Smell the Roses.

Really loving this new set of floral tattoos designed for Tattly by illustrator Anna Bond of Rifle Paper Co. - and so very honored to share that that is my neck wearing them on the packaging! A very big thank you to Tattly, Julia Robbs, and Anna Bond for having me - such a thrill (and such a fun day walking around Brooklyn with leaves in my hair and a chest plastered with tattoos).

Floral set for sale at Tattly, here.

Edible Forests.

This week in astounding Japanese culinary creations: edible forests made using fork "trees" that stand upright when inserted into pre-cut slots on a rectangular wooden board. Jellybean leaves, branches made of fig and prosciutto - how deliciously Alice in Wonderland. 

Related: candy paint, chocolate pencils, and an edible zen garden, with sesame rocks and sugar sand (laments the very funny writer at Spoon & Tamago, "the adorable wooden rake included in the set cannot be eaten").

Via Spoon & Tamago. Made by Tetusin Design Office and local artists for the Okawa Conserve.

Books Illustrated.

Bob Eckstein's illustrations of New York City bookstores - complete with historical notes and anecdotes - are wonderful. I have so much affection for my neighborhood bookstore and had favorites in LA and Santa Cruz when I lived in those cities, too - as much as I love finding great material online, there's nothing quite like the thrill of browsing a book aisle, or the pleasure of turning a page.

View all of Eckstein's bookstores, here. (Part two is coming soon.)

See also:
-Drunk texts from famous authors.
-Weird books.
-Lynda Barry on why the arts matter: "For some reason, we think that poetry is this thing you do on the side, once you get your math done or your science done. Same thing with writing or any of the things we call “the arts” – there’s this idea that they’re just an elective, they’re just decoration, and they have nothing to do with our survival … or why we can stand to be here. That’s the reason I’ve made it to 53 – because of finding these things that poetry or painting or place contain. That’s the stuff of mental health, and we ignore it at our peril."

POV: Clarity.

POV ("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. Each POV entry will include a photograph and a short reflection based on what’s pictured. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, tiny stories. 

 

My roommate Lily and I walked across the Williamsburg Bridge yesterday evening. Someone we knew was DJing at a tiny cafe on the Lower East Side, and we spent an hour and a half communing with friends and meeting a few new ones, drinking wine and very good coffee next to the restaurant’s open windows. 

It was eight o’clock and still light out. It was the start of a perfect New York night, someone said.

Feeling indecisive - and remembering that we both had unfinished work waiting for us at our apartment - Lily and I wandered home. We walked slowly, watching boats. We discussed the night ahead, which, back at the cafe, had seemed full of purpose and possibility.

“I don’t want to go home,” I said. Still, we walked in that direction. We sat on the benches outside our building and watched the restaurant downstairs fill with people. We pondered getting drinks, meeting friends, doing our work.

But a half hour later, we were still there, unsure how best to fill our time. This is one of the most wonderful parts of living in New York, and one of its most debilitating curses: on any given night, the possibilities are endless. 

An hour passed. Through the restaurant windows, we watched tables be seated and then cleared, then filled again. A small crowd gathered around us, waiting to be called.

We decided we’d given decision-making our best shot. We climbed the stairs. We left the group behind us. We promised ourselves we'd wake up early.

We Are Tiny.

These photographs of lone explorers, barely visible in contrast to their sweeping surroundings, are part of a series by Randy P. Martin called We Are Tiny. They're a beautiful and humbling reminder that in comparison to the world around us, we're very, very small - but not so small that we can't be seen.

More on Randy P. Martin's website, here.