weekend inspiration

Every weekend, Garance Doré posts an inspirational picture. It's along the lines of a shoe, or a piece of art, or jewelry.

My perpetual weekend inspiration is our calico, whose luxurious naps are a constant source of envy.

things I like this week, vol. 41

From the selby's Nina Pohl shoot, which was lovely and mid-century modern - though I preferred the flowers. 

. . .

Einstein's desk, which I saw two pictures of in a week, one accompanied by this quote: "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" And even though I spent two and a half days cleaning up my office over spring break, at least I felt somewhat validated about it having been very much like Albert's in the first place. 

. . .

Bookshelves in the bathroom . . . 

 . . . bookshelves in the kitchen . . .

. . . bookshelves in the bedroom. These make me conclude that we need more bookshelves in our apartment, preferably built-ins. Hardwood floors wouldn't hurt, either.

. . .

Neil Gaiman did a collaboration with BlackBerry called A Calendar of Tales. He twitter-sourced ideas by asking questions about each month ("What would you burn in November, if you could?"), picking a tweet that inspired him ("My medical records, but only if that would make it all go away.") and then wrote a story for each month. And then they posted all the stories, and asked people to create art based on those stories, and they're going to pick an art piece for each month and turn the whole damn thing into a calendar. 

The stories are quite good, and the art that people submitted is incredible. You can see/read/watch the whole thing here. What it all has to do with BlackBerry I don't know, but it's beautiful despite that.

. . . 

 

 

Dimitry Tsykalov, whose works make me think of these lines from Eliot's Wasteland:

And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

. . . 

This is from a photoshoot done with disposable cameras, by two models who are dating, as an ad for Gucci Guilty Black. I am fascinated by the contrast of the apparent intimacy of the photos and the obviously advertorial nature of the whole enterprise. 

. . .

This house is downtown, just behind the Stillwell house, and is quite gorgeous. And for sale for an absurd $1.5mil, because apparently it was the home to some Senator I've never heard of.

. . .

Morocco is quickly climbing the list of "places I need to visit soon."

. . .

'Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from Ulysses

. . . 

The irony of Courtney Love discussing makeup amuses me. She seems surprisingly coherent. 

. . .

It was in my head for a week or two before I actually listened to the lyrics and fell in love with itfor that reason, too.

things I love this week, vol. 40

Then jet the blue tent topple, stars rain down,
and god or void appall us till we drown
in our own tears: today we start
to pay the piper with each breath, yet love
knows not of death nor calculus above
the simple sum of heart plus heart.

- from "Love is a Parallax," Sylvia Plath. 

. . .

A man feeding swans in the snow.

. . . 

It came up on one of my tango Pandora stations. The Google translation of the lyrics is as beautiful as the melody.

. . .

Made of shards of glass.

. . .

A fascinating NYTimes article about Linsday Lohan and a micro-budget film shot last summer.

. . .

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." 

- To Kill a Mockingbird

. . . 

Sublime.

. . . 

[I want

to eat that
light.] Every
thing that grows
does.

- from “Honeysuckle,” Lyn Lifshin.

"blizzard" in tucson

Tuesday afternoon Colin (along with half the city, apparently) got a notification on his phone that there was a blizzard warning for Wednesday. Facebook blew up with people laughing about it - someone, somewhere, clarified that it was for Mt. Lemmon, not the valley.

I had to force Joley to put on a long-sleeved shirt that morning. She'd been running around outside in short sleeves for at least a week.

By midday Wednesday, we weren't joking about the possibility of snow anymore, and instead there was that sort of tingling in the air - everyone kept peeking out windows at the frigid rain, hoping it had changed into flakes.

I happened to be standing by a bank of windows overlooking the cafeteria when it changed over. The kids went from huddled miserably under awnings to dancing in the open, taking pictures of themselves making silly faces with snowflakes on their heads.

I stood later in the library and watched it come down and tried to capture it on my phone. It was too wet to stick, then, and I won't subject you to those pictures, with the florescent lights suspended oddly in the sky from the reflection of the library windows.

It stopped and started perhaps four times throughout the day. These pictures were taken when I got home. The whole thing was rather surreal and magical - I've seen snow in Tucson before, once every few years or so, but never this much.

The cold rather killed the remaining oranges, though.

I'm forever fascinated by snow-lined branches and the patterns they make. It was always my favorite part of snowfalls in Flagstaff.

Sign of the imminent overheating of the earth or not, it was a lovely day.

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.