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