After: My big shiny new office:
Before: One ball gorgeous red Peruvian alpaca, purchased at the Point in the West Village:
After: One checkerboard-pattern scarf in Minnesota, where it now resides with my friend Ted:
Before: The last McVitie's Milk Chocolate Digestive Biscuit of the tube Melissa brought me from the UK:
After:
Created with http://illustmaker.abi-station.com/index_en.shtml
These dragonflies are really my favorite to make: 1. Cut off the black strip at the bottom of the card. 2. Round off the ends and cut curves into its sides to form a thorax. 3. Fold the top part of the card in half and cut out the wings. 4. Roll a piece of tape into a long cylinder, sticky-side out, and press it into the fold. 5. Press the thorax onto the piece of tape. Done! They make lovely package decorations as well.
(A late-night update specifically for Katy, because she was complaining, not that that's unusual. ;-) )
As for the mural, I missed trees after I moved to New York, so I bought green and brown paper at a nearby stationery store and created my own forest on the wall of my studio apartment. (This picture was taken on a day when I was having my book group over for dinner, hence the highly unusual neatness.) I love Henri Matisse, and the far tree on the left is made from cut-paper shapes like the collages he created at the end of his life -- I'd love to redo the whole mural this way (it's nearly four years old now), but I haven't had time to work on it. (In passing, many, many manuscripts have been edited or read in that big yellow chair.) There's a bright red kite with a MetroCard star on the next tree from the left; a bird cut from a NYC subway map on the rectangular tree in the middle; Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 nailed to the trunk of the next tree over, inspired by "As You Like It" (though I replace it with "Since there's no help" when I'm feeling romantically depressed); and an origami cicada and a MetroCard canary on the tree on the right. And then there are paper and MetroCard flowers, apples, vines, stars, even a snake (because this is a garden) in odd and unexpected places around the rest of the apartment. The installation as a whole is called "Brooklyn Arden," whence also the name of this blog.This month my book group is reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and, on Thursday, going to see the movie. I just finished the book, and it's left me thinking about children's literature, religion, sexism, and Philip Pullman. . . . I've read it twice before, once when I was in elementary school and enjoyed the story, but not enough to go on to the rest of the series; and once in college, when the allegory hit me like a swipe of Aslan's paw. This time I was reading it neither for story nor for meaning but for style, I suppose; I was thinking about the tone in which Lewis was writing, and the themes that kept emerging from his work, and particularly whether I felt the charges Pullman lays at his (wardrobe) door were justified. (For the record, I tend to say I'm a Christian agnostic -- I practice the Christian faith, but God is an ongoing conversation in my life -- so I arrive at the debate with sympathies on both sides.)
So, some observations:
He was only a little taller than Lucy herself and he carried over his head an umbrella, white with snow. From the waist upward he was like a man, but his legs were shaped like a goat's (the hair on them was glossy black) and instead of feet he had goat's hoofs. He also had a tail, but Lucy did not notice this at first because it was neatly caught up over the arm that held the umbrella to keep it from trailing in the snow. He had a red woollen muffler round his neck and his skin was rather reddish too. He had a strange, but pleasant little face, with a short pointed beard and curly hair, and out of the hair there stuck two horns, one on each side of his forehead . . .
Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles, and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man’s name was Albus Dumbledore.
I kept hearing echoes of Sorcerer's Stone in reading Lion, Witch, though of course the influence goes the other way. . . . J. K. Rowling has gone back and forth on what she thinks of Narnia, but I'm certain that she must have read Lewis quite a lot at some point, enough that his stylistic rhythms got in her brain and came out her fingers. It's also simply good writing for children.
To conclude: In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Mark Morford describes his disappointment at revisiting Narnia as an adult and finding it flat, episodic, lacking character, devoid of meaning beyond the "annoying Christian allegory," and his utter bewilderment at what children find so magical in it (what he once found so magical in it). I see his criticisms, but I think Lewis somehow tapped into that great well of childhood emotion, need, wonder, and delight, setting his readers right there; cutting his unfamiliar fantasy world with enough touches of home (toast and tea) to be safe and reassuring, yet still magical and wondrous; getting to identify with little Lucy or slightly evil Edmund and come out the other side a King or Queen. I acquired a boxed set of the Chronicles in our office move, and I think I might read the rest of the books -- partly to keep seeing what the fuss is about, and partly because I too long for the reassuring and magical and wondrous. Fascinating stuff.
I also read but did not include on the sidebar:
And one more shout-out here for Jeremiah's Five Bucks to Friday, whose characters just keep getting richer, funnier, and more complicated and real.
Go forth and procrastinate.
Since I'm off to Edinburgh tomorrow, this will probably be the last night I post this year; so Happy 2006, everyone!
