project loon video made by mixtape club
Chris’s production company Mixtape Club made this beautiful video for Project Loon, Google’s effort to bring Internet to everyone in the world. It’s not easy for either of us to be constantly busy, but it’s absolutely worth it. Here’s a peek into my boyfriend’s wonderful heart and mind.
dog vacay
Escaped Brooklyn with Chris and Jackson this weekend for green fields and a little quiet in the Hudson Valley. We planned the excursion with my friends James, Nicole and their dog Sheba (who I persuaded them to adopt), and stayed at Audrey’s Farmhouse.
These two pups were surrendered at the same time to a South Carolina shelter back in October and were rescued by Badass Animal Rescue. Then, of course, Chris and I adopted Jack in December. Both of these goofballs require constant attention, but, at the end of the day, it’s a small price to pay to see their furry faces light up like this.
good night, world
Staying up to write and came across this image and this song. Some things go so well together, they seem to complete one another.
something to try rhubarb shortcake by sweets & bitters
I just came across this recipe for rhubarb shortcake via Sweets & Bitters, a quarterly food journal by Hannah Kirshner, a bartender-turned-pastry-chef-turned-cookbook-writer who I met a few years back when we made a Stupidly Simple Snacks episode together.
I love the idea of recipe cards: neat, concise, portable pieces of information imbued with love and attention to detail. I often like the design, too, which probably explains why I own quite a few cookbooks even though I rarely (if ever) use one in the way it’s intended: To make food.
That being said, I don’t feel intimidated by Hannah’s recipe as I usually do when confronted by instructions and a list of ingredients. I might actually make this sometime, though I think I’ll swap out the harder-to-find rhubarb for always-available-strawberries and make strawberry shortcake instead.
“You’re a lot smaller in real life.” –People who read my blog and then meet me in person.
having a coke with you | on giving your vision a chance to come alive
I discovered the film and photography work of William Hereford today in a rather roundabout way: I was checking to see how Nick Fauchald’s Kickstarter campaign, Short Stack Editions, was doing. (It met its target goal and will be funded.) As I usually do, I read the bios of everyone involved in the recipe book project and the FAQ because someone (probably Nick) cared enough to put it there. And that’s where I learned about William and his work, and, while perusing his Tumblr, discovered that he made the time to re-edit a commissioned project for no reason other than to see how it would have turned out had it been made in the way he originally visualized it. I thought this was inspiring, seeing the alternative, like giving yourself and your art a second chance. Or at least answer that stubborn question, ‘What if?’
via williamhereford
Every so often you have to step back from a project and try and pretend you’re shooting for the first time. At this point I’ve most likely shot close to 100 food related videos and for better or worse it’s caused me to work with a sort of rhythm. Oscar Hudson and I chatted at length what we could do differently. We both loved this poem by Frank O’Hara and decided to shoot video during a recent Tasting Table stills shoot with his words in mind. The footage ended up being edited into a holidays card (which you have already seen below) for the client but I decided to go back and re-edit everything with Oscar and see how it worked when edited to our original idea.
office update
It’s in the act of making things that we figure out who we are. – Austin Kleon
Brett Colonell uses a mouthstick to sketch in Paper because he’s paralyzed from the neck down. Here’s the finished sketch. Extraordinary and inspiring.
20 sec. time lapse of me working on the Beastie Boys sketch.
wanted that place between living in the moment & capturing it
Five years ago, I went on a couple dates with a guy who kept his phone next to his fork and knife at every restaurant where we ate “just in case” an important email arrived during dinner. Today the issue with cell-phones-all-day-every-day remains in a slightly different form; there’s a need to not just keep up-to-date, but to remember the moment, almost compulsively, by sharing it.
But what are we creating when we’re quick to consume and quick to republish – an image of who we are or who we wish we were? It’s something I wonder often, especially when I find myself reaching for my phone in bed to see “what’s new” because I can’t fall asleep, or when I pull-to-refresh Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, absentmindedly seeking distraction while waiting for a friend at a bar or on a subway platform for the train. Social media has become an intravenous drip of information that offers temporary hits of relief; I sound like an old person typing this, but constant access to technology now suppresses boredom and daydreams simultaneously.
When I began writing this post, I thought it would be a light recap of what I’d been up to lately, but showing you a brief moment in my day is the equivalent of saying ‘fine, thanks’ in reply to ‘how are you?’ from a passing acquaintance. Sure, you can’t know what’s happening with everyone all the time. (I wouldn’t want to, to be honest.) But it’s the difference between a conversation and small talk, an email and a tweet.
In my quest for quality over quantity, I’ve decided that, moving forward, I will aim to write better instead of more on this blog and elsewhere. At the end of the day, you say more in fewer words when you take the time to reflect and share what’s important to you, selectively.
Your (probably) older, wise-ish sister,
Amy
Photos: The view from the balcony in the Airbnb where I stayed in West Hollywood. Photo by Eddy Vallante. / Running around the Arts District in LA. Photo also by Eddy. / My animals on the new bed. / Soup dumplings at Grand Sichuan in West Village, NYC.
memorial day weekend
Gathered this morning from blue egg-laying chickens on the farm.
Unexpected, delicious Asian-inspired menu at North in Providence, Rhode Island. Good cocktails, too.
how to make spaghetti carbonara
I’ve been seeing so much beautiful work coming out of Paper lately, especially in the past two weeks since FiftyThree introduced zoom. The idea that people are creating just because blows me away. Maybe it’s the neat handwriting; maybe it’s the details. It’s both. I see something like this sketch and it looks like a glimpse into the future: One in which anyone can make something beautiful, fun, informative, shareable and spontaneous.
Made With Paper by zhiqi-zhu
summer has begun
Dinner under a clear blue sky at GoogaMooga in Prospect Park last night.
Paper is featured on the Apple homepage today!
Thanks
Made With Paper by Apple
Behind the scenes of a stupidly simple snack.
photo by eddyvallante:
