2006 Melbourne Art Fair

Four sleeps and counting...
The lengths of suffering to which I must go in the relentless pursuit of being an art whore.

The couch of my dreams

Courtesy of those wonderfully evil chaps at Thonet.

And the room looks scarily like my lounge. Except I have flesh-toned carpet. And no couch of my dreams. Yet.

I've developed a minor addiction of late - not to anything fun like heroin or Siamese cats, but to the streaming webcam of the motorway: http://wixcam.citylink.co.nz/aotea/

I do worry about its impact on child obesity though - when I did my Standard 4 maths project on the statistics of colours of cars I actually had to go outside and count them. Apparently that's not longer necessary.

Dining Journal Entry: Pod

Dinner on Tuesday was with the Gallery at their stunning new local - Pod

First of all, I like restaurants with websites. They show me there's a commitment to building a lasting icon, and some investment has been made in telling people about their food. I like them more when the put the menu on the website. And I like them even more when the menu on the website is the same as the one you get at the table. Pod does all this, so one thumb up.

I also like restaurants that make me rethink my own kitchen/decor/home/way of life. Pod did this too. While I'm not so convinced about the bubbling water feature, the bar area had me rushing home at the end of the night to redesign the kitchen, and the bathrooms were pretty inspiring as well. Two thumbs up.

The food? Very good. They've moved away from the pacific/thai fusion thing they had going on last time I was there, to more of a mild Italian/New Zealand flavour.

The company? Enlightening as always, even when interspersed with stories of shooting the nipples off workmen...

Further recent dining excursions

Every have those weeks where cooking dinner at home just doesn't happen? Where you're never quite sure how much is left in your bank account, but you think it's a lot so you just eat out? Where work is full on and you just don't get home until 9pm, and it's just easier to get food on the way? That was last week. A high-speed run down of places ventured and meals eaten follows:

Wednesday: McDonalds, Manners Mall. Shattered, we stumbled in hunting for quick warm reliable food. Some brutal strip lighting and a pretty dry old Big Mac later, we stumbled out again.

Thursday: Miyabi Sushi, Willis St Village Maki Sushi plate followed by Katsudon. All good, as I've come to expect over the years.

Friday: Rasa, Cuba St Great simple cheap food, though they really need some soundproofing for those friday nights where 2 big tables make a lot of noise.

Saturday: Viva, Edward St Formerly Mexican Cantina et al, but now a very nice Italian eatery with a stunnign array of wines. Adn I mean stunning. Will be headed back there for a full meal soon.

Yes. I am the restaurant slut.

Wonderful white box seeks canape

Was fortunate enough to get invited to the Client's and Artist's preview of the new Tinakori Gallery space, which opens publicly today. The upstairs area which many people remarked looked cool enough to live in is pictured.

It was a great event - the new space is stunning, the diverse selection of works look great, the guests were interesting, enthusiastic, and good-looking, and the food and wine delicious.

And proving it's not all high-brow and hoity-toity (sp?) here at O.M.C. I'll recount a snippet of conversation which I wish I had recorded, purely for it's similarity to a crude Monty Python sketch, between a senior artist and a Wellington gallery owner. Neither could decide which of them liked 'dick' more, where they would put 'dick' , whether 'dick' looked good on a desk or on a plinth, whether 'dick' would stand up in Te Papa... Straight faces all round (no easy feat). Turns out they were talking about a work by Australian artist Kathy Temin - a large camoflaged fluffy material dick - apparently quite a hit at a recent art fair.

Hauora

This morning I discovered the Maori concept of Hauora - which translates to a balance of health across four sectors: spiritual, mental, physical, and social.

I got to thinking which section does collecting art fit best under - social, mental, or spiritual?

And is this dliemma partly responsible for Maori not having the concept of Art as such before Pakeha arrival and subsequent commodification?

And more fog.

I like this photo. It was around the Miramar peninsula somewhere on Saturday afternoon. I took it looking through my sunglasses, hence the weird green light thing.

Dining Journal Entry: Simply Paris

Sunday morning, and we're over fed and over wined from Saturday night, and headed into C's work for 11am. Just round the corner from us, next to Slowboat, is a newly opened Simply Paris. I think there used to be a dutch bakery or something in the same shop.

And Parisien it was. real French staff, real French food, real french menus, coffees, patrons, everything. It made me want to launch a scintillating conversation using my French skills. Until I remembered it's been 11 years, and I would suck, probably ending in a pot of coffee being dropped in my lap.

Nice homemade jams, tres stunning pastries, and French coffee (not as strong as wellington coffee), by Nescafe, which I thought was cool. It's cheap too, but the servings are kind of lite - perhaps the real reason why French women don't get fat.

Hot tip: don't order an English Breakfast tea. As the proprieter said (you'll have to imagine a suitably French accent) "Why would you want a cup of tea that tastes of bacon and egg?"
And then he'll chase you out of the restaurant.

Fog.

Good things about fog: It looks pretty, makes for good photos (see above) and interesting bike rides around the bays.

Bad things about fog: The airport being closed means sisters have to catch later flights, your knees get really really cold when riding around the bays, and it makes central wellies bloody freezing.