Love Bill

I hope everyone who celebrates Easter had a nice holiday. Our dinner was a lovely success, and it was nice to have a big crowd around the table for a change. We're still trying to reinvent the holidays now that the kids are grown; I think just having a meal together with family and friends is a decent alternative.

I'm trying to be a bit more adventurous with my cooking, too. Last night I pulled out a big Chinese cookbook I bought from the last friends of the library sale, and skimmed through it to look for some new recipes. Near the back I found a Christmas card tucked in the pages:



Since the only person in my family with that name is not in love with me, I'm sure it's not mine. The card is in pristine condition, and probably a little older as it's made of nice, double-folded paper, not single-sheet card stock.



Bill was obviously a romantic. One of the reasons I love paper books is because they can serve as little time machines, and transport bits of ephemera like this from the past into your hands. Or you can tuck things inside them for your kids or future generations to find. I wonder if we'll ever find a way to do that with the electronic versions -- maybe someday we'll be able to add our own notes to e-books, and leave them for whoever inherits our e-readers or cloud accounts.

Have you found anything interesting lately in a used book? Let us know in comments.

Another First

I went to the market yesterday to pick up some milk and bread, and of course I walked down the book aisle because not walking down it would mean I have a concussion or something. My books never make it to the market's shelves, naturally, but I do like to see which big name bestsellers have books out on the same week I do -- or any week, for that matter. Thus I cruised along the market's book shelves:



I almost didn't see it, but I've gotten in the habit of checking the very bottom shelves because for some reason that's where they always put my favorite authors' books. And then, I spotted it:



My first book ever in my own market. So is it weird that I tiptoed past it?

118 Years in 20 Seconds

I came across this while doing some online research on how buildings collapse, and thought it was very creepy and quite cool. It's like watching a haunted house in reverse:



Architect Albert Kahn designed and built this home in 1893 for William Livingstone, who contributed a great deal to the city and commercial shipping in the region.

The house was moved from its original location, and renovations to preserve it were made; unhappily none were ever carried out. In 2007 the house was finally demolished, but not before it became a familiar symbol of urban decay. Another video here shows it in worse shape, and documents a partial collapse.

Like I said, creepy. But cool.

Moonstruck

I meant to tack this stargazer heads-up onto today's post but as usual my menopausal gremlin Forgetful slipped it from my mind.

Tonight's full moon will be at perigee, or the spot in its orbit that is closest to the earth. It's a rare event (only happens once every eighteen years) and if you can catch the moon as it's rising in the east, it will probably look much bigger than normal. If you're stuck in an urban area, you might take your kids and/or the ones you love to a park or other spot with an uncluttered view of the sky to have a moonlight walk or picnic. If the weather holds here I'm going to try to photograph my view.*

*Added: I did manage to get a few shots of it, which you can see over on the photoblog here.

Fiction Becomes Fact (Maybe)

Weird writer moment #9999 #100000: sometimes real life imitates your fiction.

I wrote a short story back in 2002 that, I admit, was definitely one of my stranger ideas. At the time I had returned to world-building K-2 from my SF series with plans to write Bio Rescue, and had thought about aquatic life forms that develop in hostile environments, like jellyfish. The deep sea varieties can grow to incredible sizes (one captured in the Antarctic was reportedly twelve yards long and weighed 90 lbs) and their hydrostatic skeletons enable them to live under conditions that would pancake almost anything else. The idea of something thriving in such frigid temperatures also intrigued me.

From there I tested it out in a short story called Untouchable. The idea for the Titan life forms never made it into the StarDoc series, but I did publish the story for my readers on my old web site as part of the Do or Die anthology.

In honor of this latest scientific discovery, I've posted an updated version of Untouchable by itself over on Scribd. Note 9/3/10: Since Scribd.com instituted an access fee scam to charge people for downloading e-books, including those I have provided for free for the last ten years, I have removed this document and temporarily transferred it to Google Docs here. See my post about this scam here.

Don't What?

Over the years I've been slowly building a nice collection of reference books on quilts and quilting, one I've asked the kids to donate to a public school or place of free learning if they don't want to keep them after I'm gone. My favorites are the books about crazy quilts, because to me they are the elegant renegades of the quilting universe, and probably the most artistic of all quilts.

The needlework involved in crazy quilting is advanced and quite extensive; a master crazy quilter can use hundreds of different stitches on the surface of her quilt and never repeat any of the stitch patterns. I'm not that ambitious, but one of my lifetime quilting goals is to complete a crazy quilt with at least 100 different historic stitch patterns (which at the speed I presently hand stitch will probably take the rest of my life.) So to reward myself for finishing my last manuscript, I invested in a copy of Carole Samples' The Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches, which I've heard is the unofficial Bible on the subject.

The book arrived and was so amazing it blew me away; if crazy quilt stitching had a goddess it would be Carole Samples (btw, this is a pattern-show book only, and does not include how-to instructions, so if you're a beginning quilter and/or novice needleworker it's probably not for you.) As I was drooling over the two hundred and twenty-two pages of 1,700+ intricately hand-rendered stitches, something fell out into my lap:



It was about half the size of a bookmark, printed on thin cardboard, and appeared to be a sliver of a photo page, or maybe a piece of a book jacket. I hunted through the book to see if there was a correspondingly-shaped hole somewhere, but no such luck. And the words on it -- Don't Squat with yer -- seemed like something you probably would never find in a quilting book. Quilting calls for lots of things, but squatting? Not unless you drop a needle.

Obviously it was a message from the cosmos. But Don't Squat? Where? Why not? And what wasn't I supposed to squat with? I don't squat anyway. One must have two functioning knees to do so. What I do is hold it and wait for a nice clean handicapped restroom. The cosmos needs to remember who it's messaging.

Finally I couldn't stand it another minute, went online and did a search with the words I had to see if I could find what the words belonged to. Great thing about the internet: I instantly got an answer. I figure the sliver of cardboard must have fallen out of one cutting machine at the printer and dropped into the pages of my quilt book.

I also liked finding the full text, because as it happens it was some pretty timely advice that I needed to hear right now. So, merci, Cosmos.

Have you found any odd things in your new books lately, or received any odd warnings from the cosmos? Let us know in comments.

The Art of Words

You're sensing a theme here now, aren't you? Ha.

The practice of making art out of words has been around almost as long as we have. Archeologists have found graffiti at Pompei and Herculaneum, and some 5,000-year-old specimens on the walls of the Tarxien Temples in Malta.

Mapelba has a collection on flickr here of art made from words from her novel, as well as a blog called Words are Art.

Wordmeister Edward Ruscha liked to paint words as art. My favorite from his work is his painting I Think I'll . . . ; that's exactly how indecisiveness makes me feel.

Jenny Holzer is pretty well-known for her work, which is almost always made of words. I love how she transforms them into emotional environments. I also like Ruark Lewis's Euphemisms for the Intimate Enemy, a massive installation which combines words and five hundred and fifty 55-gallon oil drums.

The Egyptians made words into art with their beautiful and complicated hieroglyphs; you can translate your own name (up to 11 letters) into this ancient art over at the Egyptian Name Translator.

Exactly what it feels like to finish a story and send it off: When Words Become Precious.

And I thought I was a wordy journaler: Days of Words.

Get the words before you go inside: the main doors to the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain are made of words.

Wearing your wordwork: Words, it is all about the words!

Make your words into a manifestypo of art online with the Typo Generator.

The Art of Books

Dark Roasted Blend has two mesmerizing posts on making art out of books: Unusual Books and Book Sculptures and The Bittersweet Art of Cutting Up Books. I don't know that I could do anything like this -- I suffered some intense guilt pangs over the one time I deliberately defaced a book to make art -- but it's fascinating to see what artists who aren't cowards can make out of a book.

Libraries would love this: you try to pick up something to read, only to discover the bookshelves are made out of books (and wouldn't that be a great practical joke to pull in the freebie room at the next con? The bag ladies would howl.)

Imagine living in The House of Books. Hmmm. Maybe if you're a munchkin.

No one can call artist Craig Paul Nowak spineless when it comes to creating oil paintings on books.

Story as Furnishing -- books are being made into vases, shelves and coffee table bases, lamps and stools, and the occasional couch.

Step aside, bookmobile -- artist Hans Winkler has come up with the book boat.

Sculptor Alex Queral carves telephone books into celebrity portraits (some of which are currently on display at the Philadelphia Int'l Airport, if you're ever passing through.)

When is a book also sculpture and art? Visit the amazing world of pop-up books, and take a look at the current record holder for the largest pop-up book in the world.

The Book IS the Art: Artist Robbin Silverberg makes ribbon books and winds them up on antique spools (and now I want to crochet a story.)

16th century artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo liked to paint portraits of people made of objects like fruit and stuff, and did one of a man made of books, but of course now we have mosaic photo art, which makes five thousand book covers into Bridget Bardot.

Rebound Designs makes purses and wallets out of old books, as does Make It and Take It. You can also learn how to make a purse from a book over at Squidoo (scroll down.)

The Art of Pens

Since I did Post-It notes art yesterday . . . .

According to The Top Ten Most Expensive Pens in the World, "The Limited Edition Mystery Masterpiece, a joint creation between Mont blanc and Van Cleef & Arpels, is the most expensive writing pen ever created." I don't think I'd spend $730,000 for something someone could swipe so easily, but when you look at it you have to wonder how it would feel to try to write with such a lumpy/bumpy object.

Much more affordable: a chandelier made of pens, and of course a matching floor lamp (they should hang these in restaurants where the waitress can never find a pen to hand over with the bill.)

DIYourselfers, check out how to make a sewing caddy made from old ballpoint pens, turn a pen into a PDA stylus, and make a sprinkler out of old pens and a bottle.

Would you cover a Mercedes with pens? The Amazing Pen Guy did.

I like this Christmas tree made from old pens; it looks like something easy that the kids could do.

If you'd like to transform your humble writing instrument into art, check out how to cover pens with polymer clay and make them into art objects.

Pencils may never get as much respect as pens, but Social Designer has put together a beautiful collection of colored pencils that is designed to imitate art.

Freebies Forgotten

Random House's Suvudu Free Book Library has just posted some interesting new freebies for September: Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur, The Changelings: Book One of the Twins of Petaybee by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. As before these are all available as downloads in .pdf, Kindle, Sony, and B&N ereader format, and/or can be read online on Scribd. Note 9/3/10: Since Scribd.com instituted an access fee scam to charge people for downloading e-books, including those I have provided for free for the last ten years, I no longer recommend using their service. See my post about this scam here.

If you're on Blogger, and you occasionally check the Blogs of Note (listed in the tabbed section at the very bottom of the dashboard screen on mine) you can find some real gems, like Forgotten Bookmarks, penned by a bookseller at a used and rare bookstore. FB posts images and descriptions of the things found in those books, just as I sometimes do here.

My latest forgotten bookmark was found in a 1927 edition of A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago by Anne Douglas Sedgwick (Mrs. Basil de Sélincourt), which I picked up in very good condition from my favorite rare bookstore in the city. I found this plain index-size card tucked in between pages 18 and 19:



I'm guessing this note was written when the book was new, maybe even the year it was published. The ink has faded to a chocolate brown, and the edge of the card is a bit yellowed, but otherwise the note is as crisp and clean as if it had been written yesterday.



Dated only Dec 10, the front of the note reads:
I forebear a bright red card with "Season's Greetings" on it as too ironical, and insist this is not a Christmas present. You may have it for any of the following (see Roman Missal if you doubt their authenticity):
December 10. Commemoration of St. Melchiades*, Pope and Martyr.



On the back of the note:
December 11. St. Damascus, Pope and Confessor.
December 18. St. Lucy**, Virgin and Martyr.
December 16. St. Eusebius***, Bishop and Martyr.
Sorry they are all a trifle gloomy. Perhaps the martyrs will appeal to your sympathies -- Anyway, the book comes with much love from
Mary.

I love to read old notes. Hardly anyone says things like "forebear" or "trifle" anymore. Makes me want to brew some tea and bake scones and talk like Emma Peel for the rest of the day.

Have you found anything interesting in an old book that was used as a bookmark and then forgotten? Let us know in comments.

*Also know as St. Miltiades.

**St Lucy was the first virgin martyr condemned to prostitution and one of the more interesting saints. According to religious legend, she pledged herself to God and started giving away her sizable dowry to the poor. Pissed off that she was handing over her wealth on the riff raff, her evil fiance denounced her to the authorities for her religion, which at the time was a big no-no. When they came to drag her away and put her to work at the local brothel, God gave Lucy the strength to stand immovable. Then they piled wood around her and tried to burn her, but God saved her again. Third time was a charm, though, and she was put to death by the sword.

***of Vercelli, not Cæsarea. I believe there were two or three of them.

Fiction Becomes Fact

Weird writer moment #9999: sometimes real life imitates your fiction.*

Back when I started creating the Darkyn universe, the old superstitions about vampires and the Black Death appealed to me as an interesting jumping-off point for my world-building. No one else was taking that approach, either, also a bonus. Ultimately the vampire-Black Death connection inspired a good portion of the series conflict as well as some of the backstory and plot for Stay the Night, but for the latter so did Hawthorne, Genesis, Coleridge and other somewhat unorthodox sources.

Still, it's pretty strange. This must be my weekend for creepy coincidences.

*Thanks to Jess for sending me the heads up and the link.