amazing time capsule of sorts

JOHN MALOOF acquired a collection of 30,000 negatives plus hundreds of rolls of undeveloped film at a furniture auction which turned out to be the work of an unknown Chicagoan, Vivian Maier, who shot around Chicago (and elsewhere) during 1950 - 1970. He has been posting her work at http://www.vivianmaier.blogspot.com/ And as fate would have it, Vivian Maier passed away just days before he was able to track her down.

PANCHO

G.O.P. A.HOLES

"The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists -- the Taliban and Hamas this morning -- in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize. Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize -- an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride -- unless of course you are the Republican Party. The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It's no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore - it's an embarrassing label to claim."

Just needed to reprint this response from the DNC who is finally calling out the GOP on the unprecedented disrespect of a seated president.

And in other presidential news, snatch up one of those Obama chia pets while you can!

oh yea, Paris

I don't know if it was fatigue or the transition from countryside to city, but Paris was kinda on my nerves! And for those of you who know me (all 2 of you readers)you know my nerdy obsession with it, but something about it this time was not working for me. Everything was so crowded, I got bumped or shoulder checked on the street at least a million times. The metro was always packed. The few items of clothing that I actually wanted to buy had no small sizes left. WAHHH! I know, poor me, in Paris...

We did some of the usual:
-Pompidou -great exhibit on all women artists and a good lunch at Georges where I ordered the exact same dish I ate with elizabeth on her birthday two years earlier
-Palais de Tokyo--which always has unusual exhibits, this time included. One exhibit was NASA moon photographs (where we ran into some Chicago people!) and the other was a random exhibit called "Spy Numbers" which had these amazing photographs by Arthur Mole (on loan from the Chicago History Museum, of all places!) Mole made "Living Portraits" around WW1, where he would get THOUSANDS of people together to create a portrait of Abraham Lincoln or the Statue of Liberty or a waving flag. They are pretty incredible. Here's one:



One new thing we did was the Musee d'Orsay, which is a really amazing building--an old beaux arts train station, retrofitted into a museum. The collection wasn't necessarily our cup of tea, but impressive all the same. Speaking of tea, they have an amazing tea room which I had what I always have at tea time--wine.




Je pensais "Ou est Elizabeth??"



On the retail front, we got to go to the new store MERCI which is (if I may use buzzwords) a boutique / concept store. It was like if Anthropologie mated with Fred Segal. It was pretty impressive and they had a very cute cafe with awesome chocolate cake:








Then it was onto London, where I didn't have to think so hard,the shopping was more productive, and the tables were huge.


It was pouring rain (or pissing rain as those brits would say)so we spent some dry time in the Tate Modern. The huge table made me relate to a cat's perspective. Then I missed our cats. But they were all well and good, see:


It was like a crazy camp for cats at Megan's house.

We stumbled upon the Liberty of London store while walking around and although I was aware of their fabrics--I didn't know they had a whole department store. It's like a way cooler Barneys and we spent about 3 hours in there and got lots of fun things like soaps, tea towels, notebooks, uber fancy chocolates, toiletrie bags and, of course, afternoon tea/wine:

The Dordogne

Spent 4 days in the Dordogne River Valley, home to walnuts and foie gras


view from our window, Sarlat






this is foie gras country and the stuff is EVERYWHERE in a million variations




So after days of drinking red wine I thought it would be nice to have something a little more refreshing, especially on a hot day. I ordered a bellini, which I assumed would be a flute of champagne with a splash of some sort of fruit puree or juice, but instead I got this monstrosity. UGH! It wasn't even good. I stuck with wine after that...


I don't have time to put these in order at the moment, but they images from our lovely day canoeing down the Dordogne river and exploring tiny medival towns:

la lune de miel

After 24 hours of traveling, we spent a day and a half in Chinon before we head southwest to the Dordogne river valley

Our hotel-





the chateau de chinon






les chats: they seem to find me





Joan of Arc stayed at the chateau de chinon when Charles VII was situated there during the 100 years war--right before she set off on her crusade against the english. One of the surviving towers of the chateau (built and continually expanded on during the 11th and 16th centuries) now hosts a museum to her, including maps that look like your 6th grade social studies project on a piece of posterboard that your dad got you at the drugstore. There was also a great display of crude ceramic figurines of Joan d'Arc created by schoolchildren of Chinon in the 1960's. Although there were some pieces of historic value, the less precious ones were more endearing...





J'ai bu beaucoup de chinon rouge and Cody, he drew.

It Never Rains in Southern California?

Just got back from a relaxing visit to Los Angeles and saw all my favorite California ladies.
Highlights include:
-deep fried beef and pickle tacos
-santa barbara wine tastings
-rain?!?
-pastries in Solvang
-finding out Elizabeth was kidnapped by a horse
-slumber party with Heather and Hannah
-learning Australian
-Charlie Boy the Cat
-dropped baby toy concussion
-Thurston & Kelly
-foxtail purse

Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California, but girl don't they warn ya
It pours, man it pours