Michael Wolf

Amazing photographs of buildings turning into patterns, chinese propaganda posters and art brut artits. Worth getting lost into. (gracies Xavi!!!)

Nick Butcher

I met Nick today at the Williamsburg Art Fair, a pretty cool show in the hipster area of Brooklyn. I felt in love with his work. You can see it here. Jeanne Marie and me had a really hard time deciding what print to get... or if we should get his CD or... what. I ended up buying 2 prints for my new room. This and this one. Looking forward to hanging them!

Nobu

Fuimos a Nobu. Finalmente. Uno de los restaurantes que más me apetecía probar en NYC. Está en Tribeca y Robert de Niro es copropietario. El chef es un japonés Nobu Matsuhisa y todo lo que comimos estaba mega riquísimo. Las especialidades por eso, como bien sabía Carolena are el Black Cod with Miso, y las Rock Shrimps.

Bona Revetlla!

Tonight is St. Joan. Solisticio de verano. The shortest night of the year. El cumple de Claudio. The night of the witches. La revetlla. Night of bonfires. Un beso para todos y a disfrutarla.

America profunda

Hoy estaba un poco frita y me he quedado tirada en el sillón. Haciendo zapping me he encontrado con un documental "The education of Shelby Knox" con el que simplemente he flipado. Un pueblito de Texas, una familia que mantiene que no ha conocido a un demócrata en su vida y una chica de 15 años que define sus prioridades por este orden: Dios, mi familia y mi país. Así que mezcla explosiva y la explicación de porqué un tiparrajo como Bush gana las elecciones. Gracias al documental, he sabido la existencia de interestantes webs como esta. Da miedo.
Eso y el artículo del newyorker que leía en los anuncios "God and Country. A college that trains young Christians to be politicians." y un poco más y empiezo a hacer las maletas y me mudo de vuelta a Europa con Ruth.
Menos mal que quedan sitios como NYC. Y este domingo es Gay Parade. Menos mal.

MOMA

El otro día volvimos al MOMA. Esto del pase es una pasada porque así puedes ver trocito a trocito sin agobiarte. Además esta vez, dimos vueltas a la vez que Natalie Portman.
Lo que más me llamó la atención es a estos tipos serigrafiando la pared cada vez que cambia la expo (menudo curro!) y retocándolo después con pincelito... uff.

Mi ordernata habla japonés

Me ha costado un huevo.. pero lo he averiguado. Me estoy volviendo medio hombre ya.. (de ahí que pueda usar la expresión con propiedad) porque esto de averiguar cosas informáticas solo... es de hombres. Pero funciona!!! y no sé lo que dice, pero queda precioso. Ahora creo que me voy de compras.

Photo Show

Kelly had her big night and there we went to the International Center of Photography, to check her pics out. Really nice!

Eduardo Bertone

Eduardo me ha escrito para que publique su trabajo en esta web. Gracias por compartirlo. Podéis ver más cosas aquí.

Marta Viladrich

Una interesante ilustradora de Barcelona. Podéis ver su curro aquí. (gracias papi por el link! besos!)

Summer reading

What do you recommend? Qué me recomiendas?
I love the long summer afternoons reading on the beach with a good book.. so feel free to recommend anything... thanks!!! Here are my recommends... from what I have read this year:

- "Persepolis" Marjane Satrapi.
A wonderful comic about the life of a 10 year olf in Iran and the contradictions.
- " The namesake" Jhumpa Lahiri.
An Indian family coming to the States leaving behind their families and lives to start new ones.
- "Seda" Alessandro Baricco.
A wonderful short love story about what could have been and wasn't.

- "The razor's edge" W. Somerset Maugham.
A classic of American literature. I really enjoyed reading it.
"After de quake" Haruki Murakami.
The surrealism of Murakami applied to short stories right after the quake of 1995.
"Youth" J.M. Coetzee
Because I had never read anything by this south african Nobel prize winner.
The story of an expatriat young writer struggling to make a living from what he loves to do.
- "Girls guide to hunting and fishing" Melissa Bark
Being single and in NYC. I had to read the more real "we are not all sex in the city types" alternative. Light-hearted and funny.
- "Me talk pretty one day" David Sedaris
My first Sedaris and sure not my last one. Pretty hilarious.
- "Maus" Spiegelman
Another comic. This time an interestign approach to the Holocaust.
- "How to be good" Nick Hornby
The title may be a little misleading. The book is pretty irreverent.
- "How Proust can change your life" Alain de Botton
- "On love" Alain de Botton
- "The romantic movement" Alain de Botton
I went through this "de Botton face" and couldn't stop reading it. Ruth and me would share books, comment.... we even wanted to meet him. One of the most intelligent writers that talk about what we most care about: love, falling in love, falling out of love and starting all over again.
- "The wisdom of insecurity" Alan Watts
Zen. Peace. Wisdom. You feel better after reading it.
- "What I loved" Siri Hustvedt
I was curious because she's Paul Auster's wife. Amazing writer, really intelligent woman, great art references... but I couldn't totally get into the main character.
- "Guia triste de Paris" Bryce Echenique
Porque Echenique me encanta y echaba de menos leer en castellano. Estos son historias cortas de expatriados en Paris.
- "Conversations with students" with Louis Kahn
After watching the movie "my architect" I was pretty fascinated with the figure of Louis Kahn. This short book is a pretty good introduction to his mind.
- "Letters to a young poet" Rainer Maria Rilke
About creativity, loving what you do, doubting about you being any good, feeling like shit and feeling great and the emotional rollercoaster....

I am reading:
- El Quijote.
Porque es de tapas duras y no lo puedo llevar en el metro. Poco a poco.
- "Mrs. Dalloway" Virginia Wolf
It's pretty tough. I need to be on the right mindset.
- "Linked" Albert Lazlo-Barabasi
An interesting compendium of theories to prove how everyone or everything is connected. From the 6 degrees of separation to many other theories. Pretty interesting.
- "Henry and June" Anais Nin
Her diaries from 1931-1932 when she met Henry Miller. Too romantic for my taste right now.
- "Zero" Charles Seife
The story of the number zero from the romans to our time. It's taking me a long time because my mathematical mind is pretty sleep these days (if it ever was awake...)
- "A Heartbreaking work of staggering genius" David Eggers
I really really really wanted to like it.. but it's taking me a long time to read. I am not sure about this one yet.

Seu Jorge

Concierto brasilero. Ahora tengo muchas más ganas de ir este verano!
Y yo que lo conocía por su vertiente cinematográfica... City of God y Life Aquatic.

Aurora

Ahora que mis amigas empiezan a poblar el mundo de otros seres pequeñitos y monísimos, una se queda más tranquila sobre la supervivencia de la especie.. y puede seguir sin contribuir a las leyes de la evolución.
Yo quería sí también algún día... pero cada vez veo más factible el adoptar una niña china. (eh Gloria?) El bebé es Aurora y la orgullosa mamá que me ha enviado la foto, Raquel. (enhorabuena!)

Citizens of the world.... Recycle!!!

Welcome to Freeganism.
Freegans are people who are concerned so deeply with the social and ecological impact of economic over-consumption that they choose to buy and work as little as possible and, instead, to live directly off the massive waste created by our modern society. Freegans avoid contributing labor or wealth to an economy based on materialism, explotation, greed and waste by refusing to participate in it. Instead of producing their own waste, Freegans sustain themselves off the already existing waste thereby curtailing garbage and pollution and lessening the over-all volume in the waste stream.

Because so much is trashed in our society, a freegan lifestyle can be one of great abundance -- food, books, magazines, comic books, newspapers, videos, music (CDs, cassettes, records, etc.), carpets, musical instruments, clothing, rollerblades, scooters, furniture, vitamins, electronics, pet care products, games, toys, bicycles, artwork, and just about any other type of consumer good can be found in the discards of retailers, institutions, and individuals simply by rummaging through their trash bins, dumpsters, and trash bags. Many of these items are entirely useable, clean, and safe in perfect or near-perfect condition. Lots of used items can also be found for free on websites like freecycle.org and in the free section of your local craigslist.org. To dispose of useful materials check out the EPA's Materials and Waste Exchanges directory. Of course, freegans are as happy to give for free as to take for free. When freegans do need to buy, they buy second-hand goods which reduces production and supports reusing and reducing what would have been wasted.
More info here.

The life and death of Peter Sellers

Hot night. Lazyness and no movies at home. We run to the video store and had 1 min to decide because they were closing. We chose this one... and we really enjoyed it.
The life of Peter Sellers, his crazyness, his emptyness as a human being and his total dedication to his acting, his 4 wives, his hate towards the Pink Panther and Blake Edwards... pretty cool to see who was behind Dr. Strangelove.

Camille Sero Garcia

Recomendación de Carla. (gracias!) "Esta es la ilustradora que te decia.
Es un poco oscura, pero me encanta."

Jon Burgerman

Jon Burgerman is a UK-based artist famed for his doodling, drawing, scrawling, and illustration. His work was featured recently on both sides of the pond in Double Down — an exhibition that pitted illustrators assembled in London's Peepshow and Manhattan's Orchard Street Art Gallery in a four-hour, simultaneous, transatlantic doodle-off via the Internet.

Burgerman opens his pictoplasma show at Düsseldorf, Germany's NRW-Forum this week. Art, animation, character design, and lots of surprises are abundant on his popular website, where you can also purchase affordable prints of his work.

Mad Hot Ballroom

The best movie I have seen in a while. We laughed, we cried and we left the cinema feeling really good and wanting to dance. A human documentary about a new program in NY schools in poor areas, to introduce children to dancing leading to the competition at the end of the year.
"The secret to success in life is to find something you love to do and then try to do it really well." And some of those kids can really dance.
Brilliant. A mix of Spellbound, Etre and avoir and Born into Brothels.
You can watch the preview here and lots of extras here. Enjoy!

Partidazo

Me he emocionado cuando ha ganado. (Y eso que a mi el deporte me suele dar igual....)

Carson Ellis

Jeff recommended me to check her work. Pretty cool. (thanks!)

Anuncios por palabras

Estoy buscando compañero/a de piso y he acabado poniendo un anuncio por palabras en una web.
Alucinante el mundo de anuncios por palabras. Pones tu anuncio y te llega mogollón de respuestas y de todo tipo. Uno que me ofrece que cocinará para mi, porque se emociona y siempre hace comida de más. Otra que nunca estará en casa. Una que se muda mañana si hace falta (y que no sabe leer porque en el anuncio pone clarisísimo que es para agosto)... pero es alucinante que después de leer 4 o 5 frases tienes clarísimo con quién querrías vivir y con quién no.
En un intento de no discriminar voy a reunirme con todos los que han escrito. Para poner una cara a cada anuncio y ver hasta que punto mi intuición era cierta.
Y con una japonesa con la que había buen rollo pero no va a poder ser porque tampoco había leído lo de agosto, me voy a tomar una birra la semana que viene. Esto es nyc, y puedes encontrar amigos de cualquier manera. O freaks, claro.... (to be continued).