Corner View - Improvise

ONCE AGAIN a blockbusting CORNER VIEW post straight from the offices of the crack editorial team over here at Passage Paradis!!!!!!!!!!

What these guys know about improvising, you don't have time for!  Don't be fooled by their languorous L.A. pose, they are the hardest working team in the West Coast Blog World!  Maybe even the Western Hemisphere!  Anyone want to challenge that claim?  (Bring it on!)

Can you guess which post we've improvised lately?





Find more Corner Views:  jane - ian - bonnie - joyce - kim - kay -trinsch - ritva - francesca - state of bliss - cabrizette - isabelle - janis -kari - jgy - lise - cate - otli - dorte - b -sophie - mcgillicutty - sunnymama -daan - ibb - pienduzz - kelleyn - ninja- sammi - theresa - cherry b - juliette -shokoofeh - cole - grey lemon -lucylaine - lynn - skywriting - anna -dorit - conny - l´atelier - kamana -anne marie - rosamaría - victoria -tikjewit - juniper - annabel - andrea -valerie - merel - soisses - mlle paradis- cacahuete - wander chow - barbara -emily - tally - nadine - matilda - don -flowtops - susanna - tania - dana -ingrid - tzivia - mezza - lollipop - mari

Let Me Eat Cake!

It's been a long day and I'm

tired and hungry.  How I need to tuck my feet up and have someone bring me something sweet and a cup of tea!

These are by Rosie of SweetaPolita here. 

And these, I found at mowielicious, hunky Mowie Kay's food photography blog.

Remember Joyti from Darjeeling Dreams, whose pictures I posted here earlier in the Autumn?  Her Blackberry Champagne layer cake sounds like a dream.  I could run down to Trader Joe's tomorrow for the blackberries.  What do you think?  I could really use the cake tonight, but you know what they say about good things coming to those who wait!


What's your favorite kind of cake?


I wish I could say, but I'm not so particular!

Architecture of the Sea

Hello!  How was the weekend?

Thought maybe we all needed a break from the dark days and early nights.  And obsessing about Holidays.  Anne at Ribambelles, Ribambins did a post last week with other bloggers (see links on her site) which featured books and illustrations (mostly of and for children) about Hawaii.  And reminded me that I hadn't done a Hawaii post in awhile.  

Here are little collections of coral and rock that have been isolated by the tides within these magical little tide pools. Lovely, aren't they?  It's mind boggling to imagine the variety and number of life forms they contain that aren't at all apparent to most of us!  And they remind me of another book post I should do for you!

And STILL speaking of books, because it is quickly becoming apparent to me that this is a subject that deserves very much more than a mere week of posts, please remember to go to Anzu and see what Ellen has posted about her booklist.  She has chosen the most beautiful pictures to illustrate it with and has described with passion and lovely little personal details, the whos, wheres and the hows of the books (more so than the authors, she says) who have made a great impact on her life.  Based on her descriptions, you would have to rush straight out to find these books and DROP EVERYTHING ELSE!

Open your eyes wide, take deep breaths......and then.............?

Time to Turn the Page

So to close out our week of looking at books, an Ellen Bell installation in Bristol, England earlier this year.  I'm thinking I will have to do a whole separate post about Ellen Bell.  But until I get to it make sure to click the link!

Photo by Guillemette at Grey Lemon find more about her and this photo here.  And do please check out Guillemette's Flickr photos here.  OH!  MY!

Loved all of your comments this week everybody and welcome to new followers HI YOU GUYS!

Just sneaking this one in...couldn't resist it.....to get your weekend off to a good start:

via Sarah at Saipua (and you thought she was just about flowers)...I wish my cats could watch this and then have a little think about those famous words....."Why can't we ALL JUST GET ALONG????!!!!!" 

H-A-V-E  A  H-A-P-P-Y  W-E-E-K-E-N-D  A-L-L  !!!!!!!

Architecture of the Sun; This Week's Books' Last Look

From the Barnes and Noble website:  "An authoritative survey of the masters of twentieth-century modernist architecture in Los Angeles. This revisionist study explores the history of modernist architecture in Greater Los Angeles from the early twentieth century to the 1970s, focusing on both its regional and international contexts. Thomas Hines critically analyzes the concepts of modernism and regionalism and begins his exploration by contrasting the turn-of-the-century Craftsman work of Charles and Henry Greene with the rationalist modernism of their contemporary Irving Gill and the expressionist modernism of Frank Lloyd Wright and his son Lloyd Wright. The book re-interprets the modernist variations of Wright’s disciple Rudolph Schindler and the International Style of his contemporary Richard Neutra, as well as of their followers: Gregory Ain, Raphael Soriano, and Harwell Harris. The minimalist Case Study House program is contrasted with the sensuous modernism of John Lautner and with the large-scale modernism of William Pereira and Welton Becket. Hines ends the book in the early 1970s, as modernism began to confront the challenge of the post-modernist critique. A personal epilogue reflects on the author’s exploration of Los Angeles modernism from the late 1960s to 2009. "

And from reviews on the same site:

artviv

"Shines Brilliantly"

 Customer Rating See Detailed Ratings

Posted April 23, 2010, 12:03 AM EST: This book is a must for all scholars and a resource that fills a glaring gap in southern California architectual and cultural history. Beyond that it is a book that places the works of Gill, the Wrights, Schindler, Neutra.and others in the context of this unique place and time where their contributions are seen in the historic prism of their influence on the development of Los Angeles Modern Style. In no other place in the world did we have such an experimental breeding ground for these giants. Thankfully most of these works survive and we are grateful that this beautiful volume has made it possible for people all over the world to enjoy this architectural and historic miracle.


I can't say enough about the worlds that have opened up to Mr. Paradis and me on these subjects since we moved to L.A.  But you probably only have time for pictures.  Yes, most of these places are still standing in Southern California and some you would be able to visit.   If you buy the BOOK however? Well the book will take you to them all.

The Eames House, home to Charles and Ray Eames

The Kaufman House by Richard Neutra above and below, in Palm Springs, link to New York Times story. 

Fantastical (party) environments designed by John Lautner

All beautifully photographed and formatted in this stunning and informative book (which does now occupy brand new PRIDE-OF-PLACE at Palace Paradis).  For more ideas of the subjects you will find,  click on the links for:

The Gamble House, Pasadena - Craftsman Style Palace built for a toothpaste mogul

Irving Gill ......... you will be surprised at how much of Los Angeles looks like (and was!) his work.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House, owned and scandalously underfunded by the City of LA, including the website at the moment apparently, (so from Wikipedia and here, more info).  And the Ennis House, a private residence within view of the Hollyhock House, another Frank Lloyd Wright structure, and sad story behind it here and here - the last so well told and beautifully illustrated by a real estate professional.  It makes you wonder why the wealth and artistic talent in Los Angeles, not to speak of the greater culture (or the world) cannot come together successfully to ensure the future of these structures for future visitors.  At the moment, it is very much in doubt.

Lloyd Wright's Hollywood Bowl - The son of Frank Lloyd Wright, born in Santa Monica  (and charged, along with Rudolph Schindler, with overseeing much of the construction of Hollyhock House while his father was designing the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo) has a much larger architectural footprint in L.A. than did his father.

And not least at all, The Schindler House on Hollywood Road.  

If you bought the book, or borrowed it from a friend or the library, you wouldn't have to do all the bloody clicking here and there around the web that I've had to today!

There's a whole parallel universe in this book!  Come back and talk to me about it.

******   For other book ideas see my LABEL "BOOKS" to the right.

And DON'T FORGET!  Sophie's gorgeous "Homage to the Seed" Book will shortly be available including artworks by YOU!!!!!! (and me!)  Find it here. 

If you become a Xmas book giver - just think of the happy hours browsing somewhere trying to find JUST THE RIGHT ONE!!!!!!!

HAPPY GIVING!


(p.s. apologies to those photographers not credited here.  i'll be adding photo credits to this post in the next week)

My Beautiful Bibliofilia

So I have already posted here about why I don't buy books so much any more.

That does not mean that I don't love them still.  On the other hand, I don't read SO MUCH anymore either.  And somehow that turn of events has coincided with the bringing into my home of a second little critter. (Here and here.  I mean, HER.)

And maybe discovering blogs?   (It makes ya think, doesn't it?)  Have I also mentioned that books are a bit like a drug for me, and once I dive into that altered state, it's very hard to find the surface again - and boy, does that mean I don't get much else done!  Of which there is quite a bit.  So, for the moment.........not so much reading going on. OK I'll blame my traveling life of the moment too.  

(cookbooks here, anyone?)

That notwithstanding, I thought it would be kind of silly and not at all in the spirit of the season to decline Guillemette's tag (THANKS G.!) to list 15 of the authors whose writing has "marked me, even turned me upside down - or, I guess "upset me" as bouleverser can be translated from the French." Certainly, for me, the writers below have unveiled to me certain truths in such eloquent, sensitive and sometimes (D. Sedaris) hysterically funny ways.  Truths which I had already somewhat suspected, but had not elsewhere found validation or elucidation of.   (Do ya know what I'm trying to get at here?)

(Two ideas about living with books from the Conran Shop UK)

So:  THESE.  FOURTEEN:

Marcel Proust,  Colette,  Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf,  MFK Fisher,  Rumer Godden,  Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri,  David Sedaris,  Lorrie Moore,  Tennesee Williams,  Flannery O'Connor,  William Maxwell,  Charles Bukowski

OOPS!  I didn't quite make it to Fifteen!  And surprisingly, but not intentionally, my list is a little heavily represented by writers of the female persuasion.   Someone of you will say, I obviously have not read enough.  I WILL SAY: RETURN TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE!

(complete collections all in white of all your favorite French novelists here?)

Now.  (You were wondering when I'd get to this part.)

Could I love and read books more, if I had rooms like this to practice my errant bibliophilia in?

WHAT DO YOU THINK? (and yes in those rooms, I would be planning on putting books where the kitchen utensils and towels now are).

or

Or - a room like Nigella Lawson's, for example, shown in this clip (and uploaded to YouTube for what one may say would be ALL the wrong reasons, judging from the clip "captioning").  The good news is the clip is entirely wholesome and excerpted from the BBC geneology-search program: "Who Do You Think You Are?"

It's a short enough clip, but if you hang in there a minute, you get a great shot from well above, of the narrow high-ceilinged space that opens onto a garden.  OK.  I DIE FOR THIS ROOM.  And its acidic yellow emanations.

Generally, these family histories can be fascinating, (as everyone who's seen the similar US/PBS Henry Louis Gates' series here, will tell you.  So it's also possible to link to the entire Nigella Episode on Vimeo for more shots of that library.  Here.

SO YES, NO, MAYBE?  All you in the Blog World?  Books?   OR ..... a library card, and THE BOOK ROOM?  Could you choose?

Meanwhile I would like to tag:

Janis, Sophie, Bobbi, Charles, Ellen

and find out what books or writers have particularly made an impression on them.

Corner View - Rain

Courtesy of Mr. Paradis and the good people of Singapore.

As you all know I am congenitally averse to inclement weather.  Whether actual or virtual.  So this was the ONLY picture on this subject that I was able to dig up.  And no, the young lady was not hiding her eyes because of the relentlessly pounding precipitation, but more to conceal herself from the prying I-lens of a certain foreign interloper.

Stay dry and stay warm Chicos!

Find more Corner Views:  jane - ian - bonnie - joyce - kim - kay -trinsch - ritva - francesca - state of bliss - cabrizette - isabelle - janis -kari - jgy - lise - cate - otli - dorte - b -sophie - mcgillicutty - sunnymama -daan - ibb - pienduzz - kelleyn - ninja- sammi - theresa - cherry b - juliette -shokoofeh - cole - grey lemon -lucylaine - lynn - skywriting - anna -dorit - conny - l´atelier - kamana -anne marie - rosamaría - victoria -tikjewit - juniper - annabel - andrea -valerie - merel - soisses - mlle paradis- cacahuete - wander chow - barbara -emily - tally - nadine - matilda - don -flowtops - susanna - tania - dana -ingrid - tzivia - mezza - lollipop - mari