Monthly Archives: January 2010

Love or Lust? Life or Death?

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Sometimes I wish there could be Museum which would only expose one painting at a time. It would force the eyes and the mind to enter the scene, to imagine the story, to dwell and go beyond.

Perhaps because today, we swim in overexposure and uberexplanation and then video reality it all. Anyway!

I got lost in this scene and a while later, I could feel the crisp of sheets, the warm air of Paris, the exhaustion…

Their story is about love and lust, desire and conquest, money and status of course. Ultimately it is about life or death.

Henri Gervex and the whirlwind of emotions he painted in Rolla.

What’s your secret?

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Frank Warren started PostSecret, an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. Not only are  the secrets are empowering to their authors, giving because as Franck Warren states “The secret doesn’t own them anymore”, but also to the readers.  Readers will say that postcards can be inspirational or some have healing powers but essentially Warren says that “it give hope to people who identify with a stranger’s secret, and create an anonymous community of acceptance.”

I love this blog and I am not the only one, this morning the Visitor Count read 303,565,098… I have the book: The Secret lives of Men and Women and reading it is like going through a rainbow of emotions… with some of them being hilarious and others quite heavy. France started just their own PostSecretFrance.…

Post Secrets inspired the song: Dirty Little Secrets by The All-American Rejects.

A little too much chocolate is just about right!

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Do you know about my life long love for Chocolate?  It started early on because I come from a family of chocolate lovers. Actually, the rule at home was that you couldn’t have just one piece, you had to have two! The incapacity to resist the temptation and the  sheer pleasure when the chocolate hits the tip of my tongue, sounds very much like an addiction right?

So when I heard that Virginie Delavaud had started a Chocolate week long event in New York, she instantly became my new favorite Guru.

Chocolate & I is a series of events from Feb 8th to Feb 14th, with chefs with the delicious Anne Apparu as part of the gang and artists displaying work around their relationship with chocolate. And if your thing is being green, there is plenty about sustainability  and fair trade practices!

So save your week from Feb 8th to the 14th and make sure your bring your valentine date to

Eat, Love, Play

On Valentine’s night, we invite all (chocolate) lovers in town to enjoy erogenous dishes and appetizing environment envisioned and created by eating designer and artist chef Anne Apparu.

Other fabulous events include:

Love Potion: NYChocolatier Joy Fowler and mixologist Orson Salicetti will combine their unique talents to serve you their most bewitching compositions of fresh infusions and handcrafted truffles with love, using ingredients like honey, thyme, thai chili, tangerine, or Yeni Raki.
Chemistry of Love: Have you ever wondered why cheese and chocolate seem to put you in the mood? Well, they both contain phenylethylamine (PEA), a compound releasing endorphins into the brain and producing a mild feeling of euphoria, similar to the sensation of being in love. Rhonda Kave from Roni-Sue’s Chocolates and Anne Saxelby from Saxelby Cheesemongers will share with you some of these good feelings as you will taste their best sweet and savoury selections of the moment!
Forbidden Food: That Fond-due Feeling For singles only! We invite all hearts awaiting to melt to join us for a luscious cheese and chocolate fondue evening that will transport you on a journey to amusement, pleasure, gluttony, sensuality, culinary caprices and food taboos.

All Art from Will Cotton

“Coming home, don’t bath” said Napoleon to Josephine

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And then you wonder where the French get their reputation from ! Ironically, the author of the Book of Bath is a French women, Art Historian Francoise de Bonneville. She assembled rituals, beautiful pictures, texts and poemes about the Art of Bathing and its sensuous sensations.

From the Swedish steam rooms to the Japanese bathhouses, almost all cultures have incorporated a ritual associated with water knowing that it is much more than cleaning the body: it awakes the senses and soothes the soul.

Here are a few items that if all assembled  could add some playfulness to an already sybaritic moment…

Step 1: turn off the lights in your bathroom
Step 2: light up a Dyptique Candle,
Step 3: add some glow in the dark bubble bath to the warm water
Step 4 if you are feeling a little naughty: bringing along the I Rub My Duckie vibrating body massager.

Can a sofa be sexy? Mais oui of course!

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Salvador Dali’s sofa was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, whom apparently he found fascinating. I can’t seem to get enough of the design’s sensuality and the brightness of the color.

Maybe it’s just my obsession with finding a new sofa that prompted this post but when I saw it in the beautiful new room of the Caudalie Spa decorated by Martin Margiela, I knew I was on to something.

So before I find a good reason to go to Bordeaux, I will just try to indulge in their blissful treatments  in their New York location at the Plaza… not bad either!

Weekend readings: the emotional creature and the so-called wife

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First, a quick interview in the New York Times Magazine, of Eve Ensler for her new book : I am an Emotional Creature, the secret lifes of Girls around the world.

Excerpt:

“Do you ever yearn for security now that you’re 56?
Thank you for putting my age right out there! Security isn’t what I hunger for. I hunger for change. I hunger for connection. I hunger for good sex.”

Then read the very funny Op-Ed contributor titled : My So-Called Wife by Sandra Tsing Loh about why the 50′s model had some interesting benefits namely a double Manhattan at the end of the day!

Excerpt:

“In the end, we all want a wife. But the home has become increasingly invaded by the ethos of work, work, work, with twin sets of external clocks imposed on a household’s natural rhythms. And in the transformation of men and women into domestic co-laborers, the Art of the Wife is fast disappearing.”


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