Anna x Kenza #1

Un matin, après une courte nuit, j'ai reçu Anna chez moi.

Il n'est jamais très facile d'ouvrir les portes de son univers à une personne que l'on ne connaît pas, ou du moins avec qui l'on a échangé seulement quelques mails.

Tout est une question de feeling.
Le concept de la première impression m'a toujours fascinée.
Elle est vrai et ne m'a (presque) jamais trahie.

Je ne m'étais donc pas trompée.

Je me suis sentie tout de suite très à l'aise avec cette parfaite inconnue !

Autour d'un thé chaud, notre discussion s'est rapidement portée sur les faits formateurs (pour ne pas dire tristes) de la vie.

Le genre de conversation qui vous fait relativiser et vous rappelle que si d'autres ont pu se relever après des coups durs, vous le pouvez aussi.

Première partie...

Photos : Anna Rakhvalova


Pantalon - IKKS/I.CODE
Sweat - New Look
Collier -Helena Nicolau
Bracelets - Coralie De Seynes

Actress-turned-nun Hart / SAT 2-25-12 / Yarn identifier / One in stag's litter / Guideposts magazine founder / Of atoms spatial relationships / Hebrew Hammer of Cleveland Indians / Korean War weapon / JFK speechwriter Sorensen / 1950 sci-fi classic / Mini successor / Mark of successful gunfighter

Constructor: Barry C. Silk

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: DOLORES Hart (43D: Actress-turned-nun Hart) —

Rev. Mother Dolores Hart (born October 20, 1938, Chicago, Illinois) is an American Roman Catholic nun and former actress. She made 10 films in five years, playing opposite Stephen Boyd, Montgomery Clift, George Hamilton and Robert Wagner, having made her movie debut with Elvis Presley in Loving You (1957). (wikipedia)

• • •

This one's chronological epicenter was at least a decade before I was born, but I still finished in less time than it took to do yesterday's. There are a couple of junky bits (TNTS? over EELED?? over DYE LOT??? — to say nothing of STERIC) (9D: Of atoms' spatial relationships) but overall it's a solid grid. Familiar shape, mildly interesting fill. Saturday. There it is. Take it or leave it.



Every corner had some long, low-hanging fruit, which allowed me to work my way through even toughish parts. ON THE MONEY in the NW (I got that off the "NT"), KOSHER DELI in the NE (off the "K"), STOLEN BASE in the SE (off the nothing—too easy; 30D: One of Henderson's record 1,406), and REGISTERED in the SW (off the "D"). Not to say that there wasn't some flailing around. I really lucked into that first "N" in ON THE MONEY when I wrote in IN NO at 15A: Beginning of time? (ONE O'). I was half right. Oh, I also guessed SO NICE off just the "S" up there. But I couldn't get MOBS at all (1A: Crowds around noisily), and BEER BOTTLE took a good long while to come into view (3D: One in a stag's litter), and MOST WANTED was originally LIST MAKERS (1D: Like some top-10 people); that clue just made no sense to me at all. EELED I dropped in without blinking, but I couldn't get below it, so followed FAKES OUT up into the NE—by far the easiest portion of the grid. KOSHER DELI, then NED (really TED, but who cares?) IBEX NILE STIR, all in a row. The "LR" combo helped me think of AL ROSEN (he was once the A.L. MVP, and his last name appears in the grid from time to time). Then STOLEN BASE took me down the east coast, then I moved inland to fix some errors—had SHAH for SADR (45D: Abolhassan Bani-___ (first president of Iran)) and THE FOG for I, ROBOT (59A: 1950 sci-fi classic). SE looked quite hard, but REGISTERED proved a great guess, as did (a bit later) DOLORES, and those gave me enough traction to work my way up to the Nevada region of the grid, where I finished things off with the mysterious DYE LOT (47A: Yarn identifier).

Bullets:

• 5A: "In the Still of the Nite" doo-wop group, with "the" (FIVE SATINS) — this is what I meant when I mentioned the puzzle's chronological epicenter. That section alone has this answer, TED Sorensen, AL ROSEN, and the 1969 ILO.
• 19A: "___ the brinded cat hath mewed": Shak. (THRICE) — pretty dang easy, esp. given a cross or two.
• 22A: Reagan-era teen, e.g. (XER) — Reagan took office when I was 11 and left when I was 19, and yet somehow my initials (MDS) weren't the right answer here. 

• 63A: Mini successor (NANO) — My first thought was of the Mini Cooper. Then the skirt.
• 64A: Spy's query at the start of a meeting (ARE WE ALONE?) — even this seems like something out of the '60s. A '60s spy novel. Not to say that I don't like it, 'cause I do.
• 8D: Fifth element, per Aristotle (ETHER) — had the "TH," and from there it was an easy guess.
• 50D: Russian playwright Andreyev (LEONID) — Lots of "Names of the 20th Century" today. See also Norman Vincent PEALE (52D: Guideposts magazine founder).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Let's walk through the fire together.

The sound of winter - Bush.

       You've got to hang on to yourself      

          J'avais promis que je ferais d'autres articles avec des intérieurs que j'aime (après cet article là), dont here I am ; ceux-là font partie de mes récents coup de cœur ! ♥. Enjoy.

          I promised that I'd make more posts with some interiors that I love (as this post), so here I am ; these are ones of my favourite currently ♥. Enjoy.

J'aime : le parquet qui a l'air d'époque, la table aux formes droites qui contraste avec les courbes des fauteuils, les grandes fenêtres, les détails comme les moulures, les touches de couleurs via les coussins, les plantes ou les cadres aux murs, les tapis.

______

J'aime : le formidable agencement cuisine/salon avec la surélévation qui sépare les deux pièces sans les couper totalement, le parquet, les fauteuils en cuir d'inspiration Bauhaus, les tables basses.

_____

J'aime : les tons lilas des grands rideaux qui se marient étonnement bien avec les murs blancs & qui s'harmonisent parfaitement si on ajoute à ça les plantes, la table en bois & le parquet, les fenêtres de la pièce en bow window, les cadres accrochés en nombre sur le mur du bureau, les détails d'inspiration baroque comme les fauteuils, les lustres, la forme du bureau.

_______

J'aime : la salle de bain avec le mur gris, la forme de la baignoire qui n'est pas encastrée dans des montants, le chandelier géant, l'immense façade-fenêtre, la cuisine américaine, la pièce en plan libre.

Source : http://bo-laget.se/

Mezzo-soprano Marilyn / FRI 2-24-12 / President's daughter on West Wing / French loanword literally means rung on ladder / Psychedelic 1968 song featuring lengthy drum solo / Once-autonomous people southern Russia / 1980s Tyne Daly role / Hymn sung to Apollo / Homeric character who commits matricide

Constructor: Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: whatnot (51A: What a whatnot has = BRIC A BRAC) —

n.

1. A minor or unspecified object or article.
2. A set of light, open shelves for ornaments.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/whatnot#ixzz1nGXoLi3i

• • •

This seems an OK puzzle, but I didn't enjoy it much. With the exception of (finally) figuring out "INAGADDADAVIDA" (48A: Psychedelic 1968 song featuring a lengthy drum solo), most of the effort didn't seem quite worth it. STOCKS AND SHARES is a meaningless phrase to me (30A: Paper assets). I mean, I know those words, but I wouldn't put them together into a grid-spanning central phrase. I just learned that there are things called "STOCKS AND SHARES ISAs" (Individual Savings Accounts). OK. Started out lightning fast in the NW, then got to WATER- and couldn't build on it at all. Two really bad wrong guesses (SALUTE for SNAP TO (8D: Acknowledge a commander's entrance, maybe), EAR LOBE for EARLOCK (?) (14D: One hanging at a temple) kept me at bay a long time in the north. Don't know who ALAN BATES is (15A: 1968 Best Actor nominee for "The Fixer"). This fact strangely does not EMBARRASS me. Stuff like HERBAGE and ELLIE meant nothing to me (35D: Nonwoody plant parts). [Blank] SLIDE could've been at least two other four-letter words besides ROCK. I certainly didn't know what a "whatnot" was (in this clue's sense of the word), and though the only -AC-ending word I could think of was BRIC A BRAC, it kept seeming wrong for various reasons (51A: What a whatnot has).



The thing that irritated me most about the puzzle—in fact the only thing that I found genuinely irritating at all—is the clue for ORESTES (38A: Homeric character who commits matricide). If we are calling ORESTES a "Homeric character," then virtually every known character from classical mythology is "Homeric." ORESTES is not a "character" in either of the Homeric epics—not in the sense that English-speaking human beings generally understand the word "character." He is mentioned in both. Briefly. Despite the fact that you could lawyer up a defense of the clue on a "letter of the law" basis, this clue is fundamentally dishonest. Aeschylus wrote substantially about ORESTES. Homer simply waved at him in passing.

Bullets:

• 13A: Mezzo-soprano Marilyn (HORNE) — no idea, but didn't matter 'cause that corner was easy. Also had no idea "DONAHUE" was ever on MSNBC (25A: It was MSNBC's highest-rated program when canceled in 2003).
• 21A: French loanword that literally means "rung on a ladder" (ECHELON) — this was a gimme—a gimme I could've used in a much harder part of the grid. A gimme that was wasted in this already-easy corner.  

• 37A: It has a denomination of $1,000 (T-NOTE) — uh ... OK. I was thinking G-NOTE, for obvious reasons.
• 41A: Weapons used to finish off the Greek army at Thermopylae (ARROWS) — I'd forgotten this. And rounding off the classical trifecta of clues, we have PAEAN (5D: Hymn sung to Apollo).
• 2D: Poet who gave us "carpe diem" (HORACE) — ah, the opening of this puzzle, when everything seemed so right. I went THAI / IN NEED / ARETHA / HORACE in about 10 seconds. 
• 7D: Kaplan who co-hosted six seasons of "High Stakes Poker" (GABE) — at four letters, I figured it had to be him, but my incorrect SALUTE kept clashing with him, so I wouldn't put him in. TV poker, ugh ... more stuff I just don't care about. Puzzle is just outside my general sphere of interests.
• 33D: Once-autonomous people of southern Russia (COSSACKS) — lots about them in Anna Karenina. At least I think that's how I know about them.Whoa, Tolstoy also wrote a novel titled, simply, "The COSSACKS." I did not know that.
• 12D: Letter on Kal-El's costume (ESS) — It's technically "Clark's" costume, but ... whatever. This was a gimme. Just covered the "ESS" specifically in a recent class discussion of Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns."
• 47D: 1980s Tyne Daly role (LACEY) — 'Cause CAGNEY wouldn't fit.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

New-York, déjà six jours. Le dernier.

Dernier jour à New York.

Boule dans le ventre, comme à chaque fois.

Géraldine me propose de passer au showroom de la marque Heimstone.

Alix Petit, la créatrice présentait sa collection hiver 2012/2013.

Comment vous dire ? Les yeux qui piquaient tant les pièces étaient belles et colorées.

Autre chose qui nous a rendu assez dingues, la déco.

Nous sommes tous simplement dans l'appartement de Caroline Petit (la soeur d'Alix) et son boyfriend.

De l'authentique, des matériaux bruts, tout ce que l'on rêverait d'avoir chez soi mais avoir un tel œil n'est pas donné à tous.

En effet, ils parcourent les Etats-Unis à la recherche de meubles et autres vintageries improbables, qu'ils ramènent et retapent à leur sauce... So romantic !

Three Seven est le nom de leur marque.
Ils leur arrivent de poser leurs valises à Paris et créer des showrooms éphémères pour nous faire partager leurs trouvailles.

Plus que quelques heures.

Rendez-vous au Café Angélique avec mes chéris Margaux & Warren qui étaient de passage dans la Big Apple, pour le plaisir.

Il pleuvait des cordes ce jour-là, la bonne excuse pour savourer une soupe cocooning au chaud.

Après cet agréable moment, nos dernières volontés ont été exaucées : nous sommes retournées sur Broadway, choper des choses que nous aurions ratées et bien évidemment pour finir ce séjour en beauté... La traditionnelle manucure à 13 dollars !

On aime, on adore New-York et on remercie (et bien plus encore) Levi's !