Wanderlust | The Merchants of Venice

At some point Venice, the longtime epicenter of Los Angeles cool, surrendered its title to other neighborhoods, like Silver Lake and Los Feliz. But some recently opened businesses are beckoning that attention back, particularly along Rose Avenue, thoroughfare to the Pacific Ocean.

 

Big Red Sun
An offshoot from its flagship location in Austin, Tex., Big Red Sun is a garden store as envisioned by Dr. Seuss. The building itself is painted a vibrant green, surely to match its contents. A visit to the store is a passive education in botany and an inspiration for those cursed with a yellow thumb to cultivate a beautiful garden.
564 Rose Avenue

What Gives | Gifting the Jet-Setter

The editors of T Magazine present What Gives, a guide to holiday gifting.

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Cheap and cheerful Uno note cards ($32) pass the holiday test with flying colors. Kate Spade’s Par Avion cosmetics pouch ($45) allows the frequent flier in your life to upgrade from the quart-size Ziploc bag to first class.

Kate Spade Par Avion cosmetics pouch, $45 at 454 Broome Street boutique, (212) 274-1991.
Uno Cards & Envelopes Set (Large), $32 at Liba Style.

Need more gift ideas? Read previous posts of What Gives.

Now Online | T’s Holiday Issue

In a season that’s usually long on tradition, the new Holiday edition of T is instead all about fresh starts. Beginning with our cover stars, the Hollywood power couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes — the magazine’s print edition has two different covers, half featuring Cruise and half Holmes, both shot by Solve Sundsbo — it’s a riot of redux, from a head-tripping essay on great moments in reinvention (from Jesus to J.F.K.) to articles on the new and improved Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, the ever-changing homes of Karl Lagerfeld, a resort town in Kenya that’s gone all dolce vita and dinner with the design remasterer Martino Gamper. Our Originals portfolio spotlights the cultural creatives of Japan, the most innovation-obsessed country on the planet, while the photographer Camilla Akrans chimes in with a new spin on Carmen Miranda, and Erwan Frotin thoroughly retools T’s annual gift guide. Now that’s change we can believe in.

Bed Hopping | New Hotels in Miami

 

The Gansevoort rooftop pool.
Miami’s hotel scene is booming yet again (or maybe it’s never really stopped booming), with a heaping handful of recent openings and reopenings — and a few yet to come. T’s deputy travel editor Maura Egan takes a few hours out from Art Basel reporting to give us the skinny on the top new properties.

Gansevoort South
Checking in: New York’s meatpacking district hot spot headed south last spring to join its boutique brethren on the South Beach strip. It turns out the new outpost is anything but boutique —

Art Basel Miami Beach | In Search of Middle America

From left: “Mark,” 2007 (Jacob Dyrenforth); “Storage Headboard (after John G. Shea),” (2005), (Simparch)

The mad scramble to White Columns at the NADA art fair looked like a clearance sale. The red “sold” dots lining the gallery’s walls for the limited-edition prints by Wade Guyton and Ari Marcopoulos ($150 each) suggested that even frugal shoppers were willing to whip out the credit card if the price was right.

Cheap Eats | Beyond Bangers and Mash

 

Elaine Louie’s “Savoir Fare London.” (William P. O’Donnell/The New York Times)

Props are in order for one of the Times’ own, Elaine Louie, whose new guidebook, “Savoir Fare London: Stylish Dining for Under $25.00″ (The Little Book Room; $14.95) is out this week. Even with the pummeled pound, getting out of a restaurant in London that cheaply strikes me as depressing and possibly illegal. But Elaine (full disclosure: we’ve chatted in the elevator and I know her daughter, Anna Sussman, who writes for T Travel) has managed to sniff out a wide range of excellent, affordable, attractive places —

Now Closing | An L.A. Art Haven

“Hysterical Paradise,” 2008 (Jennifer Vanderpool)

If you happen to be in the Culver City area of Los Angeles in the next couple of days, pay a visit to Bandini Art Gallery to check out the L.A.-based artist Jennifer Vanderpool’s installation “Hysterical Paradise.” At first glance, one is reminded of that magical moment when Dorothy lands in Oz and everything goes Technicolor. At closer look, this garden is the explosive result of when a hoarder happens upon the Bedazzler.

The Day In the Life of a Basel Player

A center piece created by the interior decorator Rick Clifton for the Art in America dinner in honor of its redesign. (Nick Hunt/PatrickMcMullan.com)

Where else in the art world do business and pleasure mix as effortlessly as at Art Basel Miami Beach? We asked Mariko Munro, a fair regular and the associate director of 303 Gallery, to report from the trenches. Her play-by-play from yesterday’s activities are below.

Props Dept. | It’s Our Birthday

(Corbis)

This Saturday, November 29, marked an occasion we’d like to call momentous: the birth of The Moment blog. What better way to celebrate than to uncork and rewind?

Art & Commerce | Wearable Murakami in Tokyo

The United States and Japan are officially in a recession. The art auction phenomenon has finally slowed, and fashion brands are tightening their logo belts for a dreary winter. Despite the holiday lights that brighten the streets of Tokyo’s upscale shopping neighborhoods, the mood at retail is not one of confidence.

However, Tokyo is a city of surprise and has its most fun by defying the world. For two weeks starting on November 1, two of its most famous creative entrepreneurs, Hiroshi Fujiwara, the mercurial culture curator and stylist/designer, collaborated with Takashi Murakami, one of today’s most influential artists, to produce “Hi & Lo” at Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki Gallery.