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Monthly archive July, 2011

thursday rhapsody: life’s a beach!

by oisercage on Jul 21, 2011 • No Comments

At least it is a beach in my daydreams!

It’s huffing hot out so I’m keeping the shades down. I think fondly of my air conditioning these days. It is just hitting me what a marvel air conditioning is. Another marvel is Massimo Vitali whose photos of bathers at the beach have me daydreaming as the heat index creeps above 100 degrees Farenheit. Ahhh! Every time I look at this picture I hear the sound of waves frothing against thirsty skin. And, now that we all want to go to the beach, let’s dive into the Thursday Rhapsody!

Bathers by Massimo Vitali via The Paris Review

The Love List

Juicy plums & ripe peaches. Milk in the tea. Chicken strips with stir-fried carrots. Bubble baths with sea salt droplets. Summer Dresses. Sun-kissed skin. Trays full of writing and creative supplies. Ordering new books & bookshelves. Amazon next-day deliveries. Zara sandals to walk through the film of heat that sheaths every body on the street. People who laugh at themselves; humility. This meditation which puts me in a divine state of calm every time. Finishing The Golden Notebook, an exhausting and exhaustive but worthwhile book. Spotify has hit the US and my desktop (I love them already for the great variety of tunes they stack up). Writing longhand at the pace of the my desultory thoughts is truly therapeutic.

Let’s all be green and save the planet! Real Simple gives us 38 new uses for old things. Some of them are nifty and funny: “Prevent goggles from fogging. Before hitting the pool, smear some paste onto the lenses, then wipe off.” Kingdom of Style introduces to a shy yet daring designer from Scotland, Isla Scott. Her designs are fierce and cool and reminiscent of the stage persona Florence Welch embodies. But, some of the cuts are totally wearable. See the shorts in the full gallery. This men’s fashion blog is off the street! The guys from Street Etiquette blew me away with their polished posts and exceptional styles. Loving their latest post on the versatility of the suit. Ditto for women.

Do you remember when Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon rapped the History of Rap? Yes! See the duo spit the History of Hip-Hop. Have yourself a laugh. Also, this song medley is totally dance-worthy!

I wrote a short article about Embracing Ignorance and Seth Godin wrote one about Willful Ignorance. Together you’ve got a nugget about the value of the humble words “I don’t know.”

Meet Zaha Hadid, the Lady Gaga of Architecture. What her imagination has wrought is mind-blowing. See other designs at Design Delight.

via Design Delight

life*style

best of london: The Tower & Bridge

by oisercage on Jul 20, 2011 • 2 Comments

When I think of the Tower Bridge I have the creeps in mind. Dungeons, the rack, screw and other torture apparatus. I imagine that the unwitting prisoners were betrayed by the beauty of this magnificent bridge, thinking they were going to the palace as guests of the King. But once I got here, I realized that Tower Bridge and the Tower of London have nothing to do with one another except that they are both in London and within walking distance.

London Tower is fairy tale bridge. It looks like something you might eat at a kid’s birthday party. Built in the 1880s, this bridge is now a symbol of the city, ubiquitous in cinematic establishing shots. It is London’s “How do you do?” to the Empire State Building’s “What up?” The towers bearing the bridge are open to the public for a nominal fee.

Skirts blowing up and trousers flapping in the wind, we all stared doe-eyed at the azure panorama across the Thames River, breathing in the cool air above the city for we had left the infernal pit below! This view was the perfect reward. I had arrived at the bridge mid-day when the heat was boiling hotest and had foolishly taken the cashier’s proposition to walk up the 311 steps! Fear not! There are elevators available.

As I looked out over the Thames, I imagined the ladies and gentlemen of yore boating on the river, staring out on an infinite expanse of grass, where gleaming metallic fortresses now stand. Children frolicking while the adults amused themselves with a bit of society gossip…

Once you have gotten a eye-full of the Thames and delighted in an ice cream – there are many shops around the area – you can walk over to the Tower of London, the most delightful jail I have ever seen. Manicured lawns, tall lush greens, and sturdy buildings. The Tower must have looked quite attractive to the newcomer. I dared visit something they passed off as torture chamber but I was underwhelmed. There was nothing but a few rusty iron pliers that looked like something left over from an old hair curler. The whole place looked more like a retreat.

In fact, the Tower was first intended as a residence until it became a kind of gilded jail for the influential politicians and fellow royals who drew Henry VIII’s ire.

The thing that made the biggest impression on me was the window in the prisoner’s chamber. From the outside it made the palace look respectfully Christian. But the view from within was stark and ominous. Dun dun dun! The rooms have small windows so that at night any sliver of light coming from outside must have frightened whoever was inside. It was a chilling visit but in a fun way because obviously these misadventures are all buried in the past. We, none of us jolly tourists, were in any danger. Everyone indulged in a little scary movie fantasy!

life*style

best of london: bricks & stones

by oisercage on Jul 19, 2011 • No Comments

As the architect Louis Khan once said, “Even a Brick wants to be something!” London is filled with beautiful architecture, buildings that will make you feel good and safe. They are beautiful to look at while being excellent monuments to resilient architecture that has defied the ages. I loved walking around London, looking up at its opulent towers and museums. Here are some not so famous buildings worth a look.

See for yourself!

1. Pancras Station. Have you ever seen a more opulent train station? Apart from being a train station, it moonlights an arts venue. You can grab a coffee inside and dream of the taking the train to the country (I’m channeling a lethargic old maid’s accent).

2. Harrods

3. Natural Science Museum. You can go inside and see fossils but you could also just linger here on the grass, staring up at the variegated façade. Or, just stare at the people. It’s a great place to watch life as it happens. Parents and children. Lovers and their books in hand, as if they would actually read!

4. This nondescript building behind the Royal Albert Hall. I love the curving buildings because they break up the cult of flat faced edifices.

5. Royal Albert Hall. Well, while you’re in the neighborhood, you might as well go see the legendary Royal Albert Hall where Eric Clapton recorded his famous 24 nights. Clapton set a record for longest run at the concert hall. He played 24 nights because each time he thought his run was over, that day the tickets sold out completely. It was so shocking, he kept adding more nights.

life*style

best of london: museums

by oisercage on Jul 19, 2011 • No Comments

The British Museum

The British Museum houses a bountiful lot of Greek artifacts including the Nereid tomb (below) was the first example in architecture of a tomb-temple, a building that served both functions. It was dedicated to the water god, Nerus. The Museum also owns numerous pieces from the Greek Parthenon, something that infuriates the Greeks. But a Lord Elgin took the pieces to Britain, for safety reasons, he said, during a war when the Turks bombed Athens. However, the British government bought him off the precious stones in 1799 so now they are in the public will.

But my favorite pieces were the renderings of clothing. To make stone looks as though it were moving I think is a breathtaking skill.

Other intriguing details in the Museum include jewelry from 300 BC. The Braganza Brooch (below) depicts a man with a shield and his hunting dog at his feet. I love the ornate details and the craftmanship. It is a great funky piece of jewelry but it’s also interesting as an art object. The craftmanship that went into it is amazing: you can see the muscles on the hunter’s torso.

Amazing details from Parthenon sculptures depicting a savage centaur killing a young man. The bodies are so well contorted that you can feel the tension.

If you the British Museum only whets your appetite for art, there’s always the British Library.

The British Library is a a must if you are interested in history and literature. Entry is free. Here you get a closer look at what your 10th grade history teacher was going on about when he exulted the Magna Carta. The British Museum has one of the first copies of the famous document that sharply curtailed the powers of the King and put the Kingdom on a path toward more democratic rule.

You can glance over an essay by the illustrious and sometimes filthy-minded Freud, manuscripts from the hands of Virginia Woolf who bravely wrote as women had not dared to do. “There is no doubt in my mind that I have found out how to begin to say something in my own voice; and that interests so that I feel I can Go on without praise,” she wrote and may we all be grateful she did.

There is a 1304 Koran commissioned in Cairo, a 1698 Japanese book on flower arranging featuring 97 styles, an Iughur text in Sanskrit from the 10th or 11th century. The religious texts mixed in with the music books and decor manuals made me think that no matter contemporary morals might say we were never more profligate than now and we were never more holy than now. We were never more serious; we were never more frivolous. The more I look at history the more I see that everything is as old as it is young.

The thing I love most about museums and books is the power of the artist’s passion to infect me and I’m all a-frenzy with ideas and projects. That is the greatest gift of art, the power to inspire us to make our own creative contributions.