Okay, so,

I love reading ESL stuff. I think it's s hilarious. (Everything Is Illuminated cracked me up for just that reason. Then again, it also made me sob - and on NJ Transit nonetheless) Right now I'm reading The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (I know... I thought it would be lame too, but it's actually GREAT) and she's telling stories about when they first move to New York...

"There was, for instance, the lady who wanted to buy cauliflower.
"'How much?' she asked the grocer.
"'Ninety cents," was the asnwer.
"'What?' She was outraged. 'Behold your cauliflower. I can become cauliflower myself for forty cents around the corner!'
"(Such things happen when you take words from your own language and translate them into similar-sounding words in English, thinking they mean the same thing. The word for 'keep' in German is behalten, and if we want to 'get' soemthing, we said bekommen.)
"Another incident happened to a priest friend of ours. When he first arrived in this country, he went to a religious house.
"The lay brother who showed him to his quarters asked: 'Is there anything else you would need, Father?'
"'Well,' said Father thoughtfully, 'a set of new bowels every Saturday. Just hang them on the doorknob.'
"The lay brother seemed so startled by this request that Father had to point to a towel in his room to illustrate his wish."

Hm. On second thought, maybe I am just a huge dork...

dear santa,

i'll take any one of these... thanks.


1, 2, 3, 4

it's a bit late, but

here is this year's t0-do list, my 23 things before I turn 24.

1. practice calligraphy
2. make crepes
3. go ice skating outside
4. attend a yoga seminar
5. get to Hawaii
6. take a dance class
7. be in 4 plays
8. finish the garden
9. read 12 books
10. read 12 plays
11. learn to felt
12. study autism
13. eat course upon course at Domani
14. knit a pair of socks
15. do some tie-dying
16. finish Rosetta Stone
17. make snow angels with Mica
18. fill a whole notebook with writing
19. get some wellies
20. celebrate solstice
21. explore 2 new museums
22. print linocut postcards
23. make the move

well, oh, well

Isn't this just charming?

And how wonderfully frivolous is this?

And this, this is simply striking.

i find it helps with the rain

as if I needed more reasons to love Anthropologie

Frank Lloyd Wright Lego architecture
Trey Speegle inspired puzzle (with awesome puzzle pieces)

I have always been a sucker for puzzles and Legos, but these blew me away.

makes me want an iphone

you know, so i can have a cool cover.

nice.

pretty tough

i generally look forward to solstice and seasons and all, but this year i am having a hard time accepting the coming of winter.

[image via elbira]

I want to beg of you much as I can to be patient
toward all that's unsolved in your heart,
and learn to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms, or like books that are
written in a very foreign tongue.

Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you,
because you would not be able to live them,
and the point is to live everything.

Live the question now,
perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer.


From "Letters to a Young Poet" by Rainer Maria Rilke

so you know

cardboardlove.com

Amelia Earhart

I went to see Amelia a couple weeks ago and fell in love with her tomboy pilot style.

Now I need to find a good excuse for wearing a jumpsuit... hm.


[Third image is Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart]

The time has come.

Check it.

"I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair."


[The Great Gatsby]

"WILD THING!"

Alberto Cerriteno

Matt Dawson

Kazu Kibuishi

Aurian

Isn't this collection brilliant? Terrible Yellow Eyes is a collaborative tribute to Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. There are so many delightful pieces. I'm in heaven over here.

(There are also pillows and t shirts and, of course, a movie to check out too!!)

She would let herself dream every once in a while, not as a way to forget - as a way to remember.

"It's much more splendid," she thought, "to keep some delicious secrets for myself (to enjoy when I've slipped off alone or lie awake at night), than to share the precious moments and spread them thin among all the others. I daresay they wouldn't appreciate it quite well enough, and, frankly, I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them."


[photo via theblackapple]

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid

last night at the County Theater.

"Begin

at the beginning," the king said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end; then stop."


[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]

bubbles

sweet.

"It had to be done," we said. "It's better this way," we said. But did that make it any easier to bear? No, I'm sure it was no easier, no easier at all.

"How could you even... I don't recognize you," she said, shaking her head, tears of resignation slipping down her face.

6.6.09

The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very inferior to her own.--"Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business!--Selina would stare when she heard of it."--But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.
--Jane Austen, Emma

I will

Really, I will.

A favorite

"When I looked up and saw that woman walking her white cat on its red leash, I thought, oh, I'm lucky, it must be a sign. But then I thought, more likely these things are happening all the time whether I'm looking or not. I should look more! But there is pleasure too, in not looking but believing that some kind of circus is always at my back, or paused, just to the left of center, or right there in front of me, waiting for my wink."

[ Titian Sleuth]

stuck in my head

This story

makes me happy.

similarities

[Bryan Nash Gill and Ebon Heath]

Enjoying the work of Tim Walker this morning

"What a privilege," she found herself thinking, "to be here now. To taste this, and smell that, and see more yet. To think we still have room for dreams! How are we not all filled up --bursting even-- with joy all the time?"

Suit up,

It's wedding day!

"They are a rotten crowd,"

I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together."

I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we'd been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time.


[The Great Gatsby]

chalk animation

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

[via design*sponge]

[closing]

If you'd done it before, you'd understand the sweetness of it. The sweetness, and yet also the quiet fear.

The quiet fear of rejection. or misunderstanding.

You know, the kind of fear you can't really talk about, can't release. You just hold on to it; it's pitted in your stomach, the muscles contracted, holding tightly to this intense yet quiet fear of their thoughts.

You do know, don't you?

If you've never done it, you wouldn't understand the experience. And even if you have, you still might not understand my thrill.

The thrill of stepping outside yourself and inhabiting another. With a different voice, personality...different habits, clothes, dreams. For a short time you are that person. You are someone else. And you can feel it. You can tell.

wow

Kate MccGwire.

photos from design*sponge

holy cupcakes batman!

[photos by tam]

Opening Night

Come on over!

Angus and Julia Stone

dream houses

ahhhh..

from here, here, and here.

Naomi Shihab Nye

The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he's come from,
where he's headed.
That way, he'll have strength enough
to answer.
Or, by then you'll be such good friends
You don't care.

Let's go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.

No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That's the armor everyone put on
at the end of the century
to pretend they have a purpose
in the world.

I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.

the 3/50 project

more here.

Could I resist?

'A magazine for the creative and curious?'





No, I most certainly could not.


[photos by andrea]

World's Smallest Postal Service

miniature letters written on a miniature desk...to be read by miniature magnifying glass!

ahhhh, it's magical.

(man, what I would give to be a WSPS delivery worker...)

Loving it!

I'm just not feeling it.

I'm sorry. I'll be back soon, I hope.

i love timelapse stuff.

Jeff Soto via Wooster

I've realized..

that my computer is much smarter than I am.

And I don't know if I should find that to be distressing, or a relief.

[by Edward Monkton, via PeoniesandPolariods]

ah, yes

before i forget - this article is fantastic.

ACONITE

Deep in the earth I woke, I stirred.
I said, "Was that the Spring I heard?
For something called!"
"No, no," they said;
"Go back to sleep, go back to bed.
You're far too soon;
The world's too cold
For you, so small." So I was told.
But how could I go back to sleep?
I could not wait; I had to peep!
O wintry world, see me, awake!
Spring calls and comes; 'tis no mistake.

[Spring Flower Fairies, by Cicely Mary Barker]

i beg you,

[via eversomuchmorethantwenty]

I'd work for FedEx, sure.

I bought a new computer on Sunday. It's all been very exciting. The last couple days I've been tracking it as it travelled from Shanghai to Anchorage to Indianapolis to Philadelphia to Fort Washington...and then to my home. Yay! When I heard the knock on the door this morning, I bounded down the stairs, opened the door, and said, smiling, "Hello! I was hoping it'd be you."

None of us,

no, not one of us, ever remains the same. We are always changing. With every choice, every action... every inaction, we change. Every conversation, every confession. Every promise, every lie. Every dream, every decision. We change.

Look at me.

And, look at me now. Do you see the difference? I'm different from when you last saw me.

Do you see it?

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

titled Playground Love

which makes me think of Air




[image by Above, via Wooster]

celebrate POETS day

"Piss Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday."

"He was part of my dream, of course-

-but then I was part of his dream too."

[image via notcot; quote from Alice in Wonderland]

FromKeetra

Blitzen Trapper

so...I love these guys. and this video is pretty sweet too.
Good news: they'll be in Philly on Sunday.
Bad news: I can't go!

i'd pick the Red Right Hand

but that's just me..


(by the way, i got this image off of lovelypackage.com - my new favorite website. it showcases some of the best product packaging. and i am a sucker for good package design.)

i have this vague dream..

I hadn't thought about it in a bit, but this morning my mom sent me this link, and now my mind is whirling again.

I want to run a lunch cart...well, more of a lunch van. I want to make sandwiches and salad and arnold palmers and pie, pack it all into a van, and drive to select locations to sell the famished people some decent food. I'll do it in one of those shiny silver old school trailers... or in a green VW bus. I'll play spunky music, write the menu on a chalkboard. I even have a name.

This is one of those vague dreams that you know probably won't ever happen, and you're okay with that -- because it's just so nice to think about. And, boy, have I thought about it...

Wittgenstein

[via kerri smith]

my eyes

seem a little dull today,



and i'm feeling uninspired.


[photo via blackapple]