03 April, 2007
Graffiti in New Zealand
Well you know I am on the lookout for graffiti every time I travel, and New Zealand was no exception. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed that it doesn’t seem like a big scene over there. To be fair, I did see some nice pieces on my last day in Auckland as we were driving past some railroad tracks, but other than that and other than stencils, this first photo is very typical of most of what I saw. The handstyles in Auckland reminded me of Philly’s, if you squished them a little bit (all these pictures were taken in Wellington).
I saw quite a few stencils though, and most of them were pretty cool. There were also lots of little wheatpaste stickers (and some larger posters) around. I did notice that a lot of handstyles were on personal property, like fences or garage doors, as well as statues, churches, etc. You don’t see so much of that over here, it’s pretty frowned upon to deface those sorts of places.
For the rest of this entry I’ll just tell you about some little quirks about New Zealand I noticed while I was there.
Lingo was a big thing. Flip flops = jandals. Bathroom = toilet. Convenience store = dairy. Trunk = boot. Period = full stop. Rent = hire. Also they spell things differently, like tyre instead of tire.
The coffee culture is huge. There are cafes on every corner and they’re big on espresso. The most popular drinks I noticed were long black and flat white. The bar culture is also HUGE. New Zealanders drink at every meal (mostly wine, it’s pretty hyped up), and almost all the places we went to eat were bars. However, I did notice that most of the bars were very classy and upscale. I didn’t see any dives and very few sports bars.
They are very energy-conscious and serious about conservation. Anytime we checked into a hotel, we’d enter a completely dark and stuffy room. You had to take your hotel key and stick it into a slot on the wall to provide electricity for the lights and air conditioning. That way when you leave, everything turns off as well to save energy. There were also signs in all the bathrooms that basically said, “Washing towels and sheets every day wastes energy, if you want to save the whales, put your towels back on the rack and reuse them.”
People do not drive large cars or SUVs over there. There are compact cars, and then there are minivans. The only large sedans I saw were corporate cabs. I didn’t see one SUV the entire time I was there. Also, people don’t really drive pickup trucks to get around town. They are mostly used for utility trucks. Most of the cars run on diesel, and gas is sold by the liter.
One thing that stuck out to me was the large diversity of cultures in such a small place. I loved the fact that there were sushi stands on every corner, and each city we visited had a huge variety of restaurants. They were mostly Asian (lots of Korean and Japanese, some Chinese, some Malaysian), but also a ton of Turkish and Greek kebab places and several fish and chip stands. I saw a lot of Asian people and white people, and met a few people from South Africa, but only saw one black person the whole time I was there.
Rugby is life in New Zealand. Their national team is called the All Blacks, and you can’t walk down a street without running into their logo or seeing some sort of rugby paraphernalia. The only thing more omnipresent than rugby is sheep, which are everywhere. There are 4 million people in New Zealand, and 50 million sheep. They are taking over, seriously.
19 September, 2006I’m exhausted.
This was the weekend of a thousand people. At least it felt like it! Friday night I went to the Wave and actually enjoyed myself. I got to see a few friends and I danced at a club for the first time. It was great. So the Wave is not so lame as long as you’re not standing around watching people smoke. Get on the dance floor.
Saturday I got to meet Amy and Shanee, and we had ourselves a Naked Lady Party aka a clothing swap! We all had some clothes that didn’t fit that were going to the thrift store, and we all ended up taking new things home with us! I got two jackets, an adorable wrap dress and several shirts. Stoked! I also got to eat some yummy grilled chicken caesar salad and brownies and hang with two very cool chicks. I really wanna do it again soon.
I was totally exhausted so I went home and lazed around until Donna and Malorie called me later, then we went and made some mischief. I finally got some pictures of that underpass with all the graffiti, but I really want to go back in the daytime, because the really nice colorful pieces are on the other side of the walls, but it was too slippery from the rain to get up there.
Donna is so cute.
Sunday I went to Mom’s and hung out. And wished my yard looked like this instead of looking like a barren wasteland covered in leaves I can’t be bothered to rake.
My mom is taking this statistics class and I have no idea how she even makes sense of it. I was trying to read over some of the stuff, and I barely got through the part about frequency distribu..zzzzzzzz. It’s so abstract and boring, I think I’d throw myself out a window before wanting to study this stuff.
Later I went to Cogans with Nicole, and then we decided to go see The Black Dahlia. DON’T DO IT. So boring and awful. I don’t understand what made Josh Hartnett think that he should be an actor. He isn’t even that good looking, seriously. And the dude cannot act. It just made the movie painfully slow. Thank goodness I slept through 80% of it. The only redeeming qualities about this movie: Scarlett what’s-her-face’s red red lips and when the dude falls headfirst into the fountain. Gross.
Somewhere between mom’s house and Cogans I got a bad case of E Coli (not kidding) and spent the next 24 hours in the bathroom. Thus me not going to work or updating yesterday. Last night I did manage to get to the gym and start doing weights again. Felt good. I have a new iPod arm band (thanks Jimmy) and it made working out much nicer. I also went to Stitch n Bitch for the first time in forever, and it was great seeing those ladies. I should have a finished pair of socks to post soon.
Anyway I’m back and probably like 20 pounds lighter from the stupid E Coli outbreak or whatever that was, and work is awful. So I gotta go get to it.
02 August, 2006Wednesday Inspiration
TUNER in LA.
BERK in LA. Ahh the colors! Love!
LT27 and O CLOCK in Paris.
FUNGUS. Great name, huh? (Madrid)
Tuesday Inspiration
YOSH. San Fran.
Friday Inspiration
Rash. I believe this is in Florence.
Soap. France I think.
Adios. San Fran.
29 December, 2005I’m in love.
Reykjavík
San Fran
02 November, 2005Mid-week inspiration.
TONKA. SF. I think I’m in love. Other graff heads will want to see this, a paint fragment from Belmont Art Park in LA. 150-200 layers of paint in 1 cm. Think about how many pieces were put up there. LOTS.
12 October, 2005Daily Click 10.12.05
I want this book: Working Spaces. Modern contemporary home office design. Inspiration!
Color trends. Proving to everyone, everywhere that I am so ahead of my time. I was trying to get them to use orange, chartreuse and brown in LAST YEAR’S annual report. Psh. People are finally catching up.
Branding with Arial. GROAN. They will never GET IT.
Matisse dog chew toys. My dog will SO have one of these.
Core 77’s galleries of 100% Design seriously, seriously get me WEAK IN THE KNEES. If you at all love furniture/industrial design or looking at pretty things, GO LOOK AT THAT LINK.
10 Things You Should Never Buy New.
Awesome interview with graff artists COST and REVS.
Check it out Sam. Skateable furniture designed to encourage skateboarding for youth to regenerate public spaces. They should do this in downtown Norfolk instead of putting those stupid skate stoppers all over everything.
Okay, MAYBE I will have a kid, if I can get this high chair.
Normally I really hate Juicy Couture. But this bag is awesome.
16 September, 2005Daily Click 09.16.05
I have to agree with 101 Cookbooks, these are probably the best cupcakes in all the land! [entire set of cupcakes on Flickr]
Dude, seriously. The people developing Windows Vista have some balls to so blatantly rip off Apple’s GUI. Notice the “sidebar” on the right. Doesn’t look a thing like the OSX dock! I think Apple should sue. More blatant ripoffs here and here.
The Gawker live-blogs the new Martha Stewart TV show. Hahahah. Actually I have been turning this on everyday while I do my post-work, pre-dinner/night plans thing. Hahah.
“Hair on Fire” Fiber Optic Wig. Only $29.98! [via Book of Joe]
Square reversible folding containers. These look neato. You can also take them with you when traveling, since they can be packaged flat with snap together assembly. AND, best of all, it’s recycled leather with wool felt. 10 x 10” [via Better Living Through Design]
Magna Memo Board. This may be just what I needed for my “landing strip” near my front door. [via design*sponge]
I think these dishes are just so cool. The images reveal their purpose. [via productdose]
Did you know it’s Fashion Week in NYC? Manolo’s Shoe Blog linked us up with some sites that have some pretty pictures. Go look. Looks like beige, empire waists, short shorts and suspenders. Meh. Beige?
I Am Fashion | Lera the Fashion Addict | Fashionologie | Brittany Ancell
A review of the final Coalesce show is on Buzzgrinder.
The Supergrass LP is gonna be released in the US. Hooray for that.
Yes, Jake Dobkin’s Flickr stream is always this good. And more street art below from Heather. People who say graffiti isn’t beautiful just aren’t seeing clearly.
It’s a drinkin’ town.
So, the Kansas City/Lawrence trip was so much more than I expected it to be. Fun was had. In mass amounts.
It all started Friday morning at the airport when I got stopped at the security check, and got a full torso patdown and my bags fully searched. I am an idiot and carried scissors in my knitting kit. Duh. Apparently my bag also set off the explosive detectors, who knows what caused that. Getting questioned and felt up by a woman in rubber gloves was just sooo hot.
We finally got to Kansas City. Renting a car was a little scary but fun. Jimmy says I need to get a red car next time I buy one. Apparently it makes me even hotter. As if that were possible.
We explored the city Friday night and ate in a cute little diner called Winstead’s that had been around since the 40s. It reminded me of Doumar’s.
Friday night we chilled in the pool and hot tub at the hotel. Good times.
We got up early Saturday and worked out in the hotel’s gym (which had just enough exercise equipment for the two of us). We headed back to KC. Jimmy took pictures while I drove through the city.
The Broadway Bridge heading into the city from the north.
KC is full of bars. We asked our waitress what there was to do, and said that we don’t really drink. She told us, “You’re outta luck, we’re a drinkin’ town.” Ha.
Church.
One thing I noticed is that by and large, Kansas City’s graffiti sucks. Most of it looks like gang graffiti (i.e. no style whatsoever) except that it wasn’t. I saw handstyles that looked totally awful and I thought must surely have been gang stuff, but then around the corner, there would be a throwie using the same name. There were tags put up in totally prominent places that looked horrible. Haha I dunno, I’d be embarrassed. Maybe it’s a lot of young kids getting up, but somehow I doubt it. Jimmy says maybe that’s KC Style. Haha I think he is right.
A decent looking wall. But something tells me this might have been commissioned. The black background makes me think so anyway.
Union Station.
We headed through the city to Westport, which seemed to be the cooler, artsier section. There was indeed an art fair going on, with tons of local artists showing off their stuff. First though, we spotted a record store and headed in. It looked to be a normal used CD store, until the owner pointed us downstairs. It was HUGE and covered wall to wall in vinyl. It was really overwhelming.
We both bought some stuff. The lady overcharged me by $10 which I didn’t notice til later, but it was ok. The whole time we were out there, every time we turned a corner there was a record store. Seriously they have too many. But this was by far the best one.
More Westport.
Art fair booths/street.
We headed out and drove the 40-something miles to Lawrence, Kansas, which was where the show was. Oh, and if you didn’t know, the point of this trip was to go see Coalesce play their last show ever.
Anyway Lawrence wasn’t such a bad place to spend the day. They had a cute downtown with lots of locally owned stores. More and more record stores (I bought the new Death Cab for Cutie CD), a really cool antiques mall with stuff like this:
This place called the Yarn Barn which was an awesome awesome store. I bought some alpaca yarn that is soooo soft. We ate ice cream in a cute ice cream store and killed some time there (I fell asleep on the table and Jimmy played with his cell phone).
Also now, Jimmy has his own line of chips.
The marquee at the Granada.
The venue was cool. I guess about 500-600 people were there. The first two bands were not great, we were so bored. Nodes of Ranvier played third. I mean I’d heard them before so I wasn’t surprised. Regular moshy metalcore. Jimmy heckled the band as usual. No Firestorm cover upon request so they didn’t get cut any slack. Sorry, kids.
Coalesce were amazing. I am not a huge huge fan like Jimmy is but I like a couple of their songs a lot. But live they were awesome. Makes me sad they are broken up now. Their guitar player was so crazy to watch. He plays so fast that his hands were literally a blur.
Sorry, no pictures. I was not about to get close enough to the stage for my camera to cooperate with the dim lighting. People were acting too insane down there. Jimmy came out after their set with his shirt and shorts covered in blood (not his). Haha who knows what was going on down there.
We got back to the hotel and got a grand total of one hour sleep before we had to get ready to go to the airport. I was really glad to get home yesterday. Travel wears me out.
I want to definitely do more of it though. I want to go to Miami. And probably several places in California. And I want to go back to New York and really explore.
Other than the obvious (and apparently all coastal) locations, what is your favorite place to visit? I want recommendations for our next sojourn.
26 August, 2005Daily Click 08.26.05
Banksy hits up the Palestinian side of Israel’s separation wall. [via Christopher]
This to That. Advice on how to glue one thing to another thing.
Google Talk. Another IM program. Kinda ugly. Not many features. Windows only. Meh.
Flash drive figurines. Cuuuute!
Kenneth FitzGerald reviews Martin Venezky.
How does Steven Heller tell if design is good? “If I like it, it’s good.”
Holy crap, has it really been 10 years since Toy Story was released?
Graffiti or pictographs? Worth thinking about.
I fully support and intend to celebrate Grilled Cheese Day.
Photos from the Getting Up party. I guess it happened after all. God what I wouldn’t give to get to see Pink do a whole car while I am standing there haha.
Copeland are doing some shows with Bob Mould. Lucky them.
18 August, 2005Daily Click 08.18.05
First of all, huge props to Design Public and their wonderful staff. They have been awesome helping me with recommendations for putting together my new bedding, which I am assuredly buying from them. I love EVERYTHING on their site, and you should definitely support these people. Do it up.
Solar powered Prius. I am getting a Prius as my next car, but probably just the gas-electric hybrid. Although this one is neato.
NYC Mayor Bloomberg revokes a permit for a block party to promote a new Atari game: Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure [a graff-themed game where characters paint old blue-bird subway cars].
Yeah, yeah, I get it, Bloomberg. You don’t want to sanction graffiti and vandalism, but this is an event specifically geared toward artistic expression, not vandalism. Canvases and sponsored props are being used. No one is going to touch your stupid squeaky clean Subway cars. I mean, just because Converse hired COPE to design a sneaker for them doesn’t mean they condone “vandalism.” It’s about art. Besides, this is a VIDEO GAME, not real life. I suggest focusing more on stuff like this than vilifying graffiti artists. Get over it, already.
I am loving the photo posts over at Smitten. In order: Anticipation | Impatience | Gratification.
Hahahah no way. Hypercolor shirts are back?!
Realm Dekor has lots of nifty things.
Fall 2005 color trends from Pantone. Loving Atmosphere and Moss.
Hellfest got cancelled. Bummer for the kids who wanted to see the Public Enemy, Coalesce and 108 reunions (pretty much the only bands playing worth seeing).
What Are We Jewelboxing Part Two.
The FoodLoop. Neato kitchen gadget #23451388984.
26 June, 2005New York City
So you wanna hear about my first time ever to NYC? Better yet, I’ll show you. There are pictures. Tons and tons of pictures.
Dialup users, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Waiting in the Norfolk airport.
On the plane! Jimmy’s first time flying!
The plane, AKA the bus with wings. I think there were 36 seats, total. I hate small planes.
View from the air. Jimmy took this.
We finally got there around 11. Took a cab to the hotel. We stayed at the Marriott Marquis on Times Square. The room was pretty nice. The hotel was HUGE. We got our bags situated and left to explore around our hotel. But first, Jimmy jumped on the bed.
I took a video of Jimmy jumping on a $350/night hotel bed haha. Sorry, the camera was turned. Watch for the grand finale at the end!
Click here to watch. [3.2MB mpg file]
Times Square.
Times Square. Note the “PETA Kills Animals.com” sign. Brought to you by the Center for Consumer Freedom. Interesting.
The theater in our hotel.
Times Square.
Times Square.
Bubba Gump shrimp restaurant. We ate here the first night. Expensive and gimmicky.
I loved the design of this. There are a lot of signage pictures in this update.
Took this for my sister, she loves the PHANTOM!
After we went exploring, we jumped the Subway and headed over to SoHo to go shopping.
Apple store in SoHo. This place is HUGE and awesome. I want one of everything.
The dressing rooms at the Anna Sui boutique. Right after this I got kicked out for taking pictures. Nice.
One of many graffiti pictures. A little JESS throwie I liked.
CANO throwie.
Awesome scene. Graff-covered alleyway and street vendors. Lots of cool people around.
A truck that got hit. Trucks are my absolute FAVORITE canvases haha.
I love the fill and background on this.
Aaaagh. Drippy tags everywhere.
Graff alleyway. In the top right corner you can see a CYCLE throwie.
A little COPE tag in the top right corner.
Walked around the corner and saw THIS 50 feet in the air. So stoked. New COPE stuff. God the colors rule.
We wandered into the American Museum of Natural History. I would have gone NUTS if I had gone here as a kid. I was obsessed with dinosaurs at age 5-6.
2 dinosaurs! Raaar!
Times Square McDonalds. This place is crazy.. 3 stories high!
View up from the lobby in the hotel. You can see the elevators coming down.
Friday we headed out to Coney Island.
Sooo much good graffiti on the way out to Coney Island. Only shot I could get. We were moving too fast on the Subway.
The tower thingy. I have no idea what this is/was.
Coney Island beach. Looked a lot like Va. Beach. It was SUPER windy.
There’s something weird about a mermaid eating a hot dog.
God we are SO CUTE!
Shoot the Freak! A dude with a shield walked around while people shot him with paintballs. Whoa.
Graffiti in the alleyway on Coney Island.
Lots of awesome signage/lettering on Coney Island.
Wonder Wheel!
This was the coolest ferris wheel ever. Some carts stayed stationary. The other ones would swing back and forth on curved tracks every few feet. Scary but awesome.
More lettering.
More signage.
More lettering.
I LOVE THIS!
Spooky rama!
View from inside the Wonder Wheel cart.
The wind up there was INTENSE!
The Cyclone. Apparently the oldest roller coaster on earth. Sketchy! It’s mostly made of wood and it felt soooo scary. It rattled my brain. Haha really rough ride, but fun!
Signage outside the freak show.
There was a sideshow with a sword swallower, fire eater, guy who juggled knives and apples, electric man, a bellydancer with a 13-foot python (after her little dance, she put its head in her mouth.. ugh freaky!) We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside.
This guy stuck a screwdriver up his nose.
So we went from trashy island, to high culinary culture. The View restaurant is the 46th floor revolving restaurant in the Marriott Marquis. The outer ring where the tables are constantly revolves, and there are windows on all sides, so by the time your dinner is over you’ve seen the whole city. The view was gorgeous. The food was awesome, but it’s the most I’ve ever spent on a meal. $138 plus tip. Ouch.
Me. And that’s spring water. Since everyone is like YOU DRANK WINE?!??!
Jimmy lookin snazzy.
I took pictures of our dessert for my pastry chef friend,
Mine. White peach meringue something. With fresh raspberries and a chocolate sword. The meringue was soooo thick. It was great.
Jimmy’s cheesecake with a chocolate-dipped strawberry, a wafery thingy and puree’d strawberry goo.
Jimmy looking intense with dessert.
Saturday we caught a ride up to 59th street and walked down 5th avenue and checked out the shops.
Lichtensteinish pop art in the subway.
The Sony Wonder Museum. Awesome place.
Us at the Sony museum. How cute are we?
Jimmy playing video games at the Sony Style store. A totally cool place with lots of humongous TVs and stereos.
Taxis, which annoy the crap out of me because they CONSTANTLY honk their horns.
Big plasma screen display at the Sony store.
St. Thomas cathedral. The rose window was really pretty, even though I don’t really like Gothic architecture.
St. Patrick’s cathedral. This place is HUGE.
Inside. A wedding was going on. Like a football field away. That’s how big this place is.
Fifth avenue was crazy. We went in a lot of the shops, but got glares from employees in some, like De Beers and Chanel. I guess t-shirts and flip flops weren’t up to par. I loved the window displays in Saks but we didn’t go in.
We went back to the hotel for a minute to change and grab some food. Then we were gonna catch the subway to the empire state building and check it out. So I put on a skirt and flip flops, thinking we’d be walking a few blocks at the most. We ended up walking from 46th street, all the way to 8th, and went crossways several times. I have no idea how many miles that equates to, but my feet are WRECKED. On the bottom of my feet, behind my toes, it’s one huge blister. Ow.
Inside the Empire State building.
Dr. Sex wrote all over this truck. Not his best work, but I’m a big fan, so I snapped this.
Another Dr. Sex tag on top.
Jimmy lookin intense in Madison Square park.
A 360 degree view of Times Square on our last night. Sorry, I turn the camera halfway through.
Click here to watch. [7.2MB mpg file]
We went to the airport this morning and they oversold our flight, so they wanted volunteers to take another flight through Philly, so we did and got 2 free round trip tickets to anywhere in the continental US/Canada. Awesome. We’ll prolly use them for Posi Numbers. Or either take another vacation with em. To somewhere with blue water. Like south Florida.
New York was awesome. I have always dreamed of living there. Some of the neighborhoods were cool, especially in Brooklyn, but I don’t want to live there. I love Norfolk. However I WILL go back to NYC, many times if I can. I still have tons I want to do including ALL the art museums, a broadway show, etc.
So that’s pretty much it. I brought back presents for everyone (except myself.. I’m retarded). Jimmy was a dreamboat and we had an awesome time. I was sad when I had to leave him today.
Back to the real world!
