The Deadly Nightshade 2

The windows of the Brown estate were boarded up. The contents of the house disappeared as Byron Browns creditors clawed at everything that wasn’t nailed down.

Like a complete jigsaw puzzle being dismantled one piece at a time, Belladonna watched the life she knew disappear and the skeleton of a new one form.

The feeling of cold invisibility, she felt like a wallflower, a spectator as strangers in single file raped the contents of her home.

“No,” she screeched at one of the removalists, clutching her wooden spinning top until the carved symbols on its surface pressed red indentations into her palm. Set about his task he ignored the little girl’s protestations and her pain.

She was the last thing to be liquidated. Lilydale’s Finishing School sent a car for her one overcast Sunday. A heavyset Turkish schoolmistress, Ma’am, as she insisted on being called, had been sent to escort Belladonna to her new home.

“You will collect your things and come with me, your Grandfather has enrolled you and you will receive an education commensurate with your breeding. The death of your irresponsible parents was the best thing that could have happened to you, imagine, home schooling a child,” without making eye contact Ma’am judgmentally surveyed the wreckage of the once proud Brown estate, “Don’t dally child we have a long journey, go!”

Tears stung her eyes, “No!”

Throwing her toy on the ground she ran for the door. With her eyes closed she kept running but she could no longer feel the ground under her feet. Ma’am had her suspended by her shirt colour as she struggled desperately to free herself of this circumstance.

“You’d do well not to make an enemy of me young lady and I’ll only say this once more, GO!”

What do you pack? How do you pack a childhood into a single trunk? You can’t.

So she packed nothing.

“I’m ready, Ma’am”

“That’s a good girl.”

People to eat, things to see...

Not all cities can do food. Of course, all cities have food but Amsterdam is a city that does food, it enjoys it's food. It was an interesting dichotomy from New York where food is plentiful and quantity and economy are king to Amsterdam where quality reigns supreme.

No where is this dichotomy more evident than in chocolate. At the Hershey's store on 5th Avenue in New York I saw plump tourists smack their lips at the prospect of a bargain 3kg block of chocolate while in Amsterdam there are small, independently owned chocolate shops where you pay about the same but come away with half a dozen petite and artful morsels.



Puccini was a on the corner of our block and had everything from white chocolate with vanilla, dark chocolate with chili, gin with lime rind and walnut truffles with cinnamon.

When in Rome? When in Amsterdam, Pancake.

Pancakes at Barney's with strawberries and from Sara's pancake house with Bananas. Also my own attempt at French toast with the Maple syrup or Ahornstroop that I bought from the near by organic farmers market.





Cheese, Cheese and more Cheese. My favorite is the white fleshed semi-hard goats cheese which is made by hand in Holland. Above was my breakfast, Goats Cheese, Triple Bree with truffles, Saint Agur blue, tomato relish, Grapes and Sourdough (the coffee and the joint are out of frame ; ).It's worth a trip for the food alone but the best thing was the sense of community that all these small independent shops engender. I loved it! Although I think I'll go easy on the maple syrup next time ; ).

A European Black Hole

When I got home from my trip I had spectacularly vivid memories of New York, memories that wake me at night and pictures that make my daydreams more pleasant than they have been in a long time.

Amsterdam on the other hand...

When I recounted my trip to a friend,

"So, how was Amsterdam?"

"um..."

"Haha," he said, "don't worry, I had the same experience, Amsterdam is a black hole."

Names of places come back in a hazy fog and memories like an avant-garde montage.

Like many tourists holidaying with a new lover in a city where marijuana is legal, I fell into the proverbial black hole.

Walking from the apartment we stayed in, on more than one occasion we passed a preschool. It was -5 degrees and the children dropped off on the back of bicycles looked like adorable walking small winter coats, all eyes, mittens and feet.

Staying in the Centrum (the central precinct in Amsterdam) in a furnished apartment meant I could feel more a resident than a tourist.



Should you like winter and gray days then you would love this city in January.

The architecture is spectacular. Often described as a living museum, you can't help but walk around this city and feel humble. As Australians with our oldest European influenced architecture dating as recently as 200 years, Amsterdam is 700 years old in parts. The streets never built for traffic and the pace of life feels the same. It's foreign and infectious.

The view from the balcony of the apartment.

MoMA

Sorry, that wasn't my 100th post. She's pretty but can she count?

The Museum of Modern Art in New York is spectacular. I am intentionally making next years trip longer so I can spend more time there among other things.

Here are a few of my super favorite highlights! Enjoy!

'Chair No. 41' (1881) designed by Austrian Michael Thonet.

This is 1881 IKEA. Flat pack furniture. It is beechwood and cane and is the worlds first flat pack furniture. First designed to meet the needs of mass production and distribution in 1858.

I love the idea that in 1881 there was someone looking curiously at their new chair and saying,

"Are we meant to have an extra screw?"

I love biological modern art!

This is a series of Tissue Culture Art Projects by the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia. It was referred to as 'The Pigs Wing Project'.

Proving that pigs can fly!

'Porca Miseria!' Chandelier (1994) by German Ingo Maurer.

This is totally awesome! Its a Chandelier that looks like a set of china and silver cutlery has exploded and is suspended in the air. Influenced by cinematic slow motion explosions, it is the artists rebellion against fashionable contemporary design.

I want one!

This is 'Drawing Restraint 9: Shimenawa' by Matthew Barney. This work was done in 2005 and the artist was born in 1967. Its a chromatic color print.

There are two incredible things that got me about this. It appears that the couple in the print are wet and only their severed torsos are floating on what looks like a milk bath. Its a divine visual effect, your brain really thinks when looking at this.

But the second, and my favorite draw card about this work is the symbolism. The passionate embrace and the two knives at the ready. So true, don't you think? How vulnerable we make ourselves in that situation, both ready to defend yourselves emotionally if you need to.




This work is breathtaking. You sort of need to be there. While a lot of the modern art around it was making noise and vying for you attention. This one kind sat there quietly but its asymmetrical aesthetic and humble color drew me to it. You feel balanced and happy when you are looking at this.

David Navros 'VI:XXXII' (1966) Vinyl lacquer paint on shaped canvases.



'Untitled' (1990) by Christopher Wool. This work is commanding, taking up almost an entire wall. it is part of a series of enamel on wood language-based black-and-white works. The expression was used in the 1957 movie, Sweet Smell of Success, written by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets.

I love this phrase, its is said to indicate that a dirty job has been done.

Question: "Did you take care of it?"

Response: "Cats in bag, bags in river."

Oh God it was all marvelous! I want to go back now : (

The Chelsea Hotel

There were a handful of things that I needed to do when in New York. The most important of which was to stay at the Chelsea Hotel. The Chelsea prides itself on being 'the rest stop for rare individuals'.

Think hard, because you may be more familiar with it than you think. It has had such famous residents as Janis Joplin, Brett Whitely, Jimmy Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Arthur C Clark and Stanley Kubrick while they wrote '2001 a Space Odyssey'. To name a few. I asked for the room where Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy, and the poster out the front of our room makes me think I may have got my wish!




The foyer is a circus. I spent ages here just taking it all in. The eclecticism and the vibrant history that is represents. I loved it!



The spectacular light filled stairwell. There were elevators but the stairwell walls are covered in art. The wrought iron railings make you want to cry. I didn't use that elevator much ; ).


The portrait of Sid Vicious, of the Sex pistols, that hung outside our room. He allegedly stabbed Nancy in the Chelsea.




Our room and its view. We only spent two days here but next year when I head back, I am there for whole time! The staff are rude bordering on arrogant. There is no room service. The rooms look like a 5yr old did the paint work.

So, if your after a hotel that feels like a hotel, then your in the wrong place. But, if your after a soul feeding experience and a hotel that feels like a gestalt entity. Then The Chelsea is your girl!

Utterly magnificent!

www.hotelchelsea.com

Shoes, bags and Little Italy

Pizza, Red wine and warm apple cider in Little Italy.

and...um.... Shoes

more specifically, Fluevogs.

What is a Fluevog?

A Fluevog is a brand of shoe. But the word shoe is inadequate. Footwear isn't sufficient either. A Fluvog is a religious experience and I bought four pairs when I was in New York!!!!

Thankyou John Fluevog!

That's my pile of boxes! Kim and the sexy sales boy that measured my feet! They work on a commission structure so he was as excited about my purchases as I was.

I had budgeted for this and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to walk into the Fluevog store in Little Italy and make it my own. I did just that! I'll have that one, those, those in green and do have these with an open toe?

Handbag heaven is a nearby shop, aptly named BAG. You can smell the leather from the street and it draws you in as you are captivated by the colors, designs and pure elegance of it all. That's the blue leather bag I bought. Can you legally marry a handbag?

OMG!

The shopping in Little Italy is supurb! Bugger 5th avenue with its ostentatious overpriced rubbish that you can buy in any city in the world. Little Italy is an enclave for those New York only gems!

Plus once your done and you need somewhere to sit to catch your breath while you go into a mild form of shock about how much you spent.

Australian wines are very popular in a lot of the restaurants in Little Italy , while I stuck to the Italian and American wines it was nice to see us on the menu!

Little Italy and China Town are separated by a single road. It is surreal. While we didn't make it to Yum Cha we did walk though illegal reseller ally.

Its worth going to New York just for that, I think. Mainly African Americans standing at make shift stalls screaming,

"Get a Rolex before the cops do!"

But my favorite was the guy that stopped Kim and I and said,

"Hey baby girl, new Rolex? new Handbag? new boyfriend?"

Needless to say I didn't stop there to take photos ; ).

December and bring on NewYork