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Category Archives: Culture
Travel & Culture Books: “Marrakech Flair” By Marisa Berenson (2020)
It has been said that Marrakech awakens all of the senses. Whether it is seeing the intricate zellige tilework; smelling the various spices sold at the souks; hearing the call to prayer emanate from the nearby mosques; touching the supple leather used to make a pair of babouches (leather sandals); tasting a flavorful tagine, Marrakech never fails to excite.
Located just west of the Atlas Mountains, the city has been inhabited by Berber farmers for centuries. It has been dubbed the “Ochre City” because of the proliferation of red sandstone buildings and the red city walls, which now enclose the Medina, home to Jemaa el-Fnaa, one of the busiest squares in Africa.
Marrakech overflows with culture and has been inspiring visitors for decades. From Yves Saint Laurent to Talitha Getty, Winston Churchill to Mick Jagger, Marrakech has attracted great icons inspired by its eternal spirit as well as its sweet, beautiful life. Yves Saint Laurent’s intimate relationship to this city lead to the opening of a museum dedicated to his legendary work.
The annual Marrakech International Film Festival draws a prominent crowd. Museums abound, exhibiting Moroccan arts, photography, carpets, and the Andalusian design aesthetic that permeates the city’s architecture. La Mamounia hotel, opened in 1923, offers a storied history, which includes hosting guests such as Winston Churchill.
Vanessa Branson’s El Fenn is a collection of traditional riads that form a stunning boutique hotel. There are countless ways to be immersed in the culture of Marrakech, but perhaps the best place to start is with a simple glass of mint tea.
Dubbed the “It Girl” by Yves Saint Laurent in the early 1970s, Marisa Berenson is the original modern muse. Berenson transitioned into acting and delivered dazzling performances in iconic films including Cabaret directed by Bob Fosse and Stanley Kubrick’s production of Barry Lyndon. She has written several books, including Moments intimes, A Life in Pictures and Elsa Schiaparelli’s Private Album. Berenson fell in love with Marrakech eight years ago and once she found the perfect riad, she decided to call it home.
Travel & Adventure Video: Four Months On A Remote Patagonian Horse Ranch
Filmed and Edited by: Dan Sadgrove
Voiceover by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson
Music by Tim Tregonning
Sound by Morgan Johnson
Color by Mike Rossiter
Aerial by Wade Sedgwick
In early 2019 I spent four months living in a tent at Estancia Ranquilco, a remote horse and cattle ranch nestled deep in the foothills of the Andean mountains in Northern Patagonia, Argentina. Largely stripped of modern conveniences and offering a chance to experience off-grid, communal living, it is both a gentle, and harsh, return to primitiveness.
Yet the magnetic pull from Ranquilco reaches far beyond the realms of sentimentalism. It is not merely a vague summation of its parts. Of earth, water, sun, grass and trees. It is the past as well as the present, built into the stonework and in the footsteps of the worn paths on the last edges of land, hanging on the horizon.
For those devoted to this way of life, it is simply a return to the familiar.
New Photography Books: “Paris Chic” (Assouline)
Paris is the city of chic—and as such, its innate style shines throughout the city, even in the simplest spaces. Quaint bistros, picturesque alleyways, artists’ studios and unique characters are elevated to a modern-day genre painting when set in Paris. From skateboarders to antiquarians, this volume is a glimpse into Parisian life, as if peering over the edge of the balcony at your own pied-a-terre.
Collaboratively, author Alexandra Senes and photographer Oliver Pilcher open the doors to some of the most sophisticated homes in Paris, sharing an intimate portrait of various families. The quiet, daily moments of Parisian life are eternalized through Pilcher’s lens. Monuments don’t make a city; the people do.
Sports & Apparel: The History Of The “Nike Air Jordan” Basketball Shoes
‘Michael Jordan’s tremendous impact on basketball and sneakers is universally acknowledged, and it can be easy to think there aren’t any new stories to add to the legend,’ says John McPheters, co-founder and CEO of Stadium Goods. ‘But as we’ve seen with The Last Dance and now with our Original Air auction at Christie’s, there are still lesser-known narratives in the legacy that create great interest.’
‘The shoes span art, pop culture and sports history,’
Michael Jordan ended his first season as a professional basketball player with the Chicago Bulls by being crowned Rookie of the Year. It was the summer of 1985 and Jordan was soon to become one of the most recognised people on the planet.
The New York Times described his debut performance as ‘phenomenal’, and Sports Illustrated declared ‘A Star Is Born’ when he made the front cover.
Legendary Food: “An Ode To Manny’s Deli, Chicago”
I’ve had lunch with politicians, clergy, reporters and people who’ve just been indicted at Manny’s Cafeteria and Delicatessen in Chicago, and there’s a code of silence over the clatter: it doesn’t count.
The schmear of cream cheese thick enough to be a ski jump? No calories! Potato pancakes hefty as manhole covers?
No calories!
But the weeks of the shutdown became months. Even as businesses reopened, multitudes still work from home.
“That can’t pay our rent, insurance, our payroll,” says Dan Raskin. “We can’t go on like that.”
When a family business is forced to close, people lose their livelihoods, families lose support, and a city loses revenue and vitality. A landmark like Manny’s is also a link to history. You can point to where Barack Obama talked politics over pastrami, Oprah had apple sauce on her latkes, and where your grandfather went when he got tired of dieting.
Travel & Culture Video: “Portrait Of A Place – Paradiso”, Italy (Nowness)
Filmed and Directed by: Jan Vrhovnik
Written by: Ana Kerin
Music by: Nico Casal
Meet Giovanni Mancusou, a small-town Italian man who lives on Italy’s Mediterranean coast. The wisened Calabrian invites the viewer into his sun-washed world of bright orange sun umbrellas, cool blue seas, freshly baked pastries and fresh vegetables.
Directed by Jan Vrhovnik, written by Ana Kerin and music score by Oscar-winning Nico Casal, Paradiso is less story and more a poetic thought piece. Dipping into a snapshot of life for an aging man from Italy, whimsical moments like the swatting of a fly are interspersed with provocative thoughts on life that can only come with the wisdom of an older man who has seen it all.
Giovanni Mancusou was a chance meeting for the team who traveled to Calabria to seek out the very essence of nostalgia. They stumbled upon him in a corner shop and were taken by the poetic way in which he used language to convey a longing for simplicity. Completely improvised, his philosophical musings—weighing heavy with nostalgia and unexpected wisdom—are what punctuate the themes of this memory-inducing short.
A film of contrasts, Paradiso serves to distill the truth in Giovanni’s words. Though momentary, humble and mundane, flashes of true happiness must be savored. Paradiso outlines that to be rich in life, one need only look to nature, a table full of friends and good food: the very essence of a Mediterranean summer.
New Arts & Culture Books: “La Colombe d’Or – Saint Paul de Vence” (Assouline)
“Provence has a treasure; it’s a Colombe d’Or. It has the precious scent of thyme and nostalgia and the golden colour of olive oil and happy days. The Colombe is a part of my life. For me, it’s a place that’s as full of promise as of magnificent memories. The Colombe is indefinable, inimitable. I’m happy that today a book brings back the atmosphere of this place which is like no other in the world.”
La Colombe d’Or hotel and restaurant in the South of France is known all over the world as a privileged place where the Provençal art de vivre goes hand in hand with an astonishing private COLLECTION of modern art.
First opened in 1920 as Chez Robinson, a café-bar with an open-air terrace, it quickly became a very popular meeting place and expanded into a small hotel and restaurant. The friendly atmosphere together with owner Paul Roux’s deep interest in the arts attracted many artists of the day, and the walls were soon covered by paintings, often exchanged for a stay or a few meals. As regular visitors to this beautiful place, Matisse, Braque, Léger, Calder, César, and many other artists have left magnificent works that now form part of the unique setting, including splendid pages in the fascinating guest books—presented to the world for the first time in this volume—in which the greatest artists of our time have drawn and signed moments of happiness. The next generation of the Roux family continues to care for the Colombe d’Or, and the art COLLECTION is still growing today.
Art & Photography Books: “Massimo Listri -Cabinet of Curiosities” (Taschen)
From the Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici and Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II to Archduke Ferdinand II of Habsburg, these aristocratic virtuosos acquired, selected, and displayed the objects in real-life catalogues that represented the entire world—spanning architecture, interior design, painting, sculpture, gemology, geology, botany, biology and taxonomy, astrology, alchemy, anthropology, ethnography, and history.
The Wunderkammer, or “cabinet of curiosities,” saw collectors gathering objects from many strands of artistic, scientific, and intellectual endeavor, in an ambitious attempt to encompass all of humankind’s knowledge in a single room.
Marvel at the unicorn horns (narwhal tusks), gems, rare coral growths, Murano glasswork, paintings and peculiar mechanical automata. Browse through illustrations of exotic and mythical creatures and discover the famed “Coburg ivories,” an astounding collection of crafted artifacts. These collections are nothing short of a journey through time, from the Renaissance and Age of Discovery, the Mannerist and Baroque periods, up to the present day. Although many of these cabinets of curiosities no longer exist, others have been meticulously reconstructed, and new ones born.
These marvelous cabinets of curiosities can now be explored by all in this XXL collection. To realize this mammoth undertaking, Massimo Listri traveled to seven European countries over several decades; the result is a set of gorgeous photographs, an authoritative yet accessible introduction, and detailed commentary on each of the 19 chambers highlighting the most remarkable items in each collection. Discover how these timeless treasures both describe and defined civilization, the modern concept of the museum, and our very knowledge of the universe.
New History Books: “The Year 1000” By Valerie Hansen (Getty Podcast)
Valerie Hansen explores these early economic and cultural exchanges and their long-term impact in her new book “The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World―and Globalization Began”, which originated as a college course co-taught with Mary Miller, director of the Getty Research Institute. In this episode, Hansen and Miller discuss the state of the world around the year 1000.
From celebrated Yale professor Valerie Hansen, a groundbreaking work of history showing that bold explorations and daring trade missions connected all of the world’s great societies for the first time at the end of the first millennium.
People often believe that the years immediately prior to AD 1000 were, with just a few exceptions, lacking in any major cultural developments or geopolitical encounters, that the Europeans hadn’t yet reached North America, and that the farthest feat of sea travel was the Vikings’ invasion of Britain. But how, then, to explain the presence of blonde-haired people in Maya temple murals at Chichén Itzá, Mexico? Could it be possible that the Vikings had found their way to the Americas during the height of the Maya empire?
Valerie Hansen, an award-winning historian, argues that the year 1000 was the world’s first point of major cultural exchange and exploration. Drawing on nearly thirty years of research, she presents a compelling account of first encounters between disparate societies, which sparked conflict and collaboration eerily reminiscent of our contemporary moment.
For readers of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, The Year 1000 is an intellectually daring, provocative account that will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about how the modern world came to be. It will also hold up a mirror to the hopes and fears we experience today.
Boomers Daily 