tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1062400527180633082024-03-12T23:13:05.777-04:00sho and tellShokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.comBlogger990125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-7166845076947502052019-05-02T10:27:00.001-04:002019-05-22T10:23:26.475-04:00POV: Pursuits.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I met my fiance, Rob, on a blind date—or, I suppose, as close to blind as you can get these days. Leading up to our meeting, my sister-in-law, the one responsible for our meeting, filled me in on a few key details: “He’s tall,” she said. “He’s funny. And he has a clean apartment.” Aside from that, I also knew that he was a violinist and that he loved wine. My sister-in-law had written an article that revealed the lengths he’d gone to properly store it in his apartment, including taping down the lights in his refrigerator, and investing in a device outfitted with a surgical-grade needle that allows wine drinkers to taste sips from an aging bottle without removing the cork.<br />
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“I hear you like wine,” I said at some point on our date, prepared to confess how little I knew on the subject, and that whenever I’d ordered a glass in the past, I’d made my choice based on which had the easiest name to pronounce.<br />
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“We don’t have to talk about stupid wine,” he said. It’s a line we repeat often—usually just before talking about wine—and laugh.<br />
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I’m often at a loss when asked how I like to spend my spare time. “I like food,” is along the lines of what I typically offer in response, and my other go-to—that I enjoy exploring the city on foot—isn’t any less vague. (Since writing is what I do for a living, it doesn’t seem to count, and blogging, to my dismay, has proven increasingly difficult to properly devote time to, though I still plan to try.)<br />
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It feels strange to admit that I don’t have a hobby—but it certainly isn’t for lack of trying. In college, I joined the snowboarding club despite never having snowboarded, and the gospel choir, even though I’d never sung (for good reason, as it turned out). After graduation, I took on a fashion internship, tried my hand at farming, and attempted to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/eFtXjsR008/" target="new">learn and love to bike</a>. Though I was rarely a natural at any of these pursuits, I became addicted to the thrill of trying new things. The process felt a little like auditioning new lifestyles, and I grew to pride myself on the discovery that I could try even the most outlandish activity and find a way to like it.<br />
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Still, I find myself wondering to this day when I’ll stumble on the extracurricular love of my life, in the same way my friends have found and fallen for pottery or running or bread-baking. <br />
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In our first few months together, I had thoughts about making Rob’s interests mine. I asked him to teach me to read a wine label. I watched a handful of documentaries and attempted to make my way through a couple of wine-related books. But as much as I’ve enjoyed it, I can still barely decode a wine list and am often speechless when asked to identify a tasting note. But I do enjoy the fact that, by chance, a new world has opened to me—and it’s one that I can explore freely, without any pressure to fully understand its complexities.<br />
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I’d love to have a more thrilling answer to “what do you do when you’re not working?” But I’ve come to realize that my path is interesting simply by virtue of the fact that it’s mine. Meandering though it may be, I trust it’s leading me somewhere.<br />
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A couple winters ago, Rob and I spent New Years, as we have every year since, with friends on Orcas Island. To get there, we flew first to Seattle, where we spent two days eating oysters and my favorite <a href="https://www.gpdoughnuts.com/" target="new">custard-filled doughnuts</a>; then, on New Year’s Eve, we drove an hour and a half to Anacortes, where we’d take a ferry to the island. <br />
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Slack under the weight of the previous days' spoils, I sat slumped in the front seat, bare feet on the dashboard. Sensing that I was moments away from sleep, Rob asked if he could put on a podcast he'd started earlier in our travels, but hadn’t had the chance to finish. It was about soil—or, more specifically, the ways in which various types of vineyard soil, rich with minerals or volcanic dust or remnants of ancient seabed, can affect the nuances of the wines they foster. <br />
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It all sounded terribly romantic. It was also, to my ears, indecipherable. I listened to those beautiful, mysterious words for a few minutes, squinting as if confronted with a page of dense, finely printed text. But the lure of sleep was strong. Out the window, the buildings and the pale sky blurred; a stretch of slate-colored water unfurled before us. The voice coming through the car speakers flatlined to a drone. My mind drifted. I felt my eyes close, and I let them.<br />
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You can find my previous POV entries, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV">here</a>. Thank you so much for reading.<br />
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Photo by <a href="http://maxwanger.com/" target="new">Max Wanger</a>.Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-35154087827279422252019-05-01T09:01:00.000-04:002019-05-23T22:20:47.018-04:00Cirera + Espinet on Clever.I recently had the pleasure of writing about this <a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/this-barcelona-apartment-will-inspire-you-to-get-creative-with-curtains" target="new">540 square-foot bachelor pad</a> in Barcelona, which features red marble countertops, dark green micro-cement floors, and terracotta velvet curtains instead of doors. Designed by local firm <a href="https://www.cireraespinet.com/" target="new">Cirera + Espinet</a>, the apartment is full of unique solutions to a host of common small-space conundrums: cramped corners, lack of light, inadequate storage. What I love most about it, though, is that despite its bright colors (and all that luxurious velvet), it's a space that somehow still manages to feel minimal. “We wanted to create a multifunctional apartment,” the designers say, “that was daring and simple at the same time.”<br />
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Read more on <a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/this-barcelona-apartment-will-inspire-you-to-get-creative-with-curtains" target="new">Clever</a>. Photos by Enric Badrinas.Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-48626254408787279022019-04-30T08:18:00.000-04:002019-05-23T22:22:12.589-04:00Recommended Reading / 64.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>From the <i>New York Times</i>:</b> a 2016 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/t-magazine/jenny-slate-wooden-animals.html" target="new">interview</a> with Jenny Slate, who talks about her love of tiny wooden animals, which she keeps around her house (and occasionally in her purse). This caught my attention, as someone who has a few of the very same wooden creatures scattered around my apartment: a cat on the bookshelf, an orange fox near the sugar bowl, a moose in the closet. Says the comedian, "I love having a little secret that doesn’t hurt anybody and that’s a reassertion of myself. I tend to be calm and happy when I’m looking at things like this rabbit, which remind me of when I was younger and only knew how to be myself." Read the interview in its entirety, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/t-magazine/jenny-slate-wooden-animals.html" target="new">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Three more, just because: </b><br />
-In Sweden: real homes <a href="https://www.sightunseen.com/2019/04/real-swedish-interiors-swedish-design-museum-home-viewings/" target="new">become museums</a> for a day.<br />
-<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BtkCRkwHqGB/" target="new">"I hate slick and pretty things."</a><br />
-While not technically a "read," <a href="http://songexploder.net/nakhane" target="new">this episode</a> of the podcast Song Exploder—which features the story behind a song by the South African singer Nakhane—is full of beautiful words. I've listened to the episode twice, and have had the song, "New Brighton," on repeat for days.<br />
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More recommended reads, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">here</a>. Wishing you a wonderful Monday.<br />
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Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-9326723785943847202018-08-28T04:06:00.000-04:002019-05-23T22:22:26.191-04:00POV: Presence.<i><a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV" target="new">POV</a> ("point of view") is a series that addresses many of the same themes covered in my Equals Record column: growing up, saying yes to adventure, learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2012/09/one-of-those-moments.html" target="new">tiny stories</a>.</i><br />
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I tried acupuncture for the first time recently, spending an hour in a brightly-lit office, discussing sleep and stress levels and the color of my tongue; then, another 30 minutes on a bed in a dark room, my body a constellation of thread-thin needles. A tiny lamp, burning orange, shone on my toes.<br />
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As the pins went in, I recounted past needle encounters gone wrong, and my unfortunate tendency to faint post-puncture. “Meditate,” said the doctor, most certainly reading my mind. “Your thoughts may drift, but just remember to breathe.” An assistant switched off the foot warmer, draped me in a blanket, and shut the door. <br />
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Dutifully, I focused on my breath. But not a minute passed before I was trying to figure out what time it must be, picturing the clock on the door counting down the seconds. I thought about the 78-degree weather in the next day’s forecast and the final sentence of a freelance assignment due that week. I wondered whether paper invitations were a worthwhile wedding expense. I studied a vent in the corner of the ceiling and asked myself what would happen to the needles in my legs if I went to sleep and let them fall slack. <br />
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The assistant reappeared. “That was 30 minutes?” I asked. She told me that it had in fact been a little longer, then set to work removing the pins. The light was back on, buzzing.<br />
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One of my earliest memories is being picked up at nursery school, and telling my dad I hadn’t slept at naptime. “I was thinking instead,” I said. “What about?” he asked. “Wars,” I answered. “And hospitals.”<br />
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Later, when I was a little older, I remember going on field trips with my elementary school classes—sitting in plays, wandering museums, shuffling single-file through the kitchen of the local bagel shop—and using the time to daydream. If something didn’t hold my attention, there was a never-ending queue of other things to think about.<br />
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Many years later, my ability to focus has improved. But there are moments—regularly, every day—when I find I’ve tuned out what’s in front of me. A stranger at a dinner party may be talking and I’ll come to the terrifying realization that I haven’t heard a word they’ve said. Reading on the subway, I’ll reach the end of a news article having read the first line but skipped over everything else. Sometimes, still, I daydream through plays and movies, absorbing nothing of them.<br />
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Of course, there’s nothing special about this. Everyone gets distracted; it’s healthy—and healing—to daydream. But I notice these small daily allowances now more than ever—now, when it feels imperative to stay awake, to hear others, to read the words and understand the full story. It’s made me realize how easy it is to drop out of the present. To find a way out of engaging with what isn’t easy or immediately attention-grabbing. To miss things completely: strings of words, entire stories, precious opportunities to lie down and breathe deeply. <br />
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My fiance, Rob, and I took a trip to Aarhus, Denmark last year, arriving on a Sunday in mid-November. The day and a half prior had been frenzied. A nine-hour delay out of New York, a whirlwind stop in Oslo, and a mishmash of wintry weather made for a weekend that seemed to represent a microcosm of the year leading up to it—exhausting, full of joys and frustrations, and over in an instant. The first day, I barely left our hotel room. On the morning of the second, I went for a walk alone while Rob, a musician, rehearsed for a symphony performance at a nearby concert hall. <br />
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With no international phone plan, there were no calls to take, no texts to write, no breaking news to read. Instead I hobbled on cobblestones, drank three cups of coffee in three different coffee shops, and met the people who made them. I ate the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BbmLpyXFPUf/?taken-by=my_shokoko" target="new">world’s best lunch</a>—crumbly, caramel-y cheese on the densest, stickiest bread imaginable—plucking the crusts from the plate as the waiter came to retrieve it: “Wait! I’ll take those with me.” I read a book. I thought of things to write about. (In fact, I planned to write this piece there, and then, as always, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2017/11/pov-return.html" target="new">the time flew</a>.) <br />
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Later in the afternoon, I slipped into the concert hall to watch the last hour of rehearsal. I felt a very particular kind of happy, awake to my senses and a little overwhelmed. I’d feel the same way months later in New Orleans, licking sugar off my fingers to the tune of a lone trumpet, and again, more recently, catching up with a crowd of familiar faces in the sunlight at a friend’s art opening. But in that moment, in Aarhus, none of this had happened yet. There was only this humming hall and its glowing, wood-paneled walls. <br />
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The symphony was playing sections of the same piece over and over with Rob conducting, standing on his toes in polka-dotted socks. <br />
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When I was younger, ignorant to the bliss of music without words, I might have daydreamed it all away. Now, alone in the audience, I was convinced I could hear every note.</div>
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You can find my previous POV entries, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV" target="new">here</a>. Thank you so much for reading.</div>
Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-35331094208340057832018-03-12T23:25:00.000-04:002018-09-02T11:05:13.103-04:00Many Voices.In belated celebration of International Women's Day (but also because it's never the wrong time to recognize creative women), here are snippets from conversations with five inspiring artists I've been lucky enough to interview.<br />
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<b>1) <a href="http://www.arpanarayamajhi.com/" target="new">Arpana Rayamajhi</a>,<span style="color: magenta;"> </span>Jewelry Designer, New York City</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Photo by <a href="http://www.annarosephoto.com/" target="new">Anna Rose</a></td></tr>
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For <a href="https://www.the-weekender.com/ausgaben/22/">The Weekender</a> (translated to German): “I’ve always made things, and ultimately, the reason I do what I do hasn’t changed. It’s just that the language I use to talk about it has gotten a little more sophisticated. When I was younger, I would say, ‘I do this because I love it.’ Now it’s, ‘This is a medium for me to connect with myself and the world.’ In ten years it could be something completely different.”<br />
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<span style="color: black;"><b>2) <a href="https://shop.paperchasepress.com/" target="new">Nicole Katz</a>, Director of Paper Chase Press, Los Angeles</b></span></div>
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For <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2017/02/paper-chase-press-hollywood-studio-visit/">Sight Unseen</a>: "Being a manufacturer in California is important to us, now more than ever. We live in a state that’s approaching a $15 minimum wage, has some of the most stringent environmental and labor laws in the country, and supports a huge immigrant population—my family included. These are values we care about and that we live by."<br />
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<b>3) <a href="http://carlafernandez.com/en/" target="new">Carla Fernández</a>, Fashion Designer, Mexico City</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Photo by <a href="http://anahop.com/" target="new">Ana Hop</a> </td></tr>
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For <a href="https://www.freundevonfreunden.com/interviews/pedro-reyes-and-carla-fernandez/" target="new">Freunde von Freunden</a>: "We want to prevent the extinction of Mexican crafts. My clothing is very fashion-forward but if you look at how it’s made, you’ll understand that it has traditional roots. I’m always thinking, <i>how can we allow these people, who do such amazing work with their hands, to keep their skills?</i>"<br />
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<b>4) <a href="http://www.littlemovingspaces.com/" target="new">Megan Eaton Griswold</a>, Owner of Little Moving Spaces, Jackson, WY</b></div>
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For <a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/jackson-wyoming-yurt-a-dose-of-whimsy-in-the-wilderness" target="new">Architectural Digest</a>: "I wanted to make something small and affordable, yet give it a style we hadn’t seen in a yurt before." (Griswold on her Wyoming yurt, which boasts "the lattice structure and mobility of its traditional Mongolian counterpart, but also a porcelain stove, Michael Anastassiades lighting, and a kitchen built using 800 pounds of Carrara marble hauled in by sled on a trail she forged herself.")<br />
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<b>5) <a href="http://carlyjomorgan.com/" target="new">Carly Jo Morgan</a>, Furniture Designer, Los Angeles</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">Photo via the artist's <a href="http://carlyjomorgan.com/" target="new">website</a></td></tr>
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For <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2017/05/carly-jo-morgan-pink-terrazzo-furniture/">Sight Unseen</a>: "I spent most of my life identifying more with men, which I grew to realize was more out of my own insecurities. Something has softened in me, especially since becoming a mother, and now strong, inspiring women are flowing into all aspects of my life. The sisterhood is deep."<br />
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Many thanks to these women, and all the many others I've had the pleasure of interviewing over the last few years—your stories continue to inspire me.</div>
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Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-29855514428602919692018-03-09T01:16:00.000-05:002018-03-09T01:16:07.168-05:00All Day Drifting.I’ve been trying for weeks now to write something on the subject of paying attention (and trying, also, not to let those weeks <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2017/11/pov-return.html" target="new">turn into months</a>). For that reason, I was all the more charmed to come across <i>Accidental Haiku</i>, a 2009 project by artist Lenka Clayton that’s a true testament to the value of looking closely.<br />
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Outlined <a href="http://www.lenkaclayton.com/accidental-haiku/" target="new">here</a>, the project features pages from an anonymous diary written in the 70s, in which Clayton found several instances of unintentional haiku (rules of the form include the “use of three [or fewer] lines of 17 or fewer syllables” and a seasonal reference).<br />
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This isn’t the first time something like this has caught my eye (see: the <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2012/08/poetry-from-prose.html" target="new">spines of books</a>, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2012/11/even-your-coffee-is-surprised.html" target="new">Google autocomplete</a>,<b> </b><a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2013/04/poetry-of-times.html" target="new">Times Haiku</a>), but I’m grateful for the timing of this particular find—and the happy reminder that there’s poetry to be found everywhere, even in basements that need cleaning, in trips to the hairdresser, in snow on just another winter day.<br />
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More art in the everyday:<br />
-<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BfqYn0PFsAX/?taken-by=zsubidu" target="new">Leeks / love</a><br />
-<a href="http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/03/oslo-street-photography-by-pau-buscato/" target="new">Coincidental captures </a><br />
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See more from Lenka Clayton, <a href="http://www.lenkaclayton.com/" target="new">here</a>. Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-53249993176570877792018-01-05T01:44:00.001-05:002018-01-05T01:48:31.657-05:00Moon Lists.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The holiday rush now behind me, I've realized that again, several weeks have passed in a flash. I spent most of the last four with my family in California, doing everything we typically do this time of year: watch home videos; rummage through boxes of old photos; indulge in our signature rotation of classic Christmas meals and my mom's virtuosic Japanese dinners, which feature dozens of familiar dishes<b> </b>she (and we) grew up eating. Around the holidays, as always, there's so much of the past present.<br />
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2017, as I mentioned <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2017/11/pov-return.html" target="new">here</a>, passed in a blur. This year, I'm making it a goal to focus attention on <i>paying</i> attention—and I'm very happy to have found inspiration in <a href="https://www.moonlists.com/" target="new">Moon Lists</a>, a site created by writer, editor, and fellow FvF contributor Leigh Patterson. Inspired by a <a href="https://www.moonlists.com/about/" target="new">project</a> by photographer Sam Abell, Leigh asks three women every month to reflect on the past 30 days with a short series of questions.<br />
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I've particularly liked entries from other writers, like <a href="https://www.moonlists.com/stephanie-madewell" target="new">Stephanie Madewell</a>, whose experience of nature last April was punctuated with birdsong:<br />
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<i>"...the staccato hops of a woodpecker moving deliberately up and down the trunk of the cedar tree; a swallow flying across the sky, wings out, then in, a swift and joyful looping like writing in cursive with a calligrapher’s pen; the racket of wings from a pair of doves kicked up from the brush; songs and calls in the trees, more and more all the time."</i><br />
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Or <a href="https://www.moonlists.com/marion-seury" target="new">Marion Seury</a> of Paris, who stumbled on a breathtaking read in June:<br />
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<i>"...someone forgot the book 'à ce soir' by writer/journalist laure adler at my place. she is a marguerite duras specialist and you can feel an influence on her writing i think. a very personal and emotional book. I read it straight. It shook my heart."</i><br />
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Or <a href="https://www.moonlists.com/su-wu" target="new">Su Wu</a> of Mexico City, who received a thrilling call in May:<span style="color: red;"></span><br />
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<i>"I’m pregnant, my best friend said into the phone without hello, and I yelled, holy fuck, on the street in another country. Some guy turned, rushed over and asked, are you okay?, and it was a new kind of joy for me, a whole joy running headlong into kindness, and I said, I’m okay, and really, more than ever this month, I was."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>Each year seems to pass quicker than the last. It's easy to forget what happened a week ago, or three months ago, or twelve. I don't like the idea of holding on to the past, but I do like the idea of finding ways to preserve the moments, images, tastes, sounds, smells, and interactions that are the tiles in a year's mosaic—and that make reflecting on the past an act of <span style="color: red;">staying alert, awake, aware</span>.<br />
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This makes me think of something my dad wrote the day after drinking a 75-year-old wine <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc6El0gFM29/?taken-by=my_shokoko" target="new">in honor of his 75th birthday</a>: "It took me back. And forward."<br />
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Find all of Leigh Patterson's Moon Lists (including those excerpted above in their entirety), <a href="https://www.moonlists.com/" target="new">here</a>. Photo by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/emily__johnston/" target="new">Emily Johnston</a>.Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-5175585832423180222017-11-20T12:39:00.000-05:002017-11-21T05:52:58.310-05:00POV: Return.<i><a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV" target="new">POV</a> ("point of view") is a series that addresses many of the same themes covered in my Equals Record column: growing up, saying yes to adventure, learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2012/09/one-of-those-moments.html" target="new">tiny stories</a>.</i><br />
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I got lost on election night, sometime between 11 and 12, before the results were posted. I was heading home from a friend’s apartment only a few blocks from mine, empty-handed—I’d brought wine, cheese, a box of chocolate cake mix but left it all behind in various states of destruction. It was cold and mind-bogglingly quiet save for the rattle of a beer can tumbleweed. In the dark, I considered prayer. I wracked my brain for mantras. I reminded myself of my insistent, if ill-defined, belief in magic. I traveled four blocks before realizing I was walking in the wrong direction.<br />
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I posted to this blog the day after; then not a single time again until today. To say that I was at a loss for words wouldn’t be quite right—it was more like a significant loss of focus. Truth be told, there were a number of things in the past twelve months that contributed to my absence here: changes in work, a transition to a new neighborhood, the blossoming of <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2016/08/pov-waves.html" target="new">a happy relationship</a>, travel, new friends. <br />
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But there was something else, too. I suddenly had a lot of questions. At first, post-election, I wondered if I had the skills—and the smarts—to be a useful member of what suddenly felt like a very different world. I wondered how to ask the right questions, do the right reading, respond effectively. Mostly, I wondered about how best to use my time—and ironically, a lot of time passed as I thought about that. <br />
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In the meantime, there were jobs to do, friends to see, a partner I fiercely wanted to stay present for. And still more questions arose: Was it possible to balance the personal, professional, and political, and still have time to myself—to write, to reflect, to rest, to do nothing? To give these kinds of big questions the space and attention required for them not to remain just questions? <br />
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Days, weeks, months flew by. Somehow—in a haze of city traffic, airplane flights, news headlines, deadlines—a year passed. <br />
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I had no plans not to post here, or to disappear without saying anything (I apologize for that!). I always assumed I’d write something tomorrow. Or the next day, or the day after that. <br />
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I’m still asking myself many of the same questions. But I’ve liked the process of working out the skills needed to answer them. I’ve learned that different times require different things—different ways of thinking, doing, asking. So that we can continue to grow. Meet new challenges. Equip ourselves to live the kinds of lives we find ourselves living. <br />
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One gray October afternoon, I sat with <a href="http://emily-johnston.com/" target="new">Emily</a> in the living room of her rented upstate farmhouse and watched her build a fire—a skill, having only known her as a city dweller, I wasn’t aware she possessed. Crouched at the hearth in this drafty house, she told me it was something she’d learned out of necessity and had grown better at with practice. I watched as she layered wood and paper, erecting a structure that looked a lot like the “houses” I built from leaves and sticks when I was little, anxious to attract the sorts of small animals that lived nowhere near Los Angeles: hedgehogs, chipmunks, prairie dogs. <br />
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I remembered something else from that era of my life, too. It was the feeling of seeing fire, wondering what it was and deciding that it existed only in the realm of magic. If I’m being honest, as an adult—with limited knowledge of science, in a city apartment far from the wilderness—it still does. It’s a skill that’s always struck me as otherworldly—and yet here was my friend, blowing air through her fingers, building fire slowly, the room growing brighter with every breath.<br />
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You can find my previous POV entries, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV" target="new">here</a>.<br />
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To whoever is still out there—thank you so much for reading! I’m sorry, again, for disappearing without explanation for such a long time. Starting after Thanksgiving, I plan to post more often—perhaps not every day, but a few times per month. I'm so grateful to the community I’ve found and connected with here. Thank you for your time, and your notes and emails over the past few months! I’m so glad to be back.</div>
Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-25585469178925715022016-11-09T22:03:00.000-05:002016-11-09T22:03:49.978-05:00Truth / Love.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."<br />
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-Martin Luther King, Jr.<br />
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<a href="http://jezebel.com/a-list-of-pro-women-pro-immigrant-pro-earth-anti-big-1788752078" target="new">Here's how</a> to make a difference.Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-60711113304487762652016-09-06T22:03:00.000-04:002016-09-06T22:03:26.645-04:00Seeing Double.I last <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2013/10/double-life.html" target="new">wrote</a> about French curator Sandrine Kerfante—whose blog, <a href="http://twin-niwt.tumblr.com/" target="new">Twin-Niwt,</a> explores themes of symmetry and twinned identities—three years ago. Last week, I received an email from her announcing the release of <a href="http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/art-design/photography/two-of-a-kind.html" target="new">a book of images</a> based on her finds. (Chronicle Books says that it's just right for friends "who feel as close as sisters, actual sisters who feel as close as twins, and actual twins who will see their duality reflected in...new ways.")<br />
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"I hope you'll like it," Sandrine wrote in her email. I do.<br />
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Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-70899414888231166872016-08-29T22:31:00.000-04:002018-09-20T01:11:13.179-04:00POV: Waves.<i><a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV" target="new">POV</a> ("point of view") is a series that addresses many of the same themes covered in my Equals Record column: growing up, saying yes to adventure, learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2012/09/one-of-those-moments.html" target="new">tiny stories</a>.</i><br />
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<span class="s1">Weeks ago on a Friday, I took a bus out of the city to visit <a href="http://emily-johnston.com/"><span class="s2">Emily</span></a>, who’s rented a house upstate for the summer. My journey to the station was a mess of near-misses that began with a mad dash through Chinatown in midsummer heat and ended with a six-stop subway ride that deposited me at Port Authority moments before my bus was scheduled to leave. I jumped aboard as the door was closing; my seat was the last available.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Five hours later, I arrived in Emily’s town, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hamlet in the Catskills. She picked me up outside a convenience store in a rattling Jeep, and we drove another twenty minutes to the house in stock-still darkness. I could see it as we approached from a distance, its many windows glowing amber. Inside, I marveled at its halls and wooden staircases, its permissive size that allowed for art, music, cooking, apartment-weary visitors.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">We had dinner at midnight; then, before bed, a tiny canele each. Emily ate hers from the center of an enormous dinner plate. For a moment, I thought I knew what she must have looked like as a child.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In the morning, I saw where I was in daylight, my windows in the upstairs guest room revealing a rolling hay field, a parked tractor, and a stone wall giving way to a path that led, presumably, to a river. <i>When did I become old enough,</i> I wondered, <i>to visit friends who live in houses?</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">We spent the morning on the porch, discussing books and baking and the needs of assorted house plants. When we weren’t talking, we were reading or staring drowsily into space, absorbed in the quenching sort of silence shared between those who know each other well. I met Emily when I was 24, ages ago. Then, I remember, I was afraid of things like this—of space and solitude and too much time to think. But many things have happened since: people have come and gone. So have jobs, apartments, neighborhoods. Fears and anxieties that once may have been debilitating have dulled, so that all that’s left now is the ability to admire their strangeness. Change is not so scary—everything, encouragingly, occurring in waves.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">And if there’s been a prevailing comfort to growing older, it’s the joy of watching friends do it, too. I realize, looking back, I’ve never been alone.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Earlier this summer, I sat with Megan—with whom I once <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2013/06/pov-lifetimes.html"><span class="s2">planned a lifetime</span></a>—in a park in Chinatown. We talked about writing, our families in California, the startling pace at which the year has passed. We watched as giant rats zigzagged between the bars of the park’s iron gates. We don’t see each other as much as we once did; when we do, there’s always a lot to say.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The sun went down. It was a Friday night, but we didn’t discuss any activities ahead. “I just want to be present,” Megan said. “Here with you and the rats.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I turned 31 on Monday the 8th, an occasion I observed with a week’s vacation that ended in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a small town home to an annual music festival at which I’d made plans to meet someone. But due to Delta Airline’s global computer glitch, which occurred that week, I spent many hours in transit, wandering vast stretches of various airports alone. I arrived Friday morning in Minneapolis, a day later than planned, only to find that the shuttles to Wisconsin were booked.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Stuffing my things into the backseat of a rental car, I drove instead, spending the better portion of 90 minutes hurtling through colossal stretches of emerald-green farmland. Buoyed by a sense of adventure—spurred by the sudden change of scenery and, perhaps, by travel delirium—I forgot my aloneness. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">That afternoon at the festival, I sat by myself in the grass between sets, watching groups of people pass and remembering a time when similar circumstances would have made me self-conscious. Here, I felt unbothered, entirely visible and altogether not.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">No one seemed to notice when I stood, grass-stained and dirt-smudged—no one except a figure in the distance, his arm in the air, waving.</span></div>
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You can find my previous POV entries, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV">here</a>. Thank you so much, as always, for reading. </div>
Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-76305655438579327842016-06-06T18:10:00.002-04:002016-06-06T18:10:42.118-04:00Recommended Reading / 62.<i><a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">Words</a> to start the week. </i><br />
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<b>This week, from <i>The Atlantic</i>: </b><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/frog-and-toad-and-the-self/483399/" target="new">reflections</a> on the resonance of Arnold Lobel's 1970s children's book series <i>Frog and Toad—</i>a mainstay at my house growing up, and a current favorite of my three-year-old nephew's.<br />
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Writes Bert Clere on another of Lobel's masterpieces, <i>Owl at Home</i>: "Probably the most unique story in <i>Owl at Home</i> is 'Tear-Water Tea,' in which Owl makes a special tea brewed from his tears. To produce the tears, he thinks of sad things like 'songs that cannot be sung because the words have been forgotten' and 'pencils that are too short to use'...Owl’s tears come from those broken and disjointed parts of existence that make no sense, so all that is to be done with them is to accept them, and drink them with a pot of tea."<br />
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Read more at <i><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/frog-and-toad-and-the-self/483399/" target="new">The Atlantic</a>. </i>Illustration by Arnold Lobel.<br />
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<b>Three more, just because: </b><br />
-Violent <a href="http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/05/violent-rabbit-illustrations-found-in-the-margins-of-medieval-manuscripts/" target="new">rabbits</a>.<br />
-"<a href="http://kottke.org/16/05/brief-raptures-in-deserted-places" target="new">Brief raptures</a> in deserted places."<br />
-Loved doing <a href="https://www.othr.com/designers/todd-bracher" target="new">this interview</a> with industrial designer Todd Bracher: "A tree is the result of an ecosystem. And the way I design is to consider what something’s ecosystem is. There are loads of things that define any given project: the market, financial constraints, client needs, et cetera. But tie all those things together with a singular solution—the way a tree does in its ecosystem—and you have, in my opinion, something that’s truly timeless and universal."<br />
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More recommended reads, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">here</a>. Wishing you a very happy Monday—and more to come!</div>
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Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-57658507906507685712016-05-04T13:29:00.000-04:002016-05-04T13:29:42.792-04:00Douglas & Bec on Sight Unseen.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Thrilled to have been able to <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2016/04/douglas-and-bec-new-zealand-home-tour/" target="new">interview</a> Bec Dowie of <a href="http://www.douglasandbec.com/nc/story.html" target="new">Douglas + Bec</a>, a New Zealand-based furniture and lighting design studio, a few weeks ago for Sight Unseen. Bec, who founded the company alongside her father, Douglas, lives 45 minutes outside of Auckland in a converted barn designed to serve as both home and studio.</div>
<br />With bedrooms on movable pods, the space transforms in minutes flat. Not surprisingly, it's furnished almost entirely with family-made pieces—but only just as many as the trio need. During the renovation, Bec says, “We lived with very little for a long time, and [that experience] really ended up informing the design of our home. We had a lovely education that we didn’t need a lot. So when we built the house, everything was very simple. The design shows a lot of restraint.”<br /><br /><div>
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Find the full interview on <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2016/04/douglas-and-bec-new-zealand-home-tour/" target="new">Sight Unseen</a>. Beautiful photos by Pippa Drummond.<br />
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More from my Sight Unseen archive: <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2015/12/brooklyn-ceramicist-behind-insanely-popular-boob-pots/" target="new">Group Partner</a> / <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2015/11/designer-artist-and-animator-todd-st-john/" target="new">Todd St. John</a> / <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2016/01/material-lust-furniture-designers-nyc/" target="new">Material Lust</a>. Thanks so much, as always, for reading.</div>
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Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-36107886937554340792016-05-02T13:07:00.000-04:002016-05-02T13:07:39.431-04:00Recommended Reading / 61.<i><a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">Words</a> to start the week. </i><br />
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<b>This week, from <i>T</i>: </b><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2016/04/12/t-magazine/modern-feminists-in-their-own-words/s/myles-slide-VMOC.html" target="new">words</a> from seven modern feminists, including Tavi Gevinson, Emily Gould, and Beth Ditto. Says Hari Nef of Transparent: "Who gets to decide what a woman is? If one woman is different from another woman, then what unites them as women?"<br />
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Find the slideshow, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2016/04/12/t-magazine/modern-feminists-in-their-own-words/s/myles-slide-VMOC.html" target="new">here</a>. Photos by Scott Trindle.<br />
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<b>Three more, just because: </b><br />
-<a href="http://www.designfaves.com/2016/04/for-the-past-13-years-this-artist-sent-daily-letters-to-the-pacific-ocean" target="new">Daily letters</a> to the ocean.<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/nyregion/speed-dating-for-rabbits.html" target="new"></a><br />
-The <a href="http://heavytable.com/whats-in-princes-fridge/" target="new">contents</a> of Prince's fridge: microgreens, Dunkaroos, 18 types of mustard.<br />
-<a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/154459462198588389/" target="new">Says</a> Georgia O'Keeffe: "I get out my work and have a show for myself before I have it publicly. I make up my own mind about it—how good or bad or indifferent it is. After that the critics can write what they please. I have already settled it for myself, so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free."<br />
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More recommended reads, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">here</a>. Wishing you a very happy Monday.</div>
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Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-81975088042033899182016-04-11T09:08:00.001-04:002016-04-11T09:08:32.866-04:00Pocket Watch.<a href="http://www.melissakaseman.com/preschool-pocket-treasures/">Melissa Kaseman</a> photographs the contents of her three-year-old son's pockets as part of what she calls "a taxonomy report of a child's imagination." Among the spoils: pipe cleaners, paper clips, and a crumpled plate that, on first glance, looks like crystal.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GlBLxlvSZgY/Vwuc66YBbUI/AAAAAAAAQ-I/Wpy3Htzm4Jka6yyTlab66wzCRoynjzojw/s1600/pockets22.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CK2c8y9uDDg/Vwuc60fRS-I/AAAAAAAAQ-E/gLoGmzpbDFwSst8078dWgBsuW2E4829yw/s1600/pockets1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CK2c8y9uDDg/Vwuc60fRS-I/AAAAAAAAQ-E/gLoGmzpbDFwSst8078dWgBsuW2E4829yw/s1600/pockets1.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CK2c8y9uDDg/Vwuc60fRS-I/AAAAAAAAQ-E/gLoGmzpbDFwSst8078dWgBsuW2E4829yw/s1600/pockets1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7PbfKGRZT8Q/Vwuc66yjKWI/AAAAAAAAQ-A/96zU7L81Qa4RF-YQ1BUe9Xx1pSbyepHmw/s1600/pockets14.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7PbfKGRZT8Q/Vwuc66yjKWI/AAAAAAAAQ-A/96zU7L81Qa4RF-YQ1BUe9Xx1pSbyepHmw/s1600/pockets14.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GlBLxlvSZgY/Vwuc66YBbUI/AAAAAAAAQ-I/Wpy3Htzm4Jka6yyTlab66wzCRoynjzojw/s1600/pockets22.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4K6t4x-jADg/Vwuc7YwX_uI/AAAAAAAAQ-M/ND1OwJ0uxPMjSmlBtw0Vzaad9B3n1YbYw/s1600/pockets6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4K6t4x-jADg/Vwuc7YwX_uI/AAAAAAAAQ-M/ND1OwJ0uxPMjSmlBtw0Vzaad9B3n1YbYw/s1600/pockets6.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4K6t4x-jADg/Vwuc7YwX_uI/AAAAAAAAQ-M/ND1OwJ0uxPMjSmlBtw0Vzaad9B3n1YbYw/s1600/pockets6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>More on Melissa's website, <a href="http://www.melissakaseman.com/preschool-pocket-treasures/">here</a>. Have a wonderful Monday.<br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4K6t4x-jADg/Vwuc7YwX_uI/AAAAAAAAQ-M/ND1OwJ0uxPMjSmlBtw0Vzaad9B3n1YbYw/s1600/pockets6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-76353312344716878182016-03-28T14:31:00.001-04:002017-11-20T12:27:22.484-05:00Live In Yourself.Words for Monday, courtesy of <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/essay/237878" target="new">Mina Loy</a>: "Forget that you live in houses, that you may live in yourself."<br />
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<b>A few recommended reads for the week:<br />
</b>-Exquisite <a href="https://vimeo.com/130927316#at=46" target="new">dirt</a>.<br />
-My most recent <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2016/02/brooklyn-studio-american-designers-ladies-gentlemen/" target="new">interview</a> for Sight Unseen, with Ladies & Gentlemen Studio.<br />
-Beautiful words <a href="https://www.apieceapart.com/a%C3%AF-bihr" target="new">from Ai Bihr</a>, via Apiece Apart: "In Japanese we say, <i>‘ashita wa asu no kaze ga huku’—</i>tomorrow a new wind blows. Tomorrow is a new day."<br />
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Photos via <a href="https://www.instagram.com/my_shokoko/" target="new">my Instagram.</a>Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-15031313978691912092016-03-21T00:31:00.001-04:002018-09-20T01:11:59.524-04:00POV: Protection.<i><a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV" target="new">POV</a> ("point of view") is a series that addresses many of the same themes covered in my Equals Record column: growing up, saying yes to adventure, learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2012/09/one-of-those-moments.html" target="new">tiny stories</a>.</i><br />
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I rode the train Thursday morning, crossing the Williamsburg bridge into Manhattan at rush hour. The car was crowded and overwarm, and I stood wedged in a corner by the door, leaning against it as the train lurched out of the station and over the water.<br />
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I read a book and tried to forget that I was late, and hot in my winter coat, and annoyed that no one had thought to offer a seat to the older woman to my left, her arms laden with groceries.<br />
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We came to the end of the bridge, descending underground with wheels screaming. As we slowed, the crowd at the station ahead came into view, waiting with necks craned. I returned to my book, my eyelids suddenly heavy.<br />
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“Miss,” someone said from across the car. A man with silver hair, stooped under the weight of a duffel bag, was waving at me. “Miss, we’re at Essex Street—the doors open on your side of the train at this stop.”<br />
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I was still leaning on the door in a way that must have looked precarious. I stepped forward.<br />
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“I didn’t want you to fall,” the man called. “I wasn’t sure if you knew.”<br />
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I thanked him. I did know, but I was grateful.<br />
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A few days earlier, I stopped by <a href="http://emily-johnston.com/" target="new">Emily’s</a> apartment late in the afternoon. We sat at her kitchen table and stared at the wall, where she’d taped <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BA_5mOzgX6y/?taken-by=emily__johnston" target="new">new artwork</a> in black and gold. Dust from crayons had gathered in the moldings and collected on the surrounding surfaces. Emily ran a sponge over the marble tabletop three or four times until the gray disappeared.<br />
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The last time we’d seen each other was at an art show earlier that month, a chaotic event we’d attended last minute. Although we were surrounded by people in a roomful of color, we barely moved. We spent most of our time parked by the entrance, next to a large pole covered in spikes. Before leaving, I told Emily about my year so far, which has been full of wonderful surprises, but many uncertainties, too. My heart felt heavy that night—but, I said, the experiences I’ve had in the past have made me better equipped to meet new ones. My senses feel more finely tuned to recognize the reminders—both big and small—that I’m safe. <br />
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I stayed at Emily’s until the sun went down. As the room dimmed, she took <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BC7s-bDgX1K/?taken-by=emily__johnston" target="new">photos</a>, instructing me not to move as the light faded further. She focused and unfocused. I remained still in my seat and my mind wandered. When I came to, it was as if I’d left the room. The camera snapped. I’m still here, I thought. Here in this chair; here in this kitchen; here with a friend. <br />
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The room was dark. “I can’t see you,” I said to Emily, who’d turned to shadow. Outside, riotous birds settled in the trees below the windows. <br />
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“I’m still here,” she said. <br />
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You can find my previous POV entries, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV">here</a>. Thank you so much for reading. Photo via <a href="https://www.instagram.com/emily__johnston/" target="new">Emily's Instagram</a>.</div>
Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-46606072146926915462016-02-16T02:23:00.000-05:002016-03-14T23:39:50.922-04:00Under Repair.Please excuse the lack of posts this week as I figure out the best way to fix quite a big photo issue on the site—thank you for your understanding as I sort things out. I'll be back next week with an update; until then, wishing you a wonderful week!<br />
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<b>A few (picture-less) POVs in the meantime:</b><br />
-On <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2015/03/pov-rotations.html" target="new">rotations</a>.<br />
-On <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2015/05/pov-heard.html" target="new">being heard.</a><br />
-On <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2015/03/pov-lived-in.html" target="new">settling</a> (in the best possible way).<br />
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Thank you so much for reading. Photo by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BAdif9OnrIx/?taken-by=maxwanger" target="new">Max Wanger</a>.Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-10703793037862916102016-02-12T11:16:00.000-05:002016-02-12T11:16:09.089-05:00Material Lust on Sight Unseen.Although I'd met <a href="http://www.material-lust.com/" target="new">Material Lust</a> designers Christian Swafford and Lauren Larson before, it wasn't until I visited their studio on assignment <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2016/01/material-lust-furniture-designers-nyc/" target="new">for Sight Unseen</a> that I learned the story behind their brand, which produces furniture and home goods with decidedly dark flair. It was lovely to spend a fall morning in their space—to see their latest work, pore over their beautiful (and non-digital!) inspiration boards, and learn more about what inspires their cutting-edge aesthetic.<br />
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As it turns out, that aesthetic is one that's routinely confused for demonic. Says Christian: “We posted a photo on Instagram recently of a pentagram and a few of our chairs, and someone commented, ‘Unfollow these Satanists.’ Our design was based off of DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man. It was historical, but it had nothing to do with devil worship. Everyone feels the need to categorize.”<br />
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Find <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2016/01/material-lust-furniture-designers-nyc/" target="new">the full interview</a> on Sight Unseen. Photos by <a href="http://emily-johnston.com/" target="new">Emily Johnston</a>.<br />
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More from my Sight Unseen archive: <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2015/12/brooklyn-ceramicist-behind-insanely-popular-boob-pots/">Group Partner</a> / <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2015/11/designer-artist-and-animator-todd-st-john/">Todd St. John</a> / <a href="http://www.sightunseen.com/2016/02/brooklyn-studio-american-designers-ladies-gentlemen/" target="new">Ladies & Gentlmen Studio</a>. Thanks so much for reading.Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-22761589492590935662016-02-08T17:50:00.000-05:002016-02-08T17:50:04.873-05:00Recommended Reading / 60.<i>Every Monday, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">words</a> to start the week. </i> <i><br /></i><br />
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<b>This week, from <a href="http://studiocanoe.com/" target="new">Studiocanoe</a>: </b><a href="https://vimeo.com/studiocanoe" target="new">a short film</a> called "Sum" that offers up an enormous dose of perspective in just four minutes. According to the film, we may spend 30 years of our life asleep, 200 days showering, six weeks waiting for green lights, and 18 days gazing into refrigerators—but spread over decades, these moments are just tiny, magnificent pieces of a much bigger picture. See it all, above.<br />
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Thanks to <i><a href="http://www.freundevonfreunden.com/journal/link-list-44/" target="new">Freunde von Freunden</a></i> for the link. More from Studiocanoe, <a href="http://studiocanoe.com/" target="new">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Three more, just because: </b><br />
-<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/nyregion/speed-dating-for-rabbits.html" target="new">"Speed Dating for Rabbits."</a><br />
-Louise Ma <a href="http://shop.seebytouch.com/" target="new">makes</a> art of hard-to-describe emotions.<br />
-Preschool <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/-_jgtYjIDE/?taken-by=shtpreschoolerssay" target="new">pastimes</a>: "We're playing sunset. We just travel around, like how the sun sets."<br />
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More recommended reads, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">here</a>. Wishing you a happy Monday.</div>
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Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-34762906729074846792016-02-01T16:03:00.000-05:002016-02-01T16:03:32.329-05:00Recommended Reading / 59.<i>Every Monday, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">words</a> to start the week. </i> <i><br /></i><br />
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<b>This week, via <a href="https://www.apieceapart.com/emily-johnston" target="new">Apiece Apart:</a> </b>an interview with photographer Emily Johnston (whose beautiful <a href="http://emily-johnston.com/" target="new">work</a> and <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2014/10/non-career-advice-emily-johnston.html" target="new">words</a> appear on this site often—including in my latest <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2016/01/pov-roads.html" target="new">POV</a>). The Q+A is part of the fashion label's excellent ongoing series, Apiece Apart Woman, and though I loved all of this particular post, what stuck out to me most was Emily's <a href="https://www.apieceapart.com/emily-johnston" target="new">response</a> to a question about mantras:<br />
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<i>"I don’t know that I have one, but lately I’ve been turning back to the words by Wendell Berry that my partner David left in my studio on one particularly challenging day this summer, 'The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.'"</i><br />
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I'm dazzled. Read the interview on <a href="https://www.apieceapart.com/emily-johnston" target="new">Apiece Apart</a>. Photos by <a href="http://www.brianwferry.com/" target="new">Brian W. Ferry.</a><br />
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<b>Three more, just because: </b><br />
-Conceptual <a href="http://www.ignant.de/2016/01/25/conceptual-time-machines-by-les-ateliers-guyon/" target="new">time machines.</a><br />
-<a href="http://fellowresident.com/" target="new">Fellow Resident</a>, a collection of interviews that gives readers a glimpse into "the homes and heads" of inspiring gay men around the world.<br />
-"Normality is a paved road: It's comfortable to walk, <a href="http://modernhepburn.tumblr.com/post/137693937641" target="new">but no flowers grow</a>."<br />
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More recommended reads, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">here</a>. Wishing you a wonderful Monday.</div>
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Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-42813064226625289602016-02-01T16:00:00.000-05:002016-02-01T16:00:50.907-05:00Melancholia.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Found via <a href="http://www.swiss-miss.com/2016/01/melancholia-clock.html" target="new">Swissmiss</a>: the <a href="http://www.kibardindesign.com/products/collection/melancholia-clock-white-black-kibardin/" target="new">Melancholia clock</a>, a numberless, colorless timepiece born of a very deliberate and thoughtful design. Writes creator Vadim Kibardin:</div>
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<i>Like the film </i>Melancholia<i>, my clock...consists of two parts. The minute hand is called ‘Justine’, and she deals with her melancholic sister—the hour hand ‘Claire.’ And just as Lars von Trier’s planet, Melancholia, devours the Earth, my minute hand will devour the hour hand twice a day. Twice a day the minute and hour hands are at the top together. But slowly, melancholia descends between them like a curtain she has set in motion. It looks like the "sisters" truly suffer from doubts. Twice a day you see them meet and talk about their experiences of being alone. They have different tempos. But they have been two, and, for a brief moment they become one.</i><br />
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Read more, <a href="http://www.kibardindesign.com/products/collection/melancholia-clock-white-black-kibardin/" target="new">here</a>.Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-70653953013443234252016-01-30T19:57:00.000-05:002018-09-20T01:12:55.205-04:00POV: Roads.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV" target="new">POV</a> ("point of view") is a series that addresses many of the same themes covered in my Equals Record column: growing up, saying yes to adventure, learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2012/09/one-of-those-moments.html" target="new">tiny stories</a>.</i><br />
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I walked to the grocery store last Saturday afternoon, in the middle of the blizzard. <br />
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Faced with the reality that my fridge contained little more than carrots, butter, and a foil-wrapped chocolate turkey from Thanksgiving, I left to search for the makings of soup, bemoaning every step of the way my failure to have done so a day earlier. Though most everything was closed, shuttered behind the steel curtains of roll-down gates, there were people out, traipsing through the flying snow in happy, shrieking clusters. There was no traffic—an afternoon travel ban had ordered all non-emergency vehicles off the roads—and everyone walked in the middle of the street, free of worry. <br />
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On the way back, everything was gray. Snow fell fast. It was entrancing and apocalyptic, everyone wandering, windblown. I wondered what else was going on one or two or three streets over, and for a moment, it seemed like the whirling gusts might take me. Instead, I reached my front door without incident. Over my shoulder, people seemed to appear from the clouds, slipping, sliding, leaping from cliffs of powder. Above was the faint glow of warmly lit windows. <br />
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Beyond that, there was nothing. It was impossible to see.<br />
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At 16, I moved with my family from Hawaii to LA. We’d been living in Honolulu for eight years, and now we were returning to the city we’d come from nearly a decade earlier. <br />
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I started 11th grade at a small private high school with quite a few kids I remembered from elementary school. My LA friends seemed older, more sophisticated, less sheltered than I did. They smoked cigarettes. They met for coffee. They drove to school and used slang I didn’t understand. Watching them, I was able to see, in bits and pieces, the different directions my life could have taken had we never moved.<br />
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I wonder similar things about other paths I've taken, too. What if I had never moved to New York? Gone to school in Santa Cruz? Taken <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2014/02/pov-triumphs.html" target="new">a life-changing fall</a>? Though certain of these occurrences were the result of deliberate decision-making, many others seem entirely incidental—the tiniest events making the very biggest impacts. <br />
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It’s impossible to know what might have happened if the past had played out differently— but then again, it’s impossible to know what’s ahead at any given moment, too. Either way, it's like walking through a snowstorm: beautiful and dangerous, ripe for surprise.<br />
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A few weeks ago, I walked with <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2014/10/non-career-advice-emily-johnston.html" target="new">Emily</a> from Tribeca to the Lower East Side in search of a late dinner. Neither of us had a place in mind, so we drifted without a plan, turning left and right and crossing streets at random. “I’m sorry I’m taking us on such a chase,” she said. I told her that wandering like this, on an unseasonably warm night, had turned into the best part of my day. <br />
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“I’m glad I ended up here with you,” I said. Our walk had taken many turns; it had given us the time and the opportunity to talk at the same slow pace as our footsteps—a lucky thing.<br />
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It jogged one of my earliest memories, sitting in the backseat of the family car, locking eyes with another child on the sidewalk. I had thought at the time, <i>This is a moment that makes today today. </i>If that moment hadn't happened, that 24 hours would have been <i>very</i> slightly different.<br />
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Emily and I stood at the corner of Broome and Elizabeth. As we waited for the cars to pass, a bicyclist sailed by, her dress fluttering at her ankles. Between her fingers was a single peacock feather, bobbing in the wind as though nodding approval. I made mental notes. Someday, I thought, this will be good to remember.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.8px; text-align: justify;">You can find my previous POV entries, </span><a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/POV" style="background-color: white; border: none; line-height: 20.8px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.8px; text-align: justify;">. Thank you so much, as always, for reading. Photo via <a href="https://www.instagram.com/my_shokoko/" target="new">my Instagram.</a></span></span>Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-10038357944432556792016-01-25T22:47:00.000-05:002016-01-25T22:47:02.591-05:00Recommended Reading / 58.<i>Every Monday, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">words</a> to start the week. </i> <i><br /></i><br />
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<b>This week: </b><a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/19/inenglish/1453208692_424660.html" target="new">an interesting take</a> on social media from Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.<br />
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<i>"The difference between a community and a network is that you belong to a community, but a network belongs to you. You feel in control. You can add friends if you wish, you can delete them if you wish. You are in control of the important people to whom you relate. People feel a little better as a result, because loneliness, abandonment, is the great fear in our individualist age...But most people use social media not to unite, not to open their horizons wider, but on the contrary, to cut themselves a comfort zone where the only sounds they hear are the echoes of their own voice, where the only things they see are the reflections of their own face."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>Read more from Ricardo de Querol's interview, <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/19/inenglish/1453208692_424660.html" target="new">here</a>. Photograph by Grzegorz Lepiarz.<br />
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<b>Three more, just because: </b><br />
-You had me at <a href="http://ironchefshellie.com/2016/01/02/cotton-soft-japanese-cheesecake/" target="new">"cotton soft."</a><br />
-A sommelier <a href="http://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/article/new-bottled-waters-review-sommelier" target="new">samples</a> bottled water.<br />
-<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/magazine/eileen-myles-wants-men-to-take-a-hike.html" target="new">From poet Eileen Myles</a> (whom I've <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2015/01/not-poems-but-patterns.html" target="new">quoted</a> <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/2015/05/primary-things.html" target="new">before</a><b> </b>on this site): "That horrible line of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, 'There are no second acts in American lives,' was the notion of somebody who died of alcoholism quite young. Yes, there are second acts, and there are third acts. I live in New York, where there are fifth acts and sixth acts, even."<br />
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More recommended reads, <a href="http://www.shoandtellblog.com/search/label/recommended%20reading" target="new">here</a>. Wishing you a very happy Monday. (Also: I was derailed by the excitement of snow, but the POV mentioned last week is still to come!)</div>
Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106240052718063308.post-70450227366940890712016-01-22T11:46:00.000-05:002016-01-22T11:46:46.239-05:00Brutalist Beauty on FVF.Sculptor Pedro Reyes and clothing designer Carla Fernández make their home in a beautiful Brutalist structure in Mexico City, surrounding themselves with color, plant life, and an ever-growing collection of books. I was lucky enough <a href="http://www.freundevonfreunden.com/interviews/pedro-reyes-and-carla-fernandez/" target="new">to interview</a> the couple for <i>Freunde von Freunden</i> last month, for a feature that went live this week. My favorite moment in our conversation? Pedro's comparison of the home to both a factory and a playground—and his description of the contents of his library.<br />
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"Our collection is very diverse," he says. "Just last week, I came back from Japan with two suitcases full of books, including an atlas of sand and a book about caterpillars. It all seems random—but it's not."<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Read more on <a href="http://www.freundevonfreunden.com/interviews/pedro-reyes-and-carla-fernandez/" target="new">Freunde von Freunden</a>. Photos by <a href="http://anahop.com/photography/" target="new">Ana Hop</a>.<br />
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More work on FvF: <a href="http://www.freundevonfreunden.com/interviews/linda-derschang/" target="new">Linda Derschang</a> / <a href="http://www.freundevonfreunden.com/interviews/chelsea-miller/" target="new">Chelsea Miller</a> / <a href="http://www.freundevonfreunden.com/workplaces/mick-johan/" target="new">Mick Johan</a>.Shokohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09495498049737713342noreply@blogger.com3