Tag: reading-is-hot

Photo Friday, No. 475

Current Photo Friday theme: Glass

When I grieve, I tend to turn away from the books I usually enjoy reading and revisit the more literary works on my shelves. Or in this case, pick up a book I’ve had since college that I was supposed to have read (twice) and probably even answered test questions about, but I never actually read.

As I read, I slip back into student mode and search for essay topics. In the case of Redburn, I immediately began noting every reference to glass and developing how I’d explore glass as a metaphor throughout the book.

Then I remembered Dr. Beidler isn’t expecting a paper from me. So English graduate students, you’re welcome to steal my idea. Because the book’s been around since 1849, I can’t promise glass hasn’t been done.

I’ll repeat what surprised me most when I read Moby Dick: Melville makes me laugh. And my glass contains no alcohol.

Lights, camera, ACTION!

It’s very strange that a new season of “Project Runway” has begun and I’m not doing the challenges for Mattel’s Summer and Company at 1:6 scale. I miss my dolls, and the only thing I’ve sewn lately involved mending quilts with dog damage, but work is keeping me very busy. Somewhere in the midst of job and remodeling madness at Houndstooth Hall, I realized that Tim gave me a book for Christmas that I’d never read, and I posted this photo to Instagram.

Edward doesn’t approve my reading material maybe, but busting him out of his crypt made me wonder why there are no Lestat action figures. Actually, there are Lestat action figures, but I don’t think any were ever commercially manufactured, so if you find them online, they’re custom-made, and even if they’re for sale, they are some hideous amount of money that is way beyond anything I’m shelling out.

Then I wondered… Why not find an action figure I could alter to create my own Lestat? After looking at ebay for possible candidates, I ordered this pirate chick. With action figures, unlike with people, gender transitioning is simply a matter of fashion.

Although speaking of busting out… Unfortunately, once she was here, I realized she wasn’t created to the same scale as Edward. I might be able to disguise her endowments, but I couldn’t make her taller or bigger, and no way could Lestat be significantly shorter than Edward (Tom Cruise’s version notwithstanding).

Back to the drawing board; both Marika and Tom had the same suggestion. Order another Twilight action figure, who would be the same scale as Edward, and alter that one. After scrutinizing photos of every character available, I decided Victoria was the best candidate. Here’s how she looked when she arrived.

I wanted her coat to stay as it was and painted her other clothes to change their period to something more appropriate to the Brat Prince. With a haircut and some paint, Lestat began to emerge.

Then I made a discovery. When painting an action figure’s face, one needs a steady hand, a tiny brush, and the ability to magnify the crap out of one’s work. Because what I thought looked good, when photographed and embiggened, was a hot someone-left-the-cake-out-in-the-rain mess. I read a few online tutorials that led me to purchasing one of these (and now I don’t know how I’ve done anything crafty without it–I can see!).

And some of these, sharpened to a super fine point.

And though I still wouldn’t let any of you see my action figure’s face magnified, it’s better than it was. Finally, with paint, lace, and patience, WOOHOO! I present Prince Lestat (using the Elizabeth Taylor filter).

With or without a filter, not everyone is impressed.

Button Sunday

First, the button. The other day I was almost at my doctor’s office when I realized I had failed to bring something to read. There’s a Barnes & Noble one block away from the medical campus, so I detoured in with a very certain book in mind I wanted to buy. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the hardcover edition of that book, so I picked up the book that has everyone analyzing Southerners and the South again. (Note: How I would appreciate it if people stopped trying to explain us to ourselves. We know who we are, we accept our limitations, we laugh at our contradictions, and we are not all the same except in one thing: Whether or not we possess self-awareness and humor, we get tired of being told that our flaws can’t be found in the rest of you. They can. Welcome to the human race.)

So I bought Go Set A Watchman because as anyone who’s read this blog knows, I list To Kill a Mockingbird as probably my favorite of all books written. I also bought a couple of other items, one of which I had to return because I’d forgotten I already have it. When I went back to the store the following day, the person who helped me–I don’t know if she was a manager or a sales associate–was wearing this button. “I must have a button like that,” I said, and then we commenced to discussing the novel because she could see on my receipt that I’d purchased it. Then, as I was about to leave, she removed the button and said, “Here, you can have mine.” I hope I never stop being touched by such gestures. Thank you to her for proof that booksellers are among the best people, both in conversation and generosity.

Now: the novel, which I have read in its entirety. I do not think any of us can know the full truth about how this novel came to be found and published or if someone or multiple someones are abusing Harper Lee’s trust. But I do know a few things about writing and editing. I hope there are still literary writers who have editors like the one who helped Miss Lee develop To Kill a Mockingbird out of this alleged first draft. Legend has it that at one point she was so frustrated with her editor that she hurled the manuscript through a window. But if that is the novel that she drew from this one, her editor did her a wonderful turn, because she crafted a hauntingly beautiful story that still resonates with truths and gives us reason to believe that no matter how small and mean the world around us can be, and no matter how flawed we are, we can always rise up to the best in ourselves.

And this book–whether a sequel or a first draft–is a wonderful gift, as well, because it gives me a chance to ponder one of my favorite things–the reliability and complexity of narrator–and makes me remember that those things that make us uncomfortable in art tell us much more about ourselves than about the artist. For anyone creative, the joy should rightly be in creation. Whether that creation comforts the rest of us, challenges us, disturbs us, incites us, changes us, or leaves us indifferent–over these things, the artist lacks control.

I would need to read the novel again–probably multiple times–to explore its many layers examining classism, sexism, racism. It will be up to time to judge its literary merit, but I know that the woman who is reading this novel now is quite different from the girl who read To Kill a Mockingbird, and in that way, I must consider my own perspective as a reader just as I consider Scout at six, Scout at twenty-six, and Scout as the older woman who’s telling both their stories.

Murder!

Here’s another photo from the files that I forgot I had. Back in mid October, I went to a signing at Murder By The Book with Dean James (writing as Miranda James) and Wendy Lyn Watson (writing as Annie Knox). There was a good crowd with good questions, and I always like adding a book to a series I’m reading–in Annie Knox’s case, the Pet Boutique Mystery series, set at the Trendy Tails Pet Boutique, where shoppers can find canine couture, feline fashion, and murder done Merryville, Minnesota, style in Groomed for Murder.

In Dean’s–or Miranda’s–case, this is the first of a new series set in Athena, the same Mississippi town where his Cat in the Stacks series with librarian Charlie and Maine Coon Diesel takes place. The Southern Ladies series features two spinoff characters, the snoopy An’gel and Dickce Dukote sisters in Bless Her Dead Little Heart.

Dean’s career has taken him back to his home state of Mississippi to live, and though Houston will miss him, he’ll be returning for signings at my favorite indie bookstore–and I’ll always have his books to make it seem like he’s just down the street, writing who knows what kind of mayhem for his characters to deal with.

100 Happy Days: 81


This evening I went to Half Price Books looking for something that was not Jenny Lawson’s book, but when I saw Jenny Lawson’s book–in hardcover–for $6.99, I grabbed it right up. Because when the book came out a couple of years ago, every time I went to a bookstore they were always “out of stock” and “expecting more in” and so I’d leave and forget to go back, and then when I remembered, it would be the same story. Any time that happens, I usually forget that I wanted something because a new something takes its place. Then I’d read Jenny Lawson’s blog (The Bloggess, if you didn’t know), and I’d think, Damn, I need to get her book, only by then it was due out in paperback, so I waited, and then, you guessed it, the paperback was always out of stock wherever I went. It was like the years I could never find a copy of Portnoy’s Complaint after my mother removed it from our house before I could get my hands on it when I was fourteen or fifteen.

All that being said in more words than should ever have been used, when I saw this book and its bargain price, I was a little conflicted. After all, if I bought this copy, Jenny Lawson wouldn’t be getting royalties because I was buying it used. Though I mean it when I say I don’t care if people buy my books in used bookstores and deprive me of royalties, because if they like that used book, they may buy other books I’ve written or helped write, or they may tell people how much they loved the book because people always share positive information, right, just as they do in comments online?

But I still don’t like to feel that I’m depriving authors of the pittance they make on their book sales.

Then, as I held the book, I reminded myself of three things.

1. Unless the book was stolen from Brazos Bookstore (who I assume was its original seller because of the bookmark inside it), Jenny Lawson has already earned her royalty pittance.

2. Stephenie Meyer never surprised me by showing up at one of my book signings. And I know how to spell her name!

3. I never got to collate paper with Wil Wheaton. Actually, that last thing isn’t really a big deal, because though I like Wil Wheaton, he’s not first on my list of celebrities I want to collate paper with. (That’s not a euphemism.)

So overall, I’d say Jenny Lawson’s writing career has gone pretty well for her and she won’t care that I bought her book used. But because she has entertained me so often, because I think she’s a genuinely good person who’s done many generous and kind things for other people, and because the stories she’s shared and the information she’s provided about depression helped me understand this disease better at a time when I really needed to understand it, there is another way I can show my admiration. On some future transport, there’ll be a dog named Foxen–but only because Hamlet von Schnitzel (pictured on the book’s dust jacket) has too long a name.