This chair-thing:
Cool? Kind of creepy? There's something both delicious and yucky about it, right? Almost like it's growing in that corner and might continue to grow when you're sleeping until you wake up in the middle of the night and it's taken over your ENTIRE house and... no? It's just a weird Belgian bean bag you say, and that's all? Oh, ok. I'll take one then.
(Photo via Style-Files)
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
I had a birthday tea party last week and in preparation made a zillion crustless sandwiches and strung doilies EVERYWHERE.
I told Steven I would take them down the next day.
Three days ago.
I'm sure soon enough I'll get sick of all the frilly-ness. It really feels like you're looking up someone's petticoat. Oh my, how naughty!
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
It has just been reported that the Malian and French army force has taken back nearly every city once sieged by the Islamist rebels, including Timbuktu. However it absolutely breaks my heart to hear that before fleeing, rebels burned down the Ahmed Baba Institute which was home to thousands of important, ancient manuscripts.
The Ahmed Baba Institute was just down the road from where we lived and I conducted many interviews there during my Fulbright research. At the time they were in the process of digitizing these historical artifacts, so I am slightly hopefully that at least some of them have survived in this format.
All in all though, the news is devastating. While it's wonderful that there has been no reported loss of life in the retaking of Timbuktu, this loss of history is substantial.
By the way, these gorgeous photos are by my talented friend photographer Alexandra Huddleston who was working on a Fulbright in Timbuktu the same year as me. You can see more of her striking images of a disappearing life on her website here.
UPDATE 2/2/13:
Wait! It looks like most of the manuscripts were in fact saved! Luckily many people had anticipated that they were in danger and moved them to the capital or hid them in homes. This is SUCH a relief.
Ooh la la! For my birthday I would like a little outdoor Parisian reading nook, s'il vous plaît.
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
Photo via Style-Files.
My love affair with temporary tattoos continues. I want every single one that Tattly makes. For now I'm very pleased with this assortment that just arrived:
They make custom ones too for weddings and such. Be still my beating heart!
When Steven and I went to Burkina Faso we never made it to any remote villages like Tiébélé here where folks paint the heck out of their buildings.
That said, I don't feel too bad about not making it here as apparently it took this woman over a YEAR of negotiations to get in! Click through here for more pictures and stories of what it was like. I especially like the detail that they were told to not wear red or carry an umbrella as that is a privilege reserved for the most noble families. It reminded me of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, one of the my favorite books ever, which takes place mostly in a village in the Congo. Never read it? OH MY GOD GO READ IT RIGHT NOW.
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
All photos via here.
The rebellion in Mali continues. The French are now involved, the rebels are a mere 50 miles from the town of Segou where we once lived. It's hard to believe that it's gone this far. Somehow Timbuktu being taken was less shocking-- it always felt like the edge of the world. But Segou? We felt so safe there.
The Washington Post just put out this great article called "9 Questions About Mali You Were Too Embarrassed to Ask". It's crazy informative, so straight forward, and somehow even kind of funny. I highly recommend clicking through.
I'm back on the indoor swing kick. How lovely would it be to hang out in one of these at the Chilean hotel Tierra Patagonia after a day of hiking around?
The only conundrum: where does one put your hard earned drink?
Speaking of hiking, this past weekend Steven and I went up to the Catskills to get our winter wonderland on.
The first day was warm and lovely, the second day was straight uphill for the length of a movie and cold as all hell, but we had SUCH a good time stomping around in the snow and getting our fireplace time on in our sweet little cabin after.
As you know, I'm a big fan of glamping. So it is perhaps unsurprising that my motto for the weekend was I Hike In Cashmere. Because I do:
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
Photos of hotel via Tierra Patagonia.
I found myself vigorously nodding along to Susan Jacoby's recent Op-Ed in the NY Times, The Blessings of Atheism.
In it she contemplates how, "the most powerful force holding us [atheists] back is our own reluctance to speak, particularly at moments of high national drama and emotion, with the combination of reason and passion needed to erase the image of the atheist as a bloodless intellectual robot." For example, in the aftermath of the Newton massacre or Hurricane Sandy.
I think her following point is especially important:
It is primarily in the face of suffering, whether the tragedy is individual or collective, that I am forcefully reminded of what atheism has to offer. When I try to help a loved one losing his mind to Alzheimer’s, when I see homeless people shivering in the wake of a deadly storm, when the news media bring me almost obscenely close to the raw grief of bereft parents, I do not have to ask, as all people of faith must, why an all-powerful, all-good God allows such things to happen....It is a positive blessing, not a negation of belief, to be free of what is known as the theodicy problem...The atheist is free to concentrate on the fate of this world — whether that means visiting a friend in a hospital or advocating for tougher gun control laws — without trying to square things with an unseen overlord in the next.
(The bold emphasis is mine.)
Read the whole piece here. And if you haven't ever read something by Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins or Susan Jacoby, give it a go. Their unabashed atheism will seem absolutely shocking compared to the usual Judeo-Christian tone we so often take on here in America.
How cool does this abandoned men's club turned house in Alabama look?
The owner was REALLY hardcore about working with the aged elements of the house, down to polyurethane-ing the peeling the paint to preserve that look. And while the whole thing is a lot more dark than my personal taste, I was really digging it.
UNTIL I SAW THE SHOWER.
Nothing like a little bathroom patina that says RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
All photos via Yatzer.
Every New Year's Eve, for the past twelve years, I've written a letter to myself to be opened the next New Year's Eve-- which means that I start my night by reading the one I wrote for myself the year before.
In the letters I set goals, make predictions--both meaningful and silly--and generally just shoot the shit with myself. It feels as close to time travel as I ever hope to get.
I like this tradition because so often we tell people "nothing much" when they ask what's been going on lately, and often it really feels like that because you're swept up in the minutia of day to day life. Hearing from yourself a year ago though, really puts into perspective just how much you have accomplished, just how much you have changed. It also keeps you a little more on top of your resolutions when you know that you're going to have to read about them again when you hear from that self that really believed you could do it.
Happy New Year to everyone out there!
I've been designing my dream Moroccan courtyard house in my sleep again recently... How lovely is this home in Marrakech?
It belongs to Caitlin and Samuel Dowe-Sandes, the co-owners of the tile company Popham Design. You know how I feel about tiles...
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
(All photos via Design Sponge)
I love swinging by The Brick House, because not only does Morgan Satterfield have a great eye for design and photography, but she's pretty hilarious. I mean, just check out her FAQ. Most of her posts detail the constantly changing interior of her own home which is fun to follow, especially because she doesn't hold back when she's frustrated or disappointed by a project or piece that isn't working the way she imagined it would.
She's also got some serious DIY dedication and some damn cute dogs.
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
(All photos from The Brick House)
Instagram/Facebook announced today that it has the right sell user's Instagram photos without notification or payment. And unless you delete your account by January 16th, you will never be able to opt out. What the WHAT?
I'm not an Instagram-er myself (if only because I'm still of the Dumb Phone Tribe), but this gets me pretty heated because it taps into an issue that I think we've got to address and that is: When is it ever ok to not pay someone for their work? And what is it about the internet in particular that makes it so easy to do that to each other and ourselves?
I read a GREAT book this year called Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business, And How the Culture Business Can Fight Back by Robert Levine, which addresses just that. In the book's introduction, Levine states:
Amid the Internet's astonishing array of choices, statistics show that most consumers continue to engage with the same kind of culture they did before-- only in a way that's not sustainable for those who make it.
A.k.a. we still like words, we still like pictures, we still like music, but we ain't paying the creators of those things anymore. He goes on:
Much of the enthusiasm for free media comes from mistaking the packaging for the product. If you believe people once paid $15 for silver plastic discs, it's only natural to think online distribution will revolutionize the recording business. But if you realize people were paying for the music on those disks, it's obvious that someone still has to make it-- and that someone probably wants to get paid.
So who IS making the money? Mostly big fat middlemen like YouTube and Facebook who use your free content as their content for which they get paid.
I was especially fist-pump-y (as in, reading on the couch and enthusiastically yelling "YEAH!" like a psyched up football player every other paragraph) about his chapter on paper vs. digital books. For example, when countering the argument of 'ebooks cost next to nothing to make, so why should we pay more than next to nothing to read them?' he writes:
But books, like all media products, have never been priced according to their marginal cost: it doesn't cost anything close to $25.00 to print a single copy of a hardcover book. [More like $3.50, he later says.]... Like record labels, publishers do much more than manufacture and distribute; they advance money to creators, shape projects, and help them find an audience. ... Although technology has revolutionized the process of distributing books, it hasn't fundamentally changed the process of writing one.
Yes, yes, and yes!
Look, I'm not saying that we should go back to the way things were. Let's embrace new technology! But let's do do it in a way that benefits the creators of culture, not just the online distributors of it. How exactly to do this is naturally complex, and like Levine, I hope we as a country get some better laws in place that protect creators. But until then, we can strive to be supportive as individual consumers. That means everything from paying for that album (instead of illegally downloading it and listening to it to see if you like it enough to buy it) to properly citing photos you've snagged from other blogs.
Nothing's free. And if we keep pretending that all modern media should be, then no one's ever going to make a living from it which means less and less people are going to want to devote their lives to creating things which is just a damn shame all around.
I mean books! Let me sign your BOOKS. I'm an author, not (yet) a rock star.
Give your friend/lover/nephew/grandma To Timbuktu for the holidays, shoot me an email and Steven and I will happily sign and draw upon a book plate (aka sticker) that you can slap in your copy to personalize your gift!
As always, you can check out excerpts, illustrations, videos and more here.
For Christmakwannukah, I would like a Moroccan terrace with an outdoor shower please.
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
(Photo from My Marrakech)
Today I went to the Thanksgiving Sharing Assembly of my former lower/middle/and high school Berkeley Carroll.
I was invited as this year's alumna speaker to talk to the (entire!) school on the subject of gratitude. Here's how I began:
Today I wanted, naturally, to talk about gratitude. I’ve been thinking about how gratitude spans a huge range—from the really big, like being grateful for your good health, for being alive—to the much smaller, like that you’re having a good hair day. And I’ve been thinking about what brings gratitude about and usually it’s a change. Sometimes it’s a scare, a threat, a close call, but it’s not always that dire. Mostly it’s about a change from the usual.
There’s something I love to do that’s all about a change from the usual: travel.
When you leave home, you’re given a new perspective—on places you’d only ever heard about before in the news, as well as on your own home. And with that new perspective, you often become immensely grateful for what you have back home.
From there I managed to talk about the sorry lack of shower curtains in France to my unreasonable happiness over finding a grilled cheese sandwich in India, as well as one of the most memorable days of my life: a day I spent when I was sixteen in a tiny town in Western China in the company of three little kids who had never met a foreigner before in their life.
At the end of that day I went to bed so grateful that I met these generous little souls. And the next morning, when we were all getting on the bus to leave they came to say goodbye.
I took off my big backpacker pack to crouch down and hug them (and cry—I totally cried, I always cry at good-byes) one of them, the little girl, asked me, “Why did you bring everything with you?” I tried to explain in Chinese that we were on the road, moving around for two months so I have to have it all on my back and she was like, no, “Why didn’t leave anything in America?”
And that’s when I realized, oh my god, she thinks this is everything I own.
And there’s no way she owns enough to even fill that backpack halfway. How do you answer that question?
Honesty? I can’t even remember what I said exactly —I think I bumbled around a bit, probably cried some more and gave them each a yo-yo. But her question has stuck with me ever since—even twelve years later. “Why did you bring everything with you?” And every time I think of it, I feel grateful. For having all the material comforts that I do, but also for meeting her and her two friends because they have given me—without even meaning to—something that lasts a lifetime, and that is the gift of perspective. And for that I am immensely grateful.
(Photo of B.C. via here.)
Honestly WTF knows me too well. TILES ON TILES ON TILES. 
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
(All photos from here.)
Have you ever seen the Restoration Hardware holiday gift catalogue? It's a beautiful, completely over the top thing filled with linen, stainless steel, fake fur and so much uber stylized cooooolness. The fake fur part is MY JAM. It turns out, I love fake fur. Like REALLY love it. Last year I bought a "lynx" hat from them and haven't looked back since-- except to look through the catalogue and purchase a fur scarf, fur slippers , and full fur blanket.
Reading the Game of Thrones series certainly didn't help curtail this obsession. All those books are fur-this, fur-that. I suppose I'd better start bracing myself against the urge to own goblets made of animal horns...
I'm not sure where in the apartment the blanket will live. For now it wil continue to live as a cape on my shoulders.
(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)
