The Giant Birdsnest.

Think of the Giant Birdsnest, designed by OGE Creative Group, as the ultimate conversation pit. I'd bet it'd also be the most relaxing place to read, or nap, or to stare out the window — or, as its makers encourage, to create ideas. ("The Giant Birdsnest…is a fusion of furniture and playground," they say.) My favorite part of the whole thing? The fact that the nest comes in four sizes (the biggest can seat 16), and that the color of your cotton-lycra eggs can be customized. Sign me up. 

Learn more about OGE's Giant Birdsnest, here. 

Recommended Reading / 10.

Every Monday, words to start the week.

Keeping it short this week, from Ricky Gervais: a tiny tidbit of really, really good advice. 

Three more links, just because:
-No.
-Movie theater etiquette of way-back-when.
-Pico Iyer writes about Leonard Cohen's decision to spend five years in seclusion under the tutelage of Zen teacher Kyozan Joshu Sasaki: "Sitting still with his aged Japanese friend, sipping Courvoisier, and listening to the crickets deep into the night, was the closest he'd come to finding lasting happiness, the kind that doesn't change even when life throws up one of its regular challenges and disruptions. 'Nothing touches it,' Cohen said, as the light came into the cabin, of sitting still…Going nowhere, as Cohen described it, was the grand adventure that makes sense of everywhere else."

Have a happy Monday! More recommended reading, here.

Non-Career Advice: Liza Lubell.

Non-Career Advice is a series that asks people - young, old, and in a range of occupations - for words of wisdom unrelated to work, career-building, dollars, or getting ahead.

Liza Lubell / Floral Designer

Also: Crafter / world traveler  / apple pie & whiskey aficionado 

Age: 32

Focus on what has staying power. (Hint: it's not money.) "When I first began my flower career, I didn’t really have much in mind in the way of goals. I knew I loved flowers and thought supporting myself vis a vis “playing with flowers” all day sounded like a good idea. As I dove deeper into my work, though, I put my professional hat on a little tighter and started to create some goals: wouldn’t it be nice to have my work in a magazine, or to travel to another country for a job, or have people write articles about me, and so on.

At first, checking some of those items off my list was exhilarating. But while I'm certainly proud of my work, I've realized something over the course of the past few years: the more we rely on external forms of praise to validate ourselves, the less it works — and the exhilaration I get from those sorts of successes doesn't have much staying power. The things that do are much simpler (and, it turns out, right under my nose all along): family, friends, a sense of home. The happiness I get from cultivating and nurturing personal relationships is much longer-lasting than any I could derive elsewhere. It makes me feel rich in a way that's much more special than money."

Thank you so much, Liza! More from the Non-Career Advice series, here.

Photo by Matthew Williams.

Friends & Neighbors / Spoonbill & Sugartown.

In Friends & Neighbors, I'll introduce you to some of my favorite creative businesses in Williamsburg. With a new expensive store or chain restaurant opening seemingly every week, there's been much talk these days about how Williamsburg is "over." This series showcases shops, restaurants, and studios that make the neighborhood special, and prove that integrity, creativity, and an artistic spirit are still alive and well. They're places that make me proud to live here, and to call the faces behind their counters neighbors. Photographs by Jacquelyne Pierson.

Located amid the chaos of Williamsburg's Bedford Avenue is Spoonbill & Sugartown, an independent bookstore stocking new and used titles in a wide range of genres: cooking, art, design, architecture, music, literature, and everything in between. (It's also home to one of my favorite magazine racks in the neighborhood, and an always-dependable selection of books on sale for just a few dollars each, on display on shelves and tables outside.)

Opened fifteen years ago by Miles Bellamy and Jonas Kyle, the shop has been around long enough to witness an almost complete transformation of the neighborhood. Lining what were once much emptier streets are now a Madewell, a J. Crew, an Urban Outfitters, a Dunkin' Donuts. Whole Foods is set to open steps away in 2015. Still, Spoonbill remains standing. (Five years ago,  The New York Times reported, the store celebrated a decade of business with women in white singing, "May the books flow 10 more years.")

Funnily enough, my first memory of Brooklyn is of this very store. I was visiting the city in 2002 as a high school senior, and my older brother brought me to Williamsburg, telling me it was an area he'd heard was popular among "the cool kids." I remember feeling confused as we emerged from the subway station — it was quiet, and seemingly empty. Nothing like the New York City I imagined (or the Williamsburg that exists today). Why would anyone want to live here? I wondered. Then we walked through Spoonbill & Sugartown, and I felt suddenly, surprisingly at home. It was, unbeknownst to me then, just the beginning of a long, much-cherished love affair.

Spoonbill & Sugartown, Booksellers, 218 Bedford Avenue, (718) 387-7322
Mon-Sun 10am - 10pm

Five Minutes with Jonas Kyle:

Tell me about opening Spoonbill fifteen years ago. What inspired you to start a store? It was 1999. Williamsburg wasn't anything like it is now. It was grimier. It didn't have a worldwide reputation. The warehouses and factories were still functioning as warehouses and factories, and it was still a relatively unnoticed part of the city. I'd known Miles, who was working with his father in the art business at the time, since we were in high school. He'd always wanted to open a bookstore and asked if I wanted to do it with him. We got wind that this building — an old sweater factory —was being converted into apartments and stores. There was an art community based here, and we decided to open our store to serve that community.

What's surprised you most about the ways in which the neighborhood has changed since then? The speed and scale of the changes have been remarkable. What's funny to me is that a lot of people think we're a tourist spot. In many ways, we have become that. Many of our customers are visitors to the city.

Lastly, do you have any reading recommendations to share? The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink was very good. I'm reading In the Dust of This Planet now — it was featured on Radiolab; after that, people started asking about it. I'm also reading Adventures in the Anthropocene, by Gaia Vince, a science writer who basically gave up her job to wander the earth exploring the effects of climate change. It's very smart.

Thanks so much, Jonas. Visit the Spoonbill & Sugartown website for more information, here.

Recommended Reading / 09.

Every Monday, words to start the week.

This week, via Kottke: On Kindness, a piece by writer Cord Jefferson about lessons learned from his mother, a woman who has kept her kind spirit even in the face of cruelty, and callousness, and cancer. It's easily the best thing I've read in weeks — I told myself I'd spend five minutes of my busy morning reading it; instead, I spent the better part of an hour and couldn't be happier that I did. 

Cord writes: I am hopeful that my mother will be around to share many more years with us. But I’m now attempting to find some comfort in the idea that I can keep her close to me for as long as I live by struggling to remain decent, the pursuit that I’ve seen conjure up incredible power during the course of her life. This world takes so much from us. It takes our friends and first loves. It takes our parents. It takes our faith. It takes our dignity. It takes our passion. It takes our health. It takes our honesty, and it takes our credulity. To lose so much and still hold onto yourself is perhaps the most complicated task human beings are asked to perform, which is why seeing it done with aplomb is as thrilling as looking at dinosaur bones or seeing a herd of elephants. It’s an honor to exist on Earth with these things.

Find On Kindness in its entirety, here. 

Three more links, just because:
-The Literary US: a book for every state.
-Take a peek into your subconscious via the act of coloring.
-On the regional accents and idiosyncrasies of sign language speakers: "New Yorkers are notorious fast-talkers, while Ohioans are calm and relaxed. New Yorkers also curse more."

More recommended reading, here. Photo by Liza Lubell.