Archive for July, 2010
Reading Room
July 24th, 2010
Straight up, the best thing about being on holiday (aside from the good food, booze, friends, family and sun/sea/sandals special) is the reading room it gives you. Out in Italy (poolside as I type), here are some of the things I am enjoying NOT reading right now:
1. Emails (the boring ones)
2. Bills and bank statements
3. Letters from our building berating us for bringing food and beverage into the pool area
4. The manual for our new TV remote
5. The shopping list
6. The back-to-the-shopping list, with the things on I forgot the first time
And here are the things I AM enjoying reading:
1. Trashy magazines (purely to keep my finger on the pulse, you understand)
2. Recipes for what we’ll cook tonight
3. Protection details on the side of a sunscreen bottle
4. Books, books and more books
Around the World
July 23rd, 2010
Madness or genius? Doesn’t matter now, because I did it anyway! A photograph of every single work in the East and West Buildings of the National Gallery of Art (except some small galleries on the main ground floor that are less interesting).
For the first time, I felt the full force of the collections (and the breadth of the challenge of Art 2010). And I hope it’s a good chance for all of you (especially those living further afield) to explore the Gallery, top to bottom!
So here it is, around my world of art in under 7 minutes.
The Making of Mary
July 22nd, 2010
Today’s the feast of Mary Magdalene, a woman described in the New Testament as one of the most important figures in Jesus’s ministry. In texts, Mary is identified by ‘Magdala’, which might mean she was from the town of the same name on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Also, in Aramaic, ‘magdala’ means ‘tower’ or ‘elevated, great, magnificent.’
Sweet Nothings
July 21st, 2010
I had TIVO triple-checked and ready, set to go ahead and record the early episodes of D.C. Cupcakes, a new six-part reality series on TLC on Friday nights. It catches the kitchens of Georgetown Cupcake, this city’s sweetest success story, started in 2008 by sisters Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis (who left careers in fashion and finance to bake their way to bliss). The duo now sell 5,000 of their frosted favorites a day, and the pavement outside their new-site store (3301 M St. NW) sags under the weight of the all-hours, hour-long wait-line.
Taking the Plunge
July 20th, 2010
Flicking through a magazine last week, my eye alighted on an Oreo ad: “Milk’s Favorite Summer Dip” said the slogan near the top, while the image splashed cool blue and white across the page. There’s an up-close Oreo drifting in a mug of milk and two blue straws bending over the edge, looking just like the side-bars of a swimming pool step-ladder. It’s a clever pic, designed to dip into the milk-dunking thing but also conjuring up cool connections with summer fun and snacking.
Portraits of Preservation
July 19th, 2010
Husband and I spent a good deal of Sunday at the National Museum of the American Indian and boy, were we bowled over. Native Americans have often suffered in US museums, turning up in tacky dioramas near the dinosaurs. But this one’s different, since indigenous populations from all over the western hemisphere have had a say in the context in which their peoples are placed.
Over and Out?
July 18th, 2010
Every month or more in the year leading up to our wedding, Husband and I attended St Michael’s Church in Amberley, West Sussex. Building started there c. 1100 and continued through the centuries, so it’s filled with a curious assortment of old chattels: a 12th-century font here, 13th-century frescoes there. So enthusiastic was I about these, that I made our photographer promise to snap them all at the start of the day (these are the pics we tend not to look at, but at least I can share with you all today):
