Love his little toes.

Zaza

My coworker Lisa introduced me to Zaza Fournier and she's fantastic. The video reminds me of Regina Spektor's for Fidelity. Now I have to find her album!

Mr. Messner

I'm really happy that when Ben Folds Five decided to do a reunion show, they chose this album to do it with. I think the reason that the entire album of "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner" being played in order is so appealing is because that's the only one I have on vinyl (not CD, like the rest) and I always listen to it, in that order, in its entirety. With digital content, I often skip songs or shuffle them, but with records that's way too much work. It makes me feel like I ought to listen to more albums the way they were intended. And these songs are more interesting than some of their poppier ones.
Ben Folds Five - MySpace Front To Back concert

It's about time...

Yes, guinea pigs do deserve the spotlight, but this looks pretty awful. Unfortunately, Will Arnett is in it, so I'll probably see it anyway.

Guinea Pigs Gone Wild

Chicago, Nov. 1 - 3

We had to get up at (eep!) 5am to catch our flight out of Laguardia to O'Hare. (We saw Mario Batali at the airport, orange Crocs and all.) We arrived at 9am central time and began our LONG trip from the airport to the hotel via public transportation. It took almost 2 hours, but only cost $2 each, so not bad. We stayed at the Affinia Chicago, on East Superior, just off of Michigan Ave. Swanky (for us) and conviently located.
Day One included Chicago-style hot dogs (with a pickle spear, tomato wedge, peppers, mustard and onion on a poppy seed bun) and the Art Institute. We got in for free with Ale's MoMA ID and wandered around - a lot of their Impressionist and Post-Impressionist stuff was on loan because of renovations - but the stuff left was great. Some nice Guardi views of Venice, Caravaggesque works, and Seurat, of course. Ale realized the one at the drawing show at MoMA was just a study and the real one is much bigger. ater that afternoon, we went to Millennium Park and marvelled at Kapoor's Cloud Gate. What a cool thing!
Day Two brought us to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which had a Jenny Holzer show (she went to RISD, nice). It was a beautiful, crisp fall day, perfect weather for walking around. We too the green line out to Oak Park, birthplace of Ernest Hemingway, home of Frank Lloyd Wright. We walked up Forest Ave. which has a number of FLW-designed houses, then took a left on Chicago Ave. where there are a few more, and ended our time there with our first Chicago-dish-stuffed-crazy-ass pizza. Tasty and filling. It hemmoraged cheese. We ended the day with overpriced drinks at the Signature Lounge on the 96th floor of the Hancock building. Best views are from the women's bathroom.
Day Three we split up for the morning. I checked out of the hotel and went to the aquarium while Ale ventured out to the suburbs to visit a famous hat shop. We then met up at the Field Museum to look at dead, stuffed things. Very similar to New York's natural history museum, except Chicago has Sue, the most complete T-Rex skeleton in the world. Creepy. After that, we ended our trip with a nice walk back uptown, partly by Lake Michigan, to get our stuff from the hotel and start the trek back to the airport. It was a short trip, but I definitely started to get the feel of Chicago (though our trip was the equivalent to visiting New York, going to the Empire State Building and Times Square and saying you "know" New York City). And boy, are the people friendly. Must visit the Midwest again.
(More pictures on my Picasa page.)

Look what I finished!

With some help from Natalie (and a little from Ale) I finally finished my 1000 piece puzzle of Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." This puzzle is part of the reason why Ale and I are going to Chicago next month. Apparently the painting was in the Seurat drawing show at MoMA that I skipped, so Ale's already seen it, but I'm glad I still have it to look forward to. Chicago's been on my list of American cities I'd like to visit for a while. I'm looking forward to the Art Institute, the food, and the Frank Lloyd Wright Houses.

Italy 2008: Milan

May 18
We arrived in Milan very early in the morning and headed to our hotel. After checking in, and they let us in the room early - so nice of them - we headed out to San Siro stadium to get tickets for the soccer (calcio in Italian) game. I then had (and I'm not exagerating in the least) the best hotdog of my life. It had peppers and onions and was pressed between a crusty sub roll. Amazing. We went into the stadium early to find our (nosebleed) seats. AC Milan played Udinese for what was the last game of the season. They won 4 - 1! Every time AC Milan scored the crowd went nuts. Not American nuts, but Italian-crazy-soccer-fan nuts. Like chanting-and-jumping-until-the-stadium-swayed nuts.
After the game, we took the tram to Santa Maria della Grazie for our appointment to see Leonardo's Last Supper. It was one of the best art experiences I've ever had. It's so fragile and quiet and beautiful. And I had Ale to explain the iconography that I didn't know. Dinner was made up of items from a supermarket near the hotel. I love foreign supermarkets. I could have spent hours and tons of Euros there.







May 19
The next day there wasn't a ton for us to do, since most of the attractions and museums were closed on Mondays. Also, stores didn't open until 3pm. The morning was spent downtown. First we went to the Duomo, which is enormous. Lots of really stunning stained glass. We then went up on the roof for a view of the city, and a closer look at the statuary adorning the spires of the church. 3400 statues to be exact! After that, we walked around the nearby neighborhood, which seemed to be a business/financial district. We had a great lunch at a restaurant where we seemed to be the only non-Milaneses in the place. Which is great - hard to find yourselves not surrounded by tourists all the time. After lunch we walked over to the Castello Sforzesco, which was closed. We were able to walk around the outside though, and into the courtyard, so that was something. At that point, it started to rain, and as we were unprepared, we headed back to our hotel's neighborhood. The weather held out long enough for us to stop by the Borsalino store and then Ale and I split up, he going to another hat shop he'd seen earlier, and I went to the supermarket again for stuff for dinner and for gifts. The rest of the night was spent relaxing in our room since it was raining and we had to leave early the next morning.
















It was the best honeymoon we could have asked for, and almost weekly Alejandro says to me, "We should go to Italy again." I agree.

Coney Island (overdue!)

At the end of August, I went to Coney Island for the second time in my life. Coney Island as it was that day is to be no more. We rode the Cyclone (fun, mildly painful), ate a Nathan's hotdog, and Meghan and Sarah tried out their shooting skills. All in all, a lovely end to the summer.

Itay 2008: Venice

May 16
We checked out of the hostel and left our stuff there so we could see one more church before we left Florence: Chiesa di San Marco. The church itself was fine - at this point we were becoming a little burnt out on churches - but the monastery was fantastic. Fra Angelico had lived there and each of the monks' cells had a fresco by him. Not to mention, as you came up the stairs to the living quarters, there was one of my favorite annunciation paintings. Also, Savonarola lived there and his rooms had a number of interesting artifacts from his life. Boy, was that guy a wet blanket.
After a mix-up with the train schedule, we finally arrived in Venice. I was most excited to see this city, as it was to be completely different from the other places we'd visited. It didn't disappoint. I know that it's very touristy, but I was completely charmed by the canals and the architecture. Our hotel was basic but cheap, as far as Venice prices go, and right near the train station, off of a main drag. We dropped our stuff at the hotel and went right out again to wander around. We bought some cookies at a bakery just over the Grand Canal from where we were staying, got lost, and had the worst dinner experience of the trip. The food was fine, but the service was awful, and they charged us for two bottles of water and bread, neither of which we ordered. And there was no arguing with our waiter. We did meet a nice couple from California though, who had similar problems in Venice. I guess they're used to ripping off foreigners in some restaurants.

May17
The next day we made our way over to St. Mark's square, as we felt obliged to see it. The crowds were unbelievable, and the pigeons were overabundant. I guess it's supposed to be fun to have a Venetian pigeon sit atop your head, but as a New Yorker, I didn't want anything of the sort happening to me. We wandered a bit more, had lunch (this time, very good, NOT a rip off, and the service was fine), and went over the Grand Canal again, this time to go to the Accademia. Their collection of Bellini's was lovely (some of my favorite Madonnas) and Ale asked about Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. It turns out that, because of its fragility, it's on display very rarely and it's been years since it was on view. Oh well. I was happy with Bellinis and Canalettos. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection was nearby, and we thought some modern art might be a nice change, but it was too expensive, and Ale's MoMA ID was worthless there. Instead, we went in the giftshop, looked at the postcards, and said "Eh, seen one Pollock, seen 'em all." We sat on the steps of Santa Maria della Salute for a while, then headed back to our hotel. We stopped in at a small glass shop (I think the man's name was Giorgio Nason) and bought a glass bird for Natalie and some earrings for myself. When we first entered, Giorgio was balancing on a chair, fiddling with a speaker maybe? He was gregarious and very funny. He and Ale started talking about music and he sang along to the cd he'd just put on and asked us if we liked his singing voice. He told us about when he was growing up on the island of Murano (his family has a long history of working in glass) that he always sang and his family told him to give it up. Instead, he got into glass like the rest of them. He was easily the most personable Italian we met on the trip, though the owner of the Orvieto restaurant was a close second.