Brian Selznick is the Bee's Knees

Writing and drawing are my loves.  For a long time now I've wanted both to be my career.  Writing and illustrating novels is something I dream about all the time, even though I don't think I could ever do it as seamlessly as Brian Selznick.  The first time I picked up The Invention of Hugo Cabret I was pretty speechless.  Here was a guy doing pretty much exactly what I wanted to do and totally winning.  I had one of those everything-is-totally-awesome-with-my-life-right-now kind of moments.

(I left the images their original size so you can appreciate the artwork.  Go ahead, appreciate away)



 

When I heard they were coming out with a movie, I was iffy, as I always am with book-based films.  Parts of it I hated, parts of it were okay, and parts of it I liked.  I would say it was down the middle road, nowhere near Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is burning in the hell of my mind as we speak.  It's safe to say that it, along with the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie, should never come up in conversation around me.

But anyways, last year, Brian Selznick came out with another one of his written/illustrated novels, Wonderstruck.  This time he took it to a new level by telling two stories at one time, with the illustrations following a deaf girl in the 20s and the writing following a boy in the 70s, and ending with their stories intertwined.  It was one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.





Selznick has honed in on the fabulous idea of combining writing and art and has taken it so much farther than the little story books you read to your pre-schoolers.  This is essentially what I dream of doing with my life.

Can you tell he's my favorite artist/author?

And if you've been thinking this whole time that these are kid's books, you're right.  Sometimes I'm a 22-year-old kid.  That's just the way it is.

Forgotten English

   So, I got this really awesome calendar over Christmas break.  I was so excited when I saw the name.  Forgotten English?  Oh, ho, ho, there was no turning back after that.  I had to buy it.  I'm only eleven days in, but I can tell this is going to be a good year, even if it's only because I get to read about a crazy new word every day.
   What kind of words have English speaking people forgotten about?  And how does a person just totally forget that a word exists?  I know that's what you're thinking, but I have no answers.  Sorry.  But I can go on in length about some interesting words I've come across so far.  Is that okay? Oh, well, you'll get over it.

Hopshackles
What these were, we can only guess...They appear to be some kind of shackles imposed upon the loser of the race by the judges.  Roger Ascham [wrote in] The Scholemaster (1570): "Some runners...deserve but the hopshackles."
                                                             -Robert Nares's Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859

The brand new year started of with this one.  I couldn't get over their definition.  Heh, hopshackles...


Ploughed Rainbow
A field ploughed in curves ("bows") to suit a curving outline, is said to be ploughed rainbow.  Hence, some fields have the name Rainbow Field.
                                                                       -Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923

This one is one of my favorites so far, because the same day that it was on the calendar, I also found a green star sticker on the floor of my room, the same stickers we use in the Rainbows class at church.  I miss those little kids.


Water-wolf
In drinking out of a stream, a man is said to "swallow a water-wolf" which, it is said, lives and grows in his stomach.

                              -Sidney Addy's Glossary of...Sheffield [Yorkshire], 1888

While to most people this may seem on the outrageous and ridiculous side, I find this one hilariously awesome!  Not to mention, this totally sounds like something that would pop up in one of the circle stories my friend Caroline and I write.  I have a feeling there will most definitely be a water-wolf in the current one.

Stay out of those streams and don't drink any water-wolves, people!

Holey Moly, I Can't See Anything!

    My recent acquisition of a pair of jeans from Hollister sparked some very interesting thoughts.  Now before I go into this, I just want to say that a relative gave me the jeans for free, and I’m not knocking free clothing.
    I’m just different I guess, but I don’t particularly like rips in my jeans, nor do I think there is any justification in buying a pair of jeans with rips in them.  If you really want rips, rip them yourself, instead of walking around with holes so close to your crotch that you might as well be a hooker.  This complaint can pretty much go to any store that sells ripped jeans, but thankfully I can find nice jeans around too…ones that cost less and aren’t holey.
    Of course, in the case of Hollister, you might not know whether or not your jeans are ripped until you come out of the store, where you can actually see your hand five inches from your face.  Not even a minute ago, I had a thought that Hollister is a lot like those rides at Disney like Pirates of the Caribbean, and It’s a Small World: really dark, with a few lights here and there.  At Disney, I can understand: they don’t want you to see the ugly things that make the ride as awesome (or as creepy) as it is.  At Hollister, I just don’t understand.  Are they trying to save money on their light bill so they can pay to spray a million bottles of perfume in their stores every day?  Or maybe they’re trying to hide the fact that they jack their prices up for clothes that aren’t nearly worth it?
    In any case, I’m thinking about borrowing my dad’s headlamps so my friend and I can go on a search for a pair of Hollister jeans that don’t have rips or holes.  First one to find a pair wins! What do we win? I have no clue, mostly because I don’t think anyone is going to win.

#12 - Collecting

I've only just started collecting teacups within the past year, but I'm looking forward to a big collection someday.  For the longest time I only drank tea out of a mug, mostly because that was all we had at my house.  Now almost always drink it out of one of my teacups.

The one in the front is the first one I got.  I found it at a thrift store for a quarter, but I loved how unique it looked.  Right now I see it as a hobby, but one day I would like a whole wall with every inch filled with teacups, like Andy Warhol's soup can art, and I want every one to be different. 

Lately, I've been drinking a lot of tea, and sometimes my roommate/friend and I will have 'Midnight Tea.'  It's pretty much what it sounds like: we drink tea in the middle of the night.  We also talk about our limited knowledge of tea etiquette and how hard it is to hold a teacup with your pinky out.  Cheesy, I know, but I like it.

Sugar cube?

So, Four Women Walk Into Sonny's...

I'm a poor college student, so I love free food.  Today, my aunt, my cousin, and their friend came through town on their way east and they took me to Sonny's.  We had the craziest server I have ever been served by.  The hostess jokingly warned us about him when we came in, but we just thought she was playing.  Oh, we were so wrong...
He messed with us the whole time, and I had to threaten to bring "the look" out.  You know, this one:

At one point, when my cousin asked for more lemons, he came by our table and pulled one out of his pocket to give to her before revealing that he had a whole dish of them.  When he heard about the look, he tried his best to make sure I had everything I needed, but I ended up having to give it to him.  He was quickly swayed by the look, but isn't everyone?

When I surreptitiously took all the napkins, he made a big deal about it.  When we got outside, my aunt said something to the effect of, "What, is buying napkins for Sonny's now?"

I have never ever laughed in two hours as much as I did tonight. 

#11 - Graffiti

First, let's review my experience with graffiti.

For anyone from my class reading this, this is the tobacco barn I mentioned.  For people, from Lake City, you know what I'm talking about.  For everyone else, well, look at it! It's the just the ugliest thing.  This is what I grew up knowing as graffiti, and this is the reason why I've always had a bad opinion of it.  This side of graffiti is what I don't like.  Then, I took this, literally less than a block from my apartment complex:

It's on the back side of a business, and it's just so ugly.  I can't even read it and I can't even begin to understand why someone put this here.  The most horrible graffiti I saw in Tallahassee, though, was a tag on a sculpture.  It's so rude to deface someone else's art with your own.  I was offended and it wasn't even mine!  The lecture on graffiti was one of the hardest for me, but I did see some things I liked, things that didn't harm the buildings they went up on.  That's the stuff I like.

Awkward Naked People

Victory is mine.

To understand why, you need to know that I came from a community college, where models in drawing classes were almost nonexistent, and frankly, they were clothed.  When I graduated, my drawing professor suggested that I should get all the "model" classes in as soon as possible, since she heard that they were cutting the funding for them.  So when I managed to snag the last seat in Figure Drawing I, I was excited.  Then I realized that the models were going to be nude.  I had come to a conflict.  I draw people, therefore I should take figure drawing.  However, I've always found naked people really awkward.  I was THE MOST nervous I have ever been about a class.

Now fast forward to the end of the semester.  Figure drawing? Favorite drawing class EVER.  I win.  In the beginning, though, it was pretty awkward, but I got over it pretty quickly.  I overcame my fear of awkward naked people!  Now, if only I can snag Figure Drawing II during drop/add...

(Portrait of a classmate in charcoal)

(Don't be offended by the unfinished naked charcoal man!  He did the craziest poses sometimes...)