Strength, Thrift, Domesticity

Specchio is having their once-per-season 80% off sale.

This means that shoes like L'Autre Chose and Dries Van Noten and XOXO are reduced from upwards of $500 to approximately $150 (CAD!) a pair. Peanuts! These are leather, made in Italy, shoes you want to hug and kiss, shoes that are supple and sexy, shoes that love your feet, that spirals off into paroxyms of joy...

I went in yesterday. I held off for weeks. Fortunately, the holding off meant most of the shoes my size were gone - that was the plan. But there were a few in my size. That's what took strength. I had to tell myself that not only did I not need any shoes, but since the moths and the cat pee have wiped out a good portion of my closet, I'd have nothing to wear them with anyways.

But do you want to know where I really got my strength from? How I managed to walk out of there and to the library?

I will tell you the new source of my lust/frugality. I am over my Roomba coveting. I want a Dyson. I want a vacuum cleaner that costs $700. I want to see it suck up years of embedded cat hair that my darling inefficient Dirt Devil can't pick up. Oh, the Dyson - it's like the Mac of vacuums, isn't it? When I manage to save, that is what I am saving for.

I even took Biting the Dust: The Joys of Housework out from the library. Not a how-to, but a book on the history of it. Those who know me know I'm a slob. Combine it with the fact that I've been sleeping at night and waking up in the morning... what does it all mean?

Oh dear. I have written a blog post where shoes and vacuum cleaners face each other in a feminine-stereotype battle. I have to go make coffee and examine my gender issues now.

L'Autre Chose boots photo stolen from Shopstyle/My-Wardrobe.com and vacuum photo nicked from Dyson.ca

Honey Cake II

This is not the season for honey cake.

Purim is coming up and that means different kinds of treats, but I just read a story called Honey Cake.

It describes the invasion of Denmark during WWII, from the point of view of a ten-year-old boy. It is, like honey cake, dense without being too heavy, and sweet. Denmark's king, if you'll recall, was a brave and honourable soul.

Naturally, when I read about food, I get the urge to eat it or cook it, and there is a recipe in the back which I can't wait to try.

Here is a review from Quill & Quire that I pretty much agree with.

Graphic Novels

I don't profess to know anything about graphic novels.

I read the entire set of Akira in my teens, 'cause hey, my friend was cool and he read them. (I'm original like that.) Then I read Maus some time later.

In the past few months I've read both American Widow by Alissa Torres and Sungyoon Choi and Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto.

American Widow is Alisa Torres' story of her life after 9/11. Her husband was on his second day of his new job at Cantor Fitzgerald and she was pregnant with their first child. Cancer Vixen also recounts joy interrupted when three weeks before her wedding, cartoonist Marisa Acocella found a lump in her breast. Both women have expressed these experiences via incredibly powerful tellings of very personal and painful stories. Torres and Choi's story uses more silence and less humour. Marchetto's tone is just as raw, but more conversational, and often funny too. Both of them transported me fully into their lives and left me better for it.

I feel like sometimes talking about "women's stories" actually does them (us?) a disservice, by segregating them rather than allowing them to be stories in the marketplace, but these two graphic novels are really women's stories, told by women from their own experiences in their own voices. The emotional intensity, honesty, and fantastic art, however, will appeal to everyone.

Now to put Marjane Satrapi's books on hold at the library.

New York Times book review on American Widow here.

Keeping Calm

So back here, I bemoaned the discovery of a print I really liked, followed quickly by my discovery that it seemed to be ubiquitous.

With so many "Keep Calm and Keep Going" posters out there, I did not expect to receive a reply from the artist currently creating some of the prints. But I did get a reply - and I got schooled! The artist informed me that he hand-lettered his reproduction (as the original was hand-done) and then cleaned things up on the computer. He also refined the art in his own unique way, so that there is something of himself in it (and so he can bust anyone who copies him - clever). Mr. Papermoth was also kind enough to send me a link to a telegraph article which provides more info on the original bookseller/poster-finder, Barter Books.

The conversation restored my "consumer confidence" (and taught me to be a little more patient), and now I can happily order myself a print, feeling satisfied that the artist selling it has integrity and approaches his work with care.

This is How I Like Them Apples

I'm reading Apple: A History of Canada's Perfect Fruit by Carol Martin. I'm still at the beginning, but it's a great story of the apple, wild and cultivated, including which varieties were native to Canada and how different varieties got here. So that naturally led to more googling, and I found the following (emphasis mine):

From Apple Journal regarding Red Delicious:

The most controversial and widely distributed American apple. Red Delicious stores and ships so well, while retaining its shiny deep-red good looks, that it is sold in every possible state of internal disintegration. Too often, store bought Reds are little more than cardboard flavored, mealy mush beneath their glamorous skin. Still, Americans continue to buy it more than all other varieties combined. It can be a pretty good apple under the right conditions. Look for locally grown apples in season, and don't insist on a uniformly dark red color, and the chances of getting a better apple will improve in your favor. Many growers are now growing strains that have been developed more for flavor than for looks. Don't defeat their efforts by rejecting apples that don't look as though they came from a plastic injection molding machine. Remember this simple rule- art is a matter of visual esthetics and food is a matter of taste- not the other way around.

The problem is now the consumers of Red Delicious (whoever they are) are used to seeing perfect-looking shiny fruit. Re-introducing a more Delicious, but less Red apple will likely be an uphill battle.

Apple Journal seems to be somewhere between a trade journal and a promotional site. At any rate, I couldn't agree more with the description above. I never buy Red Delicious, partly 'cause they're too sweet, but mostly 'cause there's no way to tell a good from a bad one. Too much googling and now I'm daydreaming about orchards full of heirloom strains like Snow and Court Pendu Plat.

*
Update: More on the "Keep Calm" poster soon!

Atwood's Not Going to Dubai

Margaret Atwood has decided not to go to Dubai for the Emirate Airlines International Festival of Literature. The Gulf Between Us, written by Geraldine Bedell, contains mention of a gay Sheik and his English boyfriend as minor characters and has been banned in the UAE.

According to The Guardian (and you can guess how much store I put by The Guardian),

In a letter to Isobel Abulhoul, the festival's director, Atwood wrote that "as an international vice-president of Pen, an organisation concerned with the censorship of writers, I cannot be part of the festival this year".

This year? Like "I'll be specific and diplomatic, 'cause I'm Canadian and polite" or "Just wait till I'm done with this PEN thing"?

I'm surprised that so many authors agreed to go, without suspecting that something like this would happen.

Statements from other authors and the Director of English PEN here.

I do have a problem with Penguin waiting five months on this news - coughpublicitycough, but I have a bigger problem with this from The Times Online:

Sir Ranulph Fiennes said the festival organisers were merely being practical. “I think that if anybody out there wants to establish a festival of some sort, they would be rather stupid to offend the locals in any way.”

Hm, well, then don't have an "international" festival. Or set the guidelines ahead of time - "nothing may happen in your book that is punishable by UAE law in real life". The Toronto Film Festival offends locals annually. This quote, if it's real, makes the explorer sound like a spoiled fool who has never given too much thought to freedom because he's had the money to open doors. I respect him for his SAS training and charity work, but there's a difference between "not offending the locals" when they're going to help you find the next wadi, and "not offending the locals" at a festival of literature. Also, does he speak for the gay locals? Or did I miss something - is the UAE, like Iran, not home to any homosexuals?

Blog Bookkake has listed agent contacts for the authors that are attending, as well as a link to a facebook protest group. (Don't blame me for their blog name!)

Unfortunately, now I feel compelled to read "The Gulf Between Us" when it becomes available and it doesn't even look like my cup of tea.

Message, Medium, Musing on Originality

I saw this print on Etsy. Someone had taken a vintage WWII poster and printed it on archival paper in modern colours. I thought it was amazing. I instantly wanted it on yellow. I even emailed the artist (who I thought must be brilliant) to ask if I could please feature a photo on my blog. (I got no reply.)Then I realized I was late to the party. The BBC had already written a story about this poster. Apparently it was printed up on the eve of WWII, but never distributed (why not?). A bookstore owner found one in a book, showed it to his wife and they framed it for their shop. They were inundated with requests for copies. They made a few. One was featured in a holiday gift guide and according to the article, "all hell broke loose". The print I find now on Etsy (from Lisbon), beside being different than the one I originally found on Etsy (from Kentucky), is not only not original, but is riding a wave that has only just reached my shore. BoingBoing blogged it in 2007! There are not only prints available, but now also keychains and pendants and t-shirts. (The t-shirt seller has a photo of a ragged allegedly original poster. You have to scroll down.)

Naturally, the abundance of copies has spawned alternate versions and parodies, like Keep Calm and Carry Guns.

If you're interested in the typeface, consensus seems to be that it was hand-lettered, possibly Johnson or Gill.

Now that I've seen so many version I can't even read it properly anymore - I'm seeing "Kelp Balm" etc. And in the fashion of an indie music snob, who must leap off the "bandwagon" once others are on, I don't want one so badly anymore. I want this this one instead:

There are other incredible posters from WWII (and WWI and others) at the Imperial War Museum in England.

Some more treasures from the IWM are Eat Greens For Health, 6 Reasons Why YOU Should Save and Bad Form in Dress. Can you tell I picked the ones that most apply to me?!

FYI - proceeds from the IWM shop go to support the museum's charitable works, so buy your kids this and teach them a thing or two. (Now, now, I know your children are very smart, keep calm).

Motivation

I signed up for a feed of articles from the Guide to Literary Agents blog and today that included a link to a Writer's Digest article about discipline. I particularly liked the following:

• Don't make a setback about merit ("I'm not good enough"), but about production ("I could be doing more").

At first I read that to be "don't let a setback about merit be about production" - and I actually prefer that. Rather than reframing my setbacks, I'd rather ignore the "I'm not good enough" (because that pops up every Tuesday and Thursday) and focus on "well, I won't improve by not writing, so I guess I'll keep writing".

Or like the quote my sister picked up somewhere: "Thou has not to like it, thou has just to do it".

Who Am I and What Do I Write, Part IV

"Novels are concealed autobiography": Insofar as writing goes, the writer's fundamental attempt is to understand the meaning of his own experiences. If he can't break through to those issues that concern him deeply, he's not going to be very good.

- Robert Penn Warren

from Good Advice on Writing: Great Quotations from Writer's Past and Present on How to Write Well

Reading

Right now I'm reading:

Gilded Lilies - was in the graphic novel section of the library, but seems more like collected sketches (Jillian Tamaki)
Good Advice on Writing - out of print compilation of quotations (William Safire and Leonard Safir)
Thierry Mugler - part of the Universe of Fashion series (Francois Baudot)
Heat - I'm listening to the audio-book from the library and I am dismayed to see it is abridged. The hardcover is available now on super sale! (Bill Buford)
The Far Euphrates - finished this. It was moving and elegant and I recommend it. I bought it on clearance, but now find that it's apparently out of print, which is strange. (Aryeh Lev Stollman)

Computer-Purses

I swear to you this is true. About 10 years ago, I said something like "one day computers will get so small, they'll be purses". Not fit in purses - I meant open up and look like purses.

And here they are!

Now, if there was a sliding slot to hide your bank/credit cards and an insulated tab that would pop out and hold lip gloss, we'd be all set!

Pies - they're just like us!

Via Wendy Brandes Jewelry blog I discovered Cakespy - where they are "seeking sweetness in everyday life".

They put together a very cute pie tabloid - as a way to promote pies in the media battle against perenially popular cupcakes.

I love pie and I love this goofy send-up.

That Book from your Childhood

Loganberry Books is a bookstore in Ohio that also sells books online.
Even better, proprietess Harriett offers an amazing service called Stump the Bookseller.

So you know that book you loved as a child, but all you can remember was that it had a girl and a white pony, and the pony's name was snowball or snowdrop or something - and oh yeah, there was a really wicked witch in it?*

Well, you send Harriet $2 via Paypal and a description of the book. She, and various readers who are librarians or teachers, or just book-lovers like me, search and write in with info to help you out. If Harriet finds the book for you she'll get it and you can buy it.

What is most amazing about this site is not the joy when the book is found, but the sheer number of stories people remember from their childhoods. I love that a book can be out of print since 1923 and yet, someone was so touched by an element of the story that they will remember it (and look for it) 50 years later. It is a beautiful testament to the power of stories and how they continue to move and inspire, delight (or creep out) years after you first read or hear them.

* Reading descriptions of books with the keyword "witch" reminded me of the title for the out-of-print (and now quite pricey) The Wickedest Witch in the World which I thought had been lost in my subconscious forever! Author Beverly Nichols was apparently a gentleman.

Brownie Points Foodie Blog

"McAuliflower" is a visual artist, a foodie, and a blogger.

I'm about to add "Brownie Points" to my Cook/Eat blog links. I will probably never attempt any of her recipes, but she astounds me with this Rice-Krispie-based sweet sushi! Go look at her level of dedication!

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fodder

No fodder, really. I'm just busy with life, applications to school programs, etc. right now. I'll have more to blog in a week or so. If you have any info on good "writing progress graphs" I can use to embed on this blorg, let me know.

Have a gorgeous Valenschmine's Day and don't buy any marked-up flowers! If you must, consider Organic Bouquet. I could tell you to be frugal and buy a bouquet of beets and carrots, but I've always liked the hyacinths philosophy.

Things I Call My Cat Besides Her Real Name

This is a meme I stole from Marla at Weight and Paint.

Sattie-Pants
Sattie-Pie-Pants
Turnip
Racoon
Bum
Monkey
Punky
OWowOWowowowOW-getoffa-meebrat!
Satoush
Hey!You-can-see-in-the-dark!
Sasa
Shasha
Shasha Bread Company (they make ginger snaps, don't ask)
Cutie-Pie

Names I just thought of but have never really called her:
Tortie-lini
Squeaker
Botox ('cause she has pale eyebrows that make her look perpetually worried)

Her real name is Saturn. Yes, she's a girl. When I adopted her, she was called Franny. I bet you didn't know that.

Query Letters

Taking another stab at writing a query letter for agent submission feels about as fun as taking a stab at my own gut with a rusty knife.

Naturally, I can't just go ahead and start writing it. I must read everything anyone ever wrote on the inturwebz about query letters first.

You can join me!

Agent Query
So You Wanna (Write a Query Letter)
Nelson Literary Agency advice
The author of "The Art of Kissing" dishes query letter advice*
Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent, on how she likes her query letters
Poewar, a blog, on the QL
eHow makes it look easy.

Plus all the links to agents, etc., I have on the side over there.

So, if you would just read all those, summarize and send me a 1-page synopsis by tomorrow, that would be great, thanks.

Yeah, yeah, back to work, I know. But you can't expect me to write a query letter without breakfast. I'm sure I'll write a spectacular letter that will entrance agents and garner me huge advances... just as soon as I've had some brioche french toast and another cup of coffee.

*I don't make this stuff up, I just google it.

I don't like you, Hugo Chavez

Back in October I made a facebook comment:

First they came for the McDonald's, and I didn't speak up, because I didn't eat at McDonald's.

But don't worry, Venezuala's moved on from harassing McDonald's. They've moved on to desecrating synagogues.

Oh yes, I know Chavez is quoting as "condemning the act" - forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical.

And while I'm at it, Ben Cohen expresses himself better than I would on Fatima Hajaig's anti-semitic comments. Ah, Jewish money! If we have it all, who's building Dubai?!

Wherein Fictionally Tries a Poll

poll by twiigs.com

Carrot Cake Reward (with rum-soaked apricots, hello!)

I worked on my application. Hurrah! (It's an application so I can goes to a school where they teaches people how to makes good writering.)
Now I can look forward to making this amazing-sounding Chocolate Carrot Cake tomorrow or Monday. It is from the Foodland Ontario website, to promote carrot consumption (among other vegetables). 1/16th of this cake will contain 28 grams of fat. I'm okay with that.

*photo of carrosts stolen from Foodland Ontario website (but it's okay, 'cause I bought Canadian carrots today)