tomorrow is super adoption day at the piazza at schmidts! this will be the largest adoption event in philadelphia history, plus there will be live music, food and drinks, special guests, shopping, vendors, crafters and more. the event is organized by philly no kill, an amazing organization with the goal of making philadelphia a city where all healthy and treatable animals are saved. there are so many animals in need of homes so stop by tomorrow between 10 and 4 and you may walk away with a new best friend :)
literally, it’s pretty wild! scientists have recently discovered a rare type of bee that makes its nest out of flower petals in a method similar to papier-mâché! the result is so beautiful – i would love to see one in real life…but since that probably won’t happen maybe i’ll collect some petals and try to recreate my own little papier-mâché project. who knew bees could be such talented artists?! :)
i have a love/hate relationship with first fridays in philly. i live in old city…so when i leave my place to go out on the first friday of the month i have to wade through the sea of people blocking the sidewalks, and every place i go is packed. but once it gets nice out, i find myself warming up- literally – to the idea. the streets of old city come alive with all types of creative folk who line the sidewalks with their art, craft and music. i’ll wander around perusing the treasures, stopping every once in a while to talk with sellers, all the while soaking in the energy that is first friday in philadelphia.
she’s a dreamer, a soul-searcher and a wanderer. drifting along, deep in thought, her eyes tell tales of mysterious adventures. meadow is our bohemian girl who wears loose, flowing tops and dresses that catch the breeze as she roams the earth in search of inspiration. she mixes patterns and prints and piles on jewelry with a handmade, natural touch. on her feet are moccasins or sandals but she’d rather be barefoot. she hears music wherever she goes – at one with nature, she’ll often pause to smell a flower, pet an animal or just to take in the beauty that surrounds her. little trinkets and memorabilia like leaves, stones, a matchbook with thoughts strewn across it, fill her pockets and then the pages of her journals when she eventually returns home.
here are some picks that I could see meadow wearing:
another place where you’re likely to see a ton of meadow girls running around? music festivals! shop our featival picks, which meadow would surely love, here.
in the wake of both earth day and the oil spill in the gulf of mexico, we wanted to share a few helpful tips for things you can do to cut back on oil usage in your everyday life. sure you might have heard it before, but it never hurts to have it top of mind…
replace your light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) or even cutting-edge light emitting diodes (LEDs). turn off lights and other devices when they’re not needed. candles are great at night!
eliminate electronics that sleep on a standby setting – they continue to pull a current even when “turned off.” AC adapters on many power cables pull current too, so those should be taken out of the wall when not in use. your best bet is a “smart” power strip, or a power strip that can be turned off at night.
when looking for new appliances, seek out the most energy-efficient models, and charge your MP3 player, laptop, PDA, cell phone, and camera with a portable solar charger.
keep your house cool with natural ventilation instead of air conditioning as much as possible. use in-room, ceiling, or whole-house fans to move air throughout the house. blocking sunlight during hot hours of the day can also help.
clothes driers gobble up a lot of power, so line drying can be a great energy saver.
buy locally grown food, or if you have a garden, grow your own. transport uses oil.
whenever you can, walk, bike, use public transportation or carpool. i am guilty of this just as much as anyone, but it is so, so important!
26th April Phoenix live @ the Constitution Hall. We headed there straight after work. A road trip from Philly to Washington to go and see a band that I’ve been lusting over for quite some time now – Phoenix.
An amazing soundtrack was played while driving there as my eyes striped the America land passing by. America is new to me so it doesn’t take much to intrigue me eyes. Both sight and sound senses were tickled during this trip.
Washington is a nice place full of profoundness. The Venue where Phoenix was playing ( DAR Constitution Hall) was to, a place of great character.
We were second row from the front which equals great photo opportunity; I could almost smell Thomas Mars!!!
They played a number of my favorite songs including 1901 and Too Young, which I was reminded, was played in the film Lost in Translation and Shallow Hal
The atmosphere was great and I had a blast, not bad for a Monday night, work night.
The evening finished with everyone being invited onto the stage, yes that’s right the entire hall was crawling forward to join them on the stage.
Phoenix sure knows how to make their fans happy!!!
Stay tuned for more free people gig reviews in the future we plan to go to many during the summer months.
during the 1950s and 1960s, morocco was a refuge for writers and musicians from abroad, including the rolling stones, jack kerouac and william s. burroughs, who wrote the legendary naked lunch while staying at a hotel in tangier. morocco was to the rolling stones what india was to the beatles – they traveled there in the late 1960s in search of musical inspiration and found that and much more. the fusion of berber, african and arabic music had a huge influence on the rolling stones’ sound but they were also enthralled by the atmosphere of the country – especially the somewhat seedy city of tangier – home at the time to spies, smugglers, expatriate aristocrats and writers-in-exile. they arrived in the british mod style and left in billowing shirts, weighed down by bracelets, necklaces and various trinkets. about his experiences in morocco, keith richards said “we enjoyed being transported. you could be sinbad the sailor, one thousand and one nights. we loved it.”
the stones were part of a large crowd of swinging londoners who regularly visited morocco in the 60s. one of the most iconic photos representing morocco and the bohemian culture of the 1960s is of talitha getty, wife of paul getty, shot by patrick lichfield on the roof of their home in marrakech. our team was inspired to recreate this photo when shooting our catalog in morocco- here is our version!
lou is our guy’s girl – a tomboy with a feminine side who can be sexy without losing her rough and tumble, rock n’ roll edge. she’s the type of girl who can roll out of bed and throw on cutoffs and a t-shirt and walk out the door without any makeup. the key to her style is being ready to hop on her skateboard or bike at a moment’s notice and disappear in a cloud of dust, because she’s always moving – with the wind in her hair and her beat-up sneakers or boots on her feet.
to capture the gritty style and energy that is lou we went to FDR park in philadelphia, a perfect location with its mix of grunge and beauty. it winds around a scenic lake with ducks and blossoming trees and ends under the highway with a skatepark, where the sound of wheels grinding on concrete made our ‘lou’ right at home. here are some of our special shots to give you some insight into the spirit of lou!
the house where our team stayed in essaouira (and shot several images in the book) was so special it deserved its own post. named “atlantic,” the house is located right off of essaouira’s medina and looks so cozy and relaxing i would never want to leave. wooden stairs climb towards the sky and rooftops fade into mountains on the horizon while the atlantic ocean laps against the shore. an opening in the roof allows natural light to flood the space, and even an occasional sprinkle of rain. when the heat of the sun is replaced by a cool evening breeze, there’s a fireplace to curl up next to and a cozy nook awaits to fall asleep and dream about what the next day will hold.
from the rooftop
when you wake up in the morning head to chez driss for some coffee, orange juice and potates! they might look like potatoes and the name sounds like potatoes, but these are potates- one of our team’s favorite things to eat in morocco. these little almond flavored pastries are not easy to find- they are actually unique to essaouira, where you can find them at a bakery located on the place moulay el hassan called chez driss. another neat fact – orson welles filmed several scenes for the 1952 film othello in essaouira, and it is said chez driss is where he would sit and have his morning cup of coffee at a patio table.
continuing with our exploration of morocco, today i wanted to share some of the work of moroccan artist, andre elbaz. i was first drawn to his landscapes…they have such amazing texture and color that capture the energy and spirit of morocco. the use of cubism gives them a surreal quality but the varying sizes and colors make them appear to sparkle like a living, breathing city. the second one reminds me of looking down at urban landscapes from an airplane, seeing only clusters of light, thinking about all the tiny ant-like people that are down there going about their everyday lives.
We’ve landed in California and are ready to hit one of the best Music festivals around.
The anxiety was unbearable @ the airport… so we thought the best way to beat this before the 5 hour flight was to wash it away with crabby fries and Blue Moon beer. My did it work… followed by a blast of our pre Coachella playlists on our iphones!
We packed light as we figured there will be no time for 5 hour dress ups. Denim shorts, crop tops neon lingerie and yes an array of the free people bandeaus. Oh, and one must not forget the leather jacket and wayfarers. You can’t do a music festival without having that little touch of rock ‘n roll to your attire.
We landed in California and packed up our SUV and drove down to Santa Monica (where we were staying for the night) with Jimi Hendrix vibrating the air around us.
We arrived at our destination tired and nauseous. However, the flood lit pool that welcomed us was enough to perk our spirits up again. Spag ball and red wine followed with chats of our next day plans.
Heads hit pillows at 10.30 with dreams of Coachella…
Now we are up and ready to go eeeeeee the excitement is unbearable.
