crooked house

Get London Reading

Check out this flickr set of Get London Reading installations. Quotes from various books set in London are printed -- on the street, on windows, on trash -- in the locations to which they refer. Above: Monica Ali's Brick Lane. I love the way this emphasizes the way a city is layered with literary meaning -- a project like this would be great in any number of cities. I'd love to see it in New York, Toronto, and Paris, too. Via [BB-Blog].

Chatelaine Magazine's Meat House

This meat house, made of layered sandwiches topped with cold cut shingles, was featured in the 1971 Christmas issue of Chatelaine magazine, the Canadian equivalent of Good Housekeeping. You can read "If You Must Wear Pants, Here's How" from the June 1943 issue and other articles from the magazine's  archives here. But you'll have to buy last month's anniversary issue to get a look at the first page of a 1966 article called "How LSD Ended My Alcoholism." Maybe the food editor was trying the LSD cure when she came up with that meat house idea.

Guess: Is It Flash Fiction or Liner Notes from the 60s?

Guess whether the following is a) a bad piece of flash fiction I found on a pseudo-literary erotica site or b) the text on the back of Nancy Sinatra's 1966 album Boots.

"How should I sing this?"
"Like a 16 year old girl who's been dating a 40 year old man, but it's all over now."

She looks good, dresses good, lives good, eats, drinks, loves, breathes, dances, sings, cries good. Five foot three and tiger-eyes. A mouth made for lollipops or kisses. Stingers or melting smiles. Ninety-five pounds of affection.

She's been there already. Barely in her twenties, she looks younger. That look, like Lolita Humbert, like Daisy Clover. The power to exalt, or to destroy, wanting only the former, but unafraid to invoke the latter if the time comes.

The eyes that see through, know more, look longer.

Unafraid to pull on the boots again, toss off a burnt out thing with a casual "So long, babe," and get.

A young fragile living thing, on its own in a wondrous-wicked-woundup-wasted-wild-worried-wisedup-
warmbodied world. On her own. Earning her daily crepes and Cokes by singing the facts of love. Her voice tells as much as her songs. No faked up grandeur, her voice is like it is: a little tired, a little put down, a lot loving.

No one is born sophisticated. It's a place you have to crawl to, crawling out of hayseed country, over miles of unsanded pavement, past Trouble, past corners and forks with no auto club signs to point you, till you get there and you wake up wiser.

She's arrived. She sings you about the long crawl. And makes you have to listen.

She's there.

If you guessed b, you're right. It's the work of Stan Cornyn, who was, apparently, considered the king of liner notes back in the 1960s. You can read other samples of his work here. Scroll down for the most entertaining ones.

We found the record yesterday at Grandpa's house. Luke enjoyed dancing to "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'." David enjoyed reading the liner notes out loud in the voice of a Beat poet. I "enjoyed" taking two Advil and sticking my head under a sofa pillow for the duration. Although I think I might just have to embroider a tea-towel with the words: "No one is born sophisticated. It's a place you have to crawl to."

Hear and Now

If you get a chance to see Hear and Now (currently on HBO On Demand), do watch it. Filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky's 65-year-old deaf parents decide to get cochlear implants -- and the story is both moving and fascinating.

Mappa Mundi: On Her Dog's Heart-Shaped Bum

Artist Pia Jane Bijkerk is accepting submissions of photographs of tiny heart imagery for a collective book project called My Heart Wanders: A Collection of Subtle Hearts in Special Places.  You could call it a found art collection of found hearts.  Lisa Peet, over at Mappa Mundi, waxes rhapsodic about the found heart image she'd like to send, but feels she can't:

Anyone who knows me or reads this blog is aware of how much I love Dorrie. Nearly every evening after a long workday, I drag my sorry self out for a walk with her no matter how unmotivated I am, and she never fails to infect me with her energy and joy at our being out together. She trots along, often slightly ahead of me -- I love The Dog Whisperer but don't subscribe to absolutely everything he preaches, and if she wants to forge ahead a little I have no problem with that, so long as she doesn't pull -- nose in the air, tail held high and happy. And although I don't seek it out, or focus on it in particular, neither do I take great pains to avert my eyes from what presents itself: my dog's pink, very heart-shaped, um... asshole.

Her post is both hilarious and weirdly sweet.

Paper Hermes Kelly Bag

Can't afford a fancy schmancy Kelly bag by Hermes? They're offering a number of different styles in paper. Simply choose your favourite (I think I like the "Pandora" one), download, print, cut out and assemble. I would carry the paper version around with pride. Whereas I'd feel ridiculous carting around a real one. Via Paper Forest.

Comma Sutra T-Shirt

From here. Via ShelfTalker. I don't know why this blog has suddenly become the virtual equivalent of a cheesy bookstore that stocks  more book-related paraphernalia than actual books. Sorry about that. 

Innovative Book Promotion

Over at Omnivoracious, there is a video of Miranda July interviewing a copy of her own book. Yes, that's right. She is interviewing her book.
 

This, right on the heels of Sloane Crosley's diorama gimmick to promote her new book, is making me wonder if a new trend is developing.  Are we going to see more and more authors doing performance-type pieces as a way of promoting their books? Or is this kind of thing going to be limited to humour essayists and quirky artists? Because I'd really like to see Richard Dawkins do a mime skit as promotion for The God Delusion, say, or Barbara Walters tap dancing for Audition. We've had more than enough talk from both of them over the years.

If you have any innovative promotion ideas for other books, please do share in the comments.

In the Library Perfume

In the Library from CB I Hate Perfume. "Hubba hubba. You smell like a library. I wish to read your body like a book."

They've also got a perfume inspired by Stevie Smith's poem Black March. I like the idea of scents based on poems and books (although I think I'd like them based on a particular book rather than the entire library). Via A Cup of Jo.

Speaking of books and perfume, I've had my eye on Perfumes: The Guide for some time now. It's getting rave reviews -- I find it very difficult to write about scents and the authors of this book are supposed to have made the subject extremely entertaining.

The Brick Testament

I'm probably the only person alive who had before never seen The Brick Testament, the enormous site featuring many, many stories from the Bible illustrated by many, many Lego people.  Check out the warning at the bottom of the page:

The Bible contains material some may consider morally objectionable and/or inappropriate for children. These labels identify stories containing:    = nudity  = sexual content  = violence  = cursing

 

Two Little Girls in a Little Dollhouse from Sesame Street

Here's a little sickly sweet nostalgia to go with your lunch.

Facebook and Lori Nix

So a week or so ago, I got sucked into facebook. I know, I know, once again I'm so late to the party it's like arriving the morning after, just in time to help clean up. 

Sara O'Leary told me that one of the strangest things about facebook is that it's like having people you know from all different walks of life drop into your house all at once. I completely agree. If you're on facebook, too, come join my extremely strange morning after party. I could use some help with the dishes.

I discovered that there are a number of people on facebook with names very similar to mine. This has never happened to me before. I'm not sure whether to "friend" Stephanie Eisenback, Stephanie Hanback, Stephanie Allenbach, and Stephanie Haulenbeck or to have them assassinated. (Just kidding! Don't worry, Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie, and Stephanie. I'm completely harmless. Really. Ask almost anyone.)

I've just joined a facebook group called Tiny Things Are Nice. There, I discovered the amazing work of Lori Nix.

Library from the series The City.

More Shrinky Dink Jewelry

I've become a little obsessed with the shrinky dink. 

Ode to the Polaroid and Uterus and Chocolate are the work of Mary Jean Massie of Rabbit Skin Glue.

The Anatomica Heart Necklace is the work of Vanda of Paraphernalia. Everything she sells is gorgeous. That heart was the inspiration for my own attempt at an anatomically correct shrinky dink heart (it's in the upper left-hand side in this photo). But while hers is witty and only a tiny bit disturbing, mine looks like you've actually got a piece of human tissue dangling from your neck. Not the look I was going for at all. I especially love the contrast between the cheap, tacky material and the delicate, slightly disturbing Victorian imagery she uses. There's something very steampunk about it.

Giveaway: Jennifer Niesslein's Practically Perfect in Every Way

So I just finished Jennifer Niesslein's excellent book Practically Perfect in Every Way, the account of the two years she spent trying to follow the advice of a great many self-help gurus. (You can read the list here.*) It's the kind of crazy, ill-advised experiment in self-improvement I might attempt if I had any willpower whatsoever. Although, in this case, maybe my lack of willpower is a good thing -- by the end of the two years, Jennifer was suffering from pretty severe panic attacks. And while she's careful to avoid blaming  the self-help stuff -- she says it's hard to tell if the panic attacks would have developed anyway -- it's impossible not to wonder if the intense self-scrutiny  she undertook might have had something to do with them. It was interesting to read her book on the heels of A Brief History of Anxiety. In that book Patricia Pearson argues that anxiety is so widespread in our culture  precisely because we are convinced that we have the power to control our own lives and that we are failing miserably as human beings whenever things aren't going as we'd hoped or planned. Jennifer (who notes this relationship between control and anxiety in her own book) was trying so hard to get everything together it's no wonder she started to fall apart.

Practically Perfect is friendly, funny, and conversational in tone -- it's also very thoughtful.  I was most struck, I think, by Jennifer's musings on the role luck plays in our lives and of the effect the self-help movement has on the larger culture. When we ignore chance as a factor in the course a life can take, do we start to blame people for their own misfortunes? Does self-help, in some cases, turn us into a more individualistic, less empathetic society?  While taking care not to jump to any conclusions, Niesslein asks all the right questions.

If you want my copy of Practically Perfect in Every Way, please email me at stephka dot eastlink dot ca with "practically perfect" in the subject line before Saturday May 17 at midnight. I'll use a randomizer to choose the winner. I'll also throw in a fabulous shrinky-dink elephant charm (see below). You'll have to read the book to find out why it's relevant.

*Beware of therapists who call themselves Dr. Insert First Name Here. This generally signifies the doctorate is in a field like physical education and is completely irrelevant to the advice they give. I'm looking at you, Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura.

Shrinky Dink Jewelry

These are the shrinky dink charms Luke and I made this weekend. Okay, so he lost interest after about ten minutes. But I enjoyed it. The elephant charm will be given away with a copy of Jennifer Niesslein's book. See the above post for details. I'll even throw in a piece of black cord with which to tie it around your neck.