I Want That Book!

I'd just read about David Chang’s process of opening Ko -- which seats just 12 diners and is the third New York City restaurant featured in his terrific memoir/cookbook, Momofuku -- and had loved the following:

There are things we say in the kitchen, a codified lexicon, that explain some of the kitchen mentality at Ko. “Make it soigné” means make it right and make it perfect. [...] ... said with a slight tilt of the head or a leading tone, means take this thing and cook it right, cook it the best way you know how. Our dishes often evolve from having an amazing ingredient arrive in the kitchen and a cook “making it nice.”

I was still under the spell of it when I visited a book design blog and found echoes of making it nice on the small scale in Cecilia Sorochin’s post about her approach to book design:

As a boutique book design studio we craft each book carefully, dedicating the time that each book needs without rushing into random ideas.

And then I saw her walk the talk -- making something perfect from an amazing ingredient -- in a post about the layout and typography of an upcoming children’s poetry book.

I want that book!

30 Covers in 30 Days

I’m not participating in National Novel Writing Month this year, but what a treat to click on my blogroll and discover that Chris Papasadero from Fwis Cover Design is! -- in his own way. His variation: Design 30 book covers in 30 days, each based on a novel synopsis posted by a participating wrimo.

The goal here is to challenge myself like you writers; I believe the criteria for selecting whose book gets a cover designed by yours truly consists of a very elegant-and-complicated-but-totally-fair algorithm developed by the NaNoWriMo team. [...] I am going to be as experimental as I can with them for my own selfish artistic edification...

These covers are currently grouped together as the most recent entries on his blog (from the top down through the wrestlers on the cover of The Business). Click on a cover to read his notes and professional designers’ comments. (Talk about putting hastily created work under the bright lights!)

Or you can browse the 30 Covers, 30 Days forum at nanowrimo. See a list of links to the covers in the first post of this thread; then find links to each novel's synopsis and read wrimos’ comments in the individual thread devoted to each cover.

Like most participants, Chris is behind and trying to catch up … it’s a 30-day marathon after all, not necessarily 30 separate sprints :)

Something Worth Knowing More About

I know that terrific story seeds are right here, out in the open areas of daily life. And that for me the best ones -- in the premise of this blog -- are in the specifics, the fine details that resonate.

So I liked this passage from Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer's new nonfiction book about factory farming:

[Male layer chickens] serve no function.* Which is why all male layers -- half of all the layer chickens born in the United States, more than 250 million chicks a year -- are destroyed.

Destroyed? That seems like a word worth knowing more about.

I love when that happens! The world goes on ahead while a writer’s mind stays fixed on some detail. The skill is in noticing the fixation, and capturing it instead of running to catch up with the world.

* From Foer: “You probably thought that chickens were chickens. But
for the past half a century, there have actually been two kinds of chickens --
broilers and layers -- each with distinct genetics. [...] Layers make eggs. [...]
Broilers make flesh.” (Therefore: male layers serve no function.)

Another Way to Go

From my pre-vacation post:

I’m dreading the packing part -- the tediousness of choosing and preparing everything, the discouragement that I tend to pack heavy.

So what was my reaction when this guy swooped in and sat next to me at the airport gate?


Envy! And astonishment. And delight.

Vacation Reading

I’m planning a vacation and, as usual, I’m dreading the packing part -- the tediousness of choosing and preparing everything, the discouragement that I tend to pack heavy. Hate it...

...except in one area: vacation reading! There, I make multiple passes through the to-be-read books on my shelves and I frankly don’t care if I pack twice as many books as I’ll read.

A dozen books remain in my 999 Challenge, five of which will probably make it into my suitcase:

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Charm School by Nelson DeMille
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

Of course, I’m still debating about a few more...

Why Me Lord?

“Why are you picking me…” time after time as taxi driver to this disagreeable woman?!



Edited to add:
CHEERS to Steve Hartman for developing a terrific
narrative arc in this video!

JEERS to CBS for labeling it with a spoiler title :(

Sign (Size) of the Times

September Vogue issues:



Left: 2009


Right: 2007 (note prophetic headline)

What a Ride!

In my too-careful life, I’m sometimes drawn to a contrasting philosophy*:

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, “Woohoo! what a ride!”

I don’t know when Senator Ted Kennedy embraced this philosophy -- maybe after his three brothers arrived at their graves with bodies hardly broken in much less used up -- but I liked Ted Jr.’s remarks along these lines at his father’s funeral last Saturday:

...Ted Kennedy the statesman, the master of the legislative process and bipartisan compromise, workhorse of the Senate, beacon of social justice and protector of the people [...] The storyteller, the lover of costume parties, a practical joker, the accomplished painter. He was a lover of everything French: cheese, wine, and women. He was a mountain climber, navigator, skipper, tactician, airplane pilot, rodeo rider, ski jumper, dog lover, and all around adventurer.

And I loved this line:

Our family vacations left us all injured and exhausted.

There’s so much life in a philosophy like that.

* author unknown; variously attributed on the Internet

“Just Because You’re Homeless…

...doesn’t mean you don’t read.”

David Sedaris, meet Quinn Cummings

I often write book reviews and link to them in a sidebar on the left here -- an individual link if the book is a new release, or bundled in the “See more reviews” if it’s been out awhile. But a new book written by someone who’s been in my Blogroll for my blog’s whole existence? -- that deserves a post!

I loved young Quinn Cummings in the '70s film, The Goodbye Girl, and now that we've grown closer in age (!) I devour her woman-next-door blog, The QC Report. So I'm thrilled with the release of her book of essays, Notes from the Underwire.

Outside, the cover’s image of a woohoo-ing woman on a runaway roller-coaster (pulled from Maidenform’s 1950-60s I Dreamed I … ad campaign*) is prophetic. Because inside, Cummings writes hilariously about her unruly roles as woman, mother, homeowner, pet rescuer … and a few essays about Hollywood. There are touching pieces, too -- when she’s 14 and her mother is diagnosed with lymphoma; when she’s 18 and the early days of AIDS have already claimed a quarter of the men in her neighborhood, prompting her to volunteer on a national support hotline.

Ah, I always want more! -- am glad I have a portion of her blog's archives still ahead of me.

* A little more about Maidenform’s campaign is available here.

Great Month for Ad-Men Fans!

I admit to still catching the occasional rerun of the ‘60s TV sitcom Bewitched, and to being happy that the late-‘80s drama thirtysomething is finally being released this month on DVD.

Combine those series into AMC-TV’s retro-‘60s drama, Mad Men, and you’ll find me over the moon at tomorrow night’s Season 3 premiere. For a full immersion, I’m going to add an ad agency-based book -- either Peter Mayle’s memoir-ish Up the Agency, or Joshua Ferris’s workplace satire, Then We Came to the End.

Book-itecture

Via The Elegant Variation comes a referral to Curious Expeditions’ Librophiliac Love Letter. The page is graphics-intensive and loads slowly. But then, its “Compendium of Beautiful Libraries” rewards your patience one hundredfold.



(Left) One of my favorites: Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura Rio De Janeiro, Brazil







(Right) The most intriguing: Hereford Cathedral Chained Library, Hereford, England

Some Fun Now

From the Foreword:

As she would say, "We had such fun!"

From the Introduction:

Those early years in France were among the best of my life. [...I...] had such fun that I hardly stopped moving long enough to catch my breath.

I wasn't even to the official first page of Julia Child's My Life in France yesterday before those and two more passages poured pure joy onto the page. "Joy" isn’t my dominant impression of Julia Child; "serious" fits better.

"Serious" describes me, too. So maybe it took all those references to fun to prepare me this morning for Jill and Kevin's wedding video (audio alert).

It'll either annoy you or bring you to tears. Me? Tears. (of joy!)

Making God Laugh

The joke goes: “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”

Even if you’re The Pope?

Benedict XVI left on Monday for a two-week vacation in a chalet in the Italian Alps. He fell Thursday night and broke his wrist, and had surgery on Friday to repair it and apply a cast that he’ll wear for a month.

The biggest impact?

…giving up writing by hand, which he had planned to spend much of his time doing during his traditional summer vacation.

A Boss by Any Other Name

Intrigued by workplaces, I tend to mine discussions and articles for nuggets that resonate, especially regarding generations or sites outside my own experience.

This, for example, from MSN/CareerBuilder's recent 10 Worst Work Habits:

Using your supervisor's first name […is] common in many industries.

Merely "common"?

The only time I've addressed a boss by anything other than a first name was as a teenage babysitter. (Now, bosses' bosses -- that's a different story and helps me to get into the mindset. Even when promoted to report to a former boss's boss, changing the reference was like growing into adulthood and trying to call my parents' friends by their first names.)

So of course, now I'm interested in finding a workplace where first names aren't allowed, or creating a character in a normal workplace who doesn't allow it...

ABC3D

Marion Bataille’s ABC3D is a book of the alphabet -- done pop-up style in red, white, and black ... and one mirror.

The design is clever, though he uses only about 12 concepts and repeats several of them across different letters. But what is extraordinary is how he surprises the reader with similarities among letters (E/F, sure; but wait until you get to O/P/Q/R!) -- and within letters (there's a mini-me in G!). He makes me want to learn about typography and alphabet history.

Watch a video of the book (audio alert) below. Note: It shows the entire book (in a little over a minute) but, in my opinion, doesn't "spoil" it. I watched the video and immediately put the book on hold at my library. And I still may get my own copy!

What Goes Around...

I bought peonies ($8) and a quart of strawberries ($5.50) this morning at the farmer’s market.

“Thirteen-fifty,” the purveyor said.

I handed her fifteen dollars and she gave me a dollar and fifty cents.

I hesitated. “On second thought, I’ll take another quart of strawberries.” I gave her a twenty-dollar bill and, smiling at the circularity, said, “And here’s your fifty cents back.”

She made change for my twenty and smiled right back. “And here’s your fifteen dollars!”

Welcome Summer

Superbug Slapdown

Headline in a newsletter I received yesterday:

[The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists] Backs Legislation To Curb Antimicrobial Resistance

Take that, bacteria! viruses! fungi!

Finally -- some fines or jail-time for microorganisms that insist on surviving via evolutionary mutation!

------------------------------
(It is a serious problem; the House bill seeks funding for a public-health plan to better monitor, treat, and prevent infections by drug-resistant bugs.)

Too Much Tension!

A couple missteps early on, then a growing confidence...



...and a big finish!

Susan Boyle moves on to the May 30 (Saturday) finals of Britain's Got Talent 2009.

(And I take some time to figure out this video's narrative tensions ... and map their numerous sensory manifestations in my body!)