Bon Marché

Living in San Francisco, we are definitely spoiled by all the incredible farmer's markets that sprout up every weekend. Most Saturdays, we go to our local farmer's market in Noe Valley, but last weekend we decided to mix it up a bit and check out the Alemany Farmer's Market, which is a 5-10 minute drive from where we live. We were amazed and overwhelmed by the the amount of awesome produce and flowers for sale, and the prices were cheap, cheap cheap! We stocked up on cherries, tomatoes, strawberries, basil, roses... and can't wait to go back next weekend for more.

Flowers galore!

Gigantic celery!

Fruits!

Greens!

They had sooo many different types of mushrooms that we couldn't decide... maybe next week we'll get some.

A half-flat of strawberries that we brought home on the scooter and made into yummy jam later that day.

Herz(og) So Good!

So last weekend we sat down to barrel through one of our Netflix "queue killers". (You know, those movies that sound good at the time so you add them to your Netflix and when they arrive you have no desire to watch them whatsoever?) Well, this particular "killer": Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen (Even Dwarfs Started Small) is an early '70s, black and white film directed by Werner Herzog about rebellious patients at a mental institution. Oh, and the entire cast is made up of dwarfs. And it's in German. Long story short, it's actually a very beautiful and disturbing and funny film. But the absolute best thing about it is the commentary. Herr Herzog has the most amazing voice. Seriously, he has this lovely, charming accent and speaks so softly and fluidly...he'd make a wonderful hypnotist. But that's not all. He was joined in his commentary by my #1 favorite weirdo Crispin Hellion Glover! So not only does Herzog point out interesting factoids about the movie (the insane location, the haunting music, intra-cast romances) he is goaded on by Crispin to regale us with tales from his crazy life: walking around Germany—by which I mean literally walking around the perimeter of the country alone on foot, being tortured (to the brink of death) in an African prison, jumping into an enormous cactus after losing a bet...and this is the same guy who has famously boiled and eaten his own shoe, been shot while in the middle of an interview, and randomly pulled Joaquin Phoenix out of a car wreck. So fascinating! I can't wait to watch the rest of his 50+ films, many of which are available on a new dvd box set from his website. And also check out this hilarious clip (via Your Daily Awesome). It's a scene from Even Dwarfs...set to hyphy music (which the young folks tell me is a funky new Bay Area rap style...) in which the mental patients do a little ghostriding, hyphy-style.

Rock 'n Roll Fantasy Fulfilled!!!

Best concert ever?!?! We were so thrilled to see that this show is coming to town. Couldn't have picked a better lineup ourselves! And it will finally force us to visit Treasure Island, something we've been wanting to do forever, but just haven't gotten around to. Oh, and the icing on the cake is that we already got our tickets, even though they don't go on sale until Sunday. How'd we do it? We randomly ran across a link that gave us a secret password to get tickets early. So get your ticket now. Password is "gold".

PTA: Dude Sounds Like A Lady

Ok, that's a misleading title. The PTA (Personal Trend Alert) I'm experiencing right now has less to do with guys who sing like girls, and more to do with the fact that most of the great music I'm listening to right now features Men-Who-Sing-In-Higher-Registers (which doesn't sound quite as clever as Dude Sounds Like A Lady...). Anyway, I've always loved Jimmy Scott, and Neil Young has been rockin' my (free) world for a long time, and I've even been known to croon a little "Danke Schoen" Ferris Bueller-style in the shower, but there are a couple bands that I'm constantly recommending to everyone, and it only recently dawned on me that they share this similar trait. Take a little listen for yourself (with recommended songs):

-Loney Deer (Saturday Waits)
-Tom Brosseau (Here Comes the Water Now)
-Falcon (The Sandfighter)
-Death Vessel (Deep in the Horchata)
-Mew (The Zookeeper's Boy)

***Oh, and that dude pictured above is Alessandro Moreschi, a world famous castrato. Which is totally different from what I'm talking about...I just couldn't think of a clever way to illustrate this posting.

48 Hour Film Project

This weekend we participated in the 48 hour film project with a group of friends, and made a short film titled "Rosenfeld for Hire". As you can probably tell from the picture above, the genre assigned to us was "superhero!" It was a ton of fun, and we will be sure to post the movie in its entirety in a few days. In the meantime, please join us at the 48 Hour Film screening this Thursday night (6/21) in San Francisco. It starts at 9 pm at the Embarcadero, and you can buy tickets here.

Twelve shorts will be screened on Thursday, each with a different genre but all featuring a common character, prop and line of dialogue. Can't wait to see them!

Photograph by Hillary Hartley

This just in!

Martha Stewart Crafts is having a 10% off sale for friends and family! (And we're all friends, right?) The sale goes through next Friday, June 22. Just go to www.marthastewartcrafts.com and enter the code MSCFF107 at checkout.

You know I'm a big fan of kits, so I've got my eye on this kraft packaging kit for baked goods. While I'm at it, I should probably pick up some printed cupcake papers, and the crepe paper sets and gift wrap look pretty great too...

Just Peg It (The end of the chip-clip)

Thought this was too funny, especially the Six Million Dollar Man-style background music. Those of us who used to peg our pants in the '80s should have no problem mastering this folding technique.

Via Unclutterer

In Loving Memory

Our dear friend Charley Harper passed away on Sunday in Cincinnati. I am so happy and honored to have met him and worked with him. His kindness, talent and wit are a constant inspiration to us and he will be missed!

(All images above are from a new book entitled Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life.)

Petit Patterns

Another Japanese craft book to obsess over! These are called Petit Pattern Books, and I picked them up at the Cooper Hewitt gift shop when we were in New York. Inside each book are pages and pages of patterns (mine are called Dots & Stripes and Scandinavian Style), a disk that includes all the patterns in both EPS and JPG format, and craft ideas as well as templates for projects to make with them. It's good inspiration and since it's so easy to change the colors of the patterns in the computer, it's perfect for last minute notecards, customized mix cd labels, or to use some of their suggestions, sugar cube wrappers and paper cups!

Colour Lovers Unite!

I've been catching up with all my favorite blogs this week and saw a post on swissmiss about a site called Colour Lovers, which is all about color trends in product design, ad campaigns, web design... you name it. I love seeing the color palettes extracted from magazine covers and websites, and it's interesting to see how similar some of them are. Also, if you're a registered user you can click around and create your own palettes, which are then presented on the site for comment by other users. Pictured above are a few of my favorites.

Get Yr Geek On!

photo: Mark Bowen/Scripps National Spelling Bee

Last night we were glued to the tv watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee championships. We were thrilled that 13 year-old local boy-genius Evan O'Dorney came out on top by correctly spelling the word "serrefine". Turns out Evan doesn't even like spelling, he prefers composing music and solving crazy math problems. The best part was during the post-victory interview when the overbearing host asked him, "So Evan, now that you've won, how do you feel about spelling? (smile, smile, wink, wink)" Evan paused, looked at him and said something to the effect of, "Are you trying to say that now that I've won, I'm supposed to like it more?" Genius!

On a somewhat related note, during our visit to New York last week we spent some time with an old friend with whom I share a dorky passion for palindromes. The most impressive one that I can remember?

Doc, note. I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.

After poking around a bit, I found 2 others that strike me as particularly poetic:

"reno loner" and "party boobytrap"