A Very Long Engagement

While I was at home a week ago and sick with a cold, I watched a favorite movie of mine.

A Very Long Engagement is a French movie (subtitle alert, subtitle alert!) about a young girl in search of her lost fiancée, who has disappeared from the trenches of the Somme during World War One. It stars Audrey Tautou. Most people would recognize her as the woman who played opposite Tom Hanks in the Da Vinci Code, but her better work was in a previous movie titled Amélie. She is currently starring in the new movie Coco Before Chanel.

While there is sadness in the film, it is Mathilde’s optimism that fills you with hope and the carnival-freak show cast of characters make the journey fun. (Definitely a good movie for when you are sick and lying on the couch!)

There is a recurring scene in which Mathilde’s dog farts, to which the aunt responds “Doggie fart, gladdens my heart”. So much more mature than our typical response around the house, where we laugh and blame it on the person sitting closest to the offending dog. (What can I say?)

A Very Long Engagement
Amélie
Coco Before Chanel
Audrey Tautou
Da Vinci Code

Click here to visit the Snackworthy site.

Bronzery

True story. Charles ran a marathon a few years ago. Soon after the race, he ordered new running shoes to continue his running. As a surprise, I decided to have his marathon running shoes bronzed. (OK, well, one of them bronzed - I'm cheap.)

I took his shoe to the UPS store, where the clerk gave me a strange look and asked why I was shipping one shoe. I explained the whole thing to him as he packed the shoe into a box.

Later that evening, Charles asked if I knew where one of his new shoes was. (I had taken the wrong shoe!!!!) All this happened while we were stuck in traffic at 5:45. The UPS store closes at 6:00. Crisis avoided by some very crazy driving to get through traffic, a very frantic phone call at 5:59 and a very helpful UPS clerk who ran out of the store, stopped the truck to retrieve the new shoe.

And here comes the annoying part. The next day, when I switch the new shoe for the old shoe, I notice they look exactly the same. (He never would have known.)

A few days later, I've switched the shoes and Charles now asks if I know where one of his old shoes is.

A couple of weeks later, Charles' birthday arrives and I've got the best surprise - his bronzed marathon shoe. Only by now, the sly guy has realized that he's getting a bronzed shoe because of the two missing shoes. (Who thinks like that?)

Moral to the story? Don't buy him anything ever again. Or, just bronze the first shoe you grab.

The Bronzery

Design Public

And now for our last posting of disembodied hands. (Thank goodness - do you know how difficult it is to find these things?)

Designer Harry Allen has created a series of hand hooks to mount on your wall. The hand sculptures are titled C’mere, Bestow, Offer, Om and Grab. Om is an incense holder, for all you yoga-meisters looking for a little zen. Bestow can be used as either a vase or candleholder.

C'mere is perfect for holding keys, coats, bags or just for scaring the crap out of your guests. If only it were glow in the dark. Hmmm, I'm gonna work on that.

Design Public

Craft Company

Continuing our week of disembodied hands (what a theme!), check out Craft Company for a collection of graphite sculptures.

Sculptor Agelio Batle uses carbonaceous (try spell-checking that one) graphite and smudge-resistant compounds to create beautiful pieces of art. The carvings can be used to write or draw because the graphite doesn’t smudge onto your hand. (Uh, that's your hand, not the graphite one.)

Choose between a quill, a leaf, a bird, a wing, and of course, a hand. The details in each are so well done. Maybe you’ll write better. Maybe you’ll draw better. Maybe your penmanship will improve.

Or maybe, they’ll just look really good next to your stack of origami sticky notes.

Craft Company

Rag and Bone

I spent the entire weekend printing photographs to put in a new album I bought on my last vacation. Now I've got to slide them all into the little plastic sleeves. The vacation was three months ago, so you can tell how excited I was to get started.

Rag and Bone make an alternative to the old sleeve option. Beautiful handcrafted book covers surround your photos, which you print on ink jet paper. No plastic sleeves.

Choose covers that are wrapped in classic dupioni silk or whimsically patterned cotton fabrics.

These books might make up for all those red-eye photographs. I said might.

Rag and Bone

Flipbook your Videos

So you finally figured out how to use the video recorder on your cell phone. That's great, but now what do you do with the darn videos? I mean, who really wants to watch your cell phone? Pass the phone should not be a new party game.

Upload your video to Bob Books to create an old fashioned flipbook. The video can't be more than eight seconds (and really, your friends would just get bored with anything more). You get to design the front, the back and spine on the cover. All for the low price of about $20.

They are based in the UK, so you better get bookin' if you plan on giving one of these babies as a Christmas gift.

Bob Books - Flipbook

Inspired Travel Posters from Voscher

Voscher Home Collection has modern and retro home furnishings, including vintage cocktail shakers. They feature exclusive artwork and offer their services creating custom art from your photographs. They've created their own product line, so you won't find this stuff any where else.

I'm really taken with their new stuff. Check out the new artwork collection, inspired by vintage French travel posters, featuring Tampa landmarks. There's a set of six, but I hear that more are on the way for other cities.

Voscher Home Collection