safe, prosperous and free

This morning the only thing I'm free to do is study for my midterm, so I know what I'm free to write as a journalist here in the old USA. But in the meantime my friend Eva sent me this link, which was an optimistic way to start the morning.

Good with coffee.
I had cinnamon and nutmeg in mine, which was totally delicious.
(That's a comment on the season, not race, by the way.
Don't dig too deep here on jaybird. If there's subtext, you'll probably know.)

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.

bahia to the boroughs

Gemini nature is coming out in full this week. I've been beat-reporting in Queens this month, and simultaneously Mr and Mrs.Smith.com published my review on Fazenda da Lagoa: the height of luxury in the south of Bahia, Brazil. It was only a few months ago I was there...seems another life now. Here's the review, and there's my Bahian bungalow below. I came back to Brooklyn...really?

roque on

Got this message from a friend who resisted meeting me at the greenmarket on Saturday morning after the first debate: Still in bed. Making out with my iPhone. Stayed up too late listening to the pundits.

Then I took this photo with my phone at the market. We're all getting used to the idea that food is politics, so this is just taking it one step further. Roquette, mooseburgers, it's getting pretty weird...

Maybe someone in St. Louis will do both Palin and Biden a favor and toss some toasted ravioli their way tonight.

Yard Dogs Roadshow

Last night while a lemon slice moon rose over the East River, a cocktail-swilling crowd gathered in an Art Nouveau tent to watch the Yard Dogs Road Show. Delightfully diabolical dancers and shaggy sword-swallowers made me wonder aloud:

How could I ever be inspired by anything other than gypsies?

Rent has finally left Broadway and Wall Street is crumbling. The city could do with a little Bohemian shot in the arm. The Road Show's hobos are going to be at it for just one more night in the Spiegeltent at South Street Seaport. I emphatically suggest it--sparkling pasties and serpentine dancers on a Monday night...

Why not?

There are still tickets for tonight's show!

I couldn't have said it better myself

Starting with the Universe...
Buckminster Fuller explains it to us like we're a three year-old:
Goldy speaks to the three bears, who are actually constellations of bears which divide the universe into systems (or are they dimensions?), and...

"Goldy says to the three bears, 'If you don't understand any of my words, you can find them in the dictionary.'
Wee bear replies, 'but here we use cosmic thought communication. We don't have to find words in special language diction-aries. We use a cosmic thinktionary. All your dictionaries express the universal concepts of our thinktionary but only in special, ethnic language, sound words. The concepts, such as mountain or star or nuance are the same experience--engendered concepts in all languages.
We understand you perfectly, Goldy.'"

If you didn't pick it up from my thinktionary, the point of this post is to advise you to get to the Buckminster Fuller exhibit at the Whitney before it closes on September 21st.

fashion school

It's hard to believe, not only that it's that time of year again, but it's that time of life again: back to school.

The first day begs the all-important question...

What to wear?

Here I am, five years old, on my first day of Kindergarten at Glenridge Elementary. Note the matching Hawaiian pattern on my shorts and shirt, color-coordinated with my personalized lunchbox and clean white high-top Reeboks to boot.

My bangs are, obviously, freshly cut. It's hard to tell, but I've got two spunky little braids in back that remained my trademark hairstyle until an unfortunate transgression in second grade, not to be pictured here.

In the midst of morning crises before elementary school my mom was fond of reminding me that, "it's not a fashion show."

Well, guess what, mom. This year it actually is a fashion show (ThreeasFour is pictured here.)

The first week of my masters program at CUNY's Graduate School of Journalism coincided (collided) with the beginning of Fashion Week just blocks away at Bryant Park.

There's been a bit of running between the raindrops to fit it all in, but so far, so good.

Here, two of my favorite fashion personalities, Lynn Yaeger and Mickey Boardman, prove that the good witches (and bitches, as I know Mr. Mickey would refer to himself) of the east don't melt in the rain.

Patiently waiting for an unsavvy bouncer to open the door, these two are a fantastic reminder of advice that could have come from mom on the first day of Kindergarten, but is just as valuable for those Fashion Week warriors who forget their manners in the frenzy, or angst insecurely over what on earth to wear.

Just be nice and be yourself.

Postscript!
Monday, September 8, 2008
On my way home from school today I just so happened to cross paths with the lovely Lynn Yaeger (I love New York!) and she did not disappoint. She gave me a beautiful smile and hi with her painted bow lips and sparkling eyes.
If this were charm school she would get an A+.