Thursday, September 25, 2008

my dream dinner party



I wish...

This is the guest list to my dream dinner party, the list is completely selfish, they are just people I admire and would like to have met or could (will) meet. I like to cook so no worries on feeding all these folks. But what would be on the menu? Ahh... for a later post.

Jimmy Stewart (from my home state)

Barbara Jordan


Brancusi



Fanny Lou Hamer


Marjane Satrapi




Sarah Vaughan


Frederick Douglas

Agnes Martin

Josephine Baker


Diderot


Susana Baca



Abraham Lincoln

Azzedine Alaia

Bob Moses

Rembrandt



Alan Rickman


Queen Amina


Bach

John Coltrane

Shakespeare

Sojourner Truth


Bette Davis

Mos Def

Harriet Tubman

Barack (met him twice) and Michelle Obama



And Shirley Chisholm, every time I hear her speak I get chills:

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Miracle at St. Anna




I know another movie. It seems it is either movies or flora with me lately.

Well I have to write about this film. Maybe it is the season, or maybe it is because I just met Spike Lee tonight, he is by the way, one of the coolest brothers on the planet, no doubt. The movie opens this weekend, see it. Period.







The film is about Black soldiers who served in WWII in Europe. You did not know?





Well here is more, the very first American to die in the Revolutionary War was Crispus Attucks, a Black man.



Why does it matter, well in light of the consistent questioning of patriotism of Black Americans. Maybe the question comes from people who cannot imagine being patriotic in the face of the history of injustice of this country. To me I think, if you help build a country than you the same rights and responsibility as any other citizen. What is being more patriotic than to sacrific yourself for the hope of freedom. To fight for a country that does not consider you even a human? A citizen? It is the very reason to be considered a full citizen that you fight. It is for this very reason I believe Black America is by its very existence Patriotic. Capital P.

The other reason I think about this stuff? My father, Thaddeus Mosley served in WWII in the Navy.



Bless him! And bless everyone who served and continues to serve this country.

Peace, yes let's work for that, peace.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

J'adore Paul Ricault



"It flowers with such abandon that it is easy to gather literally armloads of perfect blooms for indoor arrangements. The perfume of 30 or so blooms will scent a house."

- Paul Barden




Mr. Barden has a site about Old Roses. My love, the Paul Ricault is 163 years young, he is French, love the French. His blooms are about 4" diameter and is an Centifolia (100 petals), so they are big, size sometimes matters, ladies and gentlemen.




But more important than size is this question, Do you know how to work what you got?

In the case of M. Ricault I say the answer is yes.

And so what if summer is over? My man Paul is suppose to bloom again in the Fall, I will be waiting for his call.




Enjoy.

(Images as indicated and RogersRoses)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Sense and cents

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Eve's Bayou




In the order of "The Philadelphia Story" "To Catch and Thief" "All About Eve" and "Sabrina." I think "Eve's Bayou" is one of the greatest fashion films.

When I say fashion I not only means what appears on the surface but fashion in its socio-cultural context. Placing us in a setting and letting the characters reveal themselves through their clothing while they also make their individual statements on setting, community, expectations, hopes, fears and mores. This is what we all do everyday that we get dressed.






Named Best of 1997 by Roger Ebert, you may have missed it or forgotten all about this gem, well the film is about memory, so remember. Staring one of the most beautiful women in the world Lynn Whitfeld and Samuel L. Jackson (also a beautiful) along with an amazing cast including the legendary Diahann Carroll.

A wonderful film. A great story, beautifully told in all cinemas masterful ways and a great look.







Peace. T.

* All Images from Trimark Pictures

Monday, September 15, 2008

Street Fight


When I am not sewing I am watching movies and reading.

I need to blog a bit more on my reading, that will come next.

But for now I am thinking elections. I finally watched "Street Fight" and there was something interesting about it:

The young gun vs. old establishment.

Hope and optimism vs. More of the same failed policy.

Truth vs. Lies.

Cohesive representative thinking vs. Extremist right-wing dogma



Sound familiar???




For insight and education on elections in America watch this film. It aint pretty but it is real. And this is real. This is a street fight and a soul fight for America.

Me I want America to BE America. Land of the free (remember that) home of the brave. BY the PEOPLE and FOR the People.

We The People - yeah it is up to us. Not anyone else.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Let me see if I have this straight.....

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'


Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.


If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.




Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.





Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.


If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review.



Create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on theForeign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.


If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified
to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.




If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.






OK, much clearer now.

- Alexander P. Heckler

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Inspiration: Russian Ark



There is something maddening and wonderful about renting videos in Nairobi. There is no real logic to the movies in the shop. Movies come mainly from Asia so the standard list you expect from say an American or even European standpoint falls flat. It means films you want or expect to see like Casablanca or Citizen Kane will not be there. But a gem, a masterpiece that you never heard of it (that I never heard of) like Russian Ark, is.


The beautiful thing about my first viewing of Russian Ark is that I did not know anything about the making of the film and the one shot. Russian Ark (Русский ковчег) was released in 2002 by Russian director Alexander Sokurov. As I watched the film there was an amazing revelation in my little head, at one point I said to the friend watching with me, about 40 minutes in or so, "You know, I think there has not been one cut yet. I mean this has been only one shot!" She did not believe, so the rest of the film we waited...


I loved the film so much I immediately went to the extras section to find out the deal. It was confirmed this intense story with complex images, costumes filmed throughout the Hermitage was made in one shot. This is amazing but in the end not the heart of the film, the heart is well three things - beauty, love and identity. Beauty both in the film and place - place the Hermitage, the art and people within. Love the love it took to create both the film and all of the art. Identity: What and who is Russia? Europe's distance little cousin eating in the kitchen or sitting at the adult table of the Continent?



I have seen it at least six times and writing this makes me want to watch it a seventh time.








Enjoy.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

“Wine is sunlight held together by water.”



So said Galileo.



I wish I could say I read this beautiful sentence in Galileo’s writing, though I do read, I heard this in a movie. (Hey I live in LA.)




“Bottle Shock” is a new film, set in 1976 the year of Franco-American wine competition where the upstart “Kids from the sticks” won. Sorry to give away the ending but even if you did not know the story you knew it where it was going. But the film features the de-lovely Alan Rickman, worth the price of admission to be sure.





What the film does well is express the beauty of wine and of patience to make something from a variety of ingredients, most of which you have little to no control over.



I realize how lucky I am to have to worry only about paper, pencil, textile and machine. Not so bad when you think about it. If it rains or does not I am still okay. Sun or no sun, fine. Dirt, as long as it does not get on my samples I am a happy woman.

This past weekend a new and wonderful wine shop opened on Abbot Kinney called El Vino, a mere two doors down from a place a work on the weekends, oh so dangerous and lovely for me.



The owners took two years to pull it all together but it was worth it. The store is beautiful, the wine selection mind-boggling and they know what they are doing. At a tasting a tried several Italian sparking wines, a Prosecco I plan on buying soon, perfect Extra Dry, I cannot wait to sit on my porch and sip it while the sunsets.

When I lived in Kenya we had sundowners, a lovely British tradition of having gin and tonic after a day of work or even better after the last safari drive.



California style sundowners, a tradition if not already in place, I will do my best to initiate, will be wines from around the world. I cannot wait.

Cheers.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Inspiration: Andy Goldsworthy




Master the medium but know you can never really master it.






Working within the context of your material, its limitations and infinite possibilities.



Andy Goldsworthy is a great inspiration for everyone.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

MSNBC? NBC?? You must be kidding me!

MSNBC? NBC?? You must be kidding me!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/media/08msnbc.html?ref=politics

Okay so we can have an entire network dedicated to the Republican agenda of destroying America, but we cannot have two just two reporters on a major network with some sense? Give me a giant break. This is an outrage. Olbermann is one of the best reporters in broadcast media. Matthews is insightful and feeling, rare among the talking heads on TV. I am going to end here and write a letter of protest to NBC.

I hope you do the same.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

We all shine on!!

Dedicated to the Republicans of the United States of America, I hope you get it, it is not too late.*




"Look your brother in the face, EVERYONE you meet." - John Lennon



(*Okay for 2008 it is too late. GObama!!!!!)

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Black Soap



So I just watched Annie Hall for the billionth time - love, luff, lurv it! If you have seen the movie you’ll understand.

Anyway the scene with the Erno Laszlo black soap always cracks me up. (Do people still use that term?)






But this time I was reminded how amazing black soap is and as luck would have it, the LA African Marketplace was happening just in time for me to buy a big old jar of it for only $5.

It really does everything it says it does on the label.




I have no idea how it works or why, it just does. Love, luff, lurv it.