Cards on the mantel

I got a lot of lovely Christmas cards this year and I decided to display them on the fireplace mantel. With the "fire" going on my flatscreen it makes for a very cozy atmosphere. Happy Holidays to everyone :)

Birthday gifts for me,The Beautiful Wreck

I had a birthday last week.
My friend Jan has a knack of giving the best gifts. She's an inveterate haunter of antique shops, tag sales, and thrift shops of all kinds so she's always finding the most thoughtful presents. I've been the recipient of her finds many times over the years. This year included.
She gave me a little cast iron set of boots.



She thought they were cowboy boots (a nod to my Texas heritage) but I think they look more like the kind of boots European armies wore in the 19th Century, think the Swedish dragoon in "A Little Night Music".



I think they were the base to a military doll. Whatever they are I like them and they make a nice paper weight for my desk.
Jan's husband, Hugh, is a product designer and amateur cartoonist. He makes the best homemade greeting cards. This year my birthday card was no exception. It's me in bed dreaming of pies, cakes, muffins, and more pies. Very true to life!
I had an extra picture frame so I thought it would make a nice piece of kitchen art.

Have a holly jolly lobby Christmas

My building goes all out with the Christmas decorations this time of year. And they do quite a good job of it.
In the rotunda when you first enter the building's lobby, they've wrapped the columns on either side of the entry to the long hallway leading to the elevator. Plus there's two big cachepots of poinsettias.



Moving down that hallway there's a large mirrored wall on the righthand side with a demi-lune table, it's bedecked with holiday trimmings.



Then you come to the very large Christmas tree...





...and at the far end of the hallway is the fireplace with a huge wreath above it.



Then there's one more wreath on the wall opposite the elevator bank.



Pretty festive, no?

The candle save

A couple of years ago I bought a really nice candle holder at Crate & Barrell. A thick wooden base with a  tall glass cylindrical hurricane that went on top. It would hold big pillar candles. When I moved into the new apartment I kept it on the coffee table. One time I had burned a candle and as it melted it flooded the base completely with wax on the inside of the glass. The next day when I went to clean out the wax the glass broke. Ugh. So into the closet the wooden base went for a year.
Then I had a brainstorm this morning. I had a cylindrical glass vase in one of the kitchen cabinets I never used. It fit perfectly on the wooden base of the candle holder. I had a pillar candle but it was too tall for the vase so I cut about an inch and a half off the bottom. It was a mess to do but it fit perfectly inside the vase. The next brainstorm was that I deduced I could save a lot of money by not burning big pillar candles anymore if I just placed a tea light in the top. It looks like the pillar is burning up on the mantle. So the whole thing was a 'work around save' all around.

The wooden base and new hurricane...

with a tea light on the inside...

and a perfect look on the mantle :)

We need a little Christmas

Well, it's been a pretty suck-o year. But now that it's December it's time to, as Rosalind Russell says in "The Trouble With Angels", to "celebrate the season of our Savior's birthday". So I pulled out my (few) Christmas decorations and put them up. I have a LOT more at the house in Long Island, that's where I go nuts with the seasonal decor, but a few little things do make the place here in the city more festive. And, boy, as Angela Lansbury sings in "Mame", "we need a little Christmas now". (You can hear it here.)
First off, there's no room that doesn't look a whole lot more festive with white twinkly lights. I put a strand on the big picture window sill and it brightens up the whole place.





Then I have my snow white stocking on the marble mantle.





And last, a homemade snow globe a friend made for me as a gift a few Christmas ago. It's on the mantle too.

Clocking in

Somehow I ended up with two clocks by my bed IN A ONE ROOM APARTMENT. Crazy, right? 

TWO bedside clocks

Here's how it happened:
I need an electrical clock to set my alarm to, to wake me up every morning. The one I have is a thousand years old, I like it because the numbers are VERY BIG. I can look over when I'm half asleep and actually see what time it is through the haze of slumber. Now, I would put that clock on the little shelf Steve, my architect, designed for my bedside but it doesn't fit there. The outlet is below the shelf, so it would be hard to access and see (a design flaw, sorry Steve). So I ended up putting the clock on a little wooden table on the other side of the bed (I sleep on the right side of the bed anyway so this makes even more sense). 

The digital alarm clock

But then I needed a clock in the main room, one I could glance at for the time. Why not glance at the digital clock? BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SEE IT FROM ANYWHERE IN THE ROOM, especially when sitting in the living area, the bed and linens block it. AARGH. Then I had a brainstorm. I had an extra wall clock stuck in a drawer that I wasn't using. It was in the guest bedroom of the old apartment and I never had a use for it. Well, now I did! It fit perfectly in the bedside niche (and looks great there too). So now whenever I need to know the time I have easy access. Problem solved. And that's the story of how I ended up with two bedside clocks. Time flies when you're having fun...

The niche clock

Perfect fit

"Trainwreck" on Sutton Place

My friend Rick loaned me a bunch of DVD Academy Awards screeners last week. He's a director in the DGA. I watched "Trainwreck" last night, the comedy with Amy Schumer and John Hader. It's a mixed bag of laughs and pathos. But there was one scene in a 'happy montage' that stood out, a shot that purposely mimics the famous scene in Woody Allen's "Manhattan" of Diane Keaton and Allen sitting on a Sutton Place bench overlooking the 59th Street Bridge. Schumer and Hader are falling in love and this moment is meant to show their flowering romance, but with a raunchy twist. As they're sitting there in the lovely twilight glow she proceeds to lean over and give him a blow job! Touch pearls! It made me laugh out loud. So another Hollywood film immortalizes our picturesque nabe.

The "Trainwreck" before the head

A murder on "Sutton Place"

My friend Ron texted me today and asked "Did you see that crazy gay murder in your neighborhood?" I knew nothing about it, so he went on to text me the sordid story:

"Ok, so the hottie on the right was "adopted" by a "celebrity jeweler to the stars" on the left."



"Met him at a health club and now he calls him his son and he lives in a separate apartment in the same building, The Grand Sutton at 418 East 59th Street."



"So the "son", who now has the older guy's name, was partying with a few people he brought back from a club...
THIS hottie went to the apartment to party and ended up stabbed to death 12 times by the "son" and his friend."



"They tried to burn his body and ended up dumping it in New Jersey. The older daddy was not there and apparently doesn't know anything about it. The "son" and his friend are in custody. Seems like maybe they were all doing drugs and they hit on this guy and he wasn't into it." (Here is where I have to say I love when Ron tells a story, he's a writer and nobody does it better).

You can read all of the seamy details from the tabloids here and here.

Now, I love a good Manhattan murder mystery as much as anybody. And if "Law and Order" were still on the air this would be prime fodder for one of their 'ripped from the headlines' stories. But I have just one quibble: 59th Street AIN'T Sutton Place. You can put lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig. Just because you name the building "The Grand Sutton" doesn't mean it's the real Sutton Place. I know that building. It's one of those nondescript glass behemoths erected in the '70s or '80s. No architectural interest. Nothing to write home about.

To paraphrase the late great Susan Hayward in "Valley of the Dolls", one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies, "Sutton Place doesn't go for booze and dope!"

"Sutton Place doesn't go for booze and dope!"

The brave little toaster

I've been needing a new toaster since I moved into this apartment last December. But money's been tight and decided I could live without one for a while. Then yesterday I found an American Express gift card that I remembered had some money left on it, I didn't know exactly how much though. I decided to make a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond and just take a peek at the toasters, maybe there'd be one on sale. I found the one I liked best, a Cuisinart stainless steel model. It was $49, more than I wanted to spend but I figured I go to the check-out and present the gift card. If there was enough money left on it then it was a sign that I was meant to have this appliance. Sure enough, the cashier rang up the purchase and I had just enough! The toaster was mine :) After one of the shittiest weeks on record I needed a little good news.
I think the little toaster looks good in the kitchen tucked in with all my cutting boards and bigger utensils. The stainless matches the oven too.

Too close for comfort

It's been a very sad week.
The election has put a damper on everything and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it...the implications for all of us are yet to unfold, we'll just have to see what happens. And pray this country can hold it together.
This much I do know: I am very close to the eye of the storm. When I went to vote this week, it was the first time since I've moved to this neighborhood. My voting place is a high school on 56th Street and 2nd Avenue just two blocks away. When I got there the lines were wrapping around the block and there was an unbelievable cortege of press, cameras, and police. Then it all made sense. This is where That Candidate was going to come vote. See, his golden tower is just a few blocks away. I voted, it took forever, but had to leave to make an appointment. Sure enough, he showed up with his wife to vote a couple of hours later and was greeted with boos and shouts of "New York hates you!" (Thank God for New Yorkers).
But now that the dust is settling on this very unnerving election, I realize that his properties could be--God forbid--major targets for terrorism...and my building in close proximity by just a few blocks. If I sound skittish, I am. Oh, what scary times we live in...

11.8.16

Autumn on Sutton Place

Snapped a beautiful picture of my favorite neighborhood park this morning on this Election Eve day.
Is it the calm before the political storm??

Ya gotta have heart (and art)

The most recent addition to The Beautiful Wreck is a piece of artwork I created, a piece of sculpture I placed on the coffee table. It's an oversized depiction of the human heart, the medium is paper maché.





I'd say it's about 90% accurate based on photos and models I researched on the web. Some liberties were taken with the colors for effect. It took a few weeks due to the long process of sculpting each section then having to let it dry, but I'm quite proud and happy with the results. In some ways it reminds me of the Mexican Bingo card ("Loteria"), the heart ("El Corazon").



It's Dali meets Claus Oldenberg with a dash of George Segal thrown in. It's the right touch of oddness that the apartment needs.

The port cocheré...continued

And I thought MY renovation took forever.
If you remember my post from a few weeks ago, they're refurbishing the front of my building. And by 'refurbishing' I mean a total overhaul. There was some structural problem that has involved replacing the metal support I-beams underneath the port cocheré entrance. We're being told it will be finished by December 14th, the day of our Christmas party. I'm not holding my breath.
Just this past week they were tearing up the entire SIDEWALK in front of the building too.
I'm predicting it won't be done til Easter. Anyone wanna take me up on the bet?

The Beautiful Wreck makes Instagram

I was going through my Instagram feed last night when I saw a posting that looked all too familiar...it was a picture of my kitchen! I did a double-take and realized that it was from my architect Steve. A few months ago he had come to the apartment with a photographer one weekend when I was away to take photos for his website. I had completely forgotten about it until now.
He smartly posted black and white shots of the way the place looked 'before' the renovation, the horrible MESS that it was...and then really nice 'after' shots of the way it looks now. I'm assuming there might be more shots added later, I'll post those here as they pop up. In the meantime, here are some angles of the main living room area and the kitchen.









Steve is a wonderful architectect. Very talented and brimming with ideas...he's also extremely easy to work with. I recommend him highly.
You can visit his website here.
And his Instagram page here.

CORRECTION: These photos are NOT from the photo session Steve had with the photographer. They are from that day but they're shots he grabbed on his own iPhone. He was not happy with the shots from that day's session and is going to schedule another day to come back and do a re-shoot with another photographer. I will of course post the new shots when they become available. He felt that he wanted to share something from this job to his IG feed so he posted those shots for the time being.

That "Manhattan" view, pt. 2

My intrepid friend Joe solved the mystery of which street that scene from "Manhattan" was filmed on: it's East 58th Street. He sent me a still from a very cool website that matches scenes from old movies and TV shows with prints of the location today. You can visit the site here. And here's the scene from the movie matched with the street:




Thanks Joe! :)

That "Manhattan" view

I ran across this still frame from Woody Allen's classic film "Manhattan" the other day. I know this scene was shot right in my neighborhood just off Sutton Place at the end of one of the streets that cross it down by the East River, I just can't figure out which one it is. It's either East 58th Street or 59th. I also know that the movie's art director had to dress the 'set' with the lamp pole and bench, they didn't exist there then and still don't. I have to do some more investigating, stay tuned. In the meantime enjoy the walk down Movie Memory Lane.

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in "Manhattan"

Catty-corner

That's how we used to say it in the South, "catty-corner", when something was placed or situated on the diagonal.
In the main room of the apartment I had my desk on the diagonal in the back corner, facing into the room (mainly so that I could watch TV while I was doing work on my computer).
Well, my friend Tony came over the other week and re-stated his position (I'd heard it before) about furniture placed 'catty-corner': he hates it. You gotta love someone for being honest, right?
So I took his advice and re-situated the desk and aligned it with the bed, it's now squared off, almost on a grid with the other furniture in the room.
I think I like it. I know this for sure, it's much easier to get in and out of the desk chair. You don't have to go all the way around the desk to sit down now. I think i'll leave it this way for now, I can always change it back someday if I get tired of it.
Here's the original layout:



And here's the new desk position:



And here's a side-by-side comparison: