Kicking Off Summer

We're off to the City tomorrow night to celebrate the start of summer with a Jonathan Coulton concert. As recent events and other expenses are taking their toll on our wallets, we'll be taking a home-ation this year. That doesn't mean we'll be sitting in the dark like sad cases, though. There's a bunch of must-see events going on in NY, including the Buckminster Fuller retrospective at The Whitney and The New York City Waterfalls, and I still haven't seen Jeff Koons on the Met roof. Oh, and next Saturday evening there'll be more of this going on.

The Breathing Sculpture

I posted this over here but I think it is something that bears repeating. The British Broadcasting Company commissioned artist Jaume Plensa to design a sculpture that pays tribute to all those killed while reporting the news. A beacon of light shines from it every night while the shape evokes an ear trumpet to hear the voices of people throughout the world.
The glass sculpture is entitled Breathing, it is a fitting memorial and a thing of beauty.

Before and After: The Habitat for Humanity Project

Fred and Ethan at One Project Closer are taking their popular Before and After segment and using it to help raise awareness (and hopefully some funds too) for Habitat for Humanity. They are asking you to share your Before and After makeover story from this spring or summer with intereaders. They will pick the best and post them each Sunday from June 22 until September 21, 2008.
Bonus: the best project wins a $50 home improvement gift.
Even if you're not undertaking any projects this season go check out One Project Closer, it's full of useful tips and info. Want to know how to save yourself big plumber bucks when your copper pipe springs a leak? The answer's here.

Speaking of Raymond Loewy

In one of those serendipitous moments, details of this original Raymond Loewy Associates 1951 "Look" Kitchen appeared on my desktop. The metal mid-century modern kitchen in good condition and is available from Little Paris Antiques in Los Angles, CA for $7800.


The "Look" kitchen is so iconic it's featured in the Library of Congress. How cool is that? Almost as cool as being responsible for this car or working for NASA.

Defining a Brand

At last a house post, well house-related anyway.

Some of you will know that Andrew Geller the architect of The Cool House, was responsible for quite a few iconic designs for things other than unique summer homes. Geller worked for many years as the head of the Retail Store/Shopping Center Planning and Design departments for Raymond Loewy Associates in New York, where he designed buildings for department stores including this one at Garden City, NY for Lord & Taylor.

As Geller tells the story, in his early years with the firm there was a meeting with people from Lord & Taylor where they realized they did not have a design for the logo. Geller took a sheet of paper and wrote the name Lord & Taylor upside down and a legendary logo was born. If you look at the logo and compare it with Geller's signature on this sketch and you can see the similarity.


As part of the brand definition Lord & Taylor used a red rose as their symbol but it was phased out in the 90s. Now they are attempting the mother of all makeovers and the rose is making a comeback. Artists, photographers and graphic designers have submitted their entries and now they want YOU to help choose the design. Be aware that it's a little overwhelming, lots of designs to choose from. Too many I think, kind of like the dress selection in the Manhattan store. Still, it's a positive sign when business lets the consumer get involved in the process. As long as they don't mess with the logo itself!

Just like dial-up

I think I got the answer to what would happen when Mozilla attempted to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours: You can't get near their site. I've been trying for 33 minutes now, since the Official Start at 1 PM ET. It's just like the old days of dial-up and the internet, way back in the mid-90s.
While I'm waiting to get onto the download page for Firefox 3 I thought I'd post a photo. It must be all the orange in their logo that got me inspired. Enjoy!

Firefox 3 Download Day

If you're a Firefox user today, June 17 2008, is the day to upgrade to the shiny new Firefox 3. And if you are stuck with boring old IE you might want to make a change and try to set a record into the bargain. Haven't you always wanted to set a World Record?
The folks at Mozilla want to celebrate their 10th anniversary in style - by setting the Guinness World Record for the number of downloads in one day. Total pledges as I type? 1,383,867. Why don't YOU make it one more?
They want you to download to help spread Firefox. I want you to take part because I want to see what will happen. Will the internets grind to a halt? Will chunks of software be flung into cyberspace? Will my iMac explode? We'll know soon enough.

Cilantro: Harmless Herb or Instrument of Death?*

I had no idea that so many people disliked the fragrant green herb Coriandrum sativum until I stumbled upon I Hate Cilantro, a website dedicated to supporting the fight against the "most offensive food known to man": Cilantro.
Now, I love coriander, as it is known in Europe; I use it to flavour curries and Thai soups, and once I discovered it was known as cilantro in America, in ceviche and salsas. Hell, I've been known to sprinkle it over Boston (Bibb) lettuce before now.
To some people, though, it tastes like metal, soap, or rotting corpses (I hope that last person is imagining what a putrefying carcass tastes like and isn't writing from experience). I thought the two people I know who dislike it were just being dramatic when they told me it makes them vomit but I may have judged them too harshly. It may be strange, but I react the same way to tea!
Two thousand people are anti-cilantro enough to have joined the fight and several share their stories with the internets. They hate it so much they put it on a T-shirt and proclaim it proudly to the world. I feel only pity for them, cilantro is almost impossible to avoid and to them I say: Look away.
For those who love it as much as I do a quick salsa recipe:

Fresh Cilantro Salsa
1 bunch cilantro
1 tomato, finely chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, more to taste, very thinly sliced, seeded if desired
2 limes, freshly squeezed
Salt, Freshly ground black pepper and a little sugar to taste

Finely chop cilantro and mix in a bowl with tomato, onion, garlic, jalapeno and lime juice. Stir to combine. Add salt, pepper and sugar to taste. Serve with fish, chicken, tacos, or alongside guacamole.

*For John in NJ and Fliss in BXL and cilantro/coriander haters everywhere.

Uniquely modern wallpaper

Flying saucers, flat-head whales and bucking broncos on this fabulous and fantastic Barok'n'roll wallpaper from WallCollection. Designed by artist and skateboarder Emil Kozak in black on white, white on black or white on red, it's a neat twist on a classic Baroque wall covering. All the usual ornamental flourishes are, in fact, tiny details: here a diamond, there a skull, over there a heart. Once you start looking you'll spend hours examining the paper.
WallCollection are a Danish company but you can buy their products throughout Europe and the US, too. Their product differs from traditional wallpaper in that it is digitally printed allowing for a more flexibility in design, a larger color palette, no pattern repeat and no wastage. The added bonus for those of us who want something unique - you can upload your own photo to their website and they'll create your custom wallpaper. The feature also allows you to price the wallpaper out and see what it looks like before you decide to purchase. Just measure the height and width of the wall you want to decorate (in centimeters, please) and use the online calculator to do the hard work for you. As a rough guide n 8'high 10' long wall will run somewhere between $700 and $1500 depending whether you use on of their designs or one of your own.

Celebrate The Irony

To counteract the blues from this week's posts and to celebrate Friday evening let's pogo around a little to The Wombats a band from the UK (not to be confused with The Wombles a fictional band of ecologically savvy furry creatures).
I missed these guys when the played New York last week, mainly because I DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE PLAYING. Memo to their tour manager/press agent: You might get more than 30 people at a gig if you ADVERTISE. But, hey, there's always youTube...

Totaled or Totally Repairable?

Turns out the car might not be totaled after all. On the twelfth day after the accident, 10 days after we had been notified that an assessor had been appointed and six days after the dealer had told us to pick up the plates because it was a write-off I got a call from a very determined assessor who hoped we hadn't bought a new car yet because as far as he could see it just needed two new doors.
The car is apparently at an unsecured car auction place somewhere in the Tri-state area and he needed our permission to tow it to a "very good car shop in Medford" which they "use all the time" so someone could make sure that's all it needed.
Hmm, I didn't used to be a suspicious gal (OK, that's a big, fat lie. I'm cynical by birthright and inclination.) but something changed over the past few years. Maybe it's the way the Administration plays fast and loose with the Constitution; maybe it's the lack of a democratic process in Albany or maybe it's just a reaction to that damn insurance bill but something doesn't seem quite right. It's a lease car and I'm not named on the lease so I couldn't help him and The Guy is in meetings in another part of the country and couldn't be reached but the assessor insisted he should call him back "any hour of the day or night".
Really? If you can be reached any hour of the day or night, shouldn't you have gone out to see the car before it was released by the dealer's shop? Just saying. Oh, and am I the only person who when faced by the "I've been doing this job for thirty years" comment wants to yell back: You should have got the hang of it by now OR You're only as good as your last job OR Tell it to Obama!

Pest Control Quadrupled

It's that time of the year when spring glides into summer; the days are long, the nights are warm and small furry creatures abound. In other words it's party-time for the cats. This is the first summer in a while that we have had four active, healthy adult cats and boy are we noticing it. Every morning and usually evening too, the doorstep looks like a butcher's slab. What would madam like today? A nice mouse head? Side of vole? Filleted chipmunk?
But today they outdid themselves. I don't know if it was individual offerings or team work but we have 1 (one) small grey mouse, 1 (one) vole, 2 (two) chipmunks on the kitchen terrace and lawn, plus 1 (one) black rat by the garage door and 1 (one) flattened squirrel by the front drive. I willing to concede even my cats couldn't have been responsible for the last corpse but they could have chased it to its demise under a truck.
How do I deal with this carnage? Denial that's how. The Guy is in Minnesota so the death will not exist until he returns home. I will enter and exit the house by uncontaminated paths. Hopefully I won't run out of unsullied methods of egress before then.
*No other pictures for the post. You all know what these animals look like and besides, let's respect the little corpses, OK?

Ooh! Aah! Yum!

Today's etsy pick: the stunningly gorgeous Windowpane Chair from sprucehome. Classic, modern, chic and cheerful; it'll fit in almost any decor. And how about that photo styling? Pairing it with a mid-century table and wellies? Genius.
Update 30 secs after I posted this IT WAS SOLD. They have other beautiful items, though, get 'em while you can.

Re-visualize real estate three ways

Trulia.com, the real estate search website, has come up with three really cool ways to view real estate.
The first Trulia Snapshot is straight porn. Search by town and state and refine by price point or listing time, then gawk to your heart's content. At the moment it only works really well in the big cities but that's what we all want to know isn't it: What do you get for $40,000,000, the most expensive listing in Manhattan? A 5 bedroom, 6 bath minimalist condo designed by Richard Meier overlooking the Hudson River baby, that's what.
The second tool, Trulia Hindsight, takes Visual Earth maps and digitally superimposes data on them, tracking the growth of towns and cities like Madison Wisconsin and Aspen, Colorado. Watch populations grow and decline, search by town or street. Waste a lot of time in a really fun way.
My favorite, though, is this fantastic awe-inspiring video that visualises where people are searching for real estate on Trulia. At the moment both its coverage and its usefulness are limited but plans are in the works for tools to help real estate agents more efficiently market homes. As it says on their blog: It’s sort of like Amazon Recommends for real estate.
The tools have been developed in partnership with the terrific design and technology firm stamen. Go over there to see more wondrous ways to display data, including Cabspotting which I marveled at in Design and the Elastic Mind at MoMA earlier this spring.

Allstate: Those hands are mighty expensive

I'm looking at the slightly bedraggled pink peonies I picked out of the yard today. The ones that were knocked to the ground by the 5 minute tempest that blew through last night. And I'm trying to stay calm because in front of them is this year's house insurance bill from Allstate.
The insurance firm's desire to get out of property insurance in certain states has been well-documented - see here, here and here and most damningly here, and they are not writing any new policies on Long Island. If you go online to get a quote from them this is the message you receive "We cannot currently provide an online property insurance quote in the county you have indicated. For more information please contact your local Allstate Agent".
But just refusing to take on new customers isn't enough for Allstate, if you want out there are ways. NYS law doesn't allow insurance providers to cancel more than 4% of their policies in any one year so I'm convinced that they are trying to get existing policy holders to switch to another provider by pricing them out.
Existing home owners would include us. We've been customers for 8 years. Our premiums rose a little for the first four years. Then the increases started to get really big. For the coming year the policy will go up by 30%. Not 3%, which would be in line with inflation, and in other countries where policies are index linked is mandated by law, but THREE ZERO PERCENT! This means that in the four years we have lived here the premium has increased 100%. It's gone from shocking to outrageous to unaffordable.
So what happens if you contact your Allstate agent to complain? He tells you that for the last two months almost every call has been from policyholders complaining about the increase in their premiums. He looks at your deductibles and informs you that there is nothing he can do: you have taken the maximum allowed. He suggests you shop around, because he knows no-one else will take you on as a customer.
So you sadly look at the peonies, feel grateful that this was the only damage sustained yesterday, work out ways you can decrease your outgoings to pay for the insurance and, should there ever be hurricane damage to your house, the $40,000 you will have to pay upfront before Allstate will cut you one check to start rebuilding.

File it under Humor

In The Today Show's "What Were They Thinking?" segment "fashion icon" and "style guru" Isaac Mizrahi channels his inner Benny Hill to give advice to women on undergarments.


The segment is actually called Plastic Surgery without the Plastic Surgery, which must account for the bandana and stethoscope in his pocket.
Isn't it a little early in the morning for post-modern humor?

Dusk

I took this shot of the big conifer in front of the house at dusk yesterday after temperatures in the 90s set off a violent thunderstorm. It was pretty dramatic out there for a while, you can still see the humidity in the background.

Win a Light

If you like modern lighting stroll over to 2modern Design Talk where they are currently running a competition to win this Meridian Table Lamp from Lights Up!.
All you have to do is visit the 2Modern lighting shop and then leave comments about it on on the contest page. Not too complicated is it? Competition ends June 30th.

Real Estate Round-Up

Another house has gone on the market in the incorporated village. In case you are counting that makes 30. There haven't been that many houses on the market in all the time we've lived here. Most of them are just houses, nice enough but not my style. Every now and then, however, a gem comes up and here it is.
I love everything about this Craftsman-style house, the ceilings, the moldings, the windows. Everything that is except the kitchen, which I hate, hate HATE. The cabinets just don't fit with the house in terms of style or color. I know I'm going to be in the minority here but I'll say it anyway: White is the new generic. Take the virtual tour and you'll see the original dark door next to the range - it's authentic and splendid. Beside it the new white cabinets look like off-the-shelf boxes. They may have cost a lot or they may be warehouse specials but they look wrong and they make the rest of the house look disoriented.
And as an aside, in case you think that the market is sliding downwards, this house just raised its asking price by $1,000,000 and change. Even though it has been on the market over a year at the lower price. While everyone else is dropping theirs. Now that takes balls.

Method Eco-friendly Cleaning

Tips on keeping the house clean in an eco-friendly manner.
I used to have to go to Target especially to buy Method cleaning supplies but I can get them at Ricky's drugstore in town now. I love their wipes, especially the grapefruit fragrance ones.
My favorite tip is in the bedroom: Not making the bed is more green than making in it. I've been right all these years......