Thursday, September 30, 2010

K A Z U



Well-made, fanastic Japanese cuisine. KAZU.
You must go: 1862 Ste-Catherine Ouest.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

a cord



Placed elegantly up there (by D.)

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

B.S.B.



and more California... Big Sur Bakery and their incredibly good cookbook.

Deetjens





Deetjens Inn, at Big Sur.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Thursday, September 23, 2010

super normal




Extraordinary ordinary objects selected by Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa for SUPER NORMAL, at twentytwentyone a few years ago.

My opinion is that the design world has drifted away from normality, forgotten it's roots and the basic notion that we designers are supposed to take care of the man-made environment and try to improve it. Super Normal is a bridge between the two worlds, an attempt to reunite them. It's not easy to write a formula for the Super Normal object, I'm not sure it can even be planned. An object becomes Super Normal through use. As designers we can aim at achieving the Super Normal by being less concerned with visual aspects of an objects character, by attempting to anticipate the objects likely impact on the atmosphere and how it will be to live with. - Jasper Morrison

and a book here.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

bear whale zebra



A young black bear falls from a tree into a net on Wednesday, Sept. 8th after being darted with a tranquilizer near downtown Missoula, Montana. A crew from Northwestern Energy and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks helped hold the net. The bear was a 70-pound yearling who had been roaming near downtown before being chased into the tree. Kurt Wilson took this photograph.



The eye of a beached gray whale south of Harborview Park in Everett, Washington on Friday morning, July 9th. Mark Mulligan took this photograph.



A Grevy's Zebra standing in its enclosure at the Frankfurt zoo on September 9th. Fredrik Von Erichsen took this photograph.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

flying




Like most of us I find flying fatiguing, but there's still a brief awe and wonder that comes up in me when I'm in that metal machine in the sky surrounded by the beautiful light of an early morning or twilit evening.

These are from last Friday.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

lowbush cranberry picking









and a bowl of lichen from the Tombstones.
Another week away... home tomorrow.

. . .

Been listening non-stop to this.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

E. DEHILLERIN










French kitchen culture.
E. Dehillerin : experts in kitchen pastry tools and cookware.

With thanks to K. who sent these to me after her shopping trip to E.D. this week.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

fruits



sur la table.
Those gorgeous, delicious yellow plums, lychee and oranges. yiy!
I'm refusing to let summer go this year.

- - -

Check out the Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Jantzen Knitting Mills







John A. Zehntbauer and Carl C. Jantzen founded the company in 1910. It was then called the Portland Knitting Co. and consisted of a street-level retail store and a few knitting machines on the second floor. The co. started out manufacturing heavy sweaters and woolen hosiery and eventually moved into bathing outfits. Early ad campaigns were aimed at encouraging swimming, with one of their most used slogans being "The Suit that Changed Bathing to Swimming".

Pictured here are the Jantzen mills in Vancouver and Portland.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

tails












Albertus Seba (1665 - 1736).
The Dutch (Frisian) pharmacist, zoologist and collector.

His "Cabinet of Curiosities" is one of the 18th century's greatest natural history achievements and remains one of the most prized natural history books of all time. Though it was common for men of his profession to collect natural specimens for research purposes, Albertus Seba had a passion that led him far beyond the call of duty. His amazing, unprecedented collection of animals, plants and insects from around the world gained international fame during his lifetime. In 1731, after decades of collecting, Seba commissioned illustrations of each and every specimen and arranged the publication of a four-volume catalog detailing his entire collection-from strange and exotic plants to snakes, frogs, crocodiles, shellfish, corals, insects, butterflies as well as fantastic beasts such as a hydra and dragon.

Seba's scenic illustrations which often mixed plants and animals in a single plate, were unusual even for the time. Many of the stranger and more peculiar creatures from Seba's collection... were as curious to those in his day as they are to us now.

- Taschen

Saturday, September 11, 2010