We’ve just learned that famed restauranteur, Richard Sandoval and his restaurant group, will take over the Nuela spot. Sandoval is known for restaurants like Maya, Biblioteca and DohYo at the Yotel space in New York. Additionally, he has spots in Dubai, Las Vegas, Santa Monica, D.C. and Colorado. Chef Richard Sandoval was voted the Best Mexican Chef in America by The Huffington Post, but his team has been busy studying Peruvian cuisine in Peru, under Chef Jamie, From Mayta Restaurant in Lima. Raymi will also featured pisco infusions at the restaurant as well as Chef Jamie’s signature dishes and a ceviche bar.

If you still miss Nuela, stay tuned, as we’ll be bringing you those two cocktail recipes, mentioned above, by Alex Cajusted: Espusmoso Sour & Amazonas, in a special video segment soon!

For now you can visit, www.richardsandoval.com/raymi

Raymi: 43 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10010; 212.929.1200

Editor Steve V. with Rachael Sage

Rachael Sage has made a big name for herself in the Indie music scene, being named one of the Top 100 Independent Artists Of The Past 15 Years,  while running her record label, Mpress Records. She just dropped her 10th studio album entitled, “Haunted By You”. Music has always been at the forefront for Sage who began playing piano at age 3. She’s always had a business savvy mind starting her own hair barrette business with a friend at age 10 and making her own cassette recordings of her music on  a 4-track recording system to get people to hear her music. I sat down with Sage to get to know the artist/business woman to find out how she divides her time between the left and right side of her brain. Watch the video below and  sample tracks from “Haunted by You” which is available on iTunes. You can download her first single, “Invisible You” for free, plus be entered to see Sage Live on May 19th: Download, “Invisible Light”

Various Projects Showroom features several progressive fashion labels like Christian Wijnants, Fort Makers and Walter Van Beirendonck. They even carry their own label of suits, rain gear and salvaged denim.  Carlton Jones paid a visit to the showroom to check out his favorite designers to look out for this Fall. Watch the video!

Arielle de Pinto: www.arielledepinto.com

Christian Wijnants: www.christianwijnants.be

Walter Van Beirendonck: www.waltervanbeirendonck.com

Fort Makers: www.fortmakers.com

Various Projects: www.various-projects.com

Artist: Jordan Eagles

The seventh edition of PULSE  Contemporary Art Fair in New York took place last weekend at the Metropolitan Pavilion. The international fair also has an edition that coincides with Art Basel in Miami every year. This year’s fair featured surprising art work from Courtney Love as well as inspired work from Fred Wilson (“Sneaky Leaky” and “Reign”) and artist, Jordan Eagles (pictured left)  who uses copper dust and cow’s blood to create a truly recycled work of art. Watch the video interview below to learn about these artists and more with Director, Cornell DeWit.

Black Taxi is one of NYC’s most prominent live acts and their sophomore album puts them en route with such bands as The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand and some hints of The Killers. Right at the first song (Tightrope) you get and upbeat tempo rock sound that recalls Two Doors Cinema Club, for me.

Songs like “Hands” or “Balloons on Barbed Wire” will fit just perfectly in a playlist with the Black Kids’ “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You” and the already mentioned Strokes, FF, Two Doors, Orson, Phoenix, and Kings of Leon.

Mayo’s vocals, at some moments seem to just not care (in a snazzy stylish good way) and it helps to keep this garage rock vibe. The only downside is when Ezra Huleatt (vocals/keys/trumpet), Bill Mayo (guitar/vocals), Krisana Soponpong (bass), and Jason Holmes (drums/vocals) slowdown in songs like “Holding on to Nothing”, “Hope I Never Know” and “Vultures”. The songs are ok. Some are even very nice but they will break the mood if you play the album in a party. But if you’re just listening like you just don’t care (in a snazzy stylish good way) you’re good to go on this ride in the Black Taxi.

Curacao is an island near the coast of Venezuela. It’s only a 40 minute flight, from Caracas, to arrive there. It is 444 square km and it is the biggest island from the ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao)- all part of the Netherlands Antilles.

Although their official language is Dutch, they speak Papiamento, which is a mixture of Portuguese, Spanish, English and Dutch as well as African and Indigenous Amerindian languages. It is easy to find people that speak English and Spanish and they accept American Dollars all around the island.

It’s a beautiful destination with beautiful beaches and the wild nature of some parts of the island.  Also worth checking out is downtown, which earned UNESCO’s hallmark of World Heritage City in 1997.

The floating market, located in Punda, is their solution to the fact that they don’t plant and grow anything on the island. Small vendors come from the continent with their boats, and sell their produce in front of the boat, living during the week inside these boats.

Curacao has natural beauty, beautiful landscape, historical sites (as the oldest synagogue in the Occident), and beautiful hotels.

Their people are friendly but there is no elegance in their restaurants, Casinos and hotels. They serve champagne in wine glasses, the food is not always well presented and it is very hard to find a good seafood restaurant. If you go there looking for lobsters, big shrimps and other seafood, you will be disappointed.

However, if you are  looking for a place to rest,  wear bermudas and sandals all the time and, want to swim among various types of fish by the shore (without needing to dive), Curacao is the right place for you.

But that all changed today.   In the most sweeping of news, unexpected by many to happen today, President Obama has evolved.  He now supports full marriage equality on the Federal level though did, appropriately I think, equivocate to allow states to evolve at their own pace.  What happened and why?

Realistically, this has to have been Obama’s position for the long haul.  But, as President, he has a duty to represent all of the people and he didn’t feel the country was ready for the President (as opposed to the person Obama) to take this position.  Thus, he has been publicly reticent to state what many felt was his private position of comfort about marriage.  For me, this is another reason why I support Mr. Obama.  He takes his time and moves when the time is right.  He calls the shots but does not fire improvidently.  Why now?  I think it is because of the vote in North Carolina yesterday.  The passing of the despicable North Carolina Amendment was a bridge to far and merged the evolving Mr. Obama with the evolved President Obama.  He could not let this vote stand morally or politically.

From a moral perspective, the vote in North Carolina was another example of why a President sometimes has to take a strong position on a controversial measure that might not make everyone happy.  President Obama saw the narrative coming out of North Carolina as one showing that the country, the Democrats, and President Obama are timid for the right reason.  Most of the middle in the country aren’t ready for gay marriage.  So, politically, the obvious choice was to sit still as the President has for some time and let the election happen.  Keep the middle happy (face it, where are we going…to W. Mitt Romney, I don’t think so) and complacent and hope for electoral votes from N.C. and other states.  But sometimes the moral must trump the political and sometimes the two actually might work in concert.  President Obama is quite smart and politically astute.  He saw the non-obvious and determined now was the moral time–refocus the compass even if it means hurting his reelect in places like NC.  But, realistically, by being bold at exactly this moment, President Obama reminds us being right sometimes is the smart play.  He takes a position that has just been shown as politically not in favor (a 20 percent margin win in North Carolina) in a state he probably needs in November and takes a strong position against the vote.  It was the right way to somewhat fix the wrong done by the North Carolina electorate and shows boldness even though it may mean that he does not win the electoral vote of his convention state.  It is also politically smart because it stops a firestorm in the LGBT community against NC as host of the convention and shows political courage at a moment when the easy play was to let things lie.

The press made a lot of whether the Vice President “stepped in it” with his comments.  I don’t think he did.  I think that the VP (a man I have come to admire more and more) took a stand that reflected his conscience and was in concert with that of Mr. Obama, though not yet of President Obama and helped the President Obama determine to act now.  They make an admirable team and the LGBT community owes both a great deal of thanks.

And, we all owe the LGBT community a debt of gratitude for never letting the President off the hook.  In 2007, then candidate Obama told a small group of lawyers in San Francisco (I was present) on Presidents Day that he was in conflict on this issue.  He wasn’t there yet but we, as a community of progressives and especially those in the LGBT community, needed to push him.  He couldn’t promise it would get him to agree on marriage equality but it might and that was our job.  We did just that–it hasn’t always been pretty but it has been effective.

I feel a lot better as an American today that our President, Vice-President and soon the entire Democratic Party are going to take the right road in this Human Rights battle even in the fact of proof, the North Carolina vote, that the road may be hard.  President Obama is a Profile in Courage even though he gets there, often, as with Afghanistan and Bin Laden, after a great deal of deliberation.  Thank goodness–exactly what I want and the Country needs in a President.