INSTRUCTIONS: If this is your spirit animal, call me.

Rumor has it The Eagles used to live in my cottage. It's a full moon tonight friends and the air is electric, the hills smell like Eucalyptus, the crickets hum like running water, and the canyons are a soft, cool, embrace.

I recently spent a day back in Santa Barbara. I grabbed a friend and we ran up there for the day, indulged in breakfast at my favorite spot, Joe's; failed at finding anything worth buying at my beloved Magnolia Thrift; finally acquired the black Appache Jacket from Tiendo Ho I fell in love with years ago and have waited to acquire ever since; visited the new French Press and said hi to old friends; drank a beer and listened to live music at Cold Springs Tavern under the cool trees and golden late afternoon sunlight; basked in the sunset and delicious food at the Boathouse at Hendry's Beach on the sand. To think I lived there-- it's a paradise on earth, how fortunate one is to know such a place.

We also managed to make it to Knapp's Castle, a local haunt. The site is all that remains of an Italian stone mansion from the early part of the Twentieth Century. The house, high on the mountains overlooking Lake Cachuma and all the Santa Ynez Valley stretching before it, burned down long ago, leaving nothing but stone pillars, fireplaces, and foundations that look like the lasting footprints of some long-lost civilization. The place is a favorite among photographers (and the hippie drum circle that meets there every full moon), and maybe it's cheesy but my friend and I did our own impromptu photo shoot-- there is a reason people do that up there, it's gorgeous. It's also a hell of a lot of fun, climbing those rocks. Below are a couple shots from that perfect autumn afternoon.

Holiday Spirits.

IT'S THE TIME OF THE SEASON.

Francoise Hardy.

"Tendrils soft like velvet nightshade,

Crawl quietly through the dark.

Moving forward gently,

Guided by the wisdom of ages long forgotten.

Crevices in splitting marble,

Worn smooth by centuries' wear,

Dark and bearing moss,

As woman's hair upon the pillow.

Air cold as winter's sea,

Mist like ghosts between the trees,

There is a whisper of deepest truth,

Neglected by minds speeding through the light.

Sitting here the garden breathes,

Quiet, hushed, but never yielding,

It knows too well its role and fate,

A guardian for those who stumbling by, recognize its worth.

Patience comes to those who wait;

Stoic stones, unyielding spires,

Never rush as they prevail,

Lying in wait for the passage of all things."

--October 12, 2012

Redford.

"It feels good to say 'I know the Sierra' or 'I know Point Reyes.' But of course you don't-- what you know better is yourself, and Point Reyes and the Sierra helped." --On The Loose

View from Joshua Tree over Indio.

Evening setting in over Lake Washington.

From a ferry somewhere near Orcas Island.

Flying over somewhere that was probably Oregon.

Tehachapi Valley pasture.

Let's not get started on coincidences. Conveniently timed occurrences? Okay, let's call them that.

Not but a couple hours ago I was languishing, mulling through a very minor creative crisis-- my activities are so varied, all-over-the-place, and generally consuming that I have not had much time to sit around being inspired. Granted, not many people do. I am out doing rather than basking in life's undulating glow of constant inspiration. For the most part. Anyway, thinking this over I decided to whip up a little post of things that inspire me for fall-- but being so damned busy I realized that in the multiplicity of my activities so too had I acquired more "inspirations" than I could pin down. As if, as it were, I was attempting to drink from a fire hose.

What, lo! was this, when, to my almost surprise I saw a tweet-- Interview Magazine had just tweeted a photo with the words "Rock goes West goes French gypsy." My heart soared. Those precise key words have been the cornerstones of my aesthetic consciousness for the last few years, but most recently in the last few months, when they have distilled to an essence that is an exact concentration of the three together. And here, Hedi Slimane, new wunderkind designer of Yves Saint Laurent, and recent Los Angeles transplantee, had pinpointed precisely that which has fomented in my mind to the point of deleterious obsession.

It is always a pleasant surprise when the things we love coalesce. And here, my friends, are some images of just such a surprise, fresh off the press from style.com (this collection showed in Paris mere minutes ago, that is how excited I am).