Author: loiseaufait

Little by little the bird feathers its nest, and object by heart burnished object we surround ourselves with lovely necessities of memory and function. It is these things that make a silly Apartment a Home or a silly Wednesday an Occasion. Whether my nest is an old farmhouse, a sixth floor tenement walk up, or a brownstone basement... whether I share it with family, vagabonds, women of heart and mind, or a little brown cat and a sweet ginger banjo, my principal joy is filling it with light and laughter (and corralling).

Summer Joy: Cucumber Sandwiches

Today I had one of the summer’s most marvelous delicate treats: the cucumber sandwich. When I was little Mama and I grew cucumbers and tomatoes in half barrels down the length of our driveway. I loved the curlicue tendrils that got so grabby and brushing off the little white thorns that grew from the bumps when they were ready to pick. Mama would have a tomato sandwich and me– always the cucumber. Nothing has changed.

I go white bread, crust on, no toast, Duke’s mayonnaise on both sides (sometimes I have to bring this special from Virginia, other times they randomly/awesomely have it at Fairway), salt, pepper, and chips. This is probably the only sandwich in the world (outside of PB&J) that doesn’t agree with a pickle. After all, a pickle is just a cucumber that sold its soul to the Devil. And the Devil was Dill.

Happy Birthday Puddenhaid!


Today is Andrew’s birthday. So I made him these cupcakes. He makes me all kinds of things: dinners and breakfasts and stories and crossword puzzles and laughs and books and adventures and makes sure I’m safe and happy and surrounded by music. He’s my guy and I think he’s pretty much the best.

Happy Father’s Day.

Oh happy day and thank you, Daddy, for teaching me how to drive a boat and tie the easy necessary knots and catch crabs with chicken necks and be safe (above all!) on water and land, to drive a little longer distance to get a coke in a glass bottle and make that extra distance be the special part, to go down isthmuses of land only known at low tide (and then how to back up at high speeds to get the hell out of there), to borrow Christmas Trees with a Flatt and Scruggs soundtrack, to sing, always, and always in harmony, that music needs to “get you off!”, how to do the nitty gritty: drive stick shift, shoot guns, change tires, jump cars, gut fish, set up the stereo just right, change the strings, make the grilled cheese, know the tides and how to catch the waves, get backstage and be cool, and the big stuff: how to measure happiness and time in terms of action, how to lose parts of yourself and come out the other side, what a marriage and a life should and can be, the absolute power of unrelenting positivity, that life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death, and, of course, always be master of your own destiny.

Indoor kid vs. Outdoor kid

An epic battle between what it means to be an indoor kid vs. what it means to be an outdoor kid: Slip’n’Slide on Gilt Groupe.

Hey, $13 for the Wave Rider Double w/ Boogies is a pretty good deal. Now: how much for the backyard?

Hermès’ Odalisque: Get Thee to Coachella!

Hermès has bedecked Ingres’ Odalisque with their divine bangles and the thing is, she looks great. I especially love the one up above her elbow.Add in the peacock feathers and the studied/effortless turban and: she’s ready for Coachella (behind the curtain is a floral onesie, we swear).

Here’s the original:

Is the Hermès accesorized version almost better?? Is that sacrilege/sacrilart? Here are a few more nudes in the series (it’s impossible to find anything on Hermès site, but there are more there too), all in all, pretty awesome.

ps. If you missed it, check out the  Hermès DIY Kelly bag though, in all truth, I probably know more people who own an actual Kelly bag than have a printer (ie: one). Now we just need to get the DIY Birkin templates to the guys at MakerBot and we are in business!

General Orders no. 9


This beguiling series of images came from the trailer for this movie. My friend (and handsome Georgian) Carson shared it with me, I like to call him a young turk of the new south. He says it seems a little over styled, but gosh, it’s the story of his life. It seems that peculiar Southern story of a whole lotta nothin and whatever it was anyway decaying in the heat mighty fast against the hungry sprawl of strip mall reconstruction. At least I think that’s what it’s about. It’s hard to tell.  But the relentless progression of images in the trailer (and the Shelby-Foote-meets-Cormac-McCarthy narration) is utterly mesmerizing and somewhat menacing. What happened to us? What’s going to happen?

Whatever it is I want a set of those bee-bells.

1974 please.

The best thing in the whole world is when you look around and it may or may not be 1974. The second best thing in the world is when it is also summertime when that happens. It’s here. It’s fabulous. It’s time for adventures.

ps. (1974- put on your earmuffs) what is the best photo processor for Android? I used to tape a piece of napkin over the lens of my nokia, but now we’re grownups.

Good Advice.

These are my two best friends, dishing out some serious life advice. This is one in a serious of polaroids of accidentally perfect instructions for being a good grown-up, including:

If a Gator's Chasing You, Run in a Zig Zag
If you're stuck, your friend can help
Nothing Beats a Self Portrait

I will see them in one week and I have the same-time wanderlust and heartache for them so hard it’s starting to give me goosebumps.

Vivian Maier=Robert Frank+Lady-Sartorialist

Get this: a man purchases a box of random photo negatives at an auction, inside finds the work of Vivian Maier, an unknown Chicago street photographer. The images turn out to be starkly beautiful, sometimes sensational like Weegee (but quietly, almost accidentally), full of humor and honesty and humanity. The whole story is wonderful, and I simply can’t stop looking at these photographs:

See more pictures here.