AROUND THE INTERNET #4

I'm currently posting from New Zealand but this was back when the snow was minimal and charming, I switched hemispheres before it got real. 

An accurate description of what it's like to work from home. 

Let's all just start dressing in full monochrome because how great does this gal look doing it?  

You know what you're probably missing in your life? An all-girl, low fi Spanish indie rock band from Madrid that wear scrunchies. Start here and here with Hinds. 

Someone buy me this. 

Like I needed another reason to adore Chance the Rapper. 

Quite a bit of my days this fall and winter was spent sloshing around JP listening to How I Built This + 2 Dope Queens. I highly recommend both. 

A Better Way to Argue About Politics

Paula Scher on the creative process: "I think your mind is like a giant slot machine. On one side of your brain, you have all the experiences of your life: every influence, everything that ever inspired you, everything that’s ever made you angry, everything you’ve ever thought, just rolling around in there. It’s fodder. On the other side of your brain is where you input a specific brief, and the specific brief has all the constraints and needs of the particular situation. It all sort of rolls around like a slot machine. You want the brief to line up with a perfect piece of fodder. You pull that fodder to make analogies and make points. It may be something that’s stylistic, or may be a pointed reference of some sort, and these things come together and solve the problem. Now, how does the machine work? How do you know it’s going to work? You don’t."

PREACH: Being Lazy Is the Key to Success. 

MAGGIE ROGERS IN BURLINGTON, VERMONT

Maggie Rogers at Higher Ground

Mojitos and post-show Jazz at Radio Bean

Gingerbread house AirBnB

Last summer I stumbled across this video then proceeded to listen to Alaska over and over and over again through the fall.

Then one night at 2 AM in January I bought a single ticket to a Monday night Maggie Rogers show in Burlington, Vermont because her first tour wasn't stopping anywhere near Boston.  

I woke up the next morning with the kind of vague regret that usually only accompanies heavy champagne consumption (the $12 ticket seemed like a bit of rash purchase as she had only released 2 songs at that point). Nevertheless, I packed a bag that Monday morning and drove 3 hours in the snow to Burlington. 

Going to a show by yourself is kind of like a weird form of meditation. You find yourself standing quite still (as to not bump into anyone to avoid polite conversation), very mindful as to what is going on around you (like noticing how the kids in Burlington get dressed up for a night out in what I would wear snow-shoeing) and quietly reflecting back on the last time you were in this situation (Fall 2004, early Freshman year, at a tiny John Legend show in a BC basement class room. I barely had any friends at that point and none of them had ever heard of John Legend). 

To my relief, her set consisted of more than 2 songs and her modesty ("I feel like new artists shouldn't really play an encore. The Rolling Stones should play an encore but not me") and enthusiasm ("Oh my god, thank you all so much for coming! This is the biggest crowd we've ever had! Well, I've ever had. My band has played a lot more shows than me. This is only my 5th show. Thank you so much!") was sweet and genuine.

She was also amazing live. It was definitely worth the drive. 

The rest of my time in Burlington consisted of coffee shop hopping (Uncommon Grounds is good for people watching and Muddy Waters is like dining in a tree house) scoring a signed copy of Maria Semple's Today Will Be Different at Crow Bookshop and talking politics and watching Trevor Noah with my AirBnB host. 

It was a great winter trip to Vermont.

P.S. Maggie Rogers now has an EP out, called Now That the Light is Fading, if you'd like to check it out. It has 5 (!) songs on it. And her new US and European tours are selling like hotcakes. Go if you can. 

APPLE PICKING

Jess and I entered full on, basic-bitches-in-fall mode for a morning of Apple picking at Smolak Farms in North Andover.

We went so late in the season that we were the only ones in the orchard but we fully immersed ourselves in the autumnal spirit with hot apple cider, apple cider donuts and bags of apples which I had big plans for (apple sauce! apple crumble! apple pie!) but then just ate raw over the next month because honestly, who has time for that. 

These boots were in no way practical for the occasion but they perfectly matched my hat which was just begging to visit an apple orchard. Look at that hat. Where else was I gonna wear that hat.    

A TRIP TO THE MET, NYC

The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

When climbing the stairs to the museum, I thought to myself "I think this is where Serena and Blair used to sit every day before school".

It was the perfect blend of both high and low NYC culture. 

NEW YORK CITY #2

Pizza at Patsy's

As I was in NYC in September 2016, this was wonderful to see... but now, is crushing to look at. 

Caught up with Denise from my days at MTV.

One World Trader Center.

Oculus. Which is bananas.

NEW YORK CITY

A long weekend trip to NYC. (Posted 6 months later)

A foreigner and Lady Liberty.

Note the tiny NYC resident peering at me, the tourist, walking on the High Line. 

Each day we rode through Brooklyn from our Bed-Stuy AirBnB and whizzed over bridges to explore the (remarkably bike friendly) island of Manhattan. 

More soon.

A BRIEF GUIDE TO MONTREAL, CANADA

Kem Coba ice cream

Crudessence raw cafe

Airbnb Decor

Poutine, all day every day

Note tiny Scott on a bike, above. 

Above, the Habitat 67 apartment buildings: designed by an Israeli/Canadian architecht to "integrate the benefits of suburban homes, namely gardens, fresh air, privacy and multi-levelled environments with the economics and density of a modern urban apartment building." 

Clever design. 

Downtown from Mount Royal. 

Jazzy French-Canadian rock band. 

Breakfast at Farine. 

Notre Dame from the outside...

... and from the inside. Where Celine Dion was married. RIP Rene. 

WHERE TO STAY: In The Mile End neighborhood. It's like Williamsburg, Brooklyn before the Whole Foods moved in. 

WHAT HOTEL TO BOOK: What, are you made of money? It's not 1994, get an AirBnb. Stay here. 

WHERE TO EAT: Enjoy a balanced diet of poutine (Basquise is supposed to have the best but the line will be out the door, so go to Patiti Patata Friterie De Luxe) and almond croissants (from Farine, an Italian style cafe/absolute slice of heaven). Or, go wild and go raw at Crudessence with the Macao smoothie. 

WHERE TO SHOP: Leisurely browse through books and $8 pens at Drawn and Quarterly. 

HOW TO GET AROUND: Bring a bike. We stuffed 2 in the back of my Toyota Corolla. Or since it's a very bike friendly city, just rent one. 

RANDOM THING TO DO: Stick around for the organ concert at the Notre Dame Basilica. Experience "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" with a 7000 pipe organ. It's really something else. 

MONTREAL, CANADA

If a Parisian lady and a dirty Canadian hipster had a baby, it would be Montreal. 

Heaven, in the form of baked goods. 

We spent a weekend there in September, bicycling around each day fueled by poutine and almond croissants.

More soon.  

SUMMER IN BOSTON: PART 5

Coolidge Corner.

Fletcher. 

The South End. 

Chance The Rapper at The Pavillion.

Downtown from JP. 

Jamaica Pond. 

This city has a certain vibe which although not my exact ideal, has a weird to charm to it.

Bostonians aren't warm and friendly immediately -- but if you do chip away at our frozen (from years of shoveling out our cars in January) social exterior, you'll probably end up meeting all of our friends from high school and getting invited to the family Cape house for 4th of July. All of our bars may look exactly the same (dark wood, vaguely Irish) but I truly appreciate that there's a Dunkin Donuts on almost every corner that's frequented by people in every tax bracket. 

P.S. The Simpsons actually did an episode this summer where they went on  a "hate-cation" to Boston and it's wonderfully spot on. "It's like heaven for people who don't believe in heaven!"

PORTLAND, MAINE

Kris getting a few shots for his Paka Appparel website. 

I drove up to Portland, Maine to visit my friend Kris from my time in Naples.

We had a bonfire, jumped off a bridge, learned about his first year of college (!!!) and his newest venture: Paka Apparel, got poutine and milkshakes at Duck Fat, had an early morning at the beach, met his cute brothers and enjoyed brunch to the sounds of his parents playing blue grass music (the whole family plays string instruments and they jam together). It was a great trip. 

If you're a fellow New Englander that needs to keep warm this winter, I recommend checking out Kris's clothing brand Paka and specifically, The Costa sweater (you may recognize a few of the models -- ha!). 

AROUND THE INTERNET #3

It's winter coat weather here in Boston, so I'm officially wistfully thinking of summer days -- like this one from camping in Newport in August. 

A PRELUDE: You never feel more patriotic than once you've actually left your country, so traveling the last 2 years has definitely boosted my sense of America pride.  

I think the American work ethic (while perhaps relentless and unbalanced) is something to admire -- it's nearly impossible to get anything done past 3 PM on a Friday in New Zealand.

I stand by our portion sizes.

And I really like that we're a big, giant, ever-evolving mix of people. I like that the USA is very different from Italy, for instance, where everyone kind of looked the same. And I know, because they all looked LIKE ME: big brown eyes, big noses and curly hair -- these Italian chicks were copping my look LEFT AND RIGHT.

With that (freshly amplified) pride, being back in the USA for this election season has been a bit confusing and soul-crushing. So in that spirit:

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried" - Winston Churchill, 1947

"It's like Humpty Dumpty fell and broke, then a giant lawn mower ran over it, acid was thrown on the pieces -- and a bunch of racist idiots ran off with an arm and a leg" -John Weaver, longtime Republican consultant on the state of the GOP 

Brilliantly edited, completely terrifying video on The Authorization for Use of Military Force which our next President will continue to have. 

What Obama told his daughters after Trump won the election. 

...and in other news: 

Women Having a Terrible Time Parties in Western Art History.

Words for Emotions You Didn't Know You Had -- I was relieved to see I'm not the only weirdo who experiences "L'appel du vide". 

Tricky and Brilliant: 10 Ways to Make the Most of Your Vacation Time

A photography project that makes you notice (the usually cramped + crowded) New York buildings as the incredible feats of architecture (that they are): Misplaced New York. 

A stunning collection at NYFW and a smart kickstarter worth supporting. 

I was reading a post about Pipilotti Rist's (a video and multimedia artist) new exhibit at The New Museum in NYC and of course, fell down an internet rabbit hole to one of her other works Ever Is Over All... which, reminded me an awful lot of Beyonce's "Hold Up" music video... and then the internet confirmed that Beyonce's video is indeed paying homage to Rist:

"The exuberant display of female power - the juxtaposition between Rist's cheerful demeanor and violent actions - is both charming and cryptic. It seems obvious that Rist is commenting on the false expectations of feminine delicacy, but the deeper significance isn't so easy to divine. All this makes it a perfect point of reference for Beyonce, whose work frequently charts the intersection between female power and sexuality." 

That's all. Thanks again for reading my particular contribution to the liberal echo chamber and I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving, filled with hearty American portion sizes. 

SUMMER IN BOSTON: PART 4

Bits of summer (from my phone). 

A free Thursday night at The ICA.  

Nahant Beach. 

Cafe Fixe. 

EditMate at BostonFest. 

A coffee date. 

Scott at the Arboretum. 

Corn hole at Coppersmith. 

View from an evening bike commute. 

Lunch at the Barking Crab. 

JP Porch Fest. 

Basil making sure his Jesse gets out the door okay. 

Sun bathing at Castle Island. 

SUMMER IN BOSTON: PART 3

Scott and one of his new friends in JP. 

Salisbury Beach. 

Jesse (my new friend and roommate) and Scott, prepping a lobster dinner. 

A little Smokey (!!!)

The Mayflower.

Whale watching in Plymouth.

An afternoon on the Ocean Frank. 

Dusk at Jamaica Pond with Basil. 

This summer in Jamaica Plain included many day trips out, dinners in and a surprising amount of new dog friends for someone who doesn't own a dog.  

SUMMER IN BOSTON: PART 2

In May, we scored a great sublet in Jamaica Plain (it's now my fourth apartment in that neighborhood) and settled in for a summer in the city. 

A new home. 

Commuting through Chinatown. 

Charles Bradley in Cambridge. 

The Charles River. 

Locking up our new bikes. 

Farmers Market in the North End. 

Commonwealth Cold Brew at the JP Farmers Market. 

Scott appreciating American portion sizes. 

Wanting to re-create the magic that was biking around Newcastle, Perth and Singapore, we bought bikes and declared ourselves a two-man bike gang, cruising around everywhere: commuting to a co-working space downtown, to farmers markets in the North End, through Chinatown, Castle Island in South Boston, over the Charles River to Cambridge and yoga in Brookline. 

P.S. I bought my sky blue Linus bike at Superb Bicycle on Beacon Street and now it's now become one of the top 3 items I wholeheartedly recommend to people (...the other 2 being a Spotify account and an electric toothbrush -- all 3 will elevate your quality of life enormously). If you want a bike that's super comfortable, easy to ride -- and (let's be real here) hella cute -- I deeply recommend a Linus. 

SUMMER IN BOSTON: PART 1

Landing in Boston. I was overjoyed to see the Pru from the plane, but was simultaneously crying from watching the end of the movie "Me, Earl and Dying Girl" so it was a real rollercoaster of emotions. 

New England quaintness. 

Cape Cod Canal. 

Ryan Family Amusements. 

Ikea. 

Craig's List find. 

Pizza at Mark Anthony's in Onset. 

Arriving home in Boston, Scott and I hunkered down at my Grandmother's beach house in Wareham. It was April, so it was more rainy than beachy, so there wasn't much to do. We hit up the arcade and other local hot spots (like Target) but spent most of our time scouring Craig's List for apartments and furniture in an attempt to piece together a solid home for the summer, and perhaps beyond.

After being away for an extended period of time, being home has a way of smacking you in the face with the realities of life.

That was especially true this summer, but having Scott around as part of my team made everything a little easier.  He has a way of making even the boring domestic stuff weirdly fun: treating Craig's List like a treasure hunt, never failing to be delighted by ordering "a slice" (you can't order slices of pizza in NZ, only whole pies) and getting excited about grocery shopping ("I discovered this awesome place today. It's called 'Whole Foods'. We HAVE to go there").