Design Public

Happy Valentine’s Day!  Did you know that calories from chocolate don’t count today?  That’s what I’m telling myself as I totally sabotage my South Beach Diet.   Anyway, just a few random notes today:

1) I am SO HAPPY the writers’ strike is over!  I will stop watching shows with  sound bites like “I’m a karaoke host, O.K.?  I KNOW people!”  That was from STDs of Love II on VH-1, as a contestant expressed her concerns about “their connection” to Bret Michaels.  The other quote I liked came from the eyebrow-less Kristy Jo when she asserted “he needs to know where I stand!”  I thought, no bitch, he needs to know what you look like without eyebrows.  Yes, I admit it, I watched it.  It was my nod to Valentine’s Day, O.K.?

2) Project Runway was excellent last night.  The contestants gained private entry to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and were instructed to glean inspiration from either Greek and Roman sculptures, European paintings, or an Egyptian temple.   It reminded me of The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.   I was sorry to see Sweet Pea go.  She was kind of this sleeper contestant, always seeming like an underdog but churning out some really good designs.  I am totally in love with Chris though.  He cracks me up and I’d just love it if he won.  I guess his personality and sense of humor remind me a lot of the first winner, Jay.  Jillian is very talented but I’m a little over her need to make a coat every week, and really, who wears 6″ heels when they are on their feet working for 14 hours straight?  All Rami ever does is drape and say thinly veiled insults about everyone and America in general.  Christian is about 12 years old and annoying, but he does pop out some funny lines and he’s incredibly talented.  I did not realized he worked for Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood - very impressive.

3) My friend Chad (the same Chad who used to get us into the dome room at Monticello, Chad gets around) just took his landscape architecture class on a trip to Brazil.  If you want to get jealous, check out the blog of their activities here.

4)  ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR SAVANNAH?  I’m going there for the first time next week and I’d love to know any of your favorite activities, sites, restaurants, shops, et. al.  Thanks!

PHOTOS:

1) from Martha Stewart, of course!

2) from bravotv.com 

3) from Paisagens Brasileiras 

OK, trying to relate this to a design blog is a stretch (Piedmont Park is an awesome F.L.O. Sr.-designed park in the middle of midtown Atlanta - it even has a Noguchi playground in it), but I received the following police report from my safety-conscious neighbor and I had to share it with SOMEONE - it just gets more and more bizarre with each paragraph, especially paragraph three. I’m off to rent “Paris is Burning” and forward this to Creative Loafing…

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I’m going to San Diego on Friday and will have a whole day to shop around on Saturday while my best friend Liz is stuck going to a wedding that starts at 11 a.m.  I want to do something besides the zoo or Sea World.  Do you know of any shopping destinations I can’t miss while I’m there?  Architecture I should see?  I’m a fan of thrifting and flea markets as well as checking out how the other half lives.  Thanks!

So on Sunday I am usually a big TV-watching bum and the only things I accomplish most Sundays are taking a shower and doing the NYTimes Crossword. I know this is not a TV blog, but I need someone to answer a question for me about The Amazing Race. Well really I just need to vent. WHY does Mirna talks like such an idiot when she is asking a question of someone for whom English is not their first language? She adds this bizarre faux accent (is it supposed to be French? Spanish? Polish? Ugandan?) and spits on the person as she speaks. What the hell is wrong with her? Why does she think this is a good idea? Does she yell at the hearing impaired?

By the way, for those of you who grew up during the Cold War, how odd is it to see that they have an Escada store in Warsaw? I grew up with images in my head of people waiting in three hour lines for toilet paper and paying big bucks for smuggled Levis. Now they can get a dress for the Oscars where the TP line used to be.

Has anyone caught The Riches on FX? I keep trying to find a picture of their cheesy gated community for a post, but their website is a total pain in the keister, and it plays that totally annoying music they used to promote the show for eight million months before it aired. Anyway, it’s really good so far. Before this show aired, all I knew about travelers I learned from an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

photo of Mirna and Schmirna from cbs.com

Move over Robert Indiana, there’s a new Love stamp in town. USPS has released a great new Love stamp that will set off Hershey cravings. Here’s what USPS has to say about the new design:

With Love and Kisses
Evoking images of sweet and ardent affection, the stamp features a Hershey’s Kisses chocolate and a red heart that form mirror images (more…)

So, how permanent are all of our built works?  How long should their lives be in order for them to make a lasting impact?  How important are codes at certain events?  How much do said codes impair our creativity?  Which drugs should one possibly do in order to fully appreciate such a spectacle, or are none required at all?  When I read about this, all I could think about were the fallas (SP?  It’s Spanish for having a parade where the floats are set up around the town instead of actually parading, then setting them on fire, then going crazy and yelling disgusting profanities at the firemen and then running across the hot ashes, or at least that is all I remember, I was only 19 and very impressionable…) in Spain when I lived there - the most amazing thing I had ever seen, and at the time, I knew it could never happen in America, except perhaps in New Orleans, which is like its own country (though still in dire straights - don’t forget to keep donating since there has not been a whole lot of help given to our friends in Louisiana).  However, this is before I knew about Burning Man.  

File this one under "uncategorized."  You know, I just don’t know how to title this one.  Before I saw The Uchronians website

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My buddy Jeff Highway just called me all excited about a new project he’s completed - an apparatus enabling him to imprint his luminecent "tag" on any metallic surface. It’s called the "Nightwriter". He learned how to do it here.

We all know that in the "future" we’ll have flying cars, nutritionally complete meal pellets and jet packs - I didn’t know that we’ll also be able to enjoy glowing graffiti art that will make you feel like you just stepped off the set of Blade Runner. Awesome. Learn more about it on the Graffit Research Lab site.

Mathmos Design Competition

And while we’re on the subject of things that glow. Phillipe Rodgers, owner of Mathmos Lighting in the UK, clued me into a design competition they’re having:

To come up with designs for the Mathmos range that redefine "Candlelight". . .

This is an opportunity for international designers to come up with products that could be sold by Mathmos and earn a good commission whilst doing it. Download the pdf application and learn more about it here. Entries are due by July 14th.

This house that is about a mile away from mine…

At first I wondered if they were going to shoot the next season right over in Inman Park/Little 5 Points, but no, it’s just AN ADVERTISEMENT for "The Simple Life" on E!  All I could find out about it was from Adrants blog ; my friend who shoots for CBS news said he’d shot it because they were going to film the next season of the reality show there, but it turns out he was totally wrong (he tends to just make stuff up and act like he actually pays attention when he is filming the news).

The rest of this street is actually quite tasteful; while the houses are new and rather large, they are scaled nicely and have Victorian and Craftsman styles, which fit in with the existing neighborhood.

It just goes to show you what can happen when you have absolutely no standards or guidelines in neighborhoods.  I can see how the zoning commission may not have imagined this use, but I bet this will change zoning codes all over the country!  

I will be so happy when Paris Hilton’s 15 minutes of fame are over.  They have already stretched on way too long for someone who is famous for being rich and having her boyfriend release a sex tape of her on the internet. 

I just flipped through my April issue of Domino and saw that Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan’s book is almost on the shelves.  It’s called Apartment Therapy:  The Eight-Step Home Cure, and according to Domino, it’s "a wonderfully clear-cut guide."  Since I don’t have it yet, I can’t review it, but based on how much I love Apartment Therapy I have already tried to pre-order it (books will be shipped on March 28 from Amazon). Unfortunately, there seems to be some bug with Amazon where I can’t get through Checkout, but for this book I’ll keep trying.

In the meantime, check out the AT blog - they will be running and interactive forum where users can post their before pictures, get advice, show how they are working the 8 steps, and show off the final results.  As someone who grew up peeking in windows with my Mom, trying to see how people have decorated, I can’t think of a more fun way to be a voyeur.