One room at a time and The Suitcase House

I've always been interested in how human beings work with space so especiallly limited spaces like Airstream trailers and Tokyo apartments, where form and function are sometimes magically paired , appeal to me; I have been known to muse that "you can only be in one room at a time."

So I was completely enchanted with the article in the NY Times yesterday about architect Gary Chang and his tiny Hong Kong apartment with moving walls that can actually be transformed in 24 different configurations.

I love the irony that an apartment filled with the latest design and technology was remodelled to house the architect's extensive cd collection! I agree that Mp3s are great but so are the liner notes and artwork tucked into jewel cases.

It has a very Wong Kar-Wai feeling the way the golden light bathes the space.

I also love that even in a tiny space the bathtub is deep and the guest bed is hidden above it!



Then there is Mr Chang's Suitcase House built in 2000 where you can stay in China near the Great Wall just 20 minutes from the Beijing airport . This space is filled with light and again the same flexibility of making the space into what you'd like it to be as you go along. So beautiful in summer...or winter.... inside.... outside.... day....or night.....

I wonder if The Suitcase House in 1945 offered any inspiration ....

The "Shrimp"

Now that I've been thinking about Mary Quant and the 60s fashion icons I remembered the model Jean Shrimpton who was the first supermodel to command the amazing fee of $56 an hour!

She was everywhere in fashion magazines with her long blonde hair, big blue eyes, fabulous pout and legs for days. Shrimpton became the face for Yardley cosmetics and was with Twiggy and Veruschka in the 60s what Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell were in the 90s.

Jean was romantically linked with the photographer David Bailey who would go on to marry Catherine Deneuve and the actor Terrence Stamp who was evidently more in love with himself at the time.

As elegant and poised as she was in ballgowns and miniskirts it's reported that she actually like to wear her own comfortable clothes when not working and only owned about five dresses.

She wrote an autobiography and made one movie, but left the limelight decades ago. Today she is married with a son who was born in 1979 and she evidently runs the 300 year old Abbey Hotel in Penzance, England.

"It was fun becoming famous, but I got tired of it"

Mini Madness

In the 1960s it's said that Mary Quant named her miniskirt after the Mini automobile because they were both "only as long as they had to be"

Last week my 20 year old Toyota Corolla was replaced by a new 2009 Mini Cooper and they are fun! I parked in one of those spots in SF this weekend where I used to pass by in my old car saying "If I had a Mini I could park there." - 37 miles to the gallon on the freeway and one tank of gas to LA are only some of the perks.

Thinking about minis brought back fond memories of mini skirts and maxi coats and my Mary Quant eyeshadow paintbox - some trends do go full circle!

There's even a designer Mini that was customized by Mary Quant - love to see "colour" spelled the way I grew up with it being spelled. Now if I could only "mini-mize" my car payment...

Don't Forget to Vote!!!

My friend's son in Southern California wrote the song and sings the song these Southern California actresses supporting Barack Obama lip-sync in the above video!

Mill Valley Film Festival

Thursday night was the opening night of the Mill Valley Film Festival which turns 30 this year!

On Saturday I'm going to see Wendy & Lucy with Michelle Williams.

On Monday it's time for Cherry Blossoms by German director Doris Dorrie who entered How to Cook Your Life in last year's festival.

On Tuesday it's a double-header with Adam Resurrected and then 57,000 KM Between Us

Last, but not least, comes Good Night Irene on Saturday afternoon - I can smell the popcorn from here...

Piazolla and life on the pampas

I've been thinking a lot about Argentina and all the wonderful influences Astor Piazolla and the tango have had on us.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to fly to Buenos Aires and spend the evening in a tango bar?

If nature calls then you must travel to Iguazu Falls where the sheer spectacle of so much water evidently makes Niagara pale in comparison.
For the bohemians we can hang out in caffes where the likes of Borges sipped strong espresso and wrote The Labrynth or Cortazar wrote Blow-Up and we got one of Antonioni's gems.
Argentinian beef is supposed to be some of the best because of the pampas and the cows grass-fed diet. If you can't get to Argentina try El Raigon restaurant in San Francisco. If you're vegetarian try the wild mushroom and leek risotto - if not, the epinadas.
What is it about the tango that makes it so dammed sexy? Once again I think of Wong Kar Wai's Happy Together.

Brooklyn Modern

Wandering through the San Francisco MOMA bookstore today I happened by accident to pick up a copy of the book Brooklyn Modern and, after wondering what rock I've been sleeping under this spring and summer, promptly bought a copy to bring home and read the wonderful essays by Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge and Jonathan Butler of Brownstoner while enjoying the point of view photographs from talented photographer Yoko Inoue.

Seeing a second renaissance in the "hood" where I did a lot of my growing up fills me with a mixture of emotions. My stepmother Elizabeth and my father (and my Aunt Nancy) raised me and my three younger brothers in Boerum Hill in the seventies while holding down demanding jobs and remodelling their 150 year old brownstone. In those days you couldn't get a cab in Manhattan to cross the Brooklyn Bridge - today a talented actress I just watched in the movie Transsiberian is our neighbor.

These photos do a remarkable job of transmitting the light that pours in the long narrow windows, wide floorboards and high ceilings. On summer evenings neighbors gathered on their stoops or walked their dogs and stopped to talk about the next block party or Boerum Hill House Tour . My parents were among the first wave of young professionals who were perhaps priced out of Manhattan and saw the inherit beauty of these brownstones. They planted trees forty years ago that now provide shade to the neighborhoods off Atlantic Avenue or Smith Street.


Neighbors opened the first shops like Nancy Cogen's Melting Pot where I used to batik t-shirts when I was in college and lease empty lots from the city where small vest-pocket parks were planted and department stores donated benches for residents to sit - there were storybook readings for the smaller kids and I think I knew almost everyone who lived in the next block or two around me - pretty rare considering this was New York City in 1976!


I think I most loved sitting in the backyard after the chain link fence had been pulled down and the concrete replaced by rose bushes and grape arbors where the world's tallest pear tree grew in the back. We would barbecue and sit at the picnic table hearing our neighbors in their yards too. The Williamsburg Bank building was really the only skyscraper in the distance silhouetted by the setting sun. My brothers would catch fireflies in a jar and they'd glow luminous in the twilight - on and off like stars in the gallaxy; it really doesn't get much better than that!