april 18, 1969

mom and dad on their first date :) this wondrous occasion has been celebrated every year as parker day, and today is it's 40th anniversary! so happiest of parker days to all! really, how happy are we all that mom and dad met in mr. brunt's history class at villa park high school? :) love you guys so much.

the local train to etsy

it's true, my official uniform for many years has been a vintage dress with a vintage slip underneath. i promise it's the most comfortable thing to wear ever. SO... to inaugurate the 72 degree weather (!!!), i thought it was time to shop for a few new spring vintage dresses. but. vintage in new york city = WAY overpriced. even brooklyn. i mean seriously - $50 for a dress? i miss LA shops... so instead, i resorted to etsy. huzzah! what do you think?


and i have no face in these pictures because a) my hair is super long and is taking over my head, and b) i'm super shy and awkward when having my photo taken - thanks carlynne, you're the best roommate/photographer! :)

more lunch-break blogging.

i think this is really wonderful. my friend ashmae is quite brilliant, and also a beautiful artist. one of her pieces was lovingly given to me and hung on my otherwise naked wall in oxford. it brought me such joy!

but please take a moment to join her effort! it is just what american women need, truly. huzzah for [non-maoist] cultural revolutions!!!

summer nights

it was a full glorious 63 degrees today in new york!!! a warmness which extended into this blessed night... it seems like my bones have been frigid for the last 5 months straight, and so i took full advantage of the balmy evening, taking an extended walk home through the late-night still city streets after a DELISH deeeeep soul food supper at sylvia's in east harlem. [this place is so good even obama paid them a visit :)]

i find harlem to be oh so beautiful. the victorian architecture is scuffed up and lived in, and nothing beats st. nicholas' park with the dramatic gothic architecure of the city college. walking home past these brownstone row houses, with people laughing and playing out on their stoops, past the endless number of baptist churches and their neon crosses, past groups of old men still playing chess - the rigorous tap-tap of their timers punctuating the otherwise low hum of their concentration - past the chicken and waffle and fish and chips stands glowing in the dark... it was so perfectly warm and home-y and inviting, i was so thrilled to feel summer rolling into the little cluster of islands we call new york city! winter = overrated.

wherever you read this post, i hope had a calm night of simple pleasures as well :)


p.s. just to assure mom and dad: i was accompanied on this walk through harlem by a male-friend, who had also accompanied me to the finger-lickin' good soul food delights - and in any case, i promise harlem is not what it used to be. God bless guiliani! :)

baby sdella!

my thoughts and prayers go out to stella and the whole fam tonight - she had a sad fall down the stairs while steph was holding her and is now in a full-body cast :( poor little cutie, i love her so much!

here's all my wishes that stella will heal soon soon.

the plebes of new york

today it is a full 60 degrees fahrenheit outside - gorgeously warm! such days bring out the masses to public spaces, and today on lunch break at my gallery in brooklyn, i ate my yummy lentil chili in this great green park under the manhattan and brooklyn bridges and took in what was possibly the most perfect and stereotypical combination of new yorkers ever. enjoying the sunshine with me were:

a few couples of russian lovers
latino teenagers
a Hasidic jewish family (little 4 year old boy with full prayer-shawl and yammukah = adorable)
a group of hippie artists sketching
20-something disillusioned hipsters smoking with their vintage cruiser bikes
businessmen in suits sipping coffee on their cell phones
an east asian couple in full bridal-wear having their pictures taken*
and of course a celebrity: jason schwartzmann this time around. known most recently for playing louis XVI in sofia coppolla's marie antoinette, he is most endearing to me in wes anderson's darjeeling limited. check out the 'stache:

huzzah for the never-ending eclectisim of this city! :)

*why is it that it is only asian couples you see doing this? is it only asians getting married these days? or are they the only people who want their pictures taken outside in famous new york-spots? i swear, you see them ALL OVER the place.

**this picture of the manhattan bridge above i stole from my computer here at the gallery (i'm still on my lunch break - huzzah!), taken from an outdoor exhibition they did a few months ago - rad, yeah? isn't the view from this place just so dang stunning?

a lifelong relationship of love and devotion

as a teenager i used to ditch villa park high and hop the fence over to bagel me! in the ralph's shopping center. i did this so often that the workers would immediately give me my order without me having to say a word: yes, sundried tomato bagel toasted with onion and chive cream cheese on the side.

college: ali and i were seen breakfasting at einstein's on center street at least once a week. i still remember her order of potato bagels :) and they have the best orange juice. ever.

oxford was more difficult, since good bagels can really only be found in the jewish districts of european cities (le marais in paris has some FAB bagel selection - though they all need more salt). and yet despite the poor quality, i admit to having settled for the 39p variety at sainsbury's almost everyday.

so now, now i am in the absolute mecca of bagels. and after reading this AWESOME article today, i decided i must share my own bagel guide to nyc for anyone who is at all interested. (by the way, that article is miraculous, i love it - and further love to hear that bagels are actually related to pretzels, my other obsession - though after tasting the real goods in germany, i can't bring myself to eat the cardboard-variety pretzels here. sad.)

so, let me begin with the very-famous H & H bagels: OVERRATED. i don't know why these bagels have made their way to so many movies/tv shows about new york as "the" bagel in the city. honestly, you can find ones of similar quality at any grocery store. i think people like these because they're a manhattan brand, but as i have swiftly found, you gotta go to brooklyn to get the real deal: la bagel delight. oh yes, such a delight - and gratefully around the corner from the gallery i work at. their whole wheat everything is divine toasted with butter. so much flavor, and has the perfect crisp outer crust (which comes from ideal amount of boiling-time of the dough) to distinguish the bagel from plain bread. so many "bagels" unfortunately fall into this pathetic category: in fact, note, all the breakfast stands on the city streets have such bread-like bagels. don't be tempted! la bagel delight are absolutely the best i've had in the city so far, if not ever in my life, though i am told by multiple reliable sources that bergen bagels actually supply the best in the city. i have yet to try them (i know i know - only 2 locations, and in out-of-the-way parts of brooklyn i don't work near), but am aiming for a taste test this week.

also: fairway makes mini bagels which i stick in my freezer and pop in my toaster on late-night occasions when i am not near a fresh-bagel shop to indulge. and actually they're reeeeeally good.

so. was this blogpost totally boring and unnecessary? yes, perhaps - but i feel it's my duty now living in new york to pay tribute to one of the city's real treasures... also - i could have blogged about more "real" things - like the fact that i had a pretty important job interview today, but really sometimes i have nothing to say about actual real things in my life - so y'all get bagels instead :)

ah! too fast - no! wait, wha?!

new york life is one of constant discovery and learning. (oh wait, that is just life in general)

but here's something funny i read in the brooklyn rail this week: "new york is a hard city to live in. the rents are high, work is often busy and stressful but what makes it worthwhile is that you're always coming across cool, quirky places you'd probably never find anywhere else."

i don't agree totally with the negative overture of the statement, but isn't it [generally] brilliant? i don't think there will ever be a time when someone could say they had "done" new york, or that they had seen everything or really knew the city at all. this is what makes it so thrilling to live in - BUT at the same time it also makes it so frustrating at times to realize that you can't do it all, that there are so many things you do miss simply by the default fact that you can't be in park slope, the east village, and harlem all in the same evening.

so this week i discovered the vastly superior L magazine - a pocket-sized, free arts guide that comes out every two weeks that is so much better than the more-ubiquitous village voice, which i had been relying on before. it's that learning process, like realizing that while restaurants in new york are amazing, the grocery stores are even better and more affordable and better for you etc. the things which initially stand out as awesome seem to hide their even better versions which lie below.

but sometimes you discover things too late: i picked up this edition of the L mid-way into its circulation, so was thus too late to realize that a) there is an awesome cinema institute in harlem, just blocks from me (maysles institute, just fyi) and b) they were showing this amazing-sounding documentary "the 7 train: an immigrant journey" last monday. the movie documents a few passengers treks on the 7 train, which carries 500,000 people from 117 different countries from queens to times square EVERYDAY. how amazing is that?! this is the exact new york i love to delve into, and i missed seeing it. blast. this city moves too fast! you have to juggle culture here, pick and choose what would work best based on what trains you'd be taking those days. it's so incredible how much occurs simultaneously, and i feel so inordinately spoiled in living here. but truly, my gosh, how is it possible to absorb this city?! how can you comprehend all that is happening around you? actually this is a question for anyplace on earth, and is honestly too overwhelming a question for me at times...

and then again, some nights it is possible to just stay home instead - because sometimes you have really wonderful roommates who pick up deliciously fresh strawberries and chocolate angel food cake for everyone at whole foods. and then you hand-whip cream with a whisk and eat all together watching "strictly ballroom." so maybe i missed some fascinating art show tonight by staying in, but not too bad an alternative, yeah? :)

this evening's vanity

so i live in the northern part of manhattan where the island starts to get really skinny. this means i am within a few feet of two rivers, and as a west-sider, it's the hudson which i can call my dear friend.

work has been inordinately overwhelming and frustrating to me in the last few days, and so tonight i decided to relax a bit by staying home and doing much-needed laundry. and i absolutely had to share the view of the sunset from my dear 149th street laundromat today. this is riverside park, just steps from my building. the last few days i've taken liberty of walking through this park to fairway, aka the best grocery store of all time. beautiful, fresh, delicious, organic produce - piles of exotic and delectable cheeses... fresh foccaccia bread and other bakery delights. ah! it's heaven - and i can reach such delights after a short walk down this path, gazing at new jersey under trees and lampposts. quite beautiful, no?

so happy dusk, everyone... from the winter-tree-branches and pink-sky-glories of manhattan...

and p.s. brittany asked me today to post actual pictures of me on my blog sometime - i tried to do some self-portraits with the park in the background, but they were just SO awkward looking. sorry, baby-b. sometime soon je promise.

moments of city beauty 2 [+ appendices]

- after morning-tutoring in brooklyn, glorying in the blessedly-warm 45 degree weather (no i kid not - this is warm... i promise) i walked the entire 2.5 mile-length of central park today, and oh!!! was stunned at the beauty... especially while walking in the west-side shadow of the gorgeously neo-classical art-deco splendor that is the san remo apartment building [pictured] - it's incredible how quiet the park is, even just 10 feet from the uber-crowded manhattan street, there is truly a remarkable stillness that i find intoxicating*

- nuts 4 nuts [consumed while thus walking] = my favorite manhattan street food = hot, freshly honey roasted peanuts/cashews/almonds = heaven**

- further walking through morningside park, a huge craggy hill on the northwest corner of central park in the shadow of...

- the cathedral of st. john the divine, with it's full 600+ foot gothic nave, complete with a byzantine-style cross-dome reminiscent of istanbul, and multiple vaulted side chapels reminiscent of oxford. i found such a great deal of peace within these walls today, and was so grateful for the place - i had seen it's massive edifice before, but had yet to venture inside until today, whereupon i felt in my heart "i never want to leave new york", because even here i can find myself a cozy gothic side chapel with stain glass to feel calm and reflective. the city has everything, and i couldn't be more contented to live where i do.

* appendix 1: i watched before sunset again this weekend, a beautifully simple filmed conversation between 2 actors in real time. at one point the ethan hawke character explains what he'd like to write for his upcoming book, and how his idea is really to expand all that occurs in the span of 3 minutes - how the idea of something momentary is really a lie, how each moment really contains so many other external moments at the same time. today i felt this so vividly: walking past a small pond on the far northwest corner of central park, amidst the gray, crisp weather, i was completely transported back to the hills behind bergen, norway where mom, dad, lincoln, mimi, and i all hiked through dense fog, coming upon a similar body of water amidst forested norwegian splendor. similarly while walking up the steep steps of the great hill at the top of the park, i was immediately returned to the similar [though much more intense and steep...] earthen stairways lining the valley verzasca in switzerland, where i hiked this past august. it's amazing how palpable the past can be at certain moments, and how many past moments live within us and comprise our immediate reality. huzzah for the complexity of the brain :)

** appendix 2: on a much lighter note, the nuts 4 nuts man was shocked to hear i was actually american, because he was convinced i was turkish. and he was turkish himself. hm. really? what about me looks turkish? hahahaha well i'll take it as a compliment.