I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
Excerpt from ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’ by Sylvia Plath.
Image of A. Baker wall at NewActon shot by Lee Grant.
You know when you watch too much of ‘The Wire’ and you start swearing more in your everyday and sometimes in your sleep? Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
Similarly, if you spend your whole day working your ass off and thinking about your next meeting or whatever it infiltrates your psyche and you become a boring work person. Travelling for work can be like that because that’s what you’re there for so that’s all you’re about.
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Murakami, jogging. Photograph by Patrick Fraser. Via: The Guardian.
Part of an installation by Sagmeister 'Everybody Always Thinks They Are Right'
Haruki Murakami on writing: I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerise myself to reach a deeper state of mind.
Every evening designer Stefan Sagmeister writes down three things that worked that day. He says, “it takes minimal reflection and effort, yet it can accentuate positive thinking.”
Hans Ulrich Obrist
Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of London’s Serpentine Gallery, gets sad about the decline of rituals in modern life. His day is full of them. Every morning when he wakes at 5am he reads late French Martinican writer Édouard Glissant for 15 minutes. He started the Brutally Early Club, where he meets with friends at 6.30am. Obrist says, “everyone is so busy every day; no one has any time to meet their friends any more. The solution is simple: meet earlier…The city is very magical at half past six in the morning.” He jogs daily, not to keep fit but because he likes the ritual of it. He also buys a new book each day. Busy guy.
Sean McConnell with Buller and Basse by Lee Grant
Having a chef, such as Sean McConnell, an avid vegetable gardener and mushroom forager that thinks about food as a way of showcasing good ingredients pretty much ticks all our boxes right there as far as we’re concerned.
These loves of gardening and foraging are reflected in Sean’s very seasonal menus and his habit of working directly with the producers of the ingredients he prepares.
He thinks up foods that encourage sharing and thus shared experiences. The emphasis on sharing probably comes from Sean’s front of house experience (where the enjoyment of the food is first and foremost as opposed to the emphasis being on the dish itself as is often the case in back of house) and his, until now nomad lifestyle.
You can taste these loves at the Monster kitchen and bar.
Long before we made the connection between opulence and luxurious materials and the link with those luxury values in our minds, we were connected to raw, organic materials. It triggers something primal in you, even if you aren’t always aware of it. It’s like sitting in front of a fire, there is something about it beyond the warmth that makes you feel good.
Photo, Wee Jasper by Lee Grant.
For painter and sculptor, Jahnne Pasco-White, poetry and painting go hand in hand. We recently became the proud owners of her work ‘The peaches you were probably saving for breakfast’. The title comes from the poem ‘This is just to say’ by William Carlos Williams. Her substitution of the ‘plum’ for ‘peach’ comes from a poem by Australian modernist poet John Forbes, called ‘A bad day’ that itself references Williams’ poem.
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Louis Berczi by Lee Grant
Louis Berczi made many of the custom designs for Hotel Hotel.
Berczi Copper Company provided the fabrication skills and perfectionism that delivered our editioned tables and stools designed by Don Cameron.
Berczi Copper Company’s work can also be found at the Commonwealth Bank in Martin Place, Sydney, and Parliament House, Canberra. A Google search, or an attempt to visit their website, will reveal only a few examples of the 40-year history this company has in refining and purveying great work in copper; an excellent example of how the artisan talent of Australia is known to only a few.
Having said all this, why is it that the best technical mechanists have the worst websites? There could be no greater example than the disparity between the quality of metal finishing work done by Louis Berczi and the experience of his one page website.
