November 25th

I'm never eating again.
So much food... too much food
What year is it, who's president?
I can't feel my legs...

As you may know, yesterday was Thanksgiving, and my room mates and neighbors in my apartment complex decided to have a feast.  The goal was to have everyone make a dish and have a potluck of a feast, a few of us decided to create a dish that had to do with our heritage, so I decided what would be more appropriate than embracing my Native American roots for Thanksgiving. I use to eat this bread as a kid on the native American reservation that I would visit in eastern Oregon, it's always reminded me of my history and also is a delicious dish. 
In the end our thanksgiving meal had an expansive selection from Armenian food to Stuffed Italian Mushrooms to Cinnamon Sangria.  We couldn't find any cranberries anywhere, however, we did find cranberry juice, so we had vodka cranberry to celebrate the evening, a good call indeed.  A few of my flatmates parents were in town and decided to randomly drop some cash on the situation, we ended up having an accordion player named Maurice (or at least I think it was that, it could have been Murry or Mario) play while we cooked and ate appetizers, but I digress, I'm here to tell you how to make my dish:

NAVAJO FRY BREAD: 

This is a pretty simple dish and requires very few ingredients, but ends up being a fantastic side plate for any big meal this can serve up to about 8 people.  What you'll need is

-Some vegetable oil for frying (I used corn oil, I'm gonna try peanut oil next time) (In Italian: Olio di Mais)
-2 cups of flour (Farina)
-1/2 teaspoon salt (Sale)
-2 teaspoons powdered milk (latte in pulvere)
-2 teaspoons baking powder (lievito)
-1 cup water (Acqua Naturale)
-Butter
-Jam

Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl, pour all of the water into the bowl at once, stir it all together until the dough with a fork or a butter knife until it is completely lump free and one solid piece of dough. Toss that shit into the fridge.

STOP RIGHT THERE PILGRIM.   WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO PUT ON THAT BREAD?!
The best things that go with indian fry bread, in my opinion is huckleberry jam and butter, so here's your intermission and the next step to the meal.  Unfortunately I couldn't find huckleberries in Italy, so I thought I'd use Lingonberries, which you know are, if you've read my earlier posts, dank.  Unfortunately I couldn't find that either.  So I chose to make a qucik blackberry sauce for the bread.

What you'll need:
Sugar
Blackberries

Take about 4 hand fulls of blackberries, toss them into a cooking pot and begin cooking the berries, while that's going on take a fork and crush the berries, crush them until the berries turn into a sauce, pour in about a tablespoon of sugar, let the berry sauce reduce a little and let the sugar soak in.  You can either stick the berries into a jar and freeze it so it goes cold with the bread, or put the flame on simmer so you have a hot berry sauce to go ontop.  (I prefer the latter)

Now back to the bread.

Pour the oil into a large pot and heat it up until it's at a good frying temperature, you can tell if it's ready by taking some dough and tossing it in, if the dough begins frying then your ready.  OR you can stick in a wooden spoon, if the oil starts to bubble around the spoon then you're set.

The next step is to get a cutting board and some extra flour for your hands and the board (Be generous with the flour, this shit is real sticky).  Flour the board and flour your hands, take a handfull of dough and toss it on the board, flatten it as far as it can go without breaking. it should be just a  half centimeter thick give or take a few milimeters, think the thickness of a coffee plate, and a few inches in diameter, it should be thin and long, and it doesn't have to be round.  Grab the dough and toss it into the hot oil (Remember to turn the heat down on the oil once it's reached the required temperature or else it will begin to burn, which will make the bread taste burnt). The dough will fall into the oil, sink, then rise quickly, it will quickly expand and the dough will become airy. Once one side is fried flip the floating dough and keep it going.  Once it's finished toss it onto a plate with wax paper or a paper towel on it.  Continue with the rest of the dough, if you have enough room in your pot toss in as many pieces that can fit, as soon as they're done frying they're ready to eat, the warmer the better.
Slab on some butter and pour on some berry sauce or jam, and feast. Bam, Navajo fry bread. 

Now onto other matters of business...

ART
My sculpture got alot of progress done this week, and I can finally see it coming to an end, and even more this week I did some of the small details on it and had fun doing it, it was more than refreshing IT WAS INSPIRING.

I started working on an old crafts project I came up with when I was 18, I call it 'Mapvelopes'.  Essentially what my idea was back then was to print out google map pictures of places where I had very fond memories and good stories, and then turn the printed out maps into envelopes.  After that I would write my stories down and put them inside and then hold onto them until I was older.  After I read the blog 'Post Secret' I thought to myself maybe I'd create a blog and have people send me in their stories and their locations, I'd then post them on the internet.  I still would like to do it when I have some time to myself, and I think it would be a great idea, but I just don't have the dedication right now.  However, I did make a few mapvelopes out of some old Milanese street maps and wrote down the stories I had from that place in the first person.  Here are some photos that show a small glimpse of them.  Maybe later I will post the stories with the maps.  Please if you read this idea and liked it let me know, if I get enough people to encourage me maybe I'll start it.

The mapvelopes, my knife that I use for everything (including cutting out the maps), and a postcard from Florence.

My amulet of the man in the ring is coming along well, I finished carving all of the wax and all that is left to do this weekend is cast them, then next Wednesday I will solder the pieces together, ad a tube for the chain and then the chain will be put through the tube so that one (I) can wear it.
I will also try and carve out an anchor, and a sun being enveloped by the moon and have those finished by the end of the semester.  Here's my small man:

My last project which I started doing, even though it really doesn't have anything to do with art, is me translating a short Italian book, La Verità (The Truth). My Italian is still shitty at best, but I have a dictionary, and I'll have some time during my travels to translate, and hopefully it will really help with my Italian.  Alongside that I purchased Zaire by Voltaire, which is in French.  Once I finish La Verità I will most likely be traveling through Paris before I head home, so this will help me refresh with my French as well.  The goal of this year is to be fluent in Italian and to be re-competent in French.  Here are the two books I picked up in an ancient bookstore hidden away in a nearby street.

Also I think I'm going to paint my Ukuklele.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST


MUSIC:
OK Thanksgiving has now passed which means that we are all in on winter.  So it's time for some frost filled melodies.  They're mostly acoustic and folksy, because that's how winter should be, deal with it.
Le Bleu et L'ether - Stranded Horse: I love a good music video, so of course I love La Blogoteque.  They capture the unsurpassed beauty of music when it's natural and (a)live.  Please, if you love a good song and a good video visit their blog.

Two Doves - The Dirty Projectors
Matches the mood of winter, put this song on a playlist for that special someone and you'll see snowflake shaped fireworks.

Your Protector - Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes are the new kings of the folk world.  I don't need to say much more, they're from my hometown, they're the kings of my favorite music genre, and they are perfect for any situation.  I love this band and all of its members, and I hope you do too.

Stars - Last American Buffalo  
I picked up this album out of coincidence when looking at a random blog and I like it.  If you like these guys head over mhyear.

The Biggest Lie - Elliott Smith
Great song by Elliott Smith, I've already told you about him, no more need be said.

Beach Baby - Bon Iver
Mhmm

The Sandman, The Brakeman, and Me - Monsters of Folk
The Connor Oberst brainchild band Monsters of Folk has some great range and some good music to boot.  If you havn't heard of this band I suggest you look em up and check out their song "Dear God"

Passenger Song - Great Lake Swimmers
More acoustic melodies.

Morning Fog - The Morning Benders
 "  "

I aint a Christmas guy myself, I lean more towards Chanukah.  However once in a while I enjoy a good Christmas tune, especially if it's Zooey Deschanel... because I'm going to marry her, just you wait... sorry Ben Folds you had your chance; I'm guessing you whined too much.

Well that is about it for this week folks, I've got stuff to do and food to digest, so I'll catch up with you later next week.  Stay warm.

November 20th

It's been a while since I made out my last post.  And man, has a whole lot happened since November 2nd (Hence my absence, dear readers).

OK OK OK how does one begin?

SWEDEN:

Stockholm by night

I headed out to Stockholm, Sweden on the tenth with my friend Katie, it was a remarkable city, Sweden is incredibly cold and also incredibly clean. The city of Stockholm presents a unique balance of the raw unforgiving environment of Sweden with the sterile yet sheik technology of its modern architecture, it's like if I, Robot took place on Hoth. The old town of Stockholm is incredibly classic and beautiful however, and is what I assume looks like if Christmas was everyday).  Also, Sweden is the homeplace of H and M, and holy shit, do they love them, I saw 6 seperate H and Ms in the town center, and I'm sure there were more.

Also also, Swedish women are dank.

After we hit up and explored many of the sites.Stockholm we met up with our Swedish friend, Calle, who we met earlier in Florence.  We came to his town 40 minutes by train north of Stockholm, it was a small Hamlet called Bålsta.  Once there Katie and I had a strange encounter with the people of Sweden, as we waited for our friend in the shopping center (essentially the equivalent to a mall town center where everyone goes for everything) we, Katie being a dark skinned half asian with long thick black hair, and I a brown haired tan kid, watched as all of the pale blonde people walked by us and stared at us as though we were not of this earth.  It was like Children of the Corn meets Inception.   We finally met up with Calle and bought groceries and beer.  From there we proceeded to cook a classic Swedish dish: Meatballs and mashed potatoes with lingonberries.  It was glorious.

^Oh ja

Later we began to drink and all of Calle's friends came over, including another Swede we met earlier in Florence named Jonathan.  After we drank all night and went out, we went to bed and Katie and I headed out from Balsta to Stockholm, Stockholm to Nyköping (Stockholm Skavsta airport [p.s. Ryan Air is the devil, I'm almost positive]), Stockholm Skavsta to Ciampino, Ciampino to Roma, Roma to Florence all in all 14 hours of straight travel, fek.

AND THEN:

Once I got back I did some more work on my marble sculpture, It's starting to form up but at this point I don't ever care to see another hammer and chisel once I'm done with this class, I appreciate the art and the style and how heavy the process is, but in order to really accomplish anything you need to be working multiple hours daily, let alone one 5 hour studio session a week, It's turbo frustrating.

To emphasize the amount of detail work this requires.

The bare minimums, the ring and the legs, both need work.

I also began the process of carving my amulet out of wax, it was a bitch trying to figure out how to start, but I picked up a process and it has been working well.  I will probably finish the whole figure this week and then get the piece casted this weekend.  Here's what the figure looks like so far:





Unfortunately I've missed last weeks two classes so I am not as far on my pieces as I would have wished, but I'll get there soon. 










 This past week I also happened to get a part time job as a bartender/keep at a local bar called The Clubhouse, at first I'm just going to be doing small work and helping out with big events, but the manager who I befriended, a 25 year old named Matteo will help train me and situate me hopefully.  The situation is still a little up in the air because they're not sure if they can pay me, I offered to work for them if they can't pay me however, so we'll see.

NO SHAVE NOVEMBER IS GOING ITCHY. 

Exhibit A.

ROMA

I got to Rome last Thursday night, once their I caught an amazing concert.  Fleet Foxes was playing in Rome and a few friends and I caught it, it was a breathtaking performance, and all pangs of homesickness that I possessed washed away (The band is from the Seattle area, in close proximity to where my hometown is).  The performance was flawless, the song list was excellent, and for the encore performance, the rest of the band was still catching their breath and Robin Pecknold came on to stage alone with his guitar; after a second of waiting for them and ad-libbing with the crowd he said "OK, well you guys wanna hear a new song that I made?" the crowd responded with a blood curdling howl of approval.  Here's that song, unfortunately the quality is shit poor, and for that I apologize.

After the concert we all headed back to our hostel, and the whole natural world had turned upside down.  The half-moon was blood orange and covered in a deep aura, the sky was misty yet clear, and all around us, millions of bats were flying through the trees throughout the city and all of them were chirping, which when put together sounded like a rusty machine being dragged on the concrete.  It was unreal. We got back to our hostel and a pack of drunk Latina internationals were dancing, screaming, and clapping on one of the tables in the hostel bar.  We hit the sheets.


The next day we met up with our program and took tours through the city, I could describe everything I did and saw, but it would take to long so I will paraphrase:

The city itself has wrapped itself in an ancient blanket of ruins, relics, and religion, with a South Tuscan atmosphere and the makings of a busy bustling city.  Each monument lies upon another and competes with it's neighboring sights, begging for the most attention, in turn the rivalry between these breathtaking sights compliments the eternal city's glory.  Rome is the present living in the ancient past.
To compliment the beauty of the city, our group of friends who are constantly consumed in a net of drama and confusion, came to this city all in a mood of discontent and aggression, as the weekend progressed it got worse and worse, and somehow, unanimously on our final night, everyone seemed to have stepped back from all of the intermingling and said 'fuck-it I really don't care.'  I think that after that everyone could truly enjoy themselves and let go, much like how we were in our first few nights here together.  I think that since our final excursion is over, and there are only three weekends left in the semester, we have embraced each-other for our faults, and/or just stopped giving a damn about them and had a drink.

I will come back soon with some music, but at this point I just wanna sit down and watch some television and skype my padre.  I've got some music planned as well as writings and projects and more music.  I'll catch you tomorrow perhaps dear readers.


Here's something to hold you down for a few though, a funny music video.

Grum - Through the Night

November 2nd

ROBIN BACIOR | Ohio from Earth vs Space on Vimeo.

Done.

All I gotta do is buy the leather necklace for the piece and tie it round someone's neck.  'Bout fucking time, Man..that was a lot of silver.

I already started carving the wax for my next piece which is actually going to be another amulet.  Can't get enough of those things.  I finally played around with a bunch of my ideas and spent two hungry, over-caffeinated hours grinding my teeth and a ball point pen on printer paper waiting for something to click.  It did:

Silver band, bronze sculpture. 1.5" diameter.

Essentially the band will be a nice and flat silver ring with a cylinder layed across on top to fit a thin chain through.  I will then sculpt the small man on the chair out of a soft wax and have both pieces put into a cast. Pretty simple, but somehow its simplicity gives it elegance.  I think this one might be a piece I could possibly wear around as well as it's not too overstated.

I've also found where the caster is located, and I plan on going there a few times in the next weeks so that I can make some jewellery for class as well as myself.  I am going to make an anchor to put on a chain and either wear it as a necklace or bracelet, not sure yet. I'll keep you guys updated.

Alas, it's the weekend already and I'm staying around Florence, I might take the bus up to Fiesole, or, if I am feeling chipper, hoof it all the way up.  I'll also check out the Uffizi gallery as well for some inspiration and or just some good old intellectual eye candy.  I ran into this pretty funny/entertaining blog completely through serendipity (I was looking for pictures of turn of the century diving helmets and stumbled upon it) two days ago, and amongst this guys good stories and cool posts was some of his music.  It isn't by far anything fantastic, and I noticed that two songs that are back to back start of with the same chord progression, but I thought that it fit the Autumn mood and struck me at the right time for it to be sentimental, so here is one of his sawngs.  If you like what you here you can download the rest of the album via this website.


Well, that is it for now, it's the weekend, I just got done with a run, got my midterms back, all of them aced, as well as many other successes, and so now I must present the new drink of the season.  So long gin and tonics; It's official tonight and now on it shall be:

White Russians.

"Well that's like... your opinion, man."

 1 part vodka 1.5 parts Kahlua 1 part cream.

Pour Vodka into cup of ice, stir vodka, pour in Kahlua, stir, pour in cream and put in a straw, allow the drinker to stir the cream them self,  Dude.