John & Wolf.

Illustrator John Stortz has been wandering the country for the past two years in the company of his faithful rescue dog, Wolfgang. His photos, which appear on the website John & Wolf, are beautifully shot — those skies, those stars, those burning colors! — and very endearing. A quick scroll through is all you'll need to start planning your own cross-country tour (and the adoption of your own big white Wolf). See for yourself, here.

 Visit John Stortz's website, here. Thanks, Ignant.

Canines & Couches.

This week in unconventional travel: road trip adventures shared between three friends, two dogs, and one very worn-in couch. Details on how exactly the couch (and the friends, and the dogs) are traveling are unclear, but they certainly seem to have covered a lot of ground, smiles intact. See more, here. 

See also: invisible horses; Animals That I Did Not Meet; licensed llama therapists.

Finding Vivian Maier.

"Finding Vivian Maier" is a documentary about a nanny and now-legendary photographer whose 100,000 snapshots from the streets of Chicago and New York went undiscovered for decades. Seven years ago, they were unearthed in an auction - and the process of piecing together the artist's story began. I'm seeing the film today, and I can't wait. Find showtimes in your city, here. (Below, a few of Maier's self portraits.)

Said Maier, "I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It's a wheel. You get on, you have to go to the end. And then somebody has the same opportunity to go to the end and so on."

Learn more about "Finding Vivian Maier" (and watch the trailer), here. Find more photos on the Vivian Maier website.

7 Horses.

7 Horses, a series by Swedish photographer Ulrika Kestere, tells the story of a girl and her seven invisible horses, who were blown away in a storm one day, along with a load of laundry that had been drying outside on the line. Below, the horses in meadows, on hills, in the woods, in the snow:

See more here, and have a happy Monday. Three days til spring…

Holiday Gift Ideas 3: Foxes, Feathers, Beauty Every Day.

Tis the season: every day this week, I'll be posting ten holiday gift ideas - fifty total by Friday. This year, I aimed to feature items from small businesses (Etsy and otherwise), or my favorite local  shops here in NYC. Other items are things I own and love.

Day 3: Foxes, Feathers, Beauty Every Day.

-Sailing Ship Kite, $40. As magical for adults as it is for children. Made in New York City.

-Hand-stitched baseball, $39. I once asked during a high school baseball game whether there were two balls in play - which pretty much says it all about my knowledge of sports, both then and now. Still, I think these baseballs, handcrafted and stitched in waxed linen, are gorgeous.

-Cat paper doll, $8. This cat is tiny and adorable and ballet-slipper pink - and he couldn't care less about any of it.

-Antique astrology chart, $65. For astrology addicts and stargazers, a map of the sky that dates back to 1873. 

-The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4, $17.96. Anais Nin has felt like a spiritual guide to me this past year. I have this line taped to my wall.

-Della MacBook case, $38. Handmade in Ghana, using local, sustainable, vegan materials. (Della is an amazing company that offers education and skills training to its employees in West Africa. Read more, here.)

-Feather tattoo, $5 for 2. To encourage free spirits.

-Honey Maple Cream, $13. Made in Pennsylvania using fresh milk, butter, maple syrup, and vanilla. Indie food website Mouth suggests pairing it with almond butter for what sounds like the most astoundingly delicious sandwich of all time.

-Anthony Burrill print, $75. For your bedroom wall, because what better words could there be to wake up to?

-Woodland socks, $38.63. To ensure warm toes when doing this.

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More tomorrow! For Monday's and Tuesday's guides (and other gift ideas from my archives), click here.

Shoes & Socks.

A big yes to these printed cotton lace-ups by Melbourne's Emily Green (the red ones especially, with lemon-colored laces and blue spots on just one side),

and to my pal Megan's Instagrams of her mis-matched socks - and of Mo, her cat, interfering.

In the spirit of mis-matchedness, three more (non-sartorial) links, just because:
-This is what a porcupine sounds like.
-Literary city guides.
-For Wall Street Journal subscribers, I'm quoted in this article about New Yorkers who take extracurricular classes (cheese-making! sake-tasting! pirouetting and plie-ing!) in their spare time.

Have a happy Thursday!

Finest Friends.

Timothy Leo Taranto's illustrations of writers' favorite animals are charming on their own. Paired with quotes, they're even better - Gerard de Nerval's lauds lobsters for their knowledge of the sea; Hemingway praises the emotional candor of cats. See more at The Paris Review.

Illustrations by Timothy Leo Taranto. 

(See also: animals as hats, marmot madness, Writers and Kitties.)

Unmet.

Every now and then, I come across a piece of art, or a series of photographs, or a poem, or a painting, and I think, this artist/photographer/poet/painter and I could be friends. He/she gets me. As a matter of fact, this happened today when I came across Jen Collins's blog, which features drawings titled "Animals That I Did Not Meet." I love everything about this little collection, especially that chubby dog, who's clearly up to no good. 

See more at Jen Collins's website, shop, and blog. Thanks, Gems. 

And, just because, three additional happy things: birthday sandwiches, beast friends, and the 100 things "you honestly don't need to do before you die." (Example: "You must never swim with dolphins. If they ever want to swim with you, I'm sure they'll let you know.") 

Climbing Trees, Smelling Roses.

Happy Friday! I'm working on a new POV post about fashion and beauty that will be ready to share early next week; in the meantime, a collection of curiosities before the weekend: to start, Kai Fagerstrom's photos of animals inhabiting forgotten cottages in Finland,

a bicycle-powered lift into the trees,

and, lastly, an amazing guide to matching the colors in a friendship bracelet to those in photographs. So well done, Fieldguided.

And three more, because...why not?

-Lynn Yaeger's beauty routine: lipstick blush and henna hair dye.

-Lucas Boirat, beaming.

-E.B. White on his dog, Daisy: "At the moment of her death she was smelling the front of a florist's shop. It was a wet day, and the cab skidded up over the curb - just the sort of excitement that would have amused her, had she been at a safe distance. She is survived by her mother, Jeannie; a brother, Abner; her father, whom she never knew; and two sisters, whom she never liked...She never grew up, and she never took pains to discover, conclusively, the things that might have diminished her curiosity and spoiled her taste. She died sniffing life, and enjoying it."

Have a lovely weekend! 'll be going to the beach - for the first and last time this summer - and celebrating the Autumnal Equinox with a dinner party at my apartment. I'm thinking of making homemade marshmallows - worth the mess?

Building Nests, Eating Frogs.

Curiosities to kick off the weekend: birds' nests, some centuries-old, photographed by Sharon Beals,

Leah Goren's cotton dresses, printed with leaves and faces and blue birds,

and lastly, a baby - who just happens to be my nephew - with excellent taste in music.

More words, more pictures:
-Photographs of "Staff Picks" bookshelves in some of the country's best independent bookstores. (Speaking of which, what are you reading? I recently read this - which The New York Times called "mesmerizingly strange" - and loved it.)
-Words to know, including dactylonomy ("the art of counting on the fingers") and batrachophagous ("one who eats frogs").
-Rules for living: "love the children," "cavil in moonlight," "tune your ears," "howl often."

Have a wonderful weekend!

Animal Antidote.

Just because: photos via COLORS Magazine of llamas Marsico and N.H Flight of the Eagle, who are licensed animal therapists and regular visitors to Washington's Bellingham Health and Rehabilitation Center. The animals, two of only 14 llama therapists in the country, serve as soothing symbols of happiness, humor, and hope - as one Bellingham patient tells COLORS: "It's amazing that there's another life out there."

See more at COLORS Magazine, here. Photographs by Jen Osborne. Thanks, Design Taxi.

See also: marmots, tweeters, Horace the Hare.

Art, Ungulate, Abandoned Books.

Three things to kick off the weekend: "Looking at Art," Shizu Saldamando's portrait series of art spectators, drawn in ballpoint pen,

a duo of informative animal charts by Hong Kong-based designer Furze Chan,

and lastly, these, captured by the very talented Emily Blincoe.

Additional treasures, just because:
-Books abandoned on the stoops of Brooklyn.
-"The Fine Art of Sighing."
-Mark Twain's description of his lost cat, Bambino: "Large and intensely black; thick, velvety fur; has a faint fringe of white hair across his chest; not easy to find in ordinary light." I love this so much.

Wishing you a happy weekend! (I'll be attempting another kitchen experiment for a friend's birthday on Saturday. Hope it turns out better - or at least better-looking - than this one.) See you Monday.