I'm really happy about what Duover is doing for my Wednesday morning. Take a listen and enjoy. Thank you Darling B for sharing with me.03 November 2010
Duover
I'm really happy about what Duover is doing for my Wednesday morning. Take a listen and enjoy. Thank you Darling B for sharing with me.
20 October 2010
On Distraction
I discovered this post and this man last week. I can't stop thinking about it. I plan to stop by Chamblin's this week to pick up a copy of the first book he published, Essays in Love.
Taken from his website:
On Distraction, by Alain de Botton
posted 10.06.2010
One of the more embarrassing and self-indulgent challenges of our time is the task of relearning how to concentrate. The past decade has seen an unparalleled assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything. To sit still and think, without succumbing to an anxious reach for a machine, has become almost impossible.
The obsession with current events is relentless. We are made to feel that at any point, somewhere on the globe, something may occur to sweep away old certainties—something that, if we failed to learn about it instantaneously, could leave us wholly unable to comprehend ourselves or our fellows. We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds. We leave a movie theater vowing to reconsider our lives in the light of a film’s values. Yet by the following evening, our experience is well on the way to dissolution, like so much of what once impressed us: the ruins of Ephesus, the view from Mount Sinai, the feelings after finishing Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich.
A student pursuing a degree in the humanities can expect to run through 1,000 books before graduation day. A wealthy family in England in 1250 might have owned three books: a Bible, a collection of prayers, and a life of the saints—this modestly sized library nevertheless costing as much as a cottage. The painstaking craftsmanship of a pre-Gutenberg Bible was evidence of a society that could not afford to make room for an unlimited range of works but also welcomed restriction as the basis for proper engagement with a set of ideas.
The need to diet, which we know so well in relation to food, and which runs so contrary to our natural impulses, should be brought to bear on what we now have to relearn in relation to knowledge, people, and ideas. Our minds, no less than our bodies, require periods of fasting.
Taken from his website:
On Distraction, by Alain de Botton
posted 10.06.2010
One of the more embarrassing and self-indulgent challenges of our time is the task of relearning how to concentrate. The past decade has seen an unparalleled assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything. To sit still and think, without succumbing to an anxious reach for a machine, has become almost impossible.
The obsession with current events is relentless. We are made to feel that at any point, somewhere on the globe, something may occur to sweep away old certainties—something that, if we failed to learn about it instantaneously, could leave us wholly unable to comprehend ourselves or our fellows. We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds. We leave a movie theater vowing to reconsider our lives in the light of a film’s values. Yet by the following evening, our experience is well on the way to dissolution, like so much of what once impressed us: the ruins of Ephesus, the view from Mount Sinai, the feelings after finishing Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich.
A student pursuing a degree in the humanities can expect to run through 1,000 books before graduation day. A wealthy family in England in 1250 might have owned three books: a Bible, a collection of prayers, and a life of the saints—this modestly sized library nevertheless costing as much as a cottage. The painstaking craftsmanship of a pre-Gutenberg Bible was evidence of a society that could not afford to make room for an unlimited range of works but also welcomed restriction as the basis for proper engagement with a set of ideas.
The need to diet, which we know so well in relation to food, and which runs so contrary to our natural impulses, should be brought to bear on what we now have to relearn in relation to knowledge, people, and ideas. Our minds, no less than our bodies, require periods of fasting.
05 October 2010
BYOC (Build Your Own Cricket)
I think it'd be dreamy to build one of these bad boys and get lost driving it around the good ol' USA. The inventor is a "space" architect and has worked on NASA's International Space Station's habitation module (aka where the astronauts live). His most recent venture is the Cricket, where mobile camper meets tent. They're customizable, lightweight, compact, can be pulled by any car and fit inside a garage. Sounds like a dream-wander-mobile, I'm ready to go!
{pic via}
25 September 2010
02 September 2010
31 August 2010
Book of the Month Clutch
Kate Spade's gone and done it again. Paying homage to three beloved classics, these Book of the Month Clutches pack in the intellectual with the chic.
And for your desktop, free Book Club Wallpapers.{via}
25 August 2010
Shiny Happy People
One of the best lovelies I know, a one Miss Rachel Best, gave me the most astounding book for my birthday this past weekend.
The Shiny Happy People Book is a cookbook by Neil Roake cataloging exquisite dinner parties and beautiful homes curated by the people he admires best: his good friends. When I fist unwrapped the book, my first reaction was "How Beautiful! It reminds me of my blog roll!" But upon further inspection, I found that not only was I interested in these people, and the food and decors they had to share, but that the author and his friends-featured were all located in South Africa, which I visited this past April and fell hard, madly, deeply in love with. This weekend has been a whirlwind of birthday celebration-chaos (Cheers, 26!), but each night I've found myself getting ready for bed, slightly (or maybe more) tipsy, thumbing through this book, marveling at the beautiful pages inside, planning the perfect dinner party occasions where I shall unveil certain recipes (to everyone's surprise and delight!) and also, feeling a certain (severe) longing for South Africa growing in my heart. The places I saw there were off the beaten path and truly unreal (I am so lucky!)! This book is filling me with a rush to get back to the Garden Route with a moment's quickness, as soon as possible. Thank you, Rachel Best , you've stirred South Africa up inside of me.
The Shiny Happy People Book is a cookbook by Neil Roake cataloging exquisite dinner parties and beautiful homes curated by the people he admires best: his good friends. When I fist unwrapped the book, my first reaction was "How Beautiful! It reminds me of my blog roll!" But upon further inspection, I found that not only was I interested in these people, and the food and decors they had to share, but that the author and his friends-featured were all located in South Africa, which I visited this past April and fell hard, madly, deeply in love with. This weekend has been a whirlwind of birthday celebration-chaos (Cheers, 26!), but each night I've found myself getting ready for bed, slightly (or maybe more) tipsy, thumbing through this book, marveling at the beautiful pages inside, planning the perfect dinner party occasions where I shall unveil certain recipes (to everyone's surprise and delight!) and also, feeling a certain (severe) longing for South Africa growing in my heart. The places I saw there were off the beaten path and truly unreal (I am so lucky!)! This book is filling me with a rush to get back to the Garden Route with a moment's quickness, as soon as possible. Thank you, Rachel Best , you've stirred South Africa up inside of me.22 August 2010
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