my converse/

Just a quickie post today. I am sequencing the Bruno Mathsson chapter so I don't want to break away from that for too long. But I ran across this image and it makes me laugh. If you guys only knew how many pictures I have of my Converse. I lie on a lot of floors. Ha!

J'adore Antwerp/Tobias van Hattem

One day while I was in Antwerp, I was feeling a bit unsettled. I am sure it was from all the travel and the fact that I was in the middle of writing a NYT post, but hey...what's a girl to do. This girl goes for a walk! And that day in Antwerp, my walk led me to Tobias van Hattem. I could hear him playing his piano for a few blocks away and just unconsciously walked towards it. And then I just sat for about  a 1/2 hour and listened. I was not alone, in fact he had quite a crowd. It was wonderful just communing with my fellow man in the city streets through music. A rare experience.
Click here for a clip I found on youtube. this clip actually doesn't do his playing justice...
He told me he plays all the time and has a place nearby where he "parks" his piano. For some reason I love the idea of seeing where he parks the piano. I wonder how far he pushes it. He mentioned it is quite close, but before he said he was pushing it from home and that was really far...

just pretty/

From a visit to Green Gulch Zen Center yesterday.
Have a good weekend friends.

J'adore Antwerp/ le zoo

Did I mention that I fell in love with the city of Antwerp during my trip? Well, I did...for so many reasons. So for the next few days I am going to share just a few of them.
I happened upon the entrance to the zoo completely by accident. It is right next to the Centraal Station. I cannot remember why I was over there but I went for a lot of walks so that is the most likely reason. The lion just captivated me. How incredibly beautiful is he?! I didn't go in. I just admired the entry...and then that class of school children walked out in pairs and all I could think was "how lucky to be able to come to this zoo as a child."

editing/

I am in the middle of sequencing all the images into chapters for my new book and it is always so interesting the images that just kind of stick with me. This one keeps pulling me and there is a snowball's chance in hell it will make it in the book. It is from a storage room at Carl Aubock Werkstatte. But goodness it is pretty...

old operating theatre/london

On my visit to London in September, I visited the Old Operating Theatre Museum. Truth be told, this was one of my "I am not leaving without visiting" destinations. I love things like this! Maybe it is because I was weaned on Masterpiece Theatre, or that I have a fascination with surgery (I have photographed a few...) - I don't really know, but the room itself did not disappoint. It is surprisingly small and the details (like the little box of sawdust under the table to soak up the blood) added so much to my imagining this room in use. It is rather horrific to think what it would have been like to have had surgery without all the modern advances like anesthetic, X-rays, etc. - you know little things like that. There was a display of old surgical instruments that was rather harrowing/fascinating as well.
The theatre is located in the attic of an old church which added a layer of intrigue to the visit. We had to climb up a spiral staircase into the attic and then go through another part of the "museum" that was filled with old apothecary artifacts called the "Herb Garret". That part of the museum was a little hokey in my estimation, but hey...what ever floats your boat. I added a couple images of the Herb Garret at the end there. Funky, right? Wonder what the alligators were used for...

braun/old school

Old school Braun stereo from one of the houses for my new book. It still has the old microphone and recorder! Damn, I wish I could have recorded my voice on this thing...