oscar menu

It's Oscar night! We went by the Mr. Brainwash mural on La Brea avenue last week to snap photos. I'm kind of hoping Banksy shows up to claim his Academy Award tonight for Exit Through the Gift Shop and announce that the whole thing really was just a hoax.

If you haven't already seen the documentary, I highly recommend it--it's a fascinating and surprisingly funny look at underground street art.

On Friday I suddenly had the urge to do an Oscar menu, so tonight we're having:

Black Swan Wings
Winter's Bone Marrow
The King's Speck-Wrapped Asparagus
Deviled Dragon Eggs
Sean Parker's Appletinis

I was going to make a The Kids Are All Right heirloom tomato salad, but there wasn't a decent heirloom to be had in all four places that I looked today, so we're just having a smoked mozzarella and regular old grape tomato salad instead.

9:00 pm EST: updated with photos! The black swan wings were a little frightening to look at, but that's part of the effect we were going for; I used a marinade of soy sauce, sesame oil, chili oil, oyster sauce, salt and pepper, and a little food dye. I wasn't a huge fan of the rubbery eggs (which I only simmered in the dye for 30 minutes and did not flavor), although the marbled effect looks really cool.

fun postal stamps

Some good news for 2011...the United States Postal Service will be issuing a set of stamps this year featuring images from 5 Pixar films! I like most of the choices included here, though I do wish Finding Nemo and The Incredibles had made it as well. It looks like the stamps will be issued in August, so there will be some fun mail to look forward towards the end of the summer.

Speaking of stamps, I received this sweet set of Royal Mail Pooh stamps from my friend Holly recently. I'm very fond of Pooh, of course, and although I'd received a couple of them on postcards, it was nice to get the sheet as well. I just love E.H. Shepard's illustrations, and these drawings are so perfectly rendered on the simple cream-colored background. I also have this set of Wallace and Gromit Christmas stamps winging their way to me courtesy of a kind Swap-Bot member in the UK, which I'm very much looking forward to.

I really don't collect stamps in an official capacity, but those two British sets just happen to feature themes I enjoy--and I do like to use good ones on domestic mail when they're available. We don't seem to have nearly as many author stamps here in the U.S. as they do in other countries, particularly for children's lit...and I somehow missed these stamps featuring Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott books from a few years back. Where was I? What was I doing? I should have been at the post office with a fistful of cash in hand. Oh, well.

Hope your new year has gotten off to a great start, philatelic and otherwise. Cheers to another great year!

84, charing cross road

I like to re-read 84, Charing Cross Road now and again. This true story of a funny, opinionated New Yorker and her 20-year long distance correspondence with a bookseller in London is touching, gallant, and bittersweet, especially in the context of today's digital age and hectic pace. 

I've had a copy of the book since I was a teenager, but a few years ago I came across a copy in a secondhand bookstore that I was compelled to leaf through. I'm glad I did, because carefully tucked away in the slim volume were yellowed clippings of The Los Angeles Times marking reviews of the book's 1987 film adaptation. It seemed to me that the unknown person who had so carefully cut out the papers and kept them with their source material must have loved the idea of Helene Hanff and Frank Doel's intellectual love affair very much.

I promptly bought the copy, of course, and you can see in the photographs how the clippings themselves have even yellowed the pages of the book. Some might say it's rather foolish to replace a pristine book for such a worn copy, but I felt an immediate and huge amount of sentiment for the sentiment displayed. And I felt a responsibility to rescue the book, in case some hard-headed businessman swooped down and decided it wasn't fit for public consumption. I was lucky that some person before me had decided it was worth saving...and I'm happy to be its present guardian.

paramount ranch

Today we felt like being the great outdoors, so we took ourselves to the Paramount Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains. It was a hot and sunny day, and the trails went along acres and acres of dry grassland filled with hoppy grasshoppers. (After waiting patiently and snapping dozens of shots of grasshoppers in the grass, the one pictured below just decided to hitch a ride on my husband. He seems to attract whatever we're stalking.)

We also spied butterflies and a few birds and lizards, though not too many flowers and such. It was fun to see lots of visitors on horseback, too, although it left some of the paths a little stinky.

The park also has a permanent Western Town, where Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman and Carnivale were filmed, along with many other films and television episodes, including Firefly and The X-Files. Just about all the buildings were boarded up, unfortunately, so there wasn't much to do there...and I left my calico dress at the cleaners.  Overall, this wasn't a very big park (at least this part of it), but still well worth a visit--the paths meander nicely, and I'd love to go back in the spring when it's cooler and more things are in bloom. Being here on a summer's day meant that we heard the pleasant droning of insects in the brush, though, as well as the wind rustling through the dry grass.

Speaking of calico, between the dusty western town and the dry land and the insects, I kept thinking about poor Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family and the grasshopper plague that wiped out their Minnesota wheat crop. All that was missing from our walk today were swarms of giant blackbirds.

pollyanna prisms

I grew up watching Disney family movies...and I still love the old classics to this day. One of my favorites is Pollyanna, played by Hayley Mills, along with The Parent Trap. (Didn't you envy all that long blonde hair as a kid? I did!)

I especially like this scene in the Pollyanna, in which she brings gladness to crotchety invalid Agnes Moorehead through the magic of prisms. She uses hanging crystals from old-fashioned brass lamps on a string to cast shimmering rainbows in the old lady's room, bringing a little bit of cheer to her grumpy afternoon. It's something I always thought was really charming.

I thought of this scene while we were at the Pasadena Flea Market and saw a vendor with a big bowl of crystal drops and other vintage hardware. I snapped up a handful of crystals for $2 each and latched them onto a length of vintage white lace when I got home. It stirs gently in the breeze, and the prisms really do cast rainbows in the room when the sunlight is just right. Simple and pretty...and something I'm glad I did!

cemetery screening

One of the greatest things to do in Los Angeles during the summer is to see movies. Outdoors. With the dead.

Cinespia holds weekly screenings at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Thousands of people queue up to file past elaborate tombstones and crypts under the watchful eye of stern security guards. Movie-goers bring picnics and spread their blankets out on the lawn to watch the film projected on the side of Rudolph Valentino's mausoleum.

Last summer we saw Jaws on the fourth of July, which was particularly spectacular because the DJ spun all Michael Jackson records and people danced around to "Thriller" in the graveyard. To top it off, after it got dark we saw fireworks lighting up the sky all around us.

Even on a non-event weekend, it's very fun experience. This last Saturday we saw an old classic with our friend Mikey, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Black and white sci-fi movies are always great fun to watch with a crowd MST3K-style, and we brought a lovely supper with wine and candles and good things to eat. 

You can read more about Cinespia here and here. Hope you had a great weekend with family and friends, too!

pixar's UP engagement photo shoot

This beautiful engagement photo shoot inspired by Pixar's Up from Wildflower photography makes me deliriously happy. The images perfectly capture the sunny sweetness, gentle humor, and timeless feel of the film.  The groom is even wearing the little grape soda pin I got from Etsy earlier this year!

Love love love. For more of Joy Harmon's gorgeous photography, be sure to visit her website for more inspiration. Looks like she has camera, will travel.

I hid under your porch because I love you

Hurray for Disney/Pixar's Up for its 5 Oscar nominations, including nods for Best Animated Feature and Best Picture!

It was a great year for animation (and movies in general), and Pixar delivered a heart-warming, beautiful film as always. I bawled like a baby during the first 20 minutes. I can't think of any other studio that would let a sad, wordless segment go on for so long, particularly in a children's film. But Pixar never condescends to its audience, and always upholds the emotional integrity of its movies in the midst of all its dazzling technological and artistic achievements.

Here is my Grape Soda bottlecap pin from Etsy seller Jacquelin Army, just like the one Ellie gives to Carl. I love it dearly since it reminds me of the simplicity and tenderness of the movie, and I wear it pinned to my purple hoodie.

If you ever need a little cheer, do pop over and watch the wonderful short Partly Cloudy that ran with this film, too. A small and happy masterpiece.