Friday, December 31, 2010
All About Champagne
Madame de Pompadour once said, “Champagne is the only drink that leaves a woman still beautiful after drinking it.”
Read more background on my favourite festive beverage at Design*Sponge
Thursday, December 30, 2010
The Incredible Nina Simone
Vintage Photos of Paris
A nice collection of vintage prints by postcard photographer Pierre Yves Petit aka Yvon.
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| La Place du Tertre |
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| Rhinoceros and Terrace of the Palais du Trocadero |
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| Seine |
Preferring to photograph at sunrise and sunset, he worked the drama of the sublime, making stunning, hypnotizing and beautiful pictures. Yvon's style evokes other flaneurs of the time such as Eugene Atget, Andre Kertesz and Brassai.
Leaf Carvings
You can actually have custom ones made from a photo or purchase previously carved leaves for about $25.00.Find out more at If It's Hip, It's Here
The loneliest shop in the world
Harrods, in the bustling heart of London, is in a good location for a shop. So, for that matter, is Macy’s, which boasts of serving 350,000 New Yorkers every day at Christmas time. Whereas down at the Mulka Store, in the furthermost reaches of South Australia, George and Mabel Aiston used to think themselves lucky if they pulled in a customer a week.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Slow Leaks
HaikuLeaks / Cable is poetry: 65 haikus in 1830 cables
As is typical,
the Pope stayed above the fray
and did not comment.
00HARARE5461.txt
As is typical,
the Pope stayed above the fray
and did not comment.
00HARARE5461.txt
Whether such tactics
will have a chilling effect
remains to be seen.
09MEXICO193.txt
will have a chilling effect
remains to be seen.
09MEXICO193.txt
Rocha and Rands
did not attend the meeting
with Micheletti.
09BRASILIA1262.txt
did not attend the meeting
with Micheletti.
09BRASILIA1262.txt
Monday, December 27, 2010
Still Life with Animated Dogs
Still Life with Animated Dogs is a witty and candid cartoon by Paul Fierlinger, animator of Sesame Street's Teeny Little Super Guy, recounting his life from being a dissident artist in 1960s Czechoslovakia to being a successful animator in the US. He tells his lifestory by talking about the dogs he's owned over the years, Roosevelt, Ike, Johnson and Spinnaker.
“Disneyland Dream”
In the summer of 1956, an amateur filmmaker named Robbins Barstow made a record of his family’s trip to the Magic Kingdom, “Disneyland Dream,” that was recently admitted to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
Via clusterflock
Useless Super Powers
I have got the ultra fast aging down to a science and am well on the way to turning into a laptop forever.
Sober in a Nightclub
Unique Game For Party Amusement
Liven up your New Years Eve party with this exciting game!
Link - Via The Presurfer
The Hippie Gene
Sure we were a little weird but I thought it was the purple microdot.
1972 book claimed that being a hippie is a mental illness, can be inherited genetically. A Colombian psychiatrist asserted that being a hippie is a form of mental illness that can be passed on to one's children.
Fortunately for my offspring I was cured of a severe case of hippie-itis (waist length hair, a guitar and a full repertoire of Appalacian folk songs) and caught punk before I reproduced. Not sure how I managed to overcome hippieness in the days before gene therapy. Quite miraculous really.
Via
Via
Sunday, December 26, 2010
The 10 best fictional hangovers
New Years Eve is drawing nigh. Take a gander at these monumental hangovers of music, film and literature and you will surely be dissuaded from over-imbibing on the festive eve. The scene below from the movie Withnail and I (a favourite of mine) captures the agony of the morning after:
Withnail and I
by Bruce Robinson
Among the metaphysical insights from Withnail and Marwood (the “I” of the title) as they drift into the “arena of the unwell”, are “Oh God, I don’t feel good. Look, my thumbs have gone weird! My heart’s beating like a fucked clock! I feel dreadful, I feel really dreadful,” to which Withnail responds, “So do I, so does everybody. Look at my tongue; it’s wearing a yellow sock.” Of Withnail’s other measured contributions, even including the haughty demand that “There must and there shall be aspirin!”, the one that lingers is the succinct “I feel like a pig shat in my head”
The Formula • subblue
The entire film is created from two sequences of continuously morphing Mandelbulb fractals.
Link - Via Reality Carnival
Vivian Maier - Her Discovered Work
This is a fascinating story. John Maloof stumbled upon a cache of photographs and undeveloped film and was driven to find out more about the photographer. He found out that she was Vivian Maier, a French born Chicago nanny.
I acquired Vivian's negatives while at a furniture and antique auction. From what I know, the auction house acquired her belongings from her storage locker that was sold off due to delinquent payments. I didn't know what 'street photography' was when I purchased them.
It took me days to look through all of her work. It inspired me to pick up photography myself. Little by little, as I progressed as a photographer, I would revisit Vivian's negatives and I would 'see' more in her work. I bought her same camera and took to the same streets soon to realize how difficult it was to make images of her caliber.
See much more at Maloof's blog Vivian Maier - Her Discovered Work - Via Mefi
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
The Junky's Christmas by William S Burroughs
Below is part 1. It doesn't really get going until about 2 mins in.
See more at coisas do arco da velha
Thursday, December 23, 2010
10 Exorbitant Christmas Gifts For The Super Rich
I wouldn't want most of these. It's just as well because none of them are likely to be under my tree on December 25th. I do like the two below though.
Tory Burch Family Chariot Electric Tricycle--$4,500
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
I AM NOT A THIEF!!
Deb, one of the two lovely ladies at The Middle Ages, has posted something that shocked me. No, she has not left her husband for a doberman or been arrested for indecent exposure (at least not that I know of). She writes about measures some Toronto stores have taken to combat shoplifting:
The storeOver the Rainbow in Toronto takes your bags and puts them behind the counter until you are done shopping, causing you to have to wait in line until a salesperson is free so they can return your packages when you want to leave.
The chain store Aritzia has gone one step farther in their witch-hunt. They take your purse and lock it in a drawer. THEY TAKE YOUR PURSE AND LOCK IT IN A DRAWER.
Have any of you ever had this experience? I wouldn't want to give my business to a shop that made me feel like a criminal. Would you?
Molyneaux’s Problem
"In 1688, John Locke received a letter from scientist William Molyneaux posing a curious philosophical riddle: Suppose a blind man learned to identify a cube and a sphere by touch. If the shapes were then laid before him and his vision restored, could he identify them by sight alone?"
Futility Closet has the answer
Ralph Bakshi - Christmas in Tattertown (1987)
The elephant graveyard for junk where forgotten objects come to rest.
coisas do arco da velha
VINTAGE AMERICANA POSTCARDS
I love vintage postcards. These are some of the nicest I've seen.
Thanks Bruce!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Today in History
A new city ordinance officially integrates public buses in Montgomery, Alabama, and African Americans return to the city buses after a year-long boycott, inspired by Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of a bus. Boycott leaders, including Martin Luther King, had filed a federal suit in February 1956 to desegregate Alabama's buses. In November, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling that Alabama's laws segregating buses were unconstitutional. The victory brings national attention to the civil rights movement, and to King.
Top dog
Maud Earl's painting of Peter of Faskally, the ancestor of every one of coveted brown breed alive will be auctioned in February.
An Hyperbole and a Half Christmas
Monday, December 20, 2010
Elegant Espresso Cart Created From Ikea Parts
Jonathan Simon came up with a clever way to tidy up his coffee making workspace and all it cost was $50.
Judo I'm Crying this Christmas
“I’m a Judo man, it’s a Christmas song, bring my Judo back, where’s my Christmas gone?”
1930s Modernist London Homes china series
"Bone china illustrating the minimal beauty of white-rendered pre-war modern masterpieces across London."
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Spoof London Underground Announcements
"You’ve got the microphone. It’s a Monday morning. There are hundreds of bored commuters listening. The temptation is simply too much…"
Ta Sean!
Swim & Steam by Damien Peyret
Swim &Steam consists of a series of images taken with the Polaroid SX70. The Polaroid aesthetics intensifies the sensation of having crossed the border of reality. Portraits of men and women soaking in steaming hot pools seem to be telling a story originating in a different world, peaceful and detached, where gravity does not interfere with people's lives.
More at Lens culture
The Pigs of Celebrities
Strand magazine was a popular monthly that ran from 1891 to 1950. In 1899 the magazine asked famous Victorians to draw a picture of a pig while blindfolded. The one below was drawn by Hiram S. Maxim, inventor of the machine gun.
"Referring to his pig, Mr. Maxim writes: 'I have just a suspicion that the pigs that are so well drawn in your album are by people who had their eyes partly open. The trouble with my pig is that my eyes were too tightly closed." But nobody will find fault with Mr. Maxim's animal on that score or on any other. It bears the imprint of his matchless genius, and is certainly suggestive of the action of his incomparable gun."
carnovsky
Friday, December 17, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
12 Foreign Objects Removed From Pepe The Hippo
Dogs In Cars
Photographer Martin Usborne's photos of dogs in cars. They don't look very happy, do they?
More at My Modern Metropolis
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