mypurpleink: March 2007

the wine review

last night, ..Han and I decided to stay in and chill out with a good ol' bottle of red wine. and basically take it easy.

we swung by a shop to pick up a french bottle of pinot noir.

oooooh pinot noirs! what's there not love? my all time fave and recently made famous all over again in the movie Sideways.

[excerpt from movie taken from wikiP]
Pinot noir was also heavily featured in the 2004 film Sideways. [1]. In the film, the main character Miles describes pinot to his
"It's a hard grape to grow ... it's thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early ... it's not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and thrive even when it's neglected. No, pinot needs constant care and attention ... it can only grow in these really specific, little, tucked-away corners of the world. And only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand pinot's potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. Then, oh, its flavors, they're just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and ancient on the planet."]

anyhoos. i digress. so ...

before opening the bottle of wine. i decided to look for a wine review on the bottle i was holding in my hands.

so, i next did what i so love doing and do best. GOOGLE!

i googled "laboure roi maximum pinot noir" of the 2003 vintage.

after looking at online wine shops all indicating that i've overpaid for my wine... i finally found a delightful blog of wine reviews. i love this website!!!

check it out! http://winetasters.blogspot.com

the writers - a couple who call themselves geeks...- rated our bottle of the night 7 out of 10.
****
Laboure Roi Bourgogne Rouge Maximum Pinot Noir 2003
Price: $14.99 (@ The Wine Gallery)
Recommended by: The Wine Jukebox tasting carousel of happiness
Tasting notes: This is a bright, fruity smooth wine (the winemaker says "an aroma of mixed red berry fruit dominated by strawberries and black currants"). The mixed berries dominate the palate. We only drank one bottle, but we're sure that the third bottle would taste just as smooth and delicious. One of the better pinots we've had.
Rating: 7/10

Posted by Rob & Karie at 9:31 PM
*****

7 is not bad. considering the highest score Rob and Karie have given was an 8.5... another pinot... Writer's Block Pinot Noir 2002. the name's perfect for me too! haha.

anyhoos. with much anticipation (actually mostly mine - Han thought I was mad :P) we opened our bottle and poured the wine into our very new deep bowled wine glasses.

the verdict?

the wine had gone bad! kapoooot. like macham vinegar!!!

errrrrrrgggghhhhh.

so we sat down to a reliable name. our house wine. (my brother distributes this wine) from potter's clay vineyards from McClaren Vale in Australia. a 2002 cabernet franc shiraz. the bottle that saved our night.

now, where's the receipt for that pinot!

Chair for Daydreamers

check out www.jienshu.com

interview excerpt from www.post.fm

What was the inspiration for “Chair for Daydreaming”?

This is a competition entry I submitted and won at the Nagoya Design Do! International Design Competition 2000, which eventually helped me end my full-time employment. That was during the turn of millennium and they wanted a design that best represented the concept of hope for the future. I could feel it in my bones that this is the perfect brief for me.
Most of the ideas for this work came from my reading. I was one of those disgruntled and angsty twenty-something dabbling with the existentialist work of Camus and Satre. One of the books that influenced my thinking was Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It chronicles his experience as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, where he witnessed that those inmates that clung on to a sense of meaning in their lives, are able to withstand adverse circumstances, those without, simply willed themselves to death. I wanted a chair that signifies this core sense of meaning.

The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell helped to transform the initial meaning of the chair. He wrote about happiness as something that should be projected outwards and not just inwards. We may never find complete sense of happiness if we are constantly satisfying our own self-interest. This is one maxim which I have since try adhere to. I also see a parallel between the concept of happiness and hope, in the sense, there are not only personal aspirations but collective dreams as well.

Share with us the design process for “Chair for Daydreaming”.

The “Chair for Daydreamers” is not about creating a new form. I was envisioning a conducive environment where people are able to ponder in solitude, a series of isolated tall chairs among aloof clouds in a landscape was a vague idea I had.

So I plugged the archetype of a lifeguard chair, which I wanted for a high vantage point, from its usual context. I lopped off its hind legs for a more precarious look and structural tension. I want the ascension to the high chair to be a leap of faith. I have also tapered the chair towards the sky for a perspective play and somehow that was interpreted as a religious intention. A little detail goes into increasing the height of the first step to signify taking a bold first step in chasing a dream.

As I look back at the creation, I felt that it gave a very ‘self-indulgent existential’ feel to it, not exactly an appropriate message for the competition. What Bertrand Russell wrote resonated in my mind, which eventually changed the configuration of the chairs. The end result is a more optimistic view of the future that embraces a sense of collective hope among individuals.