I’ve been over the bird trend for, oh, three, maybe four years now. Bird fabrics, bird wallpaper, bird salt shakers, bird decals, birdcages—it never seems to stop! Why?! Why don’t you fly away already??!

Well… except that was my attitude yesterday. Today, I’m reading Howard Norman’s exceptional novel, The Bird Artist, and it’s not only giving me a new appreciation for birds, it’s kind of making me obsessed with them.

Unfortunately I’m not about to become a bird artist myself, sitting in nature for hours at a time, sketching falcons, ospreys, and sandpipers. I’m much too—hm, how shall I say this—lazy. I’d rather let someone else be the bird artist and me, well, I’ll just give them my money.

Any one of these talented artists will do.

Bird prints for sale at Etsy.com, clockwise from top left:

Kingfisher Kitchen from alfredstark
Night Tree, Crescent Moon, Black Birds, and Farm Fields from TheBluebirdGallery
Great Horned Owl from annasee
Superb Fairy Wren from bridgetfarmerprints
Primary Birds from locole
Osprey at Cape May from berkeleySU

I have a particular fondness for birch trees. The backyard of my childhood home was full of them, like a cute-little birch-tree colony. If I ever move back home (it’s possible! We’re not planning to live on the Mediterranean forever!), I love the idea of working them into our décor. It doesn’t have to be literal, of course, but it could be. Like with this wallpaper, designed by Steve Abrams.

It may not look like much in 2-D, but take a look at it when applied to a rustic-chic room. You only see hints of it because of the limited wall space, but even when it’s just a hint, the illustrated, birch-tree texture takes the room from handsome to titillating (don’t you love that word?).

And check this out—even if you’re too timid for wallpaper, you’re not out of luck! Kristen Dougherty sells original birch-tree paintings on her Etsy page, and they evoke that same simple, graphic, and rustic elegance of the birch tree colony outside my childhood window.

It (almost) makes me want to pack up my things and head west!

The New York Times published a very interesting article today, “All That Authenticity May Be Getting Old.”

It’s about the crafts movement that we’re currently in—where artists are producing more and more “unique,” vintage, or handmade objects; major retailers are selling them, and we’re going crazy buying them. But this desperate need to have “authentic” items in our home is becoming pretty predictable and boring. Which is exactly what we were trying to avoid!

Here’s an excerpt:

“People are looking for things that are authentic,” [Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan] said. “I think it started happening after 2001: first there was 9/11, followed by recession. There was a certain exhaustion with the shiny and perfect. People didn’t relate to it anymore.”

But as Dmitri Siegel put it:

“When you pile Etsy on top of Etsy, it gets really cacophonous: ‘Everything in here is totally unique!’ It starts canceling itself out.”

And:

As they began furnishing their new house from scratch, they found themselves choosing pieces with clean, modern lines that “could be a backdrop for whatever we were interested in at the moment,” Mr. Siegel said. In other words, he said, “not trying to express your personality and your total individuality with every single thing in your house.”

“Clothes are about good manners… about honoring the occasion.” –Joy Venturini Bianchi

From the October issue of Matchbook magazine.

Today I’m wearing a wrap tee in the most delicious shade of peach you’ve ever seen (thank you, J.Crew Crosstown Tee in Georgia Peach). It’s simple and lovely when paired with cropped black pants, black gladiator sandals, and gold filigree chandelier earrings.

But this color, oh this color…! It makes me want to be somewhere else. Oh, I don’t know, like Lima. Lima, Peru. Like here:

And here:

And definitely here:

*Photographs of Lima by Eve Andersson.

Remember Kip? He was Napoleon Dynamite’s online-dating-obsessed older brother who eventually fell in love with Lafawnduh. So classic.

What you might not know is that Aaron Ruell, who played Kip, is actually an accomplished photographer. I love his strange, saturated images, usually depicting a lone subject against a bizarre—sometimes stark, sometimes theatrical—room.

If you’re in New Orleans between now and June 1, check him out at the Martine Chaisson Gallery. And since I can’t go, I’d love to know if you did!

This photo really appeals to my love for parallel and evenly-spaced arrangements of stuff; for a monochromatic palette; for things that are both pretty and weird.

Someday this will hang in my studio. When I get a studio.

I completely relate.

*Image from Dieppa Restrepo.

Sure, I follow fashion, but I didn’t save this photo for fashion. I saved it for the photography.

From the Lanvin show, photographed by Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times.

Am I the only one who watched the feature-length film of Horton Hears a Who! and needed a moment to savor the images of the city in the background? I remember thinking that our modern society looked so cold and clinical against the lighthearted, animated architecture of Whoville.

Then, my friend, Vanessa, tuned me in to Santa Barbara architect, Jeff Shelton. Not since I first laid eyes on Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna did architecture seem so delightful. Shelton’s buildings seem so organic, almost like they weren’t built, but grown, on location—reminding me of Gaudi, Hundertwasser, and… Dr. Suess.