Kerry Rosental

I really like these paintings by Kerry Rosenthal as brought to my attention by the lovely Anthology Magazine blog. Happy Black Friday y'all.

Even on Thanksgiving, Poetry Thursday and the Poem Series About the Spring of 2006 Relentlessly March Forward

May 12, 2006
Went to an event after work yesterday

and didn’t head home until close to dusk
the buildings looked neat with their glowing golden windows
and there was a pink cloud like a feather
just like in the books of Maud Hart Lovelace

Then
and this is really weird
this morning
there was
a garden slug crawling across the sidewalk
On the city street
At eight in the morning
And good-sized too
but with only a few inches of slimy silver trail behind it
so there was no telling where it might have come from
Did it just pop into existence there on the sidewalk
or what?



image source is here

Hello Gorgeous

Little-known fact about me: when I was a kid I was a big Barbra Streisand fan. Like, I saw Yentl in the theater, and was thrilled to receive The Broadway Album, on vinyl, for Christmas the year I was nine. So I am quite fascinated to see that both Tachen and Abrams have brought out big Barbra photo books this fall. And that both feature her iconic profile and cat-eye makeup from a certain era on their covers. This is the sort of occasional unavoidable accidental confluence that generally makes book editors want to tear their hair out, but considering one of the books costs $40 and the other is $700 it's maybe not such a big deal. Hello gorgeous.

Cosby Daughters' Fashion

I've talked before about how things like the Esprit catalog and mid-80s fashion magazines profoundly and permanently influenced my ideas about what clothes should look like. Then the other day I happened upon the above image on one of my absolute favorite sites Wear Color and realized that, of course, another such influence was the inimitable fashion sense of the daughters (and the mom too) on The Cosby Show. A show I watched religiously on Thursday nights for a number of years. I still think Lisa Bonet may be one of the coolest people of all time.

Side note--I try avoid media coverage of scandals if I possibly can, but I do gather that Bill Cosby is involved in one at the moment. Just to be clear: this post has nothing to do with that. This post has to do with the deeply good apparel choices made by certain costume designers in the 80s on behalf of certain fictional females. See for yourself:

Pumpkin Patch Costumes

It's a tradition of several years running, now, that when we go to the pumpkin patch with our friends (the same friends we go trick-or-treating with a week or two later) the kids dress up in costumes. But not the costumes they will wear on Halloween. Rather, they riffle through toy chests and dress-up bins and pull out some alternative get-up. This year, Mabel was a knight.

Greg Foley

I quite like these blurry color-field images created by artist and designer Greg Foley, as first brought to my attention by the fine site PICDIT.

Poem Series About the Spring of 2006 Proceeds

May 11, 2006
Went shopping with Papa last night after work

and then we met Bill for dinner at the Rex
where we had a really great Rosé
and so then this morning I got to wear
my brand new shawl-collared chunky white cable-knit cardigan
and feel like a million bucks coming down the street



image source is here

Paul Rand's Thoughts on Design in the Wild

Because of the visual, keep-them-at-home-on-your-table nature of most of the books I edit for Chronicle Books, this very rarely happens to me: but the other day I was in a cafe and spotted a man engrossed in the reissue of Paul Rand's classic design manifesto Thoughts on Design that I worked on. A real live man! Out there in the wilds of the real live world! Reading one of my books! And so deep into it that he didn't even notice when I none-too-subtly snapped his photo. If there is a higher true apotheosis of the editorial endeavor, I don't know what it is. In case you'd like your own copy of this very fine volume to get lost in at your own coffee shop of choice, you can always buy one here or wherever nice books are sold.

Five Halloweens

Of course Mabel is already starting to think about what she wants to be next Halloween (an anchor! a leopard!) and in the course of these conversations we've been recalling what she has been for the five Halloweens of her life so far.  So I felt inspired to do a little round-up here:

2010, age 2.5 months: a tiny queen
2011, age 1: a winged sprite
2012, age 2: a cool cool robot
2013, age 3: a wizard
2014, age 4: a panda

The first two years we parents came up with the costume ideas, based largely on what we happened to have around the house. But from age 2 onwards it has been all Mabel's own concepts; we just help with the execution.

NYC Carriage Ride

One of my favorite moments of the past month was taking a horse carriage ride through Central Park with my Mama and my Monkey.

Laura Knight's Women

While looking online for something else entirely, I stumbled upon the work of British painter Laura Knight (1877 – 1970). I'd never heard of this person before, but am quite taken with her portraits--which are, as far as I can tell, nearly all of women.

The Continuing Poem Series About the Spring of 2006 Continues Today on Poetry Thursday

May 10, 2006
I’d always known

that on the bottom
of our three nesting
mixing bowls
and four eating bowls
there is a logo of a sailboat
with the words
Yellow Ware

but what I’d never noticed
until this morning
doing the dishes
is that it also says
Over and Back
and what does that mean?
a mystery





image source is here

Yourself in Pictures

Here's a kind of a funny thing: when you work in visual publishing it means you work with a lot of artists and illustrators, and it turns out that when you spend a lot of time around illustrators you wind up getting your picture drawn a fair bit. Occupational hazard, or perk of the job? You can judge for yourself, but personally I'm coming down pretty heavily on the side of the former, based on the amazing, ridiculously flattering, and occasionally hilarious work of these three talented women: Jamie Hogan (above), Robbi Behr (below), and Pascale Steig (bottom). Thanks ladies! I'm truly honored to have been captured by your mighty pens.

Tiny Living

Loyal readers of this blog (or people who just know me well--and, let's be honest, for the most part those two groups are one and the same) will know I'm a die-hard lover of small living spaces (see here, here, and here, for instance). One of these days I really am going to get around to showing you what we've done with our own small home space. But for now, let's feast our eyes on this tiny Stockholm apartment, shall we? The use of space is so clever, so endearingly compact and organized--not to mention the charming addition of walls left in an artistic state of decay--that, well I don't know about you, but personally I can imaginatively send my fantasy self to go live in this space in a heartbeat. Settle in, be all Swedish and cozy? Done and done.

Credit where credit is due: the genius designer of this space is Karin Matz and it was brought to my attention by the inimitable site Design Milk.