I threw out my back right before writing my final paper on gothic picture books. The pictures of my workspace on the floor ended up being somewhat amusing... I share them with you here:
There's something about the fact that I was working on a pop-up book at the time that made it especially entertaining. And I love the page of "Are You My Mother" that I was on at the time.
Just in case y'all thought that I was taking the easy way out by studying children's lit.
Show us your favorite literary character.
(Because who can say no to an evening of picture books on a rainy November evening?
...I mean ...this is for purely intellectual study... you understand...)
So, for my long lit paper this term, I'm writing about the vague catagory of "gothic picture books". What do the children whose favorite Muppets are Oscar for his attitude, and The Count for his style like to read? What texts prepare children for Scary Stories to tell in the Dark, and a Series of Unfortunate Events, and the Spiderwick series? And what can be said about them?
That's the project, and I'm still open to new book suggestions.
However, there's nothing like work you should be doing to make you dig into work that can wait, and I've got so much writing hanging over my head, a blog post reviewing my recent forrays into the books for spawn seemed just the way to relax on a Friday evening. So without further ado:
Fortunately, by Remy Charlip:
Remy Charlip is without argument my favorite picture book writer from childhood. I DEVOURED Arm in Arm as a child... quite literally destroyed it, and then took the covers that had fallen off and put them up on my wall like movie posters.
A couple of years ago, my mother spent weeks before Christmas, finding my sister and I new used copies, with the orignal cover illustrations. It was pretty magical.
Anyway, I had always bypassed Fortunately as being simplistic. It's narratively cohesive, if only in the sense that each page is a new Deus Ex Machina for the character to deal with or adjust to. But after
Brian Selznick credited it for being part of the Hugo Cabret invention, I just had to pick up a copy. The back and forth nature of the page, the way turning a page creates movement, and time, really is something to love. Reading it silently to yourself really doesn't do the trick, and the more you think about the "what happens", the more you wonder about why a book like this could possibly work. But reading it aloud, the surprise at every new page, even if you understand the structure and know the next page will be a bad (or good) event, is something just magical.
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg is such a classic, I don't know why I didn't own a copy before. I'd glanced through it before, and heard them talk about it on NPR, but tonight was the first time I really sat down with a copy. I'm currently reflected on the narrative arc of a piece which is supposedly about different stories... there's still a strongly noticable development where the pictures in the begining... the sleeping child, the thing under the rug, are points that imply a beginning of a tale, while things like the catipillars spelling goodbye, a picture that comes near the end, serve as a warning that this tale, like the "story" the picture is "taken from" is coming to a close.
So, I heard a rumor that Steampunk hit Newsweek for Halloween. Ah, Newsweek, when will you stop being a month behind on my life? I've been who you've watched to decide what cool culture is ever since that summer I was obsessed with Ryōri no tetsujin.
Anyway, how could I not pick up this little gem? It has basically nothing to do with my paper, but dude, it's got a Dream Vacuum Machine in the title, and he's wearing a top hat. I do wish, however, it had been an idealized vacuum machine, as opposed to a machine for vacuuming dreams, but perhaps that is neither here nor there. It's a fun little time; I especially enjoyed when Sneem becomes depressed, and hides in his room under an umbrella to prevent being hit by any sunlight sneaking in through the window. I mean, that's how I spend every weekend, so I could really relate.
Boris and Bella, by Carolyn Crimi
The boyfriend saw me reading this, and asked if I was reading the picture biography of Tim Burton. Grimly's illustrations are really the stuff I was looking for when I was a child myself. And while I cringe at Crimi's writing, that the two of them become a couple because they're "just the right size", I am as much of a sucker as Bella for Boris any time I see him with a shrunken head or skull teacup. (And really, I'd be right there next to her with the neon green dreads if I didn't have a day job. Those are the win!)
Speaking of which, and I'm scared to even mention this in a summary of otherwise children's books, I picked up Sarita Vendetta's particularly gory version of Strewwelpeter (for academic reasons only, you understand) the other day. I haven't read all of it, although I've flipped through her illustrations, and am familiar with the stories. Her illustration for "Jimmy Sliderlegs" stops me every time, but I do have to say I was a little disappointed with her illustration for my favorite story, "The Story of Augustus Who Would Not Have Any Soup". Judging from the scale of the arm reaching in from the side as if to feed him, it seems as if she was almost going for a somewhat fetus-esque image, but I feel like this could have been further developed. I found myself flipping back to look at the 1915 Winston printed version, with the boy that turns into an almost cave-painted looking stick figure.
I'm getting tired, and this is getting rediculously long, but I just can't help talking about this little gem. Gothic, stick-legged boy, and the little pet lizard that follows him like a puppy-- and not the slightest mention of Halloween anywhere to be found-- this is the picture book that is year-round gothic fun.
And oh! the melodrama! How delicious!
Then his stomach began to ache;
it growled and turned and spun.
"This is it," Mucumber thought.
"The dying has begun."And so upstairs he ran,
with teardrops in his eyes.
"I guess I'll lied down on the bed,
and then I'll wait to die."
All I have to say about this is that it's a beautiful example of prolepsis and dramatic irony, and that anyone who claims that children can't comprehend advanced forms of humor is sadly ignorant themselves. We know that there will be No Cat at the end. And sure enough, throughout the text, the actions of the cat and the witch build to that inevitable end. And yet...
Well. I was still totally satisfied. And amused.
Last one, promise. This book gets a bad rap from a lot of parents. And maybe the girl sitting in an armchair where what initially looks like a rug is actually a running horde of rats is a bit grotesque. But the fact that I bought this book for it's purported "gothic" nature is a sign that some people are far too obsessed with the fluff and the bunnies. Not all imaginations are pure or simple. This is a far cry from confronting the darkness, and is the pefect example of the crowbar of separation between the gothic and the surreal. Even if Yvonne is waiting with an axe.
Where is the farthest you have ever been away from home? Did you get homesick?
Submitted by Melissa.
The farthest away I've ever been from home is northern Italy-- Milan and Venice. It was 1999, and I was a senior in high school. But I was there with twenty three other girls who were on my synchronized ice skating team, and there were probably about fifteen parents there as well, so I couldn't say I was particularly homesick! Besides which, there was hardly any time. Every day we were at the ice rink, except for the one day we had to tourist in Venice. And every ice rink is basically the same, I think. The converted soccer stadiums in California are more unlike a south-eastern Michigan rink than the ones in Milan were. I do remember us practicing outside and a guy seeing us from his window across the street, and then coming out onto his balcony with nothing on. Other than that, the only other thing of note was the not-so-friendly rivalry we had with the Finns, who thought that because no one in their right mind speaks Finnish, they could talk all of the trash they wanted about us to each other. Little did they know that Hennriikka skated for the US at the permission of the Finnish national skating organization.
Right now I live the farthest away from home I ever have, and it's really hard to be dependent on flights to get back for the holidays. I was spoiled the last couple of years I was in Pittsburgh... a six hour drive in my car is totally doable as a weekend trip, and I was making it back to my parents' house every six weeks or so.
Sometimes I think life in the city is based around the ability to navigate inconveniences.
(The scan adds pixelation where there is none in the original. And a painting would have a factor of depth through the thickness of paint.)
*****
Meanwhile... it's bird flu season. I'm working on a doozy. Going in for the win, guys!
So, sometime in the past month, I was feeling rich. Can't say exactly when it was, or what preciptated it... suffice it to say that in addition to having cash in my pocket, I also had a B&N discount coupon that didn't make sense to use on my $6.00 required Harriet the Spy reading for school. And while 10% off six dollar homework doesn't seem sensible, the same percentage off a $30.00 photograph extranvaganza of every outfit I ever wished into existance while I was in high school... what can I say, the price was right, for a newly rich girl. Now if only I could ever afford the actual clothes.
And when I added this to my "books read" list, I do mean that I actually read the writing in it, as superfluous as that sounds. Having reached a "certain age" myself, I paid careful attention to the listed ages of many of the photographees. Everything I wished for in high school, and now I fear I would be too old to walk the streets myself. Still bizzare to me to think of 19 years old as "young", yet I know should the looking glass be turned the other way, the beginnings of grey and wrinkles would label me as "old".
And do let me say, to the girl who listed her current obsession as "onions". You rock. That was the best answer in the whole book, trailed distantly by the rather grotesque "raw horsemeat".
Are you a registered organ donor? Why or why not?
Submitted by jacolily.
I think I am. Where I'm registered, it's not on the Driver's License, you have to mail it back in, and the question is only whether I did that, considering that by the time the card actually came, I was already away from home again. (Sometimes I wish I knew where I "lived")
On the other hand, I don't worry about it too much, because my mother always said that I was an organ donor whether I liked it or not, and that as long as I died before her, she was letting hospitals and scientist take whatever they needed of me. So I trust my medical proxy that no matter what my card says, Yes: My untimely demise will mean organs for the needy.
Now, please nobody going knocking me off before I finish my novel. Thanks bunches.
I have been doodling at work. With the schoolwork piling up, and my brain reacting with "overload! automatic shutdown! please reboot!" I have spent, if not large amount of time, certainly more time than I should, ignoring the contents of my inbox, and creating little abstract line drawings.
On Wednesday, a client came into the office and saw what I was doing and said "Hey! That's art! You should keep all of those. You should have them framed. You could sell that."
I did my little embarrassed "it's just doodling, please don't tell my boss" shuffle (not that my boss isn't a nice guy, I'm just angling for a raise), but he was very insistant. And about our clients? They're very wealthy New Yorkers. It's not worth arguing with them when it comes to things they think are worth money. Even if I think it's the most pointless, juvenille scribbling in the world.
And somewhere in here, I can't help but make the joke that these abstract line drawings are probably no less audience accessable than that which I've been writing and calling "poetry".
So now I've added visual art to my artistical undertakings. And here after I spent the summer attempting to learn illustration precisely under the guise of "it's not, like, wall art, or anything".
Oh well. I guess if Dali can write a novel, I can make a wall painting.
(And if it's not very good... well, neither was Dali's novel.)
This Biscuit Suits My Taste
-By Cait Stuff
For J.D. Nelson
Why are you making funny faces at me?
I don't like it.
I like cheese.
And oreos.
I don't like it!
Your faces are not
cheese or oreos.
