Stone towers and cut-with-a-knife fog on the shores of Peaks Island, just off of mainland Portland, Maine.

Highly recommended as a destination if you’re ever in the area.

Coming to you from Portland, Maine this week, we thought we’d share this mural from local artist Inge Herzog, which we came across last night at Congress + High in the arts district.

Another from Kate’s Instagram, this one taken in rural western Massachusetts, where we’re marrying off some dear, dear friends this weekend.

Hawk + Barn = Emo. Clearly.

PS—If you’re starting a rustic-yet-modern home goods store, the name Hawk + Barn is also up for grabs and obviously perfect.

Bon weekend.

An excerpt from Katie’s Instagram account.

As she so aptly puts it “For every 8 dog/cat photos there will be 1 landscape/artsy photo. That’s just the way it is.”

One of the great examples of the latter.

Despite a slight fear of becoming too localized on these pages, given last week’s piece on the (still standing at last check) Griffith Park Tea House, I wanted to share a quick letter we just sent Councilmember-Elect David Ryu with regards to the recent lawsuit against the city some of our neighbors have filed in an effort to close access to Griffith Park at the top of Beachwood Canyon.

You can read more about the lawsuit in yesterday’s LA Times article, and a more pointed, no-pulled-punhces version at Curbed. If, after that, you feel inclined to reach out in a similar manner, please contact Ryu’s office at info@davidryu.com.

Above, our dog Owen just up from the trailhead in question.

Our letter to Ryu’s office:

My name’s Troy Farmer and my wife, Katie, and I live on Glen Green Street, just off of Beachwood Drive in Hollywood. In case you don’t know it, Glen Green’s a beautiful little dead end street that my wife + I happened upon when we moved here from Brooklyn some years back. At the time, we had absolutely no idea what a small, tight-knit, personable, and open community we were moving into with Glen Green and Beachwood Canyon. Shortly after moving to the neighborhood, we both became involved with a number of local groups and non-profits, including The Hollywood Orchard, on whom’s board Katie now sits. Long story short, we love this place and the small-town-in-the-big-city feel it gives. Most of all, we love our neighbors. I’m continually surprised at what kind, generous, impressively talented people so many of them are and I count myself lucky to have been welcomed among their numbers.

But I sincerely fear that the small-but-vocal minority of neighbors who are calling for the closure of the Hollyridge trailhead are steering our community in the wrong direction. My wife + I use the trailhead on a nearly daily basis, to exercise with our dog or simply escape the non-stop pace of our work days for the pristine wilderness that is Griffith Park, one of the nation’s largest urban parks. I’m constantly left wonder-struck when I think about how amazing it is that I can walk to both some of the city’s best restaurants, concert venues, and cultural spots and our city’s best example of pristine wilderness from our home in Glen Green.

When we originally moved to Beachwood, I remember seeing flyers posted around the canyon from members of the very same group trying to shut down park access today. The flyer spoke of how those who owned homes in Beachwood Canyon and the Hollywood Hills earned their position through hard work, superior intellect, or the grace of well-to-do family members and said that the only true solution to the problem was to take the sign down completely. I 100% do not care about that sign. I do care about access to the beauty and serenity of Griffith Park. It’s one of the things both Katie + I treasure most about this city. I also can’t help but think that the reasons given today by the some of the same people behind that flyer some years back—safety of residents + tourists, effect of the trailhead access on the neighborhood—are but a veneer to truly classist reasons my neighbors have for wanting to close off Hollyridge.

I know you’ve pledged support to these very same people on this very same issue, but I want to make clear that we don’t all feel this way. In fact, knowing my neighbors, I’d say most of us do not. Please take the time to follow up on your other promise to not succumb to a “knee-jerk reaction” on this issue. It would be unfair mostly to the very residents of Beachwood Canyon you’re hoping to serve with this move. Please take the time to hear from the rest of us—the ones not shouting in your ear.

Thank you.

Day-bracelet of eelgrass (Zostera, a genus of the Zosteraceae or seagrass family), wrapped around the wrist at the beach and gently tied, then allowed to dry to a beautifully deep black-green, as modeled by Katie.

Equally beautiful, handcrafted non-seagrass bracelet by our friends up in San Francisco, Curator.

We’re not usually ones to share videos from Fox, but this one, which we caught after one of the Women’s World Cup semifinals last week, was too good to keep to ourselves. It’s an eye-opening look at a world we too often forget about as sheltered, relatively safe members of Western culture and—as is all too rare—a beautiful one. Though, as they note, there’s some pretty gruesome footage in the introduction. Brutal but real.

Give this video—produced by Sarah Cordial and narrated by Homeland‘s Nazanin Boniadi—11 minutes of your life.

You can find out more about the crisis in Syria at the UN Refugee Agency.

Happy birthday, America.

Here’s to a year full of more peace, more love, more rainbows, more unicorns, less hate.

Yesterday, via Curbed + the LA Times, we heard tell of an anonymous group of Los Angeles artists who, in the dead of the night Monday, installed an 80-square-foot Japanese style tea house not far from us in Griffith Park. The structure—made from wood reclaimed from the massive 2007 fire in the park—sits on a previously abandoned concrete slab atop a cliffside path we’ve walked many times before. The view from that point was always spectacular; now this group of artists has made it truly magical.

According to the Times, the collective’s ringleader came across the spot some six years back: “I come to the park to run a lot — and I would just see it and I kept thinking we could do something with it.” He continued—”The idea of a teahouse rose to the fore early on. I’m a big fan of tea … and I’d looked at teahouse design books and I happened to visit Japan during this time, where I spent a lot of time looking at temples.”

Part of the entire project too, according to the artists, is to see how the public and the park will react.

For the public’s part, they’re embracing it with open hearts. I ran there early this morning with our dog, Owen, and, between the people who’d sought it out and those who just stumbled across it, everyone we met was overcome with appreciation for both the beauty of the tea house itself and the beauty behind the communal effort to bring it to reality.

The park, on the other hand, is rumored to have plans to dismantle the tea house. So we strongly urge you to both visit as soon as you can and sign the online petition for the city to adopt the tea house into the fold of the park, not tear it down.

Head over to the original LA Times article to view video of the Tuesday morning dedication ceremony of the tea house.

Below, some photos we took this morning of the house, the wishes made, and Owen waiting to ring the bell. Poor Isaiah. Hope he gets his cat.

Continuing our monthly mixtape tradition, we put our July mix together with summer pool parties in mind.

We start off with more jangley, raw, glitchy numbers from the likes of Los Angeles’ Cayucas (who we caught at KCRW a couple weeks ago), Richmond, VA’s…uniquely named Manatree, and masters of the electro-bizarre, Born Gold, who we caught with the life-afirming Braids last week.

Then we move on to new stuff from our Brooklyn pal Oberhofer before hitting up to local baroque-rock favorites, Moon Honey, and then pleasingly poppy numbers from Cleveland’s The Lighthouse and the Whaler and newcomers from the Minneapolis area, Bad Bad Hats (“Psychic Reader”).

Finishing things off, we go into straight party mode with new songs from Little Boots, Jamie XX, and Major Lazer. If you like that last one, check out the full stream of the most recent release from Diplo and company, Peace is the Mission. Great for the party AND the after party.

Not sure about after the after party. I’m usually in bed by then.

Enjoy! And stop burning down people’s fucking churches, America!