torley manor

It’s been since July since i’ve last posted on this thing; October since Emma has posted anything. We have been neglecting this blog. It’s not as if we haven’t been doing anything. We’ve just got out of the blogging groove and just haven’t made the effort to get back into it. But with a new year, we have decided to breathe some life back into this blog.

FUN-A-DAY!
Of course, January 1st means many things to many people around the world and one thing that it means around Pittsburgh in recent years is the beginning of the Fun-A-Day project. As you may recall, both Emma and myself participated in the project last year. Emma wrote a 12-Bar Blues Song A Day and I did a Pgh Drawing-A-Day. This year we are both participating again. Emma is doing another music-based project that will be more like 4 week long projects rather than a project per day. I’ll let her post more about that. My project involves me going to a different cafe each day this month, doing a quick review of the cafe and their tea selections, a little photo documentation, and spending the rest of my time at the cafe working on writing. Two specific writing projects will be getting some attention — 1) this blog, and 2) writings for a new issue of the long overdue tenth issue of my zine Here.Be.Dragons. If all goes well, you’ll be kept updated on my progress on this very blog.

DAY ONE
For day one of my project, we visited one of our neighborhood regulars — The Quiet Storm. The QS has the advantage of being relatively close to our house and offering veggie food options, so it was the perfect stop for a relaxed New Year’s morning visit. As a tea drinker, I really like the QS because 1) they use loose tea, 2) their teas are excellent quality, and 3) they give you your tea in a tall glass. I forget where they get their teas from, but their Earl Grey and English Breakfast (my two standards) are incredibly delicious compared with their teabag counterparts at most other local cafes. They have a modest selection of teas — about a dozen — with a handful of them being herbals. Nothing too fancy. Depending on when you are there, the QS is notorious for having slooow service and the quality of the food can be hit or miss. New Year’s morning service was great however, as was the food.

Tall glass of English Breakfast with soy creamer. Emma’s just rockin’ some coffee


The VHF — a pile of smashed taters and roasted veggies covered in vegan red pepper mayo. Emma’s got the smashed taters smothered in gravy, soysage and a fruit cup.

SOME OTHER STUFF WE’VE BEEN INTO SINCE I’VE LAST POSTED ON THIS BLOG

Emma bought me a weiner dog lamp for my birthday

Then she took me away for a weekend birthday excursion to Columbus. We ate crazy amounts of crazy delicious food, including this meal at Dragonfly neo-v

Also Columbus had a huge Lego Yoda

We harvested our POPCORN!! And it worked and is delicious!!!

The Mr. Roboto Project, which I was involved in getting started, celebrated its 10th anniversary. I made these Shepherd Fairey rip-off posters to celebrate the event…

…and then coated the facade of the storefront with them.

Designed to glow at night!!

For a holiday gift for friends and family, I did my first ever 3-color silkscreen. The text and basic imagery for this poster was taken from the book ‘Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability’ by David Holmgren.

Here’s an old-timey six-pack holder I made to give my dad a gift of PA-brewed beers for xmas

Emma and I invested in a Carnegie Museums membership. Only $100 for both of us to be members for a whole year. It gets us into each of the 4 Carnegie museums (art, natural history, Warhol, and Science Center) as much as we want, so we’ve been to each of them in the last couple months. This photo is from the Miniature Railroad and Village at the Carnegie Science Center, depicting a Women’s suffrage march in early 20th Century Pittsburgh.

Well, that should give you some idea of some of what we’ve been up to on Torley Street for the last several months. Here in 2010 we’re gonna make a better effort to keep this thing updated. Stay tuned.