Comments enabled!

My faithful reader, that cool cat Mia, pointed out that I had inadvertently disabled anonymous comments. They're back!

Mia also thought that Carla Bruni wasn't worthy of my admiration... I suppose I agree. But it's just that Italy and France have Carla Bruni but all we have here in America is Brittney Spears. Now if Brittney were to marry Bill Clinton, now that would be a story...

xoxo

BB

Shocking confessions! I'm in love with the Queen... and Carla Bruni... (gasp)

Immediately exploiting the liberty of my new home, let me start off with some shocking confessions: I'm in love with the Queen, QE2 (oops I mean E2R), the Queen of England no less, and Carla Bruni. All right then, not in love, but in deep admiration. It's true my parents would disown me, and my brother (yes, I do have one of those... Hello! Are you reading?) would roundly criticize me for this admiration of the scion of the family that thrice colonized me. But...

I was watching The Monarchy on PBS (America's version of the Beeb...) and there was this behind the scenes view of how the Queen handles state visits. And you have to say, she is one cool customer. With that same sense of self-depreciating humor that I found in all the British girls I met, and tried to match (like a dalmation tries to match with Zebras, if that image makes any sense...) How I loved making fun of myself, in that off-hand kind of way, and what do you know? Even the Queen does it!

And CB1, Carla Bruni the 1st. I watched her interviewed on the The Today Show whilst I was sweating it out (no, it was not a pretty sight) on the Elliptical Trainer this morning at 7. There she was, being asked all the usual, stupid fluffy questions, but simultaneously not taking herself or her questioner too seriously (is it possible Britain and France have something in common, other than the love of Bordeaux?) Of course, she said, I used to say those things, just to make the interviews more entertaining. And who else other than a literal-minded American journalist wouldn't get it?

OK -- enough confessions for one day (more some other day -- promise!)

BB

Moving in

Old friends welcome back! New friends welcome! This is the new home of Bombay Beauty. It will take some time to get settled in... You know, put up some curtains, paint the walls, get some pictures up, but expect to hear more soon and often!

xoxo

BB

Banskied again (Warning! Disturbing content)

I've been Banskied again. This time it was knowingly though. Bansky came to town, but unlike London he probably deduced that local authorities wouldn't take too kindly to his art on the walls of the city (unlike gang graffiti which they don't seem to mind at all). So instead he took over a store front on Seventh Avenue near Houston, the Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill.

I would like to offer my usual speculations on whether this was art, ahhhrt, fun, or just bizzare, but don't feel quite up to. But take a look and decide for yourself.

There were bales of Hay out front that you can't see here:


Bansky loves his CCTV's so much that he brought a flock of them with him to NY:


Never did like gumballs myself. This probably wasn't my concern though:

I've been Banskied

Just before leaving London I borrowed my friend Clementine's camera to take a few pics. One of my favorite pictures was this one:

(Hola! This image belongs to me! The art, I suppose, belongs to Bansky?)

I thought I was very clever to capture this street scene, the ominous graffiti and the public going about their business below, oblivious, inured.

Then today I saw this on the BBC:

An artwork by street artist Banksy in central London will be removed to send a message to graffiti artists in the city, a council has decided.

Westminster City Council has ordered a 23ft-high (7m) mural, entitled One Nation Under CCTV, to be removed from a building on Newman Street.

The artist's sketches have sold for thousands of pounds at auctions.

But deputy leader of the council Robert Davis said keeping the mural would mean "condoning" graffiti.

The mural has the words "One Nation Under CCTV" stencilled above two painted people.

One appears to be a child in a red hooded top apparently painting the words, while a police officer holding a camera and a brown dog look on.

The mural is painted on the wall of a building shared by Royal Mail and another business.

Of course he is not going to fill in a form and apply for permission. Notoriety is what makes Banksy exist Rupert Maas, art critic

The council said the artist did not gain the necessary permission and, once it has established who owns the painted wall, the artwork will be removed by the owner.

Mr Davis, who is also chairman of the council's planning sub committee, said: "I take the view that this is graffiti and if you condone this then what is the difference between this and all the other graffiti you see scrawled across the city?

"If you condone this then you condone graffiti all over London."

Mr Davis said the building's owner had "every right" to sell or exhibit the Banksy graffiti - as long as it was removed from the wall.

"What we are against is people coming around without proper permission or consent and exhibiting their work without permission."

'Vibrant and interesting'

Art critic Rupert Maas defended Banksy's graffiti, saying it made the city "vibrant and interesting".

"He is doing something that is quite valid," Mr Maas said.

"Here he is making a point that we are increasingly governed by CCTV cameras. I think it's great - good for him."

Mr Maas added: "Of course he is not going to fill in a form and apply for permission. Notoriety is what makes Banksy exist."

Banksy has created at least one other artwork in the borough, in an underpass in Marble Arch.

But that mural has not been removed as the whole area is being redeveloped, the council said.

The mural will be removed once the owner of the wall is established

More on the Bansky installation in New York soon...

BB

Trouble in the morning

Perhaps that wasn't the best title for a post... But it's the morning, and I've been having trouble in the morning.

By temperament I'm a morning person. I wake up early, usually before my alarm goes off, and quickly, the old cogs and wheels humming away in no time. I'm a tea person in the morning, but if I miss the morning cup of the steaming, I can usually start my day just fine.

Until recently, when everything has changed.

The alarm rings. And I find myself immediately renegotiating with this beast of a thing. Five minutes of the news before I get up. Just five. Ten minutes later, I stir again since the news is still going and decide I need five more... And on it goes. Usually for about 25 minutes. I know that's not a lot (right?) but it's a new problem for me and I have been wondering why.

The easiest explanation is working later into the night than usual, so more tired in the morning.

But I also worry that perhaps part of the answer is not wanting to face the day ahead. Don't want to make it seem personally grim, because it's not. But there doesn't seem to be too much good news around. When I'm at the airport, I see people huddled around the television as though they are watching an update from the war front, but instead they are getting a market update. And the presidential debates. Don't get me started.

I've recently taken to not listening to the news in the evening. I just listen to Ella or Ethiopique (thanks Mia!) or (though exercise extreme caution) Mahler.

Wouldn't it be so appealing just to postpone all the dirty business just a little? Come to think of it, I suppose that's what I'm doing with this post.

BB

Now here's an idea....

I thought my neighborhood was stroller central, but apparently in the few years I've been on the road I've missed a few developments...
from The New York Times...

October 5, 2008, 2:59 pm

Stroller Central, Now With a Valet

By Tina Kelley

Joe Caraballo, the stroller valet at the Prospect Park YMCA, parks up to 75 strollers a day for the overburdened parents and toddlers of Park Slope. (Photo: Christian Hansen for the New York Times)

The mothers rushed into the Prospect Park Y.M.C.A. in Park Slope, heading into prenatal yoga, art classes, or gym time. “You want long term or one hour?” Joseph Caraballo asked, as they left their strollers — some with temperature sensors and pedometers — under his watch.

He takes care to flip the canopies down so the seats won’t be too hot for the chubby thighs returning from yoga class. Except, of course, if it hides the wallet, cellphone, keys and cereal bar wrapper of an absent-minded parent.

“Is this a second-hand sale?” passersby asked, seeing 39 strollers lined up, handle-by-wheel, along 9th Street. “Are they having a race?”

But no, it’s stroller valet parking, a perfect fit notoriously spawnocentric neighborhood.

Mr. Caraballo, 52, who has a 9-year-old son, works in the Y’s maintenance department, and does not accept tips.

Erica Schohn was trying to fit her daughter, Silvia, into a Maclaren, which appeared to be the brand of choice. But Silvia would not bend, throwing back her whale-spout pony tail and arching her body. Ms. Schohn said leaving her stroller out was nice, “because then they don’t have to be folded.” (The kids, alas, do.)

Then there was the lady who left one child in a stroller and took the older one in to the gym: “She said, ‘Oh, the lady inside said I could,’ ” which was not true, Mr. Caraballo said. “I said, ‘Don’t do that.’ ”