packing packing. island dreaming.

Well we're about to head out to Italy and I can already smell the Amalfi lemons.

I've been wrapping up some things at work this week and of course, packing and packing some more. I usually enjoy getting ready for a trip. Making the to-do lists, checking things off, trying out outfit combinations, getting the travel bag ready with books, mp3s and eye masks.

Since I posted last month about Italian Summer Style after we had decided on Ischia as a destination, I've had a few people ask me what I've ended up packing. I can say that different trips call for different packing methods. We've done the backpacking thing before and prided ourselves on only taking 2 changes of clothes, one pair of shoes, and basic toiletries. Pros: not packing very much, lighter load to carry, easier to get ready each day. Cons: not packing very much, having the exact same thing on in every photo from the trip, limited excursions (i.e. nice dinner out).

This time, though, since we won't be moving to a new place each night, it will be nice to take a few more options. It's pretty much our cardinal rule not to check bags, so we will still only have our carry-ons, but they'll be packed with some fun summer island style choices. One great thing about warm weather destinations is that you can fit a lot more outfits in the bag unlike heavy winter digs.

After I laid out most of my choices, I saw a few themes: neutral palates with small color pops, a few bows, and stripes. Nautical stripes are one of the most talked about trends for spring/summer 2010 and not only are they adorable, but also quite classic and reminiscent of islands, harbours, and European vintage. All of which equal the perfect match for our destination. I had already dog-eared a few striped shirts, but then finally looked at the entire lot of pieces and found stripes hiding in some other pieces that I'd forgotten about. Even on one of the bathing suits I'm taking.

So in the spirit of the previous post when I shared the mood board by WhoWhatWear called "Currently Channeling: The Talented Mr. Ripley", I decided to just make a similar board of some of the pieces I chose for this trip:
Chanel-inspired half-tint sunglasses (so glad to have found these [w/o the $1k]...looked for them forever!), Sperry washed canvas boat shoes, Tavik "Red White & Crue" bikini, Anthropologie strapless romper, Voluspa Malayan Coco Perfume (coconut bark, sandalwood, lemon hinoki), mixed vintage bangles, Franco Sarto cork t-straps, thrifted oversized striped top, black AA tank, vintage black woven skinny belt, Donna Karan high-waisted cream linen pants, tan Marc Jacobs turnlock bowler.
Reading material: Vogue and "The Gulf of Pleasure" by Alan Ross, 1951 (observations and poems of Ischia and Gulf of Naples). Camera.

buon viaggio!

painting series :: part 4 (getting started)

Cutting. Sketching. Measuring. Graphing. Counting.

That's where I am currently in the music/color painting series I've been working on. After writing about the layout of the piece in my last post, I made a few more decision, changes, and advances. The first change was splitting the entire piece into 4 separate pieces. Since there were 4 "rows" of painting, taken from the time signature and total length of the musical piece I chose to paint (Ára Bátur by Sigur Rós), it became much more logistically manageable to work on one "row" at a time.

different layers of the song written • hours at the various keyboards • paints in waiting
Then came the next questions to work out:
• What material to use to paint on?
I initially thought I'd want to work on a type of prepared hard wood, but then looking at how to get a piece that wasn't too heavy, at the right width, became challenging. So I finally ended up with canvas. Unstretched, but primed, initially - easier to work as it's laid out flat on a hard surface (since I'm bearing down on it with a ruler and pencil to do the graphing) rather than pressing down onto an elevated stretched canvas.

...then on to one of the bigger, overall questions:
• Why paint?
I mean this as why paint (as in action), and why paint (as in the material). The former, I always enjoyed the art theory discussions in school about the reasons behind painting and how that's changed through the centuries. At first it was done as a record-keeping of sorts, as photography wasn't invented yet, and painting most realistically was prized and valued as an informational relic for the future. Then after photography came about, the art world changed drastically...(foregoing all the various style eras of art), realism in my opinion became (and still is) somewhat obsolete. Why paint something realistically when you can just take a photo? That was the question I remember one of my painting professors asking...not as a rhetorical question, but just as something to make you think...why, really were we painting. And if we chose to paint realism, why did we do it. And I think that any artist can give the reason "just because I want to, and enjoy it"...and that is valid enough.

But to me, since I'm quite analytical, I like to delve into these types of questions and find the balance between what I like to do/see, and what I want to portray. So my answer to this question for this project (as it is with most of my projects in the past), is 1) because I enjoy paint 2) because I feel it's a more involved, tactical experience for me as the creator than snapping a photo, and 3) because, my pieces aren't realism...so they have to be something other than a photo. Painting was my medium of choice in school, and I still enjoy it more than others. And I'm sticking with my favored medium of oils. Although it's not as conducive to small, non-studio type spaces, is messy and takes longer to deal with...I still tend to lean towards it because of it's mixing capabilities and how it's easy to see the 'hand' in the strokes, or build up as in impasto techniques.


views of the pencil graphed canvas
So anyway...getting on with it. I finished writing out all the notes for the piece, and then completed graphing the first "row" of the entire painting. The canvas right now is quite messy, filled with pencil marks of measures, notes, instrument vs. voice notations. The color key is made, but the paints aren't mixed yet.

After I saw the final sketch, I almost wanted to start over as there is going to be a lot more white in the piece than I thought...but finally (after about a week and a half of stalling) decided that I'll continue on this first idea. It's a trial run anyway, and the next pieces I study will be fun to mix it up and explore other ways of substituting color and space for musical notes.

Now it's on hold until we get back from Italy in a couple of weeks. But I'm excited to finally get to the color!

summer infusions :: a story of vanilla

I'm thinking that this summer I will post a little continuing series about different infusions. Over the past year or so I've started to compile quite a list of concoctions (extracts, honeys, liquors, waters, etc) I want to try and make. These will involve lots of herbs, roots, flowers, and the like.

Lots of wonderful and tantalizing things for the senses.

The first is a story of vanilla. I guess it's not so much a story as just a description of a 'how-to'...but story sounds like "once upon a time, in a far off land" which hints at exotic and vanilla is nothing if not that. So for my first infusion, I sorted through the various vanilla bean varieties with which to start. And, finally I narrowed it down to....all of them!

Luckily for me there's a great site Beanilla.com which offers organic sampler packs of 3 beans each from all of the popular (and rare) vanilla origins. So last month I was happy to find a package in the mailbox full of these fragrant pods. Vanilla beans that came a long way to meet me. Indonesia. Mexico. Tahiti. Tonga. Madagascar. India. Papua New Guinea.

After I introduced myself, I collected the other essential pieces and began on the journey to creating homemade vanilla extract.


It's all quite easy.
STEP 1 : Find a glass bottle or jar with a lid or tight-fitting cork.
STEP 2 : Get a bottle of (preferably organic) pure vodka.
STEP 3 : Portion out number of beans per ounce of vodka (3 beans for every 8 oz). I'm using smaller 4 oz bottles to do this initial run, so I'm using only 1.5 beans per jar.


STEP 4 : Cut a slit the bean pods lengthwise to expose the seeds.
STEP 5 : Put vanilla and vodka in the jar.
STEP 6 : Label jar with vanilla variety + date.


STEP 7 : Store in dark cabinet for at least a month.
STEP 8 : Shake gently on occasion during infusion period.
STEP 9 : ENJOY

The last photo there is the very first try I made a few months back with the standard vanilla beans I found in our natural food store. It just keeps getting darker, and I've used about half of it in various recipes. I'm most excited to sample the various nuances of the different varieties of beans used for this new batch.

but now we wait...

jónsi... (that's "youn-see")

on our way • anticipating • glows of phones below
The main reason we went to NYC last weekend, was to go to a concert by Jónsi of Sigur Rós. This is his first solo tour promoting the new album Go. I've wanted to see Sigur Rós for years, but since they're not touring now, as soon as Jónsi announced his N. American tour (and no dates were in the southeast), Chris suggested going to New York. To say I was excited was an understatement, but the actual show surpassed all expectations.

colorful stage • final bow
The show was held at the venue Terminal 5 in the Hell's Kitchen/Clinton area of Midtown West and is one of the larger venues of it's kind in the city. We didn't arrive super early, but still got there before most of the people arrived so we picked a good spot on the 3rd floor mezzanine close to the stage. As the time passed during the opening artist, the place got fuller and fuller...and finally filled to its 3000 capacity with all 3 floors swarming with people. There were people sitting at our feet to look through our legs over the railing. I read some reviews that many people had such a hard time seeing anything, were really uncomfortable from the crowd heat, etc, so it made me even more thankful for our spot, because it was seriously a great and comfortable place to be.

The anticipation was so high when Jónsi finally took the stage, and when he sang the first note, everyone stopped breathing. The first song "Stars in Still Water" was played acoustically with just Jónsi, his voice, his guitar, and one small light. Then the 4 members of the live band (Alex, Doddi, Óbó and Úlfur) joined him on stage and suddenly the entire area was filled with images of butterflies, owls, deer, hummingbirds, flowers, wolves, and winter woods. The next couple of songs were a bit low key and beautiful (Hengilás and Icicle Sleeves), so by the time the climax in the middle of Kolniður came around, the strobe light flashed and a huge screen dropped. Everyone finally took a breath and realized that we were standing around in a warehouse. He's so great at building anticipation in his music...even with the long drawn out pieces of Sigur Rós.

jonsi at the piano • dancing with a headdress • alex & jonsi
Throughout the 85-min or so show, the band members all traded places among the collection of instruments (several guitars, a mandolin, upright piano, keyboards, xylophone, electronic sound boards, and steel trash can tops). The drummer was one of the most interesting things to watch on stage, hitting things non stop. The xylophonist even used stringed bows on one song to "strum" the metal keys. Jónsi wore this overcoat full of hanging feathers and colorful tassels, and a few of the other band members had long feathers hanging from their sleeves as well.

The stage production was a collaboration with the UK-based company, 59 Productions and although I read about it and watched some "visual diary" posts leading up to the tour, the final show was better than I imagined. The videos will never do the live experience justice - as being there was so incapsulating. This Wall St. Journal article gives an interesting look into the making of the stage experience: Behind the Set.

When the show finished, the applause never stopped until the band's reappearance for the encore. This was by far one of the best parts of the entire show. They played two songs beginning with "Animal Arithmetic". Jónsi had put on this huge feather headdress for this last part and all the stops were pulled out for the amazing stage animations. The final piece of "Grow Till Tall" was one of the best live pieces I've ever heard. It's not even worth trying to describe the climax as my descriptions would fall short. But I think there was a long moment of silence as no one knew quite how to react when it was over...then we all took our hands, closed our jaws, blinked, wiped a few tears, and tried hard to express appreciation with applause. Oh, and like I mentioned before leaving, as a somewhat tribute, I made sure to wear feathers in my hair! :)

Here's a video of the final song. I hesitated posting it as it is NOTHING compared to the live experience. But at least I enjoy watching it again to remember. The last 4" still give me goosebumps.
*email readers must click through to watch online

a big (spring) apple

planes + trains
Back from the Big Apple after heading up for a long weekend. We'd been anticipating this short trip after getting tickets to a concert of one of my favorite artists - Jónsi of Sigur Ros. They've been on my 'must-see' list for a long time and were one the top of the 'will-travel-if-I-have-to' group. I'd love to see the entire band in their home country of Iceland, but since this year Jonsi is doing a solo tour and NYC is a pretty easy trip (and always a fun time), it was a logical choice.

I'll save talking about the show for the next post...it was just so amazing that it deserves its own space.

in Central Park
Since our flight arrived bright and early at around 8:30 on Friday morning (meaning we were up by 3), the first question was: "should we first go catch up on a bit of sleep before trekking around the rest of the day?". But the answer was no. It's New York. Too much to see to waste it napping. So off we went into the lovely spring weather. Did some shopping (of course)...but funny enough, Chris was the only one who came back with anything.

One of the best things about the city is the endless choices in where to eat. Because there's so many, we normally like to spread out our stops into small meals and snacks throughout the day in order to fit in more new places to try. I'd dog-earred several high-rated vegetarian places beforehand, but when we found ourselves in an area where one of those places weren't, the routine would go something like this: Pull out our phones. Locate on GPS. Search for whatever type of food we were feeling like. Link to the foodie review sites. Sort through a handful. Pick one. Navigate. Arrive + eat. All while walking. Oh, the miracles of technology.

pastel macarons • view up towards the street from inside Levain Bakery • the Dakota
We stopped at a lovely French bakery in the fashion district called Macaron. And yes, they specialize in the colorful puffy sweet bites. We had them recommend a few of the most popular flavors and sat in the immensely small space while we savored the vanilla, dark chocolate, rose, and pistachio macarons. On Saturday we took a long walk (purposefully) through the park to the Upper West Side to see the Dakota building (where John Lennon was shot, but which is in itself a beautiful building to see) and ended up at the famous Levain Bakery. A friend had recommended it and it was amazing. It's just this little (seriously little) basement space that barely has a window above street level. There was a constant line from the street down the tiny stairway into the shop by the cash register the entire time we were there. Everyone was there to buy one of the four (yes, just 4) cookie varieties for sale...chocolate chip + walnut, dark chocolate + chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, dark chocolate + peanut butter chip. I chose the all chocolate and Chris got oatmeal raisin. They were as big as a (large) fist, still warm, and the perfect stage in between dough and fully baked.

...and we were still trying to finish them by late Sunday night.


the Guggenheim
Each trip we try to see another one of the big museums, and this time it was the architectural gem of the Guggenheim. When we made the final turn from the subway stop in the Upper East Side, and I saw the white spiraling levels of the building peaking through a row of trees...I couldn't believe I hadn't visited earlier. It's a striking building by Frank Lloyd Wright and is an awesome piece of art without ever having to step inside. But, luckily we did step inside, and the exhibits were great!

scenes from Coney Island
On Sunday morning we took our time getting going and after stopping for a morning espresso and miniature pastries from a neighborhood pasticceria, we hopped on the subway for the long ride down to Coney Island. I've always wanted to walk the boardwalk there, but never had made it before. Although the weather our first two days in the city were quite spring-like, Sunday was very chilly and windy, so we had to bundle in our coats before heading to the shore, but it was still worth it for a stroll on the iconic beachside promenade. As soon as we got off the train and walked to the street, it felt like we stepped back in time to some weird deserted carnie time-warp. There were even strange creaking noises coming from the wind moving something metal around, and all the colorful signs seemed an out-of-place-bright to advertise to just the 9 or so people meandering around.

more from Coney Island
...But the vintage style painted signs, old carnival rides, fair food displays, and wooden boardwalk seemed oddly comforting in an Americana sort of way. I'm at least glad we got to see this strange place before all the summer crowds and before (if) it ceases to exist any longer.

tasty yellow blooms

zucchini blossoms & herbs from the garden
This weekend at the farmers market while visiting our most favorite vendor of greens, I was pleasantly surprised to spot small bags of yellow blooms for sale. I immediately knew what they were and was so excited to get some, as I've never seen them for sale anywhere around here. Zucchini (squash) blossoms are very popular in Italy, and I gave up even looking for them in the States (although I do know there are some markets like the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco which has them in season). This year though, since we're growing zucchini in the garden, I've had my eye on a few flowers I've seen forming, but still - it was only yielding about 7 flowers at a time per plant.

So back to the farmer's market...I grabbed a bag and heard several people talking amongst themselves trying to figure out what they were. One lady asked me what I had, and when I told her, she asked how to prepare them. I told her that we stuff them with cheese and spices then pan fry...she got out of line and grabbed a bag for herself.

split blooms • stamens removed • stuffed with ricotta & herbs
We'd had these blooms prepared a couple different ways in Italy, but I found a great recipe on Food and Style and decided to give it a try...(plus the video was a wonderful help). *emails readers must click through to view

I used several herbs from the garden in the recipe, and they turned out quite well! Good things, as we'd invited some friends over for an aperitivo-style dinner...but we all enjoyed them. Now, I'm looking forward to a few more blossoms throughout the season.

...bring may flowers :: a mix

It's May. It's getting warmer. Definitely more humid. Almost time for the A/C. But also time for zucchini blossoms (which I was SO excited to have found at the farmer's market this morning), summer vacations, beach days, and long lit evenings...

...plus fun music. With a bit of laid-back breezes, shaking beats, and a dose of guilty (cheesy) pleasure (ahem, last song). Load it up, put on the SPF, and dance along.

right click HERE to download

Go Outside :: Cults (Cults 7")
USA Boys :: HEALTH (::DISCO2)
We Share Our Mothers' Health (Ratatat Remix) :: The Knife (We Share Our Mothers' Health)
Real Life :: Tanlines (Real Life)
Alligator (Toro Y Moi Remix) :: Tegan & Sara (Alligator LP)
Under the Sheets (ft. Ellie Goulding) :: Chiddy Bang (Air Swell)
Crosswalk Stereo :: The Pass (Colors)
A/B Machines :: Sleigh Bells (Magic Metal CD)
I Dont Know What I Can Save You From (Röyksopp Remix) :: Kings Of Convenience (Untitled)
Cry When You Get Older :: Robyn (Body Talk Pt. 1)
Pursuit of Happiness (Slinks Hangover Remix):: KiD CuDi (Man On The Moon: The End Of Day)
Sorry For I Mashed You :: Norwegian Recycling (Untitled)