GUY ON SPACE AND GEOGRAPHY – 1

THE RELATIONSHIP

Geographies are many-dimensional. Each point in a given geography's framework is defined using many different measures. But while you might think that space is no more than just such a geographic dimension, you can also look at space much more completely. Space permeates, defines, and is defined by every one of a geography's dimensions. Space is meta-dimensional when it comes to geography.

The most accessible concept of geography is its original one, the description of the surface of the Earth. This description includes political, topographical, meteorological, and many other dimensions. Each, it seems almost absurd to say, is defined in spatial terms: nation X has such and such a shape, its capital city is so many kilometers from the western border, etc. We don't usually realize, though, that each dimension in turn defines space in some or in many ways. Nation Y's roads are such and such a standard width, so its buses must be so many meters wide, and therefore their seats tend to have this or that much room between them, or this or that shape.

This is how geography defines space, rather than just the other way round.

And as you can see, such considerations easily redound upon each other—one space causing another space causing another. The difference in rail gauge between Germany and Russia before World War I was a major consideration in German war planning – in the German Army's use of space; in the outcome of the war on the Eastern Front. And indeed, the Russians' use of space in war, or more technically speaking their use of geography, is legend in military history.

On a more intimate level, geographies have obvious and profound impacts on individual space. It takes only a moment of thinking about it to see that it's so. Ascending a high tor explodes your personal space exponentially (an overused word, but in this case quite literally correct). Enter a gorge or ravine and space becomes largely vertical, reaching to a perhaps distant sky above but hemmed in on either side. Or how about a little topography? A nice, average forest defines a restrictive space around you radically different from the heart-freeing air of a mere meadow.

So, if geography is defined by space, but space is also defined by geography, are they in a co-dependent relationship? Or are they just one?

LORRAINE ON SPACE & GEOGRAPHY

THE GEOGRAPHY OF BEACHES

A beach is a beach a beach of course… not!

As I lay me down to sleep… instead of praying to not wake up dead (as Christian tradition dictates) I prefer to cast my mind around the globe to beaches I have known and loved. Instead of a journey of places, it becomes a journey of spaces in my mind… perhaps too many, perhaps too few of a certain design, but, with focus, I will find an ideal shore to suit my restive mind.

I dither among the options I know with the intention of landing upon the one I know for sure will jet me into dreamland.

But first, comes the magic of floating in space high above the human race. Where to go? Where to land, this moment? On the sand? Scotland, India, Italy? Or close to where I call my home?

To zoom from such a lofty height down onto a universe of sand. From tiny coves along North Tahoe’s shores where the water laps gently, yet so cold… brrr! To Stinson Beach’s wide expanse… golden, inviting (even in fog) and the whispered thrill of shark attacks! … mmh!

Bali beckons laced with exotic sands and local hands, kneading away Western cares, exploring spaces within my body… aah…

My hometown, Aberdeen, Scotland, with its glorious beach that stretches like a golden band as far as the eye can see facing north – if only the North Sea were less frigid… ouch!

Inevitably I land on Santorini – reputed to be Atlantis, the lost city. Along with which comes perhaps my favorite beach of all… not sand, but a shore of black lava smoothed by oceans of time into tiny pebbles that shuffle as the tide ebbs and flows, in and out, in and out, like the breath…

Om.

RO ON SPACE & GEOGRAPHY – 3

“RED SLATE. BLUE SLATE.”

Am I a pushy New Yorker or a pushover South Indian? A shopoholic Singaporean or a minimal Zen Buddhist? A won’t-touch-handles Japanese Princess or a good, subway-riding Bourgeois?

Perhaps I’ve imbibed the qualities of the land of my origin. Maybe I’ve slipped into the traits and mannerisms of people in the places I’ve lived. Or allowed the characteristics of the wines I sip to seep into my psyche.

“Man's relations to his environment are infinitely more numerous and complex than those of the most highly organized plant or animal.” Said Ellen Churchill Semple (with a Kentucky accent, perhaps?). In less enlightened ages, environmental determinism held that geographical influences such as altitude, fertility of the soil, and proximity to an ocean were closely related to the personality – and even looks – of a culture.

A bit narrowed, that thinking, but certainly true for Wine.

“Terroir” – the combination of geographical location, soil, weather conditions, aspect (or the angle of the slope) and the grapes themselves – is manifest in the specific personality of the wine.

“Terroir” – the combination of geographical location, soil, weather conditions, aspect (or the angle of the slope) and the grapes themselves – is manifest in the specific personality of the wine.

The Riesling from Austria’s Kamptal displays different characteristics from the Riesling cultivated in Germany’s Middle Mösel, or the one from Australia’s Clare Valley. Even the same two Rieslings cultivated in the same estate with the same philosophy and vinified with the same methods, reveal different characteristics depending on whether they grew in Red Devonian Slate – or Blue. The Red Slate wines tend to be very mineral-driven even when young and dominated by primary fruit; whereas with the Blue Slate, citrus and white peach flavors predominate in the wine’s youth, turning to a pure expression of the mineral soil as they mature.

The personality of a Wine is not only the result of a “terroir” harnessed, but of winemaking savoir-faire as well. For instance, a wine matured in French oak from the forests of Limousin expresses different nuances from one barreled in white American oak from, say, Missouri. Several other factors such as cellar conditions and length of aging are also major influencers. Winemaker Stéphane Tissot in the Jura region of France goes so far as to believe that “… you can find in a wine the personality and the character of those who made it because each gesture, each operation, each decision has its importance”.

Consider the influence of Religion on Wine. It was monasteries that preserved viticulture in the Dark Ages of Europe. It was the Cistercian monks of Cîteaux who lovingly nurtured the vines at Clos de Vougeut in Burgundy since the Twelfth Century. And it was the sparkle in Dom Perignon’s eyes, which facilitated the fermentation process in the Champagne Method and contributed to his bubbly advocacy of organic winemaking.

What if we were to even touch upon the impact of Politics on Wine? Does the Roman Emperor forbidding the import of French wines to eliminate competition have a faint resonance with Parker's softness for Sonoma?

Let’s continue this discussion over a glass of complexity.

RO ON SPACE & GEOGRAPHY – 2

THE WORLD THROUGH A WINE GLASS

A glass of wine has the ethereal, magical quality of calling to mind the “somewhereness” of a certain place on earth. If you were sipping a Sangiovese and you let your imagination wander away, it could evoke the green curves of Tuscany’s hills, the sun’s gold glinting off the wires to which tendrils of vines cling.

A Grenache-Mourvedre-Syrah blend would no doubt conjure up a village in the South of France – Roussillon, perhaps? Poised precariously upon a hillside in layers of terrace, it would be daubed with hues of chalky ocher, sun-tanned saffron, smoky sienna, mustard yellow and burnt brick. Your nose would scent the wispy waft of lavender set against a startlingly blue Provençal sky, which, at sunset, would change its garb again and again like a fickle woman. Now, a filmy wrap of Lilac-Blue, then an iridescent stole of Peachy-Gold; now a chiffony wrap of Fuschia, no, a flimsy veil of Flame-Red georgette! Next, a translucent mantle, the color of bruised blueberries. And then – running a little late for its sexy nocturnal tryst – a velvety cape of the deepest shade of Midnight, speckled with glittering diamanté.

Put your glass to your ear, and you might even hear the faint howl of the icy-fingered Le Mistral, sometimes blessing the land, sometimes threatening to flatten the vines with its mean gusts – but always challenging them to struggle and stress, so the result might only be character of unquestionable integrity.

Could one really discern the distinctive taste of the Missoula floods in a glass of Washington Red, and be transported to the Ice Age, as Northwest vintners loftily claim? Or sip the misty beauty of Sonoma’s winding wine trails, peppered with a multitude of wayside flowers, its creeks giggling to the gossip of birds? I am going too far, you think.

Apparently not. A journeyed palate could scan the geographical characteristics of a wine within the space of a wineglass. That palate would guess the grape variety, based on the typicity of the grape (the bell pepper notes of a cool-climate Cabernet Sauvignon, or the herbaceous leafy character of a Cabernet Franc, if you’ll pardon my viticultural racism), and also its origin (Tempranillo, usually from Spain). Not to mention its vintage amongst other things (it was a warm summer).

It’s an educated guess that often employs the process of elimination. To put it in broad terms, “It isn’t a Pinot Noir, because it’s too pale and thin a red, too muscular in body and too tannic on the tongue”. Or, “It’s reminiscent of coconut, so it will likely be a New World wine from Australia, New Zealand, or the Americas.” And then, “It can’t be from Australia because it’s too rustic and chewy with dark berries and spices… (and so on and so forth) so it must be a Petite Sirah from California.”

So the next time you raise a glass of wine, think of all that travel that lies ahead – at the very least, in your own imagination.

MAX ON SPACE & GEOGRAPHY

GEOGRAPHY ON THE TONGUE

The spaces of geography have a funny way of making their way into cities - with different accents. In New York City, for instance, there are three predominant accents. 1) The uptown accent, 2) The Manhattan or the “normal” accent, and 3) The regional Brooklyn-Staten Island accent. The further north you go, usually anywhere past 96th street, you hear the real street slang. People drop their “R’s” and words like “here” turn in to “heah”, and “over” turn into “ova.” There’s a very distinct New York street accent that is really found in, well, found in the hood.

So now, traveling down toward the middle – There is the “normal” accent. “Normal” being what we perceive to be the way the English language should be spoken. We pronounce our all of our consonants and vowels and we say, “coffee,” “orange,” or “forget about it.” The words come out with no deviation from the way they are supposed to be pronounced.

Now, once you start heading south into Brooklyn, the stereotypical New York accent runs rampant. “Coffee” is turned into “Caw-fee.” “Orange” is turned into, “Ah-ringe.” The phrase, “forget about it,” turns into one giant mashed up word – “fuggetaboutit”. In Brooklyn, you don’t hear, “I’m going to call him later.” No, no, you hear, “I’m gonna cawl him lata.” Similar to the uptown accent, all the “R’s” are dropped off of all words and replaced with an “A.”

Different spaces in the geography of the city create these different accents. Despite living in Manhattan for barely a few months, you start to pick up on all of these little nuances, and you catch your self saying, “Whateva, I’ll cawl him lata,” without even realizing it.

[Max Kestenbaum, originally from Los Angeles, studies and plays in New York City.]

RO ON SPACE & GEOGRAPHY – 1

“THE SUN IS A VERY MAGIC FELLOW”

“November has tied me
to an old dead tree,
get word to April
to rescue me.”

How do the Spaces of Geography affect the cultures that live within them?

Perhaps we should ask the Grapes.

In spaces of increasing geographical latitude, grapes look to natural sources of light and warmth to ripen – just as people do for their happiness. The angle of the sun (also called “aspect”) is everything. If a certain slope is more exposed to sunlight and warmth than another, it is likely to produce far more vigorous vines – and far more qualitative wines.

When vines grow on South-facing slopes, the quality of the grape is said to be exemplary. Not too dissimilar to South-facing apartments in Manhattan, New York, where quality of life is also enhanced by this rather dear orientation.

In the Rhone region of France, the outstanding wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape are outstanding because of the characteristic terrior; Pudding Stones or “Galets” soak up the Provencal sunshine during the day and hold on to the heat, to reflect it onto the grapes, long after the sun has left for an assignation with the other side of the earth. This helps the grapes ripen and the wines get concentrated in a peculiarly delicious way, accounting for the "outstandingness". In Germany’s prized Mosel-Saar-Ruwer wine region, the Riesling grape grows in Devonian Slate, which locks in the moisture and heat to radiate warmth to it at nightfall. In Bordeaux, it’s the gravel that does it.

In a manner alike, Northern Scandinavians resort to natural sources of light and warmth with an abundant use of candles – in their offices and during meetings as well – to fight Winter Seasonal Affective Disorder, an inexplicable “sadness” that creeps in with the onset of winter darkness.

Serotonin brain chemistry has long been known to change with changing seasons, suggesting why people tend to be less happy, with lower energy levels during winter’s bleaker days. Social, scientific and economic researchers have found that even stock returns are significantly related to the amount of daylight through the fall and winter – the shorter the day, the higher the aversion to risk, it seems. The influence of climate upon happiness, with climate variables such as rain, hours of sunshine, average temperature, and windiness are strongly linked to household costs, financial satisfaction, and general satisfaction.

It’s just as well, then, that Wine makes us so happy.

RO ON THE ABSENCE OF SPACE

"DEATH: ABSENCE OR PRESENCE OF SPACE?"

As Silicon Valley continues to mourn the sudden and shocking absence of Rajeev Motwani's space on Earth, I reflect on his continued presence in the media. His Facebook wall, for instance, where people are sharing their sentiments. (Rajat Mukherjee has a very considered post on just this - a link I've shared at the end of this musing.)

When a person ceases to exist physically, their space will never quite stop occupying mind, memories and heart.

What of the space taken up by the physicality associated with both Rajeev's life and its cessation? His reading glasses, his clothes, the home he left behind, the mark he made on everyone's computer as advisor to Google's founders, the Stanford classrooms he lectured at, his wife Asha, his children... even that wretched swimming pool which so wrongfully took away his space? The sound of my husband Vedant's voice as he told me how he felt about this (over the phone when I was in India) still rings in my ear.

All of those physical representations make his space that much more sharpened by its absence.

In many ways, Rajeev's space is so much more expanded just by the fact that he no longer exists. And he is so much more alive than he ever was.

I hope his soul reads his Facebook wall with a smile: