Hey Now! Welcome To The Contender
Everybody remain calm, it’s just a friendly addition to the internet. The world might not need another website, but we do need a place to talk about where to buy a first suit, where to drink in Japan and where to bonefish in the Bahamas. Curious people on the hunt are always looking for insight and intelligence. That’s why Bruce Chatwin wrote his name and address on the first page of his notebook—losing a passport, he said, was nothing compared to losing the details he’d acquired over time. So think of this as an evolving notebook, a refuge in a splintered media world.
When I lived in Tokyo in ancient times (actually about twenty years ago) I was twenty-one and had two guidebooks with me. That was it. There was no Instagram, no searching the New York Times database, no multiple views of hotel rooms. It took a lot longer to learn a lot less. That’s no longer the case, but it’s still hard to find things in one place. Hopefully The Contender will help solve a few of these problems. If you know me then some of this won’t be a surprise: it means small bars, trout streams, dry riesling and canvas bags. But it will mean more than that. We’re all out in the world looking for places and objects that still surprise us. Some of these objects are from dynamic companies asking good questions, others are no longer made and have to be tracked down with a combination of stealth and luck.
There will be a lot of dispatches here from my favorite places—Florence, Kyoto, Montana, Buenos Aires—with the goal of building fully-formed city guides. There will also be new places, new hotels, new pilgrimages to make. Some will be rarefied experiences, others spartan ones. My favorite motel in Melrose, MT, proudly advertises “free ice”—it happens to be next to the Big Hole, one of the great trout rivers in the world. That’s the main attraction, the ice plays a supporting role. When you arrive there’s a sign saying the owners are in the bar down the street. That kind of place.
I’m also looking for insight from thinking people who can help us all find better places when we travel, better wine when we drink and better knit ties when we dress up. We’re in this together so let’s help one another find a better way.
Welcome to The Contender.
Salut!
DC