ava wrestles the alligator.

I'm in a few book clubs these days...one helps me make sure that I connect with some girls i LOVE at least once a month and talking about books and also life (although we have to meet using google+ and conference calls), and the other ensures that I'm reading books I wouldn't have otherwise read. case in point from bookclub #1: Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. it was beautiful, poignant, and so, so suspenseful (although it is certainly NOT a thriller). Imagine a story about Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird set in the 1990s Florida Everglades written by someone who thinks like Salman Rushdie. awesome, right?

I won't give you the gory details here or share my own review, BUT here are some places to go to read more... and some really lovely visual representations of the subject and characters. pick it up if you want something to read on the plane home or while sitting around the fire this holiday season.

from the NYT

 found here.

found here

the actual cover of swamplandia!

books on wheels...

I've been thinking a ton lately about ways to work around the transportation issue that after school programs in the Delta face. a whole new fleet of awesome book mobiles could be just the kind of solution kids and families need to help them stay connected...

anyway, i thought it might be fun to look at the book mobiles have evolved and where they are now. who wants to help me make this happen

 

 

gift guide.... the man who takes care of me, protects me,

a harmonica and some lessons with a pro...because we live in the land of the blues, and he regrets quitting piano...

 

 A pair of snazzy shades... because he can't wear his glasses ALL the time..

a new notebook for his ideas, since his moleskins all look the same and don't really fit into his back pocket very well..

 new sneakers from JCrew and New Balance...because his are FALLING APART and he started drooling when he saw these...

 

a moustache and beard comb...so his facial hair can look as spiffy as the rest of him..

 

a portable basketball hoop...because we may not stay here forever, but he needs some b-ball in his life. 

a canoe, so we can navigate the Mississippi together, and a fab, manly book about the great river's history (boone LOVES history)

let's do the numbers....

wouldn't this be an amazing centerpiece for a book club? i know.

 

images from the brilliant paul octavious.

a night in...

boone's out of town for the WHOLE next week, which means i've got NOTHING but time (nothing but time, a professional saturday, and a whole real lot of work to do.) i'd go out with the girls tonight, but it's been a rough week and i'm scheduled to celebrate a friends' birthday at a martini bar tomorrow night (whooo hooo!)

instead, i think i'm going to take a loooong hot bath, have a glass of wine, and read a sexy vampire book (which i could do all at the same time if i had this nifty gadget.)

what would YOU do if you were home alone on a friday night?

image from a.t.

i love oxford american...

not only does oxford american publish a rad southern music issue every year with my fave artists, but it used to be located in our new (temporary) little town, and next weekend they are hosting a pretty fun party in the Delta next weekend. On top of all of this, they've published one of my friend's short stories!

Matthew Neill Null (Matt to me) was a college friend who tested the waters of TFA in the Delta my second year here, then decided the passion in his heart of hearts wasn't teaching, but writing. Now, after three years at the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop (where Flannery O'Connor studied and Marilynne Robinson teaches) a story of his about life in Appalachia has been published in an actual magazine with actual subscribers!!! I picked up a copy of OA at off-square books yesterday and am crazily impressed and proud of him. Order a copy here.

family photos...

on the plane to houston last week i read a little anne lamott. one of the more wonderful sections was about her mom and it included this quote:

"There is nothing more touching to me than a family picture where everyone is trying to look his or her best, but you can see what a mess they all really are. Frozen in the amber of the photograph, you can see all the connections and disconnections, the stress and the yearning. And you can see the pride in their lineage-- in that big bottom lip, say, that went from grandma to dad to baby. It's there on their faces for all to see, and you can see how they love it--that big lip. it's their immortality."

it made me think of the family photos that we took easter weekend...


clearly we're working HARD to look like decent human beings. the thing is, this photo doesn't show the anxiety and sadness we had that morning, remembering my grandfather who died on a Good Friday, and being so disappointed that neither (yes, i mean two) Easter services we went to were even the least bit celebratory or hopeful. of course we all completely love each other, but this photo only shows us trying to look that way. but lamott also writes this:

"there are pictures of people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw. poster children for the human condition. But I like that, when who we are shows. Everything is usually so masked or perfumed or disguised in the word, and it's so touching when you see something real and human."






no sadness here. just love. and silliness. and reality. i love it.
hmm. "poster children for the human condition." sounds pretty good.

in the news...

the interviews are over and i got back to atl late last night... cross your fingers or say a prayer (whichever you feel most comfortable with) that someone liked me. turns out i'd forgotton how obnoxious people who over-use lingo can be ("i have a sense of urgency about getting lunch" etc.) turns out catch phrases make me itch a little bit. hmf.


photo here

something else that makes me itch and makes me want to tear my hair out are these articles I read in the past five days.

-i couldn't BELIEVE the news about this elderly couple... if anyone wonders why i'm for civil equality when it comes to marriage, this article is a case study in why it is absolutely worth fighting for. 100%.

-and then, what about this? COME ON, mississippi. you know how much I love you, adore you, want to move back to you, and then one little town with some racist idiots goes and gets put in the NATIONAL news for not doing what should have been done DECADES ago. (really tylertown? seriously? dejure segregation in 2010?) and i want to crawl under a rock and die.

then FINALLY there's this... a breath of fresh air. a sight for sore eyes... good news at last! :)

anything you've read lately that sets you on fire (in a good or bad way?)

a lovely love letter...

heard on the writer's almanac yesterday...
a love letter from zelda to f. scott fitzgerald

Sweetheart,
Please, please don't be so depressed--We'll be married soon, and then these lonesome nights will be over forever--and until we are, I am loving, loving every tiny minute of the day and night. Maybe you won't understand this, but sometimes when I miss you most, it's hardest to write--and you always know when I make myself--just the ache of it all--and I can't tell you. If we were together, you'd feel how strong it is--you're so sweet when you're melancholy. I love your sad tenderness--when I've hurt you--that's one of the reasons I could never be sorry for our quarrels, and they bothered you so. Those dear, dear little fusses, when I always tried so hard to make you kiss and forget.
Scott, there's nothing in all the world I want but you and your precious love. All the material things are nothing. I'd just hate to live a sordid, colorless existence-because you'd soon love me less--and less--and I'd do anything--anything--to keep your heart for my own--I don't want to live--I want to love first, and live incidentally...
Don't--don't ever think of the things you can't give me--You've trusted me with the dearest heart of all--and it's so damn much more than anybody else in all the world has ever had. How can you think deliberately of life without me--If you should die...
O Darling--darling Scott--It'd be like going blind...I'd have no purpose in life--just a pretty--decoration. Don't you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered--and I was delivered to you--to be worn--I want you to wear me, like a watch--charm or a button hole bouquet--to the world. And then, when we're alone, I want to help--to know that you can't do anything without me...
All my heart-- I love you.

snuggling up with a good book...

in the mountains for the christmas holiday and we're expecting lots and lots of ice and snow...
if you have some time during this long weekend, i suggest you do what we're going to do and snuggle up with some hot cocoa and one of the favorites from my holiday reading list!

i hope santa is good to each of you!

book covers worth drooling over...

saw these new book cover designs from fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo on penguin's website... then found images of the back and front from book covers anonymous (which is an awesome blog, btw). wuthering heights and the scarlet letter aren't my favs, but with covers like these, i'd WANT them on my shelves and would probably read them again.

bookshelf love...

the day that we mixed all of our books together was a really big day for us. first of all, it was the day that boone finished putting together and painting our target bookshelves we got for $1 apiece (i know!) then, we ended up on the floor with a bottle on wine for hours unpacking boxes and figuring out which books went together on which shelf and talking about why... (yep, we're serious nerds).

anyway, i love books. i love organization. but i just don't know i feel about this. design mags and interior decorators make this look so cool, but how do you FIND anything you want to read? thoughts? gut reactions?

photos from geekbuffet, bjorg, chotda

secret adventure...

so boone comes to the 'sip ON THURSDAY!!!! i can hardly stand it... i'm not sure if he knows what he's in for because these wedding planning days are almost as long and hard as teach for america institute.

ok, not as hard as institute, but still i definitely feel like i'm living the first few scenes of steel magnolias over and over again... you know, the scene when the dad is shooting crows out of the trees?

ANYWAY, when boone gets here, my dad and i are taking him on a surprise adventure. i've been texting him clues about it to help him guess. can you figure it out?

clue 1: wiley coyote

clue 2: it's kind of redneck

clue 3: "it dates back to the civil war" -gene mulloy

clue 4: reorganize the letters to spell "in a shovel tooth"

clue 5: what is happening in this photo?


pretty lame clues, but if you can guess before he does i'll give you eternal respect.

photo from flickr and google.

hero worship...

Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts. -Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

'Any new idea, Mahound, is asked two questions.
The first is asked when it's weak: WHAT KIND OF AN IDEA ARE YOU?
Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accommodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cursed, bloody-minded ramrod-backed type
of damnfool notion that would rather break that sway with the breeze?
-the kind that will almost certainly ninety-nine times out of a hundred,
be smashed to bits; but the hundredth time, will change the world?'
'What's the second question?' Gibreel asked.
'Answer the first one first.' - Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses


one of the greatest benefits about going to school at a major educational institution is the opportunity to learn from truly great minds. this afternoon went to a panel discussion with one of my literary heros... Salman Rushdie.

honestly, Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses are up there with A Good Man is Hard to Find and other Stories by Flannery O'Connor and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Thanks graduate school for making it possible.

writing simply and with care...

so boone got me a fab calligraphy set for Christmas (actually, he turned me loose in an art supply store and said... "pick out whatever you want") and on top of that, i know for a fact that "being a bride" is synonymous with "writing a zillion thank you notes." anyway, for that reason i REALLY want this book... and bet all you other folks might want it too

dangerous atlanta?

wow! Mcsweeney's does Atlanta.... how could I not get excited about Mcsweeney's (the wonderful, hilarious, graphically astute publishing co. of author Dave Eggers) Internet Tendency posting about my town? that's right, y'all... obviously i am excited. anyway, have a little read...it's pretty darn funny.

D A N G E R O U S A T L A N T A .

BY NEAL POLLACK

and while you're at it, peruse their innovative packaging for their quarterly literary journal and hilariously quirky t-shirts....it's all pretty fab
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