the killers

The gunman is useless.
I know it.
He knows it.
The whole bank knows it.

I am the Messenger, Markus Zusak
Photo: The Selby

any question of the moral

"But any question of the moral inevitably raises—for the artist, at least—the question of the beautiful." John Banville in conversation with Ben Ehrenreich, The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers

Golden Goose Distressed Sneakers, La Garçonne

reading to an empty room

Paul Auster: There's a great entry in Kafka's diaries in which he describes an imaginary writer in the process of giving a public reading. So-and-so is up there onstage, and people are getting restless and bored. "Just one more story," he says, "just one more..." People start getting up and leaving. The doors keep slamming shut, and he goes on begging, "just one more, one more," until everyone is gone and he's left alone at the podium, reading to an empty room.

Paul Auster & Jonathan Lethem
The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers
Painting, Egon Schiele via Rooms

in the third act

At the end of the drama THE TRUTH—which has been overlooked, disregarded, scorned, and denied—prevails. And that is how we know the Drama is done.

... We recall how each attempt (each act) seemed to offer the solution, and how raptly we explored it, and how disappointingly we (the hero) were on finding we had been wrong, until:

At the End of the Play, when we had, it seemed, exhausted all possible avenues of investigation, when we were without recourse or resource, (or so it seemed), when we were all but powerless, all was made whole. It was made whole when the truth came out.

-- Three Uses of the Knife, Mamet
Photo: Mociun via Lena Corwin

promise me you'll always remember

Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

Christopher to Pooh, A.A. Milne
Painting: '61 Pontiac, 1968-69, Robert Bechtle

all desire

Lucy Corin loves Frank O’Hara’s "Morning."

Photo Sally Singer, The Selby

in a dress my mother made

"I was married ten years ago, on a brazenly warm day in January, from my father's house, in a dress my mother made, with the same blithe blindness that sends a bungee jumper off a bridge" For Better or Worse by Lynn Darling

Photo by Estelle Hanania via Montmartre's Sketchbook
(Reminiscent of a Gerhard Richter painting)

let's begin by

A sorta completely genius post from Now Voyager.

the mysterious edge

"Ninety percent of who you are is invisible." E.L. Konigsburg, The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World

Photo via Either the Drapes Go or I Do

change when it comes

"Change, when it comes, cracks everything open." Dorothy Allison

Via Lucy Corin

people will sometimes say

“. . . people will sometimes say, "Why don't you write more politics?" And I have to explain to them that writing the lives of women is politics" Grace Paley

Photo: Mociun

why am I treated so bad

I don't care if it's sunny outside, the only thing to do right now is listen to Mavis Staples on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. It may be the best 17 minutes and 27 seconds I ever spent.

Photo from mavistaples.com

men in hats

Leonard Cohen in concert tomorrow and our own Conspiracy of Beards playing a pre-show show at the Paramount. More info here.

happy is the novelist

Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received when he was young within a work of fiction, embedded in it like a clean bullet in flabby flesh and quite secure there, among spurious lives.

Vladimir Nabakov
There are awesome Lolita posts on Now Voyager and Lolita

the only rule is work

For Clara and Glenn. Sister Mary Corita's rules can never be posted enough.

meet me at the center of the earth

Nick Cave's astounding exhibit at Yerba Buena reminded me of Phyllis Galembo's West African photographs. I saw them at Skidmore's Tang a few years ago. More of her work here.

harry smith figures

From the Harry Smith Archives

big love

From today's NYT: "But where the typical...American family seems unified but is secretly divided, the group on “Big Love” seems divided but is secretly joined." And "The book [Under the Banner of Heaven] includes a quotation from DeLoy Bateman, who gave up ­polygamy and then surrendered religious faith entirely. He told Krakauer he doesn’t regret abandoning it. “Some things in life are more important than being happy,” he says, expressing the unmistakable tension at the heart of “Big Love.” "Like being free to think for yourself.""

Photo from chloësevigny.com

unauthorized

JR Art in India. Also, The Hills Have Eyes in Rio de Janiero. JR in Cambodia here.

perfect

Garance doré. It's all in how you stand.

meet me at the center of the earth

Another must see: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts presents a large scale exhibit of Nick Cave's soundsuits. Through July. Tremendous.

Photo by James Prinz

in the memory of the forest

[ODC/Dance's] Artistic Director Brenda Way’s new work is inspired by the experience of her late mother-in-law, Iza Erlich, who, as a teenager in 1941, walked away from Warsaw. With a girlfriend, she set out across Poland, Germany and Russia to find her future husband who had departed months earlier. Iza recorded her memories on a set of four audiotapes and always imagined that her story might be material for a dance. “Iza, a social worker by trade, believed in the power of art to communicate emotional experience,” said Ms. Way.

In the Memory of the Forest, performances all month by ODC

some days you must

"I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything."

E.L. Konigsburg
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler
Photo by Jody Rogac via Simple Lovely

the kiss

"The nicest thing about feeling happy is that you think you'll never be unhappy again."

Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig
Photo Hedi Slimane

style and identity

Minirobot lets go of her Vivienne Westwood boots.

Photo: Garance doré

borrowed bikes

My grandfather on his borrowed bike and me on mine.

what follows

"Writing only leads to more writing." Colette

Photo: Totokaelo

while I slept

Emily and Jennifer went to The Living Desert (their photo).

only too damned well

I only came in here to inquire the way to the nearest cinema. I am a respectable woman, une femme convenable, on her way to the nearest cinema. Faites comme les autres -- that's been my motto all my life. Faites comme les autres, damn you.

And a lot he cares -- I could have spared myself the trouble. But this is my attitude to life. Please, please, monsieur et madame, mister, missis and miss, I am trying so hard to be like you. I know I don't succeed, but look how hard I try. Three hours to choose a hat; every morning an hour and a half trying to make myself look like everybody else. Every word I say has chains round its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with heavy weights. Since I was born, hasn't every word I've said, every thought I've thought, everything I've done, been tied up, weighted, and chained? And, mind you, I know that with all this I don't succeed. Or I succeed in flashes only too damned well. . . But think how hard I try and how seldom I dare. Think -- and have a bit of pity. That is, if you ever think, you apes, which I doubt.

Now the waiter has finished telling me how to get to the nearest cinema.

'Another Pernod,' I say.

Good Morning Midnight, Jean Rhys
Photo: August Shop Blog via Dank En

carson hot springs

From Either the Drapes Go or I Do:

You walk in here and tell them you're here and they tell you there are ghosts and if there's a wait you take a walk through the woods where there are mushrooms and violets and fallen trees. To get here you drive along the Columbia river and pass the waterfalls and go over the Bridge of Gods and stop at an antique store where you buy a gold ring for $1 and pick up old pens and glasses. When they say they have tubs available you walk into the water room and get naked in the sulphuric steam and choose a tub length and if you're small like me you choose a short tub. Before you step in they tell you to test the water as it's only hot water and you tentatively ease yourself into the porcelain basin and when you are finally all in you start to cook exquisite with your hair spreading on top like an anemone and you try to sleep but you can't because you are too warm so you look over at Elanor whose body is like an English stem and it feels like being in a salon bath house in the Wild West during Manifest Destiny and every few minutes you take cold swigs of water and pour them over your face. When you stand up on unsure feet they take you to a cot and wrap you tightly in sheets and wool blankets and the only exposed part is your nose and mouth so the only thing to do is breath while cocooned, sweating and sweating, a wet and dark chrysalis. There really isn't anything to think about. There really isn't anything to do but sweat and sleep. When you emerge it is like a peony, unraveling slowly and utterly pink and you need to drink water, a lot of water, and you need to eat fruit, a lot of fruit, but we ate macaroons and drank espresso instead.

read the air

Here.

Bjork and Bernhard Willhelm, Dazed & Confused (2007)

olivetti valentine

Via Pink Ponk's amazing photostream. And this one on ebay.

another pernod

"Today I must be very careful, today I have left my armor at home."

Good Morning Midnight, Jean Rhys
Jil Sander flats on ebay

dodes'ka-den

Japanese writer Yoko Tawada read in San Francisco this week, presented by the Center for the Art of Translation. Something in her reading reminded me of the sunset at the end of Dodes'ka-den (1970), Kurasawa's first color film.

this week

Some small intimacies: ici, Discotheque Confusion, emmas designblogg, Now Voyager, the ugly earring, Simple Lovely, blueberry pancakes and fresh orange juice at ungtblod, Jessica's reading list, and the beautiful place where hoping for happy accidents spends her days.

Photo: le vestiaire de clé

when one is not yet old

To think, when one is no longer young, when one is not yet old, that one is no longer young, that one is not yet old, that is perhaps something.

Watt, Samuel Beckett
Electric moto from Quantya

sunday morning and it's raining

Watching Golden Door (Nuovomundo, 2006). My papa and Lidia would like this film.

Burroughs at 95

Tonight, a birthday party combining two of my favorite things: RE/Search Publications and William Burroughs.

Photo from RE/Search

double negative

There's nothing here I don't want.

Sabrina Dehoff at Creatures of Comfort

poets who write prose

I've been reading Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn and this remembrance of John Updike by Lucy Corin on The Rumpus, which pointed me to this For This I Believe by John Updike. Oh, and this is wonderful: "I made tea," by Joe Davis (via this is sippey.typepad.com).

overheard

The upside of the downturn.

Photo: Jim Wilson, NYT

cover to cover

Cover to cover this Saturday morning: Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg. Oh yes, the same Konigsburg who wrote From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

Print from the wonderful Dallas Shaw on The Shiny Squirrel

the estrangement

Three years before my mother died, I decided not to speak to her again. And why? During a conversation over the telephone, she had once again let me know that my accomplishments—becoming a responsible and independent woman—did not amount to very much, that the life I lived was nothing more than a silly show, that she truly wished me dead. I didn’t disagree. I didn’t tell her that it would be just about the best thing in the world not to hear this from her.

The Estrangement by Jamaica Kincaid
via Maud Newton
Photo from here

a great joy

Clyfford Still via Either The Drapes Go Or I Do

ofelia

"...in a dark Spanish forest in a very dark time..."

Pan's Labyrinth review in NYT

lost at sea

Georgian mourning ring.

what is not there

And you read one page of it or even one phrase of it, and then you gobble up all the rest and go about in a dream for weeks afterwards, for months afterwards -- perhaps all your life, who knows? -- surrounded by those six hundred and fifty pages, the houses, the streets, the snow, the river, the roses, the girls, the sun, the ladies' dresses and the gentlemen's voices, the old, wicked, hard-hearted women and the old, sad women, the waltz music -- everything. What is not there you put in afterwards, for it is alive, this book, and it grows in your head.

Jean Rhys, Tigers are Better Looking:
With a Selection from the Left Bank

Photo: people of Pankow from Berlin guide

striped butte

In Death Valley National Park, where D. and I spent election night 2008.

Photo by Lynn Radeka

rag & bone

There's plenty to wear in my imaginary closet. Of course, if I really was buying clothes, La Garconne has far and away the best customer service.

like a bird on a wire

I almost missed Maya Lin's Systemic Landscapes. Closing today at the de Young.

amazing grace

"The voice of God, if you must know, is Aretha Franklin's." Marianne Faithfull

this morning fog

knows how to party.

one story

One Story is perfect. It's exactly perfect. One story and nothing else.

wait, wait, don't tell me

minirobot was tagged and I love her post. Made me rethink this tagging thing.

1. My first car was a 1966, pink Plymouth Valiant. Three on the tree.
   
2. I used to think I didn't like kids. I thought not wanting kids was the same as not liking kids. Then I met my goddaughter and I realize it's not the same at all.
3. I have terribly outmoded taste in music. I like some punk and am a sucker for a mournful female vocalist, but if lost on a desert island, I would most miss Simon & Garfunkel.
4. My boyfriend of 14 years is my closest friend and the person whose opinion I most respect in this world.
   
5. I don't see anything wrong with taking two baths in one day.
   
6. The best thing to come from this blog is a friendship with The Ugly Earring.
   
7. I've never owned a Royal Quiet Deluxe. My first typewriter was a rather humble Smith Corona.
8. I really do want Carl Kassel's voice on my home answering machine.

If they were inclined, I would want to know more about Now Voyager and Water and Wool.

Photo of my gorgeous goddaughter

you

From Maud Newton

Now, thirty years later, [Jonathan] Baumbach’s most recent publisher, like his last, has gone under, and in this case the enterprise went belly-up just months after his latest book, You, appeared. My friend Lauren Cerand was so passionate about You, she took Baumbach on as a publicity client despite the difficulties of reviving a book after the initial media window has closed. She and the author have started a site dedicated to the project.

Below Baumbach remembers the circumstances that led him and other writers to create Fiction Collective, and he compares the climate of 1974 with the dire situation publishing finds itself in today.

Read the rest here.

yohji

Y-3 Autumn 2007.

in return

I left for Japan on October 25, 1984, unsuspecting that this date would mark the beginning of a 92 day countdown to the end of a love affair. Nothing extraordinary -- but to me, at the the time, the unhappiest moment of my life, and one for which I blamed that trip itself. I got back to France on January 28, 1985. From that moment, whenever people asked me how it went, I chose to skip the Far East bit and tell them about my suffering instead. In return I started asking both friend and chance encounters: "When did you suffer most?" -- I decided to continue such exchanges until I had got over my pain by comparing it with other people's, or had worn out my own story through sheer repetition.

Exquisite Pain, Sophie Calle
Someday very soon I will have to return this to the SF library

first we believe

“The only sin is mediocrity.” Martha Graham

it feels like a new year

And we can all wear these. Or if you must get married, this.

Photo from LIFE via A Continuous Lean.

watching

Friends with Money (above), Lovely & Amazing, and Walking and Talking. Written and directed by Nicole Holofcener.

a particular kind of heaven

The years, she saw, fell heavily as books...

From "Darkest of All" by Christine Schutt

A Particular Kind of Heaven, Ed Ruscha, 1983 (now a triptych at the de Young)

sturdy little volumes

Pocket books.

if you were with me

Mom and I went to Heath Ceramics, Afghanistan, and saw the Soul Children of Chicago. There were temari balls and cookies with D's mom. And chapino with Jeff and Silke, Christmas dinner with Kathleen, Slumdog Millionaire with Clara, elephant seals with Ally and Masin...

Edith Heath from Heath Ceramics: The Complexity of Simplicity

cerillos

Vintage rings.

on holiday

I haven't been here too much lately, I know. When I have a moment though, I've been daydreaming over at Scout Holiday. I love her Little Gift Guide and her Holiday Wish List.

Live to Ride (E.P), Elizabeth Peyton

the lives of others

My beau and I finally rented this last night after THIS MORNING FOG's post. I cannot shake the mood of it.

women who write

“Men like women who write. Even though they don't say so.” Marguerite Duras

Bra by DOSA via petit garden

raising arizona

fifth floor

SFMOMA offers a spellbinding retrospective of Martin Puryear. Through January 25.

Photograph by Richard Barnes. ©2007 at MoMA

a fragile eyeful

"...But Miss Golightly a fragile eyeful even though attired like a tomboy in slacks and leather jacket appeared relatively unconcerned..." Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote

Photo, Jon von Pamer

if I in my north room

If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

"Danse Russe" William Carlos Williams
Interior from Nightwood

first they're good

“People are strange, but more than that, they're good. They're good first, then strange.”

Dave Eggers, founder of 826 Valencia

826 Valencia Pirate Posters

inexhaustible engagement

She seemed to be at least twice as alive as most of us—to know everything, to do everything, to be inexhaustibly engaged. Her arresting appearance was familiar even to many nonreaders from the photographs that recorded it over several decades and registered the glamour and magnetism—the sheer size—of her personality, and her celebrity was all the more potent and irreversible because the place she occupied was so far outside the usual radius of the spotlight.

Deborah Eisenberg on Susan Sontag, NYRB
Photo of Susan Sontag and son David Rieff by Diane Arbus
via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger

for you for me

Headband from PIP-SQUEAK-CHAPEAU for my friend Ally, shoes for me.

no. 46

(Black, Ochre, Red over Red) 1957

spending my time

At other pretty things and duskin; dreaming about this dress and listening to This Mortal Coil.

Dress, Duskin Spring 2009

it must suggest something about me has changed

My Love,
I went to Yamamoto to choose my trousseau. For our reunion. I spent hours trying things on. In the end I chose black silk trousers and two shirts to be worn together, a gray one and a blue one. I want everything to be perfect. My outfit must travel well in the plane and suit the circumstances: a reunion in India. It must be elegant but without affectation, chic but understated, and flattering. It must suggest that something about me has changed, a subtle metamorphisis, show you how I've missed you, but that you're not totally indispensable to me and even that I have grown more beautiful, more mature, away from you...

From Exquisite Pain, by Sophie Calle (Thanks SF Library)

who shall say

The Lover, by Marguerite Duras is less than 30,000 words. The Postman Always Rings Twice, by Richard Cain, about 35,000. Fahrenheit 451 about 45,000; and The Great Gatsby, maybe, 50,000.

Photo: Denise Grünstein

maiden & moonflower

"One's self is always shifting in relationship to beauty and you always have to be able to incorporate yourself or your new self into life. Like your skin starts hanging off your arms and stuff, and then you have to think, well that’s really beautiful too. It just isn’t beautiful in a way that I knew it was beautiful before" Kiki Smith.

Kiki Smith Wallpaper at Studio Printworks
Per Paul Pincus' hallway

interpretation

"I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams." Susan Sontag.

Broad Shirt, Le Bouton

change sounds like this

Saw a Youth Speaks performance tonight. Mind blowing.

Photo: San Francisco Chronicle

blue valentine

My favorite imaginary couple.

Short Cuts.

from the haircut file

Facehunter and Toast

me llamen calle

I don't think Manu Chao's Radiolina or the video for Me Llamen Calle won in last night Latin Grammy's, but they should have. Me Llamen Calle, Manu Chao's tribute to s-x workers, is well worth a listen.

I never can quite say

I never can quite say as much as I know. I look at other parrots and I wonder if it's the same for them, if somebody is trapped in each of them paying some kind of price for living their life in a certain way. For instance, "Hello," I say, and I'm sitting on a perch in a pet store in Houston and what I'm really thinking is Holy shit. It's you. And what's happened is I'm looking at my wife.

"Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot" by Robert Olen Butler
Photo from Either The Drapes Go Or I Do

truant

Jessica is sorta wonderful. She has a delicious blog; an inspiring shop; and now, with Erin, a completely cool online travel magazine, Truant. It might be the best thing I ever got for $2.

"I am a Bird" by Mareike Auer available at The Shiny Squirrel

you were saying

"You were saying something nice about me, I can feel it." Samuel Beckett, Eleuthéria

1820s Georgian Coral Ring, Erie Basin

minor obsessions

These honeycomb necklaces from Black Sheep & Prodigal Sons, thin black t-shirts from Acne and American Vintage, anything written by J.M. Coetzee, Kill City jeans, David Byrne, Kern River Valley, Sister Mary Corita, public radio, and Kiki Smith.

Photo The Selby via Jen

so long

I've gone camping and will be back on 11/10. Try: What Possessed Me and DRINK THE NEW WINE (via Hoping for Happy Accidents). And definitely Hollister Hovey. See you soon.

Photo: Cypress Kayaks via Hollister Hovey

FJ40

The love of my life and his Land Cruiser.

maria cornejo

zero + maria cornejo

Photos by Christopher Anderson in NYMag

palm springs

I'm in Palm Springs for the week, a place I don't know all that well. Reading Th1rteen R3asons Why, Story of A Girl, and Living Dead Girl (all YA). Lots of buzz about Living Dead Girl (especially among young adult librarians), most of it positive. Also reading the W with Angelina Jolie on the cover and an amazing spread by Roni Horn inside, Paul Pincus's blog, and the SFMOMA's Nov/Dec newsletter.

Photo: Roni Horn, PBS

a slug of good whiskey

Bloggers have recipes. My friend Jenny has a recipe she promises will make kale taste good. Maybe. I have a recipe too. I got it from a blog (Maud, of course). It's writer Kate Christensen's cure for the common cold. But I find that it'll cure almost anything. The following is excerpted from Maud:

Day two home from work with a killer cold, and my only consolation is novelist Kate Christensen’s hot toddy. Since she passed it along last fall, the drink has eclipsed spicy tomato soup as the Maud household’s preferred remedy. It proves — as we always knew deep in our hearts — that Bourbon cures everything.

Add boiling water to (in the biggest cup in the house; this is no time to fuck around with anything dainty) the juice of 1 lemon, a big wad of honey, a slug of good whiskey [Ed. Note: I’ve been using Maker’s Mark], and as much cayenne pepper as you can tolerate. If it’s morning, add a tea bag.

Photo Nigel Shafran via Horse Hunting

speaking of stella

This Stella McCartney bodysuit via the lovely loveology. My goddaughter has a whole wardrobe of bodysuits she layers under everything. So cool.

watching

Bishop Desmond Tutu and Richard Branson on Iconoclasts. Stella McCartney and Edward Ruscha up next. And this NOVA on Hugh Everett (thanks Kathleen).

hanging out

Reading posts at the ugly earring and listening to Nina Simone at water and wool.

flashback

APC via CITIZEN:Citizen.

would it stand on the wall?

From Tokion, a fantastic interview with Sophie Calle by artist Jill Magid:

Most recently, she [Calle] was behind the most talked about exhibition at the 2007 Venice Biennale, Take care of yourself. Calle analyzed an ex-boyfriend’s break-up email by asking 107 women to interpret his words...

Jill Magid: You incorporate a few different methodologies in your work. One of them seems like this natural catalyst—something happens in your life, and then you set [up for] yourself what you call a ‘game.’ So, Take care of yourself was something that happened—a break-up—and then you set up a game—

Sophie Calle: And they have a therapeutic motor aspect, just as a start: ‘What can I do not to suffer?’

Jill Magid: You don’t think you start this process as a work?

Sophie Calle: No, there are different categories, as you say. The category in which it is my life, many times starts as a reaction to something. Like, I received that love letter, what can I do [to] counter it, not just to be a victim of it. Maybe the first step is therapeutic, but if it’s only therapeutic, I may as well go buy a dress at the corner of the street. So, immediately [I think], ‘Would [it] stand on the wall?’ If I think yes, I go on.

Photo: Sophie Calle: Did You See Me?

color of the wind

Face Hunter.

the misfits

The photographers of Magnum Photos were given exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the filming of The Misfits. Led by Magnum co-founder Henri Cartier-Bresson, the photographers arrived on the set in pairs and alternated every two weeks. Nearly 100 photos available on PBS.

one bad sofa

"I always say - a prejudice on my part, I'm sure - you can tell a lot about a person's character from his choice of sofa. Sofas constitute a realm inviolate unto themselves. This, however, is something that only those who have grown up sitting on good sofas will appreciate. It's like growing up reading good books or listening to good music. One good sofa breeds another good sofa; one bad sofa breeds another bad sofa. That's how it goes." Haruki Murakami. Appearing at UC Berkely this week.

Manuscript page from The Paris Review

muxtape remembers

A Continuous Lean offers up a link for your almost forgotten playlists. My favorite for dancing around the house? This, from someone named Kalpana:

1. The Virgins — Rich Girls
2. Cat Power — New York
3. Nellie McKay — Identity Theft
4. Delta Spirit — Gimme Some Motivation
5. Elizabeth & The Catapult — Waiting for the Kill
6. Mechanical Bride — Umbrella
7. Ray LaMontagne — Three More Days
8. Joe Cocker — The Letter
9. Mark Ronson Ft. Lily Allen — Oh My God
10. Ixley — Luchini (Wounded Mix) - Camp Lo
11. Hellogoodbye — Oh It Is Love
12. Vampire Weekend — A-Punk

VPL Sweater from Creature Comforts

board

General Store via Reference Library.

because boyfriend jeans

Look good on the boyfriend too. Street Walker via STNF.

the old typewriter

"I get up in the morning, that's one of the hard parts, drag myself over to the old typewriter and sit down—that ’s even harder— and then I tell the Lord, 'I ain't greedy, Lord, just give me the next 500 words.'" Harry Crews. (Car, 1st Edition)

and that's the he and the she of it

Somehow I missed Rick Moody's choices on Ubuweb last month. Worth a listen, especially William Carlos William's reading Danse Russe ("I am lonely, lonely/I was born to be lonely/I am best so!").

Dancing Legs Calipers from Erie Basin

original gesture

Lindsey Thornburg cloak via Jen at Sleep Deprivation and Stories of my Bullshit Youth.

what carrie found

Double-waisted, drop-crotch, vintage Vivienne Westwood pants.

to write

"To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write." Gertrude Stein.

Photo by Man Ray.

nope

artis3letters.

fishtail parka

Totokaelo.

where I went

LOLITA.

Photo from hello bum.

5 things

I like about Cali Dewitt: He and Jenna in their bathrobes; how they always look like they're having fun and how their friends all have the best terrible haircuts; this t-shirt; how I kinda want, but am strangely reticent, to buy the blind bargain bag.

the skins are naked

Some glasses for the ugly earring. And a quote from un fille comme moi via Google Translate, "Funny this gradual disappearance of makeup. The skins are naked, eyes less responsible..."

Photo from CaféMode.

waiting for home

Home, by Marilynne Robinson. Excerpts from an interview with The Paris Review:

On character: In the development of every character there’s a kind of emotional entanglement that occurs. The characters that interest me are the ones that seem to pose questions in my own thinking. The minute that you start thinking about someone in the whole circumstance of his life to the extent that you can, he becomes mysterious, immediately.

On teaching: I try to make writers actually see what they have written, where the strength is. Usually in fiction there’s something that leaps out—an image or a moment that is strong enough to center the story. If they can see it, they can exploit it, enhance it, and build a fiction that is subtle and new. I don’t try to teach technique, because frankly most technical problems go away when a writer realizes where the life of a story lies. I don’t see any reason in fine-tuning something that’s essentially not going anywhere anyway. What they have to do first is interact in a serious way with what they’re putting on a page. When people are fully engaged with what they’re writing, a striking change occurs, a discipline of language and imagination.

On writing essays: To change my own mind. I try to create a new vocabulary or terrain for myself, so that I open out—I always think of the Dutch claiming land from the sea—or open up something that would have been closed to me before. That’s the point and the pleasure of it. I continuously scrutinize my own thinking. I write something and think, How do I know that that’s true? If I wrote what I thought I knew from the outset, then I wouldn’t be learning anything new.

uncommon day

Photo by Gareth McConnell for Lyell

last day of summer

Porter Hovey Polaroid Project.

making pictures

Trudy White, who did the illustrations in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, runs writing and visual art workshops for children and adults.

feeding merlin

Bona Drag is celebrating it's first year. If a boutique was a cool childhood friend, it would be Bona Drag. Photo.

a gathering

Kiki Smith at Walker Art Center.

a collaboration with the world

"I trust my work. It's a collaboration with the material, and when it's viewed, it's a collaboration with the world." Kiki Smith.

a blue quality

The Chicken Mask was sorrowful, Sis. The Chicken Mask was supposed to hustle business. It was supposed to invite the customer to gorge him or herself within our establishment. It was supposed to be endearing and funny. It was supposed to be an accurate representation of the featured item on our menu. But, Sis, in a practical setting, in test markets -- like right out in front of the restaurant -- the Chicken Mask had a plaintive aspect, a blue quality...

From "The Mansion on the Hill" by Rick Moody.
Photo by Johanna Reed on Wheat Toast via Fortysixth at Grace.

was it for this

Tragic by Madelaine. Via Rebekah on Design Sponge.

denim

un fille comme moi.

couple in voodoo trance

"Do we mean love, when we say love?" Samuel Beckett.

Photo Weegee.

a dance to the music of time

"The pens are essentially props-they remind me that I’ve got to get back to writing, which means turning on the computer, and that’s a whole new world of distractions." David Coggins. Photo and post from A Continuous Lean.

what it is to be a human being

"Fiction's about what it is to be a human being." David Foster Wallace. AM Homes: "...it [Wallace's death] reminds us all of how fragile we are, and how close at hand the darkness is."

what possessed me

Not sure what I did with myself before I discovered this blog.

Photo from Daily Mail via What Possessed Me.

my imaginary self

Just got dressed. La Garçonne.

intelligence is relative

Burn after Reading opened yesterday. The Coen Brothers.

I love you more

Martin Military Jacket.

1969

On Craigslist today.

let us be judged by our acts

Erie Basin.

yes, I have friends

My friend Kenny came to visit last week. Check out his documentary about Bolivian women wrestlers here.

your hand in the world

Margaret Kilgallen. Beautiful Losers at the Lumiere.

four saints in three acts

The Lee Miller exhibit at SFMOMA is only up for a few more days. Photo of Lee Miller and Picasso from Art Tattler.

my criterions

I could spend all day on the Criterion site. Here are Kate and Laura Mulleavy's Top 10 Criterion picks. And Jane Campion's. Or howabout Jonathon Lethem's?

Timeline for Lethem's Fortress of Solitude from The Paris Review.

stone animals

Tilly has divided the yard in half. Carleton is not allowed in her half, unless she gives permission.

From the bottom of of her half of the yard, where the trees run beside the driveway, Tilly can barely see the house. She's decided to name the yard Matilda's Rabbit Kingdom. Tilly loves naming things. When the new baby is born, her mother has promised that she can help pick out the real names, although there will only be two real names, a first one and a middle. Tilly doesn't understand why there can only by two. Oishi means "delicious" in Japanese. That would make a good name, either for the baby or for the yard...

From "Stone Animals" in Magic For Beginners by Kelly Link.
Photo: "Bunny" by Pamela Klaffke.

standing still

un fille comme moi.

this morning

This photo by Ed van der Elsken via Horse Hunting. All of Horse Hunting, and speaking of hunting, hunter <> gather, too. Downloading Now Voyager's Sunday Soul Party.

This excerpt on the creative personality by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly found on the new shelton wet/dry. Stuff like "Creative people tend to be smart yet naive at the same time. How smart they actually are is open to question."

And invoicing for my August work, in between taking breaks from my break taking.

should not have

let the artichoke flower. But it's so beautiful. And SF has been so hot this summer, that our (I say our, but my beau did all the work) tomatoes are already ripe. Ripe in August? Very rare.

Photo by Mathew Wallenstein.

rosa mosa

Via Water and Wool.

the dead

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." From The Dead, James Joyce.

Cover image from the beautiful new series from Melville House Publishing, The Art of the Novella.

the kiss

"Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing." Sylvia Plath

Photo from The Selby.

clingstone

Photo by Erik Jacobs for NYT via Jonathan Bliss' beautiful Rooms.

the approach

ReadyMade: How do you approach your subjects?
Scott Schuman: Well, I usually shoot them with some kind of sedative from across the street and they fall asleep. Then I prop them up and make their eyes open. It's like they're awake.

From August/Sept 2008 ReadyMade. Photo: The Sartorialist.

balance and stealth

Renee, NY Mag.

amagoya

From the ugly earring.

dank en

Loving this blog right now.

my perfect day

Looks a little like this. "Oranien Sunday" from Berlin guide.

bernalization

I used to think that the moment for Bernal Heights was when the Karate school became a Yoga studio, although it certainly happened before that. But last month, when Cortland Studios, the world's smallest film studio; where dozens of terrible independent films were made, and at least one good one, where aspiring grips sewed their first sandbag and carried their first c-stand, became an eco-boutique carrying bamboo lingerie, I thought—perhaps the bernalization is complete.

climbing vines

Porter Hovey Polaroid Project. Beautiful.

the knitting factory

NYT.

lover the label

"You've got to get a cat!" Briand jokes. "You get 10, 12 years into a relationship, and you need something else to talk about." From an interview with Susien Chong and Nic Briand of Lover the Label in Nylon, August 2008.

Photo from Refinery29.

proceed with abandon

"In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth." Patti Smith

Photo by Kevin Hagen, Oak NYC editorial

the kick inside

I Love Cat Party found a rare book of childhood photos of Kate Bush, taken by John Carder Bush. More here.

I put this moment, over here

Nightwood, reincarnated furniture, textile and home via A Cup of Jo; Nightwood by Djuna Barnes: "When she fell in love it was with a perfect fury of accumulated dishonesty; she became instantly a dealer in second-hand and therefore incalculable emotions ... she appropriated the most passionate love that she knew, Nora's for Robin. She was a squatter by instinct." Fitting.

I put this moment here

Alexander Wang in WWD via Sleep Deprivation and Stories of my Bullshit Youth.

won't laugh if you trip

oakley hall

Great reading Sunday night to memorialize Oakley Hall. The lovely Sands Hall sang St. James Infirmary Blues. Beautiful.

I went down to the St. James infirmary, I saw my baby there

She was stretched out on a long white table, so cold, and fine, and fair.

Let her go, let her go, God bless her, wherever she may be

She can search this world over, never find another man like me

When I die Oh lord please bury me in my high top Stetson hat

Put gold coins over my eyelids, so the boys will know I died standing pat

david and bill

"I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all." William Burroughs

buenos aires

My papa and Lidia are in B.A. I could be drinking coffee with them, and Perli and Chino, right now. Nate Williams has spent a bunch of time in Argentina, and from the looks of it, his family is as goofy as mine.

T-Shirt design for Suba by Nate Williams

sleeping

Painting by Gerhard Richter, Schlafende (Barbara N.), 1970

pattern which was weaving

Humanoid via grijs. My imaginary self is sitting on that couch right now.

the writers' model

I'm old now, but when I was young you could talk me into anything. I had an open mind. So when I saw the ad saying some "professional writers" needed an "adventurous girl" to "interview for fictional purposes," I was intrigued, especially when the ad went on to say that by simply answering questions, I could "make an important contribution to American Literature." I had always wanted to make an important contribution to something, so I threw on my coat, grabbed my purse, and went straight to the address listed in the paper.

From the story, "The Writers' Model" by Molly Giles
Albino sword swallower at a carnival, Md. 1970.
Copyright © 1972 The Estate of Diane Arbus

this is one day

I wouldn't mind doing over. The Unmade Bed, 1957, by Imogen Cunningham.

on wine on poetry or on virtue, as you wish

Your Cover is Blown said some terribly kind things about RQD. I didn't know what to say, now I do: Smosch, now voyager., Berlin guide, STNF, le vestiaire de clé, unruly-things, and simplyolive.

Photo by Sandra at Smosch.

clogs

un fille comme moi

the bear and the bomb

My friend Ally is reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Here are Eugenides and Jonathan Safran Foer in BOMB Magazine,

JSF: As long as we’re talking about contemporary writing… Who’s your favorite contemporary writer?

JE : Right now my favorite writer is A. A. Milne. Let me give you a sample of why:

Rabbit leant over further than ever, looking for his [stick], and Roo wriggled up and down, calling out, “Come on, stick! Stick, stick stick!” and Piglet got very excited because his was the only one which had been seen, and that meant that he was winning.

“It’s coming!” said Pooh.

“Are you sure it’s mine?” squeaked Piglet excitedly.

“Yes, because it’s grey. A big grey one. Here it comes! A very . . . big . . . grey . . . Oh, no, it isn’t. It’s Eeyore.”

And out Eeyore floated.

“Eeyore!” cried everybody.

Looking very calm, very dignified, with his legs in the air, came Eeyore from beneath the bridge.

“It’s Eeyore!” cried Roo, terribly excited.

“Is that so?” said Eeyore, getting caught up by a little eddy, and turning slowly round three times. “I wondered.”

The Bride and the Bear by Two Sarahs.

ohmymilky