Nightclubs are hell. What's cool or fun about a thumping, sweaty dungeon full of posing idiots?

by: Charlie Brooker of The Guardian, Monday 13 August 2007

I went to a fashionable London nightclub on Saturday. Not the sort of sentence I get to write very often, because I enjoy nightclubs less than I enjoy eating wool. But a glamorous friend of mine was there to "do a PA", and she'd invited me and some curious friends along because we wanted to see precisely what "doing a PA" consists of. Turns out doing a public appearance largely entails sitting around drinking free champagne and generally just "being there".
Obviously, at 36, I was more than a decade older than almost everyone else, and subsequently may as well have been smeared head to toe with pus. People regarded me with a combination of pity and disgust. To complete the circuit, I spent the night wearing the expression of a man waking up to Christmas in a prison cell.

"I'm too old to enjoy this," I thought. And then remembered I've always felt this way about clubs. And I mean all clubs - from the cheesiest downmarket sickbucket to the coolest cutting-edge hark-at-us poncehole. I hated them when I was 19 and I hate them today. I just don't have to pretend any more.

I'm convinced no one actually likes clubs. It's a conspiracy. We've been told they're cool and fun; that only "saddoes" dislike them. And no one in our pathetic little pre-apocalyptic timebubble wants to be labelled "sad" - it's like being officially declared worthless by the state. So we muster a grin and go out on the town in our millions.

Clubs are despicable. Cramped, overpriced furnaces with sticky walls and the latest idiot theme tunes thumping through the humid air so loud you can't hold a conversation, just bellow inanities at megaphone-level. And since the smoking ban, the masking aroma of cigarette smoke has been replaced by the overbearing stench of crotch sweat and hair wax.

Clubs are such insufferable dungeons of misery, the inmates have to take mood-altering substances to make their ordeal seem halfway tolerable. This leads them to believe they "enjoy" clubbing. They don't. No one does. They just enjoy drugs.

Drugs render location meaningless. Neck enough ketamine and you could have the best night of your life squatting in a shed rolling corks across the floor. And no one's going to search you on the way in. Why bother with clubs?

"Because you might get a shag," is the usual response. Really? If that's the only way you can find a partner - preening and jigging about like a desperate animal - you shouldn't be attempting to breed in the first place. What's your next trick? Inventing fire? People like you are going to spin civilisation into reverse. You're a moron, and so is that haircut you're trying to impress. Any offspring you eventually blast out should be drowned in a pan before they can do any harm. Or open any more nightclubs.

Even if you somehow avoid reproducing, isn't it a lot of hard work for very little reward? Seven hours hopping about in a hellish, reverberating bunker in exchange for sharing 64 febrile, panting pelvic thrusts with someone who'll snore and dribble into your pillow till 11 o'clock in the morning, before waking up beside you with their hair in a mess, blinking like a dizzy cat and smelling vaguely like a ham baguette? Really, why bother? Why not just stay at home punching yourself in the face? Invite a few friends round and make a night of it. It'll be more fun than a club.

Anyway, back to Saturday night, and apart from the age gap, two other things stuck me. Firstly, everyone had clearly spent far too long perfecting their appearance. I used to feel intimidated by people like this; now I see them as walking insecurity beacons, slaves to the perceived judgment of others, trapped within a self- perpetuating circle of crushing status anxiety. I'd still secretly like to be them, of course, but at least these days I can temporarily erect a veneer of defensive, sneering superiority. I've progressed that far.

The second thing that struck me was frightening. They were all photographing themselves. In fact, that's all they seemed to be doing. Standing around in expensive clothes, snapping away with phones and cameras. One pose after another, as though they needed to prove their own existence, right there, in the moment. Crucially, this seemed to be the reason they were there in the first place. There was very little dancing. Just pouting and flashbulbs.

Surely this is a new development. Clubs have always been vapid and awful and boring and blah - but I can't remember clubbers documenting their every moment before. Not to this demented extent. It's not enough to pretend you're having fun in the club any more - you've got to pretend you're having fun in your Flickr gallery, and your friends' Flickr galleries. An unending exhibition in which a million terrified, try-too-hard imbeciles attempt to out-cool each other.

Mind you, since in about 20 years' time these same people will be standing waist-deep in skeletons, in an arid post-nuclear wasteland, clubbing each other to death in a fight for the last remaining glass of water, perhaps they're wise to enjoy these carefree moments while they last. Even if they're only pretending.

The Invention of Lying

"The film features a high concept narrative set in an alternate reality in which there is no such thing as lying and everything said is the absolute truth. In this world people continually make very blunt, often cruel statements, and remarks that people in the real world would normally keep to themselves. The concepts of fiction, imagination and speculation do not exist resulting in the movie industry being limited to lecture-style historical readings, television commercials being straightforward and an absence of religion"


Can you imagine a world where people actually say whats on their mind?

I can. Why are people so deceiving and manipulative? I'm so sick of it. Of people. I want something real and honest.



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1058017/

“Minimalism is not a style, it is an attitude, a way of being. It’s a fundamental reaction against noise, visual noise, disorder, vulgarity. Minimalism is the pursuit of the essence of things, not the appearance.”
— Claudio Silvestrin

Thanks for the link J. These make me laugh and smile.




Sooo funny and so TRUE! There isn't a box or bag that goes unscathed in my house.

Tree of Codes

"[A]n extraordinary journey that activates the layers of time and space involved in the handling of a book and its heap of words. Jonathan Safran Foer deftly deploys sculptural means to craft a truly compelling story. In our world of screens, he welds narrative, materiality, and our reading experience into a book that remembers it actually has a body." — Olafur Eliasson, artist

Tree of Codes, is a haunting new story by best-selling American writer, Jonathan Safran Foer. With a different die-cut on every page, Tree of Codes explores previously unchartered literary territory. Initially deemed impossible to make, the book is a first - as much a sculptural object as it is a work of masterful storytelling. Inspired to exhume a new story from an existing text, Jonathan Safran Foer has taken his favourite book, The Street of Crocodiles by Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz and used it as a canvas, cutting into and out of the pages, to arrive at an original new story told in Safran Foer's own acclaimed voice. Tree of Codes is the story of 'an enormous last day of life'. As one character's life is chased to extinction, Safran Foer multi-layers the story with immense, anxious, at times disorientating imagery, crossing both a sense of time and place, making the story of one person's last day everyone's story. The book has a broad appeal: to both literary audiences, intrigued by Safran Foer's new way of writing and to design and art audiences who will revel in the book's remarkable and unique visual experience.

Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the novels Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and a work of nonfiction, Eating Animals. His books have won numerous awards and have been translated into 36 languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

There was a long period in my life where I listened to this song, on repeat with my headphones on, every night while falling asleep. It's so Euphoric, as are many of Orbital's songs.

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. ~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Sweet new ring.

These brat pack mashup's of Pheonix Lisztomania make me smile :)

Best. comics. ever.

*via http://www.pbfcomics.sciesnet.net/

Grilled Flank Steak with Tomatillos Two Ways and Sweet Potato Fries

For tomatillo salsa:
4 pasillas de Oaxaca (dried smoked chiles), wiped clean
1 pound fresh tomatillos, husked and rinsed, then quartered
1 cup packed cilantro sprigs
2 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon molasses (not blackstrap)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/3 cup vegetable oil

For steaks and tomatillo salad:
1/4 cup vegetable oil, divided
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1 3/4 pounds skirt steak, halved
1/2 pound fresh tomatillos, husked and rinsed
1 cup cilantro leaves
2 teaspoons finely chopped shallot
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
print a shopping list for this recipe

Preparation

Make salsa:
Slit chiles lengthwise, then stem and seed. Heat a dry heavy skillet (not nonstick) over medium heat until hot, then toast chiles, opened flat, turning and pressing with tongs, until more pliable and slightly changed in color, about 1 minute. Cover chiles with hot water in a bowl and soak until softened, about 20 minutes, then drain.

Purée chiles, tomatillos, cilantro, garlic, brown sugar, molasses, cumin, and 1 teaspoon salt in a blender until smooth, about 1 minute.

Heat oil in a 10-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then cook salsa (it will spatter), stirring occasionally, until slightly thicker, 5 to 8 minutes.

Grill steaks:
Prepare a grill for direct-heat cooking over hot charcoal (high heat for gas); see Grilling Procedure.

Whisk together 2 tablespoons oil, cumin, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1 tsp pepper, then coat steaks.

Oil grill rack, then grill steaks, covered only if using a gas grill, turning once, until grill marks appear, 4 to 6 minutes total for medium-rare. Let steaks rest on a cutting board, loosely covered with foil, 10 minutes.

Make salad while steaks rest:
Chop tomatillos and toss with cilantro, shallot, lime juice, remaining 2 tablespoons oil, and salt and pepper to taste.

Cut steaks into serving pieces and top with salsa and salad.


Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon Chilie Powder
Zest and Juice of 1 lime
1 tablespoon course sea salt
2 tablespoon minced cilantro
Olive Oil for tossing
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch long slices, then 1/4-wide inch strips

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Line a sheet tray with parchment. In a large bowl toss sweet potatoes with just enough oil to coat. Sprinkle with seasonings and cilantro. Spread sweet potatoes in single layer on prepared baking sheet, being sure not to overcrowd. Bake until sweet potatoes are tender and golden brown, turning occasionally, about 20 minutes. Let cool 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

I opened up IE this morning, per usual, to check my mail and right at the top was "The 5 worst celebrity haircuts." Normally I wouldn't even bother clicking the link, but there was a picture of the adorable Emma Watson and her super short pixie cut. She was number 5 in a list of varying different do's.


Since when did the classic pixie cut turn into a "bad haircut?"

Okay. I understand the sexual and anthropological importance of hair is well-documented as an indicator of health, beauty and desirability; and while long, lustrous hair is equated with youth, femininity and wanton sexuality; and short hair is sometimes perceived as asexually androgynous or even manly.

Here is a quote from a very intelligent (cough) and deep (cough) man on the subject of short hair on a woman "The more feminine female looks - the more attractive she is. And short hair is understood by men as a sign of masculinity. The dream girl always has long and beautiful hair. As far as they themselves already have short hair, they want to touch the long ones, they like to play with it and be proud of their beautiful and, what's the most important, feminine girl." - What Men Hate about Women http://www.jurgita.com/articles-id2222.html


Short hair is actually LOVED by many, and also on the other spectrum hated by many. And some people hate long hair. And some could give a rat's ass.

I think Miss Watson looks stunning with her pixie cut. It screams confidence and, to me, makes her look mature and super sexy.

While I'm at it, here are a few more pictures of this super cute "bad haircut."

The Man Who Didn’t Believe in Love
by don Miguel Ruiz (from The Mastery of Love)

There was once a man who didn’t believe in love. This was an ordinary man just like you and me, but what made this man special was his way of thinking: He thought love doesn’t exist. Of course, he had a lot of experience trying to find love, and he observed the people around him. Much of his life had been spent searching for love, only to find that love didn’t exist.

Wherever this man went, he would tell people of his thoughts and opinions on love. This man was highly intelligent, and he was very convincing. What he said was the love is just like a drug; it makes you very high, but it creates a strong need. You can become highly addicted to love, but what happens when you don’t receive your daily doses of love? Just like a drug, you need your everyday doses.

He used to say that most relationships between lovers are just like a relationship between a drug addict and the one who provides the drugs. The one who has the biggest need is like the drug addict; the one who has a little need is like the provider. The one who has the little need is the one who controls the whole relationship. You can see this dynamic so clearly because usually in every relationship there is one who loves the most and the other who doesn’t love as much. You can see the way they manipulate each other, their actions and reactions, and they are just like the provider and the drug addict.

The drug addict, the one who has the biggest need, lives in constant fear that perhaps he will not be able to get the next dosage of love, or the drug. The drug addict thinks, “What am I going to do if she leaves me?” That fear makes the drug addict very possessive. “That’s mine!” The addict becomes jealous and demanding, because the fear of not having the next dosage. The provider can control and manipulate the one who needs the drug by giving more doses, fewer doses, or no doses at all. The one who has the biggest need completely surrenders and will whatever he can to avoid being abandoned.

The man went on explain to everyone why love doesn’t exist, and how what humans call ‘love’ is nothing but a fear relationship based on control. So many promises are made to each other: to live together forever, to love and respect each other, through the good times and the bad times but after marriage, you can see that none of these promises are kept.

What you find is a war of control to see who will manipulate whom. Who will be the provider? And who will have the addiction. You find that a few months later, the respect that they swear to have for each other is gone. You can see the resentment, the emotional poison, how they hurt each other, little by little, and it grows and grows, until they don’t know when the love stops. They stay together because they are afraid to be alone, afraid of the opinions and judgments of others, and also afraid of their judgments and opinions. But where is the love?

The man went on and on about all the reasons why he believed love doesn’t exist.

The one day this man was walking in a park, and there on a bench was a beautiful lady who was crying. When he saw her crying, felt curiosity. Sitting beside her, he asked if he could help her. He asked why she was crying. You can imagine his surprise when she told him she was crying because love doesn’t exist. “This is amazing—a woman who believes that love doesn’t exist!” Of course he wanted to know more about her.

He asked her why she felt that love doesn’t exist and she told him about her marriage and how she and her husband had both lost respect for each other. She told him about how they hurt each other, and at a certain point she discovered that she didn’t love him and that he didn’t love her either. ‘But the children need a father, and that was my excuse to stay and to do whatever I could to support him. Now the children are grown up and they have left. I no longer have any excuse to stay with him….There is no sense to look around for something that doesn’t exist. That is why I am crying.’

Understand her very well, he embraced her and said, “You are right; love doesn’t exist. We look for love, we open our heart and we become vulnerable, just to find selfishness. That hurts us even if we don’t think we will be hurt. It doesn’t matter how many relationships we have; the same thing happens again and again. Why even search for love any longer?”

They were so much alike, and they became the best friends ever. It was a wonderful relationship. They respected each other, and they never put each other down. With every step they took together, they were happy. There was no envy or jealousy, there was no control, and there was no possessiveness. The relationship kept growing and growing. They loved to be together, because when they were together, they had a lot of fun. When they were not together, they missed each other.

One day when the man was out of town, he had the weirdest idea. He was thinking, ‘Hmm, maybe what I feel for her is love. But this is so different from what I have ever felt before. It’s not what the poets say it is, it’s not what religion says it is, because I am not responsible for her. I don’t take anything from her; I don’t have the need for her to take care of me; I don’t need to blame her for my difficulties or to take my dramas to her. We have the best time together; we enjoy each other. I respect the way she thinks, the way she feels. She doesn’t embarrass me; she doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t feel jealous when she’s with other people; I don’t feel envy when she is successful. Perhaps love does exist, but it’s not what everyone thinks love is.’

He could hardly wait to go back home and talk to her, to let her know about his weird idea. As soon as he started talking, she knew exactly what he was talking about. She felt the same way. They decided to become lovers and to live together, and it was amazing that things didn’t change. They still respected each other, they were still supportive of each other, and the love grew more and more.

The man’s heart was so full with all the love he felt that one night a great miracle happened. He was looking at the stars and he found the most beautiful one, and his love was so big that the star started coming down from the sky and soon that star was in his hands. Then a second miracle happened, and his soul merged with that star. He was intensely happy, and he could hardly wait to go to the woman and put that star in her hands to prove his love for her. As soon as he put the star in her hands, she felt a moment of doubt. This love was overwhelming, and in that moment, the star fell from her hands and broke in a million little pieces.

Now there is an old man walking around the world swearing that love doesn’t exist. And there is a beautiful old woman at home waiting for a man, shedding a tear for a paradise that once she had in her hands, but for one moment of doubt, she let it go. This is the story about the man who didn’t believe in love.

Who made the mistake? Do you want to guess what went wrong? The mistake was on the man’s part in thinking he could give the woman his happiness. The star was his happiness, and his mistake was to put his happiness in her hands. Happiness never comes from outside of us. He was happy because of the love coming out of him; she was happy because of the love coming out of her. But as soon as he made her responsible for his happiness, she broke the star because she could not be responsible for his happiness.

No matter how much the woman loved him, she could never make him happy because she could never know what he had in his mind. She could never know what his expectations were, because she could not know his dreams.

If you take your happiness, and put it in someone’s hands, sooner or later, she is going to break it. If you give your happiness to someone else, she can always take it away. Then if happiness can only come from inside of you and is the result of your love, you are responsible for your own happiness. We can never make anyone responsible for our own happiness, but when we go to the church to get married, the first thing we do is exchange rings. We put our star in each other’s hands, expecting that she is going to make you happy, and you are going to make her happy. It doesn’t matter how much you love someone, you are never going to be what that person wants you to be.

That is the mistake most of us make right from the beginning. We base our happiness on our partner and it doesn’t work that way. We make all those promises that we cannot keep, and we set ourselves up to fail.

John Varvatos FW 2010

*via http://style.com

white space

INFJ

INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types.

INFJs place great importance on havings things orderly and systematic in their outer world. They put a lot of energy into identifying the best system for getting things done, and constantly define and re-define the priorities in their lives. On the other hand, INFJs operate within themselves on an intuitive basis which is entirely spontaneous. They know things intuitively, without being able to pinpoint why, and without detailed knowledge of the subject at hand. They are usually right, and they usually know it. Consequently, INFJs put a tremendous amount of faith into their instincts and intuitions. This is something of a conflict between the inner and outer worlds, and may result in the INFJ not being as organized as other Judging types tend to be. Or we may see some signs of disarray in an otherwise orderly tendency, such as a consistently messy desk.

INFJs have uncanny insight into people and situations. They get "feelings" about things and intuitively understand them. As an extreme example, some INFJs report experiences of a psychic nature, such as getting strong feelings about there being a problem with a loved one, and discovering later that they were in a car accident. This is the sort of thing that other types may scorn and scoff at, and the INFJ themself does not really understand their intuition at a level which can be verbalized. Consequently, most INFJs are protective of their inner selves, sharing only what they choose to share when they choose to share it. They are deep, complex individuals, who are quite private and typically difficult to understand. INFJs hold back part of themselves, and can be secretive.

But the INFJ is as genuinely warm as they are complex. INFJs hold a special place in the heart of people who they are close to, who are able to see their special gifts and depth of caring. INFJs are concerned for people's feelings, and try to be gentle to avoid hurting anyone. They are very sensitive to conflict, and cannot tolerate it very well. Situations which are charged with conflict may drive the normally peaceful INFJ into a state of agitation or charged anger. They may tend to internalize conflict into their bodies, and experience health problems when under a lot of stress.

Because the INFJ has such strong intuitive capabilities, they trust their own instincts above all else. This may result in an INFJ stubborness and tendency to ignore other people's opinions. They believe that they're right. On the other hand, INFJ is a perfectionist who doubts that they are living up to their full potential. INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves - there's always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them. They believe in constant growth, and don't often take time to revel in their accomplishments. They have strong value systems, and need to live their lives in accordance with what they feel is right. In deference to the Feeling aspect of their personalities, INFJs are in some ways gentle and easy going. Conversely, they have very high expectations of themselves, and frequently of their families. They don't believe in compromising their ideals.

INFJ is a natural nurturer; patient, devoted and protective. They make loving parents and usually have strong bonds with their offspring. They have high expectations of their children, and push them to be the best that they can be. This can sometimes manifest itself in the INFJ being hard-nosed and stubborn. But generally, children of an INFJ get devoted and sincere parental guidance, combined with deep caring.

In the workplace, the INFJ usually shows up in areas where they can be creative and somewhat independent. They have a natural affinity for art, and many excel in the sciences, where they make use of their intuition. INFJs can also be found in service-oriented professions. They are not good at dealing with minutia or very detailed tasks. The INFJ will either avoid such things, or else go to the other extreme and become enveloped in the details to the extent that they can no longer see the big picture. An INFJ who has gone the route of becoming meticulous about details may be highly critical of other individuals who are not.

The INFJ individual is gifted in ways that other types are not. Life is not necessarily easy for the INFJ, but they are capable of great depth of feeling and personal achievement.

Pretty dead on. Find your temperment here: http://www.keirsey.com/sorter/instruments2.aspx?partid=0

Viktor Safonkin

"I was born on 22 August 1967 at Saransk, the small capital of autonomous Mordovia. I enjoyed drawing, as all children do. Understanding my surroundings was still far away, but there were smells and feelings, huge rats and headaches. It was another life strongly influenced by nature. I had been watching and examining for a long, long time, before all of this shaped itself, after many years, into conviction and painting. It all surfaced from my subconscious mind... In the meantime, I finished secondary school and begun studying at technical school, where I gained a secondary education. It gave me nothing, and did not fill even a tiny part of my brain hemispheres. I felt useless. Rationalism and routine would have finally suppressed the psychedelic fever and fed my inferiority complexes, if it wasn’t for the striving of my subconscious mind. Taking root in my childhood, it burst through the frontiers of banality. 1990 was not only the year of sun eruptions, but also of my brain. My heart confessed to me and opened the gate of creativity. I crossed it forever, without looking back, with no doubt, lost for shadow and disbelief!" - Viktor Safonkin

The introverted child

She says "Nathan sure doesn't say a lot. It's a Grisop trait. A lot of those boys are weird like that. Melissa said his teacher wrote on his report card that he needs to speak up and participate more in class."

Too me, It's always been obvious that young Nathan is an introvert, and i always thought that was pretty cool. But to everyone else, he's "weird like that" and apparently his teacher thinks he needs to be more extroverted.

Because being an introvert is a bad thing, right?

Introversion is not a bad thing. It is not a defect. It's not something to be cured. It's simply a different personality type, a different way of interacting with the world that has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

I was one such child. Just like Nathan. I was extremely empathetic. I didn't care for making a lot of friends. I preferred to play alone, making up imaginary scenarios in which to play with my toys. I hardly ever needed to be disciplined; a stern word was enough to make me cry. I'd ask questions with the sort of sincerity you’d expect from a philosopher.

My Mother and step father thought there was something wrong with me. Because I liked to play alone in my room. Because I didn't talk a lot. Because I was so sensitive and I cried a lot. And it was hard for me because I, in turn, thought there was something wrong with me. I spent a lot of my youth trying to fit in and be like everyone else. To be more extroverted. And it was hard for me. Really hard. It wasnt until I learned about introversion in my high school psychology class that I was able to start understanding myself, and to start learning how to be okay with being "different."

It's important for the parent to understand their child so they can help their child understand themselves. This can be difficult for some parents, especially those toward the far end of the extrovert scale, as they have to understand that introverts simply experience the world in a different way.

But never expect them to be something they are not. The great analyst Karl Jung makes it very clear that the way for introverts to win is to become more consciously introverted rather than to try and be something they are not. Every spiritual teaching in the world would agree ... find yourself and be yourself.

Here's what looks to be the ultimate In trophy wives. It's a rug featuring a submissive woman for the male chauvinist in her life to walk all over.

trapped in their own concept of "pretty"

These are the standards of our fragmented and denatured society.

In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf argues that women in Western culture are pressured to conform to ideal (often unattainable) standards of beauty, and that this ideal is politicized - it is a way of keeping women under control by the weight of their own insecurities.

La Calavera Catrina

La Calavera Catrina ('The Elegant Skull') is a 1913 zinc etching by Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada.

The word catrina is the feminine form of the word catrín, which means "elegant". The figure, depicted in an ornate hat fashionable at the time, is intended to show that the rich and fashionable, despite their pretensions to importance, are just as susceptible to death as anyone else.

Fascinating: Frida Kahlo

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

-Frida Kahlo

With slim sable brushes, Frida Kahlo painstakingly rendered her bold unibrow and mustache in dozens of self-portraits. This same Frida also shaved three years off her age, claiming 1910 to be the year she was born in Coyoacán, Mexico, instead of 1907.Vanity? Hardly. Frida, always her own favorite model, was not about preserving youthful beauty so much as identifying herself with Mexico, her beloved homeland. Frida's "acquired birth year" just so happens to coincide with the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution (1910) and the overthrow of President Porfirio Diaz. If her glaring lie seems jarring and incongruous – disturbing, even, in the face of her usual unabashed candor – reflect for a moment on the juxtaposed images that characterize her paintings. Frida never allowed apparent facts – her own birth certificate, for instance – to get in the way of a higher truth; the truth in this case being that she and modern Mexico were inextricably bound in both revolution and renaissance. An understanding of Frida Kahlo, the person as well as the paintings, requires a setting aside of conventional thoughts – and dates, as the case may be. At the same time, paradoxically enough, it requires the context of history. She was a revolutionary artist born amidst political chaos in her homeland; born in the year of its own bloody rebirth, give or take a couple years. That image, according to the artist, is more truthful than fact itself. It would be quibbling to disagree.

No matter whether she was in Paris, New York or Coyoacán, she clothed herself elaborately in the Tehuana costumes of Indian maidens. As much as Frida's country defined her, so, too, did her husband, the celebrated muralist, Diego Rivera. If Mexico was her parent, then Rivera – 20 years her senior – was her "big-child." She often referred to him as her baby. She met him while still a schoolgirl and later, in 1929, became the third wife of a man who gaily accepted the diagnosis of his doctor that he was "unfit for monogamy."

Needless to say, theirs was an unconventional and problematic, if passionate, union that survived numerous affairs (on both their parts), separations and even a divorce in 1939 and subsequent remarriage in 1940. Their love proved hardy, like the roots in Frida's painting "The Love Embrace." But Frida's hold on Diego as a husband was tenuous. Marriage was hardly a salve for the suffering that had characterized Frida's young life – a horrific trolley car accident left her broken as a youth and debilitated throughout much of her adulthood. Diego's incorrigible philandering – once with Frida's own younger sister, Cristina – only exacerbated her pain. "I suffered two grave accidents in my life," she once said, "One in which a streetcar knocked me down … The other accident is Diego."

As a couple, the Riveras remained childless; this, as much as Diego's infidelities, was a source of great anguish for Frida for whom Diego was everything: "my child, my lover, my universe."

As individual artists, the pair was wildly productive. Each regarded the other as Mexico's greatest painter. Frida referred to Diego as the "architect of life." Each took a deep, proprietary pride in the other's creations, drastically different as they were in habit and style.

On a high scaffold in the outdoors, the driven Diego painted for days on end. He loved painting as obsessively as Frida loved him, rendering grand public murals with political themes. Frida, meanwhile, was often immobilized in a cast in her bed, or confined to a hospital room, either anticipating a surgery or recovering from one. She alternately languished and painted intensely personal works. About a third of her entire body of work – about 55 paintings – consists of self-portraits. In some, she stares out, willfully impassive, her face mask-like; in others, graphic depictions of her internal bodily organs reveal corresponding states of mind. She shied away from nothing, revealing – indeed, reveling in – the indignity of heartbreak, as well as the gut-wrenching pain of abortion and miscarriage.

Diego, a social realist, actually welled up with tears of pride when Picasso once admired the eyes in a painting of Frida's. And he wrote this glowing recommendation to a friend about an early exhibition of her work: "I recommend her to you, not as a husband but as an enthusiastic admirer of her work, acid and tender, hard as steel and delicate and fine as a butterfly's wing, loveable as a beautiful smile, and profound and cruel as the bitterness of life."

Although Frida's work, often fantastic and sometimes gory, has been described as surrealism, she once wrote that she never knew she was a surrealist "until André Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one." ("The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon about a bomb," Breton wrote, admiringly.) However, Frida eschewed labels. Diego argued that Frida was a realist. Her principal biographer, Hayden Herrera, seems to agree, writing that even in her most enigmatic and complex painting, "What the Water Gave Me," Frida is "down to earth," having depicted "real images in the most literal, straightforward way." Like much of Mexican art, Frida's paintings "interweave fact and fantasy as if the two were inseparable and equally real," Herrera adds. "

Really I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that they are the frankest expression of myself," Frida once wrote. "Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself."

Frida, the person and her art, defy easy definition. Rather, they lend themselves to ambiguous description. Often volatile and obsessive, Frida was alternately hopeful and despairing. She loved dancing and crowds and flirtation and seduction – and was often miserably lonely, begging friends and lovers to visit, not to "forget" her. She had a ferocious and often black sense of humor, as well as a sharp command of wit and metaphor. She took great pride in keeping a home for Diego and loved fussing over him, cooking for him and bathing him. She delighted in pets – mischievous spider monkeys and dogs – and adored children, who she treated as equals. She loved nonsense, gossip and dirty jokes. She abhorred pretension. She treated servants like family and students like esteemed colleagues. Frida Kahlo embodied alegría, – a lust for life. She valued honesty, especially to self.

She once wrote to a former lover (who allegedly had jilted her because of her physical infirmities), "you deserve the best, the very best, because you are one of the few people in this lousy world who are honest to themselves, and that is the only thing that really counts."

When Frida Kahlo died at the age of 47 on July 13, 1954, she left paintings, each of which corresponds to her evolving persona, as well as a collection of effusive letters to lovers and friends, and colorfully candid journal entries. All are irrefutable evidence that her life was nothing less than a quest to be honest to herself – 1910 birthday and all.

Source: http://www.pbs.org/weta/fridakahlo/life/index.html

Pumpkin-Walnut Focaccia with Gruyère

*Adapted from: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000001108231

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons rapid-rising dry yeast
3/4 cup hard cider (room tempature)

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

3 1/2 to 4 cups flour

1 tablespoon coarse salt

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup olive oil
Cornmeal, for dusting

3/4 cup (3 ounces) grated Gruyère cheese, divided

1/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Directions:

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook, proof the yeast by combining it with the warm cider and sugar. Stir gently to dissolve. Let stand 3 minutes until foam appears. Turn mixer on low and slowly add the flour to the bowl. Dissolve salt in 2 tablespoons of water and add it to the mixture. Pour in olive oil, half of cheese, pumpkin and nutmeg . When the dough starts to come together, increase the speed to medium. Stop the machine periodically to scrape the dough off the hook. Mix until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes, adding flour as necessary.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface and fold over itself a few times. Form the dough into a round and place in an oiled bowl, turn to coat the entire ball with oil so it doesn't form a skin. Cover with plastic wrap or damp towel and let rise over a gas pilot light on the stovetop or other warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Coat a sheet pan with a little olive oil and corn meal. Once the dough is doubled and domed, turn it out onto the counter. Roll and stretch the dough out to an oblong shape about 1/2-inch thick. Sprinkle remaining cheese and nuts evenly over dough circles; press lightly to adhere. Lightly coat dough circles with cooking spray; Lay the flattened dough on the pan and cover with plastic wrap. Let rest for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Uncover dough; bake at 400° for 20-30 minutes or until loaves are browned on the bottom and cheese melts (shield loaves with foil to prevent overbrowning, if necessary). Cool on a wire rack.

Travelers

I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within. ~Lillian Smith

Michael Kors Fall 2010 Ready to Wear

Simple, Classic and Beautiful.