Hyggelig Places: The Alameda Point Antiques and Collectibles Faire

I just got back from the Alameda Antique Faire and wow! there was lots of great stuff. A friend and I got beautiful cast iron pans, and the vendor told us a little about their history and maintenance while we rooted through his selection. I eyed a lot of old toys and tools, rooted through vintage textiles and despaired at the prices of handsome baskets. The market happens once a month, on the first Sunday. You'll probably see me there.

World Beard and Moustache Championships

image by Luke Stephenson

I just read this post on Tas-Ka about the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Check out the rest of the pics - these guys are awesome. Or crazy. Both?

Yes We Can

There are people cheering in the streets, beeping horns and hugging strangers. We all have hope tonight - we know the next few years may not change everything, but recent months have already brought us closer as Americans. This is a change we can see, can feel in ourselves.

The London to Brighton Race

Albert de Dion on a De Dion Bouton (via Wikipedia)

It's that time of the year again - the first Sunday in November, hundreds of thousands of old car guys hobble over to London to ogle old cars at the London to Brighton Run. I read up a little bit on the race and found the following info at the LBVCR website:

"The annual event ... commemorates the Emancipation Run of 14 November 1896 which celebrated the passing into law of the Locomotives on the Highway Act, which raised the speed limit for `light locomotives' from 4 mph to 14 mph and abolished the requirement for these vehicles to be preceded by a man on foot."

I like the idea of a man standing in front of my car at all times watching out for pedestrians and stuff. Also, I hate this idea. Did he get to carry an umbrella if it was raining? It rains a lot in England. And if there was nobody on the street, could he get in the car and just get out when there were people around?

14 mph may not seem fast in a regular car with windshields and airbags, but keep in mind this guy is basically sitting on a wooden lawnmower. I am scared for his safety and he isn't even moving.

Good luck out there, riders. Smell the foggy air and hang on tight around those curves.

At The Supermarket

Today at TJ's I saw a sign advertising baking powder that just said "You are gonna need it for stuff! Holiday item!" with some elves dancing around on the side. I laughed out loud, imagining some dude getting desperate after making a bunch of signs cheerfully describing all the uses for dried fruits and nuts.

Saying Goodbye to Mother's

I read the news over someone's shoulder on my ride home from work: Mother's Cookies is going out of business. I slumped over in my seat, dejected, as through this cookie company were a real member of my family and I had just read an obituary. In a way, Mother's has been a part of our lives.

Mother's was there with us on every picnic, every camping trip, and many evenings after dinner. Dad would shift around in his chair, looking over to see if we had "the good" cookies in stock, as though he could stretch his vision beyond the pantry door to spy them.

Checkerboard Wafers

The checkerboard wafers were not eaten but more inhaled - the package would be there, daintily unwrapped at the end, and then moments later there would be a handful of wafers left. Our parents would nudge them towards us, saying, "You go ahead, honey. Have the last ones," like we were some starving paupers who would never be able to afford those magical wafers again. "No, I'm full," we'd both reply, putting our hands on our bellies. These leftovers would be carefully repackaged in saran wrap or an excessively large Tupperware container, and would remain abandoned on the shelf until they were stale and chewy. It was our unspoken ritual - some cookies must be sacrificed to ensure the arrival of fresh ones in coming weeks. Strangely, this never happened with the animal cookies...

We also had a long standing disagreement over the checkerboard cookies, and one time did a blindfolded taste test to see if, indeed, they do taste like the Neapolitan flavors they were presumably modeled after. I insisted that they taste like chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, but failed the blindfolded test and proved myself wrong. Damnit!

Circus Animal

The circus animals came on a lot of hiking and picnic-related trips. They'd be warm by lunchtime but by some stroke of engineering genius, the frosting would be fully intact, never melting off of the cookies. I spent a lot of time chasing after the sprinkles at the bottom of the bag and would have sprinkle-colored marks on my fingers for the rest of the afternoon.

English Tea

I'm honestly not sure how my dad is going to live without these. I mean, there are other cookies, but these seem to be his staple after-dinner treat. The cookies will bruise your mouth as you bite into them - they're thick and unyielding and probably meant for adults instead of a small child's jaws. They've got this funny imprinted texture that I've only come to appreciate over time, but the smell of the vanilla centers has always been comforting. These are better dipping cookies than any dark-colored counterpart you might see advertised. You can forget about them as they float around in your milk and instead of totally disintegrating and tainting your drink, they'll come out perfect every time.

Mother's Cookies used to be manufactured here in Oakland, and the founder worked in San Francisco. I know they changed hands a lot in the last decade, but I still feel like they're a part of the Bay Area's history and community. I see the trucks on the highway in traffic, with their not-to-scale images shading my tiny car and taking me back to every place we went with those cookies. I think of the best times of my life - being in nature, with loved ones, eating brightly colored sugary foods. What could be more hyggelig?

That Proverb

I keep thinking of this Buddhist proverb, and this year it's been one of my guiding principles. Keep calm, don't assume anything. Things are going to be happening, and you can't let them ruffle you up like that. Apologies to anyone who knows this story better than me - I am basing this on a memory from many years back. The monk who told the story took it nice and slow, but I'm doing more of a summary.


A long time ago, in a rural village, there was a farmer who had one son. One day a wild horse came to their farm and the son tamed it. All of the farmer's neighbors came by and said, "How lucky of you! You are so fortunate to find a horse like this." And the farmer replied, "I'm not so sure. Not everything that seems good is really so good." All of the neighbors were startled by his words and thought him ungrateful for this gift from nature.

The next day, the son went out riding the new horse. The horse bucked him off and the son was badly injured and unable to walk. All of the neighbors returned to the farmer's cottage and paid their condolences. "This is a terrible thing. We are so sorry your son is hurt." And the farmer looked into his tea and said, "Not everything that seems bad is really so bad." Again, the neighbors were bewildered by the man's words. How could he think his son's pain was a good thing?

The day after that, the emperor's minister came through town with an announcement:
all healthy firstborn males will be taken by the emperor for his army immediately. As the farmer's son was badly injured, he was allowed to stay in the village.

There might be more to the story, but you get the point. I feel like this proverb is especially poignant in this time of uncertainty. Politics, economics, emotions: I am trying to understand that these things are not two-sided like coins, but multi-sided and worthy of our patience.

Fail Blog: "What is Oozing Out of Our Ground?"

I'm enjoying the Fail Blog today while lazing around today. There are so many good FAILS but this one is especially funny. Maybe a good counterbalance to my raves about cotton farming and plastic bags. Do I sound like that?

My favorite part is how pissed she gets...and also how she thinks rainbows are formed - I was unaware that metal is involved in the creation of rainbows.

Blog of Note: 1001 Rules

I found this site on tumblr called "1001 Rules For My Unborn Son" and I think it's pretty awesome. The rules all ring true, and the clever quotes and images are a nice bonus.

My favorite quote:
“ A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
- Robert Anson Heinlein

Randy Pausch

I clicked on some link - who was this guy? Why was he in my google news? Why was it such a big deal that he died today?

I watched the video on youtube, quietly sewing some buttonholes as I listened to Randy talk about his life goals and experiences as a professor at Carnegie Mellon. I got all teary-eyed near the end when he talked about loyalty and how things come back to you. I hope you take the time to watch it too - it's a funny and interesting lecture, not anything that I expected it to be.

I guess I've been thinking about honor and earnesty a lot lately. Maybe earnesty isn't a real word, but you get what I mean - it's about being heartfelt and well-intentioned, about really caring about what you're doing. How can I make earnesty the center of my world? I think I've been chasing honors - or accolades? - for a long time now, and I'm ready for a change. Or, at the very least, a redefinition of honorable living.

Mushroom Dyes

(via allfiberarts.com)

(via the Fungi and Fiber Symposium 2008 website)

During Sasha Duerr's lecture at our symposium yesterday, she talked about using mushrooms (and really, a whole bunch of other interesting plants and seeds) to dye fabric. These colors are amazing, and I was thinking about it a lot yesterday - how can I learn more about this, and how can I get these mushrooms? I guess there's some lady in Finland who teaches workshops (the image above came from her class), but there are some locals who seem to know a lot too. I found the Sonoma County Mycological Association's website and it has some great info. Their colors look a little more earthy than the ones Sasha showed, but I guess you have to start with what's locally available.

Lauren Parent

Postcard for 2008 Open Studio

I saw Lauren Parent's recent work at CCA's open studio day a few weeks back, and it's beautiful. I've been lucky enough to see her work slowly evolve over the past year or two - from her initial sculptures in foam core to abstract line-based works on vellum, and now to these newer charcoal drawings - and each step seems like a movement in a long song. I see the main theme, the deconstruction of that theme, and its greatly abstracted inverse, and despite these very different tempos, I see a constant perspective. I guess I am arbitrarily deciding where the song began (with the foam core sculptures), but stick with me here.

Duck Island, 2007

If you've ever worked with foam core or done any modelmaking for architecture, you might understand the technical skill and unbending patience required to make "Duck Island." My favorite part is the bird in the air - it's crazy to see all of the perfectly placed layers. I like the relation of the animals to the landscape, and the pixelization/stratification that comes from using linear building materials. Lauren's background in landscape design really shows here, from her material choice to her subject matter. I especially like the uniform color - a stark white, a sterile and hard-edged interpretation of nature. Foam core might be the least natural material out there, but when you see this piece you immediately say "nature scene" in your head.

Postcard, 2007

Here's the second movement in the symphony: a deconstruction, a hint at how the initial piece was made. I think this is my favorite part, because the shapes form these amazing positive and negative spaces. The nature scene is broken down into an entirely unrecognizable form, clinically dissected into its components. This image also gently pokes fun at the DIY trend...who would want to make a foamcore duck at home? What would it mean when taken out of the context of art?

How to Make a Sculpture of a Pile of Foam Core, 2007

The image above shows a composition of all of the scraps left over from cutting out the ducks. This is where Lauren's work shifts its focus from the object to the waste, playing on the inverse of her abstraction. These shapes are unintentional, and maybe they're more engaging because they weren't formed consciously. They are just as precisely cut as the duck landscape because they are the other half of the puzzle - so this isn't a matter of sloppy scraps being tossed together. I like how many pieces there are, and their range of size and shape keeps my eye moving around the image. I am reminded of abstract textile designs, of the playful experiments of the Bauhaus gang, and of the order one can create from chaos. Even cooler, the photo above represents only one aspect of this piece - as Lauren placed these pieces on the floor in the Knave area of CCA's San Francisco campus, people gathered around to watch her and it became an impromptu performance. It's always engaging to see another person making decisions and working on a puzzle with no distinct parameters , but I think it was especially interesting because her audience was entirely made up of artists. I can imagine them all having opinions about where the pieces should go, trying to justify why one piece belonged in a spot. It may have not been a spoken conversation, but I'm fairly sure the whole group was involved in the disussion in some capacity.

Remnants of Sculpture (Foam Core), 2007

The foam core scraps moved back into Lauren's studio and cluttered up a corner, not ready to be dumped. She sketched the pile, starting off with identifiable pieces tumbling and tangling amongst themselves, and later abstracting them to curves and lines floating in cloudy areas of charcoal.

Remnants of Drawing (Tubing and Handprints), 2007

I really enjoy watching the back-and-forth play of 2-D and 3-D within her work: dimensional piles drawn flatly and abstractly, 3-D objects flattened into pattern pieces and then cut and assembled to make different 3-D objects, 3-D scraps photographed to flatten them back into a 2-D plane. Lauren's final pieces, a series of 16 large drawings hung at the CCA grad show, continue the 2-D abstracted theme of "Remants of Drawing." In my mind these abstract shapes echo the clutter in my life - the voice mail messages, old batteries, loose change, unworn socks in the back of the dresser drawer, piles of paperwork, traffic sounds, flickering lights - all of the things left in our minds at the end of the day. These cluttery bits are striking because they are complex, approaching all senses. And in the end, I'm not sure that I want these things out of my mind - they're so comforting and familiar, regardless of their girth or volume or intensity.

I'll Wait in the Car

I got this image from this guy's blog, which has many interesting things to see. I googled Marios Perakis, the artist who did this piece, but nothing really came up. Bummer! I guess I'll wait in the car till he shows up.

Kite Season

Today it's sunny and breezy, the perfect kind of day for flying kites. I thought this image matched my feeling of lightness - I'm that little girl on the right being swept away by her kite.

Stefan Sagmeister

I just got the new Stefan Sagmeister book, "Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far," which I had seen on some other blog recently. I didn't really read the article, but I stared at the cover art for a really long time. I found the book the other day at a bookstore in Potrero Hill and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I like everything about this guy - his perspective, his execution, the way her writes - and the lovely chapbook-style packaging is an added bonus. Each booklet talks about one or two of his recent projects (he creates sentences out of unusual materials or circumstances), and the backstory adds a lot to each of the pieces.

Here's one of the pieces on his website: Being Not Truthful Works Against Me.

And here he is at the TED Talks!

I don't know what it is, but this man's work has profoundly changed me. I hope you'll take a look.

Steve Lambert

While eating sandwiches and basking in the sunshine last weekend, my friend mentioned the work of Steve Lambert, a UCD grad student from a few years back. I checked out his website and I really like a bunch of his projects.

Simmer Down Sprinter is my favorite: it's a video game where you have to relax more than your opponent to win the race. Your hands are resting on sensors (similar to the kind used in lie detector tests) that monitor your heart rate and temperature. If you stress out, the video - which features Steve running on a track - slows down or starts playing in reverse, so you're essentially running backwards. The video on his website is definitely worth seeing. I wish they'd make this for Playstation.

Why We Travel

I'm flipping through the New York Times' online slideshow called "Why We Travel," and it's reminding me just how excited I am to be planning my trip to visit Allison. Here's a quote they pulled from Robert Byron's "First Russia, Then Tibet":

“The supreme moments of travel are born of beauty and strangeness in equal parts: the first panders to the senses, the second to the mind; and it is the rarity of this coincidence which makes the rarity of these moments."

TED Talks: Jonathon Harris

I've been watching the TED Talks videos, a series of fascinating speeches by a variety of professionals in the areas of Technology, Entertainment, and Design. The TED Talks have been going on since the early 1980s, but now they're available to everyone on the web. I like what their website says:

"Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot, and there are many shorter pieces of content, including music, performance and comedy. There are no breakout groups. Everyone shares the same experience. It shouldn't work, but it does. It works because all of knowledge is connected. Every so often it makes sense to emerge from the trenches we dig for a living, and ascend to a 30,000-foot view, where we see, to our astonishment, an intricately interconnected whole."

Jonathon Harris' lecture on his work was particularly interesting: check out his projects, which include WE FEEL FINE and UNIVERSE.

His graphic sense is so engaging, and the recurring themes he points out - feelings of love, special moments among family and friends, milestones in one's life - help to connect the sometimes isolated world of blogs and filesharing sites.

Planet Earth: Birds of Paradise

It's funny - I know there is life beyond my little hovel, but it takes something like a TV show to really make me stop and think about my life in relation to the rest of the world. What the hell am I doing here?

There is something magical about the Planet Earth series, something that gives me an overwhelming feeling of joy - just to see that these rare creatures exist.

Band Snobbery

I just read this post from the onion's AV blog, and I thought it was pretty funny. I'm not a total hater, but I do use "sucky band shorthand" among friends.

Wesley Willis

(via the Art of Wesley Willis website)

The other night I went out to ATA to see a film called "Wesley Willis's Joy Rides." Wesley may be better known for his music (and his claims of rock stardom), but what I really liked was hearing more about his drawings.

Wesley was schizophrenic, but in the film his friends talked about how he wasn't a victim to his disability. He took all that he could out of life, and his interactions with people changed them forever. Someone in the film likened him to a mast, or a person who is so intoxicated with God that he may appear insane. In the film, there were shots of Wesley on the bus and at Kinko's, shouting at the voice in his head. His friends knew he wouldn't hurt anyone, but outsiders shied away, ducked their heads down, and backed up. It made me wonder about all of the people I see on the street: are we in the presence of masts?

Wesley knew what he wanted: he wanted to be an artist and a rock n roll star. The thing is, by introducing himself as those things, he eventually became them. I sometimes roll my eyes at people who tell me they're great artists, but I'm starting to think they might just be following Wesley's lead. Where's the line between arrogance and force of will?

Kenichi Okada and Chris Woebken

The Royal College of Art recently showed work in progress, and this was by far my favorite. A collaboration between Kenichi Okada and Chris Woebken, these toys are collectively called "Animal Superpowers." I think they're so sweet and innocent - the type of things grown-ups want to play with too.

Here is the rundown from Kenichi's website:

Experimental series of toys as sensory enhancements for kids to experience animal superpowers. Those 5 devices are special tools allowing kids to feel how like an animal or experience special extra qualities how they perceive the environment.

• Bird - sense of direction with a head mounted solenoid compass
• Ant - feeling like an ant seeing 50x through microscope antennas on your hands
• Giraffe - a child to adult concerter changing your voice & perspective
• Elephant - shoes picking up transmitting vibrations from fellows
• Electric Eel - enhanced spatial vision through head mounted Theremin

Rather than creating a series of toys and super-heros with weapons, we are interested in experimenting with the qualities of changing the perception as well as sensory enhancements changing your perspective or creating empathy with animals.

We believe curiosity and exploration is one of the major desires of children and our goal is not just to create a series of devices for exploration and curiosity that might be just fun for one afternoon. Much more we are interested in providing tools seeing the world through a different lens and to learn more about ourselves. We believe those devices could possibly create empathy with animals, experiencing what they experience as well as providing an interface to communicate with them.

This is just a start of the experiment and we believe it is possible to create also tools for play with deeper layers, learning levels and more layered interactivity that could even become an extension of your body rather than just an traditional play-object.

Stuart Haygarth

Optical Chandelier (2007?)

Disposable Chandelier (2005)

Tide Chandelier, 2004 (detail)

I had seen Stuart Haygarth's work before, but this new piece from eyeglasses prompted me to check out his website. I like the detail shots on all of the pieces - you really get to focus on the colors and textures. Look at all that junk! I wish I had higher ceilings.

Hyggelig Places: The Parkway Theater

Last night Leah and Joe took me out to the Parkway Speakeasy Theater in Oakland to see Sweeney Todd. What a great place! They serve real food (pizza, salad, sandwiches), as well as beer and wine. You sit on couches or at the bar-like area in back, and they bring dinner out to you as you wait for the movie to start. I highly recommend visiting it - the interior, shown above, reminds you that you are someplace special. You are out for the evening! Maybe the denim slipcovers on the couches aren't so glamorous, but it's still way better than the multiplex.

There's one in El Cerrito too, if you're closer to that side of town.

Olafur Eliasson

Room For One Colour, 1997 (seen here in the Malmo Konsthall, 2005)

I went to the opening for Olafur Eliasson's show at the SF MoMA, but it was really crowded and we were shuffled out the door before I got to see the whole show. This week, a friend and I went back to take it all in again. This time around I got to see more, feel more, think more. I especially like "Room For One Colour," which turns all objects under the fluorescent yellow lights into black and white. It's one of those pieces that could be right at home in a science museum. I desperately want some of these light bulbs.

We also saw the Douglas Gordon exhibit, sweetly titled, "Pretty Much Every Film and Video Work From About 1992 Until Now." A darkened room, dozens of TVs scattered around the perimeter, and a clump of people in the middle, just watching. It took a while to look at everything - you're drawn to movement on screens near you, but you also want to find out what happens on this tense, slow-moving piece. I am not always patient with video art, but Gordon's work was really engaging.

Simple Design: Traps

I saw this article on Roger Arquer's simple and effective mousetraps. Not only are they easy to construct with a few household objects, but they are also humane. If you're the kind of person who escorts spiders out on magazines, you might give these traps a try. I am currently in a mouse-free environment...but I really like this idea.