the ruffle shuffle

chinese laundry cosmos booties

purse-n-bootz ruffled satchel handbag

flaunt skirt by acne jeans

steve madden brunella sandal

emily & finn tiffany black herringbone dress

i like the understated ruffle. i like that it might take a second look, or maybe just a  longer first look, to notice the voluptuousness of these ruffles, soft and curving and subtle, but still titillating... a slow, whispering va-va-voom... just a teasing little ripple of heat.

the swing of things

cane garden bay tire swing, british virgin islands photo from sseana1

tire swing, riegelsville bridge from a walk through durham township, pennsylvania

adirondacks tire swing from comma?

western landscapes tire swing, from phil nelson imaging llc

there is something so devastatingly lonesome about the tire swing. out there in big landscapes under big skies it hangs still, waiting. or unobserved, it swings with quiet breezes or shakes with heavy winds or sags with thick snow. dangling and swaying alone. of course someone will come every once in a while and swing or sit. a band of hollering, jumping children or a soft-stepping solitary old man or a pair of ladies with their summer skirts and brown ankles and bending necks...of course they come, with all their nostalgia and hope and laughter and awe and sorrow— and they swing for a while, pumping the air with their legs, letting their hair stream and flutter, closing their eyes against the heat or cold. but they go away eventually, feeling a little lighter maybe, a little more alive or relevant or enchanted, or maybe just hungry and flushed. but they walk away, or run or skip or amble, and leave the tire swing to drift for a bit in the air, underneath the creaking branches and the humming leaves and the hopping bird feet and those immense startling skies. and then it slows to an almost standstill, just barely pulling at the rope or chain it hangs on, but still softly thumping the air without anyone watching or knowing or wondering.  

black & tan

buckskin breyer model horse originally posted on flickr by princes milady

quorn hunting boots

black and tan coonhound (reuben) originally posted on flickr by prudence rabbit

a black and tan

what can i say? black and tan looks good together. 

she-wolves & pussycats

masked women... they are like gifts still unwrapped, waiting for the ribbon to be pulled and the paper torn open... they are hot-blooded half-truths, sudden super-heroes, cinematic pauses, glinting hints of hazard, cryptic codes, slowly swelling silences, she-wolves and pussycats... and i think there is nothing hotter than the heat of the eyes and the mystery of the mask, and that everything on the face grows bigger because of the mask—especially the mouth and the teeth... that soft pouting pink, that sharp bright white. everything at once becomes delicate and dangerous, dreamy and dark...

all the right words

kenzo minami posing near his print at the second annual live art auction 

benefiting stoked mentoring held at milk gallery on april 5, 2008 in new york

photo by astrid stawiarz/getty images

so this guy, kenzo minami, had the best new year's resolution i've ever heard. usually they suck and sound worn-out and silly. but his resolution is simple and composed, thoughtful and alive. maybe his statement is what we are all actually thinking and trying to say, what we all actually want, but we just don't quite know how to articulate it right—that maybe we all want to live bigger and deeper and wider lives... and that what we've got to remember is that even the little choices we make every day have force and value in determining the possibilities of our experience. 

mr. kenzo minami has got all the right words:

this year if i have two choices between something familiar and something new (something i have never done, chosen, or tasted), i would like to choose the latter and step out of my comfort zone as much and as often as possible next year. something foreign over familiar, something unknown over known, and something new over something old and comfortable.

black on white

by grn apple tree

by a fine mess

by secret garden

by ksubi

kid cool

asterix, dogmatix, and obelix from the adventures of asterix comic book series

tintin and snowy from the adventures of tintin comic book series

lucky luke and jolly jumper from a lucky luke adventure comic book series

these are the guys i grew up on—the comic book characters that captivated my brother and i all through childhood. we read them on trains. in hotel rooms. on buses. on planes. in shared new bedrooms. in family friend's living rooms. we moved around a lot. new schools. new towns. new countries. new languages. but we always had these comics and the characters that lived and moved and adventured in them. and i still am utterly captivated— i still think they are the coolest, funniest, truth-seeking, life-risking, wayfaring dudes... ever. and the fact that all of them have an animal cohort/friend/sidekick makes them even more wonderful and brilliant...they are just so goddamn cool.