4.26.2010


In an effort not to sound trite, I thought this film was riveting. I watched it this evening, after letting it sit in my apartment in its unopened Netflix envelope for over a month. It was well worth it. I thought the performances were stellar, and I thought Frank Langella portrayed an iconic and controversial man with such astounding humanity and depth.

YES. I say YES to this movie.

4.24.2010

the color blue

When I wake up in the morning, I have an immediate view of the New York City sky. With windows that reach just above the base of my little loft bed, I often feel like a bird perched atop a very high branch. I guess you could say I have an everchanging, framed picture of the weather.

Today the sky is blue. It flows from a saturated deep azure to an almost gray white color as the eye moves toward the horizon; the only clue from my six-floor walk-up that the world is round and not one vast, jagged city.

It makes me think of the blue in the embroidered lady my sister and I bought my mother...


Or maybe even the sweeps of robin's egg blue in Monet's "Sunrise". This painting always seems to conjure up the duality of hardship and hope for me. I wonder about those people in the boats - and how sleepy they must feel.


This color blue reminds me of my favorite crayola crayon. I would choose it everytime I wanted to draw something extremely pretty; like a flower, a rainbow or a stick figure of my cat Tonka.


Timothy Walker uses blue here like a fairy dust or dreamy haze. At the same time it's an opaque back drop, illuminating the kind of fantastical tree house every six year old who believes in leprechauns and mermaids conjures up at least once.


But Dylan Thomas said it best:



"It was high summer, and the boy was lying in the corn. He was happy because he had no work to do and the weather was hot. He heard the corn sway from side to side above him, and the noise of the birds who whistled from the branches of the trees that hid the house. Lying flat on his back, he stared up into the unbrokenly blue sky falling over the edge of the corn. The wind, after the warm rain before noon, smelt of rabbits and cattle. He stretched himself like a cat, and put his arms behind his head. Now he was riding on the sea, swimming through the golden corn waves, gliding along the heavens like a bird..."


4.22.2010

simple simplicity.

It was a gorgeous day. The kind that is steeped in half thunderstorms and half sleepy sunshine. There's something lovely about walking in the midst of a storm knowing it will only last 10 minutes and that by the time you leave the bookshop you've ducked into, you'll emerge to find a cleaner, brighter place.

I wandered around Brooklyn today. A first for me. I don't find myself in Brooklyn unless I'm there for a specific person, place or event, but today B-town and I chilled. I popped in and out of vintage stores and book shops. I spent far too long in Beacon's Closet, and not long enough in " Catbird NYC " ( a gorgeous little jewelry shop.) They have pint-sized, feminine, delicate pieces that would drive me into a severe financial crisis and so I desisted. There I was, walking around beautiful twenty-somethings, that were a little dirty and under-dressed extremely well. There is, what I will call, a ' Bohemian Irony ' to Williamsburg; an understated luxury to the independent craft stores, record shops, and book dives that all at once make you feel as though you are in your element and out of your tax bracket.

ALSO, I went to The Highline for the first time. It was beautiful in a way that I wasn't expecting. Architecturally, I think there was a symbiosis between environment and industrial material that I found surprising.


Seeing all of these wild grasses, daffodils, and thistles sprouting up inbetween concrete and iron seemed to speak very much to our present dilemma: responsible co-existence with our sensitive earth given our huge human impositions. There were really pretty views of the river and the west-side skyline. I cozied up to an oversized bench, quietly took in the darkening clouds that seemed to have followed me from Williamsburg, and listened to some of t h i s . His lyrics are poetry, his voice is hard and passionate, and he has a cleft chin. What more could you possibly ask for?




My most recent discovery, if you can't already tell, is how to turn text into a link.


4.10.2010

folk kitsch


I always forget this place is here and then I always wish I could furnish my living space with everything in it. It appeals to my love of all things old, and weird, and beautiful...even my dream that it's all totally within my budget.



escapism

I have been working every evening, and the days have been spent getting off book for a new play. Today I start a new job at a vintage store in Soho, where I get to look at lots of pretty dresses and help other people try them on. Lots of work, and a little play thrown in. It's a hustle though and I regret not having the time to really soak in the pleasure of being in the present moment: working on building a new life. I read on NPR today that Poland basically lost all of their government officials, the president and his wife in a single plane crash to Russia. In other news, an American woman sent the young boy she adopted BACK to Russia! WHAT?! She said she was unaware of a number of developmental delays the young boy was suffering from. So she sent him BACK...like he was a dress that was two sizes to small. Now Russia is threatening to cease child adoption with the U.S. Then I think about the fact that in a day the temperature has dropped thirty degrees and that glaciers are melting and soon we'll be seeing polar bears floating down the Hudson.

Which is when I start to dream of going here:


And riding a


down a gorgeous


to my little


where I'm made sweet love to by


after he promises to pay off all my



4.08.2010

Charlie Rose and Richard Stengel...

...Charlie Rose and ANYBODY really. I did happen to catch this particular interview. Richard Stengel is the managing editor of Times Magazine. Here, he speaks of his collaboration with Nelson Mandela in 1993 on an autobiography Stengel wrote called "Long Walk to Freedom". I find their relationship fascinating. Often people play the game of 'if you could take anyone in history out for dinner, who would you take?' Well, Richard Stengel got to go on walks, have lunch with, laugh with and listen to one of the greatest men in 20th century history.

Charlie Rose and Richard Stengel Interview

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...