To do list and city fun

Ok, so we have a few things to get done this weekend:
1) Tackle the new hole the blasted woodpecker has made in the post by the front door before the porch falls down.
2) Clean out the gutters. Again. Yes, someone is going back up on the roof. And yes, that would be the same someone who forgot our anniversary. As both this and chore #1 require someone else to hold the ladder, I can foresee all sorts of calamities before we are done.
3) Clean out the dead moles from the pool filters so the guys can come and close it up without being totally grossed out.
4)Run into the city to see the Jeff Koons exhibit on the roof of the Met before it closes.
All these things require fine weather, so it BETTER NOT RAIN BEFORE SUNDAY EVENING.

Farming out the economy

What's warm and fuzzy and might stave off financial ruin? Alpacas. Or at least alpaca farming. Maybe I should consider a change in career?

It's the economy, stupid

Overheard outside a store:

"Man, it's slow today"
"Why isn't anyone buying anything?"

Obviously not everyone has got the whole the economy is tanking, credit has dried up, pretty soon we'll all be unemployed, homeless people with no healthcare so we're not spending anything message.

Someone's in Trouble

Short post for The Guy. Barack Obama may be unsure just how many years he has been married to Michelle but AT LEAST HE REMEMBERED THEIR ANNIVERSARY.

Before long we'll just be eating soup

The market is banking on it. Shares in Campbell's Soup rose as the market plummeted.

YSL Retrospective

One of the highlights of my recent trip to Montreal was visiting the Musee des Beaux Arts to see the Yves St Laurent retrospective. The exhibition, which opened only a few days before YSL died, spanned forty years of innovative fashion design and was awe inspiring, not least because you could really get up close and examine the garments to see the work that the couturier put into each outfit.


It is only when you get within two feet of a dress that you can truly understand how they can cost thousand of dollars.


All the designer's work was represented from Le Smoking, via safari jackets and the yeti style jackets to the transparent blouses and glamorous evening gowns


Memorable designs were the lattice beadwork fringed tribal dresses and this tiny little black micro minidress on the right designed for Diane Von Furstenburg by Yves St Laurent in 1990. Exquisite.
The retrospective in Montreal has now closed but will open at the de Young Museum in San Francisco on November 1st. Go, and be inspired.

Scratch-free

I got really excited when I read the headline for self-repairing paint. Turns out it's for cars, but car today, house tomorrow, right? I could sure do with some instead of constantly having to touch up the animal-inflicted nicks and scratches on the walls and trim at the Cool House. Until then I'll have to make do with this handy little gizmo.
Of course what I'm really waiting for is a self-painting wall....

Imagery

As the financial meltdown continues, with news that Playboy is now a junk stock with no future, I stepped out to the beach to take some shots. It's pretty stormy out there, too. These are the words that kept leaping to mind: Bail, bailout, maelstrom, sinking, ship.....


Then, to the side of the road I spotted one perfect, beautiful flower on a scrap of wasteground, thriving in spite of the wind, the peeing dogs and the occasional truck. There's always hope....

More Balls!

Feeding my fascination with Buckminster Fuller and geodesic structures, we visited the Biosphere Environmental Museum in Montreal. This fun, interactive museum is built inside the dome designed by Fuller for the 1967 World Expo. The original structure was protected from the elements by a transparent acrylic membrane that was destroyed when the sphere caught fire in 1976. Now the dome is completely uncovered, which is great for viewing the surrounding landscape and watching the these guys perform a little maintenance.

Stars in my eyes

Starlight Pendant from Heal's. On sale for 75 GB pounds. I don't have anywhere for it to go but I love it, I may even go visit it when I'm in London. J'adore.

Spam and serendipity

I was checking my gmail and decided to look at what spam they had collected for me when I noticed the link in the corner. Look at what I got, a genuine spam recipe for Gingered Spam Salad. At once delightful and truly repulsive. And unsurprisingly, it serves just one person. After all would you share this with anyone else?
Enjoy.

Bring back the bad hair

The 80s are so back, at least at Madison Square Garden in New York. So here we go, spanning the whole decade:


First Squeeze (kicking off the decade) and James (shutting the 80s down) are playing MSG tonight.


Then Liverpool's own Echo and the Bunnymen are playing their 1984 album Ocean Rain in its entirety on October 1st .


And finally the one and only AC/DC on November 12th and 13th.
Oh, I'm sorry, I almost forgot, you wanted some REALLY BAD HAIR. I'll throw in a little bonus for you, a killer quote from 80s heroine Muriel Gray: "Designer violence? Is that like Terence Conran throwing a bread roll at a dinner party?" Brilliant. Enjoy!

We got tagged

Living out in the alternate universe of the Incorporated Village doesn't mean you don't have to suffer spray-painted graffiti all over your property.


It just means you know exactly who the perpetrators were. Thank you Suffolk Water.


And if you have two water meters in the yard, one for your house and one for the house next door, that you are "tagged" twice.
I'm luckier than one neighbor, whose beautiful moss stone retaining wall now has an accent of bright blue!
File under: Grrrrr.

Time for tea

Isn't this one of the most gorgeous designs you've ever seen? Just as art, I mean. The fact that it's a teapot does nothing for me as tea makes me gag. It's just a beautiful, sculptural piece. And with any luck I will be going to see it soon in its temporary home at the Design Museum in London where it is part of the Design Cities exhibition. The Christopher Dresser teapot is one of the earliest exhibits, dating from 1879. I love the geometric form, it's forward looking yet timeless, and would look as good in a modern home as it did in the Victorian household it was designed for. Good design never ages, does it?
To see more of Dresser's work, including beautiful arts and crafts wallpaper and the cutest watering can ever, go here.

Brazilian design

Brazil is famous for bikini waxing, hair straightening, carnivals and an imposing statue on a mountain top, but less well known is that in the twentieth century Brazil produced some of the most beautiful and unique pieces of mid-century modern design. Unlike Scandinavian designers such as Saarinen or Americans Charles and Ray Eames, Brazilian designers have until very recently been ignored. Now furniture by Sergio Rodrigues, Oscar Niemeyer and others is appearing at auction houses and antique dealers outside Brazil.

I've been searching for four years for the right 1960s or 70s table to go under the chandelier in the great room and I was lucky enough to hit upon this great 1978 Michel Arnoult Alagoas Collection rosewood and teak table with two pink suede slingback chairs. Michel Arnoult (1922-2005) was born in France but studied at Rio de Janerio’s Faculdade Nacional de Arquitetura and was a trainee in the office of Oscar Niemeyer. His designs include this 1968 Peg Lev chair that resembles the two I bought, which is in the Museu da Casa Brasileira, Sao Paulo and his last creation, the Pelicano chair that was featured in Marie Claire Maison in December last year.

So where did I get my Brazilian treasure? From my favourite New Jersey ebay sellers vintage 747 who have been a fantastic source of modernist furniture that has now found a home at the Cool House.

Hide and Seek

The kitten games continue

Smells Like a Spa

As the thyme had decided that it couldn't survive, let alone thrive, along the flagstone path I had to come up with another solution. I still wanted something that would smell great if you brushed up against it, was hardy enough to tolerate to being trodden on and had a green or grey color. The local nursery had sent us a $10 coupon as an anniversary gift so on Monday I wandered around the new autumn selection looking for something suitable.
I was drawn to this plant, Cumberland Rosemary, by the herbal scent. It's reminiscent of rosemary but has slight eucalyptus note to it. It looks like a softer, more feathery version of the rosemary bush but is supposed to be hardy. They did say it was the first time they'd offered it so it will be an experiment for all of us to see if it makes it through a New York winter but if it's as warm as it was last year it should fine (global warming may have advantages, after all).
Beach car still smells like a spa, (and I only transported three plants two miles) which makes a nice change from wet dog, an advantage I hadn't counted on. We'll see if it likes this sunny spot and forms nice clumps of fragrant green along the path. If not I think I'll have to learn to like the raw earth look!

Crisis? What crisis?

The stock market is tumbling to the depths but the art market is looking pretty perky, especially if your name is Damian Hirst and you sold a huge collection of recent works through Sotheby's yesterday and today. “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” featured 223 works including Golden Calf (above), which fetched a record breaking 10.35 million pounds. Hirst's six studios have been working flat out to produce the art for the auction and other works for sale include The Kingdom, a tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde and Aurothioglucose, a dot painting. Although some people thought Hirst was taking a risk by-passing galleries and selling directly through an auction house, it seems to have paid off. I wonder what he is going to do with all that money?
And just to make me feel old, the auction was held on the 20th anniversary of the Freeze exhibition that launched Damian Hirst on the art world.

Cook in Laura Bush's Oven

I thought it was a joke, what with the housing market being a mess but no, oh irony, the first home of George and Laura Bush is on the market. Insert joke here. The home has a lot of original features, including the sheer curtains, the cooktop, that oven and a few of her dead plants in the atrium, too. I kid you not.


The decor is 80s-sad, but at least there are some personal interest pieces, like these magazines tastefully arranged on the coffee table. You want more? Here you go. Enjoy!

The other shoe....

Things went from bad to worse after I posted this. So much so that we have this simple solution for getting out of the economic mess we're in - just lend yourself the money.
File under: robbing Peter...