Brrr.

It's getting cold. Time to consider a jacket:

Soia & Kyo parka:


J.Crew long puffer jacket:


Mackage leather jacket in gunmetal:

hello beautiful

Can't believe you're already sold out.

Wait, maybe I can. Doesn't mean I'm happy about it, though.

November 2009

Books:

Vertigo, W.G. Sebald
Oblivion, David Foster Wallace
The Lemon Tree, Sandy Tolan
The Canine Good Citizen: Every Dog Can Be One, Jack and Wendy Volhard


Movies:

Enchanted April
Nine Lives
Brick

First time for everything...


Snack:

smoked salmon spread

To start:

lobster bisque

Main:

brisket with carrots and potatoes

Sides:

brussels sprouts roasted in balsamic and truffle oil

green beans with almonds

sweet potato mash

farro with parsnips and cherries

Dessert:

apple pear chardonnay pie

cherry pie

ginger cookies

This is a necklace done in collaboration/inspired by Where the Wild Things Are.

(The bird monster was always my favorite.)

Checked in with the April bride. The long JCrew strapless gown in graphite is still her preference. Mine too. Now I just have to buy it at the right moment - aka on sale!

I am really liking some of their dresses/colors lately:


Violet Stone


Black Plum

May 6
You are proud, persevering, conscientious, and sometimes stubborn. You are constantly striving to elevate yourself socially and intellectually. You have a tendency towards pessimism that with increased unhappiness or failure might cause you to become bitter and caustic. You are usually kind and tender.

September:

Books:

The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
Darkness Visible, William Styron
The Stranger, Albert Camus

Cesar's Way, Cesar Millan
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, PG Wodehouse

Movies:

The Rage in Placid Lake
Melvin Goes to Dinner
The September Issue
Stolen

October:

Movies:

This American Life, Seasons 1 & 2
Where the Wild Things Are
Let the Right One In

August 09

The books:

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain (don't do drugs)
The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga (the month's book club selection)

Men in the Off Hours, Anne Carson

Finished Sept 2nd:

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy



It's better than you think.


And the movies:

(500) Days of Summer
Gigantic
Seraphine

In the Loop
Metropolitan
The Anniversary Party

re: books

I read whatever crosses my path. Since ceasing to just buy books outright and get them either through the library or through my volunteer work, I take a lot more risks with choosing books. It's surprisingly rewarding.

I do like to keep an eye out for other works by authors I already enjoy (cf: the Murakami , Carson, and Oliver in July).

I especially take note of articles that clue me into something worth tracking down - for this month, that includes:

this Believer article on the Codex

and this NYRB article by Zadie Smith that references The Remainder (and Netherland, which I read back in March)

also there was a lovely NYT article on Mary Oliver and Provincetown, not far from where I grew up (and you can hear her reading her poems).

July 2009

Books:

And Now You Can Go, Vendela Vida
Thirst, Mary Oliver
The Elephant Vanishes, Haruki Murakami
The Atlas of Experience, Louise van Swaaij
Collected Poems, Elizabeth Bishop
Codex Seraphinianus, Luigi Serafini
The Executor, Michael Kruger
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, Vendela Vida
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, translated by Anne Carson
Minotaur, Benjamin Tammuz
Remainder, Tom McCarthy
The Silver Linings Playbook, Matthew Quick

Movies:

Lolita
Bringing Up Baby
The Money Pit
I've Loved You So Long
The Royal Tenenbaums (my favorite movie)
Rushmore


Surreptitious pictures of some of my favorite Codex illustrations:

june 2009

Books:

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri
The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim
Averno, Louise Glück
The Secret of Scent, Luca Turin
The Beauty of the Husband, Anne Carson
The Look of Architecture, Witold Rybczynski
Very Good, Jeeves!, P.G. Wodehouse


Movies:

Smart People
Arrested Development (re-watch)
Away We Go
Sweet and Lodown

Another 20x200 print:

Filter Samples
by Jessica Eaton

venezia

Carnevale and Biennale - both are (one day) must-sees.

For the latter, the NYT slide show.

Um, definitely (desperately) want a print of this.

more 20x200

I love watching this site to see what turns up next. Much of it isn't for me but I enjoy the updates anyway!


Yuha Basin
by Michael Lundgren

A favorite from April. (yes I totally meant to blog these earlier)

And one from March:

Snarky - it makes me smile.

One of the great luxuries of my life is taking a bath.

It's been rough going as of late and this indulgence was totally called for.

Only very recently have I had the occasion to be able to draw a bath - the last home I had was shared with so many roommates and consequent houseguests it just never felt right. And places before that....well, I realized close to my birthday that I've lived with strangers for the last ten years of my life - and what a range of places it's been.

Those times didn't stop me from finding bath products I loved...I just never actually got the chance to use them.

I remember years ago splurging on the most wonderfully scented bath items while wistfully shopping at the local Anthropologie. I've kept them, moving them around from place to place....until now (and luckily, they've kept! The scent ("white musk blended with pink rose, muguet and angelica root") is still heady and gorgeous.) They are by La Luz, which if Googled now seems to be totally out of business.

The only vestiges left on the interweb it seems are some candles on Overstock:

I'm sure they'd be great for increasing the ambience, but at this point, I'm just happy about the tub.

The Atlantic's article on happiness and the Harvard Grant Study -
it's an interesting read if you haven't seen it already:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/happiness

May 2009 - the books.

The Portable Dorothy Parker

Louise Bouregois: The Secret of the Cells, Rainer Crone and Petrus Graf Schaesberg

The School Among the Ruins, Adrienne Rich

The Leaf and the Cloud, Mary Oliver

Also, the Domino book on decorating, but I don't really think that counts. (The magazine issues were far better, anyway - more sourcing)

Mmmm...nothing says summer like neon pink.

Don't laugh...I kind of want this shirt.

This month's book club selection was Alan's War. Above, the artist's amazing technique.

I'm very pleased that I was able to see the Louise Bourgeois exhibit that has been at the Hirshhorn (and of course elsewhere - it's quite the retrospective). Yesterday was its last day.

This was my favorite sculpture:







"Femme Volage (Fickle Woman)"
1951
Painted wood, 72 x 17 1/2 x 13 inches
Guggenheim Museum, New York

So I was reading Pitchfork just now and they have an interview with a DJ called A-Trak. I've heard of him because he's a big fan of Baltimore club.

Going from that, I was totally blown away when he name-dropped Proust in the interview:

Last Great Book I Read

Marcel Proust: "Un Amour de Swann" [Pt. 3 of Du côté de chez Swann, or Swann's Way]

My brother is obsessed with Proust, and he gave me-- I guess the work of Proust, you can buy it split up into smaller books, if you don't want to carry around a huge brick [laughs]. So this particular section that I read, "Un Amour de Swann", I was just reading and thinking, wow, this guy has figured out all of humanity, he's figured out what really goes on inside my head, and he's saying stuff that I'm probably even too scared to admit to myself, but he's saying it and I read it and I'm like, holy shit we all really think like this. And then he pushes it even further, and brings out all these strange comparisons that you wouldn't really think of, that are so well-argued, but at the same time, kind of clumsy, because his sentences are really long and really... I guess just the opposite of what, traditionally, writers try to achieve-- a sentence that lasts a whole page, and it should be clumsy and long, but it's just so good and so dead on, you're like, "Jesus, how does he do this stuff?"

Chicago bound

Chicago at night (cue up the Spoon song)


My first trip to the windy city is happening this fall. I'm quite excited.

Places I am most definitely going:

• Art Institute
• MCA
  
• The Violet Hour

Places I am tempted to go to, based on the name alone:

• The Hungry Brain

• The Green Eye Lounge

hippocampus

Love this Low show poster.

april 2009

Books:

The Substance of Style, Virginia Postrel
Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope, by Emmanuel Guibert (graphic novel about WWII, book club selection for May)
Seven Days in the Art World, Sarah Thornton
The Connoisseur, Evan S. Connell
Alex & Me, Irene Peppenburg
Asleep, Banana Yoshimoto
So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell


Movies:

Caro Diario
Out of Africa
Ginger and Cinnamon
My Architect
A Woman is a Woman
The Triplets of Belleville
L'Avventura

Summer tote?

Liking the violet.


Or maybe it's time to pull the trigger on a weekender bag:

But more practical in black.

new keyring

I think I need one.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Young Adult Friction

potential

dining room chandelier?

Everyone who sees the dining room table loves it. It's nice to feel like you made the right choice.

March 2009

A little late.

Books:

Winter's Tales, Isak Dinensen
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder, Lawrence Weschler
The Invention of Morel and Other Stories, Adolfo Bioy Casares
The Black Book, Orhan Pamuk
Netherland, Joseph O'Neill
Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely
Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, Gary Marcus
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, David Sedaris

Movies:

Coraline
Bottle Shock
La Dolce Vita
Roman Holiday
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Contempt
Rothko's Rooms
Happenstance
Happy Go Lucky
Big Night
Secretary
John Adams

black march.

I have a friend
At the end
Of the world.
His name is a breath

Of fresh air.
He is dressed in
Grey chiffon. At least
I think it is chiffon.
It has a
Peculiar look, like smoke.

It wraps him round
It blows out of place
It conceals him
I have not seen his face.

But I have seen his eyes, they are
As pretty and bright
As raindrops on black twigs
In March, and heard him say:

I am a breath
Of fresh air for you, a change
By and by.

Black March I call him
Because of his eyes
Being like March raindrops
On black twigs.

(Such a pretty time when the sky
Behind black twigs can be seen
Stretched out in one
Uninterrupted
Cambridge blue as cold as snow.)

But this friend
Whatever new names I give him
Is an old friend. He says:

Whatever names you give me
I am
A breath of fresh air,
A change for you.

-Stevie Smith

the pleasure of the text

Book cover designer - how amazing must this gig be?

One of my favorites:

The UK Vintage Classics cover. Couldn't you imagine falling in love with someone after seeing them reading this on the subway?


And an approximation:

René Magritte's La Château des Pyrenees, said to have graced the (original?) cover of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.

kind of blue.

We got creative (read: cheap) with the (much, much needed) desk and it turned out just fine. Custom tinted stain from Home Depot made a plain Jane IKEA pine top work out pretty great for the blue-on-blue color scheme going on in the room.




The Caper chair looks like a good companion piece. Ergonomic enough for actually doing work, but not too big.

Now, the last decision is at hand: Baltic Blue, or Blue Fog?

February 2009 - the books. (and movies)

Books:

Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences, Lawrence Weschler
The Zanzibar Chest, Aidan Hartley
No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July
Hard Boiled and Hard Luck, Banana Yoshimoto
An Iliad, Alessandro Barrico
The Book of Imaginary Beings, Jorge Luis Borges


Movies:

Annie Hall
Dr. Strangelove
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Persepolis
Blow Up
Man on Wire
Pollock
Broken English
I Like Killing Flies
LoudQUIETLoud
Winter Passing
Mostly Martha
Grey Gardens

netflix.

So, those little red envelopes now come to the house. With increasing frequency.

I'm normally not that much of a movie person so I didn't completely see the appeal...until this month. Now, I think I'm hooked. At least until the really nice weather hits.

From here on out, I'll be listing the movies I've watched that month along with the books. To start, here's January's:

*Priceless
*The Valet
*Slumdog Millionaire

In love with this belt. I've visited it a few times at Shine Collective. It's too pricey, though. Especially as I'd be obligated to buy some more comfy-chic dresses to wear it with.

Our new dining table. It's solid and sturdy and the strips of wood seem to shimmer in the light and I've been visiting it at the store as long as I can remember, and it's finally ours.

Unfortunately, it was acquired on the eve of Bluehouse's demise. I'm really going to miss our local little green eco-store.

new to me.

The car Pro/Con list -

+:
Work when I want, till whenever I want
No more shady shuttle at night
Neuroimmunology class is now within my grasp
Mooching kept at a minimum
Getting more spontaneity out of life
Wegmans


-:
Parking
Circling the blocks looking for parking
Parking tickets
Worrying about broken windows
Balducci's, you glorious bastard you
Although car is FAR from new, there is no tape deck only a CD player...music selecting is um, interesting

teri....now with wheels.

I have a car again.

January 2009 - the books.

Decreation, Anne Carson
Proust's Way, Roger Shattuck
Proust and Signs, Gilles Deleuze
Learning to Love You More, Miranda July
The Art Instinct, Denis Dutton

Living in a 110 year old rowhouse that is a work-in-progress is still a new experience for me...one that takes my normal everyday level of anxiety to dizzying new heights. I'm trying to get over that for the sake of just Getting. Things. Done. It's not easy, though, when you're picky.

Here's a sampling of the things I'd like to get accomplished this year:

*dining room table and chairs
*dining room lighting fixture
*library hallway bookshelves, lighting and new carpeting
*frame more artwork (and get it up on the walls!)
*work desk and chair
*paint ceilings/fix previous painting boo-boos
*re-do laundry/utility/powder room

One of these things just got moved up the priority list, and I'm sure will be the subject of several posts to come.

happy days are here again

Once again I have a New Yorker subscription.

Gnosticism III

First line has to make your brain race that's how Homer does it,
that's how Frank O'Hara does it, why
at such a pace
Muses
slam through the house -- there goes one (fainting) up the rungs
of your strainge BULLFIGHT, buttered
almost in a nearness
to skyblue
Thy pang -- Pollock yourself!
Just to hang on to life is why


-Anne Carson

"if you're good at something never do it for free."

The Dark Knight contains multitudes.

December 2008 - the books

Heat, Bill Buford
Shopgirl, Steve Martin
Mythologies, Roland Barthes
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery
Swann's Way, Marcel Proust

Proust is amazing. I developed something that I called "The Proust Zone". It's not unlike super careful reading for a class. The sentences were just so dense, so jam-packed with meanings, several of them, which then combined to form a new, subtle direction. I'm going to have to read the remaining volumes of the Search.

This year I read 76 books.

Of course, there's still some started that I have yet to finish:
A People's History of the United States
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Book of Disquiet

..but I think I'll get to them. A new year can include some old books. In fact, I think it should!