Leslie Buck, 1922-2010

Leslie Buck, Designer of Iconic Coffee Cup, Dies at 87

One of the wonderful quirks of a NY cup of takeout coffee! 

Also available for purchase in a ceramic version at MoMA.

From my sub-conscious

A blended work anxiety/sex dream...go figure!

So, I'm making out with X (who shall remain nameless) - can't keep our hands off each other, clothes pulled every which way, unfastening..."Damn...I have to work," I said. "I'm here in NYC for our 15th Anniversary Gala event....I have to get ready."  So, reluctantly, I pull away, buttoning/unbuttoning. I hit my hotel room for a shower where I am met by about 12 co-workers also getting ready for the event, hanging out, chatting, and taking pictures. I'm naked (and so caught! - not only nude, but clearly disheveled, and clearly irresponsible because I'm supposed to be working!), but I get my "boss-lady" attitude on. "We're late.  We have got to get moving.  The event is in a hour!"  I go to hit the shower panicked about the event, and a junior colleague snaps a picture of my boobs.

Dreams are whack!

Sting's house

So, Sting just sold his 6,600-square foot Central Park West apartment in New York for $19m.  Here's a tour of the listing, just in case you never got there for dinner.  Check out the art.  The guitars under the grand piano.  The wall-to-wall book cases with actual books. The gorgeous woven carpets.  The beautiful curved stairway.  I'm not so into the bordello red bedroom.

Haiku

Wonderful weekend;
Then, a downpour to sleep by.
It's Monday now.  Sigh.

The Players Lounge, Anacostia

(c) 2010 Vegitect

I really like this photo.  I like the light and the lines, and the way each are reflected on both the wall and the floor.  I like the grid and the grit - I'm somewhat partial to a bit of grit.  I like the venue and the location of that venue -  and all that it represents.  The Player's Lounge, pictured here, is a seedy lounge/bar/restaurant located within DC's down-and-out Ward 8.  The Anacostia neighborhood in DC has old, historic, now dilapidated, houses, and once had a heyday of African-American music, culture and urban history.  But like many things in DC, it was ravaged by drugs, crime, and violence - nearly a lost generation.  To boot, DC's former and infamous mayor and current City Councilmember (?!?), Marion Barry - also ravaged by crack and crime - used to hang here.  There is a lot going on in this picture - artistically and contextually - both visible and invisible.  I also like the photog, Vegitect, whom I credit here.

Artiste Extraordinaire - Julie Mehretu

About 20 years ago while an exchange student in Dakar, I was housemates with Julie Mehretu. We lived in a group house of 10 American college students near the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop.  The 5-bedroom large house had barely any furniture. In the shared double bedrooms, we each had an armoire and slept on foam mattresses on the floor, and our living room had floor mats that were rolled out for daily lunches around a bowl of ceeb u jen (fish with rice).  The house at that time - the early 90's - was filled (no overflowing!) with the identity politics of our diverse group of politically-aware, young, smart activists living in West Africa that included gay, lesbian, bisexual, straight, white, black, bi-racial, multi-cultural, multinational.  All 10 of us, each holding some combination of these labels and associated fraught meanings - and for lack of a better label of my more complex self, I suppose I was the token white, straight girl born of two American parents.  Sometimes I describe that time as the pilot for MTV's Real World Dakar.  There was certainly the drama, the angst, the in-fighting, the affairs, and the alliances.

I recall Julie as funky, creative, temperamental, opinionated, passionate, radical, and brilliant.  While not in her artist identity at that time, she certainly often sketched in notebooks.  Daughter of a white American mother and a Ethiopian political refugee father, Julie had moved to Michigan in childhood, but had family still in Ethiopia.  Her aunt, a flight attendant for Ethiopian Airlines would occasionally bring platters of grandmother's homemade, truly authentic, made with love, doro wat  to the house, on her Addis -Dakar route.

After that year, the tensions of the house meant we did not keep in touch, though I ran into her a few times on the #1 subway when we both lived in New York in the mid/late 90's,  Finally over ourselves, our catch-up conversations were excited and warm.  She was embarking on an art career with some early success, and had begun dating her partner (and now spouse), Jessica (a white Australian, which, given the polarized identity politics of our group house, was notable).  We are now Facebook friends (or really acquaintances, though we had again some nice catch-up emails through social networking).  I won't claim more - but admittedly, I'm pretty psyched to even be within a outer orbit of this highly successful artist, to watch her success.  And her success, her art and her life's path - as well as my own - very much explain who we are and who we were, and from where and how we have become the people we are today.

And I'm pretty sure, even without this association, I would love, love, love her art.  A few year's ago, Julie's steep upward trajectory in  the art world came to my attention when the Smithsonian Museum of African Art had an exhibit of Ethiopia and the Diaspora, featuring both an installation piece and paintings by Julie.  It was at that time, I learned that she had shown in the Whitney Biennial.  Later that fall, she won a MacArthur "genius" award.  When the new building of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA - my fave) opened in NYC, I went to check it out, and saw a massive Mehretu canvas, hanging in a prominent gallery doorway, purchased through the museum's 21st Century Fund.  Mark me impressed - no, make that in awe.

Julie's works are large abstract canvases are layered with back and white drafting marks, and overlay with color blocks of curls and swirls, and angular geometric forms.  The detailed, painstaking work of the drafting is so unusual in modern art.  The layers add meaning and depth that I can only begin to consider the significance.  The paintings are full of motion - highly energetic, dynamic, and kinetic.  They suggest orbits, systems, planets, depth,and complex systems - I suppose each depending on the paintings context as suggested in its title.

Recently, Julie was commissioned to do a humongous (this truly is the best word choice) mural for the new Goldman Sachs lobby in New York.  The recent New Yorker article describes it below (emphasis added):

Eighty feet long by twenty-three feet high, Julie Mehretu’s “Mural” dominates the entrance lobby of Goldman Sachs’s new steel-and-glass office building in lower Manhattan. Hundreds of precisely defined abstract shapes in saturated colors—small dots and squares, straight and curving lines, larger geometric or free-form shapes ranging from several inches to several feet in length—move across it in an oceanic sweep.

The fact that it is visible from the street through the glass and steel wall, as well as to all employees and visitors passing through he GS lobby make it semi-public art, and for that I am even more impressed. 

A few year ago, as I watched her grow - and fantasized about one day being an art collector of "undiscovered," emerging contemporary artists (perhaps even of Africa and the diaspora) -  I inquired at her representing gallery if there were any pieces for sale (there weren't - even at that time she was pre-selling on commission), and the price range (at that time, I think, upwards of $5,000- $10,000, now much, much more).  Out of my league. After reading the New Yorker piece, however, I did, however, treat myself to a limited edition Julie Mehertu lithograph print, "Stadia," created as part of the 2010 official art poster series for the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Our times

While I am totally for freedom of speech and the right to bear arms as stated in our Constitution (though I am for some "common sense" gun control laws to which some traditionalists would disagree),  this just gives me chills...Participants ready for tomorrow's open-carry rally outside D.C.

It is my belief that for this crowd, it is not about freedom of speech or the right to bear arms, but rather fear, anger, and perceived disenfranchisement.  The anger here is palpable and I wonder how they will direct it and enact it.

Volcanic Ash Cloud Over Northern Europe

As much as I longed to be stranded in Paris last week for just a few more blissful days (or longer), I do have real life responsibilities, and I'm very glad to have missed this air travel catastrophe....Air Travel Chaos Spreads and Deepens Into Weekend


Can you say/spell Eyjafjallajokull (pronounced EY-ya-fyat-lah-YO-kut)?...the erupting volcano in Iceland that has caused all this mess.


Truth is always stranger than fiction.

Books 2010: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Wow.  This book got me.  Published under the crime novel genre - not at all my usual - I was absolutely spellbound, one night even reading it from 3am to 6am (ok, coupled with jetlag, but still...).

The gripping tale takes place in Sweden, and follows a somewhat disgraced, but totally righteous, journalist (and his lovers); a disturbed young punk hacker (and her abusers); and a wealthy aging industrialist (and his multi-generational back-stabbing family, each member with shares in the family empire).  The main story is solving a 40-year old mystery, the disappearance and suspected murder of a young teenage girl.  However, there are seemingly a bizillion sub-plots - and their twists and turns, and unexpected connections make for a very complex web indeed.

Parental discretion is advised.  The crime novel includes just about every type of crime - rape, murder, serial murder, hate crime, financial crime, and cybercrime - at times so complicated, I could barely follow.  There's some bondage (not all in the name of crime, if you know what I mean).  And the mystery and its investigation involve some highly repellent, hugely graphic depictions of rape, sexual assault, torture, animal torture, and more.   Around page 450, there was a description of a tortured confession that went on so long - 40 pages or more - and was so vividly described, my stomach churned and my head was addled.  The characters in this book are sick, I thought. The author is a sick man for writing this.  I am a sick woman for reading this.  I briefly considered abandoning the book here - just too much for me.

But I continued.  It was also around this point in the nearly 600 page novel, that it lost just a bit of its hold on me.  The sub-plots, as they were wrapping up, were taking yet another turn, perhaps one too many.  And there were just so many sub-plots to wrap up - I thought the book still could have been great with  2 or 3 fewer plots!  A few seemed to hasten to finish, in order to wrap up without hitting the 800-page mark.  Some of the delicious pacing got compromised to this end.

One thing I definitely loved about the book was it's Swedish setting.  (I'm so predictable).  You could really feel the summer white nights and the long, dark winter nights with their bone-chilling cold.  Stockholm's modern cosmopolitan life was juxtaposed against the spare, simplicity of northern Sweden's secondary towns with their hearth-warmed cottages.  The endless pots of very strong coffee could be smelled brewing throughout.  And the lovers, and the other lovers, and the lovers of one's lover, and the lovers in their 20's and their 50's (sometimes even lovers of each other).  Ahhhhh...Sweden....

All in all, a satisfying read - 3.75 stars of 4, just slightly marked down because of pacing and (over) complexity.  But still, completely enticing and engrossing, and never, ever cheap.

Au revoir Paris

Parisian Women

Beautiful and stylish on the outside.
Black lung on the inside.

L'americaine mange Paris

A few more random (and last) food shots (because I can't help myself)
(And here's a link to a NYTimes article where people are far more obsessed than I about snapping before eating...)

Salade Niçoise

Weekly Bastille market

Omelette nature

Berthillon
 ice cream 
(chocolat)

Dinner chez Laura

After lunch

Love Locked: Passerelle de Léopold Sédar-Senghor

Hundreds (or more?) of padlocks line this pedestrian bridge across the Seine near the Musée d'Orsay.  The tradition is to go there with your sweet, make a promise to each other, lock the padlock to the bridge rail, and throw the key in the Seine.  Apparently the bridge does fill up however, and the locks are periodically cut off and thrown out by municipal workers of the Parti Anti-Romantiques (PAR).

Here is a link to other places to love lock around the world.

Leopold Sédar-Senghor (1906-2001), by the way, was the first President of Senegal.  He was also a poet.

Étude: Le Tour Eiffel

Crêpe au sucre

This nice gentleman prepared my crêpe au sucre this morning at the weekly Bastille market.  We had lovely small talk as I decided between a simple sugar crêpe or one with apricot jam  He was clearly pleased when I chose au sucre.  "It's more natural" he said, "You have the real tastes of the crêpe that way."He bragged that this was a specialty of Brittanny.  He prepared the crêpe with great pride and a smile.  Things taste so much better when they are made lovingly.  This was delicious.

Expect the unexpected

La Nouvelle Observatrice is briefly interrupted from her fantasy vacation in Paris with news from the homefront.  Dear Daughter, G, has learned to swim!  No...that's not it, though that's great news.  This one involves Dear ex-Husband, and if you need to catch-up on what *was* the latest, please see "Postcard from Wisteria Lane" and "Scenes from an (ex) Marriage" posts of the last month or so.

So, it seems DxH and his new (old) bride were set to leave for Germany Tuesday evening to begin their new life together on an Army base with likely eventual deployment to Afghanistan (shocking already that this is my reality, but it is, and I have learned to (had to) adapt accordingly).  But he got a call on Tuesday morning that her papers were not processed, and she could not leave.  Discussions of options and alternatives ensued - leave her, extend his leave - neither was possible.  What does that leave?  Change his orders, and re-assign him.  A few posts were open on bases in Texas and North Carolina (again, I sometimes don't believe I am writing these words about the man I was once married to, though not one I recognize as the man I married).  But wait, here's the list...How about Walter Reed in DC?

Walter Reed Army Hospital in DC?  And so it is.  It seems in the last 24 hours, DxH's plans have done a complete u-turn, and he will be living in DC.  This is HUGE, and will have huge, mostly good implications for me and for G.  First, G will have her dad back - this is simply fantastic.  But also, I will have a co-parent again - both in support and in relief, and that will be wonderful.  On the downside, I will have a co-parent again (and his co-parent) - both in negotiation and complications, and that will be hard.  There is more - I'm sure - but I am still in shock.

After all this time, after all the events, twists, turns, surprises, highs, and lows.... Knowing me, knowing DxH, knowing the last few years of our situation - nothing should surprise me anymore.  The news of the last 24-hours have presented a complete reversal from all that I was planning for and expecting of the coming months.  This is good news, and it is what I had hoped for when I dared to hope (at least with the cards I was holding).  And I suppose, I know by now, that it will also be mixed with some other welcome and unwelcome surprises.  This could be a game-changer. It's not bad, it's probably even good, it's certainly different... I'm utterly terrified.

We now return to the witty commentary and glossy pics of La Nouvelle Observatrice on location in Paris.

Vélib' - coolest thing ever!

Vélib' is everywhere around Paris.  Short for "vélo libre" - "free bike" or "bike freedom" - the Vélib' bike share public transport program has dozens of bikes every few blocks for the taking.  Just swipe your credit card or your NaviGo (the public transport electronic card for metro, bus, and now, bike! - a seamless public transport system), and grab a bike from its rack.  It's free for the first 30 minutes, and nominal, increasing rates thereafter (to ensure the bikes are in circulation).  You do need to register for a program charge of a day, a week, or a year - also nominal rates. The bikes are sturdy - almost moped-like - and have a front LED-headlight charged by pedaling.

The program is run through a private-public partnership, in which the municipal government has partnered with JC Decaux to develop and build the bike station infrastructure, provide and maintain the bikes, and run the program, in exchange for a good proportion of the city's' advertising billboards.  Apparently, the city gets revenue and social benefit, and the presumably, the advertising corporation does, as well, or it would not be in it.  The program has not been without some kinks, and costs and revenue have been re-negotiated between the two parties, as noted in the Wiki link above.  But I'm quite impressed with the win-win here.

People use Vélib' everywhere, and the bikes have become an integral part of Paris street traffic circulation,  composed of  pedestrians, buses, cars, mopeds, motorcycles, and vélos.   Unfortunatley, there are a few hurdles for the short-term American visitor to try out Vélib'.  American credit cards are not fitted with the microchip so prevalent in Europe (and required to access the system at the Vélib' kiosk), and acquiring NavigoGo pass requires some bureaucratic hurdles (like registering your card) - just enough of a deterrent to really make it worth it to try out over a few days Paris visit.

I'm pleased and proud to say that DC also as a public bike share program, albeit quite a bit smaller.  SmartBike only has about 10 stations with 15 bikes each in central downtown for an annual unlimited subscription fee of $40; whereas Vélib' has thousands of bikes, over 1400 station of 20 bikes each!  Still kudos to Washington for trying something so cool.

Montage - Tour Eiffel

Design Within Reach

Here are some smartly designed things in Europe that we really should have more of in the US.

The upright rolling shopping basket (like a rolling suitcase, very compact, fits tight spaces)

Better public transport, especially subway systems, with great maps that light the way.

Fab, Eames-style chairs in the metros

Subway poles with three bars for passengers holding on

Articulated arms for the heat lamps in cafés

Velib!  Public bike share programs

Eat Pray Love

Food porn

Lenôtre, Paris

Nigella, eat your heart out

Tartlette à Paris
I had a scrumptuous tartlette aux peches today from Lenôtre, described as 

De juteux quartiers de pêches jaunes nappés de gelée d’abricot, dressés sur un fond feuilleté recouvert d’une crème pâtissière aux amandes. 

but for which one word will suffice...Mmmmmmmm...
Can you taste it here?

Paris Météo

Partly cloudy (but also partly sunny), cool, and windy.  Chance of showers.

Cy Twombly Ceiling @ the Louvre

Cy Twombly has done a ceiling at the Louvre.  It's permanent, it's contemporary, it's a huge honor for him.  Trouble is, I'm so not a Twombly fan.  I first saw his work in the Philadelphia Museum of Art - described as scribbles on canvas, and was immediately unimpressed.  While I can get into some abstract art - Rothko and de Koonig among others - I think Twombly is a twit who is tricking us all.

Today's ceiling did not fail to underwhelm me. It looks like a kids bedroom mural, at best. Admittedly, it was cool upon entry to the room of Greek artifacts - busts, bronzes pieces, etc - and see such bold bright blue and celestial circles.  But really it's poorly crafted, and quite messy (and not in a cool conceptual way).  The description even says his ceiling was "realized" by X painter and Y architect, so all Twombly did was think up this mess.   It's just annoying that he has such billing and such recognition as this by the Louvre.

In the article link above, Twombly, himself, seems to question what all the fuss is about.  So maybe he's just as mystified by the art establishment's fawning over him, as I am.

Here I am am "admiring" the Twombly ceiling.

La Nouvelle Observatrice à Paris

Mon petit appartement à Paris

I have a little studio appartement in the Marais (temporarily, at least, but I can pretend).  It's just lovely, completely mignon.  I love the way, when walking through this lively quartier in the 3eme, you almost miss the small blue door on Rue de Barbette.  But there it is, if you are looking, a heavy, wooden blue door and the blue and white address numerals above it  - '20.'   Upon entering the petit code on the keypad, a small click sounds, and I push it open, to reveal one of Paris's many small courtyards of flats.  Down a narrow passage, and past another keypad, I walk four flights up a tiny, narrow, winding wooden stairway.  Its floorboards are worn, its gorgeous banister spindles have been lovingly turned to reveal just a bit more detail to this otherwise modest space.  Each small landing is punctuated by two doors, behind which are other petits appartements à Paris.  I've always loved the way the stairwell lights here are timed for say 3 minutes - just enough to get up or down, without wasting electricity, and on each landing is, a small switch to turn the light on again and reset the timer, should it catch you in the dark halfway up.

My appartement is small - but it is simple, spare, modern, clean, comfortable and has everything one needs.  Plenty of light from interesting dormer windows, and a sweet sleeping loft.

I've bought some fruit, yogurt, cheese, coffee, Nutella and Petit Beurre so I'm set for petit dejeuner tomorrow morning.