On My Mind: Patent Leather Mocs and Poetic Realtree Caps
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“Strategist Brain” is a series where staffers share the stores they’ve stopped into, stuff they’ve spotted, and extra tidbits from stories they’ve worked on. You’ll hear from a different writer every week.
I’ve been really enjoying using the platformAre.naas ahouse moodboarding tool— not just for furniture, but for ideas and images that influence how I’m thinking about home.I recently went deep researchingsocial weaver birds, a species that builds dense complexes of hundreds of nests — little bird cities made of thatch draped aroundtree limbsandtelephone poles. There’s an assumption that our ability to create and share culture distinguishes humans from other animals, but these birds would disagree. A 2024 study found that they develop local building codes that are transmitted bird-to-bird: “Birds that live together build together, and they have distinctive architectural styles,”said Dr. Maria Tello-Ramos, who co-authored a study about the phenomenon.
I’m not building bird apartment complexes, but the weaver-bird attitude frees me from the pressure to make everything rational, linear, sensical, and in good taste — to quote Mary Oliver, to “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Functionally, that means indulging in free-form craft projects and relearning how to repair my clothing this summer. I keep joking with my partner that I’m going to let the pigeon that roosts on our windowsill into the house, but they have asked me not to do that.
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I’ve bought a lot of dipped beeswax taper candles, andHoly Nativity Convent in Brookline, Massachusetts, is my favorite source. I usually buy two dozen large lampadas at a time, and with shipping, it comes out to about $2 per candle — a lot less than you’ll pay for the same kind of candles a home goods store. And I like knowing that my candle purchase is supporting the monastic lifestyle of the 17 sisters who live there.
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These recycled, stackable plastic stools by Martino Gamper are so squat and smooth that I want to bite into them like a gummy. I first heard about Gamper via his100 Chairs in 100 Daysproject, and the Circus stools have a similar playful, ad-hoc attitude. They were designed for outdoor use at Arnold Circus in Shoreditch, East London, and come in a ton of delicious colors:a green the shade of pistachio butter,sky blue,oxblood, amushroomy brown, andzinc yellow.
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Magic Sculpt Natural Epoxy Putty
Did you know there’s a basement full of marble beneath the Chelsea Container Store? It’s part of the Compleat Sculptor, an art-supply store frequented by sculptors, special-effects artists, model-makers, and DIYers with weird ideas like myself. I went recently to pick up five pounds of Magic Sculpt, an epoxy clay that dries rock-hard without the need for a kiln — I’m using it to cover a beaten-up wooden Ikea stool and to sort of fake the look of ceramic. Sculptors need marble, and there are pallets and pallets of it in a side area of the store. I like to wander around in there and contemplate the slabs of translucent alabaster, soapstone, and travertine. It feels like a tomb or a cathedral. If you enjoy a quiet cry in public, this would be a good place.
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You’ve got to put one pipe-dream purchase in Strategist Brain. These handmade shoes are my Platonic ideal of a chunky loafer — I love the crackly black patent leather. Out of my budget, but I can dream.
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I am a big fan of Providence artist Mickey Zacchilli,writer of comicsandstreamer on Twitch. I just discovered that she makes airbrush T-shirts that look like they come from abeachboardwalkshopinanotherdimension. I have been watching the brand’sInstagramlike a hawk; when the shirts are this good, you gotta wait for the right one. (They alsotake commissionsand make duplicates of sold-out shirts on a case-by-case basis.)
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My nonbinary household runs on Everybody.World — when we were looking at apartments last summer, my partner and I would sometimes show up accidentally wearing the same Boxier tee, and now we float around at home in matching sweats like some kind of organic-cotton cult. The sweats are expensive (I bought mine on sale), but they hold up well. The brand also offers bulk discounts and sellswholesale blanks, so maybe you could incorporate your polycule as an LLC and apply for a buyer account.
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I’ve worked in media for nearly ten years now, and I don’t recall ever reading a magazine cover-to-cover as quickly as my first issue ofFine Woodworking,a birthday gift from my two BFFs.This magazine is unapologetically technical; a new method for scribing dovetail joints is what passes for clickbait here. In one issue, a woodworker recreates a three-thousand-year-old Egyptian stoolusing only hand tools. I’d forgotten how fun it can be to read something beyond your skill level — a fine woodworker I am not, and plenty goes over my head, but the contributors’ sheer love for the craft is a good motivator to learn.
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One of my favorite interior-design reference books — it’s out of print, but I found it secondhand atAeon Bookstore. Come for the pictures ofRosalind Krauss’s alienatingly tasteful Soho loft.
Over the past few months,eBay has surpassed Etsy as my first stop for secondhand shopping, in large part due to the bugginess of Etsy’s search engine. (eBay looks like it hasn’t been updated since 1995, but its search function is the best in the game — you can useBoolean operators!) Recent saved searches include Y2K brands Morgan de Toi and LM Lulu, Takeo Kikuchi handkerchiefs, and Juicy Couture(look for the “Made in the Glamorous USA” label for the best quality). I’ve also trawled the site for strangely poetic Realtree caps and Japanese alarm clocks.
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