thanksgiving

I'm renewing my vows (click) this year on Tumblr (click).
Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for stopping by. xx

good genes

Going through these photos for Dossier, I found the one of Mom Mom on the right, and it made me think of my sister, on the left. I'm missing her extra (that kitchen is in Australia) as yesterday was her birthday!


Stay posted on my news of fashion (and, for the moment, family) at Closettour.

x

love and death on the Q-train

Romance blooms and a Silly Band snaps on a summer morning in Manhattan.

spread the love

Again, Tom Slaughter (click) makes it easy to spread the love, just click, print, cut, give. 

In the meantime, I'm spreading the love at Dossier (click) and Closettour (click). Come find me there!

xx

california christmas

Thanks to my friend Jeremy Black, a San Clemente-dwelling, convertible-driving, easygoing, natural foods magnate, I have had the ultimate California Christmas.

Here's the view from the deck where I'm writing right now, while the bells from the church down the street play "Lovely Weather for a Sleigh Ride Together."

Here's the sleigh I rode on Christmas eve,

appropriately enough, at a surf break known as Church.

Jeremy and his next-door neighbor Mark point the way.

Santa puts his shirt back on.


Here at Casa Black, açai (click) is the new egg nog,

and hemp buttered whole grain bread is the new French Toast.

I've been getting my butt kicked daily at the yoga studio down the street and waking up my mind, body, and soul with dunks in the chilly Pacific.


It's not going to be easy going back to snowy NYC, but I feel stronger with some Pacific salt and California sun in my veins, and I'll do my best to spread it around.

boas festas

Boas Festas is Brazil-speak for Happy Holidays, but literally it translates to "good parties," which is what I'm wishing for you, via a scan of a Christmas card I picked up at the flea market in Rio last summer.


It seems especially appropriate this year, since I'm writing from Sambazon's (click) San Clemente headquarters, while the Black brothers, my hosts, prepare to take off for Brazil tomorrow.

I'll happily hold down the fort for another day before I head back to NYC, where the forecast is for...snow. I've got lots of love to keep me warm, so fueled with that, some California sunshine and saltwater, and a boa festa or two, we'll pull through the rest of this winter.

Boas Festas, Happy Holidays, lots of love!

thanksgiving

thank you
thank you
thank you
thank you
thank you

terrific day at dossier, and also in L.A.

This is why I love Dossier. It's an outrageously gorgeous day at the style site (click), and the front page pointed me to a website called My Parents Were Awesome (click), which inspired me to dig up this photo of my mom, who is still awesome, holding my older sister, who arrived in L.A. today from her home in Australia. (click.)

Welcome back, Sar!

objects in mirror...

...are closer than they appear!

Guess who's en route for her first visit to the USA!! The Brown babes--my sister and nieces, will stop in L.A. and St. Louis first, but be warned, in a few short weeks Maizie (click) and Bella (click) are about to take over this blog and the tri-state area.


They're never gonna get that kangaroo past customs.

nyc autumn, as seen by iphone

I got to the Upper West Side a few minutes before my meeting this morning , and got to walk along the edge of the park. Let's go...

new york city giveth, and taketh away

New York years, a wise young chef recently observed in conversation, are like dog years, in the way they rapidly pass. This is an outstanding city to love and live in, but is in a perpetual state of metamorphosis, without mercy for our memories.

image from James and Karla Murray (click.)

That sweet aching nostalgia was already coloring my week when I wrote this piece (click) for Dossier. By far, the best part of the rooftop exhibition, aside from the view of downtown, was Jim and Karla Murray's collection of photographs of New York City storefronts. (Take a minute to breath in the smell of flour and espresso in its dark corridor of the bygone Vesuvio Bakery.)

image from Ivory Serra/The New York Times

Then, earlier this week, I received the really sad news from Moose that we--and by "we" I mean this city, lost the perpetually young Andy Kessler, who suffered an allergic reaction to a wasp sting in Montauk. Andy appeared in my midst a few years ago, at a moment when I was questioning my commitment to New York. He could have stayed a stranger, but instead became one of those people I relished running into. Aside from being damn cute, he just grinned in a way that seemed like he knew what you were going through; and in spite of serious status in the skateboarding world, I got the feeling his capacity for compassion dwarfed his sizeable street cred. Maybe that was just what I needed then, but for whatever reason, Andy Kessler, then hopping around crutches, became somewhat of a New York City angel to me, appearing at opportune moments.

Knowing that someone like him called this crazy place home made it a more rewarding place to live. Now, learning more about his life I realize that might be because he bled and sweated for this city, and like that young chef, was reckless and relentless in his commitment to his craft, which made him an integral part of this creature called New York.

Bret Anthony Johnston said it beautifully on The New York Times' website today.

He’ll be remembered as a man who understood the abiding and cathartic power of resilience. You don’t give in. You take every run — on the ramp, with recovery, at City Hall. It has everything and nothing to do with skateboarding which, at its essence, is the act of focusing so intensely on the body that you feel liberated from your physical form. Think not of swimming in a pool, but of becoming the ocean itself. Think not of flying, but of floating in a place where the ground or gravity has never existed — a place where, at long last, there is no irony, no pain or struggle, where there’s no such thing as falling.

away away, to half moon bay

Tonight represents a real New York City changing of the guard.

Miss Elizabeth Benney, my first NYC roommate, without whom I never would have lasted a year in this city, is packing her boxes. Her man Abe has arrived to take her back to Half Moon Bay, California.

I'm holding two varieties of shredder in that photo. One is a document shredder, defeated by the last eight years of Benney's pay stubs. The other is my dad's old sled that I left uptown when I moved, for snowy days at Central Park. I got some funny looks carrying that home on the train tonight.


Ever the narcissist, on my way to see Miss Benney tonight I took a moment to make it all about me and go for a stroll down memory lane, also known as West 86th Street. I started almost at Riverside, at the Dexter House, now apparently the Dexter House Hotel.


This was the first place I lived, pre-Elizabeth. I don't remember "Hotel" being part of the name when I slept on a Murphy bed, cooked on a hot plate and shared a bathroom in the hall with the cast from a Joseph Mitchell story. It looks pretty nice now, but let me tell you...when I found my bedroom at Miss Benney's place I think I cried tears of joy.


Here's a photo I took that first winter on West 86th Street. I must have taken this out of the Dexter House's (public hallway) bathroom window, cause the one in my room was about eight inches from a brick wall. It would not be an exaggeration to say the city was a cold lonely place before I met Miss Benney.

She gave me the keys the day I met her in her little sage green kitchen, and before long we had made her terrace into a tomato plantation.

There's my sweet friend Tianna, who visited from D.C. a few years ago. She was one of many who slept in the loft above Elizabeth's room--a little nook with a mattress, quilt and lamp for those far from home, both literally and figuratively. Elizabeth kept watch over us all from her bed below in her green room.

Tonight outside her bedroom door to the terrace, the moon was a perfect half. Clearly it's time for Elizabeth's move to Half Moon Bay. So...

Goodnight, diner. Goodnight, cab.

Goodnight neighbors who leave on lamps.
Goodnight Elizabeth, call me soon. 

Goodnight memories.

Goodnight moon.

thank you!

for bringing flowers, donuts, bagels, and bubbles, making bloody marys, wearing your Batman costume, buying caipirinhas, taking the initiative, shooting photos and making yesterday a general whirlwind of wishes come true!

bella

is four!

love, MOM

Seriously, I am about to give you all the best Mother's Day gift. It's called Postcards From Yo Momma (click)--a bulletin board of hilarious correspondence from moms. You won't regret this.


I learned about it from Lauren Collins in the New Yorker (click) a few weeks ago, and laughed out loud on the train. (Is there something about childbirth that bestows a genius for the comic use of punctuation and capitalization?)

I have plenty of gems in my inbox from my mom too, who generally signs emails in all caps: love, MOM. Here are a few favorites:

Subject: Pixel pink
Finally got the lipstick and will bring it to you soon, only 10 days! love, MOM (I didn't know you jumped out of a plane!)

Subject: Home again
Hi there, I hope your class went well. Tabbouleh is made from bulger wheat, not couscous (what was I thinking?), but I see no reason not to make it with couscous if one needed too. lots of love, MOM

Subject: CORSICA
HELLO? I AM HERE. ALL IS WELL; THIS ISLAND IS SO BEAUTIFUL. THIS FRENCH TYPING IS BAD? KEYBOARD IS STRQNGE. LOTS OF LOVE. MOM

Mom and Sara

So, MOMs can make us laugh without even trying. But making my mom laugh? Like, really really, laugh, is another story. It's something that only my sister can truly achieve, and it's totally priceless. So, we're pulling out all the stops on this one. Happy Mother's Day, MOM. Scroll down...


love,
your Jaybird