of Juliet, the Magazine volume 2, part 2

of Juliet Mediaverse is an independent, and evolving group of serial and standalone publications, live shows, videos for education and entertainment, and more; all based on the seed of a story planted at Juliet + Company restaurants. of Juliet is an ongoing production intended to immerse the audience inside of a world that begins at the dinner table, but never has to end. of Juliet’s range is a vast and expanding collection of magazines, coloring books, short and long form classes, cookbooks, booklets and pamphlets, children’s books, poetry, art, and more. Our topics are as myriad as the life of the seas — seasonal and regional cooking, professional development, poetry, art, personal essays and practical opinion, alongside science fiction, and magic and mythmaking, social justice, advocacy and organizing, travel, ballet of various sorts, including the classical, and a whole lot more. of Juliet raises the voices of the individuals who operate, work in, patronize, and are affected by restaurants (so ultimately, of Juliet can raise the voice of anyone at all). Led by the teams specific to Juliet + Company restaurants, of Juliet can be by and for anyone who stumbles through our door, or into our pages.

Find the rest of our story: ofJuliet.com

Home of Somerville's Most Unique Dining Experience as well as Juliet CafĂŠ Living Wages.

Great food.

Great jobs.

Great Company.

of Juliet, the Magazine is: a little piece of something bigger, of Juliet Mediaverse not a food magazine, not really presented by Prospect Tower observation in association with Juliet + Company Joshua Lewin, director Katie Rosengren, managing editor Samantha Mangino, design + layout Contributors: Will Deeks Ariel Knoebel Katrina Jazayeri Merissa Jaye Sierra Hitchcock Katie Rosengren Featuring: Ari Weinzweig Rachel Cossar Mark Davis Brittany Cassidy

Contributors WILL DEEKS is a Boston based cook, writer, and musician. After working in a number of kitchens throughout the city, Will has settled in as a sous chef at Juliet. Whether he is at the stove there, or occasionally touring the country with various bands, he works to provide insight to the human experience through hospitality and art.

SIERRA HITCHCOCK was born and raised in Hanover, NH. She is a founding member of the Peregrine restaurant team, a self professed pizza enthusiast, and a lifelong student of ballet.

Sierra has performed in The Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, CoppĂŠlia, and The Nutcracker, and more on stage. She also includes dancing for Greta Gerwig in Little Women in her credits.

Whether dancing for film, stage, classroom, or personal goals...Sierra always begins with a warm up.

MERISSA JAYE Merissa is an oftentimes server at Peregrine and a sometimes server at Juliet. Born and raised in Greater Boston, you can find her biking around town with a backpack full of peanut butter and overdue library books.

ARIEL KNOEBEL is a writer, food historian, and sometimes illustrator when she is not helping lead the front of house team at Juliet. In her time off, she is likely wandering in the woods with a hot beverage in hand and her dog Whiskey underfoot, or cooking and watching bad TV with friends. She was raised to never leave the house without a book, and is always open to recommendations. For more of her work, visit sipandspoonful.com.

SAM MANGINO is a writer third-generation restaurant professional. She takes her martinis with gin and olives, and her chips with extra dip. She has a complicated relationship with tomatoes. You will often find her on the internet. Other times she can be spotted around the Cambridge-Somerville area almost always listening to NPR. KATIE ROSENGREN is the Operations Director of Juliet + Company, a job which combines two of her favorite things, making spreadsheets and eating food. After a decade plus detour in New York, Katie and her husband, Cole, both native Mainers- are happy to be back in New England and call Somerville home with their son, Henry. She is a playground aficionado, lover of tv, and unapologetic feminist.

Curtain Notes

These are stories of process and pursuit. They represent a certain singularity among meaningful things; that they are built on effort, and basics. That sounds simple, but read it again. Now read it again and don’t stop at the comma.

Anything can be built on effort alone.

And effort alone can easily misrepresent itself as worthwhile. The key is in the foundations.

Today, I’ll imagine a future that I prefer, and I’ll take action that I believe to be toward that future. Yesterday, though, and yesteryear, I imagined a very different one than I am living today.

Twelve years ago, at the beginning of a professional career, I had a certain future in mind. Some days, I was singular in my pursuit of it. It did not come to be. What came to be is in fact very little like what I had at times thought I was working toward [thank god, by the way].

Another twelve years? I have an idea, but I know enough now not to worry too much about that.

So, here it is then, an issue of the magazine missing in action for over a year [note: this is part 2 of volume 2, publishing between parts 2 and 3 of volume 3 — sorry]. It’s hitting your bookcase or coffee table between my birthday and the day I was born on, Thanksgiving [in 1984]...with a design reminiscent of things of at least 24 years ago.

The next time you see me typing into this space will be the last time I do so. I have an idea about what that means and why that matters, but I’ll save that story for someone else to tell.

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This work is becoming new, and I am new...and I can’t think of a better way to try to represent that than with this collection of stories that, on the surface, have nothing to do with me, or what I do every day, at all. At their core though, like anything worthwhile, they may well just have everything to do with what I do tomorrow.

The results then, are not at all important. I assure you, they may as well be fully out of our control. What matters though, is how prepared we are for whatever they will be.

All we can do is to do right, and to do well, and to pattern ourselves to be in place when the time comes to be there; strong enough, in our basics rather than simply in our appetite for effort, to hold on.

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Letter of Recommendation: Learn Forever

by Joshua Lewin

“The more things you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” -Dr. Seuss

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So, imagine, as the game goes, that you are stranded on a deserted island: There is a box there, it has one thing inside of it. It can be anything at all. But it is the only thing that you can have by design in this unnamed, unmapped, uncertain place. What is in the box?

You probably named some kind of tool, or some kind of weapon. Maybe some kind of shelter?

That’s probably smart. Somebody out there said you wanted your laptop or your smartphone; a lot of good that is going to do without wifi…

—Week 1: I’m all alone here, and I don’t know which way I should go. I know East from West, but not what I will find in either direction. The only thing I can do is invest whatever time I have left in self directed learning.

I can’t count on what I already know. And I can’t count on anyone else to teach me. I have to challenge myself. There is no to do list. There is only the goal of getting to tomorrow knowing more than I already know today. Hopefully I can keep my confidence up, and find fulfilment enough to keep going.

I used to worry about things like degrees and job titles. If today me could only go back and tell past me how little those things matter out here. I’d probably have spent my time worrying more about being fresh, relevant, and moving forward, rather than thinking any sort of accomplishment of the moment was worth defining myself by in the next one.

I wonder how much the world is changing in the time I’ve been here. I imagine quite a lot. I intend to get off of this island someday, I really do. There isn’t much sense assuming that I won’t. I mean...I may not; but why plan for that? If it happens, then it happens. But if I do make it, and I’ve only planned to NOT make it, what a waste that would be. I’m learning to fish now, and all about tides. It is fun to diversify my interests and understanding.

The shape of my world is different, and honestly, not preferred, today. But learning remains important, no matter what. The playing field is changing all around me. But honestly, it also just feels good to go to sleep every day knowing that I understand something new.

This is my fantasy, my deserted island, my box, and I’m one of those indoor kids that wishes for a book. Amusement is important. I already know I’m going to die on this island, and I can’t plug in a TV, so I just want to be able to entertain myself. I stupidly forgot to specify that the book should contain stories already inside of it [ok, it must be hot on this island, this fantasy is already getting fevery, and borrowing now from “be careful what you wish for” tales]. So, anyway, I got a fat, beautifully bound, book full of waterproof paper without anything written in it at all.

And yes, I had a pen. I haven’t left the house without a pen since I was 19, and that’s a specific story for another day. Nobody ever said you landed on this island with empty pockets; no one ever thinks of that. Anyway, I’ll get on with it now. This introduction is an obligatory nod to our cover design, and our split issue concept of message in a bottle/level up. It’s also just me making up for the fact that I’m essentially kicking off this very important issue with a story that is really just fragments from a real notebook.

But now it’s a story, too, see...

So I woke up on a deserted island, with no idea how I had gotten there, hungry, windswept, holes in my clothes. I had clearly been here a while. The only thing I had was a pen in my hand, but it’s ink was dry, and a notebook scrawled cover to cover in my own handwriting, page one read: Learn Forever, And Never Give Up.

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Week 2:

Ok, I think it is week two. It has already gotten difficult to keep track. Maybe that isn’t the most useful way to mark time. As things go now, I’m just trying to focus on learning something every day. Not 10 things, just one. And trying my best to really understand it. Back home I used to say “Leaders are readers.” I still believe that, but out here I have nothing to read, and the only thing I’m leading is myself. Probably leading myself in circles, to be honest. But I’m leading myself on to what is next. So, out here, “Leaders are seekers.” The point is to just seek information, daily, and to make it part of the habit of moving forward to tomorrow.

What’s the point?

Who said that?

Well, I’m not exactly out here trying to get better at my job or anything like that. It’s just a habit now. New information is like a welcome break out of the habit and routine of this lonely place. I remember a time I wished for a book to read; now I realize I am so happy the only book I have is this blank one. There are unlimited new possibilities to fill it with. I’m learning so much about wind and sand.

Learning is for every day, in every place; even this one.

Week 3:

Back home I used to use five strategies to learn something before my morning coffee. They were: • I would sit without any intention of thinking about anything specific. There are variations on this, and journaling or movement can be great ways to practice this. It’s not all about just sitting and literally doing or thinking nothing.

It’s more about making room for the natural, meaningful, and interesting to bubble up before the day takes over. I still use this one all the time on the island.

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• Read the chapter of a book. Some mornings I had time to read many more chapters. Or a chapter of more than one book! But no matter what, I always started the day with at least this. If anyone has ever told you reading fiction, by the way, can’t be useful for learning, they don’t know anything about learning. Learning should be fun.

• Responsible use of social media. Seriously, it could be done! I had all these friends that would tell me they didn’t have time in the morning for even a chapter. They were wrong, obviously, but so what. I used to tell them: “If you’re resisting reading a chapter before coffee, I wonder if you actually spent that time on Instagram.” The world is changing, so be it. But instead of a mindless scroll when you could be meditating, how about at least applying some mindfulness to your timeline devouring? Check in on industry or other area of interest trends related to what you are actively learning during the rest of the day. You’ll probably come away with a new idea or resource to explore.

• And some mornings just aren’t for reading. I was never afraid to make an exception. I used those mornings like this: Cue up a podcast the night before, mindfully setting the intention to wake up and do something you like, that adds value, Ted talks or other video learning, Youtube how to videos, why not?

• And then after some of the above, I would always try to practice something experiential. Tai chi counts. So does ballet, or traditional Japanese martial arts. Maybe archery (not for me).

Cooking breakfast counts, but not pouring cereal; gardening works, too. But sometimes a more specific activation is in order, mornings are great for practicing or learning a skill. Leave the materials at hand before bed, so you’ll stumble into them upon waking up, rehearse an upcoming presentation, go over challenging events from the previous days or weeks, replay them with better success. Can you repeat that once you are caffeinated and back in action?

Week 4

Learning is [still] everywhere. When does learning happen? It’s not just for school anymore. Out here, there aren’t any schools anyway. The what and how to learn is altogether different now. Information is flying at me faster than I can think and write. But information isn’t learning, and facts aren’t knowledge.

They are just data points until we apply action.

Lifelong learners are intentional and observant about the information they absorb. I used to use podcasts during my commute, and of course I had reading as part of a daily routine. I used to seek out people to mentor, knowing I would learn more by teaching them what I thought I knew than I ever could by just reading something new. I had a list of people I could call for advice. I labored hard to solve problems in my own work, and I saw problems as an opportunity to learn and grow. Problems are the most valuable thing of all! I was continually taking in information, just like so many others around me, but I tried every day to do so intentionally, observantly, and to find learning all around me. Now I just wander around a deserted island. But all of this is still true.

Week 5

I miss the open ended learning buffet of the internet. But oh, that place was dangerous! I wish I could log on to the internet today and search with a purpose. To know why I was there, and what I was seeking, and how it relates to the goals at hand. I wish I could make a habit of going to the internet and coming away from it with practical things to put immediately into practice. I wish I could go to the internet with a clear idea of whether I am solving a problem or an acute need, or just gathering information out of interest. They are both very important, but should be in good balance.

Week 6 The thing I miss most about all of this deserted island learning is the lack of opportunity to learn further by teaching. The best way to solidify the learning of new material is to teach it. Information is not knowledge. Did I say that already?

Simply collecting bits of facts, or practical know how, is not the same as learning. Learning is something deeper than that. At least any meaningful learning.

Multiple points of contact, in different contexts, and different types of practical application are the keys to turning information into knowledge. If you ever think you’ve “got it” go ahead and try to teach it to someone else. Chances are you still have a lot to learn about “it,” and that will become (painfully, or usefully, depending on your perspective) apparent quickly when you try to transfer that knowledge on to someone else.

This step of the path saves two (or more) birds with one stone, as conducting those one on one trainings, mentorship moments, or formal or informal workshops and classes is also a big part of building team relationships. These relationships are the beginning of building the skills of communication that mark a leader. You also learn about the people you are instructing...if you have properly learned how to pay attention.

An important part of teaching is paying attention to your audience. This skill comes with all kinds of benefits. Including, but not limited to, in the workplace setting sharing your new skills readily and freely with the team and ensuring they have them down as well as you have them, frees you back up to continue learning more new things while they take on the new skills for themselves.

Sorry this might have bled over into a journal from a different deserted island.

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Week 7

I’m almost off of this island. I know I am.

And when I get back to my desk the first thing I am going to do is to write a personal learning plan. Then I’m going to get something to eat and take a shower.

In my learning plan I’m going to reflect on myself and my goals, and define what I want to learn about. I am going to write down everything important to me, including my passions, hobbies, and the things that make me happy. I won’t limit myself based on current abilities and skills. I won’t write down things that I think people will want me to do.

Then I will develop a roadmap.

• I will establish what “ends” I have in mind.

• I will find people who mirror what I think I am seeking.

• I will research how they got there and use that information to begin to turn over the rocks that might lead me to similar knowledge. I might even try to ask them for advice!

• I will sort out milestones along the way, by determining if there are likely to be struggles, if certain pre qualifications might be required, or if certain connections and relationships could be helpful.

• I will set measurable goals, keeping them specific, but simple, with actual metrics, bound by time. And I will keep a record of these goals close at hand.

• I will find resources to help meet these goals. These could be books, videos, podcasts, people, webinars, traditional or non traditional courses, conferences, learning partners, mentors, or more. I will think about my styles of learning and try to find resources that fit them best, 7

and I will consider who in my community may be able to help directly.

• Then I will learn. That is the tricky part sometimes. I will stop planning, and start doing. I will act and do — learn — with intention. I will plan to do this learning, like on a schedule; that I stick to.

• I will keep track of what I am learning and reflect, and I will re-evaluate as I go.

Week 8

Hey, where am I? What is this book?

Who used up my pen?

New World This person is desperate for a new dream: alone and uncertain unseen mysteries consolation for loneliness; without guarantee

These people are desperate for a new dream: together and untested is less more? safely weighted

We are desperate for a new dream is it worth? the effort to reimagine into life and form

that which only is allowed to exist when eyes are closed The new world is a place of dreams

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UNLOCKING UNLOCKING THE THE MEDIUM MEDIUM

by Sierra Hitchcock

by Sierra Hitchcock Prologue Clay or stone. Kaolin, or maybe marble. Stiff, unmoving, solitary, and cool to the touch. A formless lump left to the devices of the artist at hand. Much of the same could be said for the unsupple ballet dancer who enters the studio each morning. Stiff, unmoving, solitary, and cool to the touch. A formless lump left to the devices of the artist at hand. The dancer’s medium: a body – cold and unyielding – that will once again be subject to skilled repetition and manipulation until it gives way to the masterpiece the dancer has chosen to sculpt. Each day, each class, a new opportunity – a chance to mold and form, to create, chisel, sand, polish, and paint that singular, shapeless body of clay that lay before the artist.

What will they create?

Warm-up Start from the bottom and work upwards. First, the feet: toes, metatarsals, and arches.

Kneading the muscles and tissues. Press, release, press, release. The friction drawing warmth to the protesting flesh. Next come the calves, thighs, posterior, and hip-flexors.

Each muscle, ligament, and tendon organizing themselves into an enigma of connections left to be deciphered by the ever-puzzled dancer. Push here, pull there, shift that way deeper into the pain. Gritting against the discomfort in hopes of unlocking the mobility that lies within the enigma.

A pop or crack, maybe a quiet groan catches the attention of the dancer who glances up and notices, seemingly for the first time, that they are but one among a menagerie of shapeless forms plying themselves in preparation for the impending task at hand. Back to work. Hamstrings, hips, and ankles are next. Flex and point, flex and point. Nose to toes, nose to knees, cross, twist, bend. Each muscle, ligament, and tendon rebelling against the neurons compelling them to move. The dancer forages onward choosing to approach the barre. The back, neck, and head are the last elements to receive the dancer’s attention.

Twist, roll, bend. The cacophonic cracking of rigid joints reverberates through the studio like a never-ending echo reminding the dancer that they are but one of many. They are not alone on this endeavor they have undertaken. On this journey to create a masterpiece.

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Barre One,

two,

eight.

Repeat.

One,

eight.

three,

seven,

two,

seven,

four, six,

three,

five,

four, six,

five,

Plié and stretch, plié and stretch.

Lift your hips away from the ground on the descent, heels down on the ascend.

Cambré forward and back, inhale and exhale.

First, second, fourth, and fifth position.

The repetition of the movement with slight variations in body placement allows the dancer’s body to begin easing into the day’s work.

The clay starts to soften in the hands of the artist.

Every dancer at their own barre spot is a planet unto themselves but orbiting the same sun, dictated by the gravitational pull that is the desire to dance.

Tendus.

First then fifth position.

En croix – front, side, back, side.

Repeat.

Keep the hip back but push the heel forward.

Through the toes as the foot slides in and out.

Don’t look down.

The first hints of warmth reveal themselves in the forming perspiration on the dancers.

One by one they begin to shed their layers.

Dégagé, two, three, four, dégagé two, three, four.

Now faster.

Heart rates begin rising throughout the studio.

As the clay becomes more pliable the artist begins to choose how they wish to shape their medium.

A curve here, wider there, heads tilt, epaulement shifts.

Experimentation, redesign, choosing this or trying that.

Rond de jambe.

Do not be deceived by the slower pace.

This is the first test that the artist has properly prepared their medium.

Around, then again, once more, last time, repeat.

Legs begin to lift higher and backs bend further.

The care with which the artist prepared for the day begins to reveal itself.

Lines and balance, working to create a shape while growing upwards, higher and higher.

Everything is placed by the skilled manipulations of the artist.

Something’s not right.

A muscle that did not get enough attention, a tendon or joint that needs extra stretching.

Like clockwork, the dancers release themselves from the sculptures they had made.

Back to square one.

Press, release, press, release, twist, bend, stretch, pull.

The last of the resistance from the unyielding muscles and joints dissipates aided by the perspiration from the dancers.

Now fondu.

Bend and stretch, bend and stretch.

In and out, in and out.

Like a pottery wheel, the hypnotizingly repetitive motion of the dancers lends the foundation from which the dancers’ structure rises.

Repetition is the mother of skill.

Repeat fondu en relevé, legs higher.

Next is frappé.

Sharp and quick, striking the floor, accent out.

The precision of the movement streamlines the dancers’ motions, no longer having the luxury of time, the dancers begin to move as a singular body keeping time to the quickened pace of the music.

As quickly as they come together, just as quickly does adagio pull them part.

Don’t be deceived by the tempo.

The slower the music, the longer the leg must be held.

Each dancer descends once more into their own little planet.

Passé lift, extend, grow taller on the closing.

Eyes up, hips lifted, turn out, and balance.

Repeat on the other side.

Grand Battement.

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The last combination.

The last moments of security before the dancer is released from the barre.

The last moments before their preparation and skill is tested without a safety net.

Kick and close, Kick and close.

Point the toes, tight fifth, don’t lean into the barre, back grows longer.

Kick and close, kick and close.

The time and diligence with which the artists prepared their materials – the repetition, the patience, the forethought – maximizes the artists’ ability to manipulate their medium, to articulate the images they wish to create and preserve, even if it is only for a moment.

Center With the barres removed the dancers enter a space where physical barriers no longer divide them into their own little planets.

The rising temperature in the room causes them to peel the final layers from their bodies.

The heat each dancer sought at the start of their day now readily swirls amongst them yielding a mobility that aids in the artists’ creativity.

Everything at barre is done in preparation for something in center.

Start with tendus.

Croisé – front, back, side.

Shift the weight, change the arm, move the head.

Plié, passé, pirouette, land and close fifth.

Repeat on the left side.

Now again but with dégagé.

And faster.

Bigger port de bras, quicker change of the head, don’t fall over in dégagé to the back.

Higher passé, cleaner pirouette, tighter fifth on the closing.

Repeat it on the left side.

As quickly as things speed up, just as quickly do they slow down.

Adagio.

Breathe and hold the core.

Legs extend upward, arms expanding away from the body.

Grow taller on the closing.

Lift the legs again.

Attitude, promenade, allongé, plié, pas de bourrée.

Fight for the balance, fight to reassert the turnout, fight to stretch the leg and point the toes.

A battle exists within the dancer hidden from the observing audience.

Développé, écarté, passé, effacé, fouetté, ronde

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de jambe, arabesque, balance.

Like the fires of a kiln blazing to preserve the sculpted clay, so too does the burning in the dancers’ legs engulf their muscles in an effort to preserve the sculpture the dancer has molded with their body.

Finish and breathe Now from the corner: waltz and pirouettes.

One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three.

In groups the dancers come together moving in unison across the floor.

Balancé, pique, arabesque, pas de bourrée, fourth, pirouette, and land.

Again, all the way across the floor.

The dancers no longer find themselves as one body out of many, but rather as one body made of many.

No longer solitary, the dancer has found company amongst the collective movements of those surrounding them.

Repeat the combination going to the left.

Now jumps.

First warm-up.

Sautés in first and second position, changements in fifth position, then échappés from second.

Repeat.

Next petit allegro.

The quick movements of the combination once again pull the dancers into unison.

Assamblé, jeté, temps levé, ballotté, coupé, ballonné, pas de bourrée, and hold.

Precision and detail decorate the intricate pattern leaving the dancers’ movements clean and breathtaking.

Medium allegro.

Sissonne, sissonne, ouvert, pas de bourrée, tombé, coupé, assamblé, soutenu, changement.

Stretch knees, point toes, keep the back lifted, change the port de bras, change the head, turn out, jump higher.

Repeat to the left.

Grande allegro.

Finally, what everything has been building towards.

The masterpieces the dancers’ have meticulously crafted with their feet planted on the ground break free from their roots and take flight.

Hot air rises and the heat that now emanates from the dancers’ bodies seems to give them the magical ability to fly.

Jeté, assamblé, sous-sus, arabesque, entrelacé, saut de chat.

The artwork that the dancers fought so hard to preserve while rooted to the

ground now has no option but to exist for only a moment in the air before vanishing forever.

Like the clay on the potter’s wheel; ever shifting and morphing, changing shape guided by the artist’s skilled hands.

When the last jump has been landed and the last turn finished, the dancers come together to move as one for the last time.

Révérence.

Inhale and exhale, breathe in and breathe out.

Follow the teacher, nice and steady, bend and stretch, plié and straighten.

Finale Free, moving, collective, and warm to the touch.

Stunning artwork shaped by the artists’ hands.

The dancers’ medium: bodies, warm and supple, that exhibit skilled repetition and manipulation as they perform the masterpieces the dancers have chosen to sculpt.

What did they create?

The dancers, curtsying or bowing, turn to thank the teacher and then the accompanist.

Everything the dancers have done from the moment they stepped into the studio culminates in the appreciation not of their own art, but in the artwork of others which has made their work possible.

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Trip to the sea

photos from the archives

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The Point of the Practice, with Mark Davis

by Joshua Lewin

Mark Davis is a decades-long teacher of traditional Japanese martial arts. These are traditions that are passed down through many generations from teacher to student. These methods are very tangible and physical, but also tend to share an apparent belief that through repetition and care of movement that it is possible, and preferable, to improve many aspects of life and community, and even that over specialization or singularity of pursuit is not just ineffective, but actually wasted opportunity to fully experience the world.

Full disclosure, I am a student of Mark’s. But a mostly peripheral one. I do some of my best thinking while working through exercises with him that date back 800 years or so. They may or may not overtly apply to my life in 2020, but they certainly add a lot to it, covertly. I feel the same way about holding a knife to chop an onion, and we think about training in the kitchens in this way.

Despite a deep reverence for the centuries old traditions of Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, the organization is balanced by an insistence on fallibility, curiosity, and a directive that the past and present are meant to be questioned. The head of the school, Masaaki Hatsumi, calls this “play” rather than “insubordination” and seems to value it even more than attention or discipline. I was initially exposed to the concepts by a coach in high school, who seemed to wield the idea of play to much better success than his peers focused simply on effort and obedience, and again in the Marine Corps, under the unexpectedly hands off and effective leadership of Jack Hoban. Mr. Davis spoke to me from behind a facemask, pulled over on a jobsite, and fumbled, as so many of us do lately, with getting fully checked in to our video chat. I got this extra headspace at the top of this interview because his first few moments were unintentionally muted. When I asked whether he’d like to repeat himself he immediately said no, with a laugh, and mentioned that if all of us could be unintentionally muted once in a while it would probably be better for everybody, “and not just during these debates [the Presidential election debates of 2020].”

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Joshua Lewin: I assume this is your first interview for the food and restaurant related media. You might disagree, but I think our readers would be interested in the progression of your career, and maybe about the history of Bujinkan.

Mark Davis: How about a mix of both? The Bujinkan dojo itself dates back to the 1960’s- but it is actually the collection of 9 different individual schools, some of which date back many hundreds of years - but that was when they began being taught by Dr. Hatsumi as one path, although it’s often a very winding path, of teaching and learning. I can list the names of them if you’d like, but that seems unnecessarily detailed for now. More fun to think about than a list of dates in history is kind of understanding the overall direction of the training. Which is that it isn’t a series of boxes to be checked or techniques to be collected, it is more of a way of thinking and moving, or I guess moving with less thinking, that is developed over a long period of time. In our practice it might be 10, 15, 20 years to achieve your first goal [receiving a black belt]. Not unlike opening a business, or something like that, but how much you change in the process of seeking that goal is actually much more important than what you thought the goal was in the first place. Consistency in the face of time and hardship of course is how you get there. That’s boring sounding compared to what you are “told” the process is. Step here, puch there, all that...but that’s just window dressing for something that happens along the way. That something along the way is the important part, but harder to talk about.

You know we practice with sword cutting. It’s a good example because it is just so out of context for daily life, and the point is, externally anyway, the sword, right? It’s sharp and shiny. And I was practicing the other day, outside Boston, and doing the steps I’ve been doing for all these years and thinking to myself, “how many times am I going to do this?” and I recovered, this time, quickly, and it’s just like, well, all that matters is doing it for today, showing up and committing to a process, and keeping it going.

Suddenly the point isn’t the sword, you know, it’s something much more useful. But you have to commit to a way of getting there. The focus of the daily action.

JL: You said for 35 years you’ve been cutting with a sword. Nobody was sword fighting in the 1960s by the way. So my question is, anyway, I have to assume that this is going to sound a little out there to some people reading...what is the place of this practice in the modern world?

I’ve never seen you carry a sword around, for example.

MD: Look, a lot of the traditional martial arts and let’s just stick with sword cutting for now working with the sword ultimately just goes back to dailly discipline. The discipline of practice.

Your sense and awareness, and your overall state of mind. All of this is being practiced in the single sword cut. Put somebody in front of you and you both have a wooden (or steel) sword, and now you are learning interaction and response to a dynamic situation between people, too. You are learning the difference of results when you move in harmony, or opposition, or in an attempt to escape, or interrupt through proactive initiative. All of this is part of our daily life. All of this is practiced, more safely by the way, through sword work. That’s just one example. It’s an important one.

JL: And when you say sometimes you have to move in harmony, with your environment, you mean...

MD:Well in this case, someone who might want to hurt you with a sword. But there are all kinds of ways people might want to hurt us. And sure, sometimes a counterattack is right, but anger and impulsive reaction rarely is, and if we can learn to view these situations through experimentation you can start to understand that it is more effective to see the problem as an environmental one, and to change the

environment, or otherwise interact with it, rather than just square off with a person instinctively.

JL: We have a training concept in the restaurants, that “the recipe is not the technique.”

MD: Yea, we do too. In our case we might say “the kata is not the technique.” Kata here is a word that essentially means, “form.” This is a choreography, essentially. It is like a recipe in that way, a set of requirements and step by step process. This exists in the traditional arts, whether it be Ikebana (flower arranging) or Iaido (sword drawing). These are useful exercises. You can collect them in books.

There is another way to think about kata, which is that the form exists as a foundational structure, or like training wheels on a bike, they keep things pointed in the right direction, and hopefully you don’t fall down before you really have the details internalized. To ride a bike is to ride a bike, but only you can ride a bike your way. So you can have my recipe, it probably won’t do you so much good without some kind of instruction or feedback, but you could try.

But it is actually the understanding of the deeper principles that lay the groundwork for the kata, or recipe, and then you can play. You can’t get what comes from that play from a book, or the internet, and you can’t collect it; you have to do it. YOU. A useful kata is a set of barriers and guidelines that allow us a structure to be successful within. A starting point. The other sort of kata is useful. In the sword drawing example again there are 100s of potential combinations of this sort to collect. They are great exercises, and should not be discounted.

But the choreography is not the technique, it is just a specific expression of it.

JL: So the recipe is a foundation for practice.

But not the point of the practice.

MD: Yea, the point of the practice might be more accurately described as the ability to adapt.

The practice creates opportunity to move and experience and find security in the feedback you get through that experience. But when the time comes to act you have to have technique, not choreography. In this context we are talking about a fight. A physical altercation. But even that is too specific, and all the way back to the beginning of the conversation. The point of 18

"...well, all that matters is doing it for today, showing up and committing to a process, and keeping it going." learning security and technique to respond to adversity is to have the technique of responding to adversity, not just to punch somebody. That’s just window dressing.

JL: On the back of a book I read in a bookstore when I was like 11 years old looking for books about boxing or Taekwondo probably, I read a blurb from Masaaki Hatsumi that ended with three words: Understand? Good. Play! This is a concept that seems central around the practice you are part of. How does such a traditional practice honestly lend itself to this admonition to, if I’m understanding this correctly, break the rules?

Anyway, it left an impression.

JD: My teacher was Stephen Hayes. One of Hatsumi’s senior students and the first one from the United States, for what that is worth. He always began a class with a presentation of a very traditional example. But he didn’t tell us that.

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He was playing a game of What If. And Mr. Hayes had this philosophy that we should never stop exploring What If. At least in training. The real What If, if it ever came to pass, would not likely be anything like you imagined, so imagine as much as possible. So one way to go about traditional learning is to see the transmission of knowledge not as black and white or two dimensional, but we saw it as a living thing. If the traditional, this stuff is actually written down in scrolls, is, say, how to fight three attackers at once — examples do exist for that, classical ones. But it was Mr. Hayes’s job to bring that classical example to life. Then at the end of a long class he would demonstrate the classical example.

So, I love that anyway, the answer exists kind of, or at least the traditional example exists, and he would always share that with us, but only after we had experienced the practical applications of the example. The tradition was honored, which is important, there is a deep respect there for people and experiences past. But part of honoring that tradition is actually keeping it alive. By combining it with who we are, not just accepting it as something collected that can’t evolve with us.

There’s a misunderstanding that happens with honoring traditions I think; that if you just do exactly what you are told to do by the people that have gone before you that you’ll get it. Uh uh. Not gonna happen. The technique here has to be experienced, and it has to be real and alive. It’s not a museum, it’s a practice. We honor the tradition by using it. And growing with it.

JL: I have another concept in my work that I call “return to zero.” I’ve heard you use similar terminology. What is that all about to you?

MD: I don’t know; I haven’t gotten there yet. That’s one answer, and it’s true, but zero is also this concentric idea. There are zero points within zero points, like rings on a tree. I aggravate my teacher sometimes now, all these years later, because when I see him I’ll ask to see these techniques that were demonstrated in like the 1980’s, when I was just starting out with him. And he’s like, really Mark, that’s a white belt thing. But here I am, forty years later, and I feel like I’m ready to try to understand better what I thought I knew then. I don’t need something more, I am ready to go back to the beginning and do it again. So that’s one way to think about zero. That’s a big way of thinking about it.

The point of getting back to zero is to have this clean slate to start over again and do better, or at least to try again. You don’t want that would-be clean slate to be cluttered with all the rest from before, you have to get back to a good place, stop the noise, clean the workspace, whatever it is.

JL: Zero exists for getting the car started in the morning, too. Start there.

MD: Exactly. There’s a zero point there too. It’s not just the big and the small. It’s just something to work back to before you try to do “more.” More is ok, but zero is important in between. Every step along the way.

JL: Anything else that you need to get out into our little world?

MD: Vote. Early. Return to Zero.

But also, look I have this thing that I do, and I’m honored that you think there is benefit in sharing it. But the specifics of what I do are again, just window dressing. The technique is about being able to observe and respond, and learn. Being able to really find yourself through whatever art form or activity that you do, it is about finding yourself in it. It’s not a one way thing, or something to just receive. Interact with what you do and bring yourself to it. That helps you find comfort and confidence within your own skin. And remember that you will always change.

I’m in my 60’s now. The 18 year old me that arrived here in Boston is a very different individual than the me I am now. I’m comfortable and confident in my skin now in a way that I wasn’t then. I didn’t collect recipes, and it took me a long time to realize what I thought I was looking for, but what I found along the way turned out much more important anyway. You have to find the things that will be important to you, but you can’t just reach out and collect them, put them in your pocket, and be done with it. You have to do them. And you probably aren’t looking for what you think you are. That’s ok too.

JL: This was a pleasure.

MD: I am honored that you felt there was some contribution here; from what we practice to what you are doing.

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21

Going into Business with Ari Weinzweig

by Merissa Jaye

Ari Weinzweig is a founding partner of Zingerman's Community of Businesses, former dishwasher, cook, and the writer of many business books and pamphlets. Step inside Peregrine and Juliet, and one of his books will never be more than a few steps away, tucked into a corner of the bar. Ari’s writings are both aligned with, and one source of, Juliet + Company's business philosophy; that good business is a project of both financial viability and means to support the community, the planet, and our team.

For me personally, always curious about Jewish history and the business side of running a restaurant, the writer of “Going Into Business with Emma Goldman” was someone whose writing I was quickly drawn towards.

MERISSA When I first read your work I couldn't believe there was a book that's about Jewish leftists and the restaurant business!

ARI: Hahaha. I like the obscure stuff. I'm doing some stuff about the Roma for this week. We make the Rigó Jansci cake, and it's named after Roma violinists from the 19th century.

MERISSA: I’m curious how you decided to build a business with the specific set of values associated with Zingermans?

ARI: You know, it's been 38 and a half years. So it's like asking a 40 year old tree what it was to be a seed. I grew up in Chicago. I came to Ann Arbor to go to University of Michigan. I studied Russian history.

When I graduated I had no vision at all. I had just what the poet David Whyte calls the via negativa, where you're clueless about where you want to go. I knew I didn't want to go home.

In order to not go home, I needed a job, and I drove a cab part time. I was in school and one of my roommates was waiting tables in a restaurant downtown, and ended up taking a job as a dishwasher because I really needed money

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ARI cont'd.

And, that's how I got started. So I had zero interest in food or business. Nobody in my family's in business, and I really had no particular interest in food or anything. I just needed a job. So I really lucked out because I really love food and cooking and I still cook every night at home.

At that restaurant, I met great people.

Paul Saginaw, my partner in all this, was the general manager. Frank Carollo, one of the partners in our bakery, was a line cook. Maggie Bayliss from ZingTrain was a cocktail waitress. We were all in there working together. I started line cooking and managing the kitchen.

Then Paul left about halfway through the four year stint that I did with that restaurant group. He and I had stayed friends, it's gonna be 39 years ago in two weeks. I sort of reached the point where I decided it was time to move on, I gave two weeks notice, and Paul, not knowing I'd given notice, called me two days later. And he said there was this little building opening near the fish market. Where he had grown up in Detroit, you could get good deli food, but you couldn't get it here. We decided we were gonna do it, and somehow, within a week or so, we decided we were gonna do it.

And somehow, 3.5 months later, we were open. That's how we got started. So we opened with me and Paul and two employees 1300 square feet.

MERISSA You have all these concepts that we love at our restaurants. We love visioning and having multiple bottom lines, and seeing the community as another stakeholders in our business. We borrowed many of those ideas from you! And I'm curious, where did those ideas come from for you? Did you start the business with these ideas in mind?

ARI No. It's just that we keep learning. Any healthy ecosystem that continues to be enriched, right? And so it's never in stasis. It's always evolving, and you could evolve for the worse, or you could evolve for the better.

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Maggie from ZingTrain’s training skills, and passion taught all of us to be able to keep complex concepts complex but also be able to teach them in simple ways. I think that what’s really important is that we tried to figure out how to teach them in a simple format, but still honor the complexity of these ideas. A lot of places try to dumb things down. But it becomes superficial, or you get bogged down in the complexity so much that people can't understand what you're talking about!

MERISSA In your pamphlet you talk specifically about the humbling experience of being in the midst of a pandemic. The quote was “Coronavirus provided a hard-toignore reminder of just how little influence any of us actually have over what happens in the world.” When I read that I started thinking about your description of anarchism as “good people, freely choosing to collaborate the interest of creating a better tomorrow.” I was thinking about these quotes together because on one hand, it's people who have this huge capacity to create a better tomorrow to change the world, to think, to reshape things.

And on the other hand, there's this idea of humility, which is accepting the absence of control.

ARI I don't think they're in conflict. It's all out of control. So, counter to how I was raised and probably you and almost everybody else, believing we should be able to control stuff. It's all out of control. Things like the pandemic remind you if you had the illusion that you had control, that you don't have control.

Grounded humility actually drives you to improvement because you know you can be better. Going for greatness of your own choosing in a collaborative, inclusive way is totally compatible with humility.

Because you're going after it doesn't mean you think better than anybody. You always need to understand there's no guarantee it's gonna work.

MERISSA It kind of sounds, and please correct me if I am wrong here, that you’re saying you should work towards improvement and ambition, but also accept that it's not gonna be perfect.

ARI Yeah. That's one of my learnings, too.

Nature is imperfect. So the perfectionism I grew up with, that haunted me for a long time, is the pursuit of the unnatural.

Another big learning was understanding that humility doesn't mean that we think badly of ourselves, you know? So I would have said before I started studying humility that people who say “I'm terrible. I'm no good” that would be humble. But it's actually not humble. So low self image and over inflated self image. Both are not humble.

So humility is coming from a grounded place of treating yourself with dignity and treating everybody else with comparable dignity.

MERISSA Yeah, that reminds me of a certain strain of Judaism called Mussar. It's about the practice of particular traits.

One of those traits is humility. The theory of that practice is that's all about balance. In Mussar, the practice of humility is actually about finding balance and noticing where you are on the continuum of overinflated selfconfidence and self-abnegation, and bringing yourself back to the center.

ARI This is a life skill. I was just discussing with one of the managers about a staff member who struggling because she goes high and low.

That's the challenge. To learn to be in the middle. When your feelings go high, just let them go. Not to diminish them, but also not believe them. When your feelings go really low, [do] the same thing, just to let them be. Not to diminish the problems, but also not to sink into the dungeon of your soul.

MERISSA Going back to the topic of values, are there times where you in your business, had to make choices that go against your values?

ARI I think that we're all compromising every day. Right now I'm out here talking to you, but I kinda wanna go in and debrief with one of the managers.

And I'm behind an email. We're all compromising all the time. As good as the food is that you put out, you know, it could still be better. We're trying to pay people more, but I wish I could pay them double, you know? So I mean, you're gonna attain that perfection.

So I think in a general sense, we're always compromising. But I think that it's about compromising knowing that you're compromising, and modestly compromising as opposed to going completely against what you believe. We all do it a little bit. But if you do it a lot or it's the bulk of what you do...if you have core values that are really critical that you wouldn't undercut, uh, then don't undercut those.

You know, with the environment, we're in the industry that's filled with paper goods going out the door, and we're already charging high prices. And now we're in a pandemic where two thirds of the sales are to go. It sucks, but I don't know what to do. So we're compromising because we're trying to stay in business and, I don't love it, but I justify it in my mind a little bit by thinking there's a lot less cars on the road.

MERISSA This issue of the magazine is all about influences, people who we pay homage to in different ways. And I'm wondering, for you right now, who is coming up for you as a big influence ARI John O'Donohue the Irish writer. Emma Goldman, Peter Block, Peter Koestenbaum, Gustav Landauer, Octavia Butler's pretty cool. James Baldwin is always cool. So many.

MERISSA Ari, Thank you!

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Something for Myself Chef Brittany Cassidy on the Art of Life

by Will Deeks When I spoke with Brittany Cassidy over this past summer, I had no introduction to her other than that she had been a professional dancer and that she had worked with lauded west coast chef, Jeremy Fox, for 7 years. Each of these feats can be viewed as impressive, but it is the combination of those two threads of experience that make Brittany’s contribution to cooking and craft vital.

For Brittany, it all started with dance and a natural sense of hospitality.

“All of the women in my family have a dance background, and hospitality is just in my family's nature. All of my family cooks.”

“When I was young I went to a school that incorporated dance and formal education. I would be at school all day and then go and dance at night. It was fairly non stop. But I really loved it” After high school Brittany continued her pursuit of dance and found herself in San Diego dancing with a troupe led by Tony Award winning dance instructor Tessandra Chavez.

“Tessandra Chavez, at Unity Dance Ensemble. She was the most disciplined dance instructor I have ever worked with. Her attention to detail, her musicality. The way she listened to things. Her expectations of our performances were the highest level of work I have ever done in my dance career. That really transformed me as a professional. In life and in business, having higher expectations for myself and pushing myself beyond comfort and complacency” Her life at that time was completely full, but Brittany describes it less as tiring and more of an experience that paved the road for her future as a chef.

“I would work at a California Pizza Kitchen as an am/lunch bartender. Then I would teach classes at the dance studio. Then I would be at dance company rehearsals from 9pm to 2am. I did this for years. I loved it, and the whole dance company loved it... After rehearsals- it was time for Dennys. So yes, I have spent a lot of my time at Denny's. Or I would go to Ralphs (24 grocery store) and cook for the dance company at home.”

“Those moments- those little gatherings is what fueled the fire that, oh this is fun, I like cooking for my family. I like what cooking provides as well. The dance company encouraged me to go seek out some kind of curriculum to learn more about it.”

With the encouragement of her peers she enrolled in a small program in L.A. which was bought by Le Cordon Bleu shortly before she began. Through her time in cooking school she maintained her previous dance and work schedule.

“Cooking class from 6am-11am. Bartending during the day. Nap for a few hours, then off to dance rehearsal for the evening.”

Her hard work in cooking school led Brittany to work in some serious restaurants in and around L.A. She worked in every position in the back of house and eventually ended up working as a cook at Michael Voltaggio's INK.

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Eventually while searching for a job closer to her home she stumbled upon a Craigslist ad for a position at Rustic Canyon. She replied to the ad, and had an interview with Jeremy Fox. Following the interview he invited her and her mother in for dinner. After tasting the food, Brittany knew immediately she needed to work with Jeremy.

“It was just simple food that was so incredibly delicious. I had been working in and seeing some of the molecular gastronomy scene, and that was interesting, but Jeremy just made simple food in such an amazing way. From his plating to his relationship with farmers. I’ll never forget when I first watched him plate.

The artistry he had with his hands was like nothing I had ever seen before.”

When Brittany signed on they both had something they wanted to achieve at Rustic Canyon.

Jeremy, though already a celebrity in the LA food scene, was new to Rustic Canyon, and Brittany had decided to leave dance behind as a career, and try food. It was a huge step in her life, but one that made sense to her upon reflection.

“So as I am starting to work in kitchens and loving it, my dance career is getting to this place where you have to be a certain way, and look a certain way.

You are at auditions and you are waiting for a long time. Just sitting, and then you are on. It just wasn't feeding my soul.”

“This led to the realization of what dance actually was for me. It wasn't supposed to be my career, it was supposed to be something I would have for myself to be able express any emotion, drama, or trauma or anything I was going through. It was a safe space where I could truly be vulnerable and express myself completely.”

Britany’s ability to change the role of dance in her and arguably make it an even more important part of her life - allowed room to step into cooking full on. Her work at Rustic Canyon proved challenging, but in many ways she had been preparing for it her entire life.

“It's about expectations that come from working as a team and working as a unit; representing someone's name. First in dance I did it for choreographers — that's where I developed my ability to work and lead in kitchens and make a team that represents a chef…

Jeremy was able to focus on the food and I was able to teach and guide the cooks around me on organization and cooking, and teamwork. All of my work in dance had led me to this place where it was time to manage a kitchen. It just became this beautiful union. I was the first cook he hired at Rustic Canyon and he and I just created this new identity for ourselves, for each other, and for the restaurant.”

Brittany excelled quickly, and in two years went from the line to being chef de cuisine and running daily operations at the restaurant. In 2019 Jeremy Fox opened Birdie G’s — a restaurant named after his daughter and grandmother and dedicated to a wide variety of cuisine that always starts with a story. Jeremy appointed Brittany to open the restaurant as chef de cuisine.

“Everything I learned at that dance company made the transition into cooking easy. The kitchen can be a shock for people who aren't ready for the physical execution required for cooking and the emotional strength that you need to have within yourself. Both fields are intense and it can take everything just to not break down and lose yourself completely.”

That said, Brittany has also evolved to take self care seriously. It's not just about pushing harder and farther, and taking on more — as is popular in the world of cooking. For her it is about taking the time to take care of oneself; mentally and physically. Her ability to meet the challenge comes from her ability to stay centered and to take care of her body and mind as one unit.

This means dancing on days off — or even after a long shift at work. Using physical engagement as a means of relaxation, reflection and healing. It means being conscious of the type of leadership and communication one engages in, and how it affects the team and the food.

“As a leader I have learned that I need to set the example of taking care of myself and setting positive intentions. My mother taught me impact vs. intention. She always said if you don't deliver expectations in the right way all they will feel is the impact. If something doesn't go as you intended, check in after service. Let them know what your intention was and make the situation right.”

When days are especially stressful Brittany takes the cooks through her own stress reducing 26

practices during pre service meetings. Encouraging them to engage in healthy stress management when dealing with the demands of the culinary profession.

“Now I do breathing and stretching exercises at pre-shift. When the cooks start to lose it and I can feel the anxiety around me, that is when I want to help cooks understand that they can exercise and stretch the toxicity and stress from their bodies and they don't need to seek refuge in the numbness from alcohol.”

-In September, Brittany left her post at Birdie G’s. Leaving behind a collaboration with Jeremy that lasted seven years. She tells me that she is eternally grateful for everything she learned during the experience and that it helped her achieve things that she never thought were possible.

What is truly remarkable is her ability to connect the pieces of her life and form such a coherent operating system for great work. Listening to her talk about the process of dance, and how it connects to thinking about work, and in this case the culinary profession, is inspiring. It reminds me of how each chapter of life can always be preparation for the next one, no matter what it is.

At the end of our conversation I asked her what she had learned from Jeremy and Theresa as leaders.

On Theresa: She was a leader, and she wasn't soft. She wasn't always sweet — but she was always honest. The honesty is what changed me as a leader.

On Jeremy Working with him taught me the value of collaboration. It's about working with people's strengths and not putting anyone down because of their weakness.

Before we ended, I asked her what she was reflecting on as she moved to the next chapter of her career, and her leadership: We are all learning. It's all easier said than done, and I am still learning from my own journey.

A perfect mindset, as one embarks on a new journey.

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Rachel Cossar Dances a New World to New Life

by Joshua Lewin

This interview is condensed for space and clarity.

Rachel Cossar is a retired professional ballet dancer, who spent the majority of her career with Boston Ballet. She was involved in our first foray into seeking vastly outside the box context points for better reimagining our work in the restaurants. Rachel has developed a second career combining elements of ballet and other high level performance, with business and leadership training, and a personal philosophy of evolution and purpose into the company Choreography for Business.

-Joshua Lewin: For the readers who opened up the issue today expecting to hear stories about restaurants, I was hoping you could begin by just sharing with us a little bit about what a career in ballet looks like — either in general or specific to how you found yourself on the stage?

Rachel Cossar: Sure, so, the traditional path for a dancer is to begin when you are very young, like three. And then to move through whatever ballet studio you are associated with — either a local studio, or for others it might be a national ballet school — and you work your way through that school. The idea is that when you graduate high school you would be ready to join a ballet company. More often now there is an interim period between finishing school and becoming a full member of a company; beginning as a trainee, then taking on an apprenticeship type role for a year or two, and then, at that point, entering the life of full time ballet — shifting gradually from the life of a student, and preparing for the life on stage as an artist.

My path was actually a little bit different. I grew up doing both rhythmic gymnastics — the ribbon and the ball — and ballet. So I was in Canada, and competing on the national team, as a gymnast, and also learning ballet at the same time. There was a little bit of tension between my competing in gymnastics and the preference of the ballet to focus more singularly. I kind of moved around a lot. When Toronto wanted me to commit fully to ballet, I went to Winnipeg; when they wanted me to choose one or the other, I wound up in Montreal.

And I actually stayed in Montreal for three years because they were a more contemporary ballet environment and welcomed the variety of influences in my dancing. After three years there I did finish high school in Toronto, and actually did at that point decide to focus on gymnastics and see what I could do competitively. And it was a very interesting and successful year. I attended world championships and had a national ranking, after which though I did finally commit to ballet. I moved to Boston, and entered the Boston Ballet Company training program, and from there developed into my career in the Corps de Ballet.

JL: I’m hearing an affinity for hanging onto the opportunity to collect a variety of experiences, even when the standard wisdom might be to push to specialize as soon as possible.

RC: Oh yeah.

JL: Yeah, me too. Based on that I want to fast forward a little bit, to today. Do you think that that drive to variety of experience has influenced the way that you’ve taken your very traditional career, on the ballet stage, and made use of it after you’ve left the life of performance.

RC: Yes. Even actually while I was dancing in the ballet, I became interested in telling stories around food, and specifically the chefs and cooks working in restaurants. I became interested in that when I noticed some parallels between my life on the stage and how restaurant careers take shape. So it was actually these two interests - one my career, and one my emerging hobby - that led the way to what I have been doing today: training businesses in concepts of communication and performance. I began that work with restaurants because I had an understanding of that vocabulary from the interviews and stories I had been writing as throughout my primary career on stage.

Fast forwarding all the way to 2020 adds another layer to this as companies of all types have been forced to evolve for the online space; whether running teams and meetings, or meetings with clients, or even transforming their products to be consumed virtually.

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JL: We all need you.

RC: Ha. Yeah. I hope so. Thank you.

JL: So this evolution into the virtual is very interesting.

Everyone is being forced to reckon with it, and do their best. We are serving food over the internet. Who knows long term where all of this goes. Rewinding a bit though, having received your training, in the restaurants, with our teams, on multiple occasions, what struck me about what you were sharing was that it was grounded so much in physicality, and strategies to understand our movement more mindfully for improving our work. I’m sitting here staring at the Zoom camera, remembering those great trainings and really wondering, how do you translate that to a world in an office chair, when all of our meetings have become two dimensional?

RC: It’s a great question. And I think that remembering that we have a physical experience is one of the key things that we have to practice in this virtual world. I think it is very easy to get pulled into these screens, they are like magnets. We get hyper focused on what is happening in this two dimensional way and then forget that we do have this 3D experience, this physical body. If you forget it or leave it by the wayside or don’t include it in the way that you are communicating, right, with your colleagues, your family, your friends then you get exhausted and you lose focus, and it’s draining.

For me, in my work, I always start with the physical first. I think that’s our anchor and if you can start with some awareness exercises: breathwork, a moment of mindfulness, a light stretch, suddenly you have this transformation into the full package instead of this brain bobbing on camera just tiring out.

JL: Ok, sure. That makes sense. Conceptually. But one of the challenges I think is not just that we are seated and static (not anymore, thank you) but that we are also, physically at least, going through this process individually.

There isn’t the benefit of the energy of the room, the interplay between people more tangibly.

RC: Yeah. So, first of all, you just have to acknowledge that it is not the same. We have to come to that and then we can work with it. There is no interplay of energy between physical bodies on screen. There is no “energy of the room.” Ok, that’s too bad but we can’t change it, so what can we do.

You have to build the energy before you arrive in that space. Anchor yourself, feel the energy of the ground through your feet. You have to show up in that space grounded and sure of your place as a physical being in a physical world. It doesn’t hurt also to care for your environment, to set the scene that others will experience.

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Now imagine you are having a meeting over dinner or lunch. All we get is the shoulders up anyway, over the table, right? So we don’t need to gloss over the way things are indeed different, and challenging, but we also shouldn’t discount the access points that are the same. Or to go a step further, some things are even better this way.

I can speak to 1,000 people on Zoom, and they can all experience the energy of my eye contact. So what resources do we have to leverage and how can we leverage them? It starts before we log on, and it is physical. It’s just different.

JL: This is an interesting duality of an idea. On the one hand, the importance of setting realistic and appropriate expectations for the world we are experiencing. But at the same time it isn’t a complete reinvention of behavior, understanding, and best practices.

RC: Rethinking the way that we are delivering ourselves to our work is a very important concept here. So many of us have been racking our brains thinking about how can we deliver the same experience and quality to our audience, and I’m using the vocabulary of performance now because it is familiar to me, but it applies more broadly. If we don’t take the time to reset our expectations in the reality of our current experience, and to just deliver the same thing, the same experience, even though our physical environment is different...the issue with that is that immediately you are showing people what they could have enjoyed more in a different environment. You are showing them what they are missing, and what they might like to have again, but you aren’t giving them an experience that they can really engage with in a way that is designed to be enjoyed in the context that they are consuming it.

I think that the real challenge here is completely rethinking the delivery and designing something around what people will actually be experiencing in their physical world. There is a huge opportunity here for new camera angles, for behind the scenes perspectives, for experiences in the margins that aren’t possible in the old way of things. So we need to take advantage of what we do have rather than trying to just do what works in person, but to play it for a screen.

Maybe it boils down to this. We, as service providers, want to give people an experience. To successfully do that we do need to have the mindfulness to step back and have enough perspective to realize that a little bit of change here could be a great thing. We shouldn’t be hanging onto this world that just doesn’t exist anymore, and, possibly won’t exist in that way ever again. There’s opportunity in that. Opportunity to define a new experience, and to learn the process of redefining, which we will certainly have to do again.

— Rachel Cossar is the founder of Choreography for Business. Rachel focuses first on the physical parameters of communication, presence and leadership in professional settings. Her work is dedicated to strengthening human experiences in business and beyond. can be found at ChoreogorpahyForBusiness.com and on Instagram at @RachelOnPointe There are virtual events and workshops currently available on her website, and a great ebook detailing some of the concepts that we scratch the surface of in this interview, which is a wonderful resource for virtual communicators, aka, most of us these days.

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How to give away the credit

by Joshua Lewin

I was waiting in line for what became my favorite movie of 2019, “The Dead Don’t Die,” and reading a light press piece featuring Tilda Swinton, on its release. She told stories about Cannes, teased the fact that she had a new movie coming out starring alongside her daughter in her film debut, and told a story about how the movie came to be.

Apparently it went something like this: wrapping up filming on “Only Lovers Left Alive”, Jarmusch turned to Swinton and said “Let’s do a zombie movie next...what do you want to be.” Swinton’s reply, “I want to be a funeral director who is put off because the dead don’t die.” And in her words, “That was it. He laughed and went away. And then all the rest, he did.”

Swinton’s off the cuff comment of course became not only a central character to a narrative that completely reinvented the zombie genre — which comes off like a late stage capitalism warning documentary that is somehow immensely entertaining — but also of course, the title of the film itself [and the title of new original music by Sturgil Simpson]. In a phrase she brushes off the influence as “that was it...he did the rest.”

Creative work is something that often appears to happen in a flash. I’ve written menus, and more, on the back of a napkin in a flash of ink and images that appear to come out of nowhere. It is as easy to brush off these moments of quirk or insight as it is to find undue reverence in them. A combination of a thousand conversations, pages, and delicious moments that I had no control over lead to the idea I would later call my own.

Without Swinton’s funeral director there is no film. But without Jarmusch’s question, there is no funeral director. Who dreamed the seed into being first? What diner breakfast led to the flash of inspiration that brought the storyless character to life? Or was it a soccer practice kicking up the dust of a story without characters? If wind blows but the leaves are all dead and gone then there is nothing to float through the air. Does the wind carry the leaf then? Or does the leaf give shape to the wind?

How to give away the credit then? Well, it’s easy. Open your hand and look into your palm and notice that there is nothing there inside. The credit was never yours to give away anyway. There is no need to stop the air.

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Katie's Corner: Is This [Just] for Kids?

My son watches too much tv, which is to say more than the one hour per day recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. I could blame it on the pandemic, and that certainly didn’t help matters, but he’s always watched a little too much tv. Probably because I watch too much tv. Definitely because it makes things easier when we’re trying to get out of the house in the morning. What I’ve come to realize, though, is that not all kids shows are created equally. Some are incredibly annoying, and don’t seem to offer anything in the way of educational programming. Conveniently, those just aren’t on that often (and when my son figures out streaming services and the fact that this is a complete lie, I’m finished.)

We tend to stick to the basics at my house, PBS mostly. Though what he wants to watch changes fairly often and without much rhyme or reason, our two standbys are Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. It makes sense, given that Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers’ (the Daniel Tiger precursor) were staples of my childhood viewing. Watching them now with Henry brings back memories that I’d forgotten, but deeply internalized. I’ll sing the songs with the shows, surprised I remember the words. The characters are familiar to me. In a way, it’s a bridge from my childhood to my son’s, bringing back what it felt like to be learning these lessons myself.

What’s most important to Cole and I in raising Henry is that he is a good person. We want him to be kind, empathetic, and generous.

We want him to think about his place in the world and the impact of his actions. When I let him watch Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger, I am confident that these are the lessons he’s learning. These are the lessons I turn to when it’s time to pick up toys, or try a new food and they work, because they help process through the logic of these actions.

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What I did not expect is how much I needed these lessons. To steal from our Juliet + Company manager’s training, “success means doing the things others know they should do but don’t.” As we grow up, we lose the thread of the lessons learned in Sesame Street or from Mr. Rogers. We fall into bad habits, we do the thing that feels easiest in the moment.

I for one can’t say at 34 that I always have a better handle on my emotions than my 2.5 year old. So when Daniel Tiger says count down to calm down, that’s probably pretty good advice for me too. The tagline for Sesame Street: smarter, stronger, kinder, is something we should all strive to be. When we strip away all the excuses we make for acting the ways that we do, what I’ve come to realize is that the socioemotional intelligence that these shows teach is not something that is just for children.

It is the essence of our humanity.

Written by Katie Rosengren.