Further Circusification

I've been super stoked about our half bath, upstairs. When I found and framed the circus posters they really made me happy. But when I'm seated on the throne, the wall that I face is blank. It has the door, of course, but it has about 8 feet above it that could somehow join the theme.

One day I saw an auction of circus posters. I bought two lots, not really thinking about how big they'd be. And now I have several dozen circus posters, carefully selected for their lack of people and animals. It's really about my love of lettering, silk screen, words on the page. I intended to collage them on the wall of the bathroom above the door, in a similar approach to the one in the auction that lured me in:

But that's not what ended up happening. 

First there was the matter of getting a tall enough ladder into our tiny bathroom, and then seeing if we could stand on its tallest rung and pin a poster to the wall.

I'm not quite the monkey I used to be, and neither is mrguy. Abort mission. Instead of collage, I will frame some of the cooler posters and put them on that wall.

But the Lady Bathroom downstairs has been a work in progress for 10 years, and it has really low ceilings. I set my sights there (and we pinned one of the posters on the wall in the living room while we were doing triage).

So many posters to choose from. One of these is from Carson and Barnes, which is the circus that set up its tents on the vacant lot outside of town the week of our wedding.

This one has the delicious tag-line "See it now or miss it forever". 

But this one really takes the cake: "Complete in all its vast immensity".  A fb friend says that should be the title of my autobiography. 

Anyhoo, here's where I left my current project (still underway). 

Still working on how to adhere to the wall and protect from cats, but I kinda love it. It looks like a really cool rock club bathroom (but it smells lots better).

Adieu!

Germany 2017 Post 2

Day 2 was the day of many museums. Museum Angewandte Kunst is filled with beautiful stuff. “Elementary Parts: From the Collections” is an exhibition that juxtaposes 75 items from different parts of the collection -- modern, ancient, in-between. I was so into some of it, and beguiled by the names of some of the items and scribbled furiously in my notebook. Reviewing it 7 months later is only marginally helpful in reminding me what some things were. I wrote down "black kitchen mistress", and can't recall why. I think it's the name of a beautiful knife. I'd written it down in my notebook in order to look up later which, as I learned today, is maybe not a good thing to do. I didn't click on any of the links. Neither should you. Do, however, look up the jewellery of Friedrich Becker. Just gorgeous.

We were about to leave the museum when one of the attendants sternly asked for our attention. Gulp. Turns out that she just wanted to make sure that we left via the exit that would take us to the other half of the museum, in which rooms were themed by applied arts of different eras. I really got into this -- crazy wallpaper murals and pretty things. mrguy? Not so much. But we agreed on this chair:

The Städel Museum had something for all of God's creatures. Lots and lots of Medieval stuff for me and lots of modern and contemporary for both of us.

 

 I loved how this guy looked at me:

And this set of paintings was really crazy:

 

There was an amazing little exhibit that showed the backs of paintings. That's my idea of a good time.

Pretty fancy for the back of a painting, right?

Jet lag sank in and we drank many Cokes in order to forge on. In Frankfurt there seems to be a strong presence of Fritz Cola, instead, so I wondered if this was a revolutionary act. Don't care.

There was more art to be seen:

The black one, above, was just killing me. It was executed in paint stick and had mad texture. So gorgeous. On another side of this room I was distracted by this annoying sound while I was examining a piece by Anselm Kiefer. Man, that sound was annoying. Really annoying. Oh. That was *my* bad. The annoying American set off the annoying alarm.

After the museums it was still rather early and we were trying to stay awake until a reasonable hour, so we did some more shopping. People were starting to appear on the streets in their team colors. We spied this poster for mispelch, so we went into the shop to buy some, and some apfelwein. The shop owner asked us if we were football fans. And then we tweaked to the idea that soccer hooligans drink apfelwein and mispelch. Oh well.

 

On the way back to the hotel we found a tiny used record store. Smelled great but didn't buy anything. Passed by a store that made clothing with reproduction fabric designs by Sonia Delaunay:

And clearly we are in the run-up to Easter:

All of this was on our walk over to Zum Gemalten Haus, where I took the obligatory apple doorknob photo. Our stern waiter from last time continues to ply his trade there. In my opinion he's the Sam Wo of Frankfurt.

We ordered more grünsoße and confirmed our earlier opinion that we don't need to order any more of it. And that's ok! We enjoyed the atmosphere, the somewhat risque paintings on the ceiling, and a conversation with some young folks who joined our table.

European Vacation 2014, Part 10

We ventured out to go to a non-existent flea market at Am Hof. Then we went to see the modern auction items at Dorotheum auction house. What an eyeful! Mrguy was able to see many things in person that he'd only seen previously in catalogs or the Internet. He was a very happy boy. And I liked the cheap stuff being sold in a room on the ground floor.

On the way to something else we inadvertently discovered the Loos House, which was one of our intended sights. At first mrguy was calling out the garish marble, but then he realized what it was attached to. Here's the building across the street, Hofburg palace. Story has it that Emperor Franz Josef had the shutters nailed closed on that side of the palace after Loos built the building which, you can imagine, was a huge middle finger to the architectural norms of the time.

Loos House is currently a bank, but the bank expects and supports architecture nerds with a friendly attitude, historical displays and free chocolate.

After that happy accident we went to Trzesniewski for many egg salad sandwiches and equally teensy beers. A friend had told me about this place earlier -- an all egg salad sandwich restaurant with tiny beers. What a weird concept! We shared a table with a lady who wore fur, was in Vienna because she needs it for her life, and loves Peruvian gold.

Then we took the train to our second lunch at Cafe Pruckel. Super cool furnishings and my soup was tasty. Mak, the design museum, was across the street. The Vienna 1900 exhibition was a mind-blower.

 

Evywhere we went we saw amazing buildings. Like the Vienna chamber of commerce. The guards said we could could come in so we did. I slipped upstairs to take some photos of amazing furnishings. Then we found the postal museum (Loos) and took pictures in there.

This, my friends, is a heater.

 

[This was written while we were in Vienna]

Our hotel in general is amazing. I'm sitting in a window seat looking out onto a city square with a full-on horse statue with a dude on it, and museums and giant green patinaed domes on buildings around me. When you walk out the front door, you can smell the Lippizaner stallions. I will remember this forever. So swank. They give you business cards with your name on them to give to people if you're doing business in town. The soap comes in little phase boxes.

Tomorrow's our last full day of fun. The rest is travel. Shopping. I want to shop.

European Vacation 2014, Part 9

Today -- Vienna by train.

This hotel was a super splurge. Across the street from the opera house, and near the horse stables, which you can smell if you open the windows. Some would call this a bug. I consider it a feature. And it's right in the center (museums, shopping) of town. Mrguy was super into the design details here. Like the name designer coat hooks. Our bedside lamps are shaped like birds. There is a window seat with a view of some amazing old (for Americans) buildings.

 First stop outside the nest was the American Bar by Adolf Loos. It's not very photogenic at night, but was gorgeous to our plain eyeballs. 

 

Then we looked for dinner and I found us a vegetarian restaurant. Strangely tasty, plus the accordion music was great. The owner helped me with the CD info, and I bought it when we came back.

For some reason accordion music has been doing it for me the last few years. 

On our return, and none of this was very far from the hotel, our neighborhood had turned into the International Bad Behavior Zone. Run!

Signs Point To Yes, Again

Oh Man, I love this sign! Mrguy and I used to pass it all the time when we lived in the old old place, and we'd talk about how some day we wanted to own it. The sign, not the bar. Today, on my birthday (observed) with bigsis, we drove past and I was determined to at least photograph the sign. As luck would have it, the bar is now for sale, and I have written to the realtor to ask whether the owners have plans for the sign.

The reason I ask is that not too far away, many many years ago, I was getting cheap tires put on my car. While I waited, workers were disassembling an amazing sign I'd admired. I asked them if there were plans for the sign, and they told me that their boss had not told them what to do with the sign beyond taking it out of the frame. They went to a pay phone and called their boss to ask, leaving a message. Then he called me (at my apartment 30 minutes away). I returned home, got the happy message that the sign was all mine, and drove 30 minutes back up the freeway to get the very large sign (2 of them, actually) into my Barracuda. I've been a happy gal ever since.

I'm looking for a photo of the SnackBar sign, but can't find one at the moment. The sign is stored (somewhere) awaiting reinstall after the kitchen remodel is complete.

Tile

I will miss this tile, on the tread from the living room to the entryway: