Limedrop

WE'RE SUPPORTING

Abounding with references to the natural world and its corresponding rhythms, Australian artist Eleanor Yap creates the most incredible tapestry-like drawings. Yap’s rorschach-styled images, through their soothing symmetry and allegiances to nature, really seem to put the mind at ease somehow, despite their intense density and lively colors. I must say I was truly disappointed in discovering that her online shop is at this time closed! Sigh.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

On the roof of Bangkok’s Banyan Tree Hotel is a dining experience like no other. The Vertigo Bar sits sixty one floors up, and serves delicious gourmet meals and cocktails. These are expensive by Thai standards, but cheap enough for shoestring travellers to indulge in now and then (a cocktail costs around AUD$12). I’ve spent hour after hour in the bar, drinking and smoking and taking in the amazing view. Most nights at Vertigo end the same, with fast-moving storm clouds rolling in without fail at about eleven pm. While wait staff scurry to move tables, and drunken diners navigate the steep stairs down to the safety of the hotel, the more hardy can sit and watch the clouds race closer and closer towards the building, soaking in both the atmosphere and the rainwater until the lightning gets too close for comfort.

WE'RE WEARING

What a wonderfully grown up ethos of punk is to be found in the latest effort by New Zealand’s Stolen Girlfriends Club. I saw sequin, lace, leather, denim, tulle, rhinestone and what appeared to be heshen, breaking all the rules of taste but nevertheless making me very, very happy. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

Firekites, from small town Australia (Newcastle to be exact), are my new musical obsession, and have been since early yesterday when their song Autumn Story randomly burst into my headphones and latched itself deep into my inner ear iPod. I wish they’d been around when I last lived in Sydney; it would have been well worth the two hour drive north to see them play. The whole album (The Bowery) is beautiful, but this song especially rings out with poignancy. I love the subtle sound of the fingers sliding across the guitar frets, the gently whispered vocals, which hint at secrets and cheeky serenades, and the sense of soulful introspection that tangles itself elegantly amongst its minor chord tapestry.

WE'RE READING

When I did the Master Cleanse diet a few years ago — the one where you consume nothing but lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper for ten days — I sat at work looking at pictures of food as if they were porn. Scanwiches would have gotten me hot and bothered like nothing else.

Set in a remote Chinese village in the 1920s during a cholera outbreak and with a revolution bubbling in the background, The Painted Veil is a wonderfully tortured love story which excels on all levels. Based on the W Somerset Maugham novel, it was a labour of love for stars Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, who also produced the film. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

I’m sitting here listening to this Switch Remix of the Jacknife Lee track Making Me Money with a mind that’s buzzing from an extra strong cup of Colombian coffee and a foot that’s tapping so fast the damn thing may well drop off. Oh boy, just try getting this cracking beat out of your head.