The Pop Five
We’re taking a long-weekend to Cincinnati to visit Dan’s family, and likely on an airplane with a peacefully sleeping baby (wishful thinking), as you read this. I cannot wait for Margaret to see her cousins, Grandma, Grandpa, aunts and uncles. So fun!
Here are my favorites from the week.
Scoutmob curated a very cool event this week with a screening of the documentary A.K.A. Blondie, the infamous dancer at the Clermont Lounge. It was a great night out and I loved seeing the film in the recently renovated Plaza Theatre.
On Tuesday, I met a friend at Guy Wong’s Yum Bunz. His latest offering of dim sum is pretty good for a fast-casual concept and it appears they’ve worked out many of the kinks I heard about when it opened early last month.
Image: Courtesy of Yum Bunz
Speaking of fast-casual restaurants, can we talk about the fake Chipotle twitter hack? Please tell me that as a society we have better things to do than go on a scavenger hunt created by some corporate suit that thinks this is a cool idea, followed by nonsensical 140-character musings. #NobodyCares
Image: Courtesy of Mashable via Flickr, Atomic Taco
The fine folks at Spanx sent me a new pair of leggings to try from their newly launched line, Star Power Tout & About. Pretty sure I’m going to live in these babies nonstop once the weather turns cool. I should say, I’m not certain if this is intentional or not, but Spanx certainly is smart if they are targeting new mommas, because I’ve never felt slimmer than when I had those leggings on!
Image: Courtesy of Spanx
I am generally not the person you want to send a chain letter … I’m guaranteed to break it. This week I got a chain letter for a book exchange and because who couldn’t get behind gifting a child a book, I sent the six-month-old on my list this little finger puppet one. Good karma coming my way!
The Pop Five
This week’s installment of my favorites touches on creative fields. Now, get out there and make something this weekend!
I’ve written about designer Marla Henderson here and here, and she just unveiled her gorgeous, new website. She’s such a talented soul and I always enjoy reading about what she’s up to on her inspiring blog section.
I loved waking up to this piece about Katie Crutchfield on Monday morning. The thought of this woman writing and recording an entire album (that one Pitchfork staffer calls the best thing she’d heard in years) over the course of seven days at her family’s lakehouse during a snowstorm gives me chills.
Image: Courtesy of Will Figg for NPR
Whenever I feel stuck in my own writing (or life, for that matter), I head outdoors with the dog. Huffington Post published this piece on America’s Best Secret National Parks. Seems I have some traveling to do!
Image: © Henryk Sadura/Tetra Images/Corbis
The Atlantic Wire’s flow chart on what kind of reader you are is fantastic! No surprise, I fall into the compulsive category.
I recently stumbled across this adorable site, designeatrepeat.com, and love the combination of subjects—baking and graphic design.
Image: Courtesy of Design Eat Repeat
The Pop Five
Who knew so many danapop readers share a fear of public speaking? Several of you emailed me about Tuesday’s article, which was very sweet and encouraging. I cannot thank you enough for that; we’re all in this together, it seems.
Last week we were in Siesta Key celebrating Independence Day and experiencing our own caravan holiday. While I love traveling (I’m not complaining about eight days at the beach!), it is always very nice to come home. With that in mind, this week’s Pop Five installment shares the local love.
According to the August issue of Food & Wine, there’s currently a bit of a shrub revival, and one of the best bottled mixers comes from Shrub & Co. (produced in Decatur, Ga.). Yum!
Image: Courtesy of Doug Sturgess
On Tuesday, the Huffington Post published a gorgeously written piece by Atlanta native and author of, A Place at the Table, Susan Rebecca White.
My friend and former ATL-city-dweller, Lisa Baxter Janovec, recently launched, You’re Not on the Guest List, a blog about her new life in Dallas. It’s a very fun read to add to your favorites repertoire.
The fine folks at Uber just launched uberX, similar to their original black car service (but with fuel-efficient models of vehicles) and are giving danapop readers a special promo code to use through December 2013 for a $20 discount. How generous is that? The code is DanaSuberX.
I’m not certain why it took me so long to discover, but my friend Cathy Anderson of, Poor Little It Girl, is one part of the founding team behind the Southern Blog Society. I’ve recently become a member, and if you reside in any of the Southern states, you should too. Brilliant idea!
Image: Southern Blog Society founders Cathy Anderson and Jessica Camerata
Summer Soundtrack
Is it really October since my last playlist? Oh, dear. Well, rest assured we’ve been listening to some good tunes around the Seith house, I’ve apparently just not been writing about them. For all the road trips and backyard dinners this season has to offer, here’s the summer soundtrack.
Diane Young by Vampire Weekend (I love the Saab reference in this song. That car, for a very long time was my dream car; plus, this song makes me want to wear an Izod, Wayfarers and pastel shorts … the perfect summer outfit.)
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes by Paul Simon (Summer is all about exploring and getting outside the everyday routine.)
Lover of the Light by Mumford & Sons (Sunny days ahead.)
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? by She & Him (Aren’t road trips about crashing anywhere? I was never very good with that notion.)
Mountain Sound by Of Monsters and Men (I love the chorus of Hold your horses now, considering patience isn’t exactly my strongest virtue. Are we there yet?)
French Navy by Camera Obscura (I’m obsessed with this song and sad I’ll miss them when they are in Atlanta on July 13.)
Without You by Eddie Vedder (Nothing quite makes me think of my childhood in Hawaii than a ukulele and Vedder’s voice paired with simple chords is fantastic.)
Sun by Cat Power (Her voice is like an angel over this great beat and this entire album makes me feel like she’s branching out beyond her usual folk sound.)
Black Skinhead by Kanye West (While I’m so over Kimye, I’m into this song. However, one tip for Mr. West: If you’re that talented, you don’t need to tell everyone about it all the time.)
Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones (Dan’s favorite Stones tune ever and great for a sing-a-long.)
Defriended by Beck (He’s come a long way since Two turntables and a microphone; I love this song.)
Blood Bank by Bon Iver (Doesn’t every summer have some sort of injury? Ours usually involve the dog and his intestinal troubles versus a mulberry tree.)
In the Sun by Donna De Lory (I’m a sucker for hot, summer days.)
Sweater Weather by the Neighbourhood (I’m anti-sweater weather … see above.)
Little French Song by Carla Bruni (Ooh la-la.)
These Days by R.E.M. (I’ve always loved R.E.M.’s older stuff and lately I’m convinced Lifes Rich Pageant is their best work. Every song is so good.)
Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell (How amazing was this song on the season finale of Mad Men?)
Stubborn Love by the Lumineers (Fact: It’s better to feel pain than nothing at all.)
Graffiti on the Train by Stereophonics (Take in the scenery.)
Jesus’ Chariot by Neil Young & Crazy Horse (This is Margaret’s favorite song at the moment. She especially loves the addition of the chicken and dumplings verse. Yum, yum! Though, we usually skip the killing of the red rooster part. #Don’tKnowHowToExplainThat)
I Won’t Back Down by Tom Petty (I heard he killed it at Bonnaroo, playing this song shortly after coming on stage.)
Where We Gonna Go From Here by Mat Kearney (Life’s an open road.)
Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend (I’m going full circle with this playlist by starting and finishing with same band. I’m certain the lyric, Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma? is a rhetorical question, but I do. I give a fuck about an Oxford comma, and you should too.)
The Pop Five
Wasn’t the Supermoon last weekend magical? Funny, looking up at the sky in Atlanta is quite different than the skies of my youth; the vastness in both Hawaii and Kansas, versus the urban glow I see today.
We, like most Americans, are ready to celebrate the birth of our country next week. Because I grew up in a military family, it goes beyond lighting sparklers and sipping a Shandy (though I’m certain we’ll do both come Thursday). Mostly on July 4, I think about our troops and the cost of freedom. The price of it these days seems so incredibly high.
Phew, sorry about that heaviness. Here are my lighter finds from the week.
Summer is here! Doesn’t this bourbon cherry cooler sound fabulous? Must. Make. This.
Image: Courtesy of HonestlyYUM
Dan brought me home some products from his hotel in L.A. (I love it when he does that!). I’m obsessed with the peppermint shampoo and the cilantro hair conditioner from Malin + Goetz. Plus, I’m a sucker for simply designed packaging. Love.
With Dan and I both from the Midwest, it’s a bit strange to wrap my head around the fact that we have a bona fide Southern daughter since all she knows is Atlanta. My sister-in-law and her family visited last weekend and she gifted Margaret the sweetest top that reads:
Lil’ Southern Girls Wear Boots & Pearls
And it’s very true. They do. Find the whole Southern Girls collection at the Urban Farmhouse Market.
Remember last year when a cobra was missing from the Bronx Zoo? Well, this week, it was the above-pictured red panda at the National Zoo and it reminded me how clever the Twitter account of BronxZoosCobra is. Still makes me laugh.
I’m a little late on this, but I finally got caught up on my CBS Sunday Morning watching and this piece is fantastic. Plus, Jim (Hot Pockets) Gaffigan is one of my favorite comedians.
The Pop Five
Dan comes home today from L.A.; he’s been there all week for work. I’ve missed him so, but my mom visiting until yesterday was a great distraction. Margaret (and I) had a fantastic time with her. Honestly, I don’t think anyone has made that kid laugh harder than her Nana. The week went by fast, filled with a bit of shopping, catching up with longtime family friends that live in Athens and the biggie … my mom helped me re-sleep train the wee one (who regressed post-teething).
Here’s to restful nights ahead.
I so missed going to Bonnaroo last week and would’ve given anything to see this ASL interpreter live.
This incredibly smart concept called, Gather, recently launched in Atlanta. I’m so digging this much-needed niche of booking large group and private events at some of the best restaurants in the city.
Image: Courtesy of Gather
Aren’t these maps featured on Manner & Lane lovely? They remind me an awful lot of Anna Bondoc’s intricate work.
Our family of three lives in a 1,000-square-foot home, so I especially appreciate the art of making tiny spaces functional and not cramped-feeling. This slideshow about tiny homes is inspiring.
Atlanta-based (and friends of danapop), Whynatte, made Brand Innovators Made in America: 25 Brands to Watch list. Nice work, fellas!
The Pop Five
My mom arrives on Sunday for a visit. We don’t have set plans for the week, but I’m thinking both she and Margaret would enjoy a trip here. And we’re of course celebrating Father’s Day on Sunday. Dan requested farmers market pastries (doughnuts!) for brunch and my Grammy’s chocolate sheet cake post-dinner. He’s so easy to please!
I’ve covered French life here and here, so I find this Vanity Fair piece particularly poignant. Plus, who could resist reading these two fabulous sentences?
Unlike her neurotic American sisters, a French bachelorette would never be caught dead moping on the sofa, digging into a tub of Häagen-Dazs because some doofus didn’t call, and she never goes out looking as if she just crawled out of a laundry hamper. And unlike some of her slaggy British cousins, she doesn’t get bombed on alcohol and barf on the pavement as the capper to an evening’s entertainment.
My friend, Jen, curated an event in Atlanta called Root City Market that’s tomorrow. I cannot wait to check out all the goods including pieces from my favorite jewelry designer, Asha Patel.
Isn’t Keira Knightley’s wedding style cooler than cool? I die.
Image: Courtesy of Landov
My nieces adore their American Girl dolls. This exhibit by photographer Ilona Szwarc is on display in NYC until July 3 and looks incredible. I so wish I could see it in person!
Image: Ilona Szwarc, Courtesy of the Foley Gallery
As someone who just this week was assigned a 900-word article for $75 (for those of you with mathematician minds, that’s not even a penny a word), this article, about a journalism degree being the worst return on an investment one can make, is a sad, but likely true, read.
Image via Mashable, iStockphoto, amdandy
Short Stack
I’ve been frustrated with Kickstarter lately. I blame Zach Braff! There’s a great article, here, explaining how celebrities are ruining the crowd-sourced funding site. That said there are so many projects that you stumble upon, like this one by Nick Fauchald. Short Stack, Fauchald’s food publication, combines two of my great loves, cooking and reading, with his gorgeous series of one-ingredient subjects. The Short Stack campaign runs through the end of this week and he’s already surpassed his 50K ask. I got a chance to interview Fauchald, where we talk goals, the joys of holding a physical book (dog eared pages!) and food writing talent.
danapop: How did the idea for Short Stack Editions come about and what would reaching the Kickstarter goal of $50K do for your vision?
Nick Fauchald: Short Stack was a way for me to work on a purely print-based project. I’d had my hands in so many digital things in recent years that I missed working with something you could hold in your hands.
We were lucky enough to reach our Kickstarter goal within the first week of our campaign. Any extra money we raise beyond this goal will go towards printing more copies of each edition, which in turn will pay our authors more for their hard work.
danapop: How did you choose the three singular ingredients you did of strawberry, egg and tomato? Was the publication purposefully timed (the tomatoes and strawberries) to correspond with peak season?
Fauchald: We want each Short Stack edition to be used throughout the year, but we’re also sensitive to seasonal ingredients. Some editions will be more seasonal than others; for example, you can get great eggs all year long, while the season for the best tomatoes and strawberries is more finite, so we’ll be sure to publish these editions near peak harvest times.
danapop: As much as I love my iPad and Kindle, I still love to hold newspapers and books in my hands. I like the weight, the smell and the overall feel of them. Your editions are darling in size, seemingly so simple, but so thoughtful – what do you want the person that buys and reads them to get out of it?
Fauchald: There’s something about flipping through a cookbook that you can replicate on a computer. The Internet is great for searching for a recipe, but I don’t trust just anything I find via Google; I want to know who created the recipe and if they took the time to make sure it will work in my kitchen. I hope our readers will keep their Short Stack editions handy for whenever they need a new idea for cooking a favorite ingredient. And, like all good cookbooks, we hope our readers will collect Short Stacks and pass them along to their friends and family.
danapop: Tell me more about Susan Spungen, Ian Knauer and Soa Davies. How did you connect with such stellar talent? What about the suppliers of the paper, the printer, — how did you determine all of these factors to create such high-quality literary gems?
Fauchald: We start each edition by finding the best author possible. I’m not interested in having a big-name author, writer or chef take on an edition unless they can deliver fresh, dependable recipes. Susan, Ian and Soa are all known for creating this level of content. Then we ask each author to pick their favorite ingredient, something that excites and inspires them to cook, and that becomes the theme for their edition.
Next, we met with a bunch of printers in New York; we want to produce these booklets as close to home as possible, and using the best materials we can buy. We could have printed these overseas and on cheaper paper, but I think the finished product wouldn’t have felt as special. I hope our readers will notice and appreciate the difference, even if it means charging a few extra bucks for each copy.
danapop: As far as lofty goals, what’s next for Short Stack and where do you want this to go?
Fauchald: After we produce and distribute our first three editions, we have a bullpen of authors ready to work on future Short Stacks. We’ll start producing the next editions right away—you’ll be able to buy them on our own website (ShortStackEditions.com) and through select retailers later this summer.
The Pop Five
After what was a very fun weekend, the week that followed was rough. On the home front, Margaret cut her first tooth on Wednesday (second on Thursday) and the two days leading up to the big breakthrough were spent with her being incredibly fussy and clingy. When the first was finally visible, it was like I had my daughter back … all grins and playing coy showing off the new additions to her gums.
On the work front, I had a project move into a different direction than I hoped and had more than one difficult conversation surrounding it all. It’s awful, but I’m often reminded of my father’s, bad news doesn’t get better over time rule. I’m hoping to lay low this weekend, but on Sunday I have a 100th birthday party to attend. Isn’t that incredible?
On Tuesday, I got a glimpse of Metamorphoses and Mighty Myths & Legends from Georgia Shakespeare before they open this summer. So good!
For all that Shakespeare-watching in the park, wouldn’t these adult sippy cups be great?
As someone who gets enough pick your brain emails to consider a side business as a creative consultant, Marie Forleo’s advice is fantastic.
I love Sofia Coppola’s take on privacy in Sunday’s T Magazine. Also, it’s interesting that this year, Lee Radziwill and Coppola traded interviewing each other for the same publication. PS – Isn’t that photograph stunning?
Image of Sofia Coppola in her West Village apartment: Photograph by Jason Schmidt; makeup by Aaron de Mey at Art Partner; hair by Ayumi Yamamoto at Defacto for Shu Uemura.
We’re just starting to think about babyproofing our house a bit, which means we’ll need a new coffee table soon. Wouldn’t one of these custom trays from BirdAria look cute holding remote controls and coasters?
The Pop Five
I cannot believe Memorial Day was this week. I’m a firm believer in the summer Friday (which I actually take year round). Come Friday around 2 p.m. I find myself stepping away from the computer and starting my weekend. My sister and I often joke that if we were to ever start a company together we’d for sure instate bikini Friday. Meaning, grab your laptop, cocktail and head to the pool! Here’s to the start of summer!
I never read Jeannette Wall’s memoir, The Glass Castle, and honestly I’m not sure I could stomach it. This piece, Mommy Nearest, about Walls’s mother living in a cottage on her farm was a very tough article to read, but so beautifully written. It’s one of those pieces that I felt so uncomfortable and sad the whole time I was reading it, but had to get to the end.
Image: Courtesy of Ilona Szwarc for The New York Times
There’s always money in the banana stand! On Sunday, Arrested Development became available for streaming on Netflix and it’s like the return of an old friend you haven’t seen in a while, but feel as if no time has passed. We’re on episode six and hoping Franklin and Annyong show up soon!
Image: Courtesy of Marion Curtis/Startraksphoto.com
This is one of my favorite photos of my parents. Every Memorial Day, I think of my father’s 21-year career as a journalist in the Army and wish he were still around to tell me about it all.
I’m convinced Margaret is going to wind up sounding like Demi Moore once she starts talking. These days she’s certainly finding her voice. And by voice I mean something that sounds like a feral catfight with screeching and squawking at the top of her lungs. I’ve taken to calling her the little lynx because she sounds like a wild animal. So sad this one born recently at the Nashville Zoo passed away this week from pneumonia.
Image: Courtesy of Amiee Stubbs/HotSpot /Landov
Nathan Fielder’s last text prank cracked me up and this one might top it.
