Books fall open, you fall in

I once had a bookmark with a a picture of a turtle and a rabbit on it that read, "Books hard or soft, I love them all." As cheesy as that sounds, I love books and although I missed the Festival of Books last week at UCLA, I thought I'd share some of my favorite illustrated books that I currently own:

I Can Fly - illustrated by Mary Blair


This is a classic Little Golden Book that captures the spirit of a little girl's imagination and Blair's exuberant and bright illustrations. For those of you not familiar with Mary Blair (shame on you), she was a very important artist and Disney animator and also designed Disneyland's It's a Small World. For less than three bucks, you can own some of Blair's vibrant artwork.

The Ancient Book of Myth and War





*i'm too lazy to rotate this picture*

Nate Wragg. As one of the contributing authors of this book, he is also one of the most talented illustrators from the Pixar family (and one reason why I bought this book). He created a lot of concept sketches for Ratatouille and even illustrated a children's book called Too Many Cooks. I like this book because a lot of the artists that contributed their drawings and paintings about their favorite mythological creatures share some insight that went into creating the piece.

Limited Edition: Art and Design of GAMA-GO



Over 300 pages of the distinct style of GAMA-GO illustration, this book is worthy of being part of any design library. Whether you're a fan of DeathBot or The Yeti(I personally like Dirty Bird), Tim Biskup and gang started GAMA-GO cuz they were bored with their day jobs and wanted to turn their basement hobby into something more. This book is filled with rare images and early designs and provides endless inspiration for creating characters!

*most of these pictures were borrowed from other sites, the only picture that's mine is the one that's not rotated :P

**title of the post came from another bookmark. Obviously, I collected corny bookmarks as a kid, too.

Hanging out with the Fullertonians

Before hitting up DCA's Food and Wine Festival, I decided to hang out with my favorite Fullertonian and check out the SoCo (South of Commonwealth) scene. According to Wikipedia, some notable Fullertonians include: Leo Fender, Social D lead singer Mike Ness, martial artist/actor Steven Seagal, and all around supasta Gwen Stefani.

I won't go into too much detail about the area, but it's definitely worth checking out. There are tons of antique stores, coffee shops, gelato stores, and some vintage stores (including Buffalo Exchange). One store that I particularly fell in love with is Otto. This shop specializes in unique furniture, decorative arts, and awesome artist merchandise from Shag to Gamma Go and even some cool Eames stuff! I think it's safe to say that I almost shat in my pants cuz this store carries all the cool artist stuff that I like.

So I wasn't planning on spending some money, but when there are antique stores that means there's also bountiful pyrex waiting to be bought. One antique store carried decent quality pyrex with minor scratches and some jadite. I managed to pick up a yellow casserole dish with a brown snowflake pattern (plus it was on sale! pyrex is NEVER on sale...except at goodwill). Anyway, we also hit up the local Goodwill. I particularly like their brick-a-brack section because everything is organized by color (which makes it easy for me to find pyrex). I found a couple nesting bowls but resisted the temptation of buying whole sets; rather, I just bought pieces I thought would complement my growing collection. So I found a woodlawn brown mid size bowl and a spring blossom 2 casserole dish.


Pyrex bandit strikes again!

Are You Ready for May 1st?

On my way to work this morning, I drove behind an MTA bus. Usually, I will swerve in and out of traffic like the crazy Asian driver that I am to avoid driving behind these monstrous beasts that move at snail pace. But not today. The picture of one of the hunk-iest men alive happened to be placed on the rear of the orange beast that I followed down Virgil. I'm not talking about LA commercial hunks like Crazy Gideon or Larry H. Parker, this guy is a bona-fide piece of meat in so many ways.

Ira Glass.

For ya'll that don't know who this hunk of a hunk is, he hosts the radio program This American Life on NPR and similarly does the show on Showtime. There is something quirky and nasally about his voice that makes his radio show easy to listen to while I sit in traffic during my commutes. I'll stop drooling now.

Anyway This American Life-Live! will be shown May 1st at selected movie theaters across the country, get yours soon before they run out!


He's looking at me!