he meets up with bands and old friends from past jobs and travels. And what makes the show even more interesting is when he and his film crew travel to countries a little more off the map. Many times, these places are military-occupied regions, which means viewers can get glimpses of the life you usually hear about in the news.

    But No Reservations is an overall entertaining show. It’s not necessarily family-oriented, but definitely entertaining in different aspects, from the host’s amusing and well-spoken narrations to the scenes of cities, surfing, dancing, eating, etc.. This show has definitely helped me add some places to my bucket list!

    Just to put No Reservations into perspective for those who have not seen it, here’s an episode description from the show’s website for the episode “Off the Charts”, a sort of “sampler” of the series: “In this special episode, Tony experiences a Haitian cemetery on the Day of the Dead, has a humorously horrific Halloween party in Transylvania with Zamir, and heads to Iraq covered in body armor, prepped for minefields & death.”

    So, if you’re looking for a unique show that will pique your interest in every corner of culture, you should definitely check out Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations! This show speaks to everyone from chefs to travel bugs and people looking for exciting new recreation, like when Bourdain went skiing indoors in Dubai! Can you classify yourself under any of these categories of watchers?

    Category Passion | Tags: ,,,,,, | 1 Comment

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