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, 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

D. 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.