I’ve developed a total fascination with Joe Cocker and Leon Russell’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour from 1970.
Both classics in their own right, Cocker and Russell teamed up for this legendary tour, for which Russell, the musical genius with his iconic long grey hair and top hat, fronted Cocker’s band and was musical director, coming up with all the live arrangements for their 21-person band/chorus (I think this may have inspired Edward Sharpe, don’t you think?).
The tour was also filmed and made into a documentary, tracking the band and it’s hippie-commune 40-member entourage around the country to sold-out shows, complete with backstage footage and interviews. Sort of a real-life version of the movie Almost Famous, no??
Plus, the set list (which also became the album by the same name, from the show played at the Fillmore East) is incredible, including not only Cocker and Russell’s hits, but also covers of the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and others.
This last video, Darlin’ Be Home Soon, is some of the footage from the film– a backstage rehearsal. I particularly love the last minute or so with the split-screen of them boarding their plane and the rehearsal, and the little bit of the mom talking to the kids at the very end. Very Almost Famous.
Tartine is one of my absolute favorite bakeries and a must every time I’m in San Francisco. I actually am a little bit worried about what might happen once I move up there… I fear it could be habit-forming.
Their bread is incredible, as are their sandwiches, desserts… pretty much everything. It’s a bakery, cafe, and even wine bar, and I love the vibe that comes from people opening up a bottle of white at lunch on a Saturday. With the line almost always out the door, there’s always a ton of energy, great people watching, and a cool European cafe-meets-San-Francisco,-specifically-the-Mission,-vibe.
Check out this video to see the owner and head baker, Chad Robertson, in his element. Although I’ll warn you, this is dangerous to watch if you’re hungry.
You MUST watch this video. It’s very short, and it will add a lot of wonderment to your day. I’m enthralled.
Theo Jansen explores the boundaries between art and engineering, creating these “kinetic sculptures.”
These “animals” move. Or I should say, they walk. They’re wind-powered. It’s amazing. They look like a cross between an exoskeleton and an erector set, which is basically what they are, and then they start moving and they become so anthropomorphic, you wonder if they’re alive in some way.
Many of his creatures are so “evolved” that they are now capable of “living” on the beaches on their won– the wind powers their “walking,” and they have sensors that tell them to stop and turn around when they hit either water or dry sand, keeping them permanently on the wet sand.
They even have sensors that tell them when a storm is coming, and their “brain” tells them to start pounding a stake into the ground so they don’t fall over in the storm.
Can you imagine having a brain that dreamed up stuff like this?
In the video above, you see the “rhinoceros”-like sculpture walking.
If you want to learn even more about Jansen and his work, click here for a ten minute video presentation by Jansen that shows more animals walking and an explanation of how they work.
It’s also extremely interesting to hear how he talks about the animals– he doesn’t discuss them as art, or really as machines or product prototypes either– he talks about them as though they are animals that he is looking after, and he doesn’t seem to feel any need to explain the “purpose” of them, which I think is an amazing insight into the brain of someone this creative.
I think that science and art are going to continue to merge in this way, in the minds of people like Jansen who are capable of seeing their relation to each other, and have a desire to explore their intersection without the desire to make a practical product or advancement in technology. While in art, it seems sometimes that “we’ve seen it all,” and there’s nothing new under the sun, science is continually evolving and pushing boundaries in material ways, and through the integration of science and art, art could do the same.
The sheer existence of a company like this, still doing things the same way they’ve been doing it for years, and doing it because they love it, makes me feel a little bit better about the world. Oh, and the video is really well done.
“Grafica Fidalga, a printing press in São Paulo, Brazil, makes posters on a 1929 German letterpress using hand-carved wooden letters.”
Loving this random act of creativity.
Last year, husband and wife design duo Lisa Blonder Ohlenkamp and Sean Ohlenkamp undertook a project to reorganize their bookshelves by color (something I myself do...
Remember this post about posters of collective nouns? At the time, the phrase “a murmuration of starlings,” was one of my favorites, and I liked the accompanying poster as well.
And then today,...
My time to work on Wonderlust has been incredibly pressed recently as things with Cultivate are taking off (very exciting, but very busy!), but I had to share this with you, it’s one of the most...
A delightful, thought-provoking project by designer Ji Lee– a new book called Word as Image. In his words:
“When we were children, letters were like fun toys. We played with them through our...
I love photography like the above… that dinner table in candle light… I have an obsession with shots like that. So it’s particularly awesome when those shots also include your wines!!...
I have a new obsession: this food and nutrition blog called My New Roots. It’s been around for a while, but I just discovered it, and I’ve been staying up at night reading it. Seriously. In...
As Miss Moss said, there have been an influx (onslaught?) of vintage-inspired lookbooks recently, but as Ralph Lauren tends to do, they really nailed the details on making the style of this lookbook for...
What a wonderful, brilliant, cool concept! Sketchtravel is a project that has taken one sketchbook around the world to 60 different famous illustrators, with the end foal of giving money to charity.
Each...
If I knew how to draw and stuff, I would make these for all my friends and family for Christmas. How sweet would that be? Ask them their favorite go-to recipe, illustrate it for them, and frame it! Voila!...
Loving this modern cottage in the woods of Ontario. I’m all for cozy, traditional cottages, but how wonderful to have these giant windows so that during your trip to the woods, you get to see the...
Ah I love fashion week season. So much street style inspiration floating around!! Above were some of my favorite shots from the last week, including, of course, perennial favorites Emmanuelle Alt and...
Recent eye candy favorites posted to the tumblr page. (If you were wondering, is not a real tumblr, but since it’s an image-only page, it was the easiest way to name it after we had to change it...
I am completely taken with these Lightning Series photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto that I understand absolutely nothing about. I think that’s part of why I’m taken with them. The combination...
Today I’m daydreaming of… Greece. I came across the exterior of this house and a couple of interior shots a while ago, and posted them here, and I recently discovered lots more photos, and...
I’m excited about this new site, Art of the Menu, which is compiling menu designs! How fun!
I’m still in love with Cynthia Warren’s menus, which I emailed them to submit to the...
Fell in love with this peak at a Scandinavian summer house shot by Johanna Ekmark. From what I hear, Scandinavians are big on having simple little weekend/summer getaway cottages. I’m a fan of that...
This site is so much fun to browse. Talk about wanderlust. Alistair Sawday, author of the Special Places to Stay travel guides, has a new site called Canopy & Stars that features very off-the-beaten-path,...
Awesome round-up by Street Art Utopia of the 106 best street art photos of 2010. (106… guess they just couldn’t stop at 100?) Check out the gallery for more, these were my favorites out of...
