This week's link finds, for a happy afternoon browse. Make yourself a cup of tea and enjoy.
My Marrakesh
Maryam's beautiful blog of her Morocco experiences is now about to become a book, which she describes as "part memoir, part Moroccan design treatise." It's due to be published in 2009, and I for one can hardly wait. Until then, be sure to check out her blog regularly for lots of rich and wonderful inspiration.
Juntique Hammer Collection
A site devoted to one guy's hammer collection (though he's expanding it to wrenches and planes now, too). Quirky and a labour of love. Via Cindy (thanks!)
A Lost World Made by Women
Richard Woodward of the New York Times goes to Belgium to visit some of the last remaining beguinages, homes of the beguines — a Roman Catholic laic order of women that began in the 13th century and branched across northwest Europe (and possibly represented the world’s oldest women’s movement).
City Kids and Lemonade Stands
Lovely Joanna of A Cup of Jo blog wrote a great article for New York Magazine this week, interviewing kids about how they went about selling lemonade to jaded city dwellers. Joanna says on her blog that the kids were great (and hilarious), and reports that "their tricks to increase sales included purposefully misspelling "lemonade" on their signs and telling people's fortunes." Awesome.
Design Freebies
The very busy Summer, blogger extraordinaire, not only does the great Design is Mine blog and (with her friend Alicia) the lovely new Bread & Honey blog, but has just created yet another blog, Design Freebies, which is devoted to free design stuff. It's a great resource, though I hope Summer gets some time off soon. Whew! :)
Socially Awkward? Hit the Books!
Intriguing story by Hayley Mick in the Globe and Mail about how studies show that reading fiction helps you become more adept at social interaction with others. Mick reports that "... readers of narrative fiction scored higher on tests of empathy and social acumen than those who read non-fiction texts. And follow-up research showed that reading fiction may help fine-tune these skills: People assigned to read a New Yorker short story did better on social reasoning tests than those who read an essay from the same magazine." More reasons to love reading a big juicy novel...
The Jazz Age in Print (20s — 30s) Pool
A great Flickr pool of graphic design from the 1920s and 1930s. Loads of eye candy.
Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence
Sakeenah of TCM emailed me about this a while ago, but sadly I completely forgot about it until now. Here's what it is: this month Turner Classic Movies premieres a new interview series, TCM Presents Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence. Mitchell, who has in turn been a film critic for the New York Times for four years, Editor-at-large for Spin magazine, and a writer for Esquire magazine, will talk each Monday in July with celebrity guests about how classic film has influenced their lives. We've missed the ones with Sydney Pollack and Bill Murray, but coming up is Laurence Fishburne (July 21) and Quentin Tarantino (July 28).
Glamour Horror
Judy Rumbold reviews a new exhibition of fashion photography at the Photographers' Gallery in London called Fashion in the Mirror, and reminisces about her own crazy (and funny) experiences as a fashion photographer's assistant in the early 1980s.
The delicious apple tart above was photographed by the ever brilliant Gemma Comas.