le blog de betty

I just realized why I love Betty's sweater so much (and, Betty is so completely stylish).

hello, my life

I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library.

Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified.

He said, What? What life? No life of mine.

I said, O.K. I don’t argue when there’s real disagreement. I got up and went into the library to see how much I owed them.

The librarian said $32 even and you’ve owed it for eighteen years. I didn’t deny anything. Because I don’t understand how time passes. I have had those books. I have often thought of them. The library is only two blocks away.

From "Wants," by Grace Paley. Painting by Amanda Blake.

you'll be sorry you asked

Autumn Leaves - Eva Cassidy
Vá Morar Com o Diabo - Cássia Eller
Blue Valentine - Tom Waits
Quelqu’un que m’a dit - Carla Bruni
Old Fashioned Morphine - Jolie Holland
Ain't No Sunshine - Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
and Keep The Customer Satisfied - Simon & Garfunkel, over and over if I'm feeling moody

Tag via NO GOOD FOR ME. Hila (Your Cover's Blown), it's your turn.

Image, Cássia Eller.

another condition

"So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, and intolerable waiting, a longing for another place and time, another condition." Theodore Roethke.

Teen City: The Adventure of Adolescence at The Musee de L'Elysee, via artdaily.org. Photo: Hanne van der Woude, "Katinka and Annabel"

for holly

Andy Goldsworthy made the fissure
In front of (what we still call) The new de Young Museum.

looking down

Acne.

I never read Middlemarch

I admit it. But I love the idea of a serialized story. Playboy is going to serialize Denis Johnson's next novel. Too bad it's not French Playboy. Via Maud.

ham and eggs fire

After the 1906 earthquake, San Franciscans wrote letters on anything they could to let the outside world know they were alright. My beau's great grandparents wrote to their relatives on the cuff of a white shirt. It said, "We're OK. Everyone is fine."

Shhhh

I'll be going incognito for a while, back next week. From Ashley G.

all the lives that follow

For C: “I believe that always, or almost always, in all childhood and in all the lives that follow them, the mother represents madness. Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met.” Marguerite Duras.

Photo from Cushman Photograph Collection.

gone camping

Back soon.

future classics

A girl and her concertina. From Standard Deviation.

three uses of the knife

"You take the knife, you use it to cut the bread, so you'll have the strength to work; you use it to shave, so you'll look nice for your lover; on discovering her with another, you use it to cut out her lying heart." Leadbelly, quoted in Three Uses of the Knife by David Mamet.

Poster by Grego.

camels are for procrastinators

"It was as if my life were a play, and the prop mistress had finally showed up. Suddenly there were packs to unwrap, matches to strike, ashtrays to fill and then empty. My hands were at one with their labor, the way a cook’s might be, or a knitter’s." David Sedaris quits smoking.

Tankbooks from Tank.

urbane irony

For Lola is Beauty and me, jodhpurs from Pixie Market.

more tomatsu

the big chill

Don't go to eBay without Christene Barberich (I needed a vintage puffy romper, I just didn't know it).

halcyon days

It's all in how you stand. Sartorialist via STNF.

laughing to the moon

Gorgeous first novel by Nigel Richardson. Read by Euan Morton.

dig deep

Why do I think she's burying her husband? By Megan Bogonovich.

my imaginary self

has curly hair and a closet full of prints.

a form of speech

"Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech." Susan Sontag.

Sontag's shell collection photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

mourning

It started in a fascination with Whitby Jet.

in the light

Fashion Toast.

c.a.m.p.

Clarion Alley Mural Project, San Francisco.

pattern recognition

I feel a little stuck in the blog echo chamber. Lyell, Mayle, Mulberry -- my imaginary self is exhausted from trying stuff on.

Poster from the tremendous Catherine Kim.

I feel like dancing

Kutlu via Dress of the Day.

cheeky

Buckle elephant bells by Judi Rosen.

sugimoto at the hirshhorn

"His suit was too big. So was his white shirt...The cuffs of the shirt were wrinkled. They were also too big. When Sugimoto supported his head with his hand, his head seemed in danger of disappearing into his sleeve." From Arts Journal.

I wish

Style...A Work In Progress had never turned me on to Tate Online.

punctum

Thinking about the 2006 Shomei Tomatsu exhibit at SFMOMA.

best friends

Photo by Chiara Romagnoli for Amelia's Magazine via for me, for you.

oh, leoluca

Sicilian carnival shorts. Via A CUP OF JO and Cowboy Pants.

I never lie

"In studies where children are observed in their natural environment, a 4-year-old will lie once every two hours..." Great article by Po Bronson in New York Magazine that appeared, oh, three months ago. Painting by Paulina Archambault.

I want to know what love is

"I don't know what love is." Imogen Cunningham. Katherine Hamnett Love Tank.

chasing a naked husband

"This was made in 1915 when I was first married. You could never chase a naked husband around Mount Rainier today." Imogen Cunningham. On Mount Rainier 5, 1915.