Once upon a time in a land far, far away, I turned a sweatshirt into a laptop cozy. It was an easy DIY project, a cheap and customizable alternative to the more expensive store-bought laptop sleeves. I used it for a long time, many trips to the coffeehouse or flights to anywhere. Then, this summer, I retired my homemade sleeve and purchased a different one—typewriter style—from the MOMA store. I’m hardly sick of it yet, but if I were, I’d trade up to the new ohmygosh glorious BookBook laptop case.
Maybe I can just have both?
BookBook by Twelve South is an ingenious idea. I’m always game to disguise high tech in an old-fashioned way. These hardback cases come in weathered red or black and look remarkably like something forgotten at the back of the stacks. I’d love to slip my laptop inside, throw it in my bag and go. The pulls on the zippers are even designed to look like bookmarks.
Twelve South makes accessories strictly for Mac, which is just the kind of classicist snobbery that I can appreciate. Creative design is creative. File this one in the WANT section.
Color bomb!
Ilana Kohn is a Brooklyn-based artist who has provided illustrations for a variety of clients, including The New York Times and The Stranger. It’s no secret that I’m inspired by color—lots of it—and Ilana is not one to skimp. She mixes acrylic and collage techniques to bright, eye-catching results. I love the handmade feel to these pieces, too, the hyper-detailed facial features surrounded by rich splotches of blue, red, yellow and green. Win.
The Beholder has several of Ilana’s originals up for grabs. Or, visit her own shop to see a selection of affordable prints.
Confession: I’m a very highbrow, sophisticated tea drinker. When sitting with tea, people are not allowed to look me in the eye. Some have claimed to experience an “intellectual high” while in my tea-drinking presence. Yes.
My mom loves tea and, more and more, it’s becoming my drink of choice. Brain juice! In 2008, I made my first attempt at creating a tea from scratch. It seemed like 1) a fun activity, and 2) a great gift idea. I selected some Chinese green tea and combined it with dried pear and a very little bit of lavender. I think it was a big hit.
This year I made my best friend a 2010 blend using Chinese green tea, dried papaya and dried pineapple. Essentially, you can combine any flavors that you think might mingle well together. With the selection of the herbs or fruits or any other flavoring you just want to make sure that you choose food-grade products (not, um, potpourri). Throw a spoonful of your mix into each teabag (many coffee shops or tea houses carry the empty satchels).
By far the most fun to be had here is the “design” portion. I found a small box, designed a cute label and placed my tea bags inside. Each teabag is sewn shut with just a few stitches of regular thread and topped off with a tiny cardstock tag. Previously, I illustrated little objects onto each individual tag. This year I used my typewriter to personalize them with my buddy’s nickname. Ta-dah.
Drink up, nerd badasses!
My true holiday music selection this year is turning out to be Polish composer Abel Korzeniowski’s score for A Single Man. The film goes wide tomorrow and is very worth the price of admission, full of eye-popping 1960′s elegance and texture. Forget however you feel about designer-cum-director Tom Ford; this is a beautiful film, even if every detail seems meticulously staged.
Abel Korzeniowski’s score celebrates strings to a dreamily nostalgic degree as the film tracks a day in George Falconer’s (Colin Firth) life eight months after the sudden death of his partner Jim (Matthew Goode). It’s classical, but tie-loosened and unstuffy, filled full with moments of sweeping sorrow and triumph. There is also the addition of some Etta James (“Stormy Weather”) thrown in the middle to really take you back. Goosebumps.
No Christmas music here—this is what I’ll be listening to.
It’s the dead of winter, y’all, but you’d never know it while listening to the latest release from Tycho. I’m not a big fan of Christmas music, so I always try to discover instrumental alternatives around the holidays, pleasing background music for wrapping gifts or having drinks. That said, “Coastal Brake” is not holiday music by any expected stretch (unless, maybe, that holiday is the Fourth of July). It’s a foamy visit to the seashore, a saltwater splash for the headphones complete with drippy bleeps, bloops and sighs. I’m having a SoCal Christmas this year; the temperature has dropped some, but there’s still plenty of sun and that’s reason enough for this.
Tycho is Scott Hansen, a San Francisco artist and musician. What’s especially pleasing about his music is that it is always accompanied by stellar visuals. He designs all the posters and packaging to support his releases—with everything damn fit for framed display. There’s clothing, prints, music and lots of other design-y goodness over at the site he runs, ISO50.
