Guerilla Gardening, New York Times

Click here for is a wonderful concept, great article, 

and...just thinking, here...

do you suppose, 

could I get them to come, 

with shovels and flats 

of pansies and whatnot, 

to

spruce up my backyard?

It's just a short hop over the pond

and a quick jet to sunny california:

surely they wouldn't mind.

L'Atelier Vert and Barbara Wilde

There are not enough good things to say about Barbara Wilde and her company, L'Atelier Vert. In the fall of 2002, I stumbled upon her website, fell in love with the words and the products, and was able to get in touch with Barbara, who proceeded to scour the French countryside and the flea markets of Paris in order to help me with a tableaux I was creating for the SFMOMA.

She is simply amazing, a joy to work with, and a genius gardener and "Thing-Finder" (as Pippi is wont to say).  She also writes beautifully. I just cannot find adequate words to express how terrific this person is.

Please take a look at her website, the wonderful things that you can buy from France, her terrific take on gardening, and on food, and a nifty video of an interview with the magnifique Barbara!

Simply the best.

Min Hogg, MFK Fisher, and Alice Waters.

Well, I was thinking today that if Min Hogg could fix up the world and MFK Fisher were still around to write about it, and Alice Waters could handily put together the meals (and I suppose MFK would have a jolly time scribbling notes about that), well, I think the world might be a better place.

Min Hogg is the brilliant editorial eye/source of most of the insanely fabulous everything that had been World of Interiors for many years. She left a while back, and WoI is still very good and very lovely and one of the two magazines I actually still subscribe to. (Well, add Wired. With Dwell. Gotta love Dwell. I want to live in just about every Dutch house they find. So I guess it's three magazines, now.)

Anyhow, somehow I was just pondering the charming effect that these three brilliant women have had on our universe, and wishing they could run a few things.

I'm hoping this post makes the vaguest bit of sense; I am supposed to be helping e. pack for camp, and it is time to go wash some more socks, so I am tossing this out there.

Happy Father's Day to Our Amazing Dad

The year's at the spring,

The day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hillside's dew pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in His heaven--

All's right with the world!

From "Pippa Passes," by Robert Browning,

in

A Child's Book of Poems,

which our amazing dad read to us, 

often, at the end of the day...