Travel, At Home and Abroad: A Wendell Jamieson Compilation
Wendell Jamieson was born and raised in New York. The city is home -- but sometimes, he's found, a span of familiar city blocks doesn't spark quite as many insights as a journey to somewhere you've only ever read about. This article glances at three pieces that Jamieson wrote during his tenure at the New York Times. All are concerned with travel and the self-explorations that inevitably show up in the traveler's carry-on.
A Family Travel Playbook: Make Plans, Prepare to Let Them Go
Courtesy of the New York Times
For Wendell Jamieson, family trips were always exercises in exploration -- both of cultures and the people with whom he traveled. Written just as Jamieson's son Dean leaves for college, this article reflects on those journeys and, in some ways, marks their end. With Dean away, long trips can no longer be so easily arranged around public school vacations and set schedules. Aware of this, Jamieson casts back on the experiences he shared with his wife, Helene, and their two children, Dean and Paulina, and reflects on the decision to take the trips in the first place.
The decision to start the traveling tradition, Jamieson writes, was a joint one. Despite the intimidating expense of the trips, he and Helene wanted their children to experience other cultures and feel their worlds expand in a way that they never would at home. Jamieson describes the planning process, the thrill, the plans gone awry, and the new traditions cemented. He shares anecdotes from their time abroad, glancing wryly back at road trips gone awry in Belgium, rebellions that led to eating pizza in Japan, and literary journeys that added texture to every real-world visit. The article offers a path through memory and closes with the firm assertion that while one chapter in the family's travel book has closed, another will begin.
Where Do You Go on a Saturday Night in New York?
Courtesy of the New York Times
What does a Saturday night in New York look like for you? In this article, Wendell Jamieson and other writers at the New York Times want to know about the weekends spent beyond Times Square, the Village, and Williamsburg; to put names and stories to the offbeat places locals converge to revel, spend, and make the most ordinary weekend a little more memorable. Because, as Jamieson points out, "There are many New Yorks, and many Saturday nights, and not all of them unfold in the same old places."
Jamieson's call for submissions went out in spring of 2017 and culminated in the Times' "Saturday Night In…" series. Each story delves into a lively corner of the city that attracts every weekend reveler within a few blocks. The entries touch on the usual nightlife suspects -- but Jamieson wanted more than a few bars or clubs. The series also delves into the unexpected attractions, the inexplicable hotspots that -- unexpectedly -- can bring a neighborhood together.
Chasing Hiroshige's Vision of Japan
Courtesy of the New York Times
Wendell Jamieson's love for Japan first sparked in a Manhattan gallery in 1979. He was young, and had made the trip with his parents to see a show of woodblock prints that featured work by the notable landscape artist Hiroshige. The series on display, the 53 stations of the Tokaido, depicted daily life along the coastal road connecting Edo, Tokyo, and Kyoto. Even as a child, the sight of the Hiroshige prints clung to Jamieson and inspired an interest in Japanese culture that never quite faded. He promised himself that he would visit -- someday.
This article is a retrospective on Jamieson's fulfillment of that promise, more three decades later. After visiting once in 2011, the writer realized that to experience the landscape as Hiroshige depicted it, he would have to return with a new itinerary and, despite not being a hiker, traverse further than the painter ever had. He booked a self-guided tour along the Kumano Kodo, a series of trails that wound through the small towns and quiet forest of the Kii Peninsula. The trip was peaceful; both utterly in line and vastly different from what he had imagined for himself. Modern research suggests that Hiroshige never walked Jamieson's path -- and yet, the writer found, that lack of shared experience didn't turn out to matter in the end.
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