Seriously awesome

http://www.whitevinyldesign.com/solarbeat/


[thanks, TG!]

The pure simplicity

Hello hello hello! I'm back in NYC and have so many thoughts, ideas, and musings to share! I've got to save it for tomorrow though when I have more time to really sit down and gather it all up into a nice bundle.

For now though, here's a nice Mary Karr poem. I've always liked her and began to especially appreciate her last Spring when I heard her read at an NYU poetry gathering. I like the raw authenticity and vulnerability in her writing and her shameless bearing of the Self. Today she was on Studio 360 (guest-hosted by Alec Baldwin today, what?! Awesome) talking about her new memoir, The Liar's Club, and it got me re-reading a bunch of her stuff.

Enjoy and I promise to write a nice long post in the very near future! So so so much to toss onto the blog.


Limbo: Altered States

by Mary Karr

No sooner does the plane angle up
than I cork off to dream a bomb blast:
A fireball roiling through the cabin in slo-mo,
seat blown loose from its bolts,
I hang weightless a nanosecond
in blue space

then jerk awake to ordered rows.
And there’s the silver liquor cart jangling
its thousand bells, the perfect doses
of juniper gin and oak-flavored scotch
held by a rose-nailed hand.

I don’t miss drinking, don’t miss
driving into shit with more molecular density
than myself, nor the Mission Impossible
reruns I sat before, nor the dead
space inside only alcohol could fill and then
not even. But I miss

the aftermath, the pure simplicity:
mouth parched, head hissing static.
How little I asked of myself then—to suck
the next breath, suffer the next heave, live
till cocktail hour when I could mix
the next sickness.

I locked the bathroom door, sat
on the closed commode, shirtless,
in filmy underpants telling myself that death
could fit my grasp and be staved off
while in the smeary shaving glass,
I practiced the stillness of a soul
awaiting birth.

For the real that swarmed beyond the door
I was pure scorn, dead center of my stone and starless
universe, orbited by no one. Novitiate obliterate, Saint
Absence, Duchess of Naught . . .
A stinging ether folded me in mist.

Sometimes landing the head's pressure’s enormous.
When my plane tilts down, houses grow large, streets
lose their clear geometry. The leafy earth soon fills my portal,
and in the gray graveyard of cars, a stick figure
becomes my son in royal blue cap flapping his arms
as if to rise. Thank god for our place
in this forest of forms, for the gravitas
that draws me back to him, and for how lightly
lightly I touch down.

**************************

<3

Honey heals, honey mends

Mexico tomorrow!


*************************





Honey

by Connie Wanek

Luxury itself, thick as a Persian carpet,
honey fills the jar
with the concentrated sweetness
of countless thefts,
the blossoms bereft, the hive destitute.

Though my debts are heavy
honey would pay them all.
Honey heals, honey mends.
A spoon takes more than it can hold
without reproach. A knife plunges deep,
but does no injury.

Honey moves with intense deliberation.
Between one drop and the next
forty lean years pass in a distant desert.
What one generation labored for
another receives,
and yet another gives thanks.

***************************






The Heads of State just announced their Travel Poster Series. Such talent

*********************************




People fill the floor of their homes with furniture and walls with paintings and pictures. So why are the ceilings left empty? Decorating ceilings was a celebrated art form in the past centuries that somehow got lost through the reductionism of modernism. People don’t look at the ceiling anymore. It’s a dead space. So I wanted to bring a small wink to this space. I also liked the idea that somehow there’s a parallel world which coexists with ours.

Parallel World by Ji Lee

***********************************

SWEET!

Music from a Bonsai by Diego Stocco.

Diego Stocco - Music From A Bonsai from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

********************************

<3

There's Music In Us

Horses At Midnight Without A Moon

by Jack Gilbert

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.

***********************************

Tile tattoos! Cool...nice way to spiff up the place without breaking the bank.

***********************************






Infographic of the Day: Comparing the 100 Largest Sites on the Internet. What types of sites get the most traffic?

****************************

Dogs as typefaces, awesome!


*************************************

And speaking of dogs, check out these organic, finger-lickin' good treats for your pooches!






******************************


Check out Design Sponge's lamp round-up...pretty cool, actually

******************************

Peace, Love, and Harmony

<3

Hehe

Comic Sans walks into a bar. "A pint of your finest, please!" The bartender replies, "Sorry, we don't serve your type here."


[awesome!]

Edges ragged as their scribbled messages

Elegy for the Personal Letter
by Allison Joseph

I miss the rumpled corners of correspondence,
the ink blots and crossouts that show
someone lives on the other end, a person
whose hands make errors, leave traces.
I miss fine stationary, its raised elegant
lettering prominent on creamy shades of ivory
or pearl grey. I even miss hasty notes
dashed off on notebook paper, edges
ragged as their scribbled messages—
can't much write now—thinking of you.
When letters come now, they are formatted
by some distant computer, addressed
to Occupant or To the family living at—
meager greetings at best,
salutations made by committee.
Among the glossy catalogs
and one time only offers
the bills and invoices,
letters arrive so rarely now that I drop
all other mail to the floor when
an envelope arrives and the handwriting
is actual handwriting, the return address
somewhere I can locate on any map.
So seldom is it that letters come
That I stop everything else
to identify the scrawl that has come this far—
the twist and the whirl of the letters,
the loops of the numerals. I open
those envelopes first, forgetting
the claim of any other mail,
hoping for news I could not read
in any other way but this.

****************************

Dog 'stache...doesn't get much cooler than this, people.


***************************

If home appliances were inhabited by a community of tiny, industrious, architecturally advanced people. Made me look. Photo tour of a senior thesis exhibition of Kyoto University of Art and Design.




**********************************


Made entirely of biodegradable materials, this sleek, zen-looking toothbrush will keep your teeth pearly white.


*********************************

These calling cards are beyond beautiful. If they weren't so darn expensive, I'd get some (the owls, of course)



************************************


I always love when jewelry serves a purpose beyond looking pretty. These engraved necklaces in gold, stainless steel, brushed metal, and gunmetal are from a new nonprofit that rehabilitates war-affected children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

[and you gotta love that they use one of my favorite Yann Tiersen songs in their intro. video]


***********************************


Have a happy Thursday!


<3

...like popsicles, unthinkingly

Washing the Elephant

by Barbara Ras



Isn’t it always the heart that wants to wash

the elephant, begging the body to do it

with soap and water, a ladder, hands,

in tree shade big enough for the vast savannas

of your sadness, the strangler fig of your guilt,

the cratered full moon’s light fuelling

the windy spooling memory of elephant?



What if Father Quinn had said, “Of course you’ll recognize

your parents in Heaven,” instead of

“Being one with God will make your mother and father

pointless.” That was back when I was young enough

to love them absolutely though still fear for their place

in Heaven, imagining their souls like sponges full

of something resembling street water after rain.



Still my mother sent me every Saturday to confess,

to wring the sins out of my small baffled soul, and I made up lies

about lying, disobeying, chewing gum in church, to offer them

as carefully as I handed over the knotted handkerchief of coins

to the grocer when my mother sent me for a loaf of Wonder,

Land of Lakes, and two Camels.



If guilt is the damage of childhood, then eros is the fall of adolescence.

Or the fall begins there, and never ends, desire after desire parading

through a lifetime like the Ringling Brothers elephants

made to walk through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel

and down Thirty-fourth Street to the Garden.

So much of our desire like their bulky, shadowy walking

after midnight, exiled from the wild and destined

for a circus with its tawdry gaudiness, its unspoken

pathos.



It takes more than half a century to figure out who they were,

the few real loves-of-your-life, and how much of the rest—

the mad breaking-heart stickiness—falls away, slowly,

unnoticed, the way you lose your taste for things

like popsicles unthinkingly.

And though dailiness may have no place

for the ones who have etched themselves in the laugh lines

and frown lines on the face that’s harder and harder

to claim as your own, often one love-of-your-life

will appear in a dream, arriving

with the weight and certitude of an elephant,

and it’s always the heart that wants to go out and wash

the huge mysteriousness of what they meant, those memories

that have only memories to feed them, and only you to keep them clean.

**

[thanks to HW for sharing]

**************************


I am loving that it's 5:22pm and I can see that big ball o' fire in the sky







<3

Seeking Clarity

Claire saw her past as a collection of seemingly unrelated patterns and textures haphazardly strung together like an old, worn hand-sewn quilt. Some pieces hanging by a faded shred, some clearly new to the group, reinforcing old flaws. The only difference was, it didn't warm her when she was cold, it wasn't cozy when she was alone in her apartment and unlike a full quilt, there were unexplained gaps in Claire's self narrative...squares of emptiness. Jump cuts in a life.

*****************************

Several blogs that have recently been brought to my attention. And peeps, I like 'em!

1. Something's Hiding In Here

2. The Year In Pictures

3. What Possessed Me

4. Delight by Design

5. Sweet Paul

6. Design Is Mine

7. Oh Joy!

***************************





Book Alphabet! How cool...by Hanna Nilsson and Sofia Østerhus

******************************

Knit-tastic:http://grantedclothing.myshopify.com/

*****************************





This Paper Boat

by Ted Kooser

Carefully placed upon the future,
it tips from the breeze and skims away,
frail thing of words, this valentine,
so far to sail. And if you find it
caught in the reeds, its message blurred,
the thought that you are holding it
a moment is enough for me.

*****************************

After my college graduation in 2008 I took a rigorous writing workshop (as I've mentioned before) and I wrote my first short story. I actually recall sitting down to write poem and this weird story flooded out instead. Short stories are one of the most challenging genres and it was an incredibly humbling experience. The class workshopped the piece for about 45 min. and I was so grateful for all of the feedback. Anyway, I was thinking of this earlier this morning and went back to read the story again for the first time since May 2008. I haven't touched it since that workshop day, but I still have all of the notes I took and I'd love to go back and actually spend time editing it. It's a little weird, I definitely don't love it....but I think it'd be a good exercise in writing to dedicate some energy to the editing process. I do remember thinking I was pretty cool for choosing not to use any quotation marks throughout the piece. Anyway, here it is, if you're interested (unedited, of course...definitely seeing the flaws, but it's fun to read now.....2 years more mature, ha!):

Blackness Never Came

by Julia Redig Howe

Daniel Irwin Carver III died with his eyes and mouth wide open. It was a look of utter surprise. As if he were astonished that drinking forty ounces of Liquid-Plumber Gel actually could kill a person. As if, because it wasn’t Drain-o, the real plumber gel, it was a fake and therefore the Danger: Poisonous warning was a sham.

He was on his bathroom floor halfway between resting on his back and searching for the fetal position. A small yellow pool of his own vomit circled his head like a halo. Maybe vomit isn’t the right word. Bile. It was a yellow, foamy fluorescent bile that was seeping into his salt and pepper hair.

He was wearing his camel-colored three-piece suit, untouched by both the murderous gel and his foamy insides. It was practically the only suit he wore, he said, so he must have taken great care to keep it so tidy in the midst of his poison seizure.
The only day he didn’t wear that suit, he told me, was on Sundays. Nobody knows exactly when he downed the gel, but it couldn’t have been on Sunday. The police suspect it was about four days ago, late afternoon.

It was a pathetic sight, really. The gray Liquid-Plumber container stood about two feet from the dead man’s chest. The label was plastered with slogans that the company hoped would sway the shopper to buy this brand, the brand that lingers in the shadow of Drain-o. They wanted the consumer to know that just because their product was two dollars cheaper, the quality was just as good, and maybe even better.

Professional Strength.
Clog remover, safe for all pipes.
Destroys the Clog!
Satisfaction Guaranteed.

He wasn’t wearing his dark brown leather penny-loafers. He wasn’t wearing shoes at all. Cream-colored dress socks stuck out from his pant legs. They were the kind with ribs in them and they went nicely with the faint suggestion of a checkered-pattern in the suit. The bottom of his socks were blackish. A little morsel of food was stuck to his right big toe. A piece of a raisin maybe, or a dried cranberry. By that point it had been stepped on so many times that it became a part of the sock. Even the washing machine wouldn’t be able to get it out.

I know all of these details because I was there. I was there after some asshole at the university finally realized that Professor Carver hadn’t been on campus for his Monday and Wednesday classes. The dean of the school called the police because he was too busy to care enough to check on Daniel himself. Upon inspection, officer McGrady told me, they found a small piece of white paper folded within Daniel’s breast pocket. It had my name and phone number on it. But I knew this already. I had given Daniel Irwin Carver III that piece of paper last week. At the time I thought that maybe I shouldn’t do this, I don’t want to get too involved with this guy. But there I was, more involved than anyone ever should be. There I was, the only person who could speak for Daniel Carver on the day that the police found his cold, clog-free body.

November 12th, about 1pm. This was the first time I saw Daniel. I remember this because I had just been promoted to shift supervisor at the coffee shop. I had made a conscious effort to not care about the promotion. A recent college graduate, I didn’t want to end up like one of those guys who couldn’t find real work and became psyched when they were promoted to shift supervisor. Then, they think, well this is good for now, I don’t need to find a job right away, I’ll just do this for a year. And then they become manager. And they get comfortable with being the dictator of one of a million of these shops and the thought of finding a real job is just too much. Why do that when they can boss around fifteen other people and make enough money to live in New York City?

So it was my first day as shift supervisor when Daniel came in. I was busy behind the counter showing Alice how to make a blended mocha chiller. Just as we were putting three pumps of mocha flavoring into the cup, Jerry, the airhead at the register, called out, One grande Americano with an extra shot!

A grande Americano with an extra shot? Nobody around here got that. The drink was just two shots, or in this case three, of espresso mixed with hot water. People in SoHo always got the drinks that were a pain in the ass to make. A venti, non-fat, wet, decafe cappuccino, or a tall soy butternut latté no whip, with sprinkles. But an Americano? Far too bitter, dark and simple for these people. I told Alice I would be right back.

And there was Daniel, in his camel-colored three-piece suit waiting in front of the register for Gem, our barista of the day, to make his simple beverage. I told Jerry it was time for him to take his break. But I just got here, he told me. I told him I was shift supervisor now so he better go take his break and be back in fifteen minutes.

Daniel looked like some character you might see at one of Jay Gatsby’s parties. He was unreal and because of this I was drawn to him.

Gem finished the drink and handed it to the suit-wearing espresso-drinking man.
That’ll be three sixty-two, I said. Way too expensive.

Daniel must have thought so too because his eyebrows rose a bit as he sifted through his tattered brown leather wallet.

He must not have had the cash because he handed me a credit card. I swiped it and several moments later, slid the receipt his way.

Just sign at the X please.

And I knew that was my chance. I had to ask him something and I didn’t know yet that he was a professor so I asked him what he was.

He looked at me and then down at the little piece of paper he had just signed.
Son, he said, I’m just a copy of a copy, see? And his eyes urged me to look down at the receipt. Daniel Irwin Carver III.

He asked me if I always worked that shift and I said yes, unfortunately, but hopefully not for long.

He winked at me, grabbed his triple-shot Americano and sat down at the little table in the corner by the window.

I didn’t know people still winked. I didn’t know what it meant exactly. And I didn’t know that random middle-aged men still called twenty-two year old men son. And because my dad kicked the bucket when I was six months old, it felt good to have somebody other than my lonely mother call me son.

I called Jerry back from the break room.

But it’s only been five minutes! He said. Just do it, I said. I’m the shift supervisor so you better listen to me.

I was already feeling the hint of power that being shift supervisor permitted. No, I said to myself, you can’t be like this, don’t let it get to your head. You’re better than this. Don’t end up like those other guys. I decided that I would look for jobs once my shift was up. Real jobs that only college graduates have a shot at.

I didn’t want to be obvious, but I kept glancing over at Daniel Irwin Carver III. What a noble name, I thought. Maybe that’s why he wears three-piece suits. Has to live up to the name. Maybe being a copy of a copy was a real burden. Maybe the suit lifted that burden.

In between caramel macchiato milkshakes and green tea lattés I examined Daniel. At 1:28 he was still at that table. Writing on a yellow legal pad. A few pages had been turned over and he looked pensive. I figured he must be a writer.

He would take these long pauses. Even though I was safe behind that god awful counter and he was way back in the corner and we were in no way engaging in any discourse of any kind, those pauses made me uncomfortable. And then an idea or something would come to him and he would write furiously for a few minutes. And then pause again.

Yes, I thought, he must be a writer. He probably thinks that his suit is intellectual and artsy. If that’s what he thought, I agreed.

He got up to go to the bathroom at one point and I considered sweeping crap off of the floor right near the john as he came out. That way I would have another chance to say something to him. But a big lady dressed in full leopard print needed a double chocolate chip mocha chiller with extra whip and Alice couldn’t do it on her own so I missed my window of opportunity. Alice was a moron and I resented her for that.

By 2pm my shift was over and Daniel Irwin Carver III was still there. I told myself, Hell, just go talk to the old man. What’s the worst that could happen?

Something about that three-piece suit, the name, the wink. I was being pulled in his direction and before I knew it I was sitting across from him at the little table in the far corner by the window.

I figured you’d be over this way, he said without looking up.

Ok, I could play this game. I asked him what he was writing about.

Nothing, he said.

I told him he was a liar, I saw him attack that paper with his pen as if whatever was in his head was as valuable as the holy grail and if it wasn’t put on that paper in that instant, well, then it would be gone forever and for some reason or other he’d be screwed. So what was he writing about?

He said he didn’t say that he wasn’t writing, he just wasn’t writing about anything.

I told him that didn’t make sense.

He pushed the pad of paper my way and said, look son, I wasn’t writing about anything.

He had filled six sheets of lined paper with various lists of names. Each group of names was under a different category.

Kindergarten:
Besty Alcost
Jeffrey Briggs
Suzy LaRoth
Bus Driver

First Grade:
Allie Clapton
Seth McGreggor

Second Grade:
Jeffery Briggs
Ms. Dummar
Red-headed Lunch Lady

The lists went through every grade, several workplaces, regions of the world and so on. Jeffrey Briggs showed up seven times, I counted. Kindergarten, second grade, eighth grade, all-stars baseball league, California, and People I actually want to kill.

I asked Daniel Irwin Carver III who this Jeffrey Briggs character was and he said just some jerk that had made his life miserable.

I asked what the lists were and he said they were just lists of people who had made his life miserable and what did I care.

I was just curious I guess and I asked him why he had lists of people who had made his life miserable.

Because son, he said, one day you’ll wake up and wonder why you hate your life and you’ll need somewhere to put the blame, people to point the finger at and say You! If it weren’t for you, my life could be wonderful and all of my dreams could have come true!

I thought about this for a few seconds, it seemed stupid and I told him that.

Don’t you think, I said that we all control our own fate and we can create the lives we want, regardless of the assholes that get in the way?

He said he guessed so, but he declined from thinking of it that way, it was easier to blame other people.

We sat together for twenty-six minutes. I know this because I had to run two blocks to the nearest subway station to catch the 2:30 train and that always takes four minutes and I just barely made it that day.

In those twenty-six minutes, Daniel Irwin Carver III told me he was a professor of Physics at NYU. More specifically, he taught fluid mechanics and when I asked him what that was he started throwing around terms like advection, dynamic pressure, spin-down time, rotating fluid and Stokes velocity. And I stopped caring and he asked me what I was doing with my life.
I’m only working at this place until I get a real job, I told him. I wanted to be an engineer and he told me he knew some names and would I like to give him my phone number so that he could pass it along?

I was hesitant, but figured it couldn’t hurt. So that’s why, on the day he died, he had that little piece of paper in his breast pocket. I guess he never passed it along like he said.
He told me he was divorced, had no children, had published five physics books and one book of poetry which he said was shit because he wasn’t a poet and they only published it because he had made somewhat of a name for himself by then.

I said it was nice to meet him but I really had to go catch the train.
He called me son again and I dashed out the door.

###

And so on that day, the day the police called me and asked me if I could please go look at the body, I said, sure I guess but I really didn’t know the guy.
Officer McGrady gave me directions to the apartment and when I got there I immediately regretted going at all.

I didn’t want to see that dead, bile halo, three-piece suit body on the floor.
I asked one of the other guys in blue who had called the squad.
Dean of NYU, he said, Jeffrey Briggs.
I said oh, Daniel Irwin Carver III hated that guy.
The officers asked me to tell them everything I knew about the professor, so I did.
It wasn’t much.

And then they put a black sheet over Daniel Irwin Carver III’s cold, clog-free body and it struck me.

I knew I had to go to the coffee shop and quit. I hated every employee there and I didn’t want to be the next dead guy with a bottle of Liquid-Plumber Gel next to him because I had let those guys get to me.

So I told the cops, nice chatting, but I really do have to go now.
They said thanks for the help, they would call if they had more questions.

I ran eighteen blocks to the coffee shop and I quit. And it felt so good. Then I went to the bookstore and found Daniel Irwin Carver III’s book of poetry. It was entitled, Blackness Never Came. And maybe blackness never did come for Daniel. I really have no clue. Maybe even though he was dead he was still tortured by these people who made his life on earth miserable. And he was right, the poetry was bad.


*******************************



Happiness itself is a commons to which everyone should have equal access.



*******************************




ummm....awesome? I think so:

Pedigree Dogs ad shot 1000 FPS using the Phantom camera





**********************************


Dork Yearbook! Thith ith tho thweet you guyth...

***********************************


Advice To Writers

Even if it keeps you up all night,
wash down the walls and scrub the floor
of your study before composing a syllable.

Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.
Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration.

The more you clean, the more brilliant
your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take
to the open fields to scour the undersides
of rocks or swab in the dark forest
upper branches, nests full of eggs.

When you fiind your way back home
and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,
you will behold in the light of dawn
the immaculate altar of your desk,
a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.

From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
and cover pages with tiny sentences
like long rows of devoted ants
that followed you in from the woods.

- Billy Collins

*************************



Wow, loving these fade kitchen bowls! Too cool

********************************


Check out this super cool list generator! You'll be hooked...




********************************

Forgot how much I loved playing on this Jackson Pollock site

*********************************

This Gummi Bear Chandelier is...unreal







**********************************


xo

This brief bouquet

Is it weird that I still want a cozy little corner/fort like this? [minus the sketchy antique doll by her side]

************************

In The Alley
by Ted Kooser

In the alley behind the florist's shop,
a huge white garbage truck was parked and idling.
In a cloud of exhaust, two men in coveralls
and stocking caps, their noses dripping,
were picking through the florist's dumpster
and each had selected a fistful of roses.

As I walked past, they gave me a furtive,
conspiratorial nod, perhaps sensing
that I, too (though in my business suit and tie)
am a devotee of garbage – an aficionado
of the wilted, the shopworn, and the free—
and that I had for days been searching
beneath the heaps of worn-out, faded words
to find this brief bouquet for you.

******************************




How beautiful are these?! Really, really, really want to make a few of my own!

[thanks for sharing, LC!]

**********************

<3

Holey moley, me oh my!