Sunday diversions

I was all fired up to write the definitive blog post about the near criminality of the 400+ Eat, Pray, Love-licensed gee-gaws now being hawked to promote Julia Roberts' latest, simpering attempt at being an actor when she grows up. Then I thought about it some more and realized that I would be adding a pointless endeavor to the publicity machine surrounding a movie I'll never see. So instead I'm going to run through some oddities I've come across recently.

None of them merit a post of their own but together, they're actually related to my niche so I'm going to forge ahead.

If you're the kind of person who just can't get out of the kitchen, the Italian firm Rapsel will help you bring some of that kitchen magic to your bathroom. This would also work for fans of the movie Ratatouille as well.

Oh wait a minute, that last image was a bit of projection on my part. Apologies.

I was on a roll a couple of weeks ago with ideas for switch plates and outlet covers, but these babies from The Spanish company Fede put all of my ideas to shame. How about a little Swarovski?

Speaking of Swarovski, Polish designer Lukasz Jemiol came up with with this crystal-encrusted vacuum cleaner for Electrolux.

I love the pearls.

Finally, from an unknown German manufacturer but sold on the website fitsu, come a set of kitchen brushes.

How thoughtful that it has a gold toof. You know, it's being sold as a kitchen brush but it would be infinitely funnier if it were sold as a grill brush.

And there you have it, a bit of diverting fluff for a Sunday morning. Seriously though, what do you think of those soup pot vanity sinks?

Natalie Blake for kitchen and bath

I love the work of Natalie Blake and her sgraffito tile. I've written about it before. Several times before. Here, here and here.

Any time I see it, it's always displayed as an art installation. It's fitting that it should be treated as art but I always wonder how it would be when it's used as a real, functional tile.

I don't need to wonder any longer. Natalie just sent me a new batch of photographs and they feature her work as bath and kitchen back splashes.

I'm in love with her work all over again.

The series shown here is from her Unalun studio and it's available exclusively through Ann Sacks. As always, Unalun is happy to work with you to customize their products. Check out the collection on Ann Sacks' website and learn even more from Unlaun directly.

Carry the world's greatest art collection around in your pocket with MoMA's iPhone app

New York's Museum of Modern Art launched a new iPhone app yesterday and being the art fanatic I am, I downloaded it immediately.

I was not disappointed and am left pining for my next trip to Manhattan.

The app opens with a calendar. It's updated with the day's events at the museum, you can see upcoming events, preview the current exhibitions, see the current film schedule and get information on museum programs.

There's a separate tab for tours. Under Tours, you can browse the museum by floor and listen to a variety of museum-specific audio, including the full audio tour.

Under the Art tab you'll find the museum's entire collection, all cataloged and cross referenced. It's in this extensive catalog that you'll find everything, and I mean everything, that MoMA holds; whether it's on display or not.

In thumbing through it, I found some of my favorites works in that museum with no difficulty. If you ever want to see me reduced to a puddle of giddy, weepy awe, stand me in this museums galleries in front of any of these paintings.

First up is van Gogh's The Starry Night. He completed it in 1889 and it's his recollection of his view from the window of a sanitarium. To stand a few feet away from this painting allows a viewer to see the full fury and passion of van Gogh's painting technique. I swear, the paint's slathered on in layers that appear to be inches thick. I cannot look at this painting and not see the man Vincent van Gogh in all his broken glory.

Mark Rothko's another perennial favorite of mine, he's probably my favorite painter of the 20th Century. His No. 10 knocks me over for reasons I can't quite describe. I understand what he's doing and I can feel his mind working through this painting. But just barely. He gives me just enough to keep me wondering but never lets me in fully. I find his paintings mesmerizing.

Paul Cézanne's The Bather from 1885 is another one that rocks my world. I say the subject of this painting is the first real anti-hero in western art. He's in a classical pose but this man is no classical beauty. It's his plain-ness and everyman quality that makes this painting so modern. In 1885 this painting was a shock to the art world. Nobody glorified the non-heroic. The industrial revolution was ramping up and humanity was going to conquer all. There was no room in the popular psyche for a wan man in a desolate landscape.

Sorry to go all art school on you, but this is a great app. Go download it here and carry around the world's greatest art collection.

Where in the world is this suburb?

My post about American-style suburbia in Melbourne, Australia yesterday sent me on a wild search across the internet. I was on a quest to find similar developments around the world and I found them in spades. I don't know whether to be happy that for a lot of people in the developing world life's getting better. Or whether I should cry at the sheer waste of it. I decided that it's really not my place to do either but it does make me scratch my head. So since I found some really surprising images from all over, I thought it might be fun to show you guys a bunch of these homes and have people guess where in the world they might be.

All of these homes are less than ten years old and most of them came from Real Estate Worldwide.

The answers are at the bottom of this post.

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2

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10

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12

1. Accra, Ghana
2. Beijing, China
3. Koprivnica, Croatia
4. Lagos, Nigeria
5. Moscow, Russia
6. Nairobi, Kenya
7. Varna, Bulgaria
8. New Dehli, India
9. Sanok, Poland
10. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
11. Slobozia, Moldova
12. Tallinn, Estonia

How many did you get right? Any? Is this sort of thing surprising? Thanks for playing this game of Where in the World is this Suburb? One final question though: is this sort of development in the developing world a good thing or a bad thing?

American design in Melbourne

Reader Elisabeth from Melbourne responded to my question about how American design shows up abroad this morning with a link to an Australian company called American Homes. From what I can gather, American Homes sells house plans in the "American" style to Australian homeowners.

When I think of Melbourne, I think of historic structures like this one from Wikimedia:

When I think of new construction in Melbourne, I think of this home from FindNew.com.au.

Maybe I'm naive and have a stilted view of Australian housing, but what American Homes is selling is a slice of the Atlanta suburbs. Check these out:

Ugh. Those things look bad enough in an American suburb but they must seem really out of place in suburban Melbourne. Australians and anybody else, is that accurate? Elisabeth and her fellow Australians, do people really buy homes like this? Do these "American" style homes have a popularity anywhere else in the world? Let's hear from all over!