The Smart Bird

Japan Love + Pottery = Perfect

Perhaps because my grandfather was a gifted (and locally celebrated in his upstate New York hometown) potter, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the artform.  Every now and then I stumble across a pottery artist who really captures my imagination, and AlmaPottery on Etsy happens to be my most recent lucky discovery.  In her own words, "I make fun pottery and I refund your shipping overcharges."  What's not to like?

This was the first piece that caught my eye, and since I'm a self-admitted Japanophile, the combination of Japanese imagery and clever pottery design just kills me.  It's called "Harajuku store front.really.":

(photo credits belong to AlmaPottery)

And these Kokeshi-inspired dolls are adorable, too:

A lovely "Moroccan Zen" luminaria:



A plate and a bowl:



And a polka-dot fairy house.  Because everyone needs a polka-dot fairy house.  Of course.

Obsessed, But In A Good Way

Halloween Week on The Smart Bird, Day 2:

If, like me, you were a huge fan of Twin Peaks, then you'll probably dig the (slightly obsessive compulsive) genius of the blog In Twin Peaks.  Charles has, over the years, traveled to Washington state and taken photographs in locations from the show's pilot at the exact same angle in which scenes were originally filmed, but now it's 19 years later.  Here are a couple of my favorites, including the exact same branch that the meadowlark sat on in the opening credits!  The branch is thicker, but it's been 19 years so I think he could be right.  (Any botanists out there who know how much a pine tree branch would have grown during that length of time?) 








Oh, and if you too are really, genuinely, truly obsessed, then you'll also want to visit his other blog, More In Twin Peaks, WA.  This one has previously unpublished stills, interviews with cast members, and a lot of information about how popular Twin Peaks was in Japan.  Being a Japanophile, that makes me very happy of course.  But it also takes a bit of the scariness away from Bob, because having lived in Japan, I know that his name spoken in English would sound like "Keeddah Bob-u."  Kinds of takes the sting out of it, don't you think?




 

Got 15 Minutes?

If you're sitting there at work (or browsing onesies on Etsy.  Just sayin'), and have 15 minutes to spare, you might want to manga yourself.  This is supposed to be me, with the new haircut I'm getting tomorrow.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed....  Oh, here I am "before":

If any of you manga yourself and send me the result, I promise I'll post it here!  I'd love to make a little collage of friends', online friends', family's, and online family's faces.  (Did I get the apostrophes right?  I wouldn't want to incur the wrath of these guys).

{shout out to Gemmafactrix for pointing me in the faceyourmanga direction}

All You Need Is...

Congratulations, Japan!

Having lived in Japan for a year-and-a-half, I was not at all surprised to read that Japanese tourists are rated #1 internationally for being the most polite tourists in the world.  It's kind of buried in the article, but it made me happy (and, strangely, a bit proud) nevertheless.

Quruli