A fascinating article on the sensory modalities of plant life. From The New York Times.
“Plants are not static or silly,” said Monika Hilker of the Institute of Biology at the Free University of Berlin. “They respond to tactile cues, they recognize different wavelengths of light, they listen to chemical signals, they can even talk” through chemical signals. Touch, sight, hearing, speech.
essica Hische is an extraordinarily talented type designer and illustrator. She had an incredible project going that I recommend to anyone even casually interested in design. Daily Drop Cap is a site where Ms. Hische posts one impeccable and unique capital letter (in repeating alphabetical order) every day and makes them available to use just like this one, as a beautiful drop cap. Her attention to baroque decoration nears the detail of another favorite, Marian Bantjes. (Check out her Nabokov cover: Transparent Things.)
She was an intern at Louise Fili’s design studio for a few years and is responsible for some of their beautiful work including these winners. 
How long can she keep up designing theses letters a day? She’s half way through the third cycle as I write this, I can only hope she keeps going. If you’re interested in seeing more of her stuff, check out her professional portfolio and her blog—she has even more to impress you with there.
I came across this song via the ultra cool blog Leningrad Dutch and I love it.
The Concretes are an indy octet from Stockholm and this is a single from their 2007 album Hey Trouble. It’s a good album, sounding like a sweetened Velvet Undergound.
The lead singer on this track is Lisa Milberg who has a solo project called Taken By Trees. I highly recommend her cover of my favorite Animal Collective song My Girls.
She calls it My Boys: