shiny things in messy little piles

Tag: PAris

Morning Linkage (Aug 17)

Transportation

My dreams of roman­tic, retro get-aways always include a fly­ing boat. I thought I was SOL for this life­time. I am not. Dornier is bring­ing the fly­ing boat back into production.

Wood on a bicy­cle. Very nice set of han­dle­bars.

South­east Asia and tiny bikes. The new world order in cus­toms. So many of the bikes fea­tured here begin with CB, but they rarely go on to fin­ish up with 100.

Or Glo­ry: 21st Cen­tu­ry Rock­ers” a book of pho­tographs by Horst A. Friedrichs of mod­ern Rock­ers. (Pub­lish­es in Sep­tem­ber; avail­able for pre-order on Ama­zon now)

Science

Tidal tur­bines. Like wind­mills for gen­er­at­ing elec­tric­i­ty from the con­tin­u­ous motion of water. I’m sor­ry for link­ing to the NYT; the com­ments are so dull.

Culture

In 1974, Philippe Petit and a few com­pa­tri­ots slung a wire between the World Trade Cen­ters and M. Petit walked it.  That sort of bal­ance and focus is unimag­in­able to most of us. Or is it? You can sign up for a work­shop to learn to walk on wire from the mas­ter. Details on your next oppor­tu­ni­ty when I can find them.

Art, Images, and Design

From Retro Age Vin­tage Fab­rics. Uphol­stery fab­ric fea­tur­ing a design by Picas­so of a lady on a horse. I can’t quite see­ing doing my sofa in this print… or maybe I can.

BTW if you like the aes­thet­ic of the pho­to­graph of the wood­en han­dle­bars on the bicy­cle there’s an entire tum­bler full of sim­i­lar­ly airy images.  Is this the pho­tog­ra­ph­er him/herself? Or some­one with a very good eye for a style curat­ing the net for us?

Chas Labor­de was a French illus­tra­tor of the 1920’s and 1930’s. The blog Adven­tures in the Print Trade takes the oppor­tu­ni­ty of a new book about him to show a few of his illus­tra­tions of every­day life. I keep think­ing that I want to see a graph­ic nov­el of some­thing by Fitzger­ald done this way.

Morning Linkage (Jul 8)

Riding into the sunshine.

Ride the hyper­bole express to a dingy Paris base­ment and col­lec­tion of aston­ish­ing vin­tage bikes.  Click­ing on any one of the links leads to a lust pro­vok­ing gallery of the named bike. Includ­ing a Mod­el 18 Nor­ton, A Sun­beam Mod­el 9, 1926 Ridge Spe­cial, and so many more.

Worse eclec­ti­cism than some of my posts. mish­mash of motos from the guy who climbed the fame lad­der with his 10 most dan­ger­ous roads in the world list.

Auto­topi­a’s list of 12 desir­able sta­tion wag­ons. Lit­tered with mod­ern bland­ness but a few gems - the Vista Cruis­er, the Saab 95, and a fab Chevy Nomad.

… and an addi­tion that could eas­i­ly replace any of the mod­ern lux­u­ry car man­u­fac­tur­er boring-mobiles in the orig­i­nal list. The Cit­roen DS Safari.

Science

Crypto­forestry and the Return of the Repressed. How could you write a bet­ter head­line? As any­one with a lit­tle bit of prop­er­ty can tell you, nature will out and the forests will return — to the odd­est places.

Marine biol­o­gy. Giant crab moves out of a too small shell. Awe­some clip.

Art, Images, and Design

Pianos have been appear­ing ran­dom­ly in NYC. I’m always aston­ished at how many of the peo­ple play but I did­n’t know. Play Me I’m Yours.

Urban Sketch­er Tom­my Kane drew one — of course.

Peski­mo are best known for their vinyl toys. This year they’re doing the poster and sig­nage for the Mozil­la Sum­mit. Dol­lars to donuts these lit­tle direc­tion­al signs dis­ap­pear in an instant.

From Ellis Nadler via Jour­ney Round My Skull to Coil House. The Cards of Wu. (I just want­ed to write some­thing with more words cap­i­tal­ized than low­er case.)

Charm­ing, but to eyes raised on the edi­tions of Tolkein’s books with his own illus­tra­tions  these  illus­tra­tions from the Russ­ian edi­tion of the Hob­bit are off kil­ter. Bonus video at the end of a chil­dren’s show based on the books — you’ll rec­og­nize the scenes. Gol­lum is wicked good.

soakin’ in the heat, lovin’ it.