Lipstick & Magazines #28: Item

Sometimes you just wanna scroll. Not too many bells and whistles, just interesting articles, product reviews, and, of course, pretty things.

Arts & Letters Daily has the look of a newspaper and the content of a hundred newspapers. You will find something to read here no matter what you're interested in. Promise. A great site for those moments when you are so sick of sitting in front of a computer and yet, you must sit there for awhile longer.

Shopping blog Mighty Goods has its style down pat. Photo of the item (99% of which I go, yeah, that is very cool, I do want that), a short, pithy description, and a direct link to buy. Done. Shopping fix satisfied.

Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired, has his Cool Tools, the geekier version of Mighty Goods.

And India Romeo, while not serving the same scroll-happy purpose of the last three, is just full of so many gorgeous handmade "lovely things for lovely people" that I must share. These bird mobiles are my fave - sure you could make your own, but she already made them for you!

Shop well.

Lipstick & Magazines #27: Recommend

I subscribe to a monthly Trend Watching newsletter that excels at creating new marketing buzz-words. My fave thus far has been "Twinsumer," which they descibe as "taste 'twins': fellow consumers somewhere in the world who think, react, enjoy and consume the way they do." I get this - it's really what blogs are all about, helping us find people "like us" who are weeding through what's out there and can help us narrow in on what we like and want.

A few blogs I've been devouring recently, in search of my perfect twinsumer:

Design Sponge - stellar taste, lots of unique home products recommended

San Francisco Gourmet - fascinatingly anal reviews of restaurants, restaurant reviewers, and more

LJCFYI - always cute, always fun

My Little Mochi - May be TOO cute for some - beware.

Also, Yelp.com, which is part high school yearbook, part review site, is quite entertaining- much more personality and spark than citysearch.com - especially if you like to put a face (or kitten face or pretty image) with a review. A handy source of lists (best SF brunch, good romantic restaurants, etc.)

Lipstick & Magazines #26: Book

OK, I will now let you all know (again for some - way too much for others) that I am currently working on a very cool program called One City One Book: San Francisco Reads, which is our readerly city's first attempt at a citywide book club, following in the well-shaped footsteps of Seattle, Chicago, and other cities.

If you're from these parts, please do me the honors of reading China Boy, taking part in a discussion or walking tour, and checking out "my" list of novels set in San Francisco - I was surprised that this wasn't all ready for me to use somewhere in Google-land - I had to put it together myself, with help from my librarian-friends of course.

Let me also put a plug in for the upcoming Big Book Sale, put on by the Friends of the SFPL. If you've never been to this, it's joyous madness. If you have, you already know what I'm talking about and I'll see ya there at the end of the month.

And finally, a recent read, The Myth of You and Me. Friendship lost novel meets literary mystery - I loved it.

Lipstick & Magazines #25: Catchy

Free galleys? Sign me up, right? Check out HarperCollins' First Look program. You can fill out a basic form, select the categories you are generally interested in, and enter into drawings for free galleys. Sure it's a process, but I think it's a very smart way for the publisher to reach out and let readers have the early peek and get word-of-mouth excitement and buzz going.

Love her or hate her, Rachael Ray's $40 a Day concept is a catchy one. Becks & Posh, a Bay Area food blogger asked other food bloggers to come up with $40 a Day plans for their cities, and the posts are great reading. Don't you want to know what you'd be eating in Knoxville, TN for $40?

Finally, after two wonderful friends both RAVED about Crossing to Safety, I picked it up and have been sneaking it in at every spare moment. While I tend towards staying relentlessly "current" (as in, very recently published) in my reading, this 1987 Wallace Stegner novel is lovely, poignant, and obsessively readable. Except now I'm at the point where it's almost over, and I just know the end will make me cry. I hate finishing good books.

Lipstick & Magazines #24: Paper

If you are a paper addict like I am, you may enjoy the following:

• SEI - Holy cuteness! That Fruit Stand paper is outstanding. Note also these incredible fruit tags. Must. Place. Order. Soon.
• Paper Source - I can testify to their wedding invite packages, paper flower kits, and all-around amazing stock of goods. Order online or visit one of their locations.
• All Wrapped Up! Groovy Gift Wrap of the 1960s - People are always stealing my Chronicle Books ideas! But pop culture never dies...

Lipstick & Magazines #23: Three

Three favorite stores in San Francisco where I can always find something adorable and fun for less than $10:

Heartfelt: A reason to make your way up to Bernal Heights, if the great views from the hill-top aren't enough.

Cliff's Variety: A classic, though I always forget they are closed on Sundays and get bummed. Get your lightbulbs, your wrapping paper, and your birthday gifts.

Wishbone: The best selection of cards. Great scarves and jewelry, retro candy. Fun, fun, fun.

Three favorite movies I've seen recently:

March of the Penguins: Even my dentist and I bonded over this movie.

Broken Flowers: Bill Murray and Jim Jarmusch. But really, it's all about Sharon Stone and the teen who plays her daughter. Brilliant!

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring: A Korean film about a young man and an old monk who live on a floating temple. Lovely, subtle, passionate.

Three websites I've been enjoying:

101 Cookbooks: Tons to explore, and recently added discussion forums.

Wikipedia: Trying to figure out how to explain what a podcast is? Still not quite clear on what wikis are? Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia created by the people, for the people. Even you can edit it - share what you know!

Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch: Fabulous for a quick hit of pop culture. Updated constantly.

Enjoy!

Lipstick & Magazines #22: Design

Josh was recently reading a biography of Frank Llloyd Wright - architecture and design are nice fantasies for us - we both drool over Dwell magazine monthly. The spare modernist look is quite the extreme fantasy though, given that we like our stuff, the kind of stuff that never appears in any of those photos. Storage! Storage! Anyway, I found this cool Architect Studio 3D site from the FLW Preservation Trust where you can build a house with "Frank" as your guide - try it out - very addictive.

After you design the house you will want to furnish it, and I think Velocity Art and Design will do just fine. (Hey, why don't they make these squirrel shirts in adult sizes?) Kitty freaks, look how cool this is...

Finally, you'll need some hip photos for the wall. I was recently in Chicago (highly recommend the architectural boat tour) and Terry Evans "Revealing Chicago: An Aerial Portrait" show was on display in Millenium Park. The website is really well-done, and though it doesn't look like prints are available for purchase currently, they would work really nicely in our sleek new house. Hey Terry, come shoot aerial San Francisco??

Lipstick & Magazines #21: Art

I'm hoping to wrangle up a trip to LA before this show closes. Margaret Kilgallan's art has a very folk-art meld of text and image - really big and bold and, I think, strong and lovely. Almost like textual quilts. Incredibly sadly, she died of ovarian cancer at 33 leaving behind a husband and infant daughter - while this doesn't change her art, it may change the eyes you see it through -does for me at least. She lived in San Francisco, and, I believe, used to work at the SF Public Library in book preservation.

Princeton University Library has made available a great new resource for anyone interested in book printing and design - Unseen Hands: Women Printers, Binders, and Book Designers. You can explore by name, date, occupation, or just browse a thumbnail gallery. Quite inspiring - read about Emily Faithfull, who in the 19th century hired both men and women to set type, and was met with "enormous hostility from the printer's union, supposedly on moral grounds. Presses were sabotaged and ink poured on the women's chairs."

And check out current craftster Sew Darn Cute for some remarkably reasonable vintage-fabric homemade baby quilts. Yes, yes, so darn cute.

Lipstick & Magazines #20: Cake

Now that Julie of Julie/Julia Project fame, whose blog about cooking all of Julia Childs' recipes I reads obsessively last year, has gone and gotten herself a nice book deal, I'm checking out a few other food bloggers and bakers.

52 Cupcakes is a nice gimmicky blog from a woman who has given herself the "challenge" of cooking a different kind of cupcake every week, and now she's getting around to posting the recipes, though really, it's all about the photos.

The Girl who Ate Everything has a decadent time chowing down with great shots too - and have you seen the ever-entertaining Airline Meals? Well organized, collaborative - what more could you ask for in a kitsch site?

Finally, if it's all about "pretty" for you, with a nice dose of high quality ingredients, check out Miette Patisserie at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, particularly their cake stands (but pricey pricey!) and small lemon cookies.

Lipstick & Magazines #19: Product

I drooled over the Benefit catalog for years, but only finally have learned the joys of their stuff after a holiday gift from my guy. Bad, bad move, as now I'm pretty much addicted to a few items, like the Fantasy Mint Wash (which reminds me of my absolute favorite cheap chocolate drugstore candy, the Mint Dream) and Do It Daily, a super simple, not-too-sticky facial moisturizer with SPF.

Also, a wedding make-up *find* is Pout lip products available at Sephora - the gloss is very yummy, and the fishnet print packaging is mighty fine.

And, in the interests of supporting a store I've been shopping at since I was a kid, I encourage everyone to seek out teeny-tiny Common Scents on 24th Street in Noe Valley. Around since at least the very early 80s, Common Scents has my absolute favorite bubble bath flavors - Apricot, Blackberry-Hibiscus, and more. And they package it and themselves in sweet little plastic bottles that you can get refilled. AND they also have a great selection of Kiehl's, candles, make-up bags, soap holders, and more. Check it out.

Lipstick & Magazines #18: Emotion

So you wanna...have a good cry. It happens. You're overwhelmed or stressed or maybe insanely happy and you know a good cry would be cleansing and wonderful, but you need a spark to get you there.

Or maybe not a cry, but just that feeling, of being alive, connecting - can you find it in a reality show? Probably not, but other media just might work...

Film:

A few weeks ago, my friend Julie said "You are going to LOVE this movie." And she was more than right. Me and You and Everyone We Know is getting insane press, quickly moving from indie needing press, to indie getting so much press people might not consider it "indie" enough any more. But see it. Miranda July, the writer/director/performance artist whose credentials at such a young age will make anyone weep, has crafted an artist's movie, about love and loneliness and growing up that just connects. She also has a blog about the film's aftermath.

Web:

OK, watching a baby's birth may not appeal to everyone, but trust me on this one. "Welcome Jude Roman Fairbanks" is an amazing creation by his media designer father. It is NOT too graphic to watch at work, but you may tear up, so I'd save it for home. And be absolutely sure to have the sound on (Flaming Lips, etc.)

Read:

Mary and O'Neil by Justin Cronin - a perfect lazy hammock read. Time to set up a hammock in my apartment. A set of interlinked stories that I absolutely loved.

Daily:

Do you get enough poetry in your life? If not, subscribe to The Writer's Almanac Daily e-newsletter from Garrison Keillor. I'm not a natural-born poetry lover, but I've been so impressed (and touched!) by many of the contemporary picks, and also enjoy finding out about literary history and birthdays - it's like a great five-minute English class every morning.

Lipstick & Magazines #17: Tips

Back from all the amazement of a super-sweet wedding and the dessert treat of ten days in Kaua'i. As I gather myself back together, here are some goodies for you:

To feel inspired: 43 Things

To think about new ways to search for information and to store your favorites: A9

To force yourself to keep (or start?) writing (well, if you're still in your twenties):
Random House Twentysomething Writers Contest

To find that new job without checking a million sites (terrible name, great site): Indeed

To enjoy someone's amazing creativity and sweet style: My Paper Crane

Lipstick & Magazines #16: Summer

I'm a pretty constant reader. There's always one book or another splayed on my bedside table, but, more often than not, during busy school or other mentally-taxing times, that book will be pretty soft-serve and simple (hence my recent consumption of The Ivy Chronicles - hey! I found it at Goodwill!).

So my beachy, summertime reads are usually the deeper tomes, that would seem to make more sense during dark winter nights. My last beach time with a friend in Florida found me deeply engaged in Atonement, if that gives you a sense of what I mean here.

So for my upcoming beach time, I've got the following list going (always in progress and subject to change, especially since I find the book stalls in airports tremendously appealing for some random reason):

A Seahorse Year ~ Stacey D'Erasmo (set in San Francisco and I enjoyed her book Tea)

The Child in Time ~ Ian McEwan (he worked last time)

Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times ~ ed. by Kevin Smokler ( a buddy of mine & I've already cackled out loud at one piece)

Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey ~ Holley Bishop (well, I love honey, but I must confess I was totally seduced by the cover)

Crossing California ~ Adam Langer (looks like a good, solid novel & I'm going to Chicago--where the book is set--for the first time later in June)

And I also sit, toe-tapping and anxious, waiting for some of my favorite authors (Charles Baxter, A.M. Homes) to write a little faster and give me more gems to read.

Lipstick & Magazines #15: Bite

The new online food mag Saucy, from Bookslut's Jessa Crispin, features some lovely and totally right-on features, including this touching article from Colleen Mondor, the mother of a recently diagnosed diabetic, whose foodie sensibilities must now mold themselves to serve more important criteria. Saucy also compiles an eminently browseable collection of food links and recent articles.

I thought the Accidental Scientist's Science of Cooking site from San Francisco's Exploratorium would be totally kid-oriented, but it has some really funky info, including how to make rock candy (cool!), a brief history of ketchup, and a wonderfully geeky food discussion board with topics like "Failed marmalade - Can it be salvaged??"

As a food lover who needs to do a little research before settling on the best birthday-splurge restaurants, I usually end up at Chowhound, which has recently published food guides to the SF Bay Area and the NY area. Talk about passionate. These discussion boards can get a bit feisty as debates rage on about whether Limon is all it's cracked up to be, or if San Francisco has any good pizza AT ALL, but this is a great site for figuring out what the best picks are on unfamiliar menus.

Lipstick & Magazines #14: Contact

I want to share my stash of free e-card links. At some point a few years back, all the sites I used starting charging for all but the ugliest Garfield and bad flash animation cards. So, here are three that I use and I'd love to hear about more from you:

Chronicle Books makes almost all of their high-design images available to send as e-cards. Smart marketing and publicity folks! Bust Magazine also has kitsch fun postcards and SFGate has a stylish variety with Bay Area flavor.

And you can't send them, but the Tacky Postcard Archive is very good browsing and some sneaky commentary. Nancy Reagan on Mr. T's lap? Who knew.

If you enjoy vintage postcards, particularly those thick card-stock, tacky ones you often find in little piles at yard sales, check out the tour of the USA in vintage postcards and the Vintage Vegas Postcard Museum (the site also has some cool vintage matchbooks).

Lipstick & Magazines #13: Chick

Does anyone else have conflicting feelings about the term "chick flick"? I've always worked at video stores to supplement my student loans during school, and when I worked at a store in the Castro and guys would ask for help picking a chick flick to watch with their boyfriend, the request was always delivered with enough kitsch *wink* that I was usually charmed. In Noe Valley, the request was usually either "anything but a chick flick"- from a guy - or "my husband's out of town so I need a chick flick"- from a woman, neither of which charmed me as much, and which made making a recommendation a bit more difficult.

I love complex movies about girls and women, so here is my personal take on the some of the best highly non-traditional "chick flicks" out there:

The Professional: Natalie Portman's relationship with a big-hearted assassin forms the center of this movie that is sometimes bloody, sometimes terrifying, but always wonderful.

Mostly Martha: A German film about a woman chef and her life and loves - some of the best shrink visit scenes ever.

Walking & Talking: With Catherine Keener (always amazing) and Anne Heche (pre-Fresno freakout), this friendship flick is directed by Nicole Holofcener, who also directed Lovely & Amazing. She really nails the complexities of old friends as their relationship continually reshapes itself to accommodate new loves.

Tumbleweeds: A lovely mother-daughter road-trip movie that avoids most of the predictable cheese and feels authentic and real.

Freeway: If you think Reese Witherspoon is all blonde hair and bubblegum you are so, so wrong. This movie played at the Roxie theater in SF for months and months in 1997 and became a raging cult favorite. In a perverse take on Little Red Ridinghood, Reese battles through to find grandma, and stars with an incredible, and incredibly twisted cast, including Brooke Shields, Kiefer Sutherland, and Amanda Plummer.

Lipstick & Magazines #12: Buy

If Spring brings out your intense desire for new shoes, fresh sheets, and sweet gems, check out these distinctive online stores.

Zappos has a ridiculous selection of shoe brands, including dollhouse, Irregular Choice, and Chinese Laundry. AND they offer free shipping and free returns within 365 days (on unworn shoes). AND they have a feature that allows you to store your "Favorites" so that you can not only compare the shoes to each other, but come back and make your decisions later. Lots of sales, lots of personal reviews, searchable by style/size/color and more.

The Company Store offers a welcome antidote to the oatmealy, cream-colored, pastel, boring boring sheets available in so many department stores, as does Dwell Shop. Dwell's sets are more sophisticated and "subtle, " while The Company Store bursts with polka dots, stripes, flowers, and utter cuteness. CS also offers "jersey knit" aka t-shirt material bedding, which is super comforting and soft.

Plain Mabel brings together jewelry, accessories, and other goods from dozens of indie artists and crafters. New items are updated often, and current goodies include oilcloth totes, handmade knitting needle cases, and fuzzy guitar straps. Uncommon Goods claims to offer "anything but ordinary"; drinking game checkers fits the bill, as do their fabulous glassware and completely adorable juice and milk container covers.

And finally, end the week with Hello Kitty's Psychological test, even more perceptive, in that wonderfully inaccurate translation way then BBC's Sex ID test.

Lipstick & Magazines #11: Join

Really now, sometimes it should be about having some fun, even when you can't control it all.

Do you work for an organization that likes to encourage "out of the box" thinking, or the importance of "leveraging," but only after the appropriate amount of "right-sizing" has resulted in all your good friends being laid off? Business Buzzword Bingo offers a slim ray of light amidst the lingo. Happily, the terms seem as appropriate to non-profit meetings as to the corporate sort. Play on!

Do you feel like sometimes, maybe once in awhile, like every four years, your vote doesn't really have an impact? Well, now Ben and Jerry's offers you the opportunity to turn that sad feeling upside down. Vote to bring back your favorite ice cream flavor from the graveyard! I didn't even KNOW there had been a Coconut Cream Pie Low-Fat Ice Cream. But I do have intense memories of White Russian...

And riffing just a bit more on baby names, the Baby Name Wizard's Name Voyager site is way too cool. Curious whether old-fashioned girl's names are really trendy around the nation, or just in your hipster SF neighborhood? Looking for the most popular names from the 1910s (Myrtle, Ophelia)? Of course you'll look your own name up, but beware the ticking clock if you get trapped looking up all your friends' and distant relatives' too.

Lipstick & Magazines #10: Chill

The rain, the rain. And for some of you the snow, the snow. It's inspiring lots of "those days," where all you want to do is snuggle in and be entertained. So here's a recipe to make it good.

First, the consumables:

Make yourself some chocolate chip, dried apricot, nut cookies, recommended by Loobylu. Or have someone make them for you. These are ridiculously tasty, especially with regular chips or a mix of white and regular.

Tea is good too, and Mighty Leaf tea comes in little fabric pouches so you will feel your tea is extra-special. And don't ruin it with a tacky teapot. Go for a Bee House teapot in Carrot or Kiwi colors. These Japanese beauties are super-styling.

And on to the readables:

I've been suffering the painful inability to get invested in novels, until I was recently snared by Meg Wolitzer's new novel The Position. Wolitzer follows the lives of four siblings whose lives were forever molded by their encounter with the sex book their parents wrote in the 1970s.

You'll need some magazines too. Topic Magazine has a specific theme for each issue (Food, Family, etc.) and features funky photography, short stories, and personal essays. Topic looks high-design but it reads real-life.

And for watchables:

Julia Roberts? Tom Cruise? Do they really draw you to the theater? Yeah, right. Hope Davis, though. She's a box-office draw for the indie sort, and if you haven't seen some of her movies, get thee to the Netflix page or the video store for Next Stop Wonderland, American Splendor, The Daytrippers, or The Secret Lives of Dentists. Hope, you kinda feel like you can call her Hope cause she seems like she'd be cool to hang out with, invokes instant empathy in all her fabulous, no-frills roles.

And take care.

Lipstick & Magazines #9: Tasty

Given that I am in the final few days of writing my monster let-me-graduate-please papers, today is all about "simple pleasures" (I know a few of you will be able to laugh at that).

Here, then, some websites that just make me happy. And they are all about food:

* Claire Crespo has the enviable job of publishing cookbooks that are really more photography books of food made to look like other things. Her website is just total "flash" fun (be sure to have the sound on).

* Cowgirl Creamery, local cheesemakers, have a really sweet site and (heart aflutter) a "Library of Cheese."

* It will give you tremendous pleasure to read about the items that go into Zingerman's gift baskets. They also have a catalog you can subscribe to for free that is some of the best reading around, if you like rapturous descriptions of olive oils, honeys, breads, cheeses...