PEONY PROJECT

@peonyproject

Self-proclaimed Curator of Cool var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-17877147-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

1,771 posts

Posts

four stories of the heart

Completely captivated by this article and video by artist and journalist Richard Johnson recently in The Washington Post. Set in the PICU at my first hospital, he does the seemingly impossible and makes what we do look beautiful.

If I had some way of embedding the video on here, I would. It’s worth a watch, even if you don’t (unlike myself) relish the sentimental. See it here.

At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to use the words ‘fuck off’ much more frequently.

Helen Mirren

Into olive.

Lovely Nikki on Backyard Bill. I'm such a fan of her line First Rite.

I'm fascinated by group living and communes. It never fails to make me happy that in the 1970s, Norman Kirk's Labour Government in New Zealand created the ohu scheme. Similar to a kibbutz, it allowed for groups of young people to lease pieces of land and create communes for a peppercorn rent- most failed, but a few remain. Then there are the two communes around here, Twin Oaks Community and Acorn Community Farm, that tempt me every now and again.

Above are two books that I love on the topic. Family by Lauren Dukoff. Set mostly in California, it documents a loose group of musicians centered around Devendra Banhart: backstage, at home, practicing their music. Then there is Spaced Out: Radical Environments of the Psychedelic Sixties by Alastair Gordon which is both coffee table tome and academic exploration into the history of communal living and architecture from the years 1961-69.

I find this all endlessly inspiring, not least for the aesthetic - decaying, makeshift, pieces of embroidery, wood. But for the beautifully naive belief in working together, in creating something bigger that wasn't based on the material.

miss this day

A little trip to Yosemite in 2011.

Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we’re the imagination of ourselves. Now, here’s Tom with the weather.

Comedian Bill Hicks encouraging us all to challenge authority and the existential nature of accepted truth.

I love this sentiment.