Cafe Lumiere

Hou Hsiao-Hsien's great movie CAFE LUMIERE plays tomorrow April 27 7p.m. at Cinefamily.

Commissioned for the Shochiku studio in honor of the centenary of house filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, it is contemplative, calm, quietly evocative and ironically even more beautiful than the late works of the devotee Ozu. The protagonist is an independent-minded freelance writer in Tokyo and the movie observes the ebb and flow of a few days of her life.

I've seen it 3 times and the low-key reality created by the movie is hard to shake. There's so much to look at, "read" and casually puzzle over that it felt very different each time too.

Paul McCartney

Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Went to go see Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s newest film FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON yesterday. It was pretty great. The loose plot revolves around 3 characters in modern day Paris: a professional puppeteer, an aspiring filmmaker and a young boy who occasionally sees a red balloon.

If you’re a newcomer to director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s work or have been put off previously by his unortohdox style, FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON may be a good place to start. He most resembles a grittier late-Yasujiro Ozu with equal the chops though Hou's worldview is more hopeful and based on current day life. By selectively showing the complex details that shapes people’s lives through distanced and elliptical storytelling, he creates a charged atmosphere that makes one reflect deep thinking about your own. Sometimes even profoundly prescient thinking. His more recent films are so quietly vivid and incisive about people and the historical context of modern living they can even hurt. This one is a commissioned work for the Musee d’Orsay so there's a bit more melodrama and some lip service paid to pie-eyed idealism (all shown in the trailer) but the overall effect is the same.

1970's Italian Lamp

I REALLY like this lamp.

Mammillaria family

from Mexico

1. Mammillaria Senilis blooming.
2. 6' Mammillaria Spinosissima var. Polyacantha, AKA Red-Headed Irishman, hanging upside down. They naturally hang off cliffsides.

Good t-shirt

from Textfield

Band Of Outsiders Made-To-Measure

Tailor Martin Greenfield and designer Scott Sternberg of clothing label Band Of Outsiders will be at Barney's in Los Angeles April 17 offering a Made-To-Measure service so you can drop by and say hello and possibly get sized up for an awesome custom-made suit.

Elon Musk

* Along the same vein, if you're on the prowl for a medium-priced car, the VW Jetta TDI currently seems to be a great option. ~$20,000. 40-50mpg. It actually becomes more fuel-efficient after vegetable oil conversion so you can be buying something cheaper and more eco-friendly than the Toyota Prius.

Tokyo Subway Map

I really like this one but bonus points if you can find the map from the early 90's.

Fish Tank

Lost out on this one.

Chalkware composite and glass.
England 1940s.

beautifully knit organs from sarah illenberger.

Martin's Margins Spectacles

18th century

Bid Here