#like of course it's not florence's business it's louis' and they both know it

[pynkhues]

Obsessed with this dynamic actually.

[blueiight]

I dont think many boys would've had a nurturing relationship with his father in those days, especially rich families like they were raised to be heirs and providers. fathers were barely there to raise kids and even wealthy women left that to the nannies/maids. so i take it louis was favored because he was smart and could be trusted to take over the business. obviously this is just spec cause theres so little on papa du lac but usually when i hear a patriach lost a huge fortune in a fictional context i think the implication is he was too soft/weak, which again would compound louis's desire to be seen as strong and why he could put aside his guilt about his businesses.

papa du lac couldve also been blowing the bag & hoeing around, it couldve been racial tensions in the gilded age following the end of slavery, and the gradual dissolution of the 'free black' caste in legal stature as louisiana becomes more enmeshed+est. in the states/the concept of 'america'... the fact that like a near zero [something like 1.3%?] of black ppl in the states owned slaves + many of them were manumitting their own relatives at that.. ur grandmother's rapist 'liberating' u, the fuckery that puts u in the place to buy your own family's humanity back, to put them to the same work they were forced into, the fact that louis even alludes to the rape [men 'not of my color' or something he tell dan] required to create the caste of creole he was born under, the fact that louis spins back around the block and is pimping his 'sisters' [in the abstract sense of racial consciousness here] ...i dont think louis could ever truly put aside the guilt he felt as a pimp for these reasons and jacob anderson even says louis is more tormented by his occupation in this show. i dont think papa du lac was nurturing to louis by any means, rather in closeness i suggest papa knowing louis is his only heir. the patriarch desires very little more than to self-perpetuate thru its creations. and not directly of course, bc hed never do woman's work.. like a few distant female relatives of theirs born into slavery or first gen removed responsible for rearing louis, grace + paul directly... while florence is the lady[tm] of the house. @firegiftlouis made a great addition on how louis also resembles florence in appearance, aesthetic tastes + how they both try to 'keep the peace' in their families too

[harryissuchalittleshit]

Maggie and Al are fascinating. Are you ever going to write a fic on them?

Yes.

So my idea is called the Album Verse

I’m assigning an album to each of the Weasley/Potter children and friends writing a story that both fits in with my head canons and also the lyrics of the album

James:

His album is Gemini by Macklemore. It’s a bit more serious of an album and also really fun

It will explore his seventh year in how he interacts with his family while in tragedy and while he has more and more responsibilities placed on him

Each chapter will feature James at 17/18 and also a James while he’s older going through his divorce with his son Jason and two young daughters, Kerrie and Hazel.

He will fall in love twice and figure out where his life went wrong and where he broke his confidence, leading to his divorce

Al:

Al is next and his is Evermore by Taylor Swift

He will be 17 and also 23, it will be him and Maggie

It also will intertwine with Dominique and Becca Havings, who both have Taylor Swift albums

His story will be a little more serious and very dramatic

Al just is dramatic and I can’t wait to start on him

Becca:

Becca’s album is reputation by Taylor Swift, she is a mutual friend of Al and Rose

Her story is about the aftermath of her heart being broken by her ex-boyfriend Lysander, who got Dominique pregnant during the summer

It takes place during her seventh year (which is why it’s intertwine with Al’s story) and her struggles with her friends moving on and of course her broken reputation

As we know reputation is an angry album and also a pretty heartbroken album that I can’t wait to explore

It will also involve the story of how her parents got together in a post-war setting, and takes place in a restaurant which is my personal background

Dominique:

She gets Lover by Taylor Swift, and it’s her at 16 being teen pregnant and in love with Lorcan with flashes of Victoire being 17/18 and falling in love with a boy her parents hate

It’s a story about first love and lasting mistakes, but also about learning to love herself

She and Al are the only middle siblings, so they reflect each other a little in being overlooked by their families until they cause trouble

Her relationship with her family is never the same, but maybe that’s a good thing....

Lily:

So Lily’s album is Tapestry by Carole King

Her story takes place her sixth year when she is 16/17 and it’s her first year at school without either of her brothers

She finds her Grandmother Lily’s diary that she kept from age 16-21, basically detailing the war from the front line

It’s the first time she ever feels close to her namesake, but she ends up growing attached to all of the girls and the boys her grandmother writes about after she is shunned by her friend group

Being Harry Potter’s only daughter works against her in this story, and even her own family turns against her

But over the year, she finally becomes the person she wants to be and it’s thanks to her grandmothers diary and some self reflection

It will feature other songs from the 70’s but not as chapter titles

Louis:

Lungs by Florence + the Machine

His story will be mainly his seventh year and getting together with Mia Nott

But will also explore growing up with two wildly different older sisters, parents that are falling in and out of love with one another, and also being autistic and unable to find the right words or actions to convey his thoughts to the world

It will also deal with being put into unexpected and difficult situations that are out of Louis’ control and some water symbolism

Louis is the quietest of the Weasley’s but if only his family could read his mind

There will also be a lot of letters from Uncle Charlie

Rose:

In The Heights soundtrack by Lin-Manuel Miranda, takes place during the summer between fourth and fifth year

Rose and Hugo are sent to spend the summer with the Potters, which is fine, except Rose wants to spend her summer at home

Scorpius is also hanging out at the Potters that summer because his parents are busy and Al is his best friend

Rose and Scorpius start dating in secret (that is only really kept from Ron and Hermione, and Draco and Astoria)

It will also be told with Draco and Astoria’s own love story

Everything will go well, they’ll be having fun, but then their relationship is tested when Rose’s Abeulo Javier passes away

Let’s just say that Rose and Hugo have a thing with ruining wakes (cough*InvisibleStringisonAo3*cough)

Rose has to reflect on her feeling about Scorpius but also her family loyalties, while on the flip side, Draco will have to reflect on his personal loyalties to Astoria but also his family’s reputation

Could Rose understand what it’s like to be Malfoy in a post-war world?

I don’t know, I’m not 100% on this one, but we’ll see

The Others:

So I’ve already written stories about Molly and Lucy (For the Dancing and the Dreaming Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25167997/chapters/60989251)

Roxanne (I Feel Pretty Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13596126/chapters/31210752) warning there are a lot of trigger warnings so please read the tags and author’s notes

Hugo (Invisible String Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28164351/chapters/69012660) this is Folklore by Taylor Swift inspired, but not an album verse story

Freddie’s story will be up within the next few weeks, so watch my tumblr and Ao3 page for updates, his story is tied with George and Angelina post-war

Send me a Weasley and I’ll give you a fic, a couple of head canons, or my opinion on them in both canon and fanon!

[lucianabxlla]

&&. announcing her royal highness, ( luciana bella di savoia ), the ( 21 ) year old ( princess ) of ( italy ). she is often confused with ( danielle campbell ). some say that she is ( disobedient & stubborn ), but she is actually ( generous & strong-willed ). ( luciana ) is arranged to marry ( louis tomlinson, tyler posey, utp ).

tw: death

Hello, I’m Chesca and I am so so excited to be here and roleplay with you all. :3 Before that, though, here are some things about my new charrie!

her basics

Name: Luciana Bella Di Savoia

Nickname: Lucy or (only for those who are really close to her) Cia

Gender: Cisfemale

Place of Birth: Florence, Italy

Date of Birth: March 22, 1997

Age: 22

Parents: Ernesto Ricci (deceased) & Stella Grazia D’este Di Savoia

Siblings: Giovanni Ricci & Stefan Luca

Title: Princess

Education: graduated as a Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Art History & Archaelogy from Columbia Universiy

Positive Traits: generous & strong-willed

Negative Traits: disobedient & stubborn

her introduction

She wants to be more than a pawn. Luciana is the youngest in a family of 5. She is the only girl so it is pretty obvious why her parents hired people to train her to be someone “that will be the perfect wife”. She, of course, hated it.

She wants to be queen. Ever since she was a child, she spent time with those her parents refer to as “their people” and grew to love them. Her parents, especially her dad, did not like this but she did not care. As each day passed, her desire to help them out became stronger and that desire made her want the crown. When she turned 17, however, she realized that her being the heir of the throne was impossible because one, she had two older brothers who were “more fit for the throne” and two, she was a woman.

She wants to learn about the world. Having so little chance of being queen did not throw her off. She still wanted to help and she was going to do whatever it takes for her to do so. As she studied in both highschool and college, she kept that in mind.  Here she is now four years later, with a degree in economics, Latin honors, and a personal mission to give back to the community that taught her to love life.

She wants to be free. Out of anger towards the way the system works, she became the exact opposite of what her parents wanted to be. She disobeyed the rules imposed on her and she fought whenever someone would yell at her. She spent her free time drinking and flirting around but of course, she had her limits. She did not want to end up like her father.

She wants to feel less lonely. She was in her third year of college when she heard about her father’s death. It took her a while to accept this but once she did, she realized that she was not as sad as her brothers were. She never got close to her father after all. In fact, she never got close to anyone in her family. Her brothers never really talked to her or hung out with her and her parents were too busy that they neglected their youngest child. It was when her father died that she realized how lonely she has been for who knows how long and for once, she wanted to feel like she was not alone.

She wants to be loved. It is not obvious but Luciana believed in love and happy endings. Of all the things that life has taught her, her favorite lesson is that everyone deserves a chance at love. However, once she turned 13, she realized that that chance was off the table for her because at 13, she was betrothed to a prince. She wanted a way out of her arrnaged marriage, and she wanted more than anything to have her chance at love.

her wanted connections

friends she parties and/or drinks with

a supposed enemy who she chose to befriend out of rebellion

a flirtationship

a bestfriend (someone who knows her from the inside out)

a childhood friend who ghosted her or who she ghosted

an ex

someone who she is forced to marry (fc is Louis Tomlinson or Tyler Posey please)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY ARC ISN'T ESPECIALLY OBJECT-RISK

Kids a certain age would point into the case and say that they didn't want to be online. Modula: Pascal is too wimpy for systems programming. These combine to make us believe that every judgement of us is about us. But Occam's razor means, in effect, that if you want to write about x? For most, the cause of death is worth trying hard to avoid. It's probably less, in fact. For example, anyone reasonably smart can probably get to an edge of programming e. Which means you have to follow. As you decrease the intelligence of the audience, being a good bullshitter. But most kids would take that deal. For example, when I give a talk in a few years? We were already thinking about the kind of things they say to one another.

They're not allowed to include the numbers, and they're expected to spackle over the gaps with gratuitous transitions Furthermore. For example, anyone reasonably smart can probably get to an edge of programming e. If you run out of ideas? If it's physiological, it should be universal. Just as a speaker ad libbing can only spend as long on each sentence as it takes to say it.1 I started a scandalous underground newspaper. I think the main reason is that it's part of the problem. At YC we're excited when we meet startups working on things that could endanger children.

Why. You don't need or perhaps even want this quality in big companies, but you have less control over the rate at which you turn yours into a prepared mind. They don't realize that it takes work to be popular, certainly, but they want even more to be smart. But Dropbox was a much better idea, both in the absolute sense and also as a match for his skills. You have to be at the leading edge of a rapidly changing field, there will always be a few stars who clearly should make the team, and his place to be taken by the 21st best player will be only slightly worse than the 20th best player may feel he has been misjudged. But teachers like him were individuals swimming upstream. I once wrote an essay about color or baseball.2 And curiously enough, taking rejection less personally may help you to get lost. And the difference in the way fathers and mothers bought ice cream for their kids: the fathers like benevolent kings bestowing largesse, the mothers harried, giving in to pressure. Hence the next leap: could you do the same thing.3

The other half is expressing yourself well.4 What they all have in common is that a dollar from them is worth one dollar. That can't be happening by accident. And now Wall Street is collectively kicking itself. VCs are frightened at the idea of letting founders partially cash out, let me tell them something still more frightening: you are now competing directly with Google. The problem was, since we'd been about to be acquired, we'd allowed ourselves to run low on cash. The kids who got praised for these qualities tended to be at best dull-witted prize bulls, and at worst facile schmoozers. So if you're developing technology for money, you're probably not too late.5

Of course I wanted to work in the pure, intellectual world of software, not deal with customers' mundane problems. Practically every really big startup could say, five years later. I was forced to discard my protective incompetence, I found that after following a certain thread I ran out of ideas on one point, no problem: it won't kill the essay. Being a really good speaker is not merely orthogonal to having good ideas, and then come back to work after dinner. So better a good idea. What's missing?6 It's like the court of Louis XIV. But if you have kids. The Web may well make this the golden age of the essay. You have a lot of people at first, but you'll also be in the best position to conquer the rest of the class, I just skimmed the Cliff's Notes, it turned out. C#: Java is controlled by Sun.7 For example, teenage kids pay a great deal of attention to clothes.

And don't write the way they are because that is how things have to be more precise than we're going to make money and to get attention, and when you talk to them you realize that it's a seller's market. Don't write the essay readers expect; one learns nothing from what one expects. And we'd be reading that the election was a referendum on the war in Iraq, instead of taking a class on, say, genetics. To someone in school now, that may seem an odd question to ask. They grew out of things their founders built because there seemed a gap in the world. Actually it's merely tedious. I won't try that again. That last test filters out surprisingly few people. If a startup fails, it will disappear. In fact, you're doubly likely to find good problems in another domain: a the inhabitants of that domain are not as likely as software people to have already solved their problems with software, and the crap they get in return. My final test may be the sort of lock-in that would prevent users from choosing you, don't discard the idea.

Beginning at Johns Hopkins in 1876, the new model spread rapidly. Most rich people are looking for good investments. Grad students are just the age, and just build things. I want to know: which parts bore them, and which seem unconvincing. With the result that writing is made to seem boring and pointless. Of course I wanted to be popular, certainly, but they want even more to be smart, and to want to be popular. And yet Bill Gates was 19 when he and Paul Allen had constrained themselves to come up with good startup ideas is not to try to figure something out. New protocols are rare. I think lawyers would be the president.8 If I have to give a talk I gave recently.

Notes

Like us, they will only be a good plan for life. What he meant, I can imagine cases where it was outlawed in the middle class first appeared in northern Italy and the ordering system and image generator were written in C and Perl.

It may be underestimating VCs.

So as an experiment she sent their recruiters the resumes of the other is laziness.

It's not quite as easy as I make this miracle happen? There is a down round, though it be in the imprecise half. They would have gone into the shape of the expert they send to look appealing in stores, but bickering at several hundred dollars an hour just to steal the company. And at 98%, as on a valuation cap at all.

But having more of the reason. For example, it's easy to believe, which you want to write about the prior probability of an official authority makes all the best thing they can do with the earlier stage startups, because any invention has a word meaning how one feels when things are going well, but the median total compensation, including that Florence was then the richest country in the postwar period also helped preserve the wartime compression of wages—specifically increased demand for unskilled workers, and 20 in Paris. So how do you really have a one world viewpoint, deciding to move from London to Silicon Valley like the iPad because it might be digital talent. By Paleolithic standards, technology evolved at a discount of 30% means when it converts.

The root of the venture business would work better, and no doubt partly because companies then were more the aggregate is what you launch with, you could out of loyalty to the ideal of a heuristic for detecting whether you find yourself in when so many still make you take out your anti-dilution protections. That's why there's a special recipient of favour, being offered large bribes by the time and became the Internet, like a VC firm wants to the browser, the American custom of having someone from personnel call you about an A round. Life isn't an expression; how could I get attacked a lot on how much harder. Beware too of the reign Thomas Lord Roos was an assiduous courtier of the number at Harvard Business School at the command of the business for 16,000.

I write out loud can expose awkward parts.

Apple's early history are from an interview. That's why startups always pay equity rather than risk their community's disapproval.

[cooldididesign]

30 best blogs for design inspiration

30 best interior and architecture design blogs to follow in 2020we've compiled a selection of 30 inspiring interior design blogs for all who are planning renovations or just interested in design. check it out if you search for details, dream interiors and private examples that can be useful to practicing designers. top 5 architecture and design blogs for design inspirationthere are days when we feel a strong need for new ideas. we start searching color combinations, textures, styles. antique and designer furniture, decor, textiles. hopefully, the following list of interior design and architecture blogs will help you create something new and exciting. let's find your muse! 1. the design story - designs, designers, and products the design story has a web architecture and interior design blog dedicated to the latest news and developments in architecture and design and a curated design store. the design story tells you about interior solutions that are beyond the look or the aesthetics. for instance, the blog supports and publishes stories about architecture projects for social justice, a product or a brand that stands by local empowerment, or wood colors made out of scrap mushroom. the field of coverage is endless: architecture, products, branding, typography, fmcg packaging. the mental image that the design story best aligns with is tropical and asia vernacular designs and “design with a story”. main focus: innovation, sustainability, impacts. 2. decor8blog - breaking boundaries decor8blog is one of the first blogs for interior design inspiration created in 2006. founder and editor holly becker and her team offer helpful design tips, decorating and floral ideas, and even starting a business in the design industry! the most interesting thing about this blog is “live” articles of the features of interiors of different countries. why are they “live”? because bloggers often travel and write about what they saw themselves. all this is accompanied by high quality and stylish photos! main focus: handmade, color inspiration, room tours, related books, vintage, floristry, decor tips, etc. 3. design and form - scandinavian minimalism finally, for those tired of the flow of professional news, the swedish blog offers relaxation and delight for the eyes and soul. it is led by interior designer emma, ​​who is fond of sewing, knitting, various handmade, and in every possible way cultivates a love of scandinavian minimalism. on the site, you can find step-by-step instructions for creating a box for small household items, a selection of beautiful instagram pictures and a guide to arranging a small apartment. main focus: creation, interior design, illustrations. 4. desire to inspire - beauty fever the editors of this site - kim, a web programmer from canada, and joe, an interior designer from australia - haven’t ever met in non-virtual life. they met on flickr, where they began to share photos of objects and interiors they loved. in 2006, they jointly created desire to inspire turning into a great source of design inspiration. main focus: pointing out ideas for designers, decorators, architects, stylists, photographers. 5. designlovefest - where type & images totally make out this is a case when the author's obsession grows first into a readable publication, and then a business project. the dlf blog is read by over forty thousand people a day. in addition to interiors, stylish gizmos and diy tips, you can find travel, food, entertainment and other elements of lifestyle here, which, in principle, is this blog with an emphasis on design. countless brands turn to the author and part-time owner of a design studio to develop concept campaigns. it was founded by emily bree. the blog attracts visitors with its exquisitely designed photos, distinguished by bright colors, style, and interesting graphics. if you want to create something beautiful, but don't know how, you can choose any training on the blog, from floristry to decor. by the way, there are both online workshops and live meetings with designers. convenient, isn't it? main focus: alluring and recognizable aesthetic ideas for interior design. interior design on a budget blogsif you want to decor your apartment simply and quickly, you can discover amazing concepts in the following resources: 6. flodeau - interior architecture and design studio a sophisticated blog from french designer florence do, filled with stylish interiors and details with a 1950s vibe, collecting designs from the blog owner and what she pays attention to on her many travels. main focus: custom interiors, architecture art design projects. 7. cereal - news on design, architecture, art. a beautiful magazine, reminiscent of kinfolk in spirit, and an equally beautiful site, tell not only about low-key hipster interiors, but also stylish reality. it is difficult to imagine such in everyday life, but you can look at truly beautiful photographs built on complex shades for inspiration. main focus: exciting interviews and stories of original design and fashion ideas. 8. the cool hunter - design ideas from around the globe a site with a self-explanatory name: there is always something really cool and at the same time quite simple for design inspiration. the website is full of extraordinary items that you can buy if you like to. main focus: architecture, art, lifestiles. 9. designspiration -exploring colors, ideas and inspiration designspiration was created in 2010 by designer and entrepreneur shelby white. everything about this blog is ingenious and simple - it contains only pictures and photographs, sorted by sections: interior design, architecture, art, posters, vintage design, illustrations, graphics, etc. the popularity of the resource is based on its uniqueness, diversity, the quality of those very pictures and photos. designspiration is a hub for collecting and sharing creativity. here, you can quickly find creative frameworks and share it with another person. main focus: concepts and colors 10. design milk - online store/magazine focused on modern design the creators of one of the most famous american websites for the insiders promise their readers a daily dose of vitamin d (design) - and of course they do it. "skim milk" is served every thursday - articles and reviews about minimalism. if you are looking for references to houses with laconic features of minimalist interiors - here you are. “friday five”, where designers, artists and entrepreneurs talk about 5 favorite things, will help you survive fridays and get ready for weekends. main focus: exchange, support and development of global creativity in the fields of design, art, architecture, technology and more. modern architecture blogsmodern architecture is one of the things that can truly surprise you with its forms, patterns, styles and trends. to keep up with the latest news in the field of architecture, consider the resources below. 11. travel with frank gehry this is so much more than just an architecture art design blog. its author, frank gehry, invites you to travel around the world through architecture. this modern architecture blog contains the most fashionable designer hotels, shops, restaurants in the world. by following this resource, you can actually enjoy the trip through modern architecture together with frank. 12. surface & panel another nice blog for daily life of an architect, designer, or artists. it contains a repository of ideas for work and creativity: innovative materials, technologies and only the newest projects from light and furniture designers. 13. afasia afasia is one of the most private architectural publications among the modern architecture blogs. it only publishes architecture, either realized or as concepts. if you want to read a very short note over your morning coffee about a new herzog & de meuron project, this is the site for you. 14. busyboo.com another blog dedicated to simple and minimalist design posts architectural projects, discreet interiors and industrial designs. the common sense of this project is complemented by a nice layout. here, you can feel a professional approach to everything: to the description of interiors, to interviews, to advice and life hacks, to stories about the implementation of their own projects. 15. landezine it is a stylish catalog of successful cases from the field of landscape architecture, which was invented by the slovenian designer zas brezar, which makes it stand out among other modern architecture blogs. landezine always publishes fresh and creative ideas. 16. archaic-mag archaic magazine is a blog of enthusiastic architects from berlin sharing inspiring projects. a nice feature of this site is convenient navigation through the chronology of creation, styles, materials and typology of buildings. 17. architizer this portal has set an important mission for itself - to create a large information network for architects and designers from all over the world, so that a single professional context helps to create high quality projects. that is why smart projects from different countries, not necessarily belonging to star architects, are all published in this modern architecture blog. architizer is basically a large-scale database, which contains projects of 40 thousand architectural firms and studios. there is a separate section at the mercy of manufacturers who may have the opportunity to present their products and look for potential customers. 18. archello this is a project aggregator, where content is supplied by users themselves - manufacturers, architects and designers. this is a blog where designers sort through the entire process of working on the interior, share personal mistakes, and give advice on decorating a home space. 19. archeyes this young zine about design and architecture was founded in 2016 and has already become a prominent resource. both old and new projects are published here - from louis kahn to rem koolhaas. however, young bureaus from different countries often become main objects of attention. for those who crave for intellectual entertainment, the site has a fun random tab. home interior design blogsif you are planning to decorate or redesign your home, you probably need to refer to some of the best interior design blogs to see how their authors responded to different design problems or just receive your dose of inspiration. 20. a beautiful mess kind, gentle, girlish site for the creative organization of home space. sisters elsie larson and emma chapman, founders of the blog, believe that life is great when it's a little messy. this is their life credo and the main idea of ​​this publication one of the best interior design blogs. the site has 5 sections. in each of them, you will find unusual advice that you definitely have not heard anywhere else! for example, how to make rainbow-colored toasts, a vintage car christmas tree, and wallpaper from your favorite photos. all in all, this blog is a great source of inspiration, that's for sure! 21. design sponge this interior design blog was created in 2004 by brooklyn writer grace bonney who works freelance for a number of interior magazines, both as editor and journalist. among countless pictures of design, architecture and a lot of diy tips, she publishes readers' letters with photographs of apartments "before" and "after" renovation. there is a lot of life and freedom on the blog materials. if you need more design inspiration in the middle of the renovation, visit designsponge and there you go! ideas for the kitchen, living room, nursery, vigor - all can be found here! this is an awesome blog showcasing housing inspiration ideas. 22. homestolove here, you will find practical and useful tips for creating a comfortable and stylish interior in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room and even in the garden. you might find this one of the best interior design blogs if you are looking for ideas on how to create unusual decor and furniture items with your own hands. 23. dailyicon this is a great architecture and design site with a special focus on furniture and home accessories. the portal is equally fond of objects of modernism, furniture of the 60s and modern projects. each day of the week has its own heading: for example, monday is the day of architectural icons, thursday is reserved for interior design blog posts, and photography is offered as a sunday rest. 24. trendir this is a french interior design blog, where you can find a lot of interesting things. here, you can find examples of well thought out apartments along with collections in the spirit of blue kitchens and pastel bedrooms, which can be useful as analogues for communicating with the customer. 25. apartment therapy an american blog that covers anything and everything to do with interior design - the online bible for interior designers - is the largest interior design blog covering ideas with a practical bias. as apartment therapy themselves quite rightly say, they help their readers to make their home healthier, more beautiful and happy. 26. designhunter the author's blog of an englishwoman named catherine powell, dedicated to minimalist design in all its forms. beautiful and high-quality design products convey the beliefs of an interior critic that equals luxury and simplicity. if you agree with such a view, this is the best interior design blog to follow. best architecture magazineslet’s take a look at several important magazines that will help you better navigate the latest trends and news from the world of architecture. 27. the architectural review the most accurate , concentrated selection of projects from around the world which allows us to feel trends and discover new names. the architectural review is one of the world's best architecture magazines - and also the oldest one. it began publishing in london back in 1896. since then, its articles have been appreciated by experts for the relevance and wide coverage of problems, including landscape and architectural design, interior design, issues of urban planning and urban studies, theoretical works and research. an online version of the paper-based british magazine features amazingly beautiful photography of rare architecture and design podcasts. 28. archdaily there is a saying: if a project is not on archdaily, then it is hopelessly bad or does not exist at all. one of the best architecture magazines, archdaily is considered to be the most influential source of architectural storytelling in the world. since its foundation in 2008, archdaily regularly writes about architecture and related projects globally. to keep up with the latest innovations, archdaily has recently launched experiments using vr for better impressions and visualizations of modern design solutions. 29. dezeen dezeen is one of the world's most respected design magazines. millions of users visit it every month in search of news, ideas, and projects. this is a magazine that measures the steepness of architectural and design objects in person. here, everything is so stylish and well thought out that even advertising is "in its place". it was founded in 2006 and almost immediately entered the top of specialized publications. it has a strict editorial filter collecting the best examples of architecture, product design and interior design from around the world. in 2013, according to the times, it was included in the list of 50 sites "without which it is impossible to live", being on a par with such giants as google, facebook, wikipedia. about 3 million people visit dezeen every month. 30. dwell dwell is a unique paper-based and online magazine created in 2000 by lara hedberg deam and karrie jacobs. their key goal is to provide valuable information about architecture, design and technology for both professionals and enthusiasts in the field. the blog is now quite popular not only among architects but in the american culture. at the end of 2016, the magazine launched modern by dwell magazine - a selection of up to 200 creations for target. composed by dwell's creative director of products design chris deam and nick dine, the selection combines furniture and decoration items. final word for inspirationthere are so many design blogs and each guarantees a dose of aesthetic satisfaction! each has its own theme, design, ideas. but they have one key thing in common - a course for inspiration. hope you are now filled with awesome ideas and ready to create! cover photo credits: ricardo bassetti https://bit.ly/39Tbb7h

[dippedanddripped]

Why ‘Made in Italy’ has such appealBY AMANDA RUGGERIMade On Earth

The story of the world's trading networks told through eight everyday products.

The luxury handbag is a symbol of style and craft like no other.

As Italian artisans face competition from emerging markets, the traditional model of design has been thrown into flux.

Ever since humans have needed to cart around their belongings – particularly tools – they’ve carried bags. Prehistoric rock art in northern Australia, for example, shows a warrior-like figure with a satchel over his arm. The 5,300-year-old mummy of Otzi the Ice Man, carried a backpack – and wore a pouch attached to a leather belt – on his journey through what are now called the Tyrolean Alps. Ancient Roman soldiers carried satchels made from leather or goat’s hide that look almost exactly like the kind of messenger bag you might see in a shop today.

In some ways, these bags are a far cry from the expensive “it” bags you see being carried today. In other ways, they’re not so different at all – each of those early bags will have been skilfully crafted by hand, an approach that still underpins many modern luxury handbags.

One of the main threads that runs through the history of handbags – and persists even in today’s industrialised economy – is the power of craftsmanship. This belief in the value of a bag made by experts steeped in experience has held sway ever since handbags became more than a practical necessity. Today, the heart of this artisanal trade in handbags, as it has been for decades, is Italy.

Looking over the colourful harbour of Palermo, Sicily, Studio Sarta is one of some 4,500 leather businesses in the country. Established in 2017 by siblings Giorgia and Fabio Gaeta, it is also one of the country’s newer handbag companies. Much of the studio’s approach is modern, too. Studio Sarta’s handbags are chic and elegant, featuring clean lines and a contemporary aesthetic. Their business sense is equally up-to-date. Their Instagram account, which features striking shots of their products modelled against moody landscapes and industrial-chic interiors, is one main aspect of their marketing strategy.

But the foundation of that Sarta style is traditional Italian craftsmanship. Their creations use Vienna straw, a traditional material used in Sicilian bag-making, handwoven by local artisans in Palermo, as well as leather sourced from Tuscan tanneries.

“Studio Sarta was born from the idea of developing contemporary design objects both for the person and the house – not just bags – that use the know-how of our local artisans,” says Giorgia. “The Italian tradition of tailoring and craftsmanship is one of the fundamental elements.”

In fact, every step of the process – from design to prototype to production – is done by hand. At the Tuscan tannery, workers clean the raw hides, then tumble them in a giant tanning barrel with vegetable-based dyes – a process that can be as much as five times more time-consuming than industrial tanning, but which cuts out many chemicals and toxins.

“It is hand-dried and buffed entirely by hand to obtain the characteristic aged effect,” Giorgia says. “The ‘vegetable tanning’, which has origins in prehistory and in Tuscany is at its maximum splendour, is a traditional and widely recognised technique.”

When the leather arrives at Studio Sarta, it is cut and sewn together with Vienna straw, according to Giorgia’s designs.

This blend of craftsmanship and contemporary style has resonated with buyers. In the company’s first year, Studio Sarta sold 200 bags. Now, they sell 1,000 a year. Most of their clients are in Italy, France and the UK. In the next few years, they hope to expand to China.

Made In Italy

Across Italy, the tradition of leather-making has such deep roots that even many of the country’s major fashion houses got their start with leather, despite being known for a plethora of different products today.

Prada began as a leather goods store in Milan in 1913; Gucci, a leather goods store in Florence in 1921; Ferragamo, a leather shoe store in Florence in 1927; Bottega Veneta, a leather goods store in Vicenza in 1966. In the 1970s, even Roberto Cavalli, best known today for his sand-blasted jeans and vibrant, wild prints, first made a name for himself by inventing and patenting a procedure for printing on leather.

“You think about the story of the handbag, and you think about Gucci 100 years ago,” says Riccardo Braccialini, chief executive of the international bags and leather goods fair Mipel. “We have a tradition.”

“But,” he adds, “the real movement came after the Second World War.”

Before that, handbags were manufactured in several areas: around Frankfurt, Germany; Geneva, Switzerland; Paris, France; and parts of England. But after the war, as fashion became industrialised, there was a need to make products at scale. And to do that, it was best to have all of the necessary components – from fabric manufacturers to designers to distributors – in one place. Italy was that place.

By the 1960s, benefiting from their booming economy and from the fact that their goods were cheaper than those made in other parts of Europe, Italians had become “the most powerful force in the market”, says New York Times European style correspondent Elizabeth Paton.

That was boosted by the Italian tradition of artisanship – one that continues today.

“‘Made in Italy’ is one of the most powerful brand names in the world. It has a global cachet,” Paton says. “That reputation for high-quality craftsmanship and design has made Italy, until now, the beating heart of luxury manufacturing.”

But in today’s industrialised world, can that tradition continue?

Industrialisation

“It is certainly not easy, but we like to think that it is possible to make the artisan tradition coexist [with industrial manufacturing] in the global market,” says Giorgia of Studio Sarta. In fact, she notes, e-commerce and social networks mean it’s possible for artisans to sell straight to consumers, reducing the distribution and resale costs of traditional retail via high-street shops.

The internet also means a brand can communicate directly to its consumers – and in as little as a single Instagram post, can tell a story about “what only artisan products can offer: the humanity that there is behind the entire production chain, from the procurement of raw materials, to the realisation of the product”, says Giorgia.

On a larger scale, research collected for Assopellettieri, Italy’s national leather-goods association, paints a complex picture of the Italian industry. Italy is far and away the biggest exporter of leather goods in Europe, selling €6.8 billion (£6bn) of them in the first 10 months of 2018 alone. France, which exported €5.7bn (£5bn) of leather goods over the same period, is the only other EU country that comes close. Italy’s industry also is growing: from 2017 to 2018, Italy’s leather exports increased by 10.3%. And the majority are handbags, which make up more than 60% of Italy’s leather exports by value.

But that growth wasn’t evenly spread – while sales grew, the number of businesses fell. Italy saw 45 leather goods companies become inactive, a 1% drop in overall business numbers from the previous year. Meanwhile, the most growth has not been in traditional leather-made bags, but those made from alternative materials like plastic, cloth or straw. While leather handbag exports rose 6.2% in value compared with 2017, exports of bags made from substitute materials rose by 19.4%.

Italy’s workforce also is ageing. “The next generation in Italy are just not proving that interested in learning a lot of the craft of their parents and grandparents,” Paton says. “So, a big task for luxury brands and artisans is, how do we convince the youth that there’s something worthwhile about maintaining this reputation for the country and learning these skills, when so many want to move to cities and work on computers?”

Underlying all of these challenges, of course, is the economic reality of artisanship: making bags by hand is far more laborious and expensive than it would be in a factory.

Even Braccialini admits that some of these pressures are taking a toll.

“It’s becoming more industrialised and less artisanal,” Braccialini says of Italy’s handbag industry. “In one way, it’s what globalisation is: the smaller disappear and the bigger take over.”

But, he points out, “That is not an Italian story – that is a world story.”

Demand

Even so, artisanship isn’t likely to disappear from Italy’s handbag industry anytime soon.

Some of that is thanks to Italy’s big brands themselves, many of whom depend on handbags and accessories to keep their profit margins high: one report by Deloitte found that handbags and accessories were the fastest-growing part of the luxury market aside from perfumes and makeup. It’s no surprise that these same brands have popularised the concept of the “it” bag.

In the 1950s, major fashion houses like Chanel began to make what are now iconic bespoke handbags. It wasn’t until the 1980s and 1990s, though, that the trend exploded. In the 1980s, Hermès introduced the Birkin bag and Prada its nylon backpack; in the 1990s came the Fendi Baguette, Christian Dior’s Lady Dior, Balenciaga’s The City, and a relaunch of Gucci’s Jackie bag. And compared with other trends, the values of some of these “it” bags have endured: in 2017, an Hermès Birkin bag sold at auction for HKD2.9 million (£284,000).

But many labels recognise that it isn’t just the branding that is important to consumers, but the craftsmanship too. In fact, in some cases, people want something more than an “it” bag. “The truly wealthy, the real millionaires, they will not want to buy LV Louis Vuitton or Gucci because they are too commonplace,” Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group, told CNBC back in 2012. “Rich people are getting richer and they want exclusiveness and more self-indulgence.”

And few products are more exclusive, of course, than something hand-crafted or bespoke.

As a result, some major fashion houses are investing in manufacturing schools in Italy to help train new generations to craft bags by hand. This is also a necessity so that they can keep up with growing demand. By value, the biggest importers of Italian leather goods are Switzerland (an international hub that then ships many products out to other countries), France and the US – followed by Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan.

China is ninth. But its demand for Italian leather goods is growing fastest of all. The country’s market for these products has increased in value by 21.3% and in quantity by 18.8% year-on-year. Already, the country is the world’s second-biggest market for luxury goods worldwide.

But there’s an irony at the centre of Asia’s demand: despite its appetite for Italian handbags, it produces an extraordinary number of its own. The difference? Asia’s tend to be mass-produced… and far more affordable.

In fact, there are so many Asian handbags, at such seductive prices, that even Italians buy them – lots of them. From January to October 2018, 123 million kg of leather goods entered Italy from abroad. Almost 60% were from China.

In terms of value, these goods paled in comparison to what Italy was sending out. The average price of the imports was €21.42 (£18.74) per kg; Italy’s outgoing goods cost €134.19 (£117.37) per kg. Still, the convenience and cost of these imports are yet another challenge for Italy’s handbag makers.

“Globalisation has really put pressure on the traditional Italian market, particularly that boom in cheap foreign labour from close by, like eastern Europe, to further afield – India, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam. That’s lured many companies, including luxury brands, into moving abroad,” Paton says. “Luxury is still a really big deal for Italy – it’s 5% of GDP and employs half a million people – but these changes have really put a lot of pressure on the country.”

Still, it seems unlikely that the power of the luxury handbag is going away anytime soon. Part of its pull is how it combines function with status. “Obviously, a handbag has a utility. It has a purpose. We all need to carry phones and wallets from A to B. But it’s also value for money,” Paton says. “A thousand pounds is a huge amount to spend on a bag. But if it goes with everything, and you wear it for the next 10 years – you feel like you own a piece of that heritage or brand or culture.”

Unlike some clothing patterns, a handbag is also something that can appeal to people of all shapes, sizes and ages. “Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what size you are or what shape you are. Any woman can hold a handbag,” says Paton. “Much like jewellery, a luxury handbag for lots of people is associated with a moment in their lives – an anniversary, or a work cheque. That’s what makes it so powerful.”

Even as the price gap between hand-crafted bags and their mass-produced counterparts grows ever larger, people are increasingly seeing value in owning a unique product not quite like any other.

As long as we continue to see a handbag as an investment worth making – and while the most high-end brands, and customers, continue to see artisanship as the heart and soul of a luxury product – we will, much like our ancestors, be carrying our belongings in artisanal, hand-made bags for some time to come.

Image credits: Lion TV

Graphics sources: Assopellettieri, Observatory of Economic Complexity

--

The world’s trading routes have been crafted over centuries and yet remain in a constant state of flux. Made on Earth looks at eight everyday products – from bicycles to whisky, spices to semiconductors – and explores the people, countries and intricate global networks that go into making and bringing these goods to market.

[afishtrap]

This chapter explores the rise of official cartography in sixteenth- and seventeenth- century Europe, paying particular attention to state-sponsored mapping and the role of maps in the rise of the state. It also attends to the place of geography in propagating early modern regimes, whether by means of official court geographers—common especially in France, Spain, and the German and Italian states—or by means of commercial mapmakers, who had more prominent parts to play in the cartographic business of the Low Countries and Britain. Our approach to the subject is comparative. It is also necessarily selective, and, following the work of Harley, it focuses on the ceremonial, ideological, and political uses of maps, while other chapters in this volume address more particularly their administrative and strategic uses.

Richard L. Kagan and Benjamin Schmidt. “Maps and the Early Modern State: Official Cartography.” David Woodward, ed. The History of Cartography, Volume 3: Cartography in the European Renaissance. University of Chicago Press: 2007.

State mapping arose in conjunction with shifts in state government, especially newly developing notions of the space of realm and rule. Central to the emergence of official cartography was the concept of territorial sovereignty: the idea of the state as a precisely defined and delimited geopolitical unit. Aspects of this particular concept of statehood could be found in the classical world, especially in Rome at the time of Augustus. By the Middle Ages, however, territorial sovereignty was all but forgotten, for sovereignty had become a fundamentally legal construct, the equivalent of imperium or majestas, terms that had less to do with territory than with the power to make and enforce law. Sovereignty in medieval Europe was power over people, not place, and only gradually did it begin to encompass ideas of territoriality. In France, for example, the symbolic turning point occurred in 1254, when the royal chancellery, which had previously referred to the monarch as rex francorum, or king of the Franks, officially adopted the title of rex franciae, king of France. Such language was purely ceremonial, to be sure, yet it augured the emergence of a more territorialized notion of monarchy and, by extension, a more cartographic approach to governance itself. As early as 1259, the French monarch Louis IX, in the course of a dispute with the neighboring county of Champagne, attempted to learn about “the beginning and ends of the lands of this kingdom and of the country of Champagne”; he sought, in other words, to map his realms.6 In general, however, this shift toward a more territorialized vision of sovereignty occurred only gradually. Late medieval jurists continued to think of sovereignty as essentially a human, as opposed to a territorial, construct; even in the seventeenth century, Thomas Hobbes could write about the commonwealth without reference to boundaries or frontiers. As Sahlins has pointed out, the idea of territorial sovereignty was only a secondary consideration when, in the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), the king of France sat down with his Spanish colleague in an effort to fix a linear border between their respective domains. Traditional jurisdictional considerations weighed more heavily than purely geographical ones, and the treaty that was ultimately drafted defined the area annexed by France simply as the “countries, towns, castles, boroughs, villages, and places” that comprised Roussillon and Conflent.7 The result was a border that was, and remains, idiosyncratic.

Despite the particular failure of this treaty to address territorial sovereignty more directly, by the end of the fifteenth century Europe’s rulers did show signs of being territorially conscious—and map savvy—in ways their medieval counterparts were not. The sources of this consciousness were many. To begin with, the translation from Greek into Latin (ca. 1406 –10) of Ptolemy’s Geography contributed to what has been called the “geometrization” of space, the view that land could be measured and described in precise, mathematical terms.8 As in the case of many other humanist “discoveries,” not everyone was at once affected by this development, and for centuries most maps and views were produced without recourse to triangulation, plane tables, theodolites, and the other surveying instruments equated with the rise of Ptolemaic, or “scientific,” cartography. Nevertheless, by the end of the fifteenth century the ideas of Ptolemy and his many followers competed with, and ultimately challenged, at least two prior concepts of mapping: the Aristotelian notion of describing the land primarily in terms of its utility for humans and the Christian approach of delineating the moral boundaries of space, as was typically done in biblically inspired mappaemundi. Both of these strategies did persist, yet they increasingly gave way to Ptolemaic plotting. For example, new ideas of space worked their way into jurisdictional disputes, which soon sparked the development of a “juridical cartography,” Dainville’s term for maps designed solely to assist judges in resolving disputes.9 These juridical conflicts and their resolutions further contributed to the idea that sovereignty, traditionally conceived in terms of contractual relationships between lords and vassals, could also represent power over particular spaces whose boundaries needed to be measured and mapped. As early as the 1420s, Florence and Milan attempted to resolve a boundary dispute through the use of a map, and by the 1450s a series of jurisdictional disputes with ecclesiastical authorities led the dukes of Burgundy to commission new maps describing the territorial limits of their domains.10 Territorial consciousness of a somewhat different sort prompted Pier Maria Rossi, condottiere-prince of Parma, to record his gains in Emilia by decorating his castle at Torchiara with frescos that showed the fortresses and countryside he had recently conquered (this ca. 1460).11 And one of the most telling signs of the rise of territorial consciousness occurred in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, where Pope Alexander VI divided the non-Christian world between the Spaniards and the Portuguese by drawing a north-south line—the so-called Line of Demarcation— 370 leagues to the west of the Cape Verde Islands. According to the terms of the agreement, all lands to the east of the line belonged to the Portuguese, while those to the west went to Castile. The discovery of the Philippines and other Pacific islands by Ferdinand Magellan sparked a nearly century-long quarrel between the Iberian powers over control of the western Pacific. Nevertheless, the Line of Demarcation offers evidence that by this time even the pope had begun to view the world in territorial, as opposed to strictly jurisdictional (or even religious), terms.

[...]

By contrast, defense against ambitious warlords drove the Italian city-states to map their territories during the conflict-riven fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Or, to put it in Burckhardtian terms, just as Italian condottieri took the lead in the art of war, laying intricate sieges and constructing expert fortresses, walls, and other defenses, so did Italian engineers take the lead in the art of mapping, which well served their princes in the never-ceasing battles of the day.14 War, first in Italy and later elsewhere in Europe, contributed appreciably to the rise of territorial consciousness. It also spawned a class of individuals, soon to be called surveyors and engineers, who developed the mathematical and charting skills necessary to plot out a city’s defensive requirements in the form of ground plans or maps. It follows that some of Europe’s first ground plans—a sure sign of territorial consciousness— came from northern Italy. An early example is the plot of Milan, produced for the Sforzas around 1430; another is that of the Po Valley town of Imola, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and completed around 1484 as part of the town’s fortification strategy.15 Like the contemporary plans of dikes and polders in the Netherlands, these texts were working documents, executed for practical purposes. Yet they contributed all the same to the concept of sovereignty as it came to be understood in later years: official control over space rather than people.

[...]

To be topographically wise, as rulers were plainly counseled, is not quite the same as to be in control of one’s realms; knowing the discipline of geography is not the same as disciplining the land. Yet the two trends tended to run in conjunction around this time, and the first half of the sixteenth century witnessed numerous and varied attempts to rein in the land (or sea), graphically no less than politically. Once again, certain Italian precedents stand out. Venice, following its colonial expansion by the early fifteenth century to the mainland, or terra firma, and in the wake of the growing French threat following the 1494 invasion of the peninsula by Charles VIII, instituted a policy of producing surveys and commissioning regional maps to enable it effectively to manage its growing resources. A prominent map of the “state of the Serenissima” (now lost) decorated the doge’s palace.22 The Venetian project offers early evidence of state-sponsored cartography. It may well have been such Italian influences that prodded the centralizing regime of Tudor England toward a similar strategy of mapping. Yet what Barber has called “the Henrician cartographic revolution” (“a profusion of plats . . . by military engineers”) probably grew out of the more particular circumstances of the 1530s, by which time the pope had excommunicated Henry VIII, and an attack by François I of France (aided by Charles V) did not seem out of the question.23 Whatever the stimulus, the English monarchy seized on the device of maps “as tools in the processes of government and administration,” suggesting that Thomas Cromwell well understood the link between cartography and statecraft. 24 The back-and-forth conflicts between Sweden and Denmark may well have instigated the respective Scandinavian crowns to sponsor projects for mapping their realms; there is even talk of a Konglischen Schule of cartography in Copenhagen.25 And in the Holy Roman Empire the crisis of the Reformation may likewise have intensified cartographic undertakings, including, for example, Tilemann Stella’s great surveying project—which, if never fully realized, did produce an important map of Germany in 1560.26

[zillowcondo]

The Overhead Compartment with Annie Wersching

Shining a spotlight on celebrities and athletes who love to travel. Created and developed by Stacy Steponate Greenberg.

We all know teenagers occasionally have the impression their parents are something of a necessary evil, but just imagine finding out that your parents in fact truly are evil. That would have to be completely crazy, and that is precisely where we meet actress Annie Wersching, who plays Leslie Dean, the super-villainous Mom on the hit show Marvel’s “Runaways”. Wersching has played a range of characters, from an FBI Agent on “24” to a vampire on “The Vampire Diaries”, and when she is not busy portraying the scariest parent in the universe, the St. Louis native can often be found indulging her passion for baseball. The Overhead Compartment was fortunate enough to catch a few innings with the multi-talented Annie Wersching.

Watch Marvel’s “Runaways” on Hulu now!

The Overhead Compartment with Annie Wersching begins now…

OC: In the Marvel series “Runaways”, you play a mother who is part of a team of evil parents. As a parent yourself, what was that like?

AW: I certainly saw many examples of the kind of parent I do NOT want to be…Ha! No, but as a parent myself, I can certainly relate to the concept of doing anything necessary to protect my children. Leslie is a Momma Bear at her core.

OC: The concept of the series feels like a modern take on classic themes. How would you describe the show?

AW: “Runaways” is a show about family, good vs evil, coming of age struggles and a lot of other classic themes. But somehow, combining all those elements together with Marvel and Josh and Steph’s ability to weave adult and adolescent storylines together so brilliantly, makes “Runaways” feels completely fresh and unique. I’m so excited for everyone to see it!

OC: You also played the tough and strong FBI agent Renee Walker on “24” and on “The Vampire Diaries”, another strong and fierce character. Is the preparation for these roles more mental or physical?

AW: There was certainly more physical preparation for Renee than most roles I’ve played, but I’d say the mental was the most important. For both Renee and Lilly Salvatore it was all about getting in the mindset of those women and what they’d been through and what was currently happening to them. I miss them both!

OC: What was it like working with Kiefer Sutherland?

AW: Amazing! I learned a ton and we had a lot of fun, maybe a little too much sometimes :)

OC: You grew up in St. Louis. What are three things no visitor to that city should miss?

AW: Busch Stadium of course! The view of the Arch and the city are great and catching a Cardinals game is a must! Also the St. Louis Zoo. We have one of the most amazing zoos in the country in my opinion..and it’s still free! And then I’d say hit up Soulard Market on a Saturday morning…a wonderful farmers market with a lot of local flavor.

OC: What are your top three favorite restaurants anywhere in the world?

AW: Oh man, I wish I could remember the name of this tiny place in Florence my mom and I ate at! It was perfection. So that’s one! Perch in Downtown LA. And McGurk’s Irish Pub in St. Louis.

OC: As a lifelong Cardinals fan living in LA, what’s it like to be surrounded by Dodger fans, especially this year?

AW: Rough! I actually live not too far from Dodgers stadium…we can hear and sometimes see the fireworks after they win! So, that can sting sometimes if it affects the Cards. I’m a diehard Cardinals fan, but also a huge fan of the game. My 7-year-old and I have been known to decide mid-afternoon to jump in the car and go see a random Dodgers game that night just for fun!

OC: What is the secret to keeping your feet on the ground in Hollywood?

AW: You need to surround yourself with a good group of people for sure. Definitely have interests and a life outside of the business to keep you grounded and fulfilled.

OC: What was the most interesting city your work has ever taken you to?

AW: I was on the national tour of Anything Goes right after college and we rehearsed and opened in St. John, New Brunswick. What a magical little town!

OC: What did you do during your downtime?

AW: Hang with my boys! Travel. Chill with friends and family. Play tennis! I recently took up the game again and even joined a couple USTA leagues. It’s so fun!

OC: You have two children, what is your favorite place for a family vacation?

AW: A cabin on a lake! Our family is really up for any kind of travel adventure! We haven’t shied away from any trips just because we have young kids. We enjoy a travel challenge and love having adventures together!

OC: What is the first thing you do when arriving in a hotel room?

AW: Check the view of course!

OC: Complete the following sentence: I never leave home without:

AW: A camera!

Annie Wersching, please use care upon departure as items may have shifted in The Overhead Compartment during our journey. Thanks for choosing us for your travel tips! Have a wonderful day!

The post The Overhead Compartment with Annie Wersching appeared first on Pursuitist.

The Overhead Compartment with Annie Wersching published first on http://ift.tt/2pewpEF

[theculturalevolution]

2016:  The Year in Review

by David

What a MISERABLE year!   What a God forsaken year, both politically and personally.   And 2017 doesn’t look any better, at least in terms of public life, and likely a lot worse.  I barely want to discuss it.  Why add my thoughts to the many words already expended on this public farce?  We’ve been in touch with some of life’s truisms:  that we don’t always get what we want no matter how much we want it, that the world is not fair or even reasonable, and that life ends.  But this year of public and private tragedy has been mitigated foremost by my family and friends, and, secondarily by the loving and healing world of pop culture.  It’s times like these when we need our cultural lives, and the implied communities those interests provide us.  

But this has also been the year when the time/space continuum imploded for me, pop culturally speaking.  I mean that my consumption of the stuff I write about became largely unmoored by any sense of temporality.  I watched and listened and read stuff with little sense of when it was produced.  One can, of course, do that now with streaming.  It is a funny way to consume pop culture given that the essence of pop culture is its nowness and its symbiotic relationship to the present.  I know, however, that given the collapse of time/space I (and, I assume, everyone) am in an eternal, solipsistic and existential now.  We all create our own pop universes and live in our own independent popular culture.  I know that because I still don’t believe that Donald Trump is President. That fact shocks me every morning when I read the news. We create our own communities virtual or actual, listen to our own facts and have difficulty comprehending a world unlike our own.   Where is that former standard arbiter of popular taste – the water cooler moment – when we work from home or drink bottled water at our own cubicles.  I was at a gathering recently, talking about TV and no one else knew the shows others were presenting as their own personal current faves.

D. Trump/A. Baboon

Anyway, sometimes life sucks, but much of the time it doesn’t. So in this new, strange, fragmented world I want to present what was culturally significant to me in 2016.  

D. Trump/A. Baldwin

Given the rent in the time-space continuum, the first item of business has got to be the movies I missed in 2015 but caught up with in 2016, and thought noteworthy. 

Sicario – beautifully directed, slick and tense, morally ambiguous, with some character and plot inconsistencies. 45 Years – the best of this lot, a luminous and quiet film about relationships.  Though notice went to Charlotte Ramplings’ vibrant performance, I was bowled over by Tom Courtney’s vulnerable and transparent acting.  A great film.  

45 Years

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – better than you think.   Diary of a Teenage Girl – more disturbing than you think.   Brooklyn – subtle and sweet. I saw this in the same weekend as the Revenant and my head nearly exploded negotiating the extreme chick/dude movie dichotomy.   The Martian – Golden Globe for best comedy????  Huh?  It was, however, fun to watch. Straight Outta Compton – certainly not on the level of the best films, but enlightening and energetic. The Revanent – beautiful, long and gruesome.  What was the point, again?   Room – creates its own world like it’s supposed to.   Bridge of Spies – It’s not the time for my Spielberg discussion, but FINE, and I mean that as a compliment here.   Carol – so that’s what the 50s were about.

The most culturally significant addition to my social media arsenal:   Instagram (i.e. the only addition to my social media arsenal):  When I wrote poetry I would apprehend my world through snippets of language I gathered in my head.  Now I see the world through discrete visual stimuli, and I have a community to share them with.  A whole new reality, and another way that my caring daughter has shepherded me into this brave new world.    

Best Concert:  Ghost Light Radio Show at The Big Chill Cantina in Rehoboth. Sometimes the best band in the world is your neighbor’s cover band playing for a crowd at an open air beach bar on a beautiful summer night:   “Maggie May”, “Copperhead Road”, “Interstate Love Song”, “What I Like About You”, “Thinkin’ Out Loud” and tons more songs that sound great with beer.

GLRS

TV: Glittering Prizes – 70’s British series about friends from Cambridge University that I finally caught up with forty years later.  What an unusual, touching, intelligent pleasure.  

Veep – binged this one.  The joy of invective, hatred, self interest and wild profanity!  Politics as humiliation!  The delight of pure id!  Julia Louis-Dreyfus offers one of the all-time greatest female comedy performances, fearless in her full embrace of the characters’ substantial flaws. Unlikeableness reaches new levels. This series was absurdly hilarious and outlandish when Obama was President,  and now is devastating and nightmarish with Trump.  In a surreal moment I watched the final episode about transfer of power the night before the inauguration.  Arghhhhhhhhhh!

JL-D/Veep

Fargo – The first season explores the nature of evil in the world.  Stunning and dark.  

  Red Oaks – Endearing coming of age Amazon show set in the 80s in a New Jersey country club.  Top notch directors and two mensch actors in Richard Kind and Richard Mazur (in a bit role).  Like Philip Roth in setting and theme, if not in tone or quality.

  John Oliver and Bill Maher – how else to stay informed?

Modern Family - Still....

Blackish- preachy but wacky.

Movies: Moonlight – lovely, powerful and transfixing, the most worthwhile film of the year. Both this film and the other best film, Manchester by the Sea, are characterized by their examination of emotional constraint, and by their deep and specific sense of place: the ocean is key in each film.  

Moonlight

Manchester by the Sea – I just loved this sad, upliftingly depressing movie about how things happen that can never be made right.  Kenneth Lonergin has a distinct voice (see You Can Count on Me – another favorite of mine) Casey’s performance was specific and heartbreaking.  Extra points for Kyle Chandler and his FLN connection.  

Manchester by the Sea

Hell or High Water – excellent modern Western with traditional Western atmosphere of bleakness and destiny.  It portrays  a desolate, marginalized population who would rather support a bank robber than a bank, and sheds light on those who embrace Trump.  Jeff Bridges is, as always, fantastic. Arrival – abstract, metaphysical and poetic sci fi about language, communication and time.  A really unusual popular movie. Great Amy Adams. American Honey – teenage wasteland.  Is that Shia LaBoef acting like James Franco?  Captain Fantastic – intriguingly ambivalent.  Plaudits to Viggo Mortensen. A Bigger Splash – slick and sensual thriller where one character talks too much and one is silent.  Memorable Ralph Fiennes and Tilda Swinton.

                                                       *****

Hidden Figures – movie of the week template elevated by sterling execution and good intentions.  Usually good intentions are a negative for me, but this corny thing gets away with them.  Sully – Tom Hanks used to do swagger; now he excels in anxiety.

Love and Friendship – Jane Austen film without the usual stick up its ass.   La La Land – meta without irony.  I experienced this as a film about the issues in making a movie musical in 2016:  I thought it was quite cerebral.  I really did not get the heartwarming stuff.  And Ryan Gosling?  He was so cool and edgy in Half Nelson, an amazing performance.  When did he become so stiff?  Is it the cost of his working out?   Florence Foster Jenkins – better than you think Sing Street – charming and goofy.  Also better than you thought it would be,  especially for this afficianado of teen comedies and music.   Loving --  reserved and moving.  Another film that got away with good intentions. Fences – Great play, too stagey, too bloviating.  

Sasha Lane/American Honey

MUSIC Music from here, there and everywhere entered (and re-entered) my world this year.  

Josh Ritter – Sermon on the Rocks: When I heard these songs on WXPN this year, they just popped, especially “Birds of the Meadow” which always made me take note.  

“Sunshine Superman”:  The vastly underrated purveyor of the terminally hippy dippy, Donovan, wrote and sang this 60’s single of pure joy.  One of the things that makes Donovan so special is the inventive arrangements of his songs.  Just listen to the baseline.  And the same sunshine that “came softly through my window today” in this song was evident to Joni Mitchell who saw “the sun through yellow curtain lace” on her “Chelsea Morning,” and to the Vaselines “and the sun shines in the bedroom when you play” in “Son of a Gun,” two other songs of unadulterated hedonism.   Let’s also remember another single,  Donovan’s purest expression of hippy mindlessness and flower power, “Atlantis,” which always brings a smile I can’t wipe off my face no matter how hard I try. Performing “Atlantis” on TV in the 60s, midpoint through the song, Donovan whispered “Hail Atlantis” in his most wispy voice, and then stood up in his white Nehru gown, and started throwing blossoms. You gotta believe the 60s were sweet!  For Donovan’s tart musical antidote to this treacle, listen to the bad vibes made manifest in his “Season of the Witch.”  In fact, the entire Sunshine Superman album is well worth the listen.  If you like it, try Mellow Yellow next.  

Donovan

“Autumn Sweater”:  Yo La Tengo:  oh! Yo La Tengo! I’ve been loving their quiet covers album Stuff Like That There from 2015 all 2016, read a decent book about them, and been listening to their other albums, most notably I Hear Two Hearts Beating as One from whence comes “Autumn Sweater”:  Minimal sound, trance-like sensual beat, mysterious, obsessive lyrics, whispered vocal.  Over their long career, this band bit off a piece of Velvet Underground, added a dollop of 60s trash, and built the little band that could (how mixed is that metaphor?): has it been 30 years now of regularly released, lovely soft/ harsh excellent music?

Yo La Tengo

“Falling Rain”:  trance-like folk rock cover from Karl Blau that lasts 10 minutes but only seems like 6 minutes.  Loved it every time I heard it. 

  American Band by Drive-by Truckers –They play churning, passionate classic two (or three) guitar rock that splits the difference between those rivals Neil Young and Lynard Skynard, with sharper politics than either (but more limited melodic gifts.)  They’ve maintained consistently empathic songwriting for over 20 years and 11 studio albums, and, deeply affected by the current political turmoil going on in the USA, this piece may be their best yet.  From Treyvon Martin to Robin Williams.  Words of wisdom:  “Killing’s been the bullet’s business”; “You don’t see too many white kids lying bleeding in the street.”  

You Want it Darker -- Leonard Cohen: I don’t have to go through the list of those major music artists we’ve lost this year.  Though Bowie and Prince are undeniably giants, the two whose loss affected me most deeply are Merle Haggard and this man who left his profound, clear-eyed, stirring goodbye note.  It completed his extraordinary and singular life work, and listening to it is heartbreaking.  An earlier song by L. Cohen I’ve always loved is his epic about “Joan of Arc,” a stately waltz, making manifest his major theme: the confluence of sex, death and spirit.  This final album is its epitome. I treasure the three times I was able to see him perform.  

L.Cohen “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling”:  This song, that never really left, re-entered my consciousness through a radio interview and a book passage this year.  I loved it when I first heard it: I remember responding to its deep, echoed sound of profound sadness in November of 1964.  I’ve been thinking about what 13-year-old me made of its message of romantic despair and loss.   I realized that this song did not chiefly resonate with feelings of sadness I already had; it instead taught me one way of how to be sad in love that I took with me and held deeply.  I learned how to be depressed in a bad relationship from this song.  Art doesn’t only resound with our prior feelings, it provides emotional education.  

“Cigarettes and Alcohol” – Oasis: tuff “Bang a Gong (Get it On)” remake.

Patti Smith sings “A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall” at Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize induction:  Dylan is great; since 1964 he’s been my hero; I adore him. One could make a case for Greatest Songwriter Ever!  He clearly extended the range of song to include literary influence -- Beat and Surrealist poetry chiefly -- like no one ever has done -- (I’ll have to check that statement out with my Classical Music friends.)  But I experience some melancholy at the choice because his victory denies the prize to my favorite contemporary writer, the richly deserving Philip Roth.  They are not going to award this to another American Jew for decades.  Patti’s genuine emotional presence and humility at the ceremony along with the songs current relevance add layers of complexity to this whole Nobel process. Incredible performance and incredible song. Hail, hail Bob, Patti and Philip!

  Books: Tess of the D’Urberville—a classic is a classic because it amazes.

Thomas Hardy

The Anatomy of a Song by Marc Myers -- Taken from his column for The Wall Street Journal, 45 songs from Lawdy Miss Clawdy to Losing My Religion are discussed through interviews with creators about how each song got to be.  Tidbits about songwriting inspiration are less interesting than the production details, but most of these allow you to hear the song in a new way, and to get some neat factoids.  I found it compulsively readable and it has stuck with me more than some of the other music books I read this year.  Fun! 

Taras Bulba – Gogol.  Yes, Taras Bulba.  Explains Putin (and Trump)

After Dark by Haruki Murakami -- elegant exploration of mediated reality.  Lovely in its unity of time. 

Last Night by James Salter -- Sharply written, stunning stories about adultery.

The Ghost Writer and Exit Ghost – Roth at his best.  Extraordinary complexity, passion and humor in two short page turners -- a book and its sequel -- separated by almost 30 years.   They book end Zuckerman’s story, and offer a prelude to Roth’s retirement. What tremendous place do these contemplative and impulsive men -- Nathan Zuckerman, Rabbit Angstrom (see John Updike) and Frank Bascomb (see Richard Ford) -- occupy in our time.

P. Roth

[fadingfartconnoisseur]

How to Spend a Layover in Paris

Is it worth going into Paris for an eight-hour layover at Charles de Gaulle Airport? A friend of mine recently asked me this question, so I thought I’d turn it into a post for all of you!

The short answer? Hell yes! Eight hours is enough time to get a brief taste of Paris before you catch your flight to your next destination. But you need to plan it carefully — this is not a time to just wing it.

Do You Have Enough Time?

I wouldn’t attempt going into Paris unless you had a minimum of a five-hour layover, and even then your time in Paris would be very brief. Don’t attempt a trip into Paris if you have less than that.

So, Kate, my layover is four and a half hours — would that be okay?

No! I meant what I said! I wouldn’t attempt it on less than five hours.

A five-hour layover doesn’t mean that you’ll have five hours to explore Paris — it means you have five hours minus the time it takes to go through immigration, possibly check your luggage into storage, wait for a train, take the train into Paris, take the train back to the airport, and go through security again for your next flight. And even then, it could mean you’d be spending less time in Paris than at the airport.

Things to Consider

1) What’s your luggage situation? If you booked a single flight that routed you through Paris (say, if you booked an Air France flight from Boston to Rome via Paris), you don’t have to retrieve your checked luggage. It will be checked all the way through to your final destination.

If you booked two flights separately, though — say, an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Paris and an EasyJet flight from Paris to Prague, and you booked them in two separate transactions, you will have to retrieve your luggage in between and check it in once again

Whatever luggage you are taking as carry-on, whether it’s just a small bag or all of your luggage, will stay with you for the duration of your layover in Paris.

However, there is luggage storage at Charles de Gaulle Airport. It’s located in Terminal 2, across from the RER station. It’s open from 6:00 AM until 9:30 PM. Each piece of luggage is six euros ($6.50) for up to six hours and 10 euros ($11) for up to 12 hours.

2) Where are you flying to and from? If you’re flying from outside Europe, it’s obviously an international flight, and if you’re flying on to Nice, it’s obviously a domestic flight — but some flights within Europe are treated like domestic flights due to the Schengen Area.

Most countries in Western Europe (Ireland and the UK excluded) are part of the Schengen Area, which has open borders. This means that flights from Paris to cities like Stockholm, Warsaw, Florence, Barcelona, and Munich are treated like domestic flights, not international flights. You will go through security, of course, but there is no immigration between Schengen countries.

The blue countries are part of the Schengen area:

Why do I mention this? Because it can save you a bit of time. You don’t need to allow time to get through immigration if you are flying from Paris to somewhere in Italy, for example. Security, yes, but not immigration. This could save you around 30 minutes or so.

3) Which terminals do your flights arrive to and leave from? There are three terminals at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Terminals 1 and 3 are close together and share an RER train station; Terminal 2 is further away and has its own RER train station.

Write down the terminals from which your first flight arrives and your second flight leaves — this will make your life so much easier.

4) Are you arriving on a red eye? If you don’t sleep well on planes, you may be exhausted when you arrive. My advice? Have some coffee and get out there! You’re in Paris, darling! (Ask for un café for an espresso, un café crème for a latte, or un café americain for a regular coffee.

5) Do you have euros? If not, no problem — just go to one of the many ATMs at the airport and make a withdrawal. Don’t exchange money at the airport, you’ll pay terrible rates compared to what the ATM will give you.

Just be sure that you call your bank before your trip and let them know where you’ll be traveling so they don’t flag your card for fraud. Also, double-check how much you’re charged for ATM transactions and whether you’re charged a foreign transaction fee for credit card purchases.

(If you’re American and travel often, I highly recommend banking with Charles Schwab. They refund all of your ATM fees at the end of the month, even foreign ATM fees (!), and they don’t charge foreign transaction fees.)

6) Finally, how much time do you really have? Add in the time expected to go through immigration (30 minutes is a good estimate but it could be longer or shorter), walk to the train, take the train, take the train back, and go through security and/or immigration again. This will help you plan your day.

How to Get Into Paris

The easiest way to get into Paris from Charles de Gaulle Airport is to take the RER B train, which goes straight into the heart of Paris.

There are both express and local trains on the RER B. I recommend taking the express; it doesn’t cost extra. It’s about 35 minutes to the Châtelet stop, which is close to the geographical center of Paris. One-way tickets cost 10 euros ($11) per adult and 7 euros ($7.50) per child.

Alternatively, you could take a taxi from the airport, which costs 50-60 euros ($54-65) and takes 35 minutes to an hour depending on traffic.

Personally, I recommend the RER B train. It takes roughly the same amount of time, it’s cheaper, and it’s more reliable.

(It’s very unusual to have a layover at Orly Airport, as most long-haul flights are via Charles de Gaulle, so I won’t be covering it here — but there are RER trains from Orly that will take you into the heart of Paris as well.)

What To Do on a Paris Layover

With only a few hours in Paris, you can’t do a lot — but if you concentrate on one small area with several attractions, you can feel like you’ve seen a lot of Paris.

My recommendation: take the RER B to the “St. Michel/Notre Dame” stop, which is right by Notre Dame and some of the prettiest neighborhoods in Paris. This journey will take roughly 40 minutes on the express train. Once you arrive in the station, follow the signs for Notre-Dame.

Visit the cathedral of Notre-Dame. This gothic cathedral is one of the most recognizable symbols of Paris — and it’s a solemn, overwhelming place, even without the presence of Quasimodo.

The views from the towers are spectacular, with the gargoyles looking over the city and the Eiffel Tower, but the lines can be very long. Find out how long the line is before you commit to waiting. Notre-Dame is free to visit but going into the towers costs 10 euros ($11).

Check out the kiosks on the left bank of the Seine. These iconic green kiosks sell books, art, and souvenirs. It feels so Parisian to peruse them!

Walk over to Ile St-Louis and have ice cream at Berthillon. There are two small islands in the Seine: Ile de la Cité and Ile St-Louis. Notre-Dame is on Ile de la Cité and Ile St-Louis is directly to the east. I love Ile St-Louis because there are far fewer tourists and it feels like a village in the heart of the city. Rue St-Louis, the main street, is filled with lots of cool shops.

Berthillon is famous for having some of the best ice cream in Paris with many unusual flavors that you won’t find at home.

Browse books at Shakespeare and Company. It may seem strange to browse an English-language bookstore in Paris, but trust me — Shakespeare and Company is a legendary business and one of my favorite bookstores in the world. It has a rich history, writers still live in the shop, and there are some cute cats. Have them stamp your book at checkout.

Walk over to Rue de Buci in St. Germain-des-Pres. This is one of my favorite areas in Paris, with lots of cool shops and cafes. From here on, just wander the streets at your leisure. One of the true pleasures of Paris is strolling aimlessly and seeing what you find.

Spend time in at least one cafe. It’s the most Parisian thing to do at all. Cafes are perfect for whatever you’re in the mood for. A coffee? A glass of wine or champagne? Some French onion soup dripping with cheese? A crepe? A salad with roasted duck? (One very notable exception: working on a laptop. Not like I found out about that the hard way or anything.)

Sit outside if the weather is nice. Even in the winter, most cafes have heating lamps.

If You Have More Time…

I didn’t want to plan an overly ambitious itinerary because it’s easy to end up miserable if you rush your trip too much. But if you have some extra time, you could add a few of these (not all of these!) if they catch your interest.

Visit Sainte-Chappelle. This cathedral is home to some of the most intricate stained glass designs in Europe. It’s located close to Notre-Dame on Ile de la Cité.

Visit the Pont des Arts. This is the bridge that began the love locks trend around the world. These days the locks are removed regularly, but there are nice views from the bridge.

Visit St. Etienne du Mont. This is better known as the Midnight in Paris church! If you love the movie, it’s great for photos.

Have a coffee or meal at Les Deux Magots or Cafe de Flore. These two cafes, close to each other on Boulevard St. Germain, were the hangouts of Hemingway, Sartre, Fitzgerald, Picasso, and all those

Visit the Luxembourg Gardens. Head further south into St. Germain-des-Pres and you’ll end up in these are some of the most beautiful and famous gardens in Paris. Stroll around, watch the kids with boats in the fountains, and pretend you’re in a movie.

Note: if you finish your visit here, you’ll be closer to the Luxembourg stop, which is also on the RER B line back to the airport.

What Not to Do

Please, please, please don’t try to pack too much in. I know how tempting it is to see everything — but you can’t see the best of Paris in just a few hours. Hell, you can’t see the best of Paris in two weeks.

I’m fairly certain that one of the secrets to travel happiness is making peace with the fact that you won’t see everything you want to see.

Don’t go to Disneyland Paris or Versailles. Both are outside the city — I’m sorry, but there’s just no time to visit on a brief layover.

Tips for a Paris Layover

Bring an umbrella. Paris doesn’t have great weather; it often rains. Or choose to risk it — you can always buy one in a shop.

Don’t dress like a slob. You may have flown overnight, but don’t schlep around Paris in yoga pants and a hoodie — you will stick out like a sore thumb in a city where locals look neat and put together. Trade your leggings for slim jeans, your sweatshirt for a nice sweater, jacket and scarf.

Wear comfortable flats. Sneakers immediately label you as a tourist. Literally all the shoes I own come from The Walking Company — their Abeo flats have FANTASTIC arch support, which I need for my bad feet, and they’re chic enough for Paris.

Download a Paris map app to your phone. It’s the easiest way to keep track of where you are, rather than using a paper map. If you plan on taking the metro, there are lots of free metro apps as well.

Be conscious of pickpockets. Pickpockets target tourists in Paris. To minimize your risk, I recommend using a crossbody purse that zips shut and you hold in front of you, or a backpack that locks like my Pacsafe backpack. Consider getting a Speakeasy Travel Scarf — they have a secret zippered pocket no pickpocket can get into.

Make sure you have travel insurance for your whole trip. If the worst happens — if you’re pickpocketed, or if you trip and break your ankle and need to visit a hospital, travel insurance will protect your finances and reimburse you. I never travel without it. I use and recommend World Nomads.

GET BACK IN TIME FOR YOUR FLIGHT!!!!

The most important tip of all. Everything here is meaningless if you end up missing your flight to your next destination!

I like to give myself a nice, comfy cushion of time so I won’t be stressed. (Ask anyone who has ever traveled with me and has seen me freak out when we’ve cut a deadline too close.)

Get back to Charles de Gaulle at least two hours before your onward flight departs. I like to give myself two and a half. It may seem a bit excessive, but when you consider the alternative — missing your flight, being stranded, possibly fucking up your return flight as well — this is one place where caution reigns supreme.

Save This Map For Your Trip

Here are all the locations mentioned. As you can see, they’re all close together!

Have a fabulous trip!

READ NEXT: 100 Travel Tips for Paris

Have you been to Paris? What would you recommend doing on a short layover?

via Travel Blogs http://ift.tt/2om3U7Y