Some late hours at l'express.

beet

Roasted beets. Heretofore, a method:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Slice the tops off the beets and scrub to remove any crusty bits. Tear off a square of foil for each beet. Pour a little olive oil in a bowl and roll a beet around to coat. Place it on a piece foil with a sprig of thyme and a pinch of flakey sea salt. Wrap up and bake for 90 minutes. Or set the oven to 200 degrees and roast the beets for several hours over a morning or afternoon. The flavor will be superlative.

When you remove the packets from the oven, place them in a bowl to catch any oil and beet juice that might leak. Allow to cool, then remove the skins with your hands, gently rubbing them away. Season with salt and freshly-ground black pepper and dress with a mixture of porto vinegar, dijon mustard and walnut or hazelnut oil. Chill.

Great laid out on endive leaves or under a bouquet of maché with a few roasted walnut halves and a little wedge of fromage bleu Auvergne.

diXXit MAHA !

Choeur Maha, a thirty member women’s choir under the artistic direction of Kathy Kennedy, presents “diXXit MAHA!”, a special concert to kick off their 20^th anniversary celebrations.

December 4th 2010
19h30
Ukrainian Federation 5213, rue Hutchison, Montréal

Reserve tickets here.

papercraft

A 2009 Gestalten publication, edited by Robert Klanten and Sven Ehmann.

Vimukthi Jayasundara

Pumidika Sapurni Peiris as Batti in The Forsaken Land, 2005



Thusitha Laknath's character wanders a rural Sri Lankan landscape empty of adult men in Vimukthi's newest film Between Two Worlds, which opens tonight in Manhattan. View a clip here.

Leif Inge's 9 Beet Stretch, a recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's ninth symphony stretched to 24 hours, without pitch distortion. Luminous and uplifting. Listen here.

Begin Again

A biography of John Cage, reviewed here.

(Illustration by Joe Ciardiello)

Thanks for looking + reading, dear people.

David & Peter

David McDermott and Peter McGough.
An exhibit, a film and a Radiolab piece.

Let's nod to the Shakers and have pie for breakfast. Suddenly New York and San Francisco are national centers of pie innovation:
Momofuku Milk Bar.
Hill Country Kitchen.
Mission Pie.
Butter Love Bakeshop.
Four and Twenty Blackbirds.

Early American Aviaries

Detail of David and Phila Franks with bird, 1733.
Gerardus Duyckinck (1695-1746). American Jewish Historical Society. Waltham, MA and NYC.

Detail of Elizabeth Gould with bird, 1755.
Joseph Badger (1708-1765).

Detail of Jemima Flucker with bird, 1760.
Joseph Badger (1708 - 1765). Chrysler Museum. Norfolk, Virginia.

Detail of Mary Tilghman & sons with bluejay, 1770's.
Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827).

Detail of Elizabeth Ross (Mrs. William Tyng) with bird, 1766.
John Singleton Copley (1738-1815). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

<< Airry Chorristers pour forth their melody...the mocking bird...inchanted me with his harmony. >>
- Eliza Lucas Pinckney, circa 1740, South Carolina

a place setting

Enoch and Meeks, Asa and Solace.

Collaboration with metalsmith Suzanne Pugh. She made a cup (silver and gold). I made a place mat and name cards (linen, cotton thread, paper, pencil).

We referenced Flannery O'Connor's writing, with a focus on her characters' names: I used a number of them for the place cards and Suzanne chased this quote from A Circle in the Fire:

<<>>

The piece is for the SNAG Conference in Seattle, May 26-29 2011.

threads and pencils

colour! from DMC and Prismacolour.

Miss your air

Mr. Hare: Paris had an air, and it was graceful.

Broder

Broder Café.
A Swede's dream, in Portland Oregon.

dog fur

Spun and knit by Ms. Mary Armstrong: Samoyed (white), Husky (grey), Chow (caramel), mutt (grey/chestnut). Spun with and without merino. Brush your dog. Save the fur. Send it to her. She'll wash, spin, wash, ply and knit it up for you. Second only to muskox and possum for warmth, dog fur fruffs out beautifully in the cold and is wonderfully soft.

C. and I visited Mary at her home near the Carcross turnoff (Klondike Hwy) last week. C. bought an adorable little baby toque and we ordered a few pairs of mittens, a scarf and -for Alice- a little orange sweater (of kool-aid-dyed Samoyed) with a team-blue "A" on the back.

dogfibres@hotmail.com

"Balls", said the Queen, "if I had 'em I'd be King".

The remarkable and lovely Jill Clayburgh. She passed away last Friday, November 5th.

Cookie

the sweetie pie what has a giant vocabulary.

in-progress

collaboration between metalsmith magnifique Suzanne Pugh and me.
More soon.

Skagway, Alaska

Some photos I took last year at the Skagway Museum and Archives. Second from bottom is a detail of a gut parka.