Enneigé.

La Poule.

In another form.

et son copain...

Museum of Natural History.

Marguerite and I decided today would be a perfect day (wet and rainy) for a few antics in a museum. We like this sort of thing. Dinosaurs & planets. Gazelles & Phyla. Flips.


Duly, pterodactyls were flying overhead.


The basement of the museum made me think of a recent story in the New Yorker by David Owen about rooting out the smells of childhood again. He writes about his smell-quest that led him to a museum where an ectype of a childhood smell still lingered in his mind, but was nowhere to be found in the museum. After he left the museum and his search behind, the smell, even in his mind, was gone forever. I think it is now hiding in the basement of the Museum of Natural History on 81st Street in Manhattan.


Jolina came with us to the museum (she is featured in Marguerite's arms above). Marguerite channels through Jolina.

"My baby does not take naps anymore."

"My baby was very naughty this morning and I told her to go in her room until she wanted to be nice."

"My baby is scared of the biggest dinausaurs."

"My baby never grows."

"My baby's legs are tired of walking."

"My baby always eats in restaurants."

"My baby speaks English very well." (This is all, of course, in French).

Little did you know...

...that the French community in New York is like a whole lot of kissing cousins. I mean that in the best sense. Frenchies in New York have an extensive social substratum that is seemingly boundless. To be fair, there are Americans in Paris who never speak French because their contacts are limited to English speakers. Let's just say this is also definitely the case here in NYC with French expats. We saw a large group of them and a hilarious direct transfer of French culture to American soil this weekend, quite literally: former members of the Toulouse rugby team (le Stade Toulousain) playing a match against a New York rugby team (one exists?) in the heart of Central Park. The announcements were in French, the live band pumping swing music was French and every single person in the large crowd of people watching (except the occasional puzzled American who happened to be walking by) was French. The best was the woman who was yelling into a megaphone with her accent from the Southwest of France: "Allez les garcons !" I felt like I was transported back to France, with some strange New York skyline canvas backdrop.



We went to the game with the best little chunk of France that exists: Marguerite. She likes rugby too.

So glad---> Mr. Obama.

(photo here)

(...although this is still 6 months late...)

"The behavior of the U.S. side seriously interferes in China's internal politics and seriously hurts the national feelings of the Chinese people," statement by Chinese statesman Ma Zhaoxu.

...Meeting with the most peaceful man on the face of the earth has "seriously damaged" ties between China and the US...

Free Tibet.

Doughnut Plant. Pickles.

I ♥ doughnuts. I ♥ pickles. Together. What a magical combo. Especially peanut butter and jelly doughnuts and pickles commingling. This really is true. (My taste in food has, at times, been called iffy. I often eat plain yoghurt mixed with avocados, tomatoes, cheese and apples - with a spoon of peanut butter as a chaser. This is just one example). So, for me the Lower East Side is a place where concordant combinations are made, where not only peanut butter and jelly doughnuts exist, but also crème brûlée, crystalized ginger, vanilla bean and passion fruit (in various forms of yeast, cake and jam), oh my! Plus the Pickle Guys and their vats of soused pickles are, gratefully, close at hand.











Even more than doughnuts and pickles, I ♥ these people (below). They are the sort who bring me to places like Doughnut Plant and pickle emporium.

Slash.

Mia Pearlman | INRUSH, 2009

"Slash" is the current exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan. It is part of a series of exhibitions featuring 'traditional' materials - knitting, lace making, embroidering (wish I would have seen these) - and now paper cutting. Meredith really wanted to go and anything she deems 'art' means an eyefull for all.


Sangeeta Sandrasegar | Untitled # 24, 25, 26 (from The Shadow of Murder Lay Upon My Sleep series), 2009


'He' is made of hundreds of hundreds of cut-up photographs of a body, combined to recreate the whole. His name is Alex by Oliver Herring, 2009.


Rob Ryan | Can We Shall We, 2009


Andrea Dezsö | Women in Red with Black String, 2008

These were a series of what looked like really great dioramas in two long lines.





And, of course, Miss Georgia Russell, my friend in Paris was featured on these walls. Remember her stuff? The whole collection chimed her name.


Georgia Russell | The Story of Art, 2006

Circa 1965.

Dallying in the ditch. My dad: the kid in the long pants and sneakers in the flaming heat of the Utah summer.

Chinese New Year | V Day

Yes. Today is big. Not only is it the day when the truest expressions of love are circulated, but it is also the Chinese New Year. It was a really difficult choice, but we decided to celebrate both. No, it is not true. We were sentient of both holidays only when we got off the subway at Grand Street to find flocks and flocks of people - mobs really, an unbelievable volume of confetti, Chinese New Year Dragons dancing everywhere and a strange incorporation of heart balloons throughout.









We were in the neighborhood to brunch. How very serendipitous. How many Chinese New Years/Valentine's Days do you find yourself invited to brunch at a friend's who happens to live smack in the middle of Chinatown?



The brunch was themed: citrus.



Juiced.



Bowled. (In a certain 'Ottoman' bowl that holds a special spot in my heart...for which I waited many hours while Chris deliberated in an Istanbul market. Good choice in the end, even if its provenance remains a bit cloudy).



Candled.



Recipe as follows (in Chris' words): 1. Use a clementine - its peel is thin and removes easily in one piece. 2. Cut along the equator. 3. Remove sections without wetting the wick. 4. Cut a hole out of the top. 5. Use safflower oil. 6. Put on a plate with a wide rim because the 'candle' will combust at some point.



Expressions of love.











Here is to confetti canons that never explode and to amorous Valentine's Days.