Life Among Books

I love books.

I do enjoy reading, but I enjoy them

for more than this intrinsic value.

Perfect for substituting for a piece of furniture-

I love the look of a stack of books,

sheer functionality proves them to make great 

tables and stands.

                           I love the colors, textures, the graphics on the spine.

Books, whether classic novels, art or reference- no matter,

they all bring memories, ("what a good read")

a sense of history, essays and photos of 

people and days  gone by.

Ours is not a collection, but more of a composite,

assortments, mixed media.

They bring reverence and inspiration.

Whether a library room full, an artful bookcase,

or organized assortments, I could look at endless compilations.

via The City Sage

via a lovely being

via a lovely being

via Neo Traditionalist

Here at our house, we have quite a few...

favorite reads, finds from yard sales and antique shops, 

gifts- given and received-

and, they all have a home here. 

xo

Quote of The Day

Slight not what's near

through aiming at what's far.

Get The Party Started

Frankly, socially speaking,

I think Black Friday is shameful 

however, 

I suppose fiscally speaking,

it makes great sense, especially

if you're planning on giving someone a 

52 inch flat screen.

If your spare room is already filling up with purchases

in need of wrapping, here is 

a kick off to the season

of paper, tape and ribbons.

Cheers!

I Am The Luckiest Person

I know that I am a lucky person,

yes, I have a roof over my head, with a lovely view,

and delicious food on a well dressed table,

however,

 it is my devoted husband,

with whom I am still in love,

our two children, of whom I am in awe and proud

and my sister who I am at one with

although separated by miles, 

that remind me of my

true wealth and  blessings.

xo

Happy Thanksgiving

Bob Dylan... A Daily Dose

Dylan

Music

Photographs

Video 

Using all of the above, plus

passion, dedication and respect

A Daily Dose of Dylan 

is a virtual history lesson

and ode to the mastery of 

Bob Dylan.

I didn`t want to be part of that thing. I liked the town. I felt they exploited the shit out of that, going up there and getting 15 million people all in the same spot. That don`t excite me. The flower generation - is that what it was? I wasn`t into that at all. I just thought it was a lot of kids out and around wearing flowers in their hair taking a lot of acid. (on Woodstock)

Whether like, love or simply

respect this man and his music,

it is all there to enjoy.

xo

Quote of The Day

Etsy

Common sense is not so common.

Voltaire

Somewhere Far Far Away

There is something about looking at photographs

reading hearing details of the intimate stage 

that was the Kennedy White House.

I am drawn, fascinated, in a haunting kind of way.

Now, Historian Richard Reeves,  brings us a new book,

Portrait of Camelot: A Thousand 

Days in the Kennedy White House.

"Fifty years ago, John F. Kennedy was elected the youngest president of the United States, moving his work and his family to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And alongside him was Cecil W. Stoughton, the first official White House photographer, who accompanied the First Family everywhere—blending in the background, snapping candid photographs, and, in the process, amassing a collection of rare, intimate glimpses of the family at ease. " via Vanity Fair

So cheers to the Royals at Buckingham Palace and 

the upcoming nuptials, for now though,

I will relish the past and enjoy our Camelot that was.

Quote of The Day

                                                                                                                    AJH

Beauty without grace is the hook 

without the bait.

Emerson

Thursday's Entertainment

Hannah and Her Sisters

So many people are out of their element this time of year-

but no worries, help is on the way.

I just read a cute article on Flavorwire

geared for the twentysomething hosting their first Thanksgiving,

and whether you're in that category or simply out of your element, 

there are some great common sense tips- with a modern slant, of course.

Now, granted, I am not twenty years old,

 hosting my first Thanksgiving, or out of my element, but,

I'm always looking out for new ideas and takes 

on the tried and true.

Two things here....

music is always prominent at our house,

 dinner never an exception, but, hmm what to play;

then, how to rally the troops- post dishes?

My two favorite tips from the article proved very helpful...

 the rest are on Flavorwire.

Music:
Music is a great way to set a mood, but it’s also a minefield. You want your guests to be able to hear each other talk, so make sure it isn’t too loud. And unless you’re hosting friends who share your taste in music, divisive stuff like punk and noise is just going to put people on edge. In general, you can never go wrong with the classics: The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Leonard Cohen. Everyone likes these people, and if they don’t, you probably don’t want them in your home.

 After dinner:

Different families have different post-meal traditions — but way too many involve the dudes gravitating to the wrap-around couch to zone out in front of football while the ladies scramble to clean up and entertain the kids. In 2010! Just because it’s Thanksgiving doesn’t mean it needs to be the ’50s. Sure, let people take turns with dishes, but try to find an activity that everyone can participate in, be it a board game or a favorite holiday movie (Hannah and Her Sisters, anyone?). And it’s never a bad idea to give people a hot holiday cocktail to sit with as they chat.

Quote of The Day

Time can never take

What time did not give;

When your shadows have all passed,

I shall live.

Henry Van Dyke

Preparing For The Big Prep

Round Silver Chalk Board

Yea! Our weather is finally

feeling like honest fall, just in time

to help me plan the menu, gather 

the table accessories and synchronize the lists.

If there is one thing I've learned over the years,

no matter if it's Monday night dinner or that 

big Thursday of the year, the best thing

you can do for yourself (outside of a cocktail)

is wear an apron. Whether the outfit came from

TJMax or Neiman Marcus - no one wants to see

a bunch of spots and drops.

We always have several in rotation here, including 

hand me downs, gifts and humbly homemade.

In keeping with my new found spirit 

of the upcoming holiday I went searching and found a few

inspired treasures on Etsy...

Fall Harvest with Gingham

Reversible Chocolate Brown

Retro Orange and Black
Here is a recipe for the best biscuits you will ever make or have.
Here's to a great weekend full of planning, prepping
and a dash of ... popping


Cheers!

Decoded

Decoded

 "Decoded is many things at once. At its core, Decoded is an eloquent and candid memoir detailing the story of a man who was born in a Brooklyn housing project, spent his teen years dealing drugs on the streets of Trenton, New Jersey, and grew up to be one of his generation’s most successful artists and businessmen." via amazon

Jay-Z's new book is out 

and in Jay-Z style, 

is all about town.

Teaming up with Gucci,  the two 

brilliantly combined their efforts

when Gucci's 5th Ave windows featured

a black leather jacket with two pages

of the book printed in the lining.

Brilliant.

Then there was the ad campaign -

an online and  real world scavenger hunt

in conjunction with Bing where pages of the book were 

placed in locations around the world- each location 

with related content featured on Bing ie..

swimming pools, pool tables, designer clothing racks etc.

Not to mention his ease of 

commanding an interview (where you least expect it)...

New York Public Library

NPR

Howard Stern

I love it all and can't wait to 

read the next installment.

xo

Quote of The Day

The teaming autumn,

big with rich increase.

Shakespeare

Sketches For A new World

Eric Molinsky gives new meaning to modern art..

Using his iPhone and his right index finger,

he sketches the people he sees in his travels, mainly 

the NYC subway.

The sketches are simple, but clearly

he sees a lot, because each one comes through 

with an obvious attitude intact.

Thankfully, he chronicles his work on his 

daily blog  iPhone Sketchbook Drawings.

In it's simplest form, 

here is art, from the people,

of the people, for the people.

Seriously.

xo

Quote of The Day

No man is an island entire of

itself;

every man is a piece of the 

continent, a part of the main.

John Donne

What's For Lunch?

Carney's
8351 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood

This casual SoCal burger joint inhabits a bright yellow Amtrak passenger car from the 1920s, and its white- and red-paneled walls sport old framed black-and-whites documenting its disco-era construction. T-shirted tourists and local die-hards order at the counter and grab napkins from a bathroom towel dispenser at the end of the line. Trademark burgers and hot dogs are served in cardboard boxes, often drenched in chili and accompanied by bottled beer or lemonade in a paper cup. - Citysearch

Photo via Flickr: bORjAmATiC

Well, YESTERDAY November 16th,

was National Fast Food Day- who knew?
I wish they would have mentioned 
this on the 6'clock news-the night before!
Anyways-

Here's a peek at what we could've  indulged in...

had we been in LA (SF trumped yet again).

Zankou Chicken
Various Locations

Spit-roasted chicken attracts most of the attention, and deservedly so. Tender, moist and permeated with flavor, it's rotisserie roasted to crisp perfection. But the rest of the menu easily meets or beats the bird. Soujouk is an Armenian beef sausage that takes the term spicy to new heights--not simply hot, it's a marvelous melange of fiery flavors combined with subtler nuances. Then there are the sides--tabbouleh, hummus, zippy stuffed grape leaves and a divinely addictive mutabbal (baba ghanouj). - Citysearch

Photo via Flickr: Mike Saechang

Original Tommy's Hamburgers
Various Locations
When Mom cooks, the extra ingredient is love. When Tommy's cooks, the secret's in the chili. Give in to your inner glutton and enjoy a meaty burger smothered in the orange, gloppy stuff. The medium-thick beef patty oozing chili con carne, cheddar cheese and mustard redeems itself with diced raw onion, dill pickles and a thick-cut slice of beefsteak tomato. Perfectly plumped all-beef dogs, hefty tamales and chunky golden fries are absolutely delicious when coated with the industrial-strength chili. - Citysearch

Photo via Facebook: Original Tommy's


For the rest of the yummaricious choices
check out 
The Huffington Post


Kind of makes you rethink that 
turkey roll up from home, right?

Quote of The Day

via pixdaus

Sometimes good intentions and

feelings are of greater moment

than the awkwardness of their expression..

Jonathan Yardley

Times Gone By

For some reason, the fall season 

 nostalgia reigns, hence the perfect timing for the release

of Lesley M.M. Blume's book

Let's Bring Back: 

An Encyclopedia of Forgotten- Yet- Delightful,

Chic, Useful, Curious and Otherwise

Commendable Things from Times Gone By.

Ms. Blume is an author, journalist and cultural observer

with a column (of same name) at The Huffington Post

regarding all things nostalgic.

The book is at once, whimsical, charming and 

very educational.

With her feet firmly planted in the present and

 an acknowledgement to her love of 

 modern trappings, such as iPods, Spanx and Starbucks,

she celebrates hundreds of forgotten

objects, pastimes, curiosities recipes, words,

architectural works and personnas-

that could (or should) be brought back today.

Here are a few pictorial suggestions

as taken from her column... 

Double  features.

All white tennis clothes

Lovely leisurely evening walks

Good posture

Supper Clubs

Sunday roasts

So true, right?

xo

Quote of The Day

Every great and commanding

movement in the annals of 

of the world is the triumph

of enthusiasm.

Nothing great was ever 

achieved without it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hanging With The Locals

Julie Michelle of i live here in SF

San Francisco is a place that's almost impossible to define. Sure, you can catalog its geography, economy, climate, and so on. But none of these quantifiable nuggets will tell you the whole story, much less capture the soul of this strange, wonderful, constantly changing city. Which is maybe why, after almost three years here, I still struggle to describe this place to outsiders in a way that doesn't sound like a tourist cliché.

CASEY

Let’s talk about moving for a bit.  The boxes.  The packing tape. The bubblewrap tangle of emotions that needs sorting through.  To a mover it must all look the same after a while.  But when you’re surveying the contents of your life laid out at your feet, moving becomes intensely personal.  It’s a time to mark exactly where you are on the map of where you want to be.

At one time, you may have been able to get a sense of San Francisco's beating heart by reading its newspapers and magazines, but Herb Caen andRolling Stone magazine are long gone. These days, the pulse of the city can be found online. SF is covered by a shifting blanket of blogs: Mission Mission, Muni Diaries, Burrito Justice, Tenderblog, Sexpigeon, Noe Valley SF, and on and on in a list that just keeps getting longer. (Oh look, Uptown Almanac launched in the time it took me to write that list.

BERN

I’ve always known that I belong in San Francisco.

There’s something so beautiful about the city.  Something so alluring.  Something that says, “You are home.”

But these outpourings, both informative and surreal, tend to focus on niche topics and particular neighborhoods. What about the bigger picture? Not everyone in San Francisco is an obsessive blogger, after all (even if it does occasionally seem that way). Julie Michelle's deceptively simple website I Live Here:SF offers a broader perspective. For the past year she has been photographing city residents and posting their portraits alongside short texts the subjects write themselves. They are a mix of Bay Area natives and transplants from across the States and beyond. Some tell linear stories that begin with where they were born or grew up, while others talk about specific moments or events, like how they fell in and out of love, or found their calling. Many describe the journey that brought them to this city. Some entries are fragmented to the point of poetry, like one person's random snapshots of the city.

KIMBERLY

A statistic I have always enjoyed is that there are more dogs than children in San Francisco. As a first grade teacher, this is probably something I should be concerned about. Rather, it’s one of the odd things about the city that I love.  This makes some kind of sense to me; the city’s energy can keep up with a puppy. Those who know me best have called me a puppy. Evidently, I can exude the energy of a 2-year-old puppy on a consistent basis.  So it makes some kind of sense that I live here.

Plenty of the characters will seem familiar, but even those that look at first glance like SF stereotypes -- the creatives, dreamers, and kooks -- will quickly defy your expectations with stories full of earthy realities and unpredictable twists. You might not expect grinningDottie's story to include a stint in Iraq with the National Guard, but it does. And how could you not read a story that opens: "Three big things happened to me when I moved to San Francisco: I found myself; I met the love of my life; and I got breast cancer." (If you can make it to the end of Sonia's story without both crying and laughing, you're a far stronger person than I am.)

People who live on the streets rub shoulders with moms, writers, and dancers. There are three dogs, two cats, and at least one yoyo fanatic. And almost all of them end up writing an SF love letter of one kind or another. Sure, there are gripes: the city is "expensive, the school system sucks, and we trip over ourselves in our tiny house," says Julie. But evenMat, who starts his entry with the words "I hate this place," admits he never wants to leave. via KQED Arts

There are so many stories to see and so many yet to unfold.

i live here: SF blog

i live here:SF Retrospective

XO