san francisco

Heading back to one of my favourite cities.

Love this hand printed map from delaflamant. Limited edition of 50.

bow-wow haus

Phillipe Plein dog bed










Design Public's Pet Pod
















Eddie's Room by Pet Project



















An etsy find

state of mind

Diane says it all.

something new under the sun

I've been cooped up in the 'Horse for so long now that new discoveries have been few and far between - until this happy day. I'm in love with David Graham Baker.








































Thanks Paul for the find.

cha cha cha changes

it's a new year. it's a new world.



















(image copyright the marvelous Sloane Tanen)

do those poor bastards even know it's christmas?

I'm not really into traditions for the most part. Not religious, skipped my graduations, opted for a commitment ceremony over a legal marriage, kept my name, don't do dishes, windows or 9-to-5 --you get the gist. But when it comes to Christmas, this atheist likes to adhere pretty closely to certain time honoured traditions. Like real trees, peppermint bark, mashed potato cookies, brussel sprout souffle, advent calendars and John Denver and the Muppets. Come December first, it's game on.

Being a child of the '80's this little ditty always gets its fair share of play (preferably on vinyl). As a tween, while I cared about the the socio-political message of the song, I confess I was probably more interested in the fact that Bono, Sting and Paul Young all appeared on screen together than anything else.

Listening to it today, I can't help but cringe at the patronizing and embarrassing lyrics ala "there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas" and "tonight thank god it's them instead of you" but like most traditions, this one is best not subjected to too much analysis or deep thinking. You just got to go with it. Enjoy.

Boggis, Bunce and Bean

"... One fat, one short and one lean.
These horrible crooks,
so different in looks.
were none the less equally mean."

Roald Dahl. Wes Anderson. I'm so excited.

That's saying a lot considering my general disposition these days.

beard weather

Around these parts, we're months past sweater weather and well into winter's subzero grip which calls for an arsenal of practical but puffy, lumpy and clunky cold weather wear. Imagine my happiness when I stumbled upon this beauty last year.

Quirky, original and warm? It can be done. I bring you the beard cap by Icelandic textile design collective Vik Prjónsdóttir.


The cap is modeled after the traditional Icelandic lambshed hood (think balaclava) worn in winter by sheep farmers who have to make long treks through bitter winds and snow between their barns and neighbouring farms.








Unfortunately, as is so often the case with original and inventive designs, the beard cap has fallen victim to a host of cheesy, cheaply made knock-offs. If you love it, give the designers the props they deserve and get an original. I just picked one up for my sweetie's birthday at Scandinavian Grace. They carry many other incredible textile designs from the marvelous Vik Prjónsdóttir collective like the baby seal pelts and regional blankets.

road worthy

Like so many things made for kids, car seats seem designed to be hideous. Practical? Ok. Safe? To be sure. Easy on the eyes - not so much.

Enter the Cosco car seat circa 1960/70. Fortunately we were thinking ahead and snagged one at the SF Deco and Modernist Show a few years back.



Small profile - check.
Streamlined design - check.
Easy on the eyes - check.
Eames inspired contours - check
Safe - one can't have everything.

if you can't beat 'em ....

. . . might as well join in the fun. Happy Hallowe'en.

Bloodbath shower curtain (designer unknown).



Adam Arber's Roadkill toys: racoon and weasel.



Liquid Bookmark from Kyouei designs

hello, elloh!

I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Etsy. So many knock-offs of other people's original designs and hundreds upon hundreds of cookie-cutter versions of cutesy, fadish, here-today, forgotten-tomorrow stuff made from the same tired patterns and fabrics. If you have the patience though to sort through the crafty crap, there are some real original gems to be found.

Case in point the marvelous drawings by elloh (aka ellen lohse) paying tribute to an eclectic assortment of pop culture, literary and cinematic favourites from yesterday to today.

Just arrived in my mailbox this week is this sweet homage to two of my most favouritest people - Charles and Ray Eames.












There's so many wonderful prints to choose from, it was hard to pick just a few to show you. Check out her etsy shop for other gems including odes to Flight of the Conchords, the A Team, various Hitchcock movies, Willy Wonka, the Darjeeling Limited, Mary Tyler Moore, To Kill a Mockingbird and on and on.



Don Draper AND Han Solo!!!



Nobody puts baby in a corner!


Breakfast at Tiffanys

still life with egg

Meet my latest Wehringer. Oh happy, happy day.

why i can never again set foot in scottsdale arizona

WANTED:

Jennifer Williams
DOB: 4/9/65
Fraudulent schemes, burglary


Let's hope no future employers stumble upon this.

who is john galt? (aka schizophrenic book club)

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the titles in my parents' book shelves. The Gulag Archipelago. Anna Karenina. Ship of Fools. Canadian Realist Paintings. Atlas Shrugged. For some reason, the last one seemed especially interesting. Maybe it had something to do with the cover. While I've gone on to read many of those titles in the intervening years, I never got around to Ayn Rand. Until I started watching Mad Men and my interest was re-ignited. Somehow between Cooper's recommendation and a brief internet search I got it in my head that the premise of the book is that all the artists and innovators, inventors etc agree to go on strike to prove to the world how useless everything would be without them. Well, 100 pages or so in and I'm beginning to realize, that's not quite what it's all about. Oh well, I'm committed now. Never let it be said that this left leaning socialist lover isn't open to alternate ideas.... wish me luck.

Maybe it has something to do with all the changes in the air in my own life, but my night table is definitely beginning to resemble something of a schizophrenic's book club these days.

In addition to Ayn Rand, I've been reading pretty much any Richard Yates story I can get my hands on. It all started with watching the film Revolutionary Road. His utterly unredeeming tales of suburban angst and resigned hopelessness have a kind of Mad Men feel to them.



Add to that Corinne Maier's witty and urbane call to arms No Kids: 40 Reasons Not to Have Children - a must read for all thinking people - parents or not - and Apexart's Cautionary Tales: Critical Curating and you have yourself a pretty good glimpse into my frenetic state of mind these days.



Oh, I almost forgot - just arrived in the mail is the latest work from my man Tom

spider lamp

I've been on the look out for this chandelier since I first saw it in hanging in Kollwitz 45 in Berlin last fall.

I'd begun to think it was a figment of my imagination but then I found it again at Unicahome.
Behold the amazing "Dear Ingo" light aka the spider lamp by designer Ron Gilad for Moooi. So awkward, yet so right. Sadly, at $3200US, so expensive too. Normally I'm not in favour of knocking-off design originals but in this case the temptation is strong....

hot tub

Today's favourite things posting would be a most welcome addition to our household - the fabulous Dutchtub. (Not to be confused with a dutch oven which is never greeted with a welcome.)


Normally, I'm just not a fan of hot tubs. I tend to run far far away from any vacation rental or hotel that boasts of one. (Shiver me timbers, just the thought of it makes me gag.)

The Dutchtub on the other hand is pretty darn irresistible. For more photos of this wood-fired marvel in action, check out the Flickr stream.

refined pallet

When you live in an isolated northern community, the search for art and design inspiration more often than not involves trips Outside and many an hour online. It's a rare treat when something fresh and innovative appears close to home - in this case, a few metres from my house.

For several years now Paul Gort has been working away in his studio outside of Whitehorse with a mission to bring modern design and quality craftmanship to the cabins and suburban boxes of the north. In a town where a place called The Country House is considered high style and The Brick the height of contemporary, Gort Fine Woodworking has had its work cut out for it.

This winter, in conjunction with the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, audiences south of 60 will have a chance to view a new Gort original making its debut at the Canadian Craft Federation's exhibition "Unity and Diversity", a celebration of the best of Canadian fine craft. If you're in the area next February, stop by the Vancouver Art Gallery and check it out.

"Pallet Table" is from Gort's new line of studio furniture pieces aimed at reclaiming the concept of fine craft by taking the temporary and cobbled together forms and vessels so beloved by do-it-yourselfers and reforming them into objects of enduring and unique beauty.

"The Pallet Table reintroduces audiences to the ubiquitous shipping pallet. Found in alleyways and dumpsters across the land, the lowly pallet is seen primarily as a vessel for transporting goods or by do-it-yourselfers as a source of crude material to be reused for makeshift purposes. My reinterpretation stays true to the familiar form but is finely rendered using solid black walnut and traditional hand-crafted joinery as a direct challenge to our perceptions of quality and longevity."

To check out more of Gort's designs visit him online.

surrealist soup tureen

There's nothing I like better than an object with a sense of humour. For a couple of years now I've been coveting and drooling over the topography soup tureen from Japan's Kyouei Designs. It combines three of my favourite things in one: surrealism, tureens (thanks to Astrid Lindgren's children's classic "Emil in the Soup Tureen") and soup.



One of these days I'm going to cave in and make it mine all mine.

..and there's always music in the air

Finally made it through all the bonus features on the Twin Peaks Gold Box Set. While pretty comprehensive, including this little ditty would have been the ice cream on Norma's cherry pie. Can't have everything.

J'accuse!

I've been a little distracted -- ok a lot distracted --lately which has led to shameless neglect of the green things in my house and around the yard. The other day as I slunk by the big wilting ficus in the loft, I swear I heard him hiss "J'accuse"! Oh dear, if only I had a few of these IV pots from Vitamin Design, my asparagus fern might still be talking to me.




10 cc's of h20, stat!

for the love of awkwardness

When it comes to portraits or any artistic genre really, I couldn't be less interested in "pretty". I'm particularly suspect of anything purporting to be unstaged, natural, or candid as (to my mind) those images tend to be the most infused with artifice. I like a good staged narrative. Highly posed, unapologetically constructed, these images expose the uncomfortable truths that we might not care to reveal about ourselves.

Here are a few examples from some of my favourite photographers:

Jeff Wall's "Mimic"


Tina Barney's "Jill and Polly in the bathroom"


Nic Nicosia's "Like photojournalism"


Recently though, my sister tuned me into a hilarious new website devoted to (unintentionally) awkward family photos that give new meaning to the word uncomfortable. Simply put, you can't make this shit up.

A few selections from the website.

"Family tree - even the tree thought this one was awkward"


"My two dads - feel free to use your calculators for this exercise"


"The closeness of you - when you're madly in love..."


There's one image on the site for which there simply are no words. Even I hesitated to post this one - "The Wonder Years" . Yikes.