The Coolest Women Alive

The other day, when composing this post, I wrote that Lisa Bonet may be one of the coolest people of all time. That in turn reminded that, in a post over the summer, I opined that Vivienne Westwood might be the coolest person on the planet This in turn got me thinking about other awesome people, from Tilda Swinton to Tauba Auerbach. And so it is that that I now present to you my ultimate definitive, entirely subjective and personal, list of the Coolest Women Alive. These amazing people need no introduction. Without further ado--

(above) Patti Smith

YuanYuan Tan

Tavi Gevinson

 Lydia Davis

Lisa Bonet

Yoko Ono

Sofia Coppola

 

Vivienne Westwood

 

Hilary Mantel

Solange Knowles

Caitlin Moran

Maira Kalman

Susie Bubble

Meryl Streep

Tauba Auerbach

Tilda Swinton

Sorting the Candy

It was pure good luck that this photo, of the essential post-Halloween ritual of sorting out all the candy on the living room floor, popped out of the camera with a pumpkin-orange-colored border.

Tauba Auerbach

Let's just pause to contemplate, for a moment, the utter awesomeness that is the artwork of Tauba Auerbach. She does all kinds of stuff and all of it is amazing. (and, as a side note, she is also has utterly fab fashion sense--see final image). Let's feast our eyes, shall we?

The Ongoing Poetry Series About the Spring of 2006 Carries On Thus

May 15, 2006
On Saturday night there was such a great moon

huge and full
and just the tiniest bit yellow
And it stayed momentous
even as it climbed the sky
which so often isn’t the case

Then yesterday I was in the bedroom folding laundry
and I got a glimpse through the doorway
of Bill sitting at the table with his back to me
Wearing a pale yellow shirt
bent over and hard at work
next to a vase of branching white flowers
It was such an evocative tableau
If only I’d been Vermeer


image source is here

Perks of the Trade

One of the cool things about my gig as art book editor at Chronicle Books is how many amazing and talented people I get to meet and talk to. For instance, in the past month, I've visited with:

* one of my favorite artist/authors at her studio (above)
* the architect of the new bay bridge (also my author)
* three different amazing photographers
* a group of art librarians from pretty much every rad institution in town
* a very cool feminist art historian, along with one of my favorite literary agents
* a super-smart freelance editor who I now basically want to be friends with
* the chief curator of the Contemporary Jewish Museum

I say this not to show off, but to be grateful. I am a lucky girl.

Awaiting the Awesome

The other night when I was falling asleep I had the coolest idea for an Inspiration Tuesday blog post. However, it will take a little time to pull together and this morning I needed to go on yet another a school tour (because we are looking at schools, because the monkey is starting freaking KINDERGARTEN next year -- which, just, what the heck?! but anyway...), so I could not pull it together today. Consider the above image a teaser for the awesomeness to be revealed next week (and no, it's nothing so simple as a post about the diving Ms. Swinton -- though lord knows she warrants one!).

Dinner Guests

I almost never take flash photos--either with my phone or my polaroid camera--but, on the rare occasions when I do, the results always remind me oh-so-vividly of photos from my own small-childhood in the 1970s.