art crawl with kristin

coolest guest crawler: kristin aka ponytown. kristin is uber rad and overshadows my love for art tenfold, so she is the bestest guest crawler. here on a very short whirlwind trip, i was able to score some time with the arty greatness that is kristin. we hit up the jeff koon's exhibit on the roof of the met and proceeded to get lost trying to find the superheroes: fashion and fantasy. i don't know why, but the met is like the black hole of all museums to me. last time i was here i passed the japanese tea garden a bazillion times, and this time the grand hall was my nemesis.

from the met, we hit the whitney for the last weekend of the the biennial. we started on the lower level to check out kristin's buddy's installation in conjunction with npr (neighborhood public radio). you can record yourself on fridays from 1-3pm and they will broadcast in san fran and online. i guess there was a hub next door but we missed it, but there's a fun video below. it's kinda buried. you have to view the intro of the biennial, click "more" after the video concludes. it's the third vignette, pass omer fast and lisa sigal. click the >> twice.

then, we went to the top to check out the permanent collection, which opens to works of the late robert rauschenberg. the collection has quite a few edward hoppers and of course whimsical calders. moving down to the biennial, it was nice to see robert bechtle's paintings included. it reminds me of working at the Q in potrero hill. here is a video that gives a good scope of the exhibit.


must eats after crawling: yuka. all you can eat sushi for $18.95!!! it's no fancy schmancy sushi, but you can eat as much as you want and for two starving gals it's the perfect din din after two museums. the waitress pretty much didn't think we could pack it away, but after 4 rounds of orders i think we set her straight. go us!

kudos for kula

most worthy of kudos: kula yoga project. major props to my yoga studio getting singled out as one of the hot spots to take advanced yoga classes in the new york times today. there is a longer article about what classifies an advance yoga class. here's an awesome pic of aarona. i take her honey flow class almost every sunday and if you come i'll sign you in. BONUS!

san fran love - UPDATED w/ pics

top 5 san fran/bay area loves over 2 days:

5.) amoeba! i miss the ultimate record store. i sold some stuff as i usually do and got some new tunes. love it! i miss the rows and rows of music. too bad i couldn't find lucinda black bear or labrador 100. i forgot about good ol' haight with it's loitering youth carrying knapsacks. ahh kezar stadium, where you get validated parking for an hour from amoeba. the city high school track meet was going on. also, passed by my old yoga studio.

4.) in n' out. yup, i made my brother come and pick me up during my two hour layover at sfo to get me some double double animal style goodness.

3.) shopping with my bestest friend and getting great deals at j crew. yay for final sales! we didn't make the golden gate bridge, but shopping is a good alternative. la taqueria was the perfect shopping fuel.

2.) lazy home time on sunday. dim sum with the rents for a belated mother's day and early birthday. old school hs chat time in my childhood room with stace and sue. haircut with stylist extraordinaire liana. yoga session tips for my bro.

1.) welcome home to your favorite brooklynite at john collins or the unofficial belated launch party for sharocksthe.blogspot.com. thanks to all that came out on saturday. you really know how to welcome a hometown gal. thanks karim for the pics! look at our loverily mugs.

thanks to andy and katie for hyping the blog.

welcome jess to the blog goodness!

vancouver 'ay!

best hostesses: chloe and julie!!! i heart my canadian gals and they showed me a good time in van. apparently, van is closely knit because julie and chloe have a good friend in common and were at the same party a few years back. yay for friends of friends!

must dessert: la casa gelato. ever wanted 218 gelato flavors including things like curry, corn and licorice? this place has it and you can prolly just get full off samples. i opted for the chocolate ginger. i think it's because i was still dreaming of the cake jac made for gloria's birthday.

best bar above a 7-11: railway club. julie is so hip and clued me into this spot, where you can drink like a sailor and listen to alt-coutry-ish bands. as in canada you drink canadian, so i had a granville pale ale (a special of the night), a rye (canadian whiskey) and coke, upper canada brewing co brew (they didn't have the maple brown unfortunately) and lastly a canadian cider that I can't recall the name of.

must warehouse sale: karma. shar loves her some karma yoga goodness. i've been in love with this canadian yoga retailer since 2005 when i got my first pair of pants. how fitting that the warehouse sale is going on while the sharster is in town. it was fate. all the kids love the lululemon, but something about the only in canada quality of karma gets me.

best place to get your indie tunes: zulu records. they have ol' school atari tabletop consoles and helpful staff. got me the last copy of basia bulat's album. love getting artists' cds in their homeland. something extra special about it. also picked up the adele album. she's not canadian but she's playing sunday in van at the red room.

for all my travellers on memorial day weekend

must site prior to packing: onebag.com. i heard about this on npr and i thought it would be useful to all you traveling this weekend. i am a firm believer in the one bag philosophy. i haven't had to check luggage in a while. years prolly. i've heard too many horror stories about lost luggage and shar HATES waiting at baggage claim.

p.s. looking forward to seeing my canadian pals and sf buddies.

worst activity before traveling: wall street run & heart walk. being charitable kinda sucks sometimes when the weather doesn't cooperate. thanks to those of you who sponsored me!

black kids @ bowery

must dance party: black kids at bowery ballroom. this was a mixed bag for my pals, but i had a ball bouncing around with all the young things. apparently, mike did not enjoy reggie nixing kid sis ali's desire to intro the whole band. sibling rivalry? mel did NOT enjoy random guy backing into her for the first half of the concert. ali and dawn were uber great with their keys. bonus points to ali for rolling on the ground.

cover to admire: kate nash covering black kids

FLTGC: deitch and dactyl

missing in action from fltgc: jac, co-founder of fltgc. it was strange not to have her there, but i inducted 3 new members (david, linda and ryan). we braved the rain and hit up deitch for dubossarsky and vinogradov's the new people are already here. the pieces were huge and there were only three, so breezed through that and took more time with taylor mckimens' soft serve. his style is reminiscent of robert crumb to me.

we continued to the deitch wing on wooster for the substraction exhibit. the highlight was aaron young's tire drawings. ryan seemed to know the most about this and told us about how young had a warehouse where sheets of metal were biked over to create the tire drawings. he also inquired about the pieces and apparently these puppies go for $40k and they were all sold out. that's so money!
best exhibit to stumble upon: yelena yemchuk's notes on fantomas at dactul. this ukranian artist creates pieces that look like pages from a demented fairy tale. dactul has a really nice space with leather couches and dimly lighted.

les liaisons dangereuses

must see revival - play: les liaisons dangereuses. yup, it was good and the sets were definitely tony nominated worthy. come on, it's laura linney as le marquise de merteuil. i love me some laura linney, especially in you can count on me. ben daniels was quite the counter lead to ms. linney as well. his comic timing was impeccable and matching the icy performance by the female lead is no easy task.

#9

celeb sighting for the day(#9): gina gershon at kula yoga project. ms. gershon goes to my yoga studio. i noticed those lips first and knew they were from somewhere. i sold her some zico coconut water and gave her change. almost touched her. she said she had a series, but her series ran out so she totally had to plan. i was a little intimidated to hit up cristol conners for dough. i left a note for the instructor to have her pay after class.

murakami mother's day

best spot to spend mother's day: brooklyn museum. strollers were rampant at the museum and i even saw a stroller docking section in the murakami exhibit. the exhibit isn't rated pg, but most of the pieces are exploding with cuteness. you can't help but enjoy.


revelation of the day: murakami designed the cover of kayne west's "graduation" album. i recognized the anime-like style and i should know kanye's keen eye for style and design that he would enlist murikami's talents for an album cover. shame on shar for not knowing.

second best accomplishment for mother's day: after calling mom and wishing her best wishes for the day and how i would make it up to her later this month when i'm home, i did a little something for my other mom - mother earth. that was cheesy, huh? well, i love me the environment and i FINALLY found a place to recycle plastic bags. i was ecstatic. my pet peeve is the crazy multiplication of plastic bags in my apartment even though i make a conscious effort not to take bags and always have my tote. so when i saw the barrel for plastic bag recycling you can just imagine my elation. i stuffed those suckers nice a good. if you want to do want to give mother earth a hug, the barrel is on baltic and smith in brooklyn.

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fltgc

return of friday lunch time gallery crawl: for one reason or another we haven't had a crawl for a few weeks, but it continued today at artist space. jac picked this one is twas fun and eclectic. jac was wooed by the new normal exhibit, but i end up really liking christa blatchford's see around which has video of shorelines and white tuffets to sit on to enjoy the waves.

site you should check out if you like assignments: learningtoloveyoumore.com i learned about this site from a piece at artist space. assignment #50 was on display and there was the cutest pic of a kitten. so cute and tiny. too bad jac didn't have her camera to capture it.


fltgc preview: on our way to artist space we popped into deitch to see the dubossarsky and vinogradov's the new people are already here exhibit, but we were molded because it doesn't open until 6pm tonight. they were still installing bits of it. next friday! deitch - grand street! be there!

el perro del mar w/ lykke li @ joe's pub

best swedish girl power representation: el perro del mar, lykke li and anna ternheim at joe's pub. it was the second stop of the tour and the first show in new york. girl power was in force and from anna's intel there have not been any cat fights yet. anna started off with a guitar, piano and an ipod (her band). lykke li tried to get the crowd dancing, but the joe's pub is a largely sit down cabaret affair. el perro del mar was more lively than i was expecting since the new album is more sleepy. she managed to keep me up with lots of tunes from her self-titled first album.

best dressed dancer: lykke li. the girl can dress. she sported high waisted black wide legged pants with $600 wedges. the value was confimed by mel, who is the shoe admirer. lykke paired the pants and wedges with a wide neck boxy tee. can you tell i'm not a fashionista? she had a slew of gold chains with big arse charms, on of which was a peace sign. I found a pic of it from SXSW.the pants and shirt served to accent her swirly hip movements. lykke was a treat and for those of you going to the bowery show tonight are in for a treat. dance, dance, dance!

best encore: el perro and del mar and lykke li covering wendy rene's after laughter. it's a old school r&b/soul ditty that i am now in love with. thanks for swedes introducing me to new oldies. apparently, alicia keys recently covered the same tune on her recent album (track 11).

feat of the day

feat of the day: great saunter. completed miles = 32. i can say that i have walked the entire rim of manhattan and now have 4 blisters to prove it. go me! jac had the grand plan to do this and when time came to walk i was the only one registered with her. the great thing is along the way we had friends walk part of it with us. it was a great boast of moral support.

first, julia joined us from 145th and walked with us to inwood. she was a superstar and brought us vitamin water - endurance flavor. quite appropriate.next, jenni stop by at 78th to join us on the east side until 63rd. she was sore from a class the day before but she was a trooper and added much needed cheer.
lastly, mel joined in at 39th and walked with us to the very end to south street seaport, where we started at 7:30 am. she treated us to beer and appetizers at heartland brewery.
meal of the day: el sol del cilone. man, all we wanted was some mexican/dominican food in inwood. they are known for it. so we went off the path for lunch to discover this find. this is what jac ate for $5.50 and we got corona in a wine glass. CLASSY!









weirdest path on the great saunter: so as the whole dealio with the great saunter is to walk the rim of the island of manhattan you can expect a very interesting route. some directions required us to walk over and under bridges. some told us to make a "hairpin" turn. other directions warned us about oncoming traffic, and sometimes they neglected to warn us about traffic. thanks shorewalkers. BUT, the greatest direction they gave us was to walk through a construction site in harlem. AWESOME! not really, but it was amusing to walk in an area where is was obviously restricted and hard hats were mandatory. yup, we didn't have those or boots. oh well, this is me posing with the "safety sign." it's ironic, no?
my fav moment of the saunter:

snap judgement: coldplay's "violet hill"

band i'm trying to love again: coldplay. after x & y, i sorta hated my brit blokes. i miss the old coldplay of the "parachutes" days. when they looked like this.

i didn't mind ROBTTH, but the increasing popularity of after "x & y" was ridiculous. the album friends was not to stellar even though it sold a bi gillion copies. anyhow, i just heard the latest single from their upcoming album "viva la vida". "violet hill" has possibilities of wooing me back. i can't hate on my once fav band. i guess it's more disappointment of what they have become. not so keen on chris entering the kayne and jay-z front either. i guess guy still isn't tainted and single again.