Smells Like Crone Spirit

It's Grunge week at Spy Girl' 52 Pick-me-up.

I lived in Seattle from 1987 to 1995, the grunge capital during the grunge era. The days before Tiffany's came to town, and when I could still rent an apartment for $500 a month (honest - and it had a view, too). So I had to get in on Grunge week.

Faded jeans, boots, plaid men's shirt over an undershirt, garage bands. And I look just like I did in 1990.

 Oh denial, oh denial, oh denial, oh denial, oh denial.

It's also Third Thursday (T3) at My Closet Catalogue and A Bibliophile's Style, and the prompt this month is to let your outfit be inspired by your best or worst high school read. I can't even remember what I read in high school (it was HIGH school, man). Seriously. I remember reading Herman Hesse books, and Carlos Casteneda, and some science fiction, but I'm not sure how many of those were read for school. I do remember wearing clothes that were pretty much the same as the grunge outfit. Paleo-grunge. So I'm just dressing like high school, not like a book.

Hey, far out! I get to hit two link-ups with one outfit! I love it when that happens.

Sunday update - third link-up at Visible Monday!

Peace.

Val

Heroes and Villains

SpyGirl's 52 Pick-me-up this week is Fairy Tale. It ties in perfectly with Maricel and Selah's T3 prompt to dress like your favorite literary villain. So I'm wearing black and white to represent good and evil, and I'll tell you my own fairy tale that transpired this week.

Once upon a time there were a boy and girl who went to visit a little cottage in the country. They walked up to the porch, which was piled with old boxes and plant pots, and they pulled the clapper on the brass bell hanging by the door. A little troll opened the heavy wooden door and led them inside, then down into the cellar. The room there was piled high with books and boxes and shelves and tools. It smelled horrible, and there were cobwebs covering the windows as thick as curtains. The troll asked them what they wanted, and when they told him he said he could grant their wish for eighty pieces of gold. They left their computer with him and went away.

The troll is the hero in this story. He loaded Windows 7 onto my computer so I can work on my new client's cloud server.

The thing is, heroes look like ordinary people. (Although computer nerds who work out of their own homes are generally a little, shall we say extraordinary. I wasn't kidding about the smell and the cobwebs.)

My own knight in shining armor had already spent hours trying to install Windows 7 and then reloading all my other programs. As day turned to night, we found out that the copy of Windows 7 he had bought from eBay was counterfeit, sold to us by an evil villainess in North Miami Beach!

I imagine her with a bald head, bad skin and snaggly teeth (the bitch!), but she could just as easily look like a cheerleader or a soccer mom. Because villains can look like ordinary people, too, like Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird or Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca or Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Villains suck.

If you want to know the ending of my story, the evil bitch, I mean the seller, responded after about 36 hours with a poorly typed message saying she's sorry for our "bad experience" and she'll refund the money in a few days. Doesn't matter what she does now, we've reported her to eBay and Microsoft. They can throw her in a dungeon for all I care.

Because good always triumphs over evil.

Val

The Sneetches - T3

The prompt for T3 – Favorite Childhood Read –

Had me thinking and blinking,

Oh, what shall it be?

I quite liked the mysteries of Mary C. Jane,

Curious George was a fave, but maybe inane.

Nancy Drew, Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys all compete,

But one book was always my favorite treat.

The book that I knew that I just had to do

For T3 was The Sneetches and Other Stories, too.

There were Sneetches and stars and Mrs. McCave,

And Zax and Green Pants and twenty-three Daves,

There were morals and lessons I learned by osmosis,

And laughter that shook me right down to my toes-es.

Dr. Seuss was a genius with his rhymes and his hooks,

Kids are happy for hours while reading his books.

Pages worn and torn from reading and use,

My choice for T3 will be Dr. Seuss!

The story of the Sneetches tells us about the snobby star-bellied Sneetches who had bellies with stars, and the plain-bellied Sneetches who had none upon thars. 

So I'm being a star-bellied Sneetch, using a Christmas ornament for my star, and showing it off proudly!

The plain-bellied Sneetches always felt like second-class citizens, until a stranger came to town and offered to give them stars on their bellies. Well, the star-bellied Sneetches didn't like that, so they decided to have their stars taken off, and that would be the best style! Eventually no one could remember who really had stars and who didn't, and they all learned to get along and be happy the way they were.

See, a lesson I learned by osmosis.

The Sneetches were all yellow with green stars, so I'm wearing yellow jeans (with paler yellow zipper!) and shoes, thrifted, and the green top is part of a twin set and matches the cardi you saw last week here.

Come over and join the T3 book club at My Closet Catalogue and A Bibliophile's Style!

Val

An Extraordinary Collage

I just read Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence, a story that's told in a trilogy of novelty books. The first book was published in 1991, and I was aware of it at that time, but never read it. Now I've just read all three.

If you don't know about the books, Griffin is a postcard designer and Sabine is a stamp designer – a match made in heaven, right? That match is manifested in letters and postcards within interactive books – some of the correspondence is in the form of letters that are tucked into envelopes.

All the pages are illustrated to show us the postcards, writing, envelopes and stamps. The books are works of art, and the cryptic love story is told from alternating points of view and various locations across the three, short books.

There's an inherent intensity to the writing, which you can feel in this quote from Sabine:

Foolish man. You cannot turn me into a phantom because you are frightened. 
You do not dismiss a muse at whim.

So here's me in my collage room, writing furiously away on correspondence that will be stamped, postmarked, flown around the world to a mystery location where it will be handled by strangers and then put into someone's letterbox.

Or will it?

Does that address exist?

Is there someone there to read my missive?

And why do I have a goldfish on my head?

I think the author/illustrator, Nick Bantock, can easily be credited with creating the collage style that dominates paper craft these days (see Altered Pages, Altered Bits, Alpha Stamps, Piddix, Stampington magazines and products, etc., etc.). Those of you in western Canada will be interested to know that he lives on Saltspring Island.

And I can thank Maricel for bringing him to my attention in a comment she left me a few months ago. So I'm linking up with Maricel and Selah for Thoughtful Third Thursday - come check it out!

I've got some blogger meet-ups coming up soon in the "meat" life!

Val

Altered States

What must you think of me? First I did a post called SToned (the capital T was a happy accident that I decided to leave because it looked, well, stoned) and now Altered States. In fact, the only intoxicant I use anymore is wine – regularly, but not in huge quantities. Only enough to alter my mood, not my state.

But I've been altering lots of things in my closet. Since I learned to make peace with the sewing machine (and read the manual), I've been getting a lot done and making my clothes fit better. So, I've got some photos to show you, taken with my new Canon PowerShot. I wanted a better pocket camera, but I'm not sure if this is an actual improvement or not.

There's the camera and a mirror selfie. I wanted to try out the camera (I still need to read THAT manual) and I had no choice but to use it because Mr. S is on a video shoot and took the good stills/video camera as a spare. And the good tripods. He left me this wonky little thing.

It's crap.

Anyway, on to the clothes. Here's a top from Marketplace: Handwork of India, seen on my old blog here. That was a good post, too - you should go read it. ;-)

The top is meant to be boxy, but I wanted it a little less like a chopped-off gunny sack. But how to do it?

After lots of pinning and pondering, I created a seam on each side that adds an interesting detail, and with front and back combined I took in the top by about two inches, which neatly included the shoulders. 

I used a light blue thread, like is used in the embroidery. I plan to add some additional embroidery one of these days.

thrifted Levi's; sandals are Bare Traps

And I plan to get rid of these jeans that add too much heft to my hips and thighs!

I've also taken in the seams of a shirt, a tunic, and all these jeans.

 

It's not like I've lost weight or anything. They were just too wide in the legs, and it was easy to sew up the seam that wasn't a French seam (because that would be a real pain). 

But here's the piece de resistance!

The jacket was pretty cool before (seen here and here). But I've been wanting to do a real altered couture piece, and this one started rustling in the closet and whispering, "Pick me! Pick me!" So I cut up a lacy scarf and some ties that were in an obi from Megan Mae, and I just starting pinning things on.

It still has pins and bits of thread all over - another work in progress - so I still have lots of hand sewing, and embroidery to do. But I'm really itching to work with paper and glue now, and that will tie in perfectly with my next post for Thoughtful Third Thursday!

This one I'll link up with Creative Mondays at Claire Justine.

Val

T3 - Plaid and Paisley

I'm struggling a bit to come up with something for Thoughtful Third Thursday. It's all about books, and although I've been reading almost constantly, I've only finished a couple of books in the past month. I ditched two books before I even got halfway through. Funny, they were both set in Washington State - my old stomping grounds. They were recommended by a colleague with whom I share lots of book and movie recommendations, but we don't actually have the same taste at all. Except I turned him and his wife on to Donna Tartt and Kate Atkinson, and they turned me on to Tana French and Gillian Flynn. Other than that we haven't been having much luck. I'll tell you more about the rejected books at the end of the post, for anyone who's interested in my sweeping and subjective opinion.

Right now I'm reading Kate Atkinson, One Good Turn. It's the second in her series of Jackson Brodie crime novels, and it's pretty good. I'm not a huge crime fiction fan, but I generally like her writing, although not always. She tends to throw in lots of characters and their musings and history while they're doing other things. It's easy to lose track sometimes.

The book is set in Edinburgh, so I decided to go with tartan for an outfit. Here's a quote from the book:

"The hotel was surprisingly cheap and unsurprisingly awful. Anything that could be decorated with tartan was, even the ceiling had been papered in a funereal Black Watch. On the walls were hung framed prints of Old Edinburgh and heraldic clan insignia mounted on wooden shields."

I mixed the tartan with paisley - another Scottish association. The design is Indian, but when it became popular in Great Britain quite a lot of paisley patterns were produced at mills in Paisley, Scotland.

The style of the book is kind of sardonic, wry, and self-deprecating. There's a bit too much death and blood for my taste, but I do like Jackson. The BBC has made a series of three Jackson Brodie books, and the character is played by Jason Isaacs - aka Lucius Malfoy of Harry Potter fame.

My shirt is a Michael Kors men's shirt, the scarf is Ray Strauss, which I bought from Bella at The Citizen Rosebud on Etsy. The yellow jeans are thrifted Shylo, and the suede leopard sneakers are Born.

Now, about the other books.

I started reading The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin, and I didn't like it at all. The style was very aloof and pseudo-poetic in a spare kind of way. Lots of sentences seemed very clunky and immature, and I just didn't get into the characters. Glad it was only a library book.

I read two books by Jonathan Evison, well, one and a bit. The first one I loved - The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving. It was a funny, sweet, heart-wrenching tale about a man's life being put back together (in spite of himself) after a tragedy. I definitely recommend this book, as well as another Evison book, All About Lulu. But the one I didn't finish is West of Here. I think it's more of a man's book, long descriptions about wild scenery and men moving through it. And mud. Just not enough human interaction to hold my attention.

Come on over to My Closet Catalogue or A Bibliophile's Style and see the other visual book reports!

Update April 30 - now linking up to 52 Pick-me-up for Yellow Fever.

Val

In Deep Water

It's time for Thoughtful Third Thursday at My Closet Catalogue and A Bibliophile's Style, so I'm dressing like a character in a book. Gee, she looks just like me.

But she isn't like me at all - she's really gutsy and no-nonsense, she can sing, and she owns a gun. Her name is Irma.

The book is called Deepwater Landing, and I didn't read it recently. I read it last year when I was editing it for my husband. Yes, Mr. S is the author! He put it on Amazon last month, so if you're interested you can buy it for your Kindle here.  He's also uploaded it to Smashwords, so it should be available on other e-readers soon.

The main character is a middle-aged British musician who plays keyboards – so, pretty much like Mr. S. The character, Steve, is driving through the rainy forests of Oregon when his car dies in a community called Deepwater Landing. He tries to avoid becoming the prime suspect in a murder investigation, and ends up hiding out at Irma's until he can figure out how to leave. But Irma doesn't want him to leave.

Here's a little excerpt:

“If I go along with this, Irma, you’re not thinking of… I don’t know…” He felt foolish saying this, “locking me in here, or anything, are you? Like a… I don’t know…”

“Like a prisoner? Hah, you are funny! Why would you even think such a thing? Of course, while the police are busy poking around up at the trail, I wouldn’t exactly suggest making a spectacle of yourself out there. But come and go as you please. You’re my guest.”

“You realize that this all sounds a bit weird, yeah?” He would have liked to have said, completely, gibberingly demented.

my favorite T-shirt, from Oregon Public Broadcasting - cogito ergo audio

If that's not your cup of tea, Mr. S has three other books available online. One is a children's book called Cymbelina and the Cat with No Name – it's very good, very British, and lots of fun, even for adults. Then there's The Father's Sins, which is an odyssey of a man and his son fleeing both planned and unplanned crimes in Britain, only to find their trouble compounded in the US. And the third one is my favorite, although it's cynical and misogynistic. It's also the funniest. It's called The Prisoner's Tale, and is told in the first person. There are plots, politics, poison, and paranoia in a dystopian world - or is it all in the mind of the narrator?

If you do read any of his books, please leave a review. Glowing would be nice, but any review would be helpful.

Book reports are due now at Thoughtful Third Thursday!

Val