A magical video. You have to take the dive. {via Royal Quiet Deluxe}
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Inspiration
I can’t wait till Spring, when the dirt will thaw and we can plant things in a our postage stamp of a garden. In the meantime, I feel like I need to surround myself with more living things inside. The right ratio? At least 3 plants per human per room, perhaps. Or maybe we should turn our downstairs bathroom into a veritable jungle.
{click the photos for sources}
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“Negativity is the enemy to creativity. So if you want more ideas flowing, happiness in the doing, happiness in the doing, happiness in the doing. I love, capital L-O-V-E, building a thing that ultimately has to feel correct before it’s finished, and that feeling correct is like a drug. It’s like a thing that kicks you and makes you feel so good, You almost pass out. You fall off your feet.”
– David Lynch, to Melena Ryzik of the New York Times
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Steve’s Sydney apartment has it all. Twin chestnut chesterfields, a sun-room peppered with hanging plants, and an appropriately seedy King’s Cross sign. In particular the stacked and strapped filing cabinet wall of storage is an idea I’d like to steal, and a giant mirror wouldn’t go amiss in my house either.
Scooch on over to Apartment Therapy for all the pictures and to read about the inspiration behind it. Meanwhile, I’m still be busily scouring the classifieds for the perfect couch…
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Best Wild Animal Photos of 2011 | National Geographic
Elle Decor’s stylish guide to Antwerp | Elle Decor
Tjalf Sparnaay paints hyper-realistic pictures of food | Trendland
Money – an infographic | XKCD
Engaged to Prince William, a sculpture | A Cup Of Jo
Famous Albums on Street View | Vice
Alexey Titarenko, The Zombies | But Does It Float
Superlatives Used in Missed Connections, oh how I adore Craigslist | Center for Missed Connections
Marked, a series of prints made by hand | Karin Wolters
Jay-Z – a man of the year. “Jay’s tourist-bureau anthem, “Empire State of Mind,” comes on somebody’s radio, and for a block or so it’s like we’ve strolled into a montage.” | GQ
Late Bloomers – Why do we equate genius with precocity? | The New Yorker
Nathalie Lete, artist | Wee Birdy
aaaaaand my favourite of the week…
How to properly hide booze in your Facebook pictures | Celebr8wewill
Inspired this, I made my own PUPPY version. Check out the gorgeous Mon with her vodka & soda:
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Twisted, Nicholas Kennedy’s photography | But Does It Float
Best of Breed, 102 champion dogs photographed at the Westminster Dog Show | NY Times
F.lux and Ommwriter, 2 programs to increase the aesthetics of productivity. I have been playing with them both and they are an excellent alternative to the Word.doc of death | Cellar Door
Miranda July Q&A, from Stylist’s clever masterclass series. I had a Q and MJ gave me an A! | Stylist Magazine
And even more inspiration from MJ – on Strangers | The School of Life
Codeacademy – an interactive way to learn programming by actually coding!
Rose & Clover and other colour schemes | Apartment Therapy
The arc of drama, explained by Kurt Vonngeut | Sivers
Kaleidomaniac, an image blogging experiment. Below: Tsukiji Fish Markets by Rory Hyde | Jarred Bishop
Starbucks’ augmented reality app makes your cup come to life! Naturally, I like the fox | Mashable
Also of note:
Vintage cameras in London, an alternative shopping experience | Last Minute
Lapday, a definition to consider | Dictonary of Obscure Sorrows
A wedding in the woods | Jody Rogac
What’s on the mind of Laura Ford | STW Nextness
Anita Calero: Curated Chelsea Home, I want to live here | LoftLife
And:
… I leave you with a Steven King quote that I enjoyed this week:
“Look, writing a novel is like paddling from Boston to London in a bathtub,
Sometimes the damn tub sinks. It’s a wonder that most of them don’t.”
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20 unmissable paintings in London, including Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait | Time Out
Requiem Lass, an interview with Patti Smith | New York Times
Online Checkout – In Real Life, with all the drama of a time-out | Google Analytics
20 Lessons for Creatives from Miranda July, words from a powerhouse | Nextness
Winter Wonderland, Eniko Mihalik by Terry Richardson | Harper’s Bazaar
Collated satellite views of the Imperial Valley, otherworldly views of crops | Lillian Wilkie
The Chameleon, a fascinating account of French child impersonator Frederic Bourdin | The New Yorker
Austin Diaries, enticing photos of Texan vintage | Sea of Shoes
Badlands – an Oral History, the turbulent making of Terrence Malick’s first film | GQ
An archive of fantastic old French posters | Galerie Montmartre
A simple DIY side table | Design*Sponge
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TEA! The English love tea. I seem to be offered a cup of the stuff everywhere I go. While I love tea, Earl Grey is not for me and mostly I opt for green. Here is some interesting browsing to go with your cuppa of choice.
- Jessica Stanley’s The Quiet Tourists Guide to Hackney couldn’t be more timely! It’s an insider’s view on everything that’s good and great in East London. As it’s all local to me, I will be merging this list with my London must-see list.
- A recipe for tomato and curry leaf soup - it sounds delicious and the photos are gorgeous. A perfect autumn lunch.
- Mad Jack Fuller’s pyramid inspired grave – as photographed by Barbara Ryan.
- Landing pages for lead generation. Excellent stuff for anyone advertising and making sales online.
- What Girls Need. So refreshing and insightful. Read this now, whether you have a vagina or not.
- And in a related vein – Seth Gobdin writes about Failures & The Dip or why you have to push on through.
- Back to the Future - this meme has gone on for a while, but here’s a batch of fresh recreations of family photographs. I’m tempted to make my own!
- DIY party animal candles – perfect for both young and old celebrations.
- The Beekeeper’s Bible is high on my reading list with a ‘extensive history of beekeeping section, a food and drink section, a domestic uses for bee products section AND a craft section’.
- And last, but certainly not the least of this list – Steve Job’s iconic Stanford commencement speech. Read it, and take a minute to think about how this man ‘dinged’ our universe.
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Thoughtful career advice from designer Jessica Hische, illustrated smartly by Chris Piascik. Isn’t it lovely?
My procrastination techniques include – making coffee, organising my room, planning exotic holidays, writing fiction, watching Come Dine With Me while writing up notes… It’s all an endlessly inspiring loop though. Writing is my passion, and whether that manifests as writing perfume reviews (check!), crafting websites at a digital agency (check!), or noodling away at a cookbook (one day!) – it’s all good. Knowing what I really love to do is a real blessing. How do you guys while the hours away?
{via Fancy! NZ Design Blog}
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Right now London is a whirlwind of interviews (please send me luck, I need it!), catching up with old friends, life “admin”, figuring out what tube line I need to be on, and just absorbing all the little things I need to get up to speed with (woah – cream comes in a pottle not a bottle).
Last week I did manage to have some friends over for dinner; we ate risotto by candlelight in the back garden and watched aeroplanes soar overhead. Cooking for others is really important to me. It made me think of all the things that I need/want, to make me feel at home here. Mostly it is doing; making some roots and settling into routine.
1. Find a darkroom and start developing & printing once more. I used to do this in high-school. I want to do it here; B&W film developing and processing costs are high! And because I lugged my heavy Canon AE-1 across the planet…
2. Write daily. As a writer, this obviously happens, but I’d love to – rather, need to – carve out a chunk of time each day to write for me. Not for my blog, not emails to my friends, articles or copywriting. My own personal creative works that have no ambition to be published, or expectations. At my new house we have an amazing garden shed which looks like a log cabin (and used to be a home recording studio). I’m hoping to take it over, add a desk, and a light and get up early every morning
3. Buy a bicycle. I had to sell my pink and orange beastie in Auckland, but thankfully London is some sort of bicycle city of the future. There’s single speeds, fixies, and Boris bikes abound! Most of all, I want to get one with a basket.
4. Visit every museum in London. Apparently there are over 200 of them in this city, so this is a loftier, long-term goal. Most of them are free, which makes for excellent – and cheap – weekends out! Next on the list: Bethnal Green’s Museum Of Childhood.
5. Build a wardrobe. When it comes to clothes, I have the opportunity to start from scratch. I moved to England with 2 dresses, 1 pair of jeans and a handful of shirts. It’s really a pleasure to have the time to consider what matters to me when it comes to style, and to invest in some great pieces. Also, UK shopping is amazing! Uniqlo, H&M, Topshop, Zara…
What’s on your September list? I can’t believe advent calendars are in the shops already. It’s all downhill to 2012 from here!
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[via Louniverse]
I am really looking forward to my first autumnal September. I remember visiting New York in October, and suddenly Halloween made sense; the end of harvest and darkening of days, not strawberries and 8pm sunsets. I’ve spent a long time in topsy-turvy land… It’s now time for scarves, crisp mornings and falling leaves.
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- Urban stargazing in London – a project by Oscar Lhermitte.
- Where Children Sleep – by James Mollison features children from around the world, and their bedrooms. It’s a provocative, moving series – and will make you ask a lot of questions about the rights of children.
- Exploding paint typography: watch these videos, they are gorgeous.
- Hello! I want a one of these Peugeot café racers. It’s such a sweet moped, forget the pedals, let’s go gas.
- I really like James Clar’s artwork: Global English. It’s exceptionally clever.
- How to talk to little girls. Yes, yes, yes. This approach (engaging them not complimenting them) is good! And works excellently with grown women too. “Cute shoes” is such a dire way to start a conversation.
- Juliewillyoumarry.me – a super cute illustrated proposal. This was lovely.
- Enjoy the holidays in Paris with Prêt à Voyager’s list of (mostly free) summer fun!
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When you sit down to write, is that what you do? Just say, “Okay, I’m starting a book” and then sit down and keep writing until it’s done? Do you take breaks? Do you ever get writer’s block?
No. No writer’s block. Never had it. Don’t believe in it. Doesn’t exist. I don’t buy that one.
Ernest Hemingway said it… If you’ve got writer’s block, write one sentence. And if you can write one, you can write two. If you can write two, you can write three. If you’ve written three, you have a paragraph. There’s just no such thing as writer’s block.
I work all the time. I write all the time. No days off, not for any reason. I get up in the morning and I start at it, get into the afternoon, I work out. I work at it at night. I work on it until I go to bed at eleven. I keep a notebook by my table and I write in the middle of the night sometimes. Sometimes I’ll write from maybe 4AM to 6AM and go back to bed, but I write all the time. And I always have. That’s the way I’ve always done it.
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