Songs of the year

There's been a lot of good music released this year. I don't think I've even gotten through most of it yet. So, instead of a top ten, here's my favorite two songs of 2007.


Prefuse 73 w. School of Seven Bells - The Class of 73 Bells


Battles - Tonto

Runners up: "Someone Great", LCD Soundsystem; ("You Got Yr) Cherry Bomb", Spoon; "Paper Planes", MIA.

I can't wait to read this.

Each year for our lab holiday party, I am politely asked ordered to bring in what has come to be my signature dish -

Low fat chocolate truffles with apricot and cayenne pepper.

The night before, then, is a sticky melty mess of various baking chocolates, apricot goo and cayenne pepper going up my nose.

But the results are pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.

the small stakes

I've seen examples of this artist's work before, here and there. (And always thought, "damn, that is a fine example of a well-executed gig poster.") His posters were always standouts, striking in their simplicity.

It's nice to see them all in one place. That would be here - the small stakes.

the drudgery of the take home final

I have music to keep me going...


And a copy of the Daft Punk Alive album - workouts or neurobio, it's motivating.


And not a half-bad book to work from...


There's even some Futura font in here....


But all I really want...

...is to get another fur hat.



Unfortunately it's on backorder. It feels like my life is on backorder.

I'll be up for air and a return to the real world on Thursday.

Does this article on Buffalo remind you at all of any other cities you know?

November 2007 - the books.

The Satanic Verses, S. Rushdie*
Middlesex, J. Eugenides*
The Emperor's Children, C. Messud*
Amsterdam, I. McEwan
The Great Man, K. Christensen*
Emperor of the Air, E. Canin
On Beauty, Z. Smith*
Sputnik Sweetheart, H. Murakami*
Hotel du Lac, A. Brookner
The Moviegoer, W. Percy
French Lessons, A. Kaplan

Favorites are starred.

This month was my best month for reading yet.

You'll have to scroll down to get past all the new 2007 gift guides (that time of year again!), but there's a neat little Baltimore guide at Design*Sponge.

Covers a lot of ground and lots of neighborhoods. I would like to check off the few things on their list that I haven't seen, like Home Anthology, Housewerks and Second Chance.

Happy turkey day. Even if you don't eat turkey.

the heart of the matter

Sundays remind me of my best girl D, who fixes hearts for a living.


B Jewelry
The arrow helps to temper the classic heart shape, and I already own something by this jeweler - I'm sure the hammered silver will feel light as air on the skin.

Me & Ro
The sword makes it a little tough, but the petite size would make it wearable, almost delicate.

Analogous Jewelry
The most abstract of the three - and my favorite, I think.

Any thoughts?

Good design doesn't have to be expensive. A couple of examples from across the pond:

I maintain a soft spot for this WWII poster. I hope it has greater longevity than say, antlers - look at that beautiful font.


Picture courtesy of Apartment Therapy.


My stainless steel Parker Jotter pencil is my constant companion. And I'm not alone in this - it's been a best seller since 1954.



Ok, so stainless steel isn't the most ergonomic material to make a pen or pencil out of, but the heft and classic good looks more than make up for it. A better import than say, those evil and delectable Jaffa cakes.

Two mashup vids that have brought me a lot of happiness:


1960's Fosse dance meets "Walk it Out"


Love the Charleston...surprisingly difficult, but a great dance for including a leg kick or two or three or more...

October 2007 - the books.

Perfume, P. Süskind
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, M. Roach
The City of Falling Angels, J. Berendt *
An Unquiet Mind, K. R. Jamison
What the Dead Know, L. Lippman
Suite Francaise, I. Nemirovsky *
House of Leaves, M. Danielewski *

I am finishing The Satanic Verses as I type. This is a book that refuses to be merely skimmed.

I gave up on one book this month - The Poe Shadow. Pearl has an interesting theory, (especially to me) but it's such a slog through his book to get there. This Observer article can save you the trouble.

expensive taste

Do I ever have it.

Behold a few of my pretties:


The Bianchi 'Milano' bike, in the wonderfully retro Celeste color.


Crane's/Kate Spade letterpress calling cards in Futura, my favorite font.


DWR's take on the Murano glass chandelier. In smoked glass - but of course.

Charleston.

Baltimore's poshest restaurant was featured in the Wall Street Journal's Power Tables.




Evidently, for dinner we were teh A+ awesome.

movies

Recently viewed a briefly-shown documentary called The Rape of Europa:



Amazing. I'd strongly recommend WWII fans and art lovers alike see it.

It probably got retired after only a week's run to help make room for what I want to see next:



I admit - I love Wes Anderson movies, and this looks like it will touch on some themes that will resonate with me. If I made movies, I'd want them to be like this.

Redheads are always so effortlessly chic in autumn, don't you think?

Via The Sartorialist.

the ace hotel

Do I have anyone I can visit in Portland? A forgotten acquaintance? A scientific meeting? A band's reunion?

Do I have any reason, any at all, to travel to the PDX?

Because I know exactly where I'd want to stay.

September 2007 - the books.

The Autograph Man, Z. Smith
Ideas of Heaven, J. Silber
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, T. Young
Italian Neighbors, T. Parks
Plainsong, K. Haruf
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, A. McCall Smith
A Natural History of the Senses, D. Ackerman
On Natural Selection, C. Darwin



A pleasing month - wherein everything I read was enjoyable.

Autograph Man was just as good as White Teeth, in my opinion. Ideas of Heaven and Plainsong were nice surprises to come across. Toby Young is yet another in my little streak of humorous authors (Burroughs, Rakoff, to a certain extent Archer and Dennis.) The very famous No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency - I could see a young Teri being extremely drawn to this simple story with its veiled philosophy. And another Ackerman book - her writing is so dense - every paragraph filled with randomness, whether in scientific tidbit or in metaphoric description. That and the Darwin were both well suited to visit with and return to throughout the month.

night swimming

"There might be sharks out there."

"I don't care. I need to do this."

How perfectly cool is this bit of news from the NYT?

Oliver Sacks Joins Columbia Faculty as ‘Artist’

The new appointment will allow Dr. Sacks, the author of 10 books and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, to range freely across Columbia’s departments, teaching, giving public lectures, conducting seminars, seeing patients and collaborating with other faculty members. Many of the details of his appointment have yet to be worked out, but among other things, he will be teaching in the university’s creative writing department as well as at the medical school.

Hearing about this new interdisciplinary position makes me happy. My two life goals: philanthropy and (more importantly) creative leeway.

baltimore foodies

They're out there.

I've found two more blogs I'm fond of.

Curiously Ravenous - classic blog styling; a good Baltimore cook and lover of food.

Marginal Foodie - "Gastronomic Economics and Baltimore Restaurant Guide". I really dig the graphs.

In case you were wondering where the title came from.

August 2007 - the books.

What is the What, D. Eggers*
Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II, J. Conant*
Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication, S. Walton
Dry, A. Burroughs
Ghost World, D. Clowes
My Family and Other Animals, G. Durrell*

Ghost World was a housewarming gift. Thank you, Bateman.

conversational snippet

"Sometimes, it's like shopping in an empty store."

-My mother, on contemporary art

unknown age

For all the features it hoards and displays
age seems to be without substance at any time

whether morning or evening it is a moment of air
held between the hands like a stunned bird

while I stand remembering light in the trees
of another century on a continent long submerged

with no way of telling whether the leaves at that time
felt memory as they were touching the day

and no knowledge of what happened to the reflections
on the pond's surface that never were seen again

the bird lies still while the light goes on flying



- W.S. Merwin

song of the summer

"Cherry Bomb" by Spoon.

It's catchy and hooky and I love it.

That is all.

a perfect combination

One tiny square of the 91% cacao Guittard Nocturne bar, paired with black coffee. The coffee somehow tempers the strength of the extra, extra dark chocolate, allowing smooth fruity notes to materialize on the tastebuds.

best breakfast ever

Steel cut oats with buttermilk and farmer's market blueberries. A touch of Trader Joe's new Vanilla Paste drizzled on top - you can see the vanilla bean bits.

This is seriously delicious - and it's so easy to make!

(Am I nesting or what? I'm sure it's not just the oats - this place is starting to feel more like home.)

I'm about to go lounge in a soon-to-be-painted room with the latest issue of Domino Magazine. August 2007 just looked too full of useful information to not grab off the shelf. Maybe for September I'll actually commit to a subscription.

There are so many wonderful design blogs around now, too....I'm so happy with the information overload! I have a lot to learn.

Yes, there is some sifting involved, but I've been lucky to come across some gems.

This post from The Peak of Chic is one of my favorites. Wonderful article on Elsie de Wolfe that I would have likely completely missed otherwise.



Big week of science coming up. For now, though, I'll just be dreaming about being surrounded by beautiful design.

mysterious knitting

What is this? It's something woven right onto the chain link fence by the St. Stan's demo in Fells Point.



I've seen this twice before, on other chain link fences. For a long time, there was one by Peter's Inn, and I spied one soon to be swallowed by urban underbrush in an alley by Jack's Bistro.

Is it some sort of art project by a disaffected MICA student? Or maybe a bored grandma with no one to knit doilies for....

...with Baltimore, you never really know.

July 2007 - the books.

The Nasty Bits, A. Bourdain
The Art of Scandal, D. Shand-Tucci
Don't Get Too Comfortable, D. Rakoff *
Matter of Mind, K. Heilman
An Equal Music, V. Seth *
So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading, S. Nelson
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, A. Fadiman *


**************************************************

August 2nd edit -

A bit about the books...

Nasty Bits: having it all be recycled material took a bit (but only a bit) of the fun out of it.

Art of Scandal: great subject matter, terribly written.

Don't Get Too Comfortable: reading Sedaris sometimes makes me cringe too much. Loved Rakoff, since it's the same kind of humor, but without quite so much dysfunction.

Matter of Mind: actually well written - but Oliver Sacks has more interesting cases for the layman. This is 'dryer' - aka less unusual - stuff.

An Equal Music: Lovely read. Classical music fans will especially enjoy. If you liked Possession, you'd like this.

So Many Books, So Little Time: A little disjointed. Was this originally a blog? It reads that way.

A Common Reader: Astounding. I loved this little book, with every turn of phrase just right. It's unfortunate that I read two similarly themed books back to back, because it really illustrated how much better this book was. If you are a lover of books, you should read this.


This was the first month in two years without my beloved New Yorker or Atlantic subscriptions - they ended in July, at the old place. It might end up being a blessing, especially for the reading project - without the weekly onslaught of NYer verbosity, I might be able to get through more books!

a girl can dream...

Library hallway....with an Eames lounge chair.

Delicious.

(Image courtesy of Metropolitan Home)

I dream of...

...bookshelves.

For the library hallway.

Because it's hard to read a year of books when they're hidden away in boxes.


Michael Haverland

Angela Free

Glen Gissler


Chotda's gorgeous room on Flickr.

on the move

We're waist deep in cardboard chic. Heavy boxes and the heady perfume of primer.

Lime green's last stand. One shade down from pure neon - it had - er, has- to go.

How can we have so much and yet so little?

The door is closing.

The first home that felt like home. My sanctuary. Crumbling at the end.

The site of dinner parties that went until 3 am and lazy afternoons curled up on the loveseat with a book and a cup of tea.

The ancient push-button electricals.

The antique key in the side door.

The shockingly bold colors I grew to love. Goldenrod to teal to tomato red (with accents of orange). Bubblegum pink hiding beneath the apple green of my bedroom.

The Mr. Boh peeking out from a nautical porthole.

The fat Elvis, resplendent in his baby blue suit and tinny golden frame, in his place of honor....above the fridge.

Every fading color, every esoteric sticker. I'm sure they'll be gone soon. The crack of the auctioneer's gavel will signal the end of this house as I know it. Soon it will be gutted, stripped down to its bones. The drafty, creaky character I knew drywalled over in Everyday Eggshell. Refinished in the latest designed-for-profit style.

Sundays are Postsecret days. At this point, checking the site is a compulsive habit - it's been around for ages in interweb time. It's always been interesting to see what people will say when their words are no longer attached to them.



I do love this one - but for the art even more so than the message. Does anyone know anything about that beautiful statue?

serenity now

Call him Ishmael.

My crazy roommate departed this morning for Miami.

Why is he crazy?






Because he's SAILING there.

With one intrepid friend, on a sailboat named Serenity.

Godspeed, Gary. I'd prefer to not hear about how you got rescued off the coast of Cuba.

epicure's lament

I believe that blogs can often be best when they have a singularity of purpose. A theme is decided upon and developed, and then you (you plural, the blog reader) always know what you'll be viewing once you click on that particular link.

And I'm (actually not very) sorry to say that this one does not. You get the same non sequiturs that you would if you talked to me in person. That's okay, really, because I'm not writing for an audience. If there's any sort of theme, it's just what I happen to think about while living in Baltimore.

And with some great restaurants in this town and some friends and loved ones with developed palates, well, it's often thoughts on food.

Enter the food blog.

I've found three consistently good Baltimore-specific sources -

• The local Chowhound board - of course.

• http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/reviews/blog/ is the Sun's critic's blog.

• Coconut & Lime is quirky, neat recipes. It's where I first learned of the ultra-summery Baltimore lemon sticks. (Don't those sound so good right about now, in this heat?)

There are others, certainly. But ones that looked promising weren't, and I won't be bothering to link to them. Guess there's an semi-open niche to fill....if I ever decide to keep my thoughts to one subject.

I'd heard of the elusive (for a reason?) 'cat poop coffee', but this LA Times article really brought me up to speed.

Adventurous eaters - a new bar has been set!

Somehow I doubt you can find kopi luwak at BlueHouse.

desire to inspire

A website that lives up to its name.

I am so in love with these beautiful rooms.


Domino Magazine


Angela Free


Elle Decor


Marc Cutler


Graham and Green


Greg Natale


Judith Miller

snap crackle pop

Happy 4th of July, friends. I like this holiday because I love fireworks, and the city of Baltimore puts on a pretty decent show. They're the definition of the word ephemeral, and therefore difficult to capture with my rinky dink digital camera. Shutter lag is not my friend.



The thunderstorm today had us taking shelter inside my roommate's boat. While I wished we had cards to play rummy, we idly talked of whether the fireworks would be rained out. It was good that they weren't.


This one looks a little...synaptic, doesn't it? Maybe I just have work on the brain. (ha)


Right moment (and the right settings on the camera) and the whole harbor looks lit up.



An attempt to document the fireworks finale. My favorite part is the very end, when the sky goes red, and the very last big golden spray of sparks falling from the sky.

June 2007 - the books.

Understanding and Treating Adults with ADHD, B. Doyle
To Cut A Long Story Short, J. Archer
The Maltese Falcon, D. Hammett
About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made, B. Yagoda *
The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance, R. Roberts
The Better of McSweeney's, D. Eggers (ed.) *
An Alchemy of Mind, D. Ackerman *


It's a beautiful day here. I think I'll come back later to talk about this month's selections.

****************************************

July 3rd edit:

Ok, so it's been a beautiful few days. My ideal weather - comfortable, not hot, sandal weather. Maybe with a thin sweater at night.

About the books...

(n.b. - the starred books are the ones I enjoyed most)

The New Yorker book was such a fun read...all about how the magazine got started. I really enjoyed it. I plan on going through the book again, and this time looking up any especially good writing mentioned with the Complete Archives on CD that D. got me.

The McSweeney's compilation was (predictably) very good. I bought several items from their store to help with averting their funding crisis, and it was nice to see that I wasn't the only one.

And Alchemy of Mind...wow. For only two hundred something pages, it's a very dense book...it's prose on neuroscience! Loved it, of course. I carried this book around with me like a talisman.

6 months into my year of books - 45 books read so far.

nueva casa

I think I found my first new home purchase:



It's the 'Before Dawn curtain' by Tord Boontje. It's actually been around for a couple of years, so it's not exactly cutting edge design. But...we will have a living room window that looks right out onto the sidewalk. I'd like to have this as sort of a first line of window defense - both to help keep people from seeing in quite as well if other curtains are open, and to help keep the exterior looking nice by diffusing the look of the 'other side' of whatever curtains we go with. (Does that make any sense?)

Dayna's comment on my cherry blossom pie picture has inspired me to wax poetic about something near and dear to my heart...

the porte-couteau.




Simply translated as 'knife rest', it's an idea whose time has...well, never left, really. An outrageously simple little device that is placed traditionally by the upper right hand quadrant of the plate until it is called into service during your meal.



And then - you rest your knife on it. That's all. But it works beautifully. No soiling the tablecloth. No precarious teetering of knife on edge of plate.



One more functional, yet decorative element. One more thing to love.

As an aside: they're not the easiest things to find. You can look for them under knife/chopstick rests, too. Ebay France seems like a good place to find antique versions, usually of the cut glass or animal-shaped variety.

bowl of cherries

I thought my cherry blossom bowl was a fitting vessel for said cherry DDP.

a most dangerous pie.

First cherry pie of the season.

It's a beautiful thing. And by beautiful, I mean tasty.

Totally worth the traffic-battling drive to Federal Hill.

Phd comics....hits a little close to home.