papercuts

Every now and then I come across something extraordinary while surfing the web.

Peter Callesen works somewhere between two and three dimensions. Taking a SINGLE flat sheet of paper, he is able to cut and fold miraculous images of beauty and whimsy, pulling from tales of Hans Christian Anderson and the drama of nature. See where impossibility, illusion and reflection all meet:

Peter Callesen


Images lifted from www.petercallesen.com

An oddly soothing link...

Check this out:

plantage

...weird and otherworldly in a Hayao Miyazaki kind of way.

Sidebar

One of the drawbacks to keeping a blog is realizing that probably no one ever reads it. On a whim I decided to check and see just how few people check this site (other than myself, my mom, and a couple of friends) and was surprised to find links from Slate.com.

I am a HUGE fan of Slate.com.

As it turned out, my blogsite had been relegated to a small sidebar off an article regarding Malcolm Gladwell's appearance on This American Life. I was classified as one of the, "radio listeners who took [Malcolm Gladwell's] talk as nonfiction" and, "confirm[ed] the origins of Gladwell's too-glib-by-half writing: contempt for the reader."

Ouch.

Upon a second read of my own entry, I find that what I lack here is a point of view. I basically presented the story as it was told on This American Life. Take it as fact or fiction; the only goal was to entertain. And isn't that really the point?

Just because I spend the boring commuting hours listening to podcasts and the boring work hours blogging about it, does that now make me a contemptible reader? Well, I do read Slate.com...

Ah, to be so self-involved.

~flutterbyblue

Chinese ballet: from head to toe

The frogs are cute, but it's the couple who will blow you away...Check it out:



...if only we all had such poise!

I am not DULL!

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.


Enjoy!

~flutterbyblue
All images lifted from garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com

Clover Coffee

Yesterday afternoon, a friend and I decided to try out the fanciful Clover Coffee machine, a state-of-the-art coffee machine that brews one cup of coffee at a time. Velouria Espresso in Jamaica Plain houses the very first Clover Coffee brewer in New England. The benefit of this $11,000 piece of equipment is that one can order single origin coffees brewed to-order by the cup. If you can handle it (or happen to start early in the morning) I'd recommend the $9 tasting for two. We sat in comfy mod leather chairs and were served cup after cup of steaming, delicious brews.

The coffee, I have to admit, was amazing. It was fresh, flavorful and without any bitterness that comes of burned roasts or staleness of sitting in a pot for too long. After the second cup, my companion began to talk less about the flavor of the coffee and more about the sheer volume we were consuming. By the third cup, he began to say he had already maxed out on caffeine. By the fourth cup, he stopped protesting altogether and just mock-sipped his drink. In the end, even I did not make it all the way through the tasting. The sun was beginning to set and I had the distinct feeling I would be up all night on the self-induced caffeine buzz. The shop owner assured me that this has happened before.

24 hours later and I still feel like I am coming down off my caffeine high. Was it worth it?

Absolutely.

I may not have the stamina to be a true coffee aficionado, but I'll be back for more. Read about Clover Coffee on Slate.

~flutterbyblue
Image from www.chow.com


Velouria Espresso
389 Centre Street
Boston, MA 02130

Welcome to my life...