a cool series from the sartorialist

Check out "When First We Met" here and here.

in case you're interested

1. What are the last 3 things you purchased?
• 4 light fixtures for my studio
• a box of Nature Valley Oats and Honey (granola bars)
• a pair of red-ish high heels

2. What are the last 3 songs you downloaded?
• Radiohead – House of Cards
• Guilherme Arantes – Meu mundo e mais nada
• The Very Sexuals – Anti-Valentine

3. Where were the last 3 places you visited?
• Arraial D’Ajuda, Bahia, Brazil
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Atlanta, Georgia

4. What are your 3 favorite movies?
• Corrina, Corrina
• Play It Again, Sam (but maybe not. I wanted to say Dirty Dancing, but I might sound dumb)
• I’m saving this spot for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”. I’m watching it tomorrow and I know it belongs here.

5. What are your 3 favorite possessions?
• my dog
• my MacBook Pro
• My Nikon D80

6. What 3 things can you not live without?
• my family (mother, father, brother, sister)
• my MacBook Pro
• a car

7. What would be your 3 wishes?
• to get free airlines tickets for a lifetime
• to be able to live in two different places at the same time
• to live in NYC

8. What are 3 things you have not done yet?
• lived in NYC
• had a baby
• had a decent boyfriend

9. What are your 3 favorite dishes?
• junk food (Taco Bell, McD’s, Burger King)
• chocolate
• my mom’s food

10. What 3 celebrities would you want to hang out with the most?
• Connan O’Brian
• Oprah
• Chandler Bing

11. Name 3 things that freak you out.
• mice, snakes, spiders
• being stuck somewhere (bathroom, elevator, etc)
• throwing up

12. If you could describe yourself in 3 words, what would they be?
• curious
• inappropriate
• agoodperson

13. Name 3 unusual things you are good at.
Can’t think of anything too unusual, so here it is:
• I think I’m an AWESOME driver.
• I have an amazing sense of direction. Take me to a place once and I’ll know how to get there forever, from anywhere.
• I’m pretty good with foreign languages.

14. What are 3 things you are currently coveting?
• a decent trip to a place I've never been
• my own apartment
• a new flash for my camera. But I would take a new car too. Whatever comes first.

15. What 3 bloggers would you like tag?
My sister (O Blog da Dri), Sarah (Minus Five), Dri (brendastrikesback)

iEvil

Got this "gem" from Wired's list The Five Stupidest iPhone 3G Accessories. Number 2 takes the gold in my book for the most environmentally irresponsible, useless, in-your-face-disgusting concept. Shame on you, Miniot.

"This ligneous shell costs nearly as much as the 8GB iPhone -- and rumor has it, it's fashioned from Ents! Optional wood dock sold separately. Seriously we're not making this up.

Grade: Chop down a tree to make an iPhone case? Great, I've got a car that runs on baby-seal blood and bald eagles you might like. Fail."

iWood Heritage takes the cake. As if "regular" iWood wasn't enough, Miniot is able to get their hands on some "very rare woods in small quantities that are only enough to create two or three iWoods." They even have ancient and pre-ice-age (!) wood. Wow. Because, you know, if there's one thing we should be doing with "prehistoric timber harvested from forests buried during the last Ice Age" is making iPhone protectors. RIGHT??



That, of course, comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. Which, by the way, should come with a nice plaque that says I AM OFFICIALLY A F*CKING ASSH*LE.

lame alert!

So Walmart (not Wal-Mart anymore!) is launching a new logo this coming fall.

Personally, I think it's lame. I can't stand their attempts to be more like Target and totally disregard for the fact that they still remain the most questionable place of employment and with the worst environmental and social practices.

But -hey, who cares?! Let's pretend we care and just change our logo!!

I was reading about the identity "revamp" here, and loved this comment:


(Click here to see the gif - I can't figure out how embed it in the body of the text)

Gwendolyn Brooks

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.


++++++++++


I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
I am very hungry. I am incomplete.
And none can tell when I may dine again.
No man can give me any word but Wait,
The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in;
Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt
Drag out to their last dregs and I resume
On such legs as are left me, in such heart
As I can manage, remember to go home,
My taste will not have turned insensitive
To honey and bread old purity could love.


++++++++++


—And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a Wednesday and a Saturday,
And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday—
When you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,
Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon
Looking off down the long street
To nowhere,
Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation
And nothing-I-have-to-do and I’m-happy-why?
And if-Monday-never-had-to-come—
When you have forgotten that, I say,
And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,
And how my heart played hopscotch if the telephone rang;
And how we finally went in to Sunday dinner,
That is to say, went across the front room floor to the ink-spotted table in the southwest corner
To Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles
Or chicken and rice
And salad and rye bread and tea
And chocolate chip cookies—
I say, when you have forgotten that,
When you have forgotten my little presentiment
That the war would be over before they got to you;
And how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed into bed,
And lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end
Bright bedclothes,
Then gently folded into each other—
When you have, I say, forgotten all that,
Then you may tell,
Then I may believe
You have forgotten me well.

Lies I've told my 3 year old recently

Trees talk to each other at night.

All fish are named either Lorna or Jack.

Before your eyeballs fall out from watching too much TV, they get very loose.

Tiny bears live in drain pipes.

If you are very very quiet you can hear the clouds rub against the sky.

The moon and the sun had a fight a long time ago.

Everyone knows at least one secret language.

When nobody is looking, I can fly.

We are all held together by invisible threads.

Books get lonely too.

Sadness can be eaten.

I will always be there.

++ By Raul Gutierrez

little zoo

Beautiful photography by Elizabeth Soule. (site | flickr | etsy )

The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility.

-- from The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean OR from Susan Orlean (Meryl Street), in Adaptation

she's done me proud

That's Kira, my friend, sister, mom, on-call therapist, personal stylist, and so much more. Look at her little family. I met the girl when she was 17 and I was 19. We've been through hell and back together, and she's part of some of my favorite moments.

She's grown into a beautiful woman and one alpha mom. She's made me proud.

PS: check out the beautiful, big earrings MADE IN BRAZIL!! Awww, my girl is such a fast learner!

a couple of wonderful nights

The past couple of nights have been filled with things that filled my heart with pure joy and I could write two loooong posts about each here tonight, but I'm exhausted.

Last night I watched Wall-e: wonderful, beautiful, so, so meaningful. I plan on posting something about it here soon, but all I can say right now is GO WATCH IT.

Tonight I went to a "work demonstration" workshop of a brilliant Italian actor named Roberta Carreri. She and her husband, Torgeir Wethal, are part a really well-known avantgarde Danish theater group called Odin Teatret, and they are not only endlessly inspiring and great at what they do, but are also two lovely people.


One of my best friends from Brazil, Lala - who now lives in Paris - organized the event as a part of her doctorate program, so I was fortunate enough to be part of the whole experience. The presentation was brilliant - I never knew I could be so inspired by something like a "theater technique demonstration", but I had to try really hard not to cry a couple of times. Then we took them out to dinner, drank beer and cachaça, ate tons of brazilian food and laughed our asses off. I also learned about Roberta's daughter, Alice Carreri, who is a singer. I told Roberta I would "download her daughter" when I got home, and I actually found out she has a lovely voice and sings in three successful bands throughout Europe. She got stuff on Amazon and iTunes! Jeez!

Poor little me and the world-famous theater people. How great is it to have my friends??

music at home - ella and a banjo

songs that rocked my world today

I got this song as a gift today from this girl here, who is a friend of a friend and I hope we get to meet soon. We always like the same stuff, so she must really be just as awesome as me. Or maybe more.

Citizen Cope - Holdin' On


That made me remember another Citizen Cope song that I absolutely love:

Citizen Cope ft. santana - Sideways


And then I thought of this one. Just cause:

David Gray - Babylon

agreed. I might post something about this soon.

by Frank Chimero. via Flying Conundrum.

behind the scenes

A cool set on Flickr of the creative process behind Juno's title sequence. It was done by Shadowplay Studio, who also did the beautiful title sequence for "Thank you for Smoking".

embrace the dash

You Should Do It Now - a campaign by Converse

makes me love it even more

Amazingly beautiful photos of old New York City.

















More here and here| digg story

i love you, internet

not getting his money's worth

ahhhhh....

Nothing like a man who knows to kiss the right thing at the right time,
then kisses the things he's missed. How had I ever settled for less?


[ Just had to say it again. Only it's my own version this time. ]

ok, let's

tweak that three point oh

Found this tip very useful: quick and dirty directions on how to "hack" Firefox 3 into delivering richer, brighter colors more faithful to the original photograph (or graphic).

1. Type "about:config" in the address bar of Firefox 3.
2. Click thru confirmation page and find: gfx.color_management.enabled.
3. Double click that until it says "true".
4. Restart Firefox 3.

It makes a BIG difference. Try it.

[via]

bullsh*t

Melting words. [link]

i am in love

If this is not love, than I don't know what it is... [link]

Bust a move!

grandma's chair

My grandma died last year, sometime in February. She was my godmother. Because of her I was born with fair skin and blue eyes. My father’s family always gathered around her table on weekends, she was a matriarch. She was the strong figure in my family – not my grandfather, but her. She could barely read or write by the time she was a grown woman, but she had a passion for learning that I am still to see in another human being. She had six kids, and she made sure they all graduated from university. She also managed to go back to school and get her own degree by the time she had a bunch of grandkids. I was a little girl at the time, and I remember notebooks piled on the dining table, where warm coffee and homemade pastries would sit, always fresh. She was a fighter, a woman with balls. She wrote a letter to the president of Brazil once asking for a job, and for some reason – maybe because she was a phenomenal woman – he responded and met with her one-on-one.

She was adorable and I don’t remember not wanting to be around her once. Not even for a minute. She always had a story to tell, always a smile on her face. The only time I saw her sad was last year, about a month before she died, when I went to see her in the hospital. I was still living in Indianapolis, and I hadn’t seen her for a year. She had been really sick for a while, and I think she probably thought she would die without saying goodbye to me. I remember walking in the door and as soon as she saw me she raised her arms and thanked every saint she could possibly think of because her goddaughter was there. She was frail, pale, but her smile was strong and as powerful as ever. She had this thing about her that made me feel like I was the most special human being alive. I was the granddaughter who clearly inherited her genes, and I’m still the woman in the family who resembles her most. We had always had a different connection from everybody else, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.


When she died, my father and his brothers found out she had her whole life – and death – carefully organized. She had mapped out how the little money she had accumulated throughout her 90-some years would be distributed amongst each child and grandchild. She left money for her funeral and burial. She didn’t miss a single detail.

Today something was deposited into my account. It was the money she left for me. I thought about her all day long. I felt her around me the whole time, and I thought about what I should do with what my grandma set aside for me.

I went out this afternoon and bought a beautiful white chair I’ve been dreaming about getting for my studio. I think if my grandma could have chosen something to give me, she would make sure it had sometime to do with my education, or how I provide for myself. She would have contributed to that somehow. So I bought the chair. It’s big, the most expensive item in my studio. I know I will be thinking of her every time I’m in there. She’s a part f my environment now, and she is making it more beautiful and practical. Making my life more comfortable. Just like she always did.

lovely

If "lovely" could be described in a 2 and a half minute video, this would be it.



Stevie Nicks, 1981.

Post-Traumatic Postcards

"Dear M.

I can’t wait until you’re married so I can tell you I love you, and not worry you’ll take it the wrong way. It’s a shame being a grownup is so complex we can’t be kind to one another without fearing the repercussions.

xo, L."


++++++++++


Apologizing for the mistakes you’ve made isn’t easy, unless you limit yourself to a paragraph. . [link]