Link Roundup

Some links I enjoyed lately ---

Strath at Pacific Standard in Seattle talks about the Steve McQueen festival at Lincoln Center now through May 26th, accompanied by some gorgeous stills. The hottest, and the coolest man, all at the same time.

A short day-in-the-life from WNYC at Peter Pan Donuts on Manhattan Ave. Classic Greenpoint, and best donuts ever.

A couple more I cribbed from Greenpointers:
Local photographer Kristy May's site.
And a bartending school in Williamsburg. Of course, something like this exists. Gross.

The Belmont Special is back. Glad to hear it, but thanks for nothing on Derby Day.

I've been walking around in the East Village on nice days lately. It's been a long time since I speant a lot of time in that hood, so I sometimes forget what a great place it can be. For example, a pork sandwich from Porchetta that tastes like it came straight from the Mercato Centrale in Florence. And for the flipside, some old-style Avenue A. Here's a fascinating take with raw photos showing how life on Avenue A is still lived by some in the East Village.

My appetite is getting better, so I bought a round of one of my favorite cheeses, Red Hawk from Cowgirl Creamery in Pt Reyes, CA. Expensive but amazing. And a most interesting article in today's Times about Sriracha, the indepensible red chili sauce in the rooster bottle.



Hilarious songs from comedy duo Garfunkel and Oates. Seriously, watch it.

Lastly, I have a new three-day-a week permanent Production Director gig at The Daily Group, publishers of The Daily & the Fashion MINI, (plus regular other special B-to-B pubs,) owned by IMG. Guess I can't escape giant fashion mags.

It's a funny, gossipy fashion insider paper that comes out daily during NYC Fashion Week + 6 times a year. Russell, an old friend of mine from college, hooked me up by so kindly being a VP there for a digital division connected with The Daily Group. We hadn't spoken to in 13 years, since I first moved to NYC, due to a bunch of complications. For my first 5 months here, I lived in his old room in an apartment on 14th Street. It made my move here simple as it could be, and again, he has helped a sister out.

Printer's Devil

Clearly, I am a printing dork as I found the definition of that term above to be fascinating. I've never heard the term used at a printing plant, although I am going to use it in as much conversation as possible when working tomorrow.

Stupid Economy

Nothing like being one of three final candidates from over a hundred people that applied for a dream job at MoMA, and having the joint go on a hiring freeze for the next couple of months. (At least they finally called today to tell me that.) Grumble.

After the Flood

I received a copy of this gorgeous, 10 pound Steidl (of course) produced book this week. Containing more than 500 pictures taken by Robert Polidori between September 2005 and April 2006 in the aftermath of Katrina, the book is a haunting record of the lives washed away in New Orleans. Does total destruction become art? Eerie and powerful. Some sample images below.

Book/Shelf

Can't wait to check out this exhibit at MoMA. For the book nerd in all of us. Now through July 7th.

Featuring works that transform books through a variety of mediums, Book/Shelf stresses an expanded notion of the illustrated book. The exhibition begins with a documentation of Marcel Duchamp's Unhappy Readymade (1919)—a work created when the artist, while traveling, asked his sister back home to hang a geometry book on his balcony in order to let the wind flip and tear the pages. It continues with works in which artists appropriate books by others, such as a sculpture by Martin Kippenberger made partly of books, and a copy of Duchamp's catalogue raisonné rebound by David Hammons under the title Holy Bible. Artists who tackle the idea of books in film (William Wegman), sound works (On Kawara), prints (Edward Ruscha), and drawings (Steve Wolfe) are represented as well. Finally, the exhibition surveys a number of artists who have created installations that display books in public contexts, including Brian Belott, Allen Ruppersberg, Josh Smith, and Lawrence Weiner.

Moleskine Love

While growing up, I was the nerdy little girl who played "office" instead of "house," so it's no surprise that I now make a living playing with paper, bindings, and ink. A stationary store in any country still makes me hyperventilate, and I feel that one can never have too many pens, notebooks or nifty paper products on hand.

One of my all-time favorites: Moleskine notebooks. An utter classic, I'm partial to the small, lined, reporter-style pocket notebook for daily use, but its seems that nearly everyone I've worked with over the years in the design community has their favorite (a sampling in the image above). With an elastic band to keep the book closed, a handy pocket inside the back cover, about 30 perforated pages at the end of the text, a waterproof cover, nice paper quality, AND lines to keep me straight, it's hard to find fault with the perfect notebook.

You can now personalize your Moleskine on both cover and spine with images of your choice via custom laser engraving. Very cool.

Flickr

Check out my Flickr page via the link at right for Hong Kong photos, and others.

Surreal

...is speeding into China over the border from Hong Kong, making 3 stops along the way for customs/passport checks and finding yourself jammed in a van with 7 Chinese folks, all loudly talking non-stop on their cellphones while a mix of old (tar paper shacks; people on odd motorized contraptions carrying half their family and 40 pound bags of everything) and new (32 floor towers everywhere) pass by the window. The car is weaving in and out of traffic lanes, crazily honking at anything in our way, while traveling at about 75 mph, and some cars come down the wrong side of the road simply because they missed the turn. As Hong Kong turns into China, driving switches from the left to the right side of the road. I still have no idea how people can make that switch so easily. I'm terrified to drive in left-side driving countries, if only because 22 yr driving habits die hard and I'd go the wrong way straight to my death.

Remind me: How did I get here again?

(Interestingly enough, I can post to my blog, but can't read a single thing on a blogspot.com, or wordpress site from here in China. Today's lesson? One should not take the right to freedom of speech lightly.

Also: there are constant rolling power shortages because of the high demand in this part of the country for juice. We were scheduled to print tonight until 8 pm but have to shut it down 3 hours early, as the plant's backup generator cannot supply enough to support all of the presses. The government apparently calls the plant about 4 hours before this happens to tell them. This must be maddening for scheduling purposes)

Bad Logos

SL and I are staying at the Excelsior Hotel in Causeway Bay in Hong Kong for 4 nights before I go to China tomorrow to print this job. Four star hotel, schmancy enough for a hotel princess like myself (Don't judge me. How I LOVE LOVE LOVE a good hotel!) part of the Mandarin Oriental chain with great views of Victoria Harbor from our room on the 26th floor.

Seriously though, what is up with this logo of theirs? It's on everything, and for the life of me, I can't figure it out. Is it some stylized Chinese character?? I hate crap design that makes no sense, and this is a perfect example. They can afford a great design team, and should do better.

More on Hong Kong to come when I have a bit more time and don't HAVE to run out and eat dim sum for the third time in four days. Man. Food is so good here....

New

•GLASSES: With red frames, that I fear make me look like a weird old artsy Italian woman. I feel very fancy after casting off my busted five-year old pair.

•JOB: Filling in for the manufacturing director on maternity leave for a few months at Art + Auction, Modern Painters and Culture + Travel. All three are part of a company called Louise Blouin Media. Only working three flexible days a week so as not to cut into my life of leisure.

•TRIP: SL and I are going to Hong Kong in March 13th for ten days while I print the latest issue of Visionaire. Trips to Guangzhou, China, Macau for gambling, and the two Hong Kong horse tracks including the Hong Kong Derby (!) are on the card, as well as tons of amazing food. I love Hong Kong, and suspect it will be even better with company this time.

Changes

Today's the last day of full-time work for me.

Its OUT with the two challenging magazines that caused all kind of stress I wasn't fully aware of until it was gone.

And IN with production consulting work (Visionaire issues continuing as my first 'client') and the formation of my company, Derby Print. (spiffy logo below by Strath Shepard)

In the midst of two weeks of holiday fun, with visitors coming to NYC this year from Dallas and SF. Steve and I are off to Thailand for the month of January, split between Bangkok and quiet weeks on the beach.

NOW: a deep breath and an attempt to finally....reeeeeeelaaaaaxxx.

The Pop-Up Guy

Here's a link to an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer (oddly enough) about my friend Bruce in Houston. He's the paper engineer we are working with in creating Vis 54, a collection of pop-up spreads by 12 different artists.

Free Me

I haven't taken a vacation in 2 1/2 years where I turned off the Blackberry and simply did not work, so unfortunately I can relate to this article in today's Times. Sad state of affairs, and a place I never saw myself living in.

With my work on the two mags coming to a close, and the new person starting right after Thanksgiving, I am dreaming of that time post-Xmas when I am (mostly) free from the electronic shackles. Free and in Thailand for six weeks!

Ancient Chinese Secrets

A product called Aquadots was recalled this week because it was found to convert to GHB (date rape drug) when ingested. A few kids apparently had to collapse and almost die for this to be discovered.

Wow. Now that's a serious production error.

Nothing blew my mind more on my trip to Asia than the sheer number of factories in China. Everything was growing so rapidly that the roads weren't paved yet, traffic was horrendous on the inadequate existing roads and all one could see was space and people eager to make money. There's absolutely no way any government agency could be overseeing safety standards in all of these new places. And there's going to be a whole lot more of these kind of recalls.

Missing in Action

I am boring and boring myself lately: work's been kicking my ass up and down for the past three weeks, consuming most energy and thoughts, and it flat out ruined my last weeks of summer, including one I was supposed to have off. Add my car getting hit by a friend's husband and causing over $2Gs worth of damage, and you have a recipe for being preoccupied.

With the most coverage we've ever gotten due to cover boy Brad Pitt on V49 and some totally gay shots of Tom Brady on V Man, everyone's excited and a little tightly wound. What would typically be minor production mistakes have been blown up into events of major proportion, culminating last week with me telling the two photographers of Vis 52/Louis Vuitton ad campaigns/shitloads of other big fashion clients that the files they provided us were of terrible quality.

This does not make already high-strung and flaky photographers happy. Especially when we aren't fixing the problem before going on sale.

I slept about 11 hours last night and missed out on our big whoo-ha fashion week party down at The Bowery Hotel, but am nearly seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

(As a side note, how douche-y is it for a special friend of mine to try and weasel his way into the party right after I said I couldn't hang out with him last night?)

Summer Wind (and some braggin')

The weeks of August have been flying by, and I've got not too much to comment on, busy living instead of yapping and typing. There were a couple nice weekends at Shelter Island, complete with SI friend-filled dinners straight out of the old 3 Chase Street house; a nice amount of company, including an surprisingly fun and undamaging hang with the ex-Irish boxer bf for the first time in a couple years; and a surging softball team on a juggernaut towards the WBSL playoffs. Ahem.

Currently in Montreal for the week with my new assistant Sebastian (straight, Brooklyn-raised, rockabilly kid) printing for 115 hours straight through (5+ days) to get the fall issues of V and V Man out.

Nice surprise that I'm pleased about - the mags were awarded two Gold Ink Awards in the 2007 competition, winning "Gold" level awards for both V45 and V Man Spring/Summer.

Now in it's 20th year the Gold Ink Awards recognizes excellence in print reproduction and is considered one of the most prestigious and challenging print production competitions in the printing industry.

Our straight-as-an-arrow, always slow and corporate printer submitted the issues for their own accolades, but damned if they would have won the awards if we didn't push them to the edge of their capabilities, and give them something pretty to print. A week up here is often tiring and frustrating, although at the end of it all, the very good quality I'm getting is almost worth the constant hassle. There is a big fancy printing nerd banquet in Chicago in early September when the awards will be presented. (Probably coming to visit, big brother - Sept 10th.)

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

•I realized that Madrid has changed in the past nine years from a cosmopolitan-yet-still-very Spanish city into more of a generic, European Union one. Globalization strikes again. Walking and eating in Madrid continues to be great fun, especially on the narrow streets of the Malasena district, and doing a tapas bar crawl to start your evenings before dinner is always good. I was able to see some of my favorite art again at the Prado via Francisco Goya's series of 14 creepy images called "The Black Paintings." Another highlight was spending a morning working (discussing Jason's unfortunate departure via phone with my bosses, damn) at Chocolateria San Gines while having churros con chocolate.

•I went to a bullfight at Las Ventas in Madrid that Helen, Julia and I all found disturbing. First of all, there's no "fight." The bull is going to die, and he's definitely going to lose. Six bulls are on the card each night, but we could only stomach two. The first one was pretty horrible, as the bull was not given a quick, clean death. He simply wouldn't go down and bled and bled and bled. The second one made a little more sense, as we watched the intricate interplay between bull, three matadors, the cape and the crowd. While I'll go to any type of spectacle or sporting event in an effort to understand a culture better, this event is a little tough to handle. BUT: Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon is in hand because the whole thing is definitely intriguing. (But I hate Hemingway.)

•I ate horse meat (the dreaded cavallo) not once but TWICE, including cavallo carpaccio with greens. It really IS on about half the menus in Verona. Julia and I only made it part way through that plate, for the more we talked about it, the closer we both got to needing to go outside to vomit. My take: leaner, saltier, with not as much flavor as beef. And I probably don't need to go there again.

•I had a few-day affair with a very funny, blue eyed trombone-playing Italian named Diego from the Verona Opera orchestra...because ten days in Verona means you have enough time to have dates, and enough time to see two operas in the 2,000-year-old Roman Arena. (Plus, go "backstage" to visit. Too funny. And familiar.) Seeing these operas in the arena on a clear warm Italian night is something I am not going to forget for a long time (even with all the mean Germans around us who refused to smile). Magical, and although I have no appreciation or clue about opera, I caught myself tearing up a little bit in one part. Who knew?

•I spent five days in Production Geek Summer Camp at the always charming Hotel Elefante in Verona (home of 20 pet peacocks wandering about!) About 8 other people from various publishers were there doing press OKs at the same time I was, along with my friend/sales rep and her family, so there were loads of people to talk shop with while drinking wine at random hours in the garden. While these work trips usually stress me out at some point when things go horribly south, this one was the best one yet, and the next issue of Vis (called Private with a Louis Vuitton case) will be out in October. I realized I am very fond of Verona, and will miss it until I go back again (maybe next spring?), but having visiting cohorts in Julia and Jason certainly made it all the better.

•My Spanish and Italian improves the more I ghetto-talk my way through things. And I learned some seriously dirty words in Italian.

Dear Loyal Readers (Hi Pat!)

Been back at home since late Friday; was not murdered in Italy by La Cosa Nostra; work is nuts due to my dear assistant Jason giving notice 3 days into the Europe trip (his last day is tomorrow and the interviewing begins...arghh), and did anyone else see Junior's highlight reel tonight?? I think I missed Baseball Tonight.

Will be back shortly with things to say, no doubt.

God Boy Would Say No

One of the owners of my company (gay makeup artist) was asking me who #46 was on the Yankees -- as I am the go-to sports expert in my office of 25 women and gay men, go figure -- and was going on about how hot Pettitte is, blah blah blah.

The debate is if they can get him to pose for V Man, our "men's" magazine, i.e. gay men's magazine. But I just had to tell him.... Um, I don't think he'll do it because he thinks you gays are going to hell. He's got a pro-Jesus book out, and he does those weird late night commercials for Power For Living....

Schedules and Dates

Boring work rant that I try not to do but am indulging myself with today: The past two weeks at work have been hellacious, with an increased need to boss people into keeping planned-months-in-advance dates to meet release schedules, with every single project quickly going south due to the ridiculous demands of big deal fashion photographers. No names, but my god, it's like pulling teeth to get final retouched images from people. We all want the publication to look gorgeous and beautiful, and it will, believe me. But I need something to work with in a time frame that's reasonable. All of it driving me nuts and making it impossible to plan the rest of my life/summer, I've had to lay down the law with pretty much everyone from editorial, printers, retouchers, the publisher and my bosses, getting into draining conflict every single day just for asking people to do their jobs. I can't make magic with no time, dammit. And don't make me keep repeating myself.

That said, I've finally (almost) sorted out the next trip to print and finish the next just-in- under-the-wire Vis 52 titled PRIVATE. Two weeks in Verona in mid-July, and visiting Spain, Madrid + Helen prior to work for 6 days. I'm looking forward to it, for it will be warm, relatively mellow, full of reading, great food and one of the hotels I will be in has a pool. And I'll get to be in Verona for the first time during opera season at the Arena. I suppose should find something real to complain about.

Another date: today's my 38th birthday. Another year, another number, another tick, another marker, another measure. You wonder if this is where you thought you'd be. And then you also don't care, although it's hard not to have a twinge of excitement, or a sense of expectation (always a bad idea, that concept), like you did when you were a kid. I always knew it was my birthday when I woke up on the morning of, for a parent had hung the flag up in honor of Flag Day, and my birthday. My lovely assistant gave me a BAG O' CHEESE as a gift today. Five kinds sitting on my desk at 9:30 am. He knows me well.