antler international

Read Xeni Jardin's moving and personal account of the day her life changed.

A small bit of it:

The gravity in this place is different. I've spoken to others who've traveled out here, too, and returned home safely. When you become one of them, you learn quickly that you share a language others can't understand.

I'm kind of hot for teacher.

Kenny O'Brien teaches online drawing classes on Mahalo. He's a little bit dorky in a Mr. Rodgers kind of way, but mostly he's kind and funny and extremely good at teaching. The first thing that hooked me with these courses was the way he made drawing the NW states look easy. This is the easiest chunk of the country to draw, but I found it pretty hard - the sketch above took over an hour.

I've started watching Kenny's lessons on my computer and following along using my iPad as a tablet. I highly recommend investing $15 in a stylus if you are going to try this. It works a lot better than drawing on the screen with your finger. Mahalo also has a drawing course iPad app hosted by Kenny that is worth the nominal fee.

Powell's Books in Portland is the best book shop on the planet. The gigantic main store (Powell's City of Books) is full of great book reading mojo and proud, intelligent employees. They have an app that provides turn-by-turn directions to find books within their store. 

I often lurk on their website learning about new books to read. But what I do most of all is lust after their Indiespensable offerings. Subscribe to Indiespensable and you get a semi-monthly shipment featuring a gorgeous, limited-edition printing of a recommended book and some other goodies that the Powell's staff chooses. Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus came with (among other things) salted caramel corn. Anne Patchett's State of Wonder came with an advance copy of the new Miriam Toews novel and the first edition of McSweeneys/David Chang's food magazine Lucky Peach. The packages are always clever and full of well-curated items. It's book porn, I tell you.

I'm trying to research this - does anyone know the story?

There are a shit ton of broken skateboard decks on one of the pilings about 20 feet below the Embankment bridge.

Who is doing this...and why? Do skateboarders save their broken decks in order to throw them here? Do they sometimes miss and end up with boards in the Thames? 

I haven't found an answer yet, but it sure is intriguing. Anyone? I'm going to try and figure this out tomorrow - will report back if knowledge is found.

June 17, 2008 was the day that same-sex marriage went into effect in California. ..before Prop 8 took away this right the following November. I was so proud that our state was part of leading the way that I showed up at Beverly Hills city hall with a camera and without a plan, hoping to share in the joy of the day.

It turned out that quite a few couples were so swept up that they forgot about photos. Many of them welcomed me into their ceremonies as their photographer...and often as their witness.

The ministers began calling on me throughout the day when couples needed a witness or wanted photos.

I can't think of a day before or since when I felt so much a part of something important. I hope to do it again when this state gets off its ass and offers equal rights to everyone.

Bobby Sullivan has been offering up a free, beautiful desktop wallpaper on The Desktop Wallpaper Project every week since 2007. He works with incredible painters, designers and photographers from around the world. His blog is called The Fox is Black and it's all about design and art.

The image above is my favorite wallpaper from Cole Gerst/Option G.