The publication of the February issue of Elegant Lifestyles Magazine was delayed, making it likely that my article Snow Much Fun, A Guide to Local Winter Activities will be more relevant next year! Time will tell if Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction is correct and Spring comes early this year.
Holiday Happenings, my latest article published in Elegant Lifestyles Magazine’s November 2023 issue, is filled with local town events that will help bring holiday joy to all ages.
Wishing you a meaningful holiday season with your family and friends.
Put Your Best Face Forward…What’s in Your Make-Up Bag for Fall? is the second article I published in Elegant Lifestyles Magazine’s September 2023 issue. Maintaining a “Golden Glow,” choosing from a palette of “Latte Makeup,” and thinking pink with Barbiecore colors are three fall cosmetics trends.
Hon, want to know the line I like the best?
“One of the hottest words in make-up this fall is a drink.”
Beautiful Bridal Trends is the first of three articles I published in Elegant Lifestyles Magazine’s September 2023 issue. When I started free-lance writing, I covered many bridal fashion shows in Manhattan. It was fun carrying a Press Pass, doing research by watching parades of new gowns, and interviewing designers. 2023 Bridal is all about Ball Gowns, Bows, and Blooms. Thanks for checking out this year’s bridal trends in my latest article.
I was looking for a new book and in the mood for European sensibility. You know how non-American made movies feel different? How they contain a different sense of humor? How they have global references? How they feel more tongue-in-cheek? Like that.
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson definitely fit the bill but with a caveat–it reminded me of the iconic American movie starring Tom Hanks Forrest Gump. Like Gump, Allan Karlsson, the main character in The 100-Year-Old Man, not only finds himself in the company of presidents, premiers, dignitaries, criminals and an elephant, he influences history and experiences life with an eternally accepting and positive outlook on life. I found the story humorous, outlandish and interesting.
You know what I found out? Swedish TV, film and commercials director, writer, producer and actor Felix Herngren directedThe 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared, a 2013 movie based on the book.
Have you read the 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared? What did you think?
Desperate to avoid his 100th birthday party, Allan Karlsson climbs out the window of his room at the nursing home and heads to the nearest bus station, intending to travel as far as his pocket money will take him.
But a spur-of-the-moment decision to steal a suitcase from a fellow passenger sends Allan on a strange and unforeseen journey involving, among other things, some nasty criminals, a very large pile of cash, and an elephant named Sonya.
It’s just another chapter in a life full of adventures for Allan, who has become entangled in the major events of the twentieth century, including the Spanish Civil War and the Manhattan Project. As Allan’s colorful and complex history merges with his present-day escapades, readers will be treated to a new and charmingly funny version of world history and get to know a very youthful old man whose global influence knows no age limit. An international best-seller, this is an engaging tale of one man’s life lived to the fullest.
Amazon, Carol Gladstein
Quotes from The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared:
“People could behave how they liked, but Allan considered that in general it was quite unnecessary to be grumpy if you had the chance not to.”
“Allan admitted that the difference between madness and genius was subtle, and that he couldn’t with certainty say which it was in this case, but that he had his suspicions.”
“Allan interrupted the two brothers by saying that he had been out and about in the world and if there was one thing he had learned it was that the very biggest and apparently most impossible conflicts on earth were based on the dialogue: “You are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid.” The solution, said Allan, was often to down a bottle of vodka together and then look ahead.”
Hubby and I stayed overnight at the Dream Hotel in Midtown Manhattan where the hotel’s rooftop lounge PHD Terrace is the site of a vibrant silk floral installation through November 2023. The bouquet-covered, street-level entrance introduces Dream in Flowers, which blooms in full over the bar, on an arch above a bench, and in the flower tunnel. We had no idea there was garden on the roof. As we walked through NYC, we discovered a flower cart outside a Sarabeth’s restaurant and floral window display. What a gorgeous New York City summer surprise!
Located in the heart of NYC at the top of Dream Hotel Midtown, PHD Terrace is a welcoming, all-season rooftop oasis perfect for after-work drinks, weekend revelry, and private events.
Enjoy the intimate, indoor atmosphere of the lower level, or head outside to the upper level to enjoy a scenic evening on the Terrace. With breathtaking panoramic views of Manhattan and Times Square, PHD Terrace is the ultimate destination for your temporary escape from the hustle and bustle of Midtown Manhattan.
Continue to take in these views throughout year-round with our state of the art seasonal enclosures located on PHD’s East and West terraces. PHD is your ideal spot to cozy up with a cocktail in hand on a cold winter night or to enjoy a beer on a crisp Fall afternoon.
PHD Terrace at the Dream Hotel
I was inspired to make a moon jar after following Ceramic artist Jane Yang-D’Haene Studio on Instagram. Her moon jars are highly-textured, earthy and gorgeous.
A moon jar is, “A distinctive type of porcelain from the late Joseon period, the moon jar (Korean: dalhangari)—so called because of its evocative form—was usually made by joining two hemispherical halves.” The Met. For glazing, I took inspiration from the way one of my fellow students splattered her own moon jar as well as the neutral base colors of Yang’s jars.
Shout out to my Ceramics instructor Peter Syak who helped me figure out how to create this jar.
I hope this is one of many moon jars!
Summer means workshops taught by instructor-extraordinaire Peter Syak. I enter Peter’s carriage-house Ceramics studio brimming with ideas. Creativity is in the air! A couple of the pieces I made were Raku fired while the others will be fired in the regular kiln. As always, the raku firing was exciting and dramatic!
After weeks of building and glazing, it was time to heat things up or, as we like to say, “play with fire.” We worked over pits filled with sawdust, watched the sawdust burst into flames as soon the hot-orange pottery touched it, covered the flaming pieces with metal containers, quenched ash-covered pieces when the flames died down, and scrubbed the ash off our creations. Needless to say, we smelled like chimneys!
The inspiration for creating the handbuilt tall raku vase was the large coil vase I made last summer. I lined the inside of the tall vase with Clear Crackle glaze and painted the outside with a combination of Cooper Blue, Jade, and Orchard Lusters. They really brought out the textures, don’t you think?
Since Raku fired pieces “weep,” (water condenses underneath them), I display dried grasses in my large coil vase. I’ll do the same with my new vase.
Shout out to my friend Monisha who suggested reading Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I’d read Zevin’s Young Jane Young so knew I liked her writing but, whereas Young Jane Young made me laugh out loud, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow brought up a gamut of other emotions. Though I’m not a gamer and gaming is central to this story, the book is about love, friendship, childhood, growing up, imagination, grief, and getting to the other side of grief. This is another book that will sit with me awhile.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
William Shakespeare (from Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth)
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Hon, have you read Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow? What did you think?
In this exhilarating novel, two friends–often in love, but never lovers–come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.
Goodreads
Quotes from Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow on Goodreads:
“It isn’t a sadness, but a joy, that we don’t do the same things for the length of our lives.”
“If you’re always aiming for perfection, you won’t make anything at all.”
“The alternative to appropriation is a world where white European people make art about white European people with only white European references in it. Swap African or Asian or Latin or whatever culture you want for European. A world where everyone is blind and deaf to any culture or experience that is not their own. I hate that world don’t you? I’m terrified of that world and I don’t want to live in a that world, and as a mixed race person, I literally don’t exist in it. My dad, who I barely knew, was Jewish. My mom was an American-born Korean. I was raised by Korean immigrant grandparents in Korea Town Los Angeles and as any mixed race person will tell you– to be half of two things is to be whole of nothing.”
“What is a game?” Marx said. “It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”
Re-posting due to production glitches–ugh!
In Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, where one of my daughters lives, books, home-goods, clothes and more are for there for the taking. People place items they no longer want or need on steps, stoops and stone walls. That’s where I picked up Bewilderment by Richard Powers, a “heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory” (Norton.com).
There’s the relationship between a father and son, grief over a mother who died in a car accident, descriptions of nature, commentary on the environmental and political landscape, imagination of other worlds and planets, and exploration of neurofeedback. Interestingly, I read reviews both positive and negative. Bewilderment will sit with me for a long time.
The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…
With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?
Goodreads
Quotes from Bewilderment on Goodreads
“Earth had two kinds of people: those who could do the math and follow the science, and those who were happier with their own truths. But in our hearts’ daily practice, whatever schools we went to, we all lived as if tomorrow would be a clone of now.”
“Life itself is a spectrum disorder, where each of us vibrated at some unique frequency in the continuous rainbow.”
“the world is an experiment in inventing validity, and conviction is its only proof.”
“They share a lot, astronomy and childhood. Both are voyages across huge distances. Both search for facts beyond their grasp. Both theorize wildly and let possibilities multiply without limits. Both are humbled every few weeks. Both operate out of ignorance. Both are mystified by time. Both are forever starting out.”
Naomi M. Gruer 