Miss Moussetache aka Mimimou

I am dreaming of a small Christmas world...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:42:00 +0000

Remember my Kokedama tutorial? I have now changed ingredients. Instead of a lovely vinca minor I really wanted to exploit the small planet-look of the Kokedama, so I have been looking everywhere for a small pine tree. Well, the smaller they are, the more they resemble twigs therefore I opted for a pine tree lookalike. So... tadaaa, here it is, my small Christmas world.

Make your own moss world: Kokedama Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:33:00 +0000

Antoine de Saint Exupéry's Little Prince came from a planet scarcely any larger than a house. He shared his little planet with good plants, bad plants, a couple of vulcanos and one beautiful rose.

The image of this small asteroid covered in green with one magnificent flower sticking out of it, has always made me smile: wouldn't it be magical to live on such a planet?
One day, while on an urban exploration of Amsterdam, there it was, my first string garden: a little ball of soil, covered in moss, with one, tiny plant growing on top. I wrote about the moss ball, or Kokedama as it is called in Japan, in a previous post but I have waited the whole winter before venturing on making one. In the end I even turned this event into something special by inviting friends and teaching them too how to add a bit of magic to the world: because that is truly what they do. That's why I want to teach this to you too.

What you will need

1. a tiny plant; moss can't stand direct sunlight so choose a shadow loving plant. I have used baby ferns, grass and another lovely plant with violet flowers of which I can't recall the name.

2. a 7:3 ratio of peat soil and akedama or bonsai soil.

3. dry moss (you can buy a whole bag at most plant shops).

4. scissors.

5. cotton thread.

6. nice packing string like twine, hemp or sissal. Mine is from the wonderful London household shop Labour and Wait.

7. gloves. Yes, it WILL get messy.

8. a jar of water.

9. moss, which you can either buy in a large box or pick yourself in the woods.

Instructions

1. Remove as much soil as possible from your tiny plant so that its roots get exposed. Be very thorough but gentle!

2. Mix your peat and akedama soil together. You know the consistency is right when you are able to make a small ball from the earth without it breaking apart.

3. Now that your soil is mixed, start shaping it into a small ball the size of an orange. Use a little bit of water if needed. Think 'clay' or 'pizza dough'.

4. Et voilá!
5. Make sure each ball has enough room to accomodate the roots of your plant.

6. Take a bunch of dry moss and wrap it carefully around the roots, making a circular and compact shape. Then tie the cotton string several times around it. This will eventually dissolve.

8. Make a small hole in your soil ball and gently press the plant inside it. Be careful to 'close' the shape back to a sphere.

9. Now it's time for the fun part: take small sheets of moss and press them firmly into the soil. Don't leave any open spaces. Wrap the twine string around the ball as if you are packing a present and leave the long sides as long as needed.

10. Choose a nice, shady place, install a hook and hang your wonderful planet of moss.

xx
Mimimou

PS Two other very important ingredients which I have forgotten to put on my list are a vacuum cleaner to clean your clothes after all the work is done and straws to drink your coffee with dirty hands...

As the world turns... green

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Urban Green
A plant takes up space. Which is fine if you have space but more complicated if you live in a Harry Potter-style broom closet. But plants are even being used as purifiers by Nasa so it might be worth throwing a few pair of shoes away in favour of a green friend. Unless you are as lucky as I am to live near the just opened (and AMAZING) shop Urban Green. If they would serve coffee, I would move there.
In this shop I have discovered something which they call string gardens. Small planets with grass growing all around except at the top where you have a different plant sprouting, like a cherry blossom or an olive tree. Apparently they are all over the web but I am thankful Urban Green showed them to me. Sometimes it's nicer to discover something yourself than have a blogger pointing it to you.

The inspiration for these string gardens can be found in the kokedama, an ancient form of bonsai, and is fairly easy to reproduce:
1. Roll clay-heavy soil into balls;
2. Cover the soil in moss, or stick grass seeds in it;
3. Inserting a plant into the soil;
4. Use some lovely string to keep everything together;
5. Attach one or more strings to the ball and hang them where you want.

But you could also drop by Urban Green and just buy one for 19 euros...

Terra Plana
Walking away from the shop with a wonderful Bergamot plant I was asked a few times where I had bought my shoes from. These were from Terra Plana, a wonderful brand with Dutch origins which tries hard to use a variety of eco-friendly materials and innovative minimal glue constructions. All their shoes are made from recycled materials! So I am walking on other people' stories and it feels so soft...

What I particularly love about the shoes is the box. On it you will find a small instruction: either re-use the box to store the shoes, or turn it inside out which leaves you with a wonderfully printed box or bring it to a paper bin and let others recycle it for you.

There are so many brands which do not understand the difference between really be and mean who you are, and just say it for the sake of marketing and sales.

Luxirare
Another great example of meaning who you say you are, is Luxirare, a weekly webzine dedicated to clothing and cuisine. Luxury to them is not a price, it's a personal experience which depends on the time and amount of thinking it took to create something.

One of the luxury things they have created, has stolen my heart completely: I am a crayons lover. I used to drink sweet ink from my uni-ball pens. I love fruit and am addicted to colors.
Luxirare has shaken all my addictions and created something amazing: edible crayons.

All crayons were made of a variety of edible ingredients from nuts to fruity pebbles to dried blueberries. Most of the ingredients that were used were of the healthy variety, but a few colours, such as blue, achieved better results with more sugar and candy. But who cares if you think of the disgusting things we humans tend to eat?
That being said, each crayon was made with color divisions. So the flavour is based on colours, not actual flavours so I am not sure if eating your red crayon after drawing would taste as good as eating a red apple...

Friday 3 September
On each walk I now make, I take seeds from plants along the path and distribute them elsewhere.

Are you broken? I can fix you

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:14:00 +0000

Wednesday 1 September
I had parked my bike next to someone else's when I noticed one thing missing: the other bike only had one pedal. 'How uncomfortable for the riders' right foot!' I thought.

My grocery shop was across the street so I started walking towards it. I can never walk in one straight line so I was sort of zigzagging on the road when I noticed a familiar object lying on the tram rail: a bike pedal! It wasn't the right color nor the right size but it was a bike pedal. So I ran back and carefully pushed the pedal in the metal pin. It fitted! The cinderella bike had found its almost perfectly fitting shoe. I smiled and left. Little things can change the world too.

The End.

Oh. I can change the world

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 09:05:00 +0000

Floods, another oil spill, giant hail, food riots... OK. Yes. I understand. A lot of things are not going very well in the world and there are many reasons to be sad. But at the same time... should I be sad because I can't do much about it?

A week ago I have decided to change the world and I am making one step a day towards my destination. At least.
The great thing is that there are no rules and it's not really important where you start. Which means you could do ANYTHING, ANYTIME. For example, you could make a complete stranger smile, just by saying something nice or sharing a moment ('look at that rainbow'). Or you could make seed bombs and drop them in desolated areas of your city. Or you might embellish the street with a few crayons and the help of some children.
Take a few things into consideration: it's important to stick to your believes as much as possible, to mean what you do and to act impulsively.

Monday 30 August
My boyfriend and I have named this week the 'no plastic week'. This means:
We will not buy anything with a plastic container, if we can avoid it.
We will bring our own bags to the shops.
We will re-use all containers and plastic we already have.
We won't 'take-away' in plastic: either bring your own containter or take the time and sit in.

So far the results have been great. Not only did we both get great reactions from other people, but we got to eat better food, spent less, bought more consciously and we had no left-over food we had to throw away. I was already in love with glass jars but now they have found their way to... practically everywhere, from plant pot to food jar (as we have no plastic ones left).

Therefore I have decided to continue with a no plastic month. My next project involves a lunch bag made from coffee bean bags and I have contacted my local authorities and requested a plastic container bin for my neighboorhood.

Have a lovely day,

MM

A poodle under my bed: a post about monsters

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:06:00 +0000

At exactly 02.47 PM on 3rd October 2007 in Central Park, New York, I discovered poodles scare me.

At that moment in time a perfectly trimmed, white poodle was walking majestically towards me and I swear the pavement cracked underneath his paws: he was so big, he was able to look me in the eye.
I used to beg my parents to get me a poodle when I was a little girl, but from that day on, my conception of a 'poodle' had changed. All information in our mind is stored in little boxes, which we then label with a name and fill with a memory, a rough concept and an emotion. My poodle box said 'cuddly; small and fluffy; happiness' but when I saw the poodle mentioned previously, my mind and my senses conflicted with what I thought a poodle to be and I was forced to renew my information box. I changed that into 'scary; BIG and fluffy; fear'. Then I realized there was another box which information was very similar to the giant poodle's, its label read 'monster'.
Monster? Was this experience enough to turn a poodle into a monster???

There I was, standing in the middle of New York City in my most glamorous dress, trying to define the difference between a poodle and a monster. Our conception of what we consider to be a monster, has its roots somewhere in our babyhood and rarely gets an update in adult life. Meaning we end up dying with the same concept of what a monster is, as we used to have as a kid.

Some monsters are furry, others have shiny scales, most of them are blessed with a long row of pointy teeth - which have usually all sorts of disgusting things sticking between them - and practically all of our monsters are BIG. Really BIG. That's the thing about monsters: although we all have very different ideas on how he is supposed to look like, we all recognize a monster when we see one. But do they still scare us when we are grown-up?

As monsters are such a big part of our childhood, we tend to loose our fear over the years. We put them in a perspective ('You are just one of the ten thousand things I should be scared of') and they get smaller. Sometimes, we even start loving them.

I do. Many other grown-ups obviously do too...

Ray Harryhausen is an American film producer and a special effects creator most famous for his stop-motion monster animation. You might have never heard of him but does King Kong or the amazing fight between a man and seven skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts ring a bell? He is responsible for almost every monster you have seen in a 50s, 60s and 70s movies. Nice: The Pixar film Monsters Inc. pays homage to Harryhausen in a scene where Mike and Celia visit a restaurant named "Harryhausen's".

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Twenty years after he had drawn them, Italian illustrator Ericailcane’s parents showed him his first childhood drawings featuring monsters and fantastic creatures. He then simply redrew them and published them side by side in the wonderful book Potente di fuoco.

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Isn't this the most accurate definition of a monster? I love this illustration, no words could ever achieve this image. Visual artist and writer Matteo Gubellini has just become a dad and I am slightly jealous of the fantastic world he will create for his child. But I am sure this experience will sparkle his own imagination even more.

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Relleno de Mono, a talented illustrator from Chile, literally proves that monsters are not evil creatures. They are actually quite friendly as of all of his wonderfully manipulated Polaroids show. Wouldn't you love having a monster in your pool?

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The hand of amazing, wonderful Canadian illustrator Carson Ellis is
easy to discern: a subtle color palette, gentle line work and silent storytelling. Her monsters seem to have stepped out of a Brueghel's painting, with their mix matched bodies but how could someone with such elegant feet harm anyone?

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Italian Camilla Falsini's favourite subjects for artworks and illustrations are fantastic creatures and mean human like figures, usually represented with big heads and tiny bodies. Or simply with sharp eyes and pointy teeth...

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This book is a small collection of some of the work visual artist Geoff McFetridge has done for Spike Jonze’s film adaptation of the book Where the Wild Things Are. Like with all of his work, Geoff's attempts to manipulate with irony and imagination the way people look at things. You can see this is a monster but when you look at him closely, it becomes hard to see any monstrosity in him. So is he a monster?

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Joshua Ben Longo has an obsession with monsters and comic book heroes. That is a good thing: have a look at its portfolio and although sometimes slightly disconcerting, his work is so much fun! I want a house full of monster furniture too.

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Nobody could have said it better than Picasso: All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

Just keep checking under your bed every once in a while, ok?

MM

The importance of looking carefully

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 07:21:00 +0000

It was rush hour at the Amsterdam railway station and I was on my way to Brussels. The train was running late and as a consequence everybody was walking up and down the platform impatiently, moving in coordinated blocks. That's how I saw her: at one point the mass left a huge gap right where she was standing. At first she seemed motionless like a statue: an elderly lady, somewhere in her eighties, with wavy hair, a soft suede coat, a mohair turtleneck sweater, wonderfully cut pants and lovely flats. All of which was in the purest shade of white. She looked as if she had stepped right out of a Vogue winter fairytale. But the lady was conscious of everybody staring at her: young girls with their mocking smiles, young boys rolling their eyes in disbelief. The white lady's hands clutched more and more to the bag she had pushed in front of her like a shield. I thought she looked amazing. I went up to her and said 'Madame, you look beautiful'. A lovely smile broke her face in thousand wrinkles. She lowered her arms and thanked me. The train arrived and we lost each other in the mass. I found an empty seat, took off my coat and waited for the train to leave. Suddenly I saw her bony hand holding a carefully wrapped sweet before my eyes. The lady was towering over me. 'Take this, please, and enjoy. I am sure it has been a long time since someone has offered you a sweet. Just as long as someone has said to me I looked beautiful.' She smiled again and left. That moment was magical to me. I think of her words very often and while many people were there at that exact moment, none of them carries this memory with him or her. Not just beauty is in the eye of the beholder, life is as well. My Italian grandmother had a special way of dressing up: on important occasions she applied a hint of deep red Chanel lipstick with her index finger and sprayed a hint of No5 on her wrists. After that she was ready to be taken out by grandfather and indeed, although the changes remained unnoticed for the untrained eye, I could see her metamorphosis: she had shed her worker's coat and felt like a woman. It's important to train our heart to see things as they are, not as they look. Flickr is a endless source of poignant tales for people like me. Some are speculative, others aren't. Like this old lady sitting on a bench from Ed Yourdon. She is wearing a nice blue dress and pearls, which shows she has carefully dressed up for shopping. But she is holding her groceries and bag so close to her body, that it's clear she is not feeling entirely safe in the world. Her gaze isn't very trusty either. Her hand is resting next to her, obviously reserving that seat for no-one. In the comment the photographer notes that he bumped into the lady one week later, wearing the exact same clothes and pearls and carrying the exact same plastic bag... Most of us have heard of Jonathan Harris. To me he was the pioneer of online story collectors. He is perhaps best known for We feel fine, a website which measures emotions through blog analysis. Another great project he did is I want you to want me, which gathers its data from online dating websites. The data is presented as an interactive installation showing a sky whose weather (sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, etc.) can be controlled by the viewer. Hundreds of blue and pink balloons float through the sky, each representing a single dating profile. Larry Sultan spent a decade photographing his mother and father, both retired, in a series of colour-rich and hyper-realistic portraits. Nearly all images were staged. Sultan was fascinated with fiction and suggested narrative. He depicted his parents as if they were lost in life, dressed up for no reason, waiting for things not to come. An example of how you shouldn't always trust what you see through the eyes of someone else. FOUND Magazine is a wonderful collection of found objects, love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles. Memento's of someone else's life which sparkle the imagination of its finder. In this case, the finder is juist as intriguing. The photo shows an unsettling image of a laughing girl with a horrible fire in the background. The founder was a guy working at a photo lab who made copies of all the pictures he liked. Flip through the pictures of William Eggleston and you will see mailboxes, fast food restaurants, convenience stores. But however common these places seem to be, in every picture he manages to capture a glimpse of a beautiful and colourful story everybody seems to overlook. This old lady sitting on the swing bench embodies fifties coolness: cigarette in one hand, her striking patterned dress trying not to blend in with the background. Her legs are elegantly aligned which reminds me of Audrey Hepburn. When I look at her I see someone who would give everything to escape her own life. Rob from the.found.object is someone who started collecting found photos after finding a run over camera and developing its film. Why don't we all do this? Imaging having a photo album full of people you don't know: you could invent everything about them. Ted, 37, toothpaste tester. Mia, 25, hates flies and loves saying hello to people in the street.

Mark Clarke’s Cabinets of Cures is a series of mismatched cabinets enriched with fascinating stories about its character. Each cabinet is created from found fabrics and everyday objects, and represents a series of surreal moments in medical history. This lady is the Countess of Chinchon, the wife of the Spanish Viceroy of Peru. When court physicians were unable to treat her malarial fever, she turned to an alternative native remedy: Cinchona bark.

Another photographer, another picture I love, from Juliana Beasley. In the obviously staggering heat, three dressed up ladies in their golden age are having a snack-moment. At least one lady is wearing a bra underneath her bathing suit and at least one other has curlers in her hair, but they all have perfectly manicured hands and are wearing make-up. Isn't it wonderfully obvious that these ladies love being themselves?

I tend to collect little broken objects. Or other things with no purpose. At one point a flatmate lost his coolness about this and commanded me to throw all the useless crap out of the house. But I didn't wanted to. So I started making hanging mobiles with all the little bits I had. The objects were still useless but by being part of something bigger, they had turned into pages of a wonderful book. Be amazing, MM Background image train station: Claudio.ar

Imaginary safari chasing art

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:18:00 +0000

I was born on an island shaped like a three-legged monster and rugged like an old fisherman's forehead. The sea has always been renowned for its abundance in marine life, especially sword fish and tuna. But the land was poor of animals, except from the usual fauna you can see anywhere: mice, swallows, pigeons, sparrows, lizards and many insects.

When I hit the magical age of eight, a zoo opened its gates on our island. I loved animals and could spend hours reading my Animal Kingdom encyclopedia, so my parents took me there on a lovely Sunday morning. We were the first people entering. Trembling with excitement I walked around its cages. Unfortunately the zoo hadn't managed the funding to get enough animals to fill them so most of the structures were empty. Outside the cages mice, swallows, pigeons, sparrows and lizards seemed to prosper, just like on the rest of the island.

The largest cage of all was situated next to the play area (one slider and two see-saws). At first glance it appeared to be sort of empty too. Then I noticed one animal I had only seen in my Animal Kingdom encyclopedia so far: a praying mantis. I didn't dare to breathe or move and sat there motionlessly on my knees observing the little creature observing me. Suddenly she started moving towards the bars. Gently and elegantly she hopped out of the iron cage and hid under a waste basket. There I was, standing in a zoo, surrounded by free animals and empty cages. Had the world itself become a zoo?

Context changes meaning. A chair looks weird in the middle of the street but normal at home. And how can you call a zoo a 'zoo' when it has more animals outside than inside his cages? Let's say we let art run free of context. What will we find when we go on an imaginary safari chasing art?

1. Reuben Margolin grew up making things with his father's tools. One day he saw a caterpillar move and spent months researching how he could emulate its crawling movement with wood. This was the beginning of something special: Reuben creates extraordinarily complex kinetic sculptures. A fusions of technology and high art inspired by simple movements he found while observing nature. Please watch this video and feel the same enchantment I felt when discovering his work:

2. Jarbas Agnelli is a wonderful filmmaker from Brazil and the creator of Birds on the Wires. On a magical life-changing day he spotted a picture of birds on electric wires in a newspaper and noticed they were arranged like notes on a musical score: 'I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes (no Photoshop edit). I knew it wasn't the most original idea in the universe. I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating.'
He then sent the music to the photographer, Paulo Pinto, who he had Googled. Pinto told his editor, who told a reporter and the story ended up as an interview in the very same newspaper. I can assure you will end up telling everyone you know about it too.

3. Walking along the windy Dutch coast, you might find many things on your way like wiggly jellyfish, thousands of grey-coloured shells and beautifully washed wood. But chances are you could also find yourself staring at a herd of enormous plastic animals. These 'strandbeesten', beach animals, are given life by Theo Jansen.
Jansen is a physicist who once invented a painting machine after which he dedicated himself to creating a new species: giant skeletons resembling dream animals and are able to walk on the wind, their life source. Some of these creatures can capture and store the wind. Others have the ability to anchor themselves in the sand when the wind threatens to blow them away. All of the animals are set free.
Strandbeesten is a wonderful example of engineering being kissed by art.

4. Have you ever watched Jim Henson's Labyrinth? Ron Mueck was one of its model and puppet makers. This Australian hyperrealist sculptor works in London creating perfect human figures using fiberglass resin or silicone. The only unreal aspect of his work is its scale, all his figures are either oversized or undersized giving YOU the feeling of being undersized or oversized.
The first time I saw his work I simply stopped blinking. Afraid I would miss a furtive, tiny movement from the sculpture I was looking at.

5. It's not just humans who can create art based nature, engineering and imagination. A rare species of solitary bees found in the Middle East, called Osmia avoseta, constructs its beautiful nests from petals, creating pink, yellow, blue, and purple chambers for its larvae.

6. Our imaginary safari ends on the shores of Zadar, in Croatia. Simple and elegant steps, carved in white stone, were built here on the quayside: underneath you will find thirty-five organ pipes. Day and night sea waves push air through them, playing strange and unworldly musical chords, resembling a whale cry.

Isn't the world amazing?

Have a lovely day,

Miss Moussetache

{Background image Zoo: Life.com}

Urban Storytellers: the world as a drawing sheet

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:04:00 +0000

When we are little, grown-ups are always telling us off when we extend our drawing surface to anything that isn't paper: walls, human legs and let's not forget the living room's antique table. So we learn how to not use walls, human legs and antique tables as drawing paper.
By the time we have restricted ourselves to a paper sheet, grown-ups our telling us off for coloring outside the 'lines'. Only a face should be pink and not its surrounding sky, dress, house, etc... So we learn how to stick our colored crayon in between the pre-drawn lines.
But then WE become a grown-up too. And sometimes we go back to our instinct of coloring outside lines and using the world as a drawing sheet. When that happens... the world becomes a wonderful storyteller who we never want to stop telling its stories.

Have you ever heard about knitgraffiti? Small, usually rectangular, pieces from leftover yarns are knitted together and sawn around trees, abandoned gas stations, light poles, doorhandles and even buses... Just type knitgraffiti, yarn bombing, urban embroidery and you will find thousands of amazing images. Isn't this the best way to brighten up everyone's day?
{image: Maskerade}

Well, it definitely isn't the only way. Walls is a really cool art gallery in Amsterdam, which offers artists the opportunity to rent a strip of their wall for two months on one of the city's best locations. This is where I discovered the work of José van Tilburg. She uses words from old love letters, lyrics, poems and picked-up dialogues which she then translates into images made out of fabric or paper, stitched together with thread. Like three-dimensional memories. Just imagine how it would be to wander around the city surrounded by beautiful and touching sentences sawn and stitched across grubby walls.
{image: Walls}

Another way of decorating the urban landscape has been coined by UK artist filthyluker. He creates large scale inflatable limbs, like the tentacles of a giant octopus, which emerge from buildings, making it appear as if the whole building has been devoured by a massive creature. Have a look at his work: it's like walking into a real life horror B-movie...
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about the eyes. He dots urban nature with peering eyes as if they are wondering themselves what on earth they are doing in between all the concrete. Do try this at home, the effect is strangely eerie and surreal.
{image: filthyluker}

The other day my Love and I were walking in our neighborhood when suddenly I noticed our feet were surrounded by birds. Literally, as they happened to be drawn on to the pavement tiles. After inspecting the area, we noticed more floor graffiti like the ones with the birds and it didn't turn out to be just art: by placing stencils on the floor and turning a high-pressure sprayer on, it's possible to clean selectively thus making this a very cheap option for advertising. But as long as you have a high-pressure sprayer at hand, you could turn every square in the world into a giant canvas. Or why not use this to show off your portfolio?
{image: Croasters}

When photography meets urban coloring meets an amazing creative personality, you get Katie Sokoler. This freelance photographer and street artist from Brooklyn isn't just someone we would secretly all want to be. She is an inspiration volcano of urban intervention. What about giant pacmans trying to eat humans? Or small hearts coming out of pipes? Her biggest invention (largely copied but nobody does it better than Color Me Katie) is the thought bubble. Katie sticks large thought bubbles on a wall and waits around the corner just till the moment someone walks by... creating a life-size cartoon. Wouldn't you ever wish to know what other people were thinking? Her latest project involves miniature, playing silhouettes which she places on 'shadows' creating a playground of the world.
{image: Color Me Katie}

Today I have bought an old box of crayons...

... and no paper.

Have a lovely day,

Miss Moussetache

Excuse me, there is a pigeon in my living room

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:12:00 +0000

Something interrupted me while listening to music and writing away this morning. That something was flapping vigorously in my living room, making it impossible for me to go in. It was a lovely morning so I had opened all the windows and somehow a very fat pigeon had flown into the house.

From the glass doors I saw this pompous pigeon flying around and sitting on almost every item of the room: the couch, the vintage piano, my collection of staplers, my boyfriend's selfmade lamps. The beast was also leaving a trace of its body dust on everything. You could easily trace its contours with a pencil and get featured in a biology book.

After half an hour I knew something had to happen, it was me or the bird. So I went into the kitchen and broke off a delicious piece of bread. Things went really quickly afterwards. The pigeon immediately saw the bread and started flying in my direction but I was very quick and threw that piece of scrumptious bread outside the window. The pigeon u-turned and grabbed the bread while flying into the sunny sky.

What did I learn from this?
A. Never open your window on a sunny day.
B. Never run out of bread just in case you forget you weren't supposed to open the window.
C. We need fountains in a city to make sure birds get a bath every now and then.

Have a lovely day,

Miss Moussetache

Music for your moods

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 19 May 2010 08:09:00 +0000

How are you feeling today? I woke up insanely happy and after my first coffee the melancholy swept me off my feet. Undoubtedly some other mood will knock me down soon.

You know what I hate most about mood swings? I have to walk to my iPod and change the tracks every time. I simply can't listen to happy music when I am feeling sad.

Probably you feel the same about this. But our sighs and moans have been heard... and inspired someone to create Stereomood, an extremely accurate playlist based on your moods. It's perfect and works amazingly well. My next wish? A genius playlist which automatically tags the moods on my iPod too...

PS Talking about mood swings, did you ever hear about emotionally-activated lip gloss? Yes, it does exist, it's called Mood Swing (really?) and it's an easy way to show the world whether you are feeling sassy, sexy or deliriously happy. Gosh, didn't we all need that?
And if the gloss doesn't work - there is always the mood swing pin...

Soon we will all love him. Or are we already?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 19 May 2010 07:22:00 +0000

I never thought I would end up liking this song. He doesn't need weird clothes, sexy moves and a million dollar budget: all Greyson Chance has is his talent and isn't that the only thing you are supposed to need?

The art of the self-help book title: it's all about confuzzlement

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:00:00 +0000

'Confuzzled' is what happens to you when you are somewhere in the middle between confused and puzzled, I learnt from Max in the lovely claymation Mary & Max (without a doubt my favourite movie of all times).

I have a friend who devours every self-help book written on this planet. Well, actually most of my friends read them. What I find most intriguing about these paper psychiatrists are their titles. They ignite my imagination beyond their actual content as I just don't get what they could possibly be about. Though somehow they always manage to leave me confuzzled: every aspect of my life seems to be utterly abnormal and in desperate need of change.

Ok, take a sip of your coffee and get ready...

* Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
This book must definitely be about... well, anything.

* The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You
I keep on looking over my shoulder everytime I read this.

* The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life
From what? Am I in danger? Who survived what? This book scares me.

* Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
The writer of this book clearly has a school trauma.

* How to Survive The End Of The World As We Know It
And again a book which scares me. When is the world ending exactly? And if it ends, why should I survive it?

* The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Who are these highly effective people? Why does seven ( and six, ten and twelve) seems to be a magic number within these books?

* If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You
Blank. Especially the part 'other things your mother never told you'. Somehow I don't think I want to know what these things are.

* The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
What was a monk doing with a Ferrari in the first place?

* Life! By Design: 6 Steps to an Extraordinary You
Tempting. Very tempting.

* What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
Doesn't that sound obvious? It's like saying 'If you want to go to Paris, don't go to New Delhi.

* Full Catastrophe Living
Yes, this book is definately talking about me.

* What Color is Your Parachute?
Green with yellow dots? Is this book about job-hunters? You are serious?

* The Book of Awesome: Snow Days, Bakery Air, Finding Money in Your Pocket, and Other Simple, Brilliant Things
That's actually a great idea. I could do that: write a guide on the little things to make other people's life magical.

* Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life
If only change in life and work could be about cheese being moved...

* Please, mum, it's my life
I think this book is written for everybody I know.

* The Weight Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You to Know About
It's clear: self-help books make you paranoia.

* He's Just Not That Into You
I quote from the author's bio 'Greg Behrendt is the foremost collector of small glass pig figurines'. This says it all.

* Think & Grow Rich
You should never judge a book by its cover but still...

* Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Buy me! Buy me!

* The Nine Rooms of Happiness: Loving Yourself, Finding Your Purpose, and Getting Over Life's Little Imperfections
One, two... nine?

Oh, and my personal favourite:
* Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands
No, the author isn't Liz Taylor. And yes, she is talking about HUMAN husbands here. I think.

Big big smile,
MM

Oceans, impressive new Disneynature movie

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 05:51:00 +0000

Shot at 50 different locations, it needed seven years to complete, including four years of photography, using a great team of adventurers and the latest high-tech camera equipment to capture state-of-the-art images. It is Disneynature's new movie Oceans.

Oceans spotlights on the sea animal world including odd deep sea creatures (the one on the picture is real, he is called an Asian Sheepshead), a swirling giant cuttlefish, enormous sea nettles and many other wonderful creatures who are on the verge of extinction. The film is narrated by Pierce Brosnan and directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, who have wowed us before with Winged Migration. It shares a world most of us will never see, and if we don't take care of it, none of our descendants ever will.

Disneynature is an independent French film label of The Walt Disney Company. The first film released under the new label was the American version of Earth.
Their logo is also really interesting: it's an iceberg at first glance but if you look closer, you will see that it resembles the Sleeping Beauty Castle, Disney's own logo.

Walt Disney considered the animal world to be filled with stories richer than any of his animated creature could ever have. Funny, sad, loving, everything in the animal world will move you more than you could imagine. Because of this he created the True-Life Adventures series, a collection of short subject documentaries. The series won numerous Academy Awards for the studio including five awards for Best Two Reel Live Action Short. It even inspired a daily panel comic strip that was distributed from 1955 to 1971.

Anyway, Oceans will make you feel great and horrible at the same time. But try to enjoy every moment of it and do something within your possibilties to help, ok? The first thing you can do is buy a ticket to see Oceans as Disneynation will make a donation to save the coral reef for every ticket sold in opening week.

Big smile,
MM

Iranian photography

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:28:00 +0000

Accessibilty of a world that used to be invisible, that is for me the greatest thing about the web. Like the launch of an Iranian online magazine for contemporary Iranian photographers: Dide Photography Magazine. The Persian word 'Dide' means eye, glance, being seen.

Each issue of Dide will focus on displaying one project, along with words and texts by photographers and critics. This month' photographer is thirty-years old Mohammad Gazali and what I have seen so far has a Lomo feeling, with that typical yellow, orange, brown spectrum. I can see him wandering around Teheran with a Leica around his neck, capturing the quite life around him. Really interesting work and I can't wait till next month' issue.

Big smile,
MM

I hate pristine looking walls: DIY wallpaper

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:01:00 +0000

I am restless. The walls of my house are so pristine looking, every time I am drawing or cooking tomato sauce I am drawn to accidentally drop some color on them. Am I the only one who can't resist a white wall? No, not all. And you don't need to get yourself dirty with paint or buy expensive wallpaper to achieve the coolest interior in the world. There are tons of ideas how to DIY walls.

1} Swedish design group Font attached hundreds of plastic flowers with paper tape to a white wall. Amazing, so simple. How come nobody ever thought of this? It could be done with anything: butterflies, stars, plastic insects, cars, trains... You could even paint a whole toy world in one colour just like the toy cookie bowl in my etsy shop, and glue it to the wall above your baby's crib.

2} Browse the local flea market while traveling and buy a stack of vintage magazine: birds, cookery, UFO's, comic books... even old love letters would look amazing on a wall. (via roomlust, apartment therapy).

3} Get yourself a Polaroid from Ebay and start clicking away. The best would be to take photo's with one theme, like flying birds, or spitting grandpa's. Or maybe you could write a lullaby with photographed words. Luciano Noble is a professional photographer but who says your room won't look as good?

Well, and if all of this doesn't 'DIY' out, there is always the good old method of filling up one wall with just about anything that doesn't fit in a drawer, like I did... (well, actually my boyfriend only allowed me to decorate one wall as I pleased, so I did)

It's great to be different

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Each of us can do something the usual way or his own way. Arent't we different beings after all? Maybe we all have one name for the thing we do best, which could be kissing, fixing cars, drawing just as well as dancing, taking pictures or animating. But it's up to ourselves to look at what we do from a different angle and do it from that same different angle. Just like...

Illustrator Irma Gruenholz doesn't use a pen or computer for her illustrations, she works with polymer clay. Once her little clay world is perfectioned, it is photographed in high resolution and another piece of art can be delivered to our eyes.

Photographer Robbie Augspurger has specialized himself in the uncool family portraiture from the 70s and 80s. How amazingly cool is that? I would love to have him portrait me, looking like my mum when she was my age!

Stuart Kolakovic is a very talented young 'creator'. He has created a 9+ metre-long web comic called Never Been, a sort-of interactive mural that tells a rich, detailed story of a small eastern European village community (the link is down at the moment). But he has also created the cutest mini comic books I have ever seen: the ultra-mini comic book.

Collage artist and lover of type Able Parris does for the web what street artists do for the street. He makes art available to everyone. He has the best moleskine sketchbook videos on Vimeo, most of his work featured on tumblr, downloadable wallpapers with his collage art and you can read rich editorial perspectives written by mr Parris himself on Graphic Hug and We Love Typography.

Love,

MM

Ode to the Bus Stop

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 06:58:00 +0000

I once read a very sad story: in Germany, some nursing homes build imitation bus stops for patients who are suffering from dementia. The patients will sit at the bus stop waiting for a bus to take them to their imagined destination. After some time the nursing staff comes to escort them back into the nursing home.

Every time I think of this story, the Hollies' Bus stop starts singing in my head. It's a slightly gloomy melody just as waiting for a bus usually is.

Surprisingly something as ordinary as a bus stop has inspired many creative minds - just as those tiny plants sprouting from the arid sidewalk.

1} My best friend Paulien wrote and animated this adorable short story about a very strong wind, a very light hat and an extremely well-fed man who is waiting for a bus: Wind.

2} Realized by Bosnian/Vietnamese duo Denis Leo Hegic & Thuan Te, Substop, a short film about a guy with a pen. Well, not really. An average person spends an average of 62 minutes per day waiting for things. Gadgets have turned waiting time into "useful" time. But is waiting really such a waste? Waiting is a time when thoughts are recollected, when ideas are born.

3} Advertising is everywhere. Companies have to produce creative and unique advertising which takes a twist on original advertising to beat all the competition. What better place to advertise your product than a bus stop? There are tons of great roundups on the web but these striked me due to their possibilities:
- Although a toilet at a bus stop resembles my worst nightmare, I think it would be great to build public toilets close to bus stops.
- Fisch Franke's fresh food built a whole poster tank to prove how fresh the fish are. I don't like fish in tanks (or birds in cages) but what if they build the tank all around the space of a shelter and only put small fish in it? Wouldn't that be great?

4} I would love to swing at a bus stop. Maybe we could build a swing bench: just imagine how much fun that would be. This modified London bus shelter by Bruno Taylor gives commuters a chance to have a little bit of playtime during their morning commute. He went and attached swings to a number of bus stops around the city. How much it must have been for those people waiting. I would have probably missed my bus.

5} By controlling the shape in which trees grow, TreeNovation creates products that are made of living trees. Although I am not a fan of man manipulating nature, I think this is a great way of incorporating nature into our urban environment.

6} I was amazed by Bangkok a few months ago, it's such a vibrant and colourful city! Very modern and civilized as well and not all as chaotic as described by many. What really striked me where its bus stops: elongated waiting shelters with rows of plants inside. It smelled lovely and it made me feel good.

7} David Černý is a Czech sculptor and whoever has been to Prague will remember his work, like the statue of St. Wenceslas riding a dead horse in a wonderful gallery where they serve amazing coffee. He gained worldwide fame in 1991 by painting a Soviet tank pink that served as a war memorial in central Prague. In the city of Liberec you find another work from Černý: the bus shelter artwork Feast of Giants, a huge breakfast table covered with supersized food.

The Hollies

Wind I will ask my friend if she can put the movie online!

Substop

smibe-Substop from Denis Hegic on Vimeo.

Fish Franke

Fish Franke -Living Poster - ambient (Germany)

Bruno Taylor

Travel diary of an imaginary day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:20:00 +0000

Today feels slightly boring, although I know the world is packed full with amazing things to do and see. If only I knew how to bake a take-me-anywhere-I-want cookie, all I would have to do is take a small bite each time I want to go somewhere. Today would then have looked something like this:

1} mmm, wake up after a long and lovely sleep in my soft bed of the cooler than cool Story Hotel in Stockholm. I have already taken a million pictures of its amazing interior before having...

2}... a 'kaffi' in Kaffismiðja Íslands, a small and cozy coffeeshop in the city center of Reykjavík. The Giesen coffee roaster they have in the shop (yes, inside!) is bright, Barbie pink. And the coffee is supposed to be really really good. To make...

3}... sure I won't get lost during my travel day, I have taken along my crumpled city map from designer Emanuele Pizzalorusso. How could I have ever lived without? It's printed on tyvek and designed to fit into the smallest of my bags. No more origami maps which never fold back!

4} Can you ever have enough photo booth pictures? No. Uhm, let me have a look at the worldwide photo booth locator... Ah, yes, my love, let's go to enchanting Paris. There we can find the first black and white photochemical booth to return to Paris after the replacement of all photobooths by digital booths in the last decade. I should not forget to take along my fake mustache. You need one on a photo booth picture. A carousel is singing its old-time automatic music in the distance and it...

5} ... makes me want to listen to some nostalgic live music now. Babylon Circus is having a gig in London and these ten guys do this ska-ish, reggae-ish, folk thing I adore listening to.

6} Gosh, is it that late? I have read about an old building in the old town of Zug, Switzerland, which has been renovated, filled with art, fireplaces and piles of books and named Vorstadt 14. It rooms can be let for special occasions and all look majestic...

Oh, I can't wait to dream about tomorrow! Or shall I make a move and simply go out on my pink bike?

Love,
MM

Domestic meets industrial: a delicate shovel

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:44:00 +0000

Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes. It's an ancient craft which probably originated in Belgium, just around the corner from Holland. The materials used for lace-making are usually just as fragile as its patterns: linen, silk, gold. Think of lace and you immediately think of underwear, napkins, curtains and religious ceremonies such as in weddings, christenings and funerals.

What would happen if you could combine its feminine, domestic element with something masculine and industrial? Just look at Cal Lane's work and you will see how this marriage would look. This gifted artist uses her torch to cut baroque, lace-like patterns into ordinary things such as shovels, old oil drums, wheelbarrows, car doors, and other pieces of scrap metal.

I own you - art made with paper and glue

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:27:00 +0000

As a child, I loved drawing little worlds inhabited by critters. It usually started with one creature living in a house made out of leaves and broken glass but this soon developed into a whole world on its own, with cableways between flowers for transporting honey and squirrels wearing glasses against the flying wood chips of a woodpecker. If my world didn't fit on the page anymore, I simply glued a new one on top and began building another layer on it, like in a pop-up book.

Somehow that memory hit me while watching the amazing “I Own You”, a clip for Wax Tailor featuring Charlie Winston. French studio SoLab seems to have created a little world out of paper and glue just as I did. Uhm, oh, well, they might have done a better work than I have ever... but still!

Wax Tailor feat. Charlie Winston " I Own You" from SoLab on Vimeo.

Have you ever heard about Russian stray dogs?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:44:00 +0000

'Have you ever heard about Russian stray dogs?', asked my boyfriend the other day. No, I hadn't. So he began a unbelievable story about 35,000 stray dogs that roam Russia’s capital, especially its metro. These animals have evolved into a new and very intelligent breed. They are all medium-sized with thick fur, wedge-shaped heads and almond eyes. And they all behave in a strangely human way...

If they need to be somewhere, they hop in the metro and when it's time to get out, they simply get out. They recognize their stop by smell and their sense of time. They always sit in the first or last wagons, as it's always less busy there. Oh, and when it's dinner time, they look at all the people with food in their hands and asses who is going to jump and drop their sandwich if they start barking madly.

Most Muscovites love the street pack: there is even a website dedicated to them on which passengers post photos and video clips taken with their mobile phones. Everyone has its favorite and most stations have their regulars.

Where did they come from? Well, they are the 3 procent of animals that survive being dumped on the steet by his 'owners'. They are the fittest survivors. They are somewhere in the middle between domesticated and wild, living among humans without being owned.

have a lovely day,
MM

(image from English Russia)

Matchbox card

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:00:00 +0000

One of my best friends is pregnant. We were supposed to meet for a lovely lunch so I had bought her and her love two small gifts: a vintage pinnard horn to listen to the baby's heart and a huge set of old-fashioned baby clothes hangers (like the one featured in Heather Bailey's blog) with deer shapes. After wrapping everything carefully in some kraft paper I realized I was still missing something. A card to wish the future mum and dad all the smiles in the world!

As I happen to be an Etsy card seller, this wasn't such a big thing to miss BUT I wanted to give them a bit more than just a card. So I wrapped one of my Ballerina designs around a matchbox cover, draw smiley faces on a bunch of matches, wrapped these smiling matches together with some japanese paper tape and addes a little note inside... et voilà! So easy and such a sweet result!

Have a lovely weekend,
MM

Coffee, bikes & beards

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:53:00 +0000

A zillion things happened today in the world. Out of this zillion, there were a few I happened to stumble upon:

{1} A striking image about prejudice, by French studio La Souris sur le Gateau (Didier Rossigneux and Knapik Bridenne). It screams at you without words.

{2} A fox got into the Helsinki zoo and killed 16 flamingos. Would this have been a news item if the flamingos had been roaming in the wild? I am still unsure about zoo's. Are they the good guy or the bad guy?

{3} This love filled latte made by my boyfriend in one my greatgrandmother's tea cups. With home roasted beans!

{4} The Porteur, A mostly handmade gentleman's bike, designed by Nicolas Yvars. The blue-gray color scheme, the leather details, the vintage liquor flask under the saddle... Nicolas found many components thanks to the help he got from the French bike community. I love craftmanship, people who want to deliver perfection by putting their soul in it, AND everyone who encourages that.

{5} Apparently worms are able to make group decisions like travelling in the same direction. They do that by touching each other. Just like when you are in love - the more you hug each other, the more you want to be close to one another and never ever let go.

{6} An article about beards. This made me realize that despite of it being a perfectly normal thing for men to grow facial hair, if you don't shave it off after an inch or so, the world around you will think of you as Roald Dahl's Mr Twit. I must admit that I am intrigued by moustaches (hence the name) but I like them more when they are fake, when made with cream or toothpaste (hence the mispelling)... PS The image is from Erin, the best fake beard maker in the world!

Have a lovely day,

MM

The many faces of Little Red Riding Hood

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 06:29:00 +0000

The fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood is a well known one. But did you know that there are many versions of this story? It's not just storytellers and writers who have adapted the story about the little girl who, on her way to her Grandmother, is attacked by a wolf. Illustrators have depicted her in many different ways as well. She can be...

... childish and angry, Andrea Zuill
... unaware and bubbly, Raquel Aparicio (have a look at her site, this artist is amazing!)
... graphical like a twenties Vogue model, Kenneth Whitley (is that wolf wearing glasses like mine?)
...dark and sinister, Tyler Garrisson (his work is really really good)
... surprisingly complicated after the first sight, Noma Bar (if you ever get the chance to see an exposition, go)
... cheerful and unafraid, SkoLzki

Very inspiring for every artist to see it's the hand that makes something unique, even when you are using a zillion times told tale. It's all about finding your own thing and describing it with your inner voice.

x,
MM