(Video link here.) Dig this video made by composer Diego Stocco in conjunction with Burt’s Bees. Stocco creates a great beat, simply by shaking tree branches, flicking orange peels, banging on coconuts, mashing his hands through cooked rice, and sifting his hands through almonds – all amplified. Even the buzz of bees make an appearance. Just a reminder that you can find (and make) music anywhere.
And the beat goes on…. read more…
Our posts about Ikea’s inexplicable decision to stop carrying their endlessly useful Frosta stool in North American stores got many responses from our readers: “Yes, we want the Frosta stool” they shouted. Alas, Ikea has such a Byzantine corporate structure, it seems like a lost cause.
That is, until Celine, of The Happily Every After blog alerted us to a good-looking knock-off she found. ”After a seemingly hopeless search, I finally found these deadringers for the Frosta on Amazon.”
She’s waiting for hers to arrive so can’t attest to their quality, but they look pretty good to us: a four-legged version of the Alvar Aalto stool that Ikea knocked off. It comes in both blond and dark veneers. The dark version
It’s another example of the principle that read more…
photo: peter hapak for the new york times
A few weeks ago, The New York Times Magazine ran Peter Dinklage Was Smart to Say No, a story about Peter Dinklage, the 4-foot-5 actor who, after years spent saying NO to playing stereotype elves and leprechauns – and consequently often living in poverty – won both a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his character Tyrion Lannister in HBO’s Game of Thrones. A quote from Dan Kois’ interview with Dinkelage really made us think:
“I feel really lucky,” he said, then added, “although I hate that word — ‘lucky.’ ”
When I asked him why, he mulled it over for a moment, looking away. Then he focused back on me.
“It cheapens a lot of hard work,” he said. read more…
photo: kate payne
One of the things we love so much about The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking
photo: lisette scheers
We are completely smitten with the pink-washed walls in this photo from the Milan Furniture Fair. It looks like plywood to us (or we imagine it as that) color-washed with an incredible shade of pink…(though it may also be a surface unevenly painted in close shades of flat pink paint)
It made us start thinking about the possibilities for not simply painting plywood uniformly opaque, but washing it with rich ever-so-slightly-diluted paints in unexpected colors so that the grain shines through and the surface is made interesting by imperfection.
Here pink + plywood becomes magic. read more…
photo: xeni jardin/heather beschizza
Xeni Jardin, a writer for Boing Boing, has been generously open about her experiences with having breast cancer. (Check out “What do To When ‘Stuff Happens’ for her powerful words.) On Wednesday she shared this amazing needlepoint that she keeps on her desk for inspiration, made by Heather Beschizza. We echo the sentiment, and hope it strikes a chord with you or a loved one who has also, at one point or another, needed to say: “FUCK CANCER.”
Powerful words.
Related posts: the scar project
‘i had cancer’ = social networking with a purpose
‘lines written in the days of growing darkness’ (mary oliver)
emergency medicine
what to do when ‘stuff happens’
Hans Hofmeester filmed his daughter Lotte once a week for the past twelve years. Then he edited snippets of film together to produce this time-lapse video of her growing from a baby into lovely 12-year-old, in under 3 minutes.
For us, GROWING is the operative word. Once you get past 40 or 50, aging often becomes something of conceptual downer, with images of life being half over, on a downward slope toward…the end. This video reminds us that aging is about growing, learning, understanding, revelation, fulfillment…and always: possibility.
via Kottke
Related posts: three keys to a long life
messages from the future, written in the past
role model: lucien freud, 82, painting
advanced style: doing your thing at any age
the dalai lama on $$, loss, “failure”
photo: lloyd kahn
The other day BoingBoing posted a ‘photo gallery’ from the newly-released Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter
(Video link here.) D-i-y shipping pallet creations are among our most popular posts, largely we imagine because of all recyclable materials, pallets offer a cheap (or free) source of an entirely natural material: wood. We’ve done A LOT of posts about pallets – including how to tell a safe pallet from a possibly toxic one – and we’re always on the lookout for new ideas. We found a trove in this video put together by The Canadian Wood Pallet & Container Association; we lost count at 150 in the short 2:30 second video.
via Unconsumption
led-illuminated shipping pallet bed
the scoop on safe shipping pallets (shipping pallets 101)
ps: some possible dangers of wood shipping pallets
brilliant d-i-y pallet desks, tables, stairs
d-i-y: pallet chair (and stool and lamp)
for stylish d-i-y shipping pallet furniture: paint it black!
d-i-y shipping pallet vertical garden
We found this quote (punctuation ours) on French by Design this morning and have been mulling it all day. It was unattributed. When we did a search to see where it might have come from, we found Weight Watchers and Islam and a bunch of other sources.
What do we want MOST? Can we subject the wants of the moment for the WANTMOSTS?
We’re not that simple… Sometimes the WANTMOSTS aren’t clear. Sometimes the Wants-of-the-Moment turn out to be a path read more…
At Anonymous Works we found this photo of a man happily covered in flowers and leaves. We wonder what the story is behind that image made in 1918. What a way to dress for spring: head-to-toe in flowers and leaves….!!
And as with the Tutu Project, there’s something even more amazing about it being a guy gamely dressed this way.
Related posts: ‘the tutu project’ explores identity, change and love
boat shoes…
fab hairdo with balloons, via myeongbeom kim
hair as apparel, identity, art (man ray)
spring is coming (really)!
At The Chive, we came across a list of 16 simple solutions to some everyday dilemmas: a virtual, visual Hints from Heloise. We’ve found some incredibly useful, like using bread bag tags as cord labels (of course, with our obsessive minds, we’d go looking for stylish tag in a color we like: white! – and might trim it to a cooler shape).
David Saltman reports that he’s been using the strategy for getting an elevator to go directly to the floor you want, useful for emergencies (Note: We recommend reading Mary Reynolds thoughtful comment below.) read more…
photo: imogen cunningham
When Mondoblogo published a post of Ruth Asawa’s extraordinary crocheted wire sculptures – with hardly any commentary – our first thought was: we want a house filled with that work, those forms hanging above. Then we looked her up. At RuthAsawa.com we learned:
When Ruth was 16, she and her family were interned along with 120,000 other people of Japanese ancestry who lived along the West Coast of the United States. For many, the upheaval of losing everything, most importantly their right to freedom and a private, family life, caused irreparable harm. For Ruth, the internment was the first step on a journey to a world of art that profoundly changed who she was and what she thought was possible in life. In 1994, when she was 68 years old, she reflected on the experience: ‘I hold no hostilities for what happened; I blame no one. Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the Internment, and I like who I am.’
It is an attitude we admire: the ability to move forward and live and find the gifts hidden in things that might seem devastating. read more…
Sally Schneider
When Design Within Reach launched the Sapien bookcase, it seemed like a brilliant idea: a bookshelf that allows books to be stacked vertically over five feet high, to form a neat stack from which you could easily remove any book. CB2 promptly knocked off the rectangular-pillar-with-removable-shelves-design. We bought one, then rued the day. The problem is, once the bookshelf is loaded with books, it becomes too heavy to move, a major flaw for something that is really about living fluidly, the opposite of built-in shelving.
So we devised the perfect hack: a ready-made set of wheels (originally made to hold metal file boxes) that fit the Sapien base perfectly. read more…
?: photographer unknown
Spotted at Accidental Mysteries, a boy (or is she a girl?) wearing stunningly chic, rigged glasses that seem to be more for look than practicality: there appears to be no glass. Who cares? For sure they give him a new virtual lens to look through and a unique identifying style. (We had a friend that used to wear lensless glasses for that very reason; they would change his ‘head’, shift his identity and offered a buffer from the world.)
We wish we knew the back story.
Related posts: curiously chic duct tape safety glasses
‘pastry paris’: paris through pastry-colored glasses
party favor/catalyst: random pairs of glasses
strategy: instant consult via cell phone camera
the perfect glass (thin, cheap, well-designed)
