Stairz

As promised, here is my tidbit about stairs. I've put them down in my memo-book as one of the requirements in my dream-loft; preferably spiral, but now that I've done the research and seen the wide variety of possibilities, I am stumped. Some are practical, some are beautiful and some are downright weird. FYI: stairs consist mainly of a tread (the part you step on) and a riser (the vertical part).

Check these babies out:

This graffiti trompe-l'oeil is dope - I'd love to see it in person; it must be oddly unrecognizable at a different angle.

I'm going to start with the Apple store stairs because I find them to be phenomenal - they're clearly perfectly engineered and are consistent with the overall Apple aesthetic - beautifully simplistic with a modern flare.

These stairs are confusing to me but I find the fact that they float very trippy - if two people went up at the same time, would they meet at the cross-section? The dynamics of this one make me a little bit dizzy.

I find these floating stairs absolutely amazing - although I wonder how much weight they can take - I'd need a serious installation guarantee before ordering these babies.

These are wicked - if only I were a skateboarder and didn't look like a total poser with these in my apartment.

I'm not sure how these wibble-wobble, crooked stairs work, but they must make a game of Mouse Trap oddly realistic.

Simple and modern... leading to a MEZZANINE! Also, the photographer's lighting doesn't hurt.

THE PRACTICAL, MULTI-USE SERIES:

I love the idea of a reading nook, but I think I prefer the idea of a reading staircase.

Wonderfully practical - although the open-organization might be too difficult for me to keep up.

The ability to hide clutter where no one will ever know it's literally right under their nose... or feet.

Another great multi-use set of stairs.

Wholly unnecessary? I think not - every pet needs help getting onto his or her private leather seating accommodations!

Requirements

I used to drive by this huge run down building that had enormous windows and overall amazing potential. I remember asking myself why I didn't have a billion dollars to buy, renovate and rent out (slash live in) it. Finally, however, someone slightly more financially adept stole my plan and has created quite the impressive location. It is now called The Banknote (check out thebanknotenyc.com for more), appropriately enough, as I am sure you will need more than a couple of those to rent in the building.

It's truly stunning, though, and I am putting it down as part of the requirements for where I want to live when I get an amazing loft. Other requirements include:

- a mezzanine (not the little baby ones, a giant one, where I could potentially put some sort of game room or a bedroom)

- a spiral staircase (preferably made of glass, like the ones at the Apple store (see future post about stairs) and very big because the small ones tend to make me dizzy)

- giant windows (I'm talking uber-big, as in obnoxiously large windows, I want them to take up the whole wall)

- a great view (perhaps something like this:)

After I went to the Banknote's website, I proceeded to check out other virtual Manhattan lofts and ended up on manhattanlofts.com, a website that made me feel very poor. One of the more impressive apartments, at only $2 990 000, looks like this:

No big deal.

Teleph-oh-no

Friend Sam next to the traditional Chinatown pay phones

This one is mostly interesting because we were in Boston, and people here don't seem to like New Yorkers very much (it must be a Red Sox/Yankee thing)

Lately, I've been noticing some very stylish phone booths. My weekend in Boston contributed two specifically interesting ones to my phone booth repertoire, which made me want to write about pay phones in general. I mean, why would you need to look good for the person who you are calling, when you can look fabulous right there in the booth? With the advent of the cell phone, phone booths and pay phones are no longer being used, but at least we still have their aesthetic and some great artists taking advantage of that recycled tabula rasa. Benoit Deseille and Benedetto Bufalino created the Aquarium Phone Booth as part of the Lyon Light Festival in France, which is imperative since fish need to call their peeps too, right? How else do you think they found Nemo?

Lyon Light Festival

An interesting solution to the aggravating cell phone afficionado

The traditional English phone booth - typical yet traditionally amazing

Stripe-It-Up

Mom's style from back in the day (1972)

a new DIY project

gap stripes

more gap stripe campaign

Stripes are all the rage. Although that expression never really was my favorite. "Rage", for me, implies a certain anger and viciousness, and my feelings about stripes are far from being described by those two nouns. Stripes have come back into style might be a better way of putting it. The new GAP campaign has clearly incorporated stripes, and these can be found all over their store: vertically, horizontally, in all different widths. I think that stripes are a nice, clean and modest pattern. They remind me of Brittany (in France) and the whole sailor look, which I, for some reason, associate with organization and cleanliness. I found the blue and white striped dress at H&M for about $20 and have decided to amp up the striped look a bit by adding some more military details (although the epaulette may be a bit too large to be called a "detail"). I found the blue patch, satin cream-colored rope and beige fringe at Fabricville in Montreal (for about $14) and will eventually sew them together. I love the plaid look that's been going around as well, but the stripes are an even better way to look casual yet put together at the same time. My great friend Shannon (below) is also a huge fan of the stripes - and we can't say she looks too shabby in them either!

Shannon (wifey!)

Laurent and his striped number

Beats by Dr. Dre.

These are the dopest headphones. Ever. They look awesome and are super comfortable and the sound is insane. There's a sick "b" button on the side that pauses the music and a microphone attached to the main cable. I can't decide whether or not I should've gotten them in white (http://beatsbydre.com/products/Products.aspx?pid=3808) - you can also get them customized for about a bazillion dollars (I'd probably go with gold and/or pink): http://www.colorwarepc.com/p-176-beats.aspx

Today's beat (if you're into soft french-electro):

http://discodust.com/files/Marchand%20-%20Starlove.mp3

You decide...

Street art by Paul ... Richard? 2008. I can't seem to decipher the black glue on the Brooklyn pavement. I'm going to go with slightly heavier versions of Cary Grant and Dali (or an obese John Waters), what about you? The liquid tar drizzles are really nicely done - reminiscent of these drawings my art teacher used to make us do where you weren't allowed to take your pencil off the paper. I definitely hope to see some more.

no. way.

After a relatively gruesome midnight bus ride back home from Montreal - aren't they always? - I had about 3 hours to get to an internship interview in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It took about 2 hours to eat and get to my dad's office to change and look somewhat clean/not like I'd been playing sleep-contortion-opoly for the last 9 hours. Now, there are two bits of exciting news, the first being that I got the internship. The second is that THE STREETBOTS ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD! I saw one on Grand Street in Williamsburg and was shocked to say the least - I wonder if they travel in packs! I guess I'll have to keep an eye open for the crazy critters...

UPDATE: Apparently these actually ARE all over the world! A friend who is traveling around North America told me he saw some in Toronto and Chicago as well!

Let's take a stroll down...

Memory Lane actually exists and can be found in Greenwich, CT. I saw this and brought my car to a screeching halt to take some pictures. It's always interesting to see street signs that have double meanings or that pertain to one of life's many metaphors. Of course, this one is pretty tame unlike so many that can be found on the interweb (there are also some funny ones here: http://www.funnysign.com/) but I found it to be a very nice street name - minus all the predictable jokes the property owners of this street must deal with: "'Hey Bob, you want to take a stroll after dinner?' 'To where?' 'Oh, I think you know...'". Well, I drove down Memory Lane and I must say it was more of a curious adventure rather than a nostalgic experience. The scenery was there at least. And some insane (but typical) Greenwich mansions (apparently Tommy Hilfiger's house is not far).

In search of the master of the suicidal streetbots

Durocher & Milton

Parc & Milton (north side)

Hutchinson & Milton

The squashed little square bodies, the outward pointing feet, the familiar triple-lined center. They're everywhere! On Milton Ave., anyway. Who is creating these buddies (and how!)?

UPDATE: Apparently, our buddies can be found all over Montreal - Place Ville-Marie, St. Laurent, Square Victoria... Looks like I'm going to have to go on an adventure and find the whole family!

Ah, the moustaki.

The "moustache" is an interesting concept. More interesting, however, are the various styled shapes these facial hairs can take. First and foremost, this exists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Beard_and_Moustache_Championships.

(Please note the "Dali" sub-category, requiring "artificial styling aids".)

The reason I talk about moustakis today is because it seems to have been a recurring theme in everyday conversation, for the last few days. One friend, Romain, is actually able to create the "Handlebar Club" look - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handlebar_Club, using his wet index finger and thumb to gently twist the ends of his furry upper lip coat into a slight curl (see below).

Another is growing his whiskers into what seems to be turning into the Hungarian look ("Big and bushy, beginning from the middle of the upper lip and pulled to the side. The hairs are allowed to start growing from up to a maximum of 1.5 cm beyond the end of the upper lip.")

Why is the growth of one of these facial duvets so important? It's not very comfortable to the opposite sex, it's not generally attractive (although I'm sure some girls find it appealing) and it seems to take tedious care. Perhaps the moustaki is the perfect way to alter one's look without consequences (you can chop it all off in less than 5 minutes). I think it's because moustakis are awesome. They're the perfect way to add a little pizzazz to the face without any to much effort. They can update and outdate any look at the same time. Clearly, there's nothing better than a man who can successfully pull off the horseshoe moustache, Hulk Hogan style.

Let's call it DIY, studs

Lauriane (photo by 4Mika - 4Mika.com)

Lauriane (photo by 4Mika - 4Mika.com)

fig 1.

fig. 2

fig. 3

Military style became particularly trendy after the death of the King of Pop. We saw the gold rope-like embroidery across the chest and epaulettes, which veered into familiar faux shoulder insignia, colorful ribbon strips at the wrists and bright buttons. Of course, we've all seen the boyfriend blazer trend as well. Recently, however, I've noticed an amalgamation of the two with the increase of an edgier side to these looks - studs. There seems to be a punk version of the military jacket and blazer- studded shoulders, studded wrists, studded pockets. Balmain (fig. 1) has created a few of these and I've seen some nice studded lapels at Zara (fig. 2). A couple weeks ago, my brother's girlfriend Lauriane was wearing a plain v-neck grey sweater with the perfect studded detail on the shoulders from Sandro (take a look at the studded Fall '09-'10 collection here: http://www.sandro-paris.com/). Fond of the look, I decided to search for some studs to DIY a sweater myself. I went first to Omer de Serres, an art supply story in Montreal, where one of the employees showed me her studded belt (making sure I was in fact referring to the right peice of metal) and directed me towards St. Denis, to a punk store store called X2O-Rio, where I could find studs. They were selling 10 for $2, so I bought two bags, went home, and carefully folded 5 metal prongs into each shoulder of the sweater. Et voila! Not as nice as last year's Givenchy studded number (fig. 3), but still cool.