FOOD: Japan meets america in SPAM SUSHI

A lingering World War II delicacy, spam is still widely consumed across the Hawaiian islands and is incorporated in the most endearing of ways into the local fare. Enter spam musubi which is really spam either unaltered or deep fried (!!!) wrapped in sticky white rice and belted with seaweed. It is sold at most gas stations, usually presented somewhat provocatively on the check out counter. The novelty and the choice placement of the dish caught my eye yesterday at a gas station in Kona on the big island of Hawaii and in a moment of weakness I bought it, you know just to say I had tried it. It was a suped up version with deep fried spam and "egg" and to the dismay of my inner thighs IT WAS DIVINE! The so called "egg" tasted more like a maple syrup drenched pancake which obviously tasted heavenly with the crispy spam. It the perfect blend of fat, sugar, and salt disguised in a healthy little bundle of rice and seaweed. I really wish I had never tried it.

EVENT: Bread and Butter/Berlin Fashion Week

This is blatant advertising and I admit, I’m shameless but if you’re in Berlin this week you must come to the uber (we are in Germany, after all) cool Bread and Butter show. It’s fashion week in Berlin and although a little bit smaller and somewhat of an underdog relative to Paris, Milan and New York, fashion week here is an all encompassing event including the three day long Bread and Butter trade show. Come visit us in the FASHION NOW hangar at booth 1.6. Hangar, you ask? As in, an airplane hangar? Yes. Another reason to come is that the show is in the old Berlin Tempelhof Airport, not just the second largest building in the world but also a historical building that survived the war. It’s huge and every section of it is filled with fashion from men’s and women’s clothing to “sporting” attire and accessories. The hangars cover over three miles of ground so there is a bus to traverse the show. Uber (there I go, again) cool Europeans, however, cruise the hallways on bicycles. In the evening, the show turns into an all out discotech. There is a massive bar connected to the airport in an old circus tent that turns up the techno and lets the beer and vodka (many, many Russians here) flow freely (for a very high price, that is).

So if you’re in Berlin or anywhere in the vicinity, come and visit and dance to a little thumping disco music with me-that they play ALL DAY.

FOOD (and rum): Sydney's Peace and Love, Jost van Dyke BVI

It may not look like much but go in on a Sunday, Tuesday or Thursday and order “The Pig” and you’ll see what I mean. Although open every night with a full menu of Caribbean fare, go on these particular nights when they have the barbecue set up and you have the option of “da pig, da chicken or da lobster.” But really. Have “da pig.” If you’re lucky, Junior, Sydney’s son has caught fresh conch that afternoon so there will be plenty of fresh conch fritters to go around. Get these too. Seriously. Put your order in early though, this is slow food, cooked over Sydney’s barbecue until perfectly right. Also, enjoy the self serve, honor system bar complete with Sydney’s own rum punch and painkiller mix. Be careful though, if you disobey the honor system Sydney will sneak behind the bar and add a few, ok a lot, of extra ticks to your bill. But why bother? After all, the rum is cheaper than the mixers down there. It’s pretty difficult to reach by land being around a bend where half the street collapsed down a cliff (about a year ago-island time, mon) and down a very, very steep incline so if you come in by sea, the preferred way of course, hale Sydney’s on 16 on your VHF and tell him to fire up the grill and put out a few extra bottles of rum.

Giraffe Manor

Strange hotel in Kenya where giraffes can peep through your window and watch you have your breakfast, get dressed, get frisky all while innocently chewing their cud.

http://www.giraffemanor.com/index.html

Sleep in coffins in Berlin

I almost stayed here a month ago. It has themed rooms including the vampire room where guests sleep in coffins and the sex addict room which is really a multifaceted mirrored dome so you never miss any angle. Browse through the room photos, it's inspiring.
http://propeller-island.de/rooms_neu/room_detail/11/index.php

Steel Conceals at Tate Modern

Miroslaw Balka's "How It Is" is the newest addition to the Unilever Series at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. Comprising nothing but a gigantic steel container set within the converted factory space, "How It Is" strikes you with its plainness (earlier installations in the series include Dominique Gonzalez Foerster's post-apocalyptic sculpture jungle, and Olafur Eliasson's artificial sun that mimicked with startling naturalism and scope the weather outside). But this installation transforms the space in its own, looming way--recalling the intensity and mystery of a skyscraper in the dark, or an abandoned vessel deep in the ocean.

By virtue of its orientation, the structure demands that we approach it from behind, walking its length (brimming with curiosity as to the contents!) before we reach the ramped entrance leading inside. Other visitors were already breaching the dark interior abyss when I arrived, and I followed, albeit cautiously, up the ramp. Once in the void, a person becomes all but enveloped by the darkness within a few steps. As I stumbled forward, a band of strangers barely visible around me, I couldn't help feeling as if I had fallen into some kind of exodus--the Jews leaving Israel, or the straggling Tutsis escaping Rwanda in the final days of the genocide.

The artwork label I read on my way in had referenced the piece's ability to induce a kind of personal self-awareness on the part of the participant; this may well have been the case had I walked the plank alone. But on a busy New Year's Day, the experience was a communal one. We giggled, reached for each other, and even in the quiet felt each other's presence in the echo of shuffling footsteps. Transformed into greyscale shadows (no brunettes or blondes, men or women, hipsters or straight-edges) we were glad for each other's company in those 30 meters of the unknown.

Has anyone seen any of Balka's other work? I look forward to exploring more!

Supergrass, SuperNewYear

I just got on the bandwagon with a band called Supergrass.  Where have I been?  They're rad.  They're Brits.  They're a 3 piece.  They're pretty good looking.  http://www.supergrass.com/