Category: Beauty

Great Googa Mooga!

I went to both days of The Great Googa Mooga this weekend and… I had an awesome time. There’s been a fair amount of backlash about long lines, the weirdness of porta-potties and how sunny it is in an open field in May but… have these people never been to a concert before? Or a bar? Porta Potties are weird. Period. You might have to wait when 7,000 (*update* 40,000!) people want a beer at the same time. Luckily you can listen to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band for free while you’re waiting. Oh well, Haters gonna Hate. And while haters were busy hating, I ate fried leeks, delicious pork pupusas and arepas from Red Hook food truck staple El Olomega, brisket tacos with roasted corn from Hill Country, fried chicken banh mi that tasted like it had old bay in the rub from Joseph Leonard, Coco-Limon y Cucumber-Lime popsicles from La New Yorkina, maple cotton candy, bourbon and bacon caramel corn, and about a thousand beers. Pair that belly with the rowdy beats and Tuba Gooding Jr. of The Roots or the dulcet tones and hair of an amazingly resilient Hall & Oates (jesus, what did they have- 38 #1 hits? every song is amazing!) and how could this get better? Oh yeah, this girl brings you beers while you lay on the grass:

Love and thanks to my wingladies, Smills and Njoki, and to the amazing Mels for holding it down and keeping it real.

Lovely Weekend

This weekend I’ll be celebrating birthdays and vegetarian dim summing and Great Googa Mooga-ing and lolling around Brooklyn tending my budding vegetable garden… but with all of that loveliness, I still wish I was on this river. Ahhhh, Summer! Hope you have a lovely weekend.

 

this amazing image from the truly wonderful Lost in America.

8 Hours

I found this image back on May Day, and I love it. Technically this is a propaganda poster lobbying for the 8-hour work day (notice the little picketer in his socialist hat and that the people are spending their 8 free hours rowing around a lily pond reading “The Union Advocate”), and, certainly, the fight for workers humanity that the 8 hour day symbolizes is a powerful part of social history. I think, though, that I might like this well outside of that? Maybe it’s the Diego Rivera-meets-Fillmore Poster woodcut style, or maybe just it’s how simple and good the concept seems. It reminds me of a bit Benjamin Franklin’s schedule– an antiquated notion of how to structure and spend one’s day (with purpose, function, and beauty) that maybe we’d all benefit from truly adapting. Slow down, simplify, work hard. The benefit of honest toil and the sweetness of “What We Will”.

 

ps. if anyone has any info on the source of this awesome picture, let me know.

Love Locks

From the amazing team that brought you Murmurations, here is a darling little video about Rome’s “love locks”. A new tradition on a 2000 year old bridge, lovers write their names on a lock, affix it to chains spanning the TIber, and symbolically and grandiosely toss the key into the river. Ahh Rome, how I love you.

thanks to dear Sara for the heads up.

Dans le trou de lapin…

Oh, the internet rabbit hole… You know the drill- you start out looking at raw edged wood cutting boards and 38 clicks later you’re inexplicably on a page of Arrested Development gifs feeling hungry or maybe angry. This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife, how did I get here? Sometimes, though, all of the clicks seem to lead somewhere, breadcrumbs living up to their name, trailing to a fabulous candy house where the witch plays accordion and doesn’t want to eat you. Such was the case when I stumbled on this awesome image on a life-in-Paris blog that Maman shared with me. As a swarthy accordion player/feather hair-piece wearer myself, I identified with the gentleman in the middle, and, of course, figured Sweetheart for the bearded banjo playing swami on the right. What on earth is this a poster for? When is it from? So… down the rabbit hole (or: dans le trou de lapin) we go. Many clicks later, I discover that “Les Primitifs du Futur” is a sort of gypsy jazz canaille collective featuring various vagabonds on guitar, brass, ukulele, theremin, musical saw, accordion, bandoneon, xylophone, vibraphone, drums… and cult artist (and creator of Mr. Natural) Robert Crumb on banjo. What the wha? Listen here and check out these awesome posters and album art made for the band by R. Crumb hisself.I mean, really? Ce qu’est un voyage dans le trou de lapin, de l’accordéon dans la patte.

Images (and more music to listen!) from here.

Mama Love

Just spent the weekend with my Mama, cooking and dancing and eating and getting dirty and doing projects and toasting champagne and I just love her so. Daddy found this picture, and it’s a pretty perfect Mama’s day snap- Mama’s holding my just-born cousin Charlotte- with my Grandmother and Charlotte’s Mama in the background. She’s just perfect in black frye boots and a denim maxi skirt that would pass muster on any L train, and me, I’m kicking it hard in turquoise chuck taylors (my brother picked them out and we had matching pairs). We are so much the same, she and I, and I am so thankful for that all of the time. Love you so, Mama.

Standard Time

How cool is this? German artist Mark Formanek builds a wonderful giant clock before our very eyes, filming the whole thing as workers change and set the numbers in real time. It took 70 workers and 1,611 changes to make it accurate, and the result is simply majestic. Here are some small videos of the clock in motion, and if you want the live clock on your desktop, there’s an app that syncs to your computer’s internal clock. Brilliant and functionally obsolete? My Favorite.

heads up from here.

The Novo Project

I’m loving the divine Miss Mia’s newest endeavor, The Novo Project. Mia is one of those magnetic souls, a student of the possibilities and the positive, a gatherer of beauty and feathers and magic. She’s one of those rare people who seems to burn a bit brighter and hotter than most everyone else- but not in a consumptive way, in the best way, the way that casts light and shadow, that shows a relief of what is and a glimpse of what could be. So, when she says that her Novo Project “will be sharing stories, profiles, and images that are tender / wise / outrageous courageous / quirky / beautiful / insightful of–––authors / artists / designers / educators / healers / athletes…etc.”, I’m inclined to stop whatever I’m doing and listen. Check it out here.

ps. I can’t get over how much Mia looks exactly like her mama here.

Live Art

Sweetheart’s dear friend Jared is known for throwing legendary parties. Sweetheart and I actually kissed for the first time after one of his rooftop soirees that featured a bamboo forest and a margarita machine. Needless to say, when Jared is in charge, love is in the air. So, when we headed south to his bride’s hometown, Rincón, Puerto Rico, for their wedding, we knew that it would probably be pretty epic. The whole shebang was absolutely impeccable, gorgeous, perfect, and seemingly effortless- from the fresh coconuts macheted open and filled with rum to the (literally) world caliber reggae band to the peonies and frangipani covering every surface to the… live painting. The brother of the groom flew this incredibly talented artist down and she created the painting above during the wedding reception. This was exactly what it looked like- hanging lanterns, orchids, giant copper pool of waterlilies in the middle of the dancefloor, the last of a sunset sky through nesting colonial arches framing the chuppah and going out to sea. Seeing the painting come together during the night was really, really cool. Naturally a wedding in a tropical paradise with a cast of good looking, photogenic, and wild characters makes for a good time, but who knew it made for good art? Maravilloso.Read more about the artist, Katherine Gressel, and her process here.