Her

Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore in the romantic drama "Her," directed by Spike Jonze, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. 

"Her" is writer-director Spike Jonze's fourth directed feature and his first as sole writer. His previous films--

      "Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation" and "Where the Wild Things Are"--were collaborations with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (the first two) and novelist Dave Eggers and Maurice Sendak.

A sci-fi romance set in a near-future L.A., "Her" stars Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore Twombly, a ghostwriter who composes personal letters and notes for other people at a company called BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com. Theo falls in love with an advanced computer operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). The OS, named Samantha, resides in a portable communication device.

The story was inspired by an earlier instant-messaging technology Jonze discovered (before Apple's Siri) and the script was written three years ago. "The initial idea was a man falling for a voice," Jonze said. "But it didn't become something until I started to think about it as a relationship movie."

Rooney Mara as Catherine.

Cast includes Rooney Mara, Amy Adams and Olivia Wilde. The film opens in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto on Dec. 18, expanding nationwide on Jan. 10 (view trailer) and is nominated for three Golden Globes: best musical/comedy, best screenplay and best actor in a musical or comedy for Phoenix' performance. "Her" is also named best film of 2013 by the National Board of Review.

Joaquin Phoenix with director Spike Jonze on the set. Photo by Sam Zhu. 

"Spike Jonze is one of the most talented and visionary filmmakers working today," Annie Schulhof, NBR president, said. "In Her, he explores the age-old themes of love and human connection in a completely fresh and innovative way. It is an outstanding achievement that is sure to become a new classic."

Healthy at Home

Healthy at Home cover photograph courtesy National Geographic Books, copyright 2013.

Tieraona Low Dog's Healthy at Home: Get Well and Stay Well Without Prescriptions draws from her integrative and herbal medicine practice. For those who wish to make and use herbal medicines for the treatment of common ailments such as colds, coughs, headaches, insomnia, and skin and digestive disorders, it's a how-to book on using herbs as an alternative to pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter medications. In the form of a set of health and wellness recipes, it features medicinal herbs, practical cures, healing foods, and lifestyle changes tips. For several years, Tieraona has grown and gathered plants in the Desert Southwest, making homemade ointments, salves, tinctures, elixirs, and teas. She currently serves as the director of the fellowship at Andrew Weil's Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. 

"You can take care of the majority of common health problems at home with simple, gentle and effective treatments," writes Tieraona. "Herbal medicines are woven throughout this book because I believe in their health-giving benefits. I have chosen to emphasize commonly available herbs. The recipes provided are those I've used myself and with thousands of patients." Some of these herbs--calendula, peppermint, sage, thyme--can be grown in the garden or in pots, and the medicines can be made from fresh plants or dried herbs. The book is organized by type of illness/condition and by remedy form: infusions, decoctions, tinctures, glycerites, medicinal honeys, oils, salves, and compresses (with step-by-step instructions on how to make them). "These remedies can be used as first-line therapies, allowing you to avoid harsher, more potent drugs until they are absolutely necessary. Physicians, like myself, can certainly be an important part of healing, but they should not be the primary source of your well-being."

National Geographic Books, book release on January 14. 

Pomegranates & Pine Nuts

Moroccan citrus salad by Bethany Kehdy for Pomegranates & Pine Nuts, copyright Duncan Baird Publishers 2013, commissioned photography by Sarka Babicka. 

"Developing the recipes for my first book has been both a revelation of the Middle Eastern and North African culinary traditions and a tantalizing glimpse at the possibilities that lie ahead," writes Bethany Kehdy in her new cookbook Pomegranates & Pine Nuts. "I like to think of this book as an ode to the treasured dishes of the past, embracing a creative and contemporary approach." Her collection of classic and innovative dishes features Lebanese, Moroccan and Persian recipes.

A Lebanese-American who grew up in the Lebanese mountains, Bethany spent a lot of time as a child "watching and learning via osmosis the art of Middle Eastern food preparation, cooking and preserving from my grandmother, dad and aunties." She leads culinary tours across Lebanon, organizes Food Blogger Connect (the London food blogging conference) and shares recipes on Middle Eastern cuisine along with her food photography at Dirty Kitchen Secrets.

The cuisines from the Middle East and North Africa share many spices and ingredients--saffron, sumac, pine nuts, figs, and pomegranates. Bethany's book explores home cooking (with a regional perspective) from Egypt, Palestine, Morocco, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. Sections cover meze, poultry, meat, seafood, vegetarian, and desserts. Additional sections in the back include an explanation of common ingredients kept in the Middle Eastern and North African pantry, basic recipes and methods (dips, condiments, spice mixes, stocks, breads, and how to prepare and cook rice and chickpeas) and suppliers. Some of the more exotic ingredients (pomegranate molasses) are available from Middle Eastern markets.

"This is not fusion food," Bethany said at the book launch in London for the UK edition, The Jewelled Kitchen, earlier this year. "It's about traditional dishes and authentic ingredients." Several of the 100+ recipes are accompanied by photographs courtesy of food, lifestyle and travel photographer Sarka Babicka. It's an excellent introduction to Middle Eastern cooking. 

Chargrilled sweet pepper & walnut dip by Bethany Kehdy for Pomegranates & Pine Nuts, copyright Duncan Baird Publishers 2013, commissioned photography by Sarka Babicka.

Chargrilled sweet pepper & walnut dip

"The Arabic title of this dip, muhamara, means reddened or crimsoned. This recipe is traditionally made using sun-dried Aleppo peppers, finely chopped to a coarse paste. These peppers, which hail from Syria and neighboring Turkey, have a high oil content and a hint of earthy smokiness in their flavor," writes Bethany in this recipe's introduction. "It isn't easy finding Aleppo pepper paste in the West, but Aleppo pepper flakes are readily available. Most popular recipes for this dip involve pureeing, but I prefer it chunky like this version. It's great as a dip, as well as spread on flatbreads, mixed into hearty stews or tossed with pasta or potatoes."

Serves 4

Preparation time: 20 minutes, plus roasting the peppers

Ingredients:

1 pound 2 ounces roasted sweet pointed peppers

3/4 cup walnut halves, roughly chopped

2/3 cup fine bread crumbs

2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper flakes (optional)

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra to drizzle

finely chopped mint leaves, to sprinkle

sea salt

warm Arabic bread

Directions:

To roast the peppers choose a suitable cooking method (gas stove, barbecue or oven.) Turn a gas burner to high and lean the peppers, stem still on, directly over the burner, turning each one occasionally with tongs until all the sides are charred and the peppers are soft. This should take about 5 minutes per side, or 15 to 20 minutes in total. Use as many burners as necessary. Alternatively, use a barbecue or heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Cook the peppers until all the sides are charred and the flesh is soft. Remove from the heat and transfer to a sealable plastic bag, then seal and leave to rest 10 minutes. Holding the stem of one pepper at a time, use the bag to peel off the skin and any charred edges.

Slice the tops off the roasted peppers, discarding any seeds. Chop the flesh finely and put it in a mixing bowl.

Add the walnuts, bread crumbs, pomegranate molasses, cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, Aleppo pepper flakes, and oil and season to taste with salt. Mix well, then set aside about 1 hour to let the flavors develop.

Put the ingredients in a serving dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with mint. Serve at room temperature with warm Arabic bread.

Robert Motherwell: Early Collages

The Door, July 1943, ink on paper. Copyright Dedalus Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York.

Robert Motherwell: Early Collages at the Guggenheim Museum features nearly 60 papier collés and related works on paper from the 1940s and early 1950s by the abstract expressionist artist. Motherwell (American, 1915-1991) was known as a painter, but also created drawings, collages and prints. 

Robert Motherwell in his studio at 33 West 8th Street, New York, ca. 1945. Copyright Peter A. Juley and Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum. 

I begin with shapes and colors which are not related internally nor to the external world; I work without images. Ultimate unifications come about through modulation of the surface by innumerable trials and errors. The final picture is the process arrested at the moment when what I was looking for flashes into view. My pictures have layers of mistakes in them--an X-ray would disclose crimes--layers of consciousness, of willing. Only in a state of quickened subjectivity--of freedom from conscious notions, and with what I always suppose to be secondary or accidental colors and shapes--do I find the unknown, which nevertheless I recognize when I come upon it, for which I am always searching. The question of what will emerge is left open. One functions in an attitude of expectancy. As Juan Gris said: you are lost the instant you know what the result will be. 

Moving from the West Coast to New York City in 1940, Motherwell began painting before working in collage. Encountering the surrealist group of émigré artists, he appropriated their creative principle of psychic automatism, a free association method utilized to delve into the underlying structure and contents of the unconscious mind. He extended automatism beyond the surrealists' more literary application, as a means to invent new forms. 

9th Street Exhibition, 1951, watercolor, ink, gouache, pasted paper on paper, printed paper, and Kraft paper on paperboard. Copyright Dedalus Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York.

Motherwell created his earliest papier collé works for a show at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century museum-gallery, Exhibition of Collage held in spring 1943. The first international presentation of collage in the United States, the exhibit included works by modern European and American artists. 

The sensation of physically operating on the world is very strong in the medium of papier collé or collage. One cuts and chooses and shifts and pastes, and sometimes tears off and begins again. In any case, shaping and arranging such a relational structure obliterates the need, and often the awareness of representation. Without reference to likeness, it possesses feeling because all the decisions in regard to it are ultimately made on the grounds of feeling.

Untitled, 1943, ink, gouache, watercolor, pastel, and pasted colored paper and printed paper on Japanese paper, mounted on paperboard. Copyright Dedalus Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York. Photo: Georges Poncet, courtesy Galerie Jaeger Bucher/Jeanne-Bucher. 

Most of the papers I use in my collages are random. Even the sheet music. In fact, I don't read music. I do not smoke Gauloise cigarettes, but that particular blue of the label happens to attract me, so I possess it. Moreover, the collages are a kind of private diary--a privately coded diary, not made with an actual autobiographical intention, but one that functions in an associative way for me. For a painter as abstract as myself, the collages offer a way of incorporating bits of the everyday world into pictures. Some of the collages make past years and places in all their concreteness arise in my mind in a manner the paintings do not; the paintings are more timeless. 

Motherwell had an interest in the cubist collages of Picasso and Braque and the late cutouts of Matisse; many of his collages take their point of departure from that art while transforming it into more densely filled images with brighter, more opaque colors, similar to Matisse's. He combined painterly gestures with the pieces of cut and torn paper--studio material drawn from the artist's previous work, souvenirs, invitations, sheets of music, tickets, pages from books, certificates, labels, envelopes, and wrappers that he saved. Although he distinguished collaging from painting, the boundaries were permeable. The collage process was a complement to the automatism from which he generated many of his paintings and drawings.

On view through January 5th at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th Street.)

Kicks Books

All photography courtesy Kicks Books.

Miriam Linna has been in publishing and music for years. From her apartment in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn she runs Kicks Books and the associated company Norton Records (co-founded with Billy Miller). She collects mid-20th century pulp fiction (and 45s), which led her to start publishing books--a line of "hip pocket paperbacks." The pulp inspiration reflects in the cover designs and the editions are sized to fit in a pocket. Recent titles include Gone Man Squared by the English Beat poet Royston Ellis and American poet Charles Plymell's Benzedrine Highway. Plymell has an author reading this Friday, Nov. 8, 7:30 pm at the Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue.

Archive13

Graphic designer/video artist Pouya Ahmadi's poster for the Experimental Film Society, in-house design. All photographs: Chicago Design Archive.

The Society of Typographic Arts (STA) recently announced winners of its Archive13 competition, which recognizes achievements in Chicago graphic design. An exhibition of the entries is on display through October at the Harrington College of Design Gallery. "Once again this year, the overall quality of the entries was exceptional," said Bob Zeni, chair of Archive13. "The selections represent the very best of Chicago design." The competition is co-sponsored by the STA and the American Institute of Graphic Arts Chicago (AIGA). Design students to established firms submitted entries. This year's judging panel included Jamie Koval of VSA Partners, Marian Bantjes, Jon Forss of Non-Format, Michael Freimuth of Franklyn, and Kim Knoll of Knoed. All selected works will become part of the Chicago Design Archive, a permanent collection of innovative design pieces from the last 80 years.  

Every quarter, members of Leo Burnett's Global Product Committee--known around the agency as GPC--gather for a review of creative work from offices around the world. In August, 2012, the committee met in Chicago. Burnett's Chicago office created this book to welcome GPC delegates to the city. Alisa Wolfson directed the design for Burnett. 

Another design directed by Wolfson for Burnett, Apples +. The cookbook is decorated throughout with the Red Delicious apples that have come to symbolize the agency. On the day Burnett opened, August 5, 1935, a bowl of apples was put out for clients and to "brighten up the place."

Jeremiah Chiu (creative director/art director/designer), Renata Graw (art director) and Alexa Viscius (designer) from the Plural studio created the Archive 12 identity program for the STA. It showcases typography and design through a system of overlapping type, highlighting the numbers 1 and 2. Several typefaces are utilized, each having a significant relationship to Chicago design over the last century. The campaign included art direction, design, layout, and identity for all marketing/advertising collateral--posters, catalog and website.

On view at the Harrington College of Design Gallery, 200 W. Madison Street, Chicago.

Tracey Mallett

All photographs courtesy Tracey Mallett.

Fitness and wellness expert Tracey Mallett started dancing at age 4 and was later accepted at The Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, Britain's oldest theatre arts training school. After completing her studies, she began her dance career in ballet and jazz across Europe before moving to the U.S. in 1996. "A former professional dancer, I was introduced to dance conditioning which was basically Pilates," says Tracey. "I was hooked from that day onwards, so off I went to take my Exercise to Music certification to teach aerobics. This led into group exercise, I felt it was a natural progression of educating people to be healthy. I've been in the fitness and Pilates industries for over 20 years."

She teaches barre workouts from her Los Angeles-based studio (ATP Specific Training), combining disciplines--Pilates, calisthenics, yoga, ballet, and other dance forms. "There are a lot of high-impact workouts on the market. I wanted to create a low-impact program that was safe, effective and could be done for life. My workout, the Booty Barre, is based on two of my passions: Pilates and dance. While it's dance-based, you don't have to be a dancer to do it. It may be called the Booty Barre, but it really is a total body workout, everything you need in order to be fit: cardiovascular, flexibility and toning components. The program targets the abdominals--if your center is strong, the rest of your body will be strong." Based on high reps and light resistance counterbalanced with flexibility movements, her workouts appear regularly in publications including Prevention, Fitness and Shape and she runs instructor certification programs across the nation. Her classes are now in Australia, Brazil, Canada, the UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and Ireland.

Her daily routine includes interval and weight training, Pilates, dance, Booty Barre, and a 25 minute run. "I always like to mix it up. You don't need any fancy equipment to get a fabulous body. All you need is your own body weight for resistance, some dumbbells and good workout tunes. You have to make exercise a priority and stick with it." For class locations, DVDs and instructor certification information visit Tracey's website.