Today’s Find features a lovely letter-pressed bookmark our friend Kristen bought us while in Austin. The bookmark depicts something likely familiar to many who have ever visited Austin—the iconic, kinda bizarre Moonlight Towers, which are essentially gigantic turn-of-the-century street lights that light blocks at a time.

The bookmark was created by Austin’s Presse Dufour—a one-person design and letterpress studio that hand-mixes inks, prints on fully recycled stock, and employs a 1965 Vandercook press. Kristen picked it up when we were in Bows + Arrows, which we always try to hit up when we’re in town.

Illuminating public streets with electric lamps became common during the latter part of the 19th century. During this time, many U.S. cities were lit by tall towers that were able to illuminate large areas efficiently. The Moonlight Towers of Austin, Texas, are the last remaining of their kind in the U.S. Standing 165-feet tall, they once illuminated the entire city, giving off enough light for a person to be able to read a pocket watch 1500 feet away from a tower. Work began on the first tower at the corner of Speedway and West 41st Street in Hyde Park in 1894. All 31 towers were erected by 1895. The towers were assembled onsite and powered by generators at what is now the Tom Miller Dam. Austin’s Moonlight Towers switched on for the first time on May 6, 1895. Shortly after Austin became known as “The City of Eternal Moonlight.” From the original 31 towers, 17 still remain and can be found in the historic areas of the city. The remaining towers were listed on The National Register of Historic Places on July 12, 1976. In 1995, the towers were restored, down to every bolt, guy wire and turnbuckle, as part of a $1.3 million dollar renovation. These unique structures hold a special place in the hearts of Austinites.

“Clear eyes! Full hearts! Can’t lose!”

Reader, if you’re a warm-blooded, feeling human being with a soul, “Friday Night Lights” is you favorite show ever, whether you’ve ever watched it before or not. We were relatively late fans of the show, but we made up for that fact with sheer exuberance and cult-like zealousness.

Which is why this print, by Portland artist, Will Bryant, was an immediate purchase when we saw it on Buy Olympia. From Bryant’s write-up for the design:

Friday Night Lights is hands down the greatest sports drama to ever air. If you don’t feel something when Coach Taylor ignites his players with “Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can’t Lose” then you’re a robot.

You can see and buy more of Bryant’s work over at Buy Olympia.

TEXAS FOREVER!

First, a pretty trippy video I heard about whilst driving to DC a couple weekends ago. I was listening to Science Friday, which I don’t normally do as I find host, Ira Flatow a bit grating. But you know. Long drive. NPR. But my sensitivities toward Mr. Flatow seem potentially flawed as I actually totally dug the show, which ended with a fascinating description of the video above. From the site—

Look at frozen water through cross-polarized light, and zoom in with a macro lens, and you’ll find a colorful and intricate landscape. Edward Aites submitted this video to Science Friday. Aites, a photographer and videographer specializing in time-lapse, said he was looking for something to explore in his studio during the winter months and started playing around with ice. The results are mesmerizing.

Pretty awesome. Aites narrates the above video to explain a little but of what’s going on, but feel free to mute that and kick the Pink Floyd instead.

Then, our second video Find is again from our friend, Meredith Bragg and The Big Honkin. You may recall from our previous Find that Bragg + co. created and pretty great video spoofing Game of Thrones creator, George R.R. Martin. Well, now they’ve moved on to politics, bringing to task Hank the Cat, who is evidently running for Senate in the great state of Virginia…which is actually a commonwealth. We were never clear on the difference though, and we were raised there, so we’ll stick with ‘state.’ Take a look at the inspiring video for the soon-to-be-elected statescat, created by his feline Super Pac, and then the answering attack ad from The Big Honkin. It’s getting rough out there, Reader, be you a dog- or a cat-person. Reached for comment, Bragg claims his team is “just asking questions.” Just don’t make that cat cry, Bragg. Don’t make that cat cry.

The story’s been picked up by NPR, NBC’s The Today Show, many other news outlets who rightly think it’s hilarious. So congrats, TBH!

What you see is real, but you can’t see it this way with the naked eye. It is the result of thousands of 20-30 second exposures, edited together to produce the timelapse. This allows you to see the Milky Way, Aurora and other Phenonmena, in a way you wouldn’t normally see them.

In the opening “Dakotalapse” title shot, you see bands of red and green moving across the sky. After asking several Astronomers, they are possible noctilucent clouds, airglow or faint Aurora. I never got a definite answer to what it is. You can also see the red and green bands in other shots.

At :53 and 2:17 seconds into the video you see a Meteor with a Persistent Train. Which is ionizing gases, which lasted over a half hour in the cameras frame…. There is a second Meteor with a much shorter persistent train at 2:51 in the video. This one wasn’t backlit by the moon like the first, and moves out of the frame quickly.

You can read more from Halverson on his Vimeo page but just watch the video, ideally in full-screen mode. It’s outstanding.

Huelux from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

Then, our second Find is from our friend, Meredith Bragg, who shot a pretty hilarious video for fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice books and the HBO series, Game of Thrones, which returns to television April 1st. Playing Martin, Bragg’s father, who does look eerily like the prolific author. Check it out below. And hats off to the senior Bragg for a superbly deadpan performance.

Reader, if you’re anything like us, you internalize and impart a weightiness worthy only of miraculous grandeur to things that—by the estimates of most—would be trivial, day-to-day tasks and decisions. Need some vegetable broth for that soup? Give me 6 hours—I’ll boil it down from these fresh vegetable scraps we’ve been freezing and accumulating over the past few weeks. What should we do for dinner? Well, it IS National Squirrel Appreciation Day, so why don’t we create some sort of nut-based vegan loaf and then serve it in a hand-crafted squirrel nest. Pasta night? Sure, let’s roll out the dough and hand me those hangers so we can air dry it all.
Wait, all of those involved food….

Anyway, over the years, it’s become a bit of a running joke—both between the two of us, and with our friends and family—that we tend to over-do and over-think…pretty much everything.

Which is why it’s usually, say, April by the time we settle on a nicely designed calendar for our household needs.

ALAS! This year we have been saved by an angel in the unlikely form of a Brooklyn-based press by the name of Fine Day Press. Run by fellow designer, Ashley Austin, the paper goods end of the business creates colorful, beautifully designed wedding invites, t-shirts, totes, and, yes, awesome calendars (like ours, pictured above).

So hats off to you, Ms. Ashley, for accomplishing what no mere mortal has yet-to-date—curbing our tedious, involved decision-making through fine design. Hats off, indeed.

After using the last drops of a recently discontinued tobacco-based cologne I bought him years ago, Troy recently asked “do you think I can learn to make my own cologne?”

Now, we make A LOT of things from scratch in our house. From brewing gnarly-looking batches of kombucha to saving a month’s worth of veggie scraps to boil down to a rich broth, you’ll often find us in the kitchen testing recipes rather than simply reaching for a bottle or box from the grocery store shelves. This leaves us with a sense of pride and accomplishment but very little free time.

Starting a perfumery, though, was not a journey I was prepared to embark on. Rather than crushing Troy’s dream of having a never-ending supply of manly-scented colognes, I decided to take this mission to the streets and find the real professionals. (‘cause, let’s face it… ladies love to shop. right? right?)

There are many offensive colognes out there. You can practically smell them through the TV when you’re watching Jersey Shore. But D.S. & Durga’s hand-crafted olfactory tonics change everything. Oh yes, I said olfactory tonics, but, sadly, I can’t take credit for that.

The duo behind D.S & Durga has thought of everything when creating their line of fragrances. Beautifully bottled and boxed, these colognes and perfumes do more than combine high quality ingredients. They tell a tale. For instance, their scent Mississippi Medicine is based on the “rituals for the proto-Mississippian death cult of the 1200s” and contains native birch tar, viola & white spruce grounded in incense & cypress root. I can’t attest to the accuracy of the scent, but I’m pretty sure the death cult would be pleased. Another favorite, Burning Barbershop, smells like it sounds – a slightly charred bottle of shaving tonics. It’s a rich, masculine scent, and nothing like you’ve smelled before…  unless you’re in the habit of burning down barbershops, something this blog does not endorse.

And, of course, we wouldn’t sing their praises if they weren’t also compassionate.  Their cruelty-free fragrances are tested on themselves and their friends only.

So, in the end, Troy is happy to have a beautiful bottle of cologne to douse himself with, and I have more time to read the classics or watch Jersey Shore. Win-win indeed!

You can find their line of colognes and perfumes at many of our favorite Brooklyn boutiques, including Bird and In God We Trust but you should visit the beautiful D.S. & Durga site for a complete list of stores.

In a show of good faith, Reader, we’re taking the first steps to building a more stable, healthy relationship.

Take a few, soon-to-be joy-filled minutes and take a look at this interview we took part in, conducted by Kristin of Rose Pedals Vegan Weddings. Doing so, you’ll then get a brief, glittering glimpse inside our tiny little world of font-hatin’, cat-lovin’, and invite-makin’. You can see one such invite—available via Thomas-Printers—above.

And, astute as you are, Reader, I’m sure you remember the interview we conducted with Kristin last fall, but if you’re interested in vegan weddings and how she started her business, check that out again here.

Now. Tell us a little bit about yourself. This is a two-way street, after all. Are you more of a cat person? No? Dogs? Do you like beets (you really should)? Long walks on the beach…? Give us something.

First things first: After 2 exhausting years of interning for this Web log (re: pitching ideas and making Troy write them, eating at restaurants and asking Troy to take pictures of the food, finding cool things at stores and saying aloud, “Wouldn’t it be cool to feature this on the blog?” and then assuming Troy will take care of it) I have finally earned my keep and have been granted my own column, entitled The Preen. Featuring everything from local jewelry designers to fabulous cruelty-free cosmetics, The Preen will take you on a wild reading adventure. Trust me, you’re going to love it. And you’ll be even prettier because of it. I mean, let’s face it, beauty is like the most important thing ever. We’ve all watched enough nerdy girl makeover movies to know that’s true.

Alright, so let’s get this show on the road.

My first feature for The Preen involves a little back story. It’s a beautiful tale of friendship, a request for seafoam green bridesmaid dresses, ever-lasting love, and, most importantly, a lost social security card. Actually, I’m realizing now that the story is too long for one blog post, so I will skip ahead to the ending: They tied the knot on a beautiful, yet chilly, day in October with all their friends and family in attendance. Not one bridesmaid could find a seafoam green dress. The end.

Now let’s get to the good stuff.

As part of a dear friend’s bridal party, I was recently given the task of finding a gift for the beautiful bride-to-be. I gave it several months of thought and came up with a long list of things I did and did not want. I wanted the gift to be wearable. I wanted it to be a keepsake. I wanted it to commemorate the wedding day. I didn’t want it to be prissy. I wanted to support a local designer. I wanted all the bridesmaids to feel like they were part of the gift. I didn’t want the bride to feel pressured to wear it on the wedding day. To be honest, I was completely overwhelmed by my list.

After visiting In God We Trust’s  Bedford Avenue store, I knew I found my answer. A beautifully hammered, solid brass bracelet, The Boyfriend Cuff can be hand-stamped with up to 8 letters/numbers. With the support of my fellow bridesmaids, I purchased 3 bracelets and asked IGWT to hand-stamp the inside of the cuffs with the wedding date, the bride and groom’s first initials and the first initials of the 6 bridesmaids. The hand-stamping is, well, done by hand, so the letters don’t align perfectly, thus giving it a bit of edginess – a perfect fit for our bride’s style. They can be worn stacked on one wrist or worn one at a time and the result is effortlessly stylish with a hint of nostalgia. And the bride loved them.

Mission accomplished.

PS: It turns out that seafoam green is THE color for Spring 2012. The bride was so ahead of the trend!