grey room

Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,
And pick
At your pale white gown;
Or lift one of the green beads
Of your necklace,
To let it fall;
Or gaze at your green fan
Printed with the red branches of a red willow;
Or, with one finger,
Move the leaf in the bowl--
The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia
Beside you...
What is all this?
I know how furiously your heart is beating.

-Wallace Stevens

science tatoos

linky

I won't be getting one, but I'm impressed by the devotion to the cause(s).

nota bene: set design by George Nelson.

May 2008 - the books.

*Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson

*Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote

*The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall

*Runaway, Alice Munro

*The Cheese Monkeys, Chip Kidd

*Days Between Stations, Steve Erickson

*On the Shortness of Life, Seneca

one way widow

So many eager sinners, only 7 deadly sins; Hell's so God damn crowded that there's no one getting in.

The line goes to the river Styx, but she can get you in.







The end result is still the same -

- you can't go back the way you came.

PDX

Let's just move on now and address near steps off the mortal coil at another time.

For...there's pictures to look at, which is more pleasant for all, I'd think.

I fell in love - with a city (and with some good design). A wish came true for a special treat - I stayed at the Ace Hotel in Portland.


Fantastic location. The city matched the fog I was in, but I felt strangely comfortable there.


The lobby was excellent to hang out in.


The Stumptown coffee was some of the best I've had.


My room was very cool, and I wanted so badly to bring home a wool blanket for a practical souvenir.


The Eames shell chair came with the room, the Pumas and flipflops came with the traveler.

post-paradigm shift

April 2008 - the books

A little belated, and for some pretty conspicuous reasons.

*Sideways, Rex Pickett
*Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
*Comfort Me with Apples, Ruth Reichl
*Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl
*Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami
*The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

Unsurprisingly at this point, the Murakami was my favorite.

Why I was dancing in the gym last night....

I am seriously considering switching to a tumblr.

The format is a lot more appropriate for the types of information I'd be wanting to share.

Which could lead to me posting more.

Perfect flowchart for the Prince fan in your life...

Via Cate.

taxes for the win

For the first time in my life, I did my taxes by myself.*

*by myself = with Noel's help. But no official accountant was involved, so I think it still counts.

Of course this dubious victory, like all good victories, was achieved at the last possible minute, so I braved Fayette street in all its traffic- laden glory to drop off my two envelopes of wonder at the Baltimore post office that stays open till midnight on tax day.

At least they had pretty stamps.

Possibly the coolest website for a song I've seen:

Arcade Fire's Black Mirror: http://www.rorrimkcalb.com

Toggle around to make your own remix.

Oh hai -



via Blazey via Noel. Exhibit A pls see below.

Anthropologie has some nice dresses right now.

March 2008

The books:

*Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
*Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels

*Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories, Alice Munro
*The Little Virtues, Natalia Ginsburg
*Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino


And the shows:

*MSTRKRFT
*Georgie James
*Raveonettes

The first book I have purchased for myself (other than textbooks) in a long, long time.

I sustained a black eye at the MSTRKRFT show this week.

It was a great show, so no matter. I've worn it like a merit badge. It's actually been pretty amusing - every day's a different color.

Except for this Saturday, when to my chagrin, I had both a baby shower AND a family event to attend.

Now, Baltimore has made me into a very casual girl.

Exhibit A: the new sneaks.

But a colorful shiner is just too tempting a target for future gossip fodder. I know how people work.

So, close to $200 later, I'm the proud owner of more fancy makeup, and a renewed sense of my ability to blend in and snob with the best of them. As the cliche goes, priceless.

Spring is usually my least favorite season to go shopping. All those brights and pastels...shudder. But J.Crew is treating me right!

sneakers shortlist

February 2008 - the books

*Friend of My Youth, Alice Munro - Excellent short stories.

*At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays, Anne Fadiman - From the author of one of my favorites from last year, Ex Libris.

*Seven Types of Ambiguity, Elliot Perlman - Loved this. An Australian import with a changing perspective.

*Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology, Paul Broks. Interesting, but as I read on, I realized I prefer my neuroscience and my philosophy a little less intertwined.

*Bowl of Cherries, Millard Kaufman - Loved this. Smart, funny and completely bizarre.

*Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, Jenni Ferrari-Adler - Pretty enjoyable collection of stories and essays on pleasures and pitfalls of eating alone. Murakami's "The Year of Spaghetti" is included.

Murakami?

I'm in the tiniest bit of a quandry.

I just don't know what Haruki Murakami book to read next.

Late last year I read (and loved) Sputnik Sweetheart.

I've now collected:

*Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World
*Kafka on the Shore
*The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles

All three are now sitting in one of my many piles of books, waiting to be chosen. Any fans, please advise.

Stuck in my head...

...and I'm not ashamed to say I'm enjoying it.

Ork!

I dig these maps. You might too. From Ork Posters.

People have always taken me to be a clotheshorse. There's something about my looks and/or personality that must suggest a barely curated armoire/closet/museum documenting a history of tastes and whims.

I'll never forget the time a male friend stopped by my college dorm suite and saw my closet. "But....where are all the clothes?" They're right there! But evidently, I was expected to have more.

It's a deadly combination of both frugality (sigh) and plain old pickiness that keeps my closet from bursting at the seams.

This trait has only gotten worse since moving to Baltimore:

1. I have the sort of job that requires little -to- no dressing up.
2. Not a whole lot of shopping temptation in the city.

So when an architecture-benefit event came up, I was woefully unprepared. It took a stressful, last-ditch drive out of the city to try to find something suitable. A sartorial Hail Mary pass, if you will.

The fashion gods smiled upon me this Groundhog day. For on the marked down rack (joy!) there was a perfect frock for the occasion. A black cowlneck dress, half sweaterdress, half constructed of silk. Calvin Klein had saved the day - er, evening to come.

Sharp, but not too dressy. A little interesting. And just what I wanted. Scoring my new dress was the highlight of the weekend. Turned out that the event was forgettable - but I have a great memento, hanging up in my closet.

here we go again.

After a year, do you really think I could stop keeping track?

January 2008 Books:

84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff - so sweet. Really liked this. I think they made it into a movie, too.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark - another to add to my formative-years-in-prep-school pile of books.
Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Jeff Lindsay - read like the TV show it was soon (destined?) to become.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie - a little tale from the Chinese re-education period.
Eating My Words, Mimi Sheraton - memoir from a former NYT food critic.
Come to Me, Amy Bloom - short stories. Really liked these.
Flights of Love: Stories, Bernhard Schlink - more short stories.

on the case

Timely: Domino Magazine's gallery on bookshelves.

My three favorites:

A friend tipped me off to the fan-freaking-tastic news that Helvetica: the film is on Google Video in its full-length typographic glory.

A thousand thanks - I know how I'm relaxing this weekend!

P.S. Is it hopelessly nerdy that I really want this mug?

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been observing one of the security guards slowly but surely (and at a faster pace than I had) making his way through that behemoth of a novel, Infinite Jest.

Somehow I find this profoundly heartwarming. Like I'm not alone --there are goofy, read-everything people out there in the world. Some of the security guards bring in little TVs or just the daily newspaper - no, this guy went all out, with a book was only slightly less difficult for me to get through than my old nemesis Gravity's Rainbow.

I'm bringing in my battered copy of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again for him tomorrow.

FYI

In case you were wondering, it turns out that you do not need to bring your own needlenose pliers to your MRI appointment - shoulder imaging now does not require removal of that ancient navel ring that seemed like such a good idea close to a decade ago.

(So why keep it? The ring > the leftover scar.)

kopi luwak

One more foodie adventure crossed off the list...

I mentioned it before - kopi luwak, the world's most expensive coffee. And this Sunday, I had the opportunity (courtesy of Zeke's) to try it. An inner gauntlet was thrown - I couldn't resist.

The Baltimore Sun covered the event and their article is here. I spoke with the Sun reporter but declined to give details, as I somehow prefer to not have my name associated with cat poop coffee forevermore. But the "smooth" and "earthy" descriptions were mine.

december 2007 - finale of the year of books

A partial illustration of the books I read this year. (Not all are included.) Several books have been given away to friends. (Both my copies of A Suitable Boy, Suite Francaise, Stiff, Never Let Me Go, etc) Many others, especially from the first half of the year, were simply donated in lieu of my summertime move. I could carry only so many books.

December books:

*Intuition, A. Goodman
*The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, J-D. Bauby
*What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, R. Carver
*The Island of Lost Maps, M. Harvey
*Old School, T. Wolff
*Birds of America, L. Moore
*Offshore, P. Fitzgerald
*Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category, D. Eggers et al (ed.)
*Moon Tiger, P. Lively
*Special Topics in Calamity Physics, M. Pessl
*We Don't Live Here Anymore, A. Dubus
*The History of Love, N. Krauss

I read (approximately - possibly more) 97 books total for this project in 2007.
*58 I classified as fiction
*20 I classified as short story, essay or novella collections
*15 were biographical or autobiographical
*14 were science-related
*6 were set in Baltimore
*6 were Booker prize winners (Offshore, Hotel du Lac, Moon Tiger, Possession, Amsterdam, The Blind Assassin)

This year of reading project was due to my ability, thanks to living in Baltimore, of getting books for free. The only books that I paid for were my Penguin Great Ideas - Darwin book, my textbooks for classes, and the books from McSweeney's. A few others I was lucky enough to receive as gifts, but mostly this is the benefit of my (obviously) favorite nonprofit.

Here's to reading.

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!