Posts Tagged ‘may/june 2006’
Aero Luxe: First Class Amenities
Aero Luxe: First Class Amenities

Photographed by Kenji Toma LUFTHANSA JAPAN AIRLINES MALAYSIA AIRLINES ICELANDAIR CATHAY PACIFIC AUSTRIA AIRLINES US AIRWAYS

From the Outskirts of Stockholm
From the Outskirts of Stockholm

Photographs by Ola Rindal

Last Word: Stephen Elliott
Last Word: Stephen Elliott

Text by Patrick Knowles There are few things in this world more painstakingly tedious than covering a political campaign and more than a few accounts of political junkies overdosing in the shadows of the muck raking machine. When acclaimed Chicago-born author, Stephen Elliott set out to follow the Red and Blue dust trails in 2004, […]

Short Attention Span Guide To Travel
Short Attention Span Guide To Travel

Boutique hotel Ostoya Palace You know those decadent destination magazines that tempt you with rapturous accounts of truffle oil massages, pristine white beaches and bamboo reeds tapping gently against French doors? Well, SOMA doesn’t have the stomach – or, frankly, the budget – for such trifles. Instead, our intrepid and discerning correspondents Kerry Olsen and […]

Hotel Vitale
Hotel Vitale

Test by Heather Wagner You know you’re in San Francisco when a hotel has a yoga lounge in the penthouse. Unlike hip hotels the world over, DJ concierges, disco-ball-bedecked hot tubs and exclusionary hotel bars have no place here. Priding itself on being an “urban oasis” in design, philosophy and decor (a soothing, citrus, neutral […]

East Meets Budapest
East Meets Budapest

It would be a bloody shame if, after fighting like hyenas during the 20th century, staving off the total sublimation of their cultural identity by some rather formidable foes, the Hungarians just laid down and allowed their capital to be overrun by the insatiable beast of contemporary globalism. And while specks of shiny modernism have […]

With or Without Reservations
With or Without Reservations

Text by Heather Wagner Hype is a strange thing. In some cases it’s entirely justified, while other times it’s just that – hype. A hollow house of cards painstakingly assembled by lacquered PR professionals intent on luring hapless scenesters to various of-the-moment establishments. So it was with mild trepidation that I approached the Hollywood Roosevelt […]

Fine Chaya
Fine Chaya

Text by Yon Motskin The original idea was to fuse a French brasserie with a Japanese chaya (teahouse), but after more than 20 years cooking on the West Coast, the Chaya restaurants resemble less of a Eurasian immigrant and more of a native Californian born, bred and fed. Executive Chef Shigefumi Tachibe came to California […]

Sound Check
Sound Check

Metallic Falcons Desert Doughnuts (Voodoo-EROS) Sierra Rose Casady from CocoRosie teams up with friend Matteah Baim to comprise entrancing folk-metal arias at lullaby speed, replete with desert conception imagery of mythic proportion. Like the name of the collaborative team, Desert Doughnuts soars with atmospheric echo, evoking both Jana Hunter (who makes a guest appearance) and […]

The Cathartic Cries of Wayne Coyne
The Cathartic Cries of Wayne Coyne

Text by Patrick Knowles A few years back, sometime after the release of Th­e Soft Bulletin and before Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, I found myself screaming my lungs out with hundreds of Flaming Lips fans in one long-pronounced maddening howl. As our yells escalated to deafening levels, the music became nearly inaudible. Lead singer […]

To Be Esperly
To Be Esperly

Text by Kendra Macleod Photograph by Alissa Anderson Being accustomed to the grimy dinge of indie-band venues, I walked into the Town Hall Theatre in New York, and being ushered through the theater to cushy seats was a somehow comforting experience. The larger audience for the headliner of this show, Stereolab, had not quite made it […]

Nine Perfect Minutes: Karen O
Nine Perfect Minutes: Karen O

Text by Jaan Uhelszki On Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ second album Show Your Bones, the New York trio totally upend their world, changing the band dynamic, their music and even trading Karen O’s rather seditious haircut for a sleeker bob. But as they say, everything is everything, and that transformation is reflected in the music, replacing […]

A World Apart
A World Apart

The provocative art of Mexico City Teresa Margolles’ haunting Vaporización Text by Franklin Melendez Much like Mexico City itself, the art scene in the complex metropolis sprawls in unexpected directions, encompassing a dazzling array of media, discourses and strategies. Despite a few “crossover successes” though, this vibrant community remains largely unknown – or more accurately, […]

Capturing the Unknown
Capturing the Unknown

Two photographers find beauty in the war-torn. Text by Fiona Killackey Holiday photos usually feature blood-orange sunsets, cocktails, tans and a beach that spans over an imaginary horizon. Eliciting memories of a distant time in which you escaped the drone of keyboards, the painful tone of an alarm and the inane chatter on the subway, […]

Easy Riding
Easy Riding

The interstate highway system turns 50 this month Text by Angelina Sciolla Photographs by Michael Northrup “To understand America, you must understand highways,” wrote Washington Post reporter Robert Samuelson. “In this past half-century, these masochistic marvels have – along with telephones, television and jet planes – reshaped American culture.” Masochistic marvels? Most of us probably […]

Film Reviews
Film Reviews

Wordplay Directed by Patrick Creadon In the occasionally fuzzy world of habits and addictions, some things are clearly much worse than others. For instance, smoking is probably worse than picking your nose, but better than robbing liquor stores. The compulsion to tackle The New York Times crossword puzzle, then, must surely rank somewhere between channel […]

Ass-Kicking Jeans from Italy
 Ass-Kicking Jeans from Italy

Written by Robyn Dutra Photograph by Michael Greenberg James Walley has been called “the King of Butt-Flattering Denim Design,” and his coronation has come after only a few short years since founding My Ass jeans in 2004. To say the “sexiest jeans in Europe” are made of premium denim merely hints at the true innovation […]

Street Pulse: Oslo, Norway
Street Pulse: Oslo, Norway

Oslo might not be Europe’s largest metropolis, but then again, that’s part of its charm. For the Travel issue, SOMA trekked over the green hills and open skylines that surround Norway’s capital to find some of the hidden secrets of the “City of Tigers.” 1. Where do you go to find yourself? 2. What do […]

One Flew Over Cuckoo Country
One Flew Over Cuckoo Country

Text by Danielle Grant Photograph by Karl Walter Stand-up comedy is a relatively new form of performance art that has created some of our nation’s most treasured and fascinating personalities, and we want more. Meet Jasper Redd. Redd is a good old-fashioned Southern boy who decided to pursue comedy on a whim and moved to […]

Destination Dia: Beacon
Destination Dia: Beacon

Text by Franklin Melendez As the hard New York skyline is dissolved into a soft geometry by the train’s steady movement, one can’t help but develop an increasing awareness of passing through space and time. Imperceptibly at first, the simple act of moving redraws the landscape according to subtle shifts in architecture, light quality and […]

The Communist Mammoths of Bratislava
The Communist Mammoths of Bratislava

Text by Eric Smillie Photograph by Gregor Hohenberg I arrived in Bratislava, Slovakia, on a cold, wet day in October. After traveling by train for 26 hours from sunny Barcelona sans jacket, my new employer met me at the station and whisked me to my apartment on the 11th floor of a concrete, Communist-era housing […]

The Polished Old Country
The Polished Old Country

Text & photograph by Kristin Gifford When Americans think of Poland, three things often come to mind: the cold, disparaging Polack jokes, and Communism. Yes, it’s cold in the winter, but that’s where the similarities between the stereotypical Poland and the real Poland ends. For one thing, Poland is now part of the European Union, […]

Hanami
Hanami

Text by Douglas Hargrave Japan is known for its distinct seasons: lush, humid summers, drastically beautiful autumn, and cold, snowy winters. And when springtime arrives, the defining seasonal aspect in Japan is the cherry blossoms. Hanami, or blossom viewing, is a tradition in Japan that dates back over 1,200 years to the Nara period when […]

Michael Kenna’s Nightscapes
Michael Kenna’s Nightscapes

During the sleepy hours most of us never witness, a lone photographer shoots an empty landscape. Michael Kenna is a master at capturing the arresting echoes of light in dim landscapes. There is something mysterious, haunting and – at the risk of sounding cliché – Zen about his work. His pictures are almost always taken […]


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