Tasmanian artist Cat Rabbit makes dolls you want to be your friends. They're a little odd, a little scary, and entirely, completelylovable (look at that face!). They're each unique, they've all got style, and they love just being themselves. Revel in their sweet personalities here and here, and get one to love for always and call your very own here.
(Photo via this amazing photo shoot here. Go look! The models and dolls are wearing matching costumes, and it is wonderful.)
I've always had a silly aversion to armadillos. I think it stemmed from a strange taxidermy situation from my childhood, which is certainly not the armadillo's fault. But I went on a hike the other day near the beach and I saw a pair of armadillos for the first time in the wild -- going about their business, being friends, having fun. And it hit me in a flash -- these animals are super cool.
Which makes this armadillo ring by designer Up To Much super cool. Bonus: I'm pretty sure it can double as a weapon.
I'm not great at doing things on a preset schedule, but you can at least trust that in an ideal world, I'd do a music roundup twice a week. So that's my goal. That's what we're working toward here. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but in my Platonic ideal Fabulist, it happens like CLOCKWORK.
Also in my Platonic ideal of the Fabulist, you love every song. But this is not an ideal world, and musical taste, I would argue, is one of the most subjective things there is, bless it. If just one song from my many, many roundups is a song you come back to again and again, a song that becomes a part of your life, a song that represents a time to you when you were happiest, or talked you through when you were saddest, then I've done what I set out to do here: Make you fall in love with a song you wouldn't have heard otherwise.
I am mesmerized by how simultaneously repulsed and fascinated I am by this video.
NSFW due to excessive use of honey dripping from flowers made of pink icing, bananas wriggling around in goo, and sweet, dirty people getting really sweet and REALLY dirty.
I visited the Palace of Versailles earlier this year, for the first time since I was a kid. We went in the thick of winter, on a gray, frigid day when everything was covered in snow. The overpowering drabness of the light and the people in layers of thick coats shuffling almost wordlessly from room to room made the gilded furniture and the ornate chandeliers seem almost out of place, and the gardens were dormant and remained unexplored that day. I decided maybe the Château wasn't the right fit for me to visit in winter.
And now I find out that Takashi Murakami will have an installation at the Palace this year from September 14 to December 12. Takashi Murakami, whose Superflat was THE first art book I ever bought. And I'm thinking, even if it were the dead of winter, and I and everyone else were bundled in a million different overcoats, and I couldn't help but vividly imagine frozen chamber pots in every bedroom I walked through, I'd be so down for that. I may not be a cold weather girl, but I'm a Murakami fan through and through. And I love his statement:
“For a Japanese like me, the Château de Versailles is one of the greatest symbols of Western history. It is the emblem of an ambition for elegance, sophistication and art that most of us can only dream of.
Of course, we are aware that the spark that set fire to the powder of the Revolution came directly from the centre of the building.
But, in many respects, everything is transmitted to us as a fantastic tale coming from a very distant kingdom. Just as French people can find it hard to recreate in their minds an accurate image of the Samurai period, the history of this palace has become diminished for us in reality.
So it is probable that the Versailles of my imagination corresponds to an exaggeration and a transformation in my mind so that it has become a kind of completely separate and unreal world. That is what I have tried to depict in this exhibition.
I am the Cheshire cat that welcomes Alice in Wonderland with its diabolic smile, and chatters away as she wanders around the Château.
With a broad smile I invite you all to discover the wonderland of Versailles.”
I love every single one of these vinyl Munko whale toys designed by artist David Choe, especially the ones with legs. That probably makes them something other than whales, per se, but I'm not going to quibble. View all twelve and order a whole case of 'em here.
(NSFW if your workplace is squeamish about vinyl cartoony boobs on female whale figurines. It's probably in your contract somewhere.)
If you want your favorite ficus to live the life that you've always wanted, and the life you've always wanted includes spending the month in a museum indulging in poetry readings, musical performances, and historical accounts of botanical exploration, today is your lucky, lucky day.
July 31st is the drop-off date for your plant to spend a fun-filled month of vacation time at the Hammer Museum consorting with other houseplants and generally making merry while you take the long, sad journey back home, alone. But you'll have a special portrait memento of you and your plant (taken by Lisa Anne Auerbach!) clutched in your lonesome ol' hand to get you through your next few weeks sans houseplant. See? The folks at Machine Project are thinking of your needs, too.
When I was a teenager, I would participate in vocal competitions once a year at the insistence of my voice instructor. I think it gave her something to plan for -- a target our efforts were aimed at -- and she would let me spend the night in her home the night before. I remember the Land of Spare Bedroom where I felt like a princess once a year, in cozy, clean sheets, not even thinking of what the next day would hold for me.
And then, in the early wee hours of the morning, when the light was much like it is in this video, we would pile into the car and begin our two-hour-long trek to the competition. She would have me practice my aria in the backseat of the car while she drove, much like these fellows seem to be practicing, practicing, practicing here. Only when I finally arrived, there were no cancan girls, no feathers, no inexplicable police officers dancing. No, there was just me, in my plain, black dress, singing "Già il sole dal Gange" locked in a room with several sour-faced and unfriendly judges.
What I'm saying is, I assume the boys from Revolver are indulging in some wish-fulfillment in this video, based on past experiences. I heartily applaud wish-fulfillment, in music videos and in life.
Booooooom!, partnered with The Vancouver Sun, had a beautiful miniature shipbuilding project "open to people of all ages, students, lawyers, professional craft boat designers, “totally unartistic people”, bass-guitarists, wizards, cat-people, anyone who likes to have fun!" and the
glorious fruits of so many peoples' efforts are now online.
So go! Observe all of the stately fairy barques, and imagine the grand fairy lives that must surely take place on each and every one.
If you're feeling like you've got no backbone, or you're worried about the future health of your spine but you just can't resist the siren call of wearing a stiletto heel while you're out dancing, now you can bring a spare. Or two. DSquared2 has got your, er, back.
(I'm sorry, I'm fascinated both by the existence of these shoes and by puns.)
"When the exhibition is over I will burn the castle. I thought I could see it rising up from the ashes if I took a video and played it backwards," said Wataru Ito, the man who sculpted this entire city from paper over the course of four years.
Which means this city now no longer exists except on film, where it burns to the ground and reassembles itself at the touch of a button.
(Isn't it funny, living a world where even burning something doesn't mean it's completely lost?)
I once had a boyfriend who, after I broke up with him, told me he wanted to keep me tied up in a pit under his house so he could be with me always (Don't fret! All is well!). This video reminds me of that. Unfortunately. But I still think it's serenely, hauntingly beautiful.
It's understandable that cash can make us independent. But how to act when someone does not have cash? The only one way is to try to get the credit loans or short term loan.
One knows that today's life seems to be high priced, nevertheless people need cash for different issues and not every man earns big sums cash. Thus to receive some personal loans or just college loan would be a correct way out.
EthelMoore on 
