Lunch at the diner

Yesterday for lunch we headed over to Tyger's coffee shop in Glen Park, where we treated ourselves to burgers and Cokes. It's a cute neighborhood greasy spoon, right there on the corner of Diamond and Chenery, and near a great bookstore called Bird & Beckett.


This morning I did a quick internet search for Tyger's, just wondering about its history, how long it's been there, etc. They have quite an interesting website! Definitely worth checking out- it includes pictures of their "library" and their "garden" (neither of which I believe exist...) And states "the mission here at Tyger's Coffee Shop is five-fold! First, to make the extraordinary into the ordinary. We have attempted, and accomplished this part of our mission! Second, to provide our clientele, that's you, I think, with distinctive, elegant, tastful dining in a luxurious atmosphere. And, of course, this too we have accomplished!" It goes on to talk about executive chef "Hannibal Lechner", who has "brought back all of the wonderful grease that everyone has long hoped for!"

Pretty hilarious, and it makes me like it even more.

Sticka & Virka

I have recently been obsessing over a book called Knitprovisation by Cilla Ramnek. Originally published in Sweden as "Sticka & Virka" (which according to a Swedish to English translation site I found, means "Stick & Lumber", which I'm not sure is completely right...), it's a knitting book with projects that use recycled clothing, yarn scraps and found objects. The photos and projects are strange and amazing- it almost more looks like a catalog that would accompany a museum art show than a craft book. And the models are awesome! Check out two of my favorites below:



A quick perusal of Ms. Ramnek's blog shows a few posts and photos from February of last year, including this amazing mosaic floor she designed for a cafe in Stockholm. I love how her style translates so well from knitted pieces to interiors. She's someone whose work I definitely want to keep an eye out for in the future.

Mortified

Image courtesy of getmortified.com

Amidst all our packing, unpacking, cleaning, making messes and working in the shoppe this weekend, we managed to sneak out for a couple hours on Saturday night to see an awesome performance at the Make-Out Room called Mortified, in which a handful of people take turns getting up on stage and reading journals, poetry, song lyrics and letters that they wrote when they were teens. Needless to say, hilarity ensues.

Our pal Justin was one of the evening's performers, and he had people howling in their seats as he read diary excerpts from his teenage years. Mortified shows are held in San Francisco, LA, New York, Chicago, Boston, Portland, Austin and DC, so check their site for upcoming shows and make sure not to miss it!

Things and Stuff

photograph by Tony Longoria

Lots of news to share- we have found a retail space and will be opening a real live Curiosity Shoppe here in San Francisco this October! That's right, we will officially be a "click and brick" operation. (The photo above isn't of the shoppe, unfortunately, but was sent to us by our friend Tony. Don't you love the sign??)

In addition to relocating our business, we have decided to move into the apartment right upstairs from the shoppe, so we will be packing up everything else in our lives this week and moving this weekend! Crazy, right? Which means that orders placed online for the rest of the week (starting today) won't be going out until next Tuesday, 8/21. Sorry for the inconvenience, shoppe-rs!

More updates to follow...

The Curiosity Guild takes a bike ride

This weekend a group of us from the Curiosity Guild set out on a "stone soup" bike tour all around San Francisco, which was organized by our friend James (who will sadly be leaving this fair city soon to move onto bigger and better things). He collected contributions from all of us and planned our route, starting in Noe Valley all the way across town to Clement St. and back to Bernal Heights. As we rode, we collected all the various food items and ingredients that were on our list, which we brought home and made a delicious meal out of at the end of the day. We also made a few sightseeing stops along the way, including the mural pictured above, where we paused to take a group photo. Derek was a champ and documented our trip every step of the way, and you can see a complete slideshow of our bike tour here.

Some of the gang stops for a photo in Golden Gate Park.

We each picked out a bowl at Kamei, on Clement St.

Some dinner ingredients: foraged blackberries and rosemary, tomatoes, cilantro, onions.

More of our glorious bounty!

mmmm....Pancake!

One of the joys of running your own store is the pleasure and privilege of selling things made by your friends. It's even better if the things your friends make are beautiful. Well, we're super lucky to count the lovely Stacy Pancake of pancake & franks as a friend of ours. And we're delighted to finally be offering her stunning letterpressed cards at the Shoppe.

A peek behind the curtain.

Michel Gondry is a big hero of mine. He constantly blows me away with his limitless talents and creative genius. This video is an all-time favorite. It's just stunning. The YouTube version doesn't quite do it justice, I recommend buying the Director's Series collection of his work. Anyway check this out...

And if you are wondering how the hell he did it, check this out....

(via Coudal)

Lots to talk about

We've been so busy that we haven't had much time to post! Which means we have lots to talk about. Just found out that my younger sister's baby is on the way, so I'm running out the door but will be back soon with lots of fun stuff and shoppe news. In the meantime, here is a funny from 1932 that our friend Matt forwarded to me- from my home town of Petaluma, the one-time chicken capital of the world!

In the mood for some visual inspiration

I have a short stack of DVDs that I always turn to whenever I need a little visual inspiration. These are movies that I've seen over and over again, and don't mind having on while I'm doing other things around the house. (i.e. Rushmore, The City of Lost Children, The Science of Sleep, the films of Charles & Ray Eames, etc.) But on the top of the stack is Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love, which I watched for the what must have been the hundredth time again the other night. The visuals in this movie are to die for! The set decoration and prop styling are flawless, not to mention the costumes and cinematography, and don't get me started on the music.... I highly, highly recommend this film to anyone out there who hasn't seen it!

2 weeks, no posts!

Life gets busy, and all of a sudden two weeks have gone by without any new posts from me! Here are a few random images of fun things- I'll be back soon with more...

Felted penguins in a dish! From the newest addition to my Japanese craft book library. The ones with the little closed eyes are the best!

Also can't get enough of the felted sprouts. I mean, c'mon!

And here are Derek and I as Simpsons characters. Create your own Simpsons avatar here.

Those were the days....

So I was checking out Virgin America the other day because I'd heard they were going to start service between San Francisco and New York pretty soon. It looks nice and fancy, yet affordable...and it got me thinking about another airline that I've heard so much about, Braniff International. They went out of business before my jet-setting days, but I still see their name popping up in reference to so many fun things: Alexander Calder, Emilio Pucci, Alexander Girard...

Cellllllll-a-brate good times, Come On!

Better late than never notice for 2 fun things happening today that anyone and everyone should come out and enjoy with us.

1. Remember that 48 Hour Film Project thing we mentioned a while back? Turns out our film, Rosenfeld! For Hire, was a winner and is being screened tonight at 8:30 in lovely Dolores Park.
And...

2. ReadyMade (where I'm an editor) is celebrating the release of its annual Small Spaces issue at Cantina tonight from around 6:30 to 9:30.
Come one, come all! Hope to see you there!!!

For the stylish camper

I was so thrilled to see these new Orla Kiely-designed tents and sleeping bags on her site the other day! They were produced in collaboration with a British outdoor goods company called Millets, are affordable, and in traditional Orla style, they're bold, graphic and absolutely covetable. Makes me want to plan a camping trip right away!

Very Suspicious Indeed

We just received a shipment of 7 new Suspicious, Talking and Combination Paintings from J. Richel, and they're for sale in the Gallery section of the shoppe! They each have so much personality, and we could sit here for hours making them talk to each other and give each other sidelong glances by pulling on their tabs. I'm especially into this lovely lady with her cat-eye glasses. She looks timid in this picture, but trust me, she's a talker!

Eye Candy

Ever since making that quilt a couple weeks ago, I've had quilt fabric on the brain. My mom and I spent a long time in Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics in Berkeley the other day, just ogling all the different prints and beautiful solid colored cottons they sell there. I decided that it would be fun to make one quilt per year (which is only way I'd be able to add quilting into the mix with all my other current projects/hobbies). That way you'd have an ever-growing collection of handmade quilts, you could take your time picking fabrics and piecing them together, and perhaps even hand quilt them.

The prints pictured above are from the "Katie Jump Rope" collection, part of Denyse Schmidt's latest offering from Free Spirit Fabrics. I'm tempted to purchase the entire Fat Quarters collection, which includes one piece from each of the 36 fabrics, since it's so hard to choose favorites!

The fruits of our labor

We can't get enough of all the delicious fruits and berries that are in season right now! We've been making jam like crazy, and eating bowls of berries for breakfast every morning. (That bowl on top there matched my woven dishtowel sooo well that I had to take a picture of it!) Bon Appétit everyone- enjoy then while they're ripe!

La Vie En Rose

Ever since I picked up this book a couple weeks ago, I haven't been able to put it down. It's a recipe book from the Rose Bakery in Paris, called Breakfast, Lunch, Tea, and it is delightful! I haven't made anything from it yet, but I keep flipping through and admiring the beautiful photographs and type. Check out that cover!

My absolute favorite picture in the book is of the tea-time counter, filled with scones, breads and biscuits. It looks like they change the offerings on this counter all throughout the day, serving pizzas and salads at lunch, etc. Don't you just wish you could have tea there every day?


And check out this awesome video review of the café, which is all in French and oh-so-perfect.

Moped Gangstas

A shout out to all the moped gangs that have been zipping around the Mission recently. Every gang deserves an anthem. Got this from the lovely folks over at ANP Quarterly who publish a wonderful free art & culture magazine that we've been missing of late.

My Uniform

I think I got my first pair of Converse when I was a freshman in high school. They were purple. Since then, I've gone through who knows how many pairs, replacing them when they become threadbare and the heels are worn down to the ground. (Pictured above are the three pairs I currently have in rotation, 2 of which are about ready to be retired.)

I usually stick with black and white, but I thought it would be fun to play around with the new "design it yourself" function on the Converse website to create a colorful pair. It's so much fun! You can get wacky with the colors, and can customize everything from the color of the laces to the color of the racing stripe. You can even add your name to the back. They cost a little more than normal ($60) but proceeds go towards the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, so you can rest assured that the money you're spending on your new kicks will be supporting a good cause.