May 6, 2009
Ouch, over 3 months and no posts? I'm sorry, blog. Truthfully, I've been spending a lot of time here, jabbering away about food. But a project so painfully adorable has crossed my path that I must share it.
In case you're wondering, the formula to create the world's cutest "Save the Date" magnet is as follows:
Combine one adorable snapshot of the groom-to-be, as an angelic little youngster
with an equally adorable picture of the bride-to-be (looking perhaps even more angelic than the groom)
arrange, desaturate, and piece the photos together with a little Photoshop manipulation (preferably over a picture of the groom's childhood door-step) and voila!
Cutest save the date ever. Does this mean I don't have to get them a wedding present???
January 22, 2009
The Chelsea gallery walk, Saturday, January 17:
the Gladstone Gallery on west 24th street. These sculptures by Paloma Varga Weisz align industry with opulence and handcraft, an investigation into the Gilded Age where the contrast between the extravagant displays of wealth and excess of America's upper-class and the blue collar industrial workers was strong.
She uses materials like lidded metal leaf and basket reeds, turning humble and practical objects into imaginative figures.
This was part of David Malijkovic's exhibition "Retired Compositions" in the Metro Pictures Gallery. The entire exhibit involved films, collages and sculptures relating to the history of modernistic projects in Croatia. Malijkovic's work reminded us of aliens.
I wish I could remember the info on this eye but I guess I forgot to grab the press release. In this lethargic-looking, seemingly hypnotized eye you could make out a small reflection of a TV playing, and if you listened closely, you could hear it too.
I don't remember the name of this gallery or the artist either... but it reminded me of a toy store on acid.
Nathalie Djurberg's exhibit in collaboration with Hans Berg at the Zach Feuer Gallery.
The scene here depicts a hand-molded trashed tea party with a ballerina in the center, the culprit of the mess, overpowered by the objects and drowned in a puddle of candle wax.
Behind the curtain the stop motion animation video "I found myself alone" was playing, bringing to life the sculpture and the destruction shown in the other room.
the Bruce Silverstein Gallery - Shinichi Maruyama's exhibit KUSHO features 10 large-scale photos of black Indian ink and water colliding in midair.
Eric Fertman's exhibit at the Susan Inglett Gallery. From the press release:
"Drawing upon the Russian Suprematists and Philip Guston, film noir and the Sunday comics, the work gallops through time on Olive Oyl's oversized shoes. Seamlessly mixing high and low culture, the artist assigns equal value to Malevich as to Raymond Chandler. Working in wood and metal, Fertman inflects these inert materials with humor and humanity, charming both object and viewer in the process."
Martin C. Herbst's "Ariodante" exhibit in the Mike Weiss Gallery
Herbst demonstrating that painting is no longer contained within precise boundaries with his use of polished stainless steel, aluminum and mirrors.
Some of George Deem's last work at the Pavel Zoubok Gallery
Unfortunately I don't remember the name of this insane exhibit
Denise's reflection turned out so beautiful in this picture! It looks like she belongs in the sculpture.
Richard Klein's sculptures in the Caren Golden Gallery. Using found glass objects like lenses, ash trays and jar lids, each piece references some kind of iconic American object.
"The Hearth"
"Born in the morning, dead by night" curated by Tony Matelli in the Leo Koenig Gallery
Well, this entire exhibit was made of boots. If that makes any sense.
This bonze sculpture, Contemporary Terra Cotta Warriors, by Yue Minjun was featured in the lower level of the Max Protetch Gallery along with a ton of Chinese art and photography.
the upper level at Max Protetch's. Poor Nici needed a rest.
I loved Paul Beliveau's paintings in the Stricoff Fine Art Gallery on West 25th. I've always found crowded bookshelves beautiful, works of art in themselves, so what a great idea to paint book spines! Love it!
I'm glad I got a picture of this giant Pinocchio, because they shut off the lights seconds after this was taken.
Now after trudging around Chelsea on empty stomachs for six hours, we rewarded ourselves with a 50 course (not really) dinner at Vatan, a Gujurati vegetarian restaurant on 3rd Ave. This place was ridiculously good, and we were so glad that we had warded off our hunger all day and saved our appetites, because with a 12+ course all-you-can-eat Indian menu, we really needed them. I left the restaurant in pain, I was so full, but it was well worth it. And luckily I had a 2 hour bus ride home to digest.
November 30, 2008
Ok, four months later and I can now continue with my Europe pictures. On our way from the Cinque Terre to Florence, we made a quick stop in Pisa to see the leaning tower. We jumped off the train and headed straight for the main attraction, the Piazza del Duomo (or the Piazza dei Miracoli according to some), considered to be one of the main centers for medieval art in the world. The square consists of four grand buildings: the Duomo, the Leaning Tower, the Baptistry and the Camposanto cemetery.
The tower began leaning almost immediately after construction began due to poor foundation. It was built over a period of almost 200 years with at least three different architects trying to correct the lean (which, presently, is a 15 foot lean).
The Baptistry is the largest in Italy, that tiny dot at the top is John the Baptist. Though we didn't go inside, I read that the acoustics of the 250 foot-wide dome are remarkable - every sound made inside echos for a good 10 seconds. A priest standing at the baptismal font is able to sing three different tones within the 10 seconds, making a chord and creating a harmony with himself. Apparently a security guard sings every half hour, starting at 10 AM. It is believed that the 15th-century architects who built the dome intended it to be a musical instrument, not just a Baptistry.
Inside the Duomo, faced with black and white marble, a gilded ceiling and a frescoed dome. It was largely redecorated after a fire in 1595, which destroyed a lot of the building.
We were only in Pisa for a couple of hours before we caught another train to Florence.
Probably the first thing anyone notices in Florence is this gargantuan domed cathedral, the Santa Maria del Fiore. It's made of polychrome marble and looks so much bigger than this picture conveys... you really feel like an ant standing in front of it.
The whole facade is dedicated to the Mother of Christ; to the right stands the 270 foot Giotto's Tower. The cathedral's interior seems incredibly bare compared to the exterior, though it does contain an incredible Last Judgment painting, as well as Domenico di Michelino's Dante and the Divine Comedy.
Walking along the side of the Uffizi, just past the Piazza della Signoria. We got into the museum the next day (thanks to a reservation made 2 months in advance) and witnessed the progression of Renaissance and Medieval art. Highlights included Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch, and the Piero della Francesca painting with the incredibly long Italian name (Ritratto di Battista Sforza e Federico da Montefeltro)
Florence's most famous bridge, the Ponte Vecchio (Renaissance Bridge) over the river Arno. Walking across it, you would never know it was a bridge, it looks like a normal street with millions of little shops on either side.
We also had to visit the Accademia Gallery (Europe's first academy of art and drawing). We didn't have a reservation, but the line wasn't terribly bad, it took about an hour to get in. It's a small gallery with a few rooms of Renaissance paintings by Paolo Uccello, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Sandro Botticelli and Andrea del Sarto as well as Giambologna's original plaster for the Rape of the Sabine Women. But the real reason anyone goes to the Accademia is of course, Michelangelo's David. It stands in the Tribuna, built especially to house it, and it's completely mesmerizing.
Here we're in the 14th century Sante Croce church, which holds the tombs of many famous Florentines (this one is Michelangelo's).
The stunning view of Florence from the Piazzale Michelangelo. That's the gargantuan Santa Maria del Fiore in the middle and the Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence, to the left.
I should also mention the street performers in Florence are among the more interesting street performers in Europe... though London is a close second.
Next stop was Rome:
The
Trevi Fountain at night, it's the largest of the Baroque fountains of Rome. It's not really that old, finished in 1762 as part of the Baroque cultural movement. Throw a coin backwards into the fountain and you're destined to return to Rome - a total of 3,000 euros are thrown in daily. The money is used to feed the poor, but of course there are regular attempts to steal the coins.
The Roman Forum, center of the civilized world 2,000 years ago. In fact, 2,000 years ago the word "Rome" meant civilization itself. Though chaotic, hot, and dusty, Rome is a magnificent city. And the only place we witnessed pick-pocketing in our 6 weeks of backpacking!
The Temple of Saturn and some remaining Latin words
This is the Tempeteo san Pietro, the real life version of the temple I had to model in 3D in one of my classes during college. Check out my sweet rendition.
The Roman Pantheon is the best preserved of all Roman buildings, and the oldest standing domed structure in Rome. Originally built as a "Temple of all the gods," the Pantheon now serves as a Catholic church.
Rain pours into the oculus at the top of the 142 foot high/wide dome, and the drainage system below the floor handles it.
Vatican City from a distance. Now if there was one site I have been waiting my whole life to see, it's the Sistine Chapel. And we almost missed our opportunity. In an attempt to avoid a four hour line, and per the advice of our hostel roomie who had done all of this the previous day, we planned on entering the Vatican Museum in the late afternoon. So we fooled around Saint Peter's Square for a little bit, feeding toeless pigeons, having no idea the Museum was about to close. Then someone noticed a sign informing us that the last entrance to the Vatican Museum was in 3 minutes. It was 3:27 PM, we had until 3:30 PM to travel on foot to a destination 15 minutes away, buy tickets and enter the museum. At this point I was slightly freaking out.
After an incredibly brisk walk and a lot of praying, we made it to the Vatican Museum with some time to spare, as the sign there had 4:00 posted as the last entrance time. We easily bought our tickets, waiting in no line whatsoever due to the ridiculously last-minuteness of our appearance. So we entered the museum and booked it straight for the Sistine Chapel, not really knowing how long we had in the museum before it closed. We ignored the Egypt/Mesopotamia wing, the Greek and Roman statues, and the fourth-century porphyry sarcophagi; we simply followed the many, many signs leading us to the Sistine Chapel. We passed through probably 35-40 rooms (which were absolutely stunning) before we got there. We rushed past works by Fra Angelico, Giotto, Raphael, Nicolas Poussin, Titian, etc etc. The room pictured here is the Gallery of Maps.
One of the Stanze di Raffaello (the Raphael Rooms), the public part of the papal apartments in the Palace of the Vatican. To the right, the Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, to the left, The Cardinal Virtues. Not pictured, though my favorite Raphael painting, the School of Athens.
When we finally made it to the chapel, a guard kindly informed me they wouldn't close until after 5 pm. So we rushed unnecessarily through the entire museum, but this did give us plenty of time to stand amazed under this insanely beautiful piece of history. The chapel still serves as religious and functionary pope-activity, including the ceremony by which a new pope is selected, which is why strict rules on noise and behavior are enforced. Guards were everywhere, and a commanding "shhhhh!" noise played over some sort of loudspeaker when the crowd inside got a bit too loud.
Upon leaving the chapel there was yet another maze of illustrious rooms to get through before one can exit the museum.
After we saw the chapel we headed straight over to Saint Peter's Basilica, which we also thought we'd miss because at this point it was almost 6, but again we got in miraculously with no line. This church is unbelievable.
It is built in a Greek-cross floor plan rather than a Latin-cross, symbolizing the perfection of God.
We headed over to the Spanish Steps after our Vatican City Adventures. And yes we climbed every step.
We toured the Colosseum earlier in the day (not pictured because this post would never end if I included any more pictures) but we went back later to see it in all it's nightly glory. Our friend Phil took this phenomenal shot.
On to Capri - a beautiful island comparable to the Cinque Terre, only slightly less beautiful, more resorty, and a little less charming. Still an extraordinary place though, don't get me wrong.
The Mediterranean looked beyond stunning, especially with all of Capri's sharp jagged cliffs poking out of the water.
And Capri does have one thing the Cinque Terre doesn't - the Blue Grotto! Now, some very brave locals (and the occasional brave tourist) have been known to swim into Grotto cave, amidst dangerous crashing waves and a low, jagged cave ceiling. My brother, the Brave Tourist, did just that. On his way swimming out of the cave, some Italian locals called him up the side of this huge wall and challenged him to jump into the water below. Which, with a little coaxing, he did.
After our eleven-city tour of Italy, we were ready for France. We logically began in the South of France and worked our way up to Paris.
Nice is a cute resort town with an with an impressive coastline. And we saw plenty of coastline as we rented bikes and rode to Antibes, 24 total miles (I mean 38 kilometers). But the highlight of Nice is their Chagall Museum. Oh and also the restaurant "The Magic Pumpkin," it's a fixed vegetarian menu and outstanding.
Chagall's work looks more impressive in person then I ever imagined it could. This museum houses the largest collection of Chagall work anywhere, and it was one of my favorite museums we visited on the entire trip. His work, which I've always thought appears deceptively simple, almost childlike, is full of underlying meaning and symbolism. His use of fragmented cubism, overlapping images, and deep, radiant, perfectly balanced color make each painting a complex work of art that I probably could have looked at for hours.
Our next stop was Arles, home of Vincent Van Gogh for the two years before his death and the inspiration for over 300 of his paintings. Above is the apartment where Van Gogh lived and painted, producing his famous "Room at Arles."
Arles has these cool Van Gogh plaques all over the city showing which locations inspired him. The plaques include a picture of the finished work so people can compare the scene then and now.
Above is the "Jardin de la Maison de Sante a Arles" painting
And here is the actual garden, the Espace Van Gogh, once a local hospital, and the institution Van Gogh checked in after a famous earlobe chopping incident. This area is now a cultural center, and free to enter!
We took a day trip to Avignon during some sort of insane festival, wherein the streets were full of dancers, performers, and people shouting into bull horns, driving around in tiny cars.
We walked across Pont Daladier over the Rhone to the Philippe le Bel Tower and climbed to the top - in the middle of our climb we came across this room, an unexplained pile of cans in the center (aka modern art).
We then walked to the Saint Andre Fort, to find even more contemporary art installations set up throughout the castle. The strangest of which being the huge rotating elephant we found at the base of the castle, creepy circus music playing in the background. I think it had something to do with "La Degelee Rabelais."
Once we made it to Paris, we of course had to hit up the Louvre for a few hours. Pictured above is the real entrance to the Louvre; to avoid the "queue," use the underground entrance.
The incredibly under-hyped Mona Lisa. I was not at all unimpressed by it's size, brightness level, or shield of glass protecting it.
A mind-boggling fact I learned about the Louvre on a boat cruise through the city: if you spent 1 minute looking at each work of art, it would take 4 months to see the entire museum.
The Arc de Triomphe - Napoleon has this Arc built (two centuries of Parisian history carved into it) to commemorate his victory at the battle of Austerlitz; it converges 12 boulevards and the traffic is unbelievably insane.
Not everyone is as enamored with the Eiffel Tower as you'd think. In fact many Parisians considered it an eyesore after its construction. Writer Guy de Maupassant routinely ate lunch in the tower just so he wouldn't have to look at it.
We climbed up two levels of the Tower (668 steps, ouch) but had no desire to wait in the multi-hour long line to take an elevator to the top. Note the shadow in this picture, it's like a 990 foot tall sun dial.
The tower at night is quite the spectacle. I'm not sure when someone decided to light it in blue... I mean it's kind of cool but it looks like a space station.
The most impressive part of the Pompidou? The exterior of the Pompidou. There were some renowned artists featured here, don't get me wrong, including Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Pollock, Dali, Warhol, Kandinsky, etc, but overall the museum was very disappointing.
Though it did have this wonderful impressionistic gem.
Notre Dame - the row of 28 statues are known as the Kings of Judah, who were mistaken for the hated French kings during the French Revolution and decapitated by the angry villagers. They have since been recapitated.
The saint holding his head in his hands is Saint Denis, beheaded by the Christians. As the story goes he got up, picked up his head and traveled north to Montmartre (the proper place to meet his maker, he felt).
The 2 story Sainte Chapelle cathedral, built to hold the supposed crown of thorns. Today the thorns are kept in the Notre Dame Treasury and are only shown on Fridays during Lent (and cost 10 euros to see).
A crazy moss-covered building next to the Quai Branly Museum.
And I will end with this "Eiffel Tower from the top of the Arc de Triomphe" picture. We did stay in Ireland for a couple of nights, but at that point I was too exhausted to take any good pictures. Or do anything for that matter. The plus side of walking 8-10 hours every day for six weeks of course is that I never experienced the ramifications of the several croissants I ate every day.
September 9, 2008
The purple "Okinawa" sweet potato:
Perhaps the most delicious potato known to man. These potatoes were introduced to Hawaii from the Japanese Island Okinawa, and are now generally available in Asian food markets. I steamed and mashed them, paired them with some vanilla bean brown rice and, because I thought the meal was lacking protein and spice, improvised some dal with tomatoes and about 7 or 8 spices I thought might taste good. Surprisingly the dal went perfectly with the potatoes. But they're so good I do believe they'd go well with a muddy boot. If you can find them, purchase them immediately.
That super cool plate you see pictured is part of a set I got Josh for either Christmas, Hanukkah, or his birthday... They're beautiful. You can buy them here!
I'll get back to the Europe post soon; the Okinawa potato was just too exciting to hold back.
August 29, 2008
Now I know my blog posts are sporadic enough as it is, but the reason for my recent lack of posting is I've been busy running all around Europe backpacking; exploring the ruins of ancient civilizations, seeing priceless works of art, eating 5 chocolate croissants a day, etc. I can't begin to cover the enormity of our trip here, but I'll give you a brief, very brief outline:
London: we left with an enormous dent in our wallets. Spectacular Indian and Indonesian food. We saw some amazing installations at the Hayward Gallery, some pretty nice modern art at the Tate Modern, and a whole lot of nothing at the Dali Museum. Now some facts on Big Ben: it's a 315 foot high clock tower named for the 13 ton bell, Ben, which was named after a fat bureaucrat. The clock faces are 23 feet across, and the minute hand? 13 feet long!
The interior of Saint Paul's Cathedral, the main cathedral of the Anglican church. Though the surrounding neighborhood was leveled during WWII, St. Paul's remained nearly intact. The late Renaissance-styled interior is unbelievably ornate and stunning, and the church features a 365 foot dome (which we climbed) inspired by St Peter's Basilica in Rome.
the Whispering Gallery in the base of the dome, constructed with such acoustic precision you can heard a whisper from 170 feet away (I think I was only about 75 feet away but I did hear Josh whisper!)
After London it was on to Amsterdam. I loved this city. The architecture was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The three million bikes dangerously whizzing by every minute were charming. And the food was surprisingly good! In a place like Amsterdam I kind of wasn't expecting food to be one of the city's top priorities. We found some great Indian and Thai restaurants - oh and the chocolate was the best we had in Europe.
One always amusing note about Amsterdam: the buildings are crooked. Really crooked. The above shot is in no way altered, believe it or not, this is what some of the buildings look like. Here's why: buildings in Amsterdam are built on piles of wood sunk deep into the mucky, soft soil. Building the houses in a "row home" style helped reinforce them, allowing the buildings to lean on each other. Well, not everyone was good at building the wood foundations, and not everyone had the necessary resources to build them properly. So houses started to lean... then whole blocks started to lean. When the government decided to step in and pile the foundations themselves, they taxed the residents based on the width of their houses, which is why most houses in Amsterdam are comically narrow (the narrowest measuring an insane 39 inches wide!).
In the sixteenth century, many of Amsterdam's wooden buildings were torn down and replaced by more Renaissance-looking brick ones. Buildings built during this period are easily recognizable; they all share similar facades that look like a staircase at the top, typical in Dutch Renaissance style.
On the way to the Van Gogh Museum, we had fun climbing all over these Amsterdam letters (that's the Rijksmuseum behind us)
We took a boat cruise through the canals and learned that one car per week drives over the foot high barrier into the water.
Berlin was wonderful, such an incredible mix of history and at the same time change, with reminders everywhere of the city's past. Remains of Soviet buildings, what's left of the Berlin Wall, communist propaganda murals left up, the immense Holocaust Memorial, the Reichstag with its glass dome, it seems everything in Berlin is packed with history and meaning. Hitler's bunker, and the spot where he committed suicide, was turned into a dumpy parking lot so as not to commemorate him in any way; on the street across from where book burnings took place is a stand selling the books that were burned at discount prices, to get them back into circulation. There is even a line of stones running along the ground showing where the wall used to be. And there is graffiti and scaffolding EVERYWHERE. We took the Free Tour and I asked our guide, Ben, about all this scaffolding business, to which he replied, highly passionate: "That's because Berlin is always changing, always building, always evolving! It'll look like this for the next 10-20 years." Overall Berlin was the most interesting city we visited, and I highly highly recommend the Free Tour - you'll learn more in a couple of hours than you would in 3 years of high school. The guides (who work on tips only) are energetic and so passionate about what they do. Our Berlin tour was one of the highlights of our entire trip I think.
Prague: the gloomy weather pairs perfectly with the daunting gothic architecture. I do have a photo of this church on a sunny, clear day, but this version gives a more lasting impression I think. It rained only twice during our 5.5 week trip, once in Germany and once in Prague.
A close-up of the Astronomical Clock (also called the Prague Orloj) in Old-Town Hall. The figures are set in motion at the hour, and Death, represented by a skeleton, rings the bell. In the doorways above the clock there is a presentation of the Apostles. Pretty intense for 1410.
The buildings were so beautiful. Pictured directly above is the inside of a random cathedral we never would have known to go in had our crazy Prague guide not suggested it.
Back to Germany: clean, efficient, organized. What an incredible contrast between Germany and it's neighboring countries, not that I didn't enjoy the culture shock. Munich was nice, but aside from the extraordinary above-pictured New Town Hall (so gargantuan I couldn't fit it all in the picture. Also note the Marienplatz in the center of the building, similar to Prague's Astronomical Clock) and dinner at Zaf at Zerwisk's (the best, most innovative meal we had perhaps on the entire trip) aside from all that the city itself wasn't anything above standard. We mostly used it as a point to get to other, more interesting places like Neuschwanstein Castle and Dachau Concentration Camp.
Munich did have this sweet warthog in the middle of city though.
Neuschwanstein Castle, the inspiration for the Walt Disney Castle. Try to ignore the scaffolding (though that's something we got used to after a while). We took this shot from the Marienbrücke then climbed a nearby cliff to see the castle from a higher, more dangerous view.
We stopped in Verona, Italy to break up the long trip from Munich to Venice. It was a great random choice, Verona is an adorable old Italian town with great food and the best gelato we had on the entire trip. Pumpkin ravioli and Stracciatella gelato... yum... I won't be forgetting Verona's food anytime soon. This picture is from the Giardino Giusti, designed as backdrops for the Giusti Palace in the 15th century and visited by the likes of Mozart and Emperor Joseph II. We also saw the courtyard and balcony where the whole Romeo and Juliet ordeal supposedly took place.
Venice is a city I've dreamed of going to for as long as I can remember. "A city built on water?" It fascinated me to no end. And it wasn't disappointing - Venice is so freaking romantic and beautiful it doesn't seem real. Granted the food is terrible and you get lost every time you leave the hotel, but the scenery makes up for it. On the note of terrible Venetian food, Josh and I did manage to find a decent (if not exceptional) Indian place called Ganesh Ji. But good luck finding it :)
Somehow we ended up with this magical view overlooking a very gondola-filled canal
And here is the result of the only time we broke out Josh's tripod!
Turned off on the idea of paying the equivalent of $117 for a gondola ride, we instead rode a water taxi up and down the Grand Canal, occasionally passing an entire fleet of gondolas.
Saint Mark's Basilica, built in the 11th century and absolutely enveloped by pigeons. It's also the lowest point in the city, right at sea level and is constantly flooded.
Inside Saint Mark's, built in the classic Greek-cross style, and made entirely of gold mosaics and marble.
Despite my concern for your bandwidth I just have to include about a thousand Cinque Terre pictures. By far the most beautiful place we have ever seen. Cinque Terre is comprised of 5 towns, spread out over 7 miles of rugged Riviera coastline: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso al Mare. We stayed in Riomaggiore, the southernmost city. All five towns are connected by an insanely breathtaking hiking trail, which led us through all types of terrains including beaches, vineyards, jungles, deserts, and forests. We explored each town as we hiked through them and concluded that the best pesto focaccia pizza on Earth is located in Cornigila.
The beautifully terraced mountains
Manarola
some Corniglian houses
The villages themselves are adorable - everything is cramped, crowded and narrow. And generally very steep; to get to our room every night we had to climb 950 steps. But the view was worth it.
Vernazza, the most touristy of the villages, and the most intensely rugged part of the hike, at this point I was losing a little steam.
Vernazza again from a distance
Monterosso al Mare, as the sun started to set (we hiked for 7 hours)
OK at this point I'm going to have to halt the entry - stay tuned for Florence, Pisa, Rome, Capri, Provence/French Riviera, Paris and Ireland!
