Things That Can Fly

Barry Lyndon

2012-01-28T22:49:00.001-05:00

Scorcese cites this as his favorite Kubrick films, and it's hard not to agree with him. Kubrick creates this film with such a painterly eye! One of the most beautiful films I've ever seen.

Also, Handel's Sarabande is so well-used here. I so wish I could hear this piece performed in a giant cathedral, or in some other hallowed place.

How to Start a Movement

2012-01-28T22:20:00.004-05:00

This very short TED talk made me laugh and think.

The King of Carrot Flowers

2012-01-23T23:18:00.000-05:00

When you were young
You were the king of carrot flowers
And how you built a tower tumbling through the trees
In holy rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet

And your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder
And dad would throw the garbage all across the floor
As we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for

And this is the room
One afternoon I knew I could love you
And from above you how I sank into your soul
Into that secret place where no one dares to go

And your mom would drink until she was no longer speaking
And dad would dream of all the different ways to die
Each one a little more than he could dare to try

Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5

2012-01-23T23:08:00.000-05:00

This piece is so...plot-driven. That's all I can say.

Lately

2012-01-09T16:03:00.003-05:00

1. Finished Anna Karenina.
How could Tolstoy describe so acutely what humans notice and how they feel about each other? It's like he's lived not just one lifetime but several hundred.
2. Stumbled upon this store, and fell in love. Bought two types of jasmine tea.
3. Spent hours looking through The Paris Review's Culture Diaries Found so many great recos!
4. Went to this Daphne Guinness exhibit. Her couture collection is amazing.
5. Saw Wim Wenders' Pina in 3D. Such a beautiful, moving tribute to choreographer/dancer Pina Bausch

You'll never break this heart of stone.

2011-11-28T12:07:00.002-05:00

Midnight in Paris

2011-06-20T13:05:00.001-04:00

I caught Woody Allen's latest this weekend. It was magical and pretty wonderful.
It had me grinning all the way through, and it's been a long time since a movie made me do that.
The trailer doesn't do it justice but here it goes:

Esse: Czeslaw Milosz

2011-06-17T12:34:00.000-04:00

I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro stations flew by; I didn't notice them. What can be done, if our sight lacks absolute power to devour objects ecstatically, in an instant, leaving nothing more than the void of an ideal form, a sign like a hieroglyph simplified from the drawing of an animal or bird? A slightly snub nose, a high brow with sleekly brushed-back hair, the line of the chin - but why isn't the power of sight absolute? - and in a whiteness tinged with pink two sculpted holes, containing a dark, lustrous lava. To absorb that face but to have it simultaneously against the background of all spring boughs, walls, waves, in its weeping, its laughter, moving it back fifteen years, or ahead thirty. To have. It is not even a desire. Like a butterfly, a fish, the stem of a plant, only more mysterious. And so it befell me that after so many attempts at naming the world, I am able only to repeat, harping on one string, the highest, the unique avowal beyond which no power can attain: I am, she is. Shout, blow the trumpets, make thousands-strong marches, leap, rend your clothing, repeating only: is!

She got out at Raspail. I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.

Czeslaw Milosz / translated by Robert Pinsky

I went to a celebration of Czeslaw Milosz's poetry a few months ago, and this poem, in particular, stuck with me. I understand the frustration when he asks "Why isn't the power of sight absolute?" It's hard to absorb something wonderful completely, isn't it?

“My Country –Vltava (The Moldau)” by Smetana

2011-06-17T12:29:00.000-04:00

Also heard in The Tree of Life:

Terrence Malick / The Tree of Life

2011-06-16T14:53:00.000-04:00

I watched Terrence Malick's latest "The Tree of Life" a few weeks ago, and I still can't stop thinking about it. The absolute poetry of that film - the way the camera drifts and beckons - haunts me.
He can do no wrong in my eyes - all of his films have a singular magical quality and a scope as large as life.

Nigel Cox

2011-06-16T13:35:00.002-04:00

I like the quiet elegance and lonely quality of the paintings of Nigel Cox.

(via of paper and things)

And after a long hiatus...

2011-06-15T18:07:00.000-04:00

A nice poem

Robin Hood End Credit Sequence

2010-11-15T11:44:00.003-05:00

My favorite part of an otherwise dull movie.

2010-09-22T10:09:00.000-04:00

“The hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.” Carson McCullers - The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

Art Garfunkel's Reading List

2010-08-23T13:49:00.001-04:00

Just spent a good half hour sifting through proclaimed bibliophile Art Garfunkel's book log, in which he lists every book he's read over the past 50 years.

Baryshnikov is a god

2010-08-19T18:01:00.002-04:00

Perfection on the stage! He defies all laws of physics!

The Illusionist

2010-08-19T17:57:00.000-04:00

From the trailer, this french animated "The Illusionist" looks wonderful.
From the man behind "The Triplets of Belleville",Sylvain Chomet, and a screenplay by legendary Jacques Tati. I can't wait to see it!

Mahler's Quartet for Strings and Piano in A Minor

2010-08-16T17:34:00.001-04:00

Saw Scorcese's Shutter Island over the weekend. Loved the visually stunning scenes coupled with this old Mahler tune in particular - Quartet for Strings and Piano in A Minor. I've been listening to it on a loop all day. Wonderful.

Words

2010-08-11T17:58:00.003-04:00

A visual poem by RadioLab and NPR

I Will Try to Fix You

2010-07-20T12:41:00.003-04:00

So you think you can dance - Fix you - Robert & Allison from Laura U on Vimeo.

I was so moved when I saw this dance based on the choreographer’s own experiences watching his mother suffer through breast cancer. The last thing I expected from "So You Think You Can Dance"!

Five

2010-07-19T14:18:00.006-04:00

1. 1999 Iranian film: "The Color of Paradise"

2. Fig tree metaphor from Sylvia Plath that struck me instantly:
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

3. ABT's Swan Lake:
(Here's one of my favorite scenes: Odile beguiling the Prince)

4. Mendelsohn's Wedding March, Arranged by Horowitz

5. Mr. Emerson's words in the movie "A Room with a View":
"I don't care what I see outside. My vision is within! Here is where the birds sing! Here is where the sky is blue!"

Hats + Books

2010-07-19T14:05:00.001-04:00

"Something Wicked This Way Comes" - Ray Bradbury

Jack Goes Boating

2010-07-14T11:02:00.000-04:00

I have no idea what this movie will be about, but the poster is beautiful.

Fantastic Postcards

2010-06-13T14:17:00.002-04:00

I am in love with the postcards from Inkognito.

Especially the ones by Michael Sowa

And Quint Buchholz

Aren't they wonderful?

Mark Strand

2010-06-08T21:05:00.001-04:00

I apologize for being MIA lately, but my life is in a state of crazy flux!
I'm starting a new job in two weeks, and I'm looking for a new apartment - a new place to call home, so I've been doing lots of running around.
In my spare moments though, I have been enjoying snippets of literature here and there.
I really loved this excerpt from Mark Strand's "The Weather of Words"

Also saw a really good Argentinian thriller over the weekend - The Secret in Their Eyes.
Recently won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film

In the Moment

2010-05-19T21:36:00.003-04:00

It was a day in June, all lawn and sky,
the kind that gives you no choice
but to unbutton your shirt
and sit outside in a rough wooden chair.

And if a glass of ice tea and a volume
of seventeenth-century poetry
with a dark blue cover are available,
then the picture can hardly be improved.

I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist,
and two black butterflies
with white and red wing-dots
bobbed around my head in the bright air.

I could feel the day offering itself to me,
and I wanted nothing more
than to be in the moment- but which moment?
Not that one, or that one, or that one,

or any of those that were scuttling by
seemed perfectly right for me.
Plus, I was too knotted up with questions
about the past and his tall, evasive sister, the future.

What churchyard held the bones of George Herbert?
Why did John Donne’s wife die so young?
And more pressingly,
what could we serve the vegetarian twins

who were coming to dinner that evening?
Who knew that they would bring their own grapes?
And why was the driver of that pickup
flying down the road toward the lone railroad track?

And so the priceless moments of the day
were squandered one by one-
or more likely a thousand at a time-
with quandary and pointless interrogation.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being
inside the green pod of time,
but that was not going to happen today,
I had to admit to myself

as I closed the book on the face
of Thomas Traherne and returned to the house
where I lit a flame under a pot
full of floating brown eggs,
and, while they cooked in their bubbles,
I stared into a small oval mirror near the sink
to see if that crazy glass
had anything special to tell me today.

Billy Collins

Lavender Farms

2010-05-18T00:32:00.004-04:00

I've been having a real infatuation with lavender farms lately. So beautiful.

(via: bob cox photography)

"Un Ange Passe"

2010-05-06T22:11:00.000-04:00

I was just watching an old Truffaut film called "Jules and Jim"and a scene just hit me - In it, two friends reunite after years of fighting on opposite sides of a war (Jules is French and Jim is German), they sit in Jules' house, and after a long tense silence, Jules says, "Un Ange Passe" or "An Angel is passing by" to describe the awkward moment. This French phrase struck me as beautifully poetic - describing a lull in conversation. (Jim also knowingly adds that 'Angels usually pass by at 20 minutes past or before the hour'.)

The Best of Youth

2010-05-03T15:24:00.003-04:00

I've been totally engrossed in an Italian movie called "The Best of Youth" (More like a miniseries - it's 6 hours long!) Made in 2003, it follows two brothers across four tumultuous decades in Italy's history. It makes me want to quit my desk job and hitchhike across Europe.

Update: I finished it, and I can't tell you how much it stayed with me even days after. It has the effect that a movie is supposed to have on a viewer. I'm dying for someone to watch it too so I can talk to them about it!

Spiral Staircases

2010-04-28T17:04:00.001-04:00

I loved looking through this photo collection of spiral staircases from around the world. Beautiful!

(via: notcot )

Eating Poetry

2010-04-28T16:30:00.001-04:00

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man,
I snarl at her and bark,
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

Mark Strand

Jump!

2010-04-28T11:18:00.000-04:00

Love Phillipe Halsman's jumping pictures!

Duke and Duchess of Windsor

Richard Nixon

Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham

Grace Kelly

Eva Marie Saint

J. Robert Oppenheimer

(via: notcot )

The Pacific - Title Sequence

2010-04-27T16:05:00.005-04:00

The gorgeous title sequence for the HBO miniseries "The Pacific".
Hans Zimmer's score, shards of charcoal flying like shrapnel - Love it all.
You can see it in here.

(via: art of the title )

A Nomadic Library

2010-04-26T12:33:00.003-04:00

This circular bookshelf designed by David Garcia is such a beautiful idea!

"A nomadic library, a transport system and an intimate space. Inspired by ancient travelling libraries from the Far East, which visited courts and cities, (this bookshelf) transforms this into a personal space, where walking and reading coexist as refuge and transport."

(via: notcot )

Some Simple Things I've Drawn Lately

2010-04-26T01:38:00.001-04:00

I've posted some more here.
Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

For a More Seductive Coffee Break...

2010-04-21T07:53:00.001-04:00

I've always thought Carte Noir Readers was a genius idea (Really attractive British stars reading from classic Penguin books - how can this combination go wrong?)

I'm thrilled that they've just added Joseph Fiennes (of Shakespeare in Love fame) into the roster! You can see him read from Thomas Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd" here.

Gene Kelly is Divine

2010-04-19T23:36:00.006-04:00

From Jacques Demy's lovely movie "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort"

The Beauty of Everyday Things

2010-04-19T23:21:00.000-04:00

This series of collections on flickr by sarcoptiform cracks me up with its mundanity but also arrests my attention with its simple beauty. I'm pretty sure I'll never see a beverage lid or a tea tag the same way again. This blog that records a collection day is a delight as well.

(via: swissmiss)

Back to the Drawing Board

2010-04-16T03:01:00.007-04:00

When I was younger, I drew quite a bit. My level of output was highest when I was a senior in high school. Art became my yearlong passion and obsession. Admittedly, it wasn't the most polished work, but it accurately represented me and my mind, and I found that so invigorating and exciting. That year was one of the maddest, happiest of my life so far, I think.

The following year, I went to college, became an English major, and with an exception of a few odd-and-end art/design classes, seldom drew. (Does life ever make you choose between 'the image' and 'the word' - between art and literature? It makes me choose all the time. And I feel myself torn. I find it's hard for my brain and heart to be fully devoted to both.)

Seven years have passed and I've felt an itch to draw again for a while. I don't know if I can anymore. (I have such doubts!) But I'm really going to try, and if you don't mind, I will attempt to share my pieces with you. Hopefully, it will be a good motivator to keep me going, so stay tuned. Have a wonderful weekend!

The Old Man and the Sea

2010-04-15T23:41:00.001-04:00

I love these intimate photos from Manjari Sharma's shower series. She captures such different emotions and human desires in each of these photos - remorse, dejection, a need for catharsis, redemption.

I love her other water series too. Sharma comes out of the shower and pans out 100x to show man's relation to nature and the landscape around him. I love how the enormity of the ocean seems to swallow the man up, and reduces him into a mere stick figure. There's a lonely (and noble?) quality to these photos I like quite a bit.

(via: the debonaire)

Beards

2010-04-15T14:26:00.002-04:00

Love these photos of beards from Slate!

(via: Slate )

Die Zauberflote

2010-04-10T22:59:00.003-04:00

I caught the Julie Taymor (of Lion King fame) production of The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera House last week. As expected, the sets were memorably inventive, the costumes stunning, her use of puppetry fun, Mozart's music divine. Can't wait to see her Spiderman production when it finally opens this year!

It was electric to hear one of my favorite arias in person - the infamous Queen of the Night. It's amazing that a piece that was written hundreds of years ago still has the power to leave an audience of four thousand absolutely amazed.

Diana Damrau's rendition of it is terrific (at the Royal Opera House).

Japanese Music Video: Sour's Hibi No Neiro

2010-04-06T22:47:00.000-04:00

This video is simply incredible.

Ode to Miners

2010-04-06T17:55:00.000-04:00

In light of the recent mining tragedy - Slate features a nice photographic ode to miners all over the world.

(via: slate)

Star-Shaped House

2010-04-05T15:05:00.002-04:00

I am in awe of these pictures of performance artist Marina Abramovic's star-shaped country home.

(via: NY Times)

Waltzing in Grand Central

2010-04-05T00:15:00.000-04:00

Just caught an old Terry Gilliam movie, The Fisher King - I really loved the ideas of chivalry in it, and also this magical scene, in which Parry (played by Robin Williams) waits for the woman of his dreams in Grand Central Station, suddenly spots her, and the hurried commuters around him turn into elegant waltzers. Terry Gilliam's movies are so precious because of scenes like this!

Love Song

2010-04-05T00:00:00.008-04:00

The recent change in the weather (warm sun! cool breeze!) makes me think of this poem by William Carlos Williams. To me, it is a poem to be read in the spring. My spirit exults similarly when I walk around in the sun these days.

Love Song

Sweep the house clean,
hang fresh curtains
in the windows
put on a new dress
and come with me!

The elm is scattering
its little loaves
of sweet smells
from a white sky!

Who shall hear of us
in the time to come?
Let him say there was
a burst of fragrance
from black branches.

William Carlos Williams

Yuko Shimizu

2010-04-04T23:43:00.002-04:00

I stumbled upon Yuko Shimizu's illustrations last night and was so inspired by them!

Hungarian Rhapsody

2010-04-01T16:33:00.003-04:00

In a Liszt sort of phase right now.
Can't stop listening to this especially: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C Sharp Minor

And really, Romantic composers + Old Hungarian Melody = Dynamite. Across the board.

Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 4

Or even
Berlioz's Hungarian March

Lucinda Ruh

2010-02-22T21:45:00.001-05:00

I have a bit of Olympics fever right now. Watching Stephane Lambiel's spins the other night reminded me of a great great spinner - someone I remember even now after having watched her as a child - Lucinda Ruh. I still can't get over how beautiful her spins are. Just amazing.

About Art

2010-02-14T23:49:00.006-05:00

''We'd often go to the movies. We'd shiver as the screen lit up. But more often we'd be disappointed. The images flickered. Marilyn Monroe looked terribly old. It saddened us. It wasn't the film we dreamed, the film we all carried in our hearts; the film we wanted to make, and, secretly, wanted to live."
Goddard:: Masculine, Feminine

"I believe that today, more than ever, a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and soul."
Miller :: Tropic of Cancer

Michel Gondry

2010-02-12T17:29:00.000-05:00

I love the way he makes the simplest, most ordinary things magical.

Mia Doi Todd "Open Your Heart" dir. Michel Gondry from Viewers Like You on Vimeo.

John Barry

2010-02-10T21:02:00.007-05:00

Often times when I'm sick in body or in spirit, I'll put on one of John Barry's film scores. (I realize this sounds completely dorky, but I swear it makes me well again!) It's the best medicine I know of. He has composed some of the most devastatingly romantic themes I've ever heard.

Here's a favorite - from Somewhere in Time:

Are You Happy?

2010-02-09T23:20:00.004-05:00

(via: notcot.org)

Directors and their Actors

2010-02-05T13:12:00.001-05:00

Another set of beautiful photos in Vanity Fair courtesy of Annie Leibovitz.

Out of Print Books, Shirts

2010-02-01T20:22:00.000-05:00

These shirts with famous book cover designs on them from Out of Print are pretty awesome. I honestly want every. single. one. I am in serious trouble. (thanks, joan.)

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

2010-01-30T01:03:00.001-05:00

I just saw Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Such a beautifully imaginative movie. Like Wow. Terrific production / costume design.
During the first 3/4 of it, I felt that this was exactly the kind of movie I would make if I had the chance. During the last 1/4, the movie sort of sputtered, which is a real shame. I hate it when that happens, when you are like, 'But the movie could have really gone places! I was there!'
The movie is magical nonetheless. Have you seen any good movies lately?

Lost

2010-01-29T10:59:00.005-05:00

Okay, I'm going to totally geek out for a moment here.
I watch Lost, and am a bit psyched for the premiere of the final season on Tuesday. Anywho, I came across these really nice Lost posters designed by Ty Mattson and thought I'd share them here.

(via:notcot.org )

J.D. Salinger

2010-01-28T13:51:00.000-05:00

Just got word that J.D. Salinger has died at the ripe age of 91. That elusive man of mystery!
It makes me so sad to hear it, but at the same time, I'm excited that there is a possibility that many more of his pieces will be published now. Rumor has it that he has a file cabinet of written work that he wanted to publish after his death.

Seymour Glass has got to be one of my favorite characters in all of literature.
He can be found in this perfect, heartbreaking story - The Perfect Day for Bananafish.

DV8

2010-01-27T23:28:00.010-05:00

I first heard of DV8, the British physical theater / dance company, a couple of years ago when my British dance history teacher showed us their short film "The Cost of Living". It blew my mind and changed the way I thought about dance - and I keep on coming back to it even years later. The way they use bodies (even imperfect ones) to create such beautifully memorable scenes. Pure poetry of movement.

Questions of Travel

2010-01-26T11:36:00.002-05:00

These beautiful travel photos of Aya Brackett made me dream of far off places today.

About travel: Something about being a wandering gypsy really appeals to me. Just being able to live the philosophy of waking up to a new horizon every morning, of swallowing the world whole - that's the way to be! A cage-free existence!

Where's the one place you could travel to right now if you could?

Ever since I read Elizabeth Bishop 's poems about Brazil in college, I've always wanted to go there. At the time, it seemed like the complete opposite of the world I knew.
I fell in love with this poem, in particular, about Bishop's mixed feelings about Brazil and travel, in general.

QUESTIONS OF TRAVEL

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams

hurry too rapidly down to the sea,

and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops

makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,

turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.

--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,

aren't waterfalls yet,

in a quick age or so, as ages go here,

they probably will be.

But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,

the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,

slime-hung and barnacled.

Think of the long trip home.

Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?

Where should we be today?

Is it right to be watching strangers in a play

in this strangest of theatres?

What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life

in our bodies, we are determined to rush

to see the sun the other way around?

The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?

To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,

inexplicable and impenetrable,

at any view,

instantly seen and always, always delightful?

Oh, must we dream our dreams

and have them, too?

And have we room

for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

But surely it would have been a pity

not to have seen the trees along this road,

really exaggerated in their beauty,

not to have seen them gesturing

like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.

--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard

the sad, two-noted, wooden tune

of disparate wooden clogs

carelessly clacking over

a grease-stained filling-station floor.

(In another country the clogs would all be tested.

Each pair there would have identical pitch.)

--A pity not to have heard

the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird

who sings above the broken gasoline pump

in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:

three towers, five silver crosses.

--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,

blurr'dly and inconclusively,

on what connection can exist for centuries

between the crudest wooden footwear

and, careful and finicky,

the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear

and, careful and finicky,

the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.

--Never to have studied history in

the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.

--And never to have had to listen to rain

so much like politicians' speeches:

two hours of unrelenting oratory

and then a sudden golden silence

in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:

"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come

to imagined places, not just stay at home?

Or could Pascal have been not entirely right

about just sitting quietly in one's room?

Continent, city, country, society:

the choice is never wide and never free.

And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,

wherever that may be?"

(photos via: cup of jo )

The Morning Commute

2010-01-26T10:54:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, when I have a bad morning due to the crowded L train I have to stuff myself into to get to work on time, I watch this video from Tokyo and think, You know, I really don't have it that bad. It never fails to make me laugh.

At the dividing line

2010-01-20T11:45:00.001-05:00

Speaking of 'On the Road', it reminded me of some of my favorite lines from the book. I remember the excerpt below, in particular, struck such a chord with me when I first read it - that feeling of lostness and displacement, of not knowing who you really are - I knew that feeling. I still know that feeling.

Banksy Hits the Sundance Festival

2010-01-20T11:35:00.002-05:00

Banksy , the infamous masked guerrilla artist, has struck again - this time, at Sundance. Quite nice.

(via: notcot )

Charting the Beatles, On the Road

2010-01-19T23:31:00.000-05:00

I loved these beautiful infographical charts that graphic designer Michael Deal created to illustrate/sort the songs of the Beatles by key, authorship, and self-reference.

They reminded me of Stefanie Posavec's lovely infographical charts of Kerouac's On the Road.

(via: notcot)

The Snow Man

2010-01-18T19:50:00.000-05:00

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Wallace Stevens

Keel's Simple Diary

2010-01-18T19:34:00.000-05:00

I like Keel's Simple Diary. It's an interesting way to keep a track of your life and helps you look at your day differently through some insightful questions. For those who want to delve deeper and understand themselves better.

1-D Movies

2010-01-15T18:05:00.000-05:00

Nice video from Slate - a sneak peek at movie studios' latest gimmick: 1-D movies.
Watch classic movies illustrated in simple lines and circles.

(via: slate)

Tabarly

2010-01-14T00:51:00.000-05:00

I don't understand a word of this (Oh I wish I did - One day I WILL learn French!) but I love this trailer for the french documentary Tabarly that came out a few years ago. I keep coming back to it every now and then - the vintage footage, the beautiful shots of the boat being tossed by the gigantic waves (reminiscent of Tacita Dean), not to mention Yann Tiersen's beautiful score (he also composed the Amelie soundtrack).
The documentary is about Eric Tabarly who is considered to be the father of French yachting and competed successfully up until he was in his late 60s. He died in 1998 when he was knocked off of his yacht and was lost at sea. His body was recovered five weeks later by French fishermen.

Ves Como Te Gusta La Opera?

2010-01-14T00:17:00.000-05:00

Guerrilla opera. Watch what happens when opera singers take over a market in Valencia, Spain.

What a glorious feelin' I'm happy again

2010-01-06T14:53:00.000-05:00

Lincoln Center. At night. Right before an opera. This is by far my favorite time and place in New York City. There was a really fascinating article in The New Yorker this week about the renovation / re-design of the famous fountain (I really will never see water the same way again.) They also put together this video of the fountain's appearance in films.

It turns out that the people who designed the new fountain also designed the Bellagio fountains in Vegas, which led me to watch this video of the Bellagio fountains in action - dancing to Singin' in the Rain. Marvelous!

More Book Adventures

2010-01-06T13:08:00.000-05:00

Love this video.
Books - one of the many reasons why I'm grateful I'm a human and not a hamster.
Thank you for sending it to me, Abigail! It's awesome.

(via: gus & other things)

Book Adventures

2010-01-04T14:00:00.000-05:00

I like this ad campaign for Anagram bookshop.
(via: black eiffel )

Best Movie Posters of the Decade

2010-01-02T19:43:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed reading this conversation about the best movie posters of the decade.
One of my personal favorites is this one for the movie, The Pleasure of Being Robbed.

(via: the auteurs)

The World's Most Beautiful Libraries

2009-12-15T13:44:00.000-05:00

These photos of the world's most beautiful libraries are pretty stunning. (images via: oddee.com )

Brief Encounter

2009-12-13T04:25:00.000-05:00

Being a huge fan of David Lean and his film Brief Encounter, I rushed to see a theatre production that was sort of a beautiful love letter to the film at St. Ann's Warehouse this week. I'd been wanting to see this production ever since I had heard it won an Olivier award after it ran in London this year.
And it didn't let me down. Simply put, one of the best pieces of theater I saw all year, and it made me want to see the movie again.

Russian Herders

2009-12-05T02:17:00.000-05:00

When I saw these photos of present-day Russian nomadic herders taken by Yuri Kozyrev on MSNBC, I gasped at their beauty. They almost don't seem real. (images via: msnbc)

In every human being, a divine spark.

2009-11-30T22:49:00.000-05:00

After seeing Puccini's one-act opera Gianni Schicchi at the Met last weekend, I was reminded of just how beautiful the aria 'O Mio Babbino Caro' is. It's absolutely body shivering divine - the best minute of the opera. I wonder sometimes if composers know exactly when they've struck it - that golden melody that will play and thump upon the heart strings of millions for centuries. It must have been a moment of uncontainable joy. And to do it over and over again like Puccini did! Unfathomable really. When I searched for a video of this aria, I came across tons of Maria Callas, and I was reminded of how lovely and elegant she was. Here she is, in her element. The joy she gets from performing is palpable.

World Leader Portraits

2009-11-30T15:54:00.000-05:00

These portraits of world leaders taken by Platon for the New Yorker over a course of five days during a UN meeting are pretty incredible.

(image via: newyorker )

Tacita Dean

2009-11-29T15:37:00.000-05:00

One my favorites - Tacita Dean.
How wonderful are her chalk pieces of ships and roaring oceans?

The Roundness and Straightness of Things

2009-11-24T00:08:00.000-05:00

Beautiful hand-carved spoons from Nic Webb

(images via: nicwebb, found via: notcot)

2009-11-22T18:01:00.000-05:00

The Beckoning of Lovely

2009-11-19T17:09:00.000-05:00

When I was in high school, I used to print out a weekly column by a woman named Amy Krouse Rosenthal and tape it to my binders and make my friends read it. I admired and related to her way of seeing the world's most ordinary things with childlike wonderment. Since then, she's come out with a number of books, including this great one. She also began a project called "The Beckoning of Lovely" project, which she kicked off in great poetic fashion two summers ago.

She celebrated the one year-ish anniversary of that day a little more quietly.
Pretty awesome.

Bob Crowley

2009-11-19T00:27:00.000-05:00

One of my idols - Bob Crowley.

His sets are breathtaking and positively otherworldly.

(images via: the independent)

War

2009-11-16T15:11:00.000-05:00

David Guttenfelder has taken some beautiful photos traveling with the soldiers in Afghanistan for the Denver Post.

(images via: denver pos t)

The Fall

2009-11-16T03:36:00.000-05:00

I saw a film called The Fall, recently. It's one of the most visually stunning movies I've ever seen. The director, Tarsem, had location scouted for nearly 20 years and had chosen the most amazing places to shoot for this pet project. It had one of the most beautiful title sequences I'd ever seen.
(It took days to get Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 out of my head.)

You can see it here.

(image via art of the title sequence)

Berlin, Berlin

2009-11-16T03:06:00.000-05:00

Such beautiful images from the Berlin Wall era. Black and white really suits this period, don't you think? Human resilience is pretty incredible. Seeing these reminds me of Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire. Here is one of my favorite scenes from the movie:

(image via slate)

Joan Miro

2009-03-11T17:59:00.000-04:00

Joan Miro
Portrait of a Dancer, 1928
Feather, cork, and hatpin on wood panel with household paint

(image from: slate)

Shadow Puppets

2009-03-11T15:01:00.000-04:00

An awe-inspiring commercial using shadow puppets

Paris Je'Taime

2009-03-11T14:30:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite scenes from the beautiful film 'Paris Je'Taime':