kim said

Quick Dispatch from The Big Easy

And this is the only thing that is quick, darlin'. Everyone really does say "good mornin'" and "how ya'all doin," the rum butter bread pudding at the Napoleon House is like heaven melting in your mouth, and Italianate is my new favorite architectural style. N'awlins is everything I thought it would be and more.

I'm Still Here

Here's just a bit of what I have been up to lately:

My friend Beej has the details of our catch up lunch yesterday at Samovar where we feasted on honeycomb and sipped chai.

I modeled for Sebastien's new line of FrenchPodClass tees--check them out, they're tres cute!

Tuesday night I caught the Word for Word performance of Andrew Sean Greer's short story "The Islanders." Afterward, ASG (one of my favorite local authors) answered questions from the audience and, to everyone's surprise, revealed that The New Yorker heavily fact checked his fictional story and subsequently had him make several changes.

This afternoon I attended a lecture at The Mechanic's Institute by essayist and scholar Alain de Botton on architecture. His book The Architecture of Happiness "starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be - and argues that it is architecture’s task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential."

La Scène NY: Cristal and Klimt

Back from New York on Friday and just in time for a gorgeous San Francisco weekend. Nicki has a great overview of our adventures, including the details of how I used my feminine wiles (well, actually I was just enthusiastic)  to get us a private tour of the very masculine 21 club's prohibition-era wine cellar here. The history in that place.  Let me tell you, it gave me the chills!

In addition to the usual haunts, we fortuitously stumbled upon the Neue Gallery, a museum for German and Austrian art housed  in a 1914 Carrere & Hastings mansion. The permanent collection features work by Klimt and Egon Schiele and the current special exhibition is Paul Klee. Afterward, we sipped Viennese hot chocolate in the elegant Café Sabarsky on the gallery's ground floor.

Still it's good to be back in San Francisco--I only wish we had a  St. Helen Cafe here.

La Scène SF

Wednesday night some friends and I caught the  Feist/Broken Social Scene show at The Grand. I'd never been there before. It's stunning and, according to the venue's website (the pix there do not in anyway do it justice),  a "fine" example of Scottish Rite architecture." The ballroom is beaux arts. (Imagine yourself  in the middle of an inside-out wedding cake with very ornate frosting.)

If you were one of the lucky few to snag a ticket for last night's Miranda July (writer/dir/star of Me and You and Everyone We Know) talk at Yerba Buena, let me know how it was and if you turned in your homework assignment. Miranda's blog is here.