there is a place

Joshua Lewin

there is a place in The Square that we can go to touch what we used to be. did I say used to be? I meant abused to be. there is a place in The Square; to be honest, it isn’t what it abused to be.

for two whole years the rats and the rain gathered safely there. everything echoed with metal sounds — pounded nails and roadways flailed — the fists and laughter of tomorrows, regaled.

don’t go looking for me there. or anywhere. there is no mountain, no stream, and little left to dream; there are these things...yes, but only for sale.

Interview by L. Valena

First of all, if you could please tell me what you responded to.

It was a photograph of someone who seemed to be in a fairly contemporary and urban setting, although it was a pretty closely cropped photograph. But really incongruous with the props because they were holding an axe. So it was immediately just a little bit confusing from an active standpoint- what was I looking at? Because the tone of the photograph, aside from the axe, seemed to be about a situation that normally wouldn't involve such a thing.

In what context do you expect an axe?

Maybe in a forest or on a farm? I tend to associate axes with wintertime, because I'm a New Englander, so it's all about splitting logs and getting warm. Very traditional activities, which are not usually associated with city life. In the photograph there wasn't a lot of context, visually, aside from the person. But something about it just seemed very day to day. An urban, workaday kind of life.

What was your first reaction to that?

"What are you doing here?" The photo came as an email attachment, and there was no preview of it. I knew that this was for the project, and I had some idea that I might encounter some kind of image. I had no idea what that image might be. So to just be presented with a person, who is having some thoughts, and probably has a to-do list, but also an axe, wasn't necessarily what I expected to find. I expected to find a painting or a drawing or something like that. What I was presented with was a very real situation. This is someone who has something to do, and they were clearly going to get it done.

They had the tool for the job, whatever that job was.

Yeah.

And what happened from there?

This became a very of-the-moment thing for me, immediately. We do business and live in the same place. We have the restaurant, and we're open all day there. We turned three years old recently.

Congratulations. That's incredible.

Thank you. It seems like the blink of an eye, but also like a whole lifetime has gone by. So much has happened and so much work has gone into it, and I could walk you through probably everything that ever happened in that building, because I did most of it. It's been so hard, and taken so much work. But at the same time, it's like where did that three years go?

At the same time, this neighborhood is really changing drastically around us- Union Square in Somerville. There's a lot of development going on, and it seems like everything is becoming a condo. They're putting a condo anywhere they can. Two old funeral homes were just torn down to become new luxury condos, of all the least likely places. One of them was right next to the restaurant, literally our next-store neighbor, so it's very much on my mind. Different kinds of businesses, too. There's this really cool development called Bow Market near us, which is like a mixed use retail and food space. It's in a converted auto garage, on two stories, with all these bays. All these independent businesses. And then, right across the street from the restaurant, is something quite different, but still auto-related. Union Square used to be all kinds of gas stations and auto body shops- everything from getting a flat tire fixed to performance-tuning vehicles. I don't know why this was a hub for that, but it seems to have been one- motorcycles to trucks and everything in between. They're largely gone now. This is a long, meandering explanation of how we get to this thought. There's a new business which is a bar where you can rent axes that you can throw.

Right! That is such a hot thing right now, it's so funny.

It's very funny. And as a restaurant owner, we serve alcohol. We're not really a bar, although we can fill that need if people have it. But we had to apply for licensing, of course. Liquor licensing and all that, which is quite a process. There's a lot of questions. For example, “Will you serve shots?” And I can see that they just want to make sure it's a safe environment. Alcohol has the potential for unsafe things, and all sorts of unsavory things can happen if it's not wielded by responsible folks. We got our liquor license, but not the first time, actually. There was a whole process we had to go through.

But the real point that I'm getting to, is across the street from us is this business where alcohol is the main part of the business. Thinking about all the trouble I had to go through to get my restaurant to be able to serve wine... here's a place where you can buy shots and throw axes! I mean them no judgement. I'm sure they're nice people, but I'm confused. So now here I am, opening my email and looking across the street at this bar where you can throw axes. And then here's this photograph of a person who might be there. As I said before, you don't really encounter axes in the urban environment, but when you do, maybe you encounter them at a place like this. So there was no chance that I would be thinking about anything but this place once that photo came to me.

Okay, so you were thinking about that place. What happened next?

I didn't set out to do this. I was just putting some thoughts down and some reactions to what I was seeing, how it related to me personally. And what I saw because I was now feeling like this was an environment that I was also inhabiting. This urban, quite modern environment- given the styling of the person. This photograph could have been taken yesterday. And here I was- I could have been living in the same space. So I was responding to that, almost journaling. And then that turned into writing a letter or a postcard. Just kind of reflecting on my actual life, and how I might describe it, but leaving a lot in the dark, because I was very much in the dark myself. Just describing to another person, but one on one. Like you would do in a postcard, or in a little note or quick email even. Just a little update.

Some combination of personal journaling but also the kind of... when you send a postcard you really mean it, right? You probably really like the person you're sending it to, you don't just send a postcard to everybody, unless you're in marketing I guess. But it's not a big communication- it's these little snippets of updates. Thinking of you, this is how I feel, and this is what I see. They tend to be about travel, or a check-in, like a holiday card. That's what I was thinking- this is the back of a postcard. Maybe the front is the image. I don't know- it could be. I guess I didn't get that far. There's a lot of emotions in it too, and reality. Thinking about the development of a place where we live and work, which is different from just working. We're part of a business, and part of the change and development in that neighborhood ourselves. Kind of reflecting on our role in it. Passing no judgement on the change, but noting that it's a little bit unnatural. Like the person in the setting- urban with the axe. Maybe the axe is a throwback to an older time. But in reality, when we get close up, there's nothing traditional about what's happening. There's only forward progress, for better or worse. And it's quite unnatural.

Can you say more about what is ‘unnatural’?

The sight of someone holding an axe over their shoulder, in a vacuum, is a very traditional image, that would evoke working with nature. You can't build a house with an axe. You can really only do one thing with an axe.

You can only destroy with an axe.

Right. And you can only really specific things. It's a nature exercise. Whether you're splitting logs or chopping trees down, this is a very traditional image. Even if it's happening in the modern day, you're likely encountering it with someone who has a more traditional job. Nothing new- something that someone has probably been doing for a long time, or has this role in their family. It's a legacy-type activity. Thinking about this development, and progress, which we're a part of, which can be quite positive. But positive or negative, it is not natural. It's a change. A progression. A replacement of past. Even with the axe.

Do you think anything is natural, in that case? Especially in the city?

No really. The city is about exerting our will on the natural environment, to one that we can do more within. In our preferences, and in the traditionally axe-wielding roles, it's more about working within what already exists. Chopping a tree down is a change, but it's a different kind of change from erecting something out of synthetic materials. The purpose of the axe is to survive- to stay warm, to provide shelter, to clear land for agricultural purposes. The purpose of urban development is to really change the way that human beings exist within the environment, on purpose.

We prefer life to be like this, and then we build it. Which is how the postcard ends. These places aren't here. These places that you're seeking with this axe- these mountains, rivers, and streams. You can't find these things, wherever it is that you think you're chopping them down. What you're actually doing is something different. And even though I think I sound pretty down on the situation in the end, I don't think it's my place to really judge it. It's more of a reaction of confusion towards the image. On the one hand, this traditional throwback image. But then feeling like this is a person involved in change, and forward progress. That heavy, wooden-handled iron or steel (whatever they make these things out of) axe, in the dirt, this isn't what this is. Even though a part of them is still holding onto that, what they're actually engaged in is actually something quite different.

So the person holding the axe, even though they're holding something from the past, is actually engaging in a change in culture/the environment, and it's part of that change.

Right. And maybe looking for something different, some part of themselves- maybe that's why they have the axe. Maybe they're connected to something older, but it's not here now. And maybe that's okay.

Do you have anything like that, that you connect with?

I do all my writing long-hand still, with a pen or pencil- that's as close as I get, although it all has to be transferred to a computer at some point.

You guys use some traditional processes at Juliet, right?

Yes, and part of that is always in my mind. Not purposely. Whenever I do something like this, my usually first assumption is that I'd cook something, but that wasn't going to happen this time. Food is also always moving forward. Progress. Especially the way that we prefer to dine these days- people always want something new. And that's cool, but we always look to be aware or a starting-point in the past. Even if current realities mean that we end up presenting something quite different. We're always looking to pull it from something we can draw a direct line to. Sometimes we present it quite traditionally, and no progress is needed. We never start with new in mind, we always start with where have we been before in mind. And sometimes we decide that it needs to change. But just as often we decide that it's great the way it is.

I think it's interesting how much our identities are based in the past, and how we use that to access these parts of ourselves, and move things forward.

Things move forward so much quicker than they once did, it's possible to skip these steps. You can make so many connections at the top level, whatever it is that you're engaged in. You can learn to be quite good at something quite quickly now. Whether it's technical or performance-based, or more academic. However it takes shape. It's quite common, and not necessarily for a worse result, to be able to deliver something that skips the connection to the past. We always try to avoid doing that, even though it's so easy to do that. We have this great idea, or we have all these techniques we can combine, or if we don't we can find them to create this thing. But if we realize that we've forgotten to stay connected to something that came before us, we'll often stop and go back. Trying to remain connected in that way, even though the way we live now almost tries to prevent us from that.

Do you have any advice for someone else doing this?

I did something that was very different from what I expected at first. I think to have a true conversation. For a lot of us, especially if we work in a certain medium, and I work in a few, this is almost like being commissioned to do something. Someone has asked for something specific, based on their idea. This 'idea' was a photograph, but still it wasn't mine. I never would have found it on my own, and I was asked to create something based on that idea first. I think that when we're in that position a lot of times, we tend to default on some preconception of what we might do. So before getting to the inspiration, I knew that I was going to create a dish based on someone else's art. But to have a true conversation, I think that we need to listen first. So even to forget what we're most comfortable working in, when you're asked to respond, you have to be open to doing something that you didn't think you would do. Just as when you're asked a question, you can't know the answer before you hear it. Or even if it has to be words. Sometimes someone asks you a question and what they actually need is a favor, and not an answer. Sometimes they don't need anything at all, they just need to be heard. But if you're an orator, you'd be prepared with a speech no matter what the question was. So my advice would be to just avoid that, in the artistic sense, and engage in this artistic conversation.

Call Number: C27VA | C31PP.lethe

Joshua Lewin is a cook and creator with a preference for right over wrong, and views action to be the purpose of thinking, and public iteration the fastest way to progress. As the chef and owner of Boston area restaurants, Juliet and Peregrine, and the director of of Juliet Media Verse, Lewin is aspiring to something; he just doesn't know what. Curious for more?: ofJuliet.com