Serge Gainsbourg article in Vanity Fair

Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg on the set of the movie Slogan, June 1968. By Gilles Caron/Contact Press Images.

I have been loving the most recent issue of Vanity Fair! It must be a music-themed issue, because there is an article about Syd Barrett, an excerpt from Eric Clapton's new book, an Annie Leibowitz photo essay about folk singers, and a great article about Serge Gainsbourg, which you can read in its entirety here. In addition to many photos of him (always smoking of course) there are photos of his Paris apartment, which has been basically sitting untouched since his death in 1991- cans of food in the cupboard, full ashtrays, the whole 9 yards. And the writer interviewed many of the amazing women in his life, including Jane Birkin, Anna Karina, Francoise Hardy and of course his daughter Charlotte ...basically every chic French woman in recent history.

Of course one of my favorite parts of the story is about a handbag... I knew that the Hermès Birkin bag was named after Jane Birkin, but I didn't know that she was known to carry a wicker basket as a purse. I think it's great how this woman who inspired the design of a highly coveted handbag with a price tag ranging from $7000 to $100,000 herself used a basket as a handbag. That's the best! (Read this Time Magazine article for more on the history of the Birkin bag.)

Bat art is online!

We finally posted images from Hollow Face, Hand Wing on our site! Click here to see Shawn Creeden's amazing bat paintings, embroideries and the limited edition woodblock print he created for the show (pictured above). We have been loving having all the bats hanging in our gallery space at the Shoppe!

The Birds and the Bees

We've had a little bit of an obsession with bees and bats recently, so I was super excited when I stopped in at the post office yesterday and saw these new pollination stamps. Also, after watching "Life in the Undergrowth" (see Derek's post below) I have a whole new appreciation for bugs, so these new stamps were right up my alley.

The design is pretty genius- according to the USPS website, "Artist Steve Buchanan created an intricate graphic scheme for the stamps that emphasizes the ecological relationship between pollinators and plants and also hints at the biodiversity necessary to ensure the future viability of that relationship. To that end, the four different stamps are arranged in two alternate blocks that fit together like interlocking puzzles. In one block the pollinators form a central starburst. In the other block, the flowers are arranged in the center." Pretty cool, right? And certainly more interesting than some of the other stamp choices out there. (The lady at the post office said she preferred the Disney stamps, and that these would have been her "last choice", but I may have to disagree on that one!)

Art Appreciation

The cool kids over at Fecal Face have posted a nice interview with one of our favorite artists ever, Mr. Jim Houser. Check it out, it includes lots of fun pictures of his magnificent work.

WOW!!!!

We recently rented one of Sir David Attenborough's nature documentaries "Life in the Undergrowth" and a week later I still can't stop thinking about it. Practically every single frame of the movie completely blew my mind. Go rent it tonight. And in the meantime, check out some clips over at YouTube. The one above is a time lapse of a spider building a web. Ridiculous! But I must say, of all the amazing things captured in this superb documentary, the slug sex scene is hands-down the most outrageous, surreal, unimaginable, crazytown stuff I've ever witnessed on film.

Fun Thing About Owning a Shoppe #233

Giveaways!!! We're during a little promotion with the wonderful folks over at Apartment Therapy, San Francisco where we're giving away one of our prized Lorena Barrezueta dishes. Go check it out, and maybe you'll be the lucky winner! We'll be adding a bunch more of her pieces to our online Shoppe in the very, very near future, so keep an eye out for those as well...

DIY Wednesdays on design*sponge

We are so excited to be the new DIY contributors on design*sponge! From now on, you can visit the site every Wednesday afternoon to see a new craft project that we've created. Last week we started with a trio of shadowboxes made out of old wine crates that we lined with gift wrap, and this week we recovered one of our old office chairs with a pretty striped fabric. (Click here to read today's post.)

It's going to be a fun challenge coming up with these weekly projects- and what great timing since we just moved and are in desperate need of some cheap and easy decor for our new apartment.

Sea Lions & Pine Cones

We took Shawn on a whirlwind mini tour of SF before he headed back to New York, and we all agreed that the best things we saw were the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf and these pine cones hanging from the wires outside Mollusk.

It was such a nice treat to get out of the neighborhood, even for a couple of hours! Now it's back to work packing orders and sprucing up the shoppe for tomorrow morning. More soon!

Some pics!!

Finally... here are some photos of our Shoppe. The opening was a blast (expect a full report soon!) Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate with us.

SHOPPE!

We picked up our lovely hand painted sign from the talented folks at New Bohemia Signs the other day, and we're sooooo excited! Wait until you see how amazing it looks on installed on the front of the building. We'll be posting lots more pics as we get closer to the opening, so stay tuned!

Happy Anniversary to us!

Thank goodness someone reminded us that our anniversary was coming up! (See what happens when things get really busy? I can't believe we BOTH forgot!) Yesterday marked our 3 year wedding anniversary, and we celebrated with a yummy dinner at Spork, one of our new neighborhood restaurants. Then we went to our new favorite video store, Lost Weekend, and rented Casino Royale. (Then we stayed up until 1 am working... but at least we took a little break, right?)

For those of you who want to see how we spent our September 24th three years ago, check out the pics on our friend Jessamyn's awesome photography site, jessamynharrisweddings.com. There is an entire page in the gallery dedicated to our true love log cabin jamboree!

Rit's it

Rit dye is one of those great craft products, like Mod Podge and Aleene's Tacky Glue, that is classic, cheap and multi-functional, and has awesome packaging that doesn't look like it has changed since the '70s.

Of course I've used Rit to dye fabric and yarn (and yes, even a tie-dyed shirt and over-dyed vintage slips back in the day), but it's fun to come up with other things to apply color to that aren't necessarily fiber-based. Back when I was working on Handmade Modern with Todd, we used Rit to stain some pieces of cork for a nightstand, which turned out great. And I've recently been playing around with staining pegboard and wood with it too. What else could we use this amazing dye for? A quick search on Flickr showed a few Blythe dolls with Rit-dyed hair, and the Rit website suggests using it to dye paper as well. The possibilities are endless!

Come one, come all!

It's official... our grand opening is two weeks from today! If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area the on the evening of Thursday, October 4th please stop by to say hello, check out the shoppe, and see some amazing art by our friend Shawn Creeden, whose show, Hollow Face, Hand Wing, will also be opening that night. And make sure to come by on Sunday the 7th at 2pm for what is bound to be an awesome and educational presentation about bats. Here is all the information- hope to see you there!!

The Curiosity Shoppe Grand Opening!
Thursday, October 4th 6-9 pm
Featuring Hollow Face, Hand Wing, new works in the gallery by Shawn Creeden on the subject of bats.

Plus: Join us for a free event featuring live bats, presented by the California Bat Conservation Fund and sponsored by the Curiosity Guild. Sunday, October 7th at 2 pm in the Shoppe.

855 Valencia Street
between 19th and 20th
San Francisco, CA
415-839-6404
www.curiosityshoppeonline.com

Fashion Show!

We are huge fans of Jack Spade, and were so excited when we heard about their recent Spring 2008 fashion show in Bryant Park. A smart, DIY happening that is totally up our alley. Watch it here. (Courtesy of one of our new favorite blogs, Hi + Low.)

THE golden record

Wow, it's been a long time! We've been busy, busy, busy getting ready for the opening of our store (more on that soon) and sadly, Smarts & Crafts isn't the only thing we've neglected (grocery shopping, anyone???) Anyway, I've had the idea to post about The Golden Record for a while now, and wouldn't you know it, those badass brainiacs over at Coudal Partners beat me to the punch. But I'm glad they did, because they found a great site that I somehow missed in my lame attempts at research.

Quick background: In 1977 NASA sent two Voyager spacecraft out into deep space. On those ships were 2 Golden Records chock full of information about our little green planet, the idea being that perhaps an alien life form might find the Voyagers, pop the records on their Hi-Fis and maybe come check us out. The discs include all kinds Earth-related ephemera: pictures, maps, diagrams, and an even an interstellar greeting from our very own President Jimmy Carter. Anyway, most interesting to me was that they also included audio recordings from Earth. Lots of them. Songs, languages, the sound of a mother kissing her baby, a heartbeat, nature noises...I just find the whole things so beautiful and wacky and optimistic and lovely. To get a nice sampling of what our extraterrestrial friends might find on the record click here.

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...