Thomas Hoof lighting. Porcelain shade. Gorgeous. via Remodelista.

This is nice. Good use of tambour and curves. The 30s is always a good time to copy.

The New York Times piece, The iEconomy: How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work is a must read for anyone who cares about the state of this country and the direction in which we’re headed. I love Apple and I love this country. So it saddens me to watch our class structure deteriorate under a weight of consumer entitlement to the point where the working class cannot afford to work to manufacture the goods that it feels entitled to consume, and the ruling class cannot afford to manufacture at a price that reflects the purchase power of an employed and reasonably compensated consumer populace. It’s a bubble. But this is editorial subtext. Read the piece and try to envision for yourself where the American working class actually lives in the economy described in the article. And definitely watch the multi-media piece they put together. Excellent journalism and presentation. I hope they get a Pulitzer for this one.

Awww, how cute is that? (Yes, I placed a quarter there for scale. So?)

Bookshelfporn.com is a tumblr that documents bookshelves. Period. Excellent resource.

Shane McAdams presented his thesis for Pratt’s MFA program while I was an ID grad student year ago and I was blown away by his work. I don’t usually see abstract painting that melds color and texture with a mastery of manipulated media on the level of his show. And I’ve stayed on his mailing list and remain impressed and happy to follow his work. The introduction of more representational imagery is an unexpected direction. But it is definitely no less psychedelic. Next time I trip I want to do it in his studio. (not gonna happen.)

Beautiful set sketches from (the hand or office of?) Dante Ferretti, the great film production designer and long time collaborator of director Martin Scorcese. These from the production of Scorcese’s latest, Hugo. I love the pulley and the bracket detail on the steel column in the first drawing. Can’t wait to see the film. Via the nytimes.

Interesting article in the nytimes about current trends in the size of wrist watches.

No, sorry, that’s not right. A New York Times story today reports that “the beverage rivals are racing to become the first to produce a plastic soda bottle made entirely from plants.” And in all sincerity I hope they both get there soon. But in a load of BS so incongruous with a century plus rivalry between two industrial giants, the piece ends with this quote from Pepsi’s VP of global beverage packaging: “We don’t feel it’s a race” Ms. Lefebvre said. “We feel like were all working together to do better for the environment and also to make good business sense.” Yeah right.
The article covers some of the production basics around shifting to new materials and the challenges in setting up new production facilities and scaling up a material dependent on land and crops and affecting commodity markets, etc. But I just can’t believe those two titans are willing to take such a pleasant stroll to a solution so good for the bottom line. Especially when they’ve had success with proprietary fruit juice bottling. What’s missing I suspect is this: if you let the mothers of America see what the chemical cocktails Pepsi and Coca-Cola do to the inside of a plant based plastic bottle and how short the shelf life is before it eats a hole through the bottle and starts decomposing her linoleum floor, you can bet your ass she’s not gonna put it in her kid’s mouth quite the way she used to.

If you want to know what it means, ask this guy. I’m just going to do what I always do and put it up here and say it’s beautiful. It is.