3191

3191: A Year of Mornings is a beautiful visual blog by Stephanie and Mav, two friends who live 3191 miles apart––Stephanie is in Portland, Oregon, while Mav is in Portland, Maine. Both early risers, each morning between Monday and Friday they get up and take a photograph (without any discussion beforehand). They then post the results of their week's work on their blog. Both are brilliant photographers, but what makes this especially fascinating is how their work, even with different subject matter, really clicks together. Via sfgirlbybay.

Globe and Mail Illustration

I have an illustration in today's Globe and Mail. It's in the Facts and Arguments section, accompanying an article about genealogy called Kings and Horse Thieves. You can read the article online here.

Update: The title of the article was changed to I'm All in the Family. They also spelled my name incorrectly in the credit...sigh.

Goethe Quote

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."

--- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Who knew that Goethe was a Buddhist? Great quote via Swiss Miss.

Note: The painting of Goethe shown here is Goethe in the Roman Campagna (1786) by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, in the collection of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt.

Bookshelf: Passionate Minds

I'm presently reading David Bodanis's book Passionate Minds: the Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment, Featuring the Scientist Emilie Du Chatelet, the Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings, Seditious Verse, and the Birth of the Modern World (whew). It's an account of the decade-long love affair between Emilie du Châtelet, a rare 18th-century woman scientist who wrote an influential commentary on Newton's physics, and the notorious Enlightenment thinker Voltaire. Bodanis gives a real sense of how restricted women's lives were at the time as he describes du Châtelet's struggle to educate herself and work out her ideas, as well as just how dangerous it was (for both her and Voltaire) to have opinions that went against those defined as acceptable by the state. A good read.

Zippo Stamp

This reminds me of something that might have been built by a Dadaist. It's a prototype by Steven Haulenbeek, made from two zippo lighters and parts of a typewriter. Springloaded and mechanized, it can type eight characters. Via designboom.

Stand Umbrella

Simple, but really clever--an umbrella with a built-in stand. Anyone who's ever had to juggle a wallet, assorted bags and a wet umbrella while attempting to pay for something will appreciate how good an idea this is. Via Swiss Miss.

History of the Tattoo

Short but interesting history of the tattoo by Cate Lineberry in Smithsonian Magazine. Shown here is a quite lovely Egyptian bowl (c. 1300 B.C.), housed in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, Amsterdam, which features a musician tattooed with an image of the household deity Bes on her thigh.

77 Million Paintings by Brian Eno

Multimedia wonder by Brian Eno. From the official site: "The 77 Million Paintings software disc uses the screen of your computer or television to create a constantly evolving painting. The painting is generated from hand-made slides that are randomly combined by the computer using specially developed software. The software processes the music that accompanies the paintings in a similar way so that the selection of elements and their duration in the piece are arbitrarily chosen, forming a virtually infinite number of variations." Quite stunningly beautiful, and definitely something I'd love to have...to go with all the CDs of his I've collected over the years...

Globe and Mail Illustration

I have an illustration in today's Globe and Mail, on the front page of the Travel section, for an article about bespoke vacations by Christopher Maughan. Bespoke vacations are essentially customized travel for the posh, for a clientele that likes holidays in exotically remote locations, but with luxurious extras. Quote: "In one case, a client even arranged for a group of Maasai tribesmen to climb down an escarpment to serve his favourite dessert – flaming baked Alaskas." The Globe online version of my illustration is here. Read the story here.

Update: The newspaper gremlins have been busy again. Though my illustration is (as intended) in full colour on the front of the Travel section online, it's been stuck in the Sports section in black and white in the print version. Guess the AD won't be too pleased when he gets back tomorrow...

Genealogy

Synchronicity is in the air today––this morning my brother Greg forwarded some links to very old family photos in my Uncle Wayne's collection, which is an odd coincidence as I'm working on an illustration for an article about family trees right now. Shown here is my grandfather (my Dad's dad).

Miranda July

Really funny and clever website by Miranda July, promoting her new book of short stories called No One Belongs Here More Than You. I want a copy! Via sfgirlbybay.

Retro Bars

So you have your retro furniture, your retro clothes, your retro music collection––now what about your chocolate? The Chocolate Bar in New York now offers Retro Chocolate Bars––childhood flavours coated with grown up gourmet chocolate, all with groovy retro wrappers (of course). Varieties include PB&C (peanut butter and caramel), Salted Pretzel, Caramel Apple, Key Lime Pie, Coconut Cream Pie and Raspberry Jam. Via tastespotting.

Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove

Nicole Pasulka of the Morning News writes: "In Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove, Kristan Horton imitates the satirical movie Dr. Strangelove and creates a new world for the film—silverware become an airplane, plastic and coffee grounds become the sky. The connections between Kubrick’s film and Horton’s photographs demonstrate the power of familiar sights, sounds, ideas, and objects to change the way we look at cultural icons."

Amazing work––Horton recreates the atmosphere of the film in an uncanny way. Take a look here. Shown here is an Italian poster for the original release of the movie. Via the Kottke blog.

Delta Sky Illustration

I have an illustration in the May 2007 issue of Delta Sky magazine. It's on the quiz page, with a theme this month of prequels and sequels, or, how classic novels have inspired modern films and musicals (i.e. Jane Austen's novel Emma being updated as the film Clueless). If you happen to be flying on Delta Air this month, have a look!

Carr Design

I'm always interested in how people encorporate storage into their living spaces, and this example by Melbourne's Carr Design Group, which I discovered while browsing Terramia's wonderful blog, is a particularly elegant example.

Flower Power

Love these groovy FlowerPower floor fans by poaa.com. Heat waves would definitely be a lot more fun (though only if you're in Europe, as they're not wired for North American voltages). Hope this changes! Via Swiss Miss.

Globe & Mail Illustration

I have an illustration in today's Globe and Mail, in the Facts and Arguments column (in the Life section). It's a Mother's Day piece––an appreciation by Briana Rayner of what her mother has given her (among other things, great wrestling moves and default baking skills). Read the essay here.

Virtual Shoe Museum

The Virtual Shoe Museum is home to many wild and wonderful kinds of footwear, from playful to esoteric to simply indescribable. Shown here in action are TubeBird boots by Eelko Moorer. No more boring subway (or bus) rides! Via designboom.

Work as Leisure

Interesting article by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt (the authors of “Freakonomics”) in the New York Times today. They discuss the phenomenon of work as leisure: "On a more personal note: one of the authors of this column has a sister who runs a thriving yarn store, while the other is married to a knitting devotee who might buy $40 worth of yarn for a single scarf and then spend 10 hours knitting it. Even if her labor is valued at only $10 an hour, the scarf costs at least $140 — or roughly $100 more than a similar machine-made scarf might cost." I think it's the satisfaction of creating that plays a big part in why people choose to do or make things they can have done by someone else. Read the article here. There's a Freakanomics blog, too.

Keep Calm

Today I was very happy to find my Keep Calm and Carry On poster in the mail––yay! It's a beautiful silkscreened reproduction of an English WWII poster found in Barter Books, Alnwick Station, Northumberland. If you'd like one too, contact lovely Victoria of SFGirlByBay, who's distributing a limited number on this side of the pond (at $25.00 USD). I think I'll put mine by my desk, as an inspirational message for deadline time...

Note: this great photo is by pensive volcano...

Titanic Lamp

The amusing sinking Titanic Lamp by Charles Trevelyan, available through viablelondon.com. Perfect for reading the liner notes to Gavin Bryars' work The Sinking of the Titanic. Via apartment therapy.

Paul Poiret

Style.com has a fun interactive profile of the great French designer Paul Poiret (1879-1944), seen here arriving in England in 1919 with two of his models (dressed in his clothes, of course). Read his bio and see examples of his work (including some lovely fashion illustration) here.

More: The wonderful Cathy Horyn, fashion critic for the New York Times, has a great post about Poiret on her blog.

Blackboard Pegs

These magnetic blackboard memo holders from notonthehighstreet.com are a clever idea: all those odd scraps of paper around your work space (or home space) become instantly organized and accessible. Another possibility for my current spring cleaning/reorganizing campaign. Via poppytalk.

Keyboard Waffle Iron

The keyboard waffle iron. Being a geek is now even more delicious! Designed by Chris Dimino as part of a group exhibit for the School of Visual Arts, it's made from an old typewriter––a good example of clever recycling. More info about it here. Via Swiss Miss.

Nick Knight

Interesting NYT article by Alice Rawsthorn on the English photographer Nick Knight. I remember seeing his photo of model Devon Aoki in Alexander McQueen (for Visionaire, left) when it first came out in 1997, and being utterly blown away by it––you can see why he's a frequent collaborator with visionaries like Bjork, Yohji Yamamoto, and McQueen.

Cassette Wallet

These very cool hand-made retro wallets made from cassette tapes are by Italian designer Marcella Foschi. DesignBoom was offering them on their website, but sadly they're now sold out (each design was a one-off creation). Have a look at Marcella's booth at the DesignBoom Tokyo Mart here. These wallets make me nostalgic for my old Sony Walkman cassette player...

La Poste Goes Green

La Poste, the French postal service, has ordered 500 electric delivery microcars for this year and 10,000 within the next five years. French mail carriers will soon be zipping around in eco-friendly style. I wouldn't mind one either--they're so cute. Read more here. Via Artsmonitor.