DISSERTATING

Yeah, I'm kind of busy dissertating right now. I'll be back after it's all done.*

advisor's notes

motivation

*graduation is may 5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HERE'S SOME FOOD!

This is how I've been spending my time. I hope you have an equally tasty end of the year!

 federal donuts 

 federal donut

GLIMPSES

This is the view from a friend's house in Italy. On the beach. In December.

There are only so many ways to see water in Ohio. None of them compare to this. Sigh.

DOLCE OF THE DAY

oh no...more cupcakes

in my defense, i have a toddler

and these are out of cook's illustrated: 

chocolate ganache mini cupcakes

i have to find a way to make cupcakes that are not cloyingly sweet

or i just have to stop making cupcakes

cookies are much much better.

there, i said it.

ART NOW

Temporarily the center of the art scene has moved to Miami for Art Basel where ~ purportedly ~  art is on view but mostly this seems to be happening:

photo credit: manrepeller

Art Basel is an intense exhausting scene. And increasingly about fashion and the excessively wealthy.

I am admitting a huge amount of early-morning judgy-ness but even years ago, when I went, it seemed more important to be seen than to actually LOOK AT ART - either at the main event or at the myriad of satellite shows and events around the city. The amount of time spent planning the evening party hopping was...well...excessive. Now just looking at instagram or the blogs of garance doré and the man repeller  I wonder if this is just what the art world is, a modern version of Medici excess mixed in with our ever increasing interest in the society of the spectated?

Better, I think is Ann Hamilton's piece at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. 

photo credit: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

That seems worth a trip. Even though the best line in Roberta Smith's review is as follows:

"Whether all this makes good art, I’m not sure. I don’t even know if this is art, participatory theater, a refreshing sociological experiment in how quickly adults will take up childish things, or perhaps a harbinger of the next fitness craze. Maybe it is Ms. Hamilton’s belated entry into the audience-centered relational aesthetics phenomenon, a tendency that her earlier work presages."

Where would you go?

DOLCE OF THE DAY

variation on the classic apple:

pear tart with a dusting of pepper

perfect morning treat.

I LOVE SIMON DOONAN

"The landscape of art has never been more vast or intriguingly bonkers. The pretentions and foibles, to mention nothing of the gobbledygook theoretical justifications that accompany all the neo-Duchamp-ian bollocks, provide many occasions for amusement, mockery, and parody."

so true. thank you mr. doonan.

(see the whole article for slate here)