friday wisdom

via french by design

diane keaton gets into the design game

A serial house flipper, Diane Keaton, has bought several homes in her native Southern California and painstakingly renovated them before getting the itch to move on and repeat the process. The actress is also actively involved in architectural preservation (she is on the board of the Los Angeles Conservancy), and in 2007, she co-wrote “California Romantica” (Rizzoli), a book celebrating the Spanish and Mission-style architecture she loves.

Now she is getting into the design game, with a tabletop collection called K by Keaton that she created for Bed, Bath & Beyond. The stoneware cups, bowls and plates, which are available online and in some stores now, have her trademark whimsy (some are stamped with the words “eat” or “bite”) and lack of pretension (prices start at about $5). But they also reflect Ms. Keaton’s latest obsession: the heartland. The “farm-y, landscape colors” she used, she told a reporter, were inspired by wheat, grass and bark.

Read the entire interview in todays NY Times here.

summer solstice

First day of summer

photo from Maniac World

Sol + stice derives from a combination of Latin words meaning "sun" + "to stand still." As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky.

As a major celestial event, the Summer Solstice results in the longest day and the shortest night of the year. The Northern Hemisphere celebrates in June, but the people on the Southern half of the earth have their longest summer day in December.

In the Northern Hemisphere, summer solstice begins on Jun 21 2011 at 1:16 P.M. EDT

More here.

he's baaack

America’s Favorite Talking Hothead

New York Times article here.

Every night starting Monday, June 20th, on Current TV (yes, Al Gore's network) at 5 PM Pacific Time, 7 Central Time, 8 Eastern.

Go here for a teaser.

sweet paul - summer

Click here.

turning a painting in to a bag

Some might think it sacrilegious to cut up an original oil painting and turn it in to a tote bag. But that's exactly what I did. I first noticed the bags done by Leslie Oschmann on her website and blog called Swarm. She now sells them through Anthropologie for lots of money.

My girlfriend Julie, saw them and was immediately inspired to copy Leslie and make them ourselves in an afternoon workshop with friends.

This is the prototype for the workshop. I needed to find out how feasible these were to make. It turned out to be pretty easy but a home sewing machine isn't the best piece of machinery to pull this off. I think an upholstery or shoe repair shop is going to need to re-sew them so they don't fall apart.

side one

The handles are made from two men's belts from Marshalls.

side two

inside detail

I used upholstery webbing on the inside to provide stiffening and give the handle grommets something to adhere to.

This how it began.

The painting was signed M. Lubin '84.

peonies on a cloudy day

We're experiencing a heavy dose of June Gloom. So I brightened the day with peonies from Trader Joes. They've had them for the last couple weeks. I have no idea where they're coming from. But they're beautiful - my favorite flower.

japan relief concert

Read more here.
Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.

life in topanga

We had seen a very pregnant deer about a month ago. She was grazing in the late afternoon near the edge of the cleared area in our canyon. Then she laid down for a while just under the brush but with her head exposed. We watched her for a while wondering if she might give birth right then. But she eventually left.

And then yesterday, mid-afternoon, this little guy appeared with his mother. We can't be sure but it might be the same deer. Unfortunately I don't have a great camera, so he's a little hard to see.

jack kevorkian - good night

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the central figure in the tumultuous national drama surrounding assisted suicide, died Friday in a Michigan hospital. He was 83 and lived in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.


Read more here.

when states punish women

Read the opinion here.

yohji yamamoto

Intimate documentary sheds light on Yohji Yamamoto's life and work


YOHJI YAMAMOTO: THIS IS MY DREAM from Huge Conglomerate on Vimeo.

Discreet designer Yamamoto unveils his personality and creative process in a new documentary called "This is My Dream" — In it viewers will be able to follow the designer's intimate footsteps from the start to the closing of his SS 2010 Y-3 collection, from Tokyo to New York.

This documentary is a Harbor Film Company production, directed by Theo Stanley. The duration is 30 minutes brief, and is, at present, shown exclusively to select buyers in selected cities. A decision is yet to be made regarding its showing to the public by 2012.

Copyright © 2011 FashionMag.com All rights reserved.

memorial day - forgetting why we remember

Owen Freeman

MOST Americans know that Memorial Day is about honoring the nation’s war dead. It is also a holiday devoted to department store sales, half-marathons, picnics, baseball and auto racing. But where did it begin, who created it, and why?


Read this beautiful op-ed piece by David W. Blight in today's NY Times.

pure green - issue five

Click here.

joplin

I think the kook that wrongly predicted the end of the world should take the $72 million his foundation is hoarding and give it to the people of Joplin.

photo: Larry W. Smith/European Pressphoto Agency

Ways you can help:

Local Catholic Charities Chapter
send a check payable to “Catholic Charities” (memo line: JOPLIN) to: Catholic Charities, P.O. Box 952393, St. Louis, MO 63195-2393.

American Red Cross

Springfield Public Schools

Heart to Heart International

Salvation Army

can art change the world?

JR, a semi-anonymous French street artist, uses his camera to show the world its true face, by pasting photos of the human face across massive canvases. At TED2011, he makes his audacious TED Prize wish: to use art to turn the world inside out. Learn more about his work and learn how you can join in at insideoutproject.net.



Read about the Inside Out Project in action in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn here.

rue : issue five

Click here.

self-realization fellowship - encinitas

On a recent trip down south, we stopped in at the Self-Realization Fellowship in Encinitas that overlooks Swami's (appropriately name) surf break. Although I had lived near there for nearly 20 years, I had never been through the gardens which are open to the public - and are beautiful.

 

update - princess beatrice hat

As of this morning, the bidding on eBay is at:

This seems pretty nutty but the money does go to good causes: UNICEF & Children In Crisis. There's one day of bidding left.

this could be yours - or not

The much-mocked hat worn by Princess Beatrice to Britain's royal wedding last month -- widely described as looking like a "toilet seat" -- is up for sale on eBay where bids have reached $31,957.

The tea rose, silk hat was "the most talked about hat of the whole occasion" Harold Tilman, Chairman of the British Fashion Council, said on eBay.

The fuss over the hat worn to the royal wedding of her cousin Prince William to longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton seems to have taken Beatrice -- who is the daughter of William's uncle Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson -- by surprise too.

"I've been amazed by the amount of attention the hat has attracted," Beatrice said on the auction site. "I hope whoever wins the auction has as much fun with the hat as I have."

Money raised by the sale of the hat will be equally split between two charities: UNICEF and Children in Crisis.

The hat, by milliner Philip Treacy, was given a starting price of 5,000 pounds and 32 bidders have placed 60 bids in the last six days.

The eBay site has linked the auction to Facebook where members of the public have celebrated the hat design.

Treacy said he was "delighted, flattered and touched by HRH Princess' Beatrice's decision to donate the hat to charity."

The auction continues until May 22.

esophageal cancer claims another

Harmon Killebrew, Hall of Fame Slugger for the Minnesota Twins, Dies at 74

Harmon Killebrew, the Hall of Famer who developed the strength to hit home runs by lifting 10-gallon milk cans as an Idaho farmhand and grew up to be one of the most feared sluggers of his generation, died this morning at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., four days after announcing that he was ending treatment for esophageal cancer.

His death was announced by the Minnesota Twins, which featured him as the centerpiece of their franchise through the 1960s and early ’70s.

Killebrew said in December that he had begun treatment for the cancer at a Mayo Clinic branch near his home. Last Friday, in a statement released by the Twins, he said that his doctors had told him his illness was incurable and that “with profound sadness” he was ending treatment.

“I have exhausted all options,” he said.

Read more here.

Ron Silver, actor - died March 2009

Tom Lantos, US Representative from N. California - died Feb 2008
Ann Richards, governor of Texas - died Sept 2006

this day in 1954

In the decision of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement.

via wikipedia

Lawyers for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc (From l.): Louis L. Redding, Robert L. Carter, Oliver W. Hill, Thurgood Marshall and Spottswood W. Robinson III.

collected

Yet another online shelter mag. See it here.

life in topanga

A rattle snake peacefully sunning itself.

words matter

This short film illustrates the power of words to radically change your message and your effect upon the world.

If it doesn't play here go here to see it.

Thanks Vicki.