Every once in awhile someone sends me something that may not have to do with art or design, furniture or marketing..but is worth sharing.
This David Attenborough video of the amazing mimic, the Lyre Bird, is just that.
Ironically, he actually imitates the very sound of the chainsaws destroying his home as well as the camera shutter clicks of birders..
Take a look/listen:
Six Fabulous New Finds
Below are six fabulous new Finds. Modern Alphabet flash cards for the designer kid, groovy compact umbrellas by Tray 6, The new Reveal wtach in orange or black, custom leather monogrammed or initialed Moleskine covers, a set of 6 beautiful bone china plates that feature London, and finally colored toilet paper in Orange, Red or Black.
Just click on the images below to purchase.
Just click on the images below to purchase.
See more great items for the home here.
Jesus? Che Guevara? Nope, It's Designer Fabio Novembre
Above: The artist seated in his 's.o.s. sofa of solitude'
Below is A Chat with Fabio Novembre, Italian Architect, from Icon Magazine, peppered with images I found. “Ever since i was a kid I hated the fact that someone kicked us out of paradise, you know? I wanted to go and squat in the forbidden tree. I wanted to live with the serpent and eat apples every day. Nobody can kick me out of paradise.” Fabio Novembre is sitting cross-legged on a low chair in his almost-complete new studio-cum-house, which is plain and empty and damp from the incessant rain outside.
It has the air of a chapel and the meeting feels like a
private tutorial with some kind of paramilitary love priest. Novembre is wearing
a guerrilla-chic jumper that resembles a bullet-proof vest, and an army cap with
a red star. His discourse, which invokes Che Guevara, Jesus Christ, sex and
transvestitism, is delivered with the fervent sensuality you’d expect of an
Italian: “I really live through love,” he exclaims. ”It’s the only fuel in my
engine.”
His rhetoric is intoxicating – it’s only weeks later, when transcribing the tape, that the monologue comes to seem faintly ridiculous. But such is the power of charisma. Novembre, 37, is a Milan-based architect whose work – mostly interiors for hotels, bars and nightclubs – features rich materials, such as gold and faux crocodile skin, and highly sensual forms. His style has been described as “narcissistic neo-baroque”.
He has designed some singular pieces of furniture including the spectacular, coil-shaped “And” sofa for Cappellini and until recently he was creative director for mosaic company Bisazza; Novembre uses mosaics with a three-dimensional exuberance not seen since Gaudí.
above: His interior for Bisazza
He was brought up in Lecce in southern Italy and although, like any good nihilist, he despises labels, he admits that memories of his home town have pervaded his work. “Lecce is the capital of the baroque in Italy,” he says. “I don’t believe in architectonic DNA, but for sure I breathed that atmosphere for 17 years.”
The studio-house, his latest project, is comparatively restrained, except for the first-floor living quarters, which are supported by a broad tree trunk. At the top of this column, a vivid green mosaic dotted with apples flows out across the soffit and up the walls. A huge serpent snakes amid the foliage, its mouth poised to snap shut on a fat red apple: Novembre’s new house is the forbidden tree of his childhood fantasies.
above: The studio house interior
The tranquility of the space will be shattered in a few weeks when Fabio and his retinue move in. “The place where I am now, there’s no walls. My bed is on wheels. Everybody has the keys so people can arrive any time of the day, so it’s more like a squat than a studio or a house. This is going to be the same, but even bigger. I really believe in space to be used as the factory of the world, to cross, to intersect, to put things together. That’s really the way I live. There’s no difference for me between life and work. I don’t make any division; it’s impossible.”
A visit to his website (www.novembre.it) confirms this: photographs of Novembre in a variety of guises – and states of undress – enjoy equal billing with the images of his work. One photo has him made up like Jesus, complete with fibre-optic crown of thorns, and is accompanied by the slogan “Be your own messiah”.
What’s that all about?
“I wrote a little pamphlet called ‘Be your own messiah’,” he says, explaining that the project is a reaction against his staunchly Catholic upbringing. “The provocation was to pitch myself as Jesus Christ. I really like Jesus – I think he’s a good guy – but I hate all the bullshit around him. This is the big problem of our Judeo-Christian tradition: we’re all waiting for the fucking prophet!
As a kid I hated the image of the sheep and the shepherd. In church everybody used to say, ‘Ah, you are the sheep, and the shepherd is going to save you’. Fuck! I hate being a sheep. There are no shepherds. Be your own messiah.”
Over the years Novembre has turned up for photo shoots looking like a deranged kung-fu fighter, a muscle-bound mystic, a louche rock star or, today, a Cuban revolutionary. This stream of alter egos is perhaps a way of voicing his anti-establishment instincts without alienating himself, or revealing his vulnerability, in a deeply conformist country. It’s not me criticising the church, he seems to be saying, that’s just a character I was playing. “I like to think of heroes as the stars of our darkest nights,” he says. “There are moments when you feel so lonely and you have a lot of trouble, but when you think of people you adore like Federico Fellini, Carlo Moldino, Che Guevara, Jesus Christ as well; they had the same troubles, but look at them! They really did what they wanted to do.”
Novembre studied architecture because it offered him the broadest possible education: architecture schools in Italy teach students about philosophy, sociology, literature and art. “In Italy, you choose architecture just to open your mind, not to have a profession. It has never been oriented to how to build buildings. When I came out of there I couldn’t put one brick on top of another.”
Above: his interior for the Shu restaurant in Milan, 1999
Italian architects are uniquely disadvantaged since besides the peer pressure of working amid the world’s richest architectural heritage, it is difficult to build anything remotely adventurous in the country.
above: Hotel Vittoria, Florence
“Regulations here are so strict; they’re bullshit,” says Novembre. “The Hotel Vittoria in Florence, which opened late last year] I designed – I couldn’t touch the street frontage. I wanted to put something on the street to serve as a sign for the hotel. I fought and fought until the city architectural commission and I were almost kicking each other. But of course they cancelled it. In Italy, to build, is impossible. Im! Poss! I! Ble!” As if to stick two fingers up to Italian conservatism, Novembre filled the hotel’s interior with sweeping brocade-patterned mosaics and spiralling leather, Corian and lamé surfaces.
Many designers are using organic forms and floral patterns these days, but in Novembre’s hands, the specimens have been pumped with fertiliser and have taken over the greenhouse. Novembre’s work is often unashamedly physiological – his L’Origine du Monde nightclub in Milan featured huge murals depicting naked women, a pair of legs straddles the entrance to his Anna Molinari store in London and the ceiling of his Shu Café in Milan is held up by a pair of oversized arms. “My main inspiration is the body of women. All my architecture is very organic not because I decided to be organic but because to me, probably I still refer to my mother’s belly. Our first house is always our mother’s belly. In a way I’m still there; I look for things that are soft and comfortable and curvy and sensual.” Yet, unusually for an architect, he never draws: these voluptuous configurations are instead conveyed verbally. “I cannot draw at all; I am not gifted at all with my hands. I really am not able to transfer my vision in drawings. But I can talk about them and I can write; I am really gifted.”
For his early projects, he would submit proposals to clients as poetry and convey instructions to builders through gesticulation. “I used to call it action designing. I would be on site with the workers and I’d say, I want something like this over there, okay, and from there to there you go like this, drawing with my hands but without actually putting it on paper. Like an orchestra director.” Novembre has now built up a team of architects and designers, so the production process has become a little more conventional. “My staff have become my hands,” he says. “But still when I work with craftsmen, I go to where they are working and try to make them enter in the mood of what I’m trying to achieve.” Now, after around 15 years in practice, Novembre has his first new-build commission: a new headquarters for fashion house Meltin’ Pot in Apulia, southern Italy.
Novembre will build a conference centre and hotel alongside an 18th-century villa owned by the company. Many architects might see a project like this as their big break, but Novembre is surprisingly laid back about his career trajectory. “I don’t have ambitions,” he says languidly. “I don’t want to do too much. I just try to live the best way I can; try to make the best of each day. People always ask ‘what’s your dream project?’ and I say, ‘to get to the end of the day and to be proud!’ I don’t have these kinds of goals. I call it the Renzo Piano syndrome: when you start doing too many things. I’m very self-critical so I accept really few jobs. When I do a piece of design, it’s really a piece of my heart. It’s not just another chair. Otherwise I don’t do anything.”
Fabio Novembre
“I wrote a little pamphlet called ‘Be your own messiah’,” he says, explaining that the project is a reaction against his staunchly Catholic upbringing. “The provocation was to pitch myself as Jesus Christ. I really like Jesus – I think he’s a good guy – but I hate all the bullshit around him. This is the big problem of our Judeo-Christian tradition: we’re all waiting for the fucking prophet!
As a kid I hated the image of the sheep and the shepherd. In church everybody used to say, ‘Ah, you are the sheep, and the shepherd is going to save you’. Fuck! I hate being a sheep. There are no shepherds. Be your own messiah.”
Over the years Novembre has turned up for photo shoots looking like a deranged kung-fu fighter, a muscle-bound mystic, a louche rock star or, today, a Cuban revolutionary. This stream of alter egos is perhaps a way of voicing his anti-establishment instincts without alienating himself, or revealing his vulnerability, in a deeply conformist country. It’s not me criticising the church, he seems to be saying, that’s just a character I was playing. “I like to think of heroes as the stars of our darkest nights,” he says. “There are moments when you feel so lonely and you have a lot of trouble, but when you think of people you adore like Federico Fellini, Carlo Moldino, Che Guevara, Jesus Christ as well; they had the same troubles, but look at them! They really did what they wanted to do.”
Novembre studied architecture because it offered him the broadest possible education: architecture schools in Italy teach students about philosophy, sociology, literature and art. “In Italy, you choose architecture just to open your mind, not to have a profession. It has never been oriented to how to build buildings. When I came out of there I couldn’t put one brick on top of another.”
Above: his interior for the Shu restaurant in Milan, 1999
Italian architects are uniquely disadvantaged since besides the peer pressure of working amid the world’s richest architectural heritage, it is difficult to build anything remotely adventurous in the country.
above: Hotel Vittoria, Florence
“Regulations here are so strict; they’re bullshit,” says Novembre. “The Hotel Vittoria in Florence, which opened late last year] I designed – I couldn’t touch the street frontage. I wanted to put something on the street to serve as a sign for the hotel. I fought and fought until the city architectural commission and I were almost kicking each other. But of course they cancelled it. In Italy, to build, is impossible. Im! Poss! I! Ble!” As if to stick two fingers up to Italian conservatism, Novembre filled the hotel’s interior with sweeping brocade-patterned mosaics and spiralling leather, Corian and lamé surfaces.
Many designers are using organic forms and floral patterns these days, but in Novembre’s hands, the specimens have been pumped with fertiliser and have taken over the greenhouse. Novembre’s work is often unashamedly physiological – his L’Origine du Monde nightclub in Milan featured huge murals depicting naked women, a pair of legs straddles the entrance to his Anna Molinari store in London and the ceiling of his Shu Café in Milan is held up by a pair of oversized arms. “My main inspiration is the body of women. All my architecture is very organic not because I decided to be organic but because to me, probably I still refer to my mother’s belly. Our first house is always our mother’s belly. In a way I’m still there; I look for things that are soft and comfortable and curvy and sensual.” Yet, unusually for an architect, he never draws: these voluptuous configurations are instead conveyed verbally. “I cannot draw at all; I am not gifted at all with my hands. I really am not able to transfer my vision in drawings. But I can talk about them and I can write; I am really gifted.”
For his early projects, he would submit proposals to clients as poetry and convey instructions to builders through gesticulation. “I used to call it action designing. I would be on site with the workers and I’d say, I want something like this over there, okay, and from there to there you go like this, drawing with my hands but without actually putting it on paper. Like an orchestra director.” Novembre has now built up a team of architects and designers, so the production process has become a little more conventional. “My staff have become my hands,” he says. “But still when I work with craftsmen, I go to where they are working and try to make them enter in the mood of what I’m trying to achieve.” Now, after around 15 years in practice, Novembre has his first new-build commission: a new headquarters for fashion house Meltin’ Pot in Apulia, southern Italy.
Novembre will build a conference centre and hotel alongside an 18th-century villa owned by the company. Many architects might see a project like this as their big break, but Novembre is surprisingly laid back about his career trajectory. “I don’t have ambitions,” he says languidly. “I don’t want to do too much. I just try to live the best way I can; try to make the best of each day. People always ask ‘what’s your dream project?’ and I say, ‘to get to the end of the day and to be proud!’ I don’t have these kinds of goals. I call it the Renzo Piano syndrome: when you start doing too many things. I’m very self-critical so I accept really few jobs. When I do a piece of design, it’s really a piece of my heart. It’s not just another chair. Otherwise I don’t do anything.”
Fabio Novembre
Meet Paige Russell of Vermont & Her Fun Ceramics
I seem to be stumbling upon tons of fabulous ceramicists lately and Paige Russell of Vermont is one more.
Her wildlife series (above)consisting of white iconic graphic profile representations of a camper, a van, a monster truck and an SUV are both fun and attractive.
And her nestor votives are simple and appealing (seen below).
About Paige:
Paige Russell (f.k.a. Paige Stahl) was born and raised in British Columbia,
Canada. She studied Fine Arts at Langara College in Vancouver and went on
to earn a BFA in Product Design from Parsons School of Design in NYC.
Voted most sportsmanlike for 7th grade volleyball, Russell was also named one of the "Top 20 young designers to watch out for" in the 2001 edition of Wallpaper magazine's Design Directory. Her work has been featured in Interior Design, City, Bucks, and Inspired House magazines as well as the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum.
Although not yet available via an online store, contact her directly via the information below:
39A pine st.
burlington, vt 05401
802.233.8645
info@paigerussell.com
Funky Find of The Week: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea designed by Paolo Orsacchini
Here's the fantastic new Italian limited commemorative edition of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea designed by Paolo Orsacchini. It's printed on waterproof paper and enclosed in a clear pouch filled with real sea water. Collectors can either bust it out of its original packaging, dry it under the sun, and enjoy a classic read, or they can preserve this limited piece in all its designed glory.
Unfortunately I cannot find if it's available for purchase, so you'll simply have to marvel at the concept for now.
Design Public's Bay Area/SF Outlet Sale!
Lucky SF/Bay Area Peeps! Design Public is having another outlet sale. More than 158 products at reduced prices.
Lots of stuff at great prices from FatBoy dog beds to Dwell baby bedding! Not Neutral products and Inhabit stuff...lots of good finds.Almost worth driving up from LA for!
The Design Public Outlet is where they sell all returns from our main store, Design Public. You can find like-new products for sale for 50-70% off of retail.
click here to see what's available.
Here are the RULES/POLICIES:
1. Outlet items are for pickup only at our San Francisco office (in SOMA).
2. Items must be picked up within 2 weeks of your purchase.
3. All Outlet sales are final. We cannot accept cancellations, returns, or exchanges on outlet purchases. All items are sold "as-is".
Move Over Rascal, Pegasus Is Here. Introducing The Porsche Of Wheelchairs.
If I ever need a wheelchair, I want the Porsche of wheelchairs!
Pegasus is an alternative solution to the current manually operated wheelchairs for paraplegic people. Unfortunately more often and not a person in a wheelchair is viewed internationally as a symbol for disability. A lot of wheelchair drivers do not feel disabled and experience similar dimensions to ordinary people. The intension of Pegasus is to break with the image and appearance of current wheelchairs. Pegasus allows an efficient movement in an upright position. A manual actuation in combination with an electric drive motor with gyroscopic sensors (segway inspired) allow the driver to maneuver in very small distance.
Unfortunately, there's limited data on this new wheelchair, but we hope it makes the jump from drawing board to market shelves quickly!
Great News About The Dog Cage! (now called the eiCrate)
I just found out from the designer of the fabulous dog cage (aka the eiCrate), Peter, that a few will be going into limited production after all!
Congrats Peter! And to all those small breed dogs who are going to get a very groovy crate! learn more about it here.
Product Pick Of The Week: The Dog Cage by Peter Pracilio
The Dog Cage for Design GO studio
I have a new puppy and although she's the cutest thing on earth, she's a handful! So, I've been crate training her and it's working. The only think I can't stand is the look of the hideous crate in my living room.Well, apparently designer Peter F. Pracilio felt the same way when he designed this beautiful Dog Cage for Design GO studio. (update: the crate has since been renamed the eiCrate)
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I don't know where I can purchase it or if it's even in production, but I simply had to share the images with you.
UPDATE: Obviously I was only one of many dog owners looking for a cool crate. The dog cage which was renamed the eiCrate has gone into production and is available in either a silver, white or black finish:
They also sell a fitted cover for it:
and you can purchase the 'starter package' that comes with a pad for the interior as well:
The price , while still expensive, is far more reasonable now. Buy the eiCrate here.
Twinkies + Bananas = New Snack Treat!
+
Hostess Brings Back Banana-Creme Twinkie By LAUREN SHEPHERD
Twinkie lovers, get ready to go bananas.
The sweet treat known for its golden spongy cake and its creamy vanilla center is returning to its roots with banana-creme filling - the flavor that first made the snack a hit with sweet-toothed people more than 70 years ago.
Hostess, owned by Kansas City, Mo.-based Interstate Bakeries Corp., began selling the banana-creme snack cakes last week at retail stores nationwide. The filling tastes just as sweet as the standard vanilla but with a subtle hint and smell of banana.
Old-timers may remember the taste from the pre-World War II years. From 1930, when the Twinkie was first invented, to the 1940s, Twinkies were filled solely with banana creme. But a banana shortage during the war forced Hostess bakers to replace it with the vanilla flavor.
Hostess has reintroduced the flavor during limited-time promotions in the past, but always took the treat off the shelves when the promotion ended.
The company was finally persuaded to make the flavor part of its lineup for good after Hostess offered it for four weeks last year for the release of the movie "King Kong." Total Twinkie sales jumped 20 percent during the promotion.
The flavor got high marks from Amanda Reid, 29, who was taking a break Tuesday from her litigation consulting job in midtown Manhattan. After biting into the Twinkie, she pronounced it "banana-y."
"You can still taste the original Twinkie flavor underneath it," she said. "It almost makes it seem like it's a little bit healthier than a regular Twinkie."
The fruit flavor may make banana Twinkies taste like a healthier snack, but according to the nutritional information, there's little difference between the banana and vanilla flavored versions, which contain 150 calories each.
Hostess sells more than half a billion Twinkies each year.
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Twinkie History:
Twinkies - Tingling Taste Buds for more than 75 Years
One of America's best known and most loved snack cakes, Twinkies have been tantalizing taste buds and filling lunch boxes since 1930. Twinkies are the stuff of legends - President Clinton put one in a time capsule - and have achieved the status of cultural icon, with the American Society of Media Photographers recently mounting a photo exhibition featuring Twinkies. But to most people, they're just fun to eat.
Whether we're carrying a supply in the glove compartment for a quick on-the-road snack, freezing them, deep frying them, or eating them right out of the package, millions of Twinkie lovers would agree with creator Jimmy Dewar's statement that "Twinkies was the best darn-tootin' idea I ever had."
Many of the 500 million Twinkies sold every year spark wonderful creative impulses, as moms, dads, school teachers and kids take to their kitchens to invent gourmet recipes, including Twinkie Shortcake, Twinkie Misu and Twinkie Sushi. And let's not forget those amazing Twinkie Wedding Cakes. A collection of Twinkie recipes is scheduled for publication next year and we'll keep posting some of these delectable delights on our website.
For Twinkie Recipes, click here.
Hostess History:
The Hostess ® brand got its start in Indianapolis in 1925. Continental Baking Company purchased a bakery called Taggart that was selling popular new bread called Wonder ® (maybe you've heard of it). Continental began selling Wonder Bread as its national bread brand but needed a line of cakes to sell alongside. Hostess cake was born, including the chocolate cup cake which is still popular today.
Continental hit the sponge cake gold mine in 1930 when Jimmy Dewar invented Twinkies ® . Seeing a need for an inexpensive product during the depression, Dewar made use of shortcake pans that were only used during the strawberry season. Dewar's idea was to inject the shortcake with a banana crème filling to make them a year-round treat and sell them two for a nickel. Dewar's quest for a catchy name ended on his way to St. Louis to present his sweet invention. Driving down the highway he passed a billboard advertising ?Twinkle Toe? shoes, and from this the Twinkies name evolved.
The Twinkies' popularity skyrocketed and it soon became Hostess' best-selling snack cake. During World War II a banana ration caused Continental to switch to the vanilla crème center that is loved today. Twinkies have become an American icon and nearly half a billion are made each year.
Through the years Hostess has developed new treats including Ding Dongs ® , Ho Ho's ® , Suzy Q's ® , Sno Balls ® and fruit pies, as well as a wide range of donut products, including the popular Donette ® brand of bite-sized donuts.
In the summer of 1995, Interstate Bakeries Corporation acquired Continental Baking Company. This made Interstate the largest wholesale baker of fresh delivered bread and cake in the United States.
You can buy the Twinkie Recipe book below here.
Fun twinkie info here at Wikipedia.
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