things I like, vol. 43 (art edition)

I have been saving up for this post since May, apparently, which means I am officially taking the "this week" out of the title for good.

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I adore Carey Mulligan, and the twenties, and Fitzgerald, and my only significant disappointment with the recent movie was Tobey Maguire's incessant whine (they really should've cast James McAvoy, who would've done it justice). The Vogue article about Carey was lovely, not just for the pictures but also for the insight into her character development; in the accompanying behind-the-scenes video, she reads in her natural accent one of my favorite passages from the book.

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It is a bathtub hammock. Now if only it were accompanied by a fireplace . . .

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A fascinating article about David Hockney, who proposed that artists were using a lens to help them sketch images long before art history had traditionally acknowledged it.

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Two of my favorite tango people, Homer and Christina. If you've ever struggled to put a visual to musicality, this is it. (It gets more impressive as it goes on, so keep watching.)

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Two paintings from Ugallery.com, which is devoted to providing an online gallery space for emerging artists (often university students).

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A photograph of a girl who has been painted on and placed in a milk bath. (more at the link)

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Chain link fencing as art, from 22 Dreamy Art Installations You Want to Live In. 

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A stunningly beautiful set of engagement photos in Iceland.

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What struck me most about these pictures is how modern they look, despite the four decades that have passed since they were taken. 

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Yes, please. 

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The article title says it all: Abandoned Walmart is Now America's Largest Library. If only all our Walmarts were so magically transformed.

things I like this week, vol 42.2

I lied about posting again the day after the last one.

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Sell music on itunes at ReverbNation.com

Apparently I have a thing for trip hop. This is on regular rotation on our blues nights and it's been in my head for weeks.

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There was a long time where if you asked me to name my "type" of man I couldn't give you any specifics beyond tall. I've narrowed it down quite a bit since then, but this post reaffirms my love of beards.

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Clever.

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I love almost everything this woman wears.

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In case you haven't seen it (though you probably have). Colin and I have been quoting it at each other at least twice a day since we watched it.

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A found bookmark.

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A coworker bought a bunch of these scalp massagers as graduation gifts for our seniors. She had extras, so I got one too. It is awesome.

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I don't like Beyonce, but her hair looks like fire in this picture.

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There is a special place in my heart for stained glass.

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Yes, please.

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This too.

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Every once in awhile you could see the wind doing this to the peaks in Flag.

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Maybe I need to just make a post entitled "Steve McCurry is awesome."

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A really beautiful post on Aldeburg, Suffolk.

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He "document[s] the exact time, angle, latitude and longitude of each exposure and then track[s] the rotation of the earth to locations with clear night skies such as the Mojave, Sahara, and Atacama deserts."

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And, because I feel like ending with a poem:

Suicide's Note

The calm
cool face of the river
asked me for a kiss. 

- Langston Hughes

things I like this week, vol. 42.1

If you haven't seen this yet - I've had it sent to me by two dear people who apparently know my taste - it's incredible: a Paris apartment sealed up just before WW2 and opened just recently. The woman paid the rent until she died and never returned, and when they opened it up, they found a painting of her grandmother, actress-muse-mistress to Giovanni Boldini.

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I love the internet.

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This woman's photographs are incredible.

My favorite thing about this shot is the pinky-red blood trail behind her, and the way the color is echoed in the gradation of her lips.

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I love this post about the sound in tango music that's named after a cicada - a chicharra. I've heard it, but I'd never known what it was.

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Ben Folds choosing pianos in his studio.

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An absurdly detailed map of North American dialects. For the record, I say "pin" and "pen" differently, despite being born in Georgia and living for the past decade and a half in Tucson.

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A fascinating article in Smithsonian magazine about how artists in Egypt are using graffiti as a form of protest against the government. 

A pawn uprising.

It's an excerpt from Neruda translated into Arabic: "You can step on the flowers but you can never delay the Spring."

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Heartbreakingly beautiful photography by a teenage trainhopper. They published a book of his photos, but he's working as a mechanic now and doesn't think of himself as a photographer.

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It's the light and shadow under her shoulder, and her vulnerability.

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I am suffering quite heavily from this at the moment. I'm partway through To Have and Have Another (making drinks as I go); I'm two chapters in to editing Colin's next novel; I have started but not finished The Wyrd Sisters and Jitterbug Perfume; Colin gave me The Paris Wife for Mother's Day, which I have read before and loved and want to read again, especially after To Have; seeing Gastby made me want to read my copy of Jazz Age Stories, which was returned to me by a student the day after I remembered owning it (but not that I'd lent it out); I downloaded American Gods to my phone and haven't opened it; and the trailer for Ender's Game makes me itch to read it again, for probably the tenth time. 

Of the paper copies, only Ender's Game is actually in the bookshelf - the rest are stacked around the house, mostly in the nightstand.

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And speaking of Fitzgerald, here's the villa where he supposedly wrote Tender is the Night: 

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More to come tomorrow, I think. I've been saving up awhile (as you might have guessed from the dearth of posts lately).

the hummingbird tree

Joley got a bicycle for Christmas, and the first time she returned from a ride around the apartment complez with Colin she started going on and on about showing me "the hummingbird tree."

Once I took her out, I was amazed - one of the apartment complex residents has set up hummingbird feeders in several trees outside his house. It was impressive enough without the birds flying around, but we happened to be there this past Saturday evening right as the sun was setting, which was apparently prime time for hummingbird dinner.

(Forgive the poor picture quality.)

The man who monitors the feeders was outside and talked to us for several minutes. He has twenty-four feeders spread out between a few trees and the hedges across the road, and he had more last year - forty-two in total. He makes four gallons of sugar water a week to maintain the feeders, and the ratio he uses is one cup of sugar to four cups of water. He said the most hummingbirds he ever had feeding at one time was about a hundred.

It was the most incredible thing - I've never seen that many hummingbirds gathered in one place before. Some of the feeders had six or seven birds around them. They zipped from feeder to feeder, flying within inches of us, and they chirped constantly. I never even realized hummingbirds made noise beyond the buzzing of their wings.

He told us that some of the hummingbirds migrate from Central America all the way up through Canada. He pointed out the iridescent feathers on the males, and the two different species of birds that were feeding at this time of year, and he told us with a mournful face how last year when it got down to 16 degrees, he got up in the morning to find nine dead hummingbirds on the lawn.

These feeders he set up for breeding season. Apparently the males get territorial and only let the females they mate with eat from their feeder, so spreading them out like this allows everyone to have an opportunity.

It felt sort of magical, and I wanted to share it with you, especially as this man's goal in life seems to be share his hummingbirds with the world. He stands outside waiting to talk to people who pass by - as we left, he was already talking to another couple who was out for their evening exercise.

things I like this week, vol. 36

Literary jokes for the win.

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“After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.”

-Mark Twain

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They're tiny perfume-filled glass bottles. You're supposed to violently throw them on the ground to make the room smell pretty. The website gives no recommendation for how to clean up the shards of glass, which implies a level of decadence I'm not sure I'm comfortable with.

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 Indi Apparel in Zocalo magazine. (I am still quite proud of the makeup.)

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Cats. Accompanied by Neruda quotes. (The internet is amazing.)

There is also Calming Manatee.

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From Gatsby, of course.

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Children's books reimagined as minimalist posters.

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An interesting perspective on homosexual marriage: the tradition of "two-spirit" people in Native American tribes.

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A clothing wishlist:

a dress for tango

and a dress for New Year's.

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Bar cart inspiration, and two ideas for drinks:

smoked cocktails (they're apparently a thing. I am intrigued) and . . .

a recipe for apple cider sangria that I will be concocting at the earliest opportunity.

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Lincoln in realistic color.

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Vintage WW2 photographs superimposed on shots taken in the same spot in modern times.

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A river of 10,000 lighted books in Melbourne. At the end of the night they started giving them away to passersby.

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Friends of mine on top of Mt. Lemmon.

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And a poem:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-Mary Oliver