Three Important Points to Remember When “Kondo-ing”

...Tsuzuki who documented the condition of Japanese homes and apartments in a book Tokyo: A Certain Style. Tsuzuki book, which has haunted me for years, shows Japanese homes as they actual are: crammed with junk, spilling out of every cabinet and closet in spaces that are much smaller to begin with than what we are used to in the US. This rampant consumerism combined with the horrors of the tsunami, definitely helped catapult Kondo’s career in Japan....

Read…

Farmstead Egg Guide & Cookbook Giveaway

...few years ago. She’s got a new cookbook out, The Farmstead Egg Guide & Cookbook. The book begins with a purchasing guide to eggs followed by a brief introduction to what’s involved in keeping chickens. Recipes–everything from omelettes to deserts–make up the majority of the book. Terry is on a blog tour, and has dropped by Root Simple to share a recipe and give away a copy of The Farmstead Egg Guide & Cookbook. To win the book, all you have to do...

Read…

Of Mushrooms and Capitalist Ruins

...ed both the biology and our complex social relationship to fungi. The last book we read was one of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. The book begins with the stories of matsutake pickers in the Pacific Northwest, a heterogeneous group of recent Southeast Asian immigrants, middle class Japanese Americans and white survivalists. Beg...

Read…

A Cluttered Life: Middle-Class Abundance

...nits? The book is worth reading (ironically, I just sold my copy to reduce book clutter). While I no longer own the book I was happy to discover the short, three part video series on the project which I’ve embedded for your weekend enjoyment. Part II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyHS_-Umv4E Part III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJWOWksT1x4&t=11s What was especially interesting for me about these videos is that they address the complex inters...

Read…

Nanotecture: Tiny Built Things

...e propelled mini sauna above. I don’t know if I need to own a copy of this book (I’ve got a library copy), but I’ve spent a many evenings leafing through the pages. On a side note, many of the objects in this book are temporary outdoor art installations, something you see a lot of in Northern Europe in the summer. I don’t know why we don’t see more of these types of art and design shows in the U.S. They’re popular and a nice use of public space. T...

Read…