PLACES IV

Maybe it's the landscape architect in me, but when stairs are done right they can be so beautiful.

RETURN TO THE HOMESTEAD

Farmers are rediscovering heritage livestock.

Good news for our dormant taste buds !

We're always thrilled to find out about how folks are reconnecting with our agrarian roots in the good 'ole US of A. 

The Southern lifestyle magazine Garden & Gun shares our excitement in this movement towards traditional agriculture.  The magazine's recent article Rare Breeds discusses the partnerships forming between chefs and farmers as of late. These allies are circumventing the whole factory-farm system of manufacturing blandness. The farmers are focusing on raising heritage breeds and the chefs are at long last bringing real meat to the dining table. 

These photos are fantastic. The animals look healthy and handsome!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Glenn Ligon.

DISCUSSION NO. 4

What we talk about when we talk about:

CLOTHES

Resort 2011 Collections, that is.

Just as we were starting to fret about what to wear during our post-summer getaways to Bali or Mozambique or Helsinki (or wherever the hell you go resorting),

Stella, Pheobe, Nicolas, Hannah and Lazaro + Jack came to our rescue!

The Resort 2011 collections were fantastic! To be honest, we never completely understood the point of Resort... it's somewhere in between Spring and Fall, but it doesn't tend to have the same sense of direction or compatibility as S/S or F/W. Maybe they are pieces that the designer just thought we would want?

Well, they were right. We do want.

SHOPKEEPERS

Niels Helmink's Shopkeepers.

The antithesis of Andreas Gursky's 99 Cent .

OUT AND ABOUT

Tinariwen

We watched Tinariwen play a show at The Bell House in Gowanus last night.

It was out of this world.

Tinariwen is a band of musicians from the Taureg rebel community in the Saharan desert region of Mali. They've been playing music since the late 1970's, influenced by West African blues and Moroccan Pop Rai during their nomadic years as exiles in Algeria and by radical protest songs that sprung from rebel fighting in Mali.

Couldn't keep my eyes off of Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, an old, wild-haired sage sporting a royal blue silk robe who sang--barely moving his lips, barely changing his expression--underneath his mustache.

His hand was bullet-scarred and moved with expert grace.

Can't stop, won't stop thinking about it.

RED HOOK, PART 2

Way late, but here are some photos of Red Hook as promised...

HUNTING: IN THE BROOKLYN FLEA AND IN COLONIAL TIMES

Fox Hunting

Prints by Samuel Howitt

Republished by Edward Orme, Bond St, 1812.

I'd say it was the fox hunting scene in Mary Poppins that commandeered a spot in my heart for the wild-game hunting aesthetic. Those red-clad Brits perched on their pure-breads chasing hairy scoundrels...!

So these old fox hunting place mats caught my eye at the Brooklyn Flea yesterday, and I had to take them. These dense, wooden place mats are well-suited for a robust English breakfast of black pudding, rashers, and fried bread. 

The images on the mats are from Samuel Howitt's engravings from the early 19th century. Samuel Howitt, I learned, was a English gent, sportsman, and artist who provided the visual counterpart to popular hunting tales from colonial India and Africa. He illustrated books like Historic, Military, and Naval Anecdotes of Personal Valour, Bravery, and Particular Incidents and Foreign Field Sports, Fisheries, and Sporting Anecdotes. I love these titles. (My autobiography: Charlotte Hundley. The Urban and Suburban Anecdotes of Personal Valor, Bravery, and Particular Saucy Incidents)

Anyway, I discovered that Howitt's watercolors and engravings, such as Battle of a Bulldog and a Monkey and Oriental Field Sports, are exotic, perverse, violent, and most definitely sources for the talented New York artist Mr. Walton Ford. 

HERB & DOROTHY

You just have to watch it.

That's all there is to it.

DISCUSSION NO. 3

What We Talk About When We Talk About

Iris Apfel

Known for her unexpected pairings, exotic accessories and inexhaustible creative spirit, Iris Apfel is now in her 88th year and still going strong.

In 2005, Apfel was asked (by the Met, nonetheless) to curate an exhibit that would include more than 50 years’ worth of her well-curated wardrobe, ranging from couture pieces purchased in Paris to $5 costume jewelry from junk stores. She called is Rara Avis or Rare Bird. Very fitting.

Apfel is quick to point out that her intention was never to gather a collection of clothes for a museum. For her, purchasing clothing was always about the thrill of the hunt. “I like to creep around and dig, it’s no fun to just sit in a shop and have people present you with things. It was the process. It’s not that I’m so mad about clothes. It’s about finding things and putting them together. That’s the fun."

Apfel's thoughts on being unconventional:

"If you can't be pretty, you have to learn to make yourself attractive. I found that all the pretty girls I went to high school with came to middle age as frumps, because they just got by with their pretty faces, so they never developed anything. They never learned how to be interesting. But if you are bereft of certain things, you have to make up for them in certain ways. Don't you think?"

HAVE A SEAT

This chair is a dream.

 Jens Quistgaard (1919 - 2008).