travel
Assailing Otherness
downloadIn "Assailing Otherness," Katrina Grigg-Saito confronts the ultimate food taboo and survives to tell the tale. Grigg-Saito's essay explores the limits different cultures draw around what's approved and what's beyond the pale. Her experience of learning to cook in Laos begins with the desire to get to the heart of a culture and ends with a discovery about her own assumptions and willingness to set them aside.
Once More With Feeling
downloadEric Weinberger's "Once More With Feeling" is a story of fidelity and infidelity set in the world of guided tourism. The story's protagonist Adam steers his tour groups around locales emblematic of diplomacy and international negotiation as he encounters one couple who seem to manage a diplomatic menage of their own. The narrative follows him as he studies these two and contemplates a crisis in his own relationship.
Interview
downloadEleni Gage met with Drum editor Henriette Lazaridis Power on February 29, 2012 for an interview at Newtonville Books in Newton, Massachusetts. Gage spoke about her new novel Other Waters, about living with two cultures and more than two languages, and about aspects of Greek history and of her own family's history. The conversation ranged as well into dicussion of the notion of the curse--a key element of her novel--and how the practical and scientific world and the more mystical world of curses and fate intersect and combine.
One Day in Thailand
downloadRandy Ross' "One Day in Thailand" is the Finalist in the 2011 Drum/Side B Dual Publication Award. Brief, clever, and with a final twist, "One Day in Thailand" presents a comic observation on the experience of the ex-patriate in Asia.
Coming Up For Air
downloadJessica Yen's essay "Coming Up For Air" gives us a glimpse of an intriguing social ritual among a group of Beijing men, and looks further outward to notions of community and family both in China and in the US.
Interview
downloadSusan Orlean followed up her recording of an excerpt from her Rin Tin Tin book for The Drum with an interview with Drum editor Henriette Lazaridis Power. Orlean asnwered questions about her interest in animals, why dogs hold such a unique place in our lives, and whether there's a place out there that is too boring to write about. She also gave valuable tips on making the most of solitary research travel and how to dine alone. The excerpt from Orlean's forthcoming Rin Tin Tin book appeared in the March 2011 issue of The Drum.
