Nova Clutch

Cazal 953

I've been getting a lot of flak from my lady about these vintage Cazal sunglasses ever since I got them, I absolutely love them, however the first time I wore them she grimaced and told me that I look like Angie from the 70’s. I had no idea who Angie was so I pursued the matter…it took a couple of days to get an answer.
Apparently Angie was actually “Aunt Angie” a family member from Long Island who was “married to the mob” and mysteriously disappeared in the summer of 1978. Intrigued by this I explored the matter further. Aunt Angie was a size 4, olive skinned woman that liked to wear skin tight Sergio Valente Jeans with stilettos, she had a white woman afro, drove a silver Cadillac and she was hot.
If this was supposed to put me off the glasses, it didn’t work.                                        

Shepard Fairey, "E Pluribus Venom" in DUMBO

The revolution will not be televised
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will have to get on the F, drop in and get off.
You will have to lose yourself in DUMBO and skip,
tripping out for latte after the show,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will be brought to you by Jonathan Levine
In 2 parts with commercial implications.
The revolution will show you pictures of a boy
after blowing an attempt to light a charge,
DJs, security and onlookers after they
confiscated his smoke before making a splash.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will be brought to you by
Dewar's, The Rub, Zipcar and two from the woods.
The revolution will not require your participation.
The revolution will not make you question.
The revolution is bigger than ever, but looking thinner,
because the revolution has been industrialized, Brother.

There will be no pictures without considered detail,
pushing the iconography and philosophy of propaganda,
or trying to slide meaning into color and flocking.
We could not predict a winner on 6:23
or report a final judgement.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be words of critics shooting down
a brother making art with a payday.
There will be words of critics shooting down
a brother making art with a payday.
There will be less pictures on alley walls because
Shepard has a brand new process.
There will be textures and patterns
as your eyes go strolling through a Beige, Red and Black
field of liberation that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Andre, Malcolm, and Mohammed will no longer be so damned relevant,
we know that the medium was always the message.
Search for meaning tomorrow because the guest list left the people
in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no question of artistry and composition
and no pictures to be condemned for lack of technique,
beauty or mind blowing impact, but who knows.
The final review will not be written on the web,
we don't have the key, nor the smug need to gamble,
or jones to cash in a hyperlink to trash this rare man of the earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back
after this message about a urgency, currency, or people power.
You will not have to worry about a Fairey in your bedroom,
big brother watching you, or a giant over your toilet bowl.
The revolution has been pre-sold.
The revolution will now be made into wallpaper.
The revolution will put you in the decorator's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live until 7:7.

Wild boar cacciatorini

We picked this up at our local the other day, coaxed by the friendly and wildly enthusiastic staff at Foragers in DUMBO. We always try what they recommend, and they have a few dried meat gems, particularly from the West Coast.

Well, move over California, because the East Coast is catching up to you. Actually, not just the East Coast, but New York City itself. This hunter's sausage is handmade at Salumeria Biellese in Manhattan – it's not often you hear that – and the wild boar is marinaded with wine, herbs and juniper berries. It has a really complex and rich flavor and a lovely muted claret color. As recommended by Foragers, we ate it with some fresh buffalo mozzarella, which offsets the intense meatiness of the sausage perfectly.

Male and female zucchini flowers

There are many ways in which females are different from men. We smell nicer, we can multi-task (a cliché but a cliché for a reason) and we can bear offspring.

The same can be said for our zucchini blossoms, shown here. The males will bear no fruit, and are there just to fertilize the females so that they can become squash. The female is useful both for its flower and its fruit, which is very tiny and infantile still, as you can see from the pictures.

We stuffed these clusters with parmesan and roasted them on top of of white beans and fresh cherry tomatoes with rosemary and garlic. Luckily more keep sprouting up, as I want to try some of theserecipes soon. More photos here.

George Boorujy at Newhouse Gallery

Saturday brought a flurry of activity and inter-borough travel highlighted by a trip to Staten Island's Snug Harbor Cultural Center. Yes, all you Manhattan centric people, you heard me right, a cultural center on Staten Island. Our original intent was only to take the Staten Island Ferry out and support our friend George Boorujy's "The Nature of Civilization" show which was opening that day at the The Newhouse Gallery. Surprisingly, we discovered a diamond in the rough neatly tucked away behind a 19th century wrought iron fence.

We stumbled upon George's work a number of years ago during a group show here in DUMBO. Within a mishmash of maximalism, abstraction, garish pallets and questionable craftsmanship, composition and intent that has become the DUMBO art scene of late, hung a handful of paintings exceptional in their serene, detailed minimalism and negative space bustling with tension, activity and meaning. However, what struck us most was their sense of what I would call "black fact", a close cousin to "black humor". As a comedian skillfully leads one to laugh uncomfortably at a serious ailment or life shattering event, George uses the graceful beauty of his subject matter and his deft painterly skills to thinly veil a message about how we humans have screwed up the delicate balance of our world and subjected its most beautiful creatures to our folly. Whether it be a whale covered in graffiti on a beach that no longer exist, or a scientist dressed as a migratory bird in the rushes of a wetland that has been thoughtfully forgotten, the message comes across soft and clear.

George has certainly found a voice that has helped separate himself from being labeled a modern day James Audobon, a skilled illustrator or even eco-warrior through his unique brand of skillful visual storytelling. By chance we have now become friends with George through Nicole and Sweetu and come to understand that the thoughtfulness, serenity and sincerity of his art are but an extension of George's personality. These are the same qualities that The Newhouse Gallery's engaging and considered curator Frank Verpoorten experienced while choosing George as one of the three artists for his "Civilization Was Purchased by the Betrayal of Nature" show. George is joined by Elsie Kaufman and Karen Ludlam and the show runs through September 1st.

Build a Green Bakery

Walking down 1st Avenue in a little bit of a daze from seeing our friends' new baby, we stumbled upon a little green oasis in the midst of sensory hell.

Propelled like a magnet into the store, I noticed the recycled countertop and reclaimed floorboards. Upon walking in you find out that they give you a 25% discount if you arrive by bike or skateboard (I was walking, but I don't know if that counts). Their walls are wheat, the cups made of corn, they compost their coffee grounds everyday.

But that's not the reason they're appealing, not to me anyway. I appreciate the awareness and the effort, no doubt, but what drew me in was, of course, the food. All organic food, the array is beautiful and palpably earthy. I bought a corn muffin and a miso muffin, trying hard to not buy anything more. Unfortunately there are no pictures of the corn muffin because I ate it on the way to the subway.

Crunchy stone ground corn, not too sweet, studded with organic blueberries. It was gone in minutes. The fact that you could actually taste the corn and weren't overwhelmed by sugar was so gratifying. I managed to get the miso muffin home and photographed before that too was devoured with a nice cup of bog standard builder's tea (that's this for you Statesiders).

Made with spelt flour, kamut, miso, apple and sprinkled with sugar, it does sound like a treehugger's dream. Don't let that put you off. BAGB is not like BabyCakes – it's not about it being good for you, or not even about it being green. It's great that they're doing their bit and all that, I'm just focusing on the fact that although they have a good marketing story, they support it by having a genuinely good product. Too many people are jumping on the green wagon, but the wagon is all that anyone is going to be driving in the next ten years. BAGB stands apart by excelling as well as having a conscience. Let that be a lesson to all you crappy wagon hoppers out there – get a good product to begin with!

A whole pig dinner at Daisy May's

Yes, you heard correctly. A whole pig.

Now I may be a bit of an eater (say foodie and I retch), but I'm not very good at dealing with the gory parts. You know, such as heads, feet and eyes. My experience with whole roasted guinea pigs in Peru is not one I would ever like to relive.

So when Darren's birthday dinner was held at Daisy May's for a big pig gig I was more than sceptical. Sceptical that I could make it through dinner without looking the pig in the face and screaming the house down. I know, pathetic. I should give up food and become a vegetarian. After that meal, I want to. Anyway, we went along with our camera in tow, ready to take one for the team. Team Nova Clutch that is.

So the deal is that you buy a whole pig, which weighs about 30lbs and supposedly feeds 12, but there were 19 at this table. The pig gets delivered to you on a large cutting board, and gets cut up, the skin peeled back, fat splashing about the table. The sides were really rather good; buttery texas toast, amazing sweet potato purée, dubious potato mash with white gravy, excellent baked beans and creamed corn. My internal question about how they got their baked beans so tasty was answered by a photograph on the knotty pine wall. They line a cast iron skillet with bacon, leaving it hanging over the edges, pour in the beans mix and then fold the excess bacon over the top of the beans to make a strange-looking pie. Hence the tastiness, bacon always helps with that.

I actually cannot post the pictures. They are rather explicit. There was so much fat coming out of that pig (that it ran over the moat in the board intended to keep it at bay, and pooled on the table, and then the floor) that we had to pull our chairs back. Suffice to say, that if you're into seeing the face of what you eat, this one's for you. And if that's not your bag, perhaps you are not that into cadavers or you like your pig belly with a little frisée on the side, give Daisy May's a wide berth.

Melissa: Black rubber shoes

Black rubber shoes with a spiked heel. Need I say more?

They are the epitome of S & M, but the slightly rounded toe takes them into Betty Boop territory, making them semiotically a little confusing. Which is why I like them. They're also very comfortable because the rubber gives more than leather does. I've been asked several times whether the rubber shoes make your feet sweat. The answer is absolutely. But who cares? Just walk slowly.

Chalkboard Picture Frame

I know this looks like a big black square, and that must be what Jen thought when she opened the gift we had brought for her lovely daughter, Parker. A rather macabre-looking present for a little girl?

Well, not in intent. What you see is a picture frame, completely painted with black chalkboard paint. That way everything she draws in it will be a masterpiece, framed and hung on the wall.

Customized Address Stamp

It's always a problem to get gifts for those who have everything (you know who you are). Sweetu doesn't quite have that problem as he is such a minimalist, but he is extremely discerning and rather picky. So on his birthday, instead of trying to guess at what Nom de Guerre piece to get him, we made him this stamp instead.

He happens to also be the Sweetest man alive, in name and in nature, so a double S to make a heart symbol was the perfect apotheosis. He can now stamp his sweetness on whatever he wants.