I’m glad I don’t smoke anymore, but this ad for Murad cigarettes is quite tempting, eh?
✸ Exciting news! The latest issue of Coilhouse is out now:
Coilhouse 05: Let All The Children Boogie is the juiciest, most glam-tastic issue yet,
and I am proud to have a piece on The Last Days of Gadjo Disko
included in those glossy pages! Grab one quick, because the sell
out fast – you can buy online, or at most decent booksellers.
For your daily dose of wonder, I highly recommend developing an
addiction to the blog as well – there’s just so much goodness there!
For the last few months, my life had become almost unmanageably
busy – to the point where I no longer had any time to read all my
favorite blogs. Now that things are a little calmer, I’ve been making
time to go back through some of the great articles I missed, and
was especially taken with these gems. Deliciousness, ahoy:

✸ The Anthropomorphic Glamour of Antoine Helbert
✸ A Decadent Parade of Outrageous Fancies: Alastair
✸ Rachel Brice: Serpentine
✸ Alt/1977: WE ARE NOT TIME TRAVELERS by Alex Varanese
I love this set of re-imagined mp3 players and cell-phones designed
and advertised as it they had been invented in 1977. Reminds me
of the tantalizing technology I used to gaze longingly at in my uncle’s
OMNI magazines! I miss OMNI, man! I’d love to look at some old issues.
Happily, the folks at BoingBoing read my mind! There’s a great post
up with links to some of my favorite covers and more. Too good.
Memories of Omni magazine
✸ I ♡ LadyFag!
StyleLikeU has a great tour of her closet and boudoir.
I think she’s divine, and I’d like to comb her armpit hair
with a painted bone comb and then raid her wardrobe.

✸ Latest booklust and fascination: Hugh Raffles’s “Insectopedia”
He’s an anthropologist who’s exploring our relationships with
the insect world. I have a feeling that reading about his work
might really help me with the revulsion and panic I feel at times
when confronted with particularly nasty bugs. Namely the giant
“palmetto bug” cockroaches that we have down South. They fly.
I am fascinated and delighted by all sorts of other bugs, but there
are some that just make me act like a shrieking child! It’s so silly.
I have a good friend who is an entomologist, and I could pick his
brain for hours about the complex worlds of these creatures.
I love this excerpt from the Times article:
“Insects are all around us. They are the most numerous animals on earth,
yet we pay them scant attention. Few of us attend to their innate beauty.
More often than not, they are seen as pests sent to plague us
(with the notable exception of the now threatened honey bee).
‘We simply cannot find ourselves in these creatures,’ Raffles writes.
‘The more we look, the less we know. They are not like us.
They do not respond to acts of love or mercy or remorse.
It is worse than indifference. It is a deep, dead space
without reciprocity, recognition or redemption.’
[….] Raffles’s entry on “queer” insect sex is more life-affirming,
and comic, sparked off by an image of a butterfly probing the
anus of a rove beetle, ‘just two little animals enjoying a little action . . .
and feeling pretty good about it,’ as Raffles writes, exhorting,
‘We need more queerness!'”
There’s also a great interview with Hugh Raffles here
✸ I recently fell in love with the Texas Invasive Species
website. It’s so well-designed and informative! Yes, I am
aware of my intense dorkness. Honestly, though – it’s so rad.
I mean: Emerald Ash Borers, Raspberry Crazy Ants, Tropical
Soda Apples (which are listed as a Federal Noxious Weed!)
I could spend hours poring over plants and bugs that don’t belong.
✸ Scouting New York is the wonderful photo-blog of a location scout
who has a knack for finding the strangest and most amazing places.
Hidden In An Abandoned Orphanage
The Wizard Of Park Ave
Decapitation at the Ziegfeld
✸ I’ve been contemplating a re-design of my studio,
and have been much inspired by Rebecca Kasner’s
tumblr of inspired rooms. So much to drool over there!
✸ It’s been storming like crazy here this week, and we’ve got lots
of interesting neon-yellow mushrooms cropping up everywhere,
but I wish we had glow-in-the-dark mushrooms like the ones that
are appearing in Japan! I bet the kodamas sit on those.

✸ A Journey Round My Skull never ceases to captivate me with obscure prints
and illustrations. Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy is an incredible series
of prints of Chinese opera make-up. They are so fantastic, do go see them all!