Urban garden

The benefits of living in an outer borough: room to grow. We've been dilly-dallying in the garden, to ... well, strange effect.

Do not pass go, do not collect $200

Look familiar? Think Monopoly. This house, a work known as Title Deed, was conceptualized by An Te Liu, a Toronto-based Taiwanese artist. Title Deed was part of the Leona Drive Project; according to Canadian Art:

The project featured 18 artist interventions in a series of bungalows waiting to be demolished for a new townhouse development. Built in the late 1940s as affordable suburban housing for returning war vets, the houses are of a type to be found across Canada and represent one of the first forays into suburban development. The most commanding project of the group was done by Toronto artist An Te Liu, who took one of the rundown houses, cleaned it up and painted it a pristine Monopoly-house green. In one fell swoop, Liu’s Title Deed spoke beyond the immediate locale to make a wide-ranging statement about housing as a funnel for broader financial concerns and lessons learned in last year’s subprime mortgage meltdown.

Canadian Art has an interview with Liu here.

(As seen on Neatorama.)

Shoe-sies!

I want these. Very much. Because not only are they green, my favorite color, they have a print reminiscent of Hokusai's "great wave" on the sole (though the image is flipped).

(Link to Japanese Web site filtered through Google Translate, because what is lost is funny: "The playful and casual soles vivid colors, try to enjoy my feet fashionable?")