Some Brandi Strickland

Home! And some Cat Power:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ37wh3X0Sw

T minus six days, and counting, until home

what's cookin good lookin?

Birthday!

a josé gonzaléz song for a friday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6MSkG5txAA

Last night I went to the Chelsea Hotel to see Mikael Kennedy's art show, "Shoot the Moon". The show was comprised of 500 polaroids that he had taken over the past ten years. I went to the exhibit with my friend Lucy and we both swooned over all of his photos.

Have you heard about the MOTH? There are story-slams around the city centering around a specific topic. I have never been, but plan to go to the one next week about "earth".

http://www.themoth.org/storyslams_nyc

Some nice collage and journaling work.

Sarah Klein is one of my favorite artists. She did the illustrations for the local foods wheel, a device aimed at showing what produce is in season depending on the time of year and region. http://www.localfoodswheel.com/

She also did a project revolving around the process of making bread. She "used bread as the center of over a dozen videos to explore issues related to consumption, competition, ecology and more...the bread making process acts in contract to the focus of the space, questioning our busy lifestyle and our expectations of a place". http://www.sarahklein.com/projects.html

In the library learning about foraging for my anthropology midterm. Later tonight I'm going to the Chelsea Market to hear the author (my friend's aunt) of the Orangette blog speak!

I'm researching WWOOFing in Italy and California right now! WWOOFing stands for "world wide opportunities on organic farms" and is a free exchange program where you volunteer help and a farm offers you food, a place to live and an opportunity to learn about an organic way of life. Let me know if you have any recommendations of a place to farm!

The sun lit up the city today and the park is overflowing with musicians! I'm really excited to see the city unfold in the spring now. After class I went to the East Village to try Abraco coffee for the first time with some friends. The place was spot on, cozy and had delicious olive oil cake.

Also, last weekend I went to see seabear, an icelandic band, perform at southpaw in brooklyn. Check out their incredible video: http://vimeo.com/9379864

Here is some art by Christoph Niemman.

He writes the "Abstract City" blog in the new york times. He is a prophet.

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/bio-diversity/

hampstead, outside of london.

photo taken by caitlin, who has mad photography skills.

a tree house

today im feeling sick and drinking some peet's black tea in my room. i worked at early bird granola yesterday and it felt so good to be back in a kitchen. after, abby and i ate some granola with ricotta, sat in the large fountain in the park and then retired to her dorm for some violet tea, talk and work.

I was just looking at photos of my art piece that I made for the Senior Winter Art Show at my high school, Urban. The project was about people watching and I decided to document my findings. I think I would like to continue logging people watching in a journal here in New York. Above are a few photos of the project and here is my artist statement:

I have always had a curiosity about other people’s habits and rituals. Also, I find it intriguing to observe how people interact with others in public spaces. Combining these two interests, I decided to study people waiting at the N Judah bus stop on the corner of Cole and Carl and record three elements that are involved in constructing a first impression. The first element is a physical description of the individual, including age, gender and clothing. The second are the habits, movements and mannerisms of the individual. The third element is in the eye of the beholder: the imagined back-story of the individual that the viewer creates and imposes. From these three layers, I decided to use a variety of transparent papers to convey how all three ingredients are mixed together and overlap to create a depiction of the person.

This art is a documentation of regular people who may seem disconnected from a distance, but when examined more closely, are very similar and share many qualities and characteristics. Though I did not interact or speak with these individuals, I now realize that it is impossible to get to know a person unless you take the time to get to know them personally. I became conscious of how physical characteristics and behaviors influence how others perceive a person, even though these superficial traits do not reveal an individual’s true nature. Furthermore, a strikingly small range of behaviors were exhibited while they were waiting for the bus, including pacing, checking the time, reading, and stepping out into the street. I expected to recognize some of the same individuals waiting at this corner since I observed the same place repeatedly, but never did. When the bus came each time and collected all of the people I was watching, I always felt this odd attachment and loss, feeling that I would never see or meet these people, nor would I ever know their true stories. Please flip through the booklets and read about each person.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/in-the-night-kitchen/?emc=eta1

"In The Night Kitchen" is a book that has been read to me hundreds of times when I was a kid. I wish cities were really made out of milk cartons and whisks. This article above is about how cooking can seep into late night insomnia. It also summarizes how i feel about swimming. I think the time in the middle of the night should be taken advantage of more often; we can be productive at all hours. When I have a kitchen next year I will mainly be staying up late whipping up olive oil cake.. and here is a recipe for blood orange and olive oil cake that I made recently:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/dining/181arex.html

I love these old photos of Paris rooftops. I am hoping to take a train here later next week, we shall see how if my plans materialize. Yesterday, my mom and I walked around London's Soho neighborhood, and indeed there were narrow, twisting roads. We went to Fernandez & Wells cafe to split a piece of clementine cake and each had a cappuccino and then proceeded to Monmouth for cappuccinos take two. Afterwards, we came across an art installation and decided to peak inside. The artist, Alice Anderson, had a huge amount of rapunzel-esque red hair spilling out of a window and seeping inside the front door. Inside we saw a web of this hair where you could see the different layers and knots. I read part of her artist statement and she said that memories can be interpreted as reconstructions and even become a new fiction story in their own right. This idea resonated with me because I just finished an essay for my writing class about Waltz With Bashir and I investigated the idea of distorted memory.

You can look at some photos of the exhibit here:

http://www.riflemaker.org/s-now