School lunch gourmand from a nine year old.

Biking to the supermarket.

Kids with mad swagger.

I love sending mail.  I’d love sending these in the mail.

This concerns me immensely.

Finally someone who can explain our country’s debt to me; a twelve year old.

Words and pictures.

I miss the Bluegrass Legend Series in Evanston.

I love these iphone cases.

Laughs for Chicagoans.

Are we really wired for optimism?

I need to see this documentary, if only for the wild sea creatures.

Fancy stamp rings.

A song for the road.

Seriously?

I have an idea of what they mean by easy.  Should I assume that was their intention.

It’s not so much that I love eating rice but that I NEED to eat it.  Being my favorite food, I’ve experienced rice in all its traditional dishes and continue to search for new ways to incorporate it into every meal of my day.

Rice in soup not new,I know, but try this recipe for vidalia onion soup with wild rice.  Its delightful.

Villa rentals anyone?

A nine- year old girl blogs about her school lunches.

Beautiful ladies in New York City.

Need a plant whisperer?  Look no further.

Pretzels buns? Yes!  Pretzel cones? YES!

A giant rainbow for World Record Day 2012.

Grilled Cheese with Advacado takes the cake.

Say please and thank you to the Urban Etiquette Project.

I’m digging these anti- portraits.

The Shop at The Smithsonian.

I’m going to start wearing my pictures!!

This Mac and Cheese takes the cake.

Anthropologie has a blog.

Three ways to hairxperiment for the summer.

A song for the road.

This week I was treated to an evening at Links Hall, here in Chicago.  Previous evenings at Links have presented me with human size Macaw puppets singing Chet Baker, dirty dancing by local group DoubleDJ and experimental sound performances.  I knew I would be listening to a story teller named Kevin Kling.  I wasn’t prepared for the delicacy, wonder and delight with which this man feels the world and describes his life through stories.  He was born without a wrist in his left hand and only four fingers.  He lost the use of his right arm in a motorcycle accident in 2001.  But his stories don’t focus on loss, or they didn’t settle on loss.  I spent the hour grasping onto my friends’ hand while his words buried in.

This was his final shared piece called, “Tickled Pink”-

“At times in our pink innocence, we lie fallow, composting waiting to grow. And other times we rush headlong like so many of our ancestors. But rush headlong or lie fallow, it doesn’t matter. One day you’ll round a corner, your path is shifted. In a blink, something is missing. It’s stolen, misplaced, it’s gone. Your heart, a memory, a limb, a promise, a person. Your innocence is gone, and now your journey has changed. Your path, as though channeled through a spectrum, is refracted, and has left you pointed in a new direction. Some won’t approve. Some will want the other you. And some will cry that you’ve left it all. But what has happened, has happened, and cannot be undone. We pay for our laughter. We pay to weep. Knowledge is not cheap. To survive we must return to our senses, touch, taste, smell, sight, sound. We must let our spirit guide us, our spirit that lives in breath. With each breath we inhale, we exhale. We inspire, we expire. Every breath has a possibility of a laugh, a cry, a story, a song. Every conversation is an exchange of spirit, the words flowing bitter or sweet over the tongue. Every scar is a monument to a battle survived. Now when you’re born into loss, you grow from it. But when you experience loss later in life, you grow toward it. A slow move to an embrace, an embrace that leaves you holding tight the beauty wrapped in the grotesque, an embrace that becomes a dance, a new dance, a dance of pink.”

I once filmed a commercial at an abandoned Gatsby-esque estate in Yonkers.

Recently I came across pictures of the third floor pool (why bother the basement when you have the top floor to fill) and wanted to explore more.

Take a look.

Cause I could use a turban this morning.

PDN, or Photo District News is an online source that highlights a group of 30 emerging photographers each year.

The site has tracked photographers for over a decade.  I stumbled upon PDN’s 30 from 2006 and couldn’t get enough from these three photographers.

Floto and Warner

Bob O’Connor

I especially love his series of Iceland picture which I had previously posted here.

Tom Fowlks

TEENY- is this where you’re working.  Because, if so, I want to come in and do what this lady did.

I love this tattoo.

These little critters just aced the ACTs.

The May 1st entry of this blog is awesome.  I bet all of our parents had their moments.

This would make some great garland.

Speaking of Garland, I miss Judy.

This is a good list of reminders.

What’s killing art?

I would have really liked to go to this party.

I need to make these Fraisiers.

I want to try finger wave curls.  This woman will help me, but listen to her last three sentences.  Girls ANGRY.

Some interesting Did You Knows.

For Maurice: a song for the road.

Photographer Michael Shindler is putting a little soul-stealing back into the act of picture taking; he captures his subjects in tintype portraits. 

There’s no negative.  The image on the plate is the only record of the moment captured with each subject.  The tintype format allows him to draw out intriguing characteristics of a face (freckles, wrinkles and irises) in high contrast.  Shindler began Photobooth—a studio, shop and gallery space—in August 2011.  He wanted to put tangible value back into the now overrun digital medium.  Did I mention the pictures will only run you 50-80$ and he encourages people to just walk in.  20 minutes and your portrait will be leaving with you.

He cites landscape photographer Carleton Watkins as inspiration.

(and why not throw in a little F*@% You at North Carolina)