Happy ONE YEAR anniversary, for Talkinggrid, and Frau Kolb's extended performance as a powerful alternative ART NEWS source. Today, we hit one year mark, when Talkinggrid went from being Frau Kolb’s personal art page to an alternate art news source. How did this transformation occur?
Well... it all started at Miami/Basel 2011, Frau Kolb. She was super excited because a website, which shall remain un-named, invited Frau Kolb to cover the fair on its behalf. Frau was delighted. She embarked upon the adventure of art journalism with characteristic gusto.
WE cultivate our good fortune by tending to our garden. The garden is our network of special relationships, our ties to the universe, our purpose, our mission. I’m convinced that everyone has plenty to tend. Yet, there are many distractions which interupt the necessary work. How to make one's world work? THAT is the question! It springs up all the time among creatives. Super talented, genius, people and they suffer like hell because their lives are out-of-control. They think, they believe, that it has to be so. They think they NEED to be broke(n) to create art that is FAR-OUT and AMAZING. Well, guess what, NO!
Simultaneously, those that are living the posh life, in comfort, sheltered they tend to be fettered to that the restrictions implicit in having possessions and maintaing the ornate facade. Thus, there are always obstacles to over come for the creative in realizing goals, manifesting potential, and developing projects beyond the point of bullshit tea-time conversation.
In other words, It is always a miracle when one gets anything done (so please, pat yourself on the back, for getting out of bed this morning). Just as it is amazing that so much of the world is PERFECT. You leave home expecting to get where you are going because there are roads, police, signs, and other supports in place that you might be taking for granted. The infrastructure. The system in place to protect us needs tending. We are fortunate in being a part of the the larger community of goodness that is everywhere evident. Remember that, the UGLY HORROR stands out more and thus, gets too much attention. Butt, if we train ourselves to see our own dazzling beauty, our un-realized and perhaps dormant potential, then the possibility of shining on the world stage comes into focus. We become the stars of our own narratives, the heros of our own epic. I love it.
What do I love? I love ART, family, home, books, music, food, and every aspect of living and being that comforts and nourishes LOVIN’ MORE!
GET IT?
It is OK if you don’t, just keep reading, give me the benefit of the doubt. Relax. These are soft cushy words from an Ultra-Busy and happy-GO-lucky woman, a mother, an artist, a person full of ideas and interests; LIKE YOU!
We are artists. We read. We write. Think. Mediate with paint, pixels, notes, chords, seasonings, spice, sugar, shit, and/or whatever other medium we bump into on the side of the cave wall.
We are image makers. We are savvy projectors of our own image onto the endless cave walls of the universe. That is why we are so deeply interested in each other, because we mirror each other. The signal, is amplified. The symbol is sha
Spring Clean at Casa KOLB!
17 May 2013
Los Angeles California
"Spring Clean in LA," © Frau Kolb 2013
Yes it is true that I HATE to clean. I get angry, very angry, when I clean. I get mean. I am vicious. Merciless. Ruthless in my aspirations to perfection! I do not relent until das HAUS sparkles!
I mean it.
My anti-intellectual Jehova Witness mother LOVES to clean. She loves nothing more than to disinfect and purify in flowing waters all manner of apparatus. “MY, my!” Said my German boyfriend then (husband NOW), “Your mother’s house is super clean,” the first time he visited. Typical of my husband is to be spot ON! 100% correct in his observations. Unlike the others he wastes not time talking trash.
“Why do YOU TWO have so many books???” She would whine, complaining of my father (a resolute intellectual, proud of his learning, immersed in aquiring more and young attorney in Dominican Republic when they met and I his offspring, a chip off the old mahogany, a little NEW YORKER book-reading fast talking bike riding brat). “They get so dusty!” She would moan ass she wiped the books with moist cloth towels. She did all the washing by hand. She care(s)d about, "the environment." She hand NO THING better to do than WASHING. She certainly did NOT read.
Except for the FREE literature from the Jehova Witness's and nutrition books. MOM was a health NUT. Thank goodness! She taught me how to eat right and without that knowledge I would not be beautiful svelt ME. [Thank you, Mommy, for being so clean (which impressed my husband) and taking good care of me. Thank you for NEVER feeding me canned crap or frozen dinners.] A psuedo yet passionate vegetarian she used to call the meat section in the super market, "THE MORGE."
From an early age, I collected paper and books. I love paper. All kinds of P A P E R! Handmade, however is my very special favorite. I love libraries. I live for both… somehow. I write in journals. I have all my life. So… I have boxes and boxes of boxes I have written and books I have bought. Books I have read and books I intend to read. I have collected books my whole life. Books are my grounding sanctuary. I feed my spirit by reading. I even read TONS of self help and spirituality books which have helped me figure out a style of being that WORKS for me. I call it, "The Vacation Approach." It is how I live my LIFE.
YET… For over two years I had my books in boxes. Fearing that we would have to move away from our happy home in Los Angeles. Yet, it turns out that somehow my loving husband’s first promise of “California,” keeps proving to be the golden truth of our LIFE story. Anyway… last week, I took the books out of the boxes and seeing them AGAIN is like being born again from a deadly slumber.
Ah! The number of ordeals… the PA I N! The Heartache! I’ve had so many crash and BANG bad times with people in the last few years… IF the core of my LIFE were not LOVE I’d lose faith. Fortunately… I have my dear old friend, my true LOVER and Partner in LIFE and Marriage, MY BIGGNESS. Hartmuth Kolb is steadfast and true. WE fit together like puzzle pieces. He likes my books and appreciates that I am always reading. NOW in this tower of printed pages I have my home, where I cultivate peace decorated with the fruits of LOVE harvest over many a year and preserved with care as a sanctuary from the noisy world of NEWS and life and filled with wonderful books brimming with adventure.
IF you have been putting off Spring Cleaning, taking care of domestic chores. S T O P!
It is time to get your books out of boxes and remember what you are made of.
Warm regards,
Frau Kolb
Starring LlynFoukles at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum on Monday Night.
Llynn Foukles and Starring LlynFoukles at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum on Monday Night.
How do you resume a fractured friendship? Make plans to see a great art show at your favorite cozy contemporary art museum OF Course.
That is what we were about this MONDAY night. The best part, of meeting up with a former and suddenly NEW friend in a museum you feel comfy in is that they have pretty good security in case things get ugly. Or worse… you just feel neutral. Blah! LIKE: “I’m not mad any more, but I still do NOT wanna be your art-pal, anymore.” IF you don’t feel connected you can just wander about, look at art, learn something, else… Anyway….
The good news the spark of mutual LIKE, something akin, to understanding was there, a former bridge burnt down to an amber of hope. The L I G H T of which F I R E will bless all your future intellectual efforts. And…
And.
And?
And…
Okay.
Much Affection,
FK
I Confess: Before Saturday Night, I was a BURT LANCASTER Virgin
11 May 2013
Los Angeles California
Oh Lucky ME! Last week, on Saturday night I went on a date, to see not one but two monumental Burt Lancaster/Robert Siodmak Noir films at the Billy Wilder Theater in the Hammer Museum. We were invited to do so by the Hammer Museum for their “Centennial Celebration,” and I was with a dear set of friends intimately associated to the Lancaster estate. (Dear close-friends WE love, very much.)
Before last night, I was A BURT LANCASTER Virgin. Yes. It is true. I had not really fully gotten sucked into the phenomenon of this classic Hollywood film STAR. Sure, I’d seen him in, “The Crimson Pirate,” and other such films but NEVER before on the BIG SCREEN and BURT is BEAUTIFUL BIG! OH YEAH! What a freakin’ HUNK! I mean the only other man that well… frankly… anyway… let me get a grip.
After a brief drink then a fast jaunt across the road, we slipped into our reserved seats. The host launched the evening a quick introduction to an engaging film scholar and author, Alan K. Rode. He introduced, “The Killers” with wit and verve, making the audience chuckle before the film played. With this particular film gem, Burt Lancaster went from unknown to Hollywood STAR for every good reason. Adonis had nothing on him. His taunt trained athletic energy, the acrobat’s concentration, and the obscenely fluid ease of his movement… AH! WE all wish to be so fit, so right.
He played a boxer gone off, knuckles broken, lured by easy money into the wrong set, and reeled in by a breathtakingly beautiful Fem-Fatal played by a long, big-eyed, previously undiscovered stunne ----Ava Gardner--- to take part in an ugly payroll heist. The film unfolds in dazzling flashbacks, as the insurance claim detective pieces together the puzzle of the anti-hero’s violent death. In other words: classic film noir. The story is utterly believable, gritty, eternal and elemental tragedy. (The film is based on a short story by Ernest Hemmingway.) We go along for the ride even though we know it won’t end well from the start. We, audience, mirror the protagonist’s experience of being lured into a race to hell. Yet, at the end of the film, we have the satisfaction of resolution. THE LAW firmly upheld and evil woman caught in her own net of deception. Ah! How delightful!
The second film, after a brief intermission, and a little more relevant film talk from the passionate and funny film scholar, Rode, “Criss Cross,” a less successful yet watchable film with a lot of the same story elements. Lancaster’s performance was impeccable. He held the film together, the other actors revolving around him like planets. In the film his character, a easily forgetable type IF it were not glorious Burt in the tepid role, glows with innocent infatuation for an evil prize, a woman of little worth, a tramp, a moll, a gangster’s wife that was once his wife. The yucky plot-line of good boy meets BAD girl and loses life for love is not poignantly told in “Criss Cross,” which was a little slapped together and claustrophobic, even though it does have some beautiful (…and also early arial…) footage of old LA, with the trolley cars and union station figuring prominently. “The Killers,” however is a hard act to follow because it is, at first viewing, one of the masterpieces its genre, along with Casablanca, and the Maltesse Falcon, other noir classics that one can not speed by, one must stop and enjoy these delicious golden noir films.
The pleasure of seeing these fabulous old film(s) at the Billy Wilder Theater is intense. YOU MUST make plans to see a Burt Lancaster film in this theater before the end of the series. Last night was so great, that IF I had had to fly in from New York to experience seeing “The Killers,” and “Criss Cross,” large, on the "silver screen," with great S O U N D, I would not hesitate. That I have this pleasure at the Billy Wilder Theater without needing to get on a plane is truly awe and some. By the way, the MUSIC! the score for “The Killers,” which drove home the story and was later, purloined by the composers of the Dragnet, television show for that program’s theme, for which there was, “legal action,” later. (All this, and more, I learned from listening to the scholar that introduced the two films.) Understandable because the music was one of the many factors combined which make, “The Killers,” an unforgettable film.
Much Love,
Frau Kolb
On the Way Back to LA
Playa del Rey, California
2 May 2013
Try this next time you have a flight pending:
Go to a great restaurant and order yourself a great meal. Eat it. In the ideal restaurant, the meal is enormous. It is meant to fill you up with raw pleasure MORE than once.
The steak from Smith and Wollenski’s in Philadelphia made my flight home heavenly, ease. Yeah. Yes the porterhouse steak for two, was that good. The service, Fabian, was perfect: professional, earnest, and prompt. This location, over looking Rittenhouse Square is date worthy.
The cherry bloosoms in ripe fullness of SPRING! The image of joy on my husband's face as he sipped his glass of a bold deep red with hints of pepper and chocolate. YUM!
Or was it the memories of happy shopping in Philadelphia that make so happy on the flight home, back to LA?
In just 24 hours, I accomplished SO MUCH!
Thank you, Macy’s in downtown Philadelphia for the tremendous service. Specifically, Nicklaus was amazing. He was the paradigm of sales virtue helping me earnestly to collect the objects that will buffer my soul and comfort my body. His friendly, focused service made it possible for me to achieve the (almost) impossible mission I'd set before myself: create a wonderful HOME, a retreat, a secret sanctuary for my loving husband, for myself, and the kids.
HOME: a place to return to. It is the place where you base yourself. It is from where you grow and expanding reaching out to the dazzling universe with ever changing interests and goals. It is where your books are waiting for you to read them. It is where your clothing hangs. It is your nest, your hide-out. It is where you charge your batteries. It is where you hang out in your underware and eat cereal in bed. Home is more than an address, a roof, a fridge, and a shower stall. Home is one's own private paradise, a Utopian kindgdom, a perfect cubby for the brain and body. At BEST, home is sacred territory and must be treated as such.
I stormed through the store and purchased all the required elements for a domestic paradise. Breifly I was stranded, not trusting the rude boys that showed up to help me based upon my (BAD) Craigslist search for HELP transporting all my new treasures "back to the ranch." Thanks to Über, a marvelous on-line, ap-based service, I was able to use my iphone and call for a car, an SUV truck, in disco black and equipped with party lights and booze (I did not indulge, this time) precisely when I needed one. WHAT A WONDEROUS AGE we live in!
Exactly then LIKE a bling BLING BLACK man-knight-giant: Emmanuel C. came to my rescue. He is a hyper street smart, super ghetto fabulous, savvy, entrepreneur and business-man TAXI driver. He had, “no problem,” helping me to get my many new housewares back to the NEW HOME, a little rental somewhere in Philadelphia. He also recommended the precisely right furniture store.
AGAIN, I blitzed in and got the goods. Tamara, the saleswoman there really went out of her way to help me get the most comfortable and lovely home furnishings IMMEDIATELY. Would you believe that we arranged for delivery THAT VERY SAME NIGHT???
Yes, it is true. We did. Thus, after eleven pm the movers arrived and they delivered and installed everything before midnight. I was just about to turn into a pumpkin when WHAM! They were GONE! Presto. I had a room full of new furnishings. Amazing.
This morning, after a few important meetings, I went back to Macy’s where I dropped more cash on ideal home-wares, getting the final needed nothings, the little tools of the kitchen, porcelains, high thread count cotton sheets, and other everyday marvels that will make our world a cozy place. Based on the series of successful visits, starting with the first one, in the shoe department… on another visit to marvelous Philadelphia… (I'd popped into the crowded shoe department and the saleswoman was so patient and understanding of my skinny feet. She got me pair after pair of shoes until we found a pair I love. She persisted. She endured, like Nicklaus. He also gave of himself. Thus making my frenzied shopping extravaganza a productive and worth mentioning experience.
The sum of my growing experience of life in Philadelphia is that it is a city one can proudly call, “HOME!”
By the way, IF I’d have another day in Philadelphia there is no way I’d miss the OUTSIDER ART Exhibit.
And YOU know how much I crave dancing with the BRIDE.
(I’d LOVE to get nude and MOVE it around Duchamp’s cracked masterpiece…
Butt, that is another story… Hah!)
Love,
Frau
OUCH!
How much do you know about first aid? I cut my fingertip deep with a pastel pink knife sharp ass fuck. I was bleeding and I had a plane to catch…
I ran to my purse. “I cut myself.” I said to Emmanuel. He chuckled. I guess, he knew I had it under control, somehow.
I ran my hand under cold water. I pulled the chilled eye-mask gel out of the big silver fridge and put it against the bleeding tip of my index finger. I counted the minutes and watched Emmanuel text someone. He was smiling like an infant in sleep. I smiled. I had to.
We had accomplished so much in just a few hours. We met the day before, when I was in distress over the Craiglist THUGS I hired to come help me with my bags, the day before at Macy’s in Downtown Philadelphia. He showed up with huge SUV as black as a knight’s gleaming silver suit and loaded my bags in his super chariot and we managed to get ALL THAT BEAUTIFUL HOME treasure, tools of the domestic bliss trade, in which I am an expert, the towels, cutting boards, shower curtains, and bath mats with which one can establish a successful life.
Yet, I knew I wasn’t done. Sipping my wine. It was good, from California. I told him, “I gotta leave this place fully furnished.” I looked around at the bare box, gleaming wood floors, empty white walls, and at the clock above the stove, it was 5 pm. I took another sip of wine.
“No problem!” He said. He meant it. He took me to the right place and the rest is shopping history.
YET AGAIN, I must say: special thanks to Joe, Nicklaus, Stephanie, and Ray at MACY’s in Philadelphia. I received incredible service and superior customer service from the heart. I was welcomed to Philadelphia like a queen by these kind souls. They CARE. I will continue to shop at MACY’s in Philadelphia every-time I POP in and take a survey of the art and social goings on in the EAST COAST which ass YOU know, I DIG, NYC, PHILADELPHIA, and BOSTON!
Much Love,
Frau Kolb
PS: That pretty pastel pink knife I picked up on the GO is super sharp! Now, I know. Hah!
Lunch at the Hammer With a Time Traveler, Ed Valfrey and Dreamy ART STAR: Dee Shapiro!
LOOK at ART! EAT. Drink. CHAT! You can put it on my menu daily and I'd never tire of this combination. I love to drink and eat around art adventure! I love meeting up with amazing humans. THE MUSE, is a prime example. She is a unearthly beauty that motivates and inspires mere mortals, like me, to write, to think, and to plan(!) ways in which to celebrate her being so inspiring. WE have a estabished a nice pattern of visiting museums restaurants, drinking copious amounts of excellent wine, and seeing great art, together.
Ah! Friendship IS the fountain of youthful pursuits...
I also had the pleasure of lunching with Mr. Ed Valfrey, artist, musician, tickler of words, tweaker of meaning, experienced TIME TRAVLER, not too long ago. His mind expanding blog, rich with the spacey perfect dune-spice, dreamy-concrete, specific and effortless freshness that we ALL aspire to being proficient in the language of light and the mysteries of transcendental realist photography. His work, I recommend you explore.
A week or two ago, artist Dee Shapiro and I met up for lunch at the Hammer museum. She is a recognized visual voice, in particular her work with wave patters with the golden… you know… secret number… the one found in waves and stock market charts and graphs. She and I locked in for an immediate CLICK. WE connected, completely over lovely salads and gentle service. WE spoke of our lives and opened for ourselves a furture of such sweet meetings for lunch in museums scattered around this beautiful life sustaining planet. I can not think of anything more delightful.
Getting READY to GO DOWNTOWN to ART WALK in Los Angeles.
Tonight we focus on Skip Snow's Project ART Exchange at Blackstone Gallery
Ja!
Blackstone Gallery
Fine Art Exhibitions
901 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Thur - Sat / 1pm - 7 pm/ or by appointment
(310) 869-5799
(909) 746- 6308
blackstonegallery2013@yahoo.com
Join Skip Snow, Todd Gray, and Frau Kolb
Tonight, INDOORS for the first time!
The Hammer delivers with the Llyn Foulkes Retrospective
by Caridad B. Kolb
March 20th, 2013
Los Angeles, California
The ease with which some art seduces one into a false sense of comfort is fascinating to behold and experience. Thus is the work of Llyn Foulkes (b. 1934 in Yakima, Washington). It beckons, it is a kin in magnetism to the venus fly trap, a plant which eats the flesh of flies, yet looks fairly innocuous, somewhat cute, despite the jagged edges of its teeth-like leaves.
I tripped into the Hammer Museum yesterday evening. They were setting up for an event with Chinese lanterns strung along the courtyard of the Museum. I was there to see the Foulkes, exhibition, so... I zoomed by. I went upstairs and dove into the drawings, cartoons mostly, in the first room devoted to the Foulkes show. Spread over serval rooms, more than 150 works comprising various stages of the living artist’s expansive career. The early drawings brim with edgy talent. Witty, pointed sharp cartoons on sexuality and undressing social norms, engage the viewer in a lively dialogue of startling poignancy.
An artist on multiple levels, a musician, visual artist, a person whose humor, is sharp pointed wit, with which he reaches out and prods minds, moves mountains. Mountains of knowledge, entrenched and deep, mountains of memory reaching up to the sky and scratching it. Piercing illusions, which never fold into neat mimetic representation, yet consistently demonstrate the ability to do so. As in this fabulous painting of a cow, the artist demostrates deep understanding of representation as a visual option, a tool.
Big ideas on what it means to see, to know, to experience. For example, when one travels and takes pictures or buys post-cards it is as IF by doing so one proves that one was actually once somewhere worth recalling, someplace special. One painting from the 1970's of the rugged facade of a mountain covered in photos of the same mountain reflects on this conundrum of being in which the representation of experience stands in place of the actual, indefinitely, perpetual.
Systematically communicating complex ideas about knowledge, knowing, being, and living in a world where values are defined by a corporate culture which taxes humans and creates markets for guns, by feeding boys and girls images of might that depend on the real world horror of weapons. A boy dreams of an actual gun as a ghostly superman reads him a bed-time story.
As in the above example Foulkes work oscillates from the concrete and specific reference to real world, using objects as symbols representing the object with an accuracy, that allows for information to completely dominate the viewer, who is trapped like an unwilling voyeur in an awkward situation where language and pure form undress, unwind, collapse.
Thoughtful works. Large ponderous canvas mimics postcard nostalgia of a American west blurred by not existing in this dimension but rather... somewhere else. The colors, pallets muted and restrained, mostly intellectual playing with text and the language of signage: warning DANGER: this is the edge of this painting, past here is the frame, which is found-object, salvaged from somewhere or other and rescued, restored, transformed into a powerful boundary between the world of image and truth.
Foulkes exploration flowers in deep three-dimension tableaux that completely void the boundary between the framed and the unframed world. His seamlessly constructed part-cartoon part replica of traditional portraiture, yet arm or neck-tie piercing the frame, to inject the space around the art with LIFE in its precise handling of paint, and the light touch, unperturbed intensity of the swirling profound commentary on American life and our plastic disposable values.
The trademark mouse delivers a smooch on the cheek of the artist in this his self portrait in plaid shirt on a bare brown-burned looking ground. The worried look says so much… the mouse is too pleased to deliver his kiss. Who wants to be kissed by a rodent? Who cares if the rodent is a movie star? What matters when the world comes to an abrupt halt?
So many questions… this exhibition is worth seeing again. (I just made plans with artist, Skip Snow, to see it for a second time.)
In short, I LOVED this exhibition and would highly recommend that you get over to see it if you are in Los Angeles before May 19th, 2013, when the show closes.
Warm regards,
Frau Kolb
Honolulu For Celebrating Milestones and Family Unity by Frau Kolb
What a TRIP!
Photo(s), courtesy of Dr. HC Kolb © 2013.
We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, in Oahu, again. (This location has the advantage of having a private beach, with kids activities, snorkling, dinner cruises, and the best fireworks show on Friday nights.) This time we had a corner room in the Tapa Tower. Last time, we stayed at the Rainbow Tower. Both experiences left a good taste in our mouths. Because our rooms were spacious, if expensive, and comfortably appointed. High up, the views are impressive. Beware of vertigo! It is so high UP and still little birds arrive looking for scraps on our balcony. Diamond Head and the Bay sparkling with ant-sized boats, imaged outriggers, and the vast Pacific ocean, teeming with life. Humans come from all over the world to celebrate their peak moments in Honolulu’s warm embrace.
The thick ocean air, kisses your face, fragrant breezes massage your skin... Ah!
Underwater photo, courtesy of Dr. HC Kolb © 2013, no reproduction without permission.
What a way to celebrate turning 40! The triumph over a family’s greatest challenge! Whatever the reason, Hawaii is the place to GO! YOU want to be there to celebrate your life’s milestones. YOU need a dip in the warm waters. You are ready to dance the Hula. The adventure of LIFE is alive and raw in that excellent city, Honolulu. It may be developed, a hard little nugget of a glittering city, studded with high-end shopping venues on par with Rodeo Drive, in Los Angeles, California and top-notch boutique hotels, but the island has jungle hiking trails that will delight the novice, the family man, the native, and the experienced globe trekker, alike.
Ja!
It wasn’t a given that we would make it this far. Those that know, are aware of how much ground we crossed in the last few years, and how we (all) faced difficult conditions, in the spirit of learning to love LIFE more, and thus, WE arrive at this---sacred---point in time: NOW! Any major life transition requires special action to mark it, define it. The traditional honeymoon in Hawaii works, for example, in that no one can say that “little America,” the islands of the Pacific are anything short of dreamy, a GREAT place to launch a life-long LOVE partnership. Just as the passage from winter to spring, the graduation of a loved one might be a great excuse to get down to Hawaii for some much needed rest and relaxation.
YES! WE must prioritize caring for ourselves.
The key message shared in, “The Vacation Approach,” an unpublished book by Frau Kolb was that LIFE must be lived as an ongoing vacation. What do WE really want to do? What is really important? Let us connect with our LOVED ones while we have them. Let us GO to Hawaii while its beauty withstands the assault of the littering tourists (those horrible humans who feel it is okay to leave plastic wrappers, bottles, and bags everywhere they go.) Let us enjoy, as much as we can, this moment that sits before us. Let us embrace the NOW, where NOW happens to be. In other words, IF you can not now afford a little get away. Plan your vacation and enjoy your actual location. (Read this blog for tips on how to live the artist’s ideal life of learning, loving, and living it UP!) Travel in books and by reading is another way to soar above the bore of same old, same old.
IF, on the better hand, money is not an issue and you crave hard-core decadent luxury and French service, then you must hit B.L.T in Honolulu. Delicious European classics in Las Vegas style luxury with New Yorker edge, in Honolulu bent on French service in a high-end restaurant then you simply must visit, BLT Steak. Oh YES! It is so good. You will love it. Juicy! This is food that we advise vegetarians avoid. Moreover, this an establisment catering to those on a tight budget. But it is pure carnivore heaven to go when you want to splurge on a thick Porterhouse, for two, served in cast iron, with sides of garden fresh vegetable and excellent tender green salad, preceded by Pacific oysters---so fresh and briny. This is the elegant dining location to mark a memorable evening with best friends and beloved (carnivore) family. Yet, it is NOT for everyone (vegetarians, you could order a grilled veggie plater! I'm sure it would be excellent). IF you want to celebrate an important event and want the team service to work like a dream around you. Try, knocking a piece of silver of the table and watch the head waiter catch it before it hits the floor. Or don’t, because really that isn’t the kind of thing a polite and well-bred person like YOU would even consider doing for a bit of bad-taste fun. But, if happen to push a fork off the table, by accident, KNOW that the service will notice before you are inconvenienced by the diving piece of silver.
You might also enjoy, Kaiwa, Japanese cuisine for lunch. Quiet. Elegant. On a second floor and frequented by locals. This spot is a refuge from the chain restaurant culture, the noise, the ubiquitous flat screen televisions, and cheap American food. It is a comfortable, but not tremendously luxurious, place you want to sink into the deep padded leather booths lining the restaurant and enjoy a moment of nourishing Japanese cuisine.
Travel helps fortify the soul, the spirit.
IF you have never snorkeled in Honomanu Bay in Oahu: You MUST but, first, you have to watch the nine minute conservation and safety film. YOU don’t want to die in Hawaii. You want to have a good time. Therefore, you require instruction on how to respect the life that lives in the reefs and coral. It is time YOU get cozy with the idea that our reality depends on being mindful of LIFE, limits, and LOVING the environment, and showing that LOVE by restricting our personal use of natural resources, honoring the material world, so that life may endure and WE, my friends, continue to thrive.
© Frau Kolb 2013
