Godfrey Stephens is an awesome artist and lifelong sailor (see pp. 100-109 of Builders of the Pacific Coast on his carvings and paintings). He’s been hounding me for years to include sailboats in our building books. With the tiny houses books under way now, he’s been deluging me with his stream-of consciousness emails and sailboat photos. (As of this moment, there are 366 messages in the “Stephens” mailbox, and 462 photos in the “Stephens” photo folder. (People who know Godfrey will chuckle knowingly at this.)
Well, Godfrey just came through in a big way (he also had a big hand in turning me on to many of the3 builders in Builders of the Pacific Coast). Friends of his had just sailed in through the Golden Gate and were anchored out in Sausalito, waiting out a series of storms before heading south to Mexico. I contacted Julie Newton and Paul Smulder by email and on Tuesday, Paul picked me up in their tiny dinghy and we went out to the boat.
Ay caramba! The boat is a dream. Solid teak hull, 46′ long. Everything is exquisite and immaculate — and beautiful. I won’t go into it here, it’ll be one of the stars of this up and coming book. At left is the Mia heading into the mist-shrouded Golden Gate last week after a trip down the coast from Vancouver Island; photo by John Miller aboard the Silas Crosby.
“If you want a super, energy-efficient home, you have to build new, right? Not necessarily. A 110-year-old Victorian home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is being touted as America’s oldest net-zero energy house, and the first of its kind in the state.…”
From Treehugger, a great website.
https://is.gd/gwSxE
Starting in June, when I injured my knee in the Dipsea Race (dumb, dumb!) and then in September, when an oak tree rolling down a hillside fractured my rib, it’s been a grim few months. I depend on the physical stuff to balance the computer and business stuff, so it’s been lopsided. Off balance.
“…Last spring, while in Mexico (that place where it is not safe to go), we had the pleasure of watching a group of middle school and high school kids perform folkloric dances from northern Mexico. We were so taken by them that we couldn’t wait to see them again.…
I figured this was a perfect opportunity to say something positive and beautiful about Mexico in a time when it has received such negative press.…”
From Bill and Athena Steen’s Canelo Project blog. The Steens are THE strawbale people, doing beautiful work and teaching many many people the art of strawbale building. (I’m working with them on 4 pages of tiny straw bales buildings in the tiny houses book.)
www.caneloproject.blogspot.com
Posted on Boing Boing by Andrea James. The rock-hopping is awesome.
Big screen here: https://player.vimeo.com/video/13113979
Small screen here:
NAUCC 2010 from Max Schulze on Vimeo.
I just ran across this website because of a Google Alert notice that they had reviewed Jason Sussberg’s film of Shelter. The Hansen Family is a Scandinavian family of carpenters, designers and architects:
“We produce our furniture in a small atelier using ecologically grown wood, which comes mainly from massive oak and sustainable forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, FSC. Located at the heart of the Sauerland region in Germany, our main atelier is surrounded by these forests and therefore nestled in the woods. We precociously select each piece of wood by hand, which allows us to say that not one piece is alike to the other. The design features the wood itself, giving birth to handcrafted and unique objects.”
https://boardbook.thehansenfamily.eu/
We’ve had 2″ of rain in the last 3 days. A bit early, and it feels good after the long dry period we always have (almost 6 months). Each year I seem to be late in getting porcinis, so this season I’m starting early. Not a fungi in sight at my porcini meadows yesterday, but this well-developed cauliflower mushroom was sitting next to a rotting pine stump.
It’s flavorful. Sauteed last night and mixed with potatoes and chicken gravy, then this morning in a potato-chard-onion omelette.
Today I’m starting to get ready for my talk at the SF Green Festival on Saturday, Nov. 6th on “The Half-Acre Homestead in the 21st Century.” Am shooting pics of house, compost bins, garden and building tools, the stuff that keeps this place running.
The real thing! Surfers, beekeepers, East Coast seaside tacos, fresh baked bread, cops, firefighters, skateboarders, waves. Trust me. Watch it.
Better than clicking on below, get the bigger screen at Vimeo direct: https://vimeo.com/15293107
Rockaway Taco, A Selby Film from the selby on Vimeo.
There’s a lot of great stuff byTodd Selby at: https://www.theselby.com
“Todd Selby is a portrait, interiors, and fashion photographer and illustrator. His project The Selby offers an insider’s view of creative individuals in their personal spaces with an artist’s eye for detail. The Selby began in June 2008 as a website, where Todd posted photo shoots he did of his friends in their homes. Requests quickly began coming in daily from viewers all over the world who wanted their homes to be featured on the site. The Selby’s website became so popular—with up to 55,000 unique visitors daily—that within months, top companies from around the world began asking to collaborate.…”
Article in today’s New York Times by Kim Severson
“BEFORE Alice Waters picked her first Little Gem lettuce and Wolfgang Puck draped smoked salmon across a pizza, California cuisine meant something else.
“The other California cuisine was being served on a million patios in the Golden State by relaxed cooks who grilled thick cuts of beef called tri-tip and built salads from avocado and oranges. They used red chili sauce like roux, ate abalone and oysters, and whipped sticky dates into milkshakes. It was the food of the gold rush and of immigrants, of orchards and sunshine.…
“‘What Sunset has done really well is reflect the changes in the way people in the West live,’ said Barbara Fairchild, who will retire as editor in chief of Bon Appétit in November. ‘It’s a style of living and cooking that really is different.’ She moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles with her family in the 1960s. It was the first time she had ever seen an artichoke or an avocado. Her father began grilling over the big built-in brick barbecue while the children cooled off in the above-ground pool.
“Dinners, especially in the summer, were salads. Red meat gave way to chicken or fish — quite a radical departure for many family menus then.…”
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/dining/20sunset.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&src=dayp
How about Sunset’s corporate headquarters? Photo by Heidi Schumann for the NY Times
