lions and t-shirts and toys oh my

Today's post contains not one, not two, but three count 'em, three favourite things rolled into one package and tied up with string. Put on your best safari suit, crack open a bottle of Tusker biridi and hit play.

First up is not so much a thing as a place. In my dream biography, there'd be a chapter that reads "I had an acreage in Africa at the foot of the Taita-Rukinga wildlife sanctuary." Has a nice ring to it n'est-ce pas? If you've been dreaming of Kenya but don't know where to get your trip started, here's an offer you can't refuse. The Earthwatch Institute sponsors scientific research projects around the world, including a number in Kenya, that afford the average Joe and Joanne the chance to become (paying) volunteer researchers in the field (tax deductible for US residents).















Back in 2002, we took part in the Lions of Tsavo adventure in Kenya (read my account for the Globe and Mail here.) Two weeks of roaming a private wildlife sanctuary in search of infamous man eating lions, taking in some of the world's most magnificent flora and fauna as you go. Despite their man-eating reputation, what makes these cats so interesting to the researchers is their lack of manes. Tickle your fancy? There's no time to waste because 2009 will be the last year for the project. It's not cheap, but you'll never regret it. Compared with a mini-bus tour .. well .. there is no comparison.

Can't go there? then get a T-shirt. Just next door to the Lions of Tsavo project stomping grounds is Wildlife Works. Situated on the Rukinga wildlife sanctuary, the area is a crucial wildlife corridor for elephants and other kings of the savannah who travel through the reserve which transects the east and west divisions of Tsavo National Park. Using a fantastic model they've dubbed "consumer powered conservation", the founders have established a garment factory on the sanctuary employing (primarily women) from the neighbouring villages. Through the clothing line sold online and in boutiques around the world, Wildlife Works is helping to improve the economic and social conditions of local people which in turn helps protect the area's wild inhabitants. Alternative sources of income = less poaching and charcoal burning which is good for everyone. So get online and order your tshirt today. I have literally a dozen of them that I bought on a visit to the factory a few years ago and from their flagship store in San Francisco.

For those of you with a mini Dr Doolittle at home, or who just like cool toys, the Fisher Price Adventure People safari set is a must have. Comes with a documentary film-making family to boot. Made in the 70's, there are still some sets to be found - I got mine on ebay. They just don't make many toys like this anymore.

There you have it - 3 of my favourite things from and inspired by the wilds of east africa.

the sincerest form of theft

I think the first time I heard the expression "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" it was from my mom. I was in 2nd or 3rd grade and someone else had the audacity to show up at recess wearing princess leia buns. Didn't she know that there could be only ONE princess leia at selkirk street school and clearly it was ME? I still get hot under the collar thinking about it all these years later.

Imagine how Thomas Lee must have felt back in the winter of 1903 when he took pity on local carpenter Harry Bunnell by offering up his chair design to help the carpenter earn a few bucks . Lee figured Bunnell could use his design for a summer chair to make a couple of pieces to sell locally in the town of Westport, NY where Lee owned a summer home. Recognizing a good thing when he saw it, Bunnell wasted no time taking the design straight to the nearest patent office and lo and behold the Bunnell Westport Plank Chair --aka the adirondack chair -- was born. The carpenter did quite well for himself, continuing to churn out the chairs for the next few decades. Today, an original Bunnell chair will fetch a tidy sum - just ask Leigh Keno of antiques roadshow fame.












If there are any collectors out there willing to pay a particularly tidy sum for a rocking chair version stamped 1922, please feel free to contact me. As it happens, there's one in my living room - I'd never dream of selling it of course (wink wink) but you can catch a glimpse of it in this polaroid from my "explorations in ennui" series a few years back.

stuck between the moon and new york city

This is the time of year when I really rack up the mental travel miles. The snowdrifts continue to climb higher and the mercury shows no signs of rising above -10c so I hit the road and go wandering.


Today I wandered over to the Jen Bekman gallery in NYC and found that she's hosting a solo show for one of my favourite artists, Sarah McKenzie. At the risk of repeating myself, she's still the bees knees in my book.















So, if you're lucky enough to find yourself in new york city this month, check it out and drop me a line c/o my outpost, (they'll know it at the post office as the the last stop to on the way to the moon) and tell me how they looked up close and in person. Until then, off to the next destination.

design matters: bringing the mean streets in

Living as I do on the edge of one of the last true wilderness areas on earth, there are days when all the trees and fresh air and birds and four-legged fur bearing visitors gets to be a bit much. In the midst of all this rural charm, one does what one can to keep connected to the concrete jungle.

In Japan's Pull+Push design team, I think I've found real kindred spirits who understand what it means to yearn for cement and rebar and smog and industry. A few of these items carefully placed around your home are sure to quench your inner urban longings.

from their collection of planters: cube, pipe, hei, mansion and haisui.



























Incense pots: cottage and factory:









Ashtrays: kiso and foot










I can practically smell the smog. Welcome to my happy place.

my funny post-modern valentine

I happen to think Valentine's day is pretty much the cheesiest of all the cheesy born-of-religion-raised in-capitalism holidays. Then again I think red roses, heart shaped pendants and boxes of candy are pretty icky. If you must succumb to the notion of love = buying things, here are a few ideas that are at least a little more original.

Nothing says lovers in a dangerous time quite as much as these items - Tobias Wong's ballistic rose pin will take a bullet for you, while Sam & Jude's 3 gun vase is perfect for the NRA couple who believe that love means never having to say sorry (not even if you were to accidentally shoot each other).

If you are getting tired of hearing your beloved playing this song ad nauseam, the 2 carat cup by Yusuke Fujinuma is sure to get a reaction.










Though don't be surprised if the next song you hear is this one...

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For those who are too busy, too important (or just plain too turned off by PDAs) to actually hug their beloved, there's always the hug shirt by cute circuit. This gadget allows users to send and receive simulated human contact via blackberry. Now if that's not love . . .















And last but not least, for those out there who don't happen to have a Plus One on this magical day, there's always the Buddy Throw. Comes in a number of colours to match any decor, but none is more creepy than this chalk-outline version. (although who am I to judge? I suppose even necrophiliacs deserve a little nooky on VDay.)

point it.

Forget that stuff your mother told you about how it's rude to point. When it comes to travel, you can't do better than to Point It according to the creator of this handy dandy book:





















Should you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position of having to navigate a foreign land filled with foreigners who eat weird foreign food, speak a weird foreign language and who probably don't even go to church, DO NOT PANIC because help is at hand - literally. Just flip to the appropriate page, gesticulate forcefully at the photo that best represents your need and repeat the word loudly in english. (the louder the better.)

I do have a few suggestions for the publishers if they opt for a 2nd edition. The following would have really come in handy on my last trip.

keeping calm

I don't know about the rest of you, but I had high hopes for 2009. Sky high, pie in the sky hopes for 09. Despite, or perhaps because of these high expectations, the fates seem to have gone ahead and made other plans for me. Being that this is a favourite things compendium however, I'll spare you the hundred paper cuts account of the previous 6 weeks.

Instead, I'll reach deep within my DNA wells and summon up my British stiff upper lip (well, Scottish. Sorry Nan) and pull out this little propaganda ditty from world war II. I've seen the design reappearing lately in all sorts of places from interior design shops to restaurants, including the Cascade Room in Vancouver.

If ever a Pimm's cup could qualify as a mean cocktail, theirs surely would.

Chin up old boy. V-Day (aka the world's most pathetic holiday) is just around the corner.

feeling the need for thneeds

I love inanimate objects. Beautifully crafted, cleverly conceived, impeccably executed things. I realize that this is at odds with the eco-imperative that I believe should be at the heart of all our lifestyle and consumer choices. I guess I've managed to reconcile my hypocritical nature by adopting (for the most part) a "look but don't buy" approach to pretty things.

The capitalist machine, being the great Darwinian beast it is, recognizes that it needs to adapt to the changing consumer conscience in order to survive. (By survive, I mean to continue to reap billions of dollars in profits.) Hence the explosion of "green" products: earth friendly SUVs, 4000 square foot monster homes built to green standards, eco-friendly decorating shows where the hosts seem to think that all a product needs to be eco-friendly is to be made from a natural material.

Sorting the fair trade organic wheat from the proverbial GMO sweatshop chaff is only made harder by products like this:














These "TransNeomatic" bowls claim to be made by a collective in Vietnam out of recycled scooter tires "Inspired by the scooters that zip through Vietnam's streets at all hours but distressed by the mountains of used tires that end up in the country's landfills, designers Fernando and Humberto Campana created the TransNeomatic bowl. Made from a used scooter tire that's filled with a web of natural wicker, the bowls articulate the tension between modernity and tradition that informs much of the developing world." Sounds good right. We'd all agree that repurposing an existing thneed is generally more earth friendly than creating a brand new thneed. The trouble here is that it appears (from the comments on the treehugger blog anyway) that these cleverly re-purposed bowls may not in fact be fashioned from recycled tires, but from brand new ones.

What's the moral of this story? Beware of thneeds in green clothing. After all, a thneed is a thneed is a thneed no matter how you try to green it up.

leah giberson: little boxes

Leah Giberson's mixed media studies of suburban houses and landscapes bring to mind one of my favourite tunes about conformity and the pursuit of progress. Unlike the ticky tacky houses in the song, Giberson's subjects are raised out of their suburban drudgery to become unique and beautiful vignettes tinged with nostalgia and loneliness. I love how she incorporates and embraces what would traditionally be considered awkward or aesthetically unseemly artistic elements such as intrusive shadows and power lines. A few of my favourites from her etsy site.

It is happening again

Please, please canada post. Let today be the day.

mac daddy comes to town

I live in a town that honours and appreciates creativity. All acts of creativity. Some might even say ANY acts of creativity. There's a lot to be said for that kind of supportive environment. I've certainly benefited from it. The flip side of that cultural coin however is that it can lead to a lack of distinction at times between acts of creative expression (art therapy?) and works of art. Works that are based on technique, mastery, a deep understanding of both the historical and contemporary context of the medium. Works that have a conceptual underpinning or that have a distinct point of view or that bring something new to the table.

Those of us who appreciate that distinction have come to accept that (not always but) for the most part, we need to go Outside of our community to satisify our art cravings. Nakai Theatre's Pivot Festival may just be changing that.

I don't know how they did it, but the organizers this year gave audiences the gift of New York performance artist Taylor Mac (seen in this Whitehorse Star photo). To call him a drag queen doesn't somehow do him justice. Mac lulls you into a false sense of comfort with his garish make-up and over the top attire only to hit you with a sucker punch of such poignancy and heartbreak you're laughing hysterically one minute and crying the next. With stories and songs he tells of growing up different in a family and a society where the desperate need to conform results in acts of such humiliation and degradation it boggles the mind and makes David Sedaris' family seem like a hallmark movie of the week. We caught a sneak peek of his Be(A)st show which included an imagined encounter between Mrs Dick Cheney and Saddam Hussein exposing their humanity in a most unexpected way. Truly the week art came to town.

Mac, seen in this Yukon News photo performing with local art-star-in-the-making Joseph Tisiga in his (also fantastic) "Late Nite With Grey Owl."

I loved you in married to the mob (aka is it hot in here or is it just me?)

Lock up your daughters (heck your sons too just to be safe) and put on your sunglasses - Mr Mirrorball Suit is coming back to the small screen in February as the host of the new talk show "The Chris Isaak Hour" on the Biography channel. Suddenly life is worth living again. Now if we could only do something about expediting the Chris Isaak Show's release on DVD.

dreaming of do-overs

It used to be a common occurrence in my ongoing search for "the THING" in life - the second guessing. Since finally stumbling upon my own version of that elusive thing a few years ago, I haven't had much cause to wish for do-overs. I have to say though, when I listen to these guys (and I listen to them a lot) I can't help thinking maybe music is the way to go . . .

The Frames/Swell Season live rendition of Fitzcarraldo is truly one of the finest things in life. If you aren't able to get out to see them live, you can download the next best thing from Played Last Night or check out some great sets on youtube. Is it too late, do you think to take up the guitar? or the piano? or the violin?



(p.s. it behooves me to mention that a certain someone I know has a major man crush on the drummer.)

for the love of god, halt's maul!

You know who I'm talking about - that guy in the restaurant, the loudmouths in the airport lounge, the colleague on the other side of the wafer-thin cubicle wall - who either a) imagines everyone is fascinated by minutiae of their every life experience b) has no sense of personal boundaries be it their own or others or c) suffers from voice modulation dysfunction. For those situations when you'd really like to tell someone to shut the f@#$ up but social conventions prevent it, here's a genuinely useful design object.

Alison Riley's "Stop Talking" cards are just the ticket. Get yours here

calling all pacific pallisades grannies

Wherever I travel, be it through the physical or cyber world, I'm always on the lookout for certain hard-to-find vintage treasures. Up til now I've had some great luck tracking down or stumbling upon many of these coveted design items but there is one that continues to elude me. The Revell dollhouse designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1959 complete with eames furniture. In what may be the single greatest miniature tragedy of our time, the house never made it past the R&D phase though there are rumoured to be prototypes floating around out there. The thought of it keeps me up nights.













I did inquire at the Eames Office when we visited a year or so ago, but they claimed to be equally in the dark. Where's a pacific pallisades Granny/former industrial designer with forgetful tendencies and a large attic when I need one?

baby, it's scary outside

Forget the cold, baby it's downright scary out there and designer Tristan Zimmerman ain't about to let us forget it. In these troubled times, there's no excuse to forgo any good fear-based opportunity, least of all in our home furnishings. These "park planters" fit the bill nicely.





























For the extra vigilant who prefer to be kept constantly informed about exactly how afraid to be in a given day, Paul Gort's home version of the security meter is a must-have. Tastefully designed to discreetly complement any decor, you need never worry again about being caught inappropriately fearful or less.
























and so concludes the second installment in my "7th commandment" sunday fireside series.

what would diana think?

Have you ever had the experience of looking at the work of an artist you admire and thinking, "all right then. I'm shit. Time to get back at it and work harder." I love it when that happens. When you're just starting out, and particularly when you live in an isolated part of the world, true critics and mentors are hard to come by. While she's thousands of miles away in Winnipeg, and quite unbeknownst to her, Diana Thorneycroft is one of those people for me.

Her work explores the uncomfortable truths behind our national symbols, sacred cows and our seeming ease with the spectacle of violence. It's intelligent, provocative, uncomfortable, funny, dark and beautifully executed - everything art should be.

"Algonquin Park" and "Winter on the Don" from her Group of Seven Awkward Moments Series:

curiouser and curiouser

A couple of people have referred in recent conversations to this billboard message I posted from Copenhagen a few weeks back:














Now there's a new year's resolution if ever I've heard one. Here's to curious new years all round.