Tiny Homes

A lovely video for Lloyd Kahn's exciting new book Tiny Homes by my friend Jason Sussberg.  I've blogged about Kahn's masterpiece Shelter before, but this new book is all about homes that are under 500 sq/ft.  So efficient and cute - all of the sudden my apartment seems big!   

Campfire Girl's Manual, 1914

Makes me want to pack up my tent and my girls and do a ladies camping weekend pronto.  

Via Cold Splinters.

what a hunk

My man was featured on a LA style blog for his "dapper" look.  Agreed.  He's been helping out at the awesome book/zine/art store Family, if you haven't been, you should go!

Just Kids

I just finished reading Patti Smith's book Just Kids, and am in complete awe by what a purely loving relationship she and Robert Mapplethorpe had.  What a beautifully written story of two people inspiring and supporting one another over so many years - and how one eventually had to let the other go.  Truly wonderful!

LA Weekend

With the 405 freeway closure and the supposed traffic that is to envelope the city this weekend, I have officially designated Saturday and Sunday as staycation days, and I can't wait.  I shall be accomplishing the following:

1.  Getting my ass kicked at a couple classes at Pop Physique.

2.  Work-day at my garden.

3.  Eat good neighborhood food, most likely here.

4.  Read my new book by Patti Smith while tanning on a rooftop.

5.  End the evenings with wine and a continuation of Docfest 2011 in my living room.

The Library

Writer Duncan Fallowell beautifully describes his library and the importance 

his books hold for him in The Library by Sergey Stefanovic.

A Family of Man

timely words of advice from The Family of Man by Edward Steichen

A Moveable Feast

"But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight."

-Hemingway

disorder through order

 The first time I saw books arranged by color was at Adobe Bookstore in San Francisco's Mission District, when in 2004 I lived across the street from this lovely book-filled oasis.  San Francisco artist Chris Cobb, along with 20 volunteers, color-coded 20,000 books for an art piece called There Is Nothing Wrong In This Whole Wide World, and the results were stunning:

via superhero designs

via boodely

As someone who also arranges my books in such a manner, I usually get one of two reactions when people come over: "Whoa, you have OCD." (which may slightly be true), or "How do you find any of your books?".  But I can pretty much picture all the books I own in my head by the color of their spine...and since books are themselves a work of art, why shouldn't they be displayed as such?

via kelly doust

Shelter

Lloyd Kahn has written over a dozen books on shelter and the construction of homes in various environments and cultures, and has been dealing with the concept of home since the 1960s.  His book Shelter served as a bible to those moving to the country in the 60s and 70s looking to create their own homesteads, and Shelter not only sheds a detailed light on the various ways to construct a house, but also differing interpretations of home all over the world.  My dear friend Jason Sussberg made a short documentary on Lloyd, and it stands as a fascinating portrait of a man who still believes in the integrity of constructing & creating things yourself, with your own two hands.

SHELTER from jason sussberg on Vimeo.