Humanizing the Devil?

Are you going to see The September Issue, the documentary about Anna Wintour and Vogue?

I can't wait to see it. My friend Mary Pols reviewed the documentary for Time Magazine last month. She wrote: "The Wintour we meet is still capable of the kind of arbitrary intimidations that might inspire a damning best seller. But this empress definitely is wearing clothes. Flattering ones."

Lula

Have you seen Lula Magazine? It's my new favorite. The magazine's website is still under construction, but there's a fantastic Lula fan site on Facebook -- with lots of pictures. I especially love the photo of the girl with the polka-dot tears. (The photos of Kirsten Dunst and Keira Knightley are pretty wonderful too.)

xo

vimeo beautiful

Hauschka - Morgenrot from Jeff Desom on Vimeo.

What is rushing toward us on the internet tide is a seemingly endless array of art- the ugly, mundane, and here- the beautiful, the haunted:
it is September. We do not forget.

Flux Capacitor

Happy Saturday

Hello everyone. Happy Saturday! Hope you're having a lovely day. I wanted to share this Polaroid with you. I took it last week on the beach in Santa Monica. (You can sort of see the Ferris wheel in the background on the Santa Monica Pier).

What are you doing this weekend?

Tavi

Meet fashion's latest -- and perhaps youngest -- muse: Tavi, the-13-year-old fashion blogger from Chicago.



Here she is on the cover of Pop Magazine, on newsstands this week. And that's not all...



Her Blogspot blog, Style Rookie, was featured in today's Wall Street Journal. It turns out Tavi's blog inspired the latest designs of fashion house Rodarte...



She's in New York for Fashion Week (with her dad) and Rodarte's designers, sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, have invited her to sit in the front row of their show on Tuesday.

This is how she describes herself:
"Tiny 13 year old dork that sits inside all day wearing awkward jackets and pretty hats. Scatters black petals on Rei Kawakubo's doorsteps and serenades her in rap. Rather cynical and cute as a drained rat. In a sewer. Farting. And spitting out guts."

Love her!

(photos by Jamie Morgan for Pop Magazine)

Baker, baker... baking a cake.

A couple of the cakes I recently baked for some friends' birthdays.

Yeah. Sorry, Kids. Yes, I just went all Tori Amos on ya's with that title. But I couldn't help it! Just always seems to come up when I'm baking a cake. Forgive me. And, stick a toothpick in me, Kids, 'cause it looks like your Uncle Beefy is done!

Just thought I'd leave you with some sweet treats as I bid you all farewell from The English Muse! Just want to thank Tina for letting me hang my hat here for awhile and to thank all of you for reading and commenting along! I hope to see you 'round "The Bedlam" and you know we'll see each other here!

Have a wonderful weekend, Kids! Thanks, again!

A small sampling from a marathon cupcake baking session. Chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel buttercream and cocoa-dusted vanilla bean buttercream. Gotta say... they were tasty.

Good things come to those who Labour & Wait.

Kids, your Uncle Beefy has entrepreneurial aspirations. Even after years in the service industry, and some hair-raising tales to go along, I still dream of a little something to call my own one day. Call me crazy. (Seriously, it's fine. Others do it all the time... only they also roll their eyes usually.)

I'm always looking for sources of inspiration and trying to visualize what I might like to conjure up. And that typically has me drooling over one British retailer or another! I don't quite know what it is but I just find the British sensibility for merchandising extremely appealing (I know, insert gross generalization here). So many of the shops I come across have that homey but sophisticated feel. Thoughtfully curated without feeling contrived. Anyway, it certainly boosts my Anglophile nature and makes me long for a British accent. (But we all saw how that worked out for Madonna... so I'm steering clear of that move!)

This, Kids, is one of my favorite inspirations and a shop I'm dying to visit! Labour & Wait. Isn't this just about perfect? It makes me want to plant roses and bake shortbread and drink tea and wear wellies while walking the corgi! I mean who wouldn't relish going positively domestic with all these offerings for inspiration?! Seriously. But for the moment I'm afraid I'll just have to [Labour &] Wait.

All images from Labour & Wait website.

Emily Forgot

Good Friday morning, Kids! A lovely day to start off what I'm sure we all hope will be a lovely weekend! Do we need some tea? Coffee? Oh, could you pass your Uncle the cream? Thanks muchly. Well now, just a wee offering to start off the morning...

Love these fantastically graphic plates from London-based graphic artist Emily Alston of Emily Forgot. Spot on brilliant! Don'tcha think? And available in her shop!

Gee, can't imagine why this one would be a stand-out selection for your Uncle? Hmm?

NYC Fashion Week Frenzy

High-heeled paparazzi go wild getting celphone pics of Olsen twins!

Crowd twitters as girls give out lemonade at Bergdorfs!

I'm living vicariously through the Twitter posts on NYC Fashion week this evening. New York Magazine's @cutblog was especially funny/mean. They offered this observation on the Olsen twin frenzy: "Fundamental issue with Olsen melee: The girls are simply too short to be visible when surrounded by a crowd. Midget fail."

Beware of fashionistas with wit and twitpic.

(Photos by @Fashion_Picture and @livefashionweek).

Two Trick Pony

Kids, your Uncle Beefy has two great loves in this world... baking & paper! (Top hats might be a third?) My background is in printmaking and I've been known to shake and shimmy 'round a press or a silkscreen in my time! (With my baking days in full effect though... there's less shimmy, more shake these days, I'm afraid.) Aaaannnnyway, I love the graphic look of silkscreen and the fact that, under thoughtful circumstances, it can be pretty gosh darn eco-friendly. And I LOVE that very combination that Carrie & Laurie of Two Trick Pony are putting out with their cards and invitations! I am all over this stuff like syrup on a pancake, people! Sweet and stylish without puttin' Mother Nature out to pasture, so to speak. ;)

La Victoria

Admittedly, your Uncle Beefy is not especially drawn to Ms. Beckham. But upon perusing the offerings over at fave blog Lost and coming across this image of "La Victoria" on the cover of the October issue of Elle even I had to take pause. Despite the armless camera angle she looks pretty spectacular.

Oh Zooey!

What is it about Zooey Deschanel?


I've noticed her everywhere lately on all my favorite indy fashion blogs...



Is it her charming new movie, (500) Days of Summer, featuring her trademark vintage style?



Or her fantastic collection of sunglasses for Oliver Peoples? (I want the pink ones!)



Or maybe it's because she sings swing songs with a cute guy in a band they call She & Him?



What do you think?


xo

Annie Get Your (Glue) Gun!

Good afternoon, Kids! Your Uncle Beefy has returned again! I was at least hoping for "morning" but there's no getting around that now. I trust and hope that you all had a wonderful Labor Day Weekend? And now here we are at mid-week! Something of a two for one bonus with a Monday holiday, huh?

At any rate, between long weekend personal obligations and beginning of the week work obligations I've been rather pressed for time on the blogging frontier. (Believe you me, the crickets have been mighty noisy over at my blog as well!) Clearly, Miss Tina managed to scrape together a TON of terrific posts which invariably helps to pick up my slack. As always, Tina, much obliged.

I did want to share with you some amazing artwork from Annie Bastine Koelle while I'm here. Aside from her Etsy offerings, Annie also produces some fantastic assemblage pieces! I love the way she mixes rustic and refined elements along with rich colors and white texture. Though the cut paper details make my hands hurt just thinking about the process! So perhaps I should just model instead. (Yes! I could model! Who do you think came up with that infamous "pointing at the watch" Sears catalog pose?! It wasn't Tyson! But I digress.) Annie also does printmaking, clothing, etc., making her one serious annie-of-all-trades. This woman could provide a serious creative showdown. [Glue]guns blazing!

Julie & Julia

If you loved the movie, you might enjoy looking at the blog that started it all. It's still online and you can find it {here}. Happy Wednesday everyone! I'm back at work. So much to tell you!

End of Summer

Hello everyone. It's been two weeks since our trip to Huntington Lake in the Sierras outside Fresno, and I'm just now uploading some of my Polaroids and Fuji Instax photos. I promise to do a proper post with more photos later this week. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites, taken with the Fuji camera on our last day at the lake. Our little cabin is in the second picture. I miss it already.

I'm going back to work tomorrow after six weeks off to help care for my father. I'm happy to report that my dad is doing much better. The doctors are managing his bone marrow disease with medication and occasional blood transfusions. So I'm hopeful he'll be ok for a little while.

It will be good for me to get back to the office. I'm especially looking forward to Wednesday because I'm meeting someone really amazing: Michael Heilemann, tech genius and creator of WordPress' groundbreaking Kubrick template. By coincidence, Michael is in Los Angeles this week. Check out his fantastic blog, Binary Bonsai, where he is currently chronicling his trip through Nevada and California.

Finally, I want to thank all the guest bloggers who helped keep this blog going during my leave. I love them. (Several of them will be making cameo appearances in the coming weeks!)

Hope you have a nice Tuesday.
xo