Snapshots No. 8 - Internet Roundup

Judging from my lack of updates, you have complete right to accuse me of lazy blogger syndrome these past few weeks. For some reason, I blog in a fashion similar to a cyclical weather climate. I shift from a manic storm of posts within two days, wind gusts at 40 mph, to light sprinkles scattered here and there, partly cloudy. Why can't I adopt the temperate weather of California or some other sunny state that's consistently 75 degrees and mostly sunny.

Anyway, enough of my rants to be a better blogger. I have here for you today the roundup of my latest adventures through the internet. Start off your weekend with some fresh inspiration and a dollop of good world-wide-web fodder:

MY TOP TEN INTERNET TRAVEL DESTINATIONS FOR TODAY

1. Are you the jet-setting, cultured type (or aspiring to be) and have nothing to do this fine Saturday? Check out the Monocle Weekend Agenda for some ideas, such as Parisian art and re-imagined London architecture.

2. Continuing with the Monocle theme, have a listen to the latest Urbanist broadcast about the value of a "third space" between work and home. You'll hear from Ray Oldenburg, the author of The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. 

3. Thinking about joining the running cult? Have a look at what the world would be like if everyone ran via this bit from Refinery29.

4. For the creative artist in you, try this Brain Pickings article called "Tchaikovsky on Work Ethic vs. Inspiration."

5. And if you aren't sure if you're the creative type, read this widely popular piece from HuffPost on "18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently."

6. Fashionistas will appreciate Vogue's new My Life in Vogue project, featuring videos of regular people and their stylish lives.

7. Retail junkies or lovers of Creatures of Comfort should check out these two stores: Hare + Hart (sustainable leather fashion that would go great with your globally inspired look) and Maryam Nassir Zadeh (a bright, refreshing boutique featuring an exquisite array of lesser known designers to whip out, if you're into that kinda thing). While we're at it, have a look at my earlier post on Merci, an amazing concept store in France.

8. I love my indie magz. See what I'm reading on my Issuu profile.

9. Are you into design? Continue the hunt at habitusliving.com

10. And last but certainly not least, go visit Blouinartinfo.com if you haven't already. Such a classic for any culture nerds, art lovers, and high-fashion aficionados out there.

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Mike Frederiqo Fashion Illustrations

I'm a recent émigré to the whimsical world of illustrations. Its polka-dot elephants and sassy stars (Marc Johns) beat reality a hundred to one. This fanciful planet is already populated by a furry bear playing a keyboard and another dressed as a narwhal (Julia Pott), but now, the style legends have entered the realm, thanks to Mike Frederiqo and his peachy fashion illustrations. You might have already seen them making their rounds on the internet. Nevertheless, enjoy some inspiration today with these bendy, stretchy logos as they pay an offbeat homage to sartorial greats. Anna Wintour looks quite charming like that, wouldn't you say?

P.S. Blogging will be suffering a bit of a setback as first semester ends. Please excuse the hiatus over the next few days as I'll be busy with phosphorylation cascades, G-protein-linked receptors, and cyclic AMP.... Oh how I wish I could activate a transcription factor triggering a gene for the instant memorization protein.

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mood board - noir et blanche

Like everyone else, and as evident by my Tumblr, I've been obsessed with blacks, whites, and grays, with crisp lines, with effortless minimalism, and with a modern-chic aura. Enjoy this mood board that pretty much sums up the go-to mindset in the fashion realm for fall 2013:

pictures from various Tumblrs, afterDRK, Elin Kling, and Native Fox.

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Quote Collection #7

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Things I want to try this year:

-get a French pen pal
-watch more Studio Ghibli films
-eat more avocados
-take regular yoga classes
-read up on Buddhism
-read Atlas Shrugged
-watch Il Volo in concert (they're having a tour!!)
-watch the news in the morning with coffee
-do homework in the Starbucks café in Barnes and Nobles
-catch up on Game of Thrones (I'm soo far behind...)
-go on long distance/endurance runs on a regular basis
-write a collection of short stories
-get more involved in Model UN (says my inner nerd)
-sing at a school coffee house (w/ a friend to harmonize)
-revamp my wardrobe

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Cloud Atlas - Quote Collection #6

Heads up, this is a looong post, but it's pretty easy to read. I've got here a great, big dollop of quotes for you today! Here are some beautiful words and bits of wisdom from Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. This is definitely a book to read twice. It glints and glistens with intelligence.

"For though humanity's topsoil is fertile with talent, only one seed in ten thousand will ever flower--for want of discipline."

"hot glass office buildings where the blooms of youth harden into aged cacti like my penny-pinching brother."

"The Mighty Gibbon's assessment of history--'little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind'-- ticker-taped by for no apparent reason."

"Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms round the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage."

"Oh, bein' young ain't easy 'cos ev'rythin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' for the first time."

"But a mountain you're plannin' on climbin' ain't the same as the one you ain't."

"Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul."

"Travel far enough, you meet yourself."

" 'Fantasy. Lunacy.' All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities."

"I was not genomed to alter history, I told my fellow fugitive. Hae-Joo countered that no revolutionary ever was."

"Every nowhere is somewhere, Archivist."

"Books don't offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw."

"What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds."

"Middle age is flown, but it is attitude, not years, that condemns one to the ranks of the Undead, or else proffers salvation. In the domain of the young there dwells many un Undead soul. They rush about so, their inner putrefaction is concealed for a few decades, that is all."

"Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible."

"Am a sentimental fool and I know it."

"We had run out of infinity."

"The nation-state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions."

"She should understand, the artist lives in two worlds."

"E.'s character depends on which angle you're looking from, a quality of superior opals."

"Because a man like me has no business with this substance 'beauty,' yet here she is, in these soundproofed chambers of my heart."

"All boundaries are conventions, national ones too."

"Now I'm a spent firework; but at least I've been a firework."

"People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it'll no longer function."

"Strip back the beliefs pasted on by governesses, schools, and states, you find indelible truths at one's core."

"People of shifting character unnerve me & Mr. Wagstaff was one such."

"At dawn the waves looked like mountain ranges tipped with gold as sunbeams slanted low under burgundy clouds."

"Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world."

"He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain...& only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!"

"Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?"

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Lap of Luxury - Quote Collection #5

pictures via Tumblr

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity. 

- Coco Chanel

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Sweets + Puppies

Donuts, sprinkles, icing, pie
Sleepy puppies make me sigh.
A pot of jam
A squirt of jelly
A gleeful rub of fido's belly
And when you put the two together
It keeps you smiling through any weather!

Sorry for that awful poem. I honestly don't know where it came from. These pictures are just so adorable it's making me step out of regular character. But seriously, look at them! They're just so delightful and comforting. Maddie the Coonhound, you're a real 21st century hero. You shining, furry, delightful you. And those illustrations of pastries and sweet things are perfect. Ah it all just makes me so happy :)

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Jungle Child

Just scrolling through Garance Dore's pictures of Bali puts me in a weird, mystical trance. In fact, all I want to do is become a monk and live there. Or get lost in a rainforest and be forced to survive based on my instincts and the pulse of the forest..You know what I'm talking about. I'll get to sleep amongst lions and hear the whispers of mist, leaves, and wild beasts. Cliché? Anyway, I decided to make a little collage/mood board in tribute of that adventurous jungle spirit. I needed a little inspiration to think about in my somewhat dull life.

Hope your summer is going well!

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7/5 Round Up

Here are some lovely things I've stumbled upon this week:

1. I could eat an infinite amount of Hokkaido's Dreamy Milk Toast.



2. I wish my room was covered with this removable wallpaper by Jane Reiseger for The Wall Sticker Company.

3. If only they didn't cost the price of immortality, a chic pair of pumps by Manolo Blahnik.

4. A Tumblr-like treasure box of nice pictures at JJJJound.com

5. And lastly, this gorgeous Italian farmhouse I found on amiusmie.blogspot.com.

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Quote Collection #4

Bonjour tout le monde! Here's a classic quote and photo to brighten your day. And on another note, I'm currently in Brussels, Belgium on a family vacation, and I'll be off to Paris tomorrow, hence the French hello, so look forward to a European video diary once I get home!

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."

~Albert Einstein

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Quote Collection #3

 "There is another world, but it is in this one." -W.B. Yeats

I like to sample different worlds. I like to try on how they feel, like to test what they taste like, look like, sound like. When I get bored of the world that surrounds me, I slip into alternate ones as unobtrusively as I can. And I travel to all these different places, fueled by a stubborn sense of curiosity, through movies, music, books, and history.

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Quote Collection #2

"To accept duality is to earn identity. And identity is something that you are constantly earning. It is not just who you are. It is a process that you must be active in."

~Joss Whedon

"This contradiction, and this tension … it never goes away. And if you think that achieving something, if you think that solving something, if you think a career or a relationship will quiet that voice, it will not. If you think that happiness means total peace, you will never be happy. Peace comes from the acceptance of the part of you that can never be at peace. It will always be in conflict. If you accept that, everything gets a lot better."

~Joss Whedon

I was originally planning to make a page of all my favorite quotes, but I figured I'd rather publish them one by one so that they all get the individual attention they deserve.

First one up is a quote by Joss Whedon on accepting your inner contradictions. Lately I've been trying to choose between two or three polar identities I seem to have, but to no success. It's time to switch tactics and just "be all my selves," as Brain Pickings, the site where I discovered Whedon's quote, likes to say. Do yourself a favor, read that enlightening article here. Say no to one-dimensional personalities!

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Paradigm Shift - Quote Collection #1

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2013, Here We Go

I thought I'd kick off the year with an inspirational quote and a collage of some of the things I'd like my 2013 to look like. My tumblr often serves as my visual wish list for life, so these pictures are a snapshot of it, and subsequently of my dream lifestyle. Among the facets I'd like to incorporate this new year include... independent thinking, surfing, Frank Sinatra, eloquent words, healthier habits, cute boys, reading more, and an overall fresh outlook. That's all I have to say for now! I wish everyone a healthy, happy, and safe New Year!

picture sources, click here

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