Midwest Love

Hellloooo, Books

2007-08-15T15:37:00.000-05:00

Books as preppy art. Love it, love it.

Clarice Bean, Please Don't Worry

2007-08-07T15:15:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's the heat. Maybe I'm hungry. Maybe I'm tired.

*
A myriad of possibilities and excuses, but at the end of the lane, there I stand, dented brow and sour face in place. It's too much time spent worrying, spent biting my erasers and tugging at my frizzy hair. Lately I've been worrying about what could be, what maybe might happen. And I can't explain it. I wish I could sigh and giggle and tell you why I've been obsessing about obsessing, but I suppose it's never that easy. Cue my lovely mother and her sympathetic shrug.

So let's turn it around, let's turn it up. Let's make a game out of it, and let's giggle at my worrying a little bit. It's good for the soul. Because Clarice Bean is back with plenty to think about. The oh so lovely Lauren Child's new book about Clarice comes out next month, and to sum it up, she sums me up:

"It’s the worry you hadn’t even thought to worry about that should worry you the most. At least that’s how it looks to Clarice Bean, who has been writing her worries in a notebook -- things like Worry no. 1: infinity, or Worry no. 3: change."

Author of the Hour... Will Weaver

2007-08-07T11:34:00.001-05:00

Will Weaver writes fiction of all sorts, and is quite the accomplished Midwestern writer. The American Library Association gave him a nod when it nominated his YA series Striking Out, Farm Team, and Hard Ball as one of its "Best Books" for young adults.

Annnd... a calming sampling to make you smell Spring in your toes on a Tuesday, via The Loft Literary Center:

"Spring in the Twin Cities means open water and barges and tulips outside the Saint Paul Hotel; "up north," the landscape remains chilly, bland, muted. The Mississippi outside my library window palely loiters, icebound and still. On the far shore, the palette of colors is from the Ebenezer Scrooge Crayon Collection: leafless aspen, dusty-green conifer, a brushstroke of washed-blond riverbank grass.

...

"Barely into May, there’s blue daylight at 4:30 a.m. Birds are in full call at 5:00, the woodpeckers drumming like the Blue Man Group; a beaver, not long out of her cold dark mud hut, thuds the water again and again with her spatulate tail."

Kurt Vonnegut: Ode to the Midwest

2007-08-06T13:40:00.000-05:00

Who doesn't love some Kurt quotes? Stop Smiling, always a treat of a magazine, interviewed him last year. Below are a few delicious excerpts...

Stop Smiling: Tell me about the American Midwest you remember from childhood, and the one you came back to, after WWII.
Kurt Vonnegut: I was born in Indianapolis, but I’m a Chicagoan who lives in New York. I went to the University of Chicago. I worked for Chicago’s City News Bureau as a street reporter, and my first child, Mark, was born there.

SS: Do you think the Midwest is a good place to grow up?
KV: If George W. Bush got mad enough at me and exiled me back to Indianapolis, I could make a decent life there. I could hack it in Indianapolis.

SS: You and your family long ago gravitated East. What is your theory about fresh water people versus salt-water people?
KV: When my ancestors arrived, they were thunderstruck by all this land. They were right in the middle of it. Arable land stretched out for hundreds of miles in all directions. So the land, the continent, was enough to think about. New York and San Francisco and West Coast people are oceanic and feel very close to Europe or to Asia, and the people in the Middle West are continental. One is not better than the other. It just happens to be an interesting difference. Where did you grow up?
SS: Illinois.
KV: All right. You’re a fresh water person.

Heyy, Cool Author from the Midwest, Part 99

2007-08-06T10:12:00.001-05:00

Question of the day: Does anything I write have to be topical?
Answer of the day: Apparently not.

I can't help it. There is no new news here, but John Green is too cool for school, and his next book (Paper Towns, at least for now) needs to come out already.

Mr. Green is the fabulous, insightful author of Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines, both stellar YA books that really appeal to all ages and so possibly should not be labeled YA but are. He lives in Indiana and blogs sporadically.

So there you go. Happy Monday morn.

Minneapolis LOVE

2007-08-02T09:31:00.001-05:00

Five Reasons to Heart Minneapolis:

1. It's one of those homey, smiling cities known in group form as the Midwest.

2. It is the epicenter of the fashionable, the grand, the affordable... Target, baby.

3. Kiplinger's ranked it one of the Seven Cool Cities for young professionals.

4. The ever fabulous, ever kissable Prince calls it home.

5. It is 2nd only to New York City in live theater per capita.

So say a prayer, blow a kiss and send everyone in Minneapolis some love today. The bridge collapse is such a nightmare - hang in there.

Brand Spankin' New Calling Cards

2007-08-01T16:10:00.001-05:00

And Voila! I ordered my Moo Cards. For weeks I've been reading about them, and I finally decided on an excellent use for mine: miniature calling cards to leave with people who make me smile.

I did the ready-made designs this time around, but I love the idea of themed stickers with my friends' cute heads on 'em for parties and festivals, and perhaps a calendar or two for my beautiful madre.

Sooo... Here's what I chose to represent me:

The illustrated art of Blanca Gomez, which I would adore in a children's book.

And Darius A Monsef IV's colored creations. I really like how streamlined and modern these prints are.

Thoughts??

I Have Things To Say

2007-08-01T11:50:00.000-05:00

Mor's gorgeous city photos.

I have parties to attend, and books to read.
I have dreams to create and dresses to adorn.
I have drinks to sip, and lovely friends to hug.

I want different things every day,
and never seem to know which way to turn.
I want the green of the country,
but I need the hectic hustle of this city.

Please tell me what to do with my little life here.
Because I have not a clue, but to spend it with Howie.

And You.

And words.

And all of our deary friends.

Deary deary.

my illustrated life: belle & boo

2007-08-01T10:33:00.000-05:00

My current artist crush is the fab Mandy, of belle&boo illustrations. Her creations pull me back to treehouse clubs and dining room forts, to collecting acorns for neighborhood squirrels and delighting over bunnies with white tails.

Visit her blog and discover some of your childhood adventures...

A New Month, a New Notebook

2007-08-01T10:26:00.000-05:00

Good mid-morning! Busy day in the summer heat, but what a pleasant beginning. Vanilla-scented coffee and cold strawberries… Just remember to take it all in, to write it all down, to live it up and all that jazz.

Friendly reminder notebooks from Bob's Your Uncle, via See Jane Work. Oh, how lovely.

Fab Books For Boys & Girls

2007-07-31T14:54:00.000-05:00

An idea, a theme, an inspiration.

How lovely. How divine. How fitting.

The Dangerous Book for Boys debuted May 1, 2007, and the second thing I thought is, where is the girls' version (The first thing being 'Oh my god I love this book and must have it to read this weekend under a tree inside a fort)?

And voila! Miriam Peskowitz and Andi Buchanan have flown in for the rescus. The Daring Book for Girls debuts November 1, 2007, and I cannot wait.

I can imagine opening this book as a girl and secretly reading the wonderful words that have been written solely for me. Tagging pages I must come back to again and again. Curling up in my backyard tent with a flashlight and my book on a rainy Saturdaying evening.

Perrrfect.

Book of the Hour: Love, Stargirl

2007-07-31T12:39:00.000-05:00

Get ready, get ready! Jerry's bringing on a new one. Love, Stargirl, the sequel to fantastique Stargirl, debuts August 14, 2007. And Voila! a fab new book to read.

I remember when my lovely g-friend Torie gave me Stargirl for a birthday. She'd removed the cover and encased it with painted pictures and Marilynne Robinson quotes. Love it, love it.

I definitely recommend giving both books to a creative kid in your life (no matter the age). They're filled with great anecdotes, stellar writing and gorgeous book art. I would love, love, love to receive these two beauts in the mail, maybe tied with a pretty, yellow ribbon. With love.

Yay for Mr. Spinelli! He's one of the greats.

Take a Breath

2007-07-31T10:31:00.001-05:00

Lovely Polaroids...

Let's dream on the beach

and wake up with sand in our hair,

flip through poetry books

and stain the pages with salty water,

sip Sofia champagne out of sparkly red cans

and linger too long in the water....