WAS

1960s and 70s winter Krakow (BEFORE I was born, thank you very much)

Photo source: Muzeum Historyczne

FOOD ET TOUS: CHRISTMAS IN POLAND

Let's face it: Christmas in Poland is all about the food. As the traditional society, we like to refer to the past and so, for many, Christmas 2015 won't be any different than Christmas 1990 or Christmas 1972. From my experience (27 Christmases) the only change is excitement - it fades or rather switches as you grow. I used to get excited about creating the atmosphere, now I'd rather have someone create it for me (I know, horrible!) and enjoy the simple fact of spending Christmas with family and friends. But that doesn't interest you at all. That's our all adult experience. What interests you is how you should go about creating your OWN real Polish Christmas experience.

# Stick with number 12

12 apostles, 12 dishes, 12:00AM Christmas mass and so on and so on. Apparently the number of the dishes (12) refers to the number of Jesus apostles (12), so there you go. I'm not sure of biblical references of 12AM mass, but it's a nice or at least romantic tradition - snowy night, carol singing etc. As both my Mum and Dad come from Cieszyn where, opposed to the rest of Poland, most dwellers are Protestant I know of another, slightly less romantic tradition: 5AM Christmas mass on the 25th. My Mum states she loved it as a kid. Thankfully, she never made me try!

# Buy a tone of cabbage 

We Poles love cabbage and on Christmas we love it even more. Like my friend Charlie said: boil a cabbage, dip it in cabbage, sprinkle it with cabbage, tatadam you have a Polish meal. Truth be told it's nowhere near that simple, but yeah - we Poles LOVE cabbage.

# Go local 

Another thing we love: roots - both historical and literal, some unavailable for sale from a usual Christmas shelf. As tradition suggests 12 meals should be made of all of God's earthly gifts you may use mushrooms, honey, poppy seed, nuts and grain as well as smoked dried fruits, root vegetables of all kind and yes - cabbage.

# Become superstitious 

As you wait for your pets to start talking take a few steps towards becoming a billionaire (nah, I don't mean work):
1. Put a banknote and/or a bit of hay under the tablecloth
2. Put a piece of yeasty bread on the table
3. Eat or at least try each of the 12 dishes
4. Keep and carry a Christmas fish bone / husk in your wallet in the coming year

# About that fish... 

It's a carp.

# Yes you can flush it with spirit, but there's a rule for that too

...and I wouldn't call it a classical Christmas cocktail. What you'll need is spirit (96%) or clear vodka, lemon, sugar, cloves and cinnamon. First caramelise the sugar. When it's nice and gold add the lemon peel, spices and spirit (careful, it will flame!). Drink hot/warm for good digestion (and fast intoxication). PS. Please leave it to elders - two years ago my uncle almost burnt the kitchen, I wouldn't dare doing it myself.

# Learn a Polish Christmas carol! 

We like singing, you like singing, so why not try

Przybieżeli do Betlejem pasterze,
Grając skocznie Dzieciąteczku na lirze.
Chwała na wysokości, chwała na wysokości,
A pokój na ziemi.

HOW TO TEACH YOUR PARENTS ABOUT AIRBNB

It's not a mission for the faint of heart, but you're not alone. We put together this helpful guide. Feel free to load it on your phone in an easily readable font just before the conversation starts.

Funny article via Conde Nast Traveler via Onion, read full text here

RESEARCHING FOR THE #WAM16

#mybrainisboiling #procrestination

OOPSIE

 The hardest languages to learn (top–>bottom)

7 REJECTIONS

Since I have obviously failed making this blog a sort of go-to for those interested in Krakow (writing about everything but Krakow, was probably what got me lost), I am happy to take on a role of the Airbnb (unofficial) broker. After news on the Kurt&Courtney listing and the cool floating house, I have stumbled upon a thread by Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky*, in which he shares rejections from investors who denied to support Airbnb back in 2008. Chesky admits that while they obviously missed the chance to become a part of something big - the investors were smart people, and I am sure we didn’t look very impressive at the time. He then advices all of us to Next time you have an idea and it gets rejected, I want you to think of these emails.

Read the full thread on Medium.

*If you found yourself on this blog - essentially he's the one to blame.

FEELING SPOILED

Krakow just made it to the "Travel & Leisure" 10 Most Beautiful Cities in the world. It scored number 7, right after Florence, Rome and Bangkok (#1 went to Kyoto, Japan). Not bad Krakow, not bad at all...

In the past, the city made it to the "Which!", Zoover's and "Conde Nast Traveller" lists, with "Which!" ranking it number #1 and "Conde Nast" number 11.

TOKYO TALK TALK

Yes, Japan can be clustered and overwhelming...

But every now and then you can find yourself a piece of silence

And the cluster is not all that bad too

The less space, the more precious it gets? 

You don't even have to enter museums - looking at them is fine too

But then some you just have to experience

Even if it means cruising from Japan's nastiest little town

 In the end – it's all worth it

FLOATING HOUSE

Fantastic stunt by Airbnb: floating house.

A few years ago there was a great deal of interest in Artangel’s A Room for London project, which saw Fiona Banner and David Kohn Architects build a boat you could stay in high above the South Bank. Today Airbnb has twisted that idea round for its own stunt, floating a 70-tonne house down the River Thames. Designed by Steve and Nick Tidball, creative directors of the TBWA agency, it includes two bedrooms, a working bathroom and a garden with real grass and an apple tree. It will meander up and down the river throughout the week, hosting various events and even some sleepovers. [via It's Nice That"]

WE ARE MUSEUMS 2015

I have a pleasure of working with the the great team of We Are Museums again. It's a two day event focusing on the future of museums: curating talks, inspiring ideas, sharing experience... There's time for talk, work and fun, come and see for yourself!

BECAUSE WHY NOT

Kurt and Courtney old L.A. apartment is available on Airbnb

(via Vulture)

KULT TATTOO

I often get asked about a good tattoo studio in Krakow.

Luckily for all my future guests, I was a plus one on my friends' tattoo appointment today. Seeing her happy face, booking another appointment in less than a week (!) makes me sure they're worth all the applause I've heard so far.

Check out Kult Tattoo artists' work here and see the beautiful work of David Côté. I stumbled upon his graphics in Tattoo Fest Mag. It almost made me want to book an appointment myself.

HOME ALONE: Easter Edit

Though nobody is hurt and nothing was broken (Mum's latest pedantic quote: "How thoughtful of them!"), they took most of her jewelry and all of my cash.

- spared the semiprecious and plastics as well as books, booze and hi-tech (which in this case, is more low tech anyways)
- searched through all of our clothing, underwear and papers
- gave up at 5th of my 50+ mini boxes filled with nothing but valueless rubbish
- made me regret using no cam Nokia 1616, by rearranging the flat in a psycho-conceptualistic manner (armchair-on-bed sort of style)
- let themselves through the front window without dropping a windowsill flower (another "wow" from my Mum)
- or getting noticed by our neighbors
- didn't scare the cat
- wore gloves
- shut the window on departure

As for police, they were almost charmingly nonchalant and absolutely helpless. After two hours of powdering & blowing all we got was: onto the next! and one advice: there are no good security methods other than self-inventory these days.

Other conclusions are:
- let go that romantic knicker-drawer-safe idea - invest in real safe instead
- wear jewelry instead of keeping it for next generations (check Ermine Fevrier for good inspo)
- invest in books and keep your money there; there's a chance your thief will be just afraid of them as mine
- watch Kevin

DESIGN SMOOTHIE: Copenhagen Edit

Cityscape-conscious design at its best. Context > Fashion. Does it make you jealous, Krakow?

SWEETISH: A Swedish take on packaging design

The day was magic. I started off Östermalms Saluhall, through some of the coolest interior shops in Stockholm to Skansen - so idyllic it might have as well been set in Bullerbyn. Frozen to the bone, at around 4:40PM I found myself at Nordiska Museet. At this point I didn't care about much else than my (purple) toes, but as soon as they unfroze I crossed the gates of "Supermarket" - the ultra cool exhibition set designed by Joann Tan Studio, a new add to my (ever growing) internship list. 

Socker is a beautiful presentation on sugar eating society focused on all aspects of sweet: Luxury, Every Day Food and Health Hazard. An educational journey (or, as in my case, run) ends with a store mock up, so marvelous and pink that it would make it into Barbie-world Architectural Digest in no time. Custom designed packages seem to be anchored in vintage Sockerbolaget wrappings, honoring minimalistic (almost pedantic) approach, sans serif lettering and minimum sign of human touch. They could have been drafted by designapackage.com generator. They could have been sold in IKEA. So is it some sort of anti-capitalism or national praise gesture? I'd rather see it as a statement against the  photo-obsessed culture and over Photoshopped reality we live in. So why not go back to times before Photoshop and make something nice for a change? Looking around Supermarket I wouldn't worry it won't sell. 

Exhibition closes on  September 27th. Go see it if you have a chance.

Photos source: Nordiska Museet

YOU KNOW ME YOUTUBE

YouTube recommendations for me today - so embarrassing, that it makes me laugh (even more than I do realize how recommendations work). Oh my.

IDA

Guardian:

Ida emerged as a strong awards contender after winning the best film award at the London film festival in 2013. It has since battled with Leviathan at all the major awards ceremonies since, winning the Bafta for best foreign film and best film at the European film awards, but losing out at the Golden Globes.

NY Times:

Nine times Polish films have been nominated for best foreign language film — including works by such seminal filmmakers as Roman Polanski and Andrzej Wajda — but none have won until Sunday night’s award for “Ida,” a black-and-white drama set in 1962 Poland about an 18-year-old novitiate who discovers she is Jewish and has an aunt who is a prosecutor.

New Yorker Magazine:

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan” is a bravely confrontational drama of arrogance and corruption emanating from the Russian government, encompassing the Orthodox Church and poisoning the people; it’s a frank and honorable film, not especially original in its artistry, not as immediately visually and tonally distinctive as “Ida” is. I think that the superficially eye-catching quality of the latter film, along with its rather conventional ambiguities, will prevail.

Vulture: 

Award shows are notorious for drowning out winners with send-off music when they'd like them to leave the stage. Well, Ida director Pawel Pawlikowski was not having it at this year's Oscars. Here he is showing the Academy who's boss with a heartwarming speech that actually managed to shut up the orchestra.

Mashable:

Polish-British filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film Sunday night and decided he doesn't give a damn about the Academy's intrusive wrap-it-off music. Despite acknowledging that the music was cuing him off, he kept talking, even bringing up his late wife and parents as the music ended.

HOW BIG IS TOO BIG?

For some big is not enough.

GOOD OLD TIMES, GOOD OLD DESIGN

 I'm bad. So bad that that I only started recycling recently. Collecting rubbish; on the other hand is no novelty to me. My bin of choice is paper. Flyers, catalogs, postcards, gazettes, labels, business cards - you name it. With hobby like this you'd think I'd be the queen of recycling. To tell the truth, if  Polish rubbish were a little nicer, I'd certainly be ruling my kingdom from beneath a pile of trash. Thanks God they are ugly! Looking at historical, screen printed packaging designs for Polish chocolate producer Wedel makes me wonder: why are we so lazy?!

Wedel, founded in 1851 by Karol Wedel had once been a symbol of quality and style. It collaborated with some of the finest Polish illustrators and graphic designers such as Maja Berezowska, Zofia Stryjeńska, Andrzej Heinrich and Karol Śliwka. Beautiful, custom made prints were then reproduced on boxes of chocolates, pralines and cookies making sweets not only taste but look good.

Though the company was centralized in 1949 (to become Polish Manufacturing Mills for over 40 years), it carried on with bold packaging concepts until late 80s when the country entered the reform process and capitalism-imposed no-brainer ads era

References:

E.Wedel, Spolem

WHAT HAPPENED

What happened when Nick Cave, Eddie Redmayne, Michael Keaton and other men at the BAFTAs were asked the same banal fashion questions as women? See a couple of stills below and watch the video on The Independent. 

No, that's not a "kiss my ass"