Hear/Say

Actually did something actual today: visited the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and then skipped to the side afterward to visit Shilin Night Market for din-dins. Took all day; at least, whatever was left of the day after I woke up.

The Museum was small as far as museums go, but the exhibits were awesome– more modern than fine arts in my opinion, but I’m sure they take what they can get. There was the Philadelphia traveling exhibit “From Manet to Picasso” featuring pieces from various established European artists (i.e. Matisse, Degas, Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Picasso, Miro) and impressive exhibitions from several Taiwanese artists. We were also  lucky to catch the Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibit on the ballet/fashion show Le Defile, featuring Gaultier’s pieces for 12 modern ballets (1983-1994) by collaborator and choreographer Regine Chopinot. Ballets included “Le Defile”, “Delices”, “K.O.K”, and “Soli-Bach”.

A little about the two:

Jean Paul Gaultier was never formally educated in fashion, but was recruited by master fashion designer Pierre Cardin (I WILL post on this wizard soon!) at the age of 18. Most know him through Madonna, when he designed her costumes for the Blonde Ambition tour in 1990– coned bras and what-not.

Regine Chopinot is a French choreographer; she collaborated with Gaultier on 12 ballets that were “anti– fashion/dance” in an avant garde– er, fashion.

... "horny"?

A list of things I spied while perusing the costumes on display: a cloth-sculpted clitoris, cloth-sculpted penis, pillow penis, cut-out tux, cone bra, ribbon-beehive headpiece, a fringed lampshade ballerina skirt, gold spray-painted flower-sculpted sneakers, leather bomber jacket studded with aviator sunglasses and pierced with key chains, knit-couch costume with knit skirt and booties, a bride’s costume consisting of a mesh upper torso, ruched jersey tunic, and long jersey skirt with a beehive wig topped with bride and groom cake tops, and sculpted costumes made with thick, layered textured tulle. There was a quilted body suit, tulle sculpted boots, medal-adorned chaps, and beaded nipples.

As sexual as it sounds, the surprising amount of partial-nudity and obvious exaggeration of genitalia facilitated the viewing of these pieces as costume art; obscenity was marveled and hailed as craftsmanship, especially when blatant and confronting.  Little girls were dancing around their mothers and gazing at whatever there was to see, and their mothers whispering “Now think of how they made these, honey…”– art is funny like that. Proves that any societal norms or rules can be suspended, depending on people’s perspective of context…

Anyway, here’s some clips of the ballets– you can definitely sense the “anti-fashion” and “anti-dance” baffle you, but the aesthetic is wonderful enough to keep you watching.

Le Defile:

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And some pictures I took outside of the exhibit:

Cointreau-papered disc-hat

Fully knit couched-hip costume plus knit skirt and booties:

Tulle sculpted thigh-highs:

Detail on back of a costume-jacket:

There were several rooms in the Mobilité, sons et formes exhibition from the GRAME Centre National de Création Musicale that were enchanting:

A room ornamented with delicately turning panes of glass painted with gold notes, rigged with tiny echoes of speakers tinkling the slightest notes to the attuned ear.

A room filled with sand became a textured and engaging projection screen for a video featuring a girl dancing her own pattern into the sand-floor. My favorite room by far– people were coming in but for some reason weren’t up to actually dancing and pushing the sand with their feet, sinking in with their toes: they wouldn’t even take their shoes off. Michael and me ended up wrecking it everywhere, dancing and twirling with the girl’s projection, sometimes violently sliding all over the place, through the projection and back, making rows of dunes across the screen, while everyone else watched from the side and gingerly nudged the sand with their shoes. It was so obvious the point was to dance or make your own design… but everyone was so meek…

I wish I could find out more about Thierry de Mey, the artist, but to no avail– for once Google has failed me.

By the time we got done with everything, we were well-famished, and made a bus stop away to Shilin Night Market. Shilin is so old, it has it’s own food court. The area that used to be the night market has been entirely converted to food stands and vendors, and the local specialty is oyster scramble and tian-bu-la. Which we devoured; dessert was even more delicious– gourmet mochi.

Most people in Seattle know of mochi at least in the ice-cream sense; the sticky rice-paste covered ice-cream (mango, vanilla, mango, green tea) can be purchased at any self-respecting Asian grocery. The mochi is traditionally filled with red-bean paste, peanut-butter, or black sugar. We visited a stand at the Shilin food court that served them hot and delicious: baked mochi lends a crunchier outer crust to the sticky, pasty consistency. The black sugar dish had the sugar sauce hot and drizzled over the mochi and the red-bean mochi was served in a small bowl of red-bean soup (sweet). I’m usually overwhelmed by the stickiness, but this place was spectacular…

YummRz!

After that, I went shopping, bickered with my brother, and headed home on the MRT.

Dunno what I’m doing tomorrow, but I really need to send some postcards out…

Graceeee

ps aaahhh new pants

Erik Satie ate only white foods for a period of time.

I think of him when I think of surrealism and Picasso (Picasso designed costumes for Satie’s ballet); and when I think of those, I think of Post/Modernism. Also, when I think of devilish limits on consumption intake (er… outside of recycling, and being re-source wise, ehhh?) like diets… allergies… intolerance… the like. Why would you want to limit food intake purely on the basis of plain aesthetics? It’s not as if the pleasing salad of textures and tastes in Little Thai’s crispy vegetable noodle plate– CRISPY NOODLE! BROCCOLI! MUSHROOMS! BEANS! CHICKEN!– was any less delicious or tasty than an item exuding literary pureness– RICE! WHITE RADISH! WHITE CHOCOLATE! MARSHMALLOWS! COCONUT FLAKES!–

I’ve been INadvertently consuming ORANGE foods: aside from the rare free lunch, I’ve only eaten MAC ‘N CHEESE, ORANGES, and GOLDFISH (cracka-snacka) — !*

I’ve been getting into It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (< I originally grossly misspelled this) and the comedy is having me LAWLFESTing and FOFLMAFO’ing (Falling On Floor Laughing ” ” “”; Charlie’s strange, nasal pitch has grown on me,

because I love him. We would be friends. And Danny Devito is on the show. Who doesn’t love Danny Devito? How dare you.

I feel like I am going to devour the rest of these orange fish nuggetz of Goldfish. And I’ll have a sea of crumbs crashing against my gumlines.

Wish Molly Moon’s would deliver.

Heeeeee yah

Graceee

*this is a lie. I seem to recall devouring a banana, some biscotti, soup, and a burrito… sometime recently. Also, coffee doesn’t count, even if I have it for breakfast/lunch / and /dinner.

OMG THE TERROR

It is the month to eat.

I haven’t stopped since Thanksgiving.

It’s becoming a problem. I wake up with thoughts of gravy soaked biscuits; I am numbed against the world as I dream of mashed potatoes and fries, and I fall asleep with mouthfuls of ice cream in my mind. Oooohh, I drool as I type.

Others say that this is a problem; that I shouldn’t be eating this much, and it’s not fair that I stay so thin. Well to them, I say: HA! I stay so thin as a cost to my energy’s endurance; anyway, it’s most likely one day I will wake up as plump as a pampered pigeon.

YUMMMERS

Raw product garnishes are the best. It's like: Before :: After

Cinnamon bun delights

Lately, I’ve been appreciating grapefruit, mini-organic-apples, chocolate covered gummy bears, popcorn, korean rice-cake soup, and today I convinced my co-workers to order thai food for lunch with me.

In Asian culture, food is the ultimate medium for community and hospitality. It is the epicenter of life. If you have enough to eat, you’re doing okay. If you have great tasting food to eat, you’re basically rich. Your life is good enough. That’s why when you visit an Asian house, it probably smells like Asian food.

On the flip side, refusing to eat what’s placed in front of you is the ultimate no-no. Refusing a plate of food (or picking at it) equates to selfishness, un-appreciation, and obviously spoiled upbringing. It means you haven’t suffered enough to realize how valuable that plate of food is, and you haven’t connected that the person who offered it had to work/sweat/cry to even serve it. Or at least, that’s how it’s definitely interpreted. In American culture, they’re pretty kind about not finishing what’s in front of you. I’ve been conditioned though, and now I can’t say I’m done until every scrap on my plate is gone…

Fatty McFatterson even eats his boogers

Sidenote: in history class, we learned about how the 1-child policy to control China’s population growth had Asians spoiling the single sons; the actual term for this demographic is “butterball”.

Off to dream of tasties and discover taffy in the wind!

<3

G

Oh to indulge.

Things I crave nowadays:

1. A Perfectly Comfortable  Outfit

2. Macaroni and Cheese, side of broccoli (drizzled with tomato sauce)

3. Bacon Lettuce Tomato Sandwhich

4. Any Santogold: Mark Ronson \”Pretty Green\” ft. Santogold

5. Devendra Banhart

6. Handsome, tall men who are nice

7. Ginger apple juice

8. Pumpkin pie

9. Snowboarding

10. Blue sky

It’s the weekend!!!!!!

Gracie

Capitol Hill Blog has just reported a new restaurant is in town. The Tin Table is in the Odds Fellow building, right across the hall from Century Ballroom.

Whenever my friends and I go out to eat, we always look at the menu. We only go if the menu is nice and balanced, with a variety of meat and veggie dishes, as well as a refreshing spin on the cuisine or dining experience. It sounds elitist, but that’s cos they’re cooks for a living.

The Tin Table menu has a mouth-watering selection of cheeses (I’d like to try the Ewephoria– aged one year, sheep cheese with a nutty, gouda flavor) and a free-range, hormonal-free selection of meat dishes. There’s the venison, chestnut, sage and potato gnocchi that catches my eye– and a thai pork ribs which sticks out like a sore thumb on the french themed cuisine.

The prices are reasonable, and although there doesn’t seem to be a variety of dishes, their collection of cheeses (and extensive collection of wine)  could be well worth the effort.

They open on Saturday, February 28th.

Gracie