I have NO idea how I ended up on Houseplant Picture Studio’s blog. But there I was. And I saw this crazy collection of scribbles and notations made in the margins, actually…all over…the pages of The Spiritual Diary. As far as I can tell, the volume is a collection of writings by Emanuel Swedenborg who was an 18th century Swedish scientist, inventor, philosopher, and theologian. He was an influential and unquantifiable figure for a wildly eclectic group of writers ranging from William Blake, Jorge Luis Borges, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Jung and Immanuel Kant to the likes of Helen Keller, August Strindberg and W.B. Yeats. And he clearly inspired the owner of this little tome.

I thought these were lost forever. Imagine my joy at finding them sandwiched in between the pages of some soon-to-be-thrown-out magazine. These are my brother and his partner’s to do lists. If you’ve been here for awhile, you may have seen the earlier iterations here, here and here. He has been feeding them to me over the past year or so. I gasp every time I look at them.

I don’t know of anyone who has seen Jenny Odell’s work and not been completely engrossed and amazed. I can barely get enough of her art. The top image is of landfills, the middle one is of waste and salt ponds, and the last one is of nuclear power plant cooling towers. Check out more here.

Saw these yesterday over at Picture Book. Always always a satisfying read! Tony Hong drew these tree rings on an 18′ x 24″ panel. Other people’s obsessions can be so satisfying.

The Nature of America stamp series from the USPS comprises 12 distinct ecosystems. The scenes are illustrated by John D. Dawson. My all-time favorite is/was the Northeastern Deciduous Forest panel. No surprise there. Sadly, these are not really available any longer. I saw a few for sale on amazon and ebay, but that’s it. I was about to finally throw out these empty panes, until I realized how much I liked them, even without their stamps.