Last summer, my friend Jay screened the film The Red Balloon at a party. While people mingled, the TV showed a little boy running around Paris with his red balloon. Within minutes, everyone was gathered around the TV, drunk and transfixed.
Alphabet Bookends, $39.95 each. (Click here to look at the amazing close-up images.)
Onion action goggles, $20. (They protect your eyes when you're chopping onions--genius!)
Shot glasses from Scandinavia, $61.
Foreskin's Lament, $16.50. (Awkward title, great book.)
Silver Cookbook Holder, $34.
Wobbly cognac glasses, $55.
Murray's cheese class, two hours in NYC, $50.
Chunky Neckwarmer, $108.
Fresh Sake Bath, $80. (Supposed to be AMAZING.)
Kettle from Finland, $130.
Cashmere-covered hot water bottle, $150. On a snowy winter evening, you can can crack open the bedroom window so your nose gets cold, and then cuddle up with a hot water bottle. It's so cozy and a true simple pleasure.
John Derian decoupage paperweight, $40 to $65.
Persepolis graphic novel, $12.
An old family photo framed with an oversized mat.
A massage with "E," at Sal Anthony's, $65/hour. My friend swears by his talent.
Today I discovered a daily Ebay blog on the fashion website Refinery29. Every day, editors sift out incredible designs and clothing. I get overwhelmed rummaging all the random stuff on Ebay, but look at the cool things they've found for us...
These notebooks are hand covered with limited edition 1930's to 1970's wallpapers. Pretty!
The former New Yorker fiction editor just wrote the the most amazing book about learning how to make pasta in Mario Batali's Babbo restaurant and apprenticing for Dario Cecchini, a wild, Dante-quoting butcher in Tuscany.
This past fall, my friend Eric arranged his books in order of color. At first it seemed a little OCD, but his bookcase actually looked really good and aesthetically pleasing. (It's also an interesting approach to treat the whole bookcase as an object.) And now suddenly everyone seems to be doing it (including the people in this amazing flickr set).
