It’s an impressive album filled with crunchy guitars, heavy bass, and some really, really good drum breaks. But almost more than the music I’ve been spending a lot of time with the record cover, complete with 3-D glasses. Vinyl is, of course, making a come-back in certain circles but is still a relative rarity, which obviously makes cover art that you can touch and interact with scarce too. Thankfully the concert poster (or show flier) is still ubiquitous on city streets across the world. (more…)
Earth and water, with a little help from human hands, create some beautiful things. These homes, called cases obos, were the traditional mud dwellings of the Musgum peoples of Cameroon, and though rare, some groups still construct them. Wonder what the grooves are for? They help with rain drainage, allow people climb to the top for maintenance, and provide a canvas for customization. Check out more at Designboom here.
I’ve made cashew cheese before (man that sounds gross, but it’s pretty tasty, I promise) but I’ve never tried making my own almond milk. I’ve recently replaced soy with almond in the milk department and I’m curious as to how different a homemade batch might taste. Has anyone tried and had success with this?
Maybe Midwest is best. $220,000 won’t buy you a studio apartment in the latte-quaffing cities of the East, but it’s the price tag on this Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired, 2-bedroom, 1.5-bath house in Waukesha, Wisconsin, 20 minutes west of Milwaukee.
Floor-to-ceiling windows and a landscaped patio for glamorous indoor/outdoor living—in the non-snowy months.
Today, filmmakers, directors, producers, buskers, and film lovers converge on an unassuming Midwestern college town, smack in the middle of Kansas City and St. Louis. Columbia, Missouri (home of the University of Missouri, Columbia College, and Stephens College), plays host to True/False Film Fest, now in its seventh year.
With 36 documentary films (selected from more than 700 submissions), 25 shorts, 30 musical acts, six concerts, three parties, one game show, and one parade crammed into 96 hours, this weekend will be an exercise in stamina. I’ll be taking in 13 of the T/F selection, including two secret screenings (which means these films are mysteriously showing up here before officially premiering at another film festival…and that’s all you’re going to hear about ‘em) and 11 other films that run the spectrum of a delightfully absurd plan in The Mirror to a right-in-the-middle-of-a-war-zone platoon in Restrepo.
The amazing thing about this festival, though, is that it’s more than just films. At least one person from each documentary makes it to the four-day event, and site-specific art installations create fanciful theaters from a collection of nine venues carved out of downtown Columbia. Musicians perform before each screening, filmmakers hustle along the sidewalks to make their next movie just like you do, and the folks in attendance are some of the nicest around. I’ll be your eyes and ears this weekend, hoping to capture as much as I can to share with you throughout next week. After the jump, I’ve collected various True/False tidbits for your perusal, so click “read more” and dive right in.
I choose this week’s food blog of the week mostly based on the photos of spring produce that appear in a recent post about making soup on market day. I am longing to have some radishes in my life! Even more important, I am loving the section on Kiss My Spatula called “Homemade Pantry” which is full of recipes for homemade staples like peanut butter, butter, spicy mustard and even cherry garcia ice cream. And if that’s not enough reason to get into the kitchen, check out the recipes for coconut cupcakes, Vietnamese spring rolls (which were recently featured on Design Sponge), walnut pesto and satsuma sorbet.
I learned a new word at the New York Gift Fair a couple of weeks back. The word is kantha, and it refers to a quilting technique practiced in the Bengal region of India, by which used cotton saris—which are, in themselves, giant pieces of flat, patterned fabric—are fused together in layers, using a simple running stitch, to create blankets and other useful items.
I noticed a few vendors exhibitors featuring kantha or kantha-like items, but the most impressive examples came from Jeanette Farrier’s booth. Her kantha throws and baby blankets are made by women who work out of their homes in two villages in West Bengal. The throws consist of five layers of discarded saris stitched together. The juxtaposed colors and patterns are hapy-making, and the pieces really stood apart because of their heavenly softness, cotton being one of those fabrics that seems to keep getting better with use: think of the broken-in effect of your favorite old shirt, in blanket form.
Which gets me thinking…kantha quilt made of old tee shirts, anyone?
If you’re like me, you have a sprightly pair of rain boots and a blah pair of snow boots. I’ve been trying to inject some color into this dreary season by wearing the brighter (but less equipped to handle the cold) rubber wellies. Thanks to Tanna of Alaska Crafter, I can now make boot liners of my very own! Pull out an old cozy sweater and fire up the sewing machine—the sleeves become socks in this ingenious reuse. Click here for the full tutorial with pictures.
Lately I’ve been immersed in Colum McCann’s novel, “Let the Great World Spin.” The story revolves around the lives of several different New York City residents during the summer of 1974, when Philipe Petit decided to tie a tightrope between the then uncompleted World Trade Center Towers and take a stroll.
Anyone who has seen the 2008 documentary, Man on Wire, by James Marsh, has a sense of what it must have been like to actually witness the epic event. Of course, seeing it from the comfort of a movie theater or curled up on your couch can’t come close to standing on the streets of lower Manhattan on a muggy August morning and seeing a spec step off a 1,368 foot tall building onto a thin steel cable. Still, the film does a decent job. But I’m tempted to say that McCann’s description in “Let the Great World Spin” does it one better.
On a recent flight back east from California, I dug into the chapter, “Etherwest.” Here, McCann paints the picture of some computer hackers in Silcon Valley calling pay phones in Manhattan’s financial district in hopes of getting someone to pick up and give them the play by play of Petit’s walk. During this reading I was struck by what I found so amazing about this feat. Obviously it was an incredible physical undertaking and an adventure unlike any other. More than that though, I was taken with the fact that Petit took this amazing risk for seemingly no other reason other than to see if it could be done. To see what is possible. To see what would happen.
Much like Petit’s walk atop New York, the city of Detroit sparks similar emotions in me. I visited the city a few weeks back and it never ceases to amaze me so I thought I’d share some of my photographs from this recent excursion.
Dutch artist Jimini Hignettcarved this piece from discarded scraps from a burnt out house in Detroit this past summer.
Speramus Meliora Resurget Cineribus is the city’s slogan. In Latin, It means “We Hope For Better Things; It Shall Rise from the Ashes.” (more…)
I’m suddenly quite taken with this new term, glamping. A portmanteau of the words glamour and camping, glamping refers to camping in a more than ordinarily luxurious manner.
A New York Times travel piece in September 2008 described the rise of “hip hotels of camping”—places where you can enjoy nature from the comfort of a well-appointed, semi-permanent tent erected by someone else.
Just recently, a piece in the Wall Street Journal predicted that glamping’s reach will expand considerably in the near term, since “camping with amenities” will appeal to Americans who want to experience a little luxury and novelty but are feeling too recession-strapped to travel overseas.
Both articles mentioned Clayoquot Wilderness Resort near Tofino, British Columbia as a kind of gold standard of glamping. But glamping spots are cropping up all over.
Just recently, in fact, I’ve been noticing examples of what you might call a glamping subgenre: rustic yet luxurious farm stays. It seems a little Marie-Antoinnetish, or at least ironic (19th & 20th centuries: Americans struggle to leave small farms; 21st century: Americans rush to spend their vacations on small farms), but perhaps only natural, given the recent upsurge of interest in organic agriculture, eating local, fresh produce, food origins, etc. And it’s hard to deny that the destinations look pleasant as all get out.
You can ponder your own Omnivore’s Dilemma during a tent stay at MaryJane’s Farm in Moscow, Idaho (pictured above), or at one of the three locations of Feather Down Farms, a mini franchise that places luxury tent accommodations on small-scale, working family farms (pictured below).
I gotta admit, I do love an Oreo (or to be honest, a Newman-O) but these Faux-reos from the folks behind Bakers Banter (King Arthur Flour’s fantastic baking blog) look like a nice way to mix things up.
If you’re into Italian turntablists and obscure Kyrgyz composers, then Okapi’s Love Him (out today) is the record for you. He riffs on Aldo Kapi’s symphonies using over 100 different elements, making a sometimes jarring, always intriguing lineup of 16 tracks. I found it a tad difficult to listen to while tapping my keyboard at work, but it did make a nice soundtrack for my morning run. The minimalist samples provided just enough rhythm without feeling like I should be in a black-lit room with a fog machine.
So what exactly is an Okapi, you ask? And what does it have to do with music? Here it is, straight from the artist:
One of its strangest characteristics is that it is the only known mammal to wash out its own ears with its tongue: just to catch the weird melodies of nature. He adores those ferocious and vindictive chants that make him sway…and he fights relentlessly for the domination and hegemony of incorrect and unlistenable music…
A lot of times, office work seems like the mortal enemy of fitness.
Combining computer work with calorie-burning exercise on a slow-moving treadmill desk isn’t a completely new idea (this Good Morning America segment about treadmill desks from 2007 estimates that walking at 1 MPH while working can burn around 100 to 130 calories an hour), but it’s fair to say it hasn’t caught on widely yet, either.
But Eric Wilhelm’s recent Instructable on how to DIY a treadmill desk—depending on how cheap of a used treadmill you can find, he estimates you can build one for around $150—seems a step (ha!) in the right direction.
If you happen to be in the Brooklyn area, drop by Etsy Lab’s free-for-all craft night tonight from 4-8 pm. Though each event usually has a theme, tonight it’s all about what making whatever you want to make. Finish up something that’s been waiting in the wings, or try your hand at an entirely new trade. As always, the Etsy team has a stash of supplies and tools that you can use. So get crafting!
Over the holidays I had a serious craving for meatloaf, which was surprising since it’s got to be close to 5 (maybe even 10) years since I’ve had it. Apparently that craving passed because I didn’t remember that I nearly insisted on finding a diner immediately until I saw this image on Food Loves Writing this morning. It’s a meatloaf sandwich, which is just about as perfect a use of leftovers as I can imagine. Would it be weird if I set a goal to eat meatloaf, either on it’s own (with mashed potatoes) or as a sandwich, this week? I hope not!
Alexa Fornoff is the assistant editor of ReadyMade, and she blogs here about art and happenings. She enjoys reading—a lot—and is currently making her way through the Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions. When her nose isn't buried between pages, she likes to eat good food and drink good drinks. Contact Alexa | Read posts by Alexa
Amy Palanjian is originally from a mile-wide town in south Jersey. When she's not creating color-coded spreadsheets, watching out for excessive garnish on food shoots and keeping the ship afloat as ReadyMade's deputy editor in Des Moines, she quilts, bakes granola and blogs about people who make things at her appropriately titled blog, Things We Make. She blogs daily about food. Contact Amy | Read posts by Amy
Katherine Sharpe is the online editor of ReadyMade. She lives in Brooklyn, where she mostly makes food and to-do lists, but she's interested in bigger, headier creations: think Buckminster Fuller-esque architectural utopianism. She blogs daily or almost-daily about furniture, design, buildings, awesome jobs, and books. Contact Katherine | Read posts by Katherine
Andrew Wagner, ReadyMade's editor-in-chief, has long been driven by his curiosity about how people and places mutually affect one another. After founding Dodge City Journal, and helping to found Limn and Dwell, he saw American Craft through a major redesign. His interests include architecture, design, art, music, baseball, and the ineffable yogurt/granola combination. He tries his best to post on Tuesdays about architecture, design, and cities. Contact Andrew | Read posts by Andrew
