Os Gemeos: the boys are back in town

Thanks to Os Gemeos and an 80-foot Genie Boom, I got to fly high above the city on Saturday:


You can find my details about the twins' new painting in Chelsea at Dossier (click), and I'll likely divulge more soon. I had Brazil on the brain at Closettour (click) this weekend too.

sweet dreams, parte dois

(click.)


If you missed part 1, you can (click), and download the whole thing, or if you really want bedtime reading, you could even buy the magazine...

sweet dreams

What if this was the bed you were sleeping in tonight?


I'm not either. But this time last year I was--just me and Jorge, watching the waves. You can read about it in this month's Foam Magazine, or on the Escapes section of the website (click). In classic Brazilian novella style, it's running as a series online so you'll have to check back tomorrow for part 2! Bedtime reading...boa noite!

a break on a baleia's back

They're baaaack. (click.)


Os Gemeos finished their mural on Houston last night, after a long day at the office. I had a long one too. So while you better believe there's a story to tell, I, like my new friend pictured above, am tired, and ready to nap on a patchwork whale's back.

So that's all for now. In the meantime, you can click on the photo above to see it nice and close.

all you need part II

This is Part II of last year's New Years entry, entitled All You Need

I wrote Part I from my bed at 33 Ray Street, in Cromwell, New Zealand, the house my sister and brother-in-law are moving away from for a family adventure in Australia. So after a year of swimming with shrieking eels, singing lullabies to chickens, cruising the Amazon and chasing inspiration from the west coast to Williamsburg, the beat goes on. Here the Beatles and some of this year's photos recall the one ingredient that make mold-shattering years like 2008 so much fun. Happy 2009.

theobroma cacao: sensual sustainable seratonins

Single-origin chocolate should have been starring at last weekend's New York Chocolate Show.
Jill Santopietro wrote and blogged about it for The New York Times. It's been the high point of my kitchen cupboard since August, when I visited Fazenda Monte Alegre, Diego Badaró's cacao farm in Bahia, Brazil.
So I bundled up Sunday evening to catch the end of the show, ripe for cacao-buzzed inspiration.

Instead I found chocolate records inscribed with holiday messages, mannequins wearing chocolate dresses and a "Divalicious!" chocolate fountain for marshmallow-dipping. I don't mean to sound like a scrooge, but it seems silly to go to such great lengths to create a novelty out of what is such a magical material to begin with. But, alas...


Diego, he of Cacao Badaró in Brazil, an alchemist in the truest sense, came to New York for the occasion. Tuesday night he shared his wares with a few friends: some special chocolate-makers, farmers and importers of exotic fruits. In an apartment in the West Village, a red wine and dark chocolate-fueled jam session brought us all back to Bahia, the origin of Cacao Badaró chocolate. Magic is restored.

Below is a little taste I recorded that night:

The farmers and chocolateirs on their instruments in the background, Diego telling about cacao farming and my photos: beginning in New York, then taking you back to the origin in Bahia.

banksy, beatriz and brooklyn

So last week food was politics. This week art is politics. I mean, art is food. And it's all interactive. Wait a minute. Here I am, totally confused by this, text messaging via a pack of Orbit Sweetmint.

I'm sending a message to my mom, who has been here for the past two weeks and now refers to SOHO as "my neighborhood," and only walks on Broome cause there are too many tourists on Spring.

Tom Slaughter took that photo. He tends to get his lines crossed as well. Click here to see his Obama poster and vote for it, if it's your favorite. You're voting for a poster, rather than a candidate at this stage. I told you it was confusing. This was a great article in the Times Magazine about artists and Obama, from a while back. Click here for that.

Tom knows that I looovvvve Beatriz Milhazes' work. Last week I brought my mom to her opening at the James Cohan Gallery in Chelsea. Go, go, go to this show. Color-therapy, that's what her work is. A visceral simultaneous embrace of and escape from all this stimulus, food, art, politics and what not.

And a bit of Brazil.

Here's another detail from the show below.

Mom was impressed. Sort of. (Moms are tough, you know?)
I'll tell you who she's really impressed with.

Banksy.

She feels he must be just about the smartest guy in the whole world.

We happened upon the anonymous ("genius!") artist's West Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill the other night. Complicating matters further, these fish sticks are swimming around in front of another gallery owner (who doesn't know who hired him to sit at the Pet Store).

His gallery in Williamsburg, Artbreak, is also having an Art for Obama event in October. Click here for more information on that.

Banksy's New York ambush coincides exactly with my mom's visit to the city, leading me to wonder...no...

Mother Hen watches over her chicken little nuggets.

My sister and I are going to have to go a long way to beat mom's new favorite. Even Sara's own chicken-raising (click here) might not give old Banksy boy a run for his money.

I'm afraid I might have fueled mom's new art-crush, with the help of the New York Times.

My enthusiasm, and street cred (I'm talking in the eyes of my mom here) combined with the Times' credibility (see their article here).

I'd been thinking a lot about interactive art since I did my homework (here) about Maia Marinelli's piece Mocean.But what I've concluded after all this interactivity is that the point is that we all interact with each other, not just with technology. Especially now. Except for that I'm saying this online.

Paradoxical, I know. It all goes back to that pack of Sweetmint.

Tonight momma will move from her neighborhood to mine for the next couple of nights.
That's where I took this last photo, on Grand Street in my neighborhood...the same Grand Street where the pet storekeeper's gallery is.