The documentary was filmed from 1920-1921 in Port Harrison, Northern Quebec. This was the first successful documentary ever made, and was a true benchmark for ethnographic film. Since nothing like this had been done before Flaherty was accused of staging events, which was the norm in filmmaking at that time. Despite the flack, he delivered an entirely unknown culture to the western world and remains the the oldest surviving movie footage of an Inuit constructing an igloo.

I randomly stumbled across these dreamy illustrations during a chance google/spell check search for “gouache”.  Dugin Art consists of Andrej Dugin and  Olga Dugina who create work individually and collaboratively. The duo, originally from Moscow, now lives in Stuttgart Germany. Their biographies also charmingly lists their parents names and professions.

Olga’s Parents:
Valentin Kotikov, journalist, died in 2002, Elena Silina Kotikova, textil-designer, retired

Andrej’s Parents:
Vjatcheslav Dugin, actor, died in 2006, Ninel Ternovskaja, actress

See more at duginart.com

Background photo by Marci

I’ve been filling up a folder on my desktop named “Mermaids” for about a year now with all of the photos I can find of the Haenyo divers. Amongst them all these pictures by Brooklyn based photographer Ian Bagukas are my favorite.

Haenyo, which literally means sea woman, are a group of women on Jeju Island diving for treasures such as urchin, octopus, conch, and abalone to make a living. The tradition began in the 18th century when a group of women found a loophole in the industry: (women) not having to pay taxes on this otherwise expensive trade for men. Once the gender of the divers was swapped women became the breadwinners of the Island. Searching the sea floor with no oxygen or equipment, many haenyo became heroines of the Korean resistance movement.

Convinced that mornings would never be fun again without coffee, I walked my grumpy body into the Portland Herb Shoppe for some guidance. I sifted through the vital organics and tried to pronounce herb names silently in my head so I could be prepared to ask the herbalist if each was right for me. Luckily, I never had to say pygeum and they immediately processed all of my mumblings. Within minutes I was holding three very special teas designed very especially for me.

Tea #1: feverfew, peppermint, lavender, skullcap, wood betony, gingko biloba

Tea #2: rose hips, peppermint leaf, orange peel, echinacea purpurea root and flower, calendula flower, red clover blossoms, Oregon grape root, goldenseal root, and a small amount of green tea.

Tea #3: nettle leaf, peppermint leaf, echinacea root, echinacea tops, elderberries, ginseng root and rosehips

I hope to plant more herbs this spring and learn how to dry and preserve them for the next cold and rainy season. In the meantime, these puppies are really doing the trick. After drinking these I’ve got instant energy and balance, more so than I’ve ever felt from any prepackaged teas that I’ve come across.

All proving that coffeeless mornings CAN be fun again!

Ingredients
-tofu that technically expired a few days prior
-one red pepper on it’s last leg
-a chunk of smoked havarti
-tortilla shells
-cilantro
-olive oil

Preparation
-Slice tofu and chop pepper into large pieces(so they don’t fall through the grate).
-Drizzle tofu and peppers with olive oil.
-Flip when one side starts to blacken. Use a utensil if you came prepared or a stick and toasted fingers if you did not.
-When grillables are nearly finished, add torn cillantro to tops of tofu chunks.
-Remove from grill, chop grilled items into bits and mix together.
-Lay tortilla shells directly on grill and flip when they begin to soften.
-Apply chunks of cheese to warming torilla. Remove carefully when cheese is melted or tortilla begins to burn.
-Add generous pile of mixture to warmed shell.
-Fold and eat!

Fascinating that more than 80 years before anyone had realized today’s Occupy movement, revolutionary illustrator Gerd Arntz was confronting the same issues in his amazing infographics. Here he elegantly descibes the problematic distribution of wealth in 1930s Germany: the rich and the state own 70% of Germany’s capital, while the poor masses have to share less than a third of the country’s wealth.

As a radical socialist, Arntz was passionate about distilling complex social, economic, and political ideas into clear and direct imagery that could easily be digested by the masses. Woodcuts like this one (Strike, 1936) were published in leftist magazines and often focused on social inequality.

Later, he worked with the social scientist Otto Neurath to develop a visual language that came to be called the ISOTYPE, or International System Of TYpographic Picture Education. Arntz created around 4,000 images for this system throughout his career. Many of these isotypes, his woodcuts, and statistical diagrams can be viewed in the Gerd Arntz web archive.

I remember the first time I laid eyes on a Margaret Howell trench coat. I was 19 years old, studying in Italy thanks to a student loan that still haunts me, and had to pass by Via dei Condotti in order to get class. I started fantasizing for months about owning this perfectly timeless cream coat. Needless to say, the androgynous trench stayed in Florence and me and my poorly constructed navy pea coat made our way back to the Midwest.

Though my affinity for fashion has wavered in recent years I was thrilled to come across this Style Profile feature in the NY Times on Margaret. I appreciate her eye for simplicity, function and connection to nature in both her personal and interior style. I imagine her home smells of lemon bars and the sea mixed with the rumble of her sewing machine.