Winter Antiques Show Washington DC

Brrr it was a such a cold weekend for us DC'ers and yet it made the perfect weather to attend the Winter Antiques Show here in town for the weekend.

Thoughts about the show.
1. It looked very nice and I think the use of the Katzen Center at American University works well.

2. The staff, volunteers and exhibitors couldn't have been more professional and nice.

3. For 99 percent of the pieces that caught my eye the prices meant that this was simply an exhibition and I can't believe that much business was conducted.

In this, the third dark winter of our recessionary times the show has to try new exhibitors and a broader range of goods to attract a wider audience. I simply can't see how anyone can make a living selling these goods at such high prices.

That said, I enjoyed myself and met many interesting people. Lets take a look at what caught my eye but won't be buying.




English Chinoiseri Cabinet, Circa 1700. Priced at $65,000.00. From G. Sargeant Antiques of Woodbury, CT.


Directoire Bouilotte Lamp. $10,500.00. A tad out of range ya think. G. Sargeant Antiques




19th Century French metal clock. It had to be 30 inches in diameter and from a decorative look, it was great looking. At $4,500.00 it was expensive bit not terrible. From the Finnegan Gallery of Chicago, IL.


Early 20th Century French Industrial Metal Cart. It does move but must weigh a ton. Perfect of a gourmet's kitchen and at $5,500.00 not exhorbitant for such a singular piece. Also form the Finnegan Gallery.





Tiger Maple end table, circa 1800, American, priced at $4,900.00. Its American so its expensive. From SAJE Americana of Short Hills, NJ.



19th Century Cast Iron Newfoundlands. Huge and fabulous and $34,000.00. From an estate in Rhinebeck, NY. Sold by Roberto Freitas, Stonington, CT.



Gustavian Sleeping Bench. 18th Century and it has a pull out bench below the seat, sorta of a an old fashioned trundle. $10,000.00. Dawn Hill Antiques, New Preston, Ct.


Regency 3 tier clothes tree. George Subkoff Antiques. $7,500.00. I'd need to buy better pants!


Biedermeier Walnut Armchair, circa 1830. Priced at $3,200.00. Not crazy. From Savenkov Gallery, Midlothian, Va.





Tigers, circa 1880. Asking price $9,500.00. Grrroowwwow! From Gemini Antiques, Lebanon, NJ.




A Yachtsman's Desk. English late 19th century, $14,500.00. Overboard!! From Antique American Wicker of Nashua, NH.

Another Sad Loss From The Great Recession

One of my earliest culinary New York City memories is closing its doors, according to the New York Post and it makes me sad that this landmark seems to be another victim of this endless recession and union bickering, which means in the end, people out of work.

I don't think I was yet ten when I was taken for the first time to Gino's Restaurant on the UES just across the street from Bloomingdale's (the real one). I'll never forget seeing those dancing Zebras against the tomato red wallpaper. Me, "I love a good chicken parm." Grazie Gino's.

New York Post: "A legendary Upper East Side Italian restaurant may wind up sleeping with the fishes as a bad economy and a union fight threaten to drive it out of business.

Gino, a 64-year-old Manhattan red-sauce staple where the likes of Frank Sinatra once dined, is slated to close on Jan. 31, said Marco Dell'Aguzzo, the head of the eatery's union.

"We're very sad; we're like a family," said the 45-year-old waiter. "We've all been working for very many years."

Reports surfaced this month that the troubled Gino would be saved as a white-knight buyer rode in to scoop up the joint, famous for its zebra wallpaper and old-school dishes like veal parmigiana and chicken cacciatore.
BITTER TASTE: Waiter Marco Dell'Aguzzo blames the impending closure on the economy and a union contract fight.

But Dell'Aguzzo told The Post this week a buyer has not materialized and that the Lexington Avenue eatery will not survive.

Co-owner Salvatore Doria told The Post he couldn't talk about details of the restaurant's problems.

"In a few weeks, we'll know exactly what's the story," he said. "The place is known worldwide. It's a piece of Manhattan. The problem is the economy."

Dell'Aguzzo believes the owners of Gino floated the notion of a buyer so workers would stay on for one last Christmas season before the inevitable closing.

The union and management have been fighting since October, when the workers' contract expired and they balked at a request to pay half their health insurance and pension in a new pact.

Dell'Aguzzo said he was told that because of the economy, the owners wanted to sell but couldn't because of the labor contract.

News that the restaurant is on its deathbed left longtime patrons distraught.

"There's a general sadness and disbelief; it's a great tragedy," said Allen Falcona, 77, a patron since 1957.

"It will have a huge effect upon a lot of customers, who come daily and sometimes twice a day."

A Second City $100 - $200 Dollar Estimate Auction

I know the holidays are over and who wants to spend any money, but a deal is a deal. I just went through Susanins Auction catalogue for their January 16th sale and think I found some great finds. Everything posted below except the glass coffee tables are estimated at between $100-$200 dollars. Most are decorative items and add so much to a room or end table. Lets take a look. Full catalogue here.


CHINESE ART DECO RUG.
6'1"x3'
$100/$200


PAIR OF CHINESE BRONZE FOO DOGS.
Height: 6.5"
$100/$200



CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN TEMPLE JAR.
16"
$100/$200



THAI GILT BRONZE BUDDHA.
19th centruy
13"
$100/$200



CHINOISERIE STYLE PAINTED MIRROR.
In a figural and floral motif
46" x 35"
$100/$200



PAIR OF GILT COMPOSITE THREE-LIGHT MIRRORED WALL SCONCES.
Not wired for electricity
H: 37" W: 12" D: 7"
$75/$125



THREE ENGLISH 19TH CENTURY IMARI PLATTERS.
$100/$200



TWO 19TH CENTURY ENGLISH MAHOGANY BOXES.
$100/$150



BURLWOOD MIRROR.
H: 46" W: 30" D: 2"
$100/$200



COLLECTION OF LEATHER BOUND BOOKS.
$100/$200



ENGLISH MAHOGANY BUTLER'S TRAY ON STAND.
Tray is 19th century
H:27" W:40" D:31`"
$200/$400



GRUEN WROUGHT IRON AND GLASS COCKTAIL TABLE.
H:19" W:51" D:31"
$600/$800



GEORGIAN STYLE MAHOGANY COCKTAIL TABLE.
H:19" W:39" D:39"
$100/$150



GEORGIAN MAHOGANY BOW FRONT CHEST OF DRAWERS, 18TH CENTURY.
H: 35" W: 34.5" D: 19"
$800/$1,200



CONTEMPORARY BRONZE AND GLASS COFFEE TABLE.
H: 18" W: 53.75" D: 30"
$200/$400

Art Market Still Suffering Recession-Induced Blue Period

Wall Street Journal: 1/4/10
By KELLY CROW

The recession battered the art market for much of 2009, as prices for some of the world's top artists fell by a third and auction houses struggled to win over wary collectors.
The Journal Report

Some buyers who fled when the art market crashed in late 2008 have stepped back in recently, and a few paid record prices for masterworks. But the marketplace, from Miami to Moscow to Mumbai, remains pockmarked with shuttered galleries, smaller auctions and scaled-down art fairs. In the U.S., many museums have postponed pricey exhibits.

Sotheby's said it auctioned off about $2.3 billion of fine and decorative art last year, down 53% from 2008. The 2009 total included $441 million in contemporary art, down 68% from 2008; $471 million in Impressionist and modern art, down 57%; and $190 million in jewelry, down 13%.
[ART] Sotheby's

Alberto Giacometti's sculpture "L'Homme Qui Chavire"

Rival Christie's International PLC said it auctioned at least $2.5 billion of art, down 45.6% from $4.6 billion in 2008. Closely held Christie's said it would release complete sales figures later this month.

In a year of uncertain art values, some collectors sought stability in the Old Masters. Raphael's black-chalk drawing of a serene figure, "Head of a Muse," sold at Christie's in London last month for $48 million—the highest price paid for a work of art at auction all year. In the same sale, Christie's sold an earthen-hued oil by Rembrandt, "Portrait of a Man With Arms Akimbo," for $33.2 million.

Sotheby's, meanwhile, sold a rare, early silkscreen by Pop master Andy Warhol, "200 One Dollar Bills," for $43.8 million in November, more than tripling its high estimate. Sotheby's also got $19.3 million for an Alberto Giacometti sculpture of a toppling man, "L'Homme Qui Chavire," and $18.8 million for an Edgar Degas bronze ballerina, "Petite danseuse de quatorze ans."
video
News Hub: Buying Smart Art in 2010
2:44

Kelly Crow discusses which undervalued artists show promise in 2010.

The most striking sale of the year was the collection of the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, nearly 700 objects—from Roman antiquities to Art Deco furniture to modern paintings—that were auctioned off by Christie's and the designer's partner Pierre Bergé for $443.1 million last spring.

Critics said the sale epitomized the excesses of the art world: Christie's printed $400 auction catalogs and conducted the sale in Paris's glass-domed exposition hall, the Grand Palais. But the spectacle helped draw thousands of bidders and fetch several record prices, including Henri Matisse's "Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose," which sold for $46 million; Constantin Brancusi's wooden totem, "Madame L.R. (Portrait de Mme. L.R.)," which fetched $37.7 million; and an Art Deco chair by Eileen Gray that sold for $28 million, 10 times its estimate.

The sale even sparked a diplomatic fracas after a Chinese antiques collector, Cai Mingchao, refused to pay the auction house $40.4 million he had bid for two bronze sculptures of animal heads, saying the pieces had been looted from China in the mid-1800s and should be returned to the government there free of charge. Mr. Bergé wound up keeping the bronzes, he said.
[ART2] Christie's

Piet Mondrian's "Composition avec grille 2."

The Yves Saint Laurent sale couldn't fix the art market's woes, however. Throughout the spring, auction houses cut staff and costs and struggled to secure enough top material to entice potential bidders, said Sotheby's Chief Executive Bill Ruprecht. Sellers wouldn't part with their prized offerings "unless the gas was about to be turned off," Mr. Ruprecht said, compelling auction houses to sell privately or make do with slimmer pickings offered at a fraction of boom-era prices.

In May, for instance, Sotheby's sold a blue Easter egg sculpture by Jeff Koons, "Baroque Egg with Bow (Turquoise/Magenta)," that belonged to hedge-fund executive Daniel Loeb for $5.5 million. Sotheby's got nearly four times as much for a Koons sculpture from the same series two years earlier.

Fewer than 550 artworks crossed the million-dollar mark at auction last year, half as many as in 2008, according to Artprice, a Paris-based database that tracks global auction results.

Yet those lower art prices—coupled with inflation fears—were the same factors that helped drive some international collectors back into auction sales rooms and art fairs during the fall, particularly buyers from Europe, Brazil and China who bought art as a hedge against possible inflation. Price levels have also begun to stabilize: Since September, Mr. Ruprecht said, 82% of Sotheby's artworks have sold for at least their minimum suggested prices.

So far, wine has been among the first collecting niches to regain its prerecession momentum, thanks largely to interest from China. Overall, Asian bidders took home a third of the wine sold last year at Sotheby's in New York, up from 4% four years ago.
Top Art Sales of 2009


Henri Matisse's "Les coucous tapis bleu et rose" was among the top selling artworks of last year.

Ed Dolman, Christie's chief executive, said he expects Asia to play an increasingly powerful role in the market's turnaround. After the last art crash in 1990, Mr. Dolman said, the "Japanese collectors disappeared and didn't come back for years, but the latest shock to our system hasn't really affected these newer Asian buyers." (Christie's switched its sales of contemporary Chinese art from New York and London to Hong Kong in early 2009.)



Although Americans sat on the sidelines for much of 2009, in recent weeks some contemporary collectors in the U.S. have rejoined the competition for top examples of artists' work.

American collectors and dealers won 82% of the offerings at Christie's Nov. 10 contemporary sale in New York, including pieces by Alexander Calder, Robert Motherwell and Donald Judd.

The recession has begun influencing the roster of sought-after artists. While art advisers expect prices to keep climbing for curatorial favorites like Louise Bourgeois and Cindy Sherman, whose prices didn't soar on speculation during the boom, they caution that the market may continue to test price levels for boom-era favorites like Takashi Murakami.

Banks are maintaining lower profiles in the art world these days. UBS AG closed its art-banking division last spring. The bank, a longtime sponsor of Art Basel Miami Beach, also decided not to host its traditional raw-bar and caviar buffet in a white tent on Miami Beach during the art fair last month. Also gone: the corporate art collection of Lehman Brothers. In November, 238 artworks that once hung on the walls of the failed securities firm were auctioned off at Freeman's Auctioneers for $1.3 million, doubling its presale estimate.

Robert Read, an art insurer at Hiscox, says banks may distance themselves even further from sponsoring art events and exhibits until the recession ends. "It's hard to stand in front of shareholders and say you're not hiring people but you're still buying art."

The Tucker Car Auction, A Question Of Authenticity

I received this email tonight and feel compelled to pass it on as the letter seems very responsible.

A TUCKER CONVERTIBLE?
Over the past twenty years, the Tucker Automobile Club of America, Inc.—recognized as the foremost authority on Tucker Automobiles—has been asked repeatedly to make an official statement or a detailed response in regards to the authenticity of a purported Tucker convertible.



With the upcoming public auction of a vehicle which the sellers contend is an actual uncompleted Tucker Corporation convertible concept car, we feel compelled to restate our long-standing position:



The Tucker Automobile Club of America, Inc. (TACA) has never been presented with—nor have been able to find—any credible evidence to prove the authenticity of this or any other vehicle as being a Tucker Corporation intended convertible and therefore we can not certify it as such.



While TACA is certainly not ready to completely dismiss the possibility that a Tucker convertible could have been built by the Tucker Corporation, we have never discovered nor been presented with sufficient evidence to prove such a car was planned for or started at the factory.



It is worth noting that TACA maintains the Tucker Historical Collection and Library, an archive collection of several thousand original company documents, factory photos, and other materials. This includes production records for the prototype, known as the Tin Goose, and the 50 pilot-production Tucker sedans completed prior to plant operations ceasing, as well as inventory documents identifying surplus bodies, engines, and various parts. The National Archives holds vast amounts of Tucker Corporation-related material: the SEC investigation papers, trial transcripts, bankruptcy proceedings, and lawsuit documents. There are two private collections containing multiple copies of original company records including over 60,000 original blueprints for the 1948 Tucker Sedan. Yet, to date, no evidence has been found in any of these materials to support the claim of a Tucker Corporation convertible.



TACA and independent historians alike have investigated this contention at great lengths. While many respect the visual appeal and presentation of this “Tucker convertible," the overwhelming consensus of individual opinions continues to be that inadequate evidence exists to support the claim of this being an original Tucker convertible (with many believing that the evidence to date negates the possibility of it being a genuine Tucker convertible).



TACA recognizes that this vehicle appears to have been built using many authentic Tucker parts, such as an engine, some body panels, and etc. It may well represent, as a tribute car, what a Tucker convertible would have looked like had one been produced by the Tucker Corporation.



This vehicle has never been presented to TACA for a comprehensive review per our certification / authentication process, nor has the seller responded to our request seeking the engine serial number and data plate information. TACA has insufficient evidence to otherwise authenticate this vehicle as being a genuine attempt by the Tucker Corporation to produce a convertible model or concept. As always, the burden of providing adequate evidence to establish authentication falls on the presenter. TACA can only rely upon Primary evidence—direct, uninterrupted historical documents and materials—and formulate an opinion accordingly. If other such documentation proving (pointing to, indicating) the existence of a convertible project existed, it has not (never) been made available to TACA.



This is not a case of TACA having an interest in the existence or non-existence of such a vehicle: either way, TACA neither gains nor loses anything. We have no financial stake in taking sides. Our position is clear: without credible evidence, we cannot rewrite history; we cannot state that Tucker Corporation planned for or started a convertible project; nor can we certify this or any other vehicle as being an authentic Tucker Corporation convertible.



The Tucker Automobile Club of America, Inc. would welcome both the current owner and any prospective purchaser to become members of our organization, share in the ongoing research and findings, and join together as we strive to preserve the fascinating history of the Tucker automobile and all those who contributed to it.





Respectfully,





Jay A. Follis, President

Officers and Board of Directors

Tucker Automobile Club of America, Inc



"The Most Important American Car,"a 1948 Tucker 48 Convertible, Crosses the Russo and Steele Auction Block in Scottsdale, Arizona


For Immediate Release: Russo and Steele:
Scottsdale, AZ. (Dec 30, 2009) -- One of the nation’s premier collector car auctions, Russo and Steele Collector Automobile Auctions, will auction off the only Tucker Convertible ever made. Specializing in European sports cars, American muscle cars, hot rods and customs Russo and Steele's All Reserve format has continued to attract automobiles of the highest caliber. Celebrating its tenth anniversary this January 20-24, 2010 it held its first auction event in January 2001 with only 45 automobiles; today it offers over 600 of the finest automobiles in Scottsdale over a five day span.

This is THE Tucker Convertible, the one and the only. This is, for all intents and purposes, a newly finished Tucker 48, completed upon the specially box-wrapped ovular body/frame #57 from the Tucker Experimental Department. Only by seeing it in person can you fully realize how perfectly this car fits into Preston Tucker's original dreams for the Great American automobile and what a piece of automotive art that stands before you.

The Tucker 48 Convertible is painted Waltz Blue, a color said to come from Mrs. Vera Tucker's favorite dress. The light tan of the interior and convertible top are as if they've just rolled off the line in Chicago. The fit and look of the convertible top are astounding. The chrome...well, the chrome is perfect, from that massive prow to the six individual tips on the exhaust. Out front, you'll find a Tucker hallmark, the center headlamp that turns with the steering wheel. And, this one works!


Full story here.

A foreclosure auction for the super-rich

The bids rise in $100,000 increments at this seven-bedroom, 11-bathroom Tarzana estate.
LA TIMES 1.2.10
By Lauren Beale
The bargain hunters jockey gingerly for a spot to park their luxury sedans and SUVs along Brewster Drive, a winding road in the hills of Tarzana.

It's a woodsy neighborhood of large homes behind wrought-iron gates, and more than two dozen shoppers are here to bid for a piece of it.

Housing auctions are plentiful these days, including builders' closeouts that lure hundreds of bidders to hotel ballrooms and public sales of foreclosures on the courthouse steps. But this time the steel-nerved speed-talkers at Kennedy Wilson Auction Group are unloading a palatial 13,500-square-foot bank-owned spec home that had been listed for $9.775 million just a year earlier. Full Story here and its a good read.

Top Auction Prizes of 2009

Head of a Muse by Raphael Photo: CHRISTIE'S

A Great Read!!: "The Choicest Morsels"
I provided what photos I could find.

The Choicest Morsels
Business Standard
Scott Reyburn & Katya Kazakina / December 26, 2009, 0:26 IST

Highlights of 2009 in international art sales — still big money, but more conservative collecting.

A chalk drawing by the Renaissance painter Raphael that sold for $47.5 million topped auction sales in 2009, beating a Matisse still life of cowslips that made an artist record of $45.6 million.

Elsewhere, an Andy Warhol painting of dollar bills fetched $43.8 million, a Rembrandt portrait reached $32.9 million and an Art Deco chair owned by Yves Saint Laurent took $28 million.

Collectors responded to the financial crisis by selecting the best 20th-century classics, Old Masters, wine and jewellery. They shunned some contemporary art as prices halved and sales fell 75 per cent. Private transactions increased as sellers at public auctions were no longer guaranteed minimum prices in 2009.

Here are some of the key moments of the year:

February 5: Sotheby’s London sale tallied £17.9 million (then $26.15 million), the lowest at its Part I contemporary auctions in the city since 2005. On February 11, Christie’s International failed to sell Francis Bacon and Mark Rothko works that it expected would fetch as much as £5 million and £3.5 million.


February 23-25: Christie’s raised 342.5 million euros from the collection of late fashion designer Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge. The total was the highest at auction of a private art collection, and defied economic gloom, said dealers. It would have been higher had Cai Mingchao, the Chinese winning bidder on two Qing dynasty bronzes, not refused to pay his bill of 31.4 million euros.


The Matisse 1911 cowslips still life Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose made 35.9 million euros, paid by New York-based dealer Franck Giraud. Records were set for other modern artists Brancusi (29.2 million euros) and Mondrian (21.6 million euros), while the Eileen Gray airchair made 21.9 million euros, a record for any piece of 20th-century design and 10 times its low estimate.


April 30: An aluminum “Lockheed Lounge” chair by Marc Newson sold at Phillips de Pury & Co in London for £1.1 million, an auction record for contemporary design. Pieces by Zaha Hadid and Ron Arad failed to sell.


May 13: David Hockney’s portrait of philanthropist Betty Freeman fetched $7.9 million at Christie’s New York, setting an auction record for the 72-year-old artist.


Christie’s $93.7 million evening tally represented a 73 per cent decline from May 2008. The previous evening, its rival Sotheby’s took $47 million, down 87 per cent from the $362 million auction a year earlier when a single painting — Bacon’s 1976 triptych — fetched $86.3 million.

June 10: Dealers reported revived demand for contemporary works at the Art Basel fair in Switzerland. A diamond-encrusted sculpture by Takashi Murakami sold for $2 million at the VIP preview. While visiting the fair, Los Angeles-based collector Eli Broad said a decline in contemporary-art prices had “levelled out”./

July: The financier J Ezra Merkin, sued by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo over his role as a provider of client funds to Bernard Madoff, privately sold Rothko and other art that had been frozen in the litigation, for $310 million.

October: A new Leonardo da Vinci drawing was announced. A chalk, pen and ink drawing of a girl in profile, sold at auction for $19,000 in the late 1990s, was examined by the Montreal-based forensic expert, Peter Paul Biro, who found a fingerprint corresponding to one on Leonardo’s painting St Jerome. It was valued at £100 million by London-based dealer Simon Dickinson. Discreet approaches have been made to a number of prospective buyers by its owner, Paris-based trader Peter Silverman, said dealers.



November 11: Warhol’s painting of 200 $1 bills fetched $43.8 million at Sotheby’s in New York. The seller, London-based collector Pauline Karpidas, paid $385,000 for the work in 1986. The 1962 silkscreen was temptingly estimated at $8-12 million and topped contemporary-art auctions that marked a return of confidence among both sellers and buyers, said dealers.

November: Shanghai-based collector Liu Yiqian paid about 170 million yuan ($25 million) at Poly International Auction Co in Beijing for a Ming Dynasty scroll by Wu Bin, a record for a Chinese painting. It was one of the high prices paid in 2009 by mainland buyers for pieces with Imperial connections.


December 1: A ring with a five-carat pink diamond sold for a record HK$83.5 million ($10.8 million) at Christie’s Hong Kong. During the sales, Christie’s sold HK$40 million of wine, including a 78-bottle lot of 1999 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, which fetched HK$1.44 million.

December 8: A drawing in black chalk by Raphael sold at Christie’s London for £29.2 million, an auction record for any work of art on paper. The work had been entered by the heirs of the British collector Norman Colville, with a low estimate of £12 million. It was bought on the telephone, dealers said, by the US-based collector Leon Black, a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.


Earlier in the sale, Rembrandt’s 1658 canvas, Portrait of a Man with Arms Akimbo, sold for £20.2 million to a telephone bidder later identified as Las Vegas casino developer Steve Wynn. The painting was sold by Johnson & Johnson heiress, Barbara Piasecka Johnson.

A Classic Reminder Of What Christmas Is All About?

Linus reminds us below. Merry Christmas everyone. Peace.

Thats what its all about Charlie Brown.

A Partdrige In A Pear Tree Kinda Xmas Story

Working in retail during the Christmas Season, my third, takes nerve, endurance and occasional fun and today we had fun.

Opened for the first day after the incredible snowstorm here in DC, we found ourselves so busy that it was hard to keep up with what had to be accomplished. We did however find time to pull off a stunt that had us falling off the chairs with cheer and Xmas spirit among our close working group.

Last Friday before the storm hit, UPS delivered a package to the store for one of the elegant ladies I'm so lucky to work with, who wasn't working that day. The package said it was perishable and should be opened immediately. Those of us in the store looked at each other wondering wether we should open the box to keep it from spoiling through the weekend. At this point we didn't know that a historic snowstorm was on the way and that we wouldn't be open for the weekend before Christmas.

So,,,we opened the box to find a lovely tin of individually wrapped cookies that would be fine through the New Year and we looked at each other and said, "Oh we have to do something fun here."

Looking around the store I spied a bowl of faux pears and it struck me. The box said, "Perishables." So we carefully took out the cookies and artfully, with beautiful tissue, placed the fake pears in the box. Very Harry and David mind you, and so they sat through an historic snowstorm til this morning.

Need I say more.

She opened the box and saw the beautiful tissue, wrapping these perfect pears.We sat there silently and cooed and ahhhed, waiting for her comments to erupt. It took a good six seconds after she opened the box and pulled out a fake pear for her to react.

Needless to say we laughed forever. A Merry Christmas to all co-workers. There are days we want to strangle each other and days we love each other. The latter was today.

Oh My Washington And Snow. It's So Pretty.

My town is going crazy but I think and hope it will be a beautiful White Christmas here in DC. It looks like I'll have time tomorrow to update. Merry Christmas all.


Here's what I'm singing tonight.

I Guess I Need More Than New Undershirts

Douglas Friedman for The New York Times; Typography by Jennifer Green

NYTimes: "Dress Codes
Dressing for Success, Again
By DAVID COLMAN
Published: December 16, 2009

"THE runaway phenomenon that is “Mad Men,” with its stylish depiction of Kennedy-era New York, where men dressed with style and philandered with impunity, has handed modern men their very own “Sex and the City” fantasy."

For the past two years during my mid-life career change I have relished the fact that I haven't had the need to put on a suit and tie and have loved the kakhi's and sweater look. I vowed never to care about being all spruced up.

However, just the other day a guy came into the store, I'd say early thirties and I admit I took a second look. From the Dark Blue Cashmere towncoat to the perfectly shined loafers, he looked like a million bucks and he reminded me of me at that age.

So this article from the today's New York Times caught me by surprise! I've become what I least want to be and from here on pledge to return to being a well dressed gentleman. Kudos to my friend and always well dressed blogger, "Easy and Elegant Life." He is and always should be a role model and I can't believe the NYTimes didn't credit/mention him!! I simply don't want to be a sloppy old fart. Okay I was never sloppy and I won't wear a bow tie unless its with a Tux. Here's the NYTimes article. Its fun and now I have to think about what to wear this Saturday night!

Not Sure This Is An Improvement But Like The Effort

From Gizmodo:The Plaza del Torico in Teruel, Spain was renovated with something even better than yellow bricks—over 1230 color-changing LED lamps embedded in the pavement.

It's kind of like that fiber optic pavement you might have seen at an amusement park in the past, only on a larger scale. The whole system can be programmed to change colors and patterns in sequence. [Arch Daily via notcot Images via Duccio Malagamba]