Jewels of London

Primrose Hill is one of the cutest neighbourhood of London. Hidden behind the chaotic Camden, it is still the best kept secret from tourists. It is a village with bohemian houses, independent shops, friendly restaurants and a hill with a lovely skyline. The Primrose Hill Gallery is an unmissable spot: it offers lithography from modern art masters at competitive prices. It is here that my husband got me the Matisse lithography.

It is also very posh, but not as ostentatious and conspicuous as Chelsea. - at least not in appearance. The wealthy locals paradoxically like the simple life, one they could get much cheaply elsewhere {see Italy, for example} where organic food, independent shops, green spaces and a community feel, in other words good quality of life, are the norm and not a premium luxury.

The difference is, of course, that in Primrose Hill you enjoy the priceless added value of being in the middle of London hustle and bustle without hassle. Besides, you have the largest yoga centre in Europe at your doorstep: Triyoga. It is here that I have been practising my yoga, almost every day, for the last five years. So, it's an area I call *home* in inverted commas.

The same Saturday I had my yoga teaching training interview, which took place in a tiny kitchen-turned-office, I also visited the new Primrose Hill Museum of Everything which literally looked homemade. At the entrance we were welcomed by a box-office and an old tea mug used to collect offers. The museum has been heavily endorsed by the celebrity crowd of Primrose Hill and thus it's free. I felt like visiting someone's house. There is a homely and homemade feel throughout {a narrow corridor and small rooms dotted around}, until you get to a door opening into an spacious warehouse-type of space. The museum hosts paintings, sculptures and installations by disadvantaged artists, either disabled or outcasts, from all over the world. A DIY cafe with homemade cakes and tea on offer concludes the visit.

A whiff away from the museum is the Primrose Hill Bakery which specialises itself in cupcakes. Its look of a fifty-style kitchen also made me feel at home.

Primrose Hill is also linked in my imaginary to a melancholic circumstance: the death of Sylvia Plath. It was the winter of 1963, and London had never been so chilly. A young lady lived as a single mother with her children in a rented a flat at 23 Fitzroy Road she had recently moved into. In the morning of 13th February she stuck her head into the oven. She was only 31 years old.

Sylvia Plath and the Worry Bird by Justin Fitzpatrick is a painting I saw at a friend's of friend's exhibition last year. It totally fascinated me.

"I would face him, and say simply: I am sad that you are not strong, and do not swim and sail and ski, but you have a strong soul, and I will believe in you and make you invincible on this Earth."

Passage from Sylvia Plath's Journal

Photo credits: Hill of Primrose Hill by Art of the State;  Primrose Hill Bakery from Flikr; Flower shop from Flikr; Panoramic view from Primrose Hill by Panoramic Earth.

Vintage Find :: Butterfly Sequined Top

It's hippy, party friendly, comfy, a classic vintage piece from the 70s/80s. 

I am seriously contemplating getting this blue/black/silver vintage top: 

 

Vintage tops seen on Etsy, Ebay, old Vogue, Nelda's Vintage Clothing.

A birthday, a saturday, some friends

Double Recurrence

11th November is Remembrance Day in the UK and St Martyn's Day in Italy ~ double celebration!

Remembrance Day is in honour of the victims and  veterans from the World Wars and beyond. St Martyn was a Roman soldier. The most famous legend of his life is that he once cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm, to save the beggar from dying of the cold.
 

In England people wear a poppy as a sign of respect and observe a couple of minutes of silence in remembrance, as well as participating to various public celebrations.

In Italy, as in other European countries, it is tradition to eat roasted chestnuts in front of the fire and drink red wine with friends. It's a lovely custom that I have sadly lost because a. I don't own a fireplace, b. this is the first time in years that I remember it. Leaving in a secular country like England you can easily forget any religious festivity that is not Christmas.


I have never been a huge fan of Carducci, his poems being a bit too far-fetched and nursery-rhymed for my tastes {very unaccademic observation!}. But it is the very first poem children learn at school. It's a classic:

La nebbia agli irti colli
Piovigginando sale,
E sotto il maestrale
Urla e biancheggia il mar;

Ma per le vie del borgo
Dal ribollir de’ tini
Va l’aspro odor de i vini
L’anime a rallegrar.

Gira su’ ceppi accesi
Lo spiedo scoppiettando:
Sta il cacciator fischiando
Su l’uscio a rimirar

Tra le rossastre nubi
Stormi d’uccelli neri,
Com’ esuli pensieri,
Nel vespero migrar.

Giosue Carducci

The Secret Postcard's Artist

RCA Secret is an annual exhibition and sale of original postcard-sized art, made by professional artists, designers and illustrators, plus the Royal College of Art’s current postgraduate students.

The admission is free and the exhibition runs from 13th to 20th November. On 21st November they go on sale for one day only. Each postcard costs £40.

THE SECRET: The postcards are signed only on the reverse, so the author of each work remains a secret until after purchase, and the signature on the back is revealed.

Over 800 artists have donated work to RCA Secret 2009 so far, including Yoko Ono, Cornelia Parker, David Bailey, former Stone Roses guitarist John Squire, and animator Nick Park, as well as fashion designers Sir Paul Smith, Manolo Blahnik and Erdem. Many leading American artists have also contributed this year including Lawrence Weiner, John Baldessari and Alex Katz.

Find full details here.

Les Regrets :: 60 Seconds review

By Cédric Kahn

Cast:
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as Maya
Arly Jover as Lisa
Yvan Attal as Mathieu Liévin



{***Contains some Spoilers, not many***}

This is the only film I watched this year at the London Film Festival. I love French cinema as it always transports me into a free spirited dimension.

Les Regrets, like other CK's films, is centred on ordinary people with ordinary lives caught by a sudden crisis. In this instance, Mathieu's mid life crisis materialises into a magnetic passion for an unconventional old flame, which takes, under CK's direction, an unprecedented turn. 

The crisis is two-folded: on one side he loses his last parent (his mother) leaving him with the burden of selling his family home. This bereavement symbolises a definitive departure from childhood. On the other side, he meets his ex-lover and is taken by an uncontrollable passion for her. He still looks dearly in love with his graceful wife, but the chemistry with Maya plays like a magnet. Although turbulent and unstable, it takes him back to her and her to him. They are about to flee to Barcelona when she has got an afterthought. They break up again. As time goes by, he becomes increasingly restless and ends up (literally) chasing her in the streets with tragicomic effects {it was apparently the only non-scripted scene of the entire film - the director revealed during the post-screening question time}.

Paradoxically, his madness is the source of extra-lucidity allowing him to see clarity in his life. 

The incredible chemistry between the the two characters is alone a sufficient reason to go and watch this film. Bruni-Tedeschi exudes an aura of sensuality that would make succumb the coolest man, and Attal's introversion and clumsy passion makes his character one-of-a-kind. It shouldn't be underestimated the key role of the cheated wife either. She plays her role with extreme dignity and, as CK himself observed, the audience always tends to sympathise with the abandoned side.

 

Photos from movieplayer.it

Remember Remember the 5th of November

Hello there, I have been blogging very erratically this week, but I have all the good intentions to keep up the good work. I have tons of draft posts waiting to be finalised. I also have quite ambitious plans to develop the design and look and feel of AmicaC who  has just celebrated her fourth birthday and is finally taking  a more defined shape thanks to all the bloggers out there who keep providing inspiration and ideas.

I am also trying to find a new balance between the various things that are going on in my life: my family, work, yoga, blog and social life. I am particularly enjoying married life in this season as we are spending more time between the domestic walls entertaining each other and venturing ourselves in cooking, baking and redecorating experiments. We also got the entire collection of Hitchcock films (67 or so!) and we have been watching them relentlessly. They are just too good, on so many levels (fashion included!).

And yes, I am still looking for my perfect black cat. It has to be fluffy and with an intelligent face.

Off to watch the 8th episode of Gossip Girls. Let's hope it has resumed some charm as the last three episodes were rather disappointing. xoxo

Photos from We Heart It

Kirtaning Along

In two weekends time my dear friend Valentina and I will be Kirtaning with him and Shiva Rea who will be guesting between a workshop and the other. The practice of Kirtan (= singing from Sanskrit) refers to the Indian art of chanting mantras, rhytmically repeated until the self melts into the song and the singing crowd becomes a unity. I have done a bit of chanting in the past and found it very empowering, but I have never devoted a whole evening to it, let alone with live music. So it will be a completely new, exciting experience for me, and I look forward to it. 

Dave Stringer

"IF YOU CAN'T TEACH ME TO FLY, THEN TEACH ME TO SING"

James Barrie, author of Peter Pan

Happy Birthday Wallace & Gromit

Google reminded me that today it is Wallace & Gromit's 20th birthday. It deserves a mention being my favourite cartoon!