1. The Dutch Community Where People Live on Strips of Land in a Lake I had a look and you can rent them on Airbnb too. There’s a cluster of lakes all near Amsterdam or Utrecht with the skinny islands! Check out some homes for rent around here or here and also here. And here’s […] | Continue reading
This week’s edition is dedicated to our readers in America. Happy 250, with love & courage from your friend in Paris. 1. One of America’s most recognisable corporate buildings is for sale Nearly three decades after it opened as the headquarters of the Longaberger Company, one of … | Continue reading
1. The Cholita Climbers of Bolivia Photographed by David Jácome The Cholita Climbers of Bolivia, or Las Cholitas Escaladoras Bolivianas, are a group of Indigenous, Aymara, women mountaineers who climb peaks in Latin America. They do not wear modern mountaineering clothing, prefer … | Continue reading
1. An Idea for Decorating your Bathroom “I’d like to share my grandma’s half bathroom. She calls it ‘the sitting room’ and she has been collecting little chairs for YEARS and adding them to the walls. Sometimes when I was a little girl I’d try to count them all and always lost tr … | Continue reading
1. Lovely letter writing prompts from a lovely stationary shop Here’s the shop, Assembly of Text in Vancouver. Found via Present & Correct. 2. | Continue reading
1. The weird but definitely not AI Designs of Stephanie Temma Hier Funnily enough, she’s only on Instagram. 2. The “little Scorpion of the French Riviera” wandered into my shop the other day and told me her story Interesting lady. | Continue reading
1. The Crisp Shops of Madrid Spain, like the UK, has a big crisp culture, with fun regional differences in how they’re consumed. In Catalunya for example, you’ll often see crisps and berberechos (tinned cockles) topped with Salsa Espinaler during ‘L’hora del vermut’ (‘vermouth ho … | Continue reading
1. Crazy about these Mixed Media Collages Find the designer Anton Elfilter here. Found via Moss & Fog. 2. | Continue reading
1. “Frasurbane”: a popular 90s postmodern design aesthetic titled from the 1990s TV show ‘Frasier’ a style that draws from more wild postmodern design movements like Grunge graphic design (eg. David Carson), Memphis Milano & Deconstructivism, but filters them through the lens of … | Continue reading
When Jewish art dealer Berthe Weill was forced to close her Parisian gallery and go into hiding during the Occupation of France, she had already helped build the careers of artists like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani and Diego Rivera, as well as female including … | Continue reading
1. Rarely seen photographs of Josephine Baker at the Ziegfeld Follies, 1936 By the middle of the 1930s Joséphine Baker was firmly established as one of France’s brightest stars, and she had high hopes of furthering the great success she’d experienced with the French when she was … | Continue reading
1. The other Madame X Portraits When Madame X was shown at the Salon of 1884 it became instantly a salacious painting and a scandal in French society as a result of its sexual suggestiveness. The painting’s subject, socialite, Madame Gautreau, refused the painting, and Sargent, d … | Continue reading
1. This incredible artist chess set By Artist Rachel Whiteread. Sold at Christie’s in 2019 for 10,000 GBP. 2. | Continue reading
1. A mid-19th-century French watch bottle (circa 1850) Represents a luxurious, functional accessory blending horology and jewellery, likely created for the European market or high-end export. It typically features a miniature watch movement encased in azure blue enamel, decorated … | Continue reading
1. Name that aesthetic: Domino Paper (for those of us who find as much joy in a book’s “clothing” as its contents) The forerunner of wallpaper, domino paper achieved its golden age in the second half of the 18th century. It took the form a 36X45cm sheet of paper that was printed … | Continue reading
1. How Marc Chagall made the Paris Opera House Fresco Ceiling in the summer of 1964 (and should it be kept there?) On August 7, 1964, inside Hangar Y, (formerly the Chalais Meudon site where the world’s first airship hangar was built in the 1870s and is now an excellent art & cul … | Continue reading
1. A Parisian apartment frozen in time with floor to ceiling cinema posters Inside the 400m2 home of a French doctor who was crazy about cinema. His walls that tell a lifetime of passion for cinema, every room is an archive, every wall a memory, Discovered and shared by vintage f … | Continue reading
1. A Behind the scenes look into the sketchbook of a medieval book illuminator Aren’t these incredible? Selected pages from the Spätgotisches Musterbuch des Stephan Schriber, a manuscript which appears to be some kind of sketchbook, belonging to a fifteenth-century monk working i … | Continue reading
1. Mistletoe sellers in Paris, 1928 Found here. 2. Collecting Modernist Mailboxes in Paris Photographed by Romain Laprade. | Continue reading
1. Art in Art: Cabinets of Curiosity and the Rise of the Gallery Painting In the 17th century, emanating from Antwerp, a new genre of artwork came on the scene: paintings of paintings, works populated by a lush array of meta-images. | Continue reading
1. An ode to Shopfronts (shot in the early 80s) Scans from the vintage book “Shopfronts”, 1981, found by Press SF. 2. Some thoughts on Personal Business that obviously resonated with me “In You’ve Got Mail, Kathleen Kelly is positioned as virtuous but naive, a hopeless romantic s … | Continue reading
1. The hidden worlds hiding inside Curtis Talwst Santiago’s jewelry boxes Canadian-Trinidadian artist Curtis Talwst Santiago uses reclaimed jewelry boxes as tiny stages for his elaborate miniature dioramas, which are part of his continuing “Infinity Series”. These meticulously bu … | Continue reading
1. Who is the countess living in the Port of Missing Men? On the edge of Scallop Pond in Southampton, an 85-year-old noble holds court in a hunting lodge dating to the Jazz Age that she is determined to protect. Photographs by Thomas Loof. | Continue reading
1. Movie Posters as Embroideries by French artist Emily Beer Discover more of her work here. 2. A charming archive of church kneeling cushions It’s an instagram account you can follow. | Continue reading
1. A Collection of Antique Hold-To-Light Postcards: something to look out for at your next flea market Each of the cards have been intricately “carved” out and painted with bright colors allowing those areas to glow when held up to the light, the thicker parts of the paper don’t … | Continue reading
1. Kindred Spirits Found on Anonymous Works. 2. A most beautiful story about the Couple who Lives on the Last Ellis Island Ferry Boat 3. | Continue reading
1. Forgotten Victorian hobby: seaweed herbariums bound in scallop shells View this post on Instagram A post shared by @templeofleaves Found one for sale here. 2. | Continue reading
Not all antiques clink with noble history. Some carry a more risqué past, whispering of velvet curtains, candlelit parlors, and the secret economies of Paris by night. Among them are the curious “jetons de maison close” (brothel tokens) — currency that look at first like ordinary … | Continue reading
1. Truth Windows A traditional feature of strawbale houses is the truth window – a small section of a wall that is left unplastered on the interior, and a frame is used to show the walls are actually made from straw bales for insulation. Truth windows often take on the role of an … | Continue reading
1. These incredibly vibrant portraits of 1930s High Society by Madame Yevonde A forgotten master of her trade: Yevonde Philone Middleton (née Cumbers; 5 January 1893, Streatham – 22 December 1975, London), English photographer, a pioneer in the use of color in portrait photograph … | Continue reading
1. Trees for dancing in Tanzlinden are trees designed for dancing in. Found across Germany, the oldest is from the 1680s. The branches envelop a platform for meeting & dancing. | Continue reading
1. Captivating pre-war Still Life works of this lesser-known French photographer Louis-Victor-Emmanuel Sougez (1889 – 1972) was a French photographer born in Bordeaux, who enrolled at age 15 at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, where he studied art, but soon abandoned that to … | Continue reading
1. This is Japan’s Answer to Playboy magazine: weekly animal themed erotica! Find more on the Casual Archivist, found via Present & Correct. | Continue reading
Celebrating all things French and Parisian for our special Bastille Day edition of weekly distractions… 1. Paris Is A Woman’s Town, 1929 Cover art for Paris is a Woman’s Town, by Helen Josephy and Mary Margaret McBride (1929), published as a guidebook aimed at American women trav … | Continue reading
1. Word of the day: Xylarium – Library of Wood This one is in Canberra, it has 47000 samples. Found on Present & Correct. | Continue reading
1. Summer restaurant goals Chef Dean Baldwin Lew was looking to host a dinner of an invasive species. The Ministry of Natural Resources told him that it was illegal to carry the Rusty Crawfish over land as a single pregnant animal could extend the population to another watershed. … | Continue reading
1. This used to be the richest silver mine in the world Silver Islet refers to both a small rocky island and a small community located at the tip of the Sibley Peninsula in northwestern Ontario, Canada. A rich vein of pure silver was discovered on this small island in 1868 by the … | Continue reading
Brooklyn’s Fulton Street Mall is a treasure trove for the urban explorer. At first glance, the shopping precinct of some two hundred stores in downtown Brooklyn looks like it has seen better days. Low rent retail, cheap costume jewellery, mobile phone accessories, knock off perfu … | Continue reading
1. Various types of dormers (lucarnes in French); windows that project vertically from a sloping roof Here you’ll find a breakdown in English of each dormer type presented, highlighting the architectural forms and features of each dormer type. 2. Su Nuraxi: | Continue reading
1. This Troglodyte House for Sale in France The valley, south of Tours, is classified as a Natural Area of Ecological Interest for Flora and Fauna (known as ZNIEFF for Zone Naturelle d’Intérêt Ecologique, Faunistique et Floristique). Six kilometres long, it constitutes a reserve … | Continue reading
1. Felt Anatomy The incredible creations of Vancouver-based Japanese fibre craft artist Hiné Mizushima. 2. Jim Morrison’s bust found nearly 40 years after it was stolen from Paris cemetery Police have found a bust of Jim Morrison that was stolen nearly four decades ago from the P … | Continue reading
1. The gargoyle at Giusti Garden in Verona The dramatic cypress avenue leads to a cave full of stalactites and subsequently to Palazzo Giusti. Created at the end of the fifteenth century by a knight of the Venetian republic. Talk about taking a grotto to another level. | Continue reading
An unlikely superhero spy; a bookish art historian in a paisley print dress, posing rather meekly beside her inventory of valuable museum works. But behind the innocent smile and the matronly garb, Rose Antonia Maria Valland was a lone female agent of espionage who, during WW2, t … | Continue reading
For every piece of beautiful art hanging in a distinguished gallery, imagine the countless of others that never quite made it. Picture an artist approaching their easel with the high hopes of creating a masterpiece, but with every brush stroke comes the sinking feeling that its n … | Continue reading
1. The House that Madness Built In the tidy Westphalian town of Lemgo, Germany, where the gabled houses wear their history with restrained Protestant pride, there stands a house that seems to have wandered in from another reality. It is a house made of wood, and also of something … | Continue reading
1. For Sale: Portobello Road’s Most Famous Antiques Shop & the Home Upstairs Property for sale on Knight Frank. 2. | Continue reading
1. A Ravishing Radish Hat And other wonderful creations by Rebecca Gardner. 2. Penitentes en Cuenca (Penitents in Cuenca) by José Ortiz Echagüe, 1940 a lay confraternity of Spanish-American Roman Catholic men active in Northern and Central New Mexico and southern Colorado. | Continue reading
In the copper-mined heart of late 1960s Zambia, a new sound was brewing — raw, electrifying, and entirely unexpected, channeled the sounds of Hendrix, Sabbath, and Cream through the lens of life in a newly independent African nation. It was called Zamrock, a genre that fused the … | Continue reading