Though the exact history of the pie is not clear, it represents not only a preference for sweet foods but two other great American addictions: litigation and corn. Originally called derby pie, Tippins changed the name to dixie pie to avoid litigation with Kern’s Kitchen, who has defended a registered trademark for “derby pie” since the 1950s. In The American Century Cookbook, Jean Anderson notes surprise that there are no records of recipes of this traditional dessert (as pecan pie) before the early 20th century and that it may have actually been created by Karo corn syrup’s economists. If they didn’t originate it, they certainly popularized it, as nearly all recipes call for Karo by name. The ingredients also include bourbon whiskey, which is made from corn.

Here in New Zealand, you’ll find variteties of golden syrup on the grocery shelves rather than corn syrup. I first assumed that “golden syrup” was a euphemism for golden corn syrup, but it’s a thick form of inverted sugar-syrup made from sugar cane, also known as pale treacle. In this pie however, you’ll find organic grade B maple syrup, because that’s what was in my cupboard, and it tastes delicious with both chocolate and walnuts.

Decadent Deep-South Dark Chocolate Walnut Pie

Deep-south here refers to New Zealand as much as the US as my ingredients were not traditional. But the crunchy and custardy textures and flavors hit all the right notes of my dixie pie memories.

Crust
Confession: This year I bought fresh pastry dough made by the wondrous Marie of the organic La Patisserie de Marie & Nico in Miramar, Wellington because it’s the best I’ve ever tasted. (And because last year the pie dough making took the better part of a day.) If I hadn’t, I would have used Martin Bosley’s shortcut pastry (adapted from Rachel Taulelei’s 12 September Newsletter for Wellington’s City Market, where she describes her own pie entry, the delicious ‘Four and Twenty Titi” pie that was my first taste of the distinctive muttonbird) below, not only because it sounds simple and good, but also because he was one of the judges.

50g flour
a pinch of salt
70g unsalted butter, chilled
ice-cold water

Put the flour and salt into a bowl and add the butter in small chunks. Cut into the flour with a small knife and rub with your fingertips until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs. It only takes a couple of minutes to do this, but you could use the food processor if you prefer. Sprinkle a little cold water over the crumbs and bring to a rollable dough (it should look slightly crumbly but firm enough to roll), adding more water if needed. Cover in plastic wrap and set aside in the fridge for 30 minutes. Cut the pastry in half and roll it out on a lightly floured kitchen bench, then line a 22cm/9″ pie pan, leaving a good amount of pastry overhanging the edges to be trimmed off.

Filling
1 1/2 cups (150 g) walnut pieces or halves
1/2 cups walnut halves
2 ounces (57 g) organic dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 large eggs
1 cup gur or jaggery (unrefined sugar made from raw sugarcane juice)
1 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons (25g) salted butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier (Typically bourbon is used, but this turned out great.)

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and place the oven rack in the bottom third of the oven

Melt the chocolate in a stainless steel bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, then set aside.

Whisk the eggs in a large bowl, then whisk in the jaggery (sugar), maple syrup, melted butter, vanilla extract, and stir in the melted chocolate.

Place the walnut pieces across the bottom the crust and pour the filling over the walnuts. Arrange the walnut halves in on top of the pie in a decorative pattern.

Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake for 50 to 60 minutes until the filling is puffed up but still wobbly when gently shaken. If the pastry edges are getting brown, cover with foil to prevent burning. (I could have done this a little earlier.)

Remove from oven and allow to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

This pie features additional dark chocolate drizzled on top, but the walnut design is pretty on its own too. I presented a big bowl of delicious Kohu Road Vanilla ice cream along with the pie, which was not the most brilliant choice for an all-evening event, as the ice cream melted into a bowl of soup early in the evening (see below).

And now to start thinking about next year… if you have any recommendations, let me know! In the meantime, I’ll study KCRW’s Good Food Pie-A-Day series and piecasts.

Thanks Stephanie Jaworski for the pie history lesson and inspiring chocolate pecan pie recipe.

Last weekend I stumbled on Helvetiki, this witty marriage of the ubiquitous hei-tiki of New Zealand and Helvetica of the world by Matthew Moriarty at Crawlspace gallery. Created in 2007, the 50th anniversary of the type face Helvetica and the release year of the Helvetica film that looks at the larger conversation about the way type affects our lives, Helvetiki had me wondering what is New Zealand type?

I could point you to the magnificent type specimens from Kris Sowersby and Joseph Churchward, and note that New Zealand type often looks like it’s subtly growing, organic, alive, like koru unfolding. And I’m excited to learn more at the Printing Types: New Zealand Type Design since 1870 exhibition (at Objectspace in Auckland 25 July – 12 September 2009) curated by Jonty Valentine to “remedy the invisibility of type in New Zealand,” featuring work by Joseph Churchward, Robert Coupland Harding, Tom Elliott, Mark Geard, Maarten Ideema, Narrow Gauge, Warren Olds, Bruce Rotherham, Shabnam Shiwan, Kris Sowersby, Luke Wood, and Jack Yan.

Last Friday, I attended XMediaLab (X stands for “Cross”) in Auckland, a combination think-tank and creative workshop with a focus on the design, development and business of digital media ideas across multiple platforms. The talks were exciting, inspiring and filled my head with ideas. So much so that I’ve exported my brain of links and notes for later reference. Perhaps you’ll find them useful as well.

Here’s a summary of what stood out for me along with some possible points of entry:

Parmesh Shahani filled the room with the dynamic energy and pop cosmopolitanism of Mumbai along with tons of examples of emerging creative ecosystems and entry points to the Indian startup economy. I think about his framing questions a lot: “What does it means to be local in a global world? What does it meant to be global in a local world?” He and Vishal Gondal of India Games both extolled India’s virtue of jugaad – the can-do spirit of adaptive improvisational ingenuity which maps well to New Zealand’s “Number 8 Wire.”

“Games will save us all” emerged as a major recurring theme and wish. Zhan Ye illuminated the history and emerging trends and opportunities of the online game market in China and offered lessons for abroad. Susan Bonds of 42 Entertainment shared lessons from the ARGs (Alternative Reality Games) she’s produced, including ilovebees for Halo 2 and Year Zero for Nine Inch Nails. I loved her vision of the world as a platform for storytelling and method of writing a linear story then throwing it away and providing evidence that it actually happened. Rajat Paharia taught how to use game mechanics to create zombie armies.

Other themes included how we interact with “whatever wherever screens” (public/tv/personal) using distance and touch gestures. Dale Herigstad designed the interfaces for “Minority Report”, and now he’s designed some interesting new ways to visualize and organize time as well as space. He encourages the rapid sketching of ideas, blowing me away with what he created using Apple’s Keynote.

Getting down to business, it’s all about the hybrid media and business model with multiple revenue streams; no one’s thriving on ad revenue alone. Adrian Sexton addresses hybrid media from a media+entertainment perspective. Richard Cardran explores hybrid business models in depth, and there are lots of good examples in Parmesh Shahani and Zhan Ye’s talks. “Jadedly optimistic” (in his own words) Tim Chang of Norwest Partners gave a nutritionally dense talk on what he sees unfolding in the next few years and spilled some VC secrets.

Vincent Heeringa, the thoughtful director of HB Media which publishes the excellent Idealog, Good, and Inspire, shared how he launches stuff and also his concerns about the future of business, attention and longform writing with great photography in printed form distributed by post. He bravely open sourced his challenges and raised some great questions.

Juliette Powell addressed bravery directly in a moving talk that cut to the heart – investing in people. She highlighted ways to build and develop social and cultural capital and take responsibility for our dreams, even when funding’s hard to find.

Mike McGraw’s building bridges from people stories to product stories with lots of examples of what’s working now.

Even though the title was “commercialising ideas,” I was surprised that so few presentations addressed social and environmental concerns in any context. Parmesh Shahani and Juliette Powell stood out as exceptions, looking at companies that do well and good and creating value through authenticity.

The convergence of tools, media and knowledge available to all of us now is so awesome, harnessing it to create zombie armies hungry for more snack chips chaps my soul. I’d like to see and be commercializing ideas that improve lives and empower citizens rather than just entice consumers. Many of the lab project teams are doing just that, like BrightMind Labs, focused on improving lives of children with mental health issues, and Minimonos, a virtual world of fun for kids with core values of generosity and sustainability.

For what it’s worth (in any currency), this was the first conference where I’ve heard people qualify using US dollars as reference in measuring and comparing business: “it’s still worth something,” “…since we don’t have another standard.”

Overall, a fantastic day of learning from and connecting with some great creative people. If this touches your areas of interest and you have the opportunity to participate in a future XMediaLab, do it.

Full list of speakers linked to notes on their talks:
Susan Bonds, Richard Cardran, Tim Chang, Vishal Gondal, Andrew Hamilton, Vincent Heeringa, Dale Herigstad, Hugh Mason, Mike McGraw, Rajat Paharia, Juliette Powell, Greg Seuss, Adrian Sexton, Parmesh Shahani, Doug Whatley, Zhan Ye

I’m not sure whether it was “S as in Summertime” or “X as in Xylophone” that pushed my father over the edge, but by the time I finished talking with tech support, his face was bright red. “S as in Sierra! Everybody all over the world knows that,” he said.

I had no idea.

Actually, I had seen a copy of the military alphabet code or NATO phonetic alphabet taped to a friend’s refrigerator recently and laughed at him. Who talks like that? (Please forgive me!) I thought up words every time I spoke on the phone as a form of creative expression and mood indicator.

At least I am kind and resist the urge to say “A as in Aisle, B as in Bdellium, C as in Czar, D as in Djinn, E as in Eureka, G as in Gnome, H as in Honest, J as in Jicama, K as in Knock, M like Mnemonic, O for Ouija, P as in Pneumonia, Q for Qat, T as in Tsunami, W as in Who, X as in Xylophone…” OK, so I’ve used “X as in Xylophone.”

Here is the official military alphabet code/NATO phonetic alphabet: Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf Hotel India Juliet Kilo Lima Mike November Oscar Papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango Uniform Victor Whiskey X-Ray Yankee Zulu

Well it turns out everyone doesn’t talk like that. Or at least they haven’t always. I found the Phonogram chart image above in the Southland Museum and Art Gallery in Invercargill, New Zealand.

Here are some other examples:
Western Union Phonetic Alphabet
Adams Boston Chicago Denver Easy Frank George Henry Ida John King Lincoln Mary New_York Ocean Peter Queen Roger Sugar Thomas Union Victor William X-ray Young Zero

‘British A’: Amsterdam Baltimore Casablanca Denmark Edison Florida Gallipoli Havana Italia Jerusalem Kilogramme Liverpool Madagascar New_York Oslo Paris Quebec Roma Santiago Tripoli Uppsala Valencia Washington Xantippe Yokohama Zurich

Bombay telephone directory 1962 (also a later source): Army Brother Cinema Doctor English Father Gold Hotel India Jam King Lady Mother Navy Orange Paper Queen Raja Sister Table Uncle Victory Water X-ray Yellow Zero

Kenyan and Tanzanian telephone directories 1966: Africa Bombay Charlie Durban England Freddie George Harry India Japan Kenya London Mombasa Nairobi Orange Peter Queen Robert Sugar Tanga Uganda Victory William X-Ray Yellow Zanzibar

RAF 1942-43: Apple Beer Charlie Dog Edward Freddy George Harry In Jug/Johnny King Love Mother Nuts Orange Peter Queen Roger/Robert Suga Tommy Uncle Vic William X-ray Yoke/Yorker Zebra

• Here are phonetic alphabets for other languages.
• Phoneticise.com is an online utility to phoneticise any text that you enter.

What does your phonetic alphabet look like?

Echo November Juliet Oscar Yankee!

Antipodes map by Daryl Cockburn.

She turns around to look at me and says “Oh My God, Oh My God.” I wonder what has her so freaked out. “You are so beautiful,” she says. I laughed and thanked her, leaning my arm out for a cab. “No — you don’t understand. I was born a man. And I’ve been studying real women my whole life. And you are just so beautiful — for real.” A cab arrived, and Jasmine turned chivalrous, opening the door for me and making sure my bag got into the trunk, then asked for (and got) a big hug goodbye. We didn’t exchange numbers, so thanks for turning my day around, Jasmine.

Strolling back from depositing the dresses and trying to decide between eggs at Petite Abeille or something salady at Le Pain Quotidien, I see “The New French” written on the windows of the old Le Gamin at 522 Hudson St (btw W. 10th St and Charles St, New York, NY 10014) in Maira Kalman’s unmistakable handwriting. Peering through the windows I see a funny table of guys waving at me to enter. So I do. Adorable wall mural by Maira Kalman (detail above) and short but intriguing menu (also in Maira’s handwriting) of bistro dishes with a twist plus pho and vegetable curry.

Gorilla Coffee served in a French press (naturally) with a four-minute timer. Good vibes from the kitchen and waitstaff; they seemed like they were happy to be there too. All kinds of great restaurant DNA with an owner from Blue Ribbon, and former sous chef from Tabla and Resto.

My spinach/pepper/gruyere omelette accompanied by fresh baby greens and shaved yellow beets was so lovely and delicious it conjured up the plastic bag scene from “American Beauty“. Is dinner tonight too soon to go back?

Inside the paper that accompanied me to brunch, OK Go’s Damian Kulash Jr. contributed a great op-ed “Beware the New New Thing” on Net neutrality in terms of the old rules of common carriage. Across the page, Adam Cohen editorially observed “The Already Big Thing on the Internet: Spying on Users,” explaining that the fourth amendment of the US Constitution’s bill of rights, which guarantees protection against illegal search and seizure, was originally concerned with protecting homes and bodies then extended to cover telephone communications.

He concludes that work has to be done to grant Internet communications the same level of privacy protection. I agree, but are we even still protected by the 4th? Looks to me like we’re back to Bill of Rights basics and work has to be done to assure any privacy protection at all. I guess it’s a perfect time to dig into Jonathan Zittrain’s intriguing new book, The Future of the Internet — and How to Stop It.

Song of the day: “Willie Deadwilder” by Cat Power (Specifically the one from Speaking For Trees, though they’re all good.)

Related Posts:

• The Principles of Uncertainty with Maira Kalman
• Links for 2007-05-23: Places We Love
• Links for 2007-04-02: Her Story is Strange
• Links for 2006-11-06
• Links for 2006-05-04

Waveplace is a non-profit starting an XO pilot in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, in ten days [February 17th]. OLPC was going to be giving us laptops as part of the Get One Give One program, but it fell through, which is why I’m trying to get twenty XOs from elsewhere.

Your laptop may end up in the hands of one of the most needy children in the Western Hemisphere. The school where the laptop will be sent is run by Susie Scott Krabacher, who has been the Mother Theresa of Haiti for 15 years. In fact, a major motion picture is being made about her life right now, based upon her autobiography, Angels of a Lower Flight: One Womans Mission to Save a Country… One Child at a Time

You could really help by agreeing to sell us your laptop. We’ve only got ten days to get the laptops to Miami, as we’re leaving for Haiti on Feb 17th.

To see the kids that will get them, watch this video, which we shot last month.

Susie’s organization: Mercy and Sharing Foundation (Check on GuideStar.)

You can see a slideshow of the conditions and read an article by Susie from our newsletter.

One way or another, we’ll be in Haiti in ten days. [They're leaving for Haiti February 17th] Please help us bring more laptops.

Please pass the word, and if you have a laptop to sell, click contact on the Waveplace site.

Thank you!

I’m giving mine. David Weinberger’s giving his too. Timothy noted that Waveplace will update with news and video, some of which will include your XO laptop in the hands of the Haitian child who gets it.

Would love to have seen more transparency from the original One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project and the G1G1 (Get One Give One) program regarding the children who receive it and connection between the giver and the getter. Nevertheless, it’s a thrill to see the news and pictures from the pilot in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

I loved the idea of OLPC project and the G1G1 program from the start and still do (despite some bungling in execution and logistics). Yes to empowering children around the world to learn, connect, explore and experiment with their own connected computers! (Yes to nutrition and health initiatives also! Why would that be an either/or?) It feels great to participate.

It’s hard to remember any specific classroom lessons from that age, but I distinctly remember the joy of experimenting on a Commodore PET, guided by books of python BASIC programs and stacks of Make BYTE magazines. The excitement of discovering the logic by altering the code and testing whether the programs ran (and sense of accomplishment when they did) stoked my curiosity, imagination and love of learning. Not to mention the fun of making ASCII art… (Thanks, Dad!)

That feeling rushed back as I opened and beheld the XO for the first time. This adorable, mesh networking, environmentally friendly(ish), highly portable and rugged networked laptop delights the kid in all of us. The magic really starts to happen when multiple XOs mesh with each other. But as much as I wanted it not to be true, it is designed for kids. The mini-keyboard’s a dealbreaker for writing anything longer than short messages with my adult fingers.

Engineered to withstand extreme environmental conditions like high heat, humidity and dust, I figured this three pound membrane-sealed computer would be ideal for tossing in my solar backpack for jaunts to cafes (including spills) and mountain hikes. It excels in high light environments, and the swiveling display delights. I was intrigued to learn even though it’s completely sealed to the elements and accident-resistant, it’s also easy to access and replace parts.

If OLPC can make an XO that does that for around $200, how come Apple’s $1799 MacBook Air is so vulnerable to the elements and being dropped, yet impossible to open for something as simple as battery changing? Ok, ok, compromises must be made because it’s so thin. But the same vulnerability is true for the whole MacBook line and indeed, most laptop computers. (I know, the Toughbook. But aesthetics count, and you shouldn’t have to pay that much of a premium.)

What I’d really love is a powerful MacBook Air with XO’s ruggedness, openness and flexibility. An elegant and sophisticated yet slim and lightweight Fisher Price My First Mac case with Pro brains and easily replacable and recyclable components to cut down on the massive amounts of e-waste my gadget lust produces. Until then, I’ll settle (eagerly) for the MacBook Air, but if you have a laptop like that to sell or donate, please contact me.

So goodbye sweet XO, it’s been wonderful knowing you. Have fun with the new kid in Haiti and stay in touch!

XOXOXO
Emily

Tinfoil hats are so passé. So what should you wear to Faraday’s Cafe?

Check out the latest collection of electromagnetic field blocking and “anti-identity theft” clothing at DDCLAB (427 W 14th St, New York NY 10014 map).

Here’s the text from the windows:

EMF: Electro Magnetic Field Block
Anti•Identity•Theft•Fabric
Electric Resistivity
measure of how strongly a material opposes the flow of electric current and allows the movement of electrical charge.

DDCLAB
Woven of super sheer mesh polyester fibers coated with blackened copper, this high performance ultra thin, light weight and flexible mesh shield has a high ohm/sq resistivity that protects against identity theft by blocking high tech scanners from lifting valuable passport and ID information.

Kenro Izu: Bhutan, the Sacred Within
November 2, 2007–February 18, 2008
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th Street, New York, NY 10011

What a treat to hear Kenro Izu talk with Owen Flanagan at the Rubin Museum of Art in conjunction with the opening of his exhibition of photographs, “Bhutan: The Sacred Within.” Kenro Izu’s been exploring and photographing sacred sites both natural and manmade for decades. To look at his landscapes of sacred places around the world is to enter them; you can almost smell and taste the air inside the image. In “The Sacred Within,” he turns his lens to the essential element that makes a place sacred: the people that revere it and hold it in their hearts.

Out of all the places he has photographed, Bhutan has especially captivated him, drawing him back six times over six years. Izu writes in the introduction to his accompanying book, Bhutan, “Traveling many years, I have not yet seen a place as peaceful as Bhutan, or a place affecting such a peacefulness within myself. If there is a place indeed named Utopia, this place may come the closest to it.”

Bhutan, known as the “Land of the Thunder Dragon,” is a small independent country of 700,000 people nestled in the Himalayan mountains between China, Tibet and India. What struck him on his first visit was how unique it was among Himalayan lands with its abundance of lush green trees and glacier fed rivers. He was moved by how the high altitude air was unusually moist and dense. And he was struck by how rich the people seemed, which he noted might sound odd considering the average GNP per capita is under US $1000, but he never saw anyone begging for money. Instead, people appeared well fed and well dressed, even happy.

Kenro Izu’s custom-built large format camera on display at Rubin Museum of Art, 2005. Photo by Emily Davidow

Izu travels with a custom-built large-format camera with a 14″ x 20″ negative that captures the density of the air and the quality of light. His large format platinum palladium prints appear illuminated from within, offering a depth that transcends two dimensions. That also makes them an ideal medium for portraits. Why did it take Izu such a long time to shift from the sacred places to the people that make them so? “I am shy of people. Can’t point the camera at them.”

Spontanaeity is another challenge with his turn-of-the-last-century technology. Every picture has to be staged, “like a diorama of a scene.” He described the process of making an image that looks like a candid of two schoolboys walking and looking back at him (Druk #537, Bumthang, Bhutan 2007). He had seen them walking to school near Tamshing Lhakhang in the morning and envisioned the shot, but they were in a rush to get to school, so he set up to meet them after school and take the photograph.

While the images may not be spontaneous, Izu pointed out how un-self-conscious, authentic and neutral his subjects seemed. This neutrality is something Izu aspires to himself, as he repeated in several ways the idea that “I always want to be myself, not bigger or smaller.” To Izu, it seems the Bhutanese have found a middle way between the precious modesty of the Japanese and the super-sized egos of America.

Is this lack of self-consciousness due to inner peace, Buddhist ideas of the self, or freedom from the continuous stream of marketing images in America and Japan (where Izu, now a Brooklyn resident, was born)? Bhutan just launched television and Internet service in 1999, and the Bhutanese are consciously creating media that reflects their values and culture rather than relying on foreign imports. Even the movie theaters are filled with steady streams of Bhutanese feature films. I had hoped we’d get more deeply into this in discussion with Flanagan, a professor of psychology, brain sciences and neurobiology at Duke University, as well as the author of The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World and the paper ‘The Bodhissattva’s Brain: The Neuroscience of Wisdom, Virtue, and Happiness,’ but I’ll have to check those out along with his talks online from the Mind and Reality Symposium to learn more about his thoughts on these issues.

Kenro Izu, Druk # 545 Jambay Lhakhang, Bumthang, Bhutan, 2007, Carbon pigment print, 52 x 36 in.

Izu introduced Bhutan’s progress indicator of GNH (Gross National Happiness), declared more important than GDP (Gross Domestic Product) by King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck as early as 1986. According to the Bhutanese government’s definition, Gross National Happiness depends upon four main pillars: economic self-reliance, environmental stewardship, cultural preservation and good governance.

Cultural preservation refers to the teachings and practice of Buddhism that infuse every aspect of life and value wisdom and compassion*. It also encompasses aesthetic values of beauty and harmony. (China’s a PC, Bhutan is a Mac.) Izu captures many of the Bhutanese traditions in his portraits: the indigenous ceremonial Tsechu masks and costumes, tulkus (reincarnated rinpoches), meditating monks, and families enjoying each other.

Flanagan brought up Aristotle’s observation that if you ask people what is the greatest good, everyone will agree that it is happiness. But if you ask people to define happiness, everyone offers up a different answer. He also noted that while the people in Izu’s portraits looked happy, they weren’t exuding a feeling of “happy happy joy joy” so much as serenity and equanimity. He framed the discussion asking Izu whether it was a real happiness, and if so, what is that happiness?

Izu offered a more personal definition from his guide in Bhutan, along with a lively photo exemplifying it: “three generations under one roof, tea, rice and healthy, enjoying life.” Both Izu and Flanagan seemed wistful about the depth and strength of these familial relationships in contrast to the dispersed nuclear families of contemporary Japan and America. Asked but not answered: Is that the price of modernity? And is what the Bhutanese have impossible in the modern world?

As I viewed Izu’s exhibition, I couldn’t help thinking about the portraits of Edward S. Curtis, a photographer who used similar methods to document Native American people. Curtis set out to catalog their ceremonies, beliefs, daily life and landscapes in twenty volumes of “The North American Indian” before it was too late. Although the conditions of the Bhutanese people in 2007 are vastly different from those of the Native American people of 1907, there are striking visual parallels between the black and white images depicting the spiritual life of both cultures with their exquisite textiles, shamanistic masks, and ritual objects, taken by admiring outsiders. Will Bhutan lose its culture as it opens itself up to global communications and technology, foreign travelers and investment, and new forms of government or can it hold on to its sacred within?

Of course, awareness of both impermanence and the interconnectedness of all things is central to their Buddhist teachings. The last image Izu presented illustrated that with an image of a young girl in a field of cosmos flowers (Druk #444, 2006). He saw this herbaceous perennial in pink, red and white dancing all over the foot of the Himalayan mountains and figured it must be the national flower of Bhutan. What a surprise to learn the species was introduced only 50 years ago by an Irish doctor who brought antibiotics to Bhutan along with a single bag of cosmos flower seeds to remind him of home. He couldn’t have imagined these lovely blossoms would find such an ideal combination of soil and climate in the Himalayas.

Indeed, who can predict what will take root and flourish between the cross-pollination of cultures? May the seeds of GNH — oh, let’s go for GGH (Gross Global Happiness) — take root and blossom in hospitable growing media as people encounter the concept. Izu’s exhibition is a beautiful place to start.

* The finer points of how to manifest GNH are continually unfolding and will be explored at the Third International Conference on Gross National Happiness held in Bangkok, Thailand November 22-28, 2007. The ongoing discussion can be followed at the Centre for Bhutan Studies.