Branding 10,000 Lakes

a graphic designer is creating a logo for every Minnesota lake, which she estimates should only take about 27 years. more found here.

(fun fact- the official count of lakes in Minnesota is actually 11,842. but that doesn't read as well on a license plate, i guess.)

100 years in 100 seconds

found via kottke. 100 years of East London fashion, from 1911-2011. love it.

M.Bach goes to the State Fair

more funny/scary photos here.

28aug

one of the neighbor kids is roaming the alley in a werewolf costume. never a dull moment.

Strange Mercy

new St. Vincent album in September?!? how did i not know about this? i was just listening to her last album at work on Wednesday, wondering when she was going to release anything new. well, now i know. in about 2.5 weeks.



i was playing this really softly as not to wake up matt, so i have no idea what any of the lyrics are. i'm going to guess that the content is... dark.

A Stone of Hope.

i didn't even know this was happening, but a new memorial has just been completed in Washington, DC.

happy coincidence- Matt and i are going to DC next month, so we'll be able to see it in person very soon!

images from here

I adore DC. I used to visit my college roommate in VA every summer, and we'd go to the National Cathedral, the Zoo so i could visit Kandula, and any new memorial that had opened since i had last been there. i think this is the only one i haven't seen, and i'm excited to cross it off so soon after its completion.

Acts of kindness

Returning to work after this intense period of activity and grief following the death of my husband's dad I stepped onto the tube at Seven Sisters and felt sadness rush through me. I covered my face with my hands and cried. As the train pulled into Victoria I was momentarily engulfed in a soft, warm and perfumed embrace. When I looked up I saw a woman in a fur coat swish through the closing doors. An angel of compassion. I will never forget that moment.

Artist Michael Landy invites tube passengers to send in their stories of compassion and generosity that they've seen or experienced on the tube in London. i read every single one.

(i had similar experiences my first time in New York. i was traveling alone and unfamiliar with the labyrinthine subway system. once i was looking at a station map, trying to figure out the best route to my destination, when a businessman approached me, saying, "hey, where do you want to go?" i told him, and he told me exactly how to get there, transfers and all. another time, i was in a crowded subway car, and a man stood up to offer me his seat. i didn't need it, but i took it to honor his gesture.)

Perspective.

seen here

notes from a sunday morning

watching 2 sets of squirrels mate. very acrobatic. Gordon is watching too.

the cardinal family is back.

it is so quiet. no yelling neighbors or screaming children, no mariachi music or KTIS blaring, no motors revving. just the sound of highway 55 in the distance and birds chirping.

gordon just came sauntering back over with car grease on his back.

party time. excellent.

while sweeping the front sidewalk yesterday, i saw one of the neighbors unloading at least 10 cases of Modelo out of his truck bed. this morning they are putting up black & white balloons and streamers outside. over the hill party? monochromatic wedding reception? really inappropriate kid's birthday party? we'll just have to wait and see. maybe they are just trying to out-do our across-the-alley neighbors... all last Saturday i thought, 'wow the (spanish speaking) church down the road is really going to town with this evangelist. he's been preaching for hours and it's so loud it sounds like he's in my backyard!' turns out, the neighbors were having a birthday party for one of their kids and hired a clown. their backyard is approximately .001 acre, so i'm not sure why the microphone (and speakers cranked to 11) were needed. and i have no idea what he was charging, but that poor clown earned every penny. he was out there for HOURS.

this is the same house where for the last couple years, several times a week in the warmer months, there is a troupe of kids in their car parking area practicing some strange sort of line dancing to a vaguely ethnic song of indeterminable origin. they'll spin right out into the alley, and if you're driving by they hardly move. i've even seen the older kids texting while dancing. it's a really simple dance, so it's not like they're practicing for a competition. but they'll be out there for hours, with a mom or two standing in the garage watching. we still have no idea why they do this, but that song is forever carved into my brain.

in other news, i found a little piece of South Carolina hanging onto my house this morning:

Harry Potter humor never gets old.

from here

Also of note, the Warner Brothers studio outside of London where all 8 films were created is basically turning into a shrine for the movies... that you can visit! starting next spring, you yourself can walk through the Great Hall, meet Buckbeak in person, or Aragog if that's more your kind of thing. sign me up.

someone is writing a comic about my life.

found here

i also like this one. and this one. and this one. okay i'm done. wait, one more. and by one i mean two.

documenting the crazy, part two.

today Michelle Bachmann wished Elvis a happy birthday. except it wasn't his birthday, it was the day he died. slight difference.

*so, warning- there is a scary photo of M.Bach when you click on that link. a friend had posted this on FB, and i commented by saying that it was the scariest photo of her i'd ever seen. well, someone else quickly commented with these 2 links:

The Newsweek cover

uh, the corndog incident?

i stand corrected.

The internet is good for something, after all.

i love reunion/reconnection stories. and fortunately that's one thing the internet is good for, helping people find each other again. i have a friend whose high school sweetheart was a foreign exchange student from Denmark. he was in the States for a semester or so and then went back home. time passed, she went to college, married, had 3 kids, and endured a divorce. i don't know the whole story, but one day i noticed some pictures she posted on facebook of her and a somewhat familiar-looking guy... after many years they had found each other through facebook and rekindled their romance. today they are married and living in Denmark with her 3 kids. on their wedding day, she wore a bracelet that he had given her 15 years ago. she still had it.

they don't have to be romantic, either. i loved this NPR story about a 57-year-old who meets his father for the first time. short but very sweet- "He put his hands on my face and then touched my knees, each of my knees, and then he took his hands and put his hands next to mine, like he was trying to feel was I really his son."

and then there's this. high school sweethearts who find each other after over 60 years. this is the best thing you will see on the internet today:

81-Year-Old Sweethearts from Danielle Lurie on Vimeo.

cat videos. (or, i used to have a life.)

now that we have a cat, i suddenly "get" cat videos. whereas i used to bypass them for "Corgi jumps off floating dock 37 times" or "Soldier mauled by puppy cuteness"(not linking to that one because everyone in the free world has seen it... alright, fine here it is), i now find myself pausing over "Cat Cuddles Lizard" or "Cat Plays 'Guess Which Hand' for Food". a random link today led me to Maru, the famous Japanese ball of adorable. soooooo, there goes my free time.

landscape fashion

images from Vogue

my friend Michelle Fifis is a textile designer living in Portland, Oregon. we grew up in South Carolina together, her mother is my godmother and when i was born, 6-month-old Michelle was my first friend. she runs this great blog called Pattern Observer, on which you will find some serious fashion and other beautiful things- jewelry, clothes, textiles, all kinds of neat stuff. she posted today about Carven's 2012 resort line, and i'm pretty sure i need that dress on the left up there....

mariachi is apparently his jam.

the casual head-bobbing and smooshing of forehead into the glass are my favorite parts.

it's time to Make It Work!

Project Runway is back for its 9th season and i'm stoked. for one, we have a hometown girl to cheer on. for two, we have a standing weekly PR date with friends- shows like this are so much more fun to watch in a group. with drinks. and snacks. and for three, i just recently discovered Project Project Runway- a couple of crafty ladies who create their own tiny, Barbie-sized outfits based on the PR challenge that week. as someone who used to make gowns for her Barbies out of black pantyhose, this appeals to me immensely. and i'm pretty sure one of them is local as well, since she mentioned buying her "model" at the Target in Minnetonka. they speak fluent Project Runway, as in, "i'm pretty worried my model only has a top at this point," or "Tim is warning me not to get into pageant territory with these beads."

also bookmarked for ridiculous commentary is Tom and Lorenzo. if nothing else, to go back and re-read these posts over and over again...

meat(loaf) hand

from here

the onion as wrist bone is a really nice touch. needless to say, i want to make this.

one more reason to fence in the backyard.

here on 16th Ave, we don't have a fenced-in backyard. occasionally this results in random people wandering through our property, small Mexican neighbor children treating it like their own public park, small Somali children yelling at us from their jungle gym two houses over, or squirrels using it as a break room where they can eat whatever they've scavenged from the apartment complex's dumpster. (truth- i once came home to a squirrel chomping on an entire Sbarro-sized piece of pizza in my backyard. also, flour tortillas and chicken wings.)

last night around 10:30pm, when i was doing my night-time routine and checking to make sure the back door was locked, i saw lights dance across the backyard. 'oh good, Matt's home,' i thought. as i turned to walk up the stairs, i glanced out the back window and realized that those lights were not headlights, but in fact, a flashlight. the only people i know who trespass with flashlights are cops, so i open the back door and say, "uh, can i help you??"

it was indeed a cop, who by now is in the middle of my backyard. he replies "oh no, thanks! we're just doing a little K-9 training tonight." i look down and he's, like, dragging his feet across my grass... like he stepped in dog poo and is trying to scrape it off. he points to the alley and says, "my partner's back there with the dog, he's going to try and follow my scent into that abandoned house [pointing to a home that recently suffered a fire and is slowly being restored] and hopefully bite me."

it all happened so fast i didn't have time to think, so i just said, "uh, okay.... good to know." he cheerfully responds, "Thanks though!!" i suppose i'm glad he thought i truly wanted to help him, even though my "uh, can i help you??" was really more of a "uh, what the hell are you doing in my backyard??" i guess i should also be glad it was just for a doggie training. last time there were cops in my yard with flashlights (at a different address, years ago) it was because they were chasing a suspect who had fled the scene of the crime through our yard.

however, this morning as i was leaving for work, i could very clearly see where he was "scraping" his scent- it looks like someone teed off in the middle of our backyard and didn't replace the divot. thinking about calling the precinct and requesting that no more police trainings take place in our backyard...