"A moment you'll never remember..."

Playing: Hallelujah - Panic! at the Disco

Reading: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

Since I'm done with my first year at NYU and no longer have a proper excuse for neglecting the blog, I thought I'd write something up quickly. 

Have you ever found that you become ten times more productive/adventurous when you know time is running out? Well, that's what happened to me when I realized that I only had a month left before heading back to SoCal. My last month consisted of running off to finally try the famous afternoon tea at the Plaza and exploring more of Central Park (I went three times!). I also managed a visit to the David Zwirner Gallery to check out my favorite artist's, Yayoi Kusama's, "Obliteration Room" and a stop at Chanel's "No. 5 in a New Light" exhibit.

Jeff Koons: A Retrospective

Playing: Granada-Il Volo
Reading: Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

Left to Right: Matthew, me, Yish, Aristo, and Filip

It feels like I've done a lot within my first month at NYU yet I haven't taken that many photos. Fortunately, I went camera happy at the Whitney Museum of American Art, so I was able to write this post. I loved how the Whitney Museum managed to showcase a wide variety of Koons' work from the past three decades and how they dedicated five floors to this retrospective. Seeing Koons' balloon dog sculptures in real life alongside the infamous "The New" (a collection of vacuum cleaners in clear boxes) was  pretty exciting for me. I've seen them in books and online for years yet never saw them aside from a small collection at LACMA. Apart from looking at the art and enjoying free tickets courtesy of NYU, my friends and I pondered the deeper meanings of each piece of art jokingly or at least that's what we thought. As we walked away from one painting, we heard a security guard laugh and say to himself, "Holy shit. College students these days." 

PS I'm changing my URL soon to satellite-buzz.blogspot.com soon, so don't be alarmed when the name of my blog changes on your news feed. 

New York Photo Diary: Part 2

Playing: Hard to Explain-The Strokes
Reading: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Other than spending inordinate amounts of time shopping and eating, I did manage to fit in a trip to MoMa and the Guggenheim. MoMA is definitely worth visiting, while the Guggenheim can be rather dull other than its fun spiral design. Pictured above are 30 Rock (where Holden Caulfield went ice skating with Sally Hayes), a church near Washington Square Park, a raspberry cronut from Mille Feuille, and some shots taken at MoMA.
In case you were wondering why I was in New York, I was out there visiting NYU, which I will be attending in the fall. That means that I will be moving to the city that Alexander Wang, Marc Jacobs, Simon Doonan, Anna Wintour, etc. call home, which is pretty exciting. If you could give me tips on how to survive winter time, it would be much appreciated. What clothes do I wear? Is it possible to look cute in a puffy coat? Am I going to survive? Will I get stabbed on a subway? The world may never know, but maybe you can help.

Journey of a Dress

Playing: Watch You Change-The Drowners
Reading: Animal Farm by George Orwell

Originally, I visited the Grove for a chance to try a Cronut, which was a pretty big deal during NYFW, at Barney's Co-Op. They were being served from 10a.m.-2 p.m., so I figured showing up at lunchtime would be safe because how many people would be willing to wait in the rain for it? Unfortunately, the line was cut off at 8 a.m. so I didn't end up getting one. I ended up at Singapore's Banana Leaf at the farmer's market for a dish of spicy fish curry instead, which was perfect for the rainy weather.

I ended up at LACMA, which is just a block or two away from the Grove for the Diane von Furstenberg exhibit called the Journey of a Dress, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the wrap dress. After waiting in line for half an hour, I learned that the Diane von Furstenberg exhibit was actually free, which was a pleasant surpirse. I hope that bit of information saved you time, if you go.

The exhibit was split into four sections-a hallway of photos, an art gallery, a collection of wrap dresses, and a small store. The hallway itself includes photos from her career and examples of her famous wrap dress in movies and on various celebrities. It also includes a few pieces of art and a book in which you can write notes to Diane. The store had a wall covered in photos from the lanch party, which I wish I had known about. Then I could have been one of those gawkers on the street that had fan girled over Anna Wintour, Joe Zee, and or course, Diane.

The main focus of the exhibit is a collection of wrap dresses from the past four decades. All of the dresses were displayed on mannequins and organized by color. My favorite was this long, black wrap dress with feathered looking shoulder decorations, which you can see here. Overall, the collection was pretty amazing and it's a must for any fashion lover. I especially liked how there was something on the West Coast for me to visit after missing out on Alexander McQueen's Savage Beauty at the Met in New York and the Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton collection at the musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris.

muse

Playing: Just Like Heaven-William Beckett
Reading: Remembering Laughter by Wallace Stegner (Deeply tragic, may reread it soon.)

 

My dad made reservations for my family to visit the Getty Villa after promising to take me because I had seen it on Bryanboy's blog.When my dad was in college, he would stay with his UCLA professor that lives nearby and hike up to it. Technically, it's free to go, since the Getty Foundation pays for it. All that's needed is a reservation. However, you still have to pay for parking, which came out to $15. That's not a bad price though, if you think about it as the cost for your tickets.

The Getty Villa actually serves pretty decent food at their cafe. I ordered the Portobello Caprese Sandwich, which came served with pesto aioli and freshly baked focaccia. It was really good, but after taking a bite or two of my dad's oxtail ragu, I wish I had ordered that instead. If you do go, you should definitely try out the food. It's not the typical, horrid museum food.

My favorite part about the Getty Villa was the large garden, which offered a spectacular view of the beach. The garden was perfectly taken care of and it really made me feel like I was back in Italy. Everything looked a tad too new for it to be truly Italy, but it was close enough. Next to this garden is an herb garden, which feels almost exactly like the Italian countryside.

Other than the fantastic design of the building and the beautiful gardens, the Getty Villa also has an extensive collection of Roman and Greek artifacts mostly relating back to the arts and the Greek gods. At most museums, I'm unable to see every exhibit before becoming overwhelmed. However, the Getty Villa was just small enough for me to see everything in under five hours without being so small that it's not worth driving out to. Fun fact that I learned from the Getty Villa: Museums were named in honor of the nine muses because museums are supposed to be areas, where the muses' presences can be felt. Interesting, right?

a peek around Oro Grande, CA

Playing: Boring-The Brobecks
Reading: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (Actually not as good as I thought it would be.)

In general, I have a fascination with art and artists that choose to create beautiful things out of their surroundings. After visiting Noah Purifoy's Outdoor Desert Museum and Watt's Towers, I thought it was sensible that I go out to Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch. It was quite a drive, but I found the drive to be really beautiful. Seeing how Southern California's landscape changes so quickly has always been interesting to me.

Elmer Long still lives on the property, so if you have any questions, he's more than happy to answer them and give you tours of the area. He's been working on his creation for more than 14 years now and started collecting bottles with his dad as a child on camping trips. Most of the materials he found are things that others tossed away, so it's really incredible to see how he has preserved pieces of history that would've otherwise been lost such as rifles from WWII and glass bottles of Aunt Jemima maple syrup.

Since I went that far to take a look around the Bottle Tree Ranch, I decided to look at the town surrounding it. I liked how rural everything was and it was very picturesque. There's something about how nostalgic and worn in everything looks in places like the desert or inland California that I really enjoy. I like broad, open spaces, but I could never live there. I would choose to live in a big city over a rural area just because I need a lot of human interaction, even if it's just walking in a big group of people.

About a five minute drive away from the ranch was an ostrich farm, so I had to check it out and I realized I actually really like ostriches. They were all curious about us and were really friendly. They would watch me walking around and follow me the way Jacques does. (Seeing them being this cute and amiable makes me feel kind of guilty about owning two ostrich skin purses.) If you decide to check out the ranch or the ostrich farm, I highly recommend getting to Oro Grande earlier because there was a conglomeration of antique shops called Antique Station along the same road that was all closed by the time I got there and I wished I could've seen it.

PS I just got tickets to see New Politics with my friends, so I'm really excited about that. It'll be the sixth concert I've gone to this school year.

a life's work

Playing: A Shell Across the Tongue-The Drowners
Reading: A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

A couple of weeks ago, I took a trip out to Watts Towers, which I've been wanting to go to for a long time now. I saw it in a book a few years ago and couldn't get it out of my head since then. A friend of mine, Naomi, and my APUSH teacher also recommended it to me last year. Since both of them generally have good taste, I knew I had to make it there eventually.

The artist, Simon Rodia, spent over 30 years building these towers in his backyard and even let his neighbors climb them for fun. The city of Los Angeles wanted to tear them down at one time, but luckily they're still there. From far away, it looks like a few grey spirals, but up close, it's a colorful mosaic similar to the work of Gaudi. (The major difference is that Rodia did this by himself, while Gaudi had many people to help him.) Even though it's in a dangerous neighborhood, I felt perfectly safe as long as I stayed by the Simon Rodia Art Center. Also, I highly recommend paying for the tour otherwise I don't think you can go through the gates that surround it.

Have I ever told you what a random and eccentric city Los Angeles is? If not, I thought you should see this photo. While I was heading towards Koreatown for lunch, I saw this man patiently sitting there with a large head. It didn't seem like he was waiting for a bus or anything, just sitting there, enjoying life.

Anyways, the main reason for going to Koreatown is to get my favorite fried rice from Mannaria, the Special Shrimp Fried Rice. I love how its topped with Kewpie mayonnaise, katsuobushi and smelt roe. It just has a very interesting creamy/smoky flavor to it and I appreciate the large portions at this restaurant. I also tried Bopioca for the first time and got the Kiwi Green Tea, which was suspiciously neon and artificial. Even though my drink tasted a lot like kiwis, it tasted more like flavored syrup and lacked any sort of tea flavor, so I will not be purchasing from them again in the near future. Hope you have all been doing well! (Do you guys know of any places in Southern California that are worth visiting? I'm starting to run out of ideas and only have five more places on my list of places to go.)

LA LA LA

Playing: Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Off Her Clothes-Panic! at the Disco
Reading: The Asylum by Simon Doonan (Very entertaining! This book is definitely a strong reason why Simon Doonan is one of my favorite people in the fashion industry.)

A few weeks ago, I went out to Los Angeles' Art District with Sophie to celebrate her birthday. Sophie's main goal was to check out a small design store called Poketo, which was very quaint. I have driven through the Art District multiple times, but never bothered to look around. If you take the time to actually walk up and down the streets, there are many indie and creative stores to explore.

One of my favorite stores that we looked around was Guerilla Atelier, which had a lot of nice clothing with everything from simple sheath dresses to well done harem pants. It also had an eclectic collection of steak knives, candles, and books to accompany all of the clothing. Everything in there seemed well made and each of the classic designs had a clever twist. It's definitely worth going to if you want a unique (but still easy to pull off) kind of dress.

Once we were finished with the Arts District, Sophie and I walked over to Little Tokyo to explore all of the stores there. I was on the hunt for a specific type of erasers at Kinokuniya, but unfortunately, they weren't selling any. I love how Japanese magazines always come with freebies. It makes it so tempting to buy the magazine just for the cute item that comes with it. I saw Karlie Kloss' editorial for Vogue Japan on tumblr and she did an amazing job like she always does.

Before heading home, we stopped at Boba Club in Little Tokyo's Galleria for cold drinks. The ambiance of the store was kind of weird, since it doubles as a Cherry on Top, but the drinks were fine. Overall, it was a very pleasant day and I'm glad I stopped off to explore the Art District with Sophie. A part of me really wants to go to Los Angeles for college because I love it there so much, but another part of me says that I should go farther from home. I guess it all depends on which universities accept me (and which universities reject me).

stuck in the rain

Playing: Romance is Dead-Paloma Faith
Reading: You're Cute and Fired by Marisa Meltzer

I skipped out on Black Friday once again because a) the sales are never as good as I hope they'll be, b) crowds of deprived shoppers stress me out, and c) usually everything I want is still too expensive to buy on sale. Instead I visited Los Angeles again with my family because the Los Angeles Auto Show is back in town. We stopped off at Little Tokyo for lunch at Wakasaya and I grabbed a box of macarons from Lette. I kind of regret not getting a wider range of colors, but at least they look semi-autumn appropriate.

For some reason, we always park next to MoCA and they moved this statue into the parking lot. Apparently, it cost a lot of money to ship it to this specific location. However, I still struggle with finding the artistic value of this piece because it looks like a discarded chunk of metal in the middle of a parking lot.

My favorite part about rainy days other than the chance to run around in a trench coat, pretending I'm a secret agent, is taking photos through windows. I  really love this photo set and I want to take more photos like those, but living in Southern California doesn't really give me the opportunity to do so.

We actually went to the auto show because my dad's birthday is coming up and he really wanted to go. I wasn't all that impressed with the cars other than the smart cars and Porches. I really liked this Jeremy Scott smart car because the wings are such a simple addition yet so playful. It also looks fairly unisex and makes me want to collect designer cars. Unfortunately, I don't have an extra $43,200 to spend, so I'll have to give up my dreams of owning this car.

The Lincoln display had these cool planters hung up on their walls. My dad and I are planning on making planters like these either from wood or clay. We thought it would be good for planting all our herbs and smaller flowers. As you can tell, cars aren't really my thing, but after living with the two car fanatics I call my dad and brother, I have picked up a little knowledge here and there from them on cars. Even so, I still think these planters may have been one of my favorite things that I saw at the car show.

Last Saturday

Playing: Compromising Me-William Beckett
Reading: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

I love going to the beach during the off season, when the crowds have dispersed and/or returned home. There's something about a deserted beach that is particularly lovely, so when Jiyoung asked me to go to Corona del Mar for his art project, I couldn't say no. The Santa Ana winds were going on at the time, which gave everything a Los Angeles worthy haze of sunshine and dust. If it were not for the fact that both of us had a lot of homework to do, it would have been nice to go swimming. Instead we grabbed an early lunch at the Lemonade that opened up at Fashion Island before heading home. I hope you enjoyed some of the photos I took and don't forget to enter my Burberry headband giveaway, which is open until the end of October!

Robertson Blvd.

Playing: Shot at the Night-The Killers
Rereading: Light Boxes by Shane Jones

I kind of got over the cupcake trend just like I got over the frozen yogurt and red velvet trends fairly quickly, but that doesn't mean I'm going to pass up a chance to try Georgetown Cupcakes. I actually stumbled by the Los Angeles location on accident, while I was out shopping. Pictured above are the Double Butterscotch, Strawberry, Chocolate Ganache, and Peanut Butter Chocolate cupcakes. Honestly, all of them were delicious and I usually dislike chocolate cupcakes,but these are worth trying. The Double Butterscotch was my favorite with piece of butterscotch embedded into the bottom.

Along the same road, Robertson Blvd., there's a Kartell store. Unfortunately, since it was Sunday, it was not open, but I enjoyed window shopping just because everything was so fun to look at. Ideally, I would love to fill my house with fun furniture and this store definitely feeds into my lucite obsession. It also relates back to my interest in Jeff Koons' art.

Another store that was closed, but I wished it was open was H. Lorenzo. The window displays had the most perfect outfits that mixed classic styles with modern elements. I like how the sweet dress in the middle is off set by the bright red clutch and the feminine trumpet hem on the skirt to the left is off set by an edgier top and necklace. This store housed a lot of different brands from KTZ to Comme des Garcons to Forme Depression, which are all difficult brands to find.

I have been a part of National Charity League for almost seven years now and at the end of NCL, they give us a chance to be a part of what they call "presents." Presents is actually just a debutante ball, but I will not be doing presents this year because the dress rules are excessively strict. To quote the dress rules, NCL presents "values conformity." I want to be a part of a debutante ball, but not at the price of conformity and having to wear either an ugly or boring dress. Every dress I have ever wanted for presents was vetoed by the dress rules because you're not allowed to do a non A-line dress and it cannot have lace or be backless. For someone like me, I prefer doing straight up and down gowns because A-line dresses with petticoats make me look shorter than I already am. These dresses from Les Habitudes would have been perfect for me, but I know that all of them will be rejected.And with that rant, I leave all you lovely readers to do my Econ homework.

MoCA

Playing: Miss America-Something Corporate
Reading: Harper's Bazaar September 2013

In the last few days of summer break, I get into these mad frenzies in which I try to cram in as much exploring as possible. It mostly consists of me running to Los Angeles to see enough to get me through the dreadful school year. MoCA recently had an Urs Fischer exhibit, so I took a trip down there to take a look. I ate at Lemonade, which is located right on the museum's property. The Watermelon Rosemary Lemonade was so refreshing and all of the side dishes I got were excellent. The Israeli Couscous was my favorite, but the Curry Chicken Salad and Tandoori Chicken Salad were also very good.

Unfortunately, the main building for MoCA was in the process of moving in new exhibits, which meant there wasn't much to look at that I had not seen already. At the Geffen Contemporary, another MoCA building, they had some of Urs Fischer's work. MoCA basically let 1,500 people in to sculpt whatever they wanted with Urs Fischer and this is the result.

In the adjoining room, MoCA, along with several other museums, is having a display on architecture throughout the world. They had a lot of models of homes and buildings along with sketches. If I ever become a billionaire, I will help stimulate the economy by building a home as spectacular as these ones.

I love art that you can stand in because it feels like an artist's playground. This particular piece was surreal with it's pastel swirling explosions. I likes how inside it was like an explosion of paint, while the outside has these neon cutouts sticking out like feathers. This was right by the architecture exhibit and there were two other pieces you could walk into. I really would like to go back to MoCA, when they have exhibits other than their permanent ones on display. It's kind of expensive to see only one floor of work, so you have to go to the Geffen Contemporary to get your money's worth.