Adler's antlers

"A touch of kitsch is like cayenne pepper" said Jonathan Adler, in reply to my attempt at reparation for an Apartment Therapy open thread's harsh views (some posters'--toward things deemed over the top or camp--not the site's editors!) of an Adler/Doonan residence which had appeared last year in the NY Times.

on the eve of his new SF shop ("My empire, expanding...or crumbling!" an endearingly modest) Adler chatted with fans after his husband Simon Doonan's reading from his "Nasty: My Family + Other Glamorous Varmints" reading's Q + A segment, in which i nattered about putting his writing in the august company of the mighty Cintra Wilson (whose website i beseech you to visit, the secret agenda of this post, which is also to adorn the heads of the dashing duo w/ the golden stag antlers featured within Wilson's hilarious "Unnatural Colors".

Somehow this ties in: "I hate people who think they're funny," gruffs Robert De Niro's ailing cop character in Flawless, re: a general tension toward things deemed precious (like blogging! oh dear "everybody's clever nowadays," to Oscillate Wildly...reel around blog mountain, still ill, a sick, irresistible compulsion, if this could be thought even slightly clever...everyone thinks they're clver nowadays one might adjust).

after a screening of this Flawless,last year at SF's Castro Theater, film-maker Joel Schumacher interviewed afterward,
recalling his beginning as a window dresser (like Doonan), and his participation as costume designer in the 1978 Woody Allen film "Interiors", this eventual director of many films including The Lost Boys and Flawless (Phillip S. Hoffman, fine as usual + at least a real drag artist, Jackie Beat, has more than a two second role). He spoke favorably not just of the gnarly trannies ("gowns, bomber jackets, combat boots") he'd admired throughout his life who inspired the film, but of "that touch of vulgarity which makes things interesting." Huzzah!

INTERIORS (movie)

Broadhurst, Florence (all hail the queen!)

ok then, onward + upward, in divine decadence we trust....
of course we can trust Apartment Therapy to give us one of their perfect "Top 10":
FLORENCE BROADHURST PATTERNS (JANEL'S PICKS)

(thank you Janel! and please forgive our lag, but we're the NKOTB, or their towel boy or something...the current wallpaper mania, from Lee Joffa/Cole + Sons, Wallpaper From The Seventies, Naked + Angry, Broadhurst and the new Hicks, to Osborne & Little: our walls are merely painted, but of course dreaming (blogging) is free....

other sites also deliver the Broadhurst goods of course (revealing how Broadhurst's life rivals Charlotte Perriand's or even Josephine Baker's in sheer glamour and brilliance):
DESIGNBOOM

SIGNATURE PRINTS

F.B. DOCU


while we're at it, here's AT's recent helpful wall covering breakdown:
wall coverings guide
ps: if we seem like suck-ups, well, so be it: we're simply fans, raving, and our sites tend toward tribute.
we will deliver some novel goods too, or withdraw this hubrice!
(pss: such disclaimers shall fade here in the future, as the goal is to, as one random bit from a late 80's nightclub flyer stated: "never complain, never explain"

8/25/06:
the constantly rocking design*sponge + husmussen's picks: ravishing!
OSBORNE +LITTLE

hello

Biomimicry: Janine Benyus

"Biomimicry...
is a new science that studies nature's models and then imitates or takes inspiration...to solve human problems, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf.

After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has learned: What works. What is appropriate. What lasts.

...is a new way of viewing and valuing nature...an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on what we can learn from it."

~Janine Benyus (1997)
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.

"Classic examples include Velcro and sonar technology, and if Benyus has her way, future developments could (also) include protective clothing inspired by spider silk, or a business that runs like a redwood forest. Her role at the design table for carpet giant Inteface spawned the company's revolutionary FLOR tile system. Mimicking a forest floor, the carpet tile patterns blend like leaves and produce unprecedented environmental benefits for the industry, like minimal off-gassing and reduced waste by using recycled + renewable materials. Ultimately Benyus sees herslf as an educator..."

PLANET magazine editors, Spring '06, 30 Visionaries issue.

Did you know the FLORS were so cool?
BIOMIMICRY

this starts our round-up of great things that have inspired us so far this decade, which have appeared in numerous other blogs or print sources; finally re-capped here, just to remind or maybe inform anew.

in Boontje we trust

still our favorite (particularly the white
version, with its fine shadows).
a midsummer night's dream forever


TORD BOONTJE

not so manic now