if you give a graduate student her academic hood, she's going to want to...

There's a series of children's books by Laura Joffe Numeroff that started coming out about the time I was an ickle firstie, and they all start with "If you give..." There's a book about a mouse another about a moose and a pig and a dog and a cat... and I can't find my book right now, but we had been gifted with the first book about a mouse [maybe it was for both of us?] and my brother loved the first book so much that we had to buy  an additional copy of the book to ensure fraternal fairness. And he still put his initials in both copies.  He was four or five, I can forgive him [actually, I see it now and it makes me laugh].

I had been on the fence about going to commencement. I vacillated between wanting to celebrate, waiting to hide, and thinking that the scheduling was pretty inconvenient. I sat through ten commencements in undergrad as part of the choir and 12 person chorale; you get over it after a while.

But unless I'm completely insane, this is the only master's I'm going to pursue [I'll probably add a reading cert, but that's not a new degree]. After the exit interviews, I wasn't even sure if I could get hands on a cap and gown for graduation. Turns out you could still get get your, ahem, "regalia" at the bookstore. [It's smurf blue. I wish I was kidding.]

The first line of exposition on this sheet made me laugh. If you give a graduate student her academic hood, she's going to want to...

it's the silly things; fun for Friday

A friend of mine brought this to my attention on Facebook, and I am completely fascinated.

Out of Print Clothing

Mostly because they have several of my favorite reads. And some I've been told I should sink teeth into. But also because when you make a purchase of a tee-shirt, e-reader jacket, phone cover, stationary, etc, a book is donated to in-need communities. [current special as of publication is Sci-Fi. So Wrinkle in Time apparel is on sale...]

an actual bound-like-a-book cover case for my kindle.
[cough-cough. also available, The Wizard of Oz, Jane Eyre or Babar. cough-cough.] 

tee shirts of some of my favorite books...

...and books I should read

Also available were titles such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Caps for Sale, Corduroy, Frog and Toad are Friends, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Harry the Dirty Dog, In the Midnight Kitchen, and Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel. Which, for Read Across America Day, if you didn't know where your One Fish, Two Fish tee shirt was, and didn't feel like being a character, would be a fabulous nod.

Sometimes, it's the little things that get you through the day. Or week end. Which ever. 

I sing a song of the saints of olde

It's a gorgeous weekend in the north country. you can't really see them, but I swear, there are a pair of preening swans in this picture, just by the edge of the pond, between the tree's shadow and the bushes - that clump of white spot that isn't water. I promise. Huge, huge swans. Swans can be vicious, so I didn't get any closer, but it was otherwise soooooo pastoral, my teeth hurt. 

who the heck is this saint?!

Hildegard von Bingen? Theresa of Avila? Lesser Theresa? Bridget? Gertrude?

There was only one of these pillows at this little coffee/gift shop, so I purchased it with the intention of gifting it to a friend (if there were two, I'd have one for me). My mother believes it to be a Gothic painting (the saintly saint, her book and the dove, not the background), but we're trying to figure out who the woman in the painting is. The tag indicated nothing, only that Creative Co-op was the maker, and googling that turned up nothing, not even an image of this pillow. We know she's saintly because of her halo, and the dove as a representation of the holy spirit. 

We thought maybe also Julian of Norwich, and whatever it is in her right hand is something she's teasing the cat with. It's from right century. But none of the Julian portraiture is without a cat (totally appropriate, since she's the patroness of kitties). Again, the cat is cut out of the picture. No luck finding this image. At all. Or the company who made the pillow, or any other retailer with this pillow for sale. There's nothing on the tag directing us towards getting another one or figuring out who this woman is. 

I discovered, trolling the internet, that there are companion pillows to this one, and a plate, also by Creative Co-op, Inc. The angels are holding lilies, which leads me to believe, if these are a set, that the woman is in all likelihood, the Madonna and the angels are Gabriel.  

 We thought it was a saint. Two and a half hours later, we remembered a little art history and voila. Not a saint. Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Probably part of an illuminated manuscript. Which makes it an Annunciation! This still doesn't answer the question of who the artist is who painted this annunciation!! Argh!

a children's travel book

I had to create a children's book about a country for a class this summer, which I took pretty seriously. I'm not a paper writer, but I can decently collage. There were four of us in the class, and we were looking at the books available in the library for guidance for information - how do you interest a child in another country?

M. Sasak wrote a fabulous set of books called the "This is", starting with "This is Paris" in 1958, New York,  London and Rome in the 1960's, these four books being the most popular in the series, which includes Greece, Australia, Edinburgh, San Francisco, Israel and Washington, DC to name a few of the others. My favorite of his books is the copy of "This is New York" that belonged to my mother, with annotations in her young adult hand under the illustrations about "We drove by this billboard all the time" and "I used to go to this museum with Dad every Saturday". But I digress.

M. Sasak I am not, but I like the feel of his books, which include anecdotal information about a place.

 

The illustrations are a combination of hand-colored, computer print out, paper collage and stickers. Some of the headings were done with a calligraphy pen. The book itself is a 12"x12" post bound scrap book covered with a fabric sleeve. Had someone else in the class not chosen India, the scrap book would have looked appropriate for that service. I'm not sure if this style of fabric is appropriate for Kenya specifically, but it is African, as compared to say, Aboriginal Australian.  

 

To complete this book, I will add information about Kenya's landscape - that it has several different altitudes from sea level to mountain peaks, and therefore different temperatures through the year (which is also effected by the breeze coming off the Indian Ocean). I'm hesitant to add information about who Kenya is politically allied with. None of the children's books I've read have included that information.

 

Some of the pages in this book are a little cluttered with information, and some of them look a little bare in comparison. However, the professor was pleased with the final product, and suggested that this come along with me on interviews as an example of the kind of work I do. In looking at the books for children, it was difficult to find one that talked about India, Polynesia, Africa, or South America. Or Eastern Europe, former Soviet block countries, so if I were trying to round out a classroom library, I would focus my search on those places first for books already in print, and then see if my students and I could do a little research of our own, especially in light of the global market place, and rising countries such as India and China.

procrastination at it's finest

Let's add blogging to the list, since sewing something like this is already on there. I'm avoiding a project for class, due on Monday. No idea how to even start this, so the materials sit in the back seat of the car while I try [as well as avoid] brainstorming ideas. What doesn't help is a remarkable bitterness in seeing other people following their bliss and actually making a go at it, whereas I tried and failed. I realize I'm making generalizations about people's lives on the five second sound byte I hear, because everyone lies, even if it's only a little bit, about their lives. Call it an omission of truth if you want. People envy me the talent I display knitting socks. I envy them their stable jobs. Or relationships. Their cars that aren't falling apart. Sometimes envy is too gentle a word.

And I'm a little upset with this professor, who despite the pleas of the entire class to extend the due date, insisted we capable people would be able to turn this project over the the space of a week. I'm a little embittered about that one as well.

And I'm turning 27 on Tuesday. Yeah. I know. I'm a baby.

a slice of random

I remain ridiculously interested in travel. Never mind that I am a broke graduate student. The siren call of Megabus' $1 fare whispers to me in the night... go, go GO! I however, am like most whimps, and don't want to gogo-ago alone.

Let's blame the wanderlust on StumbleUpon, purveyor of websites catering to my interest in travel, baking, classical history, sewing, the list goes on. Mostly images of the Maldives and the luxury island resorts there.Or awesome things like this in Germany. [To my credit, I tried to follow the links, only to discover the website is ... in German. yo no hablo deutsch.] I should just opt not to click on the little round green, white and blue icon in the top right of my web browser.

Right. And miss out on cool things like this.

A wall that makes music when it RAINS!
the Funnel Wall at the Kunsthof-Passage in Neustadt.

When I do next go, I plan on lovingly ripping [in the style of John Williams] a few melodic ideas to make my travel life a little nicer. Even if the travel is to Villa Mamma e Babbo where the shampoo, body wash and conditioner are in normal sized, easy to handle bottles and the bed linens are pink check.

Flight001
Aside from the California Roll sushi luggage tag, I was particularly interested in the heavy nylon bags for shoes, lingere, the token wet swimsuit and the like. I usually pack a laundry bag, I never thought to pack my shoes in a bag. Which begs the question of legalities concerning a small spray bottle of vodka. "Vodka?!" you say, waggling your finger, "Little lush!". I learned, in my brief stint as a costumer, that next to Lysol, plain unassuming [read:cheap] vodka is quite possibly the best disinfectant out there. So yes, a small spray bottle of vodka for hosing down said bacteria infested shoes.

3 floz
Billed as "For those who travel, for those who are curious, a those who can't commit."
Of particular interest, the "Help" line. Packaged neatly into a square tin [i'm assuming tin, paperboard wouldn't survive two seconds in any of my normal bags] Help products have you covered from aching or snuffly head to blistered toe. Pretty cool. I'm also thinking Christmas, particularly for my friends on the run in school who would sorely like to brush their teeth before arriving at choir practice.