grasswire

After almost two weeks of rain, snow and some more rain, it looks like the spring is back. We spent yesterday morning lazing on the sun, having a long coffee with our friends and looking the stream of people flowing parallel to Ljubljanica river in Ljubljana’s old town, some with their baskets full of vegetables from the market, others with their hands full of flowers (mostly tulips). There were soooo many people out with small children (us included)… Apart from the kids, everyone seemed to walk at a slower pace and took ages to finish their drinks as the sun was just too soothing and inviting.
And what better way to fully recharge the batteries than not worrying about cooking lunch, taking an afternoon nap with Tamara and ending the day with a mini-marathon of Friends, bag of chips and a bottle of sweet white wine?The pic is from one of Ljubljana’s antique shops that always has nice window displays – this mannequin kind of reminded me of the mannequins from the start of Dziga Vertov’s The man with a movie camera.

I like to check my blog statistics from time to time to see through what keywords people stumble upon grasswire. Sometimes, the results are so surprising – one of the most visited posts lately has been the readability of caps vs. lowercase letters. Apparently, this is hotly debated topic in some areas of the blogosphere and my post became a reference point within this on-line “type war”.

Than a few weeks ago I decided that I should not simply dwell on this newly acquired status and put my knowledge into practice. I changed the design of a T shirt I designed to sell to frustrated graduate students and hip professors. Admittedly, it is a niche market but at least I have a fair perception of my target group’s behaviour and needs :)

The redesigned so called Habershirt now became the first item for sale in our Etsy shop called Ferdinand’s dream. The shop will be filled with more and more diverse stuff in some time so do drop by from time to time… Simply click the banner on the left.

Hmmm, in the monotony of recent days, the one thing worth sharing is one of Tamara’s recent gags, when she takes her mother’s hair pin and puts it in her hair. Well, not exactly “in” her hair but more “on” her hair. For now, she does not seem to mind the fact that despite her continuous efforts, the pin falls of her head.

You haven’t seen many of these lately and it was about time to revive “things as they are” category and show you a less glamorous pic of a familiar object. The image was not computer manipulated, so you can only guess how the saucer got stuck to the cup :)

No matter how casual farewells with friends who live abroad appear to be, I am always struck by the stubborn power of geography that takes effect after the parting. Apparently, space structures our lives more than time… and there appears to be no way to overcome space except through spending time (and its derivates). I know you might not find this to be very deep or think that I should know this stuff from physics, but it is one of the things that have been on my mind today and which never cease to amaze me.

The pic is a close-up of an angel from a church bell in rainy Radovljica. Those of you who have seen Wenders’ Wings of desire (Himmel über Berlin) might remember that even angels have to sacrifice time(lesness) to conquer space ;)

After days of stubborn dragon slaying, grasswire is back. There are plenty of green heads on the loose but I feel like I have some more time to breathe now. Anyway, here is what stroke me the other day – how some words and phrases are almost timeless and universal, how people and industry can use them decade after decade and still they seem new, hip, on the leading edge.
One of these evergreen buzzwords is “telecommunication”.
Check this Yugoslav ad from 1961 by clicking here :)

Grasswire is off fighting a nasty dragon. Unfortunately, it is the type which grows three more heads when you chop one off. Chop. Chop chop. Chop chop chop.

I wanted to do this for a while but the final push was the discovery of a Flickr group Organised collections that was founded by one of my favorite bloggers. The pic on the Flickr has comments about the items although it is more or less self-explanatory. Stuff that Tamara loves to play with. A lot. You can also look at it as a collection of the battles we lost :)