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Since my book The Handsomest Man in Cuba was first published in 2003, several people have gone over and used it to track down some of the people I met and stayed with. You can read about some of those encounters in this set of blog posts . But I fell out of my saddle when Ken Lyneham from downunder actually went out of his way to locate the Handsomest Man himself. He's not the photographer on the cover (who could well be taking a photo of the Handsomest Man, or maybe Señor Hassleblad is just handsome inside) - but the hunk I met at the only fancy hotel I stayed in. And let me get the record straight - I shook his hand and that was it. So many people have written saying ... didja ... ? Puh-lese. Allow me to read you the closing line in that paragraph of daydreaming: "I let go of his hand." Yes, fully clothed and standing either side of a chicken wire gate we were, when we stopped shaking hands. Get it? More thrillingly, Ken tracked down Lolita - the most beautifu...

UPDATE! Translation at the end of this post ... I've just received a couple of reviews for the German edition of the Handsomest Man in Cuba - re-titled Cuba Particular by the folks at Piper-Verlag/National Geographic Adventure Press. Here they are: Review 1 - Globetrotter Review 1 - a random online review See translations at the bottom of this post ... If you can read German, be my guest and post a comment below telling us all what they say! Although I studied German for 4 years at school, the only words I know are "Lebkuchen" - a heavenly gingerbread cake-cookie dipped in a thin layer of dark chocolate, and only sold around Weinachten (Christmas), and "Sie antwortet, das fussball ihr langweilig ist." which means "she replied that she found football boring." A German friend in New York mentioned that the translation sounded a little strange, so I asked the publishers to reassure me otherwise. Here's what they replied: Dear Lynette Chiang, As your...

Meeting bicycling scholar Prof. John Pucher from Rutgers uni - he lives in Central Jersey and hasn't owned a car for over 35 years. Beats my 15 or so, but who's counting? Read John's academic bio . A cooler article about him in Momentum mag. More about this on the Bike Friday blog. I've just attended the American Institute of Architect's Fit-City 4 , an annual half-day conference Promoting Physical Activity Through Design. It was well attended, and I was one of three people who actually rode a bike, specifically a folding bike to the conference, stashing it under the reception desk. Naturally, bicycling was a central topic in addition to walking and stair climbing. Yes, there was even an expert stair designer on the panel, and the Dept of Mental Health and Hygiene (cleanliness is next to clueyness?) developed a lime green placard you could take away to hang in your stairwells. It reads, " Burn Calories, not Electricity ." Not bad slogonometry, but if...

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Sandy Thompson, formerly of xploring.com, a division of ideas company Saatchi & Saatchi. (I was a copywriter for Saatchi in Australia, Ireland and Creative Director for an afiliated agency, Tribu, in Costa Rica). xploring is about super curious cats like us getting out there among the pigeons, seeing how they eat, sleep, fight, make up, brush their teeth and win Nobel Prizes , multimediaclasting and customer evangelizing - just up my silicon alley. The meeting was fueled by a mutual friend, my former boss Jorge Oller at Tribu. Thank you Jorge for your persistance, not only am I honoring you with the attached photo, I am honoring your capitulation to my Customer Evangelism by showing your Bike Friday tikit in stylish repose (see below). I was excited to meet Sandy because I'm always keen to meet anyone who's been pursuing a similar path to me - out on a limb, living a nomadic life pushing relationship marketing to the nth degree b...

i.e. a bike you can bring inside. Say no more. Wait! Say THIS . OK, I gotta say more ... At the Film Society of Lincoln Center's GreenScreens event on May 5, I was the lone little panelist touting the virtues of transportation you can take with you, not to mention that you can get your leg over a small wheeled bike when you're 64, 74, 84 ... Present at the screening were luminaries of the bike advocacy world including Bicycle Film Fest's Brent Barbur and Portland Bicycle Transportation Alliance frontman Scott Bricker - featured prominently in the film Veer - who came all the way over to the dark side especially for the screening. Unfortunately, the rain kept most people off their bikes and away from the event. I tried to find Scott after the show for a chat, but I guess he'd already winged it back to the west coast. Naturally I did a bit of the crowdpleasing 1-2 with the pink tikit , and raffled off a Traffic Cone Bag . Thanks to the Film Society of Lincoln C...

You never know who you might run into when you least expect it ... As you can see, mother is still on a tear in NYC. Her visit to 'the center of the universe' is drawing to a close and she will soon return to her 15 year post at Sydney's premier stufforama to the stars, Peter's of Kensington. Not only is she the oldest staff member there, she knows how to sell Alessi accoutrements like a deeeeemaaaan ...   MOMIX: Herbal tonic for eyes! Last night we scored $19 frontish-row tickets to the most amazing, trippy, surreal, illusionist dance performance I've seen since Philippe Genty - MOMIX's 'Botanica' at the Joyce Theater . OK, I saw PG a looooong time ago. Perhaps this stuff is now mainstream ... "It's like Circ du Soleil before the latter went all commercial," said mother. Google MOMIX and you'll see it's commandeered by a truly Dali-esque character-choreographer, Moses Pendleton. This show opened with a stunning multime...

Above: My mother is a big Sesame Street fan. She carries a photo of Bert and Ernie in her wallet. Shot in FAO Schwartz - where you can create a muppet of any kind but the one you're actually a fan of, due to "copyright". What's up with that? I want my own Prof. Bunsen Honeydew , the most Chinese of all the muppets! My mother celebrates 71 years on the planet today - here in "the center of the universe" (as my NY friends call it). In a week she's practically walked the entire length and breadth of Manhattan. Twice. Not surprising - she's recently done belly dancing, quigong, pilates, tapdancing and yes, poledancing with me ! Read the full montymedia about that. I wouldn't be surprised if she enrolled in breakdancing like the show we stumbled on in Central Park last Friday - c heck out my movie . My mother's hero? "TINA TURNER". She even took yoga and pilates mat classes at Joschi , where I'm currently enrolled in a 200-hour yoga...