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Album: The Colour and The Shape
Year: 1997

Two decades down the road, Dave Grohl has remained so consistent and so successful at what he does — the honorable profession of providing radio-friendly punk-pop to the masses — that he is overexposed and underrated at the same time.

And two decades after the suicide that may not have launched his career — he probably would have done a solo record anyways — but certainly solidified, it’s tempting to forget how weird it seemed at the time that Nirvana’s drummer also had songwriting ability.

Which means that somewhere in the multiverse, Nirvana is getting ready to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Nevermind because during the sessions for the album following In Utero, a newly sober Kurt Cobain heard songs like “Monkey Wrench” and “Everlong” and insisted they go on that album.

And from then to now, Grohl was the Dave Davies of Nirvana, contributing a couple of songs per album. BTW, this is the same universe where Paul Westerberg & Tommy Stinson came to the same agreement and Hüsker Dü never broke up. It’s a helluva place.

Of course, we don’t live there, but we do live in a universe with “Everlong,” the greatest song Dave Grohl will ever write, and a post-punk tragic love song along the lines of “Just Like Heaven”

And I wonder
When I sing along with you
If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I’ll ever ask of you
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when
She sang

On of the things about “Everlong” — beyond the galloping riff and drums by the greatest rock drummer of my generation — is that Grohl never uses his usual trick of screaming. He keeps his vocals relatively low-key, and I think that’s part of what makes “Everlong” so powerful: the restraint. All of the usual desperation is buried deep between the surface.

Because of the cool job I had then, I got to see Foo Fighters in a small club last year. And, of course, they played all of the hits, plus covers like “Miss You,” “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love,” “Under Pressure,” and “Breakdown.”

But the best of all was “Everlong,” the climax to a great great show.

Official Video for “Everlong”

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The post Certain Songs #462: Foo Fighters – “Everlong” appeared first on Booksquare.

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The glorious hours I spent in the company with Jim Cotter and his entire team have produced these minutes on film that I will always treasure.

Here are so many of the things I care about—Philadelphia, the Schuylkill, Penn, memoir, story, language—all in one place, all at one time.

I'm not beautiful, as I always say. But maybe it is enough if beautiful things live in my world.

You can watch the segment, which also features literary translation and tenor Stephen Costello, here.

Or watch this evening at 10:30, WHYY TV, or on Sunday at 1 PM.

Articulate—all of you—thank you.

Gary Kramer of Temple University Press: you have opened so many doors. Thank you.

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Today Marvel released a preview for STAR WARS SPECIAL: C-3PO #1. The book written by James Robinson (Armor Wars, Earth-2) and illustrated by Tony Harris (Ex Machina) is out this March . Only the spectacle of the Star Wars universe could reunite these two award winning creators as they reveal the mystery behind C-3PO’s red arm in The […]

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My last post was February SECOND? For real? I don’t think I’ve gone three weeks without blogging since the summer of 2005 when Wonderboy had an unexpected surgery. Even when we moved cross-country and I spent weeks on the road alone with four little kids and an infant, I found time to toss up some short updates. It’s not that I’m busier, really—although I am seriously busy. But I was busy then too. It’s about daily rhythm and habit. I used to start the writing part of my day with a 20-minute blog entry. For years and years, that was my transition from homeschooling mom to working writer. It worked beeyootifully for nearly eleven years: spend the day with the kids, then write about the kids for a bit, and I’d be in writing mode and ready to work.

We rearranged our schedule last…summer? spring? Instead of one big six-hour block of work (writing) time, I now have a four-hour block in the afternoon, then an hour or two off for dinner and whatnot, then back at work from 7:30-9:30. When we made this shift, which has worked out well in many respects, I started reserving the evening block for blogging and various busywork tasks—paying bills, updating the website, answering emails, and so forth. I tried to save the last 30 minutes for sketching, and for the most part I’ve been successful with that. But the reality is that I need more than four hours a day for writing-work. So after dinner instead of blogging, I’ve been doing the other kinds of writing and editing that make up my workday. I’ll blog at the end, I think, and then…don’t. I’ve filled up three and a half sketchbooks, though, which feels good. I understand that I needed to take this time, need to keep taking it, to develop a sketchbook practice. I spent way too many years wishing I could draw instead of learning to draw, and I’m glad I’ve put in the effort these past 18 months. A year from now, ten years from now, I know I’ll be grateful I cultivated the habit.

Ah, but I miss Bonny Glen. The chronicle, the discussions, the community. I miss blogging and reading blogs (because that too has slipped to an occasional activity). I miss you guys!

Okay, now I’m laughing because I’m making it sound like I haven’t blogged in YEARS instead of a few weeks. When you’ve done something on a near-daily basis for over a decade, it’s reasonable to take a little vacation. It just wasn’t planned, is all. This morning I was thinking about how quickly one habit (blogging daily) can be replaced by another (not blogging). I didn’t even think about writing a post yesterday, and today that fact startled me. My habits have shifted when I wasn’t paying attention. Sneaky little things, habits.

I’ve tried a few strategies for rebuilding the blog habit, this past year, like the weekly roundups of our reading. But those cross over into work territory, and I can’t have that. This blog must be the antithesis of work: no pressure, no obligation, just chronicle and fun. I’m greedy for that chronicle, though! I don’t want three weeks to become three months, three years. In three years, Huck will be ten, Rilla twelve, Wonderboy FIFTEEN, for Pete’s sake. (I just gave myself a heart attack. And holy cats does that boy need a new blog name.)

Well, the timing is good for me to revisit my approach, since I need to dig into my archives here anyway…I’m mining our past for good stuff I did with my older set when they were little. Today was a vintage Bonny Glen morning: first Rilla gave Huck an impromptu piano lesson and played chords to his melody (“I’m learning how to sight-see, Mom”); then a quick Michael’s run for 2-for-1 sketchbooks plus another 20% off—jackpot! Then home where we messed around on Google Maps for a while (they “drove” via street view all the way from our house to piano class); then a geocaching excursion and another two finds logged. Home again, where they made scrambled eggs for lunch. Now she’s reading Warriors and he’s reading Calvin & Hobbes. A lovely low-tide day for my littles. Beanie is off on an all-day field to the Gem Institute in Carlsbad. I have a full deck this afternoon (boy, do I ever) and I ought to get started. But this was good. Let’s do this again.

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Acting instructor Ed Hooks explores the animated performances of this year's five feature animation nominees.

The post 2016 Oscar Nominations: Feature Animation Acting Analysis appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

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You remember those Scholastic catalogs your teachers would pass out from time to time? Thinking about them is a powerful memory--for me--because I loved reading. I still do! I was a kid in the 60s. I wish I had one of those catalogs now, so I could see how the books I chose from compare to those in this year's catalogs.

American Indians in Children's Literature is part of the #StepUpScholastic campaign that invites parents, students, teachers, librarians--anyone, really--to study the books Scholastic offers in their flyers (they say flyer, some say catalog, others say club forms). Once you study a flyer, you can write a letter to Scholastic telling them what you were looking for, and what you found--or didn't find.

I'm looking for books by Native people, but if I see a good one about Native people that is written by someone who is not Native, I'd buy it.

Let's take a look at what kids are getting this month (February of 2016). First, a screen capture of that page so you know what it looks like:

Early Childhood:

On the first page, I see Happy Valentines Day, Little Critter. I bet the Little Critter Thanksgiving book was in their November catalog. I wouldn't get that one. In fact, I have it on my "not recommended" list. On the second page, I see a Pete the Cat boxed set. I bet the November catalog had Pete the Cat's Thanksgiving book. It, too, is on my "not recommended" list. There's a Pinkalicious set, too. I bet the Thanksgiving catalog had the Pinkalicious Thanksgiving book... Also, not recommended.

So what did I find? No books by Native writers; no books about Native people or with Native characters. Native people--good or bad--are completely missing from this flyer.


Kindergarteners:

On page three, I see Stuart Little. It kind of has an image of a Native person. In that book, Stuart imagines an Indian paddling in a canoe. On page four there's a set of all the Junie B. Jones books. My guess is that it includes Shipwrecked which has the kids doing a play about Christopher Columbus. Turkeys We Have Loved is about Thanksgiving, and it has the kids doing a play about Thanksgiving. One girl is dressed up as a Native American.

What did I find? No books by Native writers; one character playing Indian.


First graders:

On page three is Polar Bear Patrol in the Magic School Bus series. In it is Dr. Luke, an Inuit scientist who teaches the kids about the Arctic and that he prefers Inuit to Eskimo. On page five is the Junie B. Jones Shipwrecked that was in the Kindergarten catalog.

I found no books by Native writers; one character who is Inuit. I don't have that book on my shelf so can't tell if the depiction of Dr. Luke is one that is free of bias or stereotyping.

Second graders:

On page two are boxed sets of the Magic Tree House books. One is Thanksgiving on Thursday. There's a Native character in it. You know which one, right? Squanto! The stories told about him are pretty much a whitewash of what his life really was, but Thanksgiving on Thursday took that whitewashing to a whole new level. Another book in the series is Buffalo Before Breakfast. In it the Jack and Annie travel to a Lakota camp. There are many errors in that story and the part where the wise Lakota grandmother gives Jack and Annie an eagle feather? That doesn't work at all, because when they travel back to the present day, having that eagle feather is a violation of federal law.

No books by Native writers; a handful of stereotypical Indians and some factual errors.


I'll have to find time to look through the catalogs for third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. And the seven different catalogs in their "Wider" selection category. And the four in their "Special Collections" category.

In the meantime, I'm going to the campaign page and I'll be submitting a letter saying this:

Dear Scholastic:

I am looking for books by or about Native peoples. When I looked through your preschool, kindergarten, first, and second grade flyers for Feb of 2016 I found no books by Native writers or illustrators. NONE. ZERO. 

Equally troubling is what I did find: several books in which the author stereotypes or misrepresents Native people/history/culture. For your records, those problematic books are:

• Buffalo Before Breakfast by Mary Pope Osborne

• Junie B. Jones: Shipwrecked by Barbara Park

• Stuart Little by E. B. White

• Thanksgiving on Thursday by Mary Pope Osborne

• Junie B. Jones: Turkeys We Have Loved by Barbara Park

Magic School Bus: Polar Bear Patrol by Joanna Cole might be ok. If I find a copy, I'll be back with an update. Will it be the one book out of 410 items on the order form that I would buy? 

Actually--there's more than 410 books total across those four flyers. Some of the items are sets, like the 49 books in Item #46L6 (Magic Tree House Pack Books 1-28) and #47L6 (Magic Tree House Pack Books 29-49). If I add those 49 to the 410, I can say that...

Out of 459 books, none are by Native writers or illustrators. 

Please, Scholastic, you can do better than that. All children ought to learn the names of Native writers and illustrators, and their respective nations, too! You, Scholastic, tell us that you have children's interests at the core of your company and what it publishes. I see lot of room for improvement. #StepUpScholastic. Do better.

Sincerely,
Debbie Reese
American Indians in Children's Literature

People are already submitting letters. You can see them at the Tumblr page for the campaign. Please join this effort to get more diversity in Scholastic's catalogs.

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Lunch Ticket invites submissions from translators and authors of multi-lingual texts for the Gabo Prize for Translation. Prize: $200 plus publication. Poetry, prose, and bi/multi-lingual work accepted. Deadline: February 29, 2016.

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Sometimes having constraints on your writing, like word choice or number of words, can spark your creativity.

http://writeforkids.org/2015/12/understanding-childrens-book-categories/

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Can you believe it's been TEN years since First Second Books began publishing high-quality graphic novels for kids, teens, and adults? It's incredible but true. And at Finding Wonderland we're proud to have done our part in supporting their efforts... Read the rest of this post

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Just around the corner
With its claws prepared to pounce,
March is patient, waiting
For what Tuesday will announce:

That February's come and gone
Despite its extra day,
So, lion-like, this newest month
Will not be kept at bay.

Although it brings St. Patrick's Day
And, most important, spring,
We never really can predict
What weather March will bring.

The calendar is prepping
For the turning of a page
But exactly what will come with that
Is very hard to gauge.

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I am so excited to see Dr. Carla Hayden nominated for the Librarian of Congress by President Obama. Not just because she is a librarian, an African American, a woman. But also because she started in her long career as a youth librarian.

We are contemporaries. Watching her work in ALA, become ALA president, take on more and more leadership roles in her career always got me excited - a children's librarian was doing all the things! It was something that always made me proud and convinced me of the potential for amazing leadership that youth services folks have.

I wish her luck in the confirmation process and hope we see the day that she becomes our Librarian of Congress. Carla, you go!

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If you’re just now joining us on Iron Chef Vermin… Strawberry Challenge, you’ll note on the challenger’s side, Ronaldo Rodent, Executive Chef of the ever popular Hole in the Wall restaurant, unfolding a nice pate brisee over a sugared strawberry filling.

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Best known as Ser Loras Tyrell on HBO’s massively popular series Game of Thrones, Finn Jones is Marvel’s pick to play Danny Rand/Iron Fist in their upcoming series on Netflix per Entertainment Weekly. Iron Fist, centering on the eponymous character created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, will be the fourth series of the Marvel/Netflix […]

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2016, Random House

On August 4, 1892, Lizzie Borden was having a typical morning.  She got out her handkerchiefs to iron, and went out the the barn to find some fishing leads for her pole.  But when she got back, chaos reigned...

Her father and step-mother had been brutally murdered, their faces hacked to pieces.

She was only gone 10-15 minutes.  How could this have happened?  Right away the police were called and the investigation into one of the most famous murders began to proceed.  But what makes this murder and subsequent trial one of the most (in)famous trials in American history is the big whodunit?

At the time, it was HIGHLY irregular for a woman, especially a woman of society and wealth, to be put on trial for something as heinous as murder by an axe, but all evidence pointed to poor Lizzie.  She was under house arrest, then taken to jail for months until the trial began in Fall River, Massachusetts.  Who did it?  Was it truly Lizzie or someone else?  Will the real murdered be captured for the town could rest easy or not?

I absolutely LOVE narrative non-fiction, and Sarah Miller doesn't disappoint with her book.  Not only does the reader feel like they're reading a novel, but she also leaves an air of mystery throughout, nudging the reader to the end to see if anything happened, new evidence was found, and who was ultimately responsible for the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Borden.  Miller provides the reader with historical excerpts from newspapers and trial transcripts as well as eyewitness testimony from not only the day the murder happened, but all the interaction that happened between Lizzie Borden and themselves.  Miller takes one of America's most intriguing events and creates a big picture that at the same time dispels rumors most people think from then until today.  This is an excellent collection to any collection.  Recommended JH/HS.

Other narrative non-fiction titles for young adults:

Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin

Hitler's Last Days: The Death of the Nazi Regime and the World's Most Notorious Dictator
by Bill O'Reilly

Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny and the Fight For Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin

Fatal Fever:  Tracking Down Typhoid Mary by Gail Jarrow

The Witch of Lime Street: Seance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World

Chocolate: Sweet Science and Dark Secrets of the World's Most Favorite Treat by Kay Frydenborg

How They Choked: Failure, Flops and Flaws of the Awfully Famous by Georgia Bragg

Lincoln's Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinkin

Red Madness: How a Medical Mystery Changed What We Eat by Gail Jarrow

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever by Bill O'Reilly

For the Good of Mankind? The Shameful History of Human Medical Experimentation by
Vicki Wittenstein

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb

Superman vs. The Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate by Rick Bowers

Visit Sunny Chernobyl: And Other Adventures in the World's Most Polluted Places by Andrew Blackwell

They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of An American Terrorist Group by Susan Bartoletti Campbell

Master of Deceit: J. Edgar Hoover and American in the Age of Lies by Marc Aronson

Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert by Marc Aronson

Bootleg: Murder Moonshine and the Lawless Years of Prohibition by Karen Blumenthal



Graphic Novel Non-Fiction:
The Comic Book Story of Beer: The World's Favorite Beverage from 7000 BC to Today's Craft Brewing Revolution by Jonathan Hennessey

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown

Andre The Giant: Life and Legen by Box Brown

Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness by Reinhard Kleist

Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf

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There’s a lot of news about comics out there, so this is going to be a lot of column. • Faith #1 continues to be a huge hit for Valiant and is now in its FOURTH printing! The new printing hits on March 30th along with Faith #3. Here’s a cover gallery and some interiors. […]

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Hello?

Is this thing on?

If there's anyone out there reading this, thank you for stopping by.  It's so good of you to explore even the dustiest corners of the blogosphere.

After a long, long, loooong dry spell, I think I am beginning to feel the tickle of creative inspiration again.  It's a tease.  It comes and goes.

In my absence, I discovered the most wonderfully charming and deliciously dark animated series called Over the Garden Wall.  Perhaps you've seen it?  If you haven't, I highly recommend it.  I had to applaud when it ended, it was that good.  Creator Patrick McHale is incredibly imaginative and a genius storyteller.  The artwork is both whimsical and beautiful, and it has a fabulous old-timey feel to it.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Thanks again for stopping by.

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I've been alluding to our landscape-emboldened five-day memoir workshops for quite some time now.

We're rolling this thing out.

Here, at last, is more information about what we'll be doing, why we're doing it, and what those five days on a Central Pennsylvania farm (an hour from Harrisburg) will be like, come this September.

If you are interested in learning more, please send us a note through the contact form—or any other way that works for you.

All photos and web design are courtesy of my artistic husband and partner in this venture.

Read the full web site to find out how his artistry will be part of the program.

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Who doesn't love a good A.O. Scott film review? (Well, I mean, who besides those directors, writers, actors, costume designers, or dialect coaches A.O. Scott might not be loving at that review moment?)

And who didn't love A.O. Scott and David Carr during the era of the New York Times video segment, "The Sweet Spot"?

Last week I had the chance to read Scott's new book, Better Living Through Criticism, for the Chicago Tribune. In what often felt like a very meta experience (critiquing a book about critiquing), I had this to say.

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I love bringing home old magazines from the library. They're where I find the majority of my writing prompts, drawing references, and materials for collage and art journaling. But sometimes I just love them for the articles, especially when I come across a copy of a magazine I don't often find, such as the December 2010 copy of Poets and Writers I was able to salvage over the weekend. 

One essay I particularly liked in this issue was titled "Why We Write" by Laura Maylene Walter. In the piece, Walter outlines her struggles and successes as a short story writer. In one paragraph she lists some of her reasons for continuing to write despite numerous rejections and setbacks: for practice, for fun, to discover, to explore, to play. And also: "I wrote because I was never more content than when I was sitting quietly at my writing desk, churning out pages."

All of these reasons, and more, resonated with why I, too, write. The article got me so inspired that as soon as I had finished reading I had to run to my journal and create my own list:

• To find out what happens.
• Because if I don't write it down, the story keeps me awake at night.
• I love the Zen quality of a daily discipline.
• I love being in a community of writers.
• I am drawn like a magnet to journals, pens, pencils, sketchbooks, and anything that makes a mark.
• I enjoy the problem/puzzle-solving each new story provides.
• Writing gives me a voice.
• Writing provides a platform for so many spin-off activities: creating book covers and book trailers; making tote bags, T-shirts, and bookmarks; illustrating my scenes, settings, and characters. So many avenues for fresh creativity.
• Writing, aka "creative daydreaming" keeps me from needlessly (and unproductively) worrying about "real world" problems I can rarely, if ever, change.
• I can live vicariously through my characters--all those clothes, all that travel!

Going over my list, I was a little bemused that I hadn't mentioned things like "I write to sell books," or "I want to make tons of of money," or even, "to be super-famous." Maybe I should be thinking about those things, but that just isn't me. I write because I have to. On top of that, I can't think of a better way to use my time than to write, or to create artwork and other projects based on, or related to my writing. Which reminds me, I have a story to start from yet another series of magazine cut-outs I just collated . . . see you next time . . .

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  Young Adult and Destroying the Literary Echo Chamber by Kenneth Nichols   I read Lauren Prastien’s “An Apology to My Friends Who Love YA” with great interest; for the past few years, I have expended a great deal of my creative energies writing Young Adult work. (I’m shopping a novel...

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L’Affaire de Angoulême continues and will not stop. As we reported yesterday, 40 French publishers — basically all the important players in France— have said they will boycott the 2017 festival if changes are not made. According to an interview in Le Monde, Guy Delcourt, owner of Delcourt, one of the biggest French publishers and head […]

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Writing How Willa Got Her Grove Back (my first book in the Creative HeArts series) was so much fun because I got to combine my three great loves: web series, Pride & Prejudice, and hanging out with my best friends. That’s right. The three other writers in the series (Tera Lynn Childs, Shellee Roberts,...

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