Lux Lotus

The Future of Words

"The whiSpiral is a new kind of keepsake that allows the simple intimacy of a whisper to be carried in a garment that you can wrap around you, take everywhere, and keep for all time."

[first spotted at the sublime we make money not art]

Related from the LL Archives: Cloak and Dazzle, Let Me Count The Crimes.

"Time and Space: Images That Contradict Commonly Held Ideas"

My current obsession: a fantastic site that thematically organizes the best of the holdings in illuminated manuscripts among France's national libraries. There are several marvelous categories, including one on marginalia, which contains the lushly imaginative, Quintain in the Shape of a Snail. [via Deeplinking]

I find the Middle Ages, with their combination of absolute darkness and yet, at the same time, undeniable hints of the luminous period that lay just ahead, to be quite fascinating from both a cultural and historical perspective. An exhibition I particularly enjoyed was the Getty's Illuminating the Renaissance show a couple of years ago. A few months ago, I noted places in New York that have (or had) illuminated manuscripts on display.

And, last time I was in Paris, I finally made it to the Musee National de Moyen Age, and the Unicorn Tapestries, kept in a dimly lit gallery built especially to house them, did not disappoint.

Related from the LL Archives: Artists' Visions, with contemporary miniaturist painter Shahzia Sikander.

Mapplethorpe + Mannerism

The Guggenheim's forthcoming exhibition, pairing photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe with Flemish Mannerist paintings, looks like it will be exquisite. Noted:

The electric potency of love, which informs many of the Mannerist works in the exhibition, is expressed as well in the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, whose sometimes-shocking photographs reveal compelling strength and a nervous energy.

Opening July 1.

Positive Electrons ((2))

That electro show I mentioned a while back is tonight!

This Town'll Break Yr. Heart

I ate a lot of sugar and drank a lot of coffee, and it was one of those days even before almost every person I talked to said, "It's really one of those days." Things are good, really good, but there are a few of them that are up in the air, way up, and you can imagine the sort of introspective melodrama I was dipping my toe into most of this afternoon. As the day wound down, I was waiting for class to begin in the lovely private home where I take yoga lessons, thinking about how I have so much to do that I don't know where to begin and, inevitably, that peculiar feeling that strikes me about New York every few months (it's too hard, too expensive, too fake, too elusive) started to take hold, and then I realized that I was not looking at a poster of a Marcel Dzama drawing. It was the real thing.

Go upstate and get your head together/ Thunderbird is the word and you're light as a feather

I'm just back at my desk after a very fab long weekend in the country with a friend of a recent vintage who is one of the most effortlessly cool people I've ever met. Today's schedule includes catching up on myriad projects, so in lieu of more thoughtful observations, here are the top 10 things I'm crazy about this week:

• Nasty British slang: "Tara Reid is the ultimate American ______."
• The $4 Hanoi Lychee Martinis at Verlaine during Happy Hour (until 10pm)
• John Ashbery's Girls on the Run, a lyrical homage to Darger's Vivian Sisters
• Having a car for just a few days - v.v. refreshing! (the Neon was fine, but next time I am definitely springing for the 300.)
• Buying a brown, shrunken cable-kint cardigan with baby blue accents at Target, and pronouncing it (with a straight face) to have a bit of a Luella/Early Miu Miu  vibe
• Sweet tea with mint in a Mason jar (exquisite enough to warrant a cross-town trek to Daisy May's)
• Tegan and Sara's So Jealous
• Acquiring a pair of Grecian-style Camper sandals that are very Artemis
• The Dan Flavin Institute; I wanted to go yesterday while I still had wheels, but it was closed
• The New York Botanical Garden; next on my list of local pleasures to experience (Other gardens in other places that I have enjoyed visiting and would recommend: Le Jardin des Plantes, The Polly Hill Arboretum, Hillwood Museum Gardens, San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers)

The Smart Set: June 21-26

In this week's edition: a charismatic bank robber, a room full of dirt, atomic art, a reading in the park, coney island hijinks, and more...

Media-opoly

I'm going to DC next month to accompany Bryan as he collects Campaign Desk's (now CJR Daily) 2005 National Press Club Online Journalism Award, distinguished online contribution (honorable mention). Very cool.

And in other news, I may do some consulting for the Media Bloggers Association this summer -- how rad is that?

Country Living

Off on an adventure of the as-relaxing-as-possible sort.

More Monday. XO.

Image source here.

The Shades of Consumption

The fabulous -- and very stylish, of course -- Kim certainly has the right idea: Every once in a while when I can't have something I really want, I post a picture of it  here as some sort of closure.

I do that all the time, as I imagine everyone with a blog has at some point or another. She's got some gorgeous boots pictured on her post, that might not be so perfect in real life but make for a sublime picture share. I'm not so crazy about shoes, though. They just don't do it for me. I tend to buy a new pair every few years at most, and usually only when one of my flip-flops breaks.

A couple of years ago, I was working in an office situation and thought I should invest in some nice shoes for work, so I bought three pairs of  lady-like heels, some wedge espadrilles, and a pair of woven leather ballerina flats at one store over a single lunch break, thinking I'd be set for a decade or so. And then I lost one half of my favorite pair (presumably during a period when I was in three or four cities in as many days), so I acquiesced and bought some gold mesh slippers on the street. For work now, I wear tan suede cowboy boots.

I like to hold on to the things I love. Case in point: the Gucci sunglasses I bought when I was fifteen. They definitely started to show signs of wear and tear after a few years, so I had them fixed at the optician, which entailed putting a tiny screw and bolstering the left arm, all loose-y goose-y as it was. Then I put the most advanced prescription lenses available in them, easily one of the best decisions I ever made. About six months ago, I went to France and they got smashed in my bag, finally sagging so badly that they cracked at a stress point in the middle and crumbled crisply into two halves in my hands on the bus soon after I returned.

I am reluctantly looking at new sunglasses at the moment, but they all seem so expensive and plastic. Right now, though, it's a close race between Dita's "Scandal" (in brown) and this pair by Stella McCartney (seen here).

Which ones do you like better? I think my heart is tipping towards the Stella squares' at the moment...