Gift Shopping
Museum Shopping: Noctural and Tide Computer, a Shakespeare Toy Duck, a Mrs. Delaney Pink Botanical Mug,
Since London will be the focus for the Summer Olympics, we thought we'd explore the British Museum Shop's offerings and, yes, there's no end of the intriguing and unusual. more »
A Favorite Shopping Source: The National Building Museum
Almost a quarter of a century ago (we tend to round up numbers) we made the first of many visits to the National Building Museum — and its shop — in Washington, DC. Today we eat daily on flatware designed by Robert Venturi for Swid Powell that we acquired on a sale at the shop. more »
Three Bedrooms, A Fireplace, Two or More Baths: 2011 Cost, $272,900
Jim Blandings as played by Cary Grant: "It's a conspiracy, I tell you. The minute you start they put you on the all-American sucker list. You start out to build a home and wind up in the poorhouse. And if it can happen to me, what about the guys who aren't making $15,000 a year?" more »
The Bowes Museum's Treasures Includes Textiles ... and a Silver Swan Automaton
‘I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes-watched him swimming about as comfortably and unconcernedly as it he had been born in a morass instead of a jeweller’s shop - watched him seize a silver fish from under the water and hold up his head and go through the customary and elaborate motions of swallowing it...' Mark Twain more »