Tag: travel

Tall Ships

After glimpsing them in New York harbor during fleet week, and seeing them streaming sails across the mouth of the Chesapeake, Daddy and I cruised down to Harborfest to see the stunning tall ships in all their furled glory. I told you I love ships. Gilded figureheads in the golden hour, fireworks amidst the riggings at sundown, all the ships in the harbor sounding their horns at once, a rude and glorious symphony—as from Whitman:

Chant on, sail on, bear o’er the boundless blue from me to every sea,
This song for mariners and all their ships.

ps. and a very happy birthday to Sweetheart… I can’t wait to share the celebration!

Bless my Heyerdahl: Easter Island Heads have Bodies!

Maybe it was Daddy’s worn copy of Kon Tiki that got me, the one that he loved when he was a boy, with its slick blue and adventure tan illustrations, its grainy black and white photographs of bearded, devastatingly handsome Thor Heyerdahl catching a shark with his bare hands on his way in his reed boat to prove possible trans-continental contact by ancient Polynesian navigators. Sigh. Ever since I was little I’ve loved that thought of far flung adventure, the possibility of discovery, of ancient people, of quipus and carved paddles, of petroglyphs and monoliths, and of the sea: of celestial navigation and of lodestones, the way ships grow from the horizon as the earth curves, the green flash, the dog star, and the southern cross. These mysteries somehow greater than humanity, and maybe almost older than it too. Here is Thor perched atop one of his principal pieces of evidence as to the seaworthiness of balsa rafts, the mysterious and giant Moai Easter Island Heads.Ahhh the mystery! Who built them? How did they get there? Why were they put there? Why did they have stonework dopplegangers in the Peruvian rainforest? Some questions have only suppositions as answers and some answers lead only to more questions. The most recent answer: OH MY GOODNESS THEY HAVE BODIES NOT JUST HEADS! Leads to the next question: Why??

It’s all there: the ancient wonder, the human spark, the surprise and delight of revelation, and the Catch 22 bittersweetness that with each discovery there is one less thing to be discovered.

Images from here, here, and here.

Off The Map

When Sweetheart and I went down to Puerto Rico for his dear friend’s wedding to a native Puertorriqueña, we made the good choice to hang around for a few days after. Fortified with strange savory pastries dusted with powdered sugar and strong dark coffee on our way out of San Juan, we headed to the interior. Trekking into El Yunque rainforest to spend the night off the grid in a cabin perched atop a mile high mountain that used to be a tropical fruit farm=good plan. Upon our arrival, we each got a crooked walking stick and hiked up the jungle switchbacks, stopping along the way to pick camandula seeds (which the native Taina ladies used to string as necklaces) arriving at our cabin—tin roofed and on stilts—as the sun was setting. Our host- a sort of Apocalypse-Now-Roger-Sterling- showed us the machete (labeled “guest machete”), gave us this map, and melted into the underbrush. We made fire, cooked meat, peppers and rice, drank rum, played backgammon by candlelight, slept in hammocks, took rainforest rainwater showers and, when the nighttime thunderstorms broke into dawn, we followed the map to the Cubuy River falls. Not all those who wander are lost, but it helps if you have a map.

Found in Nature

On our way out to spend Memorial Day at Sweetheart’s house in Rockaway we drove past Floyd Bennett Field. I’ve always had a bit of a love affair with the old airfield (see here and here). How interesting, then, to discover this amazing photographic series “Found in Nature” by Barry Rosenthal: collections of items and objects found out at Floyd Bennett Field. This weekend, on that brilliant, sunny, fresh-hot birth of summer day, they had a carnival set up: a Ferris Wheel, a funny purple roller coaster, big fat circus lights and cotton candy. How many new contributions must have been left behind…

Read more about Barry Rosenthal and his art here and thanks to Things Organized Neatly for the heads up (man I love that site).

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.

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.

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.

Ghost Party

For Miss McKay’s birthday she threw a Ghost Party in the sea islands. All in attendance were asked to choose and channel one of the many spirits of Cumberland, the most mystical and undoubtedly magical tide and mist limned island of the lot. This was certainly cause for a most unearthly celebration. We went to the boneyard and gathered armadillo skulls, deer jawbones, and miscellaneous backbones from the woods, and, like all good ghosts, everyone had a bone necklace and placecard.We went into the saw palmettos, foraged mossy branches and long fronds and festooned the room with bones, vines, and spanish moss.

We dressed as timacuan squaws and revolutionary war generals, the ghosts of great great uncles and bastard octoroon daughters, as ghost dans, zoave blockade runners, french pirates, notorious brides, and wayward travelers. The birthday girl herself went as fierce and beautiful Aunt Lucy who answered to no one and rode her horse with a crow on her shoulder, and Miss Mia made our portraits.

We ate shrimp and grits, drank champagne and rum, and played music and danced mystically into the night. It was perfection.So much love and supernatural joy to Miss McKay on this occasion of her birthday.

And infinite thanks and sharkteethbrujaja to the divinely talented Miss Mia Baxter, timacuan squaw and photographer extroidanairess, for the majority of these stunning images.

And We’re Off!

Ta Ta For Now, dear ones! Sweetheart and I are heading to tropical locales, turquoise waters, and sweet funky and spicy rum cocktails. So, I’ll bid you adieu for a bit…

In my absence and in the spirit of adventure, exploration, wanderlust, and the ever quickening pulses we’re all feeling due to the rising temperatures of summer, please enjoy a MIXTAPE I made you guys. A Feather by Feather first, this one is meant to be played with the windows down, wherever you are and wherever you’re going. It’s called Breezes Kiss Collarbone. Click to download and please share! Besos!

awesome porsche image from here.

New York, I Love You

This weekend we have dear friends visiting from down south, a pair of bon vivant and raconteur travelers who’ve found themselves in the flats of Iowa, the mountains of Virginia, and the deep pines of Athens, Georgia- all for the pursuit of knowledge. Though they live among the rolling country hills right now, the countdown is on for the end of their bucolic tenure and their subsequent carbetbag transatlantic move to London. There couldn’t be a better time to show them our New York. She’s tricking herself out in flowers and opening her arms as she always does for spring wanderers. And, in making plans for their arrival, I’m reminded that the best way to fall back in love with your own city is to show off her best sides to someone you love.

On the docket:  Sichuan in Bay Ridge, a visit to MoMa, a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and a brown bag picnic at the carousel, dinner at Roman’s, The first session of the Brooklyn Flea back outdoors, the opening of the Dekalb Market, Passover Seder with Sweetheart’s family, lunch at Spumoni Gardens, a trip to Coney Island to ride the soon-to-be-closed-Sweetheart’s-childhood-favorite Eldorado AutoSkooter Bumper Cars, A trek either to Arthur Avenue or to Staten Island for Italian delights, and Michael Daves at Rockwood.

Chag sameach, thank you New York, and may everyone have a marvelous weekend.

 

Gorgeous top image: Ernst Haas, Central Park, Spring, 1970
from the awesome ICP photography blog.