Hidden In France

Viva Terra is delightful

I love the Viva Terra catalog. It has just the right combination of beautiful, earthy, wooden, eco-conscious products and wacky colors.  You have to dig a bit deeper into the catalog to find the really colorful stuff but I made it my mission to find it for you. Someone had to.

This to me is a delightful craft idea.  I want to try and make letters like this.

Here is a cute purse that goes with nothing:

And here is one that goes with everything:

Check out the Viva Terra online catalogue (or is it catalog?)  I though it was exceptionally well designed and easy to navigate.

This Angel is Off the Wall

I love it when bloggers write posts for me so I don't have to.  That's what Melissa of Off the Wall did.  Maybe not for me exactly, but pretty close, and just when i was feeling uninspired.  

I love each and every image she posted of An Angel at my Table.  Here is my selection.  I want EVERYTHING.

Fake blossom in fake water is MINE!!!  No house is complete without a touch of faux nature.

And a bit of kitsch.  A lot of kitsch in my case.

Faux flower + light bulb = salt of the earth

And now a hint of the divine:

Maybe that's too over the top even for me.

I feel it in my fingers

..i feel it in my toes (hum to the tune of that fantabulous song in Love Actually) Spring is beginning to be all around me, and so the feeling grows....

What I'm trying to say is that I have the urge to plant! It's time of the year when my car seems to drive itself to nurseries a bit too often. 

 But plant where?  Every scare inch of my garden is occupied either by an existing plant or by the plant that is sure to emerge and take over come april.  

 

The solution might be to go up, up, up.  Like the French Landscaper botanist genius Patrick Blanc.  I told you about him here  but a lot has happened in the world of vertical gardening since, as those pictures show.

There is an insane amount of brilliant stuff on Patrick Blank's website.  Here are some of my favorites.

This is not about a great selection of plants.  Blanc devised a special metal frame so that the plants can grow parallel to the surfaces without adding weight or humidity to them.  It's fascinating.

He says that plants only need soil as a mean of support.  What they need is water and mineral and light, which the system provides.  Also, as long as water is  abundant, plants only creates lighter, smaller, non invasive roots.  Without the presence of soil, the planting then becomes light enough so that it can be done vertically.

He uses seeds and cuttings, applies them to a structure made of metal and PVC.

I'm assuming he used cuttings here:

This one is perfect for the rain.

I found interesting that the walls seem to be vandalism free.  I guess even bad seeds have to bow down to the beauty of nature.

Check the website for dozens of vertical walls all over the world.

Oh, on a different note, the ad below is always a shocker to me:  right now it's all about rehab centers.  Why?  Is it the tone of my posts?  Is adsense trying to tell me something?  Oh yeah, I mentioned being addicted to political blogs yesterday.  What-EVER!

Dancing and eating cupcakes

My addiction to politics has reentered through the back door.  I reduced my huffington Post to twice a day, meanwhile I caught myself checking Andrew Sullivan ten times a day.  At least I realized it before it was too late.  Starting tomorrow I'm on a twice a day regimen of him too.

But being addicted to blogs is so worth it!  Here, try to keep your eyes off this cutie pie. 

BOOMBOX from Ely Kim on Vimeo.

Oh, and this is practically a public service announcement.  How else would have I learned this?  I knew Cupcakes were good for you.  I just knew it! via confiture de lait. 

Such a relief.

Rice is beautiful

I'm working on my addictions.  I might have to attend a Huffington Post Anonymous.  Is there such a thing?  It started innocently enough during the election, but now I'm checking it almost every hour, (or more a-hem) only to get slapped silly every time because the economy is Blah, and the deficit is blah, blah, and the blah blah blah blah unemployment is Blahhhhr.   

I'm wondering how knowing all this is going to keep me, or anyone, even remotely positive as I go about day to day activities.

I'm officially sick and tired of the ominous mode the country is operating on.  Haven't we gotten the memo yet?  Negativity Breeds Negativity.  You Get More of What you Focus On.  One of the beautiful things about this country is its spirit that everything is possible.  We can't lose that!  Take it from me, I spend half my life in France where people shake their heads and come up with one hundred reasons this won't work the minute you have an idea to do something.

Listen up America. Everything IS possible, still. Just as possible as it was six months ago. More possible in fact now that we have Obama.  By the way, he must have gotten the memo. He's going to fix the deficit.  The deficit!!!! How about that? You can't beat that can do attitude of his.  

Well, if Barack can feel this confident about his administration, I can at least reduce my Huffington mania to twice a day (I'm in agony right now... must.. click... must....)

By the way talking about addictions, I finally got a face book page.  Ironic I know.

New images of Rice Denmark celebrating it's tenth year of making the world more colorful,  via the always wonderful Keltainen Talo Rannalla. 

And to all of you still in blizzards and snowstorm:  Hang on!

100 passerines

I am absolutely stunned by the beauty of Matthew Studebaker's photography.  I want to spend a year with him, if he'll let me.  Together we would travel the world and photograph birdies. 

At first I thought those were not real birds, that's how unbelievable they are.  How does he get each bird to pose on just the right branch, with just the right background.  I guess it's magic.

You can purchase prints here.

This is the flickr page.

This is how adorable he looks. (and now I think he might not let me go with him.)

Have a great week end

Elephant art

I'm practically mute these days.  What a relief he?  That's because i'm bored/procrastinating/confused/scared/hungry.  It will pass.

I just feel like feasting on images, not overdosing on words and opinions, (especially mine.)

I love these paintings and prints by Mati Rose McDonough.   Those happy little elephants remind me that things will probably going to be okay, and that everything is, as always, in my head.

Check out the artist's blog for more here.

The grass is greeze I know where the birdies is.

I am a fan for life of Alicia Paulson of Posie gets cozy. She makes everything seem delicious and wonderful and fun. Hers is one of the first blogs I ever read and I blame her for me catching the blog bug. 

She created and is selling a birdie kit (enough to make four paper maché birdies) They are so adorable I would not know wether to eat them, wear them on my head or around my neck like a necklace.  

I'm so excited I'm sounding like an informercial. 

But the point is Spring is in the air and this is the first sign of it.  Are you feeling spring yet? 

Cute attack!

Gorgeous pillows

No words, only beauty from Anthropology, Urban Outfitters, Ballard Design and Horshow.  And those pillow are making me too tired to add the links.  It's sublimal...yawn...zzzz.

best for last:

sanity break

Mental illness is on code red.  Or is it just the weather?  When it starts raining we're simply not equipped here in Southern California.   

The rain is torrential and the outside drains around the house are refusing to cope.  I have to be out ever fifteen minutes wearing a floor length industrial grade raincoat and boots and I have to plunge my hands into icy yuckky water to remove the leaves that keep clogging the system.  

Also: The shadow of a stain keeps growing on a portion of the ceiling, clear indication that the roof is leaking in a bad way.  

And: The pool is close to overflowing and so is the fish pond.  What's happens next I don't know.  Is the water going to drain toward the house?  It looks like it might.

Not to mention that: The dog is terrified of the rain and is refusing to go outside. I have to follow her everywhere to make sure she doesn't go the bathroom inside the house on the carpet, which is really her preferred way to relieve herself when under stress.  (I think I might have to try it myself, maybe she's on to something.)  

Wait, that's not all:  the kids are off school and for some reason our cable box is toast.

I'd rather be in Paris right now.  If i must be under the rain, then I'd do it in style in the city of light. I'd wear fascionable boots I don't own and a lovely coat that will not be made out of yellow plastic.  I'd start the day with a stop at Fauchon and have a Joconde éclair, and stay away from the special Valentine's day éclair that is Foie gras and strawberry.  Ghaag.

Then, Robert Down Jr and and I ( well, it is my fantasy is it not?) would  try the new Ladurée  bar?  Look it:

Then we would go see David Lachapelle's exhibition entitled 'Delirium of Reason', which I think is particularly appropriate.

Mmmm.  Yes, that would be better.  Okay, off to scoop off leaves from clogged drain now.

I found these images  and links via the Materialiste website. 

foxy snow angel (and perfect boobs)

Hey, great news: my mamogram-ultrasound combo came out fine.  Oh, I had not told you about that little something weighing on me, had I?  Well, it turns out that my boobs are perfectly healthy, (albeit as lumpy as bean bags-- but not shaped that way oh god.)  Funny,i did not know I was worried until i walked out of the office and realized how feathery light I suddenly felt, as though I had lost about 300 lbs.  I practically had to hold on to lamp posts not to fly off.

Speaking of perfect boobs (I can only imagine the google search that will follow this post) 

Not only is Isabelle Bryer like a sister to me, but she can produce this:

This is Isabelle's latest painting, Snow Angel.  Sooo beautiful.  I thought it would be perfect for Valentines Day.

Have a happy (or sad) Valentines Day. What will you be doing?  I've already bought my jumbo size bag of Milk chocolate heart-shaped Dove with no plan to share it whatsoever.

The tarantula in the Tupperware.

Okay this blog post might get to something or nothing, I'm not sure. It's lengthy and discusses spiders, end of the world scenarios, mice droppings and dog diarrhea.  You might want to skip this one.

A family of mouse via Etsy seller JRJR. 

The economic crisis brings forth in many of us a latent fear of the unpredictable, which is really fear of not being able to cope.

I am, I admit, chronically terrified of the unpredictable.

I know, if not in my bones at least within some shallow ripples of my cortex, that worrying does not prevent danger. 99.9% of what I have worried about over the years did not occur.  As to coping I estimate my success rate to be above 95%. (The other 5% I’ll have to put into a book one day.) Also, when things get shadowy and menacing in the middle of the night I have finally learned to turn on the light and read rather than wallow in delicious anguish and dread. But still, I worry about the unpredictability of being a human being.

Of course, God having the weird sense of humor that he has, paired me with a wild risk taker, master at providing me with the wildly unpredictable.   Not only is my husband a risk taker, but I never know what he’s going to say, do or wear next. I assure you it is scary. 

When I say that my husband is a risk taker, it does not mean that he is without fears, but his fears too are unpredictable.  An example took place late last night when he discovered on the carpet our cat's  latest chef d’oeuvre: the shredded remnants of the tenacious little mouse who had been mooching off us for a while.  So my husband woke me up because he was afraid, not of the mouse, which has been comfortably munching on our cereal, sleeping in our shoes and using our toothbrushes for three months, something that had not bothered either of us, but of the off chance of our family catching a number of imaginary illnesses spread by the mouse’s blood on the carpet.  Why is mouse’s blood more of a problem than mouse droppings, or mouse footsteps, or mouse saliva I will never understand?  And why he shows no fear of the plate-size diarrhea stains leftover from changing our dog’s brand of food is anyone’s guess.

What does this have to do with the economic crisis? Well, it happens to be tailored made for me!  I’ve always had a deep-seated fear of not being able to provide my children with basic needs, food, a roof, comfort. I lay awake at night imagining not just my children having to sleep on maggot-infested cots in unheated shelters, but all the children for whom this is a reality.  If them, why not us goes my reasoning.  Terrible things happen and we could be next.

Unlike many, many people and many more to come, the reality of my situation is that I’m safe for now. But whereas I have proven able to handle real situations, I cannot handle future imaginary situations that take place principally in my head.

Because he is not future phobic, my husband has never had a boss or a predictable income in his life. He makes a living (or doesn't depending on the year) following his passion in an artistic field, and some years he does very well indeed. It should matter that we’ve never missed a payment on anything.  It should matter that we don’t have credit card debts.  But it doesn’t. I can’t shake off the sense that we could be on the verge of begging for food and sleeping under bridges if.. if…

 But somehow, just as the economy is looking like a boil about to burst, I am starting to feel more serene. At first I thought it had to do with a renewed sense of trust in our leader.  But I had the hots for Bill Clinton two and that didn’t alleviate my fears. No, I think it might have to do with the future becoming, at last, the present. As though a fear that is not imaginary but real can finally be tackled and dealt with.

The fear of financial doomsday is so global that I’m no longer the crazed woman crying wolf.  I’m no longer neurotic, what do you know, I’m now a realist! (I'm still neurotic but don't tell anyone) I'm somehow finding solace in the shared anguish. It is as though I can feel the support, the connection of thousands in the grips of the same fear.

It reminds me of the time when we discovered a real-life tarantula in our own backyard and I got cured of my rampant arachnophobia overnight.  Before, I could not imagine a spider without shuddering, and suddenly here I was staring at a frigging tarantula in a Tupperware two inches from my face, marveling at the cold distance between me and it.

So I’m hoping that this economic crisis will be like the tarantula in the Tupperware.  A sudden inoculation to a deep seated, inexplicable fear that has plagued me my entire life.

Felted mouse and cheese via Etsy seller Soduel. 

Beautiful Frieda Maria

I realize that trying to find soul-feeding meaning in the economic crisis is pretty incendiary. I'm not done trying but let's focus on something else for five minutes. 

I just discovered via the beautiful French blog NäbeFabric, the  stunning photography of Frieda Maria.  In this world of ravenous consumption, isn't it comforting to see that minimalism, recycling and finding beauty in details is still possible? Oh noooo, I tricked you.  Here i go AGAIN?

Good News about the (bad) economy part deux

Before I start blabbering self-righteously** about a silver lining to the economic crisis, I want to say that I am not personally immune, far from it. I am quaking in my boots like everybody else.  And it doesn’t mean I don’t have empathy for the plight of those who are or will suffer from it.

 BUT:

I absolutely hated the directions the country was headed in so many venues.  HATED. For example, consumption and waste seemed like an unstoppable machine. (Oh I’m guilty of it to.  I do have three Tvs at home. )

We (I) got into the habit of not just wanting stuff, then tossing stuff, but also to expect to pay the least possible amount for it.

We (I) knew for example that American had trouble finding jobs and making decent wages but it seemed unpatriotic to demand from corporations that jobs not be sent outside of the country so that good be made for less so that Americans could afford them. 

I like my goods cheap, though I drew the line at shopping at Wallmart, but people whose employers did not give them healthcare or a decent wages could hardly be blamed for shopping there  (shopping in a place where employees get no healthcare or decent wage by the way.) The goods being cheaper at Wallmart because they are squeezed out of terribly poor and desperate people in other parts of the world, those out of country workers requiring none of the taxes, benefits and laws American workers had fought hard for so as not to be treated as slaves.  (No matter, we went and found slaves elsewhere, you can you feel the bite of the bitter irony?)

But now, good news, Yippy! The evil machine is broken.  What’s next?

First of all, I believe that the economic woes are happening at the perfect time.  Later might have been too late, and earlier decisions might have been made based on too few evidences. (like the existence of Madoff-like characters—you know there are more we haven’t discovered yet, if there were loopholes, he’s not the only corrupt genius to have discovered them--and the system that made their existence possible.)  It is my hope that the reality of the economy has hit just in time to freeze things, make changes and keep the collective irresponsibility over consumption and waste from tipping into madness.

So here is my first silver lining.  (which is starting to look like a cheap polyester lining by the minute) Maybe economic crisis will mean reassessing what we need versus what we want.  I really believe that this country has gone beserk not being able to tell those two apart.  Yes, that means me too, and my bloody cheepo Tvs.  There is a cost to everything, and if it’s not paid in dollars on the spot we end up paying a different sort of price. When something costs real money, it’s not so casually purchased, or easily disposed of for example. And the people who produce it might not be used and abused for it.

 

Maybe we should rethink paying as little as possible for goods we don’t really need. By paying more for what we really need, we will allow jobs back in this country in turn allowing our workers to be paid more and be better taken care of. And when we export jobs it might be done by protecting them with the same laws our workers benefit from.

 

 

The cheery postcards on this post (I hope they don't mind being associated with this post) are sold by Lagom, designed by  artist Ellen Giggenbach, who also creates wonderful pillows and bags I discovered her work on  Print and Pattern, via Dee Beale, a printmakers from the UK who sells wonderful little bird prints on her Etsy shop... okay i'm done.

Here is a bonus that cheered me up:  an article in the LA times tells us that we are already wasting less, by force. 

** You are my witness:  I will have said it first, before you did :o

Good news about the terrible economy

A chilling article in the LA times this morning with the headline Iceland is Steamed speaks of the very reasonable people of Iceland going to the streets and overthrowing their government now that the economy of the country has collapsed.  

(note: the images have nothing to do with the text, but you know how I like to lull you in with pretty images, and then murder the hope, just like that.)

I'm trying to wrap my mind around the not so crazy possibility of chunks of Europe and America reaching global poverty to the scale of third world countries. Crazy French girl you say? But really, who knows what is or isn't a likely scenario these days. Was any of the madness happening now even remotely imaginable six months ago? Sure it all looks so predictable...now, in retrospect!

All it tells me is that no one knows anything, no one is an expert and no one can predict worth a damn. I was looking at an old issue of Money Magazine and laughing at how not a single advice held true today. Invest they said. Ha! Funny how mankind rest all its trust in society-validated experts, until something (a global financial crisis) or someone (Galileo comes to mind) comes along and things go apeshit. Did you know that scientists recently realized they had the time wrong as when life on earth first emerged. They were off by one hundred million years. I'm just saying, expert schmexpert.

Back to the global economic crisis, Liberty Post raises an upsetting question here. Between paying for food and gas bill, what would you choose? (I know, thank you Liberty Post for such a light and airy topic for a Sunday.) She wonders about people having to deal with the humiliation of food stamps for the first time.

I just spent the last hour thinking and writing about this. What would I do? How would i cope? And what was to be a comment on her blog transformed into a lengthy post, so long in fact that I'll have to cut it into chucks and serve it to you over the course of the week. But it will be uplifting I think. Uplifting as only a perfectly uniformed person can uplift others.

What I wanted to say is that we are well aware of the terrible economic problems the world is facing, but have we thought of the possibility of this being good news? I'm not being cynical for once. That's what I'm going to be writing about this week: the silver lining of impending doom. (okay, that was cynical, but I promise to stop for a while) Please join in the fun if you want to.

Images from Living Etc. The home reminds me of Uma Thurman painting everything in white in The Producers.

New is the new boring

Just as I finish writing this, I see that Nina of Ninavorm and I are on the same wave length today.  The topic of her post is similar to mine and I was just going to tell you about her beautiful line of handmade ceramics!

Here is what I wanted to speak about. I feel that newness is coming too fast for me. You know how we have been desensitized to violence via TV and movies.  Eight years of a certain administration desensitized some of us to irresponsibility and abuse of power.  After a few months of financial doomsday, I think most of us are already desensitized to bad economic news.  

Well, i'm realizing that through blogging I'm desensitizing myself to newness.  I look at too many blogs. Look is not the word I'm looking for.  I scan, I consume, I engulf, I inhale.  It’s like a hunt, a chase to the finish line. Design, writing, politics, images, colors...and the strange thing is that instead of getting more, I get less, because things begin to look the same to me.  Not that they are the same, but it is as though my brain is no longer able to process subtleties.  My brain desperately craves a system.  It wants to group things together in neat packages.  Also, I worry of a certain dulling factor in my poor newness-harassed brain.  It seems that the only time I will get inspired these days is when I’m in bed reading a book.

 Have you heard of the brain on google phenomenon?  It’s apparently a real thing.  Brain scans reveal that our brains activate in all kinds of new ways while being online. I think it’s partly because when we are online we are not in the moment, our brain is racing like mad looking for the next thing.  (don’t pretend you’re not eager for me to get to the point here ;-) It’s as though instead of inspiration, what i end up with is overstimulation.  The result, I fear, is that instead of thinking/creating I simply become a consumer of newness who spends most of her time waiting for others to think/create for me. 

And now Nina's handmade creations.  Now here is something new that did not bore me :-) Why her work isn't all over the blogs is a mystery to me, because this feels very fresh and different.

 

 

note: Are you seeing what I'm seeing:  this absolutely horrendous ad for teeth whitening below this post. I saw it and chocked on my merlot. I think all of us are going to have nightmares tonight after this piece of crap ad.

We're going to be in the Hudson

This absolutely chilled me and filled me with awe.  I'm also reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell which has a fascinating chapter about the causes of plane crashes and  the effect of language and cultures on the way things are communicated in the cockpit. This is the audio tape of the communication between the pilot and the air controller, both demonstrating absolutely mastery in communicating. No drama, no time wasted, just facts and superb professionalism and decision making.

What is, to me,  remarkable about the Hudson plane crash is the pilot's capacity to make decisions under a life and death threat of such magnitude.  Not only were his life and those of the passengers at stake, but he had the ability to assess the possible destruction in the city had he not landed in the river.  They call him a hero and I have to agree.  Via Huffington Post.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Teaching french and the teenager's brain

In a moment of enthusiasm probably brought on by my ten year old's teacher calling my child's a Pleasure to Have in Class--as opposed to Menace to Society like last year's teacher-- my husband volunteered me to teach French in the classroom. 

It came as a  shock that he would do that to me, but in retrospect, the mood of the moment was the real culprit. We were sitting on miniature chairs at a miniature table with big  grins of relief on our faces, feeling thankful for this wonderful teacher who could handle a boy who does impromptu break dancing on the floor during class.  So my husband got that urge to give back to society I guess, and offered my time. I turned a deep shade of red (did I tell you I was a terrible blusher) and said, but of course, i would absolutely love to-- and promptly volunteered him for my teen's high school tennis team the next day.  I think it's only fair.

I like to be involved in the school and since I am chronically terrified of some of the more overzealous combative competitive mothers that haunt the PTA, teaching French isn't a bad idea. But  I have become increasingly protective of my time.  Healthy selfishness is what I call it.  All this to say that I had not been in a child's class room in a few years.

This morning was our first class.  I taught them how to say Je m'appelle, je suis une fille, or un garçon. I showed them how the mouth moves to make the sounds 'eu',' an' and 'on' and made them laugh.  We practice feel our 'r' in our throats.  Not on the tongue, but just on the roof of the mouth. I told them how French is spoken by 128 million people across the world, how nouns in French are either boy (like a book) or girl (a chair), how in French you don't pronounce h at the beginning of a word or most s at the end of it, and other absurd things they  won't remember by the time I go back next week.

I was charmed by them, those 34 faces looking at me, ready to learn and to have fun.  The kids were of all colors and shape but all so beautifully open and I wondered wistfully but what oh what will happen in the next three years that will transform them into shut-faced, non communicative, brooding and pimply blobs that will not make eye contact, unless of course they are lying, which they will do while looking  straight into your eyes.   

If you have a chance, you might want to see the French movie 'the class'  and you will get an idea of how weird, how alien, teenagers can be.  Before puberty, they are lovely and vulnerable creatures, and one day they are taken away, abducted, by some implacable force inside their brain.  I went to a talk on the subject and learned  what and why. The seat of empathy, the amygdala I'm told is under developed.  Teenagers have particular trouble reading facial expressions, something that babies do naturally and are physiologically unable to see the big pictures and contemplate their own mortality. 

Isn't is interesting how nature makes sure that everything is in place for the teenager to stop worrying, stop caring about mom and dad, lose the sense of risk.  How else would they cut the umbilical chord?

My teenager is wonderful.  I love him with all my heart.  He is one of the good ones.  One thing he is not, however, one thing he stopped being nearly overnight, is the child version of himself.  It is strange how much I miss the old him while loving the new him.  And I'm sad to think that in another couple of years, my ten-year-old will be gone as well, at least under the form I cherish now.

Next week, we're learning gros mots I think.  How to say fart and and boogers.  I have to keep the class interesting.