crooked house

Pretty Books by English Women: Persephone and Virago

Yesterday in Chapters I also came across some very pretty books -- three of the eight hardback modern classics by women that Virago has just put out to commemorate their 30th anniversary. The cover of each book features the work of an acclaimed textile designer. At first I thought these were some of the Persephone Books I'd read about on Jane Brocket's blog. I'm assuming Virago has stolen the idea from them (not that it would stop me from snapping up these beauties in a heartbeat).

Persephone reprints neglected fiction and non-fiction by women -- they've got a list of 78 titles so far, each with the same grey and cream cover and each with endpages in the pattern of a fabric that is somehow appropriate to the book. You can subscribe to the list and have one sent to you each month. Or you can order them all in one fell swoop, of course. Along with ordering the complete NYRB list, that'd be one of the first things I'd do if I won the lottery. And then I suppose I'd have to buy a new house to put them all in.

A book of Judith Viorst's poetry called It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty is among the Persephone offerings. Until this very moment, I did not realize that Judith Viorst wrote poetry for adults. I knew her only as the author of Alexander and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, a book we've been reading recently with Luke. The endpages for It's Hard to Be Hip are done in a 1968 Liberty print called "Bangles."

The endpages of Greenery Street, one of the few Persephone books written by a man, features the design that was on the wallpaper in my childhood bedroom:

Be sure to check out all the endpaper designs (and the books themselves, of course) here.

Fabulous New Paper Craft Book: Paper Cutouts

Paper Cutouts by Hélène Leroux-Hugon and Juliette Vicart is a visually stunning book. Even better:  many of the images are actually patterns so you can make your own cutouts -- several of the pages are fold-out so you don't even have to enlarge them. I came across the  book late last night in Chapters, after a day of buying new books for Luke, so I regretfully put it back on the shelf. But it's definitely going on my Christmas list.

I want to try this project:

It's like a DIY Tord Boontje, said the person who posted these photos from the book on flickr. You can see more images on the book's official site.

You'd expect the walls of my house to be covered with paper cutouts the way I go on about them here on the blog but, you know,  I don't have a one. I've got my eye on Elsa Mora's stuff, though. One day soon.

Worrying About One's Little Zizi -- a Picture Book Worthy Subject?

I have noticed that, contrary to popular opinion, you don't necessarily learn something new every day. At least, I have noticed that I don't. However, yesterday I did learn something new. Yesterday, thanks to Frog Hollow Books in Halifax and their copy of Little Zizi I learned that children in France often call a penis a "zizi." (For those who are particularly interested, here is a blog entry from the famous petite anglaise demonstrating usage.)

While Luke messed about with a puzzle on the floor, I took Little Zizi off the shelf and read the story of a little boy who is concerned about the size of his penis. After the other boys tease him about it  ("you'll never be able to make babies with that!"), he becomes desperate. At one point he enters -- and loses -- a peeing contest with the class bully. In the end, though, he manages to win the love of the class belle, Anais, proving that "love isn't a question of a zizi -- large or small."

The jacket flap explains that author Thierry Lenain wrote the book because "he believes that most of the world's misfortune comes from men thinking they have to assert their manliness." And "he thinks it's necessary to say to boys: don't worry, everything is going to be okay."

I agree. But I'm not sure you have to be quite so literal about it at this age. Luke has never once remarked on the size of his own zizi and I'm kind of hesitant to give him a picture book that introduces the idea of worrying about it. And, if feeling inadequate about one's sexuality is inevitable, well, are kids still reading picture books by the time they're being harassed in locker rooms? I'm not sure. Oh, the mysteries that befuddle the mother of a boy. Now if I were the mother of a girl, I'd know precisely when to hand over the Judy Blume books. But if I didn't, it'd help that they're in chapter-book form.

Note: I'm all for zizis* in picture books.  Bring on In the Night Kitchen! I'm just a little bemused by this particular presentation.

*And I'm all for the word "zizi" -- have you noticed yet?

Things to Do Before You Die. Or Not.

Don Freeman, the guy who wrote that bestselling travel book 100 Things To Do Before You Die, has, well, died at the age of 47, after falling and hitting his head at home in California. He'd completed about 50 of the things on his list. (Thanks to Patricia for the link.) I tend to be charmed by these kinds of lists -- I'm a big fan of Mighty Girl, for instance, who recently wrote that compiling her own list has changed her life for the better (you can see her list and what she's already crossed off it on the lower left hand corner of her site). And a couple of months ago I  checked out 1000 Places to See Before You Die from the local library, which cemented my desire to visit Dubrovnik over the next year or three. But I also tend to be a bit superstitious and whenever I toy with the notion of putting together my own list of  "100 Things to Do Before I Die," I get nervous. Which is why I'm tossing around the idea of putting together a list of "100 Things NOT to Do Before I Die." Mine might include things like:

1) Don't rob a bank.

2) Don't take up smoking, strip poker, or canasta.

4) Don't accidentally dye hair blue or purple. (Caveat: Deliberately dying it one of these colours is acceptable -- who can predict the winds of fashion?)

5) Do not get drunk and dance on table at son's future wedding.

6) Do not spend a winter in Antarctica.

7) Do not start online boutique devoted to selling products featuring  four-leaf clovers. (Little laminated cards with real four-leaf clovers stuck to them, four-leaf clover plant starter kits in tiny cardboard pots, sets of china tea-cups and saucers decorated with four-leaf clover motifs, salt and pepper shakers in the shape of leprechauns holding giant four-leaf clovers, four-leaf clover t-shirts, calendars, greeting cards and so on.) (Hmm. On second thought: don't start online boutique devoted EXCLUSIVELY to selling products featuring four-leaf clovers.)

See, I already feel successful and I haven't had to lift a finger. What don't you intend to do before you die?

Alphabet Truck

Photographer Eric Tabuchi's limited edition book Alphabet Truck. Via swiss miss, via lens culture. For fancy pants art types yes, but also for kids who like letters and love trucks.  A children's book publisher should snap this one up.

Jayme McGowan's 3D Cut Paper Illustrations

Many of the parenting/design blogs are talking about the latest issue of small magazine. I am most struck by the 3D paper cut illustrations done by Jayme McGowan. Here she talks about how she started -- she was trying to quit smoking and needed a new obsessive habit to distract her. Just take a gander at her first project:

You can buy her prints -- and sometimes even the originals! -- in her etsy shop. I don't know if she's done illustrations for picture books but she should. I'd love her to illustrate the one I'm working on now.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, and Romantic Friendship Between Girls

Okay, so the other day I promised to say more. Here goes.

Friendship is one of the main themes of Anne of Green Gables and this is not surprising, given that its heroine is an orphan and must therefore make herself a family out of friends. What is perhaps surprising, to a modern reader at least, is the romantic intensity of the main friendship, between Anne and Diana, in the book. L. M. Montgomery, although not technically an orphan (when she was young, her widowed father moved out west, leaving her with her strict and emotionally detached maternal grandparents), similarly focused her romantic affections on her friends, mostly on a series of girl friends. This didn't change even when Maud began to be courted by boys as a teenager. And, according to her journals, while she went on to have a number of love affairs with men, she generally disliked the physical aspect of such relationships (with the exception of one very passionate love affair, "almost consummated," with a young farmer called Herman Leard). She said, for example, that kissing was "nauseating." Yet this is the sort of note (quoted in Irene Gammel's Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic) that Maud wrote to her girl friends, in this case to one called Penzie Macneill:

Oh don't I wish that instead of writing to you I could go to you and get my arms around you and kiss you.

After much equivocation, Maud finally did marry, in her late 30s, and went on to have two sons with her husband Ewan Macdonald, a minister. But the relationship was a not a particularly close or happy one. Maud wrote that when she sat down next to Ewan at her wedding supper she felt "a sudden horrible inrush of rebellion and despair. I wanted to be free!" Much later she wrote in her journal that she had accepted Ewan's proposal only because she wanted a home and children. Throughout her marriage, Maud turned most often to her best friend Fredericka Campbell for solace. Irene Gammel suggests that Maud's relationship with Frede was likely the most important one of her life -- when Frede died during the influenza epidemic of 1919, Gammel says Maud "mourned the loss of a life partner, wishing that Frede had left a child for her to raise."

Oprah is Making Me Insane

Interior of the family living room. It is evening. DAVID channel surfs. STEPH reads the latest issue of  Oprah's magazine.

DAVID (frustrated): Is there nothing but commercials on this thing? Look!  There's a commercial on this channel! Look!  There's a commercial on that channel! This is ridiculous! Look! Another one! LOOK!
STEPH: You should take this time for meditation.

I heard someone saying something ridiculous, looked up, and realized it was me. Like that time I had a night terror and woke myself screaming. Only quieter.

The "Old Elvis" Superman

My favourite entrant in our local Exhibition parade. Photo courtesy of Nela.

Terrific Techy Toy: The Flip

We got a Flip video camera on Friday and ever since we've been busy taking videos of Luke and then watching them on the television. We've got him helping David blow out the candles on his birthday cake;  we've got him picking blackberries with Uncle Tim, Aunt Annette, and Grandpa; we've got him feeding ducks, playing soccer, and rolling down hills with his cousin Keefe; we've got him sweeping the front porch, watering his plants, helping with the laundry, dancing to Sly and the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music," playing golf in the backyard, eating a blueberry scone, singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and reading a book with accompanying dramatic movements (which resulted in him smashing his head on the footboard of the bed in the middle of the performance and a sudden end to that particular video). We've even got him watching his Blues Clues DVD:

LUKE: Let's make another video, Mommy!
MOMMY: Of what?
LUKE: Um, um... of me watching my DVD!
MOM: Oh, no. That would be a very boring video.
LUKE: No it won't! It will be interesting! Please, please please!
MOM: Why don't we just hook up a video camera in the corner of the room and videotape your every move? Then you can watch it all on television later.
LUKE: Okay! Yes! Let's do that!

He is a child of the new millennium.

This is one of those cases where less is definitely more (um, in terms of the camera, clearly not in terms of videos). While we seldom use our larger, fancier video camera -- it's bulky and it's so complicated I haven't figured out how to upload or edit the videos -- this Flip thing is so easy. It's easy to carry around, easy to operate, and easy to hook up to the television or the computer. Until now, we've been relying on the webcam for  little spur-of-the-moment videos to send to Grandma and Grandpa but the Flip's resolution is much better and, of course, unlike the webcam, the Flip is portable. (Grandma and Grandpa, you've been warned. Watch for the coming deluge. I will try to restrain myself here on the blog -- although the only reason this post doesn't contain a couple of the aforementioned videos is because I can't get my hands on the camera. Luke is using it.)