MotherPie

A Monogrammed, Personalized Car...

Seen on a Mini Cooper in New York City, the diamond monogram was sleek.  Pretty cute, pretty snazzy.  Probably only in NYC?  I've not ever seen a monogrammed car.  Yet the trend for personalization rather than  mass consumerism is real and seems a bit more sophisticated than the art cars.

The shell art car, at right, was spotted in NYC, too, on Fifth Avenue.   I'd not ever paid attention to art cars until we lived in Houston and the Houston Art Car Parade was a very creative event.  This year's Art Car Parade will be May 8, in Houston. 

In Santa Fe bumper stickers are the epitome of personalization.  This place must have more bumper stickers per capita than any other city.  In New Mexico old trucks and cars are parked as yard ornaments after they can no longer be driven, and there are more old cars and trucks on the roads. Lowriders are the gussied up cars. 

NYC: Green?

Seems like an oxymoron to me - NYC  being  the Green Apple, but that is what Barney's is promoting in their big December Holiday display which I think has had the best creative showcases.  Last year the windows were all Warhol-ish which I found to be delightful.  This year when I walked by them, I took a double take.  I just can't imagine NYC being Green when all I could ever see out my windows (beyond my terrace potted plants) was concrete.  Yes, that was the view I had from my desk, below left.

But the Barney's window displays were interesting (see them on my Flickr set on Commerce & Culture).  There is such an artsy element to experience the NYC  merchant windows, especially in the December holiday season.  Curbside culture.  Advertising Age (11/28) wrote that Barney's might have the year's most unique department store holiday marketing strategy.  (update 12/13 - charities that were recipients of Barney's NY embedded-giving in their holiday catalogue were unaware that they were listed and one wonders if this gimmick in retailing is really working. Gap's (RED) raised over $51 million and who knows how much Susan G. Komen benefits from pink sales for breast cancer?)

I just can't see NYC as The Green Apple.   

Santa Claus & Kicking Off Christmas...

Is anyone ever really too old to enjoy Santa? Radio City's Santa is divine -- isn't he precious? Maybe he's the best ever. What a way to start the holiday season -- at Rockefeller Center, the day after Thanksgiving, in NYC.  Some people believe Santa is too commercial.  Actually, he's a very historical actual spiritual santo -- a holy icon and the idea behind gifts given without strings.

In the country now known as Turkey, there once was a Christan Bishop who put coins into the shoes of girls who, for whatever circumstances, couldn't afford a dowry.  Hence the origin of Santa Claus. Santa is banned from the home of one of my smart blog friends, KChristyH.  I wondered when my children were young if this was too commercial, too fable-like, too untrue to foster, too unreal to perpetuate.  However, I love cultural traditions, history and all of the soupy sappy mix shared with loved ones. My first memories of Santa -- a stuffed one with a tiny bottle of coke in his hand.  The epitomy of the brand - the Santa as the apex of consumerism.  The commercial flood of Christmas makes me gasp for spiritual breath and feel the pressure to give something truly special on a timeline. 

When we return to Santa Fe, Santa the Man/Saint is not as important as other traditions. Farolitos on Christmas Eve and poinsettas, that original Mexican flower, will be the main festivity along with the big midnight services at the Cathedral in the center of the town and the merriment of the bonfires, carols and crowds up and down Canyon Road.  Santa of course here, is the spanish for Holy.  Santa Fe... the city of Holy Faith.

Bedbugs...

NYC has them.  I guess I shouldn't be concerned.  Should I.  Bedbugs aren't just a problem in NYC.  But latest bedbug advice in New York Magazine is to keep luggage off the ground, away from beds, when traveling. "Check your bags for any signs of bugs when you get home... Seal your clothes in a plastic bag and launder them before returning them to your dresser; you might even want to consider getting luggage you can throw directly in the laundry (e.g., duffel bags)."

I thought it was a new thing mainly in NY, a return of the bloody suckers (eradicated in the 1950s with DDT) but they are now in all 50 states.  If they are popping up in Ralph Lauren offices on Madison  Avenue, that just shows you they have no discrimination.  Infestations can be a real problem in hotels.  There is now a bedbug registry.  You can check to see if there are bedbugs reported where you are planning to stay, for example, in Manhattan. There is also a bedbug map by city.  When we checked into the hotel, I asked if this had been a problem...

Thanksgiving Day...

Nothing like a big parade on NYC streets.  Especially when a turkey isn't in our oven but in SaraBeth's.  The drum beat of the holiday, Macy's, kicking off the holiday season, ka-ching, ka-ching.  In the world's capital of commerce, I'll be having a look-see.

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving... mainly because it is just a time to be thankful and enjoy friends and family and it isn't flooded with commercialism.

Best-Ever Turkey Soup...

Our holiday will be full of all sorts of cultural soup. Watching the Macy's Day Parade preparations the night before with darkness surrounding everything, the big balloons look completely different, tethered close to the ground...

Traditions are soupy things, too.  What we toss in, what we keep, what we savor, what we share.  What we aren't doing but would, if we could, would be making my mom's yummy yummy turkey soup. 

MotherPie's Best Ever Turkey Soup Recipe (From Mom...)

Thankgsiving turkey bones
left-over turkey
carrots, 5 or so, grated fine (food processor works great)
Celery, 5 stalks cut into small pieces
Center of celery, heart with stalks and leaves
Onions, 2 - yellow, 1 cut in half, 1 cut into pieces
Garlic - three toes, mashed (put in baggie, hit with kitchen hammer to mash)
olive oil
One of these: spaghetti, brown rice, red potatoes with peel, corn
Beef or chicken broth cube if needed (which you usually might need if it isn't a free range turkey)
Dash of organo
1 bay leaf
Spice with thanksgiving
Season with gratitude

Put turkey bones in large pot, with cover with water, add one onion cut in half and celery heart with stalks and leaves and bring to boil and then turn to low simmer for an hour.  Let cool. Skim off fat at top and remove bones and celery stalks (cut leaves into pieces to re-use - same w/ onion halves).  In another large pan, heat olive oil then put in carrots, onions, celery and garlic in and saute until tender.  Add to soup stock with organo and bay leaf.  Simmer for 30 minutes; add shredded turkey pieces to soup.  If you use brown rice, add that at the beginning of the simmer process.  Otherwise with the other starch ingredients, add them using as much as you wish.  (I use relatively small amounts as we are stuffed after the big turkey dinner).  Simmer for 30 more minutes on low.  Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with love.

This is especially good the next day.

Traditions & Turkey Day...

We've had so many "traditions" as we've moved around.  What traditions do you embrace? We'll be eating something with turkey at Sarah Beth's restaurant in NYC once more.  We may be ogling the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade floats the night before the event.  We might be avoiding the crowds that day.  We might have a good perch from Trump Tower as we have been lucky to do in the past.   You might find us walking through Central Park as we did the day after Thanksgiving last year when my daughter got engaged. Little bit of Broadway, wee speck of shopping.  We have to go back to remember, go back to close the past, go back to move forward into our present future.

You? The International Folk Art Museum folks would ask you to scrutinize your cultural traditions, why you do what you do and the role you play in how you do that day.  Janet, the Kentucky transplant blogger and Pooh fan had a link to a quiz  and I found out that at least I am NOT STUFFY. HA. You go take the test.  What are you?

I Am The Stuffing

I'm  complicated and complex, yet all my pieces fit together. People miss me if you're gone - but they're not sure why.

What Part of Thanksgiving Are You?

Stuff to Buy...

The window displays in NYC are, like those in Paris, enticing and artsy.  For the first time ever, all of Macy's store windows at their flagship NYC store were devoted to one designer -- all for  Martha Stewart's new collection (some 2,000 things) exclusively sold through the Macy's stores. It is the single biggest private label launch in Macy's history, according to the Washington Post.  Macy's is the largest department store in the world.

There has been a flattening of the markets so that designer goods are no longer commanding the cachet.  People can go buy more inexpensive replicas of fashion items because today's fashion can be duplicated instantaneously.   

It was interesting to read my reader's comments on the article about the 100th anniversary of Neiman's...  Bellaza commented about the Neiman's anniversary catalogue, "they seem nothing more than an icon to superficiality and materialism. From one who loves beautiful things, I was truly annoyed at the lack of meaning I found in anything within its pages. I guess the beautiful things I love are more in the world, or at least down to earth."

I think Bellaza's thoughts are typical of many who are not blinded by commercialism. 

New York shopping holds a certain appeal for a population that lives on the streets and the commercial world is so ever-present, and for visitors, too.  Somehow products that "lift-off" there impact the marketing of the products elsewhere.  The marriage of Martha and Macy's is culturally interesting.  It comes well after the strategic example set by Target, with its design partners including architect Michael Graves and New York fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi.  I never saw a Target when I lived in Manhattan.

photo: Washington Post by Helayne Seidman

Life: Eating It Up...

You can eat up life or it can eat you up.  Now that I've left the Big Apple*,   I'd like to say I ate it up.

Crunch crunch.

* (note the redefinition: Big Apple in terms of NYC is now the new Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, generating more revenue per square foot than any other store.   

On Elmeretta Fudd & Being Fuddly

Or alternatively, the headline: On Being Ernestly Elmeretta-ish. Like the country bumpkin of yester-yore, the myopic world view of the urban-est eastern establishment, culture trend-setting opinionistas is that anything not here is over-there-square.  It isn't just here; it is everywhere.  I tried to raise my children to chart their own sense of their tunes and to find their own path and not look to others to define their sense of self.  There has to be a biological drive to "fit in" and, in a place like NYC where many people come from elsewhere, maybe this is a swan song.  However so many people come from so many places that refreshing differences are more the norm. 

Still, I'm hearing here: You're cool or you're Elmer Fudd.  A new buzz-word for Hicksville residents and an in-arbiter word that my ears (or eyes, reading about western fashion trends) pick up, or just a regional thing and I'm the new one?

Right? I write, I just report.  You tell me.  Where is Fuddsville, I wonder.   Does it have anything to do with the rising popularity of country music?   I think NYC doesn't even have a country music station.  Mount a Broadway play and mine this I say.  Cultural fodder, for sure.