The World of Angela Carter

Posted by Alison – September 25, 2011

“And each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shining hairs. My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur.”

Lately, I’ve felt the need to recede from reality. I’m burned out on the mundanities of my daily routine, politics (which makes me want to scream, but that’s another story), the endless regurgitation of the same ol’ stuff in my Google Reader, and the humid nastiness that just will not die. Something had to give, so after a long absence of fiction in my life, I decided to throw myself into the collected works of Angela Carter. I’m so glad I did. Her re-workings of classic folk tales and the lives of historical figures, magical realism style — including Lizzie Borden, Edgar Allan Poe and Little Red Riding Hood — allow me to contemplate a world where life-size puppets suck the life-force out of their masters and tigers live in abandoned castles. And her writerly style? Endlessly inspiring; in fact, it makes me want to take up fiction again. Her words are like cooling aloe on the harsh sunburn of my mind. (Dramatic much? Ha!)

So, if I haven’t already convinced you, I’ll put it in other words: pick up some Angela Carter, and quick!

What are you reading?

Geisha Getting Dressed

Posted by Alison – September 18, 2011

My morning routine is not worthy of documentation. (But if you’re really curious, I whip a comb through my hair, toss on a dress from my pile — not joking, it’s a mini-mountain — and apply lipstick that usually wipes off before I get to work.) However, I can appreciate a more elaborate process, and geishas’ rituals are lengthy and steeped in tradition. This beautiful film from the 1930s shows geisha styling their hair, dressing and preparing for public life.

See more amazing vintage fashion videos at Glamour Daze.

Marie Antoinette, the Dulcimer-Playing Robot

Posted by Alison – September 12, 2011

As soon as I caught sight of the “player of the dulcimer,” I knew I needed to look closer. This tiny automaton — as large as a bird-boned, ladylike toddler — is credited to German watchmaker, Peter Kintzing. However, a hundred craftsmen from 26 trades were involved in its manufacture (crazy!). It was presented  to Marie Antoinette at Versailles in 1784, and she quickly snatched it up — eventually lending some of her own hair for the miniature’s bouffant. It has since been donated to the Academy of Sciences and continues to function. So beautiful.

[Via]

Stef Driesen

Posted by Alison – September 11, 2011

Oh, to be able to paint such ghostly abstracts! If I were an artist, I’d study at the school of Stef Driesen.  [Via]

Google Earth Carpets

Posted by Alison – September 5, 2011

Designer David Hanauer finds beauty in the aerial abstraction of Google Maps — specifically, the urban morass of Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Not content to merely soak in overhead shots of pools and freeways, Hanauer began creating collaged patterns that quickly transitioned into carpets. What a novel concept! These beautiful rugs are available for purchase on his website.

[Via Flavorwire]

Walter Potter’s Menagerie

Posted by Alison – August 30, 2011

Adorable much? Victorian anthropomorphic taxidermist Walter Potter was the master of cutesy, creepy scenes, which included “a rats’ den being raided by the local police rats; a village school featuring 48 little rabbits busy writing on tiny slates, while the Kittens’ Tea Party displayed feline etiquette and a game of croquet. A guinea pigs’ cricket match was in progress, and 20 kittens attended a wedding, wearing little morning suits or brocade dresses, with a feline vicar.” (And it’s important to mention that all the animals died naturally, so no need to be too sad about their preciousness.)

Though he died in 1918, Potter’s museum lived on until the mid-1960s, as shown in this short documentary. I wish it still existed! I’ve heard that the pieces were distributed to other museums and are now held in private collections. A girl can hope…!

[Via Morbid Anatomy]

Oh, Iris!

Posted by Alison – August 23, 2011

Did you know that Iris Apfel is the subject of a Maysles documentary (of Grey Gardens fame)? And more importantly, have you heard she’s getting a Home Shopping Network collection?! I will be snapping up those designs! (I already have some Iris glasses, as a matter of fact.) Read more at The New York Times.

Interiors

Posted by Alison – August 21, 2011

It’s a funny thing, using Pinterest: it really allows you to hone in on what attracts your attention. When it comes to photos of rooms, I’ll unconsciously bookmark the same images over and over again. I don’t know if that speaks to the fact that I’m always attracted to the same elements — fuzzy rugs, dark walls, textiles, wood, brass, antique quilts — or if I’m just very, very particular. (Or in a rut. Either, or!)

Find the sources for these images on my Pinterest.

Essential Listening

Posted by Alison – August 19, 2011

I am such a Mary J. fangirl. She’s this generation’s Dusty Springfield or Diana Ross, in my mind. So good.

Kara Gunter’s “Trial by Fire”

Posted by Alison – August 15, 2011

I first came across Kara Gunter’s smoke-fired ceramic eggs on Etsy. Intrigued by the premise, I looked up her website and the art project where the eggs originated, entitled “Trial by Fire.” I was not disappointed: the salt, smoke and ceramics are like candy to me! Kara’s artistic statement explains her motivations:

According to fire ecology — the study of fire and its relationship to living organisms — fire is a necessity for propagation. Certain plant life has evolved to depend on fire as a means to clear out the old and dying so new life can take hold. Seeds are split open by the heat, and the ground is fertile with ash.

Trial by Fire explores themes of devastation followed by the cycle of rebirth. Referenced are eggs, seeds and cast away skins, all signs that the metamorphosis has begun. Salt, also attributed with purifying and preservation, suspends the moment of purity in time, holding the cycle’s completion in stasis.

The majority of the work created for Trial by Fire, utilizes fire in some way in its fabrication. Clay must be exposed to extreme heat to become vitreous. Furthermore, clay work has been stained with fire and smoke in the smoke-firing process. Paper and wood have been blistered and scorched with fire.

So beautiful. Many of the pieces are now for sale on Etsy.

The Rain

Posted by Alison – August 9, 2011

The one, the only, Missy Elliott. I think this is my favorite video in her body of work. She’s truly an icon.

Random: Believe it or not, I used to fantasize about wearing a bubble/garbage bag outfit when I was in middle school — before the video even came out! In my naive, 12-year-old mind, I thought that everyone would be able to get along if we couldn’t see one another’s bodies. Oh, the bleakness of puberty.

A Very Professional Gangsta

Posted by Alison – August 9, 2011

There’s nothing like a well-designed business card to give you a little flair. However, these cards go far beyond some cute fonts. In the late ’70s and ’80s, Chicago gang members carried and distributed these business cards to function as a calling card for each neighborhood. The iconography and gang symbols are both entertaining (“Compliments of Insane Lady Vigilantes,” nicknames like Stubby, Snake, Outlaw) and a little uncomfortable. Ultimately, there was violence behind much of the cocky imagery, and that has to be remembered.

See more business cards here and here.

 

[Via Teenage]

Michele Quan and Love Adorned

Posted by Alison – August 7, 2011

As soon as I laid eyes on Michele Quan’s ceramic bells, I knew I needed to see them in person. Like, needed. As soon as JB and I returned from vacation, I dropped my bags and hurried to the Love Adorned boutique, where Michele recently installed her bells in an epic arrangement. I was not disappointed: the glazes! The thickly braided ropes! There’s something about bells that just appeals to me on some basic level. I’d love to have a massive collection…and a porch to display them, but one thing at a time.

But checking out the bells wasn’t the only goal. The store is gorgeous and so well curated. I wanted almost everything…the smudge sticks, the textiles, the jewelry, the cedar incense. There was even a custom moccasin maker working in the store. Definitely follow Love Adorned’s blog to see all the cool stuff they carry.

[Via My Love for You]

Creepy Kitten

Posted by Alison – August 7, 2011

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a muff like this rabbit fur kitten. The attached head! The missing eye! (I’m a sucker for a cyclops.) I feel envious of the child that kept her paws warm inside this little bit of cute antiquity.

(No actual kittens harmed. I can’t speak for the bunnies, unfortunately.)

[Via Pinterest, home of all things good.]

The Most Beautiful Flowers

Posted by Alison – August 5, 2011

I feel like the entire blogosphere has been talking about Amy Merrick’s new website, and for good reason: it is ungodly beautiful. However, more to the point: If you haven’t had the pleasure of encountering one of Amy’s wild-yet-composed floral arrangements, you’ve been missing out. As a florist and photographer, her aesthetic eye is unparalleled (those black backgrounds: like a gorgeous Flemish painting!), and her new website reflects her talent. I hope to one day have an occasion that necessitates on of her bouquets.

Lower East Side of the 1940s

Posted by Alison – July 31, 2011

I consider New York to be my adopted city, and I revel in its long history: the wily, narrow streets of the early city, restaurant crazes that have come and gone, tight-knit communities and the existence of hot potato vendors, as seen above. (I want one!) It’s crazy to see how much things have changed (and stayed in the same) after 60 years. The gritty streets and businesses of these photos are all long gone — except for McSorley’s and Delmonico’s, of course —  but I think the personality of New York is one of continuous change. (“You can’t step in same river twice” and all that.) However, I hope it’s not too much to ask that the skeleton of the city at least stay the same. I love these streets. I love these run-down, dirty buildings. No more condos, please. And more kids playing on the sidewalk.

[Via How to be a Retronaut]

Jaako Pallasvuo

Posted by Alison – July 28, 2011

I’m majorly digging on the work of Jakko Pallasvuo. Beautiful paintings.

[Via]

Water of Life

Posted by Alison – July 27, 2011

 

The word “whiskey” comes from a Gaelic word meaning “water of life,” and in its early stages, whiskey literally breathes — or exhales, anyway. If you visit a distillery and look carefully, you’ll see that some of the outside walls and even the nearby trees are covered with thick black mold, the result of whiskey vapor escaping from the casks — what distillers call the “angels’ share.” If the stuff does that to trees, what does it do to your insides?

 

I’m a big fan of the history of exploration, especially that of the North and South Poles — the only untouched tundra left to be discovered in the last century. In fact, explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew of hard-drinking dudes ventured to be the first to the South Pole in the Nimrod expedition of 1907. Aided by a few ponies (which were sadly eaten, as ponies aren’t really fit to drag sleds) and many crates of brandy and whiskey, the team made it within 100 miles of their goal before turning back due to starvation. (That’s them above, in fact. Can you believe those grizzled men are only in their twenties and thirties?!) In their hurry to return home and regain their health, they abandoned the crates of alcohol they’d buried beneath a hut along the way, which were (theoretically) being saved for their victory party.

In February 2007, workers attempting to restore Shackleton’s hut (which had been left in a state of abandonment for nearly seventy years before becoming a landmark) accidentally came across three cases of Scotch — “Rare old Highland malt whisky, blended and bottled by Chas. Mackinlay & Co.” — frozen in the permafrost. And miraculously, it was still good! It was assumed that 19th-century whisky taken to the Antarctic would be smoky, medicinal-seeming stuff, but it’s described as an elegant and delicious treat, tasting of “crushed apples, peaches, hints of cinnamon, toffee, caramel, notes of sherry wood.” And no peat taste. Since that’s my one complaint about Scotch, I’m very intrigued!

Now they’re planning on selling replicas of the storied Scotch for $160 a bottle. I want a taste!

Read more in The New York Times Magazine.

Birthday Thoughts

Posted by Alison – July 26, 2011

[Clockwise: Vintage Furry Man; Vintage Cast Iron Crab; Matte Wavy Band; Vintage Humo Frames; Raw Chocolate Tea Pot; 1930s Bakelite Timer; Vintage Straw Handbag; Original Abstract Painting; Antique Woven Willow Chest; Vintage Beacon Blanket Pillows; Rustic Jug; Pedro Pujol Abstract Copper Sculpture]

So, my birthday is next week. I received several concerned emails about what I’d like to receive as a gift; I’ve been told that I’m very hard to buy for. (True. So true.) I haven’t decided yet if I’m actually going through with a party or not. All I really want is a freshly made pie (peach), some sweet cards and a vacation — and I’m taking all of next week off, in fact! Cape Cod, here we come.

However, if I had my way, here are some gifts I would open with great glee. Mostly that beautiful matte gold ring.

Meeting in the Ladies’ Room

Posted by Alison – July 25, 2011

A little known fact about me is that I hosted an all-lady radio show during college (holla, KRUI!). As such, I was pumped to dig into my personal archives and contribute some of my favorite girl groups to the awesome female music blog, Lady Bang Beat. Check out my post here (and make sure to watch “Meeting in the Ladies’ Room” by Klymaxx — a kitschy ’80s favorite!).

Pump It

Posted by Alison – July 23, 2011

Nothing says ’90s nostalgia like Technotronic. I had a hard time believing this was the actual video, but then I realized it was from 1990, so — yeah. Let’s go the gym!

An Ideal Summer

Posted by Alison – July 17, 2011

What I wouldn’t give for a real summer vacation — lazy days, no work and endless ham sandwiches on a slightly inclined creek bed. We’d pick possibly poisonous berries, work on our tans and maybe hit up some casinos on the way home, listening to Queen with the windows rolled all the way down. A girl can dream, right?

Did I mention we’d be wearing cut-offs? Because that’s essential to the experience.

[Image by Nathaniel Russell]

Miranda July is Pretty Damn Sincere

Posted by Alison – July 17, 2011

Miranda July has become the unwilling exemplar of an aggravating boho archetype: the dreamy, young hipster whose days are filled with coffee, curios and disposable enchantments. “Yes, in some ways Miranda July is living my dream and life, and yes, maybe I’m a little jealous,” wrote one Brooklyn-based artist on her blog. “I loathe her. It feels personal.” To her detractors (“haters” doesn’t seem like too strong a word) July has come to personify everything infuriating about the Etsy-shopping, Wes Anderson-quoting, McSweeney’s-reading, coastal-living category of upscale urban bohemia that flourished in the aughts. Her very existence is enough to inspire, for example, an I Hate Miranda July blog, which purports to detest her “insufferable precious nonsense.” Or there is the online commenter who roots for July to be exiled to Darfur. Or the blogger who yearns to beat her with a shoe.

…But unlike certain directors who fixate on marginalia, creating art in which the engraving on a character’s belt buckle takes precedence over the story, July’s seemingly superficial gestures service something greater: a pulsing emotional center. It’s odd that she has come to represent, for some, a kind of soulless hipster cool, because in July’s work, nobody is cool. There’s no irony to it, no insider wink. Her characters are ordinary people whose lives don’t normally invite investigation. So her project is the opposite of hipster exclusion: her work is desperate to bring people together, forcing them into a kind of fellow feeling. She’s unrelentingly sincere, and maybe that sincerity makes her difficult to bear. It also might make her culturally essential.

How anyone could hate Miranda July, I have no idea. However, I am an Etsy-shopping, McSweeney’s-reading kind of lady, so I guess I fall into the demographic in question. (Heh.) And call me crazy, but I want to believe in talking cats, pink sunrises and powerful moments in ordinary lives. Because deep down, we’re all living ordinary lives and trying to make the best of it, and I want to believe that there’s more to it than paying bills and making ironic statements out of insecurity and putting up false fronts. If she can show me the magical in my own life (and she has, in her fiction and her films), then I subscribe to the cult. Sign me up!

Please read The New York Times Magazine profile on Miranda. You’ll enjoy it.

Swimsuits, Past and Future

Posted by Alison – July 11, 2011

 


I used to be a swimmer; I’d spend my summers hanging from the pool’s edge, wolfing Laffy Taffy, rescuing frogs, and slowly frying on a worn Snoopy beach towel on the adjacent, boiling tennis courts. I was ten. Then puberty hit and it all fell apart. Boobs, hips and height washed over me, and my body felt unfamiliar and not my own.

While talking with my friend Jaime, reflecting on New York City beaches, I realized that I haven’t even put on a swimsuit for three years. Three years! And I haven’t even been to any of those beaches! Not the mythical, taco laden Rockaways, the nudist-friendly dunes of Fort Tilden or any of the other sandy entrances to the Atlantic. It’s a shame, really. I miss swimming, and I’ve never even overcome my personal equator (waistline) while standing at the water’s edge.

Reflecting on these historic bathing suits — modeled during the late ’30s in a retrospective of past swimsuits (lots of stockings and pantaloons) and future, imaginary renditions — I’m reminded that I shouldn’t view the beach as a vaguely threatening expanse filled with broken bottles and judgment; I should revel in the fact that I don’t have to wear pantaloons! Or a bikini! And that bathing suits are not, in fact, inherently scary. If anything, they’re playful and fun and maybe even a treat. How often can you feel so unencumbered and float, weightless, in a massive sea?

I’ll take one of the bathing suits with a cape, please. Body confidence: in for 2011.

[Images via New York Public Library Archives]

Nantucket Cottage

Posted by Alison – July 10, 2011

Isn’t this house a dream? The owner, a writing professor in Philadelphia, bought this 19th-century house in Nantucket and furnished it with all-secondhand finds to create what she calls an “instant heirloom house.” Fun fact: the home was once owned by Samuel Robbins, a first mate on a whaling ship who died at sea in the 1820s. I’m a fan of the many nautical, New England paintings and artifacts.

See more photos at The New York Times.

“We both love soup.”

Posted by Alison – July 10, 2011

“We could talk or not talk forever and still find things to not talk about.”

Sometimes it’s nice to enjoy the silence, don’t you think?

Paws

Posted by Alison – July 6, 2011

I can’t think of anything that provides me with more pleasure than the company of animals. These tiny pink pads against glass? Well, I’m kvelling. Find more cuteness in the Dreamcats Flickr pool — my go-to for my “enh!” fix.

Back in NYC

Posted by Alison – July 5, 2011


After a rejuvenating vacation with family in Iowa (and tons of thrifting and Amish adventures — more on that later), I’m back in New York. It’s been pretty slow around here this summer, but I’m hoping to come out swingin’ now that I’ve spent some time away from the Internet. (But not Instragram!) Check out this abandoned, collapsed stone farm house my mom and I found deep in the country. It was so small, and there were some ancient appliances from the ’40s in the back. Poking around on gravel roads is my new favorite pastime.

Ceramics by Juliet Gorman

Posted by Alison – June 27, 2011

 

 

 

I’ve been a fan of Juliet Gorman’s ceramics for quite a while; over a year, in fact. I’ve observed the Internet explode over her work — and rightly so, because it’s so damn beautiful! — and all the while I’ve sat on the sidelines, watching her style develop. You see, Juliet is not only my colleague at Etsy, but she’s also a friend. I absolutely admire her aesthetic, and I made a point to venture out to Renegade Craft Fair to snag a necklace (my new favorite and in constant rotation). At long last, her work is for sale on Etsy. Check out her shop at Digoyo.

Windsor Castle Fantasia

Posted by Alison – June 19, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prepare yourself for doll house squealing. I’ve just come across the most ornate doll house I’ve ever seen: Queen Mary’s doll house, as the box above so eloquently states. Completed in 1924, it was made to a scale of 1:12, is over three feet tall, and contains models of tons of products made by companies of the time. (Did I mention that Queen Mary was an adult at the time of this doll house’s creation?) Many of the items in the house are 1/12 replicas of items in Windsor Castle, and tons of the little pieces actually work. It was constructed to serve as an historical document as to how how a royal family might live during that period in England. Which is very opulently, if the bathroom is correct (and in the 1920s, no less!). I’d love to see this in person.

[Via]

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