Nova Clutch

4th of July, the Anti Macy's

As most Americans turned their heads and hearts to the heavens this 4th of July weekend, I set my gaze downwards to enjoy bursts of color and spectacular displays put on by mother nature rather than those provided by Macy's (no offense Natasha). Attempting to escape the melodic phrases of "God Bless America" for those of crickets and birds, I walked through the fields and forests that grace our friend's farm Pennsylvania farm Saturday afternoon. Exercising my right to bear arms and to shoot everything in sight, I captured and brought home the bounty of the day. On bent knee or in prone position I would seek out the unknown, the unusual and unsuspecting. Some that fell within my sights were well camouflaged, some were in sharp contrast to their surroundings, easy targets for my eager trigger finger. Breathe in, focus, focus, shoot! I got one, two, three! What a country, one nation, under foot. What an opportunity to leave the synthesized noise and plastic distractions of our adopted life behind to consider and reflect upon what this nation was really founded upon; a natural world of beauty and wonder, void of light beer, computer generated fantasy, right wings, left wings, cheese filled hot dogs, manmade gods and manmade fireworks.

Germack Pistachios

 

Founded in  1924 by immigrants longing for a taste of the homeland, Germack Pistachio Company knows how to process a nut.

Located in the heart (or rather, it is the heart) of Detroit's historic Eastern Market, the Germack Co. has been turning out perfectly roasted pistachios for over seventy-five years. Mild, salty, and crunchy they are the perfect companion to almost any drink, but their charm is especially apparent when paired with beer.  Next time you are visiting the Motor City be sure to  swing by their roasting plant and pick up a five pound bag. Or a ten pound one. You won't be disappointed.

Matryoshka doll candles

I received another package this morning from England. From Charlie and Elly this time. I whipped the camera out as I just knew it would be worth photographing if it was from them. They hadn't even had time to see my Matryoshka dolls from earlier this week, but I guess the recent trip to Russia was a good clue. Shiny gold matryoshka doll candles that I will force myself to use, as I have a habit of keeping things intact.

Thanks guys!

Miller et Bertaux perfume

Michele got me the most wonderful perfume for my birthday. I had never seen or heard of it before, and I didn't even realize what was in it, as I was completely transfixed by the box. Beautifully simple and white, tied with a white cotton ribbon and tiny twig, this impeccably made construction stands on little feet. It's amazing how this little detail sets this box apart from the fussiness of usual perfume boxes. Inside was also very pretty, with a little red ball floating in the liquid. And the perfume itself is an amazing mix of cloves, cinnamon, musk and floral notes. I love it, love it, love it! Thank you Michele.

You can buy Miller et Bertaux in Paris or in New York City at Takashamiya .

Illustrations by Julie

Some rather nice illustrations here by Central Saint Martins alum (we pop up everywhere).

Hand-carved spoons from Live Wire Farm

I had sent an email and hadn't had a reply. I tried another email and waited a few days. Then I thought I would do it the old-fashioned way, and picked up the phone.

Two people answered at once, and I was left to the male voice, that belonged to a man named John. I explained that I had seen his website and was calling to enquire about buying some spoons. He asked me who I was. I wasn't quite sure how to answer that question. Make up a story? Fabricate a wildly elaborate alter-ego? Sarcastically explain again that I am just some punter that wants to buy a spoon?

I went with the delicate, patient approach, explaining how much I like the way the spoons look. Which I really do. Half an hour later, I can tell you that these spoons are really made with love. John hand carves each piece of wood, and started making spoons when burning lumber in the fire one day. He turned the piece of wood over, and examined the grain, realizing how beautiful it was, perhaps too beautiful to burn. So he started making spoons. And hooks. And rings. He also makes honey, and of course, he doesn't use any pesticides on the flowers and doesn't do anything to the honey. It's all natural, like the spoons. And pretty damn yummy honey it is too.

By some spoons from John. It's not often you buy a wooden spoon that you would hand down to your children. And it's not often that you can picture someone making the product you buy, with as much care, attention and good ol' fashioned craft, as John.

Honey photograph by Livewire Farm

Animal sounds in different languages

This made me laugh. In Vietnam, the sound for "miaow" is "mao" and no cat ever has a given name. They are all called Mao.

Via notcot

Faygo

In Portland, Oregon in the early 80s there was one goal in every child’s mind: win the smile contest on “Ramblin Rod”. Ramblin Rod was a children’s television show hosted by a local car dealer, which in retrospect is quite odd. Each episode, Ramblin Rod would host a smile contest and all the kids in the audience would grin their hearts out trying to win. Five kids would get pulled out of the audience, lined up next to the wooden ship (which was the one homage to set decoration) and the finalists would be given one last chance to smile. Why were kids so desperate to win? Because the prize was amazing. Winners of the smile contests were given a certificate for a free case of soda pop from the Pop Shop, a local manufacturer and bottler of pop. The warehouse was huge and filled with soda of every make and model: sassafras, strawberry, black cherry, grapefruit, pineapple, lime, orange, chocolate, maybe even a bubblegum. Since we weren’t normally allowed sugar and certainly not sugary pop, it was truly heaven. Not that I ever won the smile contest. Luckily I had generous brothers with winning smiles.

Local soda pop is primarily a thing of the past. As with almost every other product, nationalization of sales and distribution of major players, here Pepsi and Coke, eventually lead to the downfall of the local manufacturer. One company, though, has managed to hold out and hold on to the local flavor. Detroit’s Faygo is the real deal. The company has been in business since 1907 and every kid who grew up in Detroit can sing the jingles. They have flavors as standard as root beer and cola but get wild with Rock & Rye (sort of cream soda flavored) and Red Pop (which is purportedly strawberry flavored). They are vestiges of the past and distinct hometown favorites. Perhaps with all the talk of eating locally, we should also consider drinking locally. Faygo is a great place to start.   

Oven mit apron from Design Within Reach

I'm a product designer (or that's what it says on my résumé anyway) and even I think that Design Within Reach is far from within reach. I normally spurn the threshold of their stores but this apron reeled me in. I've also resisted getting an apron for this long, thinking it a purely suburban accoutrement. But seeing as I spend most of free time in my kitchen, it was time to invest.

And oh, was it worth the wait. Worth the countless pairs of jeans I've ruined with chocolate stains. Yes, all for the über-Apron. This apron by Ontwerpwerk has built-in oven mits. Yup. No rushing around looking for the oven gloves you put under the baking tray anymore and no flour-covered shirts. Plus, this isn't a fussy floral number my mum would wear – well she wears a lab coat to cook. But that's another story.

Full photo by DWR, detail by us.

Japanese Kanji Work Gloves

After successfully making it out of the 80's and 90's without branding myself with some sketchily translated form of calligraphy on the back of my milky neck or delicately inked onto my ankle, this winter I have donned a far a less permanent, yet equally foolish option. Unlike the questionable tattoos designed to ward off bad spirits and alert people to the fact that the wearer is an insecure and unimaginative round eyed devil that believes their "tat" is an edgy addition to their business casual persona, my new Kanji emblazoned Japanese working gloves unapologetically reek of jackass.

Made and purchased in Japan, these lovely additions to my winter attire can easily be worn face up or face down depending on how foolish or brave I am feeling. Although they are clearly labeled "Japanese Kanji", I have not had the inclination to have them properly translated. Until I do, I will be certain not to wave to anyone I suspect of reading Kanji for fear of insulting their mother, or requesting them to cut my hands off.

Tyree and Tyrell make a super weekend.

This past weekend produced two images will be forever etched within my mind. Like endless loops of space shuttles and towers disintegrating before my eyes, two pivotal moments in time have been captured to be revisited until the end of my days.

The names of the key players are music to my ears, Tyree and Tyrell. One man, a Giant, who used his head to extend the life of his team and the hopes of a city. The other man, a mental giant, whose inability to extend life cost him his head.

Of course I speak for David Tyree of the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants, and of Tyrell of Blade Runner fame as originally played by Joe Turkel. However, this weekend I played Tyrell at our friend Cindy's theme-based birthday party (no, I will not show you what I looked like). Outfitted with big goofy glasses and a plush white bathrobe I danced and weaved through a collection of Roys, Sebastians, Rachaels and even a couple of Leons (who may have not known they were playing the part). But there were none more beautiful than Natasha's Rachael or sexier than Karen's Pris whose spot-on eye makeup was courtesy of my art school training, an old tooth brush and Natasha's watercolor set. Cindy supplied the guests with her own version of humanoid "replicants" that dutifully served guest food, drink and her birthday cake in their highly waxed and buffed futuristic design.

Needless to say, both events come back to me with the blur of adrenalin and the clarity of Fox's slow motion replay. Thank you Cindy. Thank you Giants.

New York Giants photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times

Smythson Panama diary

OK, so my step mother isn't the only one who is really good at buying presents. Just before we left, Karen was over from London and handed me the iconic blue bag that has my heart going into palpitations. No, not that kind of blue. A better, more valuable kind. To me, anyway.

Smythson is quality in bound form. All their diaries are pigskin and handmade, originally designed to slip into a gentleman's pocket. Hey, I'm no gentleman, but I have a certain swagger with this in my pocket. And I'm not the only one – Smythson has held the esteemed Royal Warrant of Appointment since 1964. I wonder if the Queen has emerald green too?

Grandfather clock by Rob Price for Spring

To make the present better, we need to learn from the past. Obvious statement, right? Knowing what's come before means that you can learn from the mistakes of others, from the things in history that were good and the things that were bad.

However, the resurgence of a nod to the past, to an era where objects were made properly by craftsmen and artisans, has been rife in the design world. Chandeliers abound, and the details of the old-fashioned have taken on not an artistry but have been relegated to merely a wink, a detail for the sake of detail.

Someone breaking out of the swampy territory of trend is Rob Price and his design for our local, Spring. Rob's piece is not merely a nod to the past, but quite literally a chunk of it. Taking the impracticality of having a huge grandfather clock in one's tiny New York studio, Rob has created a slice of one, complete with walnut and glass, the hands breaking free of their traditional home. The outcome is a poetic and beautiful piece, steeped in history yet relevant today.

Rob's piece has led to a green clock project set by Spring and Core 77 to a number of artists and designers, of which Michael and I are two of. The opening is this Friday at Spring Gallery on Front Street in DUMBO. Hope you can make it!

Photograph by Spring

Body by Brooklyn Spa and Lounge (A Fancy Russian Bath)

Last Friday proved to be an evening of breaking numerous New York City (this includes Brooklyn) stereotypes.

1. New Yorkers don't hang out with their neighbors, let alone speak to them in the elevator.

Here in our DUMBO building we are like family, well maybe a college dorm. It's a building of impromptu dinners, club nights, spontaneous summer parties and even holidays together beyond the confines of our domicile. Therefore it was no surprise when our neighbor The Fitness Guru ask us and a number of others to join him and his lovely Guress for a relaxing evening at the "Russian Baths".

2. Nothing relaxing or legal could possibly take place under the BQE.

Yes, even I was caught off guard when I was told there was a great spa, Body by Brooklyn, located Park Avenue and Washington Avenue. How could this be? After all, Natasha and I walk by there every week on our way to teach at Pratt Institute and we had never experienced anything other than abandon cars, broken pavement and a continuous swirling cloud of exhaust and dirt. But The Guru was right, although a tree couldn't grow in this section of Brooklyn, a spa certainly did.

3. Russian baths are disgusting and vile homes to bacteria, men with hyperactive hair follicles and questionable endings to treatments.

OK, I'm not exactly sure how many other spas/baths offer private suites with a Jacuzzi, steam room and plasma screen TV for $200 an hour, but it all seemed in keeping with this quirky establishment. A year and a half old, it was so clean that even this man from the world of OCD didn't think twice about putting on, or taking off his communal flip-flops. Surprisingly enough, we weren't met with any hirsute men or women, nor hulking frames that one would expect to be lumbering around such a place. And for better or worse, funny business was kept to jokes over drinks at the well-stocked bar. The restaurant was clean and health code conscious as well. In fact, The Guru saw a head of lettuce fall on the floor expecting it to be put right back into the food supply only to witness it being picked up and thrown directly into the garbage. No five second rule at Body by Brooklyn!

4. New Yorker skepticism keeps us from spending our money and trying new things.

As a New Yorker I am always alert, ready and aware of the scam, the smooth talker and the deal. This goes double when the person proposing the great opportunity has an foreign accent other than a proper, Queen's English. But this night my pores and mind were open to anything. Therefore when "Ben" the Turkmenistan masseur approached me to explain the "special offer" of a Dead Sea Salt Exfoliating and Traditional Russian Platza (a.k.a. Jewish acupuncture), I caught him off guard and before the hard-sell I said yes.

The experience was well worth the price of $80 (the deal was anything over $40 would waive the night's fee of $40). First this slight 110 pound man, a former 190 pound man, took me to the steam room for the exfoliation. And as Ben explained, the salt was from the Jordanian side of the the sea due to a huge price gap with the Israeli salt. Under the watchful eye of the rest of the room, he began a massage that gave me the strange sensation of being rubbed down like a side of short ribs.

Now, soft and tingly I was sent off for a soak and warm up in the hot tub before I entered the Hot Room where the Platza would take place. The hot room should be called the "I just died and went to Hell" room. At 190 degrees, even the walls and floor are too hot to touch. In fact, it is so hot that Ben had to wear a Soviet star emblazoned wool cap soaked in water to keep his head cool, and his hair follicles from burning to a crisp during the entire session. As he prepared the treatment bed by pouring ice cold water on a blanket I tried to acclimate my lungs to the light and searingly invigorating air. Lying face down on the bed Ben covered my head with a cool wet towel that was soon to take on the heat of the room. I could hear the rustle of the oak leaf branches that he would soon be beating my arms, trunk, legs and feet with. Fifteen seconds into the treatment I thought I was going to die as my lungs failed to provide me with amounts ample of air. This was similar to the unsettling feeling I experienced the time I was ascending the heights of Mount Kilimanjaro.

This uncharted course quickly turned to relaxation and otherworldliness. As I turned over the rhythmical beating of the leaves took me further away while dead skin cells were whisked from my limbs. After a final beating while sitting on a bench with my arms extended like Jesus, Ben instructed me to journey to my salvation, the ice pool. As I plunged into the water the cells of my body sang a song and joined the universe. I felt everything and nothing, but I was certain I was very much alive. After the pool I was swaddled and place on lounge chair to take it all in. Ben suggested a vodka shot and a drink to finish the treatment. Now that's a happy ending.

I'm Blog

If you're like me, you spend too much time on Instant Messenger than you should. Remember how much work we got done before the internets? And you know you shouldn't do it, especially as irony and sarcasm really don't translate very well on it, but hey, it's still fun. Much to my unnamed friend's chagrin, I tend to keep everything that she writes down, emails and ichats included, and what you see above is an excerpt. Because anything out of context is fun.

Cue I'm Blog, where people can upload their random iChats, out of context. Yes, my one isn't as risqué as the ones shown on the site, just two friends talking about Good Reads , but perhaps I will upload some anonymously.

Restless Chopsticks

Michael's going to like this one, he's a self-professed germophobe. Me, not so much, but I do like things to be neat and tidy, even though my desk belies this idea.

Along come the Restless Chopsticks. We just set a form and function project to our class a few weeks ago, and this answers the brief perfectly. Nothing extraneous, no silly rests made of bamboo. These chopsticks elevate themselves from the table on their own and appear like they are floating. You see! Form and function go together.

Peter Beaton in Nantucket

Now I'm not one of those preppy types, well not in the way that you may understand the term. Both Sweetu and I tend to appreciate preppiness in an understated English way. We go for a little Maragret Howell, Church's and Labour and Wait.

Going up to Nantucket the other week, I saw a lot of preppy types. Actually I was kind of shocked by it. Never had I seen so many blonde-haired, checkered-pants-wearing people in one place, but then, I never go to the Upper East Side. I obviously need to get out more.

Some of these blonde-haired people went into Peter Beaton, where I dutifully followed. I was pleasantly surprised. Bright orange, pink and brown umbrellas with contrasting undersides and beautifully crafted wooden handles. Gorgeous navy blue one-piece bathing suits for infants. And the best, rough-hewn rubber wellies that seem raw and almost unfinished. Perhaps my preppy fix will be from here, and not from the old tweeds of the homeland.

Clara Francis jewellery

I'm not one for jewellery, but I do like to look at it even if I don't really like to wear it. Oftentimes it is too fussy for me, it makes me feel too ornate, too adorned, too girly.

Clara Francis came along this London Fashion Week and she might just change my mind, maybe, maybe not. What I like about her work is her use of old materials to convey a modern aesthetic. Meticulously applied beads give a blurry, pixelated effect, making the birds and butterflies look like they just flew into a 72dpi jpeg. And who doesn't want to wear a jpeg?

Where have you been?

Yeah, I know, you all have the Cities I've Visited application on your Facebook profile, so you can boast show how well-traveled and worldly you are. But this window installation is different! Firstly, it doesn't let you brag that you've been to Uruguay, but asks where you were born and where you live now. Unfortunately for me the line from London to New York is one well-pencilled. If you have a more interesting trajectory, head over to The Apartment on Crosby Street and make it public.

Roger Arquer at Conversational Spanish 0.2

When I first arrived in New York, enthusiastic, scared, green and extremely English, no one could understand a word I said. My first day at Karim's was pretty scary and I really didn't know anyone in the city.

Luckily Roger Arquer was there. He befriended me (or vice versa, I'm not sure) and made me laugh. He came to Karim Rashid's office karaoke outing that I initiated because I knew no one and thought that seeing a very tall Egyptian-Canadian designer in a pink suit singing in Chinatown would be funny (it was). He came round for dinner and instead of bringing the usual bottle of wine, he brought a pineapple. I liked him. He became my friend and helped me acclimatize to a difficult new city.

Hopefully I did the same for him when he moved to London two years later. And now, finished with his Masters at the best college in the world, and a bit of press later, Roger is
launching his new project, Fish Bowls at London Design Week. He'll be joined by other Spanish greats like El Ultimo Grito and Marti Guixe.

Another Magazine launch party

Last fashion week I disgruntledly nursed the bruises I got from people pushing in the line outside the Dazed and Confused party with bad vodka in a plastic cup. I realized quite how short I am, even in heels, at this particular party. And, horror of all horrors, I was forced to make strained conversation with my doppelganger, M.I.A. while my friend Karen searched for a camera to take photo of us, two English Sri Lankans with the same face, together side by side at last.

This year I was a bit luckier. Lucky because the VMA awards were they same night as the Another Magazine party and so M.I.A. was probably at those instead. Lucky also because we turned up at just the right time and were not some of the seemingly hundreds of RSVP-ers that didn't get in. Good timing on both parts.

I don't normally like this kind of thing, but I had a blast. Unlike the ludicrous Milk Studios last year, the party was at The Box this year. In itself The Box is a club worth going to because of the space itself. An old theater whose chandeliers actually make sense contextually, well-chosen wallpaper and intimate coves dotted around to sit in. It works because you feel like you are at the Folies Bergere of yesteryear, and not on Chrystie Street. Get these elements wrong and you look like something out of a Lucky shoot, which thankkfully The Box avoids. On top of that there was cabaret, burlesque and side show. And a horned, tattooed, bare-chested Master of Ceremonies. Who can argue with that?

Illegal Art in the New York Times

Public art is rife with criticism. You set yourself up for people to take a shot at you and you take them with the subsequent pats on the back in mind. Nevertheless, sometimes those criticisms do smart a little.

Perhaps I shouldn't say this too soon. But the wonderful thing about Illegal Art's pieces in DUMBO and East 6th Street was the overwhelmingly positive response. The beauty about the work that Nova Clutch's Michael and our friend Otis do is that it isn't about them. They are enablers, their artwork allows other people to create. It's not about imposing their thoughts or ideas on other people, it's about coaxing it out of the unassuming.

And I'm not the only one that thinks this; the New York Times' Labour Day weekend paper featured Illegal Art in their Op Ed page this weekend, and I'm oh-so-proud. Oh, and the Herald Tribune didn't find it so bad either.

We'll also be covering Illegal Art's participation in the DUMBO Art Festival at the end of the month, so stay tuned for a new project.

Milk Table

I sit at a desk 10 ft in the air on the mezzanine of a loft in DUMBO. I sit on this chair at a 7ft long desk that was salvaged from an old garment factory next to our building. It's so heavy that I'm surprised the mezzanine is still standing.

I'm very happy with my old, strange desk, but what I'm not happy with is the mass of wires and cables that surround it. External hard drives, USB connectors, camera card readers, modem boxes and lots of screens makes for a bit of a mess. And I don't like mess, it reminds me of my mum's house.

And along comes Milk from Denmark, the table you wish you had designed yourself. Desks always look beautiful before you actually start to use them, and that's when the desk gets lost and doesn't even matter anymore. Milk seems to want it to stay beautiful, even with all your stuff on it. Milk has storage for your cables, outlets for them to come through and it even raises and lowers at the touch of a button. A far throw from my old iron castoff that still has the cuts from the garment workers pressed into its surface. With Milk there is a drawer for files, storage space for that half a sandwich you're saving for later and it is made, as its sleekness suggests, for a Mac. What do I do? Stay true to my vintage or opt for the smoothness of a modern, streamlined future? First the iPhone, then the Milk table? It's all downhill from here...

More tattoo moustaches...

Our friend J.T. wasn't the only one to get her 'tache on Sunday night...but we're still trying to persuade T.T. to do it. Come on T.T., it's better than a wedding ring. I for one am contemplating it, and practiced the double-digited handlebar with a Sharpie last night.

Good Reads

I'm not really one for signing up for the myriad services that have popped up with the wonder that is the internet. I don't need Facebook to keep me in touch with my loved ones (although that's how my now-nomadic brother chooses to let people know where he is currently. Everest Base Camp next week) and I refuse to have a myspace page.

Sarit invited me to join Good Reads and I was a little dubious. I mean, I don't pay any attention to my Netflix queue and don't watch the subsequently bad films that keep filling my mailbox. Perhaps if their new service worked on a Mac I would actually watch the films. But no, that's only for pasty PC people. I am hoping my friend Melissa is going to take over my queue for me and choose less ambitious films, or certainly ones without subtitles.

But Good Reads is actually good! It catalogs what you have read, what you rate, what you're going to read and the same for your friends. I used to keep a reading diary, something my A level English Literature teacher recommended it (remember her Laura – Miss Frasier?) and although it sounds like something only sad geeks do, it's a really useful exercise. Not only do you choose books differently depending on what's going on in your life, remembering what you read and when is almost like re-reading a diary, well for me anyway. So join Good Reads and geek out with your friends. It'll either make you realize how shallow you are or how damned cultured. I think so far, I'm somewhere in between.

Tattoo Moustache

Right or wrong? Right, yes, yes, yes! No, wrong. I don't know, I'm confused. I shouldn't be attracted to this, but I am. A woman with a moustache, a woman with a moustache tattooed on her finger no less.

No, no, no, this is not a new thing, it has been happening since the age of 13 or so when I started to discover girls and women with those ever so lovely and slight moustaches. Oh yes, there is of course my grandmother's. That prickly tickle that I felt when we greeted each other with that quick little stiff-lipped smack. But that is not what I'm talking about really.

I'm talking about that lovely little growth of light silky hair, a velvet shadow if you will, on the upper lip, labia in Latin, of those lovely ethnic girls that I seemed to be attracted to ever since thumbing through the Polynesian issue of National Geographic as a youth. But as girls will do, they turn into women, women with access to women's magazines that tell them that hair must go! These same women then have access to waxing, threading and lasers that will remove what they now believe to be a masculine trait that is unattractive to the other sex. Rubbish I say, rubbish!

Until today, all I had to titillate this ungodly attraction would be shopping trips in Manhattan with Natasha where I would become overwhelmed as we walked past the shop girls sporting their field of silky wisps lip hair as they shouted "next"! Now there is our friend J.T. (formerly J.W.) with her freshly tattooed on again, off again finger-stache to tease and confuse me further. Just look at that slight upturn of the finely groomed Zapata, it's killing me. All I can say is that it takes big balls to be a real woman like J.T. Her man T.T. couldn't be luckier. Natasha, are you reading this, is there an Errol Flynn, Chaplin or Selleck in our future?

Opinel & Laguiole knives from France

There are many things that you feel a bit iffy bringing over into another country. My friend (who shall remain nameless) recently came over and got horridly grilled by the nice people at Immigration. She was coming over with a load of fashion gear to do a quick shoot and then fit in a littlecamping with us afterwards. Unfortunately, the belligerent customs officer didn't believe her and demanded to see some of the camping gear in her three bulging suitcases.

Out of the first suitcase fell a piece of rope (part of any fashion stylist's style kit?), a wax jacket and a Vivienne Westwood sheepskin coat. So far so good, on to the next suitcase. A pair of converse put straight down into the top of the case looked convincing enough, as did the neoprene skirt (diving in MA anyone?). Convinced, the appeased douanier let her go. Thank God he didn't pull the pair of Converse out of the trunk,which would have revealed a pair that she had got customized with 6 inch platform heels. When she arrived at my place, we opened up the third suitcase just to see what he would have seen had he opened that one. What greeted us was a drag queen's treasure chest; 10-inch heels, necklaces, miniskirts and spangly tops. We considered her fortunate.

When I came back from France I had nothing of the sort in my case, but I did have that memory ringing in my ears and a lot of wine, aperitifs and digestifs. And...a lot of knives. Michael and I have long loved Opinel and the pragmatic aesthetic of their knives and I wanted to supplement our collection. And when I left the butcher's house in Île de Ré, they knew I was on the hunt for Laguiole knives and was going to search for them on the mainland, but they stopped me just as I was walking out with my suitcase. And gave me six of their very own knives. I'm not sure why, but they wouldn't let me say no.

Which left me with a suitcase with about 20 knives in it, flying in peak season from the horrendously packed Heathrow airport into the not-known-for-its-leniency John F. Kennedy airport. Thankfully I had none of the trouble of my friend and, sweating slightly, managed to get my fantastic knives home safely. Here they are – all the more precious for their journey here.

An onion goes in DUMBO

Although I am not one to promote the wanton defacing of other people's property, I am certainly less willing to draw a line in the sand and create an absolute definition of what we as community should consider art. Or for that matter, where our community's art should be placed. After all, each day we are faced with much more unsettling visual clutter on our urban landscape in the form of advertising and marketing campaigns designed to drive our consumerlicious society.

OK, let me get off my high horse for a moment and walk you up to what my actual point. The point is, there are very few times in the day when I see something that makes me stop, smile or feel connected. But it happened to me yesterday while walking down Water Street (at Pearl Street) here in DUMBO when I came across a stencil of an onion on a grey door and surrounded by various tags and marks. In all cases the names of the artists was a mystery, even with the guidance of Peter Sutherland and Revs' imprint of Autograf: York Citys Graffiti Writers (Powerhouse Books), I was helpless. I suppose I am a lot less street than I tell Natasha. But, back to the point.

Was the onion art? Were the tags art? Should I know? Should I care? What I do know is that I stopped to look, frame a photo and even notice the detail of each careful cut of artists blade into the stencil. The over spray, and the under spray that gave this flat piece dimension. Overall the onion was an interesting piece, skillfully drawn and composed, but certainly a lesser piece with out the brush strokes of the hastily painted door and the poetic stylization and drips of the tags behind it.

Brilliant art or rubbish, I didn't care, it moved me, as I believe it has moved the person who today was edging ever closer to the door with a roller loaded with beige paint. You better move fast before there is no longer a point to this entry.

Create your own Simpsons avatar

This is as good as it sounds! Go here to scare family and friends with their own yellow likeness (my brother shown above).