Saturday, October 30, 2010

Rally to Restore Sanity!

Here's a special weekend post in honor of the Rally to Restore Sanity in D.C. today! I hope some of you can make it! If you can't, click here for a live stream 12-3p.m. EST!


Image thanks to Karina at The Sun is Burning!


Update: Reactions? How fabulous was that??

Friday, October 29, 2010

boo!

Oh wow. It's Halloween weekend! I've been getting in the spirit all week...

Tuesday night I saw this little guy sitting on a wall outside. (Please excuse the camera-phone picture quality) How sweet of someone to spread cheer!



Wednesday night I got to see part of a Dennis James performance, where he played the organ live to the black & white & silent 1926 film The Bat, which was cool, with its old-timey creepy factor, & also funny. Have you ever watched silent movies before? The expressions are so over-the-top!


Photo courtesy of Jared


Last night, my super-fun roomie Augusta came home with a pumpkin she carved as spooky haunted houses. She lit a candle inside & we took pictures with it.




This afternoon, my pal Lynn & I went secondhand shopping to assemble some costumes for the weekend!

Have a spooky weekend & tell me... What are your costumes? Are you partying? Handing out candy? Surely not playing tricks?

Hysteria

Has anyone else heard about this new movie in the works? Hysteria is set to star Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy in the story of the invention of the vibrator. It's billed as a rom-com, but this seems like it might be a little racier than The Wedding Planner.

Maggie Gyllenhaal will play a doctor's daughter— her father treats women who are suffering from hysteria and "he cures them basically by getting them off" (Maggie's words, not mine!). It becomes a rom-com when one of the doctor's colleagues, played by Hugh Dancy, falls for Maggie's character.

I have to say, I'm intrigued. I think it will probably be funny! Bonus points because it also stars Rupert Everett, a long-time favorite of mine.

So what do you think? Will you be seeing this?

Also, here's a recent photo of Maggie Gyllenhaal on set. Fabulous costume, right?

Photo courtesy of People.com

P.S. It might just be the hat, the black clothing, the boots, the bicycle and the mischievous little smile, but it's kind of reminding me of Miss Gulch from The Wizard of Oz. Are you ready for Halloween???


Photo courtesy of Flickr

happy 21st, maria!!




Today is my bestie Maria's 21st birthday! I won't get to see her to celebrate for another two weeks but here's sending her all the love and fun in the world. I love you, Maria!


Here's a portrait I took of Maria and her boyfriend, Alex, back in the spring.

Photo by Shanti Knight

Thursday, October 28, 2010

hallo?

Have you seen this fabulous Web site? It's called I Can't Find My Phone, and if ever you, um, can't find your phone, instead of asking a friend to dial for you, you can go to this site, type in your number, hit go, and voila— your phone starts ringing. I tried it; it's legit. Enjoy!



Thanks to Joanna Goddard at A Cup of Jo for the tip!


also, I'm totally into this song right now:

Joianne Bittle: Preserving Mass Extinction

Joianne Bittle, apart from being a dear friend and wife to my dear cousin Nicholas Knight, is a fantastic New York City-based artist. She's an accomplished painter and for the past several years has constructed dioramas for the American Museum of Natural History. Recently, she took her diorama skills to the gallery, where she constructed "Portable Landscape: Preserving Mass Extinction."



In Preserving Mass Extinction, Joi reconstructed Texas' Permian Basin as it might have been 250-290 million years ago. This project required significant research and bringing together her skills as a diorama artist, where she's mastered her skills as a translator of scientific knowledge to the rest of us. She casted molds of the plants, animals, and earth formations that might have been found in this area, which was, at the time, covered in a shallow sea. She painted the figures and assembled the entire diorama in the back of a UHAUL trailer. You can see the whole thing at Eugene Binder Gallery in Marfa, TX through March 31, 2011.

Read a bit of her publicity here, and view more photos here.


Here's Joi with Portable Landscape.


Photos courtesy of Joianne Bittle

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

ahhh... young love

How's this for a Craigslist Missed Connection? I find it actually quite clever, though in this college town, one might get several responses that aren't the right person... it's kind of a common story. =)


Thanks to Liz Amadio for the tip

Let me google that for you.

Remember Sinjin, of American Apparel fame? (You can still vote for him at Gap's Casting Call... hint hint.)

Well, this weekend his mama, my Auntie Michele, introduced me to this ridiculous Web service at Let me google that for you. Try it out: You type in your question, & this Web site then provides a link. When you click on the link, it takes you to a Google search window, types in the question for you, clicks "search," asks, "Was that so hard?" & then displays your Google results. It's cute & more than a little cheeky. The perfect email to send to someone who just asked a question about pretty much anything other than your personal opinion. Or maybe even if they asked that, too, if you happen to be a celebrity or a politician.


Here's my Auntie... She's pretty rad
(mostly pretty)

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

sex and the city 2

The DVD release is today!! So tell me— did you see this movie in theatres? What did you think? Are you going to buy the DVD?


Aww cute! Photo courtesy of New York Magazine.

parapluie










image courtesy of dense readings


This morning I turned on NPR just in time to hear a forecast for "a one hundred percent chance of rain." I've never heard that before; usually the weather reports like to leave just a little uncertainty. I smiled when I heard it, not just because I thought it was funny, but also because I've always preferred rain over sunshine.


I was getting ready to leave my house when the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning, which is something I don't like as much. I sat on the bathroom floor of my second-story apartment for a little while before deciding to go meet my first-floor neighbor & ask for some shelter. His name is Will & he very kindly allowed me to hang out with him for about thirty minutes while we waited for the storm to pass!

When I finally stepped out the door, I tested out my new black umbrella from Totes ($7, TJ Maxx) & was slightly disappointed to discover that it's just a tad too small, especially considering the force with which the rain was coming down. It made me miss my late Amsterdam umbrella, which broke around this time last year. It was a gift from my Dutch friend Thomas, who gave it to me when I was visiting him & his super-rad family (Ineke, Christiaan & Aischa) a few years ago in Alsmeer, Holland. It was black & green, with "Amsterdam" written under a certain nature motif on each section.


Here's Thomas with his woman, Ineke, at The Hague.
Photo by Shanti Knight

Fortunately, I'm so thrilled to see rain that nothing can mess with this mood!

Pitter patter raindrops
Pitter patter raindrops
I love you
I love you

Monday, October 25, 2010

celestial weekend

Saturday was both the Full Hunter's Moon & the beginning of Scorpio! Did you get a chance to look at the moon? It was particularly  gorgeous Friday night, when I watched it rise over my family's Eden in Southern Indiana.

Here's a photo I took last night:

photo by Shanti Knight 

Some of my favorite famous Scorpios are Kevin Kline, Winona Ryder, Goldie Hawn & Charles, Prince of Wales. I was at Windsor Castle a couple of years ago when I discovered Prince Charles shared my sign, & I felt an instant affinity to him. I feel this affinity with anyone who I discover shares my sign. I think the personality traits associated with signs are frequently on target, though I'm not entirely convinced that daily horoscopes are very meaningful. Usually I think if they're accurate, it's a coincidence.

What do you think? Is astrology fascinating to you or do you think it's bogus?

Thursday, October 21, 2010

26 years

Today is my parents' 26th anniversary! They married on October 21, 1984 & they're still beautifully in love.


Here they are on their wedding day. They had planned on a bright, colorful fall day & an outdoor event. Instead, it was chilly, damp & blustery, & they had to move the ceremony inside. They married in a small picturesque country church. Two years later, they purchased a piece of property just a quarter of a mile down the road from the church. They still live there. It's poetry!


Here's a more recent picture, taken summer 2009. Photo by Nicholas Knight.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

A Sleep Mask, Please...

I grew up in the country, where it was silent and completely dark at night. When I moved to a city, going to sleep at night was a greater challenge than I had anticipated. The noise is fairly tolerable, but I find myself trying to close all my blinds to see how dark I can make my bedroom.

I've been hoping to find the perfect sleep mask for a while now— I'd love a soft fabric (mmm... cashmere), one that's pretty but not over-designed.

Would it be a little too diva to have one custom-made?



Truth be told, I'm not crazy about Holly Golightly's sleep mask. The eyelashes are just a little too much. But I can't deny— she really works it.


Photo courtesy of Julie's Juice at Wordpress.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Net-A-Porter Magazine

I'm so enchanted with Net-A-Porter.com, & I'm quite certain I'm not the only one. I love browsing through all the beautiful clothes & seeing the masterful Web site. The photography is useful, thorough and skillful.

So I was thrilled today when I saw a link on the top bar that I'd never seen before— to "magazine"!
From what I can tell, it's published weekly online & features style ideas, interviews with designers & more fantastic photography. This week's issue has an interview with Diane von Furstenberg.


 Net-A-Porter has really stretched themselves beyond just an online store. They even have a YouTube channel (which features fun interviews with designers), a Facebook pageiPad and iPhone apps!

Enjoy!

Update: Another cool aspect of this magazine is that when you hover over an item, the designer's name appears and the item turns into a link so you can buy it. Once again, Net-a-Porter makes purchasing gorgeous, pricey fashion dangerously easy.

Kit Kat Halloween





I've been totally loving the music in this Kit Kat Halloween commercial, but I can't figure out what it is! It sounds so old-fashioned Halloween, & it makes me think vaguely of the Haunted Mansion at Disney World, which was soooo creepy when  I was a kid. Anybody have any ideas on what this song is?? What do you think about it?

Monday, October 18, 2010

Vote for Sinjin!

My cousin Sinjin is hands-down one of the most beautiful children in the world. He's five & cute as a cupcake! Sinjin is part of this fall's Gap Casting Call for child models— please vote for him!



P.S. He's already kind of a star... Check this one out!

Meet Karina

Thanks to one of my besties, Karina, who suggested I create a blog months ago.





Karina is sweet & beautiful & hilarious, & she is delightfully free-spirited. She's a writer, a traveler, an artist, a gardener, a performer, an earth-lover & a peacemaker. I've been so fortunate to have her as a friend for ten years!





Visit Karina at The Sun Is Burning & at The Mailbox Project.



green eggs. seriously.

I'll spare you all any potentially stale dr seuss jokes & just get to the point:
a few days ago at the grocery store, I found green eggs from local "big girl chickens."
how cool is that?!



Welcome to starshine. I'm Shanti Knight, and I love the beauty of the earth, found in people, nature, art, architecture, music, animals, expression, food, performance... & more.