new Aussie talent!

Jonathan Boulet:

This 21-year old Sydney skate rat is the latest signing to Australia's Modular label, landing with a tidy package of promotional offerings: a catchy, moistly breezy indie-pop debut single that couldn't be better titled for a meet-the-artist track; a subtly arresting/marginally tricked-out video; and a slightly more ambient remix by long-time post-rocker the Album Leaf. Here's to good starts.  "A Community Service Announcement" practically drips with humidity, a honeyed guitar bit pushed along by tropical toms, a pop song's forward movement that's fit for cruise boat line-dancing. If that sounds ripe for the OST to a Disney film set in some sunny climes well... it sort of is. But then there's this Special Problems-directed video (they also did Tame Impala's video I posted a few months back) where someone gets offed and dumped into a lake, suggesting their might be some menace beneath the mellifluousness. We'll need more than one Boulet track to fully suss. Until then, here's a community service announcement:

new Aussie talent!

Snowtunnel

Winter is here
Mountains are opening for ski season...
and it makes me think about ways we could ski or board all year
....welllll, check this out:
The Snowtunnel

Snowtunnel

yikes!

Oh my, goodness gracious, mercy me oh my! It's Sunday! (I thought it deserved that drama, no?)
Maybe I only think it deserves that drama because London has been battered with this stormy weather over the last week or so. The British climate can be a bit limp at times, with words such as ‘light rain’, ‘drizzle’ and 'overcast’ populating our weather forecast, everyday. So when we get some real weather, I'm starting to love its' drama! When the wind is howling against my windows at night, so much so that it wakes me up, it makes me feel as though I'm not in a flat in South West London, but in a solitary cottage on a cliff top, like the house in ‘Wuthering Heights’...
Until I wake up and look outside to see commuters and buses and cars all in a hurry to get somewhere. And it's still raining.
But, honestly, I can't believe it is already Sunday! I had all these plans this weekend. They were brilliant, and involved making up for my recess from the Masters Research World, but goodness! Suddenly I blinked and here I am on Sunday, at 3pm, in my Patagonia sweatshirt and yoga pants at my computer writing a blog-post, listening to Christmas music, as I watch the rain start and stop and the sun go down.  Weeks are racing by lately.  Just when you want time to work on final projects and research, there's no time.  And dinner parties and holiday celebrations and birthday parties and top secret Christmas crafting have all passed, in a wink of an eye. Shuckles. So I have decided to dedicate the rest of this afternoon in an effort to be more organised this week. I'm hoping in between all this research, bread will be baked, booze will be drunk, snuggles will be had and home made meals will be made. :)
Cheers to everyone for a productive and enjoyable week to come!

yikes!

Zaha Hadid designs new museum in Rome

Pope Urban VIII, one of the most prominent cultural patrons in Roman history, understood that great cities are not frozen in time. He loved dreaming up lavish new projects over breakfast with his artistic soul mate, the Baroque sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. When Bernini needed bronze for the baldachin in St. Peter’s, the pope simply ordered it torn out of the Pantheon. Neither was afraid to make his mark on the city...since then not much has happened, until now:
Zaha Hadid designed Maxxi Museum, Rome's first National Museum of Contemporary Art and First National Museum of Architecture!
If Pope Urban were alive today, I’m certain he and Ms. Zaha Hadid would be having breakfast right now, plotting the next move...

Zaha Hadid designs new museum in Rome

ferrari world

Car fans, get ready...soon there will be a world class destination for the Ferrari experience. Ferrari World will be in Abu Dhabi and it's nearing completion....it will be the LARGEST indoor theme park in the world!  This bright red architectural gem will bare a Ferrari logo stretching 215 FEET n diameter...also largest in world. Indoors and out, Ferrari World Abu Dhabi will feature 20 rides and attractions including the world's FASTED roller coaster...taking its passengers to speeds up to 124 mph...after all, Ferrari is all about speed.
Not only is this some big idea with fancy renderings, the park will feature state of the art racing simulators, driving and racing schools, museum exhibits of the Ferrari history, etc....

ferrari world

books in winter

A current bestseller, this weeks book is:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson

I'm not going to lie about this one...once you start it, you won't be able to stop.  I was attached to my Amazon Kindle while I read this thriller.  It's the first of a trilogy and a serious page-turner! I must first admit that since it takes place in Sweden, it was a bit hard to get used to the names of places and people, but once you do, the book is a breeze. Henrik Vanger, an elderly Swedish industrialist, has long been receiving the same anonymous gift on his birthday: a single framed flower. He is convinced the series of flowers has something to do with his great-niece Harriet who vanished decades ago in mysterious circumstances when she was just 16. Vanger coerces a disgraced and prison-bound journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, to do some research into the disappearance. In exchange for information on his niece, Vanger promises Blomkvist enough dirt to take down the rich man who is sending him to jail. As Blomkvist moves closer to the truth, he teams up with the titular character, a tattooed detective named Lisbeth Salander who's the real star of the show. Together they uncover things that stun even Blomkvist, a crusading financial reporter who thought he knew all there was to know about the rot of corruption, the myriad abuses of power and the darkest sides of ourselves. I definitely recommend this international bestseller to all who luxuriate in immersing themselves in the ambience of a compellingly created world and memorable characters.
Then -- read the next book in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire.


Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!! xx

books in winter

LA LADY

Although I've lived in quite a few different places -- currently in London -- Los Angeles, where I was born and raised, will always hold a very special place in my heart.  Not the LA of Hollywood, but the old-school beach vibe that still lingers in corners.  As strange, spread out, and flatly lit as it can sometimes be, Los Angeles, with its bougainvillea, sea breezes, avocados, and eccentric inhabitants, is like no other place in the world and will always be in my soul.
Sooo, I've decided to dedicate a weekly post about places and things to see, do, and eat in LA.
This is MY LA:


For my first LA Blog, i decided to pick out something that everybody loves: a really good reason to get out of bed...Maybe even a baker's dozen reasons... 
HUCKLEBERRY opens every morning with just one batch of old-fashioned doughnuts, ready at 8am—and when they're gone, you're out of luck until the next day.

From the husband-wife owners (Zoe and Josh) of the dinner-only Rustic Canyon just up the street, Huckleberry takes the modern-rustic thing into daylight hours, starting with carb-loading for the most important meal of the day—pastries, pancakes and those doughnuts. But they've also got Green Eggs and Ham…and by ham they mean La Quercia Prosciutto, an artisan salumi made of 100 percent Berkshire pork that would have rocked Dr. Seuss' world! And not only that, they have a great sandwich menu at lunch, as well as an early evening menu...all around good ol' fashioned bakery and cafe! Worth a visit.
Side-note/Fun Fact: Zoe learned to bake at Tartine Bakery in San Francisco (one of my faves from my SF days!), and worked in the kitchen at Lupa in NYC and Joe's in Venice

LA LADY

FOOTBALL HERO: GUITAR HERO SOCCER VIDEO

Check it out...A group of enterprising modders in the UK have sucessfully hacked Guitar Hero to be controlled by soccer...YES, SOCCER.
The Football Hero game is a standard Guitar Hero game in its display, but the control has been rigged to 5 pressure sensitive squares that trigger a specific key when struck with a soccer ball. Sooo, the Guitar Hero song begins, and 5 soccer players kick balls at precisely timed moments to trigger the pad that corresponds to the key on the screen ! Sweet!!

FOOTBALL HERO: GUITAR HERO SOCCER VIDEO

Manmade Mountain Towers Over Berlin!

German architect Jakob Tigges has unveiled a plan for a 1,000m tall faux mountain at the site of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, and his supporters are taking it rather seriously. Dubbed “The Berg,” the snow-capped colossus would be the world’s largest man-made mountain and would serve as a tourist attraction for skiers from September - March offering the perfect skiing climate in the otherwise slope-less city. I am ALL about adding green space to urban environments, but devoting an enormous amount of time, energy and resources into a gigantic landmass that isn’t even inhabitable on the inside seems like a huge mound of you-know-what, if you ask me...

Plans for The Berg seem to have spawned out of a severe case of “peakis-envy”. Says Tigges in his manifesto “While big and wealthy cities in many parts of the world challenge the limits of possibility by building gigantic hotels with fancy shapes, erecting sky-high office towers or constructing hovering philharmonic temples, Berlin sets up a decent mountain… Hamburg, as stiff as flat, turns green with envy, rich and once proud Munich starts to feel ashamed of its distant Alp-panorama and planners of the Middle-East, experienced in taking the spell off any kind of architectural utopia immediately design authentic copies of the iconic Berlin-Mountain.”

+ The Berg

Via World Architecture News

Manmade Mountain Towers Over Berlin!

Rock n Roll + Art = Fun

Last night I went to the Phillips de Pury "Music" auction and then Chairman Simon de Pury's birthday party.  The night started off well as I sat front row flipping through the MUSIC catalogue, (which had more of a lifestyle magazine look with articles on Martin Creed, Jonsi and Alex, Matthew Herbert, Goldie, Daniel Birnbaum, Christian Marclay, Graham Coxon, Damien Hirst, and others) I began talking to a charming older Swiss man sitting next to me named Claude, who just so happened to be Claude Nobs -- the founder of the Montreux Jazz Festival! (Totally heading to Montruex next July for it!).  Then it quieted down and the bidding began!
The auction was great.  It was part of their new theme sales, this one staging music-inspired contemporary art, design editions, photographs and memorabilia, with a live soundtrack by Matthew Herbert.  There was sensational work by rock (Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Jim Morrison) and art (Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Kenny Scharf) stars; fashion photographers (Albert Watson, Helmut Newton, Miles Aldridge); and (not so) Young British Artists (Gavin Turk, Sam Taylor-Wood, Damien Hirst).  I so very much wanted an amazing iconic photograph of the Stones and watched the price get higher and higher that I couldn't even watch the gavel hit the podium when it sold. There was also some great work that really was unique, which included: a self-portrait in blood by the notoriously self-destructive musician Pete Doherty (formerly of the Libertines and Kate Moss), distressed gauzy prints by Riceboy Sleeps (a Sigur Rós-associated duo) and a rhinestoned painting of Donna Summer by Mickalene Thomas. Elsewhere, iconoclastic images like Shi Xinning’s imagined meeting between the Beatles and Mao and a silk-screen print of the Rolling Stones clad in female Elizabethan garb by Jesus Diaz De Vivar turn the rock star-worshiping on its head.  Fashion was very briefly represented by a Technicolor couture dress by Bernhard Willhelm that Björk wore on her Volta tour and by one of Bob Dylan’s fringed leather jackets. Better than either, though, was the diamond-encrusted eye patch commissioned for the bling-loving rapper Slick Rick.  
Simon de Pury had said, "Whether it's Peter Blake creating the ultimate album cover for Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles in the 60s or more recently Damien Hirst doing all the fabulous artowrk for the last two releases of The Hours, there has been an inextricably close link between art and music."
My favorite part of the auction was definitely Matthew Herbert's influence with his bespoke score "sound carpet" to accompany the live event conducted by Simon de Pury.  He mixed songs from Frank Sinatra with Jay-Z, to Run DMC with top Jazz performers and Beyonce with Donna Summer, Snoop Dogg and Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Sammy Davis Jr. The sounds really got the audience excited and made the normal auction experience a bit more fun and unique!
Also, a collection of works from the Destroy/Rankin project were offered up in a charity auction where all proceeds go to Youth Music to help change young peoples live with the power of music, whatever the circumstances: 80 destoryed photographic portraits of renowned musicians, which had been sent to the featured musicians to be artistically defaced, were on display at Philips as well. The artists all did really different things to their portraits and was definitely interesting to see.
As the auction ended, I headed into a reception room with others in cocktail attire and was served champagne and delicious chocolate birthday cake with for Simon! We sang happy birthday (in English and French) and Simon cut the first piece of cake.  Then I chatted with classy European art/music-lovers into the evening. A really fun night, indeed!

Rock n Roll + Art = Fun

skyline by memory

Autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire took a twenty-minute helicopter ride over Manhattan. Then he sketched the entire skyline from memory. Every building was correct and drawn to scale! He's also done panoramic memory drawings of Tokyo, Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dubai, Jerusalem and London. How mindblowingly incredible.

Read more here.

(Photo via Stephen Wiltshire)

skyline by memory

fab over 50

A website designed for women to share the things that make them fab -- the 'shops they love, the creams they swear by, the books they can't put down and the wisdom they've amassed'... the website will be launched in early 2010, but for now they have a blog. Women such as Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazine, and author Suzy Welch are already a part of Geri Brin's great idea! Check it out!


Update: Fab Over Fifty features me! Take a look here.

fab over 50

books in winter

This weeks book is...
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

This book is another classic.  Some of you may be familiar with the 1990 film, which I never saw, so I can't judge or compare.  However, I recently read the book, and it is a masterpiece.  An American couple, Port Moseby and his wife, Kit, are traveling in North Africa with their rather annoying friend, Tunner. The story focuses on the couple as they try to cope with what their journey brings them -- including the Arabs, the French colonizers, a very unsavory mother/son combination and their enigmatic selves.  It is, in essence, about what happens when one changes landscapes, physical or metaphorical, without intellectual and emotional openness.  It also teaches that the unfamiliar must be approached with humility and respect, slowly and without force. This might just be the book to set you straight.

books in winter

YINKA SHONIBARE

Today I saw Yinka Shonibare speak.  I've always noticed his work in museums as quite interesting and richly complex. Well, he was a fantastic speaker! Shonibare currently lives and works in London, where he has gained international attention by exploring issues of race and class through a range of media that includes sculpture, painting, photography, and installation art. His works, simultaneously innocent and subversive, address a range of cultural and historical issues and, in the process, blur the boundaries of design, ethnography, and contemporary art.
Definitely go check him out. He has a show on view now at the Stephen Friedman Gallery in London until this Friday the 20th of November!!!!

YINKA SHONIBARE

moomah

totally loving the branding from Moomah, uber cool kid cafe/art/craft space in NYC. the fantasy animal illustrations = adorable!

via Apartment One

moomah

sleeping bags

I pretty much have one thing to say about the new Selk'bag, which is that its awesome. This sleeping bag is more like a body bag ( not the corpse ones ). It's padded and shaped to the human form and allows free movement both in and out of sleep, where traditional sleeping bags don't.

sleeping bags

fall in a glass

Nobody at Modern Spirits' California-based vodka lab is revealing what's in their latest batch. Why? Because the ingredients of the Pumpkin Pie Artisan Vodka, like many homemade P.P. recipes, are top secret. Sure, it has pumpkin puree in it, but what makes it taste so much like nostalgic holiday dinners? Clove? Orange? Make no mistake, this low-sugar vodka is no nancy post-tryptophan liqueur—it's a robust drink specifically crafted to be sipped during dinner.
It pairs especially well with tangy and meaty dishes like BBQ short ribs, roasted game and bacon-wrapped anything, but is versatile enough to be a cocktail mixer. "This is the best batch we've made to date," admits pie-lover and co-founder of Modern Spirits, Melkon Khosrovian, who began creating specialty vodkas five years ago for his wife Litty to sip during Armenian family dinners. She let us in on this little secret: "We put every pie-related ingredient into the vodka except cream and crust."

Make It:

The Jack O' Lantern
2 oz Pumpkin Pie Vodka
1 oz Whisky or Bourbon
1 tbs Maple syrup
Squeeze of fresh Lemon

Serve on the rocks.

Thanksgiving Duo

2 oz Pumpkin Pie Vodka

1/3 oz 100% cranberry juice

1/3 oz maple syrup

shake and serve over ice, top with soda

fall in a glass

"i think my ipod likes your ipod"

An innovative gadgets that as well as being aesthetically pleasing, is also practical and can be used in real world situations.... miShare is such a product.

One of the biggest problems that people have with iPods is that unless you have a diploma in hacking, it is extremely difficult to share your tunes, especially without getting a computer involved. That is of course until now. Want the latest album from your friends' iPod? Simply connect both iPods to the miShare unit, press the button and away you go. It's kind of like swapping baseball cards in the playground, although much cooler.

Providing that your files are not DRM protected (that's digital rights management to you technophobes), everything from movies to photos to songs can be transferred. Even entire playlists. Nice. There is however one downside - for now the unit does not work with the iPhone or iPod touch, although we are told that a firmware update is being looked in to.

Developed in Brooklyn and currently being shipped to all corners of the world for US$100, may the sharing epidemic begin...!

"i think my ipod likes your ipod"

books in winter

This weeks book is:
A Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls


This book is still one of my favorites to this day.  I have become a fan of memoirs, they are modern day fairy tales -- as noted in the New York Times a few years ago, they are "the harrowing fables of the Brothers Grimm reimagined from the perspective of the plucky child who has, against all odds, evaded the fate of being chopped up, cooked and served to the family for dinner. What the memoir writer knows is what readers of Grimm intuit: the loving parent and the evil stepparent may in reality be the same person viewed at successive moments and in different lights. And so the autobiographer is faced with the daunting challenge of describing the narrow escape from being baked into gingerbread while at the same time attempting to understand, forgive and even love the witch." 
A memoir, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father.  s Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family. A must-read.

books in winter

macaroon chart

just because they are delicious. and this may be the most beautiful flavour chart ever?
via Laduree 

macaroon chart

cargo bikes

Whether your cargo is kids, laundry, groceries or beach gear, the coolest way to haul it is the Madsen Cargo bike. These handy urban transporters from Salt Lake City, Utah, can carry 271 kg (nearly 600 pounds) either in a bucket or on a rack. The bikes and the buckets come in three colors: dramatic black, yummy cream and sweet baby blue. Accessories for the bucket include seat belts and a seat for your progeny, pet or bride. The creative heads at Madsen are constantly tinkering with the bike and accessories, and according to their blog, a lid for the bucket is in the works. With their long tails, these bikes command attention. 

cargo bikes

girls album

San Francisco duo Girls are masters of simplicity. From their love of stripped back and fuzzed-out garage rock tunes to their deliberately direct album title (it’s literally just called Album) Girls keep everything simple and immediate, and it really works for them.

On Album, the duo of Chris Owens and Chet White traverse through a set of sun drenched San Fran tales, from top-down roadtrips, to hazy trip-outs and wistful bust ups. While that might come off as a bit scattered, Album never feels ill-considered, and really Girls are just in a rush to move onto their next creative spark, never fussing over their production credentials or instrumentation.

As it stands, Album is pretty much perfectly of the moment. Whether you’re in the Southern Hemisphere and starting to head into the warmer months or you’re in Northern Hemisphere and are already feeling nostalgic for the fading summer moments, this is for you


via Dave Ruby Howe of CoolHunter

girls album

Home Inspiration: table decor

I love the surprising juxtaposition of cherries with Haigh's chocolate frogs- I think it strikes a lovely balance between sophistication and whimsy. I also love the rich colour scheme with deep reds and browns and the inclusion of easily sourced, everyday food items like Petit écolier biscuits and Lamingtons within such a stylish and elegant context. Gorgeous! Is it too early to be pondering Christmas?


from a back issue of Australia's Home magazine, Inside Out - table design by Jenny Louey

Home Inspiration: table decor

can you carve a turkey?

Thanksgiving is around the corner...and can you carve a turkey?! 
A real man will resist the temptation and at least attempt to take charge himself. BUT just in case he might not be familiar with carving the turkey in a way which will reallllly preserve the flavour and texture of meat after hours of anticipation and preparation ... maybe you should look into this fun book I found, How to Carve a Turkey and 99 other skills every man should know, which will help with tackling every everyday task (and we don’t mean taking out the garbage), occasional duties, and whatever emergency the world throws at him, mastering these 100 essential skills will impress friends and family, and could possibly save a life. Written in a witty, yet authoritative tone, here are step-by-step instructions on how to escape a sinking car, rewire a lamp, kick-start a motorcycle, pitch a tent, open a bottle of champagne, move heavy stuff, remove a tick, hang a flat screen TV, carve a turkey and so much more. This book would make a fun gift!






And just so we all know...as far as carving goes...
1. choose a sharp, thin-bladed carving knife.  running your knife along the bottom of the turkey, find the places where the thighbones meet the body.
2. slip your knife into the joint to separate thigh from body on each side.
3. separate the drumstick from the thigh using the same technique (cut through the joint, not the bone, wiggling the drumstick to locate the joint)
4. running your knife along the bone, separate the meat from the thigh and drumstick, try to get as much as possible in one piece
5. cut thigh and leg meat into thin slices
6. use your knife to find where the wings and body connect, slip your knife into the joint to separate wings from body on each side.
7. carve thin slices off one side of the breast, cutting parallel of the breast.
8. repeat with the other side of the breast.
note: this is the kitchen method, there is also the traditional method which 


tips: 
-if you are carving soon after roasting, cover the turkey with foil and let it stand for 15 minutes first
-cut dark meat before light meat, as it will stay moist longer

can you carve a turkey?

books grow on trees?

This bookshelf shaped like a tree is cute and creative.  I can picture it looking adorable in children's room!

From DesignArtist. Find it here

books grow on trees?

books in winter

I have decided to start dedicating weekly posts to BOOKS!


Now that the days are short, the sky is gray, and the air is cold, the best way to escape (not to mention the least expensive, most hassle-free way) is to curl up by the fire with an amazing, transportive novel. I've decided to start it off with an old classic. So this weeks novel is...

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This is the first line of the novel. Tolstoy’s incredible mind amazes me. It's the tale of Anna Karenina and her ultimately tragic love affair with the dashing Count Vronsky. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and family happiness. Overwhelmingly beautiful and tragic, this is an epic novel. If you persevere through the arduous length, you will be in for a treat. Full of timeless romance and tragedy!!

books in winter

Home Inspiration: pin-up frames

check out these deceivingly looking lightweight frames to pin up anywhere!

http://www.mollaspace.com/product_info.php?products_id=312

Home Inspiration: pin-up frames

genius

http://www.mixmygranola.com/

make-your-own granola. sent right to your house. sweet.

genius

winter is snow fun!!

Halloween is over, winter has arrived and I'm so excited.

I can't wait to discover Europe's snowy mountains and do fun winter activities.

Speaking of which, I found this amazing Sled Coffee Table and Rug....

A coffee table that interacts with its rug, the coffee table is in the shape of a traditional child's sled and sits neatly into a thick pile rug with two deep groves cut into it, giving the impression of compressed snow under the weight of the skis. amazing. this is going in my log cabin when i move to the mountains!!!

winter is snow fun!!

Sundays

Today is a wonderful lazy sunday.  The London skies are gray, there is a chill in the air and I've been cuddled on the couch all afternoon in front of the television with a bowl of carrot ginger soup.  
I came upon this cookbook called Sunday Soup - A Year's Worth of Easy-to-make Recipes.
Sunday is the perfect day to slow down and enjoy a heartwarming meal. From spicy chilies to steaming chowders, here are 60 recipes -- one for each Sunday of the year, and then some. Gulf Coast Shrimp Gumbo is best for staving off the winter cold, while Dreamy Creamy Artichoke Soup welcomes the bounty of spring's vegetables. When it's too hot to turn on the stove, chill out with Icy Cucumber Soup with Smoked Salmon and Dill. A great selection of "Soup-er Sides" -- sandwiches and salads -- will turn any bowl of soup into a hearty meal. No matter the season, this book has all the inspiration one needs to pull out a stockpot and start simmering a new family tradition.
Buy it online here at Amazon!

Sundays