Friday, October 24, 2008

More Marimekko LOVE



I LOVE this image. (via the blog This Is Love Forever (click on title for link) and also via the Marimekko website).

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Posters

In a foul mood today and just surfing the internet and hoping to disappear into it. I found these cool posters though, they kind of make me happy:

Click on the word {Posters} above to see them.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Frozen wispy crystals of water sometimes

I found this beautiful imagery in a scientific philosophy/opinion article I was reading today. I am always so inspired and relieved when I see this kind of writing in a reputable science journal. I know the person has finally become a respected enough scientist so now they can sneak in a little loveliness into their papers. There is hope for me yet:

{...Frozen wispy crystals of water sometimes fall to earth in great numbers and we identify them as snowflakes. The ‘snowflake’ category exists in our minds, but in some sense it is also a feature of the world outside ourselves, a world that is disposed to repeatedly generate individual falling wispy crystals of water.}-Jody Hey, 2001, The Mind of the Species Problem.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Quote of the day

{a sound heart is a surer guide than an ill-trained conscience}-Mark Twain

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Space Cadets

We have a very small kitchen. Everything Joe does he does extremely.

We decided to buy a bench that was made out of teak. It was one of those gnarled raw wood pieces of furniture. Part furniture, part objet d’art. It looked almost like an antler on its right side and then it swooped down into a small seat, which was more cool looking than it was comfortable. When we purchased it, it was unfinished wood. Joe brought it to the shop and put a beautiful stain and finish on it until it was butter smooth and much more expensive looking than what we had paid for it. We brought it home in the van. Joe and I lifted it up 4 flights of stairs to our apartment, resting very frequently. Including one rest stop outside of the building before we even brought it in the door in which Joe invited our neighbor who was outside smoking a cigarette with her little husband, to sit on it. She touched it with her hands and made what I assume, by the smile on her face, complimentary remarks in her raspy voiced spanish.

When we finally got it in the apartment door, we rested in the kitchen in front of the stove. By this time it was midnight, I was tired and feeling weak from the heavy lifting. Then we proceeded to bring it into the living room. There was one snag. It would not fit through our hallway from the kitchen to the living room. We shifted and strategized, but to no avail. So there it sat. In our kitchen for over a month, in front of the stove. Each time I used the stove I had to move the bench and it made just the sound that evokes the downstairs neighbor to ask what the hell is going on upstairs.

Tonight I came home and it was gone. Joe had taken it back to the shop, we have decided that its just not for us. I felt sad for the bench that went through many hoops, but not hallways, to be in our home and I felt sad for us and for all the work Joe put into it and for my hopeful former self who bought it with stars in her eyes convinced that this was going to be the thing that pulled the room together, exotic, natural, dramatic. Now that its gone, my kitchen feels huge.

As I walked down the tiny hallway from the kitchen all the way to the back bedroom this evening, I thought how I missed the bench and how I should blog about it. And when I arrived in the bedroom what did I find, but a capacious piece of furniture that Joe made in which his eyes were bigger than his apartment. This one is a display cabinet that holds all of his karate gear as if it were hung up at the Hard Rock Cafe like Joey Ramone’s jacket or something.

Monday, October 6, 2008

So that is all there is...

The other day I was trying to explain to someone the epiphany that I had this summer about life and it came out sounding disjointed. So I thought Petri Dish could help me get my thoughts straight about it.

The basic idea is this: I have always thought that there was more to life than there actually is. Something has shifted in me and now I not only consciously think, but really truly feel that THIS IS JUST ALL THERE IS. This may sound like a grim realization but if I can explain to you, it has liberated me in some way.

I had already arrived at the party and I went around asking each person who was there if they thought I should go to the party and if I did decide to go, how best to get there and what would it be like there, what should I wear, what kind of food will they have, will I understand the conversations and jokes and am I even invited. It made no sense.

I always assume people are much more complex and intelligent than they actually are. I assume that they probably have some deep vast bank of organized knowledge and views about the world from all different perspectives. But actually, I am not sure that this is the case.

Everyone clings to a few things, repeats these ideas/concepts, understands new ideas only in relation to what they already know and just keeps floating along trying to stay living and endear themselves to people in some way or another. I think I can handle that.