Pickles and Persimmons

Documentary Films

I’ve always had an interest in documentary films. They’re an excellent way to educate yourself in a short period of time on a subject of your choosing. I’ve found that doc films can make you laugh or cry but almost give you something to think about as you walk away. I’ve watched many in the last two years or so but these were the best in my opinion.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child - I’ve posted on this blog before about the artist Jean Michel Basquiat. I loved this movie because it’s gives an excellent synopsis of the extreme rise and fall of the young 80’s Neo-Surrealist though very raw footage of the artist, New York City, and LA. (Trailer)

Inside Job - Winner of the Academy Award for best doc this year, Inside Job was able to achieve the impossible and partially clarify the complication of the global economic crisis for me. I thought the interviews with leading journalists, key financial players, and top academics really shed light on the various factors that are to blame for what has happened to this country and the world. (Trailer)

Valentino: The Last Emperor - This movie has been out for a couple years and it’s just so wonderful. It documents the last season Valentino was involved in the creation of his couture line, his 70th birthday celebration, and takes a look back at a life filled with clothes and opulence. I loved that he is constantly followed by his long-time business partner and partner in life Giancarlo Giommeti and a gaggle of pugs. (Trailer)

Bill Cunningham, New York - This movie is currently out in theaters and is another great homage to fashion and photography. Bill Cunningham, the long-time photographer for The New York Times, comes off as a the sweetest aficionado with a discerning eye only for clothes rather than for the people wearing them. (Trailer)

The Cove - While I don’t recommend this movie for the faint of heart, if you are at all stressed about the state of the oceans and the amazing plethora of creatures that live within them than you should watch this movie. A team of scientists and filmmakers illegally obtained footage of a cove in Japan in which thousands of dolphins are captured and either slaughtered for the sale of their meat or sold around the world to various theme parks for exploitation. It really was hard to watch but important nonetheless. (Trailer)

Exit Through the Gift Shop - This was another doc that was nominated for the Academy Award this year. Thierry Guetta, later to be known at Mr. Brainwash, began to chronicle on film the underground life of street art and artists. However, after taking up with the likes of Banksy (maybe the most famous and reclusive of all street artsits), Thierry decided to go into the trade himself. I also loved the aspect of how easy it can be to exploit the nature of the contemporary art market. (Trailer)

180° South - Visually speaking, this movie takes the cake. 180 Degrees South is a Patagonia sponsored film about adventureer Jeff Johnson’s attempt to retrace a former activists journey to South America. While the movie is about travel, exploration, climbing, surfing, and more, it has a great environmental message that speaks volumes on returning to the simpler ways of of life. I also thought the soundtrack was incredible. (Trailer)

Best, Lauren

Like learning a foreign language, computer skills are often forgotten as soon as you stop using them. Since leaving school, it’s been a real challenge for me to keep up with many of the skills I learned that no longer play frequently into my day to day computer use. So, I’ve been refreshing my Adobe Creative Suites knowledge little but little using their amazing video tutorials site. One of the tools I find most useful and simple is perspective cropping. If you have ever taken a photo of something hanging on a wall, or used your phone camera to capture an image in a magazine or book (i haven’t owned a working scanner in a decade) than you know that often times it’s hard to get the shot straight on because of glare, other people, and other extenuating circumstances. However, this tool will help you remedy your photo snafus. It allows you to crop the image that is askew to make it appear as though you took it head on. This short video above gives you the steps to do so. It’s really simple and I’ve been going through many of my images and correcting them ever since I re-stumbled upon this video the other day. 

Best, Lauren

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I’ve been attempting to do my part in small ways lately to make an environmental change. Part of this has been in the form of glass bottles and jars. My drinking glass collection has become swollen with recycled jam and pickle jars and I’m trying to buy glass bottled drinks instead of plastic. I saw these mason jar meals on the blog Whit + Delight and thought they were a really clever way to reuse large glass jars.

Best, Lauren

2011 Sustainable Seafood Guide

Every morning, I walk out of my apartment, turn the corner, and relish the unbelievable view of the San Francisco Bay from atop the Pacific Heights hills. Growing up in the Midwest, the lure of the ocean was one of the deciding factors in my move to San Francisco. Since moving to the West Coast, the ocean really does have a constant presence in my day to day life. As consequence, when I learn about the staggering effects of humanity on the oceans it really does make me sad. The Seathos Foundation is a wonderful organization that focuses all its efforts on the preservation of the seas. I find their mission statement really simple yet well written.

“Fundamental values, culture, or movement that revolve around people’s love and understanding of the ocean.

Sea•thos is based on the English word Ethos, that denotes guiding beliefs or ideals which characterize a community or ideology.”

As with all monumental problems, it’s hard to know where to begin to make changes on an individual level. I think Seathos has done a great job of making their website accessible and easily digestible. I for one have downloaded their sustainable seafood guide and intend to start taking matters as an individual into my own hands using good old fashioned buying power. I hope you will too.

Best, Lauren

p.s. if you find this issue particularly interesting and worth more of your time, I highly  recommend seeing the movie “180 Degrees South” about Jeff Johnson’s trip to the Patagonia sponsored trip to South America. The Netflix description is as follows: “Inspired by pioneering outdoorsman Yvon Chouinard’s freewheeling 1968 van trip to Patagonia, South America, a band of bliss-seeking surfer-mountaineers sets out — in 2007, by boat — to remake the journey in this adventure documentary. Jeff Johnson and his buddies hug the coast, stopping at the Galapagos Islands and Easter Island before arriving in Patagonia — a region that’s still breathtaking but is now besieged by environmental threats.”

Tick-the-Box Cards

I’ve had a number of reasons to buy specialty cards lately (graduation, mother’s day, thank you notes, etc.) As I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time in Paper Source trying to pick the perfect cards, I’ve noticed that cheeky “tick-the-box” cards have been popping up and I find them really funny and easily customizable.

The card company Archelaus is the creator of both cards I’m picturing here (the sea creature thank you card is the one I chose for my boss). I went to their website to find out more about the company and their cards and the text under the “about us” section is equally snarky as the cards themselves:

“If we had anything so hackneyed as a mission statement at Archelaus, it would probably revolve around the idea of keeping ourselves well amused by producing smart, sophisticated cards that offer our customers something delightfully different — something beyond the ordinary, as our slogan puts it.

But since we don’t have anything like that, the less said about the matter, the better, really.”

Say goodbye to the generic Walgreens cards.

Best,

Lauren

I myself am a longtime wearer of Chanel Coco but I happen to find their perfume commercials as seductive as the fragrances themselves. This one features the French actress Audrey Tautou (Coco Before Chanel, The Da Vinci Code, Amelie), unbelievable clothes, and a luxurious setting. I find it all very irresistible.

Best,

Lauren

One of my favorite decorating ideas is when really clean, simple spaces find ways to draw the outside in through the use of rustic or earthy touches (what can I say, my version of heaven would be a Nancy Meyers movie interior in a tree house…). I realize this is a really simple idea in terms of home decoration (beach houses are full of shells and sailboats, mountain homes with wood and fur, etc), but it still hasn’t lost its effect on me…in fact it gets me every time. I found these images on Pinterest.com and I thought they were really nice examples of how to do this in a home in the city or without a theme.

Best, Lauren

If only the real royal wedding could be like this…

best, Lauren

p.s. can’t stop laughing when the fake Camilla and Charles butt bumb

Saw this on the blog The Bean and the Bear. Had to reblog it…it’s just so good.

Best, Lauren

I know sidewalk attractions are generally considered the worst thing to happen to crowded streets. However, I saw these today online and thought they were pretty amazing (dare I even say art?). There is very little information given about the creator nor the creations. This is the site I got the images from. My attention was brought there by a tool called Stumble Upon. Try it out.

Best, Lauren

I’m known to my friends as really more of a bag girl. But, I still have a deep appreciation for an amazing pair of shoes. Closet snooping has long been a fun game I like to play and when I saw this slide show today of Khloe Kardashian’s shoe collection I couldn’t resist taking a look (I recommend skipping the text…lots of ooohing and ahhing by Khloe over anything that costs more than $600 and sparkles). These are just a few of the shots from the Elle & The Covateur interview.  

Best,

Lauren

Happy 5th Birthday to Twitter

Today is the fifth birthday for  . They posted a big thank you on their blog and then the tech blog MacApper (nerd bust, yes I read this) posted some stats about the real-time information network that so many hate to love and love to hate. 

Here’s some pretty amazing stats. According to MacApper:

#tweets

• 3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet.
• 1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets.
• 50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago.
• 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month.
• 177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011.
• 456. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time).
• 6,939. Current TPS record, set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day.

#accounts

• 572,000. Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011.
• 460,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month.
• 182%. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year.

#employees

• 8. 29. 130. 350. 400. Number of Twitter employees in Jan 2008, Jan 2009, Jan 2010, Jan 2011 and today.

Pretty impressive.

Best, Lauren

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It’s rare for sports related content to appear on this blog. While neither Leah nor myself would be considered “sporty” we would certainly be awarded Olympic gold for peripheral sporting categories…one of which being school spirit. Whip out those red and white Mifflin jerseys…Wisconsin is one of four contenders in the heated battle to win America’s Best College Sports Town. Woot Woot go vote!

Best, Lauren