peppermint pig

Pig: prepare to meet your maker.

I love traditions, maybe because I never felt crushed under the burden of the few traditions that we had growing up, but I've always loved something that reminds me of the passing of time in a meaningful way, and what's really important and blah, blah, blah.

However, I've never been one for public displays of heartfelt emotion. I don't do toasts well, and in general anything that involves feelings makes me get a lump in my throat, so I was primed for the peppermint pig.

WHAT IS THE PEPPERMINT PIG YOU ASK? Well, it's the only tradition I've run across where you get to A.) express what you're thankful for during the past year B.) take out your aggressions or mixed feelings of embarrassment about stating what your thankful for by smacking the hell out of a pig-shaped lump of candy and C.) eat delicious candy after having a binge/purge of feel-good emotions. 

It's called pig therapy. Try it.

Oh, the carnage...thanks to Sammy for bringing this little porker all the way from Saratoga Springs.

Flu+Cold=Fold? Clu?

I'm sick.

This happens about once every 2 years. Not just "oh, I have the sniffles, please pass the vitamin C" but more along the lines of "MY BONES FEEL LIKE THEY'VE BEEN DIPPED IN A FRYER, DUSTED WITH SALT AND SERVED UP SUPERSIZED."

I am not a good sick person. I'm frustrated at a cellular level with how limited I am. And as a freelancer, nothing is more pathetic than missing work for being sick, sitting at home, wrapped in a blanket, shivering, imagining what you could of done with the money you're not making. 

I've been cycling between misery and peace today. At one point, I'll think, hey, let's make lemonade out of lemons, but a half-hour later, I'll start to feel sorry for myself on an epic scale. Is there a word for that feeling when you're sick and everyone else seems to be having a grand time out in "the healthy world"? I imagine the Germans have something that describes this sense of alienation. 

Anyway, while surfing the web today, I found Kilakitu, an African recycled-shirt company, and rejoiced. If I were a dude, I would be wearing one of the "Kenyan cowboy collection" line. They're awesome!

Kilakitu (which is a swahili saying meaning "everything"), employs Kenyan tailors, donates a portion of their proceeds to charity, and supposedly is designing a women's cowgirl dress for 2009...

Holiday giftgiving and The Baldenwhale

The holidays are behind us; it feels like they were just looming, hazy with the distance, but I must of been mistaken. Poof! Goodbye Christmas! Goodbye Hanukkah!

My family, or I should say my brother, his girlfriend, my little sister, father and stepmother sort-of ignored my plea for one donation gift/one hand-made gift, and, well, here are some highlights:

My sock monkey cards from last year inspired my little sister apparently. Gaze upon these awesome slippers (Nick and Nora for Target): 

For my cat-crazy sister, I gave her a framed picture:

My brother bought me a funky cool lobster bracelet from TillyBloom. I love it! It was similar to this one: 

Seems he did quite a bit of his shopping on etsy this year. Color me impressed. He gifted a lovely seagull necklace to his girlfriend, from the wonderful Gyspy Rabbit, which came in a charming hand-sewn fabric envelope. My bro was impressed each time one of the etsy orders arrived; there were lots of extra bits and bobs included and handwritten cuteness all over the envelopes. Way to go, crafters! And now, gaze upon the seagull necklace:

The gift that made me burst into tears though (a Christmas first) was the donation my brother and girlfriend made for me. They gave to The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in David Foster Wallace's name. The thoughtfulness of it caught me off guard, and even now my eyes are threatening to spill. 

For my brother, I made him a image that reminds me of the fantasy books he likes to read. Earlier this year, when we were all hanging out together, I was making fun of the multi-syllabic, overwrought silliness of name-giving that seems to go hand-in-glove with fantasy novels. I believe it was my brother's girlfriend who invented my new favorite monster name, The Baldenwhale. In our family, that joke has stuck around. This is Baldenwhale-esque:

It was a lovely holiday, and to finish on a high note, for the last day of Hanukkah, my dad pulled out all the pottery he'd brought for us to divy up! I'll post some pictures of my new prized possessions soon. And now I must get back to the book my stepmom got me, Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. It's full of creeping sadness and lovely observations (or as Michiko Kakutani put it, "elegiac and haunting"). 

F*ck You, Penguin

I'm warning you, Dolphin: knock it off.

I've been on a job, in a land far, far away (okay, Napa) where having a fast internet connection is APPARENTLY NOT AS IMPORTANT AS MAKING REALLY DELICIOUS WINE AND FOOD.

Way to get your priorities straight, Napa.

While I'm in this no-man's land of slowly loading webpages, here's a blog that made me laugh out loud and almost spit on my keyboard.

With blog titles like "Manatees Think They Can Get Away With It" and "Dolphin Swagger Makes Me sick" (in which the author rants, "You need to wipe that smile off your face, Dolphin, or I'm going to come in there, have a religious-like experience swimming with you, and then wipe it off for you.")

Warning, there are many, many swear words, many, many pictures of cute animals, and oh-so many funny observations for those who find cute overload almost too cute.

Gifts for the girl who has everything

BEHOLD - CUPCAKE MAKER DELUXE SET featuring the CUPCAKE FROSTER! 

Saw this at one of the big box stores and was immediately frozen in my tracks with uncontrollable cupcake lust.

How great is this?! I want one! Of course, the strident feminist in me would also like the Girl Gourmet Chemistry Set.

Erica, this is a virtual-toy-giving blog post to help usher in your 2009 with plenty of frosting.

La Blogotheque

Impromptu jam sessions full of unexpected images and sounds, these video podcasts featuring different bands and musicians performing on streets, docks, porches, beaches and in elevators are BLOWING MY MIND THIS MORNING. I should be packing and cleaning since I'm leaving town for a 2 week job up north, but I can't tear myself away. I blame my friend Jeff for sending me the link to La Blogotheque's take away shows. 

If you've ever hung out with with some musician friends late at night when you were in your freewheeling 20's (ahem), you've probably experienced that magic moment where instruments get passed around and everyone is caterwalling along happily. This website is JUST LIKE THAT, but with more talent, and sometimes with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Follow bluesman Seasick Steve around Paris, or watch as a little band called Port O'Brien takes over a Chinatown bar and has, as the site says in its charming french-to-english translation, "a glorious and brutal stomp that shreds the barrier between band and audience." I dare you not to smile from the spontaneous joy that radiates from your computer as you watch these. 

Old School Stationers

Old School Stationers is a letterpress company based in Portland, Or. As it says on their website, "Our cards and prints are made one at a time using pencil, paper, ink and 900 pounds of cast iron."

If you had a stretch of blank wall in your living room or bedroom, they have a wonderful triptych of 1960's camping images that might be just the ticket. Here's my favorite one:

They also produce images of birds, trees, animals and flowers. These beautiful tree images below can be bought as a print (6.5"x9.5", square images are 8"x8") or card. Although it doesn't look like you can purchase directly from the website, they have their products in stores all over the country.

Be sure to read the story of how Brian and Amy met, fell in love, and started their letterpress company while raising their daughter Matilda. There's even a cute cat named Twig. It makes me want to throw up. 

I mean that in the best way possible, of course. 

Obleek

These new planters from Obleek have been making the rounds, but I couldn't help but posting about them too. I love the clean lines and wonky symmetry of these little guys.

FoxandClover

I was bumping around etsy tonight, and as usual, found something beautiful that lead me to look into someone else's life, specifically a craftswoman named Sabrina who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. Isn't the internet grand? Beyond all the cheap pharmaceuticals, there are so many amazing people out there...

Without further ado, here's a beautiful necklace and dish from FoxandClover's etsy shop:

lace doily necklace $65 and whale soap dish $48

These are made by painting glass enamel paints onto recycled glass and then kiln firing them. Beautiful, aren't they?

Miroslav Tichy's handmade cameras and photographs

Miroslav Tichý, MT Inv. no.: 4-95, by courtesy of Foundation Tichý oceán

From the official Tichy website:

After studying at the Academy of Arts in Prague, Miroslav Tichý (born 1926) withdrew to a life in isolation in his hometown of Kyjov, Moravia. In the late 1950s he quit painting and became a distinctive Diogenes-like figure. From the end of the 1960s he began to take photographs mainly of local women, in part with cameras he made by hand. 

He later mounted them on hand-made frames, added finishing touches in pencil, and thus moved them from photography in the direction of drawing. The result is works of strikingly unusual formal qualities, which disregard the rules of conventional photography. 

They constitute a large oeuvre of poetic, dreamlike views of feminine beauty in a small town under the Czechoslovak Communist régime.

He spent 8 years in a prison camp in the Czech republic because of his "subversive tendencies." After being released, he often photographed women with his homemade cameras. He couldn't afford a camera, so he built them himself out of tin cans, children's glasses, tape, string, wood and other found objects. 

More about Tichy from FotoSilver Blog:

In allusion to Plato's cave allegory, he regards the world as mere reflection and himself as its only conscious observer. Often Miroslav Tichý applies intricate pencil drawings onto the surface of his photographs and frames them with sensitively designed passepartouts, thus enhancing their profound poetry. Due to the yearlong storage in his run-down house, a melancholic veil of stains has layered itself upon the photographs. Miroslav Tichý works inhere an enigmatic and translucent atmosphere. In the mid 1980's the artist decides to give up artistic production: I had a norm. One hundred photographs a day. When I reached my norm, I stopped.
In his photographs the Czech artist renders a whole universe of female figures. He captures women strolling through the city, sunbathing by the swimming pool, chatting with neighbours, or going shopping. Other women are photographed from the TV screen. Sometimes they are unaware of the observer, sometimes unopposed, sometimes angry. Their ankles, faces and torsos dominate the composition.

His photographs remind me of a communist-era voyeur-recluse Joseph Cornell.

Flying Stick Cam

This flying stick camera is the sort of contraption I wish I owned (it doesn't seem to be in production in the US), or had the engineering mind to fashion myself out of straws and balsa wood. 

3 Cups of Tea

I've got this book in my blood right now, and am sad I just finished it this morning. After stumbling upon the story of Greg Mortenson and his humanitarian organization the Central Asia Institute in an article for Outside magazine, my interest was piqued.

While walking through Costco with K.C. last week, there lay Greg's story 3 Cups of Tea all alone on top of a stack of cooking books. I snatched it up.

3 Cups of Tea is the story of a lost, depleated, mourning mountaineer who finds his life calling in the remote northern region of Pakistan and his unlikely success at building schools for girls and boys in Pakistan and Afghanistan. With the bombing in Mumbai this past week, and the border dispute between Pakistan and India threatening to resume, I worried about the students and people I'd felt like I'd gotten to know while reading 3 Cups of Tea. Seriously. It's that strong a book.

Read it, please! 

stump on Wilshire

I saw this sad little guy heading home from Machine Project at LACMA on Saturday. 

Ash in the air, ash on my mind

Just another morning in Southern California: the smell of smoke coming through my bedroom window, ash in the kitchen sink, the sunlight a blood orange color. I was on edge the minute I opened my eyes. I can't explain how surprised I am by how deeply the fire that burned down K.C.'s house still affects me. We're approaching the one year anniversary of that nightmarish day and it's been weighing on my mind, and today I can't shake a bone-deep sadness for all the people who have lost their homes in the last few days. This Jenny Holzer plaque pretty much sums up how I've been feeling:

After motivating myself to get out of the house, I drove downtown to Felt Club alone, since all my girlfriends were busy (well, the three I thought of to call ahead of time). On the way over, the smoke from the Sylmar fires got thicker and thicker - and my anxiety intensified. When I finally arrived and cruised by the entrance, there was a line around the block waiting to get in. I couldn't deal with the thought of waiting alone for a half hour or more, so I drove back home. Without getting out of the car. That's how skittish the fires have made me.
I felt bad about bailing out on what I'm sure would of been a great experience, so I decided to salvage the day and make some art. The image of a house on fire in a bottle just popped into my mind as I was mindlessly doodling squirrels. (Don't ask - I got accosted by a squirrel yesterday in Hollywood.)
The text is from the only thing that made it through the fire, a charred page of a book that was found among the ash:

Whatever you call the new Dream, it is still a dream as real or as false as the dream of hell. But now you can choose which dream you want to live in. Now you have the tools in your hands to heal yourself. The question is: What are you going to do with them?

Smoke-filled sunday

I'm off to make some art on this hazy day. The fires all around LA are reminding me of this time last year when K.C.'s house burned down. It's making me squirrely, so I thought I'd post one of my favorite pick-me-up songs, Imogene Heap's "Just for Now" live.

Tiles and scarves

It *was* getting colder earlier this week, and although it was easily 90 degrees at LACMA today (way to go Machine Project!), the damage was done: I've begun to think/yearn for and about scarflettes and cowls. Don't ask me why; my neck gets cold easily (since I'm part giraffe, that's a lot of skin) and I'm tired of my tried-and-true long scarves.

I've also had home renovations on the brain because my friend Adri just bought her first house - a real fixer-upper. I was going through my "home links" file to send her some inspiration, and rediscovered some beautiful resources for tile. 

Why not combine these two interests? Why not dress up like your wall coverings? Don't answer that. If Ann Sacks' ads can do it, so can I.

So here goes: tile-inspired scarflettes or scarflette-inspired tiles:

"Bora Bora" glass subway tiles from modwalls

meets...

Knittles' awesomely green Forest Dweller's chunky neckwarmer/cowl ($45), which

also goes great with...

Bryan Kerrigan wood grain high-relief ceramic architectural tile.  This is my favorite tile, ever. Someday, I will have it.

The buttons on the cowl above also remind me of this earthy cork mosaic tile from modwalls.

I could do this whole exercise using modwalls' tiles, but I'm going to force myself to find a different tile for every goddamn scarflette. Yes, it is the weekend, and yes, I have some free time. Why do you ask?

Granada Tiles "Alhambra" series meets...

yearofthegoat's handknit snap up cowl neck ($60).

Urbanknit's green neckwarmer ($48) in all its chunky goodness, and also...

RockaByeBebe's organic cotton neckwarmer ($35) should be paired with...

Heath Ceramics citrus green 3"x3" tiles.

We're rolling now - on with the show!

Ann Sacks' Gotham ovals and oval stars in light grey g06, medium grey g13, dark grey g07 and black matte 210 reminds me of...

Ruffles scarflette ($40) by homelab. I like the funky knit - the dark grey keeps it from getting too kooky.

Hakatai's ashland series (crystal blue iridescent specifically) reminds me of...

KiwiandCompany's hand-knit teal blue cowl ($54).

Art & Ciment have so many beautiful tiles on their website (I could of spent hours rummaging around.) The Rustik 4-12 and Tradition 4-16 cement tiles are reminiscent of ...

The luxury button scarflette ($48) by Tortillagirl. I'm digging the chunky cable knit against the girly button detail. She also has these in cream with floral wooden buttons...

This crocheted  scarflette ($40) by MarienneS brings to mind another bold yet feminine pattern...

The Baroque collection in Midnight from Style bath and kitchen.

Sheknitsamy's organic cream and caramel cowl ($38) has similar colors to...

These beautiful art deco tiles from California Pottery and Tile Works.

Done! Now you have all your neck warming and wall treatment links in one place. Don't say I never did anything for you.

spicy turkey and acorn squash

Although fall in Los Angeles isn't as crispy-leaves-falling-a-riffic as on the eastern seaboard, my taste buds start to yearn for squash around this time of year.

Last week I was inspired from a posting on The Kitchen about filling an acorn squash with garlic cloves, which then led to another posting about Sweet and Spicy Squash.

I HAD TO MAKE IT. Well, I should amend that I HAD TO BUG K.C. TO HELP ME MAKE SOMETHING LIKE IT. Cooking alone is not my favorite thing. I find stuffing two people in my little kitchen much more interesting. Here's what went down in chilly Marina Del Rey last week...

Below is the original recipe, which we riffed off of:

Sweet and spicy Squash - serves 1 (I think it would serve 2)

1 acorn squash

2 teaspoons olive oil, or to taste

1 teaspoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon chili powder, or to taste

Salt and pepper

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

Preheat oven to 375F. Cut the acorn squash in half and scoop out the strings and seeds. Place in a small pie pan or baking dish. Rub one half with the olive oil, coating the cavity well. Then rub in the curry and chili powders, and some salt and pepper. Rub softened butter in the other half and sprinkle with brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or until the squash comes up easily when scraped gently with a fork. Let cool for a few minutes, then eat straight from the rind, mashing it up with a  spoon.

We decided to forgo the sweet option, and instead added a few hot peppers from my porch garden that were ripe (serrano and mexibelle to be precise).

First, the prep:

First we halved the acorn squash, scraped it clean, rubbed olive oil in the cavity, and then filled each half with 4 garlic cloves, and diced pepper (each half got half a serrano, half a mexibelle).

In a bowl, I tossed the seeds from the squash with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and chili powder. Save these for addition later.

 Put the squash in the oven for 50-60 minutes at 375F. 

While the squash was in the oven, K.C. sauteed some olive oil, minced garlic, cumin, oregano, parsley, hot sauce (Cholula), salt, and pepper. Then he added the turkey, and when it was about 75% cooked, he started adding Bud Light. 

Yes, Bud Light. 

Just keep adding a splash of beer so the turkey is cooking in broth (like in the picture). We used a whole can when all was said and done. The last few minutes, let the beer broth cook off so the turkey will be less soupy and more dry.

After 30 minutes, we removed the squash from the oven, and added the turkey to the squash cavities (just put it on top of the garlic and peppers). 

Back in it went.

10 minutes later, we removed the squash/turkey again and added grated sharp cheddar to the top (about a 1/4 cup each). We also added the seeds to the pan to toast.

Back in it went for the final 30-40 minutes of cooking.

After a full hour of cooking (depending on the squash size, it could be up to an hour and 10 minutes), we took the squash out of the oven, quartered the squash halves, and topped with the toasted acorn seeds.

Voila, a one-dish meal!

Yes, it was really good.