Fat Birds, Mary Poppins, Bankers, and What Life Asks of Us

here's the bankers' song from Mary Poppins. The Fidelity Fiduciary Bank Sing Along, is it's actual title. why am I subjecting you to this? well bankers are, of course, much in the news of late and these ones seem to have seen straight into the future ... plus it's always a good time for Mary Poppins and anyway it's mentioned in a very cool article in the NYT by David Brooks, which you can read here. BTW: Did you know the old guy is actually Dick Van Dyck? And apparently, the children weren't told who this was ("Bert") and their first on-camera reactions were genuine, they hadn't seen him yet... they totally thought this old guy was about to die of a heart attack! My favorite bits are when he comes down the stairs and also when he keeps nearly falling over as he sings about the banks falling... he's a bit of a genius I think.

happy quilt: Simple Quilt

"Simple Quilt" Quilt by Denyse Schmidt. More here (Reminds me of a David Hockney painting almost...)

Barbie in Versace and Vera Wang

I do love the outfits. But actually, I never really was a Barbie girl--more of a climbing trees, riding horses girl. But I did have a doll called Tressy and she was called that because of her hair that grew. You pushed a button and the hair came out of her head. It's really gross when I think of it now--a great tunnel of hair coming out of the top of her head. And ours got stuck on the long hair and you couldn't make it go back in. so she went around like she had a horse's tail coming out of her head. Now I've just come across a whole load of Tressy's here. And they're not too creepy. Well kind of creepy. Actually a lot creepy. Here's an example of the Tressy Fest (note hair growing, growing, grown)

Barbie in Christian LaCroix (1989)

Apparently this outfit shows how fun and glamorous Barbie can be. I think it shows how claustrophobic a too big scarf and hat can be.

P.S. to atheist bus ads

Remember that post about the aetheist bus ads that have been run on 800 buses across Britain? well here's a cartoon response a friend told me about (any Brit—or New Yorker who's ever waited for The Phantom Bus of 72nd St—of course can identify):

happy quilt: Swirly Rose

"Swirly Rose" (detail) Quilt by Denyse Schmidt. More here

happy inauguration day

The Times did a cool piece about the inauguration. Letters and drawings from children to celebrate this historic day. Here's a taste portraits of "Sir Barack Obama" by children in after school programs across the country. They also offered thoughts, hopes, advice to him as he becomes the 44th President of the US. Read more here. these portraits are pretty wonderful and so are their letters.

Barbie's 1971 jumpsuit

(thought it would be a nice start to the day/week.)