Jul 30, 2010

Darling Diptych :: Strange


 
 Left: Mo
Right: Brittany O 

This week's DD made me laugh out loud.  I'm just curious what the owner of those pants walked away in?  Maybe they didn't have time to put them back on because an important call was on hold down the street?

Jul 28, 2010

Portage Squeeze



 
 
Saturday was spent like a good, sunny Saturday should be...outside biking and exploring.  Rach and I biked down to the ferry from my house and took it over to Vashon Island.  We'd been warned by a few people about the hills, (and it WAS hilly) but that didn't phase us.  


Top to bottom/left to right:
1.  New frontier 
2.  Bike rest
3.  Keyboard purse in a local shop
4.  Rachel posing with "Cool Gary"
5.  Cockatails from The Hardware Store
6.  Self portrait
7.  Girl biking at the stationary bike graveyard
8.  Rach looking northeast
9.  Red bike left next to tree in 1964, now some 6 feet off the ground
10. Abandoned shed by red bike

We ended up with a flat that left us walking up a really huge winding steep hill, and after about an hour a fellow biker pulled over to help us out.  If it wasn't for him we would not have made the perfect timing to catch the ferry back.  Yeah for good biker karma!

Jul 23, 2010

Darling Diptych :: Pleasure



Left: Me
Right: Brittany O

So the above picture is not the one I imagined taking when we chose this week's theme, but that is often how it works.  I might imagine one picture and end up with something totally different after I mess around with props, angles, poses, ideas, ect. 

My photo captures one of my top pleasures of summer. There is not much I'd rather do than lie out in the sun (with my SPF30 on of course) and read a good book, usually I fall asleep after a while because it's so warm...and maybe I've had a daiquiri. 

Jul 19, 2010

Twenty under Forty: #7




Left to Right/Top to Bottom:
1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2. Chris Adrian 3. Daniel Alarcón 4. David Bezmozgis 5. Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
6. Joshua Ferris 7. Jonathan Safran Foer 8. Nell Freudenberger 9. Rivka Galchen 10. Nicole Krauss
11. Yiyun Li 12. Dinaw Mengestu 13. Philipp Meyer 14. C.E. Morgon 15. Téa Obreht
16. ZZ Packer 17. Karen Russell 18. Salvatore Scibona 19. Gary Shteyngart 20. Wells Tower

I love finding different ways of exploring my love of reading.  I found this list of young writers from the New Yorker and have decided it will be a fun project to read something by all of them.  I started with #7: Jonathan Safran Foer.  I have had a copy of Everything is Illuminated on my bookshelf for a few years now but hadn't read it yet because I had seen the movie first (which I LOVED), and therefore wanted to wait a significant amount of time before reading it, so it would have it's own impact on me.  Generally I try to read the book first, but that doesn't always happen.

As for Everything is Illuminated, I finished it last night...and I double LOVED it!  Oh, it made me laugh and it made me cry, sometimes both within only a few pages of each other.  When a young American Jew travels to Ukraine to find out who saved his Grandfather from the Nazi's, there is a story of immense sadness and tragedy mixed with the beauty of what it means to be alive and aware, to live and to love, or at least try to love. 

Jul 16, 2010

Darlying Diptych :: Texture

 

Left: Mo
Right: Brittany O 

Going very neutral this week.  

I'm off to the island again this weekend, and I've got a book of short stories I'm excited about. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Jul 14, 2010

In love and blogging...in your nineties



When I read about this couple on CNN my heart melted a little bit. Harry and Barbara Cooper, affectionately known as PopPop and Cutie, have been married for 72 years!  That's not even the best part...they keep a blog about it called The OG's (Original Grandparents).

It's great to see a marriage so strong after so many years. 

Jul 12, 2010

He Took The Butter Off Her Knife



During half time of the World Cup yesterday, I walked through the street fair taking place next door to my friend Amanda's house.  I love checking out all the different tents from different vendors, but I don't often come upon something that I really like adore.  Yesterday I did!  I found Bonnie Jones Photography, she's a local artist and she was displaying her work at the fair.  I came away with a great little piece I'm saving for my sister (who doesn't read this blog, so don't worry) and her upcoming birthday. 

I checked out Bonnie's blog, Explore Daily, and saw that she is currently working on a project called Journal Portraits. Having been a the kind of girl who has kept a journal on and off since 3rd grade (all stashed in a box under my bed), most diligently when I'm traveling, I find a strong connection to her images.

The above photograph "He Took The Butter Off Her Knife" corresponds with this entry:


Friday, January 4, 1946
Canada
"She was at the table one day and she reached her knife and helped herself to butter. And her husband took his own knife and stretched his hand out and took the butter off her knife with his knife and put it back on the plate. It was as though the poor thing couldn't have any butter. Maybe it was no wonder she became queer - and maybe she wasn't the only queer one in that family. That was a queer thing to do, to take the butter away from her, right off her knife with his knife."

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*It made my weekend to find something like this in my own backyard, and it also gave me inspiration to keep working diligently on my own photography.

Jul 9, 2010

Jul 7, 2010

What Else Is There?


Röyksopp - What Else Is There?

{I don't know what more to say...I love this song, this video, this voice.}

Jul 6, 2010

Twelve Things




One of my favorite bloggers, Lobster and Swan, started an interesting blog topic...Twelve Things.  What 12 things would you take with you if you had to start over again?  Not the everyday necessities...but the sentimental items.

These are the 12 items that I picked out.  They are for the most part items that remind me of my love, my family, important friendships and traveling.  You can see them featured at Lobster and Swan with many other lovely items by clicking here.

ADDED NOTE: I forgot one very important item that was a wedding gift.  It is so fragile and precious that it has been packed away in a box with lots of padding until I can find a safe place to display it.  It's so special that it jumps to the start of the list that is now Thirteen Things.  I'll take it out and add it in a later post so you can see what I'm talking about.

Jul 2, 2010

Darling Diptych :: Red



Left: Mo
Right: Brittany O

I LOVE the color red!  I painted the walls of my college bedroom red, floor to celing.  It was pretty intense. 

I hope you all have a fun and safe 4th of July/Holiday weekend! I'm looking forward to diving into the next book in the Slow Readers Book ClubThe People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia.  

Jul 1, 2010

Ten off the top


"Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in flight, searching the skies for dreams."                  ~Haruki Murakami {from Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World}

Thoughts like that are why Haruki Murakami has held place in my heart as numero uno ever since I first peeled back the pages of the above book over 10 years ago...


As summer surges on, and with a Holiday weekend approaching I find myself thinking about books, books, books!  I have a few in mind to read this summer which I'll share in another post, but first I wanted to share some of my all time favorite reads.  These books are in no particular order other than Murakami's novel, which is what I'd take with me if I were stranded on a desert island and allowed only one book. 

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World ~ Haruki Murakami
One Hundred Years of Solitude ~ Gabriel García Márquez
Stone from the River ~ Ursula Hegi
Geek Love ~ Katherine Dunn
Tipping the Velvet ~ Sarah Waters
Of Human Bondage ~ W. Somerset Maugham
The Grapes of Wrath ~ John Steinbeck
The Alchemist ~ Paulo Coelho
The Fountainhead ~ Ayn Rand
In the Time of the Butterflies ~ Julia Alverez

What about you?  What books do you recommend off the cuff?  I love hearing about the books that inspire others.