santa weeble wobbles

dabney's latest thrift store find...


they also jingle when they wobble.

i guess it's possible to rock too hard sometimes

last night, i did it. somewhere between "mississippi queen" and "hard to handle," i managed to pound a little too firmly on the foot pedal and broke the thing in two.

i took it home with me and attempted set the fracture with the help of a shim and jewelers' glue.



i'll keep you posted on the patient's progress.

another happy mogo customer

doesn't little miss s look great in her mogo balloon dog t-shirt?



the tights are the perfect touch! (thanks, pica, for sharing.)

bust craftacular

catch dabney this sunday at the bust magazine holiday craftacular.

me? i'll be eating leftover turkey soup on the couch while watching martha. that's just the kind of girl i am.

house envy

i love this house in our old 'hood that was recently featured in boston magazine. the furniture, the palette, the kitchen, the DOGS... perfection.



see the rest of the place here.

just in time for the holidays

mogo ornaments!

 
on sale at art star gallery & boutique @ philadelphia

make it a QUADRUPLE

mogo will be at four shows over the next ten days. while i am in chicago this weekend for the renegade holiday sale, dabney will be in minneapolis, boston, and nyc at the no coast craftorama, bazaar bizarre, and bust craftacular. why does dabney do four away while i stick close to home for one, you ask? i like to think of it as payback for the warm weather hawaii-los angeles combo she did a couple of weeks ago, while i froze my buns off in detroit.

click the images below for more info:

thanksgiving weekend

man, was it great seeing ashbloem over thanksgiving! it felt like old times, except this time in the midwest, in the 'burbs, and oh yeah - with rock band.







four of hours of rocking and what got stuck in our heads? the rolling stones "gimme shelter" and in particular the portion of the song that goes "rape... murder..."  how's that for a cheery thankgiving tune?

and no day holiday in my family is complete without tons of food.

being the guest in the house, ashbloem had endure the pressure my family can apply to the sport of eating.  to them us, it's a sport alright.  all weekend, we had to face the mountain of traditional thanksgiving and filipino fare.  from turkey and stuffing to pancit and balut, it was a marathon of eating.  with only one minor catastrophe...

brother-in-law had a standoff with a hot burner. 


we did manage sneak away from the dinner table on occasion. one night, we caught a polka band at a local bar and did some goofy dancing with beers in hand.  the polish santa sax player was kind enough to pose for a picture.



we went on a tour of the anheuser-busch- and now, inbev brewery, where we learned how they make the stuff and then patiently waited for our final stop in the hospitality room.



the true highlight of the tour is the stables in my opinion.



at this time of year, the place and the horses are decked out in holiday decorations.  we were lucky and got a glimpse of mickey, the clydesdales' dalmation sidekick, who had decided to park it in a stable and chew on a bone. so cute.



more pics from the weekend:



i just love this shot of ashbloem in front of the arch.


the stupid photo booth wouldn't accept our crumpled up dollar bills, so we just took our own picture. i think it turned out pretty nice.

the rape of europa

has anyone seen this documentary? i got sucked in last night and couldn't take my eyes off the screen. look out for it on you local pbs station. see the trailer here.

The Rape of Europa tells the epic story of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction and miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during the Third Reich and the Second World War.

In a journey through seven countries, the film takes the audience into the violent whirlwind of fanaticism, greed, and warfare that threatened to wipe out the artistic heritage of Europe. For twelve long years, the Nazis looted and destroyed art on a scale unprecedented in history. But young art professionals as well as ordinary heroes, from truck drivers to department store clerks, fought back with an extraordinary effort to safeguard, rescue and return the millions of lost, hidden and stolen treasures.

The Rape of Europa begins and ends with the story of artist Gustav Klimt’s famed Gold Portrait, stolen from Viennese Jews in 1938 and now the most expensive painting ever sold.

Today, more than sixty years later, the legacy of this tragic history continues to play out as families of looted collectors recover major works of art, conservators repair battle damage, and nations fight over the fate of ill-gotten spoils of war.

hellogoodbye

the thoughts that give me the creeps

best birthday card

dabney's birthday was on sunday. poor thing was working in LA, but when she returned, she had received the best birthday card from her dad.

click the image to embiggen:



not only is it adorable, but he chose to portray us in the best light - thin and long-legged. the bottles of (what i presume is) beer in the wagon are a very life-like touch. :)

o new england

here's a new one from, our faves, the decemberists. the fact that it's about our old stomping grounds makes us feel a little homesick. sigh...

snowy day in detroit

i got back from detroit late on sunday night. it was good. the show on saturday wasn't gangbusters, but i made a tidy profit and saw some fellow crafter-friends.

i had all day sunday before i had to depart for the airport, so i spent the day driving around detroit in the snow. yes, there was snow and it's only november.   as a result, my original plans of driving around with the aid of design*sponge's detroit guide had to be scrapped, as did my hunt for the lafayette park area featured in this month's dwell magazine. what to do on a nasty cold snowy day in a city you're not familiar with? head to a museum, and that's exactly what i did.

i spent most my 3+ hours in the detroit institute of arts inside michael graves-designed expansion that houses most of their contemporary art, where i was amazed by this life-sized motorcycle meticulously constructed of wood. (forgive me, dia, i didn't catch the artist's name). 



i was also particularly impressed with the special exhibit devoted paper artist jane hammond who works with rubber stamps, copy machines, silkscreens, etc. to create the most elaborate (and inspirational) collages.  this show made me swear to myself never to send another naked postcard.  embellishments will always be a must from now on.  i'll just have to travel with a glue stick and scissors.

i also spent an inordinate amount of time staring at the enormous murals of industry by diego rivera.





he sure can pack a lot of symbolism into a work and if it weren't for the dia's free hi-tech handheld computer tours, i wouldn't have figured out an ounce of it.



thank god for museum technology.  it turns out that rivera's masterpiece is not only a depiction of the power of technology and industry in american society but also a cautionary tale of its potential harm. yeah, i might have figured that out even without the computer, but what the hey... 

mogo x 2

while i am here this weekend:


dabney will be here:


click the images for more info.

we're a little bit country, part 2

mogo is in the december issue of country living magazine.





close up:

humpy

now that the house/store has been stripped of everything (walls, floors, tile, etc.) it's easy to see its flaws. we had been warned that there would be some inevitably. the biggest being that the second story floor has a big hump in it. i think floors usually sink, but the steel beam that runs through the middle of our place did its job well while the rest of the house has settled around it over the last 100 years.

here you can almost see the rise. check out the ceiling and how the beam appears to be lifting the floor above.


the answer? bring in a welder to cut down the columns two inches, and all will be well. beyond that, a couple of 1st floor joists are being replaced and then that's it as far as the structural stuff. in the scheme of things, it's really not that bad.

of course, all this floor leveling talk brings to mind an art installation i saw last weekend while in kansas city.


hey, the kids think it's better than a slide.

coeur de pirate

a quick trip to kc, mo

 

while dabney is away visiting her mom, i thought i'd go and check out more of missouri with a quick trip to kansas city to meet ron. it turns out kc is a great meeting point for us since its between omaha and st. louis.  honestly, he enticed me with the offer of driving me around all weekend and the promise of good bbq.

here's the evidence that he delivered on the latter.


i had no idea hallmark is headquartered in kc, but a visit to the visitor's center, which happened to be near our hotel, set me straight on the card company's long history.  while there, we also determined that other than having the worst presidency in american history, george w. bush also managed to have the ugliest christmas cards of all the presidents. the kennedys had the most regal and classic, with the nixons coming in a close second. (sadly, i forgot to take a picture of the proof.)



an evening of cocktails, drag queens, and people-watching was followed the next morning by a visit to the very impressive nelson-atkins museum, where i couldn't resist posing by a shuttlecock. several of claes oldenburg's giant fiberglass birdies dot the museum's grounds. i just love them.

the search for the first puppy

the obama girls are getting a new puppy. man, we're jealous. we're putting off a new pet until we're in our house. the wait is unbearable. every dog we see on the street... every pooch we see on tv... we can't help but stop and look. (do you know how many dogs there are on commercials these days?) when dabney is bored with craigslist, she is known to spend hours trolling petfinder.

and now, we can't stop watching this...

blue pockets on a big red santa suit

HALLELUJAH. change is in the air.

last night, we had the opportunity to celebrate obama's victory amongst our own. a kind new neighbor, and former schoolmate of mine, invited us over for an election night party.  we raised glasses of champagne and shot a handful of illegal fireworks in front of our house which just happens to be three doors down.  people stepped out onto their porches gleefully. cars honked emphatically.  it felt like new year's eve. dabney and i were reminded of the night the red sox reversed their 86 year curse and won the world series.

missouri is undoubtedly a red state with tiny blue (and luckily heavily-populated blue) pockets.  despite our relocation to a batteground state, our two votes just wasn't enough to bring an obama victory.  as happy as i was with the overall national results, a part of me was sad that missouri, our new home, chose to be on the wrong side of history last night.  it was close and as i write this, it seems that no national network has called the state.  but it looks like mccain might have squeaked out a win. 

we're a little bit country

mogo featured on country living website...

voting is the coolest.

creative thinking, here we come...

having occupied a basement for the past six years, we can barely contain our excitement...

High ceilings spur creative thinking, study finds. That's because people in a high-ceiling room are "primed" to think broadly because of the sense of freedom associated with the space... while the containment of a lower room encourages people to think small and focused. Read the article. (PDF)

via tallmatters
via swissmiss

electopedia

not that this has anything to do with the major issues at hand, but man, it's entertaining. when you have 10 minutes, go and check out new york magazine's "electopedia."

sigh...

"hopefuls differ as they reject gay marriage" (ny times, 10/31/08)

halloween count

our first halloween in missouri and we wondered what the candy output would be like in my parents' neighborhood. well, here's the trick-or-treater count for the evening:

• 1 fairy princess
  
• 1 dorothy from the "wizard of oz"
  
• 1 baseball player
  
• 1 policeman
  
• 1 devil
  
• 3 "geeks" (at least that's what they claimed they were, but no real costumes but offered a corny joke instead)
  
• 1 cat
  
• 1 witch

= for a grand total of 10

not much, but a good selection and certainly better than the south end where all we got was a handful of teens with paper bags on their heads.

happy halloween!

design for obama

if you don't believe me when i say that the obama campaign has inspired independent designers, go see what many have created and while you are there, print some for yourself.

design for obama