Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future

I met a couple of friends at Kaldi's Coffeehouse this past Saturday morning before heading over to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum to check out their current exhibit of Eero Saarinen. At Kaldi's I ordered a soy mocha no whip - pretty standard; pretty tasty, and Brian ordered a quiche, hoping it would be a small serving but ending up with a plate full of potatoes, quiche and salad!

After consuming an adequate amount of caffeine, we left the coffee house and made our way over to Wash. U. I had not yet been to "The Milly" (which was designed by Fumihiko Maki, for all you design-heads out there) so the purpose of my trip was twofold.

The building itself was..................nice.
Actually, I quite liked it.

Even against the rain laden sky, the stark exterior felt somehow inviting. I'm a take-it or leave-it kind of modernist but for some reason, with this particular structure, I was on-board. I'm sure many architects and designers would disagree with me, but I kinda liked the innocent nakedness of the museum against the collegiate Gothic structures of the background.

As for the actual exhibit itself which we were there to see, it could have been designed a lot better. Oh well, who cares; the content more than made up for the poorly arranged, arbitrary layout of the space.

Eero was a total stud. Period.



The exhibit, Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future had letters written to and from Eero, paintings of Eero as a little boy, sketches on trace, furniture that he had designed and tons of photographs.

I am such a visual person...I look at the captions written about the different pieces, but get bored after reading about 6 words. On the contrary, I could stare at a chair or a floor plan for hours.

Unfortunately the small gallery showcasing Eero's drawings for the St. Louis Arch was closed for maintenance. And still a bigger disappointment was how we were about 2 weeks too late to see "On the Riverfront: St. Louis and the Gateway Arch" at Steinberg Hall (just across from The Milly). I had really wanted to see this show, as my great great uncle, Louis La Beaume, had been a juror for the competition entries of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. He had also submitted a proposal, and I was hoping to see what his thoughts were for the "arch" grounds.

Anywho, Saarinen's work was quite inspirational to me as a student and it felt good to be in the presence of his masterpieces. I sometimes forget how passionate I am about design, and I often wish that I had more opportunities and/or time to really sit down and put the pencil to the trace. My mind is chock-full of ideas that I am keeping locked-up in captivity and I think it's about time to unleash the beast, dang-it!

NAM

Not VietNAM...North American Martyrs. My grade school and my family's parish.

Facebook can be a funny thing. For instance, yesterday I received two new friend requests; one was from a valid friend, the other...well, I'm not gonna go there. But I think it's nice to reconnect with old friends and Facebook does make it convenient to keep up with everything that's going on now.

Last night, something told me to look up North American Marytrs on Facebook. I don't know why, but boy am I glad I did! Within seconds I had found a NAM group with discussion boards and photos and was pummeled with memories!

I instantly recognized the names of many alumni, and literally went into hysterics when I saw this picture in the photo album:



Yeah, that's a storm drain. And I spent the better half of my childhood in, on and around it! It looks exactly as I remember it, with the exception of the statue of the Virgin Mary which used to sit proudly on the back of it.

Fun times. Haha!

Four and a Half Years of Hixey Romance

I was just perusing through old folders on my laptop when I came across some funny pictures of Josh and I from when we first met. I thought about how different we were then and of how far we've come.

This photo was taken on one of our first dates to Seamus McDaniels. We had each been long-time believers of their burgers and felt it would be a great place to start off our relationship. Oddly enough we ended up moving to Dogtown about a year later.


October 23, 2004

This photo was taken a couple of months ago at my office's Christmas Party. We've been married for a year and half now and have grown significantly not only as a couple, but as individuals. We're definitely still as silly, but I'd say we have a much more profound outlook on life.


December 7, 2008

To me it look like a leprechaun to me...

"Who else seen the leprechaun say 'yeah'..."
Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig!!!

As it Stands Today

Our yard is a hot mess! Between the fire, torrential rains, trucks driving on the lawn and the jack-hammering and repouring of our porch, walk and driveway our yard looks like a historic marker along the Oregon Trail.

Today we started work on the front yard. There was still a lot of construction debris and broken glass along the front of our house, but we raked out as much as we could and threw it in the trash. We also cleaned up the two flower beds (a bit) and raked up 7 lawn-bags of dead grass and leaves. Our yard still needs a LOT of attention, but it's a start.

Pre Saint Paddy's Day Parade

Josh and I met up with his parents this morning and drove downtown for the 40th annual St. Patrick's Day Parade in St. Louis. We parked in my building and walked two blocks South to Kiener Plaza. We had a pretty good spot from which to watch the parade, but the parade was spaced out more than usual and didn't seem as exciting as in past years. Regardless, we had a great time and even saw Josh's friend Paul (who rode his bike downtown from south city).



We spotted a few guys that we recognized in the parade. Warren, a firefighter friend of Josh and Paul; as well as some kids from Josh's Gaelic Football team, who represented the St. Louis Hurling Club.

Once the parade was nearing the end, we decided to beat the crowd and hit the road. We tried to hit up Crown Candy Kitchen for lunch but they were packed as usual. Instead, we went over to Chuck-A-Burger on the Rock Road. This was Carol and Darrel's first visit to the landmark, so we treated them to lunch for their anniversary (which is this Monday, the 16th).

Monk Seals in Action!

Not that kind of action!

As I mentioned in a post waaaay back when we were in Kauai, Josh got some great footage of 2 monk seals as they approached the shore from the water and made their way up on to the beach. I finally edited out most of the excess junk; i.e. dumb lady within 3 feet of the seals and Josh's extreme zoom shots.

Have a look!

Martha Stewart as a Model?

Yes! I had never heard that Martha Stewart had once been a model until today. As I was checking out Annie Kevans paintings online, I came across a gallery of "Beauty Queens" and saw this:



The caption read: Martha Stewart modeling as Veronica Lake

Surely this isn't the Martha Stewart...

But it was! As a teenager, Martha had modeled for several publications and department stores, and had even starred in a television commercial for Life Buoy Soap.



What else has Martha done that I am not aware of??? I discovered that she had won a partial scholarship to study art and architectural history at Barnard College in New York City; that she began her career as a stockbroker; and in 1961 Glamour Magazine named her as one of America's "Best Dressed College Girls".

Slowly, I am finding Martha to be more and more badass. You may disagree with me if you want, but she's hardcore, knows how to cook, and has 2 French Bulldogs.

Kitay and Turtles...

...what more could you ask for?

I quickly threw together a little footage from our snorkeling adventures in Kauai. I've dropped some David Kitay in for audio relief but otherwise I've let the turtles command the stage.



A tidbit on Kitay. Josh and I fell in love with his score for "Art School Confidential". In fact we loved it so much that when we discovered there would not be a soundtrack for the film, we wrote David personally expressing to him how amazing his work was. We told him how we wished we could have used one of the pieces for our wedding but without the soundtrack, we were going to be Kitayless on our special day. Months later, we got a burned cd in the mail from David's manager with a thank you note for the inspiring words.

I walked down the aisle to one of the tracks and shortly thereafter, we received another letter in the mail thanking us; this time from David Kitay himself.

palm prē

I was at the Hart's First Annual Trivia Night this past Saturday when I first learned of the new Palm Pre due out soon! One of my table-mates was talking about how much he loves his iPhone when I felt obliged to stand up for my Windows-based HTC Touch. I love my phone. Don't get me wrong, the iPhones are pretty flippin' killer, but I'm get annoyed with all the pompous antics from the iPhone cult.

Jeff mentioned that Palm was getting ready to launch their new internet-connected multimedia smartphone which uses the proprietary palm web0S Linus -based operating system and has a physical qwerty keyboard that discreetly slides open.

I guess it was Sunday night when I remembered to research this new phone, and as quick as the browser opened palm's homepage I was in love with the palm prē. Luckily for me, Sprint will be carrying this phone and I have an inside source at the company who is going to notify me as soon as they hit the shelves. I don't usually dork out on new technologies or cd's releases, but I really want this phone!

La Moustache

Released in 2005, this film by French director, Emmanuel Carrère, is quite the mind-boggler. On the surface, we see Marc (Vincent Lindon) fall victim to what he thinks is a practical joke being played by his wife, friends and co-workers. After Marc shaved off his mustache, none of them noticed and led him to believe he hadn't ever worn one.

But upon digging deeper, we find that the story has more to do with perception and normalcy than it does the mustache.



I found the film to be thought evoking and extremely well produced. The piece by Philip Glass (Violin Concerto) perfectly complimented every scene and the acting performances by Lindon and Emmanuelle Devos are convincing as a tightly wound, passionate couple.

Millions

Tonight Josh and I finally got around to watching "Millions" which came in from Netflix almost two weeks ago. This film is a must see directed by Danny Boyle. For those of you living under a rock, Boyle was the recipient of oh...let's just say a couple-few Oscars for his amazingly beautiful film "Slumdog Millionaire".

Millions. Slumdog Millionaire. What's next? The Millionth Hour?

Anyways, "Millions" was shot well and had a great message concerning ethics. In a nutshell, the film is about a widowed father and his two young sons who (literally) have a duffel bag full of money land in their laps. The boys decide to keep this a secret from the father and ultimately have different ideas for how the money should be spent.

I feel I could watch it again and again and get more out of it each time.

Onesto - I Almost Forgot!

I fancy myself a pretty big pizza snob. And whether you agree or not, St. Louis has a fabulous selection of good pizza. Not just good pizza, great pizza! This is something I feel passionate about and will argue anyday!

Tonight I helped a friend of mine, Rosey, with her wedding invitations. We decided to order pizza for dinner to help "motivate" us before starting, but when she mentioned Bellacino's I about crapped my pants (pardon the dirty word). That is certainly not one of the finer choices in pies around here, but I'll admit it's a step above Pizza Hut (granted a small step). I quickly begged her to reconsider and so she looked online for a pizza place near her house; something more like a mom and pop shop.

Well, she found just that: Onesto Pizza & Trattoria

It may be owned by the Racanelli's, but it's a far cry from that lazy New York pizza you get slapped onto a paper plate for you in the Loop. This little place had charm out the wazoo and the pie itself was pretty decent. If you're in South City and need a bite to eat, definitely cruise over to Princeton Heights and get you some family style food at Onesto!

Posting: Our Final Days in Kauai

We've been back in "the Lou" for about four days now and things are back to normal. Work is work, which is great, but I miss the sun and sand already. Before we left the island, we spent our last day down on the South shore, back at Lawai Beach. My mom and I went out for one last snorkel and saw two different sea turtles from before, a crazy-looking eel and tons and tons of fish. We also shared the beach with one of the two monk seals which was still sunning from last Wednesday when he first sailed onto shore. Unfortunately, we also shared a good 15 minutes of our last day with a crazy woman who alleged that everyone at the beach was too close to the seal, thus violating him, and wished that we'all go to hell. This of course ruined my day and I threw a fit. Thank God for the great time we had the night before when my parents treated us to a luau at the Smith Family Plantation or else I would have had horrible memories of Kauai forever! Okay, I'm being a little dramatic...

Anyways, at the luau, we took a little train ride through their gardens; it was unbelievable! I take that back. We took a little "trolley" ride through their gardens. Whatever you want to call it, the ride afforded us beautiful vistas through tree branches looking back towards the mountains.



After our little tour, we walked around the gardens before sitting down for dinner. My dad and my husband even played a little game of coconutball (it's like football, but with an unshucked coconut).



Once it was time to eat, we grabbed a table and waited for our turn to raid the buffet. Anyone who knows me knows that I loathe buffets, but this one was actually really good. Oh, and I hate pork, so pleasing me at a kalua pork buffet was pretty impressive. I loaded my plate and just about ate everything on it, save for some beans.



After "pigging" out (get it?) we were treated to a rather entertaining performance by some local kids. My little Canon didn't take very great pics without the flash, but my mom got some pretty neat shots with her monster of a Canon. Check out her blog for some bad-ass eye candy at http://travelingwithsue.blogspot.com/.

The plane ride home was uneventful, but long. I get extremely bored on planes and can't sleep well, if at all, so I was really relieved once we landed in St. Louis Sunday afternoon. Josh's parents picked us up from the airport and brought us home. Since we were exhausted, we really didn't get to visit with them much, but we'll see them this weekend at Josh's brother's birthday dinner and we'll be able to catch up.

Photoshop Wars

For fun, I thought I'd post some of the recent casulties of Kartono's and my Photoshop Wars:

Seven Days of Vacation Wiped-Out by Six Hours of Work

Well, today was work as usual. I can't even begin to explain how ridiculous my day was, so I won't.

Anywho, I'm over at my parents right now hanging out with Roxy the dog for a bit. I haven't edited any video yet and have not gone through the photos from our last couple of nights of vacation. As soon as I have, I'll get them up!

Josh is working on our taxes tonight, which is not fun. There are a lot of deductions we think we should get, but don't know if we should, and do we have the paperwork if we can deduct it!?! It's quite the way to relax after a stress-filled first day back to work...let me tell ya!

When I get back home, I think I'll read some of my book "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb (read a review of it here) which, unfortunately, I didn't get to read much of on vacation. I was a huge fan of Lamb's first two books and have not been let down by this one yet.