Just as we were thinking we couldn’t write another thing – didn’t have a clear thought in our head – Maria Robledo sent us this photo of the crazy-beautiful flower she was balancing on her knee as she and floral designer Lindsey Taylor were driving home from a photo shoot. Somehow, it seemed like a perfect post for the morning.
“I just have to say the order of this amazing specimen floors me” wrote Maria.
“Passiflora caerulea –blue passionflower” wrote Lindsey, who grew it on her 11th floor terrace in New York City.
(Video link here.) This stop-action video tracking 5 years of one man’s appearance makes us wonder how much how we look, and what our style is, affects our experience and identity…
…And the many choices we can make about our appearance.
Going through airport security checkpoint a couple of weeks ago, the TSA agent looked at Sally’s passport picture and said, “Why did you change your hair?” read more…
When we saw this image from Natural Style Outdoor Spaces on Style Files, we immediately thought: shipping pallets would make a perfect base. You’d hardly have to desconstruct them. Just clean them up (stack if desired) and place slip-covered foam cushions on them (here’s a how-to), for chic lounging pallets that would work inside or out.
It’s curious how inspiring shipping pallets have become…We find ourselves building with them in our heads like some sort of mental Tinkertoy…
The race is breathtaking, and a big reminder of just what’s possible if you set your mind to it, and work and practice, and are willing to not have things be be perfect, until suddenly they become just that.
”I am living proof, that with enough desire and determination, any obstacle can be overcome.”
Check out more revelatory pictures from the paralympics at Big Picture.
(Video link here.) The latest video from cyclist Danny MacAskill has an added feature: insight into MacAskill’s thinking and interior approach to his challenging stunts and excursions: JOYRIDE.
We’re crazy for rusted metal. We love the intentionally-rusted corton steel planters used at the High Line have amassed a strangely beautiful collection of pieces we’ve found in our wanderings, like the three-sided forms we use as book or artwork stands. So we were smitten when we saw images of this very modern house designed by Blank Studio, with its juxtaposition of rusted corrugated metal and plexiglass. It made us run to look up how to intentionally rust corrugated metal (which you can do using photo acid and other methods).
It gave us some ideas for the ancient garden chair we’ve set out on the terrace to see what would happen if we let it rust, intentionally. read more…
We love this crazy hauling bike and wish we knew the story behind it. We spotted it on Dargelos‘ blog in a post called ‘the mailman’s fahrrad’ (‘fahrrad’ means bicycle in German). Dargelos is an onliine store that sells great, intelligent biking gear, like the illuminating vest we posted awhile back. We have their Transporter knapsack, which we couldn’t live without: it’s light and holds a lot without looking bulky or feeling heavy: perfect for our long days wandering around town. read more…
This Vancouver house carved out of stumps in the early 1900′s is our idea of swell, the perfect eccentric, elemental, minimalist retreat:
“…3 rooms.The lower stump on right was the kitchen, the lower part of the highter stump on the left was the living room. The bedroom, doorless, was reached by a ladder removed in daytime to the kitchen…”
It reminds us a favorite young adult novel we’ve read a million times: read more…
We want one! It makes us wonder why we never see men sporting half a mustache…what a surprise that would be.
(Sofia was in Peru this summer with 100 clowns from all over the world. They were painting murals in poor villages and working/transforming the vibe in clinics. GO Sofia!)
Lush, fragrant summer strawberries are in their last week or two at farm stands. We bought some home and were inspired to serve them in the giant horn spoon Maria Robledo had given us, for an unexpected presentation. We ate them right off the stems, no powdered sugar necessary. It reminded us that there are all kinds of charming and unexpected vessels you could use for serving summer berries. We imagined an our collection of big odd serving spoons filled with berries and arrayed on the table.
If you decide to remove the hulls before serving the berries or cooking with them, don’t throw them away: they can make a great instant flavoring for balsamic vinegar. read more…
Since it’s the last week of summer and most folks are off frolicking, and since we’re still not quite up-to-snuff, we’ll be posting once a day (or so) on ‘the improvised life’ through Labor Day.
It’s August and in real time the city of Paris is virtually deserted; everyone is away. But that doesn’t stop us from taking a virtual tour of Paris in our heads, and reveling in that magic city, and refreshing our overworked brains. Researchers are now saying downtime is ESSENTIAL to creativity (which we knew all along.) So take two minutes to get off the schedule and GO!
We recently found some photos that we took in the fabled Chelsea Hotel’s a few months before anyone knew it would be closing. (Click here to listen to Leonard Cohen singing Chelsea Hotel,which he wrote for Janis Joplin, while you read on). We’d been to artist John Wellington’s birthday party in one of the rooms there, and as we were clumping down the iron stairwell on our way out, we couldn’t help but admire the wild graffiti that adorned the fire extinquishers in the corner of each landing: an ubiquitous, essential tool made into something grander than it’s usual self… read more…
