Wayne Reads

Wayne Koestenbaum reads with the sensitivity and understanding of a poet and the comfort and articulation of a studied actor. He is a precise writer and a more precise reader. He beams with kindness and generosity. I get lost in his readings, but I don’t lose the words or the narratives. The other night, he read at Renwick Gallery in the middle of a show named for a Gertrude Stein line from the 1914 poem Tender Buttons, the same sight slighter,. It was a great setting, with the quiet (slight) artwork surrounding him. Between poems, films screened, but I really just wanted to listen – poems from Best Selling Jewish Porn Films (Turtle Point Press, 2006) and new ones, not published yet, and Stein.

Saturday Sleepover, Sunday Brunch

Jeanne is moving to San Francisco. Sigh. We threw her a going-away party the other night and then had a sleepover! Saturday sleepover means Sunday brunch at home. This is what I had in the kitchen – ramps and mushrooms from the Union Square Green Market; cheddar cheese and locally grown asparagus from The Garden; eggs, chives, pea shoots, potatoes, and carrots from our Garden of Eve CSA; and wonderful bagels, sliced and frozen at the peak of freshness, from The Bagel Store. Mike prepared coffee as Jeanne and I rinsed, chopped, sautéed, whisked, scrambled, roasted, and toasted. Tada! Brilliant Brunch. And one solid attempt at luring Jeanne back to New York for frequent visits (and sleepovers).

Fort Greene for the day

On Saturday, I showed up at Larissa and Dave’s around 11:30, a full morning already behind me, to the coziest breakfast of scrambled eggs, melon, and iced tea.



Fueled, we journeyed to Fort Greene for the flea market where a surreal and forceful wind blew away tents and knocked over clothing racks.



No matter. We still found a shady seat on the steps to eat the best fish tacos ever from Choncho’s Tacos and sip ice cold limeade.





Before getting back in the car, how could we resist ice cream from The General Greene and a walk in the park? We couldn’t. I got the salted caramel with pretzels in a cone.



(In case you were wondering, my heart is still on Commercial Street at Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory.)

We also checked out The General Greene’s new market which is full of precious items from very near and very far.



The way it is all displayed, the space looks more like a museum than a place to shop for food.





Anyways, one turn around the park was hardly enough to work off the fish tacos and the ice cream, but we had to get back home to make a double batch of brownies!

An Evening of Pairs

Jeanne and I. Dietrich and Phillips. Dosas and Lassis. That was the order of a recent evening.



We saw the Painting and Misappropriation show at Swiss Institute. Swiss painter, Adolf Dietrich’s (1877-1957) lovely little still life, landscape, and animal portrait paintings are on view side by side with Dietrich-inspired and larger than life Richard Phillips (b. 1962) paintings.

In some works Phillips recreates Dietrich, but huge and slick.



In others he adapts Dietrich’s surreal landscapes into hyper-real backgrounds for portraits.



It is certainly painting about painting, not always my favorite theme, but there is a lot to like about this pairing. Dietrich’s paintings are detailed and nuanced where Phillips’ are saturated and confrontational.



I found myself walking around the show a few times to take it in – homage, exploitation, appropriation, singularity, and duality.

Side Note: The Arnold Odermatt show in the reading room is interesting, disturbing, and wonderful photography. According to the press release, Odermatt was a police officer in Switzerland who photographed traffic accidents that were part of his professional life and became famous in his retirement on the publication of Karambolage, a journal of these photos.

Another great pairing just down the street from SI– dosas and mango lassis from Hampton Chutney Co.



This is excellent not-quite-fast-food in Soho. Dosa fillings include, but are not limited to, traditional masala potatoes as well as non-traditional spinach, jack cheese, tomatoes, avocado, grilled portabello mushrooms, and balsamic roasted onions. Each dosa also comes with a chutney on the side. We had cilantro and tomato – both sparkled with flavor.

Crossing the Williamsburg

Friday night was beautiful, and unusual for me. I wasn’t in a rush to be anywhere or meet anyone. So ending up at the foot of the Williamsburg bridge on the Manhattan side around 7:30pm, something I might normally think of as an obstacle, became an opportunity. Why not walk across the bridge? Some alone time (except, of course, for the bikers, the JMZ, the cars below…) could be good.



The sun set behind me and I walked higher and higher. It really starts to feel like you are floating in a red cage over the water, cities in front and behind.



Lights in buildings and over baseball fields flickered on, and as dusk began to fade into night I was back in Brooklyn again.

Don't Eat These Vegetables

Recently navigating the tiny blogosphere I tend to navigate (Poem, Sweet Poem... L.A. In Bloom... Smitten Kitchen... Rachel Eats), I stumbled on Ermie, and specifically this post about Scholten & Baijings fabric vegetables, and I stopped in my tracks. I just love them - the colors, the textures are simply stunning. Their website is short on information but long on great design and you can read more about the Amsterdam-based couple and their studio at Sight Unseen. (I also love Ermie and have been back many times since for little bits of inspiration.)







Images via Scholten & Baijings
VEGETABLES(c)
SCHOLTEN & BAIJINGS, 2009
Photography: yves krol, 2009

Cauliflower, Walnuts, and Feta Oh My!

Deb of Smitten Kitchen – I really have started to think of her as something like a guru – hits another home run. Deborah has been talking up this penne with cauliflower, walnuts, and feta she discovered on Smitten (an Alice Waters recipe) for a while now. So when I finally found some time to spend in my kitchen, I purchased some cauliflower and (French) feta.



Happily, I had walnuts from the Santa Monica Farmers Market left over from my most recent trip home. And I added fresh local ramps to the mix, care of The Garden, ever winning my heart by carrying the locally, seasonally grown. They also had some of the first spring asparagus, which we ate, roasted, on the side.



The meal is hearty and savory and even healthy. One thing I will note is that SK Deb talks about the use of whole wheat pasta, which she doesn’t like, which I also don’t like. I couldn’t bring myself to use it even with her high recommendation for this specific dish, but I found a multigrain penne by Barilla that I think worked just fine.

Open Studios - Only One Day Left

Join LMCC as we open our 2009-10 Workspace studios to the public for one weekend only, with an opening reception, open hours, and a reading. Meet the 20 visual artists and 9 writers in their studio spaces and see what they’ve been working on since September 2009!

Workspace is LMCC's 9-month studio residency program serving emerging visual artists and writers working in all media and genres from painting to video, sculpture to photography, poetry to playwriting. Studios are located in unique spaces generously donated by the downtown real estate community.

Schedule
Friday,April 30
7-9PM Opening Reception

Saturday, May 1
12-5PM Open Hours
6-8PM Open Texts: Reading and Performance by writers-in-residence

Sunday, May 2
12-5PM Open Hours

All events are free and open to the public. RSVP HERE! (It's required.)