Illustrator of Note – Aoristos
Gershom Reese Wetzel (Aoristos) has been a friend of mine for about ten years now. His artwork fills my living room and my husband’s man cave. There’s even a portrait of us hiding in a picture frame somewhere.
So when you go to write a sci fi novel or a children’s Kung Fu series (yes, I have both projects in my back pocket), naturally you ask this guy to cook up some illustrations for you.
Check him out, like him on facebook…
Journaling at HPB Humble
Click image to see more on artistic journaling.
January 10t
h, 2013, I sat down for the very first journaling night at Half Price Books in Humble. My customers weren’t exactly sure what to expect, and honestly, neither was I. I brought my prisma colors, glue sticks, some fancy pens, and scrapbooking scissors. We had magazines, scrapbooking paper, free unlined journals for all who attended, and a whole lot of untapped creativity.
Hanging out with others while they drew, doodled, wrote, glued and pasted, was kind of awesome. It’s relaxing to be creative with others, pool your resources, and brainstorm techniques. Relaxing and stimulating, actually; so much so that we plan to gather monthly.
2nd Thursday of the Month from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm, plan to sit around a table and really tackle the art of journaling with art. This first meeting was a bit of an experimental night, but in the future I hope to incorporate some of those fabulous Pinterested projects that are floating around the web, possibly even start binding our own journals.
There are just so many things we could do at these gatherings and I can’t wait to dive in and pursue every avenue of this hobby.
Come be crafty with me.
Also, check this out: http://artsyville.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-village-in-my-mind-full-color-friday.html
When We’re Not Reading… We’re Happy in the Heights!
A short car ride to a friend’s house and the kiddo and I find we have all of the Heights at our fingertips… or our toes, rather, as we don’t walk with our hands. My favorite part of the drive is passing those town homes pictured above – they remind me of Full House.
I love the Heights. There’s always something new to discover, and today we stumbled across Sparrow and the Nest, a little art boutique off Studewood.
Undaunted by a two year old waltzing in amongst their treasures, the people (Andrew and Stephanie) are really nice and took the kiddo to the back and let her play with markers while my best friend browsed the shop. I came away with a priceless masterpiece from my offspring, while the bestie picked out a gorgeous bookmark. We were on our way to get coffee at Antidote, so we didn’t stay long.
As their website says, Sparrow and the Nest is really best experienced in person, there’s so much to see that I just couldn’t capture on camera. Lots of tiny origami in frames and on pins, teensy handcrafted things you won’t find anywhere else, and all of it so beautiful. Cool pieces of furniture, paintings, quilts… the shop is as good as visiting an art museum, better actually because you can take the stuff home if you’ve got the cash.
I’m not the best photographer, but I took some pictures to share anyway.
Book Love Art for I Was Told There’d Be Cake
Quoting I Was Told There’d Be Cake
Photograph by AK Klemm
A Year With Anakalian Whims – 2012 Stats
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 11,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 18 years to get that many views.
Best Book Boyfriends of 2012
I avidly read The Lit Bitch and a recent post included a top 12 book boyfriends list: http://thelitbitch.com/2012/12/29/top-12-in-2012-book-boyfriends/.
Cute concept, fun blog idea, but as I scrolled through my 74 books of the year, I realized that I didn’t read a lot of books in which there were boyfriends to pick from.
I started out with How to Buy a Love of Reading, and I think Hunter set me into a mood that I just couldn’t get past. There are other boyfriends I read through the year, but I barely remember them.
I don’t recall the characters in The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. Regardless of what I thought of the book when I read it, no one in it made a lasting impact on me. I actually had to refer to my own review to remember Seldon’s name.
The Great Gatsby is a fantastic novel, one of my favorites, but Jay Gatsby is not someone I’d put on my list of literary love interests.
I did read The Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series and there are plenty of boyfriends to be had in those books, and they are lovely, and romantic, and intense; but none of them lived up to Hunter.
I did read Inhale, the first of a series called Just Breathe, which is an urban fantasy erotica piece, but the characters there are what the genre calls for: super sexy, the end. Don’t get me wrong, sexy is nice, I think my husband is one of the sexiest, but I need more out of a character I’d want to put on a boyfriend of the year list.
Rory Williams, for instance, the man who waited, the Roman centurion, one-half of a couple known as The Ponds on Doctor Who… he could go on a boyfriend of the year list. He’s just heavenly, and wonderful. But this is about books, not TV shows.
I read a lot of Agatha Christie this year, and she’s all mystery and not a whole lot of romance. Although a love story emerges here and there, it’s rarely more than a motive or plot device, therefore how can anyone in her books make the list?
On the other hand, I read cozy mysteries too. I like Cleo Coyle and her coffeehouse series. Cozy mysteries almost always have a boyfriend, but with there always being a boyfriend, I don’t often get the chance to delight in any of them. They are there to make the protagonist feel good or bad, have a romantic scene of some sort, and then on to the next guy. In real life, I’m morally opposed to most of the relationships that pop up in cozy mysteries. But, I figure it comes with the territory when reading about murderers and investigators.
Scrolling down my list of books read this year, I come to Karleen Koen’s Through a Glass Darkly. Sorry girls, I can’t recommend Montgeoffrey to anyone. He is the basis of all Babara’s pain… a ladies man, a cheater, and ultimately also gay. How many strikes can you add to a relationship before I’m just really tired of the guy? It makes the heroine incredibly interesting, but I can’t let Montgeoffrey anywhere near my book-boyfriend list.
So it comes down to the fellows in A.S. Byatt’s Possession, the cutie-patootie Sam in Michael Grant’s Gone, and Hunter of HTBALOR.
Byatt’s romances in Possession are powerful and intriguing, Sam Temple in Gone is a cute kid with the potential to be an incredible man when he’s all grown up, but I have to hand it to Hunter – he captured my heart.
Hunter is intelligent, sweet, broody, keeps a journal, and sadly is also an addict. Reading the conclusions of my own blog post, I find myself in disbelief… what does this say about my taste in men that I want to pick the suicidal one as book-boyfriend of the year? And that Marius of Les Miserables didn’t even make the short list of final contestants?
Who is on your list?
Books I Read in 2012
Book Love Art
Every year I post a list of the books I read. It helps me wrap my brain around the year that has passed and put in my mind what I’d like the next year to look like, and it gives people an idea as to what books were reviewed and discussed when. Kids picture books are not included on this list this year as we read so many (usually a minimum of 7-10 new titles a week) the list would have become ridiculous, young adult/teen titles are included.
1. How to Buy a Love of Reading – Tanya Egan Gibson (January)
2. Mysterious Affairs at Styles – Agatha Christie (January)
3. House of Mirth – Edith Wharton (January)
4. The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald (January)
5. Murder on the Links – Agatha Christie (January)
6. Swan Thieves – Elizabeth Kostova (January)
7. Human Happiness – Blaise Pascal (January)
8. Holiday Grind – Cleo Coyle (January)
9. Inhale – Kendall Grey (February)
10. Poirot Investigates – Agatha Christie (February)
11. Tales from the Jazz Age – F. Scott Fitzgerald (February)
12. Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie (March)
13. Roast Mortem – Cleo Coyle (March)
14. The Big Four – Agatha Christie (March)
15. Stonehenge – Aubrey Burl (March)
16. House at Riverton – Kate Morton (March)
17. The Mystery of the Blue Train – Agatha Christie (March)
18. The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco (April)
19. The Key to the Name of the Rose (April)
20. Peril at End House – Agatha Christie (April)
21. Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen (April)
22. Birds of Selborne – Gilbert White (April)
23. Dragonfly in Amber – Diana Gabaldon (April)
24. Voice of Conscience – Behcet Kaya (April)
25. Lord Edgeware Dies – Agatha Christie (April)
26. Napoleon’s Wars – Charles Esdaile (May)
27. The Trial – Franz Kafka (May)
28. Seed Savers: Treasure – S. Smith (June)
29. The Map of Time – Felix J. Palma (June)
30. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck (June)
31. Three Act Tragedy – Agatha Christie (June)
32. The Planets – Dava Sobel (June)
33. The Stranger – Albert Camus (June)
34. Clockwork Angel – Cassandra Clare (July)
35. City of Bones – Cassandra Clare (July)
36. City of Ashes – Cassandra Clare (July)
37. City of Glass – Cassandra Clare (July)
38. The Naked Olympics – Tony Perrottet (July)
39. Clockwork Prince – Cassandra Clare (July)
40. For Women Only – London Tracy (July)
41. City of Fallen Angels – Cassandra Clare (July)
42. The Book of Lilith – Koltuv (July)
43. Ruling Planets – Renstrom (July)
44. Working Days – John Steinbeck (August)
45. Animal Farm – George Orwell (August)
46. Through a Glass Darkly – Karleen Koen (August)
47. Number the Stars – Lois Lowry (August)
48. City of Lost Souls – Cassandra Clare (September)
49. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison (September)
50. The Bookaholic’s Guide to Book Blogs (September)
51. The Symposium – Plato (September)
52. Emma The Twice-Crowned Queen – Isabella Strachon (September)
53. The Lost Continent – Bill Bryson (September)
54. The Customs of the Kingdoms of India – Marco Polo (October)
55. Parnassus on Wheels – Christopher Morley (October)
56. Possession – A.S. Byatt (November)
57. So Many Books, So Little Time – Sara Nelson (November)
58. Rich Fabric Anthology – Melinda McGuire (November)
59. Flatland – Edwin A. Abbott (November)
60. Unrecounted – Sebald & Tripp (November)
61. The Lit Report – Sarah N. Harvey (November)
62. Pippi Longstocking – Astrid Lindgren (November)
63. The Magician’s Elephant -Kate DiCamillo (November)
64. Kenny & the Dragon – Tony DiTerlizzi (November)
65. Seed Savers: Lily – S. Smith (November)
66. Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay (All Year)
67. The Old Curiosity Shop – Charles Dickens (December)
68. Julie & Julia – Julie Powell (December)
69. Gone – Michael Grant (December)
**. All Our Worldly Goods – Irene Nemirovsky (did not finish)
70. A Homemade Life – Molly Wizenberg (December)
71. The Case for Astrology – John Anthony West (July -December)
72. Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger (December)
73. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo (All Year)
74. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination – Elizabeth McCracken (December)
Visit Books I Read in 2011.
Click to purchase from Amazon.com.
*This post is subject to change until December 31st, 2012.*
Julie & Julia – & JJ
Some people are appalled at this, and some find it wonderfully convenient, but I have friend categories. With me, people always know where they stand, because that is what I appreciate most about my own interpersonal relationships. I have a ‘best friend’, a ‘best friend since kindergarten’, a ‘roomie’ (my college room-mate), a ‘sister-wife’ (a very bad long running joke with my bestie of a cousin, no we are not actually sister-wives), and a ‘favorite friend.’ I can proudly say that JJ Golightly, of the Tidbits from Miss Golightly, is my favorite friend.
Favorite friends are those people you can go lengthy times without seeing, but once you see them again they are like crack to your system and you want them more and more. Favorite friends are those friends that if you ever chose to be lesbians (which we are not) you’d spend your life with them, because they are the ones you call randomly and say in the most superfluous and hyperbolic way possible: “I have a longing for you!” Favorite friends are the ones that you’ll hold hands with in public and not care if people look at you funny or take it the wrong way, because like a surrogate sister, your favorite friend is someone you would love to have literally attached to your hip, or in your back pocket if you could keep a miniature of them. They are also the person you happen to see the least of, and maybe that’s why the magnetism toward them remains forever in tact.
I recently had a wonderful visit from both my Roomie (Coffee Cups in Trees) and my Favorite Friend (Miss Golightly). What happens on these trips is this:
Roomie drinks coffee at the table, Favorite Friend bakes and cooks all sorts of goodies and photographs the results, I scurry back and forth trying to decide which I’d rather do, help cook or be lazy and drink coffee. The coffee usually wins.
Maybe it was because of one of these visits (in which all three of us gain five pounds over night), or maybe it was because Glen at the HPB Humble Book Club meeting brought up Julie Powell in our discussion of The Old Curiosity Shop, or maybe it was because I’d had the book sitting open to page five on my coffee table for about a year, but I finally got around to reading Julie & Julia
Nothing like reading a memoir about a frazzled maniac with a serious obsession for obsessions and sci-fi shows – in the kitchen – writing a blog and book when you too are nearly 29, frazzled, obsessed (but not dedicated), writing a blog, and most recently lost your entire book (again) to a computer virus. It gives hope. It gives motivation.
I will write a book in the next 30 days. Not the one I intended, I’m too crushed right now, but a different, lighter book that is loitering in a journal in my cabinet just waiting to be properly edited and put into a computer. I have 30 days. If Julie Powell can cook 523 recipes in 365 days, get published, and not be a loser by age 30, damn it, so can I. Except I’m not cooking. I’ll be ‘writing’ a nearly already book (from paper to computer) in 30 days and getting it to Smashwords by my 29th birthday. This I do vow.
In the mean time, I will still be reading, writing this blog, eating if I can afford it, and teaching Kung Fu… because that’s who I am, that’s what I do. Funny, that I had to be reminded of that by a memoir about French cooking.
Which is a delightful, by the way, all the way down to her swearing like a sailor, something I wouldn’t have even noticed had she not pointed it out. She may live in Long Island City, but when it comes down to it she’s from Texas, and as a Texan I can say there are two kinds of Texas women… the kind that swear, and the southern belles who don’t.
I appreciate her kitchen woes, I love to eat but have many cooking woes myself. I appreciate her small and outlandish apartment, I have a once lovely home that has just been utterly broken by this recession and a foundation problem. There’s just so much to relate to, and frankly, Julie Powell is down right endearing. She’ll never be my Favorite Friend in real life, as that spot is forever taken and I doubt I’ll ever even meet her, but she is definitely a favorite on my bookshelf.
Anakalian Whims 