The art of Gregory Manchess

I love the way that Gregory Manchess paints. When I was in art school, I used to clip his illustrations when I found them, and save them in my scrap file. It's like every stroke defines a plane, with light, with color, with direction. It's so beautiful.

J.K. Rowling's Harvard Commencement Speech

I know that it's been posted everywhere. But I'm tucking it away here, to remind myself.

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination
- J.K. Rowling

Like a Whirling Dervish

(image of Whirling Dervishes via Travels with Kathleen & Christian)

When I was really little, we used to play outside all day long. My parents were young and poor and hippies ("No Heather, it was the Earth Movement... it was a very different thing" I can hear my mom's voice in my head... and whatever. I mean, yes, my Dad was in the army in the very very early 70's, but I was also born EXACTLY 9 months after Woodstock is all I'm sayin'). This meant that we had no TV. Almost all of our produce was organic because my parents turned our backyard into a huge vegetable garden (ie, not green living so much as frugal living, although it's funny how life turns out). My mom made all my clothes. The house always smelled like freshly baked home made bread, and at night, she took out her old acoustic guitar and sat in the space between my brother's room and mine, and sang us folk songs until we fell asleep.

I try to remember what we spent our days doing. I remember only coming home when I absolutely had to, at the end of the day, when the sun was going down. I remember getting a bath every night, not just because it was bath time, but because whatever I had done each day had me coming home, happy but covered in dirt and grime.

"You and your brother are like a band of whirling dervishes!" my mom would say.

And maybe that was even true. Because when I try to remember the things we did, I come up with these scattered and fragmented memories:

- Pulling leaves off of the big tree in someone's yard and pulling them apart to suck the white milky sap inside.

- Hanging from a branch of that same tree, upside down, until the world righted itself and it didn't feel like I was looking upside down anymore... and then getting down from the tree and standing up, and watching the world turn upside down inside my eyes.

- Spinning in circles with my arms outstretched, until I fell over, laughing, and smelling the green grass beneath my face.

Somehow, when I was little being called a whirling dervish was akin to being called a Tasmanian Devil.

(yeah yeah, ok I know, not THAT kind, but he's so cute! image via Mr C's Smog Blog)

I read recently, that a Dervish is a Muslim mystic. That the practice of whirling dervishes was an attempt to reach religious ecstasy, practiced by a sect of dervishes from Turkey. That the poet Rumi may have been, at some moment or another in his life, a whirling dervish.

And it seems to me, that it's been a long time since I whirled around in circles, and turned my face to the sun, and laughed until i fell down laughing.

Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest songs of all time

Actual rolling stone image via Luminous Landscape.

Thanks to Eric, who sent me this link (via Rolling Stone). I have to be honest... Rolling Stone and I have not always seen eye to eye. I tend to come down on the side of poetry. One voice, one instrument, that's pretty much the road to perfect for me. It may be that I'm just a simpleton and don't quite have the ear for more complex forms of music. That being said, this list is pretty great.

The World's Smallest Piano...

discovered via adorablog

"What is this" (rubs fingers together)

(shrug)

"This is the world's smallest violin, playing My Heart Bleeds for You".

OK, so it's a piano, not a violin. And, ok, it doesn't play My Heart Bleeds For you. Instead, it plays works from the likes of Tchaikovsky and Billy Joel. It is a fully functional baby baby baby grand (though maybe Grand is not the word here) although with keys smaller than a baby fingerprint, it's apparently a bit of a challenge. According to this article from knbc.com (circa 2006), if you have an extra $500 lying around, and you are in Japan, this baby-baby-mini can be all yours.

... which will maybe make you want to change your tune to this.

Living Inside a Mystery

Imagine finding secrets hidden behind trick panels, puzzles, and strange keyholes, in your home. A mysterious adventure that involved teams of people years to create, just for you. And no one ever told you about it, waiting for you to tumble upon it on your own. Check out this article on the Puzzle House (via Lori Langille's blog, automatism)

I love the idea of musical scores hidden in secret drawers, poems with your name in them encrypted on Radiator covers; hidden compartments, puzzles, secret messages... and poems, hidden in the walls.

What an adventure it must have been, over the months it took to find all the clues. But then again, I kind of love the idea it brings home, that life is an adventure, that we leave our imprint as a kind of hidden mystery wherever we hang our hat.

What all the Astronauts Will be Wearing This Season...

In the Future, we will all be wearing these. Some of us will be wearing skin tight body suits, some of us will be wearing some strange amalgamation of retro-nostalgia, but there will be, in any case, trips to the Moon for High Tea.

There are all sorts of beautiful Tea-Worthy clothes to match, waiting to be drooled over at Plumo.

Steampunk Keyboard

*sigh*
This beautiful hand-made keyboard is the brilliant work of one Richard R. Nagy. He has a lot of other incredibly beautiful hand made pieces on his website, Datamacer. The price for his one of a kind keyboards, though justified, puts it sadly out of my reach.

According to his website, his designs are based on THIS design and walk through, by Jake von Slatt over at the SteamPunk Workshop.

*sigh again*
...

"Dear Santa....."

The Art of Kung Fu Panda

Found this wonderful movie on Character Design. It shows images from the new book, The Art of Kung-Fu Panda. It really was an amazing movie. I was blown away by the character and environmental design, by the lighting and the mood, everything. I can't wait to get my hands on this book.
*drool*


K-Fu from R Sly on Vimeo.

Yes, No, Maybe

I love the idea of this necklace from adorapop. It's sooo pretty. Three faces, yes, no and maybe. Of course, I would probably just play with it, spinning it round and round...

The Birds of Dreams

When I was six, my parents moved into your basic generic Colonial type brick house in the Suburbs. Everything was pretty normal... except that the walk in closet in the room that ended up being mine, had bright purple plush carpet on the floor, and the walls were wallpapered with this groovy print with lurid neon hippy versions of "love love love". I tried to imagine what kind of person might create such a haven out of a closet... and in my six year old mind, I imagined that it was a secret place, where dreams were meant to live. The dreams of someone who really really really liked purple.

I've never been one for wallpaper. But there have been things I've seen in the last year or so that make me think I could change my mind... for the right wallpaper... something with tone on tone broad vertical stripes maybe... or this, from Trove. Imagine the dreams that a walk in closet could contain, if the walls were covered with the shadows of birds in flight. Where dreams could go dancing among out of season sweaters, and stashed away suitcases.


... and maybe something like this, with an old fashioned bulb, to light their way.

Portrait Artist, Michael Hussar

Found the site of Michael Hussar today. God, I wish I could paint like that.

Bone Deep

From the blog of Rob H.

There is something about skulls. Something that is somehow more lasting. This part of us that remains, calm and beautiful, when the life that we have lead has long gone. These beautiful shapes and hollows. The way the fragile delicate lace like walls inside the nasal cavities can look almost like flowers... The implied history that we can never truly know.

Mill Valley is filled with Pod People.

For one thing, I think Invasion of the Body Snatcher might have been more of a documentary, a warning if you will, and they just don’t want us to know.

For another thing, there is the 2 second delay. It’s bizarre. You ask someone a direct question and you get a two second delay. It’s as if no one is home. At first, I just assumed that everyone was high. I mean, like REALLY high, ALL the time. Like maybe it’s somehow been slipped into the water supply. But even then you would get an occasional flash of something that resembles… I dunno, LIFE, or rational thinking, or something. Which is where the pod people idea came in. Now I think what is happening during those two seconds where the lights are on but no one is home, is that they are trying to approximate natural human interaction. Also, they are trying to lure us into giving up all hope and taking a nap.

Take today for example, when I had to call around to a million Longs Drugs, to find this $20 blue latex bag to swaddle Her Royal Highness in, so that she can go swimming with her cast on. As a side note, I have decided that I officially hate Longs Drugs and everything they represent. Their website is the suck. The driving directions that they so helpfully include, are wrong. And the items they list as available, are not available. However, they seem to be the only place that sells the overpriced garbage bags I require, and so to Longs it is. Alas, there are no Longs Drugs within the city limits of my beloved San Francisco. And why is that? I am guessing it’s because someone in the know, KNOWS that Longs is made of poo, and wisely denied them their SF Day Pass.

But that means that I needed to call around to find the closest one with one of these casty thingies. The first Longs I tried was in Marin City, which, for the record, is also populated with waspy weird white Pod People. I call, and then have three different people pick up the phone, and then tell me to hold on, they will go look in the aisles to see if they have the ACTIVE SEAL CAST PROTECTOR THINGIE blah blah blah, each never to return again (I am going to guess that they got distracted by pretty lights along the way). Finally the fourth woman to randomly pick up the phone tells me,

“hello, what?….. oh…. No, I don’t think we have anything like that here….goodbye."

Finally, FINALLY, I get around to the Mill Valley Longs. They eventually tell me, yes, they have one in stock. Yeay. Longs Drugs online tells me that the store if a simple 15 minutes drive from my home. Yeay again.

They are so lying to me. Round and round and round I go, till finally, I pull out my iphone and map where the hell I am, and how to get to the Mill Vally Longs. Along the way, I pass the Milly Valley Middle school, notable mostly for a big shiny exclamation point statue in the front of the school.

Right there with you, exclamation point. Whoever put that statue there, probably originally just wanted to go to the store for a pack of mints or something, and never escaped.

Three million years later, we finally find the Mill Valley Longs. I look up and down the aisles, but can only find ridiculous looking water proof cast baggies for grown ups. I go to the pharmacy and ask the nice woman there… wait patiently for the 2 second delay, and speak slowly using simple words.

She smiles nicely, and leads me right back to the adult sizes.

Her Royal Highness, who up to the point has been incredibly patient (because I bribed compliance in this whole fiasco by promising her that a chocolate milkshake might be involved) is hobbling along behind me with her crutches.

“no, no, I need CHILD sizes,” I explain. Pod woman smiles nicely, then stares back down at the adult sizes again for another 2 second delay. She turns to me slowly, confused.

“I’m sorry, “ she says, “but…..” she wanders off and then comes back, “I don’t know….”

I thank her for her help and pod woman wanders off. Meanwhile, Her Royal Highness leans down and pulls out a tiny cardboard square from the bottom shelf.

“Is this it mom?" She asks me. And indeed it is. Two sheets of blue latex, sealed together, with a small hole at the top of one edge where a leg can be inserted. That’s it. $20.

And yet I am tempted to buy a second one, just because I fear having to repeat this process.

Waterproof Cast Covers are due for a Makeover...

Ugh.
This is the "Seal-Tight Active Seal Waterproof Seal for Casts and Bandages"
yep, that's right, the SATASWSCB. How's that for a short and catchy name? I require one for a certain little girl that tripped on her ballet costume and broke her ankle, 5 minutes before the end of the year recital that she'd been practicing for ALL YEAR.

So now, in addition to missing a PRIME chance to be on stage (which, as she assures me, was the WHOLE POINT of doing all that practicing all year in the first place) she will now have to wear what amounts to a blue plastic bag with a seal around her leg, if she wants to go to the Lake for Summer Camp. Which... you know, kinda sucks.

And, seriously, is this the BEST they could come up with? And I say this, having spent an entire week just trying to get my hands on one of these hideous and expensive plastic bags. I mean, come on, this is only slightly better than a garbage bag and a rubber band. For $20, there should be at least a little bling. Like, how about some cool tattoos printed on the plastic? I dunno, I'm just saying this is ugly, expensive, hard to find, and ....um, stupid. I think there is a huge market out there for attractive cast covers, waterproof and otherwise.

Paul Massey, Photographer

I discovered the amazing photography of Paul Massey today, via Anna Spiro's blog, absolutely beautiful things (Thanks Anna!, should she ever find my little blog)

*sigh*

I love his quality of light. His images seem so still and serene. There is this sense of light and time. People seem caught in a passing moment; blurred images going up or down staircases, children asleep at the dinner table. There is no dust or the random accumulation of crud, but instead, the linens are freshly laundered and lightly folded, while the walls tell the veiled story of the passage of time.

As if his images catch the beauty the way a memory will catch at it... the little details that made you love a place, that you didn't notice till looking back on it later.

I love this.

A day at the Alameda Antiques Fair

Finally managed to go through my photos from a fantastic Sunday at the Alameda Antique Fair of a few weeks ago.I was at once, overwhelmed, and mesmerized.

So many things. Beautiful things, tacky things, half broken things, things that remind me of moments, of the distant past or the not so distant. From every era. High end things and low end things. The sound of an old Victrola and the smell of caramel corn... all filtered through the blue shadows of the morning light as it faded into a bright and sunny day.

So many different things that people collect. Watch faces, old type writer keys, shoes... microscopes, salt and pepper shakers, you name it. I was particularly captivated by the collections of old bottles, with their glass of many colors, reflecting shadows onto one another.

There is always one thing you wish you could take home, no matter how silly. This harliquin lamp was the thing for me. I don't have a place for him, and I don't know what kind of lamp shade wouldn't be just silly, but there was something about him that made me think I could have made him work. Of course, if he had come home with me, he would have ended up with a repaint. He so clearly doesn't want to be wearing white. He wants to be dressed entirely in black, with dark deep red diamonds, and tiny gold buttons for his details. Maybe a paper lantern, papered to look like a globe would work? I don't know. In any case, I walked away. Though, if I saw him again....

These Foolish Things Remind Me of You

Gallery painting by Robert Heindel, via Leif Peng's fantastic illustration blog, Today's Inspiration.

"What are you thinking?" asks Fernando

"That life is this marvelous and terrifying mystery."

"Don't you ever think about anything BIG?" He tightens his arms, kisses my hair.

I sit in the warmth of him, his heart beating through me and into mine. And I wonder why it is that, of all the thousands upon thousands of people who pass through one's life, most leave not a trace. Into abandon and oblivion they are consigned, as though they were never there. And more curious, why do those few, only those few, stay somewhere safe, dying even, but never entirely so, engraving the heart, deep and smooth?"
- Marlena De Blasi, A Thousand Days in Tuscany


One of my favorite scenes from Citizen Kane, via David Apatoff's blog, Illustration Art.

Fort Baker is open for business

According to SF Gate, Fort Baker will be open for business this Saturday. According to the article, there is a cooking school, a zen-LIKE retreat, some art galleries, and .... you know, the views.

*sigh*

Can't wait to go and take my camera with me.

Tea Lights

Tea lights, by Domestic Construction. Well, at least that's one thing to do with all those old cups that have a way of multiplying when you aren't looking. Although I don't know if the effect would be quite the same with a cluster of "I'm the Boss!" and "Virginia is for Lovers" type coffee mugs.
Alas.

Maze, by James Jean

The first time I saw a cover for Fables, I was enchanted. There is something so beautiful about James Jean's work. I remember being disappointed in the comic because the story wasn't as ethereal, as beautiful as I had expected from the exterior image.

ProcessRecess is the blog of James Jean. Where, for a moment, we can peak into his sketches and paintings.

Flowers on the balcony

Treats and Treasures is the blog/sketchbook of Marieke Berghuis Leewens. I love the way she puts her pages together.

Lisa Neimeth's San Francisco Studio

Apartment Therapy recently ran an interview with Lisa Neimeth, an SF sculptor. Included with a charming interview were some amazing pictures of her fantastic house in the Inner Sunset. I love this part of San Francisco. I love the fog. But also, I love these images from Lisa's studio! OMG. There is a slideshow of more beautiful and drool-worthy images.

Monopoly paintings

I love Design*Sponge. I saw this photo there recently. I love the green room from the studio of Catherine Conlin. She created the wonderful Monopoly painting you see hanging on the wall. I love what look like found windows hanging from chains. I love the fresh green on the walls, and the way that the simple white unifies everything below. Wish my studio looked like this.

Things things and more things

Welcome to Goblin Drool.

I see so many beautiful people, places, and things (oh, I do love beautiful things... *sigh* ).This is probably more for me than anything, but just a place where I can drop links so I don't lose them.